Landscape with Figures
MARGUERITE ZORACH
Zorach went against the grain every opportunity she could. Born into a well-to-do California, she escaped to Paris as a teenager to stay with a bohemian aunt and found herself at the centre of a new avant-garde movement that was equally enamoured with her as she was with it. She rejected traditional, academic education and even shunned orthodox art school, instead studying a post-impressionist school that allowed her to develop a unique style with little regard for tradition or societal aesthetic norms. It was there that she met her husband William, who was so beguiled by her art that it extended to her. ‘I just couldn't understand why such a nice girl would paint such wild pictures.’, he later said. Her journey back to America took her through her through Egypt, Palestine, India, Burma, Malaysia, Indonesia, China, Korea, and Japan over the course of seven months, and her exposure to multiple worlds is abundantly clear in this painting. The flat planes speak to traditional Japanese art, while the landscape has hints of India, and the figures are distinctly of the Matisse school. She synthesised place and style into a unique voice that drowned out all others.
Marguerite Zorach
MARGUERITE ZORACH, 1913. GOUACHE AND WATERCOLOR ON SILK.
Zorach went against the grain every opportunity she could. Born into a well-to-do California, she escaped to Paris as a teenager to stay with a bohemian aunt and found herself at the centre of a new avant-garde movement that was equally enamoured with her as she was with it. She rejected traditional, academic education and even shunned orthodox art school, instead studying a post-impressionist school that allowed her to develop a unique style with little regard for tradition or societal aesthetic norms. It was there that she met her husband William, who was so beguiled by her art that it extended to her. ‘I just couldn't understand why such a nice girl would paint such wild pictures.’, he later said. Her journey back to America took her through her through Egypt, Palestine, India, Burma, Malaysia, Indonesia, China, Korea, and Japan over the course of seven months, and her exposure to multiple worlds is abundantly clear in this painting. The flat planes speak to traditional Japanese art, while the landscape has hints of India, and the figures are distinctly of the Matisse school. She synthesised place and style into a unique voice that drowned out all others.
The Red Armchair
PABLO PICASSO
A portrait of love and deception, Picasso’s ‘The Red Armchair’ features his mistress Marie-Thérèse Walter as its sole subject. Part of a series of portraits of her, and in each one her physical form takes on the workings of his mind, distorted and changed to become indicative of his emotions and feelings towards not just her but their relationship in general. She is a vessel for Picasso, and he removes her autonomy in his representations, treating her instead as an extension of himself. Here, he takes the foundations of the Cubist philosophy he developed but applies the work of multiple perspective not to still lives but to a human for nearly the first time. It is fitting that the first subject he painted in this was Walter. Her face is shown in duality, both in profile and front-on so that she becomes an embodiment of the double life that Picasso has been living during their affair. She energised the artist, brought an intensity in his colour and form and marked a significant turning point in his development. In this way, we can read her double face as exemplary of a turning point in Picasso, a move from looking one way to seeing things in a whole new light.
Pablo Picasso
PABLO PICASSO, 1931. OIL AND RIPOLIN ON PANEL.
A portrait of love and deception, Picasso’s ‘The Red Armchair’ features his mistress Marie-Thérèse Walter as its sole subject. Part of a series of portraits of her, and in each one her physical form takes on the workings of his mind, distorted and changed to become indicative of his emotions and feelings towards not just her but their relationship in general. She is a vessel for Picasso, and he removes her autonomy in his representations, treating her instead as an extension of himself. Here, he takes the foundations of the Cubist philosophy he developed but applies the work of multiple perspective not to still lives but to a human for nearly the first time. It is fitting that the first subject he painted in this was Walter. Her face is shown in duality, both in profile and front-on so that she becomes an embodiment of the double life that Picasso has been living during their affair. She energised the artist, brought an intensity in his colour and form and marked a significant turning point in his development. In this way, we can read her double face as exemplary of a turning point in Picasso, a move from looking one way to seeing things in a whole new light.
The Entombment of Christ
CARAVAGGIO
A masterpiece of falling action, the painting moves from hysteria to calm as Christ’s body is lowered. Mary of Cleophas, in the top right, gestures in desperation towards heaven, her upwards eyes filled with longing. Below her, Mary Magdalene’s open palm faces towards Christ, as if pushing him to his resting place and, at the bottom left, Christ’s limp hand touches the burial stone upon which he will be placed. For all of it aesthetic beauty, representational splendour and allegorical brilliance, perhaps most remarkable is that Caravaggio tells the story of Jesus Christ in hand placement alone - mankind comes into contact with heaven, and God comes to touch the earth. This was the altarpiece of a chapel, and each day the priest would offer sacrament in front of it. This action, raising the body and blood of christ upwards, served as a perfect mirror to the entombment happening behind him, imbuing the work and the story with new life and relevance as long as it remains on view.
Caravaggio
CARAVAGGIO, c.1603. OIL ON CANVAS.
A masterpiece of falling action, the painting moves from hysteria to calm as Christ’s body is lowered. Mary of Cleophas, in the top right, gestures in desperation towards heaven, her upwards eyes filled with longing. Below her, Mary Magdalene’s open palm faces towards Christ, as if pushing him to his resting place and, at the bottom left, Christ’s limp hand touches the burial stone upon which he will be placed. For all of it aesthetic beauty, representational splendour and allegorical brilliance, perhaps most remarkable is that Caravaggio tells the story of Jesus Christ in hand placement alone - mankind comes into contact with heaven, and God comes to touch the earth. This was the altarpiece of a chapel, and each day the priest would offer sacrament in front of it. This action, raising the body and blood of christ upwards, served as a perfect mirror to the entombment happening behind him, imbuing the work and the story with new life and relevance as long as it remains on view.
Fishing Boats with Hucksters Bargaining for Fish
J. M. W. TURNER
A child prodigy from a working class family who survived an upbringing of tumult and upheaval to become one of Britain’s most celebrated painters, elevate the art of landscape painting to unseen heights and, ultimately, die alone and in squalor - John Mallord William Turner remains as intriguing, appealing, and enigmatic as ever. He is most known for his paintings of the sea, large scale, vivid, dramatic depictions of naval battles, vessels fighting against the elements, and the violent nature of a nautical life. It has been said that Turner’s paintings capture all that could be said about the sea, and his sweeping scenes play out in visceral detail. Large skies illuminate danger and fury and Turner, like so few others, captured the truthful moods of nature in their wonder and variety. This work is in some ways unusual, there is lightness to it, a drama plays out with low stakes as a bright sky appears through clouds and the sailors are engaged in commerce with a nearby peddler. Yet, behind the sails, a steam boat appears in the distance - the battle depicted here is not one of violence, but of the past reckoning with a fast approaching, modern, industrial future.
J. M. W. Turner
J. M. W. TURNER, c.1838. OIL ON CANVAS.
A child prodigy from a working class family who survived an upbringing of tumult and upheaval to become one of Britain’s most celebrated painters, elevate the art of landscape painting to unseen heights and, ultimately, die alone and in squalor - John Mallord William Turner remains as intriguing, appealing, and enigmatic as ever. He is most known for his paintings of the sea, large scale, vivid, dramatic depictions of naval battles, vessels fighting against the elements, and the violent nature of a nautical life. It has been said that Turner’s paintings capture all that could be said about the sea, and his sweeping scenes play out in visceral detail. Large skies illuminate danger and fury and Turner, like so few others, captured the truthful moods of nature in their wonder and variety. This work is in some ways unusual, there is lightness to it, a drama plays out with low stakes as a bright sky appears through clouds and the sailors are engaged in commerce with a nearby peddler. Yet, behind the sails, a steam boat appears in the distance - the battle depicted here is not one of violence, but of the past reckoning with a fast approaching, modern, industrial future.
Jacques and Berthe Lipchitz
AMEDEO MODIGLIANI
Two friends shared the commonality of context, but a radical difference in philosophy. Amedeo Modigliani and Jacques Lipchitz had arrived in Paris at the same age, and were two young Jewish men frequenting the same literary circles who became very close friends. Lipchitz exemplified a industriousness, working as a sculptor he was exacting and prolific, single-minded in his ambition as he became of Cubism’s most significant sculptors. Modigliani, on the other want, was the archetypal bohemian; a terrible drunk, he lived a fast life of debauchery and worked with speed, looseness, and the confidence of his brilliance. This is a rare work of Modigliani’s, not only for being one of the few double portraits he ever painted in his career, but also for the amount of time he spent on it. Lipchitz had recently come into some money when he commissioned the work of him and his wife from this friend. Modigliani’s charged only ten francs and painted the work in a single sitting. Lipchitz, wanting to help Modigliani financially, encouraged him to keep working on the painting for two weeks, paying him for it, despite Modigliani’s objections. The finished result is a work of delicate, assured beauty, not as loose as most of his canvases but retaining all the disquiet harmony.
Amadeo Modigliani
AMADEO MODIGLIANI, 1916. OIL ON CANVAS.
Two friends shared the commonality of context, but a radical difference in philosophy. Amedeo Modigliani and Jacques Lipchitz had arrived in Paris at the same age, and were two young Jewish men frequenting the same literary circles who became very close friends. Lipchitz exemplified a industriousness, working as a sculptor he was exacting and prolific, single-minded in his ambition as he became of Cubism’s most significant sculptors. Modigliani, on the other want, was the archetypal bohemian; a terrible drunk, he lived a fast life of debauchery and worked with speed, looseness, and the confidence of his brilliance. This is a rare work of Modigliani’s, not only for being one of the few double portraits he ever painted in his career, but also for the amount of time he spent on it. Lipchitz had recently come into some money when he commissioned the work of him and his wife from this friend. Modigliani’s charged only ten francs and painted the work in a single sitting. Lipchitz, wanting to help Modigliani financially, encouraged him to keep working on the painting for two weeks, paying him for it, despite Modigliani’s objections. The finished result is a work of delicate, assured beauty, not as loose as most of his canvases but retaining all the disquiet harmony.
Ravens
MASAHISA FUKASE
Masahisa Fukase desperately sought control. Both the first and second wives of the 'anti-self-portraitist' suffered under his incessant, obsessive documentation of their likenesses. It was only after his second divorce, returning on the mournful JE-train from Tokyo to his hometown of Hokkaido, that Fukase first glimpsed what was to become his defining obsession. Collected first as ‘The Solitude of Ravens’, the original title explains much of Fukase's intention - wallowing in depressive bachelorhood. The photographer spent the next eleven years in his birthplace, spiralling through his ceaseless fascination with its growing population of ‘ravens’. In all fact, the majority of the birds were anything but - for Hokkaido has few raven roosts, outnumbered in their hundreds by the myriad crows. It was the idea of ravens that compelled Fukase; in 1982, his journal read “karasu ni nata (I have become a raven)”.
MASAHISA FUKASE
MASHISA FUKASE, 1977
Masahisa Fukase desperately sought control. Both the first and second wives of the 'anti-self-portraitist' suffered under his incessant, obsessive documentation of their likenesses. It was only after his second divorce, returning on the mournful JE-train from Tokyo to his hometown of Hokkaido, that Fukase first glimpsed what was to become his defining obsession. Collected first as ‘The Solitude of Ravens’, the original title explains much of Fukase's intention - wallowing in depressive bachelorhood. The photographer spent the next eleven years in his birthplace, spiralling through his ceaseless fascination with its growing population of ‘ravens’. In all fact, the majority of the birds were anything but - for Hokkaido has few raven roosts, outnumbered in their hundreds by the myriad crows. It was the idea of ravens that compelled Fukase; in 1982, his journal read “karasu ni nata (I have become a raven)”.
Forest and Sun
MAX ERNST
As a young child, Max Ernst stood in-front of German forests and felt an overwhelming sense of fear and wonder. The wood loomed over him with ‘delight and oppression and what the Romantics called ‘emotion in the face of Nature.’’, said Ernst many years later. He captures this spiritual relationship, one of feeling part of the invisible world that hides within nature, in this painting, produced during one of his most prolific and inspired periods. Using his radical technique of ‘frottage’, whereby he rubbed pencil, charcoal, or pigment creates a relief from natural matter behind the paper. Ernst created a forest out of wood. The effect of petrified trees came from bark itself, folded and adapted to form the shape that Ernst desired. In this way, as much as the painting deals with Ernst’s feelings of smallness in the face of grand nature, it also represents a conquering of the very elements that caused him feelings of such oppression as a child.
Max Ernst
MAX ERNST, 1927. OIL ON CANVAS.
As a young child, Max Ernst stood in-front of German forests and felt an overwhelming sense of fear and wonder. The wood loomed over him with ‘delight and oppression and what the Romantics called ‘emotion in the face of Nature.’’, said Ernst many years later. He captures this spiritual relationship, one of feeling part of the invisible world that hides within nature, in this painting, produced during one of his most prolific and inspired periods. Using his radical technique of ‘frottage’, whereby he rubbed pencil, charcoal, or pigment creates a relief from natural matter behind the paper. Ernst created a forest out of wood. The effect of petrified trees came from bark itself, folded and adapted to form the shape that Ernst desired. In this way, as much as the painting deals with Ernst’s feelings of smallness in the face of grand nature, it also represents a conquering of the very elements that caused him feelings of such oppression as a child.
Lot’s Wife
ANN BROCKMAN
In the book of Genesis, we are told the story of two angels who visit Lot, his wife, and children in the sinful city of Sodom. They warn the family of the impending disaster that the iniquity of the place will bring, and to leave right away for their own safety, and not look back in the process. As they flee, Lot’s wife turns back to look at the home she has left behind and, because this directly disobeyed the rule of the angels, she is turned into a pillar of sand. The story has its roots in many mythological tales, with the theme of turning to look back a feature of the fables of ancient cultures. Lot’s wife is never given a name further than this, she is an object of possession and her significance in Genesis is purely to serve as a reminder of the dangers of revealing that which you truly desire. Yet Brockman takes a tired story with an ignored protagonist and elevates into a work of gentle, powerful defiance with deftness and beauty.
Ann Brockman
ANN BROCKMAN, 1942. OIL ON CANVAS.
In the book of Genesis, we are told the story of two angels who visit Lot, his wife, and children in the sinful city of Sodom. They warn the family of the impending disaster that the iniquity of the place will bring, and to leave right away for their own safety, and not look back in the process. As they flee, Lot’s wife turns back to look at the home she has left behind and, because this directly disobeyed the rule of the angels, she is turned into a pillar of sand. The story has its roots in many mythological tales, with the theme of turning to look back a feature of the fables of ancient cultures. Lot’s wife is never given a name further than this, she is an object of possession and her significance in Genesis is purely to serve as a reminder of the dangers of revealing that which you truly desire. Yet Brockman takes a tired story with an ignored protagonist and elevates into a work of gentle, powerful defiance with deftness and beauty.
Weaving
DIEGO RIVERA
Hunched over a loom in total focus, Rivera’s subject balances not just her practice but the story of a nation in her lap. Rivera’s portrait is not just of any weaver but of Luz Jiménez, a master weaver, historian, and as a Nahua woman, part of the largest Indigenous group in Mexico, who became a thought leader and teacher to members of the Mexican Nationalist movement like Rivera. Practicing and passing on the traditional artworks, skills, and languages that she had learnt from her mother and other family members, she became a figure of inspiration to a group of artists who saw her as the embodiment of a pre-colonial Mexico. Many subjects of Rivera and his contemporaries’s paintings came from stories told to them and ideas explained by Jiménez, so by making her the subject and protagonist of a work, he pays a debt to the education she provided.
Diego Rivera
DIEGO RIVERA, 1936. TEMPERA AND OIL ON CANVAS.
Hunched over a loom in total focus, Rivera’s subject balances not just her practice but the story of a nation in her lap. Rivera’s portrait is not just of any weaver but of Luz Jiménez, a master weaver, historian, and as a Nahua woman, part of the largest Indigenous group in Mexico, who became a thought leader and teacher to members of the Mexican Nationalist movement like Rivera. Practicing and passing on the traditional artworks, skills, and languages that she had learnt from her mother and other family members, she became a figure of inspiration to a group of artists who saw her as the embodiment of a pre-colonial Mexico. Many subjects of Rivera and his contemporaries’s paintings came from stories told to them and ideas explained by Jiménez, so by making her the subject and protagonist of a work, he pays a debt to the education she provided.
Water Lilies
CLAUDE MONET
An image without context, without time, and without place becomes an image of everything. When Claude Monet purchased a house in the French countryside, he planned to turn the garden into an aesthetic feast for the eyes, and built a small bridge, overlooking a pond filled with water lilies. He would spend the next thirty years, the final of his life, painting this scene in variation and repetition, producing more than 250 images of water lilies. When he began, they were more conventional representations of his garden scene and included the bridge, the surrounding trees, the horizon and a sense of their time and place. Yet by 1906, when this image was painted, he had been working with this subject for a decade and the surroundings began to drop away, the surface of the water and flowers that gently rested on top taking up more and more of the canvas until, as we see here, they became the totality. Nothing else matters in this painting, it is a single instant, a moment of nature untied to a human hand or human conceptions. It is unbridled beauty, without distraction - flowers sit in perfect tension and the reflection of above ripples in abstraction to create an image of a small world existing in infinity.
Claude Monet
CLAUDE MONET, 1906. OIL ON CANVAS.
An image without context, without time, and without place becomes an image of everything. When Claude Monet purchased a house in the French countryside, he planned to turn the garden into an aesthetic feast for the eyes, and built a small bridge, overlooking a pond filled with water lilies. He would spend the next thirty years, the final of his life, painting this scene in variation and repetition, producing more than 250 images of water lilies. When he began, they were more conventional representations of his garden scene and included the bridge, the surrounding trees, the horizon and a sense of their time and place. Yet by 1906, when this image was painted, he had been working with this subject for a decade and the surroundings began to drop away, the surface of the water and flowers that gently rested on top taking up more and more of the canvas until, as we see here, they became the totality. Nothing else matters in this painting, it is a single instant, a moment of nature untied to a human hand or human conceptions. It is unbridled beauty, without distraction - flowers sit in perfect tension and the reflection of above ripples in abstraction to create an image of a small world existing in infinity.
Alka Seltzer
ROY LICHTENSTEIN
Lichtenstein elevated the everyday into the extraordinary. Taking imagery from comic books and advertising, he took the imagery of contemporary existence, often derided and ignored by the public, and by placing on canvas through rigorous and arduous work of hand applying the Benday dots that were the byproduct of mass production from screen-printing, they became works of fine art. Here, the Alka-Seltzer becomes a motif of America, and of modern life in totality. Through graphic design, the glass rendered in high contrast black and white transforms itself from the mundane to the iconic, playing with ideas of renaissance art and religion, but bringing it down into the truth of the common man, depicting an image that feels at once familiar, and through his depiction, altogether foreign. Lichtenstein’s glass brims with excitement, it fizzes and pops with promise of the new, and by isolating the image, he grasps at the universal.
Roy Lichtenstein
ROY LICHTENSTEIN, 1966. GRAPHIC ON PAPER.
Lichtenstein elevated the everyday into the extraordinary. Taking imagery from comic books and advertising, he took the imagery of contemporary existence, often derided and ignored by the public, and by placing on canvas through rigorous and arduous work of hand applying the Benday dots that were the byproduct of mass production from screen-printing, they became works of fine art. Here, the Alka-Seltzer becomes a motif of America, and of modern life in totality. Through graphic design, the glass rendered in high contrast black and white transforms itself from the mundane to the iconic, playing with ideas of renaissance art and religion, but bringing it down into the truth of the common man, depicting an image that feels at once familiar, and through his depiction, altogether foreign. Lichtenstein’s glass brims with excitement, it fizzes and pops with promise of the new, and by isolating the image, he grasps at the universal.
Sky Above Clouds IV
GEORGIA O’KEEFFE
Georgia O’Keeffe transformed desert planes into abstract color-fields, turned the flowers that grew in the heat into psychedelic explorations of form and movement, and skulls that dotted the landscapes into eerie motifs of the American Southwest. She was, and remains in the popular imagination, an artist so deeply tied to the land, and particularly that of her adopted New Mexico, that to imagine her is to do in the context of the great American landscape. So it is perhaps surprising that towards the end of her life, she turned her focus to the world above. Flying in planes around the world, she gazed out the window and saw new landscapes made from billowing clouds and horizons dancing in shades of blue made visible in the thin air. Gone are the earth tones of her seminal works, replaced by whites, blues, and peaches in calming expressions of scale. Sky Above Clouds IV was a significant undertaking, measuring more than twenty four feet across. It’s monumental size engulfs and invites us to stop and look, to lean our heads against the window and stare out into the expanse.
Georgia O’Keeffe
GEORGIA O’KEEFFE, 1965. OIL ON CANVAS.
Georgia O’Keeffe transformed desert planes into abstract color-fields, turned the flowers that grew in the heat into psychedelic explorations of form and movement, and skulls that dotted the landscapes into eerie motifs of the American Southwest. She was, and remains in the popular imagination, an artist so deeply tied to the land, and particularly that of her adopted New Mexico, that to imagine her is to do in the context of the great American landscape. So it is perhaps surprising that towards the end of her life, she turned her focus to the world above. Flying in planes around the world, she gazed out the window and saw new landscapes made from billowing clouds and horizons dancing in shades of blue made visible in the thin air. Gone are the earth tones of her seminal works, replaced by whites, blues, and peaches in calming expressions of scale. Sky Above Clouds IV was a significant undertaking, measuring more than twenty four feet across. It’s monumental size engulfs and invites us to stop and look, to lean our heads against the window and stare out into the expanse.
White Crucifixion
MARC CHAGALL
Chagall’s work is most often associated with vivid color, fantastic subjects rendered in lively brushstrokes, and playful romance. His work is spiritual, drawing on folklore and mythology to explore themes of love, celebration, and, in this case, persecution. White Crucifixion is the first in a series Chagall painted drawing an allegory between the persecution of Jesus Christ and the persecution of the Jewish People under the hands of the Nazis. The color that populated Chagall’s work has all but drained away and in its place are pale greys and empty whites - flashes of fire, and the dye of traditional Jewish robes seem faded, though hanging on in a world that has lost its beauty. Chagall casts Jesus as a Jewish martyr, and in doing so reframes the Christian ideology used by the Nazi Party against them, highlighting the hypocrisy and atrocity of the persecutors, In his depiction of the destruction of villages, violent attacks, and government sanctions, he breathes new life into the most told story of the Western World, finding a pertinent and essential relevance in a time when a caring God must have seemed so far away.
Marc Chagall
MARC CHAGALL, 1938, OIL ON CANVAS.
Chagall’s work is most often associated with vivid color, fantastic subjects rendered in lively brushstrokes, and playful romance. His work is spiritual, drawing on folklore and mythology to explore themes of love, celebration, and, in this case, persecution. White Crucifixion is the first in a series Chagall painted drawing an allegory between the persecution of Jesus Christ and the persecution of the Jewish People under the hands of the Nazis. The color that populated Chagall’s work has all but drained away and in its place are pale greys and empty whites - flashes of fire, and the dye of traditional Jewish robes seem faded, though hanging on in a world that has lost its beauty. Chagall casts Jesus as a Jewish martyr, and in doing so reframes the Christian ideology used by the Nazi Party against them, highlighting the hypocrisy and atrocity of the persecutors, In his depiction of the destruction of villages, violent attacks, and government sanctions, he breathes new life into the most told story of the Western World, finding a pertinent and essential relevance in a time when a caring God must have seemed so far away.
Interior at Nice
HENRI MATISSE
Matisse had spend the decade preceding this work systematically dismantling centuries of art historical traditions. He revolutionised colour, perspective and form in bold works that almost single-handedly ushered in a new modernism, to rave reviews from the academic, artistic establishment and criticism and disdain from much of the general public. So when, after this revolutionary run of creation, he escaped Paris to settle in an isolated area of Nice and began to paint a series of works that seem almost fit for a postcard, the reaction was one of surprise above all. The paintings return to a figurative impressionism, and to many they seemed a betrayal of the new world that Matisse himself had begun, a step backwards away from progress and challenge and into safety, comfort and mundanity. Matisse, however, saw things differently; “I am seeking a new synthesis”, he said, “In which I have combined all that I have gained recently with what I knew and could do before.”
Henri Matisse
HENRI MATISSE, 1919. OIL ON CANVAS.
Matisse had spend the decade preceding this work systematically dismantling centuries of art historical traditions. He revolutionised colour, perspective and form in bold works that almost single-handedly ushered in a new modernism, to rave reviews from the academic, artistic establishment and criticism and disdain from much of the general public. So when, after this revolutionary run of creation, he escaped Paris to settle in an isolated area of Nice and began to paint a series of works that seem almost fit for a postcard, the reaction was one of surprise above all. The paintings return to a figurative impressionism, and to many they seemed a betrayal of the new world that Matisse himself had begun, a step backwards away from progress and challenge and into safety, comfort and mundanity. Matisse, however, saw things differently; “I am seeking a new synthesis”, he said, “In which I have combined all that I have gained recently with what I knew and could do before.”
Dream on the Beach
FEDERICO CASTELLÓN
A self-taught artist and young prodigy, Catellón moved from his native Spain to Brooklyn, New York with his family at the age of seven. He was, even at this age, a gifted draughtsman and sketched relentlessly, and he spent his childhood taking advantage of the new city he lived in by visiting museums and exhibitions constantly. By the time he was a teenager, Castellón’s inspirations ranged from the Old Masters at the Metropolitan Museum of Art to the burgeoning, contemporary Surrealist scene he had witnessed at small galleries. Before he had even graduated high school, he had caught the attention of Diego Rivera, who by this point was internationally acclaimed with public murals across the country. It was with Rivera’s help that Catellón travelled across Europe in his early twenties, taking in the emerging avant-garde and, on his return to New York, laid his claim as the very first American Surrealist. His etchings and sketches circulated the country and contributed to the rise of one of the most consequential movements of the century.
Federico Castellón
FEDERICO CASTELLÓN, 1936. GRAPHITE PENCIL ON PAPER.
A self-taught artist and young prodigy, Catellón moved from his native Spain to Brooklyn, New York with his family at the age of seven. He was, even at this age, a gifted draughtsman and sketched relentlessly, and he spent his childhood taking advantage of the new city he lived in by visiting museums and exhibitions constantly. By the time he was a teenager, Castellón’s inspirations ranged from the Old Masters at the Metropolitan Museum of Art to the burgeoning, contemporary Surrealist scene he had witnessed at small galleries. Before he had even graduated high school, he had caught the attention of Diego Rivera, who by this point was internationally acclaimed with public murals across the country. It was with Rivera’s help that Catellón travelled across Europe in his early twenties, taking in the emerging avant-garde and, on his return to New York, laid his claim as the very first American Surrealist. His etchings and sketches circulated the country and contributed to the rise of one of the most consequential movements of the century.
The Herring Net
WINSLOW HOMER
Spending a year in a small fishing village on the English coast, the through and through New Englander Winslow Homer’s life changed. He had spent decades making a living as an illustrator, and was moving into painting with moderate success. His subjects were society folks, historical vignettes and scenes of pastoral, rural idyl that spoke to a nostalgic view of America. A naturally gifted painted, and almost entirely self-taught, the work is moving, delicate, and beautifully rendered though at times emotionally shallow. His time spent in England changed his understanding of the purpose of painting, as he saw the quiet, everyday heroism of working people. For the rest of his life, after that year, he rarely painted anything else. His theme became the eternal battle between man and nature, and he depicted with respect and revelry those who fought small battles for sustenance every day. Here, two men, precarious in their small boat against a rolling sea, pull in herring from a net. Winslow’s use of scale is remarkable - the figures absorb the eye, looming large against the horizon as if by their sheer heft they conquered nature. Yet the boat is small, and their actions, though painted in drama, are mundane and ordinary. Homer elevated daily life into something profound, and found the heroism in the overlooked.
Winslow Homer
WINSLOW HOMER, 1885. OIL ON CANVAS..
Spending a year in a small fishing village on the English coast, the through and through New Englander Winslow Homer’s life changed. He had spent decades making a living as an illustrator, and was moving into painting with moderate success. His subjects were society folks, historical vignettes and scenes of pastoral, rural idyl that spoke to a nostalgic view of America. A naturally gifted painted, and almost entirely self-taught, the work is moving, delicate, and beautifully rendered though at times emotionally shallow. His time spent in England changed his understanding of the purpose of painting, as he saw the quiet, everyday heroism of working people. For the rest of his life, after that year, he rarely painted anything else. His theme became the eternal battle between man and nature, and he depicted with respect and revelry those who fought small battles for sustenance every day. Here, two men, precarious in their small boat against a rolling sea, pull in herring from a net. Winslow’s use of scale is remarkable - the figures absorb the eye, looming large against the horizon as if by their sheer heft they conquered nature. Yet the boat is small, and their actions, though painted in drama, are mundane and ordinary. Homer elevated daily life into something profound, and found the heroism in the overlooked.
Portrait of Pablo Picasso
JUAN GRIS
The student paints his master in an act of homage, and in doing so steps out of his shadow. When Juan Gris moved to Paris at the turn of the century, he was well timed to meet Pablo Picasso and Georges Braque as they were beginning to define the new language of the 20th century they were to call Cubism. Immediately infatuated with the style, and in awe of Picasso’s genius, Gris spent many years on the sidelines of this artistic scene, not as a full fledged member of the movement but instead as a disciple. This picture marked Gris’ entrance into the artistic milieu that managed to redefine the movement he had admired since it’s inception. Retaining the multiple perspectives and geometric forms of early Cubism, Gris’ portrait adds in an optical illusion effect with the crystalline structure of the geometry to create what would be coined ‘Analytical Cubism’. It is a fitting subject for a seminal work: his teacher and inspiration serves as the stepping stone to Gris’ emergence as an essential artist in his own right.
Juan Gris
JUAN GRIS, 1912. OIL ON WOOD.
The student paints his master in an act of homage, and in doing so steps out of his shadow. When Juan Gris moved to Paris at the turn of the century, he was well timed to meet Pablo Picasso and Georges Braque as they were beginning to define the new language of the 20th century they were to call Cubism. Immediately infatuated with the style, and in awe of Picasso’s genius, Gris spent many years on the sidelines of this artistic scene, not as a full fledged member of the movement but instead as a disciple. This picture marked Gris’ entrance into the artistic milieu that managed to redefine the movement he had admired since it’s inception. Retaining the multiple perspectives and geometric forms of early Cubism, Gris’ portrait adds in an optical illusion effect with the crystalline structure of the geometry to create what would be coined ‘Analytical Cubism’. It is a fitting subject for a seminal work: his teacher and inspiration serves as the stepping stone to Gris’ emergence as an essential artist in his own right.
Red Yellow Blue White and Black II
ELLSWORTH KELLY
In an age of modernity, where religion’s powers are waning and art was moving away from the representative, Ellsworthy Kelly wondered what would become of the altar-piece. Spending nearly a decade in Europe in the late 40s and early 1950s, he spent time in classical churches and cathedrals and became infatuated with the large scale, multi-panel works that served as their centre-pieces. On his return to America, he tried to incorporate this idea of art works composed of separate pieces, each serving as stand-alone painting but contributing ultimately to something greater than the sum of their parts. This seven panel work was the answer to his wondering, arranging the colours through chance techniques, he removed himself from the aesthetic decision making of the work and instead let the beauty of the artwork live in the intersections of its medium. The dialogue happens at the edges of the panels, where block colours interact across flat planes, and like the religious altarpieces that inspired it, the work tells a story of humanity and emotion when seen in its totality.
Ellsworth Kelly
ELLSWORTH KELLY, 1953. OIL ON CANVAS, 7 PANELS.
In an age of modernity, where religion’s powers are waning and art was moving away from the representative, Ellsworthy Kelly wondered what would become of the altar-piece. Spending nearly a decade in Europe in the late 40s and early 1950s, he spent time in classical churches and cathedrals and became infatuated with the large scale, multi-panel works that served as their centre-pieces. On his return to America, he tried to incorporate this idea of art works composed of separate pieces, each serving as stand-alone painting but contributing ultimately to something greater than the sum of their parts. This seven panel work was the answer to his wondering, arranging the colours through chance techniques, he removed himself from the aesthetic decision making of the work and instead let the beauty of the artwork live in the intersections of its medium. The dialogue happens at the edges of the panels, where block colours interact across flat planes, and like the religious altarpieces that inspired it, the work tells a story of humanity and emotion when seen in its totality.
Titanic
STANLEY TIGERMAN
After decades of dominance, in the 1970s the architectural style of Mies van der Rohe that had held the American architect in its grips was beginning to wane. Modernism was being replaced by postmodernism, and the clean minimalism that was considered the paramount of aesthetic style was being challenged by iconoclastic ideas that uprooted the very principles the modern nation had based its visual language. Yet, as architectural schools and practices around the country were rebelling against Miesian ideals, Chicago, where van der Rohe had held the position of director of the School of Architecture at the Illinois Institute of Technology was the last hold out of his pure, unadulterated philosophy. Tigerman created this photocollage of the Rohe’s famous ‘Crown Hall’ building sinking into the depths of the ocean as a sort of ultimatum to the architectural institutions. He mailed out the image to leading figures in the medium, with the option for a one way ticket on the Titanic, implicitly urging them to adapt, improve, modernise or die. The work has become a landmark of postmodernism, and a watershed moment in the history of American architecture, serving as the most implicit nail in the coffin of van der Rohe.
Stanley Tigerman
STANLEY TIGERMAN, 1978. PHOTOCOLLAGE.
After decades of dominance, in the 1970s the architectural style of Mies van der Rohe that had held the American architect in its grips was beginning to wane. Modernism was being replaced by postmodernism, and the clean minimalism that was considered the paramount of aesthetic style was being challenged by iconoclastic ideas that uprooted the very principles the modern nation had based its visual language. Yet, as architectural schools and practices around the country were rebelling against Miesian ideals, Chicago, where van der Rohe had held the position of director of the School of Architecture at the Illinois Institute of Technology was the last hold out of his pure, unadulterated philosophy. Tigerman created this photocollage of the Rohe’s famous ‘Crown Hall’ building sinking into the depths of the ocean as a sort of ultimatum to the architectural institutions. He mailed out the image to leading figures in the medium, with the option for a one way ticket on the Titanic, implicitly urging them to adapt, improve, modernise or die. The work has become a landmark of postmodernism, and a watershed moment in the history of American architecture, serving as the most implicit nail in the coffin of van der Rohe.
Greyed Rainbow
JACKSON POLLOCK
Jackson Pollock was at the height of his fame when he started to abandon the medium that had brought him there. Working with a more commercial gallery, that called for a more demanding production schedule from Pollock, he sunk deeper into alcoholism, depression and the ‘drip paintings’ that had made him seemed to represent a past he was no longer in touch with. This is one of the last substantial abstract works that Pollock made, and one of the few in his later career that still features the elements of chance creation that defined his major period. This painting can be read as a self-portrait of Pollocks interior life, as bright splashes of color, hopefully suggestions of the rainbow sit in the bottom third, increasingly obscured by a darkness that seems to overtake and move down the canvas in a chaotic dance. The rainbow has been greyed, the light are going out of the artist’s spirit and he paints in an attempt, perhaps, to communicate the internal turmoil that he cannot put into words.
JACKSON POLLOCK
JACKSON POLLOCK, 1953. OIL ON LINEN.
Jackson Pollock was at the height of his fame when he started to abandon the medium that had brought him there. Working with a more commercial gallery, that called for a more demanding production schedule from Pollock, he sunk deeper into alcoholism, depression and the ‘drip paintings’ that had made him seemed to represent a past he was no longer in touch with. This is one of the last substantial abstract works that Pollock made, and one of the few in his later career that still features the elements of chance creation that defined his major period. This painting can be read as a self-portrait of Pollocks interior life, as bright splashes of color, hopefully suggestions of the rainbow sit in the bottom third, increasingly obscured by a darkness that seems to overtake and move down the canvas in a chaotic dance. The rainbow has been greyed, the light are going out of the artist’s spirit and he paints in an attempt, perhaps, to communicate the internal turmoil that he cannot put into words.