Month: May 2018

Calendar: May 18

A Year: Day to Day Men: 18th of May

A Bright New Day

May 18, 1927 marks the opening day of Grauman’s Chinese Theater in Hollywood, California.

Grauman’s Chinese Theater is a movie palace on the historic Hollywood Walk of Fame. After the success of his Egyptian Theater, Sid Grauman secured a long-term lease on the property site at 6925 Hollywood Boulevard from Francis Bushman, the owner of the existing mansion located at that address. The firm of Meyer and Holler, with Raymond Kennedy as the principal architect, was contracted to design a “palace-type theater” of Chinese design. Grauman financed the theater’s two million dollar cost and owned one-third interest in the theater. His partners, Mary Pickford, Douglas Fairbanks and Howard Schenck owned the remaining two thirds.

During construction, Grauman hired Jean Klossner to formulate an extremely hard concrete for the forecourt of the theater. Norma Marie Talmadge, the American actress and film producer of the silent era, is traditionally recognized as the first person to put a footprint in the concrete. The theater’s third founding partner, Douglas Fairbanks, was the second celebrity to be immortalized in the concrete. Nearly two hundred Hollywood celebrity handprints, footprints and autographs are now imprinted in the concrete of the theater’s forecourt.

The exterior of Grauman’s theater is meant to resemble a giant, red Chinese pagoda. The design features a huge Chinese dragon across the facade, with two authentic Ming Dynasty guardian lions guarding the main entrance and the silhouettes of tiny dragons along the sides of the copper roof.

One of the highlights of the Chinese Theatre has always been its grandeur and décor. In 1952, John Tartaglia, the artist of nearby Saubt Sophia Cathedral, became the head interior decorator of the Chinese Theatre, as well as the theatre chain then owned by Fox West Coast Theaters. Celebrities also contributed to the theater’s decor. Xavier Cugat painted the trees and foliage between the pillars on the side walls. Keye Luke painted the Chinese murals in the lobby. The lobby features programs from some of the Hollywood premieres that have been hosted there, as well as a collection of classic movie costumes.

The Chinese Theatre was declared a historic and cultural landmark in 1968, and has undergone various restoration projects in the years since then.In 2000, Behr Browers Architects, a firm previously engaged by Mann Theaters, prepared a restoration and modernization program for the structure. The program included a seismic upgrade, new state-of-the-art sound and projection, new vending kiosks and exterior signage, and the addition of a larger concession area under the balcony.

Simon Dahlgren Strååt

Simon Dahlgren Strååt, Unknown Title, (The High Board)

Simon Dahlgren Strååt, born in 1984, is a Swedish figurative painter, living and working in Stockholm. His narrative paintings provide a sombre and surreal window into the mind of the artist.

Dahlgren Strååt’s work is centered on the idea of time: more explicitly, the slowing down of it. He creates scenes that incorporate images from fiction, history or indeed everyday life. The work is his way of processing the things he sees and manipulating them into his own unique vision. The paintings become like narratives, where the viewer is invited in as a voyeuristic spectator and allowed to explore questions regarding their own self-image.

Dahlgren Strååt had achieved national success in his native Sweden, having presented his work in both group and solo exhibitions in Stockholm. During his time as a creative consultant, he received a number of prizes including, the D&AD White Pencil award in London and the One Show prize in New York.

Emile Antoine Bourdelle

 

Photographer Unknown, “Emile Antoine Bourdelle and Model for His Bronze Herakles the Archer”, circa 1905, Gelatin Silver Print

Trained first in Montauban and then in Toulouse, Emile Bourdelle started work as an assistant in Rodin’s studio. The two men were bound together by mutual admiration and respect, even if Bourdelle’s desire for synthesis and construction in planes soon opposed him to Rodin’s analytical modelling.

From 1905, Bourdelle sought to simplify his lines: “Contain, maintain and master are the rules of construction,” he told his pupils over and over again. He looked to mythology for many of his subjects such as “Hercules the Archer” which enabled him to experiment on a large scale. In his own terms, Apollo was “undertaken in an attempt to master the purest aspect of my deep vision, going far beyond all past flights, I brought to it – more than human blood, bone, cartilage and muscles – the enveloping structure of its forces.”

Not only the hero’s victory over the monsters, but also Bourdelle’s victory over his own high-spirited inspiration, this work is remarkable both for its tension and for its balanced construction. The dynamics come from the interaction of solids and voids, brutal force and balance. The nude figure denotes power, high-strung energy, pulled taut between the arm bending the bow and the foot braced against the rock. The references to primitive Greek sculpture and Roman art – the almond shaped eyes, the nose extending in a straight line from the forehead, jutting cheekbones and brows – act as catalyst for a modern approach.

The gilded bronze sculpture “Hercules Killing the Birds of Lake Stymphalis” was completed in 1909. It is in the collection of the Musee d’Orsay, France.

Calendar: May 17

A Year: Day to Day Men: 17th of May

A Piece of Ginger

May 17, 1682 was the birthdate of Bartholomew Roberts, a Welsh pirate know after his death by the nickname of Black Bart.

Bartholomew Roberts was born John Roberts in Casnewydd-Bach, Wales. He is thought  to have gone to sea when he was thirteen in 1695; however, there is no further record of him until 1718 when he was mate of a Barbados sloop. In 1719, Roberts was second mate on the slave ship Princess serving under Captain Abraham Plumb.

In early June of 1719, the Princess was anchored at Anomabu situated on the Gold Coast of West Africa, when she was attacked and captured by pirates. The two pirate ships, the Royal Rover and the Royal James, were led by captain Howell Davis. Roberts and several others of the Princess crew were forced to join the pirates. Captain Davis, also a Welshman, discovered Robert’s abilities as a navigator and took to consulting him and confiding information to Roberts in Welsh. Roberts was reluctant to become a pirate but soon saw the advantages to his new lifestyle.

The Royal Rover with Davis and Roberts on board hoisted a British flag and entered the harbor of the island of Principe, intending to hold the governor of the island hostage for ransom. Davis invited the governor to lunch on board the Royal Rover and sent boats to transport the governor. However, the Portuguese garrison on the island had discovered that their visitors were pirates, ambushed the landing party, and shot Davis dead. A new captain had to be selected. Despite his being with the crew for only six weeks, Roberts was elected captain.

Roberts and his crew crossed the Atlantic and spent nine weeks off the coast of Brazil. About to leave for the West Indies, the encountered a fleet of 42 Portuguese ships waiting for two men-of-war ships to escort them to Lisbon. The richest ship, Sagrada Familia with 40 guns and a crew of 170, was boarded and captured. The Sagrada Familia contained 40,000 gold coins and jewelry designed for the King of Portugal, including a cross set with diamonds- a very rich prize for the pirates.

On the 10th of February, 1722, The Royal Navy ship HMS Swallow delivered two broadsides to Robert’s ship at Cape Lopez on the coast of Equatorial Guinea. Grapeshot struck Roberts in the throat while he stood on deck. Before his body could be captured, Roberts’s wish to be buried at sea was fulfilled by his crew, who wrapped his body in the ship’s sail, weighted it down and threw it overboard. It was never found. Bartholomew Roberts was the most successful pirate of the Golden Age of Piracy as measured by vessels captured, taking over 400 prizes in his career.

J. M. Barrie: “He Had Ecstacies Innumerable”

 

Photographer Unknown, (The Erotic Dionysain Vision of Peter Pan), Computer Graphics, Film Gifs

“There could not have been a lovelier sight; but there was none to see it except a little boy who was staring in at the window. He had ecstasies innumerable that other children can never know; but he was looking through the window at the one joy from which he must be for ever barred.”
― J.M. Barrie, Peter Pan

Born in Kirriemuir, located in the council area of Angus in May of 1860, James Matthew Barrie was a Scottish playwright and novelist. The ninth of ten children of a conservative Calvinist family, he was sent at the age of eight to the Glasgow Academy where he was put in the care of his siblings Alexander and Mary Ann, who taught at the school. Two years later, Barrie returned home and studied at the Forfar Academy and, later, at the Dumfries Academy. 

James M. Barrie enrolled at the University of Edinburgh to study literature and graduated with an Masters of Arts in April of 1882. In the next decade, he wrote several short stories, which served as basis for his first novels. These were popular enough to establish Barrie as a successful writer. In 1891, Barrie wrote a successful theater play, “Ibsen’s Ghost or Tool Up-to-Date”, a parody of Henrik Ibsen’s dramas “Hedda Gabler” and “Ghosts”. 

Barrie’s character of Peter Pan first appeared in his 1902 novel “The Little White Bird”, published in book form by Hodder & Stoughton and serialized in Scribner’s Magazine. His more famous and enduring theatrical work “Peter Pan, or The Boy Who Wouldn’t Grow Up” had its first stage performance on the 27th of December in 1904 at the West End’s Duke of York’s Theatre. The play introduced the character of Wendy and contrasted the social constraints of late Victorian and Edwardian middle class domestic reality with the moral ambivalence of Neverland.

In 1911, J. M. Barrie developed the “Peter Pan” play into the novel “Peter and Wendy”. Both versions tell the story of Peter Pan, a mischievous little boy who can fly and has many adventures on the island of Neverland that is inhabited by fairies, mermaids, Indians, and pirates. The stories also involve the Darling children Wendy, John and Michael, the fairy Tinker Bell, the Lost Boys, and the pirate Captain Hook. Barrie continued to revise the play for years after its debut; the final version was published in 1928. 

Prior to the publication of Barrie’s “Peter and Wendy”, the play was adapted into a 1907 novelization entitled “The Peter Pan Picture Book” written by Daniel O”Connor and illustrated by Alice Woodward. The original 1911 novel contains a frontispiece and eleven half-tone plates by Francis Donkin Bedford. With Barrie’s permission, the novel was first abridged by May Byron in 1915 and published under the name “Peter Pan and Wendy”; this version was later illustrated by Mabel Lucie Attwell in 1921. Barrie gave the copyright to the Peter Pan works in April of 1929 to the Great Ormond Street Hospital, a leading children’s hospital in London. 

Disney was a long-time licensee to the animation rights, and cooperated with the hospital when its copyright claim was clear. After following the directive to harmonize copyright laws within the European Union in 1995, the copyright was extended to the end of 2007. The original versions of the play and novel are now in the public domain in most of the world including all countries where the term of copyright is eighty-five years or less after the death of the creators. In spite of the expiration of the copyright, a 1988 United Kingdom statutory provision grants royalties, regarding any public performance, commercial publication, and communication to the public of any substantial part of the play or adaptation of it, in perpetuity to the Great Osmond Street Hospital.

Insert Images: Francis Donkin Bedford, Illustration for “Peter and Wendy”, 1911, Hodder & Stoughton (London) and Charles Scribner’s Sons (New York)

Julie Hefferman

Julie Hefferman, “Budding Boy”, 2010, Oil on Canvas, 200.7 x 142.2 cm

Born in Peoria, Illinois Julie Heffernan received her BFA in Painting and Printmaking from the University of California, Santa Cruz and her Masters of Fine Art in Painting from the Yale School of Art. Her lush paintings are manifestations of Heffernan’s Baroque sensibilities and rich knowledge of art history—the interior spaces of her compositions often refer to grand ballrooms and ornate drawing rooms, while the exteriors are placed within abundant forests and imagined worlds.

Something of a contemporary surrealist, her compositions are drawn from the peculiar, nonsensical narratives of her dreams. As a result of drawing so directly from the images of her subconscious, Heffernan considers much of her work as a kind of self-portrait and titles them as such. Raised in the San Francisco Bay Area, she now lives and works in Brooklyn, New York.