Daily Art Fixx

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

Maurice Sendak: 1928 – 2012

By

Where The Wild Things Are - Maurice Sendak

 

“Let the wild rumpus start!”
― Maurice Sendak, Where the Wild Things Are

Maurice Bernard Sendak was born on June 10, 1928 in Brooklyn, New York, to Polish-Jewish immigrant parents.  He was often sick as a child and spent much of his time indoors where reading was a major pastime. It was during this time that he began drawing, a passion that continued throughout high school. Shortly after graduating, Sendak published a number of illustrations in the textbook “Atomics for the Millions”.

Sendak began working for FAO Schwartz as a window dresser in 1948 and took night classes at the New York Art Students League. Four years later, he left Schwartz to become a full-time freelance children’s book illustrator.

By the early 1960’s, Sendak had gained recognition as one of the more interesting and expressive illustrators in the business.  Where The Wild Things Are, published in 1963, brought him international acclaim and became a favourite among children around the world.

Over the course of his career, Sendak has created dozens of popular children’s books including “In The Night Kitchen”. Published in 1970, the book has been censored often for its drawings of a young boy dancing naked through the story.

Sendak has won numerous awards including the Caldecott Medal for “Where the Wild Things Are”,  the Hans Christian Andersen Award for children’s book illustration, the National Book Award, the Laura Ingalls Wilder Medal, and others.

As well as his work as a writer and illustrator of children’s books, Sendak has produced both operas and ballets for television and the stage.

According to Harper Collins Rosenbach Museum & Library, “Where The Wild Things Are” has sold over 19 million copies worldwide (2008).  A large collection of his work is housed at the Rosenbach Museum & Library in Philadelphia. His collection of approximately 10,000 works of art, and manuscripts, and books have been the subject of numerous exhibitions at the Rosenbach. In 2009, Where the Wild Things Are became a major motion picture directed by Spike Jonze and written by Jonze and Dave Eggers.

Sendak died in the morning of May 8, 2012, in Connecticut, after complications from a stroke.

The New York Times‘ obituary called Sendak “the most important children’s book artist of the 20th century.” Author Neil Gaiman remarked, “He was unique, grumpy, brilliant, gay, wise, magical and made the world better by creating art in it.”  Sendak’s final book, Bumble-Ardy, was published eight months prior to his death. A posthumous picture book is scheduled for publication in February 2013.

For more information, visit the sources links below.

Sources: PBS-American Masters, Wikipedia-Sendak, Wikipedia-Where The Wild Things Are

Maurice Sendak on Amazon

International Women’s Day 2024 – Women in the Visual Arts

By

In honour of International Women’s Day this year, we bring you a visual selection of women artists that have appeared on Daily Art Fixx.  Enjoy!  Click on an image to open the gallery.

 

Related Books on Portraiture

Salvador Dali: 1904 – 1989

By

salvador daliSalvador Domingo Felipe Jacinto Dalí i Domènech, Marquis of Dalí de Púbol (Salvador Dali) was born on May 11, 1904 in Figueres, Spain near the French border.  A painter, draughtsman, illustrator, sculptor, writer and film maker, Dali was one of the most prolific, flamboyant, and well-known artists of the 20th century.

He was a student at the San Fernando Academy of Fine Arts in Madrid but was expelled for encouraging students to rebel and for withdrawing from an exam because he said the teachers were not qualified to judge his work.

Dali gained recognition relatively quickly after just three shows: a solo show in Barcelona in 1925, a showing of his works at the Carnegie International Exhibition in Pittsburgh in 1928, and in 1929, his first solo show in Paris.  It was at this time that Dali joined the ranks of the surrealists and met his future wife, Gala Eluard.

“The Persistence of Memory” was painted in 1931 after seeing some Camembert cheese melting in the heat on a hot summer day. Later that night, he dreamt of clocks melting on a landscape.  The small work (24 cm x 33 cm) is one of the most famous of the surrealist paintings. During this time, and inspired by Sigmund Freud, Dali used his “paranoiac-critical method” to create his art.

During the 1930s Dalí’s political indifference alienated him from the other Surrealists who were mainly leftist. In 1937, he painted an unusual series of Adolf Hitler that were considered to be in bad taste and partly led to his expulsion from the movement.

Salvador and Gala spent World War II in the United States, where he became a popular figure. He painted portraits, dressed shop windows, created a dream sequence for Alfred Hitchcock’s film “Spellbound” and created a cartoon, “Destino”, with Walt Disney.

Dalí returned to Europe in 1948 and was completely disconnected from Surrealism. He painted mainly in Spain, with an eclectic approach focusing on history, religion, and science.  Dalí created over 1,500 paintings in his career as well as illustrations for books, lithographs, designs for theatre sets and costumes, numerous drawings,  sculptures, and various other projects.

Dali was greatly affected by the death of his wife Gala in 1982. After that time, he lost much of his passion for life. His health began to fail, and he painted very little. On January 23, 1989, at the age of 84, Salvador Dali died from heart failure with respiratory complications. He is buried in his Theater Museum in Figueres.

For a full biography of Salvador Dali, see the source links below.

Sources: MOMA, Salvador Dali Museum, Wikipedia

Related Books on Salvador Dali

Images of Lovers in Art: 50 Ways to Paint Your Lover

By

“The main thing is to be moved, to love, to hope, to tremble, to live.”  —Auguste Rodin

How many ways can you paint a kiss, an embrace, a loving encounter?  One has to only sift through the thousands of images on the internet to see that the depiction of love and affection between lovers through painting, sculpture and photography has been taking place throughout the ages. Below is a small sampling of some famous, and not so famous, interpretations of passion, romance, and the many facets of love.

 

Related Books

ART-O-MAT: Pocket Art

By

buck cellar101

Many art lovers simply don’t have the budget to purchase original works of art.  Enter the Art-O-Mat – re-purposed cigarette vending machines that have been converted to sell pocket size original works of art.

North Carolina artist Clark Whittington created the first Art-O-Mat in 1997 which he showed along side his paintings at a solo show at a local cafe. The machine sold his black & white photographs for $1.00 each. The art show was scheduled to close, however, the owner of the Penny Universitie Gallery, Cynthia Giles, loved the Art-O-Mat and asked that it stay.  It remains in its original location to this day. Following the show, the involvement of other artists was necessary for the project to continue. Giles introduced Whittington to other local artists and the group “Artists in Cellophane” was formed.

“Artists in Cellophane (A.I.C.), the sponsoring organization of Art-O-Mat is based on the concept of taking art and “repackaging” it to make it part of our daily lives. The mission of A.I.C. is to encourage art consumption by combining the worlds of art and commerce in an innovative form. A.I.C believes that art should be progressive, yet personal and approachable.”

The Art-O-Mat dispenses original art-works and may include paintings, photographs, sculpture, collage, illustration, handmade jewellery, textile arts, and more. There are 82 machines in at least 28 American States, one in Quebec, Canada, and one in Vienna, Austria. There are around 400 contributing artists from 10 different countries currently involved in the Art-o-mat project.

For more information, to get involved, or to find an Art-O-Mat near you, visit Art-O-Mat.org.

took ashevilleartworks

DAF Group Feature: Vol. 183

By

Your Weekly Mixx! DAF’s Weekly Mixx is a selection of contemporary art and/or art related videos chosen from artist and gallery submissions and from our own search for new and interesting works. This week, we feature the work of Nathan Durfee, Kevin Palme, Emma Balder, Roelof Jacob, Thomas Broadbent, Cathie Joy Young, Katarzyna and Marcin Owczarek and short motion capture animation of  London Symphony Orchestra  Musical Director Sir Simon Rattle in action by Digital designer Tobias Gremmler.

Norman Rockwell: 1894 – 1978

By

Rockwell-Norman-portraitBorn on February 3, 1894, in New York City, Norman Rockwell was one of the most popular and recognized American artists of his time.

Rockwell had an interest in art early in life  and at age 14, he  enrolled at The Chase School of Art (currently The New York School of Art). In 1910, he left high school and studied art at The National Academy of Design and then transferred to The Art Students League of New York.

Rockwell achieved success quickly and while still in his teens, was hired as the Art Director of  “Boy’s Life” Magazine (Boy Scouts publication). When he was 21, Rockwell and his family moved to New Rochelle, New York where he shared a studio with cartoonist Clyde Forsythe and worked for magazines including Life, Literary Digest, and Country Gentleman.   In 1916, Rockwell created his first cover for The Saturday Evening Post. During his early career, Rockwell was influenced greatly by popular illustrators including  N.C. Wyeth, J.C. Leyendecker, Maxfield Parrish and Howard Pyle.

In the 1920s and 1930s, Rockwell developed further depth and character in his paintings and illustrations. “His use of humor became an important part of his work. It was a technique he used effectively to draw the viewer into the composition to share the magic. Rockwell was constantly seeking new ideas and new faces in his daily life. He painted not only the scenes and people close to him but, in a quest for authenticity, would approach total strangers and ask them to sit for him. His internal art of ‘storytelling’ became integrated with his external skills as an artist. What emerged was what we know today as an incredible facility in judging the perfect moment; when to stop the action, snap the picture…when all the elements that define and embellish a total story are in place.” (NMAI)

The 1930s and 1940s are considered the most successful decades of Rockwell’s career. In 1930 he married Mary Barstow, a schoolteacher, with whom he had three sons, Jarvis, Thomas, and Peter. In 1939, the family moved to Arlington, Vermont and Rockwell began to produce full canvas paintings depicting small-town American life.

During World War II, Rockwell became involved in the war effort to help boost the sale of savings bonds.  The result was his extremely popular The Four Freedoms, at first rejected by the U.S. Government but then printed as posters to sell war bonds. “The works toured the United States in an exhibition that was jointly sponsored by The Post and the U.S. Treasury Department and, through the sale of war bonds, raised more than $130 million for the war effort.”

Unfortunately in 1943, a  fire in Rockwell’s Arlington studio, destroyed numerous paintings and his collection of historic costumes and props. Rockwell would spend countless hours searching for the costumes and items to create his scenes, and the loss of this collection was particularly painful for the artist.

In the late 1940s and 1950s Rockwell continued to be one of the most prolific and recognized illustrators in the country. In his 47 years with The Saturday Evening Post, he created 322 covers.  He also produced work for Ladies Home Journal, McCall’s, Literary Digest, and LOOK magazine.

In 1953, the Rockwells moved to Stockbridge, Massachusetts. Six years later, Mary Barstow Rockwell died unexpectedly.

In 1960, Rockwell (in collaboration with his son, Tom),  published his autobiography, My Adventures as an Illustrator. The Saturday Evening Post published parts of the best-selling book in a series of excerpts.

In 1961, Rockwell married Molly Punderson, a retired teacher. Two years later, he ended his 47-year affiliation with The Saturday Evening Post and began to work for Look magazine. During his 10-year relationship with Look, Rockwell’s work addressed American social issues including civil rights, poverty, and the exploration of space.

In 1962, Rockwell told Esquire magazine: “I call myself an illustrator but I am not an illustrator. Instead, I paint storytelling pictures which are quite popular but unfashionable. No man with a conscience can just bat out illustrations. He’s got to put all of his talent, all of his feeling into them. If illustration is not considered art, then that is something that we have brought upon ourselves by not considering ourselves artists. I believe that we should say, ‘I am not just an illustrator, I am an artist’.” (NMAI)

In 1973 Rockwell established a trust placing his works under the custodianship of Stockbridge’s historic Old Corner House. The trust now forms the core of the permanent collection of the Norman Rockwell Museum in Stockbridge. In 1976, Rockwell added his Stockbridge studio and all its contents to the bequest. In 1977, Rockwell received the Presidential Medal of Freedom, for his “vivid and affectionate portraits of our country.”

Norman Rockwell died at his home in Stockbridge on November 8, 1978, at the age of 84.

Sources: Norman Rockwell Museum, Saturday Evening Post, PBS, National Museum of American Illustration

Norman Rockwell on Amazon

William Blake: 1757-1827

By

Portrait of William Blake by Thomas Phillips (1807)

Portrait of William Blake by Thomas Phillips (1807)

Born on November 28, 1757, William Blake is ranked among the greatest English poets and one of the most original visual artists of the Romantic era. The son of a working-class family, Blake studied art as a boy at the drawing academy of Henry Pars. In 1772, he began an apprenticeship with the commercial engraver James Basire and in 1779, entered the Royal Academy Schools as an engraver.

In 1782, Blake married Catherine Boucher who would later become his studio assistant.  The couple had no children. In 1784, Blake set up his own print shop and made his living for much of his life as a reproductive engraver. In 1788, he developed a method of etching in relief that enabled him to combine illustrations and text on the same page and to print them himself.

Blake described his technique as “fresco.” Using oil and tempera paints mixed with chalks, Blake painted the design onto a flat surface (a copperplate or piece of millboard), from which he pulled the prints by pressing a sheet of paper against the damp paint. He completed the designs in ink and watercolor, making each impression unique.

Blake bound and sold his own volumes, including Songs of Innocence (1788) and its sequel, Songs of Experience (1794). Many of his large independent colour prints, or monotypes, were created in 1795. From 1795 to 1797, he produced over five hundred watercolors for an edition of Edward Young’s Night Thoughts, of which only one volume was published.

For Blake, art was visionary, not intellectual. He believed that the arts offered insights into the metaphysical world and could potentially redeem a humanity that had fallen into materialism and doubt.

Blake’s most important patron and closest friend was Thomas Butts, a prosperous civil servant. Butts appears to have purchased most of Blake’s output up until about 1810, including a commission of 50 tempera paintings, 80 watercolours, all of a biblical nature.

In 1800, Blake moved to Felpham, near Chichester, at the invitation of the poet William Hayley, who offered him employment for three years. It was here that Blake regained a spiritual calm and was profoundly affected by the study of Milton. He returned to London in 1804 and began “Jerusalem”, a project he worked on until his death.

In 1818, Blake was introduced to his second major patron, John Linnell. Linnell commissioned works including the engravings to the Book of Job (1823-1826), and a set of illustrations to Dante’s Divine Comedy (1824-1827). He made regular payments to Blake until his death. Despite Linnell’s support, Blake had considerable financial problems during his later years, and in 1821 was obliged to sell his entire collection of prints. In 1822, at Linnell’s insistence, he received a grant from the Royal Academy.

William Blake died of gallstones, at his home in London on August 12, 1827. Largely unrecognized during his lifetime, he is now considered one of the most important figures in the history of both poetry and visual arts of the Romantic Age.

For a complete biography, see the sources links below.

Sources: Metropolitan Museum of Art, J. Paul Getty Museum, National Gallery of Art, Wikipedia

Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec: 1864-1901

By

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

DAF Group Feature: Vol. 172

By

Your Weekly Mixx! DAF’s Weekly Mixx is a selection of contemporary artworks and/or art related videos chosen from artist and gallery submissions and from our own search for new and interesting works. This week, we feature the work of Gemmy Woud-Binnedjik, Brad Jesson, Iva Gueorguieva, Rachel Ducker, Warren King, Coroso Zundert, Gemma Capdevila, and short video Aether – a spatial audio-visual collaboration between musician Max Cooper and architects Satyajit Das and Regan Appleton. It plays on the beauty of fundamental natural forms – waves, surfaces, symmetries and surreal landscapes, as the building blocks and underlying structure of the world around us – a modern interpretation of the luminiferous aether.