Daily Art Fixx

visual arts blog, painting, drawing, sculpture, illustration and more!

Friedensreich Hundertwasser: 1928-2000

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Friedensreich Hundertwasser photo by Hannes GrobeBorn Friedrich Stowasser on December 15, 1928 in Vienna, Austria, Friedensreich Hundertwasser was one of the best-known Austrian painters and architects of the 20th century.

Hundertwasser studied briefly at the Montessori school in Vienna, and in 1948 he studied 19th century watercolour landscape at the Fine Art Academy. He was influenced by the art of the Vienna Seccesion, the Austrian figurative painter Egon Schiele, and Gustav Klimt.

In 1949, Hundertwasser traveled to Italy and met the French artist René Brô, with whom he later painted murals in Paris. During this time his work became more abstract but still contained symbolic figurative elements. Hundertwasser had his first solo exhibition in 1952 at the Art Club in Vienna.

In 1953, Hundertwasser’s spiral motif began to appear in his work and was a reference to the creation of life. This motif became a constant element in his paintings, which included a combination of contrasting colors and vibrant pigments. In 1953, Hundertwasser developed his “transautomatism” theory which focused on the innate creativity of the viewer.

It wasn’t until the 1950s that Hundertwasser began focusing on architecture. This began with manifestos, essays and demonstrations. In his view, the welfare of human beings depended on the style of architecture in which their houses were built. He believed that “architecture would be the people’s third skin and that everybody must be enabled to design this skin as he likes, just as he may design his first (his natural skin) and his second skin (his clothes).”

In 1958, Hundertwasser released his treatise against rationalism in architecture titled “Verschimmelungmanifest”. In the 1960s he traveled to Europe and Asia and began producing architectural models for ecological structures. He also started refurbishing and decorating public and private buildings. He successfully took part in the Tokyo International Art Exhibition in 1960, and the following year he showed at the Venice Biennale.

Hundertwasser became interested in graphics during the 1970s and designed the poster for the 1971 Monaco Olympics. Hundertwasser also created flags, stamps, coins, and posters. His most famous flag is the Koru Flag. Along with designing postage stamps for the Austrian Post Office, he also created stamps for the Cape Verde islands, and for the United Nations postal administration in Geneva for the 35th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

In 1973, he published a portfolio of woodcuts by various Japanese artists who had used his paintings as inspiration. In 1972, he published a manifesto on “the right to a window space” and in 1978, the Manifesto of Peace. Both reflected the artist’s ideology about searching for harmony between man and nature.

In 1998, the Institue Mathildenhöhe of Darmstadt held a retrospective of Hundertwasser’s work. The following year he moved to New Zealand and continued to work on architectural projects. In 1999, Hundertwasser started his last project named Die Grüne Zitadelle von Magdeburg. He never finished this project although the building was constructed a few years later in Magdeburg, Germany, and opened on October 3, 2005.

Friedensreich Hundertwasser died of a heart attack while on board the Queen Elizabeth II on February 19, 2000. For more complete biographical information, see the source links below. 

Sources:  Wikipedia, Hundertwasser.com, Peggy Guggenheim Collection

Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec: 1864-1901

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Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec portraitBorn on November 24, 1864 in the Midi-Pyrénées region of France, Henri Marie Raymond de Toulouse-Lautrec-Monfa is considered by many to be one of the greatest painters of the Post-Impressionist period. The son of aristocrats, he suffered from a number of congenital conditions that were attributed to the inbreeding traditions of past generations. His parents were first cousins.

Between the ages of 13 and 14, Toulouse-Lautrec broke his right and left thigh bones, both of which did not heal properly.  As a result, his legs ceased to grow and while his torso reached adult proportions, his height was stunted at 5 feet 1 inch.

Unable to participate in regular physical activities, Toulouse-Lautrec turned to art. In 1882, he studied with the academic painter Leon Bonnat and then entered the atelier of Fernand Cormon in 1883. He was drawn to Montmartre, an area of Paris known for its bohemian lifestyle and as the meeting place of artists, writers, and philosophers. He was also fascinated by the singers, dancers, prostitutes and other patrons of Parisian dance halls and cabarets. Toulouse-Lautrec made connections with Edgar Degas and Vincent van Gogh and by 1885, he had abandoned academic art, choosing instead to depict scenes of Montmartre life.

Toulouse-Lautrec painted “quickly and frequently in thinned oil paint on unprimed cardboard, using its neutral tone as a design element and conveying action and atmosphere in a few economical strokes. Japanese prints inspired his oblique angles of vision, near-abstract shapes, and calligraphic lines. In later years graphic works took precedence; his paintings were often studies for lithographs.” In 1889, Toulouse-Lautrec exhibited at the Salon des Indépendants, emerging as a leading post-impressionist painter. In 1891, he began producing paintings and poster designs connected with the famous nightclub, Moulin Rouge.

An alcoholic for most of his adult life, Toulouse-Lautrec was placed in a sanatorium in 1899. He died  on September 9, 1901 from complications due to alcoholism and syphilis at the age of 36. He is buried in Verdelais, Gironde, a few kilometers from the Chateau of Malrome, where he died.

Though his career was short, Toulouse-Lautrec created 737 canvases, 275 watercolors, 363 prints and posters, 5,084 drawings, as well as ceramic and stained glass works.

For a complete biography, visit the Toulouse-Lautrec Foundation website.

Sources: Art Institute of Chicago, J. Paul Getty Museum, Toulouse Lautrec Foundation, Wikipedia

Roy Lichtenstein: 1923-1997

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Roy Lichtenstein, Left: In the Car - 1963 | Middle: Woman with Flowered Hat, 1963 | Right: Nurse, 1964 All images © Estate of Roy Lichtenstein

Roy LichtensteinRoy Lichtenstein was one of the most influential and innovative artists of the second half of the twentieth century. He is primarily identified with Pop Art, a movement he helped originate, and his first fully achieved paintings were based on imagery lifted from comic strips and advertisements and rendered in a style mimicking the crude printing processes of newspaper reproduction. These paintings reinvigorated the American art scene and altered the history of modern art. Lichtenstein’s success was matched by his focus and energy, and after his initial triumph in the early 1960s, he went on to create an oeuvre of more than 5,000 paintings, prints, drawings, sculptures, murals and other objects celebrated for their wit and invention. (from the Roy Lichtenstein Foundation) For in-depth information about Lichtenstein’s life and works, visit the Roy Lichtenstein Foundation website.

The nine-minute video below, Roy Lichtenstein: Diagram of an Artist, from the TATE  brings together archival footage of Lichtenstein. at home and at work in his studio, as well as interviews with his wife Dorothy and friend Frederic Tuten, to create an intimate portrait of the artist.

Image credit: Roy Lichtenstein, Left: In the Car – 1963 | Middle: Woman with Flowered Hat, 1963 | Right: Nurse, 1964  All images © Estate of Roy Lichtenstein

David Hockney: Painting/Photo Collage

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David-HockneyBorn on July 9, 1937 in Bradford, Yorkshire, England, David Hockney is a painter, draughtsman, printmaker, stage designer and photographer. He is considered by many to be one of the most influential British artists of the twentieth century.

From 1953-57, Hockney studied at the Bradford School of Art and then at the Royal Collage of Art from 1959-62. He received the Royal College of Art gold medal in 1962 for his paintings and draughtsmanship.

Hockney’s early work was diverse. He became associated with the British Pop Art movement (though he rejected this label), but his work also displayed expressionist elements. In the late 1960’s his work was “weightier” with a more “traditionally representational manner”.  He spent much of his time in the United States, and California swimming pools and homoerotic scenes became well-known themes in his work.

In the 1970’s Hockney worked as a stage designer creating set and costume designs for productions including Stravinsky’s The Rake’s Progress and Mozart’s The Magic Flute which were produced at Glyndebourne Opera House. Hockney was the subject of the 1974 Jack Hazan’s film called “A Bigger Splash” (named after one of Hockney’s swimming pool paintings from 1967).

In the early 1980’s Hockney produced photo collages which he called “joiners” with subject matter from portraits to still life, and from representational to abstract styles. “Using varying numbers of small Polaroid snaps or photolab-prints of a single subject, Hockney arranged a patchwork to make a composite image. Because these photographs are taken from different perspectives and at slightly different times, the result is work that has an affinity with Cubism, which was one of Hockney’s major aims—discussing the way human vision works.”

In the mid to late 80’s, Hockney made use of computers, colour photocopiers and fax machines to create artwork. In 1985, he was commissioned to draw with the Quantel Paintbox, a computer program that allowed the artist to sketch directly onto the monitor. In 1989, he sent work for the Sao Paulo Biennale to Brazil via fax. Hockney experimented with computers, composing images and colours on the monitor and printing them directly from the computer without proofing.

From the 1990’s onward, Hockney has continued to work on a variety of paintings, photographic and digital work, as well as opera productions. His works have been exhibited across the globe and are in the collections of most major museums. As well, many of his works are now located in a converted industrial building called Salts Mill, in Saltaire, near his home town of Bradford.

Hockney currently lives and works in Los Angeles, California and London, England. “Since 2009, Hockney has painted hundreds of portraits, still lifes, and landscapes using the Brushes iPhone and iPad application, sending them to his friends.”

In 2012, Hockney transferred paintings valued at $124.2 million to the David Hockney Foundation, and gave an additional $1.2 million in cash to help fund the foundation’s operations. The artist plans to give away the paintings, through the foundation, to galleries including the Los Angeles County Museum of Art and the Tate in London.

For more information about David Hockney, visit DavidHockneyPictures.com.


DAF Group Feature: Vol. 156

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Your Weekly Mixx – Enjoy! DAF’s Weekly Mixx is a selection of nine contemporary artworks and/or art related videos chosen from artist and gallery submissions and from our own search for new and interesting works. Visit the Submissions page for information on how to have your art featured in the Weekly Mixx.

HR Giger: Biomechanics

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Born on February 5, 1940 in Chur, Switzerland, Hans Rudolf “Ruedi” Giger (HR Giger) was a surrealist painter, sculptor, and set designer. Giger’s fascination with all things surreal and macabre began at a young age and this led to an interest in expressing himself through visual arts. Following high school, Giger studied architecture and industrial design at Zurich’s School of Applied Arts.

In 1966 Giger worked as an interior designer and completed some early paintings. In 1968 he began working full time as an artist and a filmmaker. The following year his first posters were published and he had his first exhibitions outside of Zurich.

“Giger’s most distinctive stylistic innovation is the representation of human bodies and machines in a cold, interconnected relationship, described as “biomechanical”. His paintings often display fetishistic sexual imagery.”

Meticulously detailed, Giger’s paintings are usually produced in large formats and then  reworked. Giger’s popular art book, Necronominicon, caught the eye of director Ridley Scott who was looking for a creature for his soon to be produced film Alien. Giger’s designs for the film earned him an Academy Award in 1980.

Giger began work on The H.R. Giger Museum in the mid 1990s in the fortress structure of the Château St. Germain, a medieval castle in Gruyere, Switzerland. The museum holds Giger’s personal collection of art from around the world, as well as a substantial collection of his own paintings and sculptures.

Aside from the Alien movies, Giger has worked on numerous films including Dune, Poltergeist II, Species, and others. He has worked with  recording artists including Blondie, Emerson, Lake, and Palmer, Korn, and has created signature models for Ibanez Guitars. His work in interior design includes  the HRGigerMuseum and the Giger Bars in Switzerland. Giger’s work has been exhibited in galleries around the world.

H.R. Giger, passed away in May 2014 at the age of 74.

For more information about HR Giger, visit one of his official websites: HRGiger.com, Giger.com, or HRGigerMuseum.com.

Sources: System 75 (images), Giger.com, Wikipedia, HRGigerMuseum.com, HRGiger.com

The Universal Arts of Graphic Design | Off Book | PBS

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Another interesting video from PBS Off Book.

“Though often overlooked, Graphic Design surrounds us: it is the signs we read, the products we buy, and the rooms we inhabit. Graphic designers find beauty within limitations, working towards the ultimate goal of visually communicating a message, be it the packaging of a product, the spirit of a book, or the narrative of a building. Utilizing a language of type and imagery, graphic designers try to make every aspect of our lives defined and beautiful.”

Irena Zablotska: Illustration

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Based in Lviv, Ukraine, Irena Zablotska (aka Joulu) finds inspiration in music, beautiful views, friends, country trips, in love, in sufferings,  and in dreams that have not come true.   Zablotska  also works as a designer and an urban artist. She has exhibited in the Ukraine, Costa Rica, U.S., France, and Russia.

To see more, visit Zablotska.com.

DAF Group Feature: Vol. 30

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Your Monday Mixx – Enjoy!!

Kinetic Sculpture: BMW Museum – Munich

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The BMW Museum opened in June 2008. Featured in the Museum is the Kinetic Sculpture you see in the video below. “The sculpture is a metaphorical translation of the process of form-finding in art and design. 714 metal spheres, hanging from thin steel wires attached to individually-controlled stepper motors and covering the area of six square meters, animate a seven minute long mechatronic narrative. In the beginning, moving chaotically, then evolving to several competing forms that eventually resolve to the finished object, the Kinetic Sculpture creates an artistic visualisation of the process of form-finding in  different variations.”

To see pictures and more video of the Kinetic Sculpture, visit ART.com.