Category Archives: Profiles

Artist Profile: Russian Abstract Painter Wassily Kandinsky (Sotheby’s)

Wassily Kandinsky
Wasslily Kandinsky

Wassily Kandinsky is widely considered one of the key artists in the development of 20th century abstraction. In this video, discover how an ability to see colours as sounds, and a fascination with spirituality in art, led Kandinsky to his breakthrough. Our upcoming cross-category ‘Rembrandt to Richter’ Evening Sale (28 July | London) features two jewel-like works by Kandinsky. ‘Murnau – Schloss Und Kirche II’ is an oil from Kandinsky’s sought-after 1908-1911 period. ‘Ohne Titel (Komposition)’ from 1914-15, is an exquisite watercolour in which Kandinsky finds harmony in colours that represent spirituality and intense passion. Both works come from an outstanding family collection of works from the European avant-garde.

Wassily Wassilyevich Kandinsky (1866 – 1944) was a Russian painter and art theorist. Kandinsky is generally credited as the pioneer of abstract art. Born in Moscow, Kandinsky spent his childhood in Odessa, where he graduated at Grekov Odessa Art school. He enrolled at the University of Moscow, studying law and economics.

The World’s Top Artists: American Painter Eric Johnson – “Masters Style”

Eric Johnson is a Boston based Painter and instructor at The Academy of Realist Art Boston who is devoted to the preservation and growth of traditional painting. He aspires towards adding his own link into the chain of tradition by mastering the working methods of the old masters who he admires and employing those methods into his own working process. 

Eric Johnson - The Story of We -As a complete painter he aspires to reach a high level of verisimilitude and truth in his works on a variety of subject matters from portrait, still life and landscape. Eric primarily makes all of the pigments and paints to create each prepossessing painting. Eric yearns that every new presentation to beauty and truth can show us the old beauty and the old truth only seen from a different angle and  colored by a different medium. 

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Artist Profile: Russian Post-Impressionist Vera Rockline (1896-1934)

From Christie’s (July 9, 2020):

Vera Rockline (1896-1934), Vue de Tiflis, 1919.
Vera Rockline (1896-1934), Vue de Tiflis, 1919.

Vue de Tiflis  is a stunning vision of that city, painted in a manner inspired by Exter’s Cubo-Futurism. Tiflis was renowned then, as it still is now, for a combination of narrow medieval streets and Art Nouveau architecture. In this work, Rockline warps and fragments such features to the point of semi-abstraction: planes intersect and overlap, suggesting the restless energy and bohemian buzz of the Georgian capital.

Christie's LogoWhen she died in April 1934, aged just 37, Vera Rockline was at the peak of her fame. The Russian-born emigrée had made quite a name for herself after moving to Paris in 1921. Obituaries spoke of an ‘incomparable loss’ and a ‘prodigious talent’.

Born in Moscow in 1897 to a Russian father and French mother, Rockline moved to Kiev to apprentice for Aleksandra (or Alexandra) Exter. The latter was a cutting-edge figure whose art fused Cubist and Futurist elements. As civil war racked the former Russian Empire in the wake of 1917’s Bolshevik revolution, however, Vera and her husband fled to Tiflis (modern-day Tbilisi) in Georgia.

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Art Profile: 55-Year Old British Painter Damien Hirst – “Veil Paintings”

“I wanted to make paintings that were a celebration, and that revealed something and obscured something at the same time.”Damien Hirst

Gagosian logoDamien Steven Hirst (born 1965) is an English artist, entrepreneur, and art collector. He is one of the Young British Artists, who dominated the art scene in the UK during the 1990s. He is reportedly the United Kingdom’s richest living artist, with his wealth valued at £215m in the 2010 Sunday Times Rich List.

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Video Tributes: Actor, Comedian And Director Carl Reiner Dies At 98 (CBS)

Carl Reiner, the funnyman behind TV classics like “The Dick Van Dyke Show” and movies like “The Jerk,” died on June 29, 2020 at the young age of 98. In this interview with ”Sunday Morning” correspondent Tracy Smith originally broadcast on March 8, 2015, the writer-director-actor proved that he had never stopped cracking us up.

Carl Reiner was an American comedian, actor, director, screenwriter, and publisher whose career spanned seven decades. During the early years of television comedy from 1950 to 1957, he co-wrote and acted on Caesar’s Hour and Your Show of Shows, starring Sid Caesar.

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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.