Month: April 2017

Jack Kerouac: “I Sit on the Old Broken-Down Pier”

Photographer Unknown, (The Man at the Pier), Photo Shoot

“So in America when the sun goes down and I sit on the old broken-down river pier watching the long, long skies over New Jersey and sense all that raw land that rolls in one unbelievable huge bulge over to the West Coast, all all that road going, and all the people dreaming in the immensity of it. . . ”

– Jack Kerouac, On the Road

 

Footlight Parade

“James Cagney and Ruby Keeler”, Computer Graphics, Film Gifs from “Footlight Parade”

“Footlight Parade” is a 1933 American, pre-Code, musical film starring Joan Blondell, James Cagney, Dick Powell and Ruby Keeler. The music numbers were created and directed by Busby Berkeley.

Busby Berkeley was not the original choice for the choreographer; Larry Ceballos, who would go on to direct the 1942 “Gay Nineties”, was signed to do the dance numbers. Ceballos sued Berkeley and Warner Brother Studio for sum of $100,000 for breach of contract when he was not allowed to do so.

James Cagney, a former song and dance man, actively campaigned Warner Brothers for the lead in “Footlight Parade”, which became his first on-screen appearance as a dancer. He had felt his gangster persona in his previous roles were as much a hinderance as a benefit to his career.

Cagney’s role as Chester Kent was modeled after well-known impresario Chester Hale, who formed and managed a Broadway chorus line known as the Chester Hale Girls, and founded the Chester Hale Dance Studio in New York City. Chester Hale, during the 1940s and 1950s, staged and directed thirteen editions of the Ice Capades, as well as editions of Holiday on Ice.

The scenes above show James Cagney and Ruby Keeler performing the dance number for the song “Shanghai Lil” with lyrics by Al Dubin and music by Harry Warren.

 

Frank Stella

Frank Stella, “Bene Come il Sale (As Good as the Salt)”, Relief Printed Etching, 1989, Edition of 50, 147.3 x 182.9 cm, Private Collection

Frank Stella’s brightly colored and captivating “Bene Come il Sale (As Good as the Salt)” speaks to Stella’s artistic inclination towards nonrepresentational painting. Figures exist within the same space without any relationship, the only aspect tying the composition together being the beautifully vibrant colors and textures.

One of a series of fifty, this 1989 color etching was printed at the Tyler Graphics workshop in Mount Kisco, New York. A working institution for thirty-seven years, it was known for its printing of mammoth, complicated prints. In addition to work by Stella, the press printed work for both David Hockney and Roy Lichtenstein, among other famous artists. In January of 1985, owner and printmaker Ken Tyler retired at the age of sixty-nine and closed the press; Tyler Graphics continues today as a gallery and a print distributor.

Franklin Carmichael

Franklin Carmichael, ‘Snow Clouds’, 1938, Oil on Canvas

Franklin Carmichael was a Canadian artist and the youngest original member of the Group of Seven. Carmichael arrived in Toronto at the age of twenty and entered the Ontario College of Art, where he studied with William Cruickshank and George Reid. In 1911, he began working as an apprentice at Grip Ltd for $2.50 a week. He then joined Tom Thomson and other painters who were training to become serious artists, joining them on weekend sketching trips.

He moved to Belgium in 1913 to study painting but due to the war soon returned to his native Ontario to rejoin the other artists. Carmichael was greatly influenced by Tom Thomson and shared space with him at the Studio Building in 1914. He was also on the fringe of the group because of his difference in age and was closely associated with the newer members of the Group of Seven.