There are no rules. That is how art is born, how breakthroughs happen. Go against the rules or ignore the rules. That is what invention is about. —Helen Frankenthaler In Week Six of A is for Artist, we feature Helen Frankenthaler (1928 – 2011). Though influenced by Abstract Expressionists Hans Hofmann and Jackson Pollock, she…
Week Five: E is for Eliasson!
In a departure from the first month of the A is for Artist series, which featured artists who have been dead for anything from 30 – 500 years, Week Five features an artist who is very much alive. Olafur Eliasson, born in 1967 in Denmark of Icelandic parents, is best known for his large scale…
Happy Birthday(s)!
Two incredible artists—Alexander Calder and Edward Hopper—share a birthday today (albeit in different years; Calder was born in 1898 and Hopper in 1882). Enjoy some works from these two very talented—and very different—artists. “My fan mail is enormous. Everyone is under six.” – Alexander Calder Though Calder most definitely has fans of all ages (imagine…
Week Four: D is for Duchamp
For Week Four of A is for Artist, we feature Marcel Duchamp, well-known as an icon of Dadaism, the art movement (some would call it an anti-movement) launched in 1916 in Zurich by a group of artists in reaction to the atrocities and inanity of World War I. The word “Dada,” as one might guess, is borrowed from baby-talk, and…
A is for Artist, and C is for Chagall!
Anyone who knows me well will not at all be surprised that I chose Marc Chagall (the 126th anniversary of whose birth was this past Sunday) as my “C artist” in the A is for Artist series. I have been exposed to and admired Chagall’s work for as long as I can remember. I think…
Happy 4th… Renaissance Italian Style!
So, given that I am in my second week of the A is for Artist Series, that I chose Sandro Botticelli as my “B artist,” and that today happens to be the 4th of July, I had to ask myself the question: What is the connection between Independence Day and Botticelli? On the surface, the…
Sweet Serendipity, or The Painting that Launched a Career
Botticelli completed the painting Fortitude, also referred to as the Allegory of Fortitude, in 1470, when he was just 25 years old. It is the Renaissance master’s first recorded work, commissioned by the Tribunale della Mercatanzia (a court where crimes of an economic nature were judged), as part of a series called The Seven Virtues. The judges…
Week Two of “A is for Artist”: B is for Botticelli
There are so many amazing “B” artists that it was really difficult for me to choose one for the second week of the A is for Artist Series. So I decided to go back to one of the first artists to pique my interest in art history — Sandro Botticelli. I distinctly remember the moment…
Day 5 of Albers… Font design in the pre-computer age
As I’m sure you’ve already gathered from the past week of posts, Albers was a multi-talented artist and designer. So it probably doesn’t come as a surprise that he was a typographer as well! The Design for a Universal Typeface (1926) shown below, was composed only of parts of three geometric forms–“the square, the triangle…
A is for Artist, Day 4: Albers in Mexico
The Alberses traveled to Mexico 14 times during their lives together, one of which included a year-long sabbatical in 1947. It is in Mexico that Albers created his first abstract oil paintings, as well as his Variant (or Adobe) series of paintings that evoked the domestic adobe architecture found there. One of my favorite works…
Together… by Joseph Albers
In recognition of today’s historic Supreme Court rulings, I thought it would be appropriate to post the Albers piece entitled Together. Though I’m almost certain that he was not thinking about the right to marry when he created this linocut in 1933, I have a good feeling he would have supported it. Enjoy!
A is for Artist…and Josef Albers… Day 2
Another homage from Josef Albers. This piece, with its calming blues and greens, is appropriately entitled Homage to the Square: Soft Spoken. Want to learn more about Albers? Check out my post from yesterday!
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