Author: ultrawolvesunderthefullmoon

https://www.instagram.com/wolvesofgray This blog is a refugee and a survivor of the Great Tumblr Inquisition of December 17th, 2018. I am gay artist, who received training at the Rhode Island School of Design, and now, a retired high-end fine art framer living in Maryland, USA. My interests and studies in life run a wide gamut from art to history and from the scientific to the esoteric. I have been building this blog of images and texts for the last eight years. My wish is that my posts pique the interest of viewers and encourage them to experience more.

Hunt Slonem

Hunt Slonem, “Black Finches”, Silkscreen Print on White Wove Paper, 2000, 24 x 36 Inches, Detroit Institute of Art

Hunt Slonem  is an American painter, sculptor, and printmaker. He graduated with a degree in Painting and Art History from Tulane Univeersity in New Orleans, Louisiana and studied at the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture in Maine. He is best known for his Neo-Expressionist paintings of tropical birds, often based on a personal aviary in which he has been keeping from 30 to over 100 live birds of various species.

In 1976, Hunt Slonem received a painting grant from the Elizabeth Greenshields Foundation in Montreal, Quebec,  and began painting in earnest. His first solo show was held at New York’s Harold Reed Gallery in 1977, followed by a major exhibition at the prestigious Fischbach Gallery on Madison Avenue in New York City.

Calendar: October 18

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

Music and Literature

October 18, 1906 was the birthdate of American muralist and abstract painter James Brooks.

James Brooks was born in Saint Louis, Missouri, attended the Southern Methodist University and studied at the Dallas Art Institute with Martha Simkins. He moved to New York City in 1927, attending night classes at the Art Students League from 1927 to 1930. Brooks joined the Federal Art Project, a New Deal program to fund the visual arts, in 1936. With the funds from the Art Project, he painted his mural “Flight” around the rotunda of the Marine Air Terminal at La Guardia Airport. This 235 foot long mural was painted over by the Port Authority of New York during the 1950s; it was restored in 1980.

James Brooks, a first generation abstract expressionist painter, was among the first of that genre to use staining as an important technique in his works. In his paintings from the late 1940s, Brooks began to dilute his oil paints in order to stain the mostly raw canvases; this period of his works often combined abstract shapes with calligraphy. Brooks was interested in creating ‘accidents’ with his paints to convey personal meanings.

During the period he participated in the WPA Federal Art Project, James Brooks executed several murals beside his “Flight” at the Marine Terminal. These included a mural at the Queens  Public Library, now unfortunately demolished, and at the Post Office in Little Falls, New Jersey. Brooks was also a teacher, teaching at Columbia University, Pratt Institute, Cooper Union, and was an Artist-in-Residence at the American Academy, in Rome, Italy.

Inspired by his friendships with Jackson Pollock and Lee Krasner, Brook’s work evolved through an interest in the unconscious as well as experiments with collage. He adopted some of the Surrealist principles in his early works which eventually led him to Abstract Expressionism. Over the decades, Brooks’ work evolved to become more mysterious, utilizing the accidental bleeds of the enamel paint seeping through the canvas weave of his paintings as a basis for his more solid calligraphic marks.

James Brooks’ work can be seen in the collections of the Art Institute of Chicago, The Museum of Modern Art in New York, the Tate Gallery in London and the National Gallery of Art in Washington DC.

Hernando Villa

Hernando Villa, “Pacifica Island Art Chicago World’s Fair 1933″, Vintage Railroad Travel Poster, 1933

Hernando Villa was a commercial artist and easel painter, best known for his work for the Santa Fe Railway. He studied at the Los Angeles School of Art and Design in 1905 and, after a year in Germany and England, he taught at the School for two years.

Villa established himself as a commercial artist in his home town, illustrating western magazines and creating advertising for the Southern Pacific Railroad and the Santa Fe Railway.  He enjoyed a forty-year relationship with the Santa Fe for which he created his best-known images including the Santa Fe Chief emblem.

Hernando Villa also executed easel paintings throughout his career which he showed primarily in California.  He worked in oil, watercolor, pastel, and charcoal.  His most frequent subjects were Native Americans, Mexican vaqueros, California missions, and coastal views.  Villa created a mural for the New Rialto Theater in Phoenix, and won a gold medal for a mural exhibited at the Panama-Pacific International Exhibition in 1915.

Calendar: October 17

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

Beautiful Morning

October 17, 1956, marks the release date of the film “Around the World in Eighty Days”.

“Around the World in Eighty Days” is a 1956 American epic adventure-comedy starring Cantinflas, the Mexican film actor and producer, and the English actor David Niven. It was produced by Michael Todd, who had never before produced a film, and released by United Artists. The screen play was based on Jules Verne’s novel of the same name and directed by Michael Anderson, who had directed the WWII film “The Dam Busters” the previous year.

The film was significant as the first of the so-called Hollywood “make-work” films, employing dozens of film personalities. Besides Niven and Cantinflas as the main characters, Shirley MacLaine had the role of Princess Acuda, and Robert Newton played Detective Fix, his last role in film before his death. More than forty famous performers made cameo appearances, including Marlene Dietrich, Ronald Colman, George Raft, and Frank Sinatra.

The filming of “Around the World in Eighty Days” took place in late 1955, from August 9 to December 20. The crew worked fast, shooting 680,000 feet of film in seventy-five days; the final film was edited down to just under 26,000 feet. The film cost just under six million dollars to make, using 112 locations in thirteen countries and 140 stage sets. The crew traveled to every country portrayed in the final film, including France, India, Spain, Thailand, and Japan. There were 68,894 people, including extras, in the final cast of the film; the photographers also used almost 8,000 animals in the shooting.

The famous bullfight scene in Spain with Cantinflas as the matador included ten thousand extras, using all 6,500 residents of the nearby town of Chinchon and another 3,500 from other nearby towns to fill the stadium seats. The scene of the collapsing train bridge was filmed partially with models; the overhead shot was full scale, but the bridge collapse was done using a large-scale model on a stage set. All the steamships in the first half of the movie are models, shot in an outdoor studio tank.

“Around the World in Eighty Days” premiered on October 17 at the Rivoli Theater in New York City. The film was nominated for eight Oscars, of which it was awarded five, beating out its competitors: “Giant”, “The Ten Commandments” and “The King and I”. It won Best Picture, Best Color Cinematography, Best Film Editing, Best Music, and Best Writing for an Adapted Screenplay. Although not nominated for Best Song, the film’s theme “Around the World: became popular and a hit for Bing Crosby in 1957.