#San Diego view. Oil on canvas.

[mlleclaudine]

Visit Tamara de Lempicka’s First U.S. Retrospective in San Francisco This October

by Kate Mothes - Colossal, August 13, 2024

“Young Girl in Green (Young Girl with Gloves)” (c. 1931), oil on board, 24 1/4 x 17 7/8 inches. Digital image © CNAC/MNAM, Dist. RMN-Grand Palais / Art Resource, New York, courtesy of Centre Pompidou, Paris.

Nearly one hundred years after Tamara de Lempicka (1894-1980) first exhibited her work in San Francisco, a sweeping survey of the storied and glamorous artist opens again in the city. This October, at the de Young—part of the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco—the show marks the artist’s first U.S. retrospective and illuminates new details about her life.

de Lempicka’s bold, stylized figures have become synonymous with the 1920s, an era characterized by opulence, sophistication, and youthful optimism. She incorporates Art Deco design elements, like geometric facets, tonal contrasts, and city architecture framing idealized faces and flowing, fashionable garments. She sought to create recognizable paintings with a freshness and clarity that set them apart from what she called the “banality” of art she saw around her. And among other Art Deco-era painters like Diego Rivera or Rockwell Kent, who often painted large murals featuring crowds of people, de Lempicka distinguished herself by focusing predominantly on portraits.

The artist’s early life has long been a source of fascination. For years, she was thought to have been born Tamara Rozalia Gurwik-Górska in 1894—although she claimed variously that she was born in 1898, 1900, and 1902—but recent research reveals her birth name was Tamara Rosa Hurwitz. She moved to Saint Petersburg, where she married a prominent Polish lawyer named Tadeusz Łempicki, and then traveled to Paris, where she studied painting. “At the beginning of her career, de Lempicka chose to sign her works using the male declination of her surname, ‘Lempitzky,’ effectively disguising her gender and adding to the confusion surrounding her origin story,” says an exhibition statement.

By 1928, de Lempicka had become the mistress of Baron Raoul Kuffner de Dioszegh, a wealthy art collector, and she divorced from Łempicki in 1931. When Kuffner’s wife died, the artist married Kuffner, and she became known in the press as “The Baroness with a Brush.” The couple moved to the U.S. in 1939, and although her work fell out of fashion during World War II, a 1960s revival of Art Deco style ushered in a comeback. She eventually moved to Mexico in 1974, where she died in 1980.

More than 120 of de Lempicka’s works will go on view in San Francisco, including her most celebrated portraits, early experimental still lifes, rarely seen drawings, and a selection of Art Deco objects from the Fine Arts Museums’ collection. Tamara de Lempicka runs October 12, 2024, to February 9, 2025, after which it will travel to the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, from March 9 to May 25. Find more on the de Young’s website.

“Brilliance (Bacchante)” (c. 1932), oil on panel, 14 1/4 x 10 5/8 inches.

“Portrait of a Man (Thadeusz Łempicki) or Unfinished Portrait of a Man,” (1928), oil on canvas, 51 x 31 7/8 inches.

“Arums” (1935), oil on canvas, 25 7/8 x 19 3/8 inches.

“Irene and Her Sister” (1925), oil on canvas, 57 1/2 x 35 1/16 inches.

“Saint-Moritz” (1929), oil on panel, 13 3/4 x 10 5/8 inches.

“Portrait of Ira P.” (1930), oil on panel, 39 3/8 x 25 9/16 inches.

Thérèse Bonney, “Tamara de Lempicka working on ‘Portrait of Tadeusz de Łempicki'” (c. 1929), gelatin silver print, 9 3/8 x 7 inches.

[jamieroxxartist]

Back in 2005 I was commissioned to Paint several Paintings for a Fetish Dungeon in Burbank, CA.  This was a great move on my part and led to many other commissions.  Here are just a few of some various #Fetish #Commissioned #Paintings I have Painted over the years:

‘not much Compromise in the Control’ 2021, acrylic and oil blend on canvas, 20"x24"

‘Thursday Nights and those goings on’ 2010, acrylic and oil blend on canvas, 18"x24"

‘Dancefloor Pop!’ 2004 2006 acrylic and oil blend on board. 36"x48"

‘Dark City #Dames’ 2005, acrylic and oil blend on canvas, 24"x36"

‘Bridal Party (gags), 2005, acrylic and oil blend on canvas, 24"x36"

'Sin’ 2005, acrylic and oil blend on canvas, 20"x 16"

'Home from Club’ 2011, acrylic and oil blend on canvas, 18"x24"

a couple of Custom #Commissioned #Paintings I painted for a charity event that was hosted by the San Diego Leather Community 2008, acrylic and oil blend on canvas, 48"x36" (each) ‘The #Mistress’ 2005, acrylic and oil blend on canvas, 18"x24"

‘#Blindfold Blues’ 2013, acrylic and oil blend on canvas, 24"x36"

'High Heel Point of View’ 2014, acrylic and oil blend on canvas, 20"x24"

'The Blindfold’ 2005, acrylic and oil blend on canvas, 20"x24"

'What’s Your Fetish’ 2005, acrylic and oil blend on canvas, 24"x30"

'French Maid Fetish’ 2005, acrylic and oil blend on canvas, 18"x24"

'Soft Looks’ 2015, acrylic and oil blend on canvas, 16"x20"

'Patent Leather Squeak’ 2020, acrylic and oil blend on canvas, 20"x16"

'Pink Gag’ 2015, acrylic and oil blend on canvas, 24"x24"

All by by @ArtistJamieRoxx #JamieRoxx (www.JamieRoxx.us) These Sold Paintings are Not Available.

[drrobertpuffphd]

Berthe Morisot French 1841-1895 “Women in the Garden” 1882 Oil on canvas Photo is taken by: @robertpuffjr Berthe Morisot made repeated trips to the South of France, where she painted this view of the garden of the elegant Villa Arnulphi in Nice. Like her friend and colleague Edgar Degas, she at times deceptively gives her oil paintings the feel of a pastel. (This writeup is taken from the description at the museum.) San Diego Museum of Art, California, USA #historyofart #arthistory #greatworksofart #artmuseum #art #artist #masterpiece #painting #museumvisit #artlover #artists #artblogger #berthemorisot #morisot (at San Diego Museum of Art) https://www.instagram.com/p/Cmm_Av8vpJN/?igshid=NGJjMDIxMWI=

[usedcarheaven]

She studied at the Minneapolis School of Fine Arts under Anthony Angarola, to whom she was engaged until his death in 1929. Active in Chicago during the 1920s as a teacher and exhibitor, she worked in Los Angeles, California in 1927–1928. She moved to San Diego in 1933.

She  painted an oil-on canvas-mural in the La Jolla post office (Scenic View of the Village)  in 1936 for the Section of Painting and Sculpture.As a muralist for the Works Progress Administration curriculum project, she painted murals for Roosevelt Junior High School (Building Padre Dam and Potola's Departure) in 1937–38 Between 1939 and 1940 she completed a WPA mural titled The Seven Arts in the La Jolla High School Auditorium.

Belle Baranceanu (American, 1902-1988).

[nickssandiegoart]

[gagosiangallery]

Helen Frankenthaler at Gagosian Grosvenor Hill, London

May 18, 2021

IMAGINING LANDSCAPES Paintings by Helen Frankenthaler, 1952–1976

June 17–August 28, 2021 20 Grosvenor Hill, London __________ I had the landscape in my arms when I painted it. I had the landscapes in my mind and shoulder and wrist. —Helen Frankenthaler Gagosian is pleased to present Imagining Landscapes: Paintings by Helen Frankenthaler, 1952–1976, an exhibition of fourteen paintings from the collection of the Helen Frankenthaler Foundation, several of which have never been exhibited before. The references to landscape that are inherent in these paintings shift between subtle and explicit, as critic E. C. Goossen observed in 1958. All are characterized by an extraordinary variety of line and color. The earliest of them—painted in 1952, before Frankenthaler’s breakthrough development of soak-stain painting later that year with Mountains and Sea—is the work of an already mature artist: an invented panorama with suggestions of palm fronds and mountain peaks. The next belongs to a small group of canvases with drawn forms that Frankenthaler painted on her honeymoon with Robert Motherwell in the southwest of France. And four canvases from 1961—Fable, Beach Scene, Square Figure, and After Rubens—show her simplifying her drawing and making it more calligraphic, even as she continued to create figural as well as landscape references. In three canvases from 1963, a major change is evident in Frankenthaler’s approach. Juxtaposed areas of lush stained color replace the lines of the earlier paintings, their irregular borders evoking the boundaries of natural forms. The titles of these works—Narcissus, Yolk, Sea Goddess—invite interpretation of their sometimes aqueous, sometimes cloudy forms in the manner that Leonardo da Vinci advised painters to look at stained walls and see in them images of the natural world. Even as Pop art was recuperating explicit depiction, and Color Field painting purist abstraction, Frankenthaler maintained in her own way an art of allusion—the richness of ambiguous reference—and cultivated a complexity akin to the volatility of the physical universe.

In the imposingly large Cape Orange of 1964, Frankenthaler advances this approach with flatter, more opaque color to a bolder effect, suggesting a topographical map. And the pair of canvases from 1971, Orange Hem and Red Travels, simplify the effect further, evoking details of landscape seen from above—perhaps, the movement of water around an obstruction and a view into a cleft or onto a stretch of coastline, respectively. In both cases, the rectangle of the canvas substitutes for a framed view. The final two works in the exhibition, Chill Factor (1973) and Sphinx (1976), reintroduce earlier features to the format: the former with its meandering filaments of drawing and atmospheric color; the latter, a reprise of the bipartite structure of Narcissus (1963), with memories of the fluid, centralized composition of Mountains and Sea. A catalogue featuring a new essay by art historian Robert Slifkin along with three historical texts will be published to accompany the exhibition. In addition, a room of paintings by Frankenthaler is installed at Tate Modern, London, until November 2021. Helen Frankenthaler: Radical Beauty, the first major UK exhibition of Frankenthaler’s woodcut prints, will open at Dulwich Picture Gallery, London, on September 15, 2021. Helen Frankenthaler (1928–2011) is represented in major public and private collections worldwide. Her career has been the subject of three major monographs and numerous institutional exhibitions, including the Jewish Museum, New York (1960); Whitney Museum of American Art, New York (1969, traveled to Whitechapel Gallery, London; Orangerie Herrenhausen, Hannover, Germany; and Kongresshalle, Berlin); A Paintings Retrospective, Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth, TX (1989–90, traveled to Museum of Modern Art, New York; Los Angeles County Museum of Art; and Detroit Institute of Arts); Prints, National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC (1993, traveled to San Diego Museum of Fine Arts; Museum of Fine Arts, Boston; Contemporary Arts Center, Cincinnati; and Machida City Museum of Graphic Arts, Japan); Paintings on Paper (1949–2002), Museum of Contemporary Art, North Miami, FL (2004, traveled to Edinburgh Royal Scottish Academy, Scotland); Against the Grain: The Woodcuts of Helen Frankenthaler, National Gallery of Australia, Canberra (2005); Giving Up One’s Mark: Helen Frankenthaler in the 1960s and 1970s, Albright-Knox Art Gallery, Buffalo, NY (2014–15); Pittura/Panorama: Paintings by Helen Frankenthaler, 1952–1992, Museo di Palazzo Grimani, Venice (2019); Helen Frankenthaler Prints: Seven Types of Ambiguity, Princeton University Art Museum, NJ (2019); and Abstract Climates: Helen Frankenthaler in Provincetown, Parrish Art Museum, Water Mill, NY (2019, originated at Provincetown Art Association and Museum, MA, in 2018). _____ Helen Frankenthaler, Fable, 1961, oil and charcoal on unsized, unprimed canvas, 94 1/2 × 99 inches (240 × 251.5 cm) © 2021 Helen Frankenthaler Foundation, Inc./Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York

[impressivepress]

Live like a Rockefeller — The Rivals by Diego Rivera

At first glance, Abby Aldrich Rockefeller and the Mexican artist Diego Rivera couldn’t have been more different. She was the daughter of a prominent Republican senator and had married into one of America’s most famous capitalist families; he was a devoted member of Mexico’s Communist party, who had visited Moscow before his first U.S. mural commission in San Francisco.

Abby, however, was a huge admirer of Rivera’s art. He’d developed a reputation as one of his generation’s leading modern artists, and she knew all about his triumphs as a muralist in his homeland (in buildings such as the Ministry of Education in Mexico City), not to mention his mural for the Pacific Stock Exchange Tower in San Francisco. She purchased a number of Rivera’s oil paintings, sketches and watercolours. Her first purchase in 1929 was May Day Parade, a Rivera sketchbook (now in the collection at MoMA), which he had completed on a trip to Moscow.

In 1931, in her capacity as co-founder and trustee of the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), Abby invited Rivera for a solo exhibition at the institution, making him only the second artist, after Matisse, to receive that honour. It is likely that Mexico had been on her mind for decades, ever since her first trip to the country in 1903. Rivera embodied everything that Abby and Alfred Barr, MoMA’s first Director, were looking for in terms of the museum’s programming: he was both a modernist genius with a towering body of work and as Mexico’s leading muralist, he was the foremost proponent of a genuine art movement from the Americas to the world.

On arrival in New York, Rivera paid a visit to the Rockefellers’ Manhattan home with his wife, the artist Frida Kahlo. ‘He was a very imposing and charismatic figure: tall and weighing three hundred pounds,’ Abby’s son, David Rockefeller, recalled in later life.

Rivera brought with him a new canvas, titled The Rivals, which Abby had commissioned and which he had painted in a makeshift studio aboard the steamship, the SS Morro Castle, en route from Mexico. The painting depicts a traditional festival from the southern Mexican state of Oaxaca known as Las Velas, a colourful celebration in observance of local patron saints and of the natural bounties of spring.

‘It’s undoubtedly one of Rivera’s masterpieces,’ says Virgilio Garza, Head of Latin American Paintings at Christie’s. ‘Compared with his murals — which are epic in scale and content, with sweeping vistas and narratives that are often ideologically or historically driven — this easel painting is equally monumental in presence, yet devoid of Rivera’s politics. It’s a much more intimate scene focused on regional traditions, and the brushwork is deliberately looser.’

Others have praised the rich combination of bright colours, reminiscent of Matisse (whom Rivera knew from the decade he’d spent in Paris, between 1911 and 1921) but also, more pertinently, reflecting the vivid hues evident across Mexico: from its flora to its architecture. ‘And then there’s his modern conception of space through the use of multiple planes of colour that recall the formal effects of synthetic Cubism,’ says Garza. ‘Forms and figures are synthesised and reduced to their essential elements. The viewer’s gaze recedes in stages, from the men in the foreground, to the brightly dressed women under the hanging papel picado. Rivera’s brilliant composition of intersecting planes creates a cinematic narrative.’

The Rivals  was as popular with Abby as Rivera’s sell-out MoMA retrospective proved to be with New York’s public. In 1932, she approached the artist about another project: completing a mural for the lobby of the RCA Building, the centrepiece of the Rockefeller Center, her husband, John D. Rockefeller, Jr.’s new complex in Midtown Manhattan.

Rivera’s idea was a fresco on the twin themes of human cooperation and scientific development, and he sent Abby a planned sketch of it along with a letter saying, ‘I assure you that… I shall try to do for the Rockefeller Center — and especially for you, Madame — the best of all the work I have done up to this time.’

In the process of painting the mural Man at the Crossroads, Rivera made several changes to his original sketch that would have fateful consequences. Chief among these was the addition of Lenin’s features into the face of a labourer. When news of this change in the mural reached  Nelson Rockefeller, David’s older brother, he asked Rivera to substitute the late Soviet leader for another figure.

The painter, despite many attempts to persuade him, refused. Equally vexing to the Rockefeller family was the depiction of John D. Rockefeller, Jr. on the left side of the mural drinking among a group of men and cavorting with women of questionable repute. The latter was a striking image given the family’s devout religious views and their abstinence from drinking and smoking, as well as the Rockefellers’ firm support of U.S. Prohibition-era laws. With no compromise reached, Rivera was dismissed, and although he was paid in full the mural was destroyed. ‘The mural was quite brilliantly executed,’ wrote David Rockefeller in Memoirs in 2002, ‘but not appropriate’.

Rivera would go on to recreate Man at the Crossroads, in modified form as Man, Controller of the Universe, on the walls of the Palacio de Bellas Artes in Mexico City. Here again, Rivera depicted John D. Rockefeller, Jr. clutching a martini amid scenes of gambling and excess, while the other side featured workers and various Communist leaders.

Despite all these events, Abby and her sons Nelson and David remained admirers until the end. She would donate many of the Rivera works she owned to MoMA, although The Rivals  was one piece she held on to. As a sign of how highly she valued it, Abby gave it to David and his wife Peggy McGrath as a wedding present in 1940. They, in turn, would give the painting pride of place, for decades, in the living room of their summer residence, Ringing Point, in Maine.

David Rockefeller’s interest in Latin America and its art and culture spanned many decades. In January 1946, after completing his military service in the Second World War and before he started work at Chase Bank, he and Peggy decided to take ‘a second honeymoon’. They settled on Mexico as the destination for their six-week holiday.

‘This was our first direct exposure to Latin America, and we were very much taken with what we saw,’ David wrote years later. ‘We were especially fascinated by the remarkable pre-Columbian monuments and artefacts, as well as by the charm of much contemporary Mexican painting and folk art.’ He recounted how keen they were to see the famous Mexican frescoes of Rivera, José Clemente Orozco, and Rufino Tamayo in Mexico City and Cuernavaca. ‘We especially wanted to see Rivera’s murals, since I had met Rivera with my mother when he first came to New York in 1931,’ he recalled. ‘I had always found him to be a very sympathetic person, and I liked his painting.’

The couple had travelled to Mexico armed with letters of introduction from Nelson Rockefeller, who had been appointed Coordinator of Inter-American Affairs by President Roosevelt and had subsequently visited virtually all the Latin American nations. One letter was addressed to Roberto Montenegro, an artist friend of Nelson’s, who introduced David and Peggy to other contemporary Mexican artists.

At the beginning of his long career with Chase, one of David’s first assignments was in the bank’s Latin American division. In 1965 he assumed the chairmanship of both the Council of the Americas and its new cultural adjunct, the Center for Inter-American Relations (CIAR). The latter was responsible for introducing Americans to the cultures and artists of Latin America, including staging the first one-man show in New York for Fernando Botero.

In 1991, he endowed the David Rockefeller Center for Latin American Studies at Harvard, which continues to explore Latin American politics, society, and culture, and after his retirement from the bank David was made chairman of The Americas Society, which afforded him, he said, ‘many new opportunities to visit the nations of Latin America and the Caribbean, and to appreciate their diverse art and culture.’

~ ROCKEFELLER COLLECTION | AUCTION PREVIEW · 9 May 2018.

[slutsofren]

Paint Me Red

Summary:  Being a struggling artist in a city filled of aspiring artists has always been rough, you were privileged enough to have a semblance of steady income thanks to the promotional work your manager, Poe Dameron, does for you. For the past however many weeks, you've become consumed with the works of an anonymous poet, one who has captivated their own cult following. Their works have inspired countless paintings of yours and in turn, you catch the eye of one Kylo Ren.

Tags: Kylo Ren reader insert / modern au / painter reader / poet Kylo / eventual romance / maybe smut idk / Kylo has Trauma but you dont have to “fix him”

Read on AO3 here!

Chapter 1: Gallery (below the cut)

You kept looking at the painting. No matter how many times you re-painted, reinterpreted this poem, your hands just couldn’t find a consistent translation between the words and your paint. You dropped the brush and leaned back in the chair, hanging your head as far back as you could and let out a loud groan.

“Why does this have to be so complicated ,” you exclaimed to nobody in particular. It’s been a month since you cooped yourself in this studio, a whole month! It felt like you’ve accomplished nothing but waste canvas and paint this entire time. All along the floor laid waste to the discarded abstract portraits you had produced and hated. Nearly a fraction had been left unfinished due to it just not working out.

You mumbled and grumbled while you stood and relocated to the workspace of the studio, where a computer and books had been thrown about. The computer woke, nearly blinding your eyes. What time is it anyways, you wondered. The sun had set some time ago, you knew just as much when you could barely see your work and were forced to lose focus to turn on a light. That distraction had really set you back.

A quick glance to your watch informed you that no, the sun didn’t just set a while back- it set well over six hours ago. The time had been creeping to two in the morning already, no wonder your eyes were straining so hard. When your computer unlocked and you opened your music app to play some background audio, you grabbed the leatherbound book that was inspiring your work.

Nobody knew who the author was, only that they released two-hundred and fifty black leather bound books with gold foiling titled “Mine” every couple of years. You were close friends to some editors down in San Diego, the same publisher that worked with this anonymous author and they were always kind enough to secure you a copy.

They wrote like it was the last thing they’d ever write, as if pain circulated through their veins. They wrote of being lost, being hurt, feeling such intense anger with no human outlet, and of being ignored and tossed away.

Sometimes they wrote like they’d be dead before the poem had ended.

Much of this resonated with you. Ever since you moved to Los Angeles, this magnificent city of wanna-be actors and musicians, seeing lights that inspired yet mocked the pedestrians down below, you’ve felt like you were dead yourself. When you moved here, all you ever wanted to be was a painter. It didn’t always matter what you painted, you loved a variety of styles and eras, as long as commissions paid the bills and your personal pieces sold at galleries, you were satisfied.

But sometimes being satisfied wasn’t enough.

You took the black book and opened to the poem you had been hyper-fixating on for the last couple of months since it was released. You interpreted it in as many ways as you could style your hair on any given day. This one spoke to you the moment you read it, it broke your heart, mended it, then threw it away all at once. To you, this particular poem breathed new life into your soul.

You read each line over and over, admired how this poet seemed to write effortlessly, as if it’s just how they speak. Gosh, what you would do just to meet and have a conversation, to understand the mysterious writer’s genius.

And so you kept painting, never seeing each unfinished canvas as a failure but rather an entirely different interpretation. You couldn’t let this get you down, you just had to keep working- keep picking up the paint and let loose.

As the days blended together, your manager, Poe Dameron waltzed into your workspace without a care in the world. You turned down the music that you had playing in the background while you worked.

He picked up one of your unfinished works, “I got you a gallery space, set for two weeks from now in Pasadena. Sponsored by the Norton Simon Museum.” The way these words rolled off his tongue was so nonchalant, you didn’t believe it.

You let out a choke, “Excuse me?”

“You heard me, you got a space, now give me something to tide them over with- oh, that looks nice can I take that one,” he grabs another unfinished painting. “Anyways, don’t worry about promoting it, they are all over it. They’re just calling it Artist Spotlight but they’re going to need a theme name.”

Your eyes drifted over your amazing manager, he worked just as tirelessly as you did with each and every one of his clients. It was no wonder he was married already, with a charming smile like his and the luscious hair to match made him a total darling.

“Let’s call it, Paint Me Red .”

“You got it, girl,” he walked over to you and gave a chaste kiss on your cheek and left with his silent goodbye. Although you were nothing more than his client, you loved him very much. He always gave you a rough time when you needed it but was always a person you could rely on to tell you the truth when you needed it.

To sum it up, Poe Damereon was a guy you paid to berate you like a protective older brother and you wouldn’t have it any other way.

Those two weeks passed and you worked even more tirelessly. The artist in you was seldom satisfied by your creations but your manager reaffirmed even your “trash” paintings were more beautiful than the best modern oil paintings for which you found yourself taking the most comfort in.

It was difficult to remove yourself from this mindset but as your gallery expanded with each rise of a new day, you became prouder of not just what you painted but of yourself. This was going to be a showcase that you were to be proud of.

Your night came which brought nerves like no other. Los Angeles had a rough art community to grow and develop but this was the place for you. You arrived at the gallery, dressed as professional yet as fierce as you could in a shimmery silver gown that bared your shoulders in a skinny strap that had a plunging neckline. You wanted to wow your crowd with your paintings and yourself.

You poured your heart out over this collection- you wanted, more than ever, to receive a warm reception and maybe a little bit of praise in the meantime. It didn’t make you vain, it made you human.

The director of the art studio welcomed you with a glass of champagne and let you wander the space before it opened to the public. Your heart swelled with emotion as you glanced over all these white walls that supported your artwork. Abstracts, sharp lines on some, a couple that resembled portraits of a human-like void. Anything and everything of what could be taken of that single poem.

Over some small amount of time, guests began to fill the building, allowing others to finally view what you’ve worked tirelessly over these past however many weeks, well, months really. As the newness of this exhibit of yours wore off, you began to get antsy, started to bite on the inside of your cheek.

You felt eyes on you as you hid your face behind the fourth glass of champagne you managed to snag. The more nervous you felt, the hotter the room got. This is beginning to be way too much- oh stars, you can’t breathe- it feels like you’re dying, like you’re-

“Are these yours,” a dark voice asked behind you. You stood up straight and turned slowly, trying to get your mind away from whatever was happening to you.

“I- yes they are.”

This tall, handsome stranger looked at the painting that was next to you, something that mildly resembled Everts’ Studies in Desperation series. It was one of your darker interpretations, something filled with a little more hatred and angst than the rest.

“They’re very nice, what inspired you?”

Your mouth opened agaped and quickly shut, you didn’t want to look like a fish now. You opened up your bag and pulled out your trusty copy of Mine and showed the stranger. “This poet, their selections have always called to me but, Red, Mine would repeat in my head nearly nonstop until I picked up a brush and painted what it spoke to me.”

He grabbed the book from your hand and flipped through it slowly, sometimes reading the short notes you had written on some of the pages, like “I love this one,” or even, “I’ve felt like this before”. As he took his time going through the leatherbound poetry, you took this moment just to admire just how handsome the man before you is.

He stood tall and confident, long black hair that looked soft enough that you had to refrain from running your fingers through; his face was littered with constellation-like moles that truly gave his presence some warmth and beauty despite the deep angry red scar that cut threw them like a blade. The large crooked nose stood just as prominent as his ears but, by the stars, he made it work. All of these features suit his being so well, almost as if he was your own personal Adonis, you wanted to paint his beauty.

His long lashes finally looked up from your bookmarked page of Red, Mine where you had written very simply, “This one,” and a heart. He closed the black book with a small thud, almost entirely muted by the sounds of your audience mingling.

“You really liked that one,” he questioned as he handed the object back to you. You took it from him and gestured around you.

“All of these paintings represent how this one poem has made me feel. Loss, hope, anger, hurt, fear,” you paused while you looked at the man before you and held his gaze, “But most of all, this particular poem has made me feel accepted. Like I’m not alone. Almost like, it’s my turn to be strong, it’s silly-”

“No, by all means, no, it’s not silly,” he interrupted you. His eyes had grown wide and you realized he put his hand out to almost hold your shoulder but quickly retreated to put his hands in the pockets of his suit’s pants. His jaw flexed for a brief moment and he looked to his feet. “I have their collection too. It’s a good read from time to time.”

Your lips turned up in a small grin, “Yeah, they are. I’m glad to have met another Anonymous Poet enthusiast.”

He looked up at you and cleared his throat, “What’s something you’d say to them if you ever could?”

“Hmm,” you wondered, “That I love their work, I’d love to sit down and talk, wonder what they think- what their thought process is. Maybe thank them for helping me cope and tell them that I don’t think I’d be alive without their words. Heck, I’d even work up the courage and ask if they like my interpretations of their poetry. I’m not sure, what would you say?”

He looked at you almost like you had shot him, “I think I’d simply say that I’m sorry they went through whatever they did to get them where they are. That they’re stronger now.”

Before you had a chance to respond, Poe came and placed his hand on your arm and called your name, “Hey, girl. Time for your speech and then people can start buying your art.”

You looked back at your strange new friend and he gave you a small encouraging smile, “It was nice meeting you.”

As Poe began to drag you away you piped up, “I didn’t catch your name!”

“Kylo- Kylo Ren.”

You gave him a small wave before you turned your back on him and approached the stage. Poe did the honors of introducing you, calling your vision “illuminating and awe-inspiring”. Finally it was your turn.

You approached the glass podium with only a mild case of anxiety shaking within your bones. The lights, however warmly hued they were to temper against the constant rotation of art still seemed like a spotlight on you. You cleared your throat.

“Hi- hello,” you introduced yourself, mentioning you're the creator, “Thank you all very much for being here and supporting me tonight. This entire exhibit is decorated with a wide variety of my illustrations in both dedication of and inspired by the Anonymous Poet, creator of Red, Mine the poem. It is only fitting that I should read the very words that seemed to have possessed my mind these past couple months, you think?”

The audience gave a chuckle. You looked up and around, feeling hints of anxiety nipping at the silhouette of your being. Across the room, leaning against the small bar table, you spotted Mr. Ren and when he noticed you staring, he raised his glass of champagne. Urging you to continue.

It was almost as if his steady gaze and warm features guided your confidence to hold steadfast and ready, your courage multiplied and tingles at the tips of your body, sparking new found strength.This small gesture kept those dark hounds at bay in your mind.

You cleared your throat and began, “Red, Mine

This is how the story goes

It has never changed, never been altered

It didn’t make much difference

The twin suns are rising in the west now,

The world changed from when you knew me last

This is how the story goes

This life of mine would be snuffed in green lights

Then you were there to guide me

Truth is, you could never be thanked

I would never be forgiven

This is how the story goes

I snuffed the little lights that had mocked me

Tore down the buildings that confined me

I ran

I never stopped running

This is how the story goes

I found solace in red

This green and blue would have ended my life

The both of you tried and failed

I will live on bathed in black and red

This is how the story goes

This fire red consumed me

I consumed red

Now it’s your turn to run.”

At the beat of the last syllable, you could hear a warm applause, a gracious signal of congratulations. Your smile kissed the corners of your lips and your heart swelled with warmth. This was exactly where you were meant to be in life and you couldn’t be prouder of yourself.

Your speech wrapped up with the ceremonious thank yous and appreciation to all who came as well as the Norton Simon Museum for sponsoring the showcase. Not to mention the big fat check you got on their behalf.

Poe lent you a hand as you descended the platform, “Alright, now go mingle and sell some art!”

You gave him a warm kiss on the cheek and another wave of thanks. One hand took yet another glass of champagne as the other held your clutch tightly. Your heels clinked against the tile of the gallery as you floated in and out of conversation, selling your artwork and trying to network and make new professional relationships.

It was rather obvious that leaving early would be considered rude but your feet hurt as much as your eyes. All you wanted was your warm bed and soft music to lull you to sleep. You spotted Poe across the room speaking with a pale gentleman, donned in a navy blue suit and matching tie, his orange hair was just as slicked back as his authoritative presence. You watched as they shook hands and the stranger departed, leaving the building entirely without a glance back.

Poe caught your eye and his jaw dropped, just nearly bolting into a fast pace walk, attempting to keep whatever semblance of professionalism as he could without knocking any of the patrons over as he bee-lined straight to you.

“You will not believe what I’m about to tell you,” his brown eyes lit up.

You gave him a hesitant look, clearly it was good news but usually Poe Dameron was in a good mood usually meant him ending in some kind of trouble. “Then don’t tell me?”

Your manager gave you a deadpanned look and pulled out his clipboard, “Every single piece was sold before you even walked off the stage.” He handed you the order sheet and sure enough, each and every painting was bought by the same person, leaving only AP as the buyer’s name.

“AP?”

“Initials for a little someone called the Anonymous Poet,” with those words you instantly felt faint. There was no way, no goddamn way.

“Was that him? Poe, was that really him,” your voice faltered. Your hand rose to cover your open mouth, eyes wide.

He did nothing but shrug and give you a sly smile, admiring your shocked expression, “The man I talked to was not, rest assured, but clearly your muse admires you and your work.” Poe gave you a small squeeze on your shoulder, feeling your oncoming emotional whirlwind. “If you faint on me now, you won’t hear the best part,” he teased.

“What is it, tell me,” you rushed the words out as fast as you could, the heat licking at your skin as your anticipation mixed with anxiety.

Poe reached into his pocket and retrieved a sleek black business card and flashed it at you. “Expect an email within the next few days, your muse wants to talk with you.”

You felt Poe’s warm hands grasping your shoulders as you fell. After all, Poe did say to wait until after he gave you good news.

[citylifeorg]

Guggenheim Schedule of Exhibitions 2022

Guggenheim Schedule of Exhibitions 2022

Guggenheim. Photo: David Heald Cecilia Vicuña: Spin Spin TrianguleneMay 27–September 5, 2022 Cecilia Vicuña, Autobiografía (Autobiography), 1971. Oil on canvas, 23 1/2 × 25 1/4 in. (59.7 × 64.1 cm). Collection Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego, Museum purchase, Elizabeth W. Russell Foundation Fund, 2019. The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum presents an exhibition devoted to Chilean artist,…

[cendrineartist]

Inspirational art: After the Storm (The Grounded Ship) - Diego Rivera

Sharing the most inspirational art I can find on the web! Title: After the Storm (The Grounded Ship) Date: 1910 Artist: Diego Rivera (1886-1957) Type of art: oil on canvas Note: Mexican painter Diego Rivera helped establish the mural movement in Mexican and international art. He painted frescoes in Mexico City, Chapingo, Cuernavaca, San Francisco, Detroit, and New York City. His third wife…

[oceansidemuseumofart]

LIVE AUCTION SNEAK PEEK! Marjorie Nodelman, Utilitarian Items Still Life, c. 1975. Oil on canvas, 30" diameter. OMA was honored to celebrate Marjorie Nodelman (1950-2014) in 2016 with the longest-running exhibition in the museum’s history. Nodelman was a highly educated, high-energy artist who helped define contemporary artmaking in San Diego during the ‘80s and early ‘90s. In 1975, she moved to San Diego and began a professional career in painting and sculpture and for the next 17 years became one of the most prolific and inventive artists in the San Diego and Los Angeles areas. Nodelman’s irrepressible joy and exuberance for life are reflected in her intuitive approach to painting and sculpture. From a sweet potato to the military industrial complex, from an art deco button to an orange cement truck—nothing was too small or commonplace to explore or to be a source of imagery for her paintings and sculpture. In a deep sense, her art was egalitarian and non-hierarchical, which resulted in an openness to the universe and a purity of spirit. Nodelman’s uniquely circular and shaped canvases became the hallmark of her paintings until they inevitably pushed out from the wall and became painted and even upholstered three-dimensional wall sculptures. OMA’s virtual Art Auction closes this Sunday, June 28 during a live stream event from the museum that includes a Live Auction with this artwork up for bid. Register for free access via link in bio to join at 4:00pm and be part of supporting art and artists while adding to (or starting) your collection. #OMAartauction #ArtAuctionAtOMA #ArtAuction #MarjorieNodelman #ContemporaryArt — view on Instagram https://ift.tt/37YcmBc

[jamieroxxartist]

Back in 2005, my risqué paintings all started out...  I was commissioned to Paint several Paintings for a Fetish Dungeon in Burbank, CA.  This was a great move on my part and led to many other commissions.  Here are just a few of some various #Fetish #Commissioned #Paintings I have Painted over the years: ‘not much Compromise in the Control’ 2021, acrylic and oil blend on canvas, 20"x24" ‘Thursday Nights and those goings on’ 2010, acrylic and oil blend on canvas, 18"x24" ‘Dancefloor Pop!’ 2004 2006 acrylic and oil blend on board. 36"x48" ‘Dark City #Dames’ 2005, acrylic and oil blend on canvas, 24"x36" 'Bridal Party (gags), 2005, acrylic and oil blend on canvas, 24"x36" 'Sin’ 2005, acrylic and oil blend on canvas, 20"x 16" 'Home from Club’ 2011, acrylic and oil blend on canvas, 18"x24" a couple of Custom #Commissioned #Paintings I painted for a charity event that was hosted by the San Diego Leather Community 2008, acrylic and oil blend on canvas, 48"x36" (each) ‘The #Mistress’ 2005, acrylic and oil blend on canvas, 18"x24" ‘#Blindfold Blues’ 2013, acrylic and oil blend on canvas, 24"x36" 'High Heel Point of View’ 2014, acrylic and oil blend on canvas, 20"x24" 'The Blindfold’ 2005, acrylic and oil blend on canvas, 20"x24" 'What’s Your Fetish’ 2005, acrylic and oil blend on canvas, 24"x30" 'French Maid Fetish’ 2005, acrylic and oil blend on canvas, 18"x24" 'Soft Looks’ 2015, acrylic and oil blend on canvas, 16"x20" 'Patent Leather Squeak’ 2020, acrylic and oil blend on canvas, 20"x16" 'Pink Gag’ 2015, acrylic and oil blend on canvas, 24"x24" All by by @ArtistJamieRoxx #JamieRoxx (www.JamieRoxx.us) These Sold Paintings are Not Available.

[sfaioffical]

Jusun “Jessie” Seo is a Korean born artist who currently lives and works in San Francisco and Mountain View. She is currently pursuing a double major in Printmaking and Painting at SFAI. She mostly works with oil painting and woodcut printing.

Jessie has received the four year California Community College Scholarship from San Francisco Art Institute (SFAI), Clyde & Community Art Awards in 2018 and 2019, and (most recently) the 2019 AXA Art Prize. Her works have been exhibited at Arion Press, Merced Multicultural Arts Center, Diego Rivera Gallery at SFAI, and Clyde & Community building. Her recent works explore the identity by observing nature and people while studying how the way humans see with different perceptions.

Image (above): Yet, 6 x 18 ft, oil on unstretched canvas.

From birth to death, 2019, 15 x 18 inches.

Father at age 53, 2018, woodcut.

Her 2018 woodcut print Father at age 53 (pictured above) will be featured in the upcoming exhibition AXA Traveling Art Prize Exhibition, formerly the XL Catlin Art Prize. SFAI will be the first venue in a series of three to present works from the 40 finalists: 9 young men and 31 young women from 30 different schools.

The AXA Traveling Art Prize Exhibition opens September 6 and will be on view through October 6 in the Main Gallery at SFAI—Fort Mason Campus. It will then travel to Richard Gray Gallery in Chicago and concludes at the New York Academy of Art. To learn more about the exhibition, please visit: sfai.edu/axa-art-prize.

Was There series, 2018, woodcut.

“Art is my visual language. Recreating my perceptions through painting and printmaking, my work becomes an expression of who I am, what I can be, and the time I live in now.”

Momo at her studio, 2019, 24 x 36.

About Jusun Jessie Seo:

1. Program/Year:  BFA Painting and Printmaking, 2020

2. Hometown: Seoul, South Korea

3. IG: @jessie9524

4. Website: jusunseo.com

All images courtesy of the artist Jusun Jessie Seo.

[navigatingnewburgh]

Davina Semo and Deborah Remington

July 13 - September 29, 2019 Opening reception Saturday July 13, 5-7 PM

Parts & Labor Beacon is pleased to announce its forthcoming exhibition, Davina Semo and Deborah Remington. Featured in this show are new bronze sculptures by San Francisco-based artist Davina Semo and a selection of historical paintings by Deborah Remington dating from 1964-2003. Davina Semo’s wax cast bronze works embody a range of opposites: they are light and shadow, concrete and metaphysical, and demand viewers’ engagement, conscious or unconscious alike. Wall-based Burst, Web, and Ripple (all 2019), recalling domestic mirrors in scale, offer the viewer an entry point to the artist’s material and conceptual vernacular. Here one’s reflection persists, warped and battered, in the image of the work. Drawing an analogy to a contemporary mindset ruled by anxieties and unease, Semo challenges us to perceive ourselves through the lens of such rough, hard beauty. Hanging bells assigned titles like Siren (2019) and Shadow (2019) are positioned throughout the gallery as though floating through space. These works, sourced from an ongoing series, draw the varied and complex history of the bell, a device used throughout history to both sound a warning and call people together, into focus. Measuring nearly three feet in height, perforated by various constellation-like compositions relating directly to those appearing on the wall-based pieces, these works continue to insist upon some mode of corporeal engagement. Each is equipped with a wooden clapper for ringing; ready as they are to express a call to action, or perhaps to syncopate one’s own quietude and internal thoughts, these bells are “not a bell without ringing.” Three darkly patinated bells hang like specters – all silhouette of a shoulder or torso – while two more, bronze and brilliantly polished, offer the viewer an unusual and disrupted reflection of their surroundings. In an essay published for Deborah Remington’s 1984 survey exhibition at the Newport Harbor Art Museum, art historian Dore Ashton writes that the artist’s “mysterious imagery...has never ceased to startle viewers in its gemlike hardness, its equivocal allusions, its baffling symmetries, its theatrically heightened light.” Mining ages-old mirror imagery, Remington’s works refuse to reciprocate the viewer’s repeating gaze. Seemingly polished and intact, the mirror-like forms depicted in such works as Dorset and Saratoga (both 1972) reveal themselves as illusionistic and empty, nearly unsettlingly devoid of any reflection, upon closer consideration. Throughout, untethered geometric forms radiate outward from the center. Wrought most often in candy-apple red, deep cobalt, and grey gradients, these spaces alternately seem to emit and absorb light. Remington’s perception-bending spatial effects imply multiple dimensions simultaneously, perhaps alluding to an inner, cerebral, mysterious space. It is in the later works on view, Calyd (1999-2003) and Eridan (2001), that the image of the mirror shatters. Referring to her own formative visual ethea while making decisive visual allusions to the body, Remington reengages the Abstract Expressionist gesture in her later works. Davina Semo (b. 1981, Washington, DC) earned her BA at Brown University in 2003 and her MFA from the University of California, San Diego in 2006. Semo has shown extensively throughout the United States and Europe, including solo exhibitions at Jessica Silverman Gallery (San Francisco) and Marlborough Chelsea (New York). Group exhibitions include Hair and Skin at Derek Eller Gallery (New York), TOUCHPIECE at Hannah Hoffman Gallery (Los Angeles) and Show Me as I Want to Be Seen at The Contemporary Jewish Museum (San Francisco). Davina Semo lives and works in San Francisco, CA. Semo is represented by Jessica Silverman Gallery (San Francisco) and Marlborough Gallery (New York). Deborah Remington (b. 1930, Haddonfield, NJ; d. 2010) earned her BFA in painting at San Francisco Art Institute in 1955. In 1954, she and five other painters and poets co-founded the now-legendary Beat hangout Six Gallery in San Francisco; this was the venue in which Allen Ginsberg first read “Howl” in October, 1955. After a multi-year sojourn, first to Japan and then through Southeast Asia and India, Remington returned to the United States in order to pursue a career as a painter. Remington’s work has been shown at Dilexi Gallery (San Francisco and Los Angeles), Galerie Darthea Speyer (Paris), Bykert Gallery (New York), Wallspace (New York), Kimmerich Gallery (Berlin), Mitchell Algus Gallery (New York), and Parrasch Heijnen Gallery (Los Angeles). Remington’s work can be found in museums throughout the United States and Europe including: The Art Institute of Chicago (Illinois), the Metropolitan Museum of Art (New York), San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, Smithsonian American Art Museum (Washington, DC), Whitney Museum of American Art (New York), Boymans Museum (Rotterdam, Netherlands), and the Centre Georges Pompidou (Paris, France) amongst others. IMAGES: (L) Devina Semo, Messenger, 2019, Polished and patinated cast bronze bell, whipped nylon line, wooden clapper, powder-coated chain, hardware, Bell: 32 x 13 inches diameter, overall dimensions variable, Courtesy of the artist and Jessica Silverman Gallery (R) Deborah Remington, Dorset, 1972, Oil on canvas, 91 x 87 inches, Courtesy of the Estate of Deborah Remington

Parts & Labor Beacon is founded upon an ethic of collaboration, seeking to expand beyond the parameters of established gallery models. Exhibitions at Parts & Labor Beacon will consist primarily of two artist presentations, engaging an emerging to mid-career contemporary artist in conversation with a more historically recognized artist in order to reframe and re-contextualize important dialogues while allowing intimate conversations to unfold. In pairing artists of different generations, the gallery’s objective is to create narratives that explain the connections to the impulses and inclinations each pair of artists share. Parts & Labor Beacon is located 15 minutes (walking) from both Dia:Beacon and MetroNorth’s Beacon station.

Davina Semo and Deborah Remington opens on July 13 at 12 noon and will remain on view through September 29. An opening reception will take place from 5-7 pm on July 13. Gallery hours are Saturday and Sunday from 12-6 pm and by appointment.

For images, biographies, and further information, please contact the gallery at info@partsandlaborbeacon.com.

[gyrlversion]

Diagnosing dead artists by their work

Written by Karen Chernick

This article was published in partnership with Artsy, the global platform for discovering and collecting art. The original article can be seen here.

“Doctors love to play at diagnosis,” admitted Dr. Michael F. Marmor, a Stanford University ophthalmology professor and author of several books about artists and eyesight. Most physicians reserve their diagnoses for patients, but there is a subculture of medical professionals fascinated by the health problems of famous, dead artists — and how they affected their work.

As disciplines, art history and medicine share important similarities: Both fields require close observation and some guesswork, attracting practitioners who love a good puzzle. Recently, the two have become even more intertwined. Medical schools around the US are increasingly incorporating art classes into their programming, and research shows that looking at artwork can help doctors improve their observation skills. This correlation might explain why some physicians have taken an interest in studying the lives and works of creative masters, aided by their special set of diagnostic skills.

Peer-reviewed medical journals are peppered with studies that posthumously diagnose the illnesses of artists, using data that ranges from medical records to, in rare cases, the artist’s physical remains. Most commonly, though, such medical connoisseurs turn to the deceased’s body of work for clues.

This might seem like an amusing sport, but Marmor warned that many doctors use flawed measurements and take their conclusions too far. “Artists have license to paint as they wish, so style is mutable and not necessarily an indication of disease,” he said. “Speculation is always fun, but not when it is presented as ‘evidence’ in scientific journals.” The seven published studies detailed below use an array of inventive methods to flesh out a fuller picture of artists’ physical health in an attempt to better understand their work.

Michelangelo’s aching hands

An unfinished portrait of Michelangelo by Daniele da Volterra dating from around 1544. Credit: Courtesy of The Metropolitan Museum of Art

In his late seventies, Michelangelo wrote to his nephew that his hands — the primary tools of his illustrious sculpting career — were causing him immense pain. “Writing gives me a great discomfort,” the Italian Renaissance artist lamented. If writing was a struggle, then wielding a hammer and chisel against a durable block of Carrara marble would have seemed insurmountable. But identifying the precise joint ailment that plagued the celebrated sculptor’s digits has evaded modern physicians, who remain curious.

Authorities at the Church of Santa Croce in Florence, where the artist is buried, forbade the exhumation of Michelangelo’s remains for pathological investigations, and so the team of five medical researchers got creative. Their 2016 study, published in the Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine, opted to rely on two portraits of the artist made while he was alive, along with a later copy, homing in on their depictions of his disfigured hands. They diagnosed his joints with osteoarthritis caused by prolonged and extensive abuse. In layman’s terms, a lifetime of carving stones distorted his fingers and made them ache.

Leonardo da Vinci’s wandering eye

A study says that Leonardo da Vinci’s “Salvator Mundi” offers evidence that the artist had a rare eye condition. Credit: Carl Court/Getty Images Europe/Getty Images

Artists see the world differently, and some ophthalmologists have attributed their creative vision to their eyes. A 2018 study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association argues that Leonardo da Vinci had strabismus — a vision disorder in which the eyes are misaligned, resulting in the loss of depth perception — an affliction that could explain the Renaissance master’s extraordinary skill. If Leonardo did indeed have strabismus, it might have been “rather convenient for the painter,” wrote the study’s author, Christopher W. Tyler, “since viewing the world with one eye allows direct comparison with the flat image being drawn or painted.”

As the basis of his research, Tyler compared six artworks that are thought to portray the artist, citing two sculptures, two oil paintings and two drawings. These include Leonardo’s “Salvator Mundi” (c. 1500) and “The Vitruvian Man” (c. 1490), with the justification that the artist believed that all of his works reproduced his own likeness to some degree. Tyler then measured the angular divergence of the pupils in his examples and averaged them; the mean angle for the misaligned eye was consistent with strabismus.

El Greco’s distorted visions

El Greco’s elongated portraits, such as “Saint Jerome as a Scholar” (c. 1610), have sparked debate in the medical community about the artitst’s eyesight. Credit: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

In 1913, an ophthalmologist named Germán Beritens wasn’t convinced that the dramatically elongated figures painted by Spanish Renaissance artist El Greco were the product of stylistic flair. He posited that severe astigmatism — an ocular condition in which the subject’s warped cornea causes uneven focus along different visual planes — must have caused the painter to actually see vertically outstretched figures, which he then translated to the canvas. Beritens’s theory seemingly explained El Greco’s idiosyncratic technique, making headlines when it was published.

Almost a century later, another researcher realized that Beritens’s logic was intuitive but faulty. In a 2002 study published in the journal Leonardo, Stuart Anstis, a psychologist at the University of California, San Diego, argued that if El Greco had an astigmatic defect, his vision would equally distort his subjects and his canvases. In other words, if El Greco painted a portrait of a nobleman, then both the portrait and the subject would have to appear similarly distorted in his eyes to confirm the diagnosis. Yet Anstis conducted experiments demonstrating that people with astigmatism are capable of drawing proportional objects. “(El Greco’s) elongations were an artistic expression, not a visual symptom,” Anstis concluded, putting to rest what is now known as the “El Greco fallacy.”

Paul Gauguin’s mysterious death

An 1889 self-portrait by Paul Gauguin who some have speculated died from syphilis. Credit: image courtesy National Gallery of Art

When Post-Impressionist painter Paul Gauguin passed away on the Marquesas Islands in 1903, he left behind four teeth in a glass jar and abundant speculation about whether or not he died from syphilis. An opportunity to address some of the unanswered questions surrounding his legacy arose in 2000, when those teeth were extracted from a sealed well near Gauguin’s former hut. Caroline Boyle-Turner, a Gauguin specialist, wanted to first confirm that the cavity-ridden molars did indeed belong to the Frenchman, and then see what could be learned from the remains.

A chance encounter on a cruise liner treading through the South Pacific put Boyle-Turner in contact with William Mueller, a founding member of the Dental Anthropological Association. The two became investigative partners, and their findings were published in Anthropology in 2018. The DNA extracted from the teeth was compared with DNA taken from the interred remains of the artist’s father ( recently identified in Chile), as well as a sample from Gauguin’s living grandson. The results were a match. The molars were also tested for traces of cadmium, mercury and arsenic, which were all common treatments for syphilis during Gauguin’s time. None were found, which doesn’t necessarily conclude that Gauguin wasn’t syphilitic, only that he didn’t receive those treatments (or at least not in a high enough dosage to leave a residue).

Claude Monet’s abstract outlook

Monet ‘s “Weeping Willow” (1918-1919), painted before the artist underwent surgery for cataracts. Credit: Google Art Project/Kimbell Art Museum

Impressionist painter Claude Monet produced his most abstract and expressive works toward the end of his career, and a 2015 case study published in the British Journal of General Practice claims that the cause of these innovations was poor eyesight. Monet began developing age-related bilateral cataracts in his sixties, a malady that caused him to see everything darker. In 1913, an ophthalmologist recommended he undergo cataract surgery. The artist refused, frightened by fellow artist Mary Cassatt’s failed eye surgery, and made do labeling his paint tubes to avoid using the wrong colors.

But after a decade of dimness, Monet finally agreed, in 1923, to have the surgery, and his renewed eyesight allowed him to see the true colors of his preoperative paintings (many of which he destroyed). After recovery, he resumed his original color palette. “Monet’s postoperative works are devoid of garish colors or coarse application,” notes Anna Gruener, the ophthalmologist who penned the article. “It is therefore unlikely that he had intentionally adopted the broader and more abstract style of his late paintings, reinforcing the argument that Monet’s late works were the result of cataracts and not conscious experimentation with a more expressionistic style.”

Giorgio de Chirico’s metaphysical hallucinations

Italian painter Giorgio De Chirico pictured in his studio in Rome. Credit: Keystone/Hulton Archive/Getty Images

Did 20th-century Italian painter Giorgio de Chirico have help — beyond his fantastical imagination — conjuring the metaphysical images that pervade his eerie canvases? An article published in European Neurology in 2003 argues that the answer might be temporal lobe epilepsy, a neurological condition that can produce complex hallucinations. In his 1929 book “Hebdomeros,” De Chirico himself wrote that his paintings recorded his hallucinatory experiences. That disclosure has puzzled doctors who have tried to establish whether the artist’s visions came from migraines with aura or temporal lobe epilepsy.

Migraines usually cause subjects to have blurred or deformed vision, this article notes, which does not characterize De Chirico’s work. His superimposition of several realities, the paper argues, is more in tune with the complex imagery of partial seizures. Nonetheless, the author admits that while neurological case reports on artists can be instructive, “critical clinical data are often lacking so that the final diagnosis may remain controversial.”

‘Degenerate’ Paul Klee’s degenerative health

Paul Klee’s 1938 paining “Erzengel” Credit: Lenbachhaus

The last five years of the Swiss-German artist Paul Klee’s life were prolific: He produced almost 2,500 artworks — a quarter of his entire body of work. But these works were also his most physically grueling, since he suffered from a combination of skin conditions, ulcers, anemia and esophageal swelling that weren’t conclusively diagnosed while he was alive. Nearly 40 years after Klee’s death, the artist’s ailments fascinated a young dermatologist-in-training, Hans Suter, who spent decades reconstructing the artist’s medical history, interviewing Klee’s widow and only son, and poring over unpublished letters describing the artist’s symptoms.

Suter concluded, in a book and an article summarizing his findings (both from 2010), that Klee had diffuse systemic sclerosis — a rare autoimmune disease. While the disease doesn’t seem to have changed Klee’s artistic style, Suter attributes the artist’s painful outbreaks to stress following certain taxing biographical events: Klee’s dismissal as an art professor from the Düsseldorf College of Art; poor reception of his avant-garde work; and his stigmatization as a “degenerate” artist by the Nazis.

The post Diagnosing dead artists by their work appeared first on Gyrlversion.

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[gladsartgallery]

I created this painting for my art show Expression through Abstraction. Painting is oil on 40”x60” canvas. You can view it at the La Jolla Community Center. Opening reception March 2, 2019 from 3-5pm. That’s just three days away!!!! 🎉 (at Rancho Peñasquitos, San Diego) https://www.instagram.com/p/BuY_bqHhtTG/?utm_source=ig_tumblr_share&igshid=1b0n84as6qc4w