Category Archives: Arts & Literature

Auto Exhibitions: “Detroit Style – Car Design in the Motor City 1950-2020”

Detroit Institute of Arts LogoNov 15, 2020 — Jun 27, 2021:

Detroit designers have always led the way in car design. The futuristic concept cars, roaring muscle cars, and sleek racers designed in and around the city shape our ideas of what a car can be. Working on paper, in clay, and in metal, their ideas drive American car culture and inform the way we get around every day.

Elwood Engel Design for a Gyroscopically Stabilized Two Wheel Car 1960

This exhibit organized by the Detroit Institute of Arts will highlight the artistry and influence of Detroit car designers working between 1950 and the present day. It will bring together 12 coupes and sedans designed across that 70-year period to highlight significant achievements in style and technology.

The 12 cars include unique examples of experimental show cars created for display and iconic production models sold to the mass market. Design drawings and photographs will allow you to imagine the creative and innovative processes that bring a vehicle from the drawing board to the street.

1959 Corvette Stingray Racer
1959 Corvette Stingray Racer

A selection of paintings and sculptures will highlight the conversation between the American art world and the car culture from the 1950s to the present day.

Website

World’s Top Glassmakers: Craftsman John Pomp – “Perfect Imperfection”

The intertwining of the four classical elements—fire, water, earth and air—is a constant source of inspiration to the design and philosophies of John Pomp. Be it a ripple on the ocean or the swelling of a bubble, his sculptural pieces mimic the wondrous geometry that exists, often unnoticed, in the natural world.

Glassmaker John PompBy capturing the fluidity of glass in its liquid state with gestural experimentations of technique, John transforms “perfectly imperfect” into signatures of his creations. Fragile and ethereal, yet purposeful and confident, every Pomp piece is a unique confluence of light, liquid and fire, which he brings together to alchemic effect.

Website

Top Artists: Taiwanese Watercolorist Chien Chung-Wei – “Timeless”

Chien Chung-Wei is an award winning Taiwanese watercolor artist making his teaching debut in North America.  Chien Chung-Wei paintings look timeless, yet have a modern and contemporary feel, that is bringing him great success in North America and Europe.

Chien Chung-Wei Profile

He is the first Taiwanese artist to have ever received his signature in the National Watercolor Society, and the first to exhibit in the American Watercolor Society.

He has earned a masters degree in fine arts, and works as a part time lecturer and teacher of watercolor. With the growing excitement of so many talented artists from the East, Chien Chung-Wei has quickly risen to the top.

Chien Chung-Wei is a frequent contributor in many Western publications, including numerous articles and awards in the Art of Watercolor Magazine and International Artist.

Website

Art History Videos: Pablo Picasso’s “Les Femmes d’Alger – 1955” (Christie’s)

Christie's logoBetween 13 December 1954 and 14 February 1955, Picasso painted a series of fifteen canvases based on Eugène Delacroix’s masterwork Les femmes d’Alger, each of which he assigned an identifying letter from A to O. Together, these paintings constitute Picasso’s single greatest achievement in the decades following the end of the Second World War. They represent his first comprehensive appropriation and thoroughgoing exploration of an important painting by an earlier artist, as well as the most focused analysis he had done since the war years of the female figure set within a specific spatial environment.

Picasso painted the present Femmes d’Alger, Version F on 17 January 1955, around the halfway point in the cycle. It is the culminating, most fully resolved canvas from the first phase of the series, when Picasso favored medium-sized formats for his protean explorations.

Website

Art Profiles: 99-Year Old American Painter Wayne Thiebaud’s “Classic Pop”

From Christie’s (June 27, 2020):

Wayne Thiebaud - American PainterOne of the largest canvases from Thiebaud’s groundbreaking early period, it depicts a row of arcade machines, decorated in a vibrant mix of oranges and yellows…With their foreshortened bodies, the machines press towards the picture plane like the cakes and hot dogs in Thiebaud’s other works, inviting the viewer to reach in and taste.

It’s a classic of Pop art, a masterful reflection of the post-war boom in consumerism.

In November 2020, Wayne Thiebaud — the American artist best-known for his still lifes of pies, pastries and other tempting treats — turns 100.

Thiebaud also had a lot of fun with the backglasses: instead of cartoons and flashing lights, he decorated them with the ghostly, geometric forms of Frank Stella’s Concentric Squares, Jasper Johns’ Targets and Ellsworth Kelly’s Colors for a Large Wall.

Read full article

Cocktails With A Curator: “Stubb’s ‘Portrait Of Warren Hastings’ (Frick)

In this week’s episode of “Cocktails with a Curator,” join Deputy Director and Peter Jay Sharp Chief Curator Xavier F. Salomon as he considers the life of statesman Warren Hastings, who is depicted in a small watercolor from about 1791 by the prominent British artist George Stubbs. Explore the tumultuous career of Hastings, from his tenure as governor-general of India to a decade-long trial in Westminster Hall upon his return to England. This week’s complementary cocktail is a gin and tonic garnished with a slice of lime.

Top New Books: “The Language Of Butterflies” By Wendy Williams (2020)

The Language of ButterfliesButterflies are one of the world’s most beloved insects. From butterfly gardens to zoo exhibitions, they are one of the few insects we’ve encouraged to infiltrate our lives. Yet, what has drawn us to these creatures in the first place? And what are their lives really like? In this groundbreaking book, New York Times bestselling author and science journalist Wendy Williams reveals the inner lives of these “flying flowers”—creatures far more intelligent and tougher than we give them credit for.

In this fascinating book from the New York Times bestselling author of The Horse, Wendy Williams explores the lives of one of the world’s most resilient creatures—the butterfly—shedding light on the role that they play in our ecosystem and in our human lives.

Monarch butterflies migrate thousands of miles each year from Canada to Mexico. Other species have learned how to fool ants into taking care of them. Butterflies’ scales are inspiring researchers to create new life-saving medical technology. Williams takes readers to butterfly habitats across the globe and introduces us to not only various species, but to the scientists who have dedicated their lives to studying them.

Coupled with years of research and knowledge gained from experts in the field, this accessible “butterfly biography” explores the ancient partnership between these special creatures and humans, and why they continue to fascinate us today. Touching, eye-opening, and incredibly profound, The Language of Butterflies reveals the critical role they play in our world.

Read more

Art: Russian-French Painter Marc Chagall’s “Circus Of Color” (Video)

Sothebys LogoAs a child, Marc Chagall would marvel at the traveling acrobatic troupes that passed through his Village. The animals, dancers and musicians of the circus seemed to conjure a distinct joy that would consistently manifest itself throughout the artist’s career. In this episode of Expert Voices, discover how Chagall was able to uniquely translate this fascination to canvas as Edith Eustis delves into the deep greens and brilliant reds of Marc Chagall’s Le Cirque Vert. Painted in 1973, this work captures the magical allure of the spectacle and incorporates many of the artist’s most iconic motifs. Le Cirque Vert will be offered as a highlight of Sotheby’s Impressionist & Modern Art Evening Sale in New York.

Read more

Marc Chagall (1887 – 1985) was a Russian-French artist of Belarusian Jewish origin. An early modernist, he was associated with several major artistic styles and created works in a wide range of artistic formats, including painting, drawings, book illustrations, stained glass, stage sets, ceramic tapestries and fine art prints.

Art Profiles: Haitian-American Artist Jean-Michel Basquiat (Video)

Sothebys LogoFrom the anatomical features of Da Vinci to the fractured features of modernist portraiture, the human head has reigned supreme in Art History. Enter Jean Michel Basquiat – the consummate draftsman for a new age. Discover how Basquiat revolutionized the genre and captured the manic core of the human condition through his masterwork Untitled (Head), 1982, to be offered as a highlight of Sotheby’s Contemporary Art Evening Auction in New York. Encapsulating the incredible dexterity that defines the very best of the artist’s works, and extraordinary for its use of India ink under the oilstick to lend depth and contrast to the composition, Untitled (Head) is a heroic depiction that reflects the explosive talent and brilliance of its author.

Jean-Michel Basquiat (December 22, 1960 – August 12, 1988) was an American artist of Haitian and Puerto Rican descent. Basquiat first achieved fame as part of SAMO, an informal graffiti duo who wrote enigmatic epigrams in the cultural hotbed of the Lower East Side of Manhattan during the late 1970s, where rap, punk, and street art coalesced into early hip-hop music culture. By the 1980s, his neo-expressionist paintings were being exhibited in galleries and museums internationally. The Whitney Museum of American Art held a retrospective of his art in 1992.