Bill Ray, primarily known for his work for Life magazine, has died aged 84. Born in Nebraska in 1936, he graduated from local newspapers to a staff job on Life, and photographed 46 covers for Newsweek. He was famed for his images of celebrities, and also covered the Hells Angels motorcycle club and the aftermath of the Watts riots.
We’ve once again been privileged to experience so many amazing images in the 2019 Mark Gunter Photographer of the Year Awards, there were so many epic images entered – in all three categories. The final week was a last minute rush with hundred of images flooding in; you can see some of these images in Showcase Five.
Our judges this year – Simon Wilkinson, Chris Auld, and Pauline Ballet and our honorary Judge Graham Watson – definitely had a tough task on their hands to decide the winners amongst a field of high quality work. Thank you to our Judges for your expertise and you time – it’s been a pleasure.
The Judges poured through 1,200 images. They first had to select the images – without knowing the who the photographer was – then narrowed down a shortlist for each category. Then collectively they chose the winning images. Read about their experiences in their Shortlists.
We are proud to showcase the winners here, their images, and the story behind their image and for everyone who made the top 10 in each category.
In this episode of Expert Voices, Otto Naumann explores their friendship and budding rivalry through Lievens’ masterwork Woman Embraced by a Man, Modelled by the Young Rembrandt. From the outset of his career, Lievens was at times bolder than Rembrandt, and the two constantly learned from one another during this critical period in their development.
In early 17th century Holland, a young Rembrandt spent his days studying and working with fellow artist Jan Lievens. After apprenticing together in Amsterdam, the two likely shared a studio in their hometown of Leiden and even depicted each other in their compositions.
This signature audacity is on full display in in Woman Embraced by a Man, which will be offered as a highlight of Sotheby’s Master Painting Evening Sale. (29 January | New York)
This book showcases more than 100 of Dürer’s drawings including Hare, Self Portrait at the Age of 13, and Melencolia I, along with paintings and prints. Featuring scholarly essays and beautifully reproduced works, this book shows the reader not only how important Dürer’s drawings are to his own oeuvre, but also how he helped drawing become an appreciated medium in its own right.
During his lifetime, Dürer found tremendous success as a painter and printmaker, taking commissions from prominent figures such as Frederick the Wise and Holy Roman Emperor Maximilian I. His drawings and studies reveal his interest in human proportions, anatomy, and perspective. Featured in this book are Dürer’s drawings from the Albertina Museum’s preeminent collection including family portraits, studies of animals and plants, and studies of the human body.
Watch Episode 1, “Looking back to look forward,” in which Met image archivist Stephanie Post, educator and former-Project Runway host Tim Gunn, and New York City Ballet dancer Silas Farley share how their encounters with history and the Museum inform their sense of self and their creative practices.
As part of The Met’s 150th anniversary, Met Stories is a new video series and year-long social media initiative that shares unexpected and compelling stories gathered from the many people who visit The Met, whether artists, teachers, curators, actors, museum staff, designers, thought-leaders, or public figures.
Jan.08 — Bloomberg’s Haslinda Amin kicks off Season 8 on board the Singapore Flyer with the man who shot the “Afghan Girl”. Steve McCurry has spent a lifetime focusing on conflict and culture creating some of the world’s most iconic photos.
Location: Campbell Hall, New York, USA; Technique: Stereomicroscopy, Fluorescence; Magnification: 5x (Objective Lens Magnification)
For microscopy technician Teresa Zgoda and recent university graduate Teresa Kugler, microscopy is a discipline that allows them to blend their dual passions of art and science. The 2019 winning image is a spectacular example of that, featuring a colorful turtle embryo captured using a combination of fluorescence and stereomicroscopy.
The pair captured this image while assisting in the Marine Biological Laboratory’s embryology course. It was here they learned the precise technique required to properly prepare various types of embryos to be observed and photographed. Creating this image was a unique challenge, largely due to the size of the sample. Over an inch long, and thick, it took time and precision to ensure the entire subject was photographed completely. What’s more, the magnification used meant only a small part of the turtle could be imaged on the focal plane. The final image is a compilation of hundreds of images that had to be stacked and stitched together.
When they are not taking photos through the microscope, both women enjoy being creative (for Kugler, that means cosplay, and for Zgoda it means photographing the landscapes, plants, and animals she sees on her hikes). Zgoda has recently started a job in a Boston hospital in a lab focused on neurology, while Kugler is excited to see what the world of science has in store for new Rochester Institute of Technology graduate.
“Microscopy lets us get a better look at the small things in life,” said Kugler, “It allows me to do science with a purpose.”
“We are inspired by the beautiful images we see through the microscope,” added Zgoda, “It’s amazing to be able to share that science with other people.”
Hailed as “a towering figure in the world of experimental theater” by the New York Times Waco, Texas-born Robert Wilson has created singular works in the realms of opera, performance, video art, glass, architecture, and furniture design since 1963. Prolific yet exacting in his approach to staging, light, and direction, Wilson has been honored with numerous awards for excellence including a Pulitzer Prize nomination, the Golden Lion of the Venice Biennale, and an Olivier Award. He is also the founding director of The Watermill Center, a laboratory for the arts and humanities in Water Mill, New York.
Enjoy this engaging and far-reaching conversation between two giants of art and literature, Scottish artist Peter Doig and Norwegian author Karl Ove Knausgård about the legendary Norwegian painter Edvard Munch (1863-1944).
Peter Doig (b. 1959) is a Scottish artist, who is celebrated as one of the most important representational painters working today. He has held several solo exhibitions including at the Scottish National Gallery in Edinburgh, Faurschou Foundation in Beijing, Louisiana Museum of Modern Art in Humlebæk, Musée des Beaux-Arts de Montreal, Musée d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris, and Tate Britain in London. His works are held in the collections of the Art Institute of Chicago, the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C., and Schirn Kunsthalle in Frankfurt, among others. Doig has received several prestigious awards such as the Prix Eliette von Karajan (1994) and the Wolfgang Hahn Prize of the Society for Modern Art (2008).
Karl Ove Knausgård (b. 1968) is a Norwegian author, internationally recognized for his prizewinning novel ‘My Struggle’. The novel, in which the author describes his own life, is in six volumes spanning over 3,000 pages. He is also the author of a four-volume series following the seasons – ‘On Spring’, ‘On Summer’, ‘On Fall’ and ‘On Winter’ (2015-16), ‘Inadvertent (Why I Write) (2018), and ‘So Much Longing in So Little Space: The Art of Edvard Munch’ (2019). Knausgård is the recipient of several prestigious prizes including the Austrian State Prize for European Literature.
Edvard Munch (1863-1944) is a Norwegian painter and one of the most important artists of the early 20th century. Munch was part of the Symbolist movement in the 1890s, and a pioneer of Expressionism. Among his most iconic paintings are ‘The Scream’ and ‘The Sick Child’.
Peter Doig and Karl Ove Knausgård were on stage with Christian Lund at Kunstsammlung Nordrhein-Westfalen in Düsseldorf in connection with the exhibition ‘Edvard Munch’, curated by Karl Ove Knausgård, in November 2019.
Visitors to the Denver Art Museum can currently see 120 different paintings by Claude Monet from all over the world. But how did they get there — like, literally get there?
To find out, I talked with Sarah Cucinella-McDaniel, chief registrar at the Denver Art Museum. She’s sort of like a travel agent for art — and for this exhibition she booked the itineraries for artworks from more than 70 lenders around the world: museums, as well as private collectors. (One of her recent days started unexpectedly, around 1:45 a.m., when one of her nine Monet shipments for the day arrived at the museum hours ahead of schedule.)