It seems appropriate somehow to follow my post on the portraits of Henri Rousseau with those of an old friend of mine, Royal Academician Anthony Green. Anyone who has been to visit the Royal Academy's Summer Exhibition in the last forty years can't have failed to have been struck by Anthony's highly personal portraits which are very frequently autobiographical, his subject matter almost always inspired by his relationships with his wife and family.
Anthony Green was born in 1939 and studied at the Slade School of Art, where he won the Henry Tonks Prize for drawing in 1960. This was followed by the Gulbenkian Purchase Award in 1963 and the Harkness Fellowship in the USA from 1967-69. He was elected to the Royal Academy in 1971. He is a Fellow of University College, London and serves as a Trustee of the Royal Academy.
He has experimented with irregular shaped compositions since 1966, which have on occasion progressed to freestanding 'sculptures' incorporating real objects as well as beautifully executed attention to detail. One of the most popular artists in the Royal Academy of Art Summer Exhibition each year, his paintings intrigue, amuse and enchant his many fans with their mood-enhancing sense of colour, humour and remarkable ability to capture life's events, both happy and sad, in a way that people readily identify with.
Anthony Green's work is included, among many other venues, in the public collections of the Tate Gallery, Setagaya Museum, Tokyo and the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. He has also exhibited internationally in London, New York, Berlin, Tokyo, Sidney, Chicago etc. He has had over 100 one-man shows since 1962.
I said in my last posting that I would follow up the naive painter Henri Rousseau's more famous jungle paintings with some portraits of his. Having started a few posts ago with some very modern minimalist portraits by Julian Opie, and then contrasting those with the more naive (faux naive?) style of Frida Kahlo's self portraits I thought I'd contrast those with one or two other painters' works.
The style of Rousseau's portraits are more traditionally what one associates with naive painting, and I like them a lot. I've always been a fan of early American naive painting and portraiture, and I would have to say that Frenchman Rousseau's work has a similar charm. The first one shown here is a self portrait.
I'm returning to my mini-theme of portraiture by a roundabout route. In my next post I'll put up some portraits by the naive painter Henri Rousseau (1844–1910); but first I'm posting a different aspect of his work. Rousseau is far better known for some of the most popular and memorable paintings of the modern era. He is celebrated for his visionary jungle paintings that captivate the viewer with the lushness of their plant and animal life painted with incredible detail and precision. Extraordinarily the artist never saw the tropical scenes he brought so much to life, as he never left France. His exotic jungle paintings are the fantasies of a city dweller, constructed from visits to the zoo and botanical gardens, from postcards, books and from Rousseau’s vivid imagination. These jungles have intrigued people for decades, offering a dream of escape from humdrum reality to a savage and yet enchanting realm.
Rousseau’s unique vision was celebrated by his modernist contemporaries like Pablo Picasso and the surrealists René Magritte and Max Ernst, who saw his work as opening up new realms of artistic possibility. They were particularly fascinated by his bold, primitive style and the dream-like nature of his paintings. For a customs official who was self-taught and only took up painting full-time in retirement, this was an extraordinary accomplishment.
This post isn't meant to be flippant in the light of the stream of bad news that keeps coming from Pakistan. Now contending with the human disaster of the monsoon floods, and the seemingly endless reports of terrorist bombs in the larger cities of Pakistan might make it seem like a bad time to be looking at a lighter side of the nature of Pakistan, but I think it's a valid point.
Pakistani truckers consider their vehicles as national symbols and make it a competition as to who has the most fabulous truck. Owners often spend over $3000 on paint and metal designs for their vehicles, which can be many times their monthly salary. Truck art started as a way to differentiate trucks in Pakistan from those in India after the countries split in 1947. Many of the treasured vehicles have an average age of 30 years and every part is replaced to keep the vehicle running as long as possible.
I love these painted vehicles, it's real folk art done with aplomb. I think there are many similarities with the old gypsy caravan painting and fairground art in this country. In Pakistan it's like the 60's and the Hippy trail never died.
Following my post about the minimal portraiture style of the contemporary artist Julian Opie, I thought I'd thought I'd contrast his work with the self-portraits of the Mexican artist Frida Kahlo (1907-1954). She was born and raised near Mexico City and married the famous painter and muralist Diego Rivera. Frida was the third daughter of a Hungarian-Jewish father and a Spanish-Mexican mother. She grew up in the midst of the Mexican Revolution, and throughout her life she would face many struggles. At the age of 6, she contracted Polio. Some also speculate she also had spina bifida. Her original passion was not to be a painter, but to work in medicine.
Unfortunately, at the age of 18, she was in a bus accident where she suffered from severe injuries including a broken spinal chord, collarbone, ribs, pelvis, and fractures in her right leg. As a result of this accident, her uterus was also damaged, and she would lose the ability to reproduce. She was not able to accept this until many later years later, and eventually was able to conceive only to miscarry. Although she would eventually heal form the accident, its memory caused her much trauma and she would often have painful relapses.
From this accident, though, Frida began her painting career. Confined to a hospital bed, wearing casts that limited her mobility, Frida began painting to pass the time and to deal with her suffering. Her paintings were heavily influenced by traditional Mexican art and consisted of 2-D images in vibrant and bold colors. She painted 155 paintings, with about a third of them being dedicated to self-portraits. Her pain, miscarriage, and marital difficulties with Diego Rivera were often depicted.
She travelled to America in her later life with Diego, and held art exhibitions in New York. She gained some popularity in the 1940’s, but it was not until a revival of the feminist movements in the 1980’s did she gain more fame, many years after her death. She suffered from cancer, and died at the age of 47.
