skip to main |
skip to sidebar
“Study nature, love nature, stay close to nature. It will never fail you.” - Frank Lloyd Wright
Isaac Ilyich Levitan (Russian: Исаа́к Ильи́ч Левита́н; 30 August [O.S. 18 August] 1860 – 4 August [O.S. 22 July] 1900) was a classical Russian landscape painter who advanced the genre of the “mood landscape”. Levitan was born in a shtetl of Kibarty, Augustów Governorate in Congress Poland, a part of the Russian Empire (present-day Lithuania) into a poor but educated Jewish family. His father Elyashiv Levitan was the son of a rabbi, completed a Yeshiva and was self-educated. He taught German and French in Kowno and later worked as a translator at a railway bridge construction for a French building company.
At the beginning of 1870 the Levitan family moved to Moscow. In September 1873, Isaac Levitan entered the Moscow School of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture where his older brother Avel had already studied for two years. After a year in the copying class Isaac transferred into a naturalistic class, and soon thereafter into a landscape class. Levitan’s teachers were the famous Alexei Savrasov, Vasily Perov and Vasily Polenov. In 1875, his mother died, and his father fell seriously ill and became unable to support four children; he died in 1877. The family slipped into abject poverty. As patronage for Levitan’s talent and achievements, his Jewish origins and to keep him in the school, he was given a scholarship.
In 1877, Isaac Levitan’s works were first publicly exhibited and earned favourable reviews from the press. After Alexander Soloviev’s assassination attempt on Alexander II, in May 1879, mass deportations of Jews from big cities of the Russian Empire forced the family to move to the suburb of Saltykovka, but in Autumn, officials responded to pressure from art devotees, and Levitan was allowed to return. In 1880 his painting Осенний день. Сокольники (“Autumn Day: Sokolniki”) was bought by famous philanthropist and art collector Pavel Mikhailovich Tretyakov.
In the Spring of 1884 Levitan participated in the mobile art exhibition by the group known as the Peredvizhniki and in 1891 became a member of the Peredvizhniki partnership. During his study in the Moscow School of painting, sculpture and architecture, Levitan befriended Konstantin Korovin, Mikhail Nesterov, architect Fyodor Shekhtel, and the painter Nikolay Chekhov, whose famous brother Anton Chekhov became the artist’s closest friend. Levitan often visited Chekhov and some think Levitan was in love with his sister, Maria Pavlovna Chekhova. In the early 1880s Levitan collaborated with the Chekhov brothers on the illustrated magazine “Moscow” and illustrated the M. Fabricius edition “Kremlin”. Together with Korovin in 1885-1886 he painted scenery for performances of the Private Russian opera of Savva Mamontov. In the 1880s he participated in the drawing and watercolour gatherings at Polenov’s house.
Levitan’s work was a profound response to the lyrical charm of the Russian landscape. Levitan did not paint urban landscapes; with the exception of the “View of Simonov Monastery” (whereabouts unknown), mentioned by Nesterov, the city of Moscow appears only in the painting “Illumination of the Kremlin”. During the late 1870s he often worked in the vicinity of Moscow, and created the special variant of the ‘landscape of mood’, in which nature is spiritualised, and becomes symbolic of the condition of the human soul.
During work in Ostankino, he painted fragments of the mansion’s house and park, but he was most fond of poetic places in the forest or modest countryside. Characteristic of his work is a hushed and nearly melancholic reverie amidst pastoral landscapes largely devoid of human presence. Fine examples of these qualities include “The Vladimirka Road”, (1892), “Evening Bells”, (1892), and “Eternal Rest”, (1894), all in the Tretyakov Gallery. Though his late work displayed familiarity with Impressionism, his palette was generally muted, and his tendencies were more naturalistic and poetic than optical or scientific.
In the summer of 1890 Levitan went to Yuryevets (Юрьевец) and among numerous landscapes and etudes he painted “The View of Krivooserski Monastery”. So the plan of one of his best pictures, “The Silent Monastery”, was born. The image of a silent Monastery and planked bridges over the river, connecting it with the outside world, expressed the artist’s spiritual reflections. It is known that this picture made a strong impression on Chekhov. In 1897, already world-famous, he was elected to the Imperial Academy of Arts and in 1898 he was named the head of the Landscape Studio at his alma mater.
Levitan spent the last year of his life at Chekhov’s home in Crimea. In spite of the effects of a terminal illness, his last works are increasingly filled with light. They reflect tranquillity and the eternal beauty of Russian nature. He was buried in Dorogomilovo Jewish cemetery. In April 1941 Levitan’s remains were moved to the Novodevichy Cemetery, next to Chekhov’s tomb. Levitan did not have a family or children. In the 1890s, however, he had an on-again, off-again affair with an older married woman; the painter Sofia Kuvshinnikova, which led to a small scandal — and a play by Anton Chekhov and a threatened duel with the playwright. Isaac Levitan’s hugely influential art heritage consists of more than a thousand paintings, among them watercolours, pastels, graphics, and illustrations.
Above is “Lake. Russia” 1900. The last, unfinished painting Levitan was working on just before his death.
“Our influences are who we are. It’s rare that anything is an absolutely pure vision.” - Eddie Vedder
Maurice Sterne (August 18, 1878 in Latvia – July 23, 1957 in USA), was an American sculptor and painter remembered today for his association with philanthropist Mabel Dodge Luhan, to whom he was married from 1916 to 1923. He began his career as a draughtsman and painter, and critics noted the similarity of his work, in its volume and weight, to sculpture.
In the late 1890s, Sterne studied under Alfred Maurer and Thomas Eakins at the National Academy of Design, and then travelled widely in Europe and the Far East. A trip to Greece in 1908 introduced him to archaic Greek statues, inspiring him to experiment with the form himself in stone. Between 1911-1914 he and his friend Karli Sohn-Rethel, a German painter, travelled together to India, the Far East and settled in Bali to paint and sketch, which further informed his later work.
Sterne came to New Mexico in 1916 at the suggestion of his friend, Paul Burlin, and settled in Taos until 1918. His reputation was established by a show at the Scott and Fowles Gallery in 1926 and furthered by a retrospective at the Museum of Modern Art in 1933. In the mid-1930s, Sterne lived in San Francisco and taught at the California School of Fine Arts. He returned to the East Coast in 1945 and established a studio in Mount Kisco, New York. He was named to the American Academy of Arts and Letters in 1938.
From 1945 to 1950, he served on the U.S. Commission of Fine Arts. In addition to his murals in the library of the Department of Justice in Washington, D.C., Sterne’s works are in the collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Art Institute of Chicago, the Corcoran Gallery of Art, and the Phillips Collection. Sterne was one of a dozen sculptors invited to compete in the Pioneer Woman statue competition in 1927, which he failed to win. Sterne died in 1957.
Sterne’s painting is quite varied and shows his many influences, with a lot of his canvases being derivative of his artistic interests at the time he painted them. Above is “New Mexico Still Life” c.1919. Cezanne still life painting has influenced this work, but there are also some some elements of the more expressionistic, freer work of pre-cubist Picasso. Quite different to Sterne’s painting of “Entrance of the Ballet” that reminds one of Degas, or some of his portraits reminiscent of very early Modigliani, or some of the early Soviet portraiture. His sculpture is sometimes reminiscent of Art Nouveau, at other times pseudoheroic fascist propaganda.
An interesting artist whose work needs a more in-depth exploration.
“We live in a fantasy world, a world of illusion. The great task in life is to find reality.” - Iris Murdoch
Alexander Sigov was born on February 25, 1955 in Leningrad. He graduated from the V. A. Serov Art College in 1975. Since 1994 he is a member of the Soyuz artist group. Collections where works are exhibited are in the Museum of Modern Art in Seoul, South Korea; private collections in Russia, Germany, France, Turkey, Japan, Sweden, Czechia, Canada, and United States. He has participated in many group exhibitions and has had several one-man exhibitions in Russia and abroad.
In an autobiographical note, the artist states: “Salvador Dali, in one of his Ten Commandments says: ‘Do not be afraid of the perfection you did not achieve’. Painting is something that helps me to draw near to this mystery of perfection. If in life we aim to achieve certain goals, such as to understand the mystery of truth – as perfection must be considered – not rarely comes disappointment. However, in art there is hope to approach this ideal, learning much from the process every day.”
Sigov in his paintings adopts the aesthetics and symbolism of images of the past and processes them in his own unique manner, creating his own personal universe, in which a certain familiarity becomes renewed and added to it are decorative elements, sumptuous textures and unexpected touches of whimsy. Saturation of colour on the one hand with delicate pastel tones on the other, a variety of beautiful embossed patterns with superimposed fine lines of masterful drawing, satisfying composition and a pictorial plane packed with fine detail allow the artist to express the fusion of styles and images in a harmonious end-product.
“A true portrait should, today and a hundred years from today, be the testimony of how this person looked and what kind of human being he was.” - Philippe Halsman
Aleksandra Mitrofanovna Beļcova (Russian: Бельцова, Александра Митрофановна, March 17, 1892 in Surazh, Chernigov Governorate – February 1, 1981 in Riga, Latvian SSR) was a Latvian and Russian painter.
Aleksandra Beļcova graduated from the Secondary School for Women in Novozybkov in 1912. Later she started studies in Penza city art school, from which she graduated in 1917. While in Penza she met several Latvian painters who studied there as refugees. Among them were Jēkabs Kazaks, Konrāds Ubāns and Voldemārs Tone. Especially close relationships developed between her and Romans Suta, another Latvian painter who studied in Penza.
In 1917 she went to Petrograd to study in State Free Art Workshop under Nathan Altman. It was in Petrograd that her first solo exhibition was held in 1919. Just after the exhibition she moved to Latvia along with Romans Suta and became a member of the Riga Artists Group. The couple married in 1922 in Riga and after marriage they visited Paris, Berlin and Dresden.
In 1923 their daughter Tatiana was born in Paris. In 1925 she painted “The White and the Black” (above). She was involved in the Roller group exhibitions and Riga Graphic Artists Association in the following years. Her paintings were mostly portraits and still lifes, beginning as a Cubist she turned to realism in later years. Her mediums were oil, watercolour, ink and pencil, and she also painted on porcelain. Beļcova died on February 1, 1981.[1] The home of Aleksandra Belcova and Romans Suta in Elizabetes street 57A-26 in Riga is now turned into memorial museum and art gallery.
An excellent critique of the painting above can be found here: https://deepbaltic.com/2017/03/02/baltic-artists-brought-the-world-home-but-at-what-cost/
“Full many a flower is born to blush unseen, And waste its fragrance on the desert air.” ― Jane Austen
Alexandros Christofis or Alexandros Hristofis (Greek: Αλέξανδρος Χριστόφης, 1882-1953) was a Greek painter. He was born in Piraeus in 1882. He attended the Upper School of Arts where he was taught by the famous artist Nikiforos Lytras, and from where he graduated as dux. He subsequently went to Naples, where he attended the Institute of Art there. From his journey until his death, he exhibited paintings in solo and team showings. From 1925, he was a professor at the Technical Graduate School of Athens.
His work mainly depicts scenes of everyday life, ordinary people carrying out their tasks either outdoors or indoors, both in the country and the city. A favourite theme of his is the tavern and the drinkers within it. Greek sailors at the port of Piraeus are also frequently depicted. His canvases are found in Greek and German galleries and museums.
His technique is considered to be austerely academic, which nevertheless shows an intense personal tone. Shown above is his “Fishermen”.
“Good artists copy, great
artists steal.” - Pablo Picasso
Emil Filla (4 April 1882 – 7 October 1953), a Czech
painter, was a leader of the avant-garde in Prague between World War I and
World War II and was an early Cubist painter. Filla was born in Chropyně,
Moravia, and spent his childhood in Brno, but later moved to Prague. Beginning
in 1903, he studied at the Academy of Fine Arts, Prague, but he left the school
in 1906.
Filla was a member of the
group Osma (“The Eight”) in
1907–1908, which had commonalities with the Fauves and also had direct ties to
the German Expressionist group Die Brücke.
Important works by Filla from this period include “Reader of Dostoyevsky” (1907) and “Chess
Players” (1908). In 1909, he became a member of the Mánes Union of Fine Arts.
Beginning in 1910 he painted
primarily in a Cubist style, strongly influenced by Picasso and Braque, and
produced works such as “Salome” (1911) and “Bathers” (1912). He also
began to paint many still lifes
around that time. In 1911 he edited several issues of Volné Směry, promoting
Cubism and publishing reproductions of works by Picasso. After both readers and
the leaders of Mánes reacted negatively, he and others withdrew from Mánes and
founded Skupina výtvarných umělců
(the Group of Visual Artists), which was a Cubist-oriented group.
Around 1913, he and Otto
Gutfreund, produced some of the earliest Cubist sculpture made anywhere. Before
World War I he moved to Paris, but left for the Netherlands when war broke out.
He returned to Prague after the war. During the 1920s, he further developed his
version of Synthetic Cubism and rejoined Mánes. Like many Czech modernists, he
was active in design as well as in painting; in 1925 he designed paintings on
glass for the Czechoslovak Pavilion at the International Exposition of Modern
Industrial and Decorative Arts in Paris.
In the late 1920s and early 1930s,
Surrealist influence also began to show in his painting and sculpture, and he
was a participant in Poesie 1932, an
international exhibition in Prague that introduced Surrealism to the Czech
public. He did not, however, become a Surrealist.
On the first day of World War
II he was arrested by the Gestapo together with painter Josef Čapek and others
and was subsequently imprisoned in German concentration camps Dachau and
Buchenwald. However, he survived, returned home and began to teach at the Vysoká škola uměleckoprůmyslová v Praze
(VŠUP—Academy of Arts, Architecture and Design in Prague). Filla’s teachings at
the Academy ensured the continuance of Czech Cubism, and his influence is
notable in the works of his pupil Milos Reindl amongst others. In 1945, he was
the first artist to be given a post-war exhibition at Mánes.
After the war, he exhibited
mainly works from the cycle Boje a zápasy
(Fights and Struggles), and later mainly produced landscapes. During his
lifetime he was active as a painter, sculptor, collector, theoretician, editor,
organiser, and diplomat. He died in Prague and is buried in Střešovice in
greater Prague. He idolised Vincent van Gogh, Pierre Bonnard and Edvard Munch
as well as Picasso and Braque.
Above is his “Still Life with
Fruit” of 1930. The links of the artist with the cubists is clearly visible in
this painting and the vivid colours are reminiscent of Picasso’s early cubist
works, while the rounded forms and decorative elements bring to mind Matisse.
“Once people come to Australia, they join the team.” - Tony Abbott
Arthur Merric Bloomfield Boyd AC OBE (24 July 1920 – 24 April 1999) was a leading Australian painter of the late 20th century. Boyd’s work ranges from impressionist renderings of Australian landscape to starkly expressionist figuration, and many canvases feature both. Several famous works set Biblical stories against the Australian landscape, such as “The Expulsion”, now at the Art Gallery of New South Wales.
Having a strong social conscience, Boyd’s work deals with humanitarian issues and universal themes of love, loss and shame. For example his “brides” series of paintings examine the issues of race and race relations, what it means to “Australian” and the prejudices of whites directed against blacks and half-castes. Boyd was a member of the Antipodeans, a group of Melbourne painters that also included Clifton Pugh, David Boyd, John Brack, Robert Dickerson, John Perceval and Charles Blackman.
The Boyd family artistic dynasty includes painters, sculptors, architects and other arts professionals, commencing with Boyd’s grandfather Arthur Merric Boyd, Boyd’s father Merric and mother Doris, uncles Penleigh Boyd and Martin Boyd, and brothers Guy and David. Mary Boyd, his sister and also a painter, married first John Perceval, and then later Sidney Nolan, both artists. Boyd's wife, Yvonne Boyd (née Lennie) is also a painter; as are their children Jamie, Polly, and Lucy.
In 1993, Arthur and Yvonne Boyd gave family properties comprising 1,100 hectares (2,700 acres) at Bundanon on the Shoalhaven River to the people of Australia. Held in trust, Boyd later donated further property, artwork, and the copyright to all of his work. The ‘Shoalhaven’ series of Boyd’s painting are iconic of the spirit of Australian landscape.
Boyd was a master at manipulating elements to express himself. He developed new techniques when he was still a teenager and later changed technique depending on his preferred style, media, location and what he was depicting. He would often use loose strokes of thickly coated brushes. He applied paint with his fingers and palm because it is quicker, while the body contact directly connected him with the painting. He believed this allowed for a greater sense of freedom and pleasure from the act of painting. His canvases often show this dynamism and testify to the involvement of the artist with his work with his body and soul.
The Bride series has rightfully earned a canonical place in Australian art history, due to its powerful pictorialisation of issues of social justice, rendered in a poetic style that blends figuration with an abstracted surrealism. It has been suggested that “The Bride series constitutes, together with Nolan’s two series on Burke and Wills and Ned Kelly, the most powerful visual images to emerge from Australian painting... in this century.” (U Hoff, The Art of Arthur BOYD, London, 1986, p.22.).
The original title of the series was “Love, Marriage and Death of a Half-Caste”, a title that was deliberately ambiguous. Rather than presenting a simplistic symbolism of a longed for union between white and black Australia, Boyd avoided a reductive simplification of the racial issues by making both the bride and bridegroom half-caste. The complexity of the narrative relations was deepened by the doubling of the bride figure in the form of an impossible phantom bride, who is the object of a dream-like desire that is destined to remain forever unfulfilled. Through the cycle of missed gazes that is the emotional core of this painting, Boyd evoked unfulfilled longing and a sense of isolation within the compositional embrace of the figures, in the process transposing contemporary social issues into poetic and painterly allegory.
The central theme of the Bride paintings is the dream of integration through love, an ideal which is stripped of its romanticism by the culture of racism and violence that is the fundamental reason preventing the lovers from union. Boyd first became aware of the plight of the indigenous Australians when he visited the Simpson Desert in Central Australia in 1951.
“I love Russia because Russia gave me you.” ― John M. Simmons
Olga Suvorova is an internationally acclaimed Russian artist. She was born in St. Petersburg, Russia, in 1966. She studied monumental composition at the famous Ilya Repin Academy of Fine Arts in St. Petersburg. Her career has been greatly influenced by her parents, Igor and Natalya, both highly praised artists in St. Petersburg. Other sources of influence include Gustav Klimt, Piero Della Francesca, and traditional Russian icons.
Suvorova’s work was exhibited in the St. Petersburg Art Academy in a solo showing in the spring of 1990 where her paintings were received with great enthusiasm and praise. In 1993 she was awarded first prize for painting by the Academy. She also was honoured with President Yeltsin’s Artist prize from a competition in which more than 3,000 artists took part. Presently, she is an accomplished and successful artist, possessing her own easily recognisable style, and busy with her exhibitions and commissions. She is a member of the Union of Artists of Russia.
The artist’s interesting portraits first gained her reputation in Russia, and then abroad. These tableaux have an eye-catching highly decorative style, which nevertheless does not become trite or facile. Filled with sumptuous detail and rich colour, the paintings possess harmony and a compositional formality that reminds the viewer of Renaissance masters. The effect is brilliant yet not gaudy, classical but not sparse, rich yet not glitzy. Her use of ornament and pattern reminds one of Klimt and Hundertwasser, but her meticulous drawing and modelling of form looks back in time whereas the artists aforementioned gazed into the future.
Suvorova exhibits regularly in Paris and London, and she has also exhibited in Italy, Germany, Sweden, Finland, France, Britain, Ireland, China, and the USA. Her work is highly regarded and eagerly acquired by galleries and serious art collectors around the world.
The painting above is one of her “Annunciation” canvases. It is replete with symbolism and as with many of her paintings, the portraits are flanked by florid decorative elements, which somehow remain non-intrusive, despite their overwhelming baroque omnipresence. Animals and flowers are another element that is an almost constant and universal accompaniment to the human figures, and here, birds complement the angels, whose widespread wings flank the Virgin. Mary’s face is mature and pensive, as though the annunciation has already converted her into an all-knowing and experienced woman and mother, rather than a simple and innocent maiden. The ultramarine blues are complemented by reds and yellows, but the viewer always returns to the expressive, although other-worldly faces.
“After women,
flowers are the most lovely thing God has given the world.” - Christian Dior
Federico Zandomeneghi (June
2, 1841 – December 31, 1917)
was an Italian Impressionist painter. He was born in Venice and his father,
Pietro, and grandfather, Luigi, were neoclassic sculptors. The latter completed
the monument to Titian found in the Frari of Venice.
As a young man, Zandomeneghi
preferred painting to sculpture, enrolling in 1856 first in the Accademia di
Belle Arti in Venice, and then in the Academy of Fine Arts of Milan. In 1860,
he tried to join with the forces of Giuseppe Garibaldi (1807-1882) in his
Expedition of the Thousand. This made it uncomfortable for him to reside in
Venice, and in 1862, he moved to Florence for 5 years where he frequented the
Caffè Michelangiolo. There he met a number of the artists known as the
Macchiaioli, including Telemaco Signorini, Giovanni Fattori and Giuseppe
Abbati, and he joined them in painting landscapes outdoors.
Painting outside
of the studio, ‘en plein air’, was at
that time an innovative approach, allowing for a new vividness and spontaneity
in the rendering of light. In 1871 Pompeo Molmenti wrote glowing assessments of
three young Venetian painters: Guglielmo Ciardi, Alessandro Zezzos, and
Zandomeneghi. In 1874, he went to Paris, where he was to spend the rest of his
life. He quickly made the acquaintance of the Impressionists, who had just had
their first group exhibition. Zandomeneghi, whose style of painting was similar
to theirs, would participate in four of their later exhibitions, in 1879, 1880,
1881, and 1886.
Like his close
friend Edgar Degas, Zandomeneghi was primarily a figure painter, although
Zandomeneghi’s work was more sentimental in character than Degas’. He also
admired the work of Mary Cassatt and Pierre-Auguste Renoir, and his many
paintings of women in their domestic routines follow their example. To
supplement the meager returns from the sale of his paintings, Zandomeneghi
found work drawing illustrations for fashion magazines.
He took up
working in pastels in the early 1890s, and became especially adept in this
medium. At about this same time his reputation and his fortunes were enhanced
when the art dealer Durand-Ruel showed Zandomeneghi’s work in the United
States. From then on he enjoyed continuing modest success until his death in
Paris in 1917.
The pastel
drawing above from 1893 is his “Taking Tea”. The composition is marvelous and
the personalities of the young women who are drinking tea and partaking of a
little “social criticism” at the same time is rendered delicately, although a
little tongue-in-cheek. The texture of the surface and the rough flakes of
pigment in parts recalls a little the pointillists, but the image is definitely
clearly identifiable as belonging to the circle of the French Impressionists.
“The good die
young but not always. The wicked prevail but not consistently. I am confused by
life, and I feel safe within the confines of the theatre.” - Helen Hayes
Aurel Băeșu (1896-1928) was a
Romanian Impressionist landscape
and portrait
painter. Many of his works show the influence of Nicolae Grigorescu; an
influence that was common among painters of his generation.
Băeşu’s father
was a government clerk employed by the prefecture of Suceava. Aurel lost his
mother at an early age and was raised by his grandmother. From 1907 to 1912, he
attended the “Alexandru Donici Gymnasium” in his hometown, where he displayed
an aptitude for drawing. After graduating, he entered the Școala de Belle Arte
in Iași, where he studied with Constantin Artachino and Gheorghe Popovici. In
1915, he received an award from the Academia Română for his portrait of the
French artist Lecomte de Nöuy, who was then living in Romania.
During World War
I, he was mobilised but, at the last moment, was sent to the rear, where he
joined several other artists who were documenting the war. Although he
escaped being wounded, the harsh conditions there led to a case of pneumonia
that left him in poor health. In an effort to improve his artistic
perspectives, and with the support of members of the Academia, he went to Italy
to attend a free painting course being taught at the Institute of Fine Arts in
Rome. He was there from 1920 to 1922.
Four years
later, he travelled throughout Slovenia, Hungary and France. For many years, he
was enamoured of Lia Sadoveanu, the daughter of novelist Mihail Sadoveanu, but
could never propose marriage because of his precarious financial situation. In
1928, he died of tuberculosis, aged only thirty-two. A major retrospective of
his work was held in 2006 at the art museum in Bacău. In 2012, his tomb was
looted and destroyed. Among the items taken was a plaque by Băeşu's friend, the
sculptor Mihai Onofrei.
The painting
above is his “Primavara” (Spring).
“The human soul is hungry for beauty; we seek it everywhere - in landscape, music, art, clothes, furniture, gardening, companionship, love, religion, and in ourselves. No one would desire not to be beautiful. When we experience the beautiful, there is a sense of homecoming.” - John O’Donohue
Bohumír Dvorský (1902–1976) was a Czech painter. Strongly influenced by Julius Mařák and Paul Cézanne, his works generally had social themes. Bohumír Dvorský was supposed to become a bookbinder, however, his talent and interest led him to painting. In 1924 he started to attend the Academy of Fine Arts, the studio of landscape painting led by Otakar Nejedlý. He travelled a lot during his studies; apart from trips to South Bohemia he travelled to paint in Italy, France and Corsica. After completing his studies he lived in the Ostrava Region and before the beginning of World War II he moved to Svatý Kopeček near Olomouc where he lived until his death.
During the period at the Academy he was influenced considerably by the landscape painter Julius Mařák and during his trips to France he was strongly inspired by the selection of colour tones and style of Cézanne. During his stay in the Ostrava Region he paid attention to industrial landscapes and social topics. Consequently, the colour schemes of his paintings also changed. After his move to Hanakia the colour tones grew warmer and the prevailing topics of his paintings were bouquets and the so-called ‘King Rides in Folk Costume’.
Bohumír Dvorský is one of the most important Moravian landscape painters who often presented his work at foreign exhibitions. In 1940 he participated in the Venice Biennale and, again in Rio de Janeiro and Helsinki in 1948 and at Stockholm a year later. In 1971 he was awarded the title of National Artist. The parental home of Bohumír Dvorský is at 238 Kirilova Street in Paskov.
His painting above is “Z Velkých Pavlovic” (From the Great Pavlovic) and shows a broad expanse of trees, fields, rolling hills and a tapestry-like appearance with bold brushstrokes and impasto that reveals a passionate love for the country the artist was depicting.
“Pain and
suffering are always inevitable for a large intelligence and a deep heart. The
really great men must, I think, have great sadness on earth.” ― FyodorDostoyevsky
Alexei Kondratyevich Savrasov (Russian: Алексе́й Кондра́тьевич Савра́сов - May 24, 1830 – October
8, 1897) was a Russian landscape painter and creator of the lyrical landscape
style. Savrasov
was born into the family of a merchant. He began to draw early and in 1838 he
enrolled as a student of professor Karl Rabus (1800-1857) at the Moscow School
of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture (MSPSA). He graduated in 1850 and
immediately began to specialise in landscape painting. In 1852, he travelled to
Ukraine. Then, in 1854 by the invitation of the Grand Duchess Maria
Nikolayevna, President of the Imperial Academy of Arts, he moved to St.
Petersburg.
In 1857,
Savrasov became a teacher at the MSPSA. His best students, Isaac Levitan and
Konstantin Korovin, remembered their teacher with admiration and gratitude. In
1857, he married Sophia Karlovna Hertz, sister of the art historian Karl Hertz
(1820-1883). In their home they entertained artistic people and collectors
including Pavel Tretyakov. Savrasov became especially close with Vasily Perov.
Perov helped him paint the figures of the boat trackers in Savrasov’s “Volga
near Yuryevets”, while Savrasov painted the landscapes for Perov’s “Bird
Catcher” and “Hunters on Bivouac”.
In the 1860s, he
travelled to England to see the International Exhibition, and then onto
Switzerland. In one of his letters he wrote that no academies in the world
could so advance an artist as the present world exhibition. The painters who
influenced him most were British painter John Constable and Swiss painter Alexandre
Calame.
“The Rooks Have Come Back” (1871)
is considered by many critics to be the high point in Savrasov’s artistic
career. Using a common, even trivial, episode of birds returning home, and an extremely
simple landscape, Savrasov showed the transition of nature from winter to
spring in an emotional and involving manner. It was a new type of lyrical
landscape painting, called later by critics the “mood landscape”. The painting
brought him fame.
In 1870, he
became a member of the Peredvizhniki group, breaking with government-sponsored
academic art. In the late 1870s, he gradually became an alcoholic. The process
may have begun with the death of his daughter in 1871, which led to a crisis in
his art and, possibly, dissatisfaction with his artistic career. In 1882, he
was dismissed from his position at the MSPSA. All attempts of his relatives and
friends to help him were in vain. His work suffered dramatically and the last
years of his life were spent in poverty. He was usually drunk and often dressed
in rags. Finally, he found himself wandering from shelter to shelter. Only the
doorkeeper of the MSPSA and Pavel Tretyakov, founder of the Tretyakov Gallery,
were present at his funeral in 1897.
The painting
above is his “Rasputitsa – Sea of Mud”, painted in 1894. The winter landscape
is bleak and despite the thawing of the snow, mud is revealed and no hopeful
sign of green. Painted after Savrasov became an alcoholic and after being dismissed
from his position at the School, the painting encapsulates the desperate
situation the artist found himself in. Three years later he would be dead.
“An awareness of
your mortality can lead you to wake up and live an authentic, meaningful life.”
- Bernie Siegel
Jan Autengruber (25 April
1887, Pacov - 15 July 1920, Prague) was a Czech Post-impressionist painter. After
the early death of his father, his family moved to České Budějovice. After
completing his primary education, he was accepted at the Academy of Arts,
Architecture and Design in Prague. After two years, he transferred to the
Academy of Fine Arts, Munich, where he was a two-time recipient of the annual
award.
He achieved very
little critical attention in his home country, so he exhibited widely throughout
Germany, in Munich, Berlin, Dresden, Mannheim, Hannover, Cologne, Hamburg, and
Frankfurt. In 1913, he was awarded a scholarship to study in Italy. During the
First World War, he attempted to avoid being drafted by studying restorative
art at the Munich Academy, but it was only a short reprieve and he was mustered
into service at Jindřichův Hradec.
He managed to
survive the war and settled in Prague, where he took courses in art history at
the Faculty of Arts, Charles University. In 1919, he married the artist Hana
Jedličková (1888-1970). The following year, he became a victim of the flu
pandemic, dying from a combination of flu and pneumonia.
His wife spent her
life promoting his works. A major retrospective was held in 2002 at the
National Gallery in Prague, followed by another in 2009 at the West Bohemian
Gallery in Plzeň.
“When women pose
thoughtfully and artistically - in nothing but their bare skin - they find
themselves. They discover that they are truly alive. They become a Nude.” -
David Allio
Suzanne Valadon (23
September 1865 – 7 April 1938) was a French painter and artists’ model who was
born Marie-Clémentine Valadon at Bessines-sur-Gartempe, Haute-Vienne, France.
In 1894, Valadon became the first woman painter admitted to the Société
Nationale des Beaux-Arts. She was also the mother of painter Maurice Utrillo.
The subjects of her drawings and paintings included mostly female nudes, female
portraits, still lifes, and landscapes. She never attended the academy and was
never confined within a tradition. Valadon spent nearly 40 years of her life as
an artist.
Valadon grew up
in poverty with her mother, an unmarried laundress; she did not know her
father. Known to be quite independent and rebellious, she attended primary
school until age 11. In 1883, aged 18, Valadon gave birth to her illegitimate
son, Maurice Utrillo. Valadon’s mother cared for Maurice while she returned to
modelling. Valadon’s friend Miguel Utrillo would later sign papers recognising
Maurice as his son, although his true paternity is uncertain.
Valadon helped
to educate herself in art by reading Toulouse-Lautrec’s books and observing the
artists at work for whom she posed. In 1893, Valadon began a short-lived affair
with composer Erik Satie, moving to a room next to his on the Rue Cortot. Satie
became obsessed with her, calling her his Biqui, writing impassioned notes
about “her whole being, lovely eyes, gentle hands, and tiny feet”, but after
six months she left, leaving him devastated.
Valadon married
stockbroker Paul Moussis in 1895, leading a bourgeois life for 13 years at an
apartment in Paris and a house in the suburbs. In 1909, Valadon began an affair
with the painter André Utter, age 23 and a friend of her son, divorcing Moussis
in 1913. Valadon married Utter in 1914, and he managed her career as well as
her son’s. Valadon and Utter regularly exhibited work together until the couple
divorced in 1934. Valadon was well known during her lifetime but within the art
historical narrative her work has long been overshadowed by a Bohemian and
lower class lifestyle.
Valadon debuted
as a model in 1880 in Montmartre at age 15. She modelled for over 10 years for
many different artists including the following: Pierre-Cécile Puvis de
Chavannes, Théophile Steinlen, Pierre-Auguste Renoir, and Henri de
Toulouse-Lautrec. She modelled under the name “Maria” eventually being nicknamed
“Suzanne” after the biblical story of Susanna and the Elders. She was
considered a very focused, ambitious, rebellious, determined, self-confident,
and passionate woman. In the early 1890s she befriended Edgar Degas who,
impressed with her bold line drawings and fine paintings, purchased her work
and encouraged her; she remained one of his closest friends until his death.
It’s probable
that Valadon’s experience as a model added depth to her own images of nude women,
which tended to be less idealised than that of the male post impressionists
representations. The most recognisable image of Valadon would be in Renoir’s “Danceat Bougival” from 1883,
the same year that she posed for “Dance in the City”. In 1885, Renoir painted
her portrait again as “Girl Braiding Her Hair”. Another of
his portraits of her in 1885, Suzanne Valadon, is of her head and shoulders in
profile. Valadon frequented the bars and taverns of Paris with her fellow
painters, and she was Toulouse-Lautrec’s subject in his oil painting “The Hangover”.
Valadon taught
herself how to draw at the age of nine. She painted still lifes, portraits,
flowers, and landscapes that are noted for their strong composition and vibrant
colours. She was, however, best known for her candid female nudes that depict
women’s bodies from a woman’s perspective. This is particularly important
because it was unusual in the nineteenth century for a woman artist to make
female nudes her primary subject matter. Valadon was not confined to a specific
style, yet both Symbolist and Post-Impressionist aesthetics are clearly seen
within her work.
Valadon primarily worked with oil paint, oil pencils, pastels,
and red chalk; she did not use ink or watercolour because these media were too
fluid for her preference. Valadon’s paintings feature rich colours and bold,
open brushwork often featuring firm black lines to define and outline her
figures. She used hard black lines to emphasise the structure of the body. She
also used firm lines in her nudes to highlight the play of light on curves
Valadon’s
self-portraits, portraits, nudes, landscapes, and still lifes remain detached
from trends and aspects of academic art. The subjects of Valadon’s paintings
often reinvented the old master’s themes: Women bathing, reclining nudes, and
interior scenes. However the nudes Valadon paints veer far from the norms of
this male dominated genre, the paintings are interpreted in a much different
way which could contradict of question the nature of the genre. Many have
suggested a vibrant, emotional sense that emanates from her drawings and
paintings as a result from an intimate, familiar observation of these women’s
bodies. Similarly to Valadon, Berthe Morisot and Mary Cassatt painted mostly
women, yet because of their middle class status in French society at the time
they were unable to paint the nude body, regardless of gender.
The painting
above is “The Joy of Life” from 1911 and is owned by the Metropolitan Museum of
Art in new York City. Unfortunately, it is not on public view.
“Painting is easy when you don't know how, but very difficult when you do.” - Edgar Degas
Albert Baertsoen (9 January 1866 – 9 June 1922) was a Belgian painter, pastellist and graphic artist. He was born in Ghent. His father was an industrialist and textile manufacturer.
In 1882, Baertsoen began attending the Royal Academy of Fine Arts, where he studied under Gustave Den Duyts and Jean Delvin. His debut as a painter came in 1887, when he participated in an exhibition in Brussels held by the secessionist group L’Essor He continued his studies in Paris, at the art school of Alfred Philippe Roll, and exhibited at the Salon in 1889. The following year, he accompanied James Ensor, Frantz Charlet and other Belgian painters on a study trip to London.
In 1894, he helped found the “Cercle des Beaux-Arts d’Ostende”. The years 1894/95 saw another stay in Paris, where his painting “Oude Vlaamse Vaart” (Old Flemish Sails) was acquired by the Musée du Luxembourg and he participated in an exhibition held by La Libre Esthétique. From 1896 to 1901, he continued to exhibit throughout Europe, winning several Gold Medals.
In 1913, he served as a member of the art jury for the Ghent World’s Fair. During World War I, he lived in London, returning to Ghent in 1919. That same year, he was appointed a member of the Royal Academy of Belgium. Two years later, a retrospective of his work was held at the Galerie Georges Giroux in Brussels. He died in Ghent in 1922.
His work is impressionistic in nature, although much of his work can seem a little lugubrious to one used to the French impressionist works. However, he could also be a brilliant colourist, especially when travelling to sunnier climates. As well as a painter, Baertsoen was a fine draughtsman and his composition is always interesting and often surprising. The painting above is the “Rope Makers”.
“If you want to make the most of travel to Russia, it is better to leave tight plans and preconceptions behind and just enjoy the journey.” - Tim Cope
Konstantin Alekseyevich Korovin (Russian: Константи́н Алексе́евич Коро́вин, first name often spelled Constantin; 5 December [O.S. 23 November] 1861 – 11 September 1939) was a leading Russian Impressionist painter. Konstantin was born in Moscow to a merchant family officially registered as “peasants of Vladimir Gubernia”. His father, Aleksey Mikhailovich Korovin, earned a university degree and was more interested in arts and music than in the family business established by Konstantin’s grandfather. Konstantin’s older brother Sergei Korovin was a notable realist painter. Konstantin’s relative Illarion Pryanishnikov was also a prominent painter of the time and a teacher at the Moscow School of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture.
In 1875 Korovin entered the Moscow School of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture, where he studied with Vasily Perov and Alexei Savrasov. His brother Sergei was already a student at the school. During their student years, the Korovins became friends with fellow students Valentin Serov and Isaac Levitan; Konstantin maintained these friendships throughout his life. In 1881–1882, Korovin spent a year at the Imperial Academy of Arts in St. Petersburg, but returned disappointed to the Moscow School of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture. He studied at the school under his new teacher Vasily Polenov until 1886. In 1885 Korovin travelled to Paris and Spain. He later wrote: “Paris was a shock for me … Impressionists… in them I found everything I was scolded for back home in Moscow”.
Polenov introduced Korovin to Savva Mamontov’s Abramtsevo Circle: Viktor Vasnetsov, Apollinary Vasnetsov, Ilya Repin, Mark Antokolsky and others. The group's love for stylised Russian themes is reflected in Korovin’s picture “A Northern Idyll”. In 1885 Korovin worked for Mamontov’s opera house, designing the stage decor for Giuseppe Verdi’s “Aida”, Léo Delibes’ “Lakmé” and Georges Bizet’s “Carmen”.
In 1888 Korovin travelled with Mamontov to Italy and Spain, where he produced the painting “On the Balcony, Spanish Women Leonora and Ampara”. Konstantin travelled within Russia, the Caucasus and Central Asia and exhibited with the Peredvizhniki. He painted in the Impressionist, and later in the Art Nouveau, styles. In the 1890s Korovin became a member of the Mir Iskusstva art group. Korovin’s subsequent works were strongly influenced by his travels to the north.
In 1888 he was captivated by the stern northern landscapes seen in The Coast of Norway and the Northern Sea. His second trip to the north, with Valentin Serov in 1894, coincided with the construction of the Northern Railway. Korovin painted a large number of landscapes: “Norwegian Port”, “St. Triphon’s Brook in Pechenga”, “Hammerfest: Aurora Borealis”, and others. The paintings are built on a delicate web of shades of grey. The etude style of these works was typical for Korovin’s art of the 1890s. Using material from his trip, Korovin designed the Far North pavilion at the 1896 All Russia Exhibition in Nizhny Novgorod. He painted ten big canvasses for the pavilion as well, depicting various aspects of life in the northern and Arctic regions. After the closure of the Exhibition, the canvasses were eventually placed in the Yaroslavsky Rail Terminal in Moscow. In the 1960s, they were restored and transferred to the Tretyakov Gallery.
In 1900 Korovin designed the Central Asia section of the Russian Empire pavilion at the Paris World Fair and was awarded the Legion of Honour by the French government. In the beginning of the 20th century, Korovin focussed his attention on the theatre. He moved from Mamontov’s opera to the Mariinsky Theatre in St. Petersburg. Departing from traditional stage decor, which only indicated the place of action, Korovin produced a mood decor conveying the general emotions of the performance. Korovin designed sets for Konstantin Stanislavsky’s dramatic productions, as well as Mariinsky’s operas and ballets, sets that became famous for their expressiveness.
In 1905 Korovin became an Academician of Painting and in 1909–1913 a professor at the Moscow School of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture. One of the artist’s favourite themes was Paris. He painted “A Paris Café” (1890s), “Café de la Paix” (1905), “La Place de la Bastille” (1906), “Paris at Night”, “Le Boulevard Italien” (1908), “Night Carnival” (1901), “Paris in the Evening” (1907), and others.
During World War I Korovin worked as a camouflage consultant at the headquarters of one of the Russian armies and was often seen on the front lines. After the October Revolution Korovin continued to work in the theatre, designing stages for Richard Wagner’s “Die Walküre” and “Siegfried”, as well as Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky’s “The Nutcracker” (1918–1920). In 1923 Korovin moved to Paris on the advice of Commissar of Education Anatoly Lunacharsky to cure his heart condition and help his handicapped son. There was supposed to be a large exhibition of Korovin’s works, but the works were stolen and Korovin was left penniless.
For years, he produced the numerous genre paintings of Russian Winters and Paris Boulevards just to make ends meet. In the last years of his life he produced stage designs for many of the major theatres of Europe, America, Asia and Australia, the most famous of which is his scenery for the Turin Opera House’s production of Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov’s “The Golden Cockerel”. Korovin died in Paris on 11 September 1939. Konstantin’s son Alexey Korovin (1897–1950) was a notable Russian-French painter. Because of an accident during his childhood he had both feet amputated. Alexey committed suicide in 1950.
The painting above is “Venice”, painted in 1894.
"The butterfly counts not months but moments, and has time enough." - Rabindranath Tagore
Peter Gerasimon was born in 1951 in Buenos Aires, Argentina, one of eight children of Russian/German immigrants. Very early in his life he developed an interest in fine arts and attended art classes, despite advice from relatives and friends that this was not a secure career choice. Although he preferred to learn the hard way, by trial and error, he did develop his skills formally through art studies at the Escuela de Artes Quilmes, Argentina 1966-1967 and a course at the Famous Artists' School for Talented Young People 1969-1971.
Not convinced that the arts could support him in the future, Peter pursued a career in economics and business management, but painting remained his passion. Even on his business travels he always found some time to draw sketches and produce an occasional painting. In early 1996 he gave up his busy management career to go after his passion and become a full time artist. He set up his home studio and gallery, “Glenrowan Studios” in Gisborne, Victoria, near the Macedon Ranges and met with instant success.
Gerasimon has participated in some Art Shows in Australia and has obtained several Awards at the Berwick, Ivanhoe and Woodend Art Shows.
The art of Gerasimon is a mix of the realistic with the naïve, his canvases often depicting everyday scenes, streetscapes and landscapes in a rather dispassionate and detached manner, which nevertheless manages to evince emotion in the viewer. His paintings also include depictions of Australian flora and fauna, which border on the genre of scientific illustration, while his still life painting often evokes a deeper symbolic meaning. Still other types of paintings include commissioned work and illustrative material. More of the artist’s oeuvre can be found on his website (http://www.gerasimon.com.au/).
The Painting above is his “As Time Goes By” a view in St Kilda, Melbourne.
“The city is not a concrete jungle, it is a human zoo.” - Desmond Morris
Charles Constantin Joseph Hoffbauer (June 28, 1875 - July 26, 1957) was a French-born artist who became a United States citizen. He painted a wide variety of subjects, including many that depicted scenes of historical interest.
Charles Hoffbauer was born in Paris. His parents, Féodor Hubert Hoffbauer and Marie Clemence Belloc Hoffbauer, were of Alsatian origin. Féodor Hoffbauer was a well-known archeologist, architect, and artist, and likely influenced his son's interest in history. As a child, Charles sometimes assisted his father in conducting research. The elder Hoffbauer’s 1882 book on Paris architecture, Paris à Travers les Ages, has been updated over the years and remains in print with the latest edition published in 2007.
After receiving a traditional elementary and secondary education in French schools, Hoffbauer attended the École des Beaux-Arts for three years. He studied under Fernand Cormon, François Flemeng, and symbolist painter Gustave Moreau. Classmates of Hoffbauer included Paul Baignères, Charles Camoin, Henri Evenepoel, Raoul du Gardier, Henri Manguin, Albert Marquet, Henri Matisse and Georges Rouault. Shortly before his 21st birthday, Hoffbauer reported for his mandatory French military service. He trained at Falaise, Normandy for 18 months. Completing his military service in September 1897, he returned to Paris and began his career as an artist.
In 1898, Hoffbauer’s first submission to the Paris Salon was awarded Honorable Mention, and the following year he became the youngest artist to earn a Gold Medal and be deemed Hors Concours—a status he held for seven years. Hoffbauer’s artistic skill was rewarded again in 1902 when Revolt de Flamands won the Bourse de Voyage award, and the artist used the five thousand-franc prize to fund a summer sketching trip to Italy in 1903. The drawings Hoffbauer produced during this visit inspired Triomphe d’un Condottiere¸ a work that was awarded the highest honour (the Prix du Salon) by the Paris Salon in 1906. The artist continued to travel over the next several years, producing work while visiting Milan, Rome, Cairo, Aswan, Athens, and Venice.
However, the place that truly captured Hoffbauer’s attention he had only seen in photographs: New York City. Images of Manhattan’s skyline captivated Hoffbauer and served as artistic inspiration throughout 1904; he produced a significant amount of studies and paintings featuring New York’s skyscrapers and metropolitan life, all without ever stepping foot on American soil. American and European audiences alike were impressed with Hoffbauer’s vibrant cityscapes that successfully reproduced the iconic scenery of the great city. Hoffbauer made his first trans-Atlantic journey to the United States in 1909, arriving in New York on December 21. One year after his arrival Hoffbauer met and befriended Roland Knoedler of Knoedler Galleries, who became the artist’s primary dealer in the United States.
Two one-man exhibitions held at Knoedler Galleries in 1911 and 1912 garnered Hoffbauer significant acclaim with American audiences. In an excerpt from Knoedler’s 1912 exhibition catalogue, fellow artist Arthur Hoeber describes his admiration for Hoffbauer: “One feels he has caught the spirit of American progress; caught much of its practicalness[sic], with not a little of its vitality, for these pictures of our city are sui generis and they fairly exude American bigness and bustle, the sense of accomplishment despite great obstacles.”
Hoffbauer’s artistic career had several significant highlights in 1912: In addition to the success of his solo show at Knoedler Galleries, the artist chose to repaint Triomphe d’un Condottiere, a work that had earned him Prix du Salon six years earlier. The repainted piece was met with great success when it was exhibited that year at the Architectural League, and Hoffbauer’s audacious decision was rewarded with a commission for the Battle Abbey murals at the Confederate Memorial Institute at Richmond, Virginia.
In 1914, Hoffbauer’s progress on the Battle Abbey murals was halted by World War I; the artist volunteered as a private and spent the next four years serving on the front and working as an official war artist. He returned to the United States in 1919 and was able to complete the Battle Abbey murals one year later; the success of Hoffbauer’s depictions of Confederate leadership was so great that he was awarded the Distinguished Service Medal for the City of Richmond in 1925.
Hoffbauer continued to produce work and exhibit throughout the 1920s: He accepted a mural commission for the State Capitol at Jefferson City in 1921 and also showed pieces at the Paris Salon and the Art Institute of Chicago. Hoffbauer’s career took an interesting turn in 1935 after he watched Walt Disney’s Three Little Pigs, which inspired him to pursue film animation. He considered the United States to offer the greatest potential for success in this field and in 1936, Hoffbauer made the decision to move to New York. The artist believed that there was an existing void in the realm of film animation that he could fill by dramatising historical events. While this idea was turned down during a 1938 meeting with Walt Disney, the legendary film animator encouraged Hoffbauer to move to California and work for him.
Hoffbauer accepted Disney’s offer and relocated to Hollywood in 1939, and two years later, on December 26, the artist became a naturalised American citizen. The success Hoffbauer achieved as a muralist and painter during the 1940s and early 1950s was monumental: He was offered mural commissions from McCornack Hospital in Pasadena, the Citizen’s Committee for the Army and Navy, and the N.E. Mutual Life Insurance Company, and also participated in exhibitions at the Los Angeles Museum, California Palace of the Legion of Honor, and Stanford University. Hoffbauer left California in 1953 and settled in Rockport, Massachusetts, where he resided until his death in 1957.
“There is pleasure in the pathless woods, there is rapture in the lonely shore, there is society where none intrudes, by the deep sea, and music in its roar; I love not Man the less, but Nature more.” - Lord Byron
Mark Hearld was born in York in 1974. He studied Illustration at Glasgow School of Art from 1994-97 and went on to the Royal College of Art to study for an MA in Natural History Illustration. A fascination with animals and plants lies at the heart of Mark’s work. Hen runs, pigeon lofts and foxes appear often. Mark’s main inspiration is Picasso but he also greatly admires the work of Bawden, Ravilious and Piper from the 1930s - and the Neo-Romantic artist/illustrators of the 40s and 50s, Keith Vaughn and Craxton - something to do with their English particularity of vision, perhaps...
Hearld’s love of the British countryside, curiosity for objects and a magpie approach to collecting inspires his art. He is well known for his brightly coloured collages and lithographic prints; hand-painted wooden animals; three-dimensional, hand-decorated ceramics; collages in hand-painted frames, lino-cuts, and litho prints. His work is now exhibited all over the UK and commissions include set design for 2005 film Nanny McPhee and a range of ceramics for Tate. Hearld works closely with skilled craftsmen to realise his ideas, using Curwen Studio in Cambridge to make litho prints and Daniel Bugg at Penfold Press, Selby to produce linocuts.
Hearld has worked as a book illustrator, including Nicola Davies’ “Outside Your Window: A First Book of Nature” (February 14, 2012); and has also written/illustrated his own “Mark Hearld’s Workbook” (January 15, 2013). Various other projects include his work with the Tate Gallery to produce a range of homewares, textiles and ceramics, as well as designs for a range of fabrics and wallpapers for the St. Jude’s Company.
The image above is his “Marine Life” from 2009, created for the exhibition “A Magpie Eye” at the Scarborough Art Gallery. Hearld is inspired by the joys of fishmongery, but also the precision of the scientific illustrator, inspired party from his real life observations, but also from antique natural history prints of 19th century zoologist Phillip Gosse (1854).
“I love a
sunburnt country, A land of sweeping plains, Of ragged mountain ranges, Of
droughts and flooding rains. I love her far horizons, I love her jewel-sea, Her
beauty and her terror – The wide brown land for me!” ― Dorothea Mackellar
Bruce Swann was born in
1925 in Brighton, a seaside suburb of Adelaide, and enjoyed sailing at Brighton
and Seacliff Yacht Club. After his schooling at Pulteney Grammar School, Bruce
began work in 1941 for pastoral house and woolbroker, Goldsbrough Mort & Co. On his 17th birthday, Swann joined the Royal Australian Navy and spent four
years at sea. His first ship was attached to the American Navy and his second,
the Corvette HMAS Bendigo, sailed with the British Pacific Fleet. Even then he
was sketching – the sea and boats.
Following World
War II, Bruce Swann resumed work as a stock agent, and remained with
Goldsbroughs and then Elder Smith, for 33 years. He dealt daily with
woolgrowers and cattlemen on properties and in stockyards, in South Australia
and the Northern Territory. He travelled continuously, forming long-lasting
business and personal friendships and developed a keen insight into the culture
of rural Australia, its natural beauty and its unique landscapes and architecture.
Bruce Swann
married Clem in 1948, and they had two sons, Steve and Phil. Aged 39, Swann
suffered his first of three heart attacks. Two years later, in 1967, he had a
second attack and, while recovering at home for four months, he started to
sketch, from memory, many of the places he knew and loved from his country
travels. Bruce Swann’s first exhibition of drawings was held at Rachel Biven’s
“Off The Beaten Track” Gallery in Sydenham Road, Norwood. The exhibition was
highly successful and Bruce then went on to exhibit pen and wash drawings,
followed by watercolours and then oil paintings. After his first two
exhibitions at ‘Off The Beaten Track’, exhibitions were held regularly at
various galleries.
In 1974, Bruce
Swann left his job as a stock agent to concentrate full-time on his art. He was
commissioned to produce a book of architectural drawings for the University of
Adelaide for its Centenary Year. These works are held in the University’s
collection. His work from across his career can further be appreciated through
the nine books that were published, including “Swann’s South Australia”, “Swann
at Home and Abroad”, as well as “The University of Adelaide”. In 1976, Bruce
underwent open heart surgery from which he recovered well.
From 1977
onwards, Swann had become a well-known artist and his works were purchased for many
important private and public collections not only in Australia but abroad. Important
commissions also followed, including The S.A. Syndicate’s commission to produce
a book of drawings and paintings of the America’s Cup challenge races in
Fremantle in 1987. A large exhibition at the Waterfront Restaurant featured the
paintings of the 12 metre yachts in action and the harbour views and the life
of Fremantle and was a tremendous success in raising funds for the S.A.
Syndicate.
The last one-man
exhibition by Bruce Swann was in November 1986 at the Barry Newton Gallery,
where the public and corporate support at the opening was so great that there
was hardly standing room in the Gallery – and it was a complete sellout. The
list of corporate collections with art by Swann within Australia and overseas
is extensive, and was growing fast at that time. Sadly, Bruce Swann died in
November 1987, aged 62. Bruce Swann’s heritage is a portfolio of art works in a
wide range of media – pencil, ink, watercolour, gouache, pastel, acrylic and
oil.
The painting
above is a favourite of mine, “Dutton Township, South Australia”. It seems to
encapsulate the vastness and arid beauty of Australia’s outback settlements.
Implicit in this of course, also is the resilience, strength and ruggedness of
the Australian people. Being able to not only survive in adversity, but make a
success of one’s life is something that one encounters again and again in Australia
– especially so in the Outback…
More information from the artist's site here.
