Monday 7 March 2011

Cy Twombly 1950s – 1960s

I like Cy Twombly’s work so much, and his oeuvre is spread over such a long period that I am featuring his work over three blogs, dealing first with the 1950s – 1960s, followed by the 1970s – 1980s, and finally the 1990s – 2000s.

Twombly is an American artist well known for his large-scale, freely scribbled, calligraphic-style graffiti paintings. Twombly was born in 1928 in Lexington, Virginia. He studied at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston and at Washington and Lee University in Lexington. From 1950 to 1951, he studied at the Art Students League of New York where he met Robert Rauschenberg, who encouraged him to attend Black Mountain College near Asheville, North Carolina. At Black Mountain in 1951 and 1952 he studied with Franz Kline, Robert Motherwell and Ben Shahn, and met John Cage.

The Kootz Gallery in New York organized Twombly's first solo exhibition in 1951. At this time his work was influenced by Kline's black-and-white gestural expressionism, as well as Paul Klee’s imagery. In 1952, he received a grant from the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, which enabled him to travel to North Africa, Spain, Italy and France.
On his return in 1953 he served in the army as a cryptologist, an activity that left a distinct mark on his artistic style. From 1955 to 1959, he worked in New York, where he became a prominent figure among a group of artists including Robert Rauschenberg and Jasper Johns. In 1959 he went to Italy, settling permanently in Rome. It was here that he began to work on a larger scale and distanced himself from his former expressionist imagery.

Twombly was invited to exhibit his work at the Venice Biennale in 1964. In 1968, the Milwaukee Art Museum mounted the first retrospective of his art. The artist has also been honored by retrospectives at the Kunsthaus Zürich in 1987, the Musée National d'Art Moderne, Paris, in 1988, and the Museum of Modern Art, New York, in 1994, with additional venues in Houston, Los Angeles, and Berlin. The Cy Twombly Gallery of the Menil Collection in Houston, which was designed by Renzo Piano and opened in 1995, houses more than thirty of Twombly's paintings, sculptures, and works on paper, dating from 1953 to 1994. A large collection of Twombly's work is also kept by the Museum Brandhorst and the Pinakothek der Moderne in Munich.


 1951 Min-Oe


 1953 Quazazat


 1953 Tiznit


 1953 Untitled


 1953 Untitled


 1955 Free Wheeler


 1957 Blue Room


 1957 Untitled


 1958 The Castle


 1959 View


 1960 Untitled


 1961 Ferragosto


 1961 Ferragosto IV


 1961 Ferragosto V


 1961 Untitled


 1963 Leda and the Swan


 1964 School of Athens


 1968 Untitled

Friday 4 March 2011

Kenny Scharf

A contemporary, and friend of both Keith Haring and Jean-Michel Basquiat later in New York, Kenny Scharf was born in 1958 in Los Angeles. He received his B.F.A in 1980 at the School of Visual Arts in New York. Scharf's works consist of popular culture based shows with made up science-related backgrounds.

Scharf often uses images from the animated cartoons popular during his childhood, such as The Flintstones and The Jetsons. In 2001, he released a cartoon of his own ‘The Groovenians’ of which there was only one episode.
Scharf was a key figure in the East Village art scene of the 1980s with shows at Fun gallery in 1981 and Tony Shafrazi in 1984, before seeing his work embraced by museums, such as the Whitney, which selected him for the 1985 Whitney Bienniale.

He did the album covers of The B-52's in the mid-80s. In 1995, Scharf designed a room at the Tunnel nightclub in New York.


Scharf was friends with the graffiti artist Keith Haring and appears in the documentary ‘The Universe of Keith Haring’. In 2004, he appeared in The Nomi Song, a documentary about his friend, opera singer and new wave star Klaus Nomi.

Scharf has had featured exhibits at the Monterrey Museum of Contemporary Art, Miami Center for the Fine Arts, and The Queens Museum of Art. Scharf is represented by New York City’s Paul Kasmin Gallery, which also represents Andy Warhol, Frank Stella, David Hockney, Morris Louis, Al Held, and others.


1983 Architoungture


 1983 The Fun's Inside


 1983 The Idea Falls


 1983-84 Juicy Jungle


 1984 The Days of Our Lives


 1984 When Worlds Collide


1985 Glip Drip


 1985 Op Bop


1986 Blind


1986 Faika Rebo


1987 Inner Space

 1988 Obglob


1989 American Cheese


1989 Ob Globs #11


1990 Brainmatter

1990 Globz 3


1991 Against All Odds


1991 Kaosorder


1994 Globulecular


1994 Serpentwine


1995 Fabuvalia


1995 Galicksky


1996 Bloop Blip Bop


1996 Boomering


1996 Hapidala


1997 Glips


1998 Ancient Chinese Secret


 1998 Felix on a Pedestal



2000 Bolbz


2000 Slosch


2002 Drlop


2002 Jelobz


2003 Blobzo


2003 Objet der Floate


 2003 Squabs


 2003 Zrobz


2004 Balls n' Black Hole


2004 Space n' Blob


2005 Ebony Approved


 2005 Free Fuel


2005 T.V.Starlacash


 2006 Ketchup (detail)


2006 Peas n' Butter


2006 Pump N' Go


2007 Blobs n' Globs


2007 Blurple


 2007 Sonho Molhado



2008 Chevyblobs


2008 Greewormscape


 2008 Hot Dog


 2008 Hurdy Gurdy


 2008 Smiling Spermy Spiralies



2009 Blobism


2009 Junglocity


 2009 Nike Stages


2009 Pink Frosted Donut in Space


2010 Chocolate Donut with Sprinkes on a Lovely Day


2010 Glazed Cruller in Space


2010 Here it is!


2010 Jungleyea