Tag: birds

Clive Smith

Paintings by Clive Smith

Born in St. Albans, England in 1967, Clive Smith is a British painter currently living and working in New York. After receiving his Bachelor of Arts from Kingston Polytechnic in 1988, he moved to New York City where he worked until 1991 for fashion companies in New York, Paris and Naples. Smith then worked until 1996 as a men’s clothing designer for Gap’s clothing division, Banana Republic. From 1995 to 1997, he studied painting and drawing at New York City’s Art Students League under painter Peter Cox, who was best known for his landscapes.  

As a painter, Clive Smith is interested in how contemporary painting discusses modern social issues. His realistic portraiture work of two decades  possess a high degree of naturalism, executed in a style which is reminiscent of the middle-career work done by painter Lucian Freud. These stark portraits, which often present a sense of melancholy, are painted with a palette of blues, beiges, grays, browns and ochres. The body language of the singular figures, and even those in groups, most often projects a sense of isolation and vulnerability.

In 1998, Smith won the BP Award Third Prize in London’s National Portrait Gallery’s annual exhibition and, in  1999, won the BP First Award. The BP Award is the most important portrait prize in the world, and is considered the most prestigious competition in contemporary art.  

After researching advances within genomic technology and hybridization and grafting techniques in plants, Smith produced two new series of paintings: the 2015-2019 “Speculative Birds, Mammals and Insects on Books”, a series of paintings on books depicting new creatures whose patterns and colors could match the DNA of a specific painting, and the 2018-2019 “Transgenic Bouquets”, images of newly-composed plant species painted on wood panels in the manner of the Dutch Masters. 

Clive Smith expanded the range of his work with other series: “Beak, Claw, Hand and Brush” which depicted, on large canvases, bird nests positioned on decorative plates: “Speculative Bird Paintings”, a series of bird images whose feathered forms match known paintings; and “Different But the Same”, a series in time containing drawings and canvases  showing multiple images of a person generated over the course of days and months.

Clive Smith had his first solo exhibition in 1999 at Gallerie DeBellefeuille in Montreal, Canada. He has had multiple solo exhibitions at the Marlborough Galleries located in New York, London, and Madrid. Smith’s most recent solo show was at the Marc Straus Gallery located in the Lower East Side of New York City. 

His work is in many public collections such as the Cleveland Museum of Art; Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art in Kansas City; and the National Portrait Gallery, London, which commissioned and now holds Smith’s portrait of Sir Ian McKellen.

Clive Smith’s website is located at: https://www.clivesmithstudio.com

Middle Insert Image: Clive Smith, “Miró Tragopan (Tragopan toward the Rainbow)”, Speculative Birds, Mammals and Inscects on Books Series, 2019, Oil, Gouache and Pencil on Found Book

Bottom Insert Image: Clive Smith, “Comfort Mound”, 1999, Oil on Canvas, Size Unknown

Jesse Hazel Arms

The Paintings of Jesse Arms

Born in Chicago, Illinois, on May 27, 1883, Jesse Hazel Arms was a painter, illustrator, printmaker, and muralist. She studied at the Art Institute of Chicago under Danish-American portraitist John Johanson and spent the summers studying with marine painter Charles Woodbury at his summer art colony school in Oguinquit, Maine. Following a short trip to Europe in 1909, Arms returned to her hometown of Chicago, where she worked as an artist and interior decorator.

Jesse Arms moved in 1911 to New York City where she became a student of painter and interior designer Albert Herter. She obtained employment with his company Herter Looms, a tapestry-textile design and manufacturing firm in New York City, where she specialized in tapestry cartoons until leaving the company in 1915. During her employment with Herter Looms, Arms assisted Albert Herter with his mural project for the Saint Francis Hotel in San Francisco and worked with Herter’s wife, still-life and portrait painter Adele Herter, as a private home decorator. 

Returning to her hometown of Chicago in 1915, Jesse Arms married Dutch-born painter and etcher Cornelius Botke. Together, they worked on murals in Chicago for the Kellogg Company and for the University of Chicago’s Noyes Hall, the social hub of the campus. In 1916, Jesse Arms gave birth to their only child, William. By 1917, after multiple exhibitions, she had gained recognition for her work and had won many awards both in Chicago and southern California. 

Following an initial visit in 1918 to California, Arms and her family relocated in 1919 to Carmel, California, where they became influential figures in the local art colony. The family eventually settled in 1927 on a ranch in Santa Paula, California, where Arms continued to paint and contributed to the managing of  the ranch. A prolific exhibitor of her work and member of both the California Art Club and the California Watercolor Society, Jesse Arms Botke died on October 2, 1971 in Santa Paula, California.

Jesse Arms was a prominent figure of the California School of Impressionism and became known for her exotic and richly decorated bird studies. Her highly detailed work depicted birds set in each species’ natural settings with an abundance of flora. Arms typically used oil paints, but also worked in watercolors and gouache; the backgrounds in her work were frequently embellished with gold and silver leaf. Arms also portrayed other subjects including genre and desert landscapes, and Native American figures.

Among the prizes award to Jesse Arms’s work are the 1918 Cahn Prize and the 1926 Shaffer Prize, both from the Art Institute of Chicago, and the 1938 Carpenter Prize from the Chicago Society for Sanity in Art. Her work can be seen in the collections of the San Diego Museum, Municipal Gallery of Chicago, Art Institute of Chicago, and the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts.

Royal Flycatcher

Royal Flycatcher: Onychorhynchus coonatus

The Royal Flycatcher is widespread, with a range that extends from southern Mexico to the Atlantic Forest of southeaster Brazil. It inhabits the lower levels of humid evergreen or deciduous forests. The Royal Flycatcher exhibits notable geograhic variation across this range, with four species recognized. The most notabl e feature is the long ornate crest, which is red to orange with black and blue spotting.

The Ayam Cemani Chicken

The Ayam Cemani Chicken

Ayam Cemani is an uncommon and relatively modern breed of chicken originating in Indonesia. They have a dominant gene that causes hyperpigmentation (also termed as Fibromelanosis) leading to the skin, feathers and even the internal organs appearing dark black.

The breed originated from the island of Java, Indonesia and was probably in use for centuries and used for religious and mystic rites. They were first described by Dutch colonial settlers. It was first imported into Europe in 1998 by Dutch breeder Jan Steverink. Currently stocks are kept in the Netherlands, Germany, Slovakia and the Czech Republic. It is thought that Ayam Cemani may also earlier have been brought to Europe by Dutch seamen who had numerous contacts in both Africa and Asia.

The birds are completely black: black plumage with a greenish shine, black legs and toe nails, black beak and tongue, black comb and wattles; even their meat, bones and organs appear black. The blood of the Ayam Cemani is normal (though it is remarkably dark). The birds’ black colour occurs as a result of excess pigmentation of the tissues, caused by a genetic condition known as fibromelanosis. This gene is also found in some other black fowl breeds. The roosters weigh 2–2.5 kg and the hens from 1.5–2 kg. The hens lay cream-colored eggs with a slight pink tint, although they are poor setters and rarely hatch their own brood.