Month: June 2015

Egon Schiele

Egon Schiele, “Krumau Town Crescent I”, 1915, Oil on Canvas, 109.7 x 140 cmIsrael Museum, Jerusalem, Israel.

In 1910 Egon Schiele decided to flee the urban bustle of Vienna for a yearnful sojourn in the rural town of Krumau, the birthplace of his mother.The town is now modern-day Český Krumlov in the Czech Republic, but in the early twentieth century, it was still part of the sprawling Austro-Hungarian empire. Accompanied by artistic companions Anton Peschka and Ervin Osen, Krumau provoked a creative spark in Schiele, inspiring a vast amount of artistic output for the rest of his short life. But rather than providing a peaceful backdrop of pastoral existence, Krumau enhanced Schiele’s preoccupation with isolation and unease.

His quest to explore the spiritual essence of his environment is Expressionist in notion, revealing the hidden core of human experience through visual exaggeration and subjective insight.  In “Krumau Town Crescent 1”, the claustrophobic nature of the  unsteady throng of houses on the Moldau river emphasises the compressed nature of this decaying urban vista. Solid vertical lines support the waterside settlements, yet are helplessly undermined by the sinuous curves of their own crumpled roofs. This remote town would serve as a visual conduit for his own melancholy reflections.

Despite his longing for a provincial idyll, Schiele and his friends were to encounter a degree of hostility from some of the more conservative residents of Krumau. However, this didn’t prevent him from planning a permanent move there in 1911 alongside his partner and muse, Wally Neuzil. For a time they enjoyed a peaceful existence in their little cottage by the river, but his paintings remained haunted by the town’s ancient winding streets and compact medieval design.

Insert Image: Anton Joseph Trcka, “Egon Schiele”, 1914, Gelatin Silver Print, Gilman Collection, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

Ang Kiukok

Paintings by Ang Kiukok

Born in March of 1931 in Davao City Philippine Islands, Ang Kiukok was a painter known for his expressive, Cubist works. He often chose dynamic or disturbing subject matters, which frequently depicting rabid dogs, crucifixions, and screaming figures in an abstracted geometric style. Ang’s work gained both critical and commercial success in the Philippines throughout the 1960s.

Ang’s initial training began at an early age, when he was taught by a local commercial artist the art of charcoal drawing. After his family’s move to Manila, he attended the University of Santo Tomas from 1952 to 1954, where he studied under Filipino cubist painter Vincente Manansala. Ang’s first formal recognition of his work occurred in 1953 when his “Calesa” achieved third prize at the Shell National Students Art Competition. With encouragement from Manansala, he had his first solo show at Manila’s Contemporary Arts Gallery in 1954. Subsequent shows earned Ang many awards from the Art Association of the Philippines. 

Ang Kiukok gained national prominence in the 1960s with his distinctive style which fused aspects of cubism, surrealism, and expressionism.  His work favored subjects as rabid dogs, fighting cocks, and figures either bound in chains or experiencing great rage. Although Ang did not have a reputation as a critic of the Ferdinand Marcos government, the most violent and gruesome images were painted during Marcos’s reign of martial law. 

Ang Kiukok was given the honor of being a National Artist for Visual Arts in 2001, by vitue of Presidential Proclamation No. 32, which was signed on April 20 of 2001 by President Gloria Arroyo. By the end of his life, Ang was not only a critical success but also a commercially popular one. He died in Quezon City, Philippines, in May of 2001 at the age of seventy-four.

Top Insert Image: George Garçon, “Ang Kiukok”, Date Unknown, Gelatin Silver Print

Bottom Insert Image: Ang Kiukok, “Fisherman”, 1981, Oil on Canvas, 88 x 101 cm, Private Collection

Jackson Pollock

Jackson Pollock, “The Key”, Oil on Linen, 1946, 150 x 208 cm., Art Institute of Chicago

“The Key” belongs to Jackson Pollock’s ‘Accabonac Creek’ series, named for a stream near the East Hampton property that he and his wife, the painter Lee Krasner, purchased in late 1945. Marking a crucial moment in his evolution as an artist, this quasi-Surrealist painting was created on the floor of an upstairs bedroom and worked on directly from all sides.

Although there is a general suggestion of landscape, here the process of painting became primary, expressing the power of spontaneous action and chance effects. The resulting abstraction, with its expressive, gestural appearance, prefigured the all-over compositions of Pollock’s celebrated drip paintings, which debuted the following year.

Raoul Pene duBois

Raoul Pene du Bois, “Zephyrus and Hyacinthus”

Famed as a scenic and costume designer for dozens of Broadway productions beginning in the 1930s, Raoul Pene du Bois was one of a distinguished family of artists and designers going back to his grandfather, the art critic Henri Pene du Bois. He won Tony awards for scenic design work in the play “Wonderful Town” and for costume design in “No, No Nanette”. Among the many other shows he designed were the 1934 “Ziegfeld Follies”, the 1935 “Jumbo”, the 1939 “Du Barry Was a Lady”, and the 1953 “Charley’s Aunt”.

Perhaps the largest and most important extant painting by Raoul Pene duBois, was “Zephyrus and Hyacnthus”, a masterpiece of grisaille effect, using varying tones of black, grey and white with only a just a touch of sepia. Greek mythology tells us that Zephyrus rivaled Apollo for the love of Hyacinthus. When Apollo and Hyacinthus were playing quoits with discs, Zephyrus created a gust of wind that caused the disc, tragically, to strike and kill Hyacinthus instantly. From Hyacinthus’ blood sprang the first hyacinth flowers.