The night before she handed in her entry depicting a lone World War I veteran for the Veterans Art Show at the Bob Stump Memorial Veterans Affairs Medical Center, Betty Long found a photo of injured World War I veterans who moved in a line with their hands on each other's shoulders to get to where they needed to be.
Long, who served as a nurse in the Navy, said she had been working on her fine arts mixed media work "When Johnny Comes Marching Home - Flanders Field 2" for more than a year when she saw the photo.
"We lost so much of what we learned in World War I by the time we were in World War II," Long said. "After World War II, we heard about treatment for what's now called post traumatic stress. Back in World War I, we called it shell shock."
Long, who won Best of Show on Wednesday for her artwork, was one of 83 artists who submitted 167 entries in the Veterans Creative Arts Festival, said Paula Moran, supervisor of recreation therapy at the Northern Arizona Veterans Affairs Health Care System.
Kenny Wayne, who served on submarines in the Navy, said he used the Raku technique to make his Kopper Kiva Verde pottery that won third place in best in show and first place in pottery and that he modeled the top portion of it on Mesa Verde cliff dwellings.
"It amazes me the talent these men and women have," said Elaine Pohle, a volunteer at the VA as she walked through the show.
The Arts Festival is sponsored by Help Hospitalized Veterans, which has provided more than 27 million arts and crafts kits absolutely free of charge to VA and military medical facilities worldwide since 1971, and the American Legion Auxiliary, which donates thousands of volunteer hours to communities and veterans and raises millions of dollars to support its programs and well known charities.
"Each year we challenge the veterans to go out and tell another veteran about the show and get them involved in this program," Moran said.
John Huebner, who served in the Air Force during the Korean War era, won second place in oil painting for "The Old Prospector and Burro."
"That is absolutely wonderful," said Sukie Floriano, a VA employee, said as she looked at Lori Robinson's mosaic "Field of Flowers" which tied for third place in mosaic kits. "I love sunflowers."
Frank Hamilton, who won first place in pastels for his "Windmills in Amsterdam" and teachers a pastel class at the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute at Yavapai College, said he saw a photo of the windmills then "put my own creative stamp on it."
"It's true, there are 40 shades of green in Ireland," said Ken Enright, who served in both the Army and Air Force, and put many of those shades of green into his watercolor painting "Slea Head" that earned second place in watercolors.
John Sheley, who served in the U.S. Navy, said he used to be an electrical lineman and he used 14 karat gold and sterling silver wire in his Wire Wrapped Bracelet and Sweetheart Pendant that won second place in the Jewelry not beads category.
"These people have such talent," said Lilly Miley, who viewed the exhibit with her husband Doug Miley, who won first place in oil painting for "Rocky Mountains." "I think it uplifts them, the same way my husband and I feel like we get taken to another place when we paint."
2012年2月9日星期四
Augustus John's paintings owned by Liz Taylor raise 250,000 at auction
WORKS by one of Wales’ most celebrated and controversial artists that were owned by Hollywood superstar Dame Elizabeth Taylor fetched almost 250,000 at auction yesterday.
The works by Augustus John included portraits of former lovers and an oil painting of his daughter Poppet.
The 22 drawings and paintings formed part of the sale of Taylor’s artwork at Christie’s, which included works by Van Gogh, Degas and Pissarro.
Earlier this week the three masterpieces fetched a combined 13,787,750, more than double their pre-sale low estimate of 6.2m.
John, whose works sold for a total of 223,263, made his name painting portraits of leading figures of 1920s Britain like Lawrence of Arabia and George Bernard Shaw.
The portrait of Poppet, one of four children John had with second wife Dorothy McNeill, was the most valuable of the artist’s work to feature and sold for 85,250 against an estimate of 40,000 to 60,000.
Tristan de Vere Cole, who along with his mother Mavis was among John’s subjects and a close friend of Poppet’s, described the work as “very like her”.
Mr Cole, 70, who is believed to be the last of many children John fathered outside his two marriages, said: “I wouldn’t put it down as one of his best portraits – it’s in the mid-range.
“The hat, the face and the chair are very good indeed, though I’m not so sure about the fur.”
Taylor’s father Frank lived in John’s Hampstead home after the artist and inherited works left there by the painter.
The works were eventually passed on to the actress. She died last March.
Dr Paul Joyner, head of purchasing at the National Library of Wales, in Aberystwyth, which holds several works by John, described the portrait of Poppet as an “absolute classic”.
Dr Joyner said: “He shows the coyness of the woman and it’s so full of sensuality, which is exactly what you’d expect from a fine Augustus John.
“He’s cut off the figure to really enhance the idea of the elegance of the woman.”
Dr Joyner said the 85,250 paid for the painting, dating from 1935, was a little over the 50,000 to 70,000 normally offered for works by the Tenby-born artist.
But he said the new owner was also paying for the painting’s “provenance” as a work previously owned by Taylor.
He said: “When you’ve got an interesting provenance you’re not just buying a picture – you’re buying a history.
“And when you’ve got a history like that – a beautiful woman having a portrait of another beautiful woman you’ve got something which is worth a lot extra.”
Retired film and television director Mr Cole, who spoke about John’s work at the National Library last year, said his son was planning to bid on a portrait of his mother that sold yesterday for 3,750.
His mother met her future husband, the eccentric prankster and poet William Horace de Vere Cole and John in 1928 at the Café Royal on Regent Street, in London.
Her marriage to the poet in 1930 was to be the beginning of an impressive social career as a “bright young thing” that saw her become John’s mistress four years later.
Taylor’s father was an art dealer with a gallery in Bond Street, London, who established a close relationship with the Welsh artist.
After relocating to California during the war, he opened an art gallery at the Chateau Elysée, but quickly moved it to the more impressive Beverly Hills Hotel.
There stars like Howard Duff, Vincent Price, James Mason, Alan Ladd, Hedda Hopper and Greta Garbo could be found picking art for their own collections.
Mr Taylor acted as John’s American agent for many years and was responsible for the artist gaining popularity in the United States.
John’s works sold yesterday featured in Christie’s Impressionist and Modern Day sale.
The works by Augustus John included portraits of former lovers and an oil painting of his daughter Poppet.
The 22 drawings and paintings formed part of the sale of Taylor’s artwork at Christie’s, which included works by Van Gogh, Degas and Pissarro.
Earlier this week the three masterpieces fetched a combined 13,787,750, more than double their pre-sale low estimate of 6.2m.
John, whose works sold for a total of 223,263, made his name painting portraits of leading figures of 1920s Britain like Lawrence of Arabia and George Bernard Shaw.
The portrait of Poppet, one of four children John had with second wife Dorothy McNeill, was the most valuable of the artist’s work to feature and sold for 85,250 against an estimate of 40,000 to 60,000.
Tristan de Vere Cole, who along with his mother Mavis was among John’s subjects and a close friend of Poppet’s, described the work as “very like her”.
Mr Cole, 70, who is believed to be the last of many children John fathered outside his two marriages, said: “I wouldn’t put it down as one of his best portraits – it’s in the mid-range.
“The hat, the face and the chair are very good indeed, though I’m not so sure about the fur.”
Taylor’s father Frank lived in John’s Hampstead home after the artist and inherited works left there by the painter.
The works were eventually passed on to the actress. She died last March.
Dr Paul Joyner, head of purchasing at the National Library of Wales, in Aberystwyth, which holds several works by John, described the portrait of Poppet as an “absolute classic”.
Dr Joyner said: “He shows the coyness of the woman and it’s so full of sensuality, which is exactly what you’d expect from a fine Augustus John.
“He’s cut off the figure to really enhance the idea of the elegance of the woman.”
Dr Joyner said the 85,250 paid for the painting, dating from 1935, was a little over the 50,000 to 70,000 normally offered for works by the Tenby-born artist.
But he said the new owner was also paying for the painting’s “provenance” as a work previously owned by Taylor.
He said: “When you’ve got an interesting provenance you’re not just buying a picture – you’re buying a history.
“And when you’ve got a history like that – a beautiful woman having a portrait of another beautiful woman you’ve got something which is worth a lot extra.”
Retired film and television director Mr Cole, who spoke about John’s work at the National Library last year, said his son was planning to bid on a portrait of his mother that sold yesterday for 3,750.
His mother met her future husband, the eccentric prankster and poet William Horace de Vere Cole and John in 1928 at the Café Royal on Regent Street, in London.
Her marriage to the poet in 1930 was to be the beginning of an impressive social career as a “bright young thing” that saw her become John’s mistress four years later.
Taylor’s father was an art dealer with a gallery in Bond Street, London, who established a close relationship with the Welsh artist.
After relocating to California during the war, he opened an art gallery at the Chateau Elysée, but quickly moved it to the more impressive Beverly Hills Hotel.
There stars like Howard Duff, Vincent Price, James Mason, Alan Ladd, Hedda Hopper and Greta Garbo could be found picking art for their own collections.
Mr Taylor acted as John’s American agent for many years and was responsible for the artist gaining popularity in the United States.
John’s works sold yesterday featured in Christie’s Impressionist and Modern Day sale.
2012年1月19日星期四
Yorkshire roots dab Hockney’s canvas
Bradford-born David Hockney, considered to be one of the greatest British artists alive, dazzles with his innovative approach to natural beauty in his stylised landscapes, mostly of his native Yorkshire, in his exhibition at the Royal Academy of Arts, due to open on Saturday in London.
The exhibition, jointly curated by independent curator Marco Livingstone and Edith Devaney of the Royal Academy of Arts, focuses on oil paintings by Hockney, but includes charcoal and iPad drawings, sketchbooks, photographs and films too.
Hockney, who was invited to hold the exhibition of his landscapes at the Royal Academy of Arts in 2007, was very clear that he did not want it to be a retrospective of his work. He created huge iPad prints of Yosemite Valley in California, a recreation of 17th century French painter Claude Lorrain’s The Sermon on the Mount and a set of paintings of Yorkshire’s Woldgate Woods.
“The biggest artistic influence on Hockney has been Picasso,” reveals Livingstone, adding that Hockney, who had moved to California in 1964, was drawn back to his Yorkshire roots when he moved back for six months in 1997 to spend time with his dying friend, Jonathan Silver.
Hockney was inspired by his stay in Yorkshire to paint the landscapes of his native county from memory, a combination of his daily visits from his mother’s home to his ill friend’s house and his childhood reminiscences.
“By moving to painting landscapes, I am sure at the back of his mind he must have had a small thought about how he would be able to free himself of Picasso’s influence,” said Livingstone, adding that his use of bold and striking colours is “a way of inviting spectators into the personal space of the painting and experience the feeling for themselves.”
Hockney, who has been living and painting in Bridlington, the seaside town in Yorkshire, which time forgot, as the 74-year-old artist likes to say, has been focusing on examining the same place at different times of day and seasons.
“The quality of light in that part of East Yorkshire is close to magical,” says Edith Devaney, adding that Hockney is completely attuned to the changes brought about by time and seasons.
The changes in the Yorkshire seasons, the cycle of growth and variations in light conditions are best captured in the section of paintings on hawthorn blossoms, the ephemeral white flowers, he refers to as “nature’s erection.”
The centrepiece of the exhibition is the huge The Arrival Of Spring In Woldgate, East Yorkshire painting made up of 32 separate canvases surrounded by 51 iPad drawings of the transition from winter to spring on one small road.
The exhibition has many paintings by Hockney where he has used his oft-repeated grid, dividing a large imposing painting into multiple smaller canvases to give a collage-like image to the painting.
Hockney has carried on this technique, which he developed as part of his early photocollages, to his experimental films on his art too. “The influence of his links to theatre has led to his conviction that his art must be seen and be visible from far, at every level, giving it a grandness very rare to see,” says Devaney.
The exhibition, jointly curated by independent curator Marco Livingstone and Edith Devaney of the Royal Academy of Arts, focuses on oil paintings by Hockney, but includes charcoal and iPad drawings, sketchbooks, photographs and films too.
Hockney, who was invited to hold the exhibition of his landscapes at the Royal Academy of Arts in 2007, was very clear that he did not want it to be a retrospective of his work. He created huge iPad prints of Yosemite Valley in California, a recreation of 17th century French painter Claude Lorrain’s The Sermon on the Mount and a set of paintings of Yorkshire’s Woldgate Woods.
“The biggest artistic influence on Hockney has been Picasso,” reveals Livingstone, adding that Hockney, who had moved to California in 1964, was drawn back to his Yorkshire roots when he moved back for six months in 1997 to spend time with his dying friend, Jonathan Silver.
Hockney was inspired by his stay in Yorkshire to paint the landscapes of his native county from memory, a combination of his daily visits from his mother’s home to his ill friend’s house and his childhood reminiscences.
“By moving to painting landscapes, I am sure at the back of his mind he must have had a small thought about how he would be able to free himself of Picasso’s influence,” said Livingstone, adding that his use of bold and striking colours is “a way of inviting spectators into the personal space of the painting and experience the feeling for themselves.”
Hockney, who has been living and painting in Bridlington, the seaside town in Yorkshire, which time forgot, as the 74-year-old artist likes to say, has been focusing on examining the same place at different times of day and seasons.
“The quality of light in that part of East Yorkshire is close to magical,” says Edith Devaney, adding that Hockney is completely attuned to the changes brought about by time and seasons.
The changes in the Yorkshire seasons, the cycle of growth and variations in light conditions are best captured in the section of paintings on hawthorn blossoms, the ephemeral white flowers, he refers to as “nature’s erection.”
The centrepiece of the exhibition is the huge The Arrival Of Spring In Woldgate, East Yorkshire painting made up of 32 separate canvases surrounded by 51 iPad drawings of the transition from winter to spring on one small road.
The exhibition has many paintings by Hockney where he has used his oft-repeated grid, dividing a large imposing painting into multiple smaller canvases to give a collage-like image to the painting.
Hockney has carried on this technique, which he developed as part of his early photocollages, to his experimental films on his art too. “The influence of his links to theatre has led to his conviction that his art must be seen and be visible from far, at every level, giving it a grandness very rare to see,” says Devaney.
2012年1月16日星期一
A Bigger Picture, Royal Academy of Arts, review
It is 50 years since David Hockney graduated from the Royal College of Art wearing a gold lame jacket. Within a few years he had earned a reputation as an enfant terrible whose risque autobiographical work touched upon the taboo subject of homosexuality. With his oversized spectacles and hair dyed silvery blond, he became Brit art’s first celebrity: a charmer whose personality beguiled the public as much as his work.
Fast-forward half a century, and Hockney is still feted and adored. He shed his skin of provocative wunderkind long ago, fashioning instead a role as a plain-speaking chain-smoker specialising in common sense. Following the death of Lucian Freud, he is routinely described as Britain’s greatest living painter. He is certainly the most popular: there have reportedly been more advance ticket sales for his new exhibition at the Royal Academy than there were for the gallery’s blockbuster Van Gogh exhibition in 2010.
David Hockney: A Bigger Picture is devoted to a single genre: landscape. It came about after the artist showed Bigger Trees near Warter – a gargantuan landscape covering 50 canvases that is now in the collection of the Tate – at the Royal Academy Summer Exhibition in 2007. After it caused a splash , the RA offered Hockney the full suite of main galleries for a show of landscapes. The resulting exhibition contains more than 150 works, mostly created within the past decade.
Many were painted outdoors and depict the countryside around Bridlington, the small Yorkshire seaside town where Hockney has lived for seven years. There are bright oil paintings of wheat fields and tree-lined country lanes. There are multi-canvas vistas of woodland seen in different seasons. There are watercolours of hedgerows and haystacks, charcoal sketches of copses and logs, and more than 50 colourful “drawings”, created using an iPad and printed on to paper, documenting the onset of spring along an old Roman road that runs out of Bridlington. There are even nine- and 18-screen video works that record the fluctuating appearance of Woldgate Woods: captured using high-definition cameras ingeniously rigged on to Hockney’s Jeep, they subject the natural world to the kind of scrutiny that the German artist Albrecht Dürer once lavished upon a clump of turf. Generally the mood is upbeat, homely yet wonderstruck. I half expected to hear a cuckoo sing. The colours are citrus-sharp.
You would be forgiven for asking: what happened? After all, Hockney is best known as the raunchy Californian sensualist who painted sun-kissed boys gliding through the azure swimming pools of Los Angeles in the Sixties. And yet here he presents himself as a modest pastoralist, content to hymn the bounty of nature with quiet exultation – dancing, like Wordsworth, among the daffodils. Once inspired by distant destinations such as Egypt, China and America’s West Coast, he now seems happy pottering about a neglected nook of England. The prodigal son has returned to within 65 miles of Bradford, where he was born in 1937, and settled down. The internationalist has turned parochial. The radical has come over all conservative.
As if to explain this transformation, the second room of the exhibition presents a mini-retrospective of earlier landscapes. We see two dingy paintings from the Fifties, a smattering of stylish canvases from the Sixties and Seventies, and several views of California and the Grand Canyon, including one gigantic work full of oranges and reds so scorching you can practically feel your retina burning up. The gallery functions as a kind of airlock, inviting us to shed our perceptions and consider Hockney afresh as a landscape artist, before venturing forth to look at his more recent work.
Whether or not we accept this argument, the simple truth is that the show is far too big. Like a sprawling oak in need of a tree surgeon, it required a stronger curator prepared to lop off the deadwood. I could happily have done without the watercolours recording midsummer in east Yorkshire in 2004, or the suite of smallish oil paintings from the following year.
Perhaps it’s a generational thing, but I don’t understand paintings like these. Fresh, bright and perfectly delightful, they are much too polite and unthinkingly happy for my taste: if they offer a vision of arcadia, it is a mindless one. Moreover, they resemble the sorts of landscapes that we expect from amateur Sunday painters. Hockney is anything but that – yet whatever game he is playing here eludes me.
The iPad drawings from 2011 are similarly irksome. Some people get excited because they were made using a piece of fashionable technology . Yet the technique is surely immaterial – as Hockney says, an iPad is just another tool for an artist, like a brush.
What’s important is how they look: competent, easy on the eye ,but flat as though drawn with felt-tip pen. Some of the earlier pictures in the sequence, featuring tumbledown brick walls and tree stumps, look like illustrations for horror fiction. The later ones, full of frothy blossom and unfurling buds, have a trite cheeriness. They would look wonderful on the walls of a hospital, but the prominence they are given here is baffling. They appear to ignore an entire century of modern art — a narrative, incidentally, with which Hockney is fully up to speed. Why would someone so clued up wilfully paint as though surrealism, colour-field abstraction, minimalism and all the rest hadn’thappened? These images are so passe they feel like a provocation. I don’t get it.
The memorable pictures are those in which the prevailing note isn’t cheeriness, but something much stranger, more ferocious and intense. There is a room full of paintings of hawthorn blossom. It looks like a patisserie in which someone has run amok: thick slugs of primrose pigment representing blossom have been slathered on to the canvases like icing and whipped cream.
May Blossom on the Roman Road is palpably odd. The trees and shrubs have strong, simple silhouettes, like ornamental topiary. Beneath an animated sky awash with swirling blue and mauve marks, like something out of late Van Gogh, they appear to creep and throb, as though imbued with extraterrestrial life. This large work, painted upon eight canvases, transforms a mundane annual occurrence into something spectacularly weird.
Another series, Winter Timber and Totems, introduces a touch of foreboding and forlorn melancholy. We are in the woods. Using an extreme Fauvist palette, Hockney paints tree stumps and felled logs. The culmination of the sequence is the 15-canvas oil painting Winter Timber (2009). An imposing magenta stump dominates the foreground. Next to it, piles of orange logs stripped of their bark lie beside a road that leads off into the distance. The track is flanked by slender blue trees, some of which start to bend and curl into a disconcerting vortex as they approach the horizon. Thanks to the preternatural colours, the scene feels uncanny, suffused with the intensity of a vision. It doesn’t take long to read the stump and logs as reminders of mortality, or to understand that Hockney has transformed a humdrum wintry scene into a gateway to the afterlife. The motifs – a backdrop of bare trees and piles of logs – made me think of Paul Nash’s unsettling Landscape at Iden (1929), another mysterious painting fraught with psychological disturbance, though recast with the bold colour combinations and simplified shapes of late Matisse.
Fast-forward half a century, and Hockney is still feted and adored. He shed his skin of provocative wunderkind long ago, fashioning instead a role as a plain-speaking chain-smoker specialising in common sense. Following the death of Lucian Freud, he is routinely described as Britain’s greatest living painter. He is certainly the most popular: there have reportedly been more advance ticket sales for his new exhibition at the Royal Academy than there were for the gallery’s blockbuster Van Gogh exhibition in 2010.
David Hockney: A Bigger Picture is devoted to a single genre: landscape. It came about after the artist showed Bigger Trees near Warter – a gargantuan landscape covering 50 canvases that is now in the collection of the Tate – at the Royal Academy Summer Exhibition in 2007. After it caused a splash , the RA offered Hockney the full suite of main galleries for a show of landscapes. The resulting exhibition contains more than 150 works, mostly created within the past decade.
Many were painted outdoors and depict the countryside around Bridlington, the small Yorkshire seaside town where Hockney has lived for seven years. There are bright oil paintings of wheat fields and tree-lined country lanes. There are multi-canvas vistas of woodland seen in different seasons. There are watercolours of hedgerows and haystacks, charcoal sketches of copses and logs, and more than 50 colourful “drawings”, created using an iPad and printed on to paper, documenting the onset of spring along an old Roman road that runs out of Bridlington. There are even nine- and 18-screen video works that record the fluctuating appearance of Woldgate Woods: captured using high-definition cameras ingeniously rigged on to Hockney’s Jeep, they subject the natural world to the kind of scrutiny that the German artist Albrecht Dürer once lavished upon a clump of turf. Generally the mood is upbeat, homely yet wonderstruck. I half expected to hear a cuckoo sing. The colours are citrus-sharp.
You would be forgiven for asking: what happened? After all, Hockney is best known as the raunchy Californian sensualist who painted sun-kissed boys gliding through the azure swimming pools of Los Angeles in the Sixties. And yet here he presents himself as a modest pastoralist, content to hymn the bounty of nature with quiet exultation – dancing, like Wordsworth, among the daffodils. Once inspired by distant destinations such as Egypt, China and America’s West Coast, he now seems happy pottering about a neglected nook of England. The prodigal son has returned to within 65 miles of Bradford, where he was born in 1937, and settled down. The internationalist has turned parochial. The radical has come over all conservative.
As if to explain this transformation, the second room of the exhibition presents a mini-retrospective of earlier landscapes. We see two dingy paintings from the Fifties, a smattering of stylish canvases from the Sixties and Seventies, and several views of California and the Grand Canyon, including one gigantic work full of oranges and reds so scorching you can practically feel your retina burning up. The gallery functions as a kind of airlock, inviting us to shed our perceptions and consider Hockney afresh as a landscape artist, before venturing forth to look at his more recent work.
Whether or not we accept this argument, the simple truth is that the show is far too big. Like a sprawling oak in need of a tree surgeon, it required a stronger curator prepared to lop off the deadwood. I could happily have done without the watercolours recording midsummer in east Yorkshire in 2004, or the suite of smallish oil paintings from the following year.
Perhaps it’s a generational thing, but I don’t understand paintings like these. Fresh, bright and perfectly delightful, they are much too polite and unthinkingly happy for my taste: if they offer a vision of arcadia, it is a mindless one. Moreover, they resemble the sorts of landscapes that we expect from amateur Sunday painters. Hockney is anything but that – yet whatever game he is playing here eludes me.
The iPad drawings from 2011 are similarly irksome. Some people get excited because they were made using a piece of fashionable technology . Yet the technique is surely immaterial – as Hockney says, an iPad is just another tool for an artist, like a brush.
What’s important is how they look: competent, easy on the eye ,but flat as though drawn with felt-tip pen. Some of the earlier pictures in the sequence, featuring tumbledown brick walls and tree stumps, look like illustrations for horror fiction. The later ones, full of frothy blossom and unfurling buds, have a trite cheeriness. They would look wonderful on the walls of a hospital, but the prominence they are given here is baffling. They appear to ignore an entire century of modern art — a narrative, incidentally, with which Hockney is fully up to speed. Why would someone so clued up wilfully paint as though surrealism, colour-field abstraction, minimalism and all the rest hadn’thappened? These images are so passe they feel like a provocation. I don’t get it.
The memorable pictures are those in which the prevailing note isn’t cheeriness, but something much stranger, more ferocious and intense. There is a room full of paintings of hawthorn blossom. It looks like a patisserie in which someone has run amok: thick slugs of primrose pigment representing blossom have been slathered on to the canvases like icing and whipped cream.
May Blossom on the Roman Road is palpably odd. The trees and shrubs have strong, simple silhouettes, like ornamental topiary. Beneath an animated sky awash with swirling blue and mauve marks, like something out of late Van Gogh, they appear to creep and throb, as though imbued with extraterrestrial life. This large work, painted upon eight canvases, transforms a mundane annual occurrence into something spectacularly weird.
Another series, Winter Timber and Totems, introduces a touch of foreboding and forlorn melancholy. We are in the woods. Using an extreme Fauvist palette, Hockney paints tree stumps and felled logs. The culmination of the sequence is the 15-canvas oil painting Winter Timber (2009). An imposing magenta stump dominates the foreground. Next to it, piles of orange logs stripped of their bark lie beside a road that leads off into the distance. The track is flanked by slender blue trees, some of which start to bend and curl into a disconcerting vortex as they approach the horizon. Thanks to the preternatural colours, the scene feels uncanny, suffused with the intensity of a vision. It doesn’t take long to read the stump and logs as reminders of mortality, or to understand that Hockney has transformed a humdrum wintry scene into a gateway to the afterlife. The motifs – a backdrop of bare trees and piles of logs – made me think of Paul Nash’s unsettling Landscape at Iden (1929), another mysterious painting fraught with psychological disturbance, though recast with the bold colour combinations and simplified shapes of late Matisse.
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11月20日星期日
New DIA exhibit explores Rembrandt's unconventional approach
If you were an artist in northern Europe in the middle of the 17th Century and wanted to paint a picture of Jesus, what would he look like?
You likely would have given him light-brown hair, perhaps with blond highlights, a high forehead, pink-tinged cheeks, a long, thin nose, narrow lips and a faraway look in his eyes. These traits were drawn from standard images rooted in Byzantine sources and the apocryphal "Lentulus letter" that detailed Jesus' appearance in such phrases as "hair the color of a ripe hazelnut," "no wrinkles or marks on his face," "the most beautiful of all mortals."
What you would not have done is what Rembrandt van Rijn almost certainly did in the 1640s, which was to find a young Sephardic man in the Jewish Quarter of Amsterdam where the artist lived and paint his portrait based on real life. Rembrandt created a naturalistic Jesus, with dark hair and dark complexion, a lower forehead, wider face and brow and gentle eyes that meet a viewer's gaze.
This radical redefinition of Jesus in Western art -- its origins, development and meaning -- stands at the center of "Rembrandt and the Face of Jesus," an astonishing, often breathtaking exhibition opening today at the Detroit Institute of Arts. Rembrandt transforms the image of Christ from a figure of godly measure and heroic suffering into a more human-scaled embodiment of divine spirituality.
Organized by the DIA with the Louvre Museum in Paris and the Philadelphia Museum of Art, "Rembrandt and the Face of Jesus" includes 64 paintings, drawings and prints, 52 of them by Rembrandt and his immediate circle. While the show is not large compared to the DIA's previous blockbusters devoted to Van Gogh or Degas, it packs an intense wallop borne of its tight focus, meticulous scholarship and, not least of all, because it delivers a number of masterpieces that rarely travel, among them the landmark "The Supper at Emmaus" lent by the Louvre.
The Dutch-born Rembrandt belongs on the shortlist of the greatest artists in the canon, and the DIA chronicles his flowering genius as expressed through the singularly potent subject of his depiction of Jesus.
As the show reveals -- and DIA curator emeritus of European paintings George Keyes and Philadelphia's then curator Lloyd DeWitt emphasize in their trenchant individual essays in the hefty, first-rate exhibition catalog -- more conventional portrayals of Jesus echo through Rembrandt's earlier works: Jesus raises his hand emphatically in the 1632 engraving and etching "The Raising of Lazarus" and he appears light-haired and shallow-featured in the major painting "Christ and the Woman Taken in Adultery" (1644) from the National Gallery of London.
But in the seven remarkable small oil sketches of the heads of Christ that Rembrandt and his studio began producing around 1648 -- and which form the nucleus of the exhibition -- a new vision emerges. Here is a realistic Jesus wearing a contemplative expression evoking goodness, compassion and a richly textured inner life.
He is both the picture of a man meditating on quotidian existence and an object for a viewer's own quiet meditation. He appears to not be providing answers but, like us, seeking them. On the deepest frequencies, Rembrandt's Jesus is the embodiment of the Dutch master's search for the meaning of Christ in a language as mysterious and profound as religion itself -- the language of art.
The Louvre's serene "The Supper at Emmaus," one of several works illustrating the post-resurrection moment in which Christ is recognized by two of his disciples, immediately before he disappears in a flash of light, crystallizes the transformation. The painting is displayed next to the DIA's "Head of Christ," attributed to Rembrandt, whose tilted head and visage have long been recognized as a study for the Louvre's painting.
As Keyes writes in his essay, the painting culminated Rembrandt's "increasing sense of quietude" in depicting religious subjects. Christ's subtle radiance marries with the restrained reaction of his disciples and the simple architectural setting to create a scene of striking tranquility. What a contrast to the anguished suffering portrayed in the paintings by Rembrandt's contemporaries Guido Reni and Valentin de Doulogne shown in the opening gallery as examples of the Catholic house style.
The Louvre's "Supper" is far from the only stunner, and while the paintings are the flashiest pieces, the pleasures of the works on paper are often just as rewarding. Take your time, look closely. The seminal "The Hundred Guilder Print" ("Christ Preaching"), seen in an extraordinarily fine impression from the Metropolitan Museum of Art, catalogs all of Rembrandt's gifts -- virtuoso draftsmanship, masterful storytelling, innovative use of light and shade, compositional subtleties and the ability to wring maximum emotion with a minimum of fuss.
Like all of the DIA's special exhibitions these days, "Rembrandt and the Face of Jesus" is aggressively installed and interpreted. It's organized thematically and offers a full battalion of silent video projections, photo screens, a sprawling tabletop relief map of the Amsterdam in which the artist lived and generous, generally smart labeling that offers a deep dive into individual pieces of art, Rembrandt's sources and influences, his innovations and several broad cultural narratives.
Still, there are times when the bells and whistles overwhelm the sublimity of the art, and it's a relief that the key central gallery boasting the seven heads of Christ and the Louvre's "Supper" unfolds with greater restraint and intimacy, which intensifies their knee-buckling beauty and drama.
Given that the DIA recently devoted an exhibition to exploring issues of authenticity in the museum world, it's a little surprising that the current show ignores the fact that there is no consensus on whether Rembrandt or his students were primarily responsible for the heads of Christ. The catalog essays, by contrast, include a summary of heroic forensic work by a team from Philadelphia and make a strong case that at least some of these heads, including Detroit's, are Rembrandt autographs.
The exhibition is particularly strong on placing Rembrandt in the social context of Dutch society -- the wealthiest, most mercantile and cosmopolitan and the most religiously tolerant in Europe at the time. Jews were not restricted to ghettos and were allowed to worship freely.
You likely would have given him light-brown hair, perhaps with blond highlights, a high forehead, pink-tinged cheeks, a long, thin nose, narrow lips and a faraway look in his eyes. These traits were drawn from standard images rooted in Byzantine sources and the apocryphal "Lentulus letter" that detailed Jesus' appearance in such phrases as "hair the color of a ripe hazelnut," "no wrinkles or marks on his face," "the most beautiful of all mortals."
What you would not have done is what Rembrandt van Rijn almost certainly did in the 1640s, which was to find a young Sephardic man in the Jewish Quarter of Amsterdam where the artist lived and paint his portrait based on real life. Rembrandt created a naturalistic Jesus, with dark hair and dark complexion, a lower forehead, wider face and brow and gentle eyes that meet a viewer's gaze.
This radical redefinition of Jesus in Western art -- its origins, development and meaning -- stands at the center of "Rembrandt and the Face of Jesus," an astonishing, often breathtaking exhibition opening today at the Detroit Institute of Arts. Rembrandt transforms the image of Christ from a figure of godly measure and heroic suffering into a more human-scaled embodiment of divine spirituality.
Organized by the DIA with the Louvre Museum in Paris and the Philadelphia Museum of Art, "Rembrandt and the Face of Jesus" includes 64 paintings, drawings and prints, 52 of them by Rembrandt and his immediate circle. While the show is not large compared to the DIA's previous blockbusters devoted to Van Gogh or Degas, it packs an intense wallop borne of its tight focus, meticulous scholarship and, not least of all, because it delivers a number of masterpieces that rarely travel, among them the landmark "The Supper at Emmaus" lent by the Louvre.
The Dutch-born Rembrandt belongs on the shortlist of the greatest artists in the canon, and the DIA chronicles his flowering genius as expressed through the singularly potent subject of his depiction of Jesus.
As the show reveals -- and DIA curator emeritus of European paintings George Keyes and Philadelphia's then curator Lloyd DeWitt emphasize in their trenchant individual essays in the hefty, first-rate exhibition catalog -- more conventional portrayals of Jesus echo through Rembrandt's earlier works: Jesus raises his hand emphatically in the 1632 engraving and etching "The Raising of Lazarus" and he appears light-haired and shallow-featured in the major painting "Christ and the Woman Taken in Adultery" (1644) from the National Gallery of London.
But in the seven remarkable small oil sketches of the heads of Christ that Rembrandt and his studio began producing around 1648 -- and which form the nucleus of the exhibition -- a new vision emerges. Here is a realistic Jesus wearing a contemplative expression evoking goodness, compassion and a richly textured inner life.
He is both the picture of a man meditating on quotidian existence and an object for a viewer's own quiet meditation. He appears to not be providing answers but, like us, seeking them. On the deepest frequencies, Rembrandt's Jesus is the embodiment of the Dutch master's search for the meaning of Christ in a language as mysterious and profound as religion itself -- the language of art.
The Louvre's serene "The Supper at Emmaus," one of several works illustrating the post-resurrection moment in which Christ is recognized by two of his disciples, immediately before he disappears in a flash of light, crystallizes the transformation. The painting is displayed next to the DIA's "Head of Christ," attributed to Rembrandt, whose tilted head and visage have long been recognized as a study for the Louvre's painting.
As Keyes writes in his essay, the painting culminated Rembrandt's "increasing sense of quietude" in depicting religious subjects. Christ's subtle radiance marries with the restrained reaction of his disciples and the simple architectural setting to create a scene of striking tranquility. What a contrast to the anguished suffering portrayed in the paintings by Rembrandt's contemporaries Guido Reni and Valentin de Doulogne shown in the opening gallery as examples of the Catholic house style.
The Louvre's "Supper" is far from the only stunner, and while the paintings are the flashiest pieces, the pleasures of the works on paper are often just as rewarding. Take your time, look closely. The seminal "The Hundred Guilder Print" ("Christ Preaching"), seen in an extraordinarily fine impression from the Metropolitan Museum of Art, catalogs all of Rembrandt's gifts -- virtuoso draftsmanship, masterful storytelling, innovative use of light and shade, compositional subtleties and the ability to wring maximum emotion with a minimum of fuss.
Like all of the DIA's special exhibitions these days, "Rembrandt and the Face of Jesus" is aggressively installed and interpreted. It's organized thematically and offers a full battalion of silent video projections, photo screens, a sprawling tabletop relief map of the Amsterdam in which the artist lived and generous, generally smart labeling that offers a deep dive into individual pieces of art, Rembrandt's sources and influences, his innovations and several broad cultural narratives.
Still, there are times when the bells and whistles overwhelm the sublimity of the art, and it's a relief that the key central gallery boasting the seven heads of Christ and the Louvre's "Supper" unfolds with greater restraint and intimacy, which intensifies their knee-buckling beauty and drama.
Given that the DIA recently devoted an exhibition to exploring issues of authenticity in the museum world, it's a little surprising that the current show ignores the fact that there is no consensus on whether Rembrandt or his students were primarily responsible for the heads of Christ. The catalog essays, by contrast, include a summary of heroic forensic work by a team from Philadelphia and make a strong case that at least some of these heads, including Detroit's, are Rembrandt autographs.
The exhibition is particularly strong on placing Rembrandt in the social context of Dutch society -- the wealthiest, most mercantile and cosmopolitan and the most religiously tolerant in Europe at the time. Jews were not restricted to ghettos and were allowed to worship freely.
2011年10月20日星期四
High Museum curator shares insights on MoMA masterpieces
Nothing can quite compare to an all-afternoon ramble through a great showplace like New York’s Museum of Modern Art. Yet the just-opened High Museum of Art exhibition “Picasso to Warhol: Fourteen Modern Masters” offers some advantages over a visit to the Manhattan mothership beyond the airfare savings.
The High is billing the 129-work exhibit as one of the largest concentrations of modern art masterpieces ever to be exhibited in the Southeast. And while the masterwork-studded survey show is a sliver of MoMA’s deep permanent collection, concentrating the experience into an exhibit that can be viewed on one Wieland Pavilion floor emphasizes the connections between some of the 20th century’s most potent art-makers.
“While many of these iconic works are on view often at MoMA, they perhaps never have been organized in this way,” High curator of modern and contemporary art Michael Rooks said. He noted that MoMA show curator Jodi Hauptman and her New York colleagues have been struck by “the kinds of formal parallels, and rhymes and influences and responses that happen between and among the artists.”
One prime example he cites: the way Joan Miró’s organic shapes influenced Jackson Pollock, whose almost random way of painting is mirrored in Jasper Johns’ 1930 “Map,” an extremely loose rendering of the continental United States. A museum visitor can stand in one place in the gallery and feel the vibrations of inspiration radiating among the trio, Rooks said.
Galleries dedicated to Pablo Picasso and Andy Warhol bookend “Picasso to Warhol: Fourteen Modern Masters.” In between, works are showcased by Henri Matisse, Constantin Brancusi, Piet Mondrian, Fernand Léger, Marcel Duchamp, Giorgio de Chirico, Joan Miró, Romare Bearden, Alexander Calder, Jackson Pollock, Louise Bourgeois and Jasper Johns.
“It’s an amazing painting and has a great monumentality when you walk into the gallery,” Rooks said. “I think a lot of people are surprised by the size of each individual painting . Together, they form this kind of frieze in a way.”
When the 32 paintings, representing every flavor in the Campbell’s line, were first shown in 1962 at a Los Angeles gallery, they were lined on shelves, as if on display in a grocery. The artist’s idea was “to underscore the sense of ordinariness,” the curator said.
Nearly half a century later, it’s hard to know how much the work was intended as homage and how far Warhol’s tongue was planted in cheek.
“It’s such a common consumer product ... that we don’t think of it in terms of the monumental and heroic,” Rooks said. It’s more a celebration of “the ordinary, not the extraordinary,” the curator added.
Yet Warhol, who grew up in lower-middle-class Pittsburgh, quite appreciated Campbell’s. “I used to drink it,” he once recalled of the canned soup. “I used to have the same lunch every day, for 20 years I guess, the same thing over and over again.”
Still, it’s doubtless that Warhol was tweaking consumerism and, by repeating the same basic banal image at the same scale, riffing on the manipulations of advertising.
Warhol became known as such a master of the silkscreen process and other forms of reproduction, that Rooks believes many will be surprised that each canvas in “Campbell’s Soup Cans” is an original, completed with the help of studio assistants, and not a print.
“They look like they were made using mechanical reproduction, and that’s pop,” said Rooks, noting that Warhol soon thereafter moved to multiples. “They are subtle differences in each painting, which are kind of fun to find.”
Henri Matisse: "Dance (I)"
Rooks views this early 20th century masterpiece and hears an equally classic piece of music in his mind.
“It’s a life-affirming kind of painting,” the curator said. “I always think of Stravinsky’s ‘Rite of Spring,’ because it has this Utopian feeling about it.”
In 1908, the year before he produced this epic , Matisse said, “Suppose I want to paint a woman’s body. First of all, I imbue it with grace and charm, but I know that I must give something more. I will condense the meaning of this body by seeking its essential lines. The charm will be less apparent at first glance, but it must eventually emerge from the new image, which will have a broader meaning, one more fully human.”
Matisse’s reduction of the dance circle to simple forms rendered with minimal perspective and flat planes of paint, seen by some as crude at the time, indeed adds up to a heady encapsulation of joy, movement and energy.
The dancers, who could be viewed more as mythic beauties than actual performers, are set against flat expanses of purple-blue and green .
The figure at left, shown in graceful stride forward while reaching back for the hand of the dancer to her right, seems to be setting the circle’s fluid motion.
“One of the wonderful things about it is the sort of serpentine curve where the arms are connected,” Rooks said.
The curator connects that feeling to the dawning of a new century, the birth of the modern era that holds the promise of innovation and an improved quality of life.
“There was a sense of utopia that was crushed shortly thereafter,” he said, “but it’s wonderful to see in this painting.”
The High is billing the 129-work exhibit as one of the largest concentrations of modern art masterpieces ever to be exhibited in the Southeast. And while the masterwork-studded survey show is a sliver of MoMA’s deep permanent collection, concentrating the experience into an exhibit that can be viewed on one Wieland Pavilion floor emphasizes the connections between some of the 20th century’s most potent art-makers.
“While many of these iconic works are on view often at MoMA, they perhaps never have been organized in this way,” High curator of modern and contemporary art Michael Rooks said. He noted that MoMA show curator Jodi Hauptman and her New York colleagues have been struck by “the kinds of formal parallels, and rhymes and influences and responses that happen between and among the artists.”
One prime example he cites: the way Joan Miró’s organic shapes influenced Jackson Pollock, whose almost random way of painting is mirrored in Jasper Johns’ 1930 “Map,” an extremely loose rendering of the continental United States. A museum visitor can stand in one place in the gallery and feel the vibrations of inspiration radiating among the trio, Rooks said.
Galleries dedicated to Pablo Picasso and Andy Warhol bookend “Picasso to Warhol: Fourteen Modern Masters.” In between, works are showcased by Henri Matisse, Constantin Brancusi, Piet Mondrian, Fernand Léger, Marcel Duchamp, Giorgio de Chirico, Joan Miró, Romare Bearden, Alexander Calder, Jackson Pollock, Louise Bourgeois and Jasper Johns.
“It’s an amazing painting and has a great monumentality when you walk into the gallery,” Rooks said. “I think a lot of people are surprised by the size of each individual painting . Together, they form this kind of frieze in a way.”
When the 32 paintings, representing every flavor in the Campbell’s line, were first shown in 1962 at a Los Angeles gallery, they were lined on shelves, as if on display in a grocery. The artist’s idea was “to underscore the sense of ordinariness,” the curator said.
Nearly half a century later, it’s hard to know how much the work was intended as homage and how far Warhol’s tongue was planted in cheek.
“It’s such a common consumer product ... that we don’t think of it in terms of the monumental and heroic,” Rooks said. It’s more a celebration of “the ordinary, not the extraordinary,” the curator added.
Yet Warhol, who grew up in lower-middle-class Pittsburgh, quite appreciated Campbell’s. “I used to drink it,” he once recalled of the canned soup. “I used to have the same lunch every day, for 20 years I guess, the same thing over and over again.”
Still, it’s doubtless that Warhol was tweaking consumerism and, by repeating the same basic banal image at the same scale, riffing on the manipulations of advertising.
Warhol became known as such a master of the silkscreen process and other forms of reproduction, that Rooks believes many will be surprised that each canvas in “Campbell’s Soup Cans” is an original, completed with the help of studio assistants, and not a print.
“They look like they were made using mechanical reproduction, and that’s pop,” said Rooks, noting that Warhol soon thereafter moved to multiples. “They are subtle differences in each painting, which are kind of fun to find.”
Henri Matisse: "Dance (I)"
Rooks views this early 20th century masterpiece and hears an equally classic piece of music in his mind.
“It’s a life-affirming kind of painting,” the curator said. “I always think of Stravinsky’s ‘Rite of Spring,’ because it has this Utopian feeling about it.”
In 1908, the year before he produced this epic , Matisse said, “Suppose I want to paint a woman’s body. First of all, I imbue it with grace and charm, but I know that I must give something more. I will condense the meaning of this body by seeking its essential lines. The charm will be less apparent at first glance, but it must eventually emerge from the new image, which will have a broader meaning, one more fully human.”
Matisse’s reduction of the dance circle to simple forms rendered with minimal perspective and flat planes of paint, seen by some as crude at the time, indeed adds up to a heady encapsulation of joy, movement and energy.
The dancers, who could be viewed more as mythic beauties than actual performers, are set against flat expanses of purple-blue and green .
The figure at left, shown in graceful stride forward while reaching back for the hand of the dancer to her right, seems to be setting the circle’s fluid motion.
“One of the wonderful things about it is the sort of serpentine curve where the arms are connected,” Rooks said.
The curator connects that feeling to the dawning of a new century, the birth of the modern era that holds the promise of innovation and an improved quality of life.
“There was a sense of utopia that was crushed shortly thereafter,” he said, “but it’s wonderful to see in this painting.”
2011年10月19日星期三
Ross Stefan painting captures Southwest aura
I inherited an oil painting on canvas that measures 22-by-28 inches and is signed by Ross Stefan. I wonder about its monetary worth and where I might market it.
This oil on canvas presents a wonderfully warm domestic scene with a Native American mother holding her smiling infant safe and snug in a cradleboard.
Ross Stefan was born in Milwaukee, Wis., in 1934 and had his first one-man art show at the tender age of 13. Stefan met Western artist Daniel Cody Muller and was greatly influenced by his work.
Muller's father was part Blackfoot, and he scouted for the U.S. Cavalry with Buffalo Bill Cody. The younger Muller became a member of Buffalo Bill's Wild West Shows and for 18 years periodically toured North America and Europe with the company.
After leaving show business, Muller became one of genre's most accomplished artists. His work customarily depicts images of cowboys on horseback, sometimes playing sports such as "cowboy polo." He also does portraits of Native Americans.
Stefan moved to Arizona in 1953 and studied art at the University of Arizona. In his spare time, he worked as an illustrator for the Tucson Daily Citizen. But in 1955, Stefan quit school to paint full time.
He began traveling the desert, visiting the native pueblos and painting and drawing the American West's people and landscapes. His work is often described as "southwestern impressionism" because of his broad brushstrokes and heightened color palette, but this does not take into account the proportional accuracy and spatial realism of his landscapes, figures and architecture.
Ross Stefan's scenes of pueblo life and the southern Arizona landscape are still prime examples of this genre, and his legacy is secure as a leading Arizona artist of the 20th century.
But what about the marketplace? Prices for Stefan's work have increased dramatically over the last 10 years as interest in Western art has expanded. In 2007, his painting "Finally Caught" sold for $16,800 at auction. Many other Stefan paintings have sold privately at similar prices.
But prices paid for his landscapes far exceed those paid for his portraits and scenes of Native American people. The work in today's question is a decent size. If it were in perfect condition, it likely would sell at auction for $3,000 to $5,000.
It definitely would be better to sell this painting in the Southwest with Scottsdale, Ariz., and Santa Fe, N.M., both being leading candidates. We try to stay out of commercial transactions or personal recommendations, but exploring auction houses in these areas may be fruitful for N.G.
Auction companies in Altadena, Calif., and Reno, Nev., have also done well, and Stefan's work has sold successfully at one of the major international auction housed in New York City as well.
This oil on canvas presents a wonderfully warm domestic scene with a Native American mother holding her smiling infant safe and snug in a cradleboard.
Ross Stefan was born in Milwaukee, Wis., in 1934 and had his first one-man art show at the tender age of 13. Stefan met Western artist Daniel Cody Muller and was greatly influenced by his work.
Muller's father was part Blackfoot, and he scouted for the U.S. Cavalry with Buffalo Bill Cody. The younger Muller became a member of Buffalo Bill's Wild West Shows and for 18 years periodically toured North America and Europe with the company.
After leaving show business, Muller became one of genre's most accomplished artists. His work customarily depicts images of cowboys on horseback, sometimes playing sports such as "cowboy polo." He also does portraits of Native Americans.
Stefan moved to Arizona in 1953 and studied art at the University of Arizona. In his spare time, he worked as an illustrator for the Tucson Daily Citizen. But in 1955, Stefan quit school to paint full time.
He began traveling the desert, visiting the native pueblos and painting and drawing the American West's people and landscapes. His work is often described as "southwestern impressionism" because of his broad brushstrokes and heightened color palette, but this does not take into account the proportional accuracy and spatial realism of his landscapes, figures and architecture.
Ross Stefan's scenes of pueblo life and the southern Arizona landscape are still prime examples of this genre, and his legacy is secure as a leading Arizona artist of the 20th century.
But what about the marketplace? Prices for Stefan's work have increased dramatically over the last 10 years as interest in Western art has expanded. In 2007, his painting "Finally Caught" sold for $16,800 at auction. Many other Stefan paintings have sold privately at similar prices.
But prices paid for his landscapes far exceed those paid for his portraits and scenes of Native American people. The work in today's question is a decent size. If it were in perfect condition, it likely would sell at auction for $3,000 to $5,000.
It definitely would be better to sell this painting in the Southwest with Scottsdale, Ariz., and Santa Fe, N.M., both being leading candidates. We try to stay out of commercial transactions or personal recommendations, but exploring auction houses in these areas may be fruitful for N.G.
Auction companies in Altadena, Calif., and Reno, Nev., have also done well, and Stefan's work has sold successfully at one of the major international auction housed in New York City as well.
2011年7月17日星期日
Alexandre Nero reverses roles and her husband will be violent novel
It's only been three years that Alexander Nero starred in soap operas such as love grocer Vanderlei de A Favorita. Now, back to prime time Globo, he experiences pleasure to reverse, literally, the papers in the air. At that time, his character was seen as the savior of abused Catarina, Lilia Cabral, who picked up the alcoholic husband. This time next novel in the 21 hours of the Globe, Fina Estampa, is the time of Nero playing the violent Baltazar, hitting, without any ceremony, his wife Celeste of Dira Paes. "I think the comparisons are inevitable, including the presence of Lilia near the nucleus. But I will be seen from another angle, in a way completely opposite, which would please any actor," says.
Fina Estampa is expected to replace Foolish Heart from August 22. In the story, the villain is a driver Baltazar Tereza Cristina, played by Christiane Torloni, and married to Celeste. The couple have a daughter, the girl Solange, played by Carol Macedo. The actress became known to live in Passione Kelly suffered, the evil sister Clara, Mariana Ximenes. And his character will have struggled again, this time in the hands of his father. "The Baltazar think is right to beat his wife and daughter. It's the way he was raised", explains Alexander, adding that Celeste is one of the friends of Griselda, the protagonist of Fina Estampa, defended by Lilia Cabral.
For a man live so aggressive, Alexandre Nero made a point not to look up any material on the victims of domestic violence. The idea may sound contradictory, but the actor has at his fingertips, his justification. "This would serve to sensitize me to this drama. And, sensitive, he might not do as expected and even influence the direction of this character," he opines, who lived a similar situation in the theater. To interpret a torturer in the film A Novel of 8, Odilon Rocha, was keen not to participate in the workshop with victims of the dictatorship. "I think it would do me good. Not at the beginning of work," he argues.
In the plot, shows traces of Baltazar homophobia. And in the air as a mystery about what is the character who has a romance with gay Chronicles, Marcelo Serrado Nero believes that there is a possibility the driver to be a closeted bisexual. "Hopefully it is. I think I have everything to do with this aggressive behavior," twists. But the actor also risk another guess about the development of Balthazar in the novel. "He could redeem himself. Many men beat their wives out of sheer insecurity, even fear. I want to see him repent of everything in terms of her love for her," theorizes.
In novels, Baltazar is the second villain followed by Alexander. He embodied the ambitious Gilmar Written in the Stars, a novel by Elizabeth Jhin showed that the Globe in 2010. But this is hardly a concern for the actor. Indeed, he did not expect to be so quick to cast another dime. By May, the team was fixed Beating the point of the show, starring Ingrid Guimarães. An experience that left the actor with a will, in future, work in TV comedy. "It was a comedy, but this was not my job. At first it was even difficult. I kept thinking 'will see me and think I'm boring." Ladder to be comedians but is extremely difficult, "values.
In addition to the novel, Alexander still divides his time with three other projects in 2011. The actor, who is also a musician, has already completed the CD Seeing Love in its various forms, sizes and positions and to release it in August and September. And prepares to debut also in August in Rio de Janeiro, the show You Need to Know Me, next to actress Gisele Froes. After that, start rehearsing a monologue written and directed by Fabio Porchat. The full schedule is almost a necessity for Alexander to amend after four papers followed on television. "I will not sell millions of copies or have thousands of people in my play. And I do not want to be an artist 'market'. I live too much in the 'macro'. From time to time have to go back to the 'micro' to my roots" , is philosophical.
Fina Estampa is expected to replace Foolish Heart from August 22. In the story, the villain is a driver Baltazar Tereza Cristina, played by Christiane Torloni, and married to Celeste. The couple have a daughter, the girl Solange, played by Carol Macedo. The actress became known to live in Passione Kelly suffered, the evil sister Clara, Mariana Ximenes. And his character will have struggled again, this time in the hands of his father. "The Baltazar think is right to beat his wife and daughter. It's the way he was raised", explains Alexander, adding that Celeste is one of the friends of Griselda, the protagonist of Fina Estampa, defended by Lilia Cabral.
For a man live so aggressive, Alexandre Nero made a point not to look up any material on the victims of domestic violence. The idea may sound contradictory, but the actor has at his fingertips, his justification. "This would serve to sensitize me to this drama. And, sensitive, he might not do as expected and even influence the direction of this character," he opines, who lived a similar situation in the theater. To interpret a torturer in the film A Novel of 8, Odilon Rocha, was keen not to participate in the workshop with victims of the dictatorship. "I think it would do me good. Not at the beginning of work," he argues.
In the plot, shows traces of Baltazar homophobia. And in the air as a mystery about what is the character who has a romance with gay Chronicles, Marcelo Serrado Nero believes that there is a possibility the driver to be a closeted bisexual. "Hopefully it is. I think I have everything to do with this aggressive behavior," twists. But the actor also risk another guess about the development of Balthazar in the novel. "He could redeem himself. Many men beat their wives out of sheer insecurity, even fear. I want to see him repent of everything in terms of her love for her," theorizes.
In novels, Baltazar is the second villain followed by Alexander. He embodied the ambitious Gilmar Written in the Stars, a novel by Elizabeth Jhin showed that the Globe in 2010. But this is hardly a concern for the actor. Indeed, he did not expect to be so quick to cast another dime. By May, the team was fixed Beating the point of the show, starring Ingrid Guimarães. An experience that left the actor with a will, in future, work in TV comedy. "It was a comedy, but this was not my job. At first it was even difficult. I kept thinking 'will see me and think I'm boring." Ladder to be comedians but is extremely difficult, "values.
In addition to the novel, Alexander still divides his time with three other projects in 2011. The actor, who is also a musician, has already completed the CD Seeing Love in its various forms, sizes and positions and to release it in August and September. And prepares to debut also in August in Rio de Janeiro, the show You Need to Know Me, next to actress Gisele Froes. After that, start rehearsing a monologue written and directed by Fabio Porchat. The full schedule is almost a necessity for Alexander to amend after four papers followed on television. "I will not sell millions of copies or have thousands of people in my play. And I do not want to be an artist 'market'. I live too much in the 'macro'. From time to time have to go back to the 'micro' to my roots" , is philosophical.
2011年6月22日星期三
Top 5 Coolest Ways Companies are Integrating Renewable Energy into the Grid
Intermittent renewables at high penetrations will bring new challenges for the grid. But how big will they be? And is it true that wind and solar will necessarily need storage or natural gas back-up at high levels?
The International Energy Agency wanted to know, so it modeled a variety of high-penetration scenarios in eight geographic regions around the world. Hugo Chandler, a senior policy analyst with the IEA explains the organization’s findings to Climate Progress:
Variability is not just some new phenomenon in grid management. What we found is that renewable energy is not fundamentally different. The criticisms of renewables often neglect the complementarities between different technologies and the way they can balance each other out if spread over certain regions and energy types.
Grid operators are constantly working to balance available supply with demand – it’s what they do. There are always natural variations that cause spikes in demand, reductions in supply or create disturbances in frequency and voltage.Once you see there are a variety of ways to properly manage that variability, you start whittling away at the argument that you always need storage or a megawatt of natural gas backup for every megawatt of renewable energy.
Theoretical modeling is important. But what companies are doing in reality?
Here’s five of the top methods for integrating renewable energy into the grid – proving that intermittency isn’t the show-stopper that critics make it out to be.
Intelligent Demand Response
Intelligent demand response is often called the “killer app” of the smart grid. Demand response is not a new concept – but the “intelligent” part is still somewhat new.
The demand-response leader, EnerNOC, is now applying this concept to renewable energy. The company announced earlier this year that it would work with a Northwestern transmission operator to help manage demand to meet the fluctuating output of wind electricity in the system. EnerNOC president David Brewster calls it “the perfect dancing partner for wind.” By ramping up demand at facilities during time of peak supply and lowering demand when supply drops off, the grid can respond to changing conditions in real time without the need for storage.
The International Energy Agency wanted to know, so it modeled a variety of high-penetration scenarios in eight geographic regions around the world. Hugo Chandler, a senior policy analyst with the IEA explains the organization’s findings to Climate Progress:
Variability is not just some new phenomenon in grid management. What we found is that renewable energy is not fundamentally different. The criticisms of renewables often neglect the complementarities between different technologies and the way they can balance each other out if spread over certain regions and energy types.
Grid operators are constantly working to balance available supply with demand – it’s what they do. There are always natural variations that cause spikes in demand, reductions in supply or create disturbances in frequency and voltage.Once you see there are a variety of ways to properly manage that variability, you start whittling away at the argument that you always need storage or a megawatt of natural gas backup for every megawatt of renewable energy.
Theoretical modeling is important. But what companies are doing in reality?
Here’s five of the top methods for integrating renewable energy into the grid – proving that intermittency isn’t the show-stopper that critics make it out to be.
Intelligent Demand Response
Intelligent demand response is often called the “killer app” of the smart grid. Demand response is not a new concept – but the “intelligent” part is still somewhat new.
The demand-response leader, EnerNOC, is now applying this concept to renewable energy. The company announced earlier this year that it would work with a Northwestern transmission operator to help manage demand to meet the fluctuating output of wind electricity in the system. EnerNOC president David Brewster calls it “the perfect dancing partner for wind.” By ramping up demand at facilities during time of peak supply and lowering demand when supply drops off, the grid can respond to changing conditions in real time without the need for storage.
2011年4月7日星期四
Ahead in the solar sector
It's 9am on a Monday morning and Enecsys' Danish ceo Henrik Raunkjaer is in ebullient mood.
"There's no one else in Europe with our technology," he tells me in the firm's Harston Mill space as people get set up for the week ahead.
"There's only one other company – in the US – doing this. Here in the UK people are now starting to be aware of it and I'm very positive." Indeed he is. And rightfully so, as Enecsys' micro-inverter technology is finally getting the recognition – from the public and the installation trade – it deserves. As we speak – actually as Henrik speaks since he's clearly in the zone and I'm playing catch-up via coffee – there's a huge media furore raging about the way the Government's feed-in tariff (FIT) scheme is allegedly being abused by commercially-organised solar farms who are taking big chunks out of the £400m set aside to help convert the nation's homes to solar power. But Henrik's already on an unstoppable roll.
"We're right now looking for investors to take us to the next level and due diligence is ongoing." I can see the vision and the mettle shining in his eyes. "We're expecting to close third round funding at the end of March and we'll be using that for the US, expanding our operations and bringing costs down." Henrik's right, of course. There's no such thing as bad publicity and the row over how the £400m should be divvied up brings the topic of renewable energy back into the public consciousness at an absolutely crucial time for the world's energy markets. And Enecsys, whose new micro-inverter technology went on sale last year, is now perfectly positioned to be a global player.
"We are now hiring a lot of people. Why? Because this technology is fantastic and we have the chance to change the game globally." The key development has been to shift from string inverters to micro-inverters. To harness solar power you need a solar panel and Enecsys' box of tricks to convert the sun's rays for use in the national grid. With a string inverter you collect all the energy harvested from the panels into one box which then feeds the current into the national grid. But the micro-inverter means that each panel has its own inverter, so each panel feeds separately directly into the grid, so less power is lost, because previously if one panel went down (maybe it was in the shade for a while), it would slow down the collective feed-in.
"There's no one else in Europe with our technology," he tells me in the firm's Harston Mill space as people get set up for the week ahead.
"There's only one other company – in the US – doing this. Here in the UK people are now starting to be aware of it and I'm very positive." Indeed he is. And rightfully so, as Enecsys' micro-inverter technology is finally getting the recognition – from the public and the installation trade – it deserves. As we speak – actually as Henrik speaks since he's clearly in the zone and I'm playing catch-up via coffee – there's a huge media furore raging about the way the Government's feed-in tariff (FIT) scheme is allegedly being abused by commercially-organised solar farms who are taking big chunks out of the £400m set aside to help convert the nation's homes to solar power. But Henrik's already on an unstoppable roll.
"We're right now looking for investors to take us to the next level and due diligence is ongoing." I can see the vision and the mettle shining in his eyes. "We're expecting to close third round funding at the end of March and we'll be using that for the US, expanding our operations and bringing costs down." Henrik's right, of course. There's no such thing as bad publicity and the row over how the £400m should be divvied up brings the topic of renewable energy back into the public consciousness at an absolutely crucial time for the world's energy markets. And Enecsys, whose new micro-inverter technology went on sale last year, is now perfectly positioned to be a global player.
"We are now hiring a lot of people. Why? Because this technology is fantastic and we have the chance to change the game globally." The key development has been to shift from string inverters to micro-inverters. To harness solar power you need a solar panel and Enecsys' box of tricks to convert the sun's rays for use in the national grid. With a string inverter you collect all the energy harvested from the panels into one box which then feeds the current into the national grid. But the micro-inverter means that each panel has its own inverter, so each panel feeds separately directly into the grid, so less power is lost, because previously if one panel went down (maybe it was in the shade for a while), it would slow down the collective feed-in.
订阅：
博文 (Atom)