Category: art

Pierre Soulages

Pierre Soulages, “Lithograph Number 3″, 1957, 25 x 19 Inches, Museum of Modern Art, New York

As a child, Pierre Soulages was fascinated by the Celtic carvings in the local museum and the architecture of the abbey of Sainte-Foy in nearby Conques, and these early impressions would continue to surface throughout his career. In 1938, inspired by the works of Cezanne and Picasso, he enrolled in the École Nationale Supérieure des Beaux-Arts, Paris, but he was disappointed by the traditional instruction and soon moved back to his childhood home of Rodez.

In 1946, Soulages returned to Paris and set up a small studio in Courbevoie. He began to paint in a wholly abstract style, producing canvases with overlapping black, barlike strokes on a glowing white or colored, ground, which he exhibited at the Salon des Indépendants in 1947.

Though his rejection of bright color in favor of black set him in opposition to the major trends in French abstract painting of the time, Pierre Soulages was nevertheless a prominent exemplar of the Jeune École de Paris (Young School of Paris), an umbrella term for the gestural or post-Cubist abstraction. in contrast to the gestural approach of his American counterparts, Soulages deliberately constructed his compositions to create a formal balance.

Odessa

Artist Unknown, “Odessa”, 1930s Vintage Poster

This vintage 1930s travel poster was designed to encourage tourism to the USSR before the Second World War and the ensuing Cold War, which essentially closed off the Soviet Union to westerners.. Advertising flights and train routes through the Soviet Union, they were published by Joseph Stalin’s Intourist Company, founded in 1929.

Nancy Elwood

Nancy Elwood, “The Eye of a Gator”, 2015, Apopka, Florida

Nancy Elwood is a photographer living and working in Florida. She shot this photograph of a big alligator along the road of the Apopka Wildlife Drive in Apopka, Florida in October of 2015. It  was taken with a Nikon D81o. This photograph was entered in the 2016 Nature/Animal Category of the National Geographic Photography Contest.

Dracula Journal

Special Edition Leather Journal, Dracula Edition, 2014

This special edition leather journal was designed in 2014 by aLexLibris. The journal is size is 10.5 x 8 inches with a thickness around 3.3 inches. Bte book block has around 350 pages; 700 sides of cream toned paper with hand-torn and particularly gilded edges.

The leather book covers are rich embossed with a lot of skulls, carefully hand-toned and bordered with gilded frames. The top side has full decoration and a stylized skull.

Reblogged with thanks to http://www.alexlibris-bookart.com

Adolph Carl Johannes Brütt

Adolph Carl Johannes Brütt, “Schwertmann (Swordsman)”, 1912, Bronze, circa 300 cm, Rathausmarkt, Kiel, Germany

Born the coastal North Sea town of Husum in May of 1855, Adolph Carl Johannes Brütt was a German sculptor and the founder of the Weimar Sculpture School and its bronze foundry. Originally trained as a stonemason in the city of Kiel, he worked on several projects, including the Linderhof Palace, the smallest of three palaces built by King Ludwig II of Bavaria. A stipend from the Sparkasse Kiel enabled Brütt to study at the Prussian Academy of Art in Berlin. After graduating in 1878, he became a student of German sculptor Leopold Rau and worked in the studio of Karl Begas the Younger.

Brütt married in 1883 and opened his own studio. In 1893, he broke away from the mainstream Munich Artists’ Association and joined the newly formed Munich Secession, a cooperative to promote and defend their art against official paternalism and conservative policies. Brütt and his close friend Felix Koenigs, a banker and art collector, promoted the Secession through exhibitions at the National Gallery, shows which included works by sculptor Auguste Rodin and the French Impressionists. 

In 1900, Adolph Carl Brütt traveled with his close friends Koenigs and printmaker Max Klinger to the Paris Exposition Universelle where he entered his bronze “Sword Dancer”. This female nude wielding two swords won a gold medal and secured Brütt’s international reputation. Unfortunately, Felix Koenigs became ill at the exposition and died in Paris. Brütt later helped convey Koenigs’s estate to the National Gallery where it is now housed in the “Foundation of Modernism” collection.

Brütt became a Professor at the Prussian Academy and also taught at Berlin’s private Fehr Academy which, devoted to the ideals of the Munich Secession, was founded by Danish painter and sculptor Conrad Fehr in 1892. Other artists who taught at Fehr Academy included German landscape painter and designer Walter Leistikow and copper artist Gustav Ellers. In 1905, Brütt was appointed a Professor at the Weimar Grand Ducal Saxon School of Art where he created its division for sculpture and bronze casting.Working with his students, he created the marble reliefs which decorate the lobby of the new Weimar Court Theater. 

Adolph Carl Brütt returned to Berlin in 1910 when German sculptor Gottlieb Elster, a studio co-worker, succeeded him at the Weimar Art School. For the 1916 Summer Olympics in Germany, his “Sword Dancer” was moved from its location in Kiel to Berlin. In 1928, Brütt was awarded with a honorary citizenship to the German spa town of Bad Berka, the second biggest city in the Weimarer Land district. Adolph Carl Johannes Brütt passed away in Bad Berka in November of 1939. His sculpture school became part of a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1996. 

Among Adolph Brütt’s bronze and stone sculptures are the 1887 “Der Fischer (The Fisherman)”, a bonze sculpture in front of Berlin’s Old National Gallery; the 206 cm bronze “Schwerttänzerin (Sword Dancer)” in Kiel; the 1902  granite fountain “Asmussen-Woldsen-Brunnen” in the Husum Marketplace; the 1907 “Nacht (Night)”, an openly erotic marble statute at the Grand Ducal Saxon School of Art in Weimar; the 1909 marble statue of a seated Theodor Mommsen at the Court of Honor in Humboldt University; and the 1912 bronze “Schwertmann (Swordsman)” at the Rathausmarkt in Kiel.

Reblogged with thanks to https://hatecolours.tumblr.com

Second Insert Image: Adolph Carl Johannes Brütt, “Schwertmann (Swordsman)”, 1912, Bronze, circa 300 cm, Rathausmarkt, Kiel, Germany

Bottom Insert Image: Louis Held, “Adolph Brütt in Front of His Marble Theodor Mommsen”, circa 1903

Simply Three

Simply Three, “Unsafe Haven”, 2017, From the Album “Undefined”

The classically trained trio of Glen McDaniel, Nick Villalobos, and Zack Clark, together known as Simply Three, has been captivating audiences since 2010. By reshaping convention through genre hopping, the trio continues to seek the true essence of classical crossover with original works as well as innovative arrangements that showcase their technical virtuosity and heartfelt musicality.

Fabio Novembre

Fabio Novembre, The S.O.S. Chair, 2003, Fiberglass, Polyurethane

Fabio Novembre was born in Milan in 1966. An architect since 1992, he became famous through a large series of design projects for restaurants, nightclubs and shops in Italy and abroad, as well as through his unique pieces of Italian furniture designed for Cappellini, Driade and Flaminia.

Novembre proposes works that highlight curvaceous forms and elegant and innovative lines. He often emphasizes sex within his creations. He stands on the boarders of provocation and poetry, contemporary art and design with his pieces.

The S.O.S. line is a joinable system of armchairs and chaise longue realized in a cubic form with a structure in lacquered matt black fiberglass. The sitting area is covered with a bielastic stitch spread in polyurethane and PVC, in a golden color.

Calendar: September 8

A Year: Day to Day Men: 8th of September

Journey to the Emerald City

September 8, 1504 was the unveiling date of sculptor Michelangelo’s “David”.

Prior to Michelangelo’s involvement, the Overseers of the Office of Works of Florence Cathedral, had plans to commission a series of twelve large Old Testament sculptures for the buttresses of the cathedral. Two statues were completed: the figure of Joseph in terracotta by sculptor Donatello in 1410 and the figure of Hercules, also in terracotta, by Agostino di Duccio in 1483.

Eager to continue their project, in 1464, the Operai contracted Agostino to create a sculpture of David. A block of marble was provided from a quarry in Carrara, a town in the Apuan Alps in northern Tuscany. Agostino di Duccio only got as far as beginning to shape the legs, feet, torso, and roughing out some drapery. His association with the project ceased, for reasons unknown, with the death of fellow sculptor Donatello in 1466.

The block of marble remained neglected for 26 years, all the while exposed to the elements in the yard of the cathedral workshop. This was of great concern to the authorities, as such a large piece of marble not only was costly but represented a large amount of labour and difficulty in its transportation to Florence. The Operai ordered the block of stone raised vertical so that a master experienced in this kind of work might examine it and express an opinion.

Though Leonardo da Vinci and others were consulted, it was Michelangelo, only 26 years old, who convinced the Operai that he deserved the commission. On August 16, 1501, Michelangelo was given the official contract to undertake this challenging task. He began carving the statue early in the morning on the 13th of September, a month after he was awarded the contract. Michaelangelo would work on the massive statue for more than two years.

On January 25, 1504, when the sculpture was nearing completion, Florentine authorities had to acknowledge there would be little possibility of raising the more than six-ton statue to the roof of the cathedral as previously conceived. They convened a committee of 30 Florentine citizens that comprised many artists to decide on an appropriate site for “David”. In June of 1504, “David” was installed next to the entrance to the Palazzo Vecchio, replacing Donatello’s bronze “Judith and Holofernes”.

Michelangelo kept working on the finer finishing throughout the summer of 1504. The sling and tree-stump support were gilded, and the figure was given a gilded victory-garland. Sadly, all gilded surfaces have now been lost due to the long period of exposure to weathering agents. The unveiling of the finished work occurred on September 8th of that year. It became the symbol of liberty and freedom of the Republican ideals, showing Florence’s readiness to defend itself. In order to protect it from damage and further weathering, “David” was moved in 1873 to the Galleria del’ Accademia.