The Secret Behind Italian Renaissance Painters' Brilliant Colors

Monday, 30 January 2006 10:50

Reprinted From Science News..." Venetian Grinds "... by Alexandra Goho While sifting through 15th- and 16th-century documents at the state archives in Venice, Louisa Matthew came across an ancient inventory from a Venetian seller of artist's pigments. The dusty sheet of paper, dated 1534, was buried in a volume of inventories of deceased persons' estates. As Matthew, an art historian at Union College in Schenectady, N.Y., scanned the more-than-100 items on the list, she realized that it was exactly what she had dreamed of finding. "I remember thinking, 'Did someone plant this here?'" she says. "And why hadn't anyone noticed this before?" This inventory of artists' materials could hold the answer to a question that had long vexed conservation scientists: How did Venetian Renaissance painters create the strong, clear, and bright colors that make objects and figures in their paintings appear to glow? The diversity of items on the list amazed Matthew. It included not only painters' pigments such as azurite, vermilion, and orpiment, but also raw materials used in a variety of crafts. "So, it wasn't just the painters who were buying from the color seller," she says. Glassmakers and dye-makers were also frequenting the shop. If the color shop was a nexus for all these different craftspersons, she reasoned, "maybe they were sharing ideas"—and materials too.

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Marble Sculptures that Memoralize The Holocaust

Written by Marvin Myers Friday, 01 April 2011 01:23

Laguna Woods, CA - Hal Goldberg, the sculptor says, " The major goal of my work has been to memorialize the Holocaust and to make people think long and hard about the Holocaust. I carve sculptures in marble that commemorate the heroism of that time and place. Here you will not find any ambiguous abstract artwork or any sense of defeatism. These sculptures are dedicated to one of the most important lessons of the Holocaust - Am Yisroel Chai - the Jewish people will always survive. "

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Carol Hepper at Elizabeth Leach Gallery

Monday, 30 January 2006 11:15

Portland, OR- New York based and nationally recognized artist Carol Hepper is widely know for her use of non-traditional materials to produce sinuous sculpture and drawings. The exhibition at Elizabeth Leach Gallery will include a selection of works in a variety of media from the past decade of Hepper’s production. The artist’s earliest works were sculptures made from branches and stretched hide. Inspiration and materials for these early works reflect the artist’s background growing up on a ranch located on a Sioux reservation in South Dakota.

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Albrecht Durer Exhibition at Dublin Castle

Monday, 30 January 2006 11:21

Dublin, Ireland- The Chester Beatty Library, at Dublin Castle, is extending the current run of its popular exhibition Albrecht Dürer. .... Since opening , the exhibition has received over 26,000 visitors and has attracted much media attention from overseas. The amazing collection of over 120 prints held by the Library will remain on show until 16 April,2006 . The Dürer holdings of the Library include works from almost every year of the artist’s career with just one or two notable exceptions. The exhibition, divided into sections, concentrates on different themes within each area. The first section introduces the visitor to Dürer’s work through the illustrated books that he worked on while he was still an apprentice or journeyman. These are shown beside Dürer’s earliest prints which follow the dominant Gothic themes of the period. The incredible skill of Dürer as a draughtsman, illustrator and book designer are brought together in his woodcut Apocalypse, displayed in all its 16 sheet glory. Intended as an illustrated book but now mostly seen as single sheets in galleries and auction rooms, this set is truly a magnificent work of art, which had to be assembled by Beatty from different sources. The power of these images must have left people awe-struck when they were first published in 1498.

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Ulrich Museum Presents Clare E. Rojas

Tuesday, 31 January 2006 09:59

Wichita, KS- Recalling iconic folklore images and the dark underbelly of too-sweet fairytales, San Francisco painter, filmmaker, and musician Clare E. Rojas develops her own personal, esoteric myths with repeating characters that interact and travel through lyrical landscapes and environments. Rojas's dreamlike installations, panel paintings, drawings, and gouaches create an environment where unexpected meetings between little girls and androgynous characters, monsters, and personified animals occur in surreal lands dotted with misplaced trees and flowers.Exhibition ends 12 March, 2006.Visit : http://ulrich.wichita.edu

The Picture Man : Paul Buchanan

Tuesday, 31 January 2006 10:09

Asheville, NC- The Asheville Art Musem presents the photographs of Paul Buchanan (1910-1987). Buchanan was born and lived in the Mitchell County mountain town of Hawk, North Carolina. He learned photography from his father, “Fate” Buchanan, who worked as a part-time professional photographer. “My daddy, he imparted it,” Paul said in a 1985 interview with photographer Ann Hawthorne. “He’s the onlyest man around this county anywhere that done that kind of work. Fate Buchanan - everybody always called him ‘Picture-Taking Fate’. And that’s what they called me: ‘Picture-Taking Paul’.” In the 1920s, ‘Picture-Taking Paul’ started working professionally as a photographer and traveled in the mountain counties of Mitchell, Yancey, Avery and McDowell. He wasn’t trying to be an artist, just trying to make money. But the pictures that he took have an intense honesty that blurs the line between livelihood and art. Buchanan started photographing people in 1926 and continued for 30 years until 1951. He never told his subjects what to wear, how to pose or what to hold. The images show often unidentified men, women and children in the high country where Buchanan worked, and they are seen as they want to be seen. These photographs give the viewer a sense of history, the reality of the place and time when ‘Picture-Taking Paul’ worked. The exhibition is Guest Curated by Ann Hawthorne and organized by the Asheville Art Museum. Visit : www.ashevilleart.org

Contemporary Chinese Art at Davis Museum

Tuesday, 31 January 2006 11:07

Wellesley, MA- The Davis Museum and Cultural Center at Wellesley College explores recent Chinese art from a perspective rarely presented in the West. Featuring experimental work from the 1980’s through 2004 by 12 of China’s leading avant-garde artists, On the Edge: Contemporary Chinese Artists Encounter the West explores the Chinese artists’ position in a West-centric global art world, and China’s political situation in regard to the West. The exhibition aims to replace old assumptions concerning China’s contemporary art with a fresh appreciation of its form and substance and of its interconnectedness with the international art world. In conjunction with the exhibition, the Davis Museum has commissioned Chinese artist Xu Bing to realize a site-specific lobby installation titled “Any Opinions?”. A key figure in the Chinese New Wave movement, Xu Bing gained international recognition for his iconic and monumental installation A Book from the Sky (1988). His playful, probing and often politically controversial work earned him the MacArthur Award in 1999. “Any Opinions?” addresses his fascination with words, calligraphy, the evolution of language and the juxtaposition of eastern and western culture, and will be on view from February 15 through June 3, 2006. "China’s avant-garde artists are doubly marginal. They are marginalized in their own country, and China’s art is considered marginal by the international art community," explains Britta Erickson, independent scholar, guest curator of On the Edge, and one of the leading Western authorities on Chinese contemporary art. "This has given many Chinese artists — whether living in China or the West — a heightened appreciation of their tenuous situation. " Art and politics are inseparable. Chinese artists now in their forties learned this during their adolescence when Mao’s theories on art shaped the visual landscape.

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James McNeill Whistler at Boca Raton Museum

Wednesday, 01 February 2006 10:32

Boca Raton, FL- James McNeill Whistler: Selected Works from the Hunterian Art Gallery presents an intimate introduction to the art and times of this important expatriate American artist who was one of the key artistic figures of his period, 1834 - 1903. The exhibition provides a first-time opportunity to view 93 works and personal memorabilia from the pre-eminent collection of Whistler's estate. As the repository of the items left in Whistler's estate, the Hunterian Art Gallery in Glasgow, Scotland, owns the most extensive collection of Whistler's art, ranging from paintings to prints to sketch designs for costumes, interiors and graphic images. This exhibition presents 12 paintings (including Self-Portrait, c. 1896, Red and Black: The Fan, c. 1891 - 94, and Nocturne, 1875-77), 57 prints, and a selection of Whistler's personal belongings such as silverware, porcelain, letters, manuscripts, and books that enhance our understanding of this complex and innovative artist. The works span 40 years of Whistler's career depicting personal clients, acquaintances and models. Paintings and graphics from his travels to France, the Netherlands, Venice and resorts in England, and renditions of his beloved river, the Thames, trace the various episodes in his turbulent life. Whistler's innovative, almost-abstract etchings, drypoints, and lithographs were shocking in their delicacy of shad and nuance. Those prints which are shown in this exhibition were retained by Whistler, and are recognized as the best impressions of any given image. Exhibition ends 2 April, 2006. Visit : www.bocamuseum.org

Pam King Exhibit at Nickle Arts Museum

Wednesday, 01 February 2006 11:17

Calgary, Canada - Pam King: Crafted Memories will be the tenth exhibition curated by Christine Sowiak for The Nickle Arts Museum . This long term commitment to the arts community of Calgary was initiated in response to the dynamic and accomplished artists working in the area and the dearth of exhibition opportunities for those artists who are working between the status of "emerging" and "established". Nine years ago, Pam King took a hammer to her grandmother’s porcelain tea set. The broken pieces filled a giant pickle jar. Old family photographs, precious ornaments, mementos, personal effects, and souvenirs all fell victim to the destructive nature of that art project. Over one hundred and twenty jars filled with remnants from the past lined a very long, narrow shelf in the gallery. Later, the trend continued when King began to shred old letters, documents, favourite books, prints, postcards, greeting cards and other personal paperwork. Birth certificates, funeral directors statements, divorce papers all contributed to the pile – shredding her deceased brother’s big thick bible was a particularly haunting experience. The remains of all these shreddings, organized and catalogued rituals all, have been stored in over 1000 clear plastic containers to form a grid on the far wall of the gallery, quietly holding and hiding the minutiae of lives.

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Painting Summer in New England

Wednesday, 01 February 2006 11:44

SALEM, Mass.— The Peabody Essex Museum is pleased to present Painting Summer in New England, which opens April 22 and runs through Sept. 4, 2006. The exhibition, curated by Trevor Fairbrother, takes a fresh look at the lively, lyrical, and insightful ways in which painters have interpreted the special intersection of place and season in America’s northeast corner. Marshaling an astonishing array of works—more than 100 paintings by 82 artists from the late 1850s to the present, including Winslow Homer, John Singer Sargent, Childe Hassam, Andrew Wyeth, Stuart Davis, George Bellows, Edward Hopper, Lois Dodd, Alex Katz, and Fairfield Porter—the exhibition aims to “delight, astound, and surprise,” says Dan Monroe, director and chief executive officer of the Peabody Essex Museum. This wonderfully vibrant exhibition “invites us to explore the richness of imagery that can be understood as ‘New England’ as well as the remarkable range of expression that the term ‘painting’ encompasses.”

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Norval Morrisseau Retrospective at National Gallery

Wednesday, 01 February 2006 12:08

Ottawa , Canada- The National Gallery of Canada's first major solo exhibition of a First Nations artist pays homage to Norval Morrisseau. The Anishnaabe (Ojibwa) painter's sublimely colourful and deeply spiritual works have inspired three generations of First Nations artists and made him an icon of Canadian art. Norval Morrisseau - Shaman Artist is on display in Ottawa from 3 February to 30 April. Norval Morrisseau, also called Copper Thunderbird, rose to fame in the 1960s as the originator of the Woodland School. This unique style is now simply called Anishnaabe painting, a term that refers to the artist's heritage and the archetypal status of his work.

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Julie Heffernan Exhibits " Heaven & Hell "

Thursday, 02 February 2006 09:47

New York- P·P·O·W Gallery is delighted to announce Julie Heffernan's exhibition Heaven and Hell. In her new series of paintings, Heffernan expands her complex painted cosmologies to landscapes of sensuous gardens and winding jungles. February 16 - March 18, 2006. Heaven and Hell marks a change in Julie Heffernan's paintings. In these new self portraits, she has replaced her dominant central figure with corporeal cornucopia-like bushes, vines, and bouquets; all intertwined with multi-vignettes and visions. In the painting, Self-Portrait with Holes in my Head, Heffernan wraps a lattice-like structure of intoxicatingly beautiful flowers stretching from the center to the periphery of the canvas. The central structure holds and hides lizards on the hunt and snakes wrapped through vines, vignettes of fiery war scenes, saints aglow with aura, and a cavern revealing an orgy scene resembling Ingres' Turkish Bath. Each one of these scenes expands upon the painting as being a 'self portrait'. The accumulated vignettes act like entries in a journal, telling and retelling dreamlike narratives through her own symbolism. Heffernan's feminine miasma echoes that of surrealists like Leonora Carrington, creating new histories and narratives through her own personal ingrained iconographies.

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About Face by Joey Nash

Thursday, 02 February 2006 10:50

Kamloops, BC- The Kamloops Community Arts Council’s Extension Gallery hosts its newest exhibition About Face by artist Joey Nash. The exhibition runs until March 1. Inspired by Ms. Nash’s passion for Africa, nature and people, the show consists primarily of portraits executed in a variety of mediums, including oils, watercolours and pencil. About Face is the first solo exhibition for Ms. Nash. During a group exhibition in 1984 organized by the Kamloops Community Arts Council, Ms Nash’s work was voted winner of the People’s Choice Award. “About Face is a voyage of discovery, growth and change”, says Ms. Nash, who is a self taught artist living in Kamloops. “Living a life where months for research could be indulged, my early work was executed in oils on ever larger canvases in minute detail. Then, a life change – an ‘about face’ – where attention focused on economic survival, but my love of art still had to be honoured. My solution was to become a teacher. In equipping myself to best serve my students I explored other mediums and techniques and enjoyed helping my students find their voices as artists. Then, a gift: time off, which helped me discover that I had acquired a new voice, and which also allowed me to produce over forty pieces in one year. This show is a celebration of that voyage”. When she’s not creating art, Ms. Nash teaches art classes for the Kamloops Art Gallery, the City of Kamloops and the Kamloops Community Arts Council. Visit : The Kamloops Art Gallery Events Page

Museum London Shows Paul Peel

Thursday, 02 February 2006 11:47

London, ON, Canada- Museum London has the largest single collection of works by Paul Peel in the world (more than 70 works in total) including paintings, sketches in ink and graphite, and sketchbooks. In response to frequent visitor requests to see these works, this exhibition features a selection of major works from our permanent collection. Paul Peel was born in London, Ontario in 1860 and died in Paris, France in 1892. His early art training was provided in London by his father, John Robert Peel, and William Lees Judson then at the Academy of Fine Arts in Philadelphia under Thomas Eakins. He later moved to Paris, France where he received art instruction at the École des Beaux-Arts. Peel traveled widely in Canada and Europe exhibiting as a member of the Ontario Society of Artists and the Royal Canadian Academy. He also exhibited at international shows like the Paris Salon. Peel’s conservative style reflects the official approach taught in the French academies of the time, but at the time of his death, he appeared to be making a move toward impressionism. Visit us online at www.museumlondon.ca

Pettibone Retrospective at Laguna Art Museum

Friday, 03 February 2006 10:35

Laguna Beach, CA- The first retrospective of Richard Pettibone’s work in over twenty years, on exhibition at Laguna Art Museum from March 12 through May 28, 2006, will present the full range of the artist’s career from the early assemblages and small-scale “replicas” that first brought him to critical attention in Los Angeles in the late fifties and sixties to his various sculptural installations both Shaker furniture to the recent more complexly layered work (“making anew” such modern masters as Mondrian and Ezra Pound) that engage him today premiered at the Institute of Contemporary Art, University of Pennsylvania and is now on view at the Tang Museum and Art Gallery at Skidmore College. Richard Pettibone’s small construction/paintings of the 1960s― appropriations of work by Warhol, Stella, and Lichtenstein― were a defining aspect of a peculiarly West Coast current of “Conceptual Pop.” His earliest works were shadow-box assemblages addressing his interest in model making, especially toy trains and airplanes. In the 1960s he found his voice in diminutive “copies” of newly famous New York pop artists. Always framed and constructed upon miniature stretcher bars, they are usually presented in single-image replication.

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' Rain and Hope' Photos by Erwin Olaf

Friday, 03 February 2006 11:30

New York- Hasted-Hunt presents new work by photographer and filmmaker, Erwin Olaf in an exhibition opening on January 5, 2006 and running through March 2006. Hasted Hunt will debut two series of photographic work: RAIN, and the specially commissioned HOPE with their accompanying videos. These images are staged domestic narratives depicting enigmatic moments with individuals or couples - as Olaf describes it - just at an instant of indecision or consideration. This is not Henri Cartier–Bresson’s “decisive moment” but rather the half-second after you receive bad news but before you react. The characters seem to be dyspeptic mid-Westerners out of Norman Rockwell paintings. There is an air of tentativeness and secrecy. The color seems oddly diluted or drained. Wildly inventive, iconoclastic, colorful, sexy, often rude, often disorienting, the artist has a unique contemporary vision and complete technical mastery of digital technology. Olaf satirizes middle class behaviors - fashion, advertising, and culture. At the same time he works very successfully within the commercial world with international clients like Diesel, Kohler, Microsoft, BMW, Nokia, Virgin and Nike.

Read more: [[' Rain and Hope' Photos by Erwin Olaf]]