ART & ARTISTS

Sunday, 13 March 2011

Norman Rockwell

Last week I went to the Norman Rockwell (1894-1978) exhibition at Dulwich Picture Gallery, London. There is a huge wall of The Saturday Evening Post covers and many original finished paintings and studies to compare them with. I was slightly surprised by the variation in scale, which had nothing to do with his age or time-line of artworks: some were very small and incredibly detailed, going right through to a single life-sized figure painted relatively crudely on a coarser canvas. A interesting show on the whole, which runs until March 27.

1953 Self-Portrait painting "The Soda Jerk"

Rockwell’s paintings were recognized and loved by almost everybody in America. The cover of The Saturday Evening Post was his showcase for over forty years, giving him an audience larger than that of any other artist in history. Over the years he depicted there a unique collection of Americana, a series of vignettes of remarkable warmth and humor. In addition, he painted a great number of pictures for story illustrations, advertising campaigns, posters, calendars, and books.

1953 The Soda Jerk

As his personal contribution during World War II, Rockwell painted the famous "Four Freedoms" posters, symbolising for millions the war aims as described by President Franklin Roosevelt. One version of his "Freedom of Speech" painting is in the collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

1943 Freedom of Speech

Rockwell left high school to attend classes at the National Academy of Design and later studied under Thomas Fogarty and George Bridgman at the Art Students League in New York. His early illustrations were done for St. Nicholas magazine and other juvenile publications. He sold his first cover painting to the Post in 1916 and ended up doing over 300 more. Presidents Eisenhower, Kennedy, and Johnson sat for him for portraits, and he painted other world figures, including Nassar of Egypt and Nehru of India.

1960 John F Kennedy

In 1957 the United States Chamber of Commerce in Washington cited him as a Great Living American, saying that..."Through the magic of your talent, the folks next door - their gentle sorrows, their modest joys - have enriched our own lives and given us new insight into our countrymen."
The Norman Rockwell Museum in Stockbridge, Massachusetts has established a large collection of his paintings, and has preserved Rockwell's last studio as well.

1943 Freedom of Worship

1943 Freedom from Fear

1943 Freedom from Want

1929 The Doctor and the Doll

1943 Rosie the Riveter

1953 Girl with a Black Eye

1964 The Problem We All Live With

After the Prom

Homecoming Marine

1948 Christmas

1956 Teacher's Birthday

Girl at Mirror

1937 Gaiety Dance Team

The Volunteer Fireman

Willie and Gillis

1917 They Remembered Me

1920 But Wait Until Next Week

1920 Retribution

1921 A Drum for Tommy

1921 Girl Reading Palm

1924 Daydreaming Book-keeper

1924 Parade

1926 Boy and Girl Gazing at the Moon

1926 Sign Painter

1930 Gary Cooper as "The Texan"

1932 The Puppeteer

1935 Couple in the Rumble Seat

1935 Santa Reading Mail

1936 Spring Tonic

1938 Artist Facing Blank Canvas (Deadline)

1944 The Tattooist

1946 Charwomen in the Theatre

1947 Boy in the Dining car

1948 April Fool Girl with Shopkeeper

1955 Art Critic

1955 Football Hero

1958 The Runaway

1962 The Connoiseur

Thursday, 10 March 2011

Cy Twombly 1990s - 2000s

Here is the third selection of works by Cy Twombly, featuring work from the 1990s and 2000s. For biographical and backgound information on Twombly, see part 1.

1990 Liri

1990 Summer Madness

1990 Untitled

1993-4 Quattro Stagioni, Part III, Autunno

2000 Coronation of Sesostris (3)

2000 Coronation of Sesostris (10)

2001 Lepanto (1)

2005 Untitled

2005-6 III Notes from Sarah (1)

2008 The Rose II

2010 Camino Real II

Wednesday, 9 March 2011

Cy Twombly 1970s - 1980s

Here is the second selection of works by Cy Twombly, featuring work from the 1970s and 1980s. For biographical and backgound information on Twombly, see part 1.

1970 Untitled

1974 Natural History Part I, Mushrooms no. IV

1974 Untitled

1975 Apollo and the Artist

1978 Ilians in Battle

1980 Pan II

1982 Untitled

1983 Anabasis

1983 Lycian

1984 Hero and Leandro, Part 1

1984 Proteus

1985 Wilder Shores of Love

1986 Untitled

1988 Untitled

1989 Untitled

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.