Untitled
HANS ARP
In the face of meaningless war, wanton destruction and the spectacle of collective genocide that seems sanctioned by society, a group of artists across Europe felt that they were left with no option but to reject the very foundation their modern world was built on. It was logic and reason, capitalism and society that had got the world to where it was in 1916, and so these same tools were useless to get it out. Enter Dada, a loose movement built on the embrace of nothingness and the absence of meaning, its very name a manifesto for the chaotic, irrational and absurd. Dada was designed to offend, not in content but in sensibility, flying boldly in the face of conceptions of aesthetics and art, ideas that the artists saw little use for. Arp was one of the founders of this movement, though sects sprang up across the continent, and he worked across mediums, applying the dada anti-philosophy to poetry, sculpture, art and collage. His work still puzzles and entices, for we still need an embrace of chaos when logic seems to fail us.
Hans Arp
HANS ARP, 1919. ENGRAVED WOOD BLOCK PRINT AND COLLAGE.
In the face of meaningless war, wanton destruction and the spectacle of collective genocide that seems sanctioned by society, a group of artists across Europe felt that they were left with no option but to reject the very foundation their modern world was built on. It was logic and reason, capitalism and society that had got the world to where it was in 1916, and so these same tools were useless to get it out. Enter Dada, a loose movement built on the embrace of nothingness and the absence of meaning, its very name a manifesto for the chaotic, irrational and absurd. Dada was designed to offend, not in content but in sensibility, flying boldly in the face of conceptions of aesthetics and art, ideas that the artists saw little use for. Arp was one of the founders of this movement, though sects sprang up across the continent, and he worked across mediums, applying the dada anti-philosophy to poetry, sculpture, art and collage. His work still puzzles and entices, for we still need an embrace of chaos when logic seems to fail us.
Juggler in April (Gaukler im April)
PAUL KLEE
‘First of all,’, said Paul Klee when asked what was most important for a good life, ‘the art of living; then as my ideal profession, poetry and philosophy, and as my real profession, plastic arts; in the last resort, for lack of income, illustrations.’ Of course, Illustrations were more than mere income for Klee, they instead became some of the most important works of the 20th Century, but his tongue-in-cheek response has more truth than he lets on. Klee was a wildly individual artist, refusing the modes of the day and merging influence into a unique style. A soldier, a thinker, a writer, and a teacher at the Bauhaus School alongside his closest friend Wassily Kandinsky – Klee’s genius moved across mediums, but it is perhaps, against popular knowledge, his writing that was his greatest impact. Klee’s notebooks are amongst the most important pedagogical documents of modern art, his perspective exists beneath so much of the post-war and contemporary works we know today. Chiefly, that art was a serious pursuit best pursued unseriously, like a child approaches the blank page.
Paul Klee
PAUL KLEE, 1928. ETCHING.
‘First of all,’, said Paul Klee when asked what was most important for a good life, ‘the art of living; then as my ideal profession, poetry and philosophy, and as my real profession, plastic arts; in the last resort, for lack of income, illustrations.’ Of course, Illustrations were more than mere income for Klee, they instead became some of the most important works of the 20th Century, but his tongue-in-cheek response has more truth than he lets on. Klee was a wildly individual artist, refusing the modes of the day and merging influence into a unique style. A soldier, a thinker, a writer, and a teacher at the Bauhaus School alongside his closest friend Wassily Kandinsky – Klee’s genius moved across mediums, but it is perhaps, against popular knowledge, his writing that was his greatest impact. Klee’s notebooks are amongst the most important pedagogical documents of modern art, his perspective exists beneath so much of the post-war and contemporary works we know today. Chiefly, that art was a serious pursuit best pursued unseriously, like a child approaches the blank page.
The Gust
WILLEM VAN DE VILDE II
In a world with immediate access to images, it’s easy to forget the utility that painting held for millennia. It was the primary medium of visual documentation, serving as not just an art form but a vehicle for posterity. In 1674, after a successful career in the Netherlands cut short by the economic collapse of the country, van de Velde and his father entered the service of Charles II with the remit to capture the glory and truth of the British Navy. His paintings are scientific and obsessive in their accuracy, every rope, rivet, sail and facet of the ship are depicted with complete faithfulness and they remain the most valuable resource that maritime historians have to understand the types of ships used in the 17th century. Yet, for all the required information they contain, van de Velde’s genius was in his ability to communicate this information within the context of drama and emotion. ‘The Gust’ is a work of urgent feeling, the precarious situation of the ship, with its collapsing sail, is mirrored in the ominous sky that seems to engulf it as it joins with the waves. Painting may have been a form of utility, but in the hands of master, it remained an art form of emotion.
Willem van de Velde II
WILLEM VAN DE VELDE II, c.1680. OIL ON CANVAS.
In a world with immediate access to images, it’s easy to forget the utility that painting held for millennia. It was the primary medium of visual documentation, serving as not just an art form but a vehicle for posterity. In 1674, after a successful career in the Netherlands cut short by the economic collapse of the country, van de Velde and his father entered the service of Charles II with the remit to capture the glory and truth of the British Navy. His paintings are scientific and obsessive in their accuracy, every rope, rivet, sail and facet of the ship are depicted with complete faithfulness and they remain the most valuable resource that maritime historians have to understand the types of ships used in the 17th century. Yet, for all the required information they contain, van de Velde’s genius was in his ability to communicate this information within the context of drama and emotion. ‘The Gust’ is a work of urgent feeling, the precarious situation of the ship, with its collapsing sail, is mirrored in the ominous sky that seems to engulf it as it joins with the waves. Painting may have been a form of utility, but in the hands of master, it remained an art form of emotion.
Esther and Mordecai
HENDRICK VAN STEENWIJK
How does a painting sound? Looking at Esther and Mordecai, the sonics are clear. Hushed tones bounce off stone walls, the whispers seem to travel through the corridor and out of the canvas. Hendrick van Steenwijk the Younger, a master of the early Flemish Baroque, activates every sense with his brushstrokes. Predominantly a painter of Architectural scenes, Van Steenwijk would include narrative vignettes within the worlds he portrayed, often snippets from biblical fables. In this way, he flattened time, depicting antiquity within his contemporary worlds and bringing faith into a recognisable modernity. His paintings are visceral; in the case of Esther and Mordecai we can feel the painting, the cold stone sends shivers, the hushed tones flutter to our ears and the musk of an ancient hallway fills our noses. Van Steenwijk was an alchemist who turned oil and wood into tangible, sensory worlds and shortened the length between centuries.
Hendrick van Stenwijk the Younger
HENDRICK VAN STEENWIJK THE YOUNGER, 1616. OIL ON PANEL.
How does a painting sound? Looking at Esther and Mordecai, the sonics are clear. Hushed tones bounce off stone walls, the whispers seem to travel through the corridor and out of the canvas. Hendrick van Steenwijk the Younger, a master of the early Flemish Baroque, activates every sense with his brushstrokes. Predominantly a painter of Architectural scenes, Van Steenwijk would include narrative vignettes within the worlds he portrayed, often snippets from biblical fables. In this way, he flattened time, depicting antiquity within his contemporary worlds and bringing faith into a recognisable modernity. His paintings are visceral; in the case of Esther and Mordecai we can feel the painting, the cold stone sends shivers, the hushed tones flutter to our ears and the musk of an ancient hallway fills our noses. Van Steenwijk was an alchemist who turned oil and wood into tangible, sensory worlds and shortened the length between centuries.
Band in Boston
ROBERT IRWIN
Painting was the not the medium that would come to define Irwin’s practice, but the same ideas, same themes, same grasps towards the unanswerable and unknowable are present here. Irwin was one of the leaders of the ‘Light and Space’ movement, alongside James Turrell, that shaped California’s post war art scene. In the late 60s, he moved away from works on canvas to create site-specific instillations and dynamic sculptures made with illuminated rods of neon and halogen bulbs. Yet we see, in this simple canvas, the architectural enquiry that existed in his practice across mediums. The square is broken up by simple, irregularly spaced lines – it is elegant and beautiful but we cannot quite understand why. “This world is not just somehow given to us whole.”, said Robert Irwin, ‘We perceive, we shape the world, and as artists we discover and give value to our human potential to ‘see’ the infinite richness in everything, creating an extended aesthetic reality.”
Robert Irwin
ROBERT IRWIN, 1962. OIL ON CANVAS.
Painting was the not the medium that would come to define Irwin’s practice, but the same ideas, same themes, same grasps towards the unanswerable and unknowable are present here. Irwin was one of the leaders of the ‘Light and Space’ movement, alongside James Turrell, that shaped California’s post war art scene. In the late 60s, he moved away from works on canvas to create site-specific instillations and dynamic sculptures made with illuminated rods of neon and halogen bulbs. Yet we see, in this simple canvas, the architectural enquiry that existed in his practice across mediums. The square is broken up by simple, irregularly spaced lines – it is elegant and beautiful but we cannot quite understand why. “This world is not just somehow given to us whole.”, said Robert Irwin, ‘We perceive, we shape the world, and as artists we discover and give value to our human potential to ‘see’ the infinite richness in everything, creating an extended aesthetic reality.”
Annunciation
MAURICE DENIS
Avant-garde sensibility and traditional religious thought are rectified in Denis’ work, quite unlike any of his contemporaries. From his teenage years, the French artist of humble means understood his role in life was to be a Christian painter, and while he was a seminal figure in various movements of radical modernity, he never deviated from this mission. Denis built a philosophy and theory around art-making that saw its purpose as a continuation of the act of Creation, as in the Genesis stories. The essence of art, for him, was the expression of love and faith and to serve as a refuge from the darkness of the world. He did not see beauty around him in the everyday, so attempted to find it in his paintings as a way of showing his faith and trust in God’s creation. Yet while these ideas about the function of art had existed for centuries before him, it was the style in which he applied them that made Denis so unique amongst religious artists. He was a founding member of the Nabis, a key Impressionist and a godfather to Cubism, Fauvism and Abstract art. While his contemporary artists were forsaking traditional roles across their lives as they forged a new artistic language, Denis remained personally traditional, living a stable and austere life that found joy in faith and family.
Maurice Denis
MAURICE DENIS, 1912. OIL ON CANVAS.
Avant-garde sensibility and traditional religious thought are rectified in Denis’ work, quite unlike any of his contemporaries. From his teenage years, the French artist of humble means understood his role in life was to be a Christian painter, and while he was a seminal figure in various movements of radical modernity, he never deviated from this mission. Denis built a philosophy and theory around art-making that saw its purpose as a continuation of the act of Creation, as in the Genesis stories. The essence of art, for him, was the expression of love and faith and to serve as a refuge from the darkness of the world. He did not see beauty around him in the everyday, so attempted to find it in his paintings as a way of showing his faith and trust in God’s creation. Yet while these ideas about the function of art had existed for centuries before him, it was the style in which he applied them that made Denis so unique amongst religious artists. He was a founding member of the Nabis, a key Impressionist and a godfather to Cubism, Fauvism and Abstract art. While his contemporary artists were forsaking traditional roles across their lives as they forged a new artistic language, Denis remained personally traditional, living a stable and austere life that found joy in faith and family.
Untitled Composition
JOAQUÍN TORRES-GARCIA
There are no contradictions. Nothing is incompatible. These were the tenets that guided Torres-Garcia’s life, the life of a writer, painter, sculptor, teacher, theorist, muralist, novelist and architect; a renaissance man of the highest order. Born in Montevideo, Uruguay in 1874, he emigrated to Catalunya, Spain in 1891 and began a career as an artist. Over the next 50 years, he would go on to found numerous schools, groups and movements including the first European Abstract art group and push the art and culture of Europe and South America to its vanguard. It was the duality of his homeland and his adopted nations that drove Torres-Garcia, and his ability to hold this duality together in a single mind. He existed between places, carrying the identity of Uruguay with him everywhere, and in doing so he was able too to carry the new and the old, the classical and the avant-garde, reason and feeling, figuration and abstraction. There are no contradictions, he said, nothing is incompatible.
Joaquín Torres-Garcia
JOAQUÍN TORRES-GARCIA, 1929. OIL ON CANVAS.
There are no contradictions. Nothing is incompatible. These were the tenets that guided Torres-Garcia’s life, the life of a writer, painter, sculptor, teacher, theorist, muralist, novelist and architect; a renaissance man of the highest order. Born in Montevideo, Uruguay in 1874, he emigrated to Catalunya, Spain in 1891 and began a career as an artist. Over the next 50 years, he would go on to found numerous schools, groups and movements including the first European Abstract art group and push the art and culture of Europe and South America to its vanguard. It was the duality of his homeland and his adopted nations that drove Torres-Garcia, and his ability to hold this duality together in a single mind. He existed between places, carrying the identity of Uruguay with him everywhere, and in doing so he was able too to carry the new and the old, the classical and the avant-garde, reason and feeling, figuration and abstraction. There are no contradictions, he said, nothing is incompatible.
Sleeping Woman - Julia
LYONEL FEININGER
The human becomes landscape, as mountains emerge from the angles of her face and folds of her clothes. The chaise longue she reclines upon take on the tones of earthliness while the drapes and walls behind her become a sky, framing the subject in her duality. The subject, Julia, is Feininger’s wife and this is perhaps his most intimate study of her. A New York born artist of German heritage, as a teenager Feininger was sent to Hamburg to study where he was introduced to an burgeoning avant-garde movement that was sweeping Europe. Profoundly influenced by cubism, but not a member of the close-knit group of artists who developed it, he brought the ideas and philosophies of this new style back to America. This merged with an American optimism and a German romanticism to create a style distinctly his own, one which pays homage to the contemporary European scene and the modern styles of the day, while speaking to a spiritual love of his partner and the natural world that seem to blend into one before his eyes.
Lyonel Feininger
LYONEL FEININGER, 1913. OIL ON CANVAS.
The human becomes landscape, as mountains emerge from the angles of her face and folds of her clothes. The chaise longue she reclines upon take on the tones of earthliness while the drapes and walls behind her become a sky, framing the subject in her duality. The subject, Julia, is Feininger’s wife and this is perhaps his most intimate study of her. A New York born artist of German heritage, as a teenager Feininger was sent to Hamburg to study where he was introduced to an burgeoning avant-garde movement that was sweeping Europe. Profoundly influenced by cubism, but not a member of the close-knit group of artists who developed it, he brought the ideas and philosophies of this new style back to America. This merged with an American optimism and a German romanticism to create a style distinctly his own, one which pays homage to the contemporary European scene and the modern styles of the day, while speaking to a spiritual love of his partner and the natural world that seem to blend into one before his eyes.
The Canale Della Guidecca, Venice, towards Sunset, with Boats Moored off the Dogana and Santa Maria della Salute
J.M.W TURNER
For the specificity of its title, Turner’s work of ‘Canale Della Guidecca’ is full of inaccuracies, half-truths and imagination. Most of the buildings pictured are non-existent, and those that are have been moved from their locations for the sake of balance and beauty. Yet John Ruskin, the greatest art critic of his time, said ‘without one single accurate detail, the picture is the likest thing to what it is meant for – the looking out of the Guidecca landwards, at sunset – of all that I have ever seen’. Turner’s genius was that he was able to capture the essence of a place or an event, and he understood that essence was more about the feeling it provoked than anything else. You can stand at the Guidecca today, look out towards sunset, feel the calm, gentle, soft majesty wash over you and know that Turner’s painting might not have been accurate, but it was truthful.
J.M.W. TURNER
J.M.W. TURNER, 1840. GRAPHITE AND WATERCOLOR ON PAPER.
For the specificity of its title, Turner’s work of ‘Canale Della Guidecca’ is full of inaccuracies, half-truths and imagination. Most of the buildings pictured are non-existent, and those that are have been moved from their locations for the sake of balance and beauty. Yet John Ruskin, the greatest art critic of his time, said ‘without one single accurate detail, the picture is the likest thing to what it is meant for – the looking out of the Guidecca landwards, at sunset – of all that I have ever seen’. Turner’s genius was that he was able to capture the essence of a place or an event, and he understood that essence was more about the feeling it provoked than anything else. You can stand at the Guidecca today, look out towards sunset, feel the calm, gentle, soft majesty wash over you and know that Turner’s painting might not have been accurate, but it was truthful.
Untitled
MORRIS LOUISE
In a 12 by 14 foot apartment, Morris Louise lay down a canvas measuring 8 by 11.5 feet. Living in quiet isolation in New York, Louise had grown apart from the New York artists that together had pioneered the idea of Colour Field Painting. His work towards the end of the 1950s kept core philosophies from this movement, examining the idea of what a finished painting was meant to be, but a visit to Helen Frankenthaler’s studio had opened his eyes to a new world of techniques and he began combining the ideas of his past contemporaries, such as Pollock, with Frankenthaler’s medium driven ‘Stain Paintings’. So shuffling along the edges of the canvas, his back pressed against the wall, he poured a home-made mix of paint, thinned with acrylic resin and turpentine, and let it was over the unprimed canvas. The result is staggering, and exemplary of Louise’s mastery of form and colour theory. The soft hues mix into darkness, the streaks seem to explode out of their origin in a display of natural fireworks. Between the completion of this work and his death two years later, Louise created more than 150 canvases of this scale, finally feeling like he had found his artistic home.
Morris Louise
MORRIS LOUISE, 1960. MAGNA ON CANVAS.
In a 12 by 14 foot apartment, Morris Louise lay down a canvas measuring 8 by 11.5 feet. Living in quiet isolation in New York, Louise had grown apart from the New York artists that together had pioneered the idea of Colour Field Painting. His work towards the end of the 1950s kept core philosophies from this movement, examining the idea of what a finished painting was meant to be, but a visit to Helen Frankenthaler’s studio had opened his eyes to a new world of techniques and he began combining the ideas of his past contemporaries, such as Pollock, with Frankenthaler’s medium driven ‘Stain Paintings’. So shuffling along the edges of the canvas, his back pressed against the wall, he poured a home-made mix of paint, thinned with acrylic resin and turpentine, and let it was over the unprimed canvas. The result is staggering, and exemplary of Louise’s mastery of form and colour theory. The soft hues mix into darkness, the streaks seem to explode out of their origin in a display of natural fireworks. Between the completion of this work and his death two years later, Louise created more than 150 canvases of this scale, finally feeling like he had found his artistic home.
Montauk Highway
WILLEM DE KOONING
A car speeds out of the city at breakneck speed, careening round a corner it blurs the landscape ahead of it in an urgent wonder. In a flurry of brushstrokes, De Kooning evokes as much the process of his painting as the need to escape in order to reach it, vibrant and bright colours evoke a flash of movement while the vast space of yellow conjures the open planes of the countryside, blinding in the summer sun. Willem De Kooning spent two summers in the early 1950s hiding out in East Hampton before settling there with his wife Elaine. The landscape and lifestyle inspired him, softening his darker palette into an altogether more joyous, calmer but no less visceral language. Montauk Highway exists in a tension between representation and abstraction, depicting movement and freedom just as much as it explores colour and form as simulacra of emotion.
Willem de Kooning
WILLEM DE KOONING, 1958. OIL AND COMBINED MEDIA ON PAPER.
A car speeds out of the city at breakneck speed, careening round a corner it blurs the landscape ahead of it in an urgent wonder. In a flurry of brushstrokes, De Kooning evokes as much the process of his painting as the need to escape in order to reach it, vibrant and bright colours evoke a flash of movement while the vast space of yellow conjures the open planes of the countryside, blinding in the summer sun. Willem De Kooning spent two summers in the early 1950s hiding out in East Hampton before settling there with his wife Elaine. The landscape and lifestyle inspired him, softening his darker palette into an altogether more joyous, calmer but no less visceral language. Montauk Highway exists in a tension between representation and abstraction, depicting movement and freedom just as much as it explores colour and form as simulacra of emotion.
Ground Swell
EDWARD HOPPER
A far-off storm felt under clear skies, ground swells are harbingers of things to come, messengers of danger. When Hopper painted this work in 1939, he could feel a change brewing in the air. The Second World War was looming and American isolationism was beginning to wane, it would not be long before they were a part of the conflict happening across the sea. To this uneasy world, Hopper responds with a depiction of freedom, of youth, and of the surging promise of youth, The boys on the boat look out to a buoy in the water, ringing with the motion of the waves. They are sun drenched and the sea water spits up gently, but they are off kilter. Small waves rock their boat ever so slightly, but the waves seem unrelenting. Hopper was most known for his depictions of urban loneliness and melancholy and this picture, with its vibrant blues and idyllic scene, seems anomalous. Yet the same themes pervade, on a grander, more cosmic scale. Hopper depiction of a happy American scene is perhaps his most ominous of all.
Edward Hopper
EDWARD HOPPER, 1939. OIL ON CANVAS.
A far-off storm felt under clear skies, ground swells are harbingers of things to come, messengers of danger. When Hopper painted this work in 1939, he could feel a change brewing in the air. The Second World War was looming and American isolationism was beginning to wane, it would not be long before they were a part of the conflict happening across the sea. To this uneasy world, Hopper responds with a depiction of freedom, of youth, and of the surging promise of youth, The boys on the boat look out to a buoy in the water, ringing with the motion of the waves. They are sun drenched and the sea water spits up gently, but they are off kilter. Small waves rock their boat ever so slightly, but the waves seem unrelenting. Hopper was most known for his depictions of urban loneliness and melancholy and this picture, with its vibrant blues and idyllic scene, seems anomalous. Yet the same themes pervade, on a grander, more cosmic scale. Hopper depiction of a happy American scene is perhaps his most ominous of all.
The Return of the Prodigal Son
REMBRANDT
Approaching death, the greatest painter of his age leaves us with a final word of hope for forgiveness and salvation. A son, wretched and wasteful has spent the fortune his father gave him on frivolity and decadence and returns home begging for a lowly position to redeem himself, but is instead welcomed in open arms and embraced not for his sins but his penitence. This is the story that Rembrandt - master painter, portraitist and hero of the Dutch golden age - depicts as amongst the final works before he passes away and it is hard not to read it as a plea for how he will be treated in the afterlife. He does not represent it with biblical accuracy, but brings in unknown characters: a women, barely visible, most likely his mother and a seated figure representing a tax collector and his own ambivalence at the wealth he has built. Rembrandt is both the young son, coming home ashamed, and the older son, dissatisfied with the lack of reward for his loyalty in contrast to his brother. Both need salvation, both hope to come home and both, as Rembrandt, long for the embrace of a loving father to forgive them for the life they have led.
Rembrandt
REMBRANDT, c.1668. OIL ON CANVAS.
Approaching death, the greatest painter of his age leaves us with a final word of hope for forgiveness and salvation. A son, wretched and wasteful has spent the fortune his father gave him on frivolity and decadence and returns home begging for a lowly position to redeem himself, but is instead welcomed in open arms and embraced not for his sins but his penitence. This is the story that Rembrandt - master painter, portraitist and hero of the Dutch golden age - depicts as amongst the final works before he passes away and it is hard not to read it as a plea for how he will be treated in the afterlife. He does not represent it with biblical accuracy, but brings in unknown characters: a women, barely visible, most likely his mother and a seated figure representing a tax collector and his own ambivalence at the wealth he has built. Rembrandt is both the young son, coming home ashamed, and the older son, dissatisfied with the lack of reward for his loyalty in contrast to his brother. Both need salvation, both hope to come home and both, as Rembrandt, long for the embrace of a loving father to forgive them for the life they have led.
No. 8 - Special
GEORGIA O’KEEFFE
For years, Georgia O’Keeffe translated the intangible, strange feelings into shapes and structures she had long stored in the recesses of her minds. She called these her ‘unknowns’, and they are a sort of marriage between matter and emotion, an arranged pairing of found visuals and unclear feelings, together creating an explanation and a purpose for both. O’Keeffe created a form of Organic Abstraction that could be considered the first truly American modern art movement, and so much of her painterly work is rooted in the natural world as not just environment, but extension of the human mind. The spiral, as seen here, reappeared again and again in her work over the course of her career, both in landscapes, flowers, and rippling waters as well as smoke emitted from trains and the heaving, falling weight of skyscrapers. But here, it is removed from the context of anything other than emotion - an unfurling form that speaks to regeneration as much as it does to the descent into something darker.
Georgia O’Keeffe
GEORGIA O’KEEFFE, 1916. CHARCOAL ON PAPER.
Renoir could hardly hold a paintbrush in 1910. Rheumatoid arthritis had rendered his body feeble and the exacting brushstrokes of his youth impossible. Retreating to the French countryside he refused to give up. Instead, in his final years, he developed an entirely new artistic style fitting to the requirements of his ailing body. In his last self portraits, the canvas became a mirror to the soul of the artist, a celebration of the past and a defiant statement of life in the face of increasingly clear mortality. Renoir represented the end of an artistic journey of portraiture that started with Reubens nearly 400 years earlier. He was the last of his kind, a painter steeped in tradition, embrassing tentatively the Impressionist present he found himself in. In this self-portrait, Renoir immortalizes not just himself, but the essence of artistic endeavor—a testament to the enduring dialogue between creator and creation, between past and future, and between the mortal and the immortal.
Self-Portrait
PIERRE-AUGUSTE RENOIR
Renoir could hardly hold a paintbrush in 1910. Rheumatoid arthritis had rendered his body feeble and the exacting brushstrokes of his youth impossible. Retreating to the French countryside he refused to give up. Instead, in his final years, he developed an entirely new artistic style fitting to the requirements of his ailing body. In his last self portraits, the canvas became a mirror to the soul of the artist, a celebration of the past and a defiant statement of life in the face of increasingly clear mortality. Renoir represented the end of an artistic journey of portraiture that started with Reubens nearly 400 years earlier. He was the last of his kind, a painter steeped in tradition, embrassing tentatively the Impressionist present he found himself in. In this self-portrait, Renoir immortalizes not just himself, but the essence of artistic endeavor—a testament to the enduring dialogue between creator and creation, between past and future, and between the mortal and the immortal.
Pierre-Auguste Renoir
PIERRE-AUGUSTE RENOIR, 1910. OIL ON CANVAS.
Renoir could hardly hold a paintbrush in 1910. Rheumatoid arthritis had rendered his body feeble and the exacting brushstrokes of his youth impossible. Retreating to the French countryside he refused to give up. Instead, in his final years, he developed an entirely new artistic style fitting to the requirements of his ailing body. In his last self portraits, the canvas became a mirror to the soul of the artist, a celebration of the past and a defiant statement of life in the face of increasingly clear mortality. Renoir represented the end of an artistic journey of portraiture that started with Reubens nearly 400 years earlier. He was the last of his kind, a painter steeped in tradition, embrassing tentatively the Impressionist present he found himself in. In this self-portrait, Renoir immortalizes not just himself, but the essence of artistic endeavor—a testament to the enduring dialogue between creator and creation, between past and future, and between the mortal and the immortal.
PH-585 (1952-A)
CLYFFORD STILL
A field of colour, torn at the seams. The movement is visceral across the canvas, almost ominous as the dark blues seem to grow across the background of brightness and then, in the corner, a flash of yellow comes alive, emerging out of the oppression. Clyfford Still may not be a household name in the way that Pollock or Rothko have become, but it was him who laid the foundations of the entire movement. In 1938, years before his contemporaries, he moved away from figurative work into pure abstraction, allowing colours and the movement of paint to communicate emotion quite unlike any had done before. Dragging palette knives across the paint, the works took on a sense of motion. He combined the two styles of ‘Colour Field’ painting and ‘Action Painting’, to create meditative works that felt tangibly alive, even angry, and this influence can be seen across the movements that followed him.
Clyfford Still
CLYFFORD STILL, 1952. OIL ON CANVAS.
A field of colour, torn at the seams. The movement is visceral across the canvas, almost ominous as the dark blues seem to grow across the background of brightness and then, in the corner, a flash of yellow comes alive, emerging out of the oppression. Clyfford Still may not be a household name in the way that Pollock or Rothko have become, but it was him who laid the foundations of the entire movement. In 1938, years before his contemporaries, he moved away from figurative work into pure abstraction, allowing colours and the movement of paint to communicate emotion quite unlike any had done before. Dragging palette knives across the paint, the works took on a sense of motion. He combined the two styles of ‘Colour Field’ painting and ‘Action Painting’, to create meditative works that felt tangibly alive, even angry, and this influence can be seen across the movements that followed him.
Pasture
ANNI ALBERS
Anni Albers took to weaving reluctantly. As a young woman studying at the Bauhaus, there were few opportunities for her, and the workshops she wanted to attend were not permitted for women. So, out of misogyny and requirement, she took a class on weaving, headed by the school’s only female ‘master’. “"In my case it was threads that caught me, really against my will.”, she said, “To work with threads seemed sissy to me. I wanted something to be conquered. But circumstances held me to threads and they won me over." And the world is indebted still to the threads that tangled her, for Albers revolutionised the world with her art. She blurred the lines between traditional craftwork and fine art, which had long been separated, gendered pursuits. Her marriage to fellow artist Josef Albers was amongst the most consequential partnership of post-war art, and while he redefined the study of colour, Anni revolutionised forms and patterns. Together, they created a new visual language that we still speak today, and Anni’s embrace of craft weaving, giving new dimensions to her work that other mediums couldn’t match, was one of the most consequential reluctant decisions ever made.
Anni Albers
ANNI ALBERS, 1958. MERCERIZED COTTON.
Anni Albers took to weaving reluctantly. As a young woman studying at the Bauhaus, there were few opportunities for her, and the workshops she wanted to attend were not permitted for women. So, out of misogyny and requirement, she took a class on weaving, headed by the school’s only female ‘master’. “"In my case it was threads that caught me, really against my will.”, she said, “To work with threads seemed sissy to me. I wanted something to be conquered. But circumstances held me to threads and they won me over." And the world is indebted still to the threads that tangled her, for Albers revolutionised the world with her art. She blurred the lines between traditional craftwork and fine art, which had long been separated, gendered pursuits. Her marriage to fellow artist Josef Albers was amongst the most consequential partnership of post-war art, and while he redefined the study of colour, Anni revolutionised forms and patterns. Together, they created a new visual language that we still speak today, and Anni’s embrace of craft weaving, giving new dimensions to her work that other mediums couldn’t match, was one of the most consequential reluctant decisions ever made.
Table Tops
HENRI BURKHARD
Like so many American artists at the turn of the century, Henri Burkhrad had to leave his native land for Paris in order to find his painterly voice. Paris was the centre of the avant-garde, a melting pot of radical ideas, experimentation, and wild characters who encouraged each other to push the envelope further in a single minded journey towards subjective truth. Burkhard had a by-the-numbers artistic education, attending three of the great Académies in the city and honing the traditional skills he had learnt as a young man in New York to novel effect. He returned home shortly before this work was painted, bringing with him the new way of thinking he had learnt overseas, and was quickly celebrated as a leading figure in the American modernist movement, exhibiting extensively at major galleries and museums across the country. Burkhard fell into relative obscurity later in life, and his contribution to a uniquely American painterly style is rarely discussed, but his cubist inspired still lives still retain a sense of potency today.
Henri Burkhard
HENRI BURKHARD, 1928. OIL ON LINEN.
Like so many American artists at the turn of the century, Henri Burkhrad had to leave his native land for Paris in order to find his painterly voice. Paris was the centre of the avant-garde, a melting pot of radical ideas, experimentation, and wild characters who encouraged each other to push the envelope further in a single minded journey towards subjective truth. Burkhard had a by-the-numbers artistic education, attending three of the great Académies in the city and honing the traditional skills he had learnt as a young man in New York to novel effect. He returned home shortly before this work was painted, bringing with him the new way of thinking he had learnt overseas, and was quickly celebrated as a leading figure in the American modernist movement, exhibiting extensively at major galleries and museums across the country. Burkhard fell into relative obscurity later in life, and his contribution to a uniquely American painterly style is rarely discussed, but his cubist inspired still lives still retain a sense of potency today.
Figure
PABLO PICASSO
Picasso tries to quiet the chaos of the world and find himself. Cubism has faded, society is suspended on the precipice of disaster, caught between the jubilant freedom of the 1920s, the start of The Great Depression and the sense of brewing conflict – Picasso begins to look backwards in order to look forwards. In a newly purchased Chateau in Normandy, with his wife Olga and his mistress Marie-Therese staying down the road, Picasso returns to the image of the Harlequin from 20 years earlier. He distorts her, simplifies her, reduces her not quite to pure form but to an essence of womanhood as he understands it. A serpent like head curls around in a half circle, balanced precariously on a drop of liquid, a triangle unites the head and geometry brings a body to life. These simple shapes making up a figure appeared again and again in 1930 for Picasso, reworked in luminous colour, soft pencil markings and, like here, graphic monochrome. In a world confused, Picasso questioned the very physicality of man.
Pablo Picasso
PABLO PICASSO, 1930. OIL ON WOOD.
Picasso tries to quiet the chaos of the world and find himself. Cubism has faded, society is suspended on the precipice of disaster, caught between the jubilant freedom of the 1920s, the start of The Great Depression and the sense of brewing conflict – Picasso begins to look backwards in order to look forwards. In a newly purchased Chateau in Normandy, with his wife Olga and his mistress Marie-Therese staying down the road, Picasso returns to the image of the Harlequin from 20 years earlier. He distorts her, simplifies her, reduces her not quite to pure form but to an essence of womanhood as he understands it. A serpent like head curls around in a half circle, balanced precariously on a drop of liquid, a triangle unites the head and geometry brings a body to life. These simple shapes making up a figure appeared again and again in 1930 for Picasso, reworked in luminous colour, soft pencil markings and, like here, graphic monochrome. In a world confused, Picasso questioned the very physicality of man.
Standing Man
ALEXANDER CALDER
A mechanical engineer who applied the mathematics of movement to art making and created a revolution of sculpture. Alexander Calder stands alone in the history of 20th century art, with his dynamic mobiles and wire sculptures finding a remarkable balance between play and theory, at once rigorous in their creation and ideation and open to the whims of his wild experimentation. Calder’s obsession was the circus, and the movement of acrobats, performers, dancers, and animals who populated the big top. In everything he did, whether directly or indirectly, the kinetic, joyous exuberance of the circus is present, and his artworks capture the fantastical feeling of a day spent watching the show. This playfulness is clear here, in Calder’s Standing Man - a quick sketch on paper that nonetheless shows his mastery of balance in two dimensions as well as three. A naive figure emerges from abstract shapes that feel at once primal and reminiscent of a delicately made musical instrument, and in few brushstrokes Calder creates a work of happy harmony.
Alexander Calder
ALEXANDER CALDER, WATERCOLOR ON PAPER.
A mechanical engineer who applied the mathematics of movement to art making and created a revolution of sculpture. Alexander Calder stands alone in the history of 20th century art, with his dynamic mobiles and wire sculptures finding a remarkable balance between play and theory, at once rigorous in their creation and ideation and open to the whims of his wild experimentation. Calder’s obsession was the circus, and the movement of acrobats, performers, dancers, and animals who populated the big top. In everything he did, whether directly or indirectly, the kinetic, joyous exuberance of the circus is present, and his artworks capture the fantastical feeling of a day spent watching the show. This playfulness is clear here, in Calder’s Standing Man - a quick sketch on paper that nonetheless shows his mastery of balance in two dimensions as well as three. A naive figure emerges from abstract shapes that feel at once primal and reminiscent of a delicately made musical instrument, and in few brushstrokes Calder creates a work of happy harmony.