Thursday, March 29, 2007

"Reclining Nude" (1977) by Romare Bearden

"Reclining Nude" (1977) by Romare Bearden, collage of various papers with ink and graphite on fiberboard, © Romare Bearden Foundation/Licensed by VAGA, New York, N.Y.

"The beauty of the black woman was essential to Bearden's art. She is seen here in a minimalist composition that suggests Bearden's admiration for Henri Matisse (French, 1869-1954), whose paper cutouts from the 1930s through the 1950s would have been inspirational for a piece such as this." (source)

Copyright © 2007 National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.

Tuesday, March 27, 2007

"Lucile" (2006) by Nicolas Granger-Taylor

"Lucile" (2006) by Nicolas Granger-Taylor (London, UK, 1963), Oil on canvas over board, 25.9 x 36.1 cm (10.24 x 14.25 inches)

Image courtesy Frost & Reed Gallery.

Sunday, March 25, 2007

"Eve" by Eric Gill

"Eve" by Eric Gill (1882-1940), wood engraving printed from the block in 1929 in an edition of 400.

Sculptor and engraver. Born in Brighton, Sussex the son of a Congregationalist minister, Gill became articled to W.H. Caroe, architect to the Ecclesiastical Commissioners in London in 1900. He attended evening classes at Central School of Arts and Crafts and studied letter design under Edward Johnston, he also began to carve in stone. By 1904 he was making a living from letter engraving and within six years he was sculpturing figures. His first solo exhibition was held at at the Chenil Gallery, London, 1911. He set up an artistic community in Ditchling, Sussex and converted to Roman Catholicism in 1913. In 1924 moved to Wales and over the next four years produced much of his best engraved work, mainly for the Golden Cockerel Press. Though a controversial figure in that his sexual improprieties remained in conflict with his Catholic faith, Gill is nowadays regarded as one of the greatest craftsmen of this century, a typographer and letter cutter of consummate skill and a masterly wood engraver. "Eve" is regarded as his most important work. (source)

Friday, March 23, 2007

"Grosse Prostituée sur les Genoux d'un Barbu" (1971) by Pablo Picasso

"Grosse Prostituée sur les Genoux d'un Barbu" (1971) by Pablo Picasso. Etching, Aquatint.

(source)

Wednesday, March 21, 2007

Three works by Jean-Luc Moerman

"Collage #52" by Jean-Luc Moerman (source)

"Untitled" by Jean-Luc Moerman (source)

"Untitled" by Jean-Luc Moerman (source)

Jean-Luc Moermans (1967) lives and works in Brussels. These are drawings on magazine pages, I think. He also does stickers, murals and paintings.

So in the morning I start with designs, then I paint, I sometimes design using magazine photos as a base; or else I start projects according to interventions in places which people propose to me; and in the evening or at night, I tend to do stickers. As I cut them by hand, this takes quite a lot of time. Tattooed ladies come rather more at the end of the day. This gives me a daily rhythm, like waves, like in music. (source)

Tuesday, March 13, 2007

"Nude II" by Howard Rogers

"Nude II" by Howard Rogers, Oil on canvas

Howard Rogers (USA, 1932) started out as a commercial illustrator and only later in life started painting horses, cowboys, and nudes. This painting is of course super-kitsch but just imagine seeing it hanging in one room with Lisa Yuskavage and John Currin.

(image source)

"Portrait of Nono" (1937) by Henri Lebasque

"Portrait of Nono (his second daughter)" (1937) by Henri Lebasque (French, 1865-1937). Oil on canvas.

source

Friday, March 02, 2007

"The War Room" (2007) by Richard Jackson

"The War Room" (2007) by Richard Jackson, installation (detail)

From the press release of his first exhibition at Yvon Lambert New York (February 24, 2007 – March 22, 2007):

"An admitted art anarchist, for over forty years California installation artist Richard Jackson has been exploring and challenging the conceptual and physical boundaries of painting and the artist – and making a mess of galleries and museums in the process. Assaulting viewers with humor and vulgarity that belies the underlying rhetoric and intellectual rigor of the work, Jackson’s work belongs to – and perhaps even defines – the distinct tradition of art about art. Straddling the line between performance and installation, Jackson’s preposterous painting machines are relics of a brief performance action, meditating on the labor itself of making art as well as on art’s continuing ability to reflect contemporary society."