e Art Fair .com » Art Contemplation

Georgia ‘O Keeffe

e Art fair .com — Wed, 19 Oct 2011 13:44:00 +0000

Georgia ‘O Keeffe

(1887-1986)

sample work
Bella Donna, 1939; oil on canvas; private collection, loan to ‘O Keeffe museum

Representing the flower

‘Nobody sees a flower, really, it is so small. we haven’t time – and to see takes time like to have a friend takes time. if i could paint the flower exactly as i see it no one would see what i see because i would paint it small like the flower is small.

So I said to myself – I’ll paint what I see – what the flower is to me but I’ll paint it big and they will be surprised into taking time to look at it – I will make even busy New Yorkers take time to see what I see of flowers.

…Well, I made you take time to look at what i saw and when you took time to really notice my flower you hung all your own associations with flowers on my flower and you write about my flower as if i think and see what you think and see of the flower – and i don’t.’

Georgia O’ Keeffe

Bio

One of the most famous twentieth century woman artists in the world.

‘O Keeffe was born in Wisconsin, but lived a good part of her life in her beloved New Mexico, where she painted many of her paintings.

Besides in her home state Wisconsin, she studied at the Art Institute of Chicago and the New York art student’s league. Georgia married Alfred Stieglitz, a distinguished photographer, who discovered and promoted her work.

She started with abstractionism in 1915, and made numerous works of flower close-ups, landscapes and skulls. Her paintings are characterized by asymmetrical compositions, flat colors and spare forms.

Georgia O’ Keeffe produced approximately 2,000 2D art works during the 80 years she was active as an artist. She also worked in clay later in life, when her eyesight worsened. When she died, she held 400 oils, charcoals, pastels, pencils, and watercolors, plus 700 sketches in her personal collection.

Museums

locally celebrated, her works are featured in the Georgia ‘O keeffe museum in downtown Santa Fe, new Mexico.

‘o keeffe’s art is also featured in other great museums around the world, including the NY MOMA, SF MOMA, Guggenheim, Tate, Prada, etc. special exhibitions of her work are frequently organized, as can be seen in our news section.

reference books

1. O’ Keeffe’s O’Keeffes: the artist’s collection, by Barbara Buhler Lynes, a.o.; Thames & Hudson, 2001

‘ .. explores and showcases the significance of Georgia O’Keeffe’s collection of her own work and comprises 75 seminal works reproduced in full color and dating from around 1910 down through the 1960s. unique, impressive, O’Keeffe’s O’Keeffe’s is an essential volume for students of American art history in general, and the life and work of Georgia O’Keeffe in particular. ‘ Midwest book review, Oregon, WI

.. ‘Lynes looks at O’Keeffe’s possible motivations for keeping these particular works for herself, including specific strategies learned from husband and mentor Alfred Stieglitz to market her art and maintain her financial security. for example, O’Keeffe might have kept a number of her charcoal abstractions out of the public eye, as they were not as marketable and distracted from her image as a painter of imagery of the southwestern united states. she also seems to have held back pieces that she felt were important examples of her work, including the "evening star" watercolors…’ Sandra Rothenberg, Framingham, MA.

2. A wonderful gift of ‘O Keeffe’s magic touch: Georgia O’Keeffe: the Poetry of Things by Elizabeth Hutton Turner, a.o.; Yale university press,1999

Elegant color images of her work are interwoven with biographical details and photos of her life, all encaptuled by ‘o keeffe’s portrait by Ansell Adams in the book. ‘this stunning book is the first in-depth exploration of Georgia o`keeffe`s unique contribution to still-life painting. it features beautiful full-page reproductions of some sixty of her paintings, related photographs, essays that discuss the sometimes surprising formative influences on o`keeffe`s approach to objects, and an illustrated chronology of her life.’ border regional library association note to its southwest book award

‘…. the companion catalog to the O’Keeffe exhibition at the Phillips gallery in Washington, dc. ….. what impressed me most about the exhibition (and the book) is how intelligently it was put together. it examines O’Keeffe’s development as an artist by tracking both her philosophy and her influences, and some rarely shown works were chosen to represent this in the exhibition (and are reproduced in the book). of all the books on O’Keeffe that I’ve read, and of all the exhibitions I’ve seen of her work, this one by far does the best job of explaining both the artist and her work.’ robin black, Washington dc

The above books are the all-time favorites, while these here below are the latest books on O’Keeffe:

My Faraway One: Selected Letters of Georgia O’Keeffe and Alfred Stieglitz: Volume One, 1915-1933 (Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library)

The Group of Seven and Tom Thomson

Armory Art Show 2008 Flashbacks – Contemporary Art videos

e Art fair .com — Wed, 04 Mar 2009 22:00:25 +0000

Armory Arts Week | The Armory Arts Show | Videos

Video I of the 2008 Armory Arts Show

This event kicked off a weekend of frantic art viewing. Though not as large as Basil Miami, but with over 160 international galleries represented, this is New York’s premier fair.

Highlights of the 2008 show as seen in this art video included glances of work by Mary Heilmann, Gilbert and George, Thomas Hirschhorn, Richard DuPont and many of today’s hottest talents. Also included is a demonstration of “Vigilomiter” by Brian Dewan at Williamsburg’s Pierogi

Video II of the 2008 2008 Armory Arts Show

A brief tour of the Armory Show with peeks at work by Jonathan Meese, Keith Mayerson, Gilbert and George, Rodney Graham Terry Winters Berry McGee and others.

Armory Show Brings Art World To New York This Week

e Art fair .com — Tue, 03 Mar 2009 22:00:03 +0000

If Richter in Europe, or even LA is a bit far away for you, than surely you can take advantage of this week’s art happenings in New York City.

It is that time of the year again: The Armory Show – The International Fair of New Art, will be held March 5-8, 2009, and take place at Pier 94 on Manhattan’s west side, in New York City. It has been an important art fair devoted exclusively to contemporary art since its introduction in 1999.

Armory Arts Week

The Armory Show continues to be the catalyst for Armory Arts Week, an exciting series of events in New York City that have become requisite in the international art circuit. Over twenty prominent art collectors open their homes for exclusive Armory Show VIP viewings, while embassies, international cultural consuls and museums hold special receptions for our VIP guests.

Armory Arts Week is a premier art happening attracting some of the world’s most enthusiastic international and domestic collectors.

Every March, artists, galleries, collectors, critics and curators from all over the world make New York their destination during Armory Arts Week. The Armory Show has taken this opportunity to launch its first ever series of public programming in celebration of the City’s unparalleled artistic communities in a different neighborhood each night. Events include special receptions, open studios, art tours, museum discounts, performances, panels, artist discussions and parties.

PUBLIC EVENTS BLANKET THE CITY DURING ARMORY ARTS WEEK, covering a different neighborhood’s art community highlighted each night of the week -

New York, February 19, 2009 – Every March, artists, galleries, collectors, critics and curators from all over the world make New York their destination during Armory Arts Week. The Armory Show has taken this opportunity to launch its first ever series of public programming in celebration of the City’s unparalleled artistic communities in a different neighborhood each night. Events include special receptions, open studios, art tours, museum discounts, performances, panels, artist discussions and parties.

Armory Arts Week already attracts visitors from all over the world, as well as residents of New York City and the Tri-State area. According to a 2007 independent Economic Impact Study, of the 52,000 visitors to The Armory Show, 56 percent (29,000) were visitors to New York City; out-of-town visitors were comprised of 11,000 from other countries, 5,000 living in the suburbs of NYC, and 13,000 from elsewhere in the United States; and among all out-of-town visitors, 73 percent cited The Armory Show as their primary reason for being in New York City.
Some highlights of Armory Arts Week include open studios at The Studio Museum in Harlem on Tuesday, March 3rd during Uptown and Museum Mile Day; a tour of Selections Spring 2009 with exhibition curator Nina Katchadourian and exhibiting artists at The Drawing Center on March 5th on SoHo Night; a talk about works from the Citi Collection of Fine Art by Suzanne F.W. Lemakis, director and curator at the Henry DeFord III Gallery on March 6th, A Day In Queens; the grand opening of The Boiler, featuring an installation of Tavares Strachan’s “The Distance Between (Arctic Ice Project),” a 4.5 ton block of ice from the Arctic, displayed in a solar-powered glass freezer, in Williamsburg, Brooklyn on a street that will be closed to traffic for a festive evening on March 7th; and a Sunday gallery walk in the Lower East Side beginning at the New Museum Lobby and featuring limited edition artist designed maps on March 8th.

Schedule of events & map (pdf)

What’s New at The Armory Show 2009

The Armory Show is expanding in size and scope to introduce The Armory Show – Modern, a new section dedicated to international dealers specializing in historically significant Modern and contemporary art. The new section will debut this year at the adjacent Pier 92. Piers 92 and 94 are located on Twelfth Avenue at 55th Street in the Passenger Ship Terminal complex.

The Armory Show was first presented in February 1999 at the 69th Regiment Armory, the site of the now-legendary Armory Show of 1913 that introduced Modern art to America.

The fair is the successor to the highly acclaimed Gramercy International Art Fairs that attracted thousands to their New York, Los Angeles and Miami shows between 1994 and 1998.

Why Go

With the City being home to more art collectors, galleries, first-class museums, critics and artists than any other city in the world, this week-long celebration, including the Armory Show, has been the world’s leading art fair devoted to the best art of the 20th and 21st centuries.

In 2008, The Armory Show, The International Fair of New Art, enjoyed another successful year in both sales and attendance. $85 million in art was sold and we welcomed 52,000 visitors; Preview Day alone saw 7,500 invited collectors.

“The Armory Show and Armory Arts Week are great ways to New York City’s thriving arts scene while taking in the excitement and beauty of our Style & Scene hotels,” says George Fertitta, CEO of NYC & Company. There has never been a better time to visit New York City and experience our City’s vibrancy while enjoying considerable value.”

Armory Arts Week | Armory Art Fair | Videos

Video I of the 2008 Armory Arts Show

This event kicks off a weekend of frantic art viewing. Though not as large as Basil Miami, but with over 160 international galleries represented, this is New York’s premier fair. Highlights include glances of work by Mary Heilmann, Gilbert and George, Thomas Hirschhorn, Richard DuPont and many of today’s hottest talents. Also included is a demonstration of “Vigilomiter” by Brian Dewan at Williamsburg’s Pierogi

Video II of the 2008 2008 Armory Arts Show

A brief tour of the Armory Show with peeks at work by Jonathan Meese, Keith Mayerson, Gilbert and George, Rodney Graham Terry Winters Berry McGee and others.

The Armory Show International Fair

Contemporary Art Dealer’s Gift to the British

e Art fair .com — Sat, 28 Feb 2009 09:07:21 +0000

Jackie Wullschlager at FT.com, in its section on art collecting, offers a landmark article ‘An Art Dealer’s Gift to the British’:

“At a rowdy Gilbert and George opening in the mid-1970s, the two artists known as the “living sculptures” dared Anthony d’Offay, a shy, fusty dealer in English art, to kiss Anne Seymour, then one of Tate’s most brilliant young curators.

Thirty years later, Anne and Anthony d’Offay’s unparalleled international collection of modern and contemporary art is about to go public in a series of 20 exhibitions to be staged up and down Britain, transforming the visual arts landscape of the country. Comprising more than 700 works valued at £125m, the d’Offay collection was acquired for the nation by Tate and the Scottish National Gallery last year for the knock-down price of £26.5m. It is the most lavish gift of art made to the UK in a century, putting d’Offay on a par with philanthropists Henry Tate and Samuel Courtauld.

Not just outstanding in quality, the gift will plug gaps in British museums’ collections of art from the 1970s onwards. It is exceptional, too, for the way it will take modern art to places that have little or none of it. D’Offay has controlled the way the works will be shown in perpetuity by enshrining into the arrangement the principle of “Artist Rooms”: each artist in the collection will be explored individually and in depth in a “Room” of his or her own. The Rooms will travel the country, others will be added, producing multiple possibilities for decades, even centuries, of top-quality touring shows in the regions as well as in art-rich London and Edinburgh.

On March 14, a huge show of Damien Hirst’s formaldehyde and pharmaceutical pieces launches the scheme at the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art: a big coup for the Scottish capital as there has so far been no Hirst retrospective in London. Scotland thus becomes a world-class art destination, with Edinburgh’s contemporary credentials building on the success of a show d’Offay organised there in 2006 of hyper-realist sculptor Ron Mueck. That show, touring to Paris and Japan, attracted audiences of 1.5m and 40 per cent of its Scottish visitors were entering a gallery for the first time.

A Room devoted to Mueck opens in Aberdeen in August; photographer Robert Mapplethorpe’s erotic nudes arrive in Inverness in April; Bill Viola’s pioneering video narratives of birth and death come to Stromness in June; and Bruce Nauman’s psychologically disturbing films inaugurate the scheme in Glasgow. Nauman is one of several Americans barely represented in British collections, which will be vastly enhanced as a result of d’Offay’s works. Others include dystopian photographer Diane Arbus, conceptual painter-sculptor Jeff Koons, and dead-pan modernist painter Ed Ruscha. Simultaneously, large shows of Andy Warhol (136 works) in Walsall and Wolverhampton and Joseph Beuys (232 works) in Bexhill-on-Sea will capitalise on the collection’s twin great poles, offering new audiences nationwide a chance to grapple with still controversial international figures.

Although they do not carry his name, the essential background to all the rooms is the mysterious, unpredictable figure of 68-year-old d’Offay himself, an art-world insider who likes to cast himself as outsider. Of his own artistic and intellectual awakening in the 1970s, he says: “Anne gave me reading lists. I lived in Islington and every morning in the hour that I walked to work in Dering Street I would ask myself questions. Can I stand in front of a circle of stones by Richard Long and think this is a significant work of art? Can I stand in front of a box full of felt and fur by Joseph Beuys and say this is as important as a Henry Moore sculpture? It took 18 months for me to administer these things.” Now, having swallowed the pill of contemporary art himself – and making a fortune from the taste – he is administering it, like a dose of good medicine, to the nation.

D’Offay married Anne in 1977 and launched his Dering Street contemporary gallery in 1980 with a landmark Beuys show. For two decades he was one of Europe’s pre-eminent dealers, representing artists from Gerhard Richter to Rachel Whiteread and reinvigorating London’s art scene. Then, to worldwide astonishment, in 2001 he announced the closure of his gallery but continued to develop and refine his collection, with the help of Marie-Louise Laband, his astute assistant of more than 20 years. Donating a series of smaller gifts, he tantalised leading museums with possible grand gestures before announcing, in a typical coup that allowed him to retain control to an unprecedented extent, the Artist Rooms package.”

Read the full article here

CARLO CARDAZZO: New Vision for Art

e Art fair .com — Thu, 04 Sep 2008 20:06:45 +0000

It is rare for a museum to hold an exhibition showcasing an art collector instead of an artist, but Peggy Guggenheim in Venice does it! This upcoming 1 November 2008 till 9 February 2009 it will hold an exhibition dedicated to Carlo Cardazzo (1908–63).

The exhibition documents the variety of his interests as a patron of the arts, collector, publisher and gallerist. He opened his Galleria del Cavallino opened in Venice in 1942.

In the contemporary art world following the Second World War, few personalities matched the enterprise and volcanic curiosity of the Venetian Carlo Cardazzo.

Cardazzo’s career de?nes him as a precursor, like Peggy Guggenheim, in the promotion of contemporary art. Thanks to new archival research coordinated by the curator, unpublished materials and unknown facts have emerged which locate him in a surprisingly international context. Curator: Luca Massimo Barbero.

Carlo Cardazzo in his Galleria del Cavallino, Venice, 1960s

No Name For Art Carnival #3

e Art fair .com — Mon, 30 Jun 2008 16:52:29 +0000

Welcome to the #3 edition of the no name for ART carnival. The sections to this carnival are:

museum shows and gallery shows
artwork and artist reviews
art collecting
how art is made
other submitted articles on contemporary fine art

museum shows | gallery shows

Pooch by Oscar Oiwa

The Museum of Contemporary Art in Tokyo presents Oscar Oiwa’s Dreams of a Sleeping World on show till July 6, saying “While moving his base of operations from his native Sao Paulo to Tokyo and then New York, Oscar Oiwa (1965-) has created works exploring all aspects of his urban surroundings. Oiwa interprets the world around him with agile brushwork and singular imaginative powers, in pictures that overwhelm the viewer with the rich appeal of the painting as a medium. Displayed will be some 80 works from his throughout his career, from his São Paulo days until the present.”

Margaret Mary presents Historic Pottery and Tiles at the Cluny Museum posted at ‘The Earthly Paradise’ saying “I was instantly struck by the similarities between the tiles in the Cluny and the work of William de Morgan during the late 19th century. I had learned a while ago that Morgan’s work was inspired by Iznik (Turkish) and Persian ceramics, but this was the first time that I was able to see his inspiration up close. The similarities are striking!”

Rabbit by Jeff Koons

Funhouse, a Jeff Koons retrospective by Peter Schjeldahl for the New Yorker. Schheldahl sets out: “There is something nightmarish about Jeff Koons. The fifty-three-year-old American enchanter and provocateur is a major artist, in the old sense of one who edits the past and sketches the future of an art—in this case, sculpture. (Koons’s uncannily mediocre paintings suggest an insensibility in two dimensions that is as amazing, in its way, as his genius in three.) Major artists X-ray the cultures that give rise to them. A Koons retrospective that has opened at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago occasions queasy wonderment, on the order of “We’ve come to this?,” and the perhaps reluctant conclusion “Uh-huh.” It confirms Koons’s scope as an artist unconfined by the conventional art world, whose work addresses everybody.”

Joke by Richard Prince

The Serpentine Gallery in London presents Richard Prince: Continuation. “I KNEW A GUY WHO WAS SO RICH HE COULD SKI UPHILL . . .” announced the enormous joke painting in the central room of Richard Prince’s first solo show in a British public space, which opened at the Serpentine Gallery in London on Wednesday night. The Exhibition continues till 7 September 2008. The gallery says “Richard Prince is one of the most innovative and influential artists of our time and can be variously described as a painter, photographer, sculptor and collector.” The press says “Prince is a key practitioner of appropriation art and his art is an acquired taste.”

artwork and artist review

This link shows you that digital art, to be enjoyed on the computer, can indeed be GREAT ART (IN CAPITALS).
The splendid screensaver, called Vernanimalcula was designed by artist team Tale of Tales, i.e. Auriea Harvey and Michaël Samyn. It is a public art project sponsored by the Bank of Belgium. Vernanimalcula means “small spring animal”. It is the name given to a primitive animal that lived on the seabed 580 to 600 million years ago. Vernanimalcula is the earliest known animal with bilateral symmetry, which explains the organic and symmetric nature of this creation. Between the tangled lines of the design, the viewer can make out shapes and figures, so it defies the imagination all the time you look at it. Do have a look!

Astrid Lee presents pop artist Peter Max on this blog and contemporary online art magazine , http://www.eArtfair.com/blog, stating : “Pop Artist Peter Max, like his contemporary Andy Warhol, had his artistic way with iconic figures: while Warhol captured Marilyn and Liz in Day-Glo glory, Max caught the visages of the Statue of Liberty, the Mona Lisa and George Washington in vibrant Technicolor (they both took a turn with Mick Jagger).”

sarah presents Jen Bekman makes editioned art affordable at 20×200 posted at SARAHSPY. And article on art prints.

Jean G Dayton presents The Abstract Artist: Abstract Art – Inspirations posted at ‘The Abstract Artist’, saying, “the artists inspiration for painting abstract art”.

art collecting

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By Susan Obaza

Albert Decker presents Art Swap! posted at Resonant Enigma, saying, “Sometimes artists collect each other…”

how are is made

SeaBird presents Interview: Michaella Ruffino of Eclectable posted at SeaBird Chronicles, saying, “The interview talks about the creative process, artistic inspiration and other art making considerations. The interview offers a backdoor insight into the life of this artist in pursuit of art.”

a bit of art history

Sam presents Andy Warhol and Pop Art posted at ‘Surfer Sam and Friends’, saying, “Andy Warhol and Pop Art. The Popular Art Movement. American pop art was fascinated with mass culture, advertisements, comics and cartoons. It included words, speech balloons and contemporary symbols like flags and the dollar bill.”

the end

That concludes this edition. Submit your blog article to the next edition of no name for art using our
carnival submission form.
We welcome genuine posts on fine and contemporary art. The more unique, the more interested we are. This is a child-friendly site ~ consider this in your submission. Art critique articles welcome!

Past posts and future hosts can be found on our blog carnival index page.

5 Steps To Art Appreciation

e Art fair .com — Mon, 02 Jun 2008 23:32:50 +0000

I still remember when I was first invited to an art gallery by my friends and my instinctive reaction was a feeling of apprehension. It was a strange feeling as I have always loved art especially paintings, so why the anxiety. It dawned on me that I was not worried about experiencing the paintings but how to react to them, what to say and how to converse about them so as to not look like a complete moron to my friends.

This very unusual problem led me to explore and find a simple and down-to-earth approach to art appreciation. The idea is to demystify the process and make it easy to enjoy art. Here are some steps that I came up with to make it an easy learning experience

Tip No. 1 Make it a habit to observe and appreciate art

In order to understand your own specific interests and inclinations in art, develop a habit of observing seriously any art object that you come across be it a painting or a sculpture. We often overlook art objects sitting right in front of us. How many of us honestly take some of the free minutes in our office to look at the paintings on our office walls.

If we spend sometime in observing and appreciating art that we are exposed to in everyday life, we will learn a great deal about what things attract and appeal to us the most and also what are the things that you dislike. In a nutshell you will understand more clearly your likes and dislikes in art

Tip No. 2 Develop your own unique art sense

Once you have spent some time in examining your own preferences in art, you can move towards understanding the forms of visual art that connect with you most. For some it is the lifelike representations in sculpture and for others it is the ability of a painter to depict a memory in vivid colors. To many of us all art forms are a treat for the senses and a tribute to the efforts of the artist

As you organize your own reactions to different forms of art, you will learn to recognize small differences and minor variations of colors and shapes that make a painting likeable or not so appealing to you

Tip No. 3 Research the pieces that you like

Now that you have an understanding of the colors, shapes and styles that interest you the most you should research these further to see if they represent a specific art style or a particular form of art, for example in paintings it could be abstracts, figurative or a combination of colors and theme that represent a definite pattern and style of painting

As you progress further, this research will help you to find more and more distinctively the artists and the media that you like the most. Many a times the styles and colors that appeal to us have a special meaning for us and may originate from a specific region of the world or maybe an art form that we were exposed to early in life and has left a significant impression on us. Sometimes it is the art that you experienced on a great vacation that left great memories and gave you a strong liking for it for life, the reasons for liking some art form are endless some thought to it may give you some clues

Tip No. 4 Refine your art sense

You have already explored and created your own art personality and are equipped with the knowledge of the styles of art that appeal to you the most. Your research has provided you with enough information to feel confidant to give reactions to different styles and also decide what appeals to you in different paintings whether it is the artist’s attempt to express his feelings or the emotions the painting evokes in you.

A very important tool that can help to refine your art sense is to keep an art journal. Before you get put off by this seemingly complex work let me quickly point out that it is the simplest form of keeping a dairy. It is a log of the art pieces that you see and your reactions to each piece, this log can be an important means in refining and enriching your unique art sense. Another important benefit of this art journal is that it can serve as a very effective way of relieving stress. No kidding…keeping an art journal is one of the key activities in art therapy which is a form of therapy that uses creativity and art in the healing process

Tip No. 5 Open up to new experiences in art

The last and most significant tip in the art appreciation process is to keep your mind open and receptive to new art experiences. One of the disadvantages of having developed a definite pattern of likes and dislikes in your art personality is to get trapped in this pattern. Do not cage yourself in this citadel of your own creation but remain open to new and totally different creations and art forms.

The whole purpose of art appreciation is to open your subconscious mind to be receptive to new experiences and creations. You will be amazed when you read your own art log as time passes to see your tastes change over time to different themes and styles. Always remember that the objective of art appreciation is to recognize and understand your own love of art and artistry.

By Anu Darbha

The Artist’s Mother ~ Haring, Hockney, Rembrandt, Van Gogh, Picasso …

e Art fair .com — Sun, 11 May 2008 00:27:45 +0000

For this special day, honoring Motherhood, I thought to look at how some artists have depicted their own mother or an archetypal mother.

Who’s Mom?

The artists’ real mothers are displayed as persons with their own life. She is an individual with a personal life and character as is witnessed by her child, the artist.

By painting his/her mother, child – mother relationship is revealed by the fact that the artist paints his mother and how she is depicted.

In contrast, the ‘mother and child’ images are simpler and softer. They symbolize the child’s innocence, mother love and protection.

Finally, there is the mother as ultimate source.

Pablo Picasso

Mother and Child

Pablo Picasso

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This difference can been quite clearly in two paintings by Picasso, that were made almost in the same year.

In 1922, Picasso painted this lovely symbolic painting of Mother and child. Mother with Divine light in her heart, and the baby painted in Divine & innocent blue. The whole painting is lovely, gentle, and nurturing. Displaying the delicate growth of nature.

In contrast, in 1923, Picasso painted his own ‘Mother’. She’s placed ‘backwards’, almost black and white, not facing the viewers, she is strong, dignified, emotionless.

The Mother as Birth-Giver & Nurturer

Paul Klee

1938, Paul Klee made his ‘Mother & Child’ in watercolors.

She tenderly cares for her baby.

Keith Haring

Social Activist, Keith Haring, painted ‘Mother Holding Baby’, in 1986. The child is colored innocent & Divine. The mother is the strong, happy protector.

The Mother as The Artist’s Mother

David Hockney

The photos here are a ‘before’ and ‘after’. The first image is a thumbnail of an early painting of David Hockney’s ‘My parents’ (1977).

Hockney usually gave hints to the sitter’s character by depicting them in their normal environments. In it, his devout mom in in Mother Mary’s holy blue. She’s smiling contently. Her husband is in the room with her. She’ll level-headed and has her two feet on the ground.

My Mother, Bolton Abbey, Yorkshire Nov. 82

In this photo collage of his mother in 1982, Hockney clad her head-toe in a bluish rain coat that resembled a bag for a corpse, and made her lean against a tomb stone on a graveyard. It’s dreary weather, and she looks away.

Actually, Hockney portrayed her on the day of her husband’s funeral. In doing so, he created an image of unveiled human suffering, a moving and outstanding testament to both of his parents.

In 1985, three years after her husband’s death, David Hockney made a still-scattered mom in his photo collage.

A few years later (1988-1989), David Hockney painted his ‘Mum’ again, now in a tender portrait. While she looks straight ahead, she is not really looking in your eyes. Her eyes look like two globes, who have seen it all. However, the pain of losing her husband has dulled. This painting is made with love.

Rembrandt

In 1629, Rembrandt painted his own mom with utmost detail.

He made this painting in the transition from religious-themed scenes towards portraits of the wealthy & the noblesse.

He painted her twice in the span of just a few years.

Van Gogh

In 1888, Van Gogh painted his happy, sweet mom to look like this (painted in oil on canvas).

Made in Arles.

The Mother as Omni-Presence

In my study of artists and their mothers, I discovered a third, interesting angle: the archetypal Mother as ultimate source and omni-presence.

Rauschenberg

Early in his career, in 1950 Rauschenberg created this conceptual ‘combine’ collage/painting called ‘The Mother of God’. Whether you take the title to be ‘the ultimate source of the Divine’ or an exclamation in the face of the extreme, the painting is great, strong and meaningful. The ‘negative’ space around the large disk (source / sun ) is made up of city maps. You can choose the painting to mean that the God-Mother’s saving white light is omnipresent, hanging over the cities and being right there for anyone who lives there, but many other readings are possible. For example, the circle could also be read to be the womb. And it could be seen as a void, representing the unknowable nature of God.

Dubuffet

Dubuffet choose to paint the symbol ‘The Mother Goddess’. To me, she is the Earth Mother, in her black and red tones. In this as in his other paintings, Dubuffet focused on the essential expressive factors of painting, gesture and color, and broke with aesthetic conventions. Interestingly, she is only painted till the waist, even though the womb and the lower chakras best relate to Mother Earth. The emphasis is on her mouth and eyes. She looks … amazed, shocked, violated ?! Certainly not a happy princess.

Outsider Art – Is It Really Art? – part 2

e Art fair .com — Fri, 29 Feb 2008 08:19:55 +0000

Continuation of part 1 of the article:

Naive and Primitive Artists

Dubuffet was working with the mentally ill artists, while “Outsider Art” outside of France was known to be a much more general term. It included not just the psychotic art, but also naive, self-taught, and primitive art as well. On the American scene in the early to mid twentieth century we had Grandma Moses, the renowned folk artist painting such countryside favorites as “This Old Checkered House in Winter” which was the subject of many paintings, one of which was appraised on “Antiques Roadshow” in 2004 for $60,000. Several of her paintings have appeared on Hallmark holiday cards.

Sugaring Off, 1955
by Grandma Moses
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Earlier we have Horace Pippin, born in my local area in West Chester in 1888, who painted “Giving Thanks” and “Domino Players.” Even earlier in France, there was Henri Rousseau, with his dream-like representations of jungles and jungle animals.

All of these artists could have been considered Naive painters because they were self-taught and their paintings possessed a child-like quality to them. This doesn’t mean all Naive painters had no formal education, but as it relates to Outsider Art it generally does. In modern times there is no stigma attached to this genre of art.

Children’s Art

I talked about how children learn art in my article Learning Art. The way we learn as we grow up and experiment with art starts out with an expression close to ancient societies’ art. For example, in ancient Egyptian wall paintings you will find people in a row side by side with no overlap. Children would express the same type of thing when they draw people in a crowd next to each other in a row instead of showing any signs of overlap. The way they see it, if someone’s arm looks as if it disappears into the back of another person, this makes no visual sense. You wouldn’t really see a person’s arm actually going inside someone else, so why would one draw it that way.

The same is true for people in buildings. When a child draws a person inside a building, they wouldn’t show a face looking out from a window, because this would mean there is simply a floating head in a window sill. If anything their art was more true to reality, than to aesthetics and perspective.

Beautiful World, 1948

Grandma Moses

Buy this Fine Art Print (Art.com)

One funny recent story which raises the question of the authority of art dealers is a woman selling her son’s scribble paintings as priceless works of modern art. She didn’t tell the dealers her son was 6 or 7 years old and the paintings were more or less doodles. Nonetheless the dealers saw the “genius” of them and bought them top dollar.

If anything is to be learned from children and from child-like naive paintings is that art can be appreciated for art’s sake. It doesn’t have to be perfect and it certainly does not need the approval of avant garde art experts. Art can be found in the small crafts of Christmas Kitsche statues, the scribbles of prisoners and psychiatric patients and even the finger paintings of gorillas. Art should be appreciated for what it is, and what’s its attempting to be.

Whether it’s good art, bad art, crummy art, children’s art, “Outsider Art” is still art.

>By Dan Kretschmer, who keeps a daily blog at www.vincesear.com

Art’s Impact on Society

e Art fair .com — Mon, 11 Feb 2008 09:08:41 +0000

Art is an extremely private experience, yet, it is meant to be shared with the public. Society, as a whole, examines the art produced and has the right to approve, disapprove, acknowledge, ignore, praise and abuse it. The public or society has not remained constant over the years. In the time of the Renaissance, for example, only a select few were “society.” They commissioned art, were patrons of the arts and their artists. Today, almost anyone can share in the experience of art. They can attempt to create, view and act as a critic.

Does art make the world a better place, or is it quite useless? This is a very ancient riddle, and no one has solved it yet. A similar question – has art truly had any impact upon society? Has it fashioned or molded minds? Has it shaped opinions and altered how people feel or think? Is it practicable in or relevant to society and its individuals’ daily lives?

Art reflects life. It is a portrait of history, whether it is history of the current moment or an event in the past or something of the imagination. Art has captured an event, clarifying its existence and representation to society. The portraits of the French Revolution by David, Benjamin West’s portrayal of the death of General Wolfe and Poussin’s recreation of the Rape of the Sabine Women all strive to provide a version of historical events. Society, in turn, can accept or reject these portrayals of true events. Sometimes, as in the case of Goya’s depiction of the French behavior during their conquest of Spain, art inspires a deep hatred of a certain nationality.

Art encapsulate a country’s culture during that time period. Rembrandt, Rousseau, Monet, Hogarth, Whistler, Jan Steen, Frans Hal and Breughel depict for their generation the world as they see it. They affect future society by providing concise, if sometimes imaginative, depictions of daily life. Brughel the Elder paints peasants, Jean Baptiste depicts lower-class life and Daumier’s subjects in “The Third Class Carriage” are not the
lofty work of Gainsborough. The wit and graphicness of Hogarth in “The Rake’s Progress” or the imposing work of Thomas Eakins’ “The Gross Clinic” provide historians with clues and pictures to a vastly different way of life. Jan Steen’s “The Eve of St. Nicholas” provides a way to uncover how people spent Christmas in the early 17th century in the Netherlands.

Art has encouraged feelings of patriotism and national pride. Goya’s, “The Third of May, 1808,” the Americans portrayal of their revolution and countless other artists across the centuries have provided an impact extending beyond the work. Depictions of Washington crossing the Delaware, and portraits of battlefields, at home and abroad, are scenes that inspire society. These works also remind the public of their past, what has been sacrificed or accomplished and what they can aspire to in the present or future.

Artwork has also provided clues to lives long over and species since disappeared. Holstein provides us with portraits of people long dead e.g. Henry VIII, Erasmus of Rotterdam, as Rubens does with his painting of Marie de’ Medici. Goya’s masterful and psychologically rich work “The Family of Charles IV” lays bare the natures and relationships of this royal family for all of society to view. Art has also provided examples of garden styles, structures to be imitated and fashions to follow.

Artwork has allowed us to glimpse lives and lifestyles. At one time, dressmakers in the colonies used the artwork found in magazines and depicted in reproductions of paintings to create the latest in fashionable clothing. Art shaped a fashionable society where none had existed before. It allowed the Americans to be as up-to-date as their European counterparts. In the same manner, George Caleb Bingham with his painting “Fur Traders on the Mississippi” allowed Europeans a glimpse of another life. The art works by the Jewish artists trapped in the concentration camps of World War II preserve for all time the horrors of war and the inhumanity inflicted by one race upon another. Art has also been a medium to help spread a culture. Art of propaganda during war is a classic example. Posters urge people to support their troops. Marketing ploys ask consumers to buy locally or purchase a specific product. Pop art is probably one of the most influential societal tools of the modern and post-modern age. The best possible example is Any Warhol. His Campbell Soup Cans are now icons.

Art has stirred the imagination of all nations from the earliest time. It has helped roused patriotic fervor, brought new ideas and culture to light, raised questions and rewritten or reinterpreted historical events. Art has provided clues to the past and advanced questions about the future. Its impact continues to be felt emotionally. For, above all, art touches us beyond the intellect, reaching down into society’s emotional core. In the end, the greatest impact of art is its ability to provide us with the truth about the world seen through the eye of an artist.

By Grant Eckert

About Author

Grant Eckert is a writer for Maccaca. Maccaca is a leading Art & Photography | Social Network. visit at: www.maccaca.com