Tag Archives: Painters
Video Interview: British Painter David Hockney – “The World is Beautiful”
In this short and uplifting video, the influential British painter David Hockney talks about looking and painting for more than 60 years – and shares a story that made him reflect on our time.
“The world is very, very beautiful if you look at it. But most people don’t look very much. They scan the ground in front of them so they can walk, but they don’t really look at things incredibly well, with intensity. I do, and I’ve always known that.” In March 2020, Hockney sent out his iPad drawing ‘Do Remember They Can’t Cancel the Spring’ (2020) in response to the coronavirus outbreak. In this video, he shares the story of how a philosopher on a news program was asked how he could be optimistic with the current news: “And he said: Well, that’s television. Bad news sells.” The reporter then inquired what the good news was, to which the philosopher responded: “Well, the arrival of spring,” Hockney continues laughing.
In the video, you also get to experience the world premiere of an animation technique, which Hockney himself calls “time-based brush painting.”
David Hockney (b.1937) is a British painter, printmaker, photographer and stage designer, who is considered among the most influential and versatile British artists of the 20th century. Hockney is a notable contributor to the pop art movement in Britain, both in its foundation and growth, beginning with his participation in an annual exhibition called ‘Young Contemporaries’ in 1960, which also marked the start of his recognition in the art world. Hockney is the recipient of several prestigious awards including the Praemium Imperiale for Painting (1989), and the Lifetime of Artistic Excellence Award (Pratt Institute) in 2018.
His work can be found in numerous collections worldwide, including National Gallery of Australia in Canberra, National Portrait Gallery and Tate Gallery in London, Museum of Modern Art and Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, Centre Pompidou in Paris, De Young Museum in San Francisco, Louisiana Museum of Modern Art in Humlebæk, and Museum of Contemporary Art in Tokyo.
David Hockney was interviewed by Marc-Christoph Wagner at his home in France in March 2019.
Many thanks to David Hockney for providing the works and the animation shown in the video. Camera: Jakob Solbakken Edited by Roxanne Bagheshirin Lærkesen Produced by Marc-Christoph Wagner Copyright: Louisiana Channel, Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, 2020 Supported by Nordea-fonden
New Art Books: “Titian – Love, Desire, Death” By Matthias Wivel (May 2020)
Titian (active 1506–1576) produced a masterful group of paintings for Philip II of Spain, celebrating the loves of gods, goddesses, and mortals. Depicting scenes from Ovid’s narrative poem Metamorphoses, Titian named them “poesie” and considered the works as visual equivalents of poetry.
This volume presents a detailed study of the complete series—Danaë, Venus and Adonis, Perseus and Andromeda, Diana and Actaeon, Diana and Callisto, and The Rape of Europa, as well as The Death of Actaeon—lavishly illustrated with details of these emotionally charged paintings. The book explores Titian’s creative process and technique, in addition to his use of literary and visual sources and his correspondence with Philip II.
The artistic legacy of the series for later European painting is also examined in the works of artists such as Rubens, Velázquez, and Rembrandt. Offering the most comprehensive overview of these remarkable works, Titian: Love, Desire, Death is an indispensable resource for scholars and admirers of Renaissance painting.
Top Upcoming Art Books: “Leonor Fini – Catalogue Raisonné of Oil Paintings”
Leonor Fini (1907–96) is one of the most important artists and personalities of the twentieth century. Her work came to prominence as part of the 1936 exhibition Fantastic Art, Dada and Surrealism at New York’s Museum of Modern Art, where her paintings were widely celebrated for their uniquely female approach to surrealism—although Fini never joined the surrealist movement.
Self-made and self-taught, she preferred to work on her own and was known for her fierce independence and provocative panache. A prolific painter, Fini also wrote, worked extensively in book illustration and printmaking, and designed for plays, ballets, operas, and film.
Presenting the definitive catalogue raisonné of Leonor Fini’s more than 1,100 oil paintings, this book brings together more than one thousand color illustrations and essays on her work by Fini experts Richard Overstreet and Neil Zukerman and a concise, up-to-date biography by British art historian Peter Webb.
Richard Overstreet is an American artist and photographer. In 1998, he founded the Leonor Fini Archives in Paris.
Neil Zukerman is the owner of the CFM Gallery in New York. He is an expert of Leonor Fini’s work and author of several books about her.
Peter Webb is an art historian and has published extensively on art and artists of the 20th century. He formerly taught at the Coventry College of Art, the Hornsey College of Art and the Middlesex University in London.
Leonor Fini (1907- 1996) was an Argentinian surrealist painter, designer, illustrator, and author, known for her depictions of powerful women.
Top New Art Books: “Alice Trumbull Mason – Pioneer of American Abstraction”
The first comprehensive publication exploring the life and art of pioneering American abstract artist Alice Trumbull Mason is perfect for audiences eager to discover unsung yet brilliantly talented women artists.
A groundbreaking artist, Alice Trumbull Mason (1904-1971) was one of the earliest painters of the twentieth century to embrace abstract painting in America. Mason’s early paintings have been compared to those of Gorky, Kandinsky, and Miró, and in 1936 she became a founding member of the American Abstract Artists (AAA) and one of its leaders in the promotion of abstract work by artists such as Josef Albers, Ad Reinhardt, Piet Mondrian, and many others. Mason was a true artist’s artist whose efforts helped lead to the great movements of later twentieth-century art, such as Abstract Expressionism, Pop Art, Post-Modernism, and Conceptual Art.
Alice Trumbull Mason features essays that illuminate and contextualize the artist’s multifaceted work and personal life through her paintings, prints, poetry, and letters. The book reveals the full life story of a seminal abstractionist, making a sound argument for adding her to the annals of great twentieth-century artists.
Art History: “Cocktails With A Curator – Turner’s ‘Harbor Of Dieppe'” (Frick)
In this episode of “Cocktails with a Curator,” Xavier F. Salomon, Peter Jay Sharp Chief Curator, discusses the French port city depicted in J. M. W. Turner’s painting “Harbor of Dieppe: Changement de Domicile,” and how the artist’s extensive travel throughout Europe helped to develop his affinity for harbors. The complementary cocktail is the Widow’s Kiss, a French drink traditionally given to women who had lost their husbands at sea.
To see this painting in detail, please visit our website: https://collections.frick.org/objects…
Abstract Art Profiles: “City Landscape – 1955” By Joan Mitchell (1925-1992)
Joan Mitchell, City Landscape, 1955, oil on linen, 203.2 × 203.2 cm (Art Institute of Chicago 1958.193, ©The Estate of Joan Mitchell), a Seeing America video
Speakers: Sarah Alvarez, Director of School Programs, Art Institute of Chicago, Beth Harris, and Steven Zucker
Artists: Watercolor Painter Alex Hillkurtz
Alex Hillkurtz was born in England and grew up in California where he is a renowned storyboard artist for feature films, television, and commercials. His film credits include “Argo”, “Almost Famous”, “It’s Complicated”, and many others.
Alex currently lives in Paris with his film editor wife, Tiffany, and enjoys discovering the hidden corners of the city that sketching and plein air painting allow. He uses the language of cinema to inform his images, moving beyond what one sees, and depicting what he wants others to see. He believes that in our too-crowded lives, sketching and plein air painting invite us to move at a more deliberate pace… a true sense of place, and sometimes unexpected stories are revealed.
Art Books: “Velázquez – The Complete Works”
Manet called him “the greatest painter of all.” Picasso was so inspired by his masterpiece Las Meninas that he painted 44 variations of it. Francis Bacon painted a study of his portrait of Pope Innocent X. Monet and Renoir, Corot and Courbet, Degas and Dalí…for so many champions of art history, the ultimate soundboard was—and remains—Diego Rodríguez de Silva y Velázquez (1599-1660).
This updated catalog raisonné brings together Velázquez’s complete works, jaw-droppingly reproduced in extra-large format, with a selection of enlarged details and brand new photography of recently restored paintings, achieved through the joint initiative of TASCHEN and Wildenstein. The book’s dazzling images are accompanied by insightful commentary from José López-Rey on Velázquez’s interest in human life and his equal attention to all subjects, from an old woman frying eggs to a pope or king, as well as his commitment to color and light, which would influence the Impressionists over two centuries later.
Art History: “Was Vincent Van Gogh Lonely?” (Video)
In Van Gogh Questions, our researcher Bregje Gerritse answers the most frequently asked questions about Vincent van Gogh.
Boomers Daily 