POUL WEBB ART BLOG

El Lissitzky

2012-03-08T10:09:00.002Z

El Lissitzky (1890 – 1941) was born Lazar Markovich Lisitskii in 1890 in Pochinok, in the Russian province of Smolensk, and grew up in Vitebsk. He pursued architectural studies at the Technische Hochschule in Darmstadt, Germany, from 1909 to 1914, when the outbreak of World War 1 precipitated his return to Russia. In 1916, he received a diploma in engineering and architecture from the Riga Technological University.

Lissitzky and Kazimir Malevich were invited by Marc Chagall to join the faculty of the Vitebsk Popular Art School in 1919; there Lissitzky taught architecture and graphics. That same year, he executed his first Proun (an acronym in Russian for “project for the affirmation of the new”) and formed part of the Unovis group. In 1920, he became a member of Inkhuk (Institute for Artistic Culture) in Moscow and designed his book Pro dva kvadrata. The following year, he taught at Vkhutemas with Vladimir Tatlin and joined the Constructivist group. The Constructivists exhibited at the Erste russische Kunstausstellung designed by Lissitzky at the Galerie van Diemen in Berlin in 1922. During this period he collaborated with Ilya Ehrenburg on the journal Veshch/Gegenstand/Objet.

In 1923, the artist experimented with new typographic design for a book by Vladimir Mayakovski, Dlya golosa, and visited Hannover, where his work was shown under the auspices of the Kestner-Gesellschaft. Also in 1923, Lissitzky created his Proun environment for the Grosse Berliner Kunstausstellung and executed his lithographic suites Proun and Victory over the Sun (illustrating the opera by Alexei Kruchenykh and Mikhail Matiushin), before traveling to Switzerland for medical treatment. In 1924, he worked with Kurt Schwitters on the issue of the periodical Merz called “Nasci,” and with Arp on the book Die Kunstismen. The next year, he returned to Moscow to teach at Vkhutemas-Vkhutein, which he continued to do until 1930. During the mid-1920s, Lissitzky stopped painting in order to concentrate on the design of typography and exhibitions. He created a room for the Internationale Kunstausstellung in Dresden in 1926 and another at the Niedersächsisches Landesmuseum Hannover in 1927. He died in 1941 in Moscow.

'For the voice' by Vladimir Mayakovsky

1919 Proun 1 C oil on panel 68 x 68 cm

1920 Beat All the Scattered

1920 Beat the Whites with the Red Wedge

1920 Book cover for 'Suprematic tale about two squares'

1920 Cover to 'For the voice' by Vladimir Mayakovsky

1920 Do not read, grab bars, paper, pieces of wood, fold, paint, build

1920 Lenin Tribune

1920 Preliminary sketch for a poster

c1920 Proun 4 B. oil on canvas 70 x 56 cmjpg

c1920 Untitled oil on canvas 80 x 50 cm

1922 Cover of the avant guard periodical 'Vyeshch'

1922 Proun 19 D

1922 Proun

1923 1o Kestnermappe Proun lithograph 60 x 44 cm

1923 Globetrotter (in Time) from 'Victory Over the Sun' portfolio lithograph 51 x 43 cm

1923 Gravediggers from 'Victory Over the Sun' portfolio lithograph 51 x 43.1 cm

1923 New Man

1923 Old Man (Head 2 Steps behind) from 'Victory Over the Son' portfolio lithograph 51 x 43 cm

1923 Proun 2

1923 Proun G 7 tempera & varnish on canvas 77 x 62 cm

1923 Proun poster

1923 Sentry from 'Victory Over the Sun' portfolio lithograph 53.3 x 45.7 cm

1924 Proun 99 129 x 99 cm

1925 Proun N 89 collage, tempera 50 x 65 cm

1928 Basic Calculus

Proun 30

Proun 43

Proun 8

R. B. Kitaj - part 4

2012-03-06T10:11:00.000Z

2007 Self-Portrait oil & charcoal on canvas 30.8 x 30.7 cm

This is part 4 of a 4-part post on the works of American artist R. B. Kitaj (1932-2007). For biographical notes see part 1. For more works see parts 1, 2 & 3. This last part takes a look at two series of prints made in the 1960s.

Kitaj was a self-professed bibliomaniac. In 1969 his love of books provided the inspiration for "In Our Time: Covers for a Small Library After the Life for the Most Part" - a portfolio of 50 screenprints depicting the covers of select books from the his library. Made from enlarged photographic facsimiles of the actual covers, the prints replicate evidence of each book’s handling and use, such as torn bookjackets, stained pages, and worn bindings. Kitaj’s selections include books of significance to the artist (like Ezra Pound’s "How to Read"), as well as apparently random books or leaflets (like the city of Burbank’s annual budget for 1968–69) that reflect the idiosyncratic nature of Kitaj’s book collection, and of book collections in general. The portfolio also speaks to connections between the visual arts and literature, as well as Kitaj’s and other artists’ perception of book as object.

This is a selection from the edition:

City of Burbank Annual Budget

Edward Hopper

Ezra Pound, How to Read

George Gissing, Workers in the Dawn

Industrial Camouflage Manual

Intelligence Bulletin

London by Night

Mark Rothko

Max and the White Phagocytes

Maxim Gorky, Articles and Pamphlets

James Agee, Permit me Voyage

Damon Runyon, Short Takes

Robert W. Service, Songs of a Sourdough

Wyndham Lewis, The Caliph's Design

Vachel Lindsay, The Congo and Other Poems

Leon Trotsky, The Defence of Terrorism

W. B. Yeats, The Tower

The Wording of Police Charges

Kenneth Burke, Towards a Better Life

Carl Th. Dreyer, Vampyr

Howard Marshall, With Scott to the Pole

"Struggle in the West - the bombing of London (horizon/blitz)" : A set of seven screenprints and 1 title page (1967-69)Edition: edition of 70 in linen covered box made by Rudolf Rieser, Cologne.

Setpiece 1

Horizon / Blitz (Prologue)

Safeguarding of Life

Setpiece 3

[Title not found]

R. B. Kitaj - part 3

2012-03-04T10:16:00.000Z

photograph © Lee Friedlander

This is part 3 of a 4-part post on the works of American artist R. B. Kitaj (1932-2007). For biographical notes see part 1. For more works see parts 1 & 2.

1975 The Red Dancer of Moscow [state 2] screenprint 102.9 x 76.2 cm

1975 The Red Dancer of Moscow screenprint 101.3 x 74.9 cm

1975-76 If Not, Not oil & black chalk on canvas 152.4 x 152.4 cm

1975-79 The Rise of Fascism oil & pastel on paper 85.1 x 158.4 cm

1976-77 The Orientalist oil on canvas 243.8 x 76.8 cm

1977 Melancholie after Vincent etching 39.4 x 33 cm

1980 Mary Ann pastel & charcoal on paper 77.5 x 56 cm

1980 Marynka Smoking pastel & charcoal on paper 90.8 x 56.5 cm

1980 The Jewish School (Drawing a Golem) 152 x 152 cm

1981 The Garden oil on canvas 121.9 x 121.9 cm

1982 Self-Portrait, Reading intaglio softground etching 49.4 x 37 cm

1982 Self-Portrait, Smiling intaglio soft ground etching 40.2 x 22 cm

1983 After Matteo, Self-Portrait intaglio softground etching 46.4 x 35 cm

1983 Mother in Pearls charcoal & pastel

1983-84 Cecil Ct London WC2 (The Refugees) oil on canvas 183 x 183 cm

1983-94 Amerika (Baseball) oil on canvas 152.4 x 152.4 cm

1985 Marcus Joseph Sieff, Baron Sieff pastel 57.5 x 78.1 cm © National Portrait Gallery

1989 Melancholy After Durer oil on canvas 123.5 x 122.5 cm

1989-93 The Wedding oil on canvas 182.9 x 182.9 cm

1990-93 My Cities (An Experimental Drama) oil on canvas 183.2 x 183.2 cm

1991 The Oak Tree oil on canvas 152.7 x 152.4 cm

1994 Self-Portrait as a Cleveland Indian charcoal & red pastel 78.4 x 57.4 cm

c2000-04 Self-Portrait (After Freud’s First Painting of Me) charcoal, black & brown pastel 56.5 x 38.5 cm

2005-06 Abraham's God (After Rembrandt) oil & charcoal on canvas 126.3 x 126.3 cm

Artists for Peace poster

Bather-Psychotic-Boy

La Hispanista (Nissa Torrents)

The Friendship and the Shadow of Betrayal

© Copyright: The presentation of these low resolution jpg files add more than words alone could impart. It is believed that this is fair use and does not infringe copyright. According to section 107 of the United States Copyright Act of 1976: The fair use of a copyrighted work…for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, or research, is not an infringement of copyright. The images are used for non-profit purposes. This factor is noted as relevant by the Act.

R. B. Kitaj - part 2

2012-03-02T09:06:00.000Z

This is part 2 of a 4-part post on the works of American artist R. B. Kitaj (1932-2007). For biographical notes and more works see part 1.

1967 For Fear screenprint 51 x 83.7 cm

1967 Nerves, Massage, Defeat, Heart screenprint 84.4 x 57.5 cm

1967 Novella, from the series Great Ideas oil on canvas 91.4 x 91.4 cm

1967 The Defects of it's Qualities screenprint 90.2 x 60.9 cm

1968 Ctric News Topi screenprint 99.1 x 62.5 cm

1968 Plays for Total Stakes screenprint 63.2 x 63.2 cm

1968-69 Synchromy with F. B. oil on canvas diptych, left panel

1969 Untitled screenprint 42.5 x 39.4 cm

1969 Vernissage-Cocktail screenprint 104 x 71.2 cm

1969-70 Nancy & Jim Dine screenprint 84.8 x 58.4 cm

1970 Ezra Pound 1 screenprint

1971 Aviator lithograph 40.6 x 40.6 cm

1971 Baghdad screenprint

1971 Bedroom screenprint 68.9 x 94.3 cm

1971 Outlying London Districts 1 screenprint 65.6 x 107.1 cm

1971 Outlying London Districts 2 screenprint 53.5 x 101.9 cm

1972 Immortal Portraits screenprint 72.1 x 114.3 cm

1972 The Most Important Film Ever Made screenprint 69.8 x 105.1 cm

1972 Untitled screenprint 52.7 x 53.7

1972-73 The Autumn of Central Paris (after Walter Benjamin) oil on canvas 152.4 x 152.4 cm

1973 The Man of the Woods and the Cat of the Mountains oil on canvas 152.4 x 152.4 cm

1974 Ezra Pound II screenprint 98.1 x 75.6 cm

1974 Michael Hamburger screenprint 54.9 x 51.4 cm

1975 A Life lithograph 73 x 52.8 cm

1975 Addled Art Minor Works Volume VI [state 2] screenprint

1975 From the Lives of the Saints screenprint 102.9 x 71.4 cm

1975 The Red Dancer of Moscow [state 1] screenprint 102.9 x 76.2 cm

R. B. Kitaj - part 1

2012-02-29T10:01:00.000Z

This is part 1 of a 4-part post on the works of American artist R. B. Kitaj (1932-2007). Kitaj was born in Cleveland, Ohio in 1932. He studied at Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art, New York from 1950 to 1951, at the Academy of Fine Art, Vienna from 1951 to 1952, at the Ruskin School of Drawing, Oxford from 1953 to 1959 and at the Royal College of Art, London from 1959 to 1961. Kitaj went on to teach at Camberwell School of Art from 1962 to 1966 and at the University of California, Berkeley from 1970 to 1971. He was Artist in Residence at Dartmouth College, USA from 1978 to 1979.

Kitaj’s first solo show was held at the Marlborough New London Gallery in 1963. This quickly led to a succession of solo exhibitions throughout the world including the Marlborough-Gerson Gallery, New York (1965), Cleveland Museum of Art (1967), the Icon Gallery, Birmingham (1977) and FIAC, Paris (1978). He continued to exhibit regularly with Marlborough Fine Art in London, New York and Zurich. Retrospectives of his work were held at the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Smithsonian Institution, Washington DC in 1981 and at the Tate Gallery, London in 1994. His work has also been included in numerous group exhibitions.

Kitaj was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Letters in 1982. He also received Honorary Doctorates from the University of London, the Royal College of Art and Durham University in 1982, 1991 and 1996 respectively. He received the Golden Lion for Painting at the Venice Biennale in 1995 and in 1997 won the Wollaston Award for the most distinguished work in the Royal Academy’s Summer Exhibition. In 1996 he was nominated Chevalier des Arts and des Lettres by the French Government. Kitaj was elected Royal Academician in 1991 (ARA in 1984), and in 1997 moved to Los Angeles after receiving bad reviews of his 1994 Tate retrospective.

Kitaj controversially accused newspaper critics of driving his wife to her death, then took his own life in 2007. One of his last exhibitions was called Draw Draw Is Better Than Jaw Jaw. Personally I think he was a great artist deserving of a better memorial.

All images © The Estate of R. B. Kitaj

1958 Erasmus Variations oil on canvas 104.9 x 84.2 cm

1960 The Murder of Rosa Luxemburg oil & collage on canvas 153 x 152.4 cm

1962 Do You Know the Country? oil on canvas 121.9 x 121.9 cm

1962 Isaac Babel Riding with Budyonny oil on canvas 182.9 x 152.4 cm

1963-64 Dismantling the Red Tent oil & collage on canvas 121.92 x 121.92

1964 Apotheosis of Groundlessness oil on canvas

1964 The Ohio Gang oil & graphite on canvas 183.1 x 183.5 cm

1964 Where the Railroad Leaves the Sea oil on canvas 48 x 60 in

1965 World Ruin through Black Magic serigraph 63.5 x 83.8 cm

1965 World Ruin through Black Magic serigraph 64.8 x 92.7 cm

1966 Pogany screenprint 61 x 91.4 cm

1966 Portrait of Walter Lippman oil on canvas

1966 Truman in the White House screenprint 55.6 x 79.7 cm

1966-70 Charles Olson screenprint

1966-70 Ed Dorn screenprint

1966-70 Kenneth Rexroth screenprint

1966-70 Revolt on the Clyde (Hugh McDiarmid) screenprint

1966-70 Star Betelgeuse (Robert Duncan) screenprint

1967 Civic Virtue screenprint 53.3 x 66.2 cm

Albert Bierstadt - landscape painter - part 3

2012-02-27T08:54:00.000Z

This is part 3 of a 3-part post on the works of Albert Bierstadt (1830 – 1902). Bierstadt was a German-American painter best known for his lavish, sweeping landscapes of the American West. For biographical notes see part 1. For more works by Bierstadt see parts 1 & 2.

1889-90 Sunrise at Glacier Station oil on canvas 76 x 112 cm

c1889 Alaskan Coast Range oil on paper 35 x 49 cm

c1890 Mount Sir Donald, Asulkan Glacier oil on canvas 71 x 51 cm

1891 Island of New Providence oil on paper 46 x 61 cm

1895 The Morteratsch Glacier, Upper Engadine Valley, Pontresina oil on canvas 97 x 152 cm

1900 The Golden Gate oil on canvas 97 x 152 cm

Approaching Thunderstorm on the Hudson River oil on paper

Bavarian Landscape oil on canvas

Deer at Sunset oil on paper 36 x 50 cm

Evening Glow, Lake Louise, Rocky Mountains, Canada

In Western Mountains oil on canvas 22 x 30 cm

Indian Encampment

Kern's River Valley, California oil on canvas 90 x 132 cm

Lake Tahoe Spearing Fish by Torchlight

Landscape

Mountainous Landscape

Nevada Falls, Yosemite

Old Faithful

On the Saco

Staubbach Falls near Lauterbrunnen, Switzerland

Study for Yosemite Valley Glacier Point Trail

Sunset in the Rockies

Sunset on the Coast

Sunset on the Mountain

Sunset over a Mountain Lake

Sunset over the River

View of the Grindelwald

Albert Bierstadt - landscape painter - part 2

2012-02-25T10:12:00.000Z

This is part 2 of a 3-part post on the works of Albert Bierstadt (1830 – 1902). Bierstadt was a German-American painter best known for his lavish, sweeping landscapes of the American West. For biographical notes and earlier works by Bierstadt see part 1.

1869 Ferns and Rocks on an Embankment oil on board 49 x 34 cm

1869 The Oregon Trail oil on canvas 79 x 124 cm

The Oregon Trail is another version of Bierstadt's earlier work 'Emigrants Crossing the Plains' from 1867 (see in part 1).

c1869 Shady Pool, White Mountains, New Hampshire oil on paper 56 x 77 cm

1870 Storm in the Mountains

c1870 Fir Trees and Storm Clouds oil on paper 35 x 47 cm

c1870 Sunrise, Yosemite Valley oil on canvas

1871 Western Landscape

1871-3 San Francisco Bay oil on paperboard 35 x 46 cm

1871-3 Sierra Nevada oil on canvas

c1871-3 Bridal Veil Falls, Yosemite oil on canvas 92 x 67 cm

1872 Sunrise in the Sierras oil on paper 34 x 48 cm

c1872 Cathedral Rocks, a Yosemite View oil on paper 48 x 35 cm

c1872 Cathedral Rocks, Yosemite Valley oil on paper 36 x 51 cm

c1872 Indians in Council, California oil on canvas 40 x 56 cm

1873 Liberty Cam, Yosemite oil on paper

1873 Yosemite Valley, Glacier Point Trail oil on canvas 137 x 215 cm

1873-4 Kings River Canyon, California

1875 Hetch Hetchy Canyon oil on canvas 130 x 106 cm

after 1875 Autumn Woodland 113 x 88 cm

after 1875 Sunrise on the Matterhorn oil on canvas 149 x 108 cm

after 1878 After a Norther, Bahamas oil on canvas 139 x 215 cm

c1880-88 By a Mountain Lake (Lake in the Grand Tetons) oil on canvas 77 x 112 cm

c1880-93 West Indies Coast Scene oil on paper 36 x 49 cm

c1880 Moose Hunter's Camp oil on canvas

1881 Lower Yellowstone Falls oil on paper

c1882 Gates of the Yosemite oil on paper 36 x 51 cm

1886 Autumn Woods oil on canvas

Albert Bierstadt - landscape painter - part 1

2012-02-23T10:03:00.001Z

This is part 1 of a 3-part post on the works of Albert Bierstadt (1830 – 1902). Bierstadt was a German-American painter best known for his lavish, sweeping landscapes of the American West. In obtaining the subject matter for these works, Bierstadt joined several journeys of the Westward Expansion. Though not the first artist to record these sites, Bierstadt was the foremost painter of these scenes for the remainder of the 19th century.

Bierstadt was part of the Hudson River School though not an institution but rather an informal group of like-minded painters. The Hudson River School style involved carefully detailed paintings with romantic, almost glowing lighting, sometimes called luminism. An important interpreter of the western landscape, Bierstadt, along with Thomas Moran is also grouped with the Rocky Mountain School.

Bierstadt was born in Solingen, Germany. His family moved to New Bedford, Massachusetts in 1833. He developed a taste for art early and made clever crayon sketches in his youth. In 1851, he began to paint in oils. He studied painting with the members of the Düsseldorf School in Germany from 1853 to 1857. He taught drawing and painting briefly before devoting himself to painting.

Bierstadt began making paintings in New England and upstate New York. In 1859, he traveled westward in the company of Frederick W. Lander, a land surveyor for the U.S. government, returning with sketches that would result in numerous finished paintings. In 1863 he returned west again, in the company of the author Fitz Hugh Ludlow, whose wife he would later marry. He continued to visit the American West throughout his career.

Though his paintings sold for princely sums, Bierstadt was not held in particularly high esteem by critics of his day. His use of uncommonly large canvases was thought to be an egotistical indulgence, as his paintings would invariably dwarf those of his contemporaries when they were displayed together. The romanticism evident in his choices of subject and in his use of light was felt to be excessive by contemporary critics. His paintings emphasized atmospheric elements like fog, clouds and mist to accentuate and complement the feel of his work. Bierstadt sometimes changed details of the landscape to inspire awe. The colours he used are also not always true. He painted what he believed was the way things should be: water is ultramarine, vegetation is lush and green, etc.

Nonetheless, in 1860 he was elected a member of the National Academy; he received medals in Austria, Bavaria, Belgium, and Germany; and his paintings remain popular. He was a prolific artist, having completed over 500 (possibly as many as 4000) paintings during his lifetime, most of which have survived. Many are scattered through museums around the United States.

In 1882 his studio at Irvington, New York was destroyed by fire, along with many of his pictures. He died in 1902.

1854 Scene in the Tyrol oil on fibreboard 24 x 33 cm

c1857-62 Iceberg oil on paper 13 x 22 cm

1857-8c Gathering Storm oil on paper 17 x 25 cm

1858 Gosnold at Cuttyhunk


1858 Lake Lucerne oil on canvas 183 x 305 cm

Bierstadt's painting offers a sweeping viewof Lake Lucerne with the village of Brunnen in the middle distance and thealpine peaks Ematten, Oberbauen, Uri-Rotstock and St. Gotthard in the distance.Though an image of mountain grandeur, Lake Lucerne also containsnumerous pastoral vignettes - a harvest scene near the center, a religiousprocession at the right, and a gypsy camp at the left.
One year after completing Lake Lucerne Bierstadttravelled to the Rocky Mountains for the first time. During the decade thatfollowed he produced the western landscapes that brought him his greatestsuccess. These views of the west, so often described as distinctly American,were born of Bierstadt's experience abroad and frequency duplicate the compositionof the first of his large-scale landscapes, Lake Lucerne.

1859 The Marina Piccdola, Capri oil on canvas

1859 Wind River Country

1860 Chimney Rock oil on millboard 34 x 49 cm

1863 Mountain Brook oil on canvas 112 x 91 cm

1863 The Rocky Mountains, Lander's Peak oil on canvas 187 x 307 cm

This painting is the major work that resulted from the artist's first trip to the West. His intention to create panoramic views of the American frontier was apparent by December 1858, just before he embarked on the trip. In early 1859 he accompanied a government survey expedition, headed by Frederick W. Lander, to the Nebraska Territory. By summer, the party had reached the Wind River Range of the Rocky Mountains in what is now Wyoming. Bierstadt dubbed the central mountain in the picture Lander's Peak following the colonel's death in the Civil War. This was one of a number of large works painted after Bierstadt's return from these travels. It was completed in 1863, exhibited to great acclaim, and purchased in 1865 for the then-astounding sum of $25,000 by James McHenry, an American living in London. Bierstadt later bought it back and gave or sold it to his brother Edward.

c1863-75 Lake in Yosemite Valley oil on canvas 91 x 133 cm

c1863-75 Looking Up the Yosemite Valley oil on canvas 91 x 149 cm

1864 Cho-Looke, The Yosemite Fall

1865 Looking Down Yosemite Valley, California oil on canvas 163 x 245 cm

1865 Staubbach Falls Near Lauterbrunnen Switzerland oil on canvas 97 x 154 cm

1866 Merced River, Yosemite Valley oil on canvas 91 x 127 cm

1866 Storm in the Rocky Mountains, Mount Rosalie oil on canvas 211 x 361 cm

1866 Yosemite Valley oil on canvas 97 x 142 cm

1866 Yosemite Valley

1867 Emigrants Crossing the Plains oil on canvas 170 x 259 cm

Over three years later Bierstadt was reported to be working on a large painting representing an emigrant train on its way across the Plains. Emigrants Crossing the Plains (1867, National Cowboy Hall of Fame, Oklahoma City) was finished by November 27, 1867 and went on exhibit in a San Francisco art gallery. It was sold a year later to Amasa Stone of Cleveland, Ohio. The Oregon Trail is identical in subject to the Oklahoma City painting but only one-half its size. It could have been painted during Bierstadt's European sojourn from 1867 to 1869 when he took studios in London, Rome, and Paris, showed Rocky Mountain pictures to Queen Victoria, and made pictures of the American West popular in Europe and Britain. The Butler Institute picture, probably painted after the artist's return to America, was bought in Washington, D.C. from the artist and descended in the same family until 1946.

1867 The Domes of the Yosemite oil on canvas 295 x 457 cm

c1867 In the Mountains oil

1868 Among the Sierra Nevada Mountains, California oil on canvas 183 x 305 cm

1868 Lake Tahoe oil on canvas 33 x 41 cm

1868 Mount Vesuvius at Midnight oil on canvas 43 x 61 cm

1868 Yosemite Valley, Yellowstone Park oil on canvas 91 x 137 cm

c1868 Sunset in the Yosemite Valley oil on canvas 92 x 133 cm

Matthias Weischer - part 2

2012-02-21T09:46:00.000Z

This is part 2 of a 2-part post on the works of painter Matthias Weischer (born 1973 Rheine, Germany). Weischer is gaining international acclaim from critics and collectors for his individual painting style and through his association with David Hockney.
For biographical notes on Weischer and more works see part 1 below. (Click on the images for larger versions)

2010 Arrangement oil on canvas 90 x 120 cm

2010 Boudoir oil on canvas 60 x 65 cm

2010 Framework oil on canvas 20 x 18 cm

2010 Garden Study II oil on canvas 40 x 50 cm

2010 Haze oil on canvas 40 x 50 cm

2010 Läufer oil on canvas 60 x 80 cm

2010 Leprello oil on canvas 40 x 50 cm

2010 Line oil on canvas 25 x 31 cm

2010 Persecutor oil on canvas 110 x 200 cm

2010 Pixel oil on canvas 22 x 30 cm

2010 Screen oil on canvas 195 x 220 cm

2010 Stack oil on canvas 22 x 31 cm

2010 Stage oil on canvas 28 x 40 cm

2011 Berth pulp painting 219 x 350 cm

2011 Jardin oil on canvas 70 x 65 cm

2011 Oasis oil on canvas 40 x 50 cm

2011 Omodi pulp painting 160 x 260 cm

2011 Peak oil on canvas 30 x 46 cm

Egyptian Room

Matthias Weischer - part 1

2012-02-19T10:10:00.000Z

This is part 1 of a 2-part post on the works of painter Matthias Weischer (born 1973 Rheine, Germany). Weischer is gaining international acclaim from critics and collectors for his individual painting style and through his association with David Hockney.

Dr Jean-Christophe Ammann, former director of Frankfurt’s Museum für Moderne Kunst: “I understood that I was confronted with a real painter, and not only with somebody who is moving the brushes around, as is often the case today,” said in 2001 when he first saw Weischer’s paintings – and bought one for the museum’s collection.

Weischer enrolled at the influential Hochschule für Grafik und Buchkunst Leipzig (Leipzig Academy of Visual Arts) in 1995 and, following three years’ tuition with a master painter, received a diploma with distinction in 2000. His paintings explore space through the construction and deconstruction of imagined interiors, creating rooms within rooms and building up layers of paint, while simultaneously creating overlapping perspectives. The interior spaces Weischer paints are the stage sets of everyday life, often decorated with patterned carpets, furnishings or other props. The recipient of the 2002 prize for young artists in Saxony, Weischer has received several grants for his work, which is exhibited at galleries, museums and institutions in Europe and the United States. Most recently, he was invited to exhibit eight paintings at the prestigious Venice Biennale. An entire room of the Italian Pavilion was dedicated to his work.

“The central focus of my art work is the fusion of the experience of space and time,” says Weischer who acknowledges that there are both parallels and differences between his paintings and those of his Mentor David Hockney, his lifelong “model”.

David Hockney is very appreciative of Matthias Weischer’s work and reflects fondly on his time spent with him. “His work interested me at first because of his attitude to pictorial space and as I got to know it, more layers were revealed,” Hockney says. “He knows looking is a very positive act. The more one looks the more one sees. His skills as a draughtsman are revealed here, the deep pleasures of the hand, the eye and the heart.”

(details not known)

2001 Family at Noon oil on canvas 190 x 240 cm

2002 Untitled oil on canvas 102 x 120 cm

2002 Untitled oil on canvas 190 x 170 cm

2003 Chair oil on canvas 190 x 170 cm

2003 House oil on canvas 180 x 240 cm

2003 Interior oil on canvas 75 x 96 cm

2003 KO oil on canvas 75 x 85 cm

2003 Living Room oil on canvas 170 x 190 cm

2003 Untitled 11 oil on canvas 150 x 300 cm

2003 Zweiteilig (Bisected) oil on canvas 235 x 304 cm

2004 Automat oil on canvas

2004 St. Ludgerus oil on canvas 300 x 251 cm

2006 Tuch Cloth oil and tempera on canvas 150 x 200 cm

2008 Twelve Eyes oil on canvas 120 x 200 cm

2009 Platfrom with 9 Objects oil & egg tempera on canvas 200 x 400 cm

2009 The Blue Wall oil & egg tempera on canvas 200 x 300 cm

2010 From oil on canvas 40 x 30 cm

Fernand Léger part 4 – ‘Cirque’ lithographs (2)

2012-02-17T09:10:00.001Z

This is part 5 of a 5-part post on the works of french artist Fernand Léger (1881-1955). For biographical notes on Léger see part 1. Parts 4 and 5 take a look at a selection of images from Léger's portfolio of lithographs Cirque. For background information on the Cirque works see part 4.

No. 52-53

No. 54

No. 55

No. 56

No. 58

No. 59

No. 61

No. 68

No. 69

No.71

No. 76-77

No. 82

No. 84-85

No. 90

No. 95

No. 100-101

No. 103

No. 105

No. 106

No. 107

No. 108

No. 111

Copyright: The presentation of these low resolution jpg files add more than words alone could impart. It is believed that this is fair use and does not infringe copyright. According to section 107 of the United States Copyright Act of 1976: The fair use of a copyrighted work…for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, or research, is not an infringement of copyright. The images are used for non-profit purposes. This factor is noted as relevant by the Act.

Fernand Léger part 4 – ‘Cirque’ lithographs (1)

2012-02-15T10:20:00.000Z

This is part 4 of a 5-part post on the works of french artist Fernand Léger (1881-1955). For biographical notes on Léger see part 1. Parts 4 and 5 take a look at a selection of images from Léger's portfolio of lithographs Cirque.

Cirque, published by Verve in 1950, is Léger’s lithographic masterpiece. After Rouault’s Divertissement in 1943 and Matisse’s Jazz in 1947, although before Chagall’s Cirque in 1967, this was the third book on the subject commissioned by Tériade. The latter was of Greek origin and worked as an art critic in Paris, indeed, he wrote the second-ever monograph on Léger in 1928. He founded Verve and became one of the major art publishers of the 20th century. On his return from exile in America in 1945, the painter accepted Tériade’s commission. As he felt that the novella which Henry Miller had initially been asked to write was too dark, he wrote the text himself. There were 300 copies of the 113-page book printed by the famous Parisian lithographers Mourlot Frères. The spoken tone of the manuscript alternates with colourful gouaches and black ink drawings. Léger recycles some of his previous writings and applies his aesthetic of contrasts - which is itself worthy of a cinematographic montage - to the images.

“We are experiencing space more than ever before. Man is growing and expanding in all directions; there's a competition to escape and leave behind all earthly constraints, to flee what is solid and concrete. A nervous mobility is taking over the world. Everything is moving and escaping from traditional constraints. Being a painter and feeling so totally unable to resolve this spectacle on a canvas.”FernandLéger, Cirque, Éditions Verve, 1950

Cover

Title Page

No. 5

No. 6-7

No. 8

No. 12

No. 15

No. 16

No.18

No. 20

No. 22

No. 23

No. 26

No. 27

No. 28

No. 30

No. 31

No. 34

No. 36-7

No. 39

No. 42

No. 44-45

No. 49

Fernand Léger – part 3

2012-02-13T10:24:00.000Z

This is part 3 of a 5-part post on the works of French artist Fernand Léger (1881 – 1955). Parts 1-3 look at Léger's paintings. Parts 4-5 will look at his lithographic series 'Cirque'. For biographical notes see part 1.

1932 Composition with Three Figures

1935 Maude Dale

1937 Le Coq Noir watercolour on paper 32 x 36 cm

1942 Dance

1942 The Divers (Red and Black) oil on canvas 127 x 148cm © Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York / ADAGP, Paris

1942-44 Acrobats in Grey

1946 Cour de Ferme gouache on paper 25 x 35 cm

1950 Builders

1952 Three Sisters

1953 Freedom, I Write your Name 400 x 300 cm

1954 The Camper

1954 The Dancers 640 x 510 cm

1954 The Outing in the Country

1954 The Woman and the Flower

1954 Trapeze Artists oil on canvas 392 x 373 cm

I'm afraid these earlier works are out of sequence in the posts - they are late additions, but I thought worth including:

1920 The Disks in the City oil on canvas

1920 The Tug oil on canvas

1921 Women in an Interior oil on canvas

1922 Mother and Child oil on canvas

Fernand Léger – part 2

2012-02-10T14:40:00.000Z

This is part 2 of a 5-part post on the works of French artist Fernand Léger (1881 – 1955).

For biographical notes and earlier works see part 1 below.

1920 The Aviator oil on canvas 65 x 92 cm © Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York / ADAGP, Paris

1920 The Bridge of the Tug oil on canvas

1920 The Mechanic

1920 Three Women and Still Life oil on canvas 73 x 92cm © Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York / ADAGP, Paris

1920 Two Men ink on paper 32 x 23 cm

c1920 Composition oil on canvas 60 x 73 cm

1921 Breakfast

1921 Still Life in the Tankard Final State

1921 Three Women (Le Grand Déjeuner) oil on canvas 191 x 99 cm

1921 Woman with a Cat oil on canvas 131 x 90 cm

1922 Still Life

1923 Study for "The Creation Of The Earth" watercolour & tempera on paper 49 x 63 cm

1923 The Great Tug oil on canvas

1923 Two Figures, Naked on Red Ground

1924-27 The Study for the City Centre

1925 The Baluster

1926 Accordion

1927 Still Life, King of Diamonds oil on canvas 92 x 66 cm

1928 Still Life With Profile (Nature Morte Au Profil) oil on canvas 74 x 92 cm

1930 Three Musicians

Fernand Léger – part 1

2012-02-09T10:16:00.000Z

I think Fernand Léger was a bit of a genius – the style he became known for is unique and instantly recognisable. I’m actually putting up a 5-part post on his work – parts 1-3 looking at his canvases, parts 3-4 the ‘Cirque’ lithographic portfolio.

Fernand Léger (1881 – 1955) was born in 1881 in Argentan, France. After an apprenticeship with an architect in Caen between 1897 to 1899, Léger settled in Paris in 1900 and supported himself as an architectural draftsman. He was refused entrance to the École des Beaux-Arts but nevertheless attended classes there beginning in 1903; he also studied at the Académie Julian.

Léger’s earliest-known works, which date from 1905, were primarily influenced by Impressionism.

1905 My Mother's Garden oil on canvas 46 x 38 cm

The experience of seeing the Paul Cézanne retrospective at the Salon d’Automne in 1907 and his contact with the early Cubism of Pablo Picasso and Georges Braque had an extremely significant impact on the development of his personal style. From 1911 to 1914 Léger’s work became increasingly abstract, and he started to limit his colour to the primaries and black and white. In 1912 he was given his first solo show at Galerie Kahnweiler, Paris.

Léger served in the military from 1914 to 1917. His “mechanical” period, in which figures and objects are characterised by tubular, machinelike forms, began in 1917. During the early 1920s he collaborated with the writer Blaise Cendrars on films and designed sets and costumes for performances by Rolf de Maré’s Ballets Suédois; in 1924 he completed his first film, Ballet mécanique, which was neither abstract nor narrative but a series of seemingly unrelated images (a woman’s teeth and lips, machines, ordinary objects, and routine human activities).

Léger opened an atelier with Amédée Ozenfant in 1924 and in 1925 presented his first murals at Le Corbusier’s Pavillon de l’Esprit Nouveau at the Exposition internationale des arts décoratifs. In 1931 he visited the United States for the first time. In 1935 the Museum of Modern Art, New York, and the Art Institute of Chicago presented an exhibition of his work. Léger lived in the United States from 1940 to 1945 but returned to France after the war. In the decade before his death, Léger’s wide-ranging projects included book illustrations, monumental figure paintings and murals, stained-glass windows, mosaics, polychrome ceramic sculptures, and set and costume designs. In 1955 he won the Grand Prize at the São Paulo Bienal. Léger died on August 17 of that year at his home in Gif-sur-Yvette, France. The Musée Fernand Léger was inaugurated in 1960 in Biot, France.

1909-10 Nudes in the Forest oil on canvas 120 x 170cm

1910-11 Trouville

1911 Chimneys on rooftops oil on canvas 46 x 55 cm

1912 Smoke


1912-13 Landscape

1913 Contrast of Forms oil on canvas 100 x 81 cm

1913 The Smoker gouache & ink on paper 31 x 24 cm

1914 Contrasted Forms oil on canvas 81 x 65cm

1918 Composition

1918 Contrast of Forms

1918 Discs

1918 Factories

1918 Still Life oil on canvas

1918 The Disc

1918 The Man with the Pipe 91 x 65 cm

1919 The City oil on canvas 230 x 298cm

1919 The Railway Crossing oil on canvas

Gordon Onslow Ford - Surrealist

2012-02-07T10:06:00.000Z

Well here's a first - I meant to bring you part 2 of Don Hong-Oai today, but I seem to have foolishly accidentally deleted the file, so maybe another time. Moving on - how about a bit of surrealism for a change?

Gordon Onslow Ford (1912 – 2003) was one of the last surviving members of the 1930s Paris surrealist group surrounding André Breton. Born in England in 1912 to a family of artists, Gordon Onslow Ford began painting at an early age. His grandfather, Edward Onslow Ford, was a renowned Victorian sculptor. At the age of 11 he began painting landscapes under the guidance of his uncle. Following the death of his father at age 14, he was sent to the Royal Naval College at Dartmouth. The ocean affected him deeply and his early works depicted ocean scenes. The metaphor of taking a “voyage” later became an important aspect of his paintings.

He then left the Royal Navy and spent 1936-39 in Paris as a painter. Largely self-taught in art, though he made frequent visits to the studio of Fernand Léger. He met Chilean architect Roberto Matta in 1937 and was greatly impressed by his recent drawings. Matta, who was working with le Corbusier, was an accomplished draftsman and was making small drawings on the side. Onslow Ford, with his keen sense of seeing, admired Matta's drawings as "the most exciting images" he had seen in Paris.

He encouraged Matta to continue with his drawings, which eventually inspired Matta to shift his direction from architecture to painting. In Brittany with Matta in the summer of 1938 he abandoned working from nature and started to make automatic drawings. In 1938, André Breton invited Onslow Ford to join the Surrealist group in Paris and attend their meetings in Café deux Magots. Onslow Ford then became friends with Pierre Mabille, André Breton, Yves Tanguy, Esteban Frances, Wolfgang Paalen, Max Ernst and Victor Brauner among others. His love of painting also led him to collect paintings and frequently visit the studios of Picasso, Miró, de Chirico and André Masson.

In the summer of 1939, Onslow Ford rented a chateau at Chemilleu near the border of Switzerland, and invited several of his friends to stay for a couple of months. Among the friends were André Breton, Jacqueline Lamba, Yves Tanguy, Roberto Matta, Esteban Frances and Kay Sage. They spent the summer painting, exchanging ideas and reading poetry. They were visited regularly by their friend and neighbour Gertrude Stein.

Onslow Ford lived in New York from 1939 to 1941, where his first one-man exhibition was at the Nierendorf Gallery in 1940. He gave a series of lectures at the New School for Social Research 1940-41 expounding the principles of automatism; these lectures are said to have had an influence on the development of Abstract Expressionism. He was included in the exhibition First Papers of Surrealism in New York in 1942. Between 1941 and 1947 he lived in an isolated village in Mexico, where he was influenced by the art of the Tarascon Indians and where he gradually turned away from Surrealism. He settled in California 1947 and died in 2003 at the age of ninety.

1938 Landing oil on canvas 26 3/4 x 36 1/8 in

1939 Man on a Green Island oil on canvas 25 5/8 x 36 in

1940 Propaganda oil on canvas 41 1/4 x 66 1/2 in

1944 Migrators with Bird oil on canvas 64 3/8 x 42 1/2 in

1944 The Marriage oil on canvas 42 3/4 x 29 1/4 in

1950 Children of the Landscape casein on brown paper 33 x 41 in

1958 Birth of the Earth parle's paint on mulberry paper 33 x 62 in

1962 There There One parle's paint on canvas 72 1/2 x 52 1/2 in

1966 Inlanders acrylic on canvas 70 1/4 x 121 in

1966 Space in Bloom acrylic on board 61 1/4 x 43 1/4 in

1969 Present in Company acrylic on canvas 93 x 140 in

1975 Being Spring acrylic on canvas 71 x 107 in

1979 Being in Common acrylic on canvas 76 x 118 1/2 in

1980 Spirit Pine acrylic on paper 29 3/4 x 21 in

1981 Mountain Move I acrylic on paper 29 1/4 x 20 3/4 in

1986 X-IS acrylic on canvas 83 1/2 x 118 in

1989 Court the Muse acrylic on canvas 66 x 100 1/2 in

1990 Mind Matter Makers acrylic on canvas 53 x 68 1/4 in

1992 Web of Life acrylic on canvas 38 x 60 1/2 in

1993 All One's Company

1997 Nod of the Numina acrylic on canvas 48 5/16 x 82 3/4 in

2001 Seeing Green acrylic on paper/linen 104 x 56 in

2001 Untitled acrylic on mulberry paper (size unknown)

Don Hong-Oai - Photographer

2012-02-05T09:40:00.001Z

Don Hong-Oai (1929 – 2004) was born in Canton, China in 1929, but spent most of his life in Saigon, Vietnam. At the age of 13 he began an apprenticeship at a Chinese photo and portrait shop. During this time he learned the traditional ways of photography from the masters. Everything was done the old-fashioned way from exposing the glass negatives in sunlight to using instinct rather than timers. Don would photograph landscapes in his free time and his style was heavily influenced by the legendary photographer Long Chin-San and his technique of layering negatives to create one composite image.

In 1979 he was able to get to the U.S. and settled in San Francisco’s Chinese community. Don started making a living selling his landscape photographs in front of Macy’s and began to receive more and more recognition for his master craftsmanship. He would create these images by taking three negatives, foreground, middle ground and far ground, and selecting a subject matter from each negative to form one composite image. All parts of the image do exist in life, but the photograph as a whole is an image that only existed in Don’s imagination. Each photograph is a unique handcrafted piece of work.

The photographs of Don Hong-Oai are made in a unique style of photography, which can be considered Asian pictorialism. This method of adapting a Western art for Eastern purposes probably originated in the 1940s in Hong Kong. One of its best-known practitioners was the great master Long Chin-San who died in the 1990s at the age of 104) with whom Don Hong-Oai studied. With the delicate beauty and traditional motifs of Chinese painting (birds, boats, mountains, etc.) in mind, photographers of this school used more than one negative to create a beautiful picture, often using visual allegories. Realism was not a goal.

He never had an assistant or had his images put together in a lab. Each piece had to be put together by Don as he saw it in his mind. His work has won scores of international awards and is included in hundreds of personal and corporate collections worldwide.. Only in the last few years of his life – he died in June 2004 – was his work discovered by a wider public, and he was kept very busy making prints for collectors across the US and worldwide.

Don Hong-Oai was one of the last photographers to work in this manner. He is also arguably the best. He was honoured by Kodak, Ilford and at Fotokina in West Germany and was a member of the International Federation of Photographic Art in Switzerland and the Chinatown Photographic Society.

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Richard Pousette-Dart - part 2

2012-02-03T10:04:00.000Z

This is part 2 of a 2-part post on the works of Abstract Expresionist Richard Pousette-Dart (1916–1992). For biographical notes and earlier works see part 1 below.

All images © The Estate of Richard Pousette-Dart

Note: Clicking on the smaller images will give you a larger version.

Sizes where shown have been rounded up or down to thenearest whole centimetre:

1960 The Fountain oil on canvas 192 x 142 cm

1961 White Gothic No 5 oil on canvas 194 x 143 cm

1961-62 Eye of the Small Suns oil on linen 192 x 142 cm

1961-64 Cavernous Earth with 27 Folds of Opaqueness oil on canvas 201 x 292 cm

1962 Possible Oval oil on linen 192 x 142 cm

1965 Garden Ablaze oil on paper 28 x 28 cm

1967 Imploding Light acrylic on canvas 203 x 203 cm

1969 Earth Shadow in Time oil on canvas 111 x 145 cm

1969-71 Night Landscape oil on linen 117 x 152 cm

1970 Calambra acrylic on linen 84 x 107 cm

1970 Moving Stillness oil on canvas 109 x 215 cm

1974 Hieroglyph #2 Black acrylic on canvas 229 x 229 cm

1974 Presence Amaranth Garden oil on canvas 229 x 229 cm

1976 Celebration, Birth acrylic on linen 183 x 305 cm

c1980 Untitled acrylic & ink on paper 57 x 76 cm

1982 Sacred Square oil on linen 203 x 203 cm

1984-85 Window of Fire acrylic on linen 183 x 183 cm

1985 Cerchio di Dante acrylic on linen 183 x 183 cm

1986 Imploding Black acrylic on canvas 183 x 183 cm

1990 Flowers Not Before While Tossing acrylic on canvas 183 x 183 cm

1990 Golden Door acrylic on linen 183 x 183 cm

1990 The Peacock Has Not Asked Me acrylic on linen 183 x 183 cm

1991 On the Other Side of Thought acrylic on linen 87 x 166 cm

1992 Alpha Forming acrylic on linen 107 x 216 cm

Richard Pousette-Dart - part 1

2012-02-01T10:18:00.000Z

Richard Pousette-Dart (1916–1992)was a founding member of the New York School, which included Willem de Kooning,Adolph Gottlieb, Hans Hofmann, Robert Motherwell, Barnett Newman, JacksonPollock, and Mark Rothko. Active in New York from the early 1940s, Pousette-Dartmade important contributions to the Abstract Expressionist movement. He was thefirst of the Abstract Expressionist group to break through and paint mural-sizecanvases, e.g., Symphony No.1, The Transcendental (1941–42), and Undulation,(1941–42), which anticipated Jackson Pollock’s mural scale work in 1943. Duringthis period Pousette-Dart’s technique began to emphasize gesture, layers ofpaint, and evocative subject matter that were the first pictorial statements ofwhat came to be known as “action painting” as seen in Comprehension of theAtom, Crucifixion (1944). In 1950, Pousette-Dart appeared in the historicphotograph The Irascibles, depicting fifteen New York School abstract painters.

In 1947, Peggy Guggenheim gave him asolo exhibition at her New York gallery, Art of This Century, where theartist’s best-known masterpiece and first large-scale Abstract Expressionistpainting, Symphony No. 1, The Transcendental was able to be shown for the firsttime.

1941-2 Symphony No 1, The Transcendental oil on canvas 22 x 36 cm

Pousette-Dart drew inspiration fromNative American, African, and Oceanic art, as well as European and Americanartistic trends, and the writings of Freud and Jung. He was influenced byOriental philosophy and American Transcendentalism and held to the convictionthat the abstract symbols of painting could reveal universal truths bysuggesting the mysterious realm of the spirit. In 1947 he wrote, “I strive toexpress the spiritual nature of the universe. Painting for me is a dynamicbalance and wholeness of life; it is mysterious and transcending, yet solid andreal.”

In 1951, the solitude he needed forhis life’s work required him to move out of New York. In 1958 he and his wife,the poet Evelyn Gracey Pousette-Dart, moved to the countryside near Suffern,New York, where his studio is still preserved today.

Glowing and mysterious “white”paintings from 1950–51, painted with white gouache/oil and pencil/graphiteinclude Descending Bird Forms and White Garden, Sky.

1951 White Garden, Sky oil & graphite on linen 136 x 154 cm

Pousette-Dart’s work in the 1960scontributed to the colour field and lyrical abstraction that were an importantevolution of Abstract Expressionism. His later works transpose the bright lightand brushwork of Impressionism into abstract meditations, suggesting thefrontier of the unconscious which Jung had described. These paintings havetitles evoking the magic of their radiant, pulsating, and subtly coloredsurfaces such as Amaranth Garden, Night Landscape, Golden Presence, ByzantineCathedral, and Lost in the Beginnings of Infinity.

Richard Pousette-Dart’s paintings and drawings have beenexhibited nationally and internationally in solo exhibitions organized by The Museumof Modern Art, New York (1969–70), the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York(1963, 1974, and 1998), the Museum of Art Fort Lauderdale, Florida (1986), theIndianapolis Museum of Art, Indiana (1990), the Detroit Institute of Arts,Michigan (1991), the Columbus Museum, Ohio (1991–92), the Metropolitan Museumof Art, New York (1997), the Schirn Kunsthalle, Frankfurt (2001), the LosAngeles County Museum of Art (2006), the Fine Arts Museum, San Francisco(2006), and the Cincinnati Art Museum, Ohio (2007), in addition to innumerablegroup exhibitions.

All images © The Estate of Richard Pousette-Dart

Note: Clicking on the smaller images will give you a larger version.

Sizes where shown have been rounded up or down to thenearest whole centimetre:

c1930 Untitled oil on canvas 15 x 20 cm

1935 Head of Persephone oil on linen 61 x 51 cm

1939 Bird Woman oil on linen 183 x 102 cm

1939 River Metamorphosis oil on linen 95 x 114 cm

1940 Desert oil on canvas 109 x 183 cm

1940 Head of a King oil on canvas 25 x 23 cm

1942 Undulation oil on linen 122 x 239 cm

1943 Fugue No. 2 oil & sand on canvas 104 x 270 cm

1943 The Center oil on linen 141 x 121 cm

1944 Comprehension of the Atom, Crucifixion oil on linen 196 x 125 cm

1944-5 Figure oil on canvas 210 x 124 cm

1947-48 The Atom, One World oil on linen 128 x 136 cm

1950 Entrance oil on canvas 97 x 267 cm

1950-1 The Magnificent oil on canvas 220 x 112 cm

1952 Cascella II oil on canvas 166 x 114 cm

1952 Golden Dawn oil & graphite on linen 237 x 131 cm

1957 White Gothic #3 oil on canvas 235 x 166 cm

1958 Blood Wedding oil on linen 183 x 284 cm

1958 Illumination Gothic oil on canvas 183 x 136 cm

William Morris wallpaper & textiles

2012-01-30T11:29:00.000Z

William Morris by George Frederic Watts 1870

William Morris's name and reputation are indissolubly linked to wallpaper design, but there is a tendency to over-estimate the influence he had in this field, at least in his own lifetime. In fact, despite his much repeated belief in 'art for all', his wallpapers, like most of the products of Morris & Co., were hand-made and expensive, and consequently had a relatively limited take-up. His papers were slow to find a market beyond fellow artists, and were positively disliked by some influential figures, such as Oscar Wilde. However, he has had a long-lived effect on wallpaper design and consumption, creating designs which have enjoyed lasting appeal.

Morris's first wallpaper design was Trellis, a pattern suggested by the rose-trellis in the garden of his house in Bexleyheath, Kent.

Trellis wallpaper 1864

Designed in 1862, it was not issued until 1864, a delay that was due to Morris's unsuccessful experiments with printing from zinc plates. The first pattern to be issued, in 1864, was Daisy, a simple design of naively drawn meadow flowers.

Daisy wallpaper 1864

The source was a wall-hanging illustrated in a 15th-century version of Froissart's Chronicles, but similar flower forms can be seen in late medieval 'mille-fleurs' tapestries and in early printed herbals. These two designs, and the next pattern Fruit (also known as Pomegranate), share a medieval character that links Morris's early work in the decorative arts with the Pre-Raphaelite painters, and with Ruskin.

Fruit wallpaper 1866

His sources were plants themselves, observed in his gardens or on country walks, and also images of plants in 16th-century woodcuts (he owned copies of several 16th- and 17th-century herbals, including Gerard's famous Herball), illuminated manuscripts, tapestries and other textiles incorporating floral imagery.Although he advised those designing wallpapers to 'accept their mechanical nature frankly, to avoid falling into the trap of trying to make your paper look as if it were painted by hand', he also encouraged intricacy and elaboration so that the repeat itself was disguised.

Morris designed over 50 wallpapers, and his firm produced a further 49 by other designers. Despite his involvement with wallpapers and his decided views on their design and use, Morris always regarded wallpaper as a 'makeshift' decoration, a tolerable substitute for more luxurious wall coverings. Some of the old snobbery about wallpaper as an imitative material, a cheap option, still persisted, and Morris, as a wealthy man, preferred woven textile hangings for his own home. Helena Maria Sickert described the drawing room at Kelmscott House, Hammersmith, thus: 'beautiful blue tapestry hangings all around the big living room ... the atmosphere was deliciously homely'.

Though Morris himself made little use of wallpapers in his own domestic surroundings, a number of wealthy clients commissioned decorative schemes from Morris & Co.By the 1880s Morris papers were being recommended in many home decorating guides, including the affordable Art at Home series (1876-8). Pages of each were devoted to a discussion of wallpapers, with advice on how to select the best of the latest styles.Morris's papers were too expensive for most, but by the 1880s their growing appeal had been recognised by other designers and manufacturers who began to produce cheaper papers in the Morris style. By the late 1890s Morris wallpapers were commonly found in 'artistic' middle-class homes.

Morris designs seem to have satisfied a widespread desire for pattern in a way which the more formal and didactic designs of the reformers such as Jones and Pugin never did. The next generation of designers were conscious of working with Morris's legacy. For example, Charles Voysey, later described by Essex & Co. in advertisements as 'the Genius of Pattern', produced designs which show clear evidence of Morris's influence in the mastery of flat but complex patterns and in the preference for stylised organic forms and motifs from nature.

Acanthus wallpaper 1875

Bird & Pomegranate wallpaper late C19th

Blackthorn wallpaper late C19th

Borage ceiling paper 1888-9

Compton wallpaper late C19th

Corncockle furnishing fabric 1883

Cray furnishing fabric 1885

Daffodil wallpaper late C19th

Isaphan furnishing fabric late C19th

Pink & Rose wallpaper late C19th

The Strawberry Thief textile

Wandle wallpaper 1883-4

Wallpaper design 1896

Jasmine wallpaper 1872

Wey printed textile design c1883

Snakeshead printed textile design 1876

Peacock and Dragon fabric 1878

Woodpecker tapestry 1885

Artichoke embroidery 1890

Neo Rauch - painter - part 2

2012-01-28T09:59:00.001Z

This is part 2 of a 2-part post on the works of contemporary German painter Neo Rauch. For biographical notes and more works see part 1 below.

All images © Neo Rauch / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York / VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn.

2004 Revolte (Revolt) oil on paper 200 x 281 cm

2004 Schmerz (Pain) oil on canvas 270 x 210 cm

2004 Waldsiedlung oil on paper 277 x 197 cm

2005 Der Pate (The Godfather) oil on canvas 271 x 150 cm

2005 Heimkehr (Homecoming) oil on canvas 210 x 300 cm

2005 Krypta (Crypt) oil on canvas 210 x 271 cm

2005 Loesung (Mortar) oil on canvas 300 x 210 cm

2005 Neujahr (New Year) oil on canvas 270 x 210 cm

2007 Der nächste Zug (The Nearest Puff) oil on canvas

2007 Die Flamme (The Flame) oil on canvas

2007 Die Fuge (The Nearest Joint) oil on canvas

2007 Goldgrube (Bonanza) oil on canvas

2007 Jagdzimmer (Hunting Room) oil on canvas

2007 Leporello oil on canvas 250 x 210 cm

2007 Vater (Father) oil on canvas

2007 Vorort (Suburb) oil on canvas

2008 Alte Verbindungen (Old Ties) oil on canvas 250 x 300 cm

2008 Das Gut (The Good) oil on canvas 280 x 210 cm

2008 Die Aufnahme (The Recording) oil on canvas 300 x 250 cm

The presentation of these low resolution jpg files add more than words alone could impart. It is believed that this is fair use and does not infringe copyright. According to section 107 of the United States Copyright Act of 1976: The fair use of a copyrighted work…for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, or research, is not an infringement of copyright. The images are used for non-profit purposes. This factor is noted as relevant by the Act.

Neo Rauch - painter - part 1

2012-01-26T09:35:00.000Z

This is part 1 of a 2-part post on the works of contemporary German painter Neo Rauch.

Rauch, born in Leipzig in 1960, is a protagonist of the "New Leipzig School". On the one hand artists of the "New Leipzig School" are united by their place of study, the "Hochschule für Grafik und Buchkunst" (Academy of Visual Arts) in Leipzig, on the other hand by their teachers, among them Bernhard Heisig, Wolfgang Mattheuer, Werner Tübke or Arno Rink, which, in return, are members of the first and second "Leipzig School".

Neo Rauch's artistic career and the Leipzig Academy of Visual Arts are inseparably interwoven: This is where he studied painting from 1981 to 1986, until 1990 he was in the master class of Bernhard Heisig, from 1993 to 1998 he worked there as an assistant and was appointed professor in 2005. He held the post until 2009 and taught painting and graphic art. He is also an honorary professor of the Academy.

Neo Rauch's works are highly esteemed by the international art market. Additionally, they attract great numbers of visitors in large one-man shows, for instance at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York in 2007, in 2010 in the twin exhibition "Begleiter" (Companions), which was shown simultaneously in the Museum of Visual Arts in Leipzig and the 'Pinakothek der Moderne' Munich, or in the Museum Frieder Burda in Baden-Baden in 2011. Works by Neo Rauch are in possession of renowned international museums and collections like the Museum of Modern Art in New York, the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam and the Hamburger Kunsthalle.

All images © Neo Rauch / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York / VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn.

1996 Winter oil on paper 162 x 105cm

1998 Die Wahl (The Choice) oil on canvas 300 x 200cm

1998 Fang (Catch) oil on linen 200 x 300cm

1998 Front oil on canvas 120 x 90cm

1998 Vorrat (Stock) oil on canvas 250 x 200cm

1999 Fuller oil on paper 214 x 148cm

1999 Leider (Regrettably) oil on canvas 200 x 150cm

1999 Stoff (Material) oil on canvas250 x 200cm

1999 Strecke (Route) oil on canvas 122 x 90cm

1999 Takt (Stroke) oil on canvas 225 x 195cm

1999 Tal (Valley) oil on canvas 200 x 250cm

2002 Harmlos (Harmless) oil on canvas 250 x 180cm

2002 Hatz (Hunt) oil on linen 210 x 250cm

2002 Hausmeister (Caretaker) oil on canvas 250 x 200cm

2002 Kühlraum (Cold Store) oil on linen 210 x 300cm

2002 Quiz oil on canvas250 x 210cm

2002 Schöpfer (Creator) oil on canvas 210 x 250cm

2003 Haus des Lehrers (The Teacher's Home) oil on canvas 250 x 200cm

2003 Scheune (Barn) oil on canvas 190 x 250cm

2004 Höhe (High) oil on canvas 210 x 270cm