Daily Art Fixx

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Pablo Picasso: 1881-1973

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Pablo PicassoBorn on October 25, 1881, in Málaga, Spain, Pablo Picasso (Pablo Diego José Francisco de Paula Juan Nepomuceno María de los Remedios Cipriano de la Santísima Trinidad Ruiz y Picasso) was a painter, sculptor, draughtsman, printmaker, decorative artist, and writer.  “His revolutionary artistic accomplishments, including the co-founding of Cubism, brought him universal renown making him one of the best-known figures in 20th century art.”

The son of an academic painter, José Ruiz Blasco, Picasso began to draw at an early age. In 1895, the family moved to Barcelona where Picasso studied at La Lonja Academy of Fine Arts. Picasso’s first exhibition took place in Barcelona in 1900, and that fall he traveled to Paris for the first of several stays during the early years of the century. Picasso settled in Paris in April 1904, and his circle of friends included Guillaume Apollinaire, Max Jacob, Gertrude and Leo Stein, as well as two dealers, Ambroise Vollard and Berthe Weill.

Picasso’s work is generally categorized into commonly accepted periods:

Blue Period (1901-1904) – Picasso worked in a predominantly blue palette and his imagery focused on outcasts, beggars and invalided prostitutes. He also produced  his first sculptures: a modeled figure, Seated Woman, and two bronze facial masks

Rose Period (1905-1907) – Picasso’s work was dominated by pink and flesh tints and by delicate drawing. These works were less monochromatic than those of the Blue Period. Harlequins, circus performers and clowns appear frequently in his work in this period.

Primitivism (1906-1908) – Picasso’s works made reference to forms of archaic art and made expressive use of distortion with subdued greys and earth colours and rhythmical repetitions and contrasts. Picasso made his first carved sculptures. The resistance of wood produced simplified forms similar to his paintings.

Analytic Cubism (1909-1912) – Picasso produced works where objects were deconstructed into their components. His images were increasingly transparent and difficult to interpret and characterized by a growing discontinuity of figurative fragments. From 1909, Georges Braque and Picasso worked closely together to develop Cubism. By 1911, their styles were extremely similar and during this time, it was virtually  impossible to distinguish one from the other.

Synthetic Cubism (1912–1919) – In 1912, Picasso and Braque began to incorporate elements of collage into their paintings and to experiment with the papier collé (pasted paper) technique. “Both collage and papier collé offered a new method not only of suggesting space but also of replacing conventional forms of representation with fragments of images that function as signs. During two further phases of his development of papier collé in 1913, Picasso discovered that shapes could acquire other meanings or identities simply by their arrangement, without requiring a resemblance to naturalistic appearances. A single shape might wittily and equally convincingly stand for the side of a guitar or a human head.”

Classicism and Surrealism – From 1916-1922, Picasso collaborated on ballet and theatrical productions. He designed five complete ballet productions while still maintaining his career as a painter. During the 1920s, and with the continuing influence of Cubism, Picasso created a personal form of neo-classicism where his work showed a renewed interest in drawing and figural representation. From 1925 and into the 1930s, Picasso was involved to a certain degree with the Surrealists, and from the fall of 1931 he was especially interested in making sculpture. In 1932, with large exhibitions at the Galeries Georges Petit, Paris, and the Kunsthaus Zürich, and the publication of the first volume of Christian Zervos’s catalogue raisonné, Picasso’s fame increased greatly.

“By 1936 the Spanish Civil War had profoundly affected Picasso, the expression of which culminated in his 1937 painting Guernica. After the invasion of France by the Germans in 1940, Picasso continued to live in his Paris studio. Although monitored by the German authorities, he was still able to work and even to cast some sculpture in bronze.”

In 1944, Picasso became associated with the Communist Party. From August 1947 he made ceramics at the Madoura potteries in Vallauris, partly motivated by political concerns. He also produced a considerable number of bronze sculptures in the early 1950s, including some of his best-known works in the medium.

“Picasso’s final works were a mixture of styles, his means of expression in constant flux until the end of his life. Devoting his full energies to his work, Picasso became more daring, his works more colorful and expressive, and from 1968 through 1971 he produced a torrent of paintings and hundreds of copperplate etchings. At the time these works were dismissed by most as pornographic fantasies of an impotent old man or the slapdash works of an artist who was past his prime. Only later, after Picasso’s death, when the rest of the art world had moved on from abstract expressionism, did the critical community come to see that Picasso had already discovered neo-expressionism and was, as so often before, ahead of his time.”

Pablo Picasso died on April 8, 1973 at the age of 91. He was extremely prolific throughout his career. He produced approximately 50,000 artworks including 1,885 paintings; 1,228 sculptures; 2,880 ceramics, 12,000 drawings, thousands of prints, and numerous tapestries and rugs.

For a more in-depth biography of Picasso, see the source links below and be sure to visit the On-line Picasso Project – a non-profit project that catalogues an amazingly large number of Picasso’s works and a timeline of the artist’s life. The website contains over 16,000 catalogued artworks, over 6,000 notes, and thousands of commentaries, biographical entries, and archived news articles. (note, a login is now required to access this site)

Sources: Guggenheim, MoMA, Wikipedia

Rufino Tamayo: 1899-1991

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Rufino Tamayo - Dos Perros -1941Born to a Zapotecan Indian family on August 26, 1899, Rufino Tamayo is one of Mexico’s most renowned painters. An orphan by age 12, Tamayo moved to Mexico City to live with his aunt who enrolled him in commercial school. He began taking drawing lessons in 1915 and from 1917 to 1921, he studied at the Escuela Nacional de Bellas Artes.

Tamayo was appointed head of the Department of Ethnographic Drawing at the Museo Nacional de Arqueología, Mexico City in 1921 where he drew pre-Columbian objects in the Museum’s collection. The influence of the forms and tones of pre-Columbian ceramics are evident in Tamayo’s early works.

Unlike other well-known Mexican artists of the time such as Diego Rivera, Orozco, and Siquieros, Tamayo believed in the universality of painting.  His modern style that was influenced by pre-Columbian and European art, caused him some ridicule by the popular muralists who thought that their “only path” in art should serve revolutionary ideals. Tamayo’s response was “Can you believe that, to say that ours is the only path when the fundamental thing in art is freedom! In art, there are millions of paths—as many paths as there are artists.”

Tamayo’s differences with the Mexican muralists prompted him to move to New York from 1926 to 1928 where he was influenced by the work of European artists such as Pablo Picasso, Georges Braque, and Henri Matisse. His painting became a fusion of the European styles of Cubism and Surrealism and his subject matter of Mexican culture.

By the 1930s Tamayo’s paintings that featured intense colours and textured surfaces had become well known.  He returned to New York, and stayed from 1936 until 1950, where he created a large body of work, taught at the Dalton School, and exhibited his work at the Valentine Gallery. Tamayo was also a prolific printmaker, and he experimented with bronze and iron sculpture.

Tamayo’s first retrospective was held at the Instituto de Bellas Artes, Mexico City in 1948. In 1950, his successful exhibition at the Venice Biennale led to international recognition.  As well, Tamayo was commissioned to design murals for the National Palace of Fine Arts in Mexico City (1952-53) and for UNESCO in Paris (Prometheus Bringing Fire to Man, 1958).

Tamayo and his wife Olga lived in Paris between 1957 and 1964 before returning to Mexico City permanently in 1964.  The French government named him Chevalier and Officier de la Légion d’Honneur in 1956 and 1969.

Tamayo donated his collection of pre-Columbian art to the city of Oaxaca in 1974, founding the Rufino Tamayo Museum of Pre-Hispanic Art. As well, in 1981, he and his wife donated their collection of international art to the people of Mexico, forming the Rufino Tamayo Museum of Contemporary Art in Mexico City.

Tamayo’s work was exhibited in group and solo shows around the world including retrospectives at the São Paulo Bienal in 1977 and at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, in 1979. In 1988, he received the Belisario Domínguez Medal of Honor. Tamayo created his final painting (a self portrait), in 1989 at the age of 90 – Hombre con Flor (Man with Flower). He died in Mexico City on June 24, 1991.

Sources: Guggenheim Collection, Albright-Knox Gallery, Wikipedia, Biography.com, Images: Ciudad de la Pintura

Georges Braque: 1882-1963

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Large-Nude-Georges-Braque-1908 Born on May 13, 1882 in Argenteuil-sur-Seine, France, Georges Braque was a major painter, collagist, draughtsman, printmaker and sculptor of the 20th century. Along with Pablo Picasso, Braque was a key figure in the development of Cubism. He was also responsible for the introduction of many collage techniques including stenciling and combed false wood-grain effects.

Braque grew up in Le Havre and, following in his father’s and grandfather’s footsteps, trained to be a house painter and decorator. In the evenings, he studied painting at the École des Beaux-Arts from 1897-1899. He studied in Paris under a master decorator and received his craftsman certificate in 1901. He studied painting at the Académie Humbert in Paris from 1902-04.

Braque’s first works were Impressionist, but by 1906 he was painting in a Fauvist style, successfully exhibiting that year in the Salon des Indépendants. Braque met Pablo Picasso in 1907. Both artists were influenced by Paul Cézanne’s use of geometry in depicting his subjects in his work. Cézanne’s paintings greatly impacted the direction of the Paris avant-garde, and soon after, Cubism.

From 1909 Braque and Picasso worked together daily to develop Cubism. By 1911 their styles were extremely similar and during this time, it was virtually  impossible to distinguish one from the other.  In 1912, the duo began to incorporate elements of collage into their paintings and to experiment with the papier collé (pasted paper) technique. Picasso-vs-BraqueStarting about 1911, Braque began experimenting with other media and techniques, as well as new canvas shapes. He began mixing paint with sand using a house-painter’s comb to introduce areas of imitation wood-grain into his paintings. In 1912, Braque married Marcelle Lapre and rented a house at Sorgues, near Avignon. There, he and Picasso began using pre-existing objects and materials in their paintings.

Braque and Picasso’s artistic collaboration lasted until 1914 when Braque served in the French Army during World War I. He was wounded in the war and temporarily blinded in 1915, but resumed painting in 1916. During his recovery in 1917, Braque began a close friendship with the Spanish artist Juan Gris who was also closely associated with the Cubist movement.

In the 1920s, Braque returned to a more “realistic interpretation of nature, although certain aspects of Cubism always remained present in his work.” He painted landscapes and reintroduced the figure into his work which was characterized by bold colour and textured surfaces. In the mid-1920s Braque also designed the decor for two Sergei Diaghilev ballets.

In 1931 Braque made his first engraved plasters and began to portray mythological subjects. His first retrospective was held in 1933 at the Kunsthalle Basel. In 1937,  he won first prize at the Carnegie International, in Pittsburgh.

From about 1936, Braque’s paintings shifted again from the still-life to wider interior views. “Into ornately decorated rooms he introduced impersonal, flattened figures, such as in Woman with Mandolin or The Duet. The new mood suggested by his use of brighter colours was offset, however, by a series of macabre vanitas still-lifes, linked to the theme of the artist’s studio, that he began in 1938, possibly in despair at the approach of World War II. He also built a sculpture studio near his house at Varengeville and began experimenting with sculpture about this time, producing simple and playful, if rather two-dimensional works.

During World War II Braque remained in Paris. He painted mainly still lifes and interiors that were stark and sombre in colour. During this time, Braque also made lithographs, engravings, and sculptures.

In 1954, Braque designed stained-glass windows for the church of Varengeville. During the last few years of his life, Braque’s poor health prevented him taking on any large-scale work, but he continued to paint, make lithographs, and design jewelry.

Georges Braque died on August 31, 1963, in Paris. He is buried in the church cemetery in Saint-Marguerite-sur-Mer, Normandy, France.

Sources: Guggenheim, MoMA

Juan Gris: 1887 – 1927

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Born on March 23, 1887 in Madrid, Spain,  José Victoriano Carmelo Carlos González-Pérez (better known as Juan Gris), was a painter, draughtsman, illustrator and writer. Gris was considered one of the leading Cubist painters of his time.

Gris studied mechanical drawing at the Escuela de Artes y Manufacturas in Madrid from 1902 to 1904. During this time, he also contributed drawings to local periodicals. From 1904 to 1905 he studied painting with the academic artist José Maria Carbonero. From 1905 to 1906, Gris worked as an illustrator, producing drawings in the Art Nouveau style for the periodical “Renacimiento Latino” and for a book of poems, “Alma América”  by  José Santo Chocano.

In 1906 Gris moved to Paris, where he would remain for most of his life. In Paris, he associated with Georges Braque, Fernand Léger, and Pablo Picasso and the writers Guillaume Apollinaire, Max Jacob, and Maurice Raynal. Gris began to paint seriously in 1910 and by 1912 he had developed a personal Cubist style.

Gris exhibited for the first time in 1912 at the Salon des Indépendants in Paris, Galeries Dalmau in Barcelona, Der Sturm gallery in Berlin, the Salon de la Société Normande de Peinture Moderne in Rouen, and the Salon de la Section d’Or in Paris. He was also signed by French art dealer D.H. Kahnweiler who had exclusive rights to the artist’s work.

“His approach to Cubism, which has often been called scientific in its logic and precision, may well have been affected by his knowledge of technical drawings. From 1913 to 1914, Gris explored the potential of words in Cubist painting as introduced by Picasso and Braque through collage and papier collé. He was quick to exploit papier collé to achieve greater surface activity, clearer compositional structures and a more complex play between modes of descriptive and allusively verbal representation.”

During World War I,  Gris focused on subjects including musical instruments, music sheets, books and domestic paraphernalia. Between 1916 and 1918 he took on a leading role within Cubism and  was a respected friend of other artists who became influential after the war.

From 1916 – 1920, Gris’ Cubist ‘classicism’  was associated with the development of  a ‘pure’ Cubist practice. In 1921, he wrote in L’Esprit nouveau, a Purist magazine.  “He claimed to start with the manipulation of flat shapes, only afterwards ‘qualifying’ them so that they became identifiable in terms of subject-matter. He worked, he said, ‘deductively’ from the general to the particular, the abstract to the concrete, ensuring a basis for his art in conception rather than perception. He called this process ‘synthetic’ to distinguish it from the ‘analysis’ of things that he considered fundamental to his earlier Cubism.”

Gris’ first major solo show was held at Rosenberg’s Galerie l’Effort Moderne in Paris in 1919.  His production was diminished however in May 1920 by  illness – possibly undiagnosed pulmonary tuberculosis. He was hospitalized until August 1920 and was in recovery until 1921, though he did paint again in autumn 1920.

From 1921 to 1922, as Gris regained his health,  he produced some of his most successful classical synthetic works including a series of open-window paintings in which still-lifes are placed before open windows appearing to merge into Mediterranean and mountain views.

Between autumn 1922 and 1924, Gris paintings became richer, with a more vibrant range of colours . His subjects seemed both more “naturalistic and more anecdotal” including images of clowns, sometimes in a drunken state.  “Gris remained committed to his advanced Cubist position, and in April 1924 he delivered a lecture at the Sorbonne, ‘Sur les possibilités de la peinture’. It was the most elaborate exposition of his ideas on synthesis and on art as creation.”

From 1924 until his death,  Gris gained increasing commercial and critical success as well as returning to what he regarded as a more “uncompromising synthetic Cubism”.

From October 1925 Gris’s health declined. He died in Boulogne-sur-Seine on May 11, 1927 at the age of forty, leaving his wife, Josette, and son, Georges.

Sources: Peggy Guggenheim Collection, MoMA, Artchive (images)

Art-e-Facts: 5 Random Art Facts XIII

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1. Art Brut (raw art) is a term created by French artist Jean Dubuffet in 1948 to describe art created outside the boundaries of the art world of art schools, galleries, museums. Dubuffet focused particularly on art by insane asylum patients. Outsider Art, coined by art critic Roger Cardinal in 1972 is a synonym for art brut but the term is applied more broadly to include numerous artists creating outside the mainstream art world including Naive art, folk art, intuitive/visionary art, and others.

2. Memento Mori is a Latin phrase translated as “Remember you must die”. It names a genre of artistic creations that vary widely from one another, but which all share the same purpose: to remind people of their own mortality. The phrase has a tradition in art that dates back to ancient Rome. Memento Mori can be seen in religious works, funeral art and architecture around the world. A version of Memento Mori in the genre of still life is more often referred to as a vanitas, Latin for “vanity”. These include symbols of mortality, whether obvious ones like skulls, or more subtle ones, like a flower losing its petals.

3. Bokeh is a term in photography used to describe the blur, or the aesthetic quality of the blur, in out-of-focus areas of an image. Originating from the Japanese word boke (blur), the English spelling bokeh was popularized in 1997 in Photo Techniques magazine. Bokeh occurs for parts of the scene that lie outside the depth of field. Photographers sometimes deliberately use a shallow focus technique to create images with prominent out-of-focus regions.

4. From 1909 – 1914, Georges Braque and Pablo Picasso worked closely together daily to develop Cubism. Both artists produced paintings of monochromatic color and complex patterns now called Analytic Cubism. By 1911 their styles were extremely similar and during this time, it was virtually  impossible to distinguish one from the other.

5. Christina’s World is a work by U.S. painter Andrew Wyeth, and one of the best-known American paintings of the middle 20th century. The woman crawling through the grass was the artist’s neighbor Christina Olson. Aged 55, Christina was crippled by polio, and “was limited physically but by no means spiritually.” Wyeth explained, “The challenge was to do justice to her extraordinary conquest of a life which most people would consider hopeless.” He recorded the arid landscape, rural house, and shacks with great detail, painting minute blades of grass, individual strands of hair, and nuances of light and shadow.

Sources: Wikipedia (art brut), Wikipedia (memento mori), Silver Based, Wikipedia (bokeh), DAF (Braque), DAF, Christina’s World