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The Davis Museum

1/13/2019

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Over the past few months, I had the opportunity to participate in a three-part series of talks with the curators of the Davis Museum at Wellesley College, located in Wellesley, Massachusetts.

I saw a variety of prints created from the 14th century through present day.  I also learned about the printmaking process, and using woodblock engraving to create prints.

Christiane Baumgartner's prints were featured through this past December in an exhibit titled "Another Country" which was really amazing.
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Christiane Baumgatner is a German artist, and this was her first museum exhibition in the United States.  The work on view featured these large, amazing woodcuts, as well as photoengravings, aquatints, and photogravures.  She works with images from television and film.  She would take photographs of her television screen, often of war documentaries and use them as a starting point for her woodcuts.   The helicopter image below is her artwork called "Manhattan Transfer," which was my favorite.
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"Manhattan Transfer", Woodcut on Kozo Paper by Christiane Baumgartner. 4 Detail Shots are Below.
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Detail of the Helicopter's Rear Wheel/Landing Gear
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 I also had the opportunity to view some of the Davis Museum's permanent collection of wonderful artwork from artists such as Andy Warhol, Louise Nevelson, Willem de Kooning, Lee Krasner, Jackson Pollock, and Al Held.
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"Woman Springs" 1966, Oil on hollow core wooden door, by Willem de Kooning
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"Brillo Box," 1964 and "Campbell's Tomato Juice," 1964, Synthetic polymer paint and screen print ink on wood. By Andy Warhol
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Louise Nevelson's "Dream House V" 1972, Wood painted black.
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"Quattro Centric XII" 1990 by Al Held
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"Untitled", 1951 by Lee Krasner.
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"Untitled (Small Composition)", 1949 by Jackson Pollock.
I'd definitely recommend a visit to The Davis Museum, located on the campus of Wellesley College.  for more information, please visit their website:  www.wellesley.edu/davismuseum
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The Harvard Art Museums

5/20/2018

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I recently had the pleasure of visiting the Harvard Art Museums in Cambridge, MA.  I highly recommend you check it out as they have a wonderful and varied collection of artwork from earliest times to the present.
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The Harvard Art Museums are actually comprised of three art collections; The Fogg, the Busch-Reisinger, and the Arthur M. Sackler Museum.  The three were combined in a beautiful space designed by Renzo Piano Building Workshop.  The Museum's literature stated that it is their hope that their collections and unique spaces inspire new ways of looking and thinking about art for all visitors.  ​

I started out off the main atrium to explore the European Art of the 19th and 20th Century and the Modern and Contemporary Art galleries.  
I came across this painting to the right by Paul Cezanne called, "Study of Trees."  It is oil on canvas and is from the early 20th Century.  When I think of Cezanne, I often think of impressionism, delightful landscapes, or beautiful bowls of fruit!  This painting demonstrated Cezanne's role in connecting 19th Century Impressionism to 20th Century Cubism.  I love how the trees are represented here because he was able to depict depth using diagonal shapes and brushstrokes that hint at movement and depth.  There are dashed lines that define the tree trunks on both sides of a country road.  It's no wonder why Harvard has this painting as part of its collection; Although it's not as well-known as Van Gogh's "Starry Night" or Monet's "Waterlilies," it's one of the most important paintings from this time period and the history of abstract painting.
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Pablo Picasso's "Still Life with Inkwell" Oil on Canvas, c. 1911-1912. Picasso applied cubism to the traditional still life.
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Pablo Picasso's "The Pomegranate" Oil on Canvas, 1911-1912.
Here is Willem de Kooning's 1937-1938 Oil on Masonite painting titled, "Untitled (The Cow Jumps Over The Moon).  I learned that de Kooning was trained as a commercial artist and his artistic styles move back and forth between abstract and figurative methods. This painting below is one of his earlier works, which reminds me of Joan Miro's work to some degree.  His later artwork, for which he is more well-known, is more gestural and epitomizes the abstract expressionism movement.  
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Georgia O'Keefe, "Red and Pink" Oil on Canvas, 1925. Perhaps an abstraction of flower petals.
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Vincent Van Gogh's "The Blind Man" Watercolor on paper mounted on canvas, 1903.
Joan Miro in his painting to the right titled, "Mural" made in 1935 plays with the idea of surrealism.  Animal-like figures are seen here on an oddly shaped background with areas of pure, flat color.

If you haven't seen my blog on Barcelona Art, there is a ton I included on my visit to the Joan Miro Museum.  Click Here to read my blog on Barcelona Art!
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You wouldn't know it based on the type of artwork he became famous for, but the painting below is by the artist, Roy Lichtenstein.  "The Capture of Roanoke Island" was painted in 1953, well before he developed his pop art comic-book style of art.
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I came across several sculptures by the artist David Smith.  For those of you who read my blog about the Downtown Art Scene in Los Angeles, I included a David Smith sculpture.  You can read it HERE!

I learned that due to a generous donor, the Harvard Art Museums have the largest and most complete collection of David Smith's artwork than any other museum in the world.  David Smith lived in Indiana and Vermont and although he began his career as a painter, he created many many sculptures.  In the photo to the right, Smith's sculpture, "Flight" that was created in 1951 and depicts birds in flight.  What's interesting is his use of both welding steel and casting bronze, and his process to paint the former and patina-ting the latter.
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David Smith's "Detroit Queen" Bronze, 1957.
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David Smith's "Doorway on Wheels" Steel with Paint, 1960.
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Three Untitled works of art by David Smith created in 1959.
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David Smith's "Birthday" 1954, "Books and Apple" 1957, and "Bird" 1957. All Sterling Silver.
I stared at this painting below "Grazing Horses IV (The Red Horses), painted in 1911 by Franz Marc for quite a long time.  Not because I love horses, but rather it struck me as fascinating.  Franz Marc painted horses a lot, and was known for his preoccupation with animals.  I learned that this particular painting was actually his first work of art to enter a museum's collection, the same year it was made.  What struck me was his use of unnatural colors in a very natural scene.  It's hard to see in the photo, but I was intrigued with the use of bright red in only one or two spots on the horses.
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Here to the right is one of my favorites...  Piet Mondrian's "Composition with Blue, Black, Yellow, and Red," painted in 1922.  Many people have commented that much of my own artwork reminds them of Mondrian's artwork.  In this blog article from the Museum of Contemporary Art in New York, I discuss this in greater length.  CLICK HERE to read that blog article!
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Claude Monet's "Red Boats, Argenteuil" Oil on Canvas, 1875. This painting is notable because x-rays of this painting show that Monet reworked this painting a few times.
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Georges Pierre Seurat, "Seated Figures, Study for A Sunday Afternoon On The Island of La Grande Jatte" Oil on Panel. 1884-1885. This is one of about 30 oil studies made in preparation for his masterpiece.
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Henri Matisse, "Geraniums" Oil on Canvas, 1910.
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Max Beckman's self-portrait in 1927, "Self-Portrait in Tuxedo" Oil on Canvas.
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Gustav Klimt's "Pear Tree, 1903, later reworked by the artist. Interesting to note that Klimt chose to use a square canvas, which at the time was not typically used for landscapes.
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In the Foreground, Alexander Calder's "Little Blue Under Red" c. 1950 Painted Steel.
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Three Sculptures: "Head of a Woman" by Aristide Maillol; Degas' "Grande Arabesque, Third Time, modeled c 1885-90, cast after 1920; and Charles Despiau's "Seated Man, Statue for the Monument to Emile Mayrisch" c. 1930.
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​Jackson Pollock's "No. 2" mixed Media on Canvas, 1950.

No 2 is an example of Pollock's fully developed paint-pouring/splatter-painting/dripping techniques. 

​He put raw, un-stretched canvas on the floor and worked from above, pouring, dripping, flicking, and spraying paint onto the surface of the canvas.  The movement shown here is a record of his bodily movements as he produced the painting.
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Franz Kline's "High Street" Oil on Canvas, 1950. It's made with House-painters' brushes and inexpensive enamel house-paint.
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Mark Rothko's "Untitled" Oil on Canvas, 1947. A precursor to his well-known, iconic style, of two or three tiers of brightly colored rectangles.
Below is Jasper johns' "The Dutch Wives", encaustic on canvas, created in 1975.  If you haven't read my blog article on the Jasper johns retrospective exhibition at The Broad Museum in Los Angeles, you can find it HERE.
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Josef Albers' work here below shows his thought process of how art is a type of research.  With the same format of squares within squares, he tested a vast array of color combinations; He took all this research and theoretical findings to publish his book in 1963, "Interaction of Color," which is an essential resource for art and design students to this day.
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Josef Albers: "Homage to the Square: Against Deep Blue" 1955 and "Homage to the Square: Four Greens" 1964. Both Oil on Masonite.
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Auguste Rodin's "the Walking Man" Bronze, created around 1899-1900.
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Above is Richard Serra's "Untitled (Corner Prop Piece) created in 1969.  It's a sculpture comprised of a lead plate and pole and an example of minimalism and the use of industrial materials in fine art.  Serra makes use of the room's architecture including the walls and floor, essential to the sculpture.
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Claude Monet's "Red Mullets" Oil on Canvas, painted around 1870. I love this painting as it's so different from a typical Monet landscape, or waterlilies painting.
Here are three painting studies by John Singleton Copley, all painted in 1787.  I learned that the city of London commissioned the artist to create a large painting commemorating Britain's victory over the Spanish and French at the Siege of Gibraltar in 1782.  These portraits are character studies and experiments of his in composition.  Looking at this from a contemporary art perspective, I love how the portraits are "unfinished."
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Below is a wonderful painting from a German artist that I was unfamiliar with named Corinne Wasmuht.  It is titled, "50 U Heinrich-Heine-Str." oil on wood and created in 2009.  The painting is a portrayal of Berlin's Heinrich Heine Street subway station and its surrounding neighborhood.  It's hard to tell scale from photographs, but this is a huge painting and it's scale immerses the viewer, but the paintings various perspective points and different scales of objects also disorient the viewer.  It's really a magnificent painting and I can see why it was gifted to Harvard's Busch-Reisinger Museum. 
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Ai Weiwei's "258 Fake" created in 2011 features 12 monitors that show 7,677 photographs taken between 2003 and 2011
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Below are some fascinating samples taken from the Forbes Pigment Collection.  Edward Forbes was the director of the Harvard Art Museums from 1909 to 1944.  During his tenure, he traveled the world, collecting a large number of pigments for the library.  Today, the Pigment Collection contains more than 2,500 samples that are beautifully displayed in cabinets on the 4th floor and are used to this day to help identify pigments used in historical artworks.
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I came across this wonderful, short video on the Forbes Pigment Collection that was created about 2 years ago. Check it out!

Inventur--Art in Germany, 1943-55
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The special exhibition at the Harvard Art Museums was titled, "Inventur--Art in Germany, 1943-55" and focuses on modern-period artists who remained in Germany during World War II and the Holocaust.  The exhibit runs through June 3, 2018 on the 3rd Floor of the Museum.

​The artwork in the exhibition is in some way, a representation of the individual artist's response to Nazi censure, which prevented artists from exhibiting and/or selling their artwork.  I found it fascinating that the exhibition was called Inventur, meaning inventory,  because it is a collection of the artist experience for over 50 artists.

With Hitler's rise to power, there was a major government-driven effort to align individuals and organizations with the doctrine of the Nazi State.  Many teaching artists lost their jobs.  The well-known art school, The Bauhaus School of Art and Design, was closed under Nazi Rule.  Artwork that was not approved of by the Nazi State was coined "Degenerate Artwork."  If artists chose not to leave Germany or were not permitted to leave Germany, they had no choice but to create art privately.
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Hans Uhlmann's "Male Head" Steel sheet, 1942.
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Ernst Wilhelm Nay's "Embers" Oil on Canvas, 1951.
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Thomas Grochowiak's "Technical District I, Blue" Oil on Canvas, 1951.
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Jeanne Mammen's "Falling Facades (Berlin Ruins), oil on cardboard, 1945-1946.
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Konrad Klapheck's "Typewriter" Oil on Canvas, 1955.
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Fritz Winter's, "Figuration in Front of Blue" Oil on Canvas, 1953.
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Willi Baumeister's "Large Montaru" Oil with synthetic resin on board, 1953.
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Willi Baumeister's "Growth of the Crystals II" Oil with resin and putty on board, 1947/1952.
For more information about The Harvard Art Museums, please visit their website:  www.harvardartmuseums.org.  I definitely recommend visiting the Museum as you're in for a wonderful experience!  
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Metropolitan Museum of Art New York

1/10/2018

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Wishing all my friends and subscribers a Happy 2018! 

​At the end of 2017, I visited the world-renowned Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City.  I've been fortunate to have been to the Museum several times in the past, but I admit, it's been too many years since my last visit.  As a professional artist, it's important for me to draw inspiration from the many artists whom I admire, both from the past and from present day.  So, when I visit New York, I always make an effort to visit art museums, art galleries, and stumble upon public art installations.
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In recent years as you've read in my previous blog posts, I visited museums like the Whitney, the Guggenheim, MOMA, the Brooklyn Museum, the New Museum, the Jewish Museum, just to name a few.  I encourage you to look through the Categories Listing on the right side of this page and click on what interests you, whether it be museums, cities, or famous artists.
The Met has been in the news this past week because it was announced that its admission policy is changing, requiring visitors to pay for admission (the Museum has been pay-as-you-wish for over 50 years).  The new admission policy will go into effect on March 1, 2018.  Residents of New York State, and students from New York, New Jersey, and Connecticut will remain pay-as-you-wish.  Children under 12 will remain free.  Be sure to check out their website for more information:  www.metmuseum.org

​I'd recommend purchasing your ticket(s) online and arriving to the Museum when it first opens.  You will wish you had more time for your visit if you don't! The line for admission seemed to span the entire length of the huge museum, but having purchased an advance ticket, I was able to walk in a separate door, check in, and head straight into the galleries.  Admission will get you into the Met Fifth Avenue, the Met Cloisters, as well as the new Met Breuer.
I didn't have the chance to visit the Met Cloisters and the Met Breuer.  My visit to the Metropolitan Museum of New York on Fifth Avenue was amazing.  First of all, it is massive.  I forgot just how large the museum is that is located on the Upper East Side on Fifth Avenue between East 80th and East 84th Streets. ​ This blog post covers my experience of the Metropolitan Museum of Art on Fifth Avenue, mainly what was on exhibit in their Modern & Contemporary Art galleries, 19th and Early 20th Century European Paintings and Sculpture, and some of their Asian Art collection.  There were also two special exhibitions going on that I'll include: One on the hugely talented artist David Hockney.  And the other on an artist that you may have heard of before, Michelangelo!  At the end of this blog, I'll include a few other artistic surprises outside of the Met I encountered on my trip to NYC.
I started in the Modern and Contemporary art section of the Museum, which spans from around 1900 through the 1950s. The photo here is a striking painting from artist, Georgia O'Keeffe.  In an earlier blog article, I posted a photo of O'Keeffe's painting of the Brooklyn Bridge. CLICK HERE TO VIEW.  Upon her relocation to New Mexico, her artistic interests changed from the buildings and bridges of New York City to the natural elements of New Mexico.  In this work of art, she isolates a single skull, highlighting its jagged edges, worn surfaces, and sun-bleached bone color.  The skulls and bones that she paints (this is one of may similar paintings she did while living in New Mexico) represent the desert's beauty.  In the painting here, she makes reference to the strength of the American spirit, with the red, white, and blue imagery.  
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"Cow's Skull: Red, White, and Blue" Oil on Canvas, 1931
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This Pablo Picasso painting shown here is called "The Dreamer" and was painted in 1932.  It features one of his lovers and muse and portrays a very sensual image.  I love how he uses simple forms to depict the woman's body using primary shapes.  I've included some close-up shots of the detail, including his iconic signature!
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Pablo Picasso, "Woman Asleep as a Table" Oil and Charcoal on Canvas, 1936
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Pablo Picasso, "Reading at a Table" Oil on Canvas, 1934.
This next photo, a painting by the Spanish artist, Joan Miro, is rather fascinating...  It is called "Photo: This is the Color of My Dreams" and was painted in 1925.  I write a lot about Joan Miro in my Blog that features the art of Barcelona.  I visited he Miro Museum last winter.  You can read more about the art of Barcelona as well as about my visit to the Miro Museum HERE.  This painting is one of a number of paintings in his series called "Painting-Poetry," which combines words and symbols to portray his interest in dreaming and the subconscious mind.  
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If you're ever in Barcelona, be sure to check out the Fundacio Joan Miro.  www.fmirobcn.org/en/

The painting also reminds me of Rene Magritte's painting, "The Treachery of Images" also known at "This is Not a Pipe" and features the French writing, "Ceci n'est pas une pipe".  I believe it is on display at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, so hopefully I can see it again on my next visit!

​This painting to the left by Joan Miro called "Circus house" is Tempera paint on canvas and belongs to a series of paintings related to dreams.  
This oil on canvas painting on the right is by a female artist named, Kay Sage, titled "Tomorrow is Never" and was acquired by the Metropolitan Museum  of Art because of her contribution to Surrealism in American art.  She painted landscape forms with dull and sad color-tones as a metaphor for the human mind and psychological states of existence.  I love the architectural feel of the painting, and it reminded me of a scene that one might see in a futuristic science-fiction movie!
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Max Beckman, "Beginning" Oil on Canvas, 1949.
In Marc Chagall's painting shown below, "Le Pont de Passy et la Tour Eiffel," painted in 1911, we experience a fascinating view of Paris and the Eiffel Tower.  The important thing about this painting is its composition.  Chagall uses several converging diagonal lines: the bright red road, the orange cement wall, and the lines denoting the blue sky.  If you think about the time period of the painting, it's interesting to note how it depicts some of the modern changes to the city of Paris, including the Eiffel Tower, the construction of the Pont de Passy Bridge and technologically modern train, electrical power-lines, and how it is juxtaposed alongside the element of the horses and wagon alluding to and earlier time in history.
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I love Stuart Davis' artwork.  He was influenced by the Cubist language of flat, overlapping planes and wedges and uses unique geometric shapes to create an abstract still life.  The painting shown here is called "Percolator" and depicts an old coffeepot that is both abstract and identifiable.
The Rockport, Massachusetts-themed painting below by Stuart Davis is called "Report from Rockport" and is oil on canvas.  I love all the colors, lines, and shapes that are depicted in this painting.  I've included  a detailed close-up shot as well.  This painting is representative of Davis' Color Space Theory, in which juxtapositions of colors are used to create the illusion of depth in artwork.
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Stuart Davis painted this in 1939 as a mural for Studio B WNYC at the Municipal Broadcasting Company. Oil on Canvas.
With the onset of the Industrial Revolution, painters like Fernand Leger incorporated streamlined forms and contours of assembly-line production into their artwork.   In the painting shown here, "Three Women by a Garden" painted by Fernand Leger in 1922, three generations of women are depicted. "Woman with a Cat" was painted in 1921.
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I love this painting shown here to the right by Rene Magritte called "The Eternally Obvious" created in 1948.  I learned that he first painted this nude portrait of his wife, which he later cut into sections and framed them separately, or reassembled them onto glass.
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I thought this was a very cool piece of artwork by artist, Jean Arp, shown above.  It's Oil on Wood Relief and is titled "Torso, Naval, Mustache-Flower." I think it's kind of bizarre in a cool way.
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Piet Mondrian is one of my favorite artists.  Here is one of his iconic paintings called, "Composition" completed in 1921.  It's an early example of the geometric style of painting that Mondrian called Neo-Plasticism, that emphasized planar relationships in painting, architecture, and design.  Many people who look at my own personal artwork sometimes comment that they see hints of a Mondrian influence in my artwork.  Here is Mondrian's painting at the Met, next to one of my paintings!
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Piet Mondrian, "Composition" Oil on Canvas, 1921.
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Eddie Bruckner, "Mosaic Color Grid Periphery" Acrylic on Canvas, 24" x 30", 2006. Click Image For More Information.
Mondrian used black lines to divide the canvas into rectangles that are sometimes painted in shades of blue and red, creating lighter hues by mixing primary colors with white.  Later on in his artistic process, Mondrian stopped creating these hues and used pure, primary colors.  In comparing his painting with mine, we each use an entirely different process to create our black lines and blocks of color.  If you notice, the black line at the bottom right of his painting doesn't quite reach the bottom.  To me, it detracts from the overall design.  Here are two other artists, whose works are hung alongside Mondrian's at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.  
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Fritz Glarner, "Relational Painting Number 64" Oil on Canvas, 1953.
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Burgoyne Diller, "Second Theme" Oil on Canvas, 1938-40
I love Jackson Pollock's artwork!  The painting below is called "Number 28" and was painted in 1950.  His drip and pour paintings are widely recognized as his greatest achievement in art.  He used simple sticks or paint stirrers and enamel house paint, sometimes poured right from the can, spilling lines directly onto raw canvas spread on the floor.  What I love about his paintings are that the paint on the canvas we see is a record of the artist's creative process and his movement as he walked around all the sides of the canvas.
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Detail of "Number 28"
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Jackson Pollock, "Autumn Rhythm (Number 30)", Enamel on Canvas, 1950.
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Detail of "Autumn Rhythm (Number 30)".
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Franz Marc, "Fighting Cows" Oil on Canvas, 1911.
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Vasily Kandinsky, "Improvisation 27 (Garden of Love III)", Oil on Canvas, 1912.
One of the Special Exhibitions on display during my visit was "Michelangelo:  Divine Draftsman and Designer."  Michelangelo Buonarroti lived from 1475 to 1564 and is celebrated for his excellence of the power of drawing and invention that provided the foundation for all the arts.  His drawing skills, design, sculpture, painting, and architecture all combined to give him the reputation of "The Divine One" by his contemporaries.  The exhibition showed a range of over 200 works by the artist that was pulled together from 50 public and private collections across the United States and Europe.  The exhibit opened in November and is on view through February 12, 2018.  Below are just two of his incredible artworks I saw at the Met.  #MetMichelangelo
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During my visit there was a magnificent exhibit of the British artist David Hockney that showcases 60 years of his art career.  I highly recommend visiting this exhibit that is at the Met Fifth Avenue through February 25, 2018.  David Hockney's painting address translating movement, space, and time into a two dimensional painting.  Hockney is probably best known for depicting California swimming pools and backyards in the mid-1960s.  Many of his paintings are quite large, perhaps over 6 or 7 feet square.  I love how he uses Acrylic paint on canvas.
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David Hockney, "A Bigger Splash" Acrylic on Canvas, 1967.
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David Hockney, "Savings and Loan Building" Acrylic on Canvas, 1967.
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David Hockney, "Pool and Steps, Le Nid du Duc" Acrylic on Canvas, 1971.
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David Hockney, "Portrait of an Artist (Pool with Two figures)" Acrylic on Canvas, 1972.
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Hockney began to experiment with the iPad shortly after it came out and used an app for drawing to produce his first works of art in this new medium. Hockney used his iPad and put together this three-screen animation of his views through his bedroom window, 2010-2013. I've included a short video clip for you to experience it for yourself!
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This Limited Edition Lithograph of "Pushing Up" 1993 was for sale, unframed, for $14,500 in the gift shop at the end of the exhibit.
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Robert Motherwell, "Elegy to the Spanish Republic No. 70" Oil on Canvas, 1961.
Alexander Calder created a series of moving sculptures called mobiles that he created in a diverse range of abstract configurations.  Shown here, is a free-moving wind mobile that is carefully balanced on a movable pivot point. I learned that he was inspired by the work of Joan Miro, and the similar shapes and forms can be observed in Calder's mobiles.  In the video below, you can see the kinetic nature of his mobile, "Mobile" created in 1941 from painted aluminum, steel, steel rod, and wire.
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Willem de Kooning, "Attic" Oil, Enamel, and Newspaper Transferred on Canvas, 1949.
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Mark Rothko, "No. 16" Oil on Canvas, 1960.
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Willem de Kooning, "Easter Monday" Oil and Newspaper Transfer on Canvas, 1955-56.
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Detail of: Willem de Kooning, "Easter Monday" Oil and Newspaper Transfer on Canvas, 1955-56.
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Morris Louis, "Untitled" Magna on Canvas, 1960.
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Detail of: Morris Louis, "Untitled" Magna on Canvas, 1960.
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Cy Twombly, "Untitled (Rome)" Oil Paint, Wax Crayon, and Graphite on Canvas, 1962.
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Detail of: Cy Twombly, "Untitled (Rome)" Oil Paint, Wax Crayon, and Graphite on Canvas, 1962. I love how he uses mixed media.
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Henri Matisse
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Edgar Degas
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Auguste Renoir
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Paul Cezanne
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I took this photo of this Pablo Picasso painting because it is titled, "At the Lapin Agile" painted in 1905. It was this painting that inspired Steve Martin's terrific play, "Picasso at the Lapin Agile"!
Here are some of Claude Monet's masterpieces...
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​Auguste Rodin's sculptures are simply incredible.

​If you're ever in Paris, the Rodin Museum is not to miss!
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Emanuel Leutze, "Washington Crossing the Delaware, Oil on Canvas, 1851. Depiction of George Washington and his men crossing the Delaware River from Pennsylvania to New Jersey to attack the Hessians.
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William Merritt Chase, "At The Seaside", Oil on Canvas, 1892.
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While it wassn't the focus of my visit to the Met, I did come across some very cool Asian art, such as this huge statue that towered from above. Also on view was Japanese Bamboo Art.  Bamboo has long been an integral part of the Japanese lifestyle and culture.  Bamboo is the fastest growing grass plant and was used in traditional architecture and to create objects such as flower baskets, fans, etc.  The exhibition featured more than 90 baskets and sculptures from the Abbey Collection, a private collection of bamboo artwork.
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And now for the Surprise...  Not at the met, I came across one of Ai Weiwei's latest temporary public art installations at the foot of Central Park.

Ai Weiwei’s citywide public art project "Good Fences Make Good Neighbors" was officially unveiled on October 12, 2017, and will remain for four months throughout New York Ciity. It includes major sculptural installations in Central Park, Washington Square Park, and smaller installations at some bus shelters and lamp-post banners.  The public art he created addressed the growing hostility towards immigrants, the refugee crisis, and the rise of nationalism world-wide. 
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Located at one of the main entrances to Central Park, Weiwei's "Gilded Cage" takes the concept of a fence and turns it into a large scale interactive object.
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And lastly, I came across these wonderful sculptures created by artist, Jaume Plensa, that are permanently installed at the Grand Hyatt Hotel near Grand Central Terminal.  I learned that these two huge sculptures are reminiscent of the Moai sculptures on Easter Island.
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Overall, my visit to the Metropolitan Museum of Art was simply amazing.  I could have spent the entire day looking at all the art and taking photos of every piece of artwork, but I could only include these 6 dozen or so photos!  I wish I had the time to visit Met Cloisters and Met Breuer as well.  Well, reason for another visit!  I hope you enjoyed this blog and I welcome your comments!  Have a friend who would enjoy reading this blog?  Then please share it with them via email or social media!  You can click on the Facebook and Twitter buttons below!
PS: If you liked this article, you might like these other articles on my artistic travels:
Kennebunkport, Maine
Los Angeles, California
New York City Street Art
Napa Valley, California
Park City, Utah
Barcelona, Spain
Caribbean Art
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Visiting Two Great Art Institutions in Greater Boston

6/16/2016

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This past week I had the pleasure of visiting two of my favorite Art Museums in the Boston area.  What I love about art museums is the special combination of new temporary exhibitions and spectacular permanent collections. 

The Rose Art Museum
The first museum I’ll write about is the Rose Art Museum, located in Waltham, Massachusetts.  On a personal note, the Rose Art Museum is special to me because it is part of Brandeis University, my alma mater.  As part of my art education at Brandeis university, I had the unique opportunity to tour the Rose’s amazing permanent collection—however, not exhibited on the walls of the museum, but rather in the museum’s storage vault.  In the mid-1990s, I saw incredible works from the collection from Roy Lichtenstein to Andy Warhol to Willem de Kooning to Jasper Johns.  With over 8,000 works of art, mostly from American Artists from the 1960s and 1970s, the Rose Art Museum is one of the leading art museums in the world.  Use the following link to see the digital collection:  http://rosecollection.brandeis.edu/
 
This week the Rose Art Museum was exhibiting a temporary retrospective exhibit on the artist Rosalyn Drexler. The exhibit, “Rosalyn Drexler:  Who does She Think She Is?” recently closed, but I believe it is traveling to other museums in the coming months.
It was very exciting to look at the career of an artist from the 1960s; Drexler’s work was really relevant at that time in history.  She was part of the pop art movement, knew Andy Warhol, and although her work is really relevant, for various reasons, she wasn’t a central figure in the art world at that time. Walking around the museum and looking at her artwork was really fascinating.  The themes of the show explored issues of love and violence and her interest in pop media, film posters, magazines, etc.  There were also depictions of violence towards women, which she picked out from the images in the mass media and used them as her subject matter.  She’s telling us that this is what is in our mass media and we should be thinking about it.  Some of her artwork feels very “Hollywood.” 
 
The one thing that was very exciting to see in her artwork is how you get to understand and experience her creative process.  For example, Andy Warhol literally took images from mass media, made a screen print of it and used it as his own on his canvas.  And pop artist Roy Lichtenstein often took an image, typically from a cartoon or comic book, and projected it on his canvas and then hand painted what it looked like. Rosalyn Drexler would do something in between, where she would find an image from the mass media and she would use a mimeograph machine (an early photocopier) to enlarge it and paste those enlargements directly on the canvas and painting right over it.  On a number of the paintings, if you looked closely, you could see this collage'd element.  She is using found material directly on the works.  The exhibit also featured from the original source material of the mass media materials she used for her artwork. ​​
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Also on permanent view just outside the museum is Chris Burden’s “Light of Reason” sculpture shown here, which was specifically commissioned for the Rose Art Museum and Brandeis University.  I had the pleasure of attending the dedication ceremony in 2014.  A similar work of his also featuring found Los Angeles street lamps can be seen at the entrance of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art.
http://www.brandeis.edu/rose/
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It was wonderful to see this retrospective exhibit.  Seeing all of an artist’s work together sheds new light on how significant her work was at the time.

​I also enjoyed a new permanent exhibit that was commissioned from the artist Mark Dion.  He turned a small space in the museum into an exhibit called “The Undisciplined Collector” and is staged as if it were a collector’s home office from 1961, the year of the Rose Art Museum’s founding.  The furniture is from that era and a record player was even playing in the background.  Works from the Rose’s permanent collection from 1961 were hanging on the wall.  In the drawers were prints and photographs from early exhibitions at the Rose.  It just opened this past fall and the room will remain on permanent view. 
The Museum of Fine Arts Boston
The following day I had the opportunity to visit the Museum of Fine Arts Boston, which houses one of the world’s best and diverse collections of fine art including contemporary art, art of Asia, Oceana, Africa, Europe the Americas, art of the ancient world, and jewelry, musical instruments, prints, drawings, and photographs.  Although I didn’t get to see everything in the museum, I was able to see some of my favorite works of art again as well as see some new things and very cool new temporary exhibits.
 
And while I’m more of a contemporary and modern art kind of guy, I was particularly impressed with the story behind a 13-foot-tall statue of a classical sculpture of Juno.  The Roman marble lady is the largest Classical sculpture in any museum in the United States.  But perhaps even more fascinating was where the statue was found; It was found in the backyard of a Brookline, Massachusetts home (a suburb of Boston).  The statue that is dated to about the year 1633 was purchased at the end of the 19th Century in Rome and brought to Brookline, Massachusetts to be placed as part of a formal garden.
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I also encountered an amazing Vincent Van Gogh painting, called “Ravine,” painted in 1889, one year before his passing in 1890. The painting, pictured here along with a close up, is amazing!  From afar, the colors blend together to form a visual picture of a spectacular and breathtaking ravine in France, near the town of Saint Remy.  But as you draw closer to the painting, you see individual brushstrokes, globs of paint on top of paint, on top of even more paint.  The texture and thickness is very cool.  And yet, up close, you can’t even tell what the painting’s subject is at all.  Up close, it simply looks like brushstrokes of color in a random, haphazard fashion.  So what I love about this painting, is that the beauty of this painting is its uniqueness, partly because of this magical illusion; that when seeing the painting up close, we’re being tricked to think these brushstrokes don’t have meaning, when in fact they most certainly do.
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Two works that I loved seeing were Frank Stella’s 1966 painting, “Cinema de Pepsi” and Ellsworth Kelly’s 1968 huge, uniquely shaped painting, “Blue Green Yellow Orange Red”.  These two artists used color in fascinating ways, which I really love and admire. ​
Another American artist, named Spencer Finch, exhibited a spectacular work of art using florescent light fixtures and filters to create his 2014 work entitled, “Shield of Achilles (Dawn, Troy, 10/27/02).  Finch’s work observes colors of a given landscape at a precise day and time; This work is arranged in the shape of a shield, inspired by Homer’s Illiad.  
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The Danish artist, Jeppe Hein’s work entitled “PLEASE…” is a neon light installation from 2008.  Hein is fascinated with the relationship between the viewer and his artwork and the art really isn’t complete without the viewer’s participation.  I really can relate with Jeppe Hein and his work because some of my artwork also has a similar element to it.  My paintings entitled “Close Your Eyes” and “You Have To Read This” come to mind when thinking about Hein’s work.  With “Close Your Eyes” I’m trying to convey to viewers a bit of edginess or something to make you think twice about what you are seeing.  I really enjoy the irony of creating art that is visual, and then the message of the painting instructs you not to look at it.  “Close Your Eyes” was selected in the prestigious Connecticut Academy of Fine Arts Annual Juried Art Exhibit a few years ago.  The six works of art are pictured here.  http://www.jeppehein.net/
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Throughout the museum (and around the Museum and even in Faneuil Hall in Boston) is the Megacities Asia exhibit, which runs until July 17, 2016.  Megacities are cities with populations of more than ten million. These megacities are increasing in numbers and changes the lives of so many people.  I was really impressed with the works of the artists Ai Weiwei and Choi Jeong Hwa.  Choi Jeong Hwa’s “Breathing Flower” located just outside the museum was very moving. http://aiweiwei.com/
  http://choijeonghwa.com/
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And lastly, the temporary exhibit called “#techstyle” was really quite amazing to see.  It’s on view through July 10, 2016, so be sure to get to the MFA soon!  The exhibit shows how emerging technologies are shaping fashion design now and in the future.  The exhibit highlighted 3d printed shoes (shown here), electronics, lights, lasers, etc.  Here is a photo of a dress made with a programmable LED display with changing patterns and colors.
 
For more information, go to www.mfa.org
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