Daily Art Fixx

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

Andrew Wyeth: 1917-2009

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Christina's World - Andrew WyethAndrew Wyeth: July 12, 1917 – January 16, 2009

Christina’s World by Andrew Wyeth was created in 1948.  This painting  is one of the most familiar American works of the 20th century and is currently on display at the MOMA in New York.

“Set in the stark landscape of coastal Maine, Christina’s World depicts a young woman seen from behind, wearing a pink dress and lying in a grassy field. Although she appears to be in a position of repose, her torso, propped on her arms, is strangely alert; her silhouette is tense, almost frozen, giving the impression that she is fixed to the ground. She stares at a distant farmhouse and a group of outbuildings, ancient and grayed in harmony with the dry grass and overcast sky.

Wyeth’s neighbor Anna Christina Olson inspired the composition, which is one of four paint­ings by Wyeth in which she appears. As a young girl, Olson developed a degenerative muscle condition—possibly polio—that left her unable to walk. She refused to use a wheelchair, preferring to crawl, as depicted here, using her arms to drag her lower body along. “The challenge to me,” Wyeth explained, “was to do justice to her extraordinary conquest of a life which most people would consider hopeless.”

For more information, visit AndrewWyeth.com.

Frida Kahlo: 1907 – 1954

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Frida Kahlo - Self-Portrait with Thorn Necklace and Hummingbird 1940Born on July 6, 1907, in Coyoacán Mexico, Magdalena Carmen Frida Kahlo y Calderón is one of the most internationally known Mexican painters of our time. Kahlo survived many difficult events in her life including polio around the age of six, and a bus accident that left her permanently disabled.

Kahlo did not intend to be an artist and, before her accident, was enrolled at the National Preparatory School in Mexico City in the premedical program. She began painting while recovering from her injuries that left her bedridden for over a year.

Frida’s paintings were mostly self-portraits and dealt directly with her health, physical challenges, and sexuality. With no formal training, Kahlo painted in vibrant colours and her style was influenced by the tradition of Mexican folk art and European styles including Realism, Symbolism, and Surrealism.

In 1929, Kahlo met muralist Diego Rivera who was enthusiastic and supportive of her work. With their art and mutual support of Communism in common, they fell in love and despite their 20-year age difference, married the same year. Their relationship was a stormy and passionate one, filled with infidelities on both sides, the pressures of Rivera’s fame, and Kahlo’s poor health.  The couple eventually divorced, but then remarried in 1940.

Kahlo and Rivera traveled to the United States and France, where they connected with influential artists and politicians of the time. Frida had her first solo exhibition at the Julien Levy Gallery in New York City in 1938 and achieved some success during the 1940s. As well, during this time, Kahlo taught art and her students became known as Los Fridos.

Kahlo produced around 200 images in her lifetime. Despite more than 30 operations, she spent her life in constant pain and had several miscarriages. Frida Kahlo died on July 13, 1954 at the age of 47. Doctors reported her death as a pulmonary embolism, relating to pneumonia, although it is also suspected that she committed suicide through an overdose.

Kahlo was described as a “self-invented Surrealist” by André Breton in 1938, but she disagreed saying “They thought I was a Surrealist, but I wasn’t. I never painted dreams. I painted my own reality.”

Sources:  Tate Museum, MOMA, Wikipedia, SFMOMA,  Artchive

National Indigenous Peoples Day: Professional Native Indian Artists Incorporation (Indian Group of Seven)

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Professional Native Indian Artists Inc. book coverJune 21st is National Indigenous Peoples Day in Canada. Established in 1996, it is a day for all Canadians to recognize and celebrate the history, heritage, resilience and diversity of First Nations, Inuit and Métis across Canada.

For generations, many Indigenous groups and communities have celebrated their culture and heritage on June 21 or around that time of year because of the significance of the summer solstice as the longest day of the year.

National Aboriginal Day, now National Indigenous Peoples Day, was announced in 1996 by then Governor General of Canada, Roméo LeBlanc, through the Proclamation Declaring June 21 of Each Year as National Aboriginal Day. (Source: Gov’t of Canada)

To celebrate National Indigenous Peoples Day, DAF presents the work of the Professional Native Indian Artists Incorporation, better known as the “Indian Group of Seven”. Initiated in the 1970s by Potawatomi painter Daphne Odjig, the group consisted of professional aboriginal artists who came together to promote their work and change the way the western art world looked at Aboriginal art. Members of the group included Daphne Odjig, Norval Morrisseau,  Jackson Beardy,  Carl Ray, Joseph Sanchez, Eddy Cobiness, and Alex Janvier.

The precursor to the formation of the group occurred in 1972, when a joint exhibition of indigenous contemporary art was held in Winnipeg, Manitoba. The show called, “Treaty Numbers 23, 287 and 1171”, included Jackson Beardy, Alex Janvier and Daphne Odjig. The success of the exhibition led to the formation of the Professional Native Indian Artists Association in November 1973 which was funded by the Department of Indian Affairs. The PNIAI was incorporated in February 1974 by all seven members. Haida artist Bill Reid, although not formally signed on, was considered the eighth member and participated in some of the group’s shows.

The name “Indian Group of Seven” was given to the group by Gary Scherbain of the Winnipeg Free Press, referring to the well known Group of Seven who painted Canadian landscapes in an impressionistic style beginning in the 1920s.

“The group’s work covered the gamut from intensely spiritual to slyly humourous, deeply personal to fiercely political. It took Canada by storm, in both native and non-native communities.”

The “Indian Group of Seven” had numerous joint exhibitions in Canada. The last in which all participated was at the Dominion Gallery in Montreal in 1975. The group disbanded in 1975.

In September, 2013, the Mackenzie Art Gallery in Saskatchewan, organized 7: Professional Native Indian Artists Inc. bringing together 120 works including those featured in formative exhibitions of the Group along with a number of recently uncovered masterworks of the period. The exhibition toured to five other major Canadian Art Galleries in 2015-2016.

National Indigenous Peoples Day events are held in every region across Canada. For a detailed list of activities, visit the Government of Canada’s National Indigenous Peoples Day website or contact an Aboriginal community or organization near you.

Sources: Native Art in Canada, Wikipedia, Seventh Generation Gallery

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André Lhote (July 5, 1885 – January 24 , 1962)

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les deux amies andre lahote 1925André Lhote (5 July 1885 – 24 January 1962) was a French painter known for Cubist art, teaching, and writing.

Born in Bordeaux, France, Lhote learned sculpture as a child and later studied decorative sculpture at École des Beaux-Arts. He started painting in 1905 and held his first solo exhibition in Paris in 1910.

At first inspired by Paul Gauguin and Paul Cézanne, Lhote eventually became part of the influential Parisian circle called the Section d’Or, which counted Marcel Duchamp, Jean Metzinger, and the poet Guillaume Apollinaire among its members. Lhote joined the Cubist movement in 1912 and exhibited with influential artists like Albert Gleizes and Duchamp. After serving in World War I, he taught at various art schools, including his own Academy André Lhote in Montparnasse, where he influenced many notable artists including  Henri Cartier-Bresson,  Tamara de Lempicka

Lhote lectured widely and collaborated with Effat Nagy in Egypt, focusing on Egyptian archaeology in their work.

View these sources for a more detailed biography: Wikipedia, ArtNet

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Henri Rousseau: 1844 – 1910

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Born in Laval, France on May 21, 1844, Henri Julien Félix Rousseau is considered to be the archetype of the self-taught artist and one of the first of the Naïve or Primitive artists.  “Rousseau’s brightly coloured, dream-like paintings, many of them depicting exotic subjects, anticipated some of the major artistic movements of the 20th century, including Surrealism.”

Following high school, Rousseau worked for a lawyer and studied law but joined the army in 1863 after committing a minor perjury.  In 1868, he moved to Paris after the death of his father and took a job with the Paris government as a custom’s official.

Rousseau retired from work in 1893 to devote more time to painting and supplemented his income with a variety of part-time jobs including teaching painting and drawing. In the same year, he moved to Montparnasse, a centre for artistic activity in Paris.

Rousseau took his own art very seriously, however, many critics at the time often ridiculed his work as childish and untutored.  Today, Rousseau is celebrated for his dream like jungle paintings with their bold and primitive style, incredibly detailed with lush animal and plant life.  His exotic scenes did not originate from any worldly travels. In fact, Rousseau never left France.  His paintings were based on images adapted from printed sources, and from visits to the Paris Natural History Museum, and the Jardin des Plantes, a botanical garden and zoo.

As his career moved forward, Rousseau increasingly associated with the avant-garde. He exhibited alongside the Fauves at the Salon d’Automne in 1905 where he met Apollinaire, Robert Delaunay, Picasso and others. By 1910, sales of his work grew considerably.

Unfortunately, on September 2, 1910,  as his work was beginning to gain recognition, Rousseau, died after suffering from an infected leg wound.

At the end of 1910 Max Weber organized an exhibition of Rousseau’s works at the 291 gallery in New York, and in 1911 the Salon des Indépendants held a retrospective of forty-five paintings and five drawings.

Conservation video by MOMA including the known history of Rousseau’s Sleeping Gypsy and removing a century of treatments.

Sources: MOMA, New York Times, Wikipedia

Shop: Henri Rousseau on Amazon

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

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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

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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

Mother’s Day: Portraits of Artists’ Mothers

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Happy Mother’s Day all you moms out there! In honour of this special day, DAF presents a selection of well known portraits of artists’ mothers. Throughout history, many artists have painted their mothers for a variety reasons; “as a loving tribute, to capture a memorable face, to work through conflicting emotions, as a family legacy, or the simple availability of a model.”

The development of photography in the 19th century however, had a significant impact on portrait painting. Many turned to photography studios to have their portraits made as a cheaper alternative. Some artists found photography to be a useful aid to composition and from the Impressionists onward, artists have found numerous ways to expand their techniques and reinterpret the portrait to compete effectively with photography:

“Henri Matisse produced powerful portraits using non-naturalistic, even garish, colours for skin tones. Cézanne relied on highly simplified forms in his portraits, avoiding detail while emphasizing colour juxtapositions. Gustav Klimt‘s unique style applied Byzantine motifs and gold paint to his memorable portraits. Picasso painted many portraits, including several cubist renderings of his mistresses, in which the likeness of the subject is grossly distorted to achieve an emotional statement well beyond the bounds of normal caricature.”

As a result of an increased interest in abstract and non-figurative art, portrait painting in Europe and the Americas declined in the 1940s and 50s. In the 1960s and 70s, however, a revival of portraiture began. Artists such as Lucian Freud, Francis Bacon, Andy Warhol, and other contemporary artists have made the human face a focal point of their work. As well, photographic portraiture has become fully accepted in the art world and photo portraits are exhibited alongside painters in galleries and museum.

Whether a portrait of one’s mother or family member, friend or a stranger on the street; in our era of mass-media and the web, where images can be exchanged in seconds, our desire to create and commission unique images of ourselves lives on.

 

Sources: Wikipedia, National Portrait Gallery

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

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“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.

 

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Grant Wood: 1891-1942

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Grant Wood PortraitBorn on February 13, 1891, in Anamosa, Iowa, Grant Wood was an American artist best known for his paintings of the rural American Midwest. Wood studied at the State University of Iowa, the Minneapolis School of Design, and the Academie Julian in Paris.  Aside from painting, he worked in a variety of media, including lithography, ink, charcoal, ceramics, metal, wood and found objects.

In the 1920s Wood traveled to Europe four times, visiting Paris, Italy, and Germany. He was impressed by the Neue Sachlichkeit (New Objectivity) movement in Germany as well as the primitive Flemish and German painters. Specifically, he admired their depiction of mythological and biblical stories in contemporary costumes and settings, making them relevant to the viewer. Wood then applied these ideas in his own paintings of ordinary life.

Wood first gained recognition 1930, when his painting “American Gothic” won a medal from the Art Institute of Chicago. The painting received a great deal of public and critical attention and Wood quickly became known across the  United States. In 1934 he was hailed by Time Magazine as the “chief philosopher” of Regionalism.

“American Gothic” depicts a farmer and his spinster daughter posing before their house, whose gabled window and tracery, in the American gothic style, inspired the painting’s title. The models were actually Grant’s sister Nan and their dentist. Wood was accused of creating this work as a satire on the intolerance and rigidity that the insular nature of rural life can produce; he denied the accusation. American Gothic is an image that epitomizes the Puritan ethic and virtues that he believed dignified the Midwestern character.”

In 1932, Wood helped found the Stone City Art Colony near Cedar Rapids, Iowa, to help artists get through the Great Depression. He became a great advocate of Regionalism,  and gave lectures throughout the United States on this art movement.

Wood taught painting at the University of Iowa’s School of Art from 1934. During that time, he continued to produce his own works as well as supervising mural painting projects, and mentoring students.

Grant Wood died of liver cancer on February 12, 1942 – the day before his 51st birthday.

Related Books on Grant Wood

Sources: Art Institute of Chicago, Met Museum, Wikipedia,