In the four-block radius where he painted and drank himself into frightening stupors, Noel Rockmore was known by the denizens of the French Quarter as an outrageous Pablo Picasso-like figure who combined the mythological and the real. He produced some 15,000 oil paintings, temperas, collages and sketches over his career and then died in obscurity.
His life was that of an American outsider and a throwback to Europe's great expressionistic and hedonistic masters.
In the 1950s, when he was still in his 20s, his paintings hung in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Museum of Modern Art and the Hirshhorn Museum. He was a bright young American artist who had a taste for Rembrandt and figurative paintings, with the outlook of an American social realist.
Then, the art world changed: Abstract expressionism — typified by the paint throwing of Jackson Pollock — became the rave. Rockmore, who admired draftsmanship in painting, detested it.
Rockmore changed: He left his wife and three children, changed his last name and headed to New Orleans in 1959, where he would eventually get lost to the New York art world.
The story of Noel Montgomery Davis (his real name) is getting a long-overdue audience outside New Orleans, a city that is enjoying something of an art renaissance itself six years after Hurricane Katrina. From now until the end of January, his works are on view at the LaGrange Art Museum in Georgia. The retrospective is called "Creative Obscurity: The Genius Noel Rockmore."
"He was kind of an art hobo," said Ethyl Ault, interim director of the LaGrange Art Museum.
She said Rockmore was an overlooked genius. "Was it politics? Did he offend people? Why was he so popular in New York when he was younger, and then he leaves, changes his name and then goes on into his fairy tale land?"
The show is based on nearly 1,500 Rockmore artworks retrieved from storage units in the wake of Hurricane Katrina. For 25 years, Shirley Marvin, an octogenarian Baton Rouge patron, had been saving Rockmore artworks and memorabilia with the intention of making him famous one day.
But she had forgotten about the collection due to short-term memory loss, her family said. Marvin was one of Rockmore's most devoted fans. She saw genius in him — like many others in New Orleans. The extraordinary collection was gathering dust when her son, Rich Marvin, took her down to New Orleans in October 2006, a year after Katrina, to get "a few paintings," as her mother described it. Instead, they found the units packed with remnants of Rockmore's life.
"At first we thought my mom was crazy," Rich Marvin said. "When a museum or gallery lines up his top 200 exquisite works, people will be as stunned as we are."
Rockmore was born in 1928 in New York to a family of artists. He was supertalented. A child prodigy, he played the violin well by age 8. After suffering polio at age 10, he turned to painting. He studied briefly at The Juilliard School and had a studio at the Cooper Union. Family friends included Ernest Hemingway, George Gershwin and Thomas Mann.
His 20s were prolific as he painted the bums of the Bowery district, monkeys and elephants in the backstage of the Ringling Brothers Circus and parables of Central Park and Coney Island. He was a social realist, akin to Depression-era American painters such as John Steuart Curry, but these early works contained themes and artistic styles that would stay with him: death, violence, sex, the surreal and the allegorical.
In retrospect, it was the ghoulish and morbid in Rockmore that defined him, making him a kind of American Hieronymus Bosch.
In the 1950s, Rockmore became fed up with the wave of abstract expressionists then taking hold of New York — the flat tones and humanless canvases of Willem De Kooning, Pollock, Mark Rothko and Barnett Newman. During this period he drank heavily and his wife kicked him out because of his wildness, his daughter, Emilie Heller-Rhys, said.
At age 31, he moved down to New Orleans and began working with Larry Borenstein, an art collector, and Allan Jaffe, a business school graduate and tuba player. In the 1960s, Borenstein employed Rockmore as a kind of resident painter for a new society he'd formed with Jaffe to preserve traditional New Orleans jazz music. The society would become Preservation Hall.
Rockmore was commissioned to paint the old-time musicians. He captured the mood, scent, touch and smoke of New Orleans jazz and its musicians — Punch Miller, Percy Humphrey, Louis Nelson, Sweet Emma and Billie and DeDe Pierce, and scores of others.
His output was staggering. He'd become fixated by a subject — New Orleans' Carnival traditions, the frenetic Port of New Orleans, the characters of the French Quarter, alien beings, ancient Egypt, voodoo — and mined it artistically.
2011年12月29日星期四
2011年12月28日星期三
Noel Rockmore, 'Picasso of New Orleans,' revisited
In the four-block radius where he painted and drank himself into frightening stupors, Noel Rockmore was known by the denizens of the French Quarter as an outrageous Pablo Picasso-like figure who combined the mythological and the real. He produced some 15,000 oil paintings, temperas, collages and sketches over his career and then died in obscurity.
His life was that of an American outsider and a throwback to Europe's great expressionistic and hedonistic masters.
In the 1950s, when he was still in his 20s, his paintings hung in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Museum of Modern Art and the Hirshhorn Museum. He was a bright young American artist who had a taste for Rembrandt and figurative paintings, with the outlook of an American social realist.
Then, the art world changed: Abstract expressionism — typified by the paint throwing of Jackson Pollock — became the rave. Rockmore, who admired draftsmanship in painting, detested it.
Rockmore changed: He left his wife and three children, changed his last name and headed to New Orleans in 1959, where he would eventually get lost to the New York art world.
The story of Noel Montgomery Davis (his real name) is getting a long-overdue audience outside New Orleans, a city that is enjoying something of an art renaissance itself six years after Hurricane Katrina. From now until the end of January, his works are on view at the LaGrange Art Museum in Georgia. The retrospective is called "Creative Obscurity: The Genius Noel Rockmore."
"He was kind of an art hobo," said Ethyl Ault, interim director of the LaGrange Art Museum.
She said Rockmore was an overlooked genius. "Was it politics? Did he offend people? Why was he so popular in New York when he was younger, and then he leaves, changes his name and then goes on into his fairy tale land?"
The show is based on nearly 1,500 Rockmore artworks retrieved from storage units in the wake of Hurricane Katrina. For 25 years, Shirley Marvin, an octogenarian Baton Rouge patron, had been saving Rockmore artworks and memorabilia with the intention of making him famous one day.
But she had forgotten about the collection due to short-term memory loss, her family said. Marvin was one of Rockmore's most devoted fans. She saw genius in him — like many others in New Orleans. The extraordinary collection was gathering dust when her son, Rich Marvin, took her down to New Orleans in October 2006, a year after Katrina, to get "a few paintings," as her mother described it. Instead, they found the units packed with remnants of Rockmore's life.
In the wake of the collection's discovery, Rich and his wife, Tee Marvin, have become Rockmore's biggest impresarios — the agents Rockmore famously refused to have throughout his life as he willfully lived on the edge of the art world. He was notorious among art galleries for his temper and fits of outrage. His friends say he suffered emotional problems for much of his life.
The Marvins — working with Rockmore's family and art dealers, collectors and museum curators — have begun cataloging his works and promoting him. They estimate he produced about 15,000 pieces of art and conservatively 750 to 1,000 of those are masterpieces.
"At first we thought my mom was crazy," Rich Marvin said. "When a museum or gallery lines up his top 200 exquisite works, people will be as stunned as we are."
Rockmore was born in 1928 in New York to a family of artists. He was supertalented. A child prodigy, he played the violin well by age 8. After suffering polio at age 10, he turned to painting. He studied briefly at The Juilliard School and had a studio at the Cooper Union. Family friends included Ernest Hemingway, George Gershwin and Thomas Mann.
His life was that of an American outsider and a throwback to Europe's great expressionistic and hedonistic masters.
In the 1950s, when he was still in his 20s, his paintings hung in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Museum of Modern Art and the Hirshhorn Museum. He was a bright young American artist who had a taste for Rembrandt and figurative paintings, with the outlook of an American social realist.
Then, the art world changed: Abstract expressionism — typified by the paint throwing of Jackson Pollock — became the rave. Rockmore, who admired draftsmanship in painting, detested it.
Rockmore changed: He left his wife and three children, changed his last name and headed to New Orleans in 1959, where he would eventually get lost to the New York art world.
The story of Noel Montgomery Davis (his real name) is getting a long-overdue audience outside New Orleans, a city that is enjoying something of an art renaissance itself six years after Hurricane Katrina. From now until the end of January, his works are on view at the LaGrange Art Museum in Georgia. The retrospective is called "Creative Obscurity: The Genius Noel Rockmore."
"He was kind of an art hobo," said Ethyl Ault, interim director of the LaGrange Art Museum.
She said Rockmore was an overlooked genius. "Was it politics? Did he offend people? Why was he so popular in New York when he was younger, and then he leaves, changes his name and then goes on into his fairy tale land?"
The show is based on nearly 1,500 Rockmore artworks retrieved from storage units in the wake of Hurricane Katrina. For 25 years, Shirley Marvin, an octogenarian Baton Rouge patron, had been saving Rockmore artworks and memorabilia with the intention of making him famous one day.
But she had forgotten about the collection due to short-term memory loss, her family said. Marvin was one of Rockmore's most devoted fans. She saw genius in him — like many others in New Orleans. The extraordinary collection was gathering dust when her son, Rich Marvin, took her down to New Orleans in October 2006, a year after Katrina, to get "a few paintings," as her mother described it. Instead, they found the units packed with remnants of Rockmore's life.
In the wake of the collection's discovery, Rich and his wife, Tee Marvin, have become Rockmore's biggest impresarios — the agents Rockmore famously refused to have throughout his life as he willfully lived on the edge of the art world. He was notorious among art galleries for his temper and fits of outrage. His friends say he suffered emotional problems for much of his life.
The Marvins — working with Rockmore's family and art dealers, collectors and museum curators — have begun cataloging his works and promoting him. They estimate he produced about 15,000 pieces of art and conservatively 750 to 1,000 of those are masterpieces.
"At first we thought my mom was crazy," Rich Marvin said. "When a museum or gallery lines up his top 200 exquisite works, people will be as stunned as we are."
Rockmore was born in 1928 in New York to a family of artists. He was supertalented. A child prodigy, he played the violin well by age 8. After suffering polio at age 10, he turned to painting. He studied briefly at The Juilliard School and had a studio at the Cooper Union. Family friends included Ernest Hemingway, George Gershwin and Thomas Mann.
2011年12月27日星期二
Getting to know a wildlife artist
Growing up in Tuscarawas County in eastern Ohio, local artist Ann Dysinger was studying wildlife at an early age.
After World War II, her father started the county's water conservation district where her father would survey the watershed. He shared his knowledge with his five children, the oldest being Ann.
"My dad being in the watershed, he had and taught us kids about the wildlife and information like what it takes to keep them living, what type of habitat and food they need and how they live," explained Dysinger.
She shared that her family was always outdoors - camping on the lake from April to October, walking through the woods on weekends the campgrounds were closed and hunting during the seasons. "Since I was the oldest, dad would take me hunting. We both had our licenses, and if he took me hunting, we could get more game. With five kids in the family, we ate a lot of wild game!" exclaimed Dysinger.
She started drawing as a 10-year-old. "My grandmother gave me a set of oil pastels for Christmas, and there was a magazine called Fur-Fish-Game. It's still in circulation now and Chuck Ripper would always do the cover. I'd grab it during trips into town and bring it home. Then, I'd go up to my bedroom and I would redraw Chuck Ripper's artwork in my sketchbook with my oil pastels and try to learn how to do things that way."
Then when she was 12 years old, a neighboring farmer hired her to catalog the livestock. "Working with a farm drawing milk cows really encouraged me to do more paintings," said Dysinger. "To register the cows, you had to draw all of the spots. I would draw them for the farmer's registration papers, and he would give me a quarter for each cow. I remember one day I got $12 and thought I was rich!" she laughed.
Dysinger is a self-taught painter; the only "schooling" she had was from her own father. "My dad was my worst critic. He said he wasn't going to hang crappy paintings in his home," she laughed. "When I would draw, he would help me with proportion and tell what was wrong. He's really a hard critic, so you tried really hard not to make a faux pas in front of dad."
Dysinger paints as accurately as she can, right down to the proper number of feathers on a turkey. "When I do a painting, I don't just paint a lion or a giraffe. You have to know what kind of habitat they live in and what they eat so that you have all of the elements in the picture correctly," she noted. "You have to pay attention to a whole scheme of things like on game birds, they have an exact number of feathers on their primary and their tail feathers. Turkeys always have no more than 18 feathers on their tail, so if you would paint a turkey and put 22 feathers up there, someone is going to notice. I'd be embarrassed if somebody found out; that's why I pay attention to all of the elements."
Dysinger gets her information from researching the animals. She spends time on the over 400 acres of land at Thorn Bottom, taking photographs and observing the animals' physical characteristics and movements.
After taking her reference photographs, Dysinger works to create a narrative to attribute to each piece. "I want my pictures to tell you a story," said Dysinger. "One of the ones that told the best story was The Cat Did It. In the photography, the Brittany (Spaniel) was laying on the ground looking at my son, but when I painted it, I put the dog in a bed of tulips, and then I have a lady standing beside him in a broom and a skirt looking down at him. He's looking up at her, and there are broken tulips all around and I called it The Cat Did It."
The Cat Did It won the People's Choice award this past year in the Richeson75 Animals, Bird and Wildlife show as well as "Best Brittany" and third place in "Best Oil Painting" at the Kansas dog show. She has also won several other awards recently including Best of Show for "Lyin' Lion" at the Irving Art Association's annual juried wildlife exhibit. She has also painted pieces for the Republican National Convention and people in other countries like Italy and New Zealand.
Most recently, Dysinger was honored for her artwork by the state of Ohio. "It was a show put on by the Ohio Arts Council and I got the notice that they were looking for entries to display in the mansion, the governor's residence or the offices. They wanted scenes from Ohio but nothing with people in it, so I sent in some pictures. They had around 600 people enter over one thousand pieces and they chose about 75 to display. I was lucky enough to get the first bedroom in the residence!" exclaimed Dysinger.
Dysinger continues to create artwork in other ways like engraving memorials at Swan Memorials and participating in shows through the Wassenberg Art Center. She looks forward to continuing to create artwork for people to relate to their own personal lives and test her own knowledge of wildlife.
After World War II, her father started the county's water conservation district where her father would survey the watershed. He shared his knowledge with his five children, the oldest being Ann.
"My dad being in the watershed, he had and taught us kids about the wildlife and information like what it takes to keep them living, what type of habitat and food they need and how they live," explained Dysinger.
She shared that her family was always outdoors - camping on the lake from April to October, walking through the woods on weekends the campgrounds were closed and hunting during the seasons. "Since I was the oldest, dad would take me hunting. We both had our licenses, and if he took me hunting, we could get more game. With five kids in the family, we ate a lot of wild game!" exclaimed Dysinger.
She started drawing as a 10-year-old. "My grandmother gave me a set of oil pastels for Christmas, and there was a magazine called Fur-Fish-Game. It's still in circulation now and Chuck Ripper would always do the cover. I'd grab it during trips into town and bring it home. Then, I'd go up to my bedroom and I would redraw Chuck Ripper's artwork in my sketchbook with my oil pastels and try to learn how to do things that way."
Then when she was 12 years old, a neighboring farmer hired her to catalog the livestock. "Working with a farm drawing milk cows really encouraged me to do more paintings," said Dysinger. "To register the cows, you had to draw all of the spots. I would draw them for the farmer's registration papers, and he would give me a quarter for each cow. I remember one day I got $12 and thought I was rich!" she laughed.
Dysinger is a self-taught painter; the only "schooling" she had was from her own father. "My dad was my worst critic. He said he wasn't going to hang crappy paintings in his home," she laughed. "When I would draw, he would help me with proportion and tell what was wrong. He's really a hard critic, so you tried really hard not to make a faux pas in front of dad."
Dysinger paints as accurately as she can, right down to the proper number of feathers on a turkey. "When I do a painting, I don't just paint a lion or a giraffe. You have to know what kind of habitat they live in and what they eat so that you have all of the elements in the picture correctly," she noted. "You have to pay attention to a whole scheme of things like on game birds, they have an exact number of feathers on their primary and their tail feathers. Turkeys always have no more than 18 feathers on their tail, so if you would paint a turkey and put 22 feathers up there, someone is going to notice. I'd be embarrassed if somebody found out; that's why I pay attention to all of the elements."
Dysinger gets her information from researching the animals. She spends time on the over 400 acres of land at Thorn Bottom, taking photographs and observing the animals' physical characteristics and movements.
After taking her reference photographs, Dysinger works to create a narrative to attribute to each piece. "I want my pictures to tell you a story," said Dysinger. "One of the ones that told the best story was The Cat Did It. In the photography, the Brittany (Spaniel) was laying on the ground looking at my son, but when I painted it, I put the dog in a bed of tulips, and then I have a lady standing beside him in a broom and a skirt looking down at him. He's looking up at her, and there are broken tulips all around and I called it The Cat Did It."
The Cat Did It won the People's Choice award this past year in the Richeson75 Animals, Bird and Wildlife show as well as "Best Brittany" and third place in "Best Oil Painting" at the Kansas dog show. She has also won several other awards recently including Best of Show for "Lyin' Lion" at the Irving Art Association's annual juried wildlife exhibit. She has also painted pieces for the Republican National Convention and people in other countries like Italy and New Zealand.
Most recently, Dysinger was honored for her artwork by the state of Ohio. "It was a show put on by the Ohio Arts Council and I got the notice that they were looking for entries to display in the mansion, the governor's residence or the offices. They wanted scenes from Ohio but nothing with people in it, so I sent in some pictures. They had around 600 people enter over one thousand pieces and they chose about 75 to display. I was lucky enough to get the first bedroom in the residence!" exclaimed Dysinger.
Dysinger continues to create artwork in other ways like engraving memorials at Swan Memorials and participating in shows through the Wassenberg Art Center. She looks forward to continuing to create artwork for people to relate to their own personal lives and test her own knowledge of wildlife.
2011年12月26日星期一
Oil Paintings on Display at the Library
Robert White didn’t grow up in a wealth family.
But the Oswego resident didn’t need the best toys and games to keep him busy. Instead, White would look for the nearest paper and pencil.
“I remember seeing a drawing of something as a kid, and I said I wanted to do that,” White said. “Once I started drawing I didn’t want to stop. I just kept doing it.”
Years later, while White was in the army, his corporal officer asked him to create some murals for the walls of the barracks.
White happily obliged.
“I was impressed with the fact that I could show my fellow soldiers what I could do,” he said.
His passion for painting began then.
“I enjoyed the smell of the paint, the mixing of the paint,” he said. “It’s a medium most people think is hard to control but I wanted to be good at something. When I got out of the army, that’s what I kept doing.”
Some of White’s oil paintings are currently on display in the Yorkville Public Library. Library personnel regularly showcase artwork from area residents on the library's second floor. Exhibits usually change each six to eight weeks.
White enjoys painting animals and landscapes. He also incorporates a spiritual theme into his work.
“In the past I thought of myself as a starving artist until I looked at my waistline,” White said with a laugh. “Then I called myself a God artist. Because the talent He gave to me. I’m a freelance artist with a God touch.”
Library employee Sharyl Iwanski lauds White’s paintings.
“His work is very vivid and colorful,” she said.
White, who also works as a security guard, has shown his work at the DuSable Museum of African American History in Chicago and the Oswego Public Library.
He hopes he can be an inspiration to others, especially juveniles and teenagers.
“Even though we were poor growing up, I realized I could still make a difference,” White said. “Now I’m trying to encourage kids and teenagers that if you’re not sure what you want to do, just try something and stay positive about whatever they want to do.”
White visited the Art Institute of Chicago for the first time a few years ago with his daughter.
“I loved it,” he said. “As I was viewing it I was thinking, ‘Am I that good?’ I just wanted to keep focusing on trying to be as good as the masters. I’m not perfect but I try to be the best I can be. I enjoy doing it. Most people call it a hobby. I call it a passion.”
But the Oswego resident didn’t need the best toys and games to keep him busy. Instead, White would look for the nearest paper and pencil.
“I remember seeing a drawing of something as a kid, and I said I wanted to do that,” White said. “Once I started drawing I didn’t want to stop. I just kept doing it.”
Years later, while White was in the army, his corporal officer asked him to create some murals for the walls of the barracks.
White happily obliged.
“I was impressed with the fact that I could show my fellow soldiers what I could do,” he said.
His passion for painting began then.
“I enjoyed the smell of the paint, the mixing of the paint,” he said. “It’s a medium most people think is hard to control but I wanted to be good at something. When I got out of the army, that’s what I kept doing.”
Some of White’s oil paintings are currently on display in the Yorkville Public Library. Library personnel regularly showcase artwork from area residents on the library's second floor. Exhibits usually change each six to eight weeks.
White enjoys painting animals and landscapes. He also incorporates a spiritual theme into his work.
“In the past I thought of myself as a starving artist until I looked at my waistline,” White said with a laugh. “Then I called myself a God artist. Because the talent He gave to me. I’m a freelance artist with a God touch.”
Library employee Sharyl Iwanski lauds White’s paintings.
“His work is very vivid and colorful,” she said.
White, who also works as a security guard, has shown his work at the DuSable Museum of African American History in Chicago and the Oswego Public Library.
He hopes he can be an inspiration to others, especially juveniles and teenagers.
“Even though we were poor growing up, I realized I could still make a difference,” White said. “Now I’m trying to encourage kids and teenagers that if you’re not sure what you want to do, just try something and stay positive about whatever they want to do.”
White visited the Art Institute of Chicago for the first time a few years ago with his daughter.
“I loved it,” he said. “As I was viewing it I was thinking, ‘Am I that good?’ I just wanted to keep focusing on trying to be as good as the masters. I’m not perfect but I try to be the best I can be. I enjoy doing it. Most people call it a hobby. I call it a passion.”
2011年12月25日星期日
Wild collection of art, rare photos displayed in Lancaster’s Ladybird’s
First you see the rack of brightly painted wooden clogs, direct from the Netherlands. Just one pair is still its original brown color.
A few steps away are old cans full of artist paint brushes, and half-squeezed tubes of paint piling out of a battered suitcase.
They sit below a pieced-together circa-1924 poster of former Boston mayor James Michael Curley. Beside that is a cardboard box full of dusty papers, with a 1729 deed from New Haven, Conn., on top. The surrounding walls are covered with paintings of disembodied people — mostly half-naked women — and much of the floor space is taken up with large wooden sculptures, also mainly of folks missing torsos and stomachs.
“I am not fond of fat people,” said Tom Stanford with a slight smile.
He is the creator of this wild collection of art, rare photography, and ephemera (printed material.)
Mr. Stanford, 61, recently opened his new Ladybird’s Gallery — named after his aging dog — at 78 Rigby Road, a wooded area on the Clinton line. His house is beside the gallery.
He got the idea after a trip to Taos, N.M., where he checked out numerous art galleries.
Shuffling around his gallery in a pair of orange clogs, Mr. Stanford, who previously operated a gallery of collectible documents and prints in Clinton, explains his unique style of painting, which he has dubbed “subtractionalism.”
“Basically, a portion of the anatomy, usually muscle and bones, is missing,” he said of his Picasso-meets-Warhol-like abstract oil paintings. “It did not start out that way, it just came upon me.”
His sculptures, which were carved from single trees cut down during nearby construction, (“I dragged them across the street”) are a world onto themselves.
One shows a Greek god entwined with a swan-woman. Another huge sculpture (the trunk is upside down) depicts a sailor, a mermaid and a serpent. Mr. Sanford said he worked 12 hours a day for seven months on that one.
When asked how he came up with the theme, he responded: “I just looked at this big piece of tree and said, ‘What the hell is that?’ ”
Its $25,000 price tag reflects the effort.
His oil painting prices range from $200 to $7,000, depending on size; and his prints average around $150 each.
The best selling print, he said, is “Lady Dancing with Death to the Tune of the Harmonica Player,” done in carved aqua Linoleum. As the title suggests, there is a harmonica player, a grim reaper-like figure, and a nude woman.
A former house painter who grew up in Wilmington, Del., Mr. Stanford, the father of two grown children, had an artist mother and a father who gave up a job with DuPont to start his own vineyard — in Delaware.
Mr. Stanford, who has had a penchant for art since he was young, moved to Massachusetts in 1980, and soon after obtained his first cache of historical documents in Bolton while working as a house painter. He came upon a box of old railroad show memorabilia and asked the owner for it in lieu of payment for the paint job.
“I took that to a railroad show, and we blew people away. I got $10,000 for it, and I realized there was a better way to make a living than painting houses,” he said.
A collector by nature, he started his rounds of attending auctions and estate and yard sales, picking up old photographs, maps, posters, stamps, envelopes and letters — pretty much anything involving paper — although he managed to grab a few death masks, a bunch of pocket watches and a vial of kidney stones along the way.
He found a photograph of Mae West autographed to Anne Bancroft in a New York City trash container. It’s for sale for $500 in his gallery. He has all sorts of rock music-related items, including original Woodstock programs, autographed photographs of the original Rolling Stones, and photographs of the Grateful Dead on tour. There are wanted posters of Bonnie and Clyde and John Dillinger.
His most valuable photograph, he says, is a full-plate 1852 picture of someone at Niagara Falls.
“It was very popular to get your photo taken by the falls,” Mr. Stanford said.
Also in stock are hundreds of original cartoon illustrations by noted artists such as Mischa Richter, who was with the New Yorker for years; and with New Masses Magazine in the 1930s and 1940s. Mr. Stanford, who was the winner of the 2004 Jacob Knight Award, said he became friends with Richter when they both lived on Cape Cod.
“He sold everything he had, about 1,500 pieces,” Mr. Stanford said.
A section of Mr. Stanford’s inventory is devoted to old “girlie” magazines and prints — not suited for a family newspaper. But to balance that off, he proudly shows off his large signed portrait of Mother Teresa.
A few steps away are old cans full of artist paint brushes, and half-squeezed tubes of paint piling out of a battered suitcase.
They sit below a pieced-together circa-1924 poster of former Boston mayor James Michael Curley. Beside that is a cardboard box full of dusty papers, with a 1729 deed from New Haven, Conn., on top. The surrounding walls are covered with paintings of disembodied people — mostly half-naked women — and much of the floor space is taken up with large wooden sculptures, also mainly of folks missing torsos and stomachs.
“I am not fond of fat people,” said Tom Stanford with a slight smile.
He is the creator of this wild collection of art, rare photography, and ephemera (printed material.)
Mr. Stanford, 61, recently opened his new Ladybird’s Gallery — named after his aging dog — at 78 Rigby Road, a wooded area on the Clinton line. His house is beside the gallery.
He got the idea after a trip to Taos, N.M., where he checked out numerous art galleries.
Shuffling around his gallery in a pair of orange clogs, Mr. Stanford, who previously operated a gallery of collectible documents and prints in Clinton, explains his unique style of painting, which he has dubbed “subtractionalism.”
“Basically, a portion of the anatomy, usually muscle and bones, is missing,” he said of his Picasso-meets-Warhol-like abstract oil paintings. “It did not start out that way, it just came upon me.”
His sculptures, which were carved from single trees cut down during nearby construction, (“I dragged them across the street”) are a world onto themselves.
One shows a Greek god entwined with a swan-woman. Another huge sculpture (the trunk is upside down) depicts a sailor, a mermaid and a serpent. Mr. Sanford said he worked 12 hours a day for seven months on that one.
When asked how he came up with the theme, he responded: “I just looked at this big piece of tree and said, ‘What the hell is that?’ ”
Its $25,000 price tag reflects the effort.
His oil painting prices range from $200 to $7,000, depending on size; and his prints average around $150 each.
The best selling print, he said, is “Lady Dancing with Death to the Tune of the Harmonica Player,” done in carved aqua Linoleum. As the title suggests, there is a harmonica player, a grim reaper-like figure, and a nude woman.
A former house painter who grew up in Wilmington, Del., Mr. Stanford, the father of two grown children, had an artist mother and a father who gave up a job with DuPont to start his own vineyard — in Delaware.
Mr. Stanford, who has had a penchant for art since he was young, moved to Massachusetts in 1980, and soon after obtained his first cache of historical documents in Bolton while working as a house painter. He came upon a box of old railroad show memorabilia and asked the owner for it in lieu of payment for the paint job.
“I took that to a railroad show, and we blew people away. I got $10,000 for it, and I realized there was a better way to make a living than painting houses,” he said.
A collector by nature, he started his rounds of attending auctions and estate and yard sales, picking up old photographs, maps, posters, stamps, envelopes and letters — pretty much anything involving paper — although he managed to grab a few death masks, a bunch of pocket watches and a vial of kidney stones along the way.
He found a photograph of Mae West autographed to Anne Bancroft in a New York City trash container. It’s for sale for $500 in his gallery. He has all sorts of rock music-related items, including original Woodstock programs, autographed photographs of the original Rolling Stones, and photographs of the Grateful Dead on tour. There are wanted posters of Bonnie and Clyde and John Dillinger.
His most valuable photograph, he says, is a full-plate 1852 picture of someone at Niagara Falls.
“It was very popular to get your photo taken by the falls,” Mr. Stanford said.
Also in stock are hundreds of original cartoon illustrations by noted artists such as Mischa Richter, who was with the New Yorker for years; and with New Masses Magazine in the 1930s and 1940s. Mr. Stanford, who was the winner of the 2004 Jacob Knight Award, said he became friends with Richter when they both lived on Cape Cod.
“He sold everything he had, about 1,500 pieces,” Mr. Stanford said.
A section of Mr. Stanford’s inventory is devoted to old “girlie” magazines and prints — not suited for a family newspaper. But to balance that off, he proudly shows off his large signed portrait of Mother Teresa.
2011年12月22日星期四
Judge tosses bid-rigging charges against second auctioneer
A judge dismissed charges alleging auctioneer Stephen Bennett rigged the bidding for a nautical painting because, she wrote, the attorney general’s office has exclusive authority to prosecute the case.
Bennett, of 171 Aldrich Road, was charged with three misdemeanor counts of collusive bidding and a single misdemeanor alleging conspiracy. Police alleged he conspired with auctioneer Harold French to rig the bidding for an S.F.M. Badger oil painting during a Dec. 10, 2009 auction at the Frank Jones Center.
French was alleged to have placed a false bid to drive up the bidding for the painting so Bennett could collect a 20-percent commission he’d only receive if the painting sold for more than $10,000.
Judge Sawako Gardner dismissed the charges in an order highlighting state law which grants exclusive authority to the attorney general to prosecute those kinds of cases.
“If the legislature intended to allow sharing of responsibilities, the statue would so provide,” the judge wrote in her Dec. 12 decision.
Through public relations consultant Hugh Drummond, Bennett said, “I am pleased with the court’s ruling. It is now time to put this behind us and begin putting our lives and business back together.”
According to the Portsmouth circuit court clerk’s office, charges alleging Bennett assaulted and imprisoned the painting’s owner remain pending.
Last month, Judge Gardner dismissed charges alleging French, of Warner, committed the crimes of collusive bidding and conspiracy. The judge noted authority lies with the attorney general while dismissing those charges as well.
Police Capt. Corey MacDonald said his office received a letter from the attorney general’s office in October which delegated authority for prosecuting the case to the local police department. The judge’s November order called that delegation of authority “insufficient.”
French’s attorney, Richard Lehmann, said his client has maintained his actions were legal for the two years the case was pending. In a written statement, French said he has “lived with this hanging over me for a long time.
“From the beginning, I have said that I never did anything that compromised the interest of either the seller of the painting or any member of the public,” he wrote. “I also did not believe that the Portsmouth police had the right to prosecute me. If the police had followed the law, all of this could have been avoided.”
During an August trial, Lehmann argued police failed to prove collusive bidding because the law allows one bid to be placed during the auction of an item with a reserve price. During the auction for the painting in dispute, there was a $10,000 reserve price and French bid $9,500 to “protect” that reserve, Lehmann said.
Prosecutor David Colby told the court an Internet listing for the auction advertised the painting as being without reserve. And in June, the N.H. Supreme Court concurred in a decision related to French’s appeal of a related reprimand by the state Board of Auctioneers.
The Supreme Court justices wrote the auction was advertised online as being without reserve and Bennett procured the bid from French, without the painting owner’s knowledge and “without notice to other bidders at the auction.” The Supreme Court upheld French’s reprimand and probation for, as the Board of Auctioneers found, submitting a fictitious bid at auction.
Bennett, of 171 Aldrich Road, was charged with three misdemeanor counts of collusive bidding and a single misdemeanor alleging conspiracy. Police alleged he conspired with auctioneer Harold French to rig the bidding for an S.F.M. Badger oil painting during a Dec. 10, 2009 auction at the Frank Jones Center.
French was alleged to have placed a false bid to drive up the bidding for the painting so Bennett could collect a 20-percent commission he’d only receive if the painting sold for more than $10,000.
Judge Sawako Gardner dismissed the charges in an order highlighting state law which grants exclusive authority to the attorney general to prosecute those kinds of cases.
“If the legislature intended to allow sharing of responsibilities, the statue would so provide,” the judge wrote in her Dec. 12 decision.
Through public relations consultant Hugh Drummond, Bennett said, “I am pleased with the court’s ruling. It is now time to put this behind us and begin putting our lives and business back together.”
According to the Portsmouth circuit court clerk’s office, charges alleging Bennett assaulted and imprisoned the painting’s owner remain pending.
Last month, Judge Gardner dismissed charges alleging French, of Warner, committed the crimes of collusive bidding and conspiracy. The judge noted authority lies with the attorney general while dismissing those charges as well.
Police Capt. Corey MacDonald said his office received a letter from the attorney general’s office in October which delegated authority for prosecuting the case to the local police department. The judge’s November order called that delegation of authority “insufficient.”
French’s attorney, Richard Lehmann, said his client has maintained his actions were legal for the two years the case was pending. In a written statement, French said he has “lived with this hanging over me for a long time.
“From the beginning, I have said that I never did anything that compromised the interest of either the seller of the painting or any member of the public,” he wrote. “I also did not believe that the Portsmouth police had the right to prosecute me. If the police had followed the law, all of this could have been avoided.”
During an August trial, Lehmann argued police failed to prove collusive bidding because the law allows one bid to be placed during the auction of an item with a reserve price. During the auction for the painting in dispute, there was a $10,000 reserve price and French bid $9,500 to “protect” that reserve, Lehmann said.
Prosecutor David Colby told the court an Internet listing for the auction advertised the painting as being without reserve. And in June, the N.H. Supreme Court concurred in a decision related to French’s appeal of a related reprimand by the state Board of Auctioneers.
The Supreme Court justices wrote the auction was advertised online as being without reserve and Bennett procured the bid from French, without the painting owner’s knowledge and “without notice to other bidders at the auction.” The Supreme Court upheld French’s reprimand and probation for, as the Board of Auctioneers found, submitting a fictitious bid at auction.
2011年12月21日星期三
Rossana waits 57 years for exhibition
More than half a century after she was given her first set of oil paints, Rossana Kendall launches an exhibition in Chichester on the back of her studies.
“I have waited 57 years to do this degree and to do oil painting all the time,” says Rossana who is offering a collection of paintings and prints at the Oxmarket Centre of Arts (until December 23).
Rossana lives in Kent, but Chichester is a place with long resonance for her, and she was delighted to discover the opportunities the Oxmarket offers.
“My mother gave me my first set of oil paints when I was seven, and I can still remember the little vase and candlestick which were the subject of my first painting. It was a shock that the painting did not exactly replicate what was there in front of me, as I had intended.
“Over half a century later, on retiring, I started a fine arts degree and am now doing the fourth of six years at The University for the Creative Arts at Canterbury. We are expected to be up to date with contemporary art, so it’s an eye-opener and great fun. It’s exciting to experiment with doing completely new things, with new ways of doing old things and new tools to do them with.
“The prints and the paintings in this exhibition are a product of the learning and experimentation.
“Still, I’m a romantic, and believe in the importance of nature and of beauty. It seems to me that a good piece of art can make the rest of the world seem more alive, like 3D specs that bring everything to life and to colour. It can depict the world of ideal forms from which everyday reality is made.
“Many of these works are to do with nature, and a nature that is luminous, almost alive, just as Wordsworth felt it to be, so that natural scenes chimed with some of his deepest thoughts and emotions. Sometimes a landscape seems almost to be speaking. The challenge is to get that across through shape and colour in a way that is true to what nature and landscape mean to me.”
“I have waited 57 years to do this degree and to do oil painting all the time,” says Rossana who is offering a collection of paintings and prints at the Oxmarket Centre of Arts (until December 23).
Rossana lives in Kent, but Chichester is a place with long resonance for her, and she was delighted to discover the opportunities the Oxmarket offers.
“My mother gave me my first set of oil paints when I was seven, and I can still remember the little vase and candlestick which were the subject of my first painting. It was a shock that the painting did not exactly replicate what was there in front of me, as I had intended.
“Over half a century later, on retiring, I started a fine arts degree and am now doing the fourth of six years at The University for the Creative Arts at Canterbury. We are expected to be up to date with contemporary art, so it’s an eye-opener and great fun. It’s exciting to experiment with doing completely new things, with new ways of doing old things and new tools to do them with.
“The prints and the paintings in this exhibition are a product of the learning and experimentation.
“Still, I’m a romantic, and believe in the importance of nature and of beauty. It seems to me that a good piece of art can make the rest of the world seem more alive, like 3D specs that bring everything to life and to colour. It can depict the world of ideal forms from which everyday reality is made.
“Many of these works are to do with nature, and a nature that is luminous, almost alive, just as Wordsworth felt it to be, so that natural scenes chimed with some of his deepest thoughts and emotions. Sometimes a landscape seems almost to be speaking. The challenge is to get that across through shape and colour in a way that is true to what nature and landscape mean to me.”
2011年12月20日星期二
Painting proceeds fund gallery repairs
Funds recently obtained from the auction of a painting from the Birger Sandzén Memorial Gallery met and exceeded the gallery’s estimated $700,000 to $900,000 shortfall in renovation costs.
The painting, the first sold from the gallery in almost 20 years, went for $2.8 million, which will be used to cover the costs to preserve the facility and its artwork.
Larry Griffis, gallery director, said he was pleasantly surprised, overwhelmed and speechless at the outcome.
“We knew the painting was valuable,” he said. “However, we didn’t expect there to be buyers so eager to bid against one another to reach that final amount.”
The final decision to sell a painting from the gallery came from the Birger Sandzén Memorial Foundation Board after much discussion.
The gallery had begun a three- to eight-year capital campaign that included renovation costs necessary to preserve the collection. Despite a generous donation that sparked this campaign, however, funds came up short, and it was decided a painting should be auctioned to remedy the situation.
The piece was a still life landscape oil painting by Marsden Hartley. It was purchased by Johan Oscar Thorsen, a piano professor at Bethany College, for no more than $75 when himself and close friend, Sandzén, visited Hartley’s studio in 1919 in Santa Fe. The fact that Hartley sold a painting to an individual buyer was rare.
Before Thorsen’s death in 1968, the painting was left to the gallery.
This piece was selected to be sold for two reasons. Its estimated value was close to that of the renovation shortfall, and it also did not fit into the gallery’s collection management policy, which places highest priority on Sandzén, local and regional works.
The Sotheby auction in New York was chosen for its extensive experience in selling Hartley works.
The final buyer, who asked to remain anonymous, paid $3,218,500 for the painting, following an applied buyer’s fee.
The proceeds of the sale will not go to operating expenses, but toward collection-related expenses and renovations to ensure the long-term care of the works. Renovations fall within the capital campaign, whose phases include a development campaign, conservation and preservation of collections, increased endowment for operations and educational services and programs.
Allocation of funds that exceed these costs will be decided at the annual foundation meeting in May, following renovation completion projected for March. Changes include new air handling and mechanical systems, complete rewiring, lighting, UV window replacements, a security and fire detection and suppression system, asbestos abatement and new exhibition room wall board and coverings.
In addition to the capital campaign, plans are also being made to work on the courtyard, which is made possible by funds from the late Walter W. Jones, a longtime gallery board of directors member from McPherson.
The gallery’s primary source of income for day-to-day operations comes from several avenues: the Greenough Trust left by Margaret and Charles Greenough, funds from a small Sandzén Foundation endowment, grants, memberships and donations.
The gallery is a non-profit organization owned by the Birger Sandzén Memorial Foundation and was established in 1955 by Alfrida Sandzén, Margaret Sandzén Greenough and Charles Pelham Greenough III and opened in 1957.
These individuals were the primary funding resources for the gallery until Margaret’s death in 1993. This was last time the gallery had a similar shortfall, which resulted in the most recent selling of artwork.
Two collections make up the gallery, which include the Birger Sandzén Memorial Foundation Art Collection and the Greenough Trust Art Collection.
The painting, the first sold from the gallery in almost 20 years, went for $2.8 million, which will be used to cover the costs to preserve the facility and its artwork.
Larry Griffis, gallery director, said he was pleasantly surprised, overwhelmed and speechless at the outcome.
“We knew the painting was valuable,” he said. “However, we didn’t expect there to be buyers so eager to bid against one another to reach that final amount.”
The final decision to sell a painting from the gallery came from the Birger Sandzén Memorial Foundation Board after much discussion.
The gallery had begun a three- to eight-year capital campaign that included renovation costs necessary to preserve the collection. Despite a generous donation that sparked this campaign, however, funds came up short, and it was decided a painting should be auctioned to remedy the situation.
The piece was a still life landscape oil painting by Marsden Hartley. It was purchased by Johan Oscar Thorsen, a piano professor at Bethany College, for no more than $75 when himself and close friend, Sandzén, visited Hartley’s studio in 1919 in Santa Fe. The fact that Hartley sold a painting to an individual buyer was rare.
Before Thorsen’s death in 1968, the painting was left to the gallery.
This piece was selected to be sold for two reasons. Its estimated value was close to that of the renovation shortfall, and it also did not fit into the gallery’s collection management policy, which places highest priority on Sandzén, local and regional works.
The Sotheby auction in New York was chosen for its extensive experience in selling Hartley works.
The final buyer, who asked to remain anonymous, paid $3,218,500 for the painting, following an applied buyer’s fee.
The proceeds of the sale will not go to operating expenses, but toward collection-related expenses and renovations to ensure the long-term care of the works. Renovations fall within the capital campaign, whose phases include a development campaign, conservation and preservation of collections, increased endowment for operations and educational services and programs.
Allocation of funds that exceed these costs will be decided at the annual foundation meeting in May, following renovation completion projected for March. Changes include new air handling and mechanical systems, complete rewiring, lighting, UV window replacements, a security and fire detection and suppression system, asbestos abatement and new exhibition room wall board and coverings.
In addition to the capital campaign, plans are also being made to work on the courtyard, which is made possible by funds from the late Walter W. Jones, a longtime gallery board of directors member from McPherson.
The gallery’s primary source of income for day-to-day operations comes from several avenues: the Greenough Trust left by Margaret and Charles Greenough, funds from a small Sandzén Foundation endowment, grants, memberships and donations.
The gallery is a non-profit organization owned by the Birger Sandzén Memorial Foundation and was established in 1955 by Alfrida Sandzén, Margaret Sandzén Greenough and Charles Pelham Greenough III and opened in 1957.
These individuals were the primary funding resources for the gallery until Margaret’s death in 1993. This was last time the gallery had a similar shortfall, which resulted in the most recent selling of artwork.
Two collections make up the gallery, which include the Birger Sandzén Memorial Foundation Art Collection and the Greenough Trust Art Collection.
2011年12月19日星期一
Columbia College art student stages exhibition at Tellers Gallery & Bar
Standing in front of her painting of barn swallows, Meridith Gray tilted her head to the right and frowned.
"It's starting to get ugly," the Columbia College art student said as she layered a grayish blue onto the painting.
"That's not right. I need orange and red for the sky instead."
Gray quickly grabbed a cloth and wiped off the blue off the canvas.
"I like it that a lot of the times I don't know what I'm doing," she said. "Spontaneity is an artist's greatest tool."
She stepped back, took a look at her work and finally nodded.
"Now, the swallows can take command."
Gray, a senior, created a group of paintings featuring barn swallows for an art class. Despite the long nights she spent on this collection, she said the effort doesn't match the demanding nebula series she worked on for more than a year.
That series is a collection of seven oil paintings based on Gray's rendering of nebula clouds from photographs. The series is being exhibited this month at Tellers Gallery & Bar, 820 E. Broadway.
A nebula is an interstellar cloud made of dust and ionized gases. Gray said her inspiration came from a general astronomy course she took at Moberly Area Community College.
"The moment that I saw the Orion Nebula picture, I knew it was something I wanted to paint," she said. "They're so big — light years across — they're really fascinating and beautiful to me."
Gray said it took a long time for her to adjust to the level of accuracy and skills she needed to paint the transience and sophistication of the nebula.
"Before this I really had no artistic direction at all," she said. "I'm trying to take it up to the professional level with this series and step out of what I'm used to doing in school that is free form."
The hardest part of the process, Gray said, was the beginning, when she needed to scale the image onto the canvas proportionally. She called it time-consuming and dull at the same time.
The fact that nebulae tend to emerge slowly at night also required her to work late to capture the haziness and depth of the clouds.
"These paintings have density and atmosphere in them," she said. "I feel like their depth is better achieved because the dim light brings out the beauty of the nebulae."
Oil painting is a process of layers that keep emerging and recessing on the canvas, Gray said. To build a three-dimensional effect, she used a technique called sfumato, which required extensive smudging to develop a hazy and obscure finish to the painting.
Sfumato was a Renaissance painting technique used most famously by Leonardo da Vinci in his "Mona Lisa."
Each nebula painting took about two months to complete, yet Gray said the finished drawings encouraged her to continue the series.
"It's so worth it once the painting is done," she said. "I have no reason to stop. I want to show what’s out there for us to be inspired by and in awe of."
Before the showing at Tellers, Angela Speck, associate professor in MU’s Department of Physics and Astronomy, asked Gray to be an artist-in-residence at the Laws Observatory and exhibit her works there.
"We tend to think that art and science are very different things, but I wanted to find ways to bring them together to demonstrate that astronomy goes beyond science," Speck said. "Meridith presented us an opportunity."
Speck said her husband purchased one of the nebula paintings for her birthday.
"I adore it, it's amazing how well Meridith captures the images of the nebula," she said.
Speck also encouraged Gray to reproduce her work as prints, although Gray told her that would be a future step in her career.
"I'm still a student, and I feel like I have to multiply the series by five in order to call myself an artist," she said. "Right now I just want to focus on producing the work and making a name for myself."
Sixteen examples of Gray's art works are available for sale at Tellers until the end of December.
In addition to the nebula collection, an abstract, mixed-media series that involves painting with tissue paper is also included.
"I miss when I was just given supplies and allowed to do whatever I wanted," she said. "I'm trying to go back to things that I did in high school when I was really free-spirited and not held down by any techniques."
"It's starting to get ugly," the Columbia College art student said as she layered a grayish blue onto the painting.
"That's not right. I need orange and red for the sky instead."
Gray quickly grabbed a cloth and wiped off the blue off the canvas.
"I like it that a lot of the times I don't know what I'm doing," she said. "Spontaneity is an artist's greatest tool."
She stepped back, took a look at her work and finally nodded.
"Now, the swallows can take command."
Gray, a senior, created a group of paintings featuring barn swallows for an art class. Despite the long nights she spent on this collection, she said the effort doesn't match the demanding nebula series she worked on for more than a year.
That series is a collection of seven oil paintings based on Gray's rendering of nebula clouds from photographs. The series is being exhibited this month at Tellers Gallery & Bar, 820 E. Broadway.
A nebula is an interstellar cloud made of dust and ionized gases. Gray said her inspiration came from a general astronomy course she took at Moberly Area Community College.
"The moment that I saw the Orion Nebula picture, I knew it was something I wanted to paint," she said. "They're so big — light years across — they're really fascinating and beautiful to me."
Gray said it took a long time for her to adjust to the level of accuracy and skills she needed to paint the transience and sophistication of the nebula.
"Before this I really had no artistic direction at all," she said. "I'm trying to take it up to the professional level with this series and step out of what I'm used to doing in school that is free form."
The hardest part of the process, Gray said, was the beginning, when she needed to scale the image onto the canvas proportionally. She called it time-consuming and dull at the same time.
The fact that nebulae tend to emerge slowly at night also required her to work late to capture the haziness and depth of the clouds.
"These paintings have density and atmosphere in them," she said. "I feel like their depth is better achieved because the dim light brings out the beauty of the nebulae."
Oil painting is a process of layers that keep emerging and recessing on the canvas, Gray said. To build a three-dimensional effect, she used a technique called sfumato, which required extensive smudging to develop a hazy and obscure finish to the painting.
Sfumato was a Renaissance painting technique used most famously by Leonardo da Vinci in his "Mona Lisa."
Each nebula painting took about two months to complete, yet Gray said the finished drawings encouraged her to continue the series.
"It's so worth it once the painting is done," she said. "I have no reason to stop. I want to show what’s out there for us to be inspired by and in awe of."
Before the showing at Tellers, Angela Speck, associate professor in MU’s Department of Physics and Astronomy, asked Gray to be an artist-in-residence at the Laws Observatory and exhibit her works there.
"We tend to think that art and science are very different things, but I wanted to find ways to bring them together to demonstrate that astronomy goes beyond science," Speck said. "Meridith presented us an opportunity."
Speck said her husband purchased one of the nebula paintings for her birthday.
"I adore it, it's amazing how well Meridith captures the images of the nebula," she said.
Speck also encouraged Gray to reproduce her work as prints, although Gray told her that would be a future step in her career.
"I'm still a student, and I feel like I have to multiply the series by five in order to call myself an artist," she said. "Right now I just want to focus on producing the work and making a name for myself."
Sixteen examples of Gray's art works are available for sale at Tellers until the end of December.
In addition to the nebula collection, an abstract, mixed-media series that involves painting with tissue paper is also included.
"I miss when I was just given supplies and allowed to do whatever I wanted," she said. "I'm trying to go back to things that I did in high school when I was really free-spirited and not held down by any techniques."
2011年12月18日星期日
Sold! Auction sells furnishings from Michael Jackson's last house
A mirror that Michael Jackson looked into as he dressed in his final months and onto which he scribbled a message to himself sold for $18,750 at auction in Beverly Hills this weekend.
Julien's Auctions sold 524 items that furnished the 100 North Carolwood mansion in Los Angeles' Holmby Hills neighborhood, significant because it was where Jackson and his three children lived in the months before his death. Jackson did not own the furnishings.
Some items brought higher prices because of their infamy in crime scene photos shown in this year's trial of Jackson's doctor, Conrad Murray, but others were valuable because Jackson and his family left their mark on them.
A chalkboard may have cost a few hundred dollars, but it sold for $5,000 because of what his children wrote on it. The note, handwritten on the black board attached to a 26-inch-tall ceramic rooster, reads "love Daddy/ I (heart) Daddy/ Smile it's for free."
It sat in the kitchen where Jackson would eat lunch each day with Prince, Paris and Blanket Jackson. It was not known which child wrote the chalk note, but Julien's Executive Director Martin Nolan said his research suggested it was from Paris, who was 11 when her father died.
The mirror with a message is on a Victorian-revival-style armoire from Jackson's master bedroom, presumably where Jackson looked each day as he dressed. He used a wax pencil to remind himself: "Train, perfection March April Full out May."
The note is significant, considering that Jackson was battling the calendar as he prepared for his "This Is It" concerts set to premiere in London in July 2009.
Dr. Murray's defense lawyers argued during the trial that the intense pressure on Jackson to rehearse for the 50 shows put him in a desperate fight for sleep, which led to Murray administering the surgical anesthetic propofol nearly every night in the last two months of his life.
Murray was sentenced last month to four years in the Los Angeles County jail for involuntary manslaughter in Jackson's June 25, 2009 death.
Other items were macabre, not inspirational.
A small table that sat next to the bed where Jackson spent his last living hours in a desperate search for sleep sold for $5,000. The "French occasional table" was listed for between $300 and $500. It was a centerpiece of several key crime scene photos at Murray's trial, because several bottles of sedatives were found on it.
The oriental rug on which paramedics tried to revive Jackson sold for $15,360, although the auction catalog placed its value at between $400 and $600. It, also, is prominent on photos shown at the trial.
Julien's backed away from selling the bed in which Jackson received the fatal dose of the propofol after a personal request from his mother, Katherine Jackson, Nolan said.
The auction house's re-creation of the bedroom where Jackson died -- euphemistically called "the medicine room" by the company -- features a bed-sized memorial covered with love notes from Jackson fans instead of the death bed.
The most expensive items sold were a $35,200 watercolor painting of floral still life by Maurice Utrillo and a $46,875 oil painting of fishing village by Adelsteen Normann.
Jackson's relationship with Julien's turned sour in the last months of his life when he filed a lawsuit to stop the sale of furnishings from his Neverland ranch.
The singer sued the auction company, claiming he did not authorize the sale of items that were removed from Neverland after he sold the ranch. The suit was settled in April 2009 when Julien's canceled the auction and later returned the items to Jackson.
Julien's Auctions sold 524 items that furnished the 100 North Carolwood mansion in Los Angeles' Holmby Hills neighborhood, significant because it was where Jackson and his three children lived in the months before his death. Jackson did not own the furnishings.
Some items brought higher prices because of their infamy in crime scene photos shown in this year's trial of Jackson's doctor, Conrad Murray, but others were valuable because Jackson and his family left their mark on them.
A chalkboard may have cost a few hundred dollars, but it sold for $5,000 because of what his children wrote on it. The note, handwritten on the black board attached to a 26-inch-tall ceramic rooster, reads "love Daddy/ I (heart) Daddy/ Smile it's for free."
It sat in the kitchen where Jackson would eat lunch each day with Prince, Paris and Blanket Jackson. It was not known which child wrote the chalk note, but Julien's Executive Director Martin Nolan said his research suggested it was from Paris, who was 11 when her father died.
The mirror with a message is on a Victorian-revival-style armoire from Jackson's master bedroom, presumably where Jackson looked each day as he dressed. He used a wax pencil to remind himself: "Train, perfection March April Full out May."
The note is significant, considering that Jackson was battling the calendar as he prepared for his "This Is It" concerts set to premiere in London in July 2009.
Dr. Murray's defense lawyers argued during the trial that the intense pressure on Jackson to rehearse for the 50 shows put him in a desperate fight for sleep, which led to Murray administering the surgical anesthetic propofol nearly every night in the last two months of his life.
Murray was sentenced last month to four years in the Los Angeles County jail for involuntary manslaughter in Jackson's June 25, 2009 death.
Other items were macabre, not inspirational.
A small table that sat next to the bed where Jackson spent his last living hours in a desperate search for sleep sold for $5,000. The "French occasional table" was listed for between $300 and $500. It was a centerpiece of several key crime scene photos at Murray's trial, because several bottles of sedatives were found on it.
The oriental rug on which paramedics tried to revive Jackson sold for $15,360, although the auction catalog placed its value at between $400 and $600. It, also, is prominent on photos shown at the trial.
Julien's backed away from selling the bed in which Jackson received the fatal dose of the propofol after a personal request from his mother, Katherine Jackson, Nolan said.
The auction house's re-creation of the bedroom where Jackson died -- euphemistically called "the medicine room" by the company -- features a bed-sized memorial covered with love notes from Jackson fans instead of the death bed.
The most expensive items sold were a $35,200 watercolor painting of floral still life by Maurice Utrillo and a $46,875 oil painting of fishing village by Adelsteen Normann.
Jackson's relationship with Julien's turned sour in the last months of his life when he filed a lawsuit to stop the sale of furnishings from his Neverland ranch.
The singer sued the auction company, claiming he did not authorize the sale of items that were removed from Neverland after he sold the ranch. The suit was settled in April 2009 when Julien's canceled the auction and later returned the items to Jackson.
2011年12月15日星期四
Oil painter Juliana Gamble feeds the flame of mystery
Oil painter Juliana Gamble learned from her boyfriend, a Harvard educated neuroscientist, that the human brain does not need all of the information in order to formulate a whole. In other words, provide it with some of the dots and it will connect the rest.
At an artist reception for her exhibit Color and Light, held at the Somerville Community Access Television studio on Saturday December 10, this sentiment was thoroughly echoed through each vibrant, yet simplistic work hanging from the wall.
All of the paintings are smaller than a square foot, a conscious effort of finishing in one session which she believes promotes focus. Her paintings of seemingly ordinary images, a wooded valley, a grapefruit, flower pot, or apple, were drawn out to illustrate a few key highlights and lowlights, allowing the beholder to connect the rest of the dots on his or her own. “You can tell this is a grapefruit, even though there are four tones pushed together,” Juliana explained.
In doing so, she has created a deceptively complex collection of images, which only become more detailed upon further inspection. Her interest is embedded in color and light. “One of the things I try to work on when painting is to find the true dark spots and true highlights. I want to make sure the contrast is there in a way that is pleasing to the eye.”
She focuses on the bigger notes of the painting, the framework of the story, believing that it is more exciting to say more by saying less. “It becomes dry and unexciting to paint every single stroke and stitch. It’s like reading a book as opposed to watching a movie, there’s a level of imagination to it; it allows your brain to determine what’s out there.”
She credits painting with training her eye to the natural beauty of everyday life. Whilst many artists become disinterested the more vested they are in what they are doing, she finds inspiration in her life. She explained that her grapefruit series was inspired by preparing a grapefruit salad. In a modern society where information seeps through every pore, an old soul can be refreshed by the fact that some still put faith in the saying “less is more.”
“It’s not as if I couldn’t paint all the details if I really wanted to, but part of me doesn’t really want to. I’m just not as interested in all of the details.”
At an artist reception for her exhibit Color and Light, held at the Somerville Community Access Television studio on Saturday December 10, this sentiment was thoroughly echoed through each vibrant, yet simplistic work hanging from the wall.
All of the paintings are smaller than a square foot, a conscious effort of finishing in one session which she believes promotes focus. Her paintings of seemingly ordinary images, a wooded valley, a grapefruit, flower pot, or apple, were drawn out to illustrate a few key highlights and lowlights, allowing the beholder to connect the rest of the dots on his or her own. “You can tell this is a grapefruit, even though there are four tones pushed together,” Juliana explained.
In doing so, she has created a deceptively complex collection of images, which only become more detailed upon further inspection. Her interest is embedded in color and light. “One of the things I try to work on when painting is to find the true dark spots and true highlights. I want to make sure the contrast is there in a way that is pleasing to the eye.”
She focuses on the bigger notes of the painting, the framework of the story, believing that it is more exciting to say more by saying less. “It becomes dry and unexciting to paint every single stroke and stitch. It’s like reading a book as opposed to watching a movie, there’s a level of imagination to it; it allows your brain to determine what’s out there.”
She credits painting with training her eye to the natural beauty of everyday life. Whilst many artists become disinterested the more vested they are in what they are doing, she finds inspiration in her life. She explained that her grapefruit series was inspired by preparing a grapefruit salad. In a modern society where information seeps through every pore, an old soul can be refreshed by the fact that some still put faith in the saying “less is more.”
“It’s not as if I couldn’t paint all the details if I really wanted to, but part of me doesn’t really want to. I’m just not as interested in all of the details.”
2011年12月14日星期三
Exhibition of Raza’s paintings starts at Nomad Gallery
A solo exhibition of Karachi-based artist Mashkoor Raza started at Nomad Gallery (NG) here on Wednesday.
Over 35 oil paintings featuring fuming horses and semi nude women were put on display, giving an impression of ‘power and beauty’.
Mashkoor is a well-known artist, creating transparency with parts of basic forms of square, circle and triangle on his canvases and abstract images of women and horses; he shows versatility of handling his subject, paints and compositions. He creates aesthetic transparent impressions through which his images adopt varying shapes.
With 25 years of painting experience behind him, Raza figures prominently in the world of Pakistani art. The paintings also featured sun and moon. Mashkoor has maintained popularity at home and abroad.
He uses, in his work, different colours, primarily acrylic. Born in 1950, Raza has a long list of awards he received in the past year. The most recent one is the Presidential Awards for Pride of Performance, achieved in 2007. He has more than 20 solo exhibitions to his credit. He has participated in many group shows.
Raza, in his statement said abstract art perhaps was the only form of art that has minimum margin of creating critiques, because this is a fluent stroke work and only artist’s experience could tell its right or wrong.
Raza’s exceptional energy, combined with passion and patience, bring forth canvases, papers and boards decorated with fuming horses and silent nudes on the one hand and cool compositions with harmonious colours, on the other.
With the passage of time, his work has taken a few turns for the better. His dark colours are shedding a bit of their darkness, turning sedate and somber. Shapes of triangles, square and rectangles emerge softly and silently in their assigned areas. He defines the space, not through linear demarcation but through variation, creating shades in the given colour scheme. His white on white has been replaced with the beauty of painterly colour handling. His achievement of translucency creates a kind of delicacy and highlights poetic qualities.
NG Director Nageen Hyat said despite his spontaneity, Raza kept his fingers on the pulse of his viewers. She said, “It’s what Raza has always done: challenging our views through paintings.”
“Raza’s latest work is experimental, using various techniques and strong imagery. As for the glossy coffee table book, it offers excellent slides of earlier and recent paintings by Raza, along with rich and informative text,” Hayat said.
Over 35 oil paintings featuring fuming horses and semi nude women were put on display, giving an impression of ‘power and beauty’.
Mashkoor is a well-known artist, creating transparency with parts of basic forms of square, circle and triangle on his canvases and abstract images of women and horses; he shows versatility of handling his subject, paints and compositions. He creates aesthetic transparent impressions through which his images adopt varying shapes.
With 25 years of painting experience behind him, Raza figures prominently in the world of Pakistani art. The paintings also featured sun and moon. Mashkoor has maintained popularity at home and abroad.
He uses, in his work, different colours, primarily acrylic. Born in 1950, Raza has a long list of awards he received in the past year. The most recent one is the Presidential Awards for Pride of Performance, achieved in 2007. He has more than 20 solo exhibitions to his credit. He has participated in many group shows.
Raza, in his statement said abstract art perhaps was the only form of art that has minimum margin of creating critiques, because this is a fluent stroke work and only artist’s experience could tell its right or wrong.
Raza’s exceptional energy, combined with passion and patience, bring forth canvases, papers and boards decorated with fuming horses and silent nudes on the one hand and cool compositions with harmonious colours, on the other.
With the passage of time, his work has taken a few turns for the better. His dark colours are shedding a bit of their darkness, turning sedate and somber. Shapes of triangles, square and rectangles emerge softly and silently in their assigned areas. He defines the space, not through linear demarcation but through variation, creating shades in the given colour scheme. His white on white has been replaced with the beauty of painterly colour handling. His achievement of translucency creates a kind of delicacy and highlights poetic qualities.
NG Director Nageen Hyat said despite his spontaneity, Raza kept his fingers on the pulse of his viewers. She said, “It’s what Raza has always done: challenging our views through paintings.”
“Raza’s latest work is experimental, using various techniques and strong imagery. As for the glossy coffee table book, it offers excellent slides of earlier and recent paintings by Raza, along with rich and informative text,” Hayat said.
2011年12月13日星期二
The Elegant Alternative To Auction
Show business in New York is a high-risk, high-reward endeavor. A successful event juggles the right combination of management, sponsorship, exhibitors and dates. Suitable venues are as scarce as hen's teeth. When renovations to the National Academy of Design forced the American Art Fair to find a new home this year, good management turned hardship to advantage.
Under the directorship of Catherine Sweeney Singer, the four-year-old show owned by New York dealers Alexander and Laurel Acevedo in partnership with New York and Connecticut dealer Thomas Colville opened with a by-invitation-only reception at its new venue, Bohemian National Hall, on Sunday evening, November 27. Seriously? To most of us, the busiest travel day of the year seems like a crazy time for a preview, but for buyers and sellers of American art, it works. Opening night was packed.
"We had over 500 people on opening night and they were the right people, a lot of museum curators and directors," said Colville. Guests included Thomas P. Campbell, director of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and Carrie Rebora Barrett, associate director for collections and administration.
The American Art Fair is the first major event of an entire week devoted to the exhibition and sale of American art, preceding not only the biggest auctions of the year, but Just Off Madison, the November 30 open house organized by 12 private dealers in American art. American Art Fair organizers budgeted just enough time before and after the sales for collectors to browse and buy, closing hours after the auctions wrapped up on Thursday, December 1.
Alexander Gallery's great range encompassed a collection of watercolor on board portraits of American Indian chiefs. Frederic Remington painted them circa 1883 for Allen & Ginter, which distributed reproductions of the paintings in tobacco packages.
Alexander Gallery's great range encompassed a collection of watercolor on board portraits of American Indian chiefs. Frederic Remington painted them circa 1883 for Allen & Ginter, which distributed reproductions of the paintings in tobacco packages.
Show business in New York is a high-risk, high-reward endeavor. A successful event juggles the right combination of management, sponsorship, exhibitors and dates. Suitable venues are as scarce as hen's teeth. When renovations to the National Academy of Design forced the American Art Fair to find a new home this year, good management turned hardship to advantage.
Under the directorship of Catherine Sweeney Singer, the four-year-old show owned by New York dealers Alexander and Laurel Acevedo in partnership with New York and Connecticut dealer Thomas Colville opened with a by-invitation-only reception at its new venue, Bohemian National Hall, on Sunday evening, November 27. Seriously? To most of us, the busiest travel day of the year seems like a crazy time for a preview, but for buyers and sellers of American art, it works. Opening night was packed.
"We had over 500 people on opening night and they were the right people, a lot of museum curators and directors," said Colville. Guests included Thomas P. Campbell, director of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and Carrie Rebora Barrett, associate director for collections and administration.
The American Art Fair is the first major event of an entire week devoted to the exhibition and sale of American art, preceding not only the biggest auctions of the year, but Just Off Madison, the November 30 open house organized by 12 private dealers in American art. American Art Fair organizers budgeted just enough time before and after the sales for collectors to browse and buy, closing hours after the auctions wrapped up on Thursday, December 1.
Gilbert Stuart's 1822 portrait of George Washington dominated Hammer Galleries' display. First owned by Philadelphia merchant William D. Lewis, the so-called Lewis-Hammer Washington was on loan to the Philadelphia Academy of the Fine Arts between 1881 and 1929. After acquiring it for a record $205,000 at auction in 1970, Armand Hammer exhibited the painting in 55 cities around the world. It is reportedly valued at $7.5 million.
Gilbert Stuart's 1822 portrait of George Washington dominated Hammer Galleries' display. First owned by Philadelphia merchant William D. Lewis, the so-called Lewis-Hammer Washington was on loan to the Philadelphia Academy of the Fine Arts between 1881 and 1929. After acquiring it for a record $205,000 at auction in 1970, Armand Hammer exhibited the painting in 55 cities around the world. It is reportedly valued at $7.5 million.
On a quiet side street between First and Second Avenues, just two blocks from Sotheby's, Bohemian National Hall also seems like an unlikely choice. But in the brilliant hands of Daniel Meeker, a Yale-trained set and lighting designer with a long list of theater credits, this year's fair was an artistic triumph. Increased square footage allowed the show to expand to include 17 of the field's most prominent members. Exhibitors set up on three adjacent levels, with the third-floor mezzanine providing a clear view of the main trading floor. While a tight fit for sculpture and objects, Bohemian National Hall is a pleasingly intimate and domestic space for paintings and works on paper.
Meeker's genius was to create a simple but elegant set. He covered hard walls in raw silk and edged them with removable moldings. He limited the palette to Baltic and Mediterranean blue, mauve, pumpkin, silver and gold. Best of all, the sets can be used again next year.
Even with its condensed time format, the American Art Fair produced sales. Jonathan Boos of Michigan and New York got off to a good start with his sale of "Six O'Clock," Horace Pippin's 1940 oil on canvas of a mother and child by a hearth. Avery Galleries of Bryn Mawr, Penn., wrote up Charles Prendergast's "In Paradise," a mirror enclosed in a frame that the artist decorated with tempera and gold leaf.
The fair showcases traditional American art from the late Eighteenth through mid-Twentieth Century. Emphasizing the breadth of their inventories, exhibitors offered more 300 landscapes, portraits, still lifes and studies, along with a smattering of sculpture. Thomas Colville Fine Art parted with a drawing and five paintings by Metcalf, Dove, Sheeler and Glackens to customers from New York, St Louis, Alabama and the West Coast.
"My personal love is Ashcan art and early Twentieth Century Modernism, but I brought Nineteenth Century works, as well,” said Jonathan Boos. The Michigan and New York dealer sold a Horace Pippin painting and featured, far left, Romare Bearden's "Manhattan Suite,” a collage and mixed media on board of 1975 and, second from left, Henry Koerner's "Under the Overpass,” an oil on Masonite of 1949.
"My personal love is Ashcan art and early Twentieth Century Modernism, but I brought Nineteenth Century works, as well,” said Jonathan Boos. The Michigan and New York dealer sold a Horace Pippin painting and featured, far left, Romare Bearden's "Manhattan Suite,” a collage and mixed media on board of 1975 and, second from left, Henry Koerner's "Under the Overpass,” an oil on Masonite of 1949.
"All my sales took place before the auctions, on opening night or the first day," said Colville, who helped himself to Winslow Homer's "Orange trees and Gate," $1,314,500, at Sotheby's.
Christie's set a record for an Oscar Bluemner on November 30 when "New Jersey," an oil on canvas of 1915, fetched $5.4 million from an anonymous bidder. Dollar for dollar, the Bluemner sold by New York dealer Debra Force at the American Art Fair was the better deal. The specialist marked Bluemner's striking "In Scarlet and Black," an oil on panel of 1932, $1.1 million.
"We sold two things, our Bluemner and a Frishmuth sculpture. We had a lot of interest in Cropsey and Bricher and some interest in Frieseke and Kuhn," said Force.
"We made four sales and every one of them was a Nineteenth Century painting," said Howard Godel of Godel & Company Fine Art in New York. "If you are not taking about Heade, Cole or Church, Nineteenth Century painting is a very good value for the money right now."
"We have had a great number of good conversations about our pictures," said Eric Baumgartner, senior vice president and director of the American art department at Hirschl & Adler in New York. Gallery highlights included Martin Johnson Heade's "Storm Clouds over the Marshes," an oil on canvas from the early 1870s, and a circa 1849 Frederic E. Church view. Long thought to depict Hartford, Hirschl & Adler has recently reclassified the painting as a New York scene.
Connecticut and New York dealer Thomas Colville founded the American Art Fair with Alexander and Laurel Acevedo. Two new acquisitions at Colville were, above left, "The Sculptor's Studio,” an oil on panel of circa 1886–1890 by Charles Ulrich (1858–1908) and, above right, William Merritt Chase's circa 1896 oil on board "A Spanish Dancer,” modeled on the artist's wife.
Connecticut and New York dealer Thomas Colville founded the American Art Fair with Alexander and Laurel Acevedo. Two new acquisitions at Colville were, above left, "The Sculptor's Studio,” an oil on panel of circa 1886–1890 by Charles Ulrich (1858–1908) and, above right, William Merritt Chase's circa 1896 oil on board "A Spanish Dancer,” modeled on the artist's wife.
Sculpture was in short supply, a deficit addressed by Conner-Rosenkranz. The New York dealers brought examples of their signature specialty, Nineteenth Century American neoclassical carving in marble, plus works in iron by Samuel Yellin and William Hunt Diederich. One noteworthy example was Diederich and Robert Winthrop Chanler's collaborative three-part folding screen of wrought and cast iron with decorated wood panels. Dated 1919, it was $175,000.
"The dealers are their own worst enemies sometimes. We should have been organizing this show 20 years ago, but it is better late than never. Most people think that the American Art Fair offered much higher quality than the auctions," said Howard Godel.
According to Sweeney Singer, the American Art Fair has a five-year lease at Bohemian National Hall, so pencil it into your calendar for next year. As Eric Baumgartner put it, "There are 17 good reasons to visit."
Under the directorship of Catherine Sweeney Singer, the four-year-old show owned by New York dealers Alexander and Laurel Acevedo in partnership with New York and Connecticut dealer Thomas Colville opened with a by-invitation-only reception at its new venue, Bohemian National Hall, on Sunday evening, November 27. Seriously? To most of us, the busiest travel day of the year seems like a crazy time for a preview, but for buyers and sellers of American art, it works. Opening night was packed.
"We had over 500 people on opening night and they were the right people, a lot of museum curators and directors," said Colville. Guests included Thomas P. Campbell, director of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and Carrie Rebora Barrett, associate director for collections and administration.
The American Art Fair is the first major event of an entire week devoted to the exhibition and sale of American art, preceding not only the biggest auctions of the year, but Just Off Madison, the November 30 open house organized by 12 private dealers in American art. American Art Fair organizers budgeted just enough time before and after the sales for collectors to browse and buy, closing hours after the auctions wrapped up on Thursday, December 1.
Alexander Gallery's great range encompassed a collection of watercolor on board portraits of American Indian chiefs. Frederic Remington painted them circa 1883 for Allen & Ginter, which distributed reproductions of the paintings in tobacco packages.
Alexander Gallery's great range encompassed a collection of watercolor on board portraits of American Indian chiefs. Frederic Remington painted them circa 1883 for Allen & Ginter, which distributed reproductions of the paintings in tobacco packages.
Show business in New York is a high-risk, high-reward endeavor. A successful event juggles the right combination of management, sponsorship, exhibitors and dates. Suitable venues are as scarce as hen's teeth. When renovations to the National Academy of Design forced the American Art Fair to find a new home this year, good management turned hardship to advantage.
Under the directorship of Catherine Sweeney Singer, the four-year-old show owned by New York dealers Alexander and Laurel Acevedo in partnership with New York and Connecticut dealer Thomas Colville opened with a by-invitation-only reception at its new venue, Bohemian National Hall, on Sunday evening, November 27. Seriously? To most of us, the busiest travel day of the year seems like a crazy time for a preview, but for buyers and sellers of American art, it works. Opening night was packed.
"We had over 500 people on opening night and they were the right people, a lot of museum curators and directors," said Colville. Guests included Thomas P. Campbell, director of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and Carrie Rebora Barrett, associate director for collections and administration.
The American Art Fair is the first major event of an entire week devoted to the exhibition and sale of American art, preceding not only the biggest auctions of the year, but Just Off Madison, the November 30 open house organized by 12 private dealers in American art. American Art Fair organizers budgeted just enough time before and after the sales for collectors to browse and buy, closing hours after the auctions wrapped up on Thursday, December 1.
Gilbert Stuart's 1822 portrait of George Washington dominated Hammer Galleries' display. First owned by Philadelphia merchant William D. Lewis, the so-called Lewis-Hammer Washington was on loan to the Philadelphia Academy of the Fine Arts between 1881 and 1929. After acquiring it for a record $205,000 at auction in 1970, Armand Hammer exhibited the painting in 55 cities around the world. It is reportedly valued at $7.5 million.
Gilbert Stuart's 1822 portrait of George Washington dominated Hammer Galleries' display. First owned by Philadelphia merchant William D. Lewis, the so-called Lewis-Hammer Washington was on loan to the Philadelphia Academy of the Fine Arts between 1881 and 1929. After acquiring it for a record $205,000 at auction in 1970, Armand Hammer exhibited the painting in 55 cities around the world. It is reportedly valued at $7.5 million.
On a quiet side street between First and Second Avenues, just two blocks from Sotheby's, Bohemian National Hall also seems like an unlikely choice. But in the brilliant hands of Daniel Meeker, a Yale-trained set and lighting designer with a long list of theater credits, this year's fair was an artistic triumph. Increased square footage allowed the show to expand to include 17 of the field's most prominent members. Exhibitors set up on three adjacent levels, with the third-floor mezzanine providing a clear view of the main trading floor. While a tight fit for sculpture and objects, Bohemian National Hall is a pleasingly intimate and domestic space for paintings and works on paper.
Meeker's genius was to create a simple but elegant set. He covered hard walls in raw silk and edged them with removable moldings. He limited the palette to Baltic and Mediterranean blue, mauve, pumpkin, silver and gold. Best of all, the sets can be used again next year.
Even with its condensed time format, the American Art Fair produced sales. Jonathan Boos of Michigan and New York got off to a good start with his sale of "Six O'Clock," Horace Pippin's 1940 oil on canvas of a mother and child by a hearth. Avery Galleries of Bryn Mawr, Penn., wrote up Charles Prendergast's "In Paradise," a mirror enclosed in a frame that the artist decorated with tempera and gold leaf.
The fair showcases traditional American art from the late Eighteenth through mid-Twentieth Century. Emphasizing the breadth of their inventories, exhibitors offered more 300 landscapes, portraits, still lifes and studies, along with a smattering of sculpture. Thomas Colville Fine Art parted with a drawing and five paintings by Metcalf, Dove, Sheeler and Glackens to customers from New York, St Louis, Alabama and the West Coast.
"My personal love is Ashcan art and early Twentieth Century Modernism, but I brought Nineteenth Century works, as well,” said Jonathan Boos. The Michigan and New York dealer sold a Horace Pippin painting and featured, far left, Romare Bearden's "Manhattan Suite,” a collage and mixed media on board of 1975 and, second from left, Henry Koerner's "Under the Overpass,” an oil on Masonite of 1949.
"My personal love is Ashcan art and early Twentieth Century Modernism, but I brought Nineteenth Century works, as well,” said Jonathan Boos. The Michigan and New York dealer sold a Horace Pippin painting and featured, far left, Romare Bearden's "Manhattan Suite,” a collage and mixed media on board of 1975 and, second from left, Henry Koerner's "Under the Overpass,” an oil on Masonite of 1949.
"All my sales took place before the auctions, on opening night or the first day," said Colville, who helped himself to Winslow Homer's "Orange trees and Gate," $1,314,500, at Sotheby's.
Christie's set a record for an Oscar Bluemner on November 30 when "New Jersey," an oil on canvas of 1915, fetched $5.4 million from an anonymous bidder. Dollar for dollar, the Bluemner sold by New York dealer Debra Force at the American Art Fair was the better deal. The specialist marked Bluemner's striking "In Scarlet and Black," an oil on panel of 1932, $1.1 million.
"We sold two things, our Bluemner and a Frishmuth sculpture. We had a lot of interest in Cropsey and Bricher and some interest in Frieseke and Kuhn," said Force.
"We made four sales and every one of them was a Nineteenth Century painting," said Howard Godel of Godel & Company Fine Art in New York. "If you are not taking about Heade, Cole or Church, Nineteenth Century painting is a very good value for the money right now."
"We have had a great number of good conversations about our pictures," said Eric Baumgartner, senior vice president and director of the American art department at Hirschl & Adler in New York. Gallery highlights included Martin Johnson Heade's "Storm Clouds over the Marshes," an oil on canvas from the early 1870s, and a circa 1849 Frederic E. Church view. Long thought to depict Hartford, Hirschl & Adler has recently reclassified the painting as a New York scene.
Connecticut and New York dealer Thomas Colville founded the American Art Fair with Alexander and Laurel Acevedo. Two new acquisitions at Colville were, above left, "The Sculptor's Studio,” an oil on panel of circa 1886–1890 by Charles Ulrich (1858–1908) and, above right, William Merritt Chase's circa 1896 oil on board "A Spanish Dancer,” modeled on the artist's wife.
Connecticut and New York dealer Thomas Colville founded the American Art Fair with Alexander and Laurel Acevedo. Two new acquisitions at Colville were, above left, "The Sculptor's Studio,” an oil on panel of circa 1886–1890 by Charles Ulrich (1858–1908) and, above right, William Merritt Chase's circa 1896 oil on board "A Spanish Dancer,” modeled on the artist's wife.
Sculpture was in short supply, a deficit addressed by Conner-Rosenkranz. The New York dealers brought examples of their signature specialty, Nineteenth Century American neoclassical carving in marble, plus works in iron by Samuel Yellin and William Hunt Diederich. One noteworthy example was Diederich and Robert Winthrop Chanler's collaborative three-part folding screen of wrought and cast iron with decorated wood panels. Dated 1919, it was $175,000.
"The dealers are their own worst enemies sometimes. We should have been organizing this show 20 years ago, but it is better late than never. Most people think that the American Art Fair offered much higher quality than the auctions," said Howard Godel.
According to Sweeney Singer, the American Art Fair has a five-year lease at Bohemian National Hall, so pencil it into your calendar for next year. As Eric Baumgartner put it, "There are 17 good reasons to visit."
2011年12月12日星期一
Painter's works of protest
Public protests against French nuclear bomb tests in the Pacific Ocean led to legislation in 1987 declaring New Zealand nuclear free.
Blast! Pat Hanly – the Painter and his Protests is an exhibition touring the country and has been showing at the Millennium Art Gallery in Blenheim since Friday.
It contains large, colourful paintings by Hanly , black-and-white photographs by Gil Hanly and Claudia Pond Eyley, and a newly published children's book by Trish Gribben recounting that time in New Zealand's history.
With things to appeal to viewers of different ages, the exhibition was a good one to have in the gallery at this time of the year, says Millennium director Cressida Bishop.
Those old enough to remember the 1980s will see the photographs and remember the years when people turned out in their thousands to make politicians take notice of their concerns.
One of the black-and-white photographs shows protesters holding a large banner, declaring: "If the people lead, the leaders will follow." Another asks: "What are you going to be when you blow up?" "It's an opportunity for young people to learn about that time," Bishop says.
All visitors with time to spare can watch a long documentary on a DVD, playing on continuous rotate in a corner of the room where Hanly's large, colourful pictures hang.
Hanly was born in 1932 and helped revitalise New Zealand art in the second half of the 20th century. Subjects for his works ranged from the domestic and personal to social and political issues.
An exhibition press release identifies passion and protest, light, love and life as the themes for his anti-nuclear works.
"Pat Hanly was a small man with a big-hearted, wide-seeing view of the world. He was bold and brave.
"All through his life he painted and spoke up about political and social things that disturbed him, especially nuclear testing when France was exploding bombs at Moruroa, in French Polynesia in the Pacific Ocean," the report says.
"With this book and exhibition, we hope to engage an audience of all ages and tell a very New Zealand story of the power of art to move hearts and minds."
Blast! Pat Hanley – the Painter and his Protests will continue to show at the Millennium Art Gallery during January.
Blast! Pat Hanly – the Painter and his Protests is an exhibition touring the country and has been showing at the Millennium Art Gallery in Blenheim since Friday.
It contains large, colourful paintings by Hanly , black-and-white photographs by Gil Hanly and Claudia Pond Eyley, and a newly published children's book by Trish Gribben recounting that time in New Zealand's history.
With things to appeal to viewers of different ages, the exhibition was a good one to have in the gallery at this time of the year, says Millennium director Cressida Bishop.
Those old enough to remember the 1980s will see the photographs and remember the years when people turned out in their thousands to make politicians take notice of their concerns.
One of the black-and-white photographs shows protesters holding a large banner, declaring: "If the people lead, the leaders will follow." Another asks: "What are you going to be when you blow up?" "It's an opportunity for young people to learn about that time," Bishop says.
All visitors with time to spare can watch a long documentary on a DVD, playing on continuous rotate in a corner of the room where Hanly's large, colourful pictures hang.
Hanly was born in 1932 and helped revitalise New Zealand art in the second half of the 20th century. Subjects for his works ranged from the domestic and personal to social and political issues.
An exhibition press release identifies passion and protest, light, love and life as the themes for his anti-nuclear works.
"Pat Hanly was a small man with a big-hearted, wide-seeing view of the world. He was bold and brave.
"All through his life he painted and spoke up about political and social things that disturbed him, especially nuclear testing when France was exploding bombs at Moruroa, in French Polynesia in the Pacific Ocean," the report says.
"With this book and exhibition, we hope to engage an audience of all ages and tell a very New Zealand story of the power of art to move hearts and minds."
Blast! Pat Hanley – the Painter and his Protests will continue to show at the Millennium Art Gallery during January.
2011年12月11日星期日
Exhibit by artist Randy Bacon featured at Ranching Heritage Center
Scott White, curator of art at the National Ranching Heritage Center, invited Texas artist Randy Bacon to exhibit his oil paintings, explaining he saw one of Bacon’s shows before ever meeting the artist.
“Familiar Territory: The Art Of Randy Bacon” is on exhibit at the NRHC through Jan. 28.
“Randy’s art caught my attention because his use of textures and colors was something I had not seen,” began White. “At least not at that skill level.
“But there also was something comforting about his images; they are familiar images of ground I’ve walked and seen.
“His paintings point out common sights of the rural communities that are passed every day, but he turns them into panoramic experiences.”
There may be no better description of these images than panoramic.
Influenced at least to a small part by his love of movies, Bacon’s art is immediately reminiscent of films watched in letterbox (wide screen) format, as though determined not to lose one iota of the land so inspirational in his mind’s eye.
Found at his combination home and studio in Albany, Bacon said, “My best paintings are places I know very well, or places that I have seen a lot. They become more interpretive, the more I work on them. They are sensory memories of places I like.
“I can even remember whether it was windy on the day I saw a place, whether the sun was on my face.”
Bacon never forgets to take a camera along on his long drives through West Texas.
A lifelong moviegoer, he noted that films had “shaped my dreams,” especially those “where setting is key, and land is character” — examples being “Giant,” “Hud,” “No Country for Old Men,” “Tender Mercies,” “Places in the Heart,” “The Last Picture Show,” “The Big Country” and “A Trip to Bountiful.”
The titles trip easily off his tongue, and he added, “West Texas and the Panhandle are so vast, their stories don’t fit in a traditional square-ish format.”
The result is that many of Bacon’s works emphasize width and are no more than 13 inches tall.
Bacon grew up in Abilene and loved to draw even as a child. He also liked journalism and found a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree from Southern Methodist University could anchor a career in advertising.
In 1987, he co-founded an advertising firm in Fort Worth, accepting the position of president after his years of experience as a copy writer, art director and media buyer.
But two decades later, he defied the advice of friends, gave up a successful business and escaped the corporate world.
Bacon entered the Master of Fine Arts program at Texas Christian University to study painting under Jim Woodson.
“They gave me a full scholarship to get a master’s in painting,” said Bacon, “and it was the best time I’ve ever had. Going back to school at 47, I had an appreciation for everything. The MFA program was kept small, only eight people, and Woodson liked to put an adult in the mix to raise the work ethic. I felt honored.”
Woodson calls Bacon a standout, focused graduate student.
“Randy seemed to be in the studio all the time. He made a lot of work, and it’s been my experience that someone who makes a lot of art often turns out some of the best art,” Woodson said. “It may come from his advertising background, but he also became ambitious to get his work out where more people could see it.”
Bacon knew he wanted to work with oils. He likes the physicality of the finished work.
He chuckled and said, “Plus, if you screw up in oils, you just put another layer on. You’re able to experiment while actually painting.”
Given a choice, he would prefer to stop, sketch a scene and use that as inspiration for a later painting.
“That’s a luxury I don’t often have,” he said. “So I keep a camera in the car.”
He began experimenting with his literal long-form paintings early, pointing out, “If you hold a camera up, all you see is a teeny square in the middle of a beautiful canvas.”
So it is not uncommon for Bacon to set up three easels, side-by-side, to support his extended canvas. Nor does he paint left to right, or top to bottom.
“I tend to work all over it,” said Bacon. “If there is an old ranch house I want to use as a focal point, I may work on that first. But it all tends to come together.”
Woodson recalls Bacon experimenting with this at TCU. “He even painted images that were almost 360-degree viewpoints. These were some of my favorites. Randy challenges the way that you experience the landscape.”
Most film and television programs do not inspire Bacon, but there are surprising exceptions, examples being the “beautiful minimalist landscapes” in cable television’s “Breaking Bad” and scenes in the “True Grit” movie remake that found him reaching for the pause button on his remote control.
One of his own paintings of Archer City includes a small bus; only later did Bacon wonder if he had included it to represent an iconic scene in “The Last Picture Show.”
His paintings may include telephone wires, a car or a mailbox; human figures are a rarity.
“Oh, I may paint one to add some small narrative mystery, or just for scale,” he noted.”
Bacon was thrilled to be asked to exhibit at the National Ranching Heritage Center, a museum he says he has often visited. He likes knowing that so many others appreciate the center’s historical buildings as much as he does, and believes that they will be the first to recognize many of the landscapes he represents in oil.
He said, “A lot of these scenes (in his paintings) may seem like forgotten places, overlooked places.
“But the idea is that, if we all just slow down, a lot of times the coolest stuff is what we can see along the way.”
“Familiar Territory: The Art Of Randy Bacon” is on exhibit at the NRHC through Jan. 28.
“Randy’s art caught my attention because his use of textures and colors was something I had not seen,” began White. “At least not at that skill level.
“But there also was something comforting about his images; they are familiar images of ground I’ve walked and seen.
“His paintings point out common sights of the rural communities that are passed every day, but he turns them into panoramic experiences.”
There may be no better description of these images than panoramic.
Influenced at least to a small part by his love of movies, Bacon’s art is immediately reminiscent of films watched in letterbox (wide screen) format, as though determined not to lose one iota of the land so inspirational in his mind’s eye.
Found at his combination home and studio in Albany, Bacon said, “My best paintings are places I know very well, or places that I have seen a lot. They become more interpretive, the more I work on them. They are sensory memories of places I like.
“I can even remember whether it was windy on the day I saw a place, whether the sun was on my face.”
Bacon never forgets to take a camera along on his long drives through West Texas.
A lifelong moviegoer, he noted that films had “shaped my dreams,” especially those “where setting is key, and land is character” — examples being “Giant,” “Hud,” “No Country for Old Men,” “Tender Mercies,” “Places in the Heart,” “The Last Picture Show,” “The Big Country” and “A Trip to Bountiful.”
The titles trip easily off his tongue, and he added, “West Texas and the Panhandle are so vast, their stories don’t fit in a traditional square-ish format.”
The result is that many of Bacon’s works emphasize width and are no more than 13 inches tall.
Bacon grew up in Abilene and loved to draw even as a child. He also liked journalism and found a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree from Southern Methodist University could anchor a career in advertising.
In 1987, he co-founded an advertising firm in Fort Worth, accepting the position of president after his years of experience as a copy writer, art director and media buyer.
But two decades later, he defied the advice of friends, gave up a successful business and escaped the corporate world.
Bacon entered the Master of Fine Arts program at Texas Christian University to study painting under Jim Woodson.
“They gave me a full scholarship to get a master’s in painting,” said Bacon, “and it was the best time I’ve ever had. Going back to school at 47, I had an appreciation for everything. The MFA program was kept small, only eight people, and Woodson liked to put an adult in the mix to raise the work ethic. I felt honored.”
Woodson calls Bacon a standout, focused graduate student.
“Randy seemed to be in the studio all the time. He made a lot of work, and it’s been my experience that someone who makes a lot of art often turns out some of the best art,” Woodson said. “It may come from his advertising background, but he also became ambitious to get his work out where more people could see it.”
Bacon knew he wanted to work with oils. He likes the physicality of the finished work.
He chuckled and said, “Plus, if you screw up in oils, you just put another layer on. You’re able to experiment while actually painting.”
Given a choice, he would prefer to stop, sketch a scene and use that as inspiration for a later painting.
“That’s a luxury I don’t often have,” he said. “So I keep a camera in the car.”
He began experimenting with his literal long-form paintings early, pointing out, “If you hold a camera up, all you see is a teeny square in the middle of a beautiful canvas.”
So it is not uncommon for Bacon to set up three easels, side-by-side, to support his extended canvas. Nor does he paint left to right, or top to bottom.
“I tend to work all over it,” said Bacon. “If there is an old ranch house I want to use as a focal point, I may work on that first. But it all tends to come together.”
Woodson recalls Bacon experimenting with this at TCU. “He even painted images that were almost 360-degree viewpoints. These were some of my favorites. Randy challenges the way that you experience the landscape.”
Most film and television programs do not inspire Bacon, but there are surprising exceptions, examples being the “beautiful minimalist landscapes” in cable television’s “Breaking Bad” and scenes in the “True Grit” movie remake that found him reaching for the pause button on his remote control.
One of his own paintings of Archer City includes a small bus; only later did Bacon wonder if he had included it to represent an iconic scene in “The Last Picture Show.”
His paintings may include telephone wires, a car or a mailbox; human figures are a rarity.
“Oh, I may paint one to add some small narrative mystery, or just for scale,” he noted.”
Bacon was thrilled to be asked to exhibit at the National Ranching Heritage Center, a museum he says he has often visited. He likes knowing that so many others appreciate the center’s historical buildings as much as he does, and believes that they will be the first to recognize many of the landscapes he represents in oil.
He said, “A lot of these scenes (in his paintings) may seem like forgotten places, overlooked places.
“But the idea is that, if we all just slow down, a lot of times the coolest stuff is what we can see along the way.”
2011年12月8日星期四
'We don't think it's a painting of Emily'
The Bronte Society has cast doubt on claims a painting being auctioned in Northampton this month is a portrait of the famous literary figure Emily Bronte.
Ann Dinsdale, collections manager at the Bronte Parsonage Museum, said the society doubted the provenance of the oil painting and would not be bidding on it next Thursday.
“We are not 100 per cent convinced it is Emily. There isn’t enough provenance on the painting and there is an element of doubt about it,” she said.
“There are two portraits of Emily, both in the National Portrait Gallery, and they don’t bare a striking resemblance to this one. The experts are saying the woman in the painting is wearing the kind of clothes Emily would have worn, which probably thousands of other women of that period were wearing. They have done a huge amount of research on that painting but we are still not convinced.”
But art experts, who have assessed the picture, say there is strong evidence to suggest it could be of Emily Bronte.
The oil painting, which shows a young woman wearing a straw bonnet held in place by a silk scarf, was painted earlier than previously thought.
The picture, recently given to auctioneers J P Humbert of Northamptonshire by a retired headmaster, was found to have been painted circa 1840, making it contemporary with the age of the possible subject – Emily Bronte died in 1848.
It is almost identical to a print of a portrait of the writer published in the July 1894 issue of The Woman At Home, which itself was attributed to Charlotte Bronte. It is thought the artist responsible for the newly-found picture may be John Hunter Thompson of Bradford who was a portrait artist and friend of Emily’s brother Branwell.
As well as that, written on the back is “Emily Bronte – Sister of Charlotte B... Currer Bell”, and on the backing paper “Emily Bronte/Sister of Charlotte Bronte/Ellis Bell”. Currer and Ellis Bell were the pen names of Charlotte and Emily Bronte from the winter of 1845 when the sisters published their poems and adopted pen names.
Auctioneer Jonathan Humbert said the attribution confirms that the portrait is earlier than previously thought.
“After much research, we are confident this portrait, recently discovered, is of Emily Bronte,” he said.
“So many factors support this contention and, as such, this represents a very important study of one of English literature’s most perennial figures.”
The oil on panel painting is set to go on sale at JP Humbert Auctioneers in Towcester, Northants, at a provisional estimate of 10,000 to 15,000.
The sale coincides with an auction where the society will be bidding for a rare Charlotte Bronte manuscript the Young Men’s Magazine.
Ann Dinsdale, collections manager at the Bronte Parsonage Museum, said the society doubted the provenance of the oil painting and would not be bidding on it next Thursday.
“We are not 100 per cent convinced it is Emily. There isn’t enough provenance on the painting and there is an element of doubt about it,” she said.
“There are two portraits of Emily, both in the National Portrait Gallery, and they don’t bare a striking resemblance to this one. The experts are saying the woman in the painting is wearing the kind of clothes Emily would have worn, which probably thousands of other women of that period were wearing. They have done a huge amount of research on that painting but we are still not convinced.”
But art experts, who have assessed the picture, say there is strong evidence to suggest it could be of Emily Bronte.
The oil painting, which shows a young woman wearing a straw bonnet held in place by a silk scarf, was painted earlier than previously thought.
The picture, recently given to auctioneers J P Humbert of Northamptonshire by a retired headmaster, was found to have been painted circa 1840, making it contemporary with the age of the possible subject – Emily Bronte died in 1848.
It is almost identical to a print of a portrait of the writer published in the July 1894 issue of The Woman At Home, which itself was attributed to Charlotte Bronte. It is thought the artist responsible for the newly-found picture may be John Hunter Thompson of Bradford who was a portrait artist and friend of Emily’s brother Branwell.
As well as that, written on the back is “Emily Bronte – Sister of Charlotte B... Currer Bell”, and on the backing paper “Emily Bronte/Sister of Charlotte Bronte/Ellis Bell”. Currer and Ellis Bell were the pen names of Charlotte and Emily Bronte from the winter of 1845 when the sisters published their poems and adopted pen names.
Auctioneer Jonathan Humbert said the attribution confirms that the portrait is earlier than previously thought.
“After much research, we are confident this portrait, recently discovered, is of Emily Bronte,” he said.
“So many factors support this contention and, as such, this represents a very important study of one of English literature’s most perennial figures.”
The oil on panel painting is set to go on sale at JP Humbert Auctioneers in Towcester, Northants, at a provisional estimate of 10,000 to 15,000.
The sale coincides with an auction where the society will be bidding for a rare Charlotte Bronte manuscript the Young Men’s Magazine.
2011年12月6日星期二
One artist puts crude oil to creative use to explore the material's history
A whitewashed gallery in an achingly cool part of London might not seem like the most obvious place to be discussing the sweat, grime and struggle that characterised the early oil industry. But as the artist Piers Secunda shows me around his new exhibition, it makes perfect sense. On the Tube one day, the 35-year-old was reading The Prize, the Pulitzer-winning history of oil by Daniel Yergin. Inspiration struck. Secunda wouldn't just attempt to chronicle the discovery of oil - and therefore some of the most important developments in our time - through art. He would actually paint in crude oil itself.
As it sometimes happens, it sounded great in theory.
"Actually getting hold of the crude oil was quite a challenge," he says with a smile. "You can go on to a website and buy 100,000 barrels of the stuff, but of course you never actually see it. It's not delivered to your door. But there are tiny specimen samples and novelty bottles from museums if you look hard enough. I spent a lot of time on eBay. A lot of time. "
It would have been easy enough, having obtained the oil and made it function as paint, to produce abstract artworks. Instead, Secunda found old photographs from the pioneering age of oil exploration, of wells and fields, and transferred them on to a silkscreen printed with crude. They're hugely effective as nostalgic records of a bygone age, reminders of oil's immense importance and, in their fragmented, almost ghostly appearance, as art. And one depicts a significant development in the history of the Middle East.
"This one is called Dammam No.7 Blowing In," he says. "It shows the moment in 1937 when the first oil blew out of this tiny little well head in Saudi Arabia. And this is the point at which global politics, economics and the history of energy shifts in a colossal way. It was the beginning of something completely new in the Middle East."
To Secunda's immense credit, he didn't just search some archives, find important photographs and dash off a silkscreen using any old crude oil. The work had to have an authenticity - which meant Secunda waited until he actually found oil from that exact well, Dammam No.7, before he made the work. He waited a long time.
"Two years," he laughs. "And then I found a corporate paperweight on eBay with the oil on the inside, marked Dammam No.7. You might think that a bit obsessive, but I really wanted the story of that specific well to be portrayed through its medium."
Such attention to detail - all of the work in the room, whether it depicts a Texan, Canadian or Californian oilfield, is painted using the oil from the correct well - is refreshing. As is his refusal to make any political statements about the provenance of oil, even though that might be a fashionable discussion to have among the chattering classes of London.
"It's an inherently political material, I realise that, but I genuinely don't think I'm in a position to say oil is bad," he says. "The incredible thing about crude oil is that it's absolutely and totally inseparable from everything we do. It facilitates everything - if you remove it, you'd have mayhem. At the same time, it's strangely politically incorrect in Europe to say that crude oil is good. I don't take a position because I want this to be a record of an amazingly important time. You have the Stone Age, the Iron Age, the Bronze Age, and the petrochemical age will be acknowledged in the same way. I think it can't not be - it's too significant."
Such interest in recording seismic moments continues in the next, unrelated room of his exhibition, where a series of friezes are shattered by bullet holes. And specifically, Taliban bullet holes from suicide bomb-attack sites. Like his work with crude oil, Secunda's attention to detail is miraculous; he actually went to Kabul with a suitcase of silicone putty, got a police chief to take him to a house that had been the scene of an atrocity, and cast the holes.
The results have a solemn majesty, but I wonder why Secunda felt compelled to make the work in the first place.
As it sometimes happens, it sounded great in theory.
"Actually getting hold of the crude oil was quite a challenge," he says with a smile. "You can go on to a website and buy 100,000 barrels of the stuff, but of course you never actually see it. It's not delivered to your door. But there are tiny specimen samples and novelty bottles from museums if you look hard enough. I spent a lot of time on eBay. A lot of time. "
It would have been easy enough, having obtained the oil and made it function as paint, to produce abstract artworks. Instead, Secunda found old photographs from the pioneering age of oil exploration, of wells and fields, and transferred them on to a silkscreen printed with crude. They're hugely effective as nostalgic records of a bygone age, reminders of oil's immense importance and, in their fragmented, almost ghostly appearance, as art. And one depicts a significant development in the history of the Middle East.
"This one is called Dammam No.7 Blowing In," he says. "It shows the moment in 1937 when the first oil blew out of this tiny little well head in Saudi Arabia. And this is the point at which global politics, economics and the history of energy shifts in a colossal way. It was the beginning of something completely new in the Middle East."
To Secunda's immense credit, he didn't just search some archives, find important photographs and dash off a silkscreen using any old crude oil. The work had to have an authenticity - which meant Secunda waited until he actually found oil from that exact well, Dammam No.7, before he made the work. He waited a long time.
"Two years," he laughs. "And then I found a corporate paperweight on eBay with the oil on the inside, marked Dammam No.7. You might think that a bit obsessive, but I really wanted the story of that specific well to be portrayed through its medium."
Such attention to detail - all of the work in the room, whether it depicts a Texan, Canadian or Californian oilfield, is painted using the oil from the correct well - is refreshing. As is his refusal to make any political statements about the provenance of oil, even though that might be a fashionable discussion to have among the chattering classes of London.
"It's an inherently political material, I realise that, but I genuinely don't think I'm in a position to say oil is bad," he says. "The incredible thing about crude oil is that it's absolutely and totally inseparable from everything we do. It facilitates everything - if you remove it, you'd have mayhem. At the same time, it's strangely politically incorrect in Europe to say that crude oil is good. I don't take a position because I want this to be a record of an amazingly important time. You have the Stone Age, the Iron Age, the Bronze Age, and the petrochemical age will be acknowledged in the same way. I think it can't not be - it's too significant."
Such interest in recording seismic moments continues in the next, unrelated room of his exhibition, where a series of friezes are shattered by bullet holes. And specifically, Taliban bullet holes from suicide bomb-attack sites. Like his work with crude oil, Secunda's attention to detail is miraculous; he actually went to Kabul with a suitcase of silicone putty, got a police chief to take him to a house that had been the scene of an atrocity, and cast the holes.
The results have a solemn majesty, but I wonder why Secunda felt compelled to make the work in the first place.
2011年12月5日星期一
Christmas stamp features Walters Art Museum treasure by Raphael
A Raphael masterpiece that hangs in the Walters Art Museum in Baltimore is getting national attention this holiday season as the U.S. Postal Service features the “Madonna of the Candelabra” as one of its 2011 Christmas stamps.
The circular oil painting, created by the famed Renaissance artist around 1513, shows a serene Blessed Virgin Mary holding the child Jesus. It was purchased by Henry Walters from a Vatican official in 1900, becoming the first Raphael Madonna to enter the United States.
Joaneath Spicer, curator of Renaissance and Baroque art at the Walters, said the painting is especially notable for the way it combines an idealized image of Mary with a very human Jesus. Standing in front of the masterwork, Spicer pointed out that the child Jesus places a hand on his mother’s chest and exhibits a bit of mischief on his face.
“You have the Christ child saying, ‘You know, it’s almost lunch time,’ “ Spicer said with a laugh. “You have that little bit of humor in there to emphasize Christ’s humanity. This is a real kid. He’s a baby and he needed to eat to grow just as a human baby does.”
Mary’s gesture also touches on humanity, Spicer said, as she lovingly rests her hand on her child’s torso.
“It’s wonderful the sense of touch that’s brought out,” she said. “The little Christ child is being comforted.”
Contemporaries of Raphael such as Leonardo and Michelangelo tended to be more cerebral in their paintings, Spicer said. Artists down through the ages keep coming back to Raphael precisely because of how the Italian artist portrayed humanity, Spicer said.
“He was able to express things in a vocabulary that artists keep using,” she explained.
The painting is perfect for a stamp, Spicer said, because it is very compact, orderly and symmetrical, while also highlighting the sense of naturalism in the human reactions of the subjects.
The postal service used a detail from the painting, honing in on the image of Mary and Jesus and excluding two angels that Spicer believes may have been repainted by other artists.
“The distillation works beautifully as a composition (for a stamp),” she said.
The selection of the Raphael painting for a holiday stamp was a surprise. The postal service had long ago contacted the Walters “out of the blue” about possibly using one of its images, Spicer said, but so much time had passed that she forgot about it.
Stephen Kearney, executive director of stamp services for the U.S. Postal Service noted that this year’s holiday stamps will be the first of their kind to be issued as “Forever stamps” – stamps that can continue to be used to mail 1-ounce first-class mail even after the price of stamps rises.
Last year, more than 1.3 billion holiday stamps were sold between October and December – one in every 10 stamps sold for the year, according to Kearney.
The Madonna of the Candelabra stamp was unveiled Nov. 18 at the Sisters of Charity Motherhouse in Nazareth, Ky.
Because the Raphael painting will be loaned to exhibitions in Spain and France next fall, Spicer said, now is a good time for visitors to check it out at the Walters.
“It was painted at the moment of the High Renaissance,” she said, “when the sense of realism and idealism worked together to really capture the imagination of viewers until today. This picture is a wonderful manifestation of that.”
The circular oil painting, created by the famed Renaissance artist around 1513, shows a serene Blessed Virgin Mary holding the child Jesus. It was purchased by Henry Walters from a Vatican official in 1900, becoming the first Raphael Madonna to enter the United States.
Joaneath Spicer, curator of Renaissance and Baroque art at the Walters, said the painting is especially notable for the way it combines an idealized image of Mary with a very human Jesus. Standing in front of the masterwork, Spicer pointed out that the child Jesus places a hand on his mother’s chest and exhibits a bit of mischief on his face.
“You have the Christ child saying, ‘You know, it’s almost lunch time,’ “ Spicer said with a laugh. “You have that little bit of humor in there to emphasize Christ’s humanity. This is a real kid. He’s a baby and he needed to eat to grow just as a human baby does.”
Mary’s gesture also touches on humanity, Spicer said, as she lovingly rests her hand on her child’s torso.
“It’s wonderful the sense of touch that’s brought out,” she said. “The little Christ child is being comforted.”
Contemporaries of Raphael such as Leonardo and Michelangelo tended to be more cerebral in their paintings, Spicer said. Artists down through the ages keep coming back to Raphael precisely because of how the Italian artist portrayed humanity, Spicer said.
“He was able to express things in a vocabulary that artists keep using,” she explained.
The painting is perfect for a stamp, Spicer said, because it is very compact, orderly and symmetrical, while also highlighting the sense of naturalism in the human reactions of the subjects.
The postal service used a detail from the painting, honing in on the image of Mary and Jesus and excluding two angels that Spicer believes may have been repainted by other artists.
“The distillation works beautifully as a composition (for a stamp),” she said.
The selection of the Raphael painting for a holiday stamp was a surprise. The postal service had long ago contacted the Walters “out of the blue” about possibly using one of its images, Spicer said, but so much time had passed that she forgot about it.
Stephen Kearney, executive director of stamp services for the U.S. Postal Service noted that this year’s holiday stamps will be the first of their kind to be issued as “Forever stamps” – stamps that can continue to be used to mail 1-ounce first-class mail even after the price of stamps rises.
Last year, more than 1.3 billion holiday stamps were sold between October and December – one in every 10 stamps sold for the year, according to Kearney.
The Madonna of the Candelabra stamp was unveiled Nov. 18 at the Sisters of Charity Motherhouse in Nazareth, Ky.
Because the Raphael painting will be loaned to exhibitions in Spain and France next fall, Spicer said, now is a good time for visitors to check it out at the Walters.
“It was painted at the moment of the High Renaissance,” she said, “when the sense of realism and idealism worked together to really capture the imagination of viewers until today. This picture is a wonderful manifestation of that.”
2011年12月4日星期日
Luminous paintings of Dr. J. Barry Hanshaw on view in Westborough
As a budding teenage artist, J. Barry Hanshaw sketched portraits of Winston Churchill and President Dwight D. Eisenhower.
Sixty years and a prestigious medical career later, Dr. Hanshaw paints luminous landscapes that seem to glow with an inner radiance.
Whether painting a mother and child in a Tokyo park or sunlight dancing across a field of snow at Tower Hill, he imbues his scenes with what poet William Wordsworth called "the freshness of a dream."
A retired pediatrician and dean emeritus of the University of Massachusetts Medical School, Hanshaw attributes his paintings' signature brilliance to the intuitive marriage of technique and passion.
"I like to see pictures that pop," he said.
The Boylston resident is exhibiting 14 oil paintings in a lovely show at the Westboro Gallery simply titled "Barry Hanshaw: Recent Work."
Running through Jan. 8, the show features mid-sized oil paintings of landscapes and coastal scenes from Rockport and Sante Fe, New Mexico, to Ogunquit, Maine, and Banff National Park in the Canadian Rockies.
They range in size from 8 by 10 inches to 16 by 20 inches. While Hanshaw has previously painted 24-by-30-inch scenes, it would be exciting to see him work on a really monumental scale.
It is no exaggeration to say Hanshaw -- at his considerable best -- enflames his landscapes and natural scenes with the incandescent palette of English giant J.M.W. Turner.
Like a child who catches fireflies in a jar, he seems to have journeyed across the U.S. in search of sun-dazzled scenes to paint.
The rising sun bathes a rocky Southwestern canyon in golden light that contrasts against the shadowy mountains in Hanshaw's favorite, "Morning in Indian Country."
In his stunningly beautiful "Dawn," a solitary figure carrying a walking stick or maybe a fishing pole strolls along a beach in the first blushing light of morning.
The convergence of a vast, variegated sky and swelling ocean is so primordial that Hanshaw's "Rockport" might have been painted on the first day of creation.
Hanshaw said he uses a paint knife to mix and layer his colors, often giving his landscapes and coastal scenes a sense of depth.
Growing up in Scarsdale, N.Y., Hanshaw said he felt drawn to medicine as a teenager though his stockbroker father wanted him to study business. Accepted at the age of 19 to enter Syracuse University's pre-med program, he only painted intermittently over the ensuing decades.
"I painted a picture every 15 or 20 years," he said, somewhat ruefully. "I sold two watercolors for $25 each."
Married since medical school, Hanshaw and his wife Chris, who teaches piano at the College of the Holy Cross in Worcester, raised five children and traveled around the world as his busy work schedule allowed.
After graduation, Hanshaw served as a doctor with the U.S. Air Force while stationed in Japan.
At the encouragement of his wife, Hanshaw revived his long-dormant interest in art while serving as dean of UMass Medical School by taking painting courses at the Worcester Art Museum from 1988 to 2010. He credited instructors William Griffiths and Ella Delyanis for emphasizing composition, lighting and color theory. After focusing on pastels for many years, he switched to oil paints in the mid-1990s because he felt the chalky pastels might have been affecting his health.
Hanshaw estimated he's shown his paintings in about 20 exhibits and been invited to show his work in several prestigious exhibits, including the ARTS Worcester 2009 Biennial and the Tower Hill Botanic Garden's juried show.
He recently published "The Art of J. Barry Hanshaw," a handsome book with 40 favorite works interspersed with his reflections on how he created certain effects.
A frequent traveler, Hanshaw said he has no qualms about photographing scenes he plans to paint, especially since New England's fickle weather makes working outside difficult.
"A photo lets me know where the light and dark is. I was never impressed with the idea you have to work on site. After all, Vermeer used a camera," he said.
Now 82, Hanshaw has the freedom to devote himself nearly full time to his painting.
ArtScope magazine wrote, "Hanshaw's work wouldn't be out of place in a museum setting." His former teacher, Griffiths, praised his work, saying, "The paintings of Barry Hanshaw keep getting better. His sense of color and light makes one feel as if you are inside the painting with no compromise of his wonderful brush technique."
Sixty years and a prestigious medical career later, Dr. Hanshaw paints luminous landscapes that seem to glow with an inner radiance.
Whether painting a mother and child in a Tokyo park or sunlight dancing across a field of snow at Tower Hill, he imbues his scenes with what poet William Wordsworth called "the freshness of a dream."
A retired pediatrician and dean emeritus of the University of Massachusetts Medical School, Hanshaw attributes his paintings' signature brilliance to the intuitive marriage of technique and passion.
"I like to see pictures that pop," he said.
The Boylston resident is exhibiting 14 oil paintings in a lovely show at the Westboro Gallery simply titled "Barry Hanshaw: Recent Work."
Running through Jan. 8, the show features mid-sized oil paintings of landscapes and coastal scenes from Rockport and Sante Fe, New Mexico, to Ogunquit, Maine, and Banff National Park in the Canadian Rockies.
They range in size from 8 by 10 inches to 16 by 20 inches. While Hanshaw has previously painted 24-by-30-inch scenes, it would be exciting to see him work on a really monumental scale.
It is no exaggeration to say Hanshaw -- at his considerable best -- enflames his landscapes and natural scenes with the incandescent palette of English giant J.M.W. Turner.
Like a child who catches fireflies in a jar, he seems to have journeyed across the U.S. in search of sun-dazzled scenes to paint.
The rising sun bathes a rocky Southwestern canyon in golden light that contrasts against the shadowy mountains in Hanshaw's favorite, "Morning in Indian Country."
In his stunningly beautiful "Dawn," a solitary figure carrying a walking stick or maybe a fishing pole strolls along a beach in the first blushing light of morning.
The convergence of a vast, variegated sky and swelling ocean is so primordial that Hanshaw's "Rockport" might have been painted on the first day of creation.
Hanshaw said he uses a paint knife to mix and layer his colors, often giving his landscapes and coastal scenes a sense of depth.
Growing up in Scarsdale, N.Y., Hanshaw said he felt drawn to medicine as a teenager though his stockbroker father wanted him to study business. Accepted at the age of 19 to enter Syracuse University's pre-med program, he only painted intermittently over the ensuing decades.
"I painted a picture every 15 or 20 years," he said, somewhat ruefully. "I sold two watercolors for $25 each."
Married since medical school, Hanshaw and his wife Chris, who teaches piano at the College of the Holy Cross in Worcester, raised five children and traveled around the world as his busy work schedule allowed.
After graduation, Hanshaw served as a doctor with the U.S. Air Force while stationed in Japan.
At the encouragement of his wife, Hanshaw revived his long-dormant interest in art while serving as dean of UMass Medical School by taking painting courses at the Worcester Art Museum from 1988 to 2010. He credited instructors William Griffiths and Ella Delyanis for emphasizing composition, lighting and color theory. After focusing on pastels for many years, he switched to oil paints in the mid-1990s because he felt the chalky pastels might have been affecting his health.
Hanshaw estimated he's shown his paintings in about 20 exhibits and been invited to show his work in several prestigious exhibits, including the ARTS Worcester 2009 Biennial and the Tower Hill Botanic Garden's juried show.
He recently published "The Art of J. Barry Hanshaw," a handsome book with 40 favorite works interspersed with his reflections on how he created certain effects.
A frequent traveler, Hanshaw said he has no qualms about photographing scenes he plans to paint, especially since New England's fickle weather makes working outside difficult.
"A photo lets me know where the light and dark is. I was never impressed with the idea you have to work on site. After all, Vermeer used a camera," he said.
Now 82, Hanshaw has the freedom to devote himself nearly full time to his painting.
ArtScope magazine wrote, "Hanshaw's work wouldn't be out of place in a museum setting." His former teacher, Griffiths, praised his work, saying, "The paintings of Barry Hanshaw keep getting better. His sense of color and light makes one feel as if you are inside the painting with no compromise of his wonderful brush technique."
2011年12月1日星期四
China paints a new commercial world of art
Yang Chao Fu has a half-finished painting taped to the wall of his small shop on the outskirts of Shenzhen. As he speaks, he leans back on stacked piles of completed canvasses, while others hang above him – pastoral vistas, galloping horses, angels, Parisian street scenes.
But Mr. Yang is no starving artist. Outside on the pavement, six more oil paintings hint that Mr. Yang has little but money as his muse, like most of the other owners of so-called galleries here. Each canvas laid flat on the ground is identical – a vase with purple and white flowers – and each corresponds to one of the many photographs scattered across Mr. Yang’s desk. These images were sent by a gallery owner in France, who has ordered 200 such paintings at roughly $26 (Canadian) apiece.
“I’m sure he’ll sell them for at least 100 [$137],” Mr. Yang says as he leans up against a stack of oil paintings produced by his artists-for-hire – which include impressionists, realists and those who excel at classical Chinese painting. “I have about 10 workers who paint for me, who work everyday. They get paid by the painting.”
There are about 1,100 stores like Mr. Yang’s here in Dafen village, which has grown since the late 1980s from a small community of 300 people on the outskirts of Shenzhen into a bustling nexus for a global trade in oil paintings. Though far removed from the fine-art auctions of Hong Kong, the flurry of commerce in Dafen is one of the most brazen manifestations so far of the world’s appetite for buying Chinese art.
This so-called “village” is now on Shenzhen’s subway system, employs about 6,000 painters and is located only a few hundred feet from a gigantic Wal-Mart – a fitting commercial signpost for this market of pre-painted Van Goghs, celebrity portraits (mostly Chinese politicians), classical Chinese paintings and renditions of modern Chinese painters’ now-iconic styles, such as the wide-mouthed cartoonish grins of artist Yue Minjun.
Tucked inside a tiny cubby hole painting space, 31-year-old Bao Jin Song explains that the buyers roaming past the framers and government-erected statues of European artists in the alleyways and streets here vary widely. Some are members of the middle class or the Chinese nouveau riche, who are interested in custom-painted family portraits to hang on the walls of their new suburban houses; others are hoteliers seeking oil paintings in volume, or business people interested in festooning their workplaces with portraits of Chinese leaders.
When Mr. Bao arrived here in 2004 after graduating with an undergraduate degree in painting, Dafen was a simple village, and success wasn’t assured despite the government’s obvious interest in promoting it as a tourist site. Now, as he dabs his brush at a mock Mona Lisa and people drift by into nearby cafés and restaurants, casually inspecting massive gold frames and paintings, Mr. Bao says he enjoys the steady hours and regular work that come with Dafen’s unapologetic concentration on profiting from art.
“I live across the street from Wal-Mart – I come here and paint during the day so people know I do it,” Mr. Bao says. “When I’m painting by myself – not for orders – I also paint what I think would sell.”
And sell it does. In 2010, the industrial-strength painting output of “Dafen Oil Painting Village,” as the government refers to it, reached 550 million yuan – roughly $86-million. Spinoff and related industries in the district were double that, at around 1.2 billion yuan. More than 60 per cent of the orders come from foreigners.
But Mr. Yang is no starving artist. Outside on the pavement, six more oil paintings hint that Mr. Yang has little but money as his muse, like most of the other owners of so-called galleries here. Each canvas laid flat on the ground is identical – a vase with purple and white flowers – and each corresponds to one of the many photographs scattered across Mr. Yang’s desk. These images were sent by a gallery owner in France, who has ordered 200 such paintings at roughly $26 (Canadian) apiece.
“I’m sure he’ll sell them for at least 100 [$137],” Mr. Yang says as he leans up against a stack of oil paintings produced by his artists-for-hire – which include impressionists, realists and those who excel at classical Chinese painting. “I have about 10 workers who paint for me, who work everyday. They get paid by the painting.”
There are about 1,100 stores like Mr. Yang’s here in Dafen village, which has grown since the late 1980s from a small community of 300 people on the outskirts of Shenzhen into a bustling nexus for a global trade in oil paintings. Though far removed from the fine-art auctions of Hong Kong, the flurry of commerce in Dafen is one of the most brazen manifestations so far of the world’s appetite for buying Chinese art.
This so-called “village” is now on Shenzhen’s subway system, employs about 6,000 painters and is located only a few hundred feet from a gigantic Wal-Mart – a fitting commercial signpost for this market of pre-painted Van Goghs, celebrity portraits (mostly Chinese politicians), classical Chinese paintings and renditions of modern Chinese painters’ now-iconic styles, such as the wide-mouthed cartoonish grins of artist Yue Minjun.
Tucked inside a tiny cubby hole painting space, 31-year-old Bao Jin Song explains that the buyers roaming past the framers and government-erected statues of European artists in the alleyways and streets here vary widely. Some are members of the middle class or the Chinese nouveau riche, who are interested in custom-painted family portraits to hang on the walls of their new suburban houses; others are hoteliers seeking oil paintings in volume, or business people interested in festooning their workplaces with portraits of Chinese leaders.
When Mr. Bao arrived here in 2004 after graduating with an undergraduate degree in painting, Dafen was a simple village, and success wasn’t assured despite the government’s obvious interest in promoting it as a tourist site. Now, as he dabs his brush at a mock Mona Lisa and people drift by into nearby cafés and restaurants, casually inspecting massive gold frames and paintings, Mr. Bao says he enjoys the steady hours and regular work that come with Dafen’s unapologetic concentration on profiting from art.
“I live across the street from Wal-Mart – I come here and paint during the day so people know I do it,” Mr. Bao says. “When I’m painting by myself – not for orders – I also paint what I think would sell.”
And sell it does. In 2010, the industrial-strength painting output of “Dafen Oil Painting Village,” as the government refers to it, reached 550 million yuan – roughly $86-million. Spinoff and related industries in the district were double that, at around 1.2 billion yuan. More than 60 per cent of the orders come from foreigners.
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