Magazine Posts

John Constable (1776 – 1837). English landscape painter, born in Suffolk. His work is classified as being in the Romantic tradition. He is known principally for revolutionizing the genre of landscape painting with his paintings of Dedham Vale where his home was located. The area is now known "Constable Country" Some of his most well known paintings include Wivenhoe Park (1816), Dedham Vale (1821) and The Hay Wain (1821). His paintings are now among the most popular and valuable in British art. 

Henri Lebasque (1865 – 1937) was a French post-impressionist painter. His work is represented in French museums, notably Angers, Geneva (Petit Palais), Lille (Musée des Beaux-Arts), Nantes, and Paris (Musée d’Orsay). He started his education at the École régionale des beaux-arts d'Angers, and moved to Paris in 1886 where he study under Léon Bonnat, and assisted Ferdinand Humbert with the decorative murals at the Panthéon. Lebasque  also met Camille Pissarro and Auguste Renoir in Paris, who later had a large impact on his work. More

Amedeo Clemente Modigliani (1884 – 1920)  Italian painter and sculptor known for portraits and nudes in a modern style characterized by a surreal elongation of faces, necks, and figures that were not received well during his lifetime, but later became much sought-after. Modigliani spent his youth in Italy, and moved to Paris in 1906, where he came into contact with such artists as Pablo Picasso and Constantin Brâncuși. More

"Since October 7th, 2023, fault lines around Palestinian solidarity have changed the landscape of visual art.....A wave of anti-Palestinian repression has swept the Western art world in the aftermath of October 7th, 2023. From Amsterdam to San Francisco, artists who have criticized Israel’s brutal war on Gaza have seen their exhibitions canceled, their work deinstalled, and other opportunities rescinded. Some of these incidents have been met with major backlash" More at Hyperallergic ➜

Claude Monet ( 1840 – 1926) was a French painter and founder of impressionism painting who is seen as a key precursor to modernism. He was known as the most consistent and prolific practitioner of the impressionism's philosophy of expressing one's perceptions of nature, especially as applied to plein air (outdoor) landscape painting. More

Stéphane Breitwieser is a French art thief and author, born in 1971. He has admitted to stealing more than 250 artworks while traveling around Europe between 1995 and 2001, from 172 museums and other exhibits. His collection of stolen art has been estimated to be more than $2 Billion Dollars. Breitwieser was arrested several times and did confess to most of his crimes. He did served relatively short sentences. His last trial was held in March, 2023 in Sarreguemines, France. He was found guilty and was sentenced to house arrest and is required to wear an ankle monitor.  Read more at Priceless Blog at Squarespace

Bruno Catalano is a French Sicilian artist born in Morocco in 1960. When he was 15, he left his homeland and arrived in Marseille. At the age of twenty, he became a sea traveler, working on boats. In 1990, He started working in sculptures. In 2004, a casting accident created a gap in his work and the artist decided to make this "tear" a central element of his sculptures. You can now find his work all over the world, some in permanent locations and some as part of temporary exhibits in different cities.
His "incomplete" sculptures of men and women, luggage in hand, moving ahead in unknown directions, have been interpreted by many as traveling humans carrying their "baggage" and showing the "emptiness" left by whatever they left behind, as they moved on their life journey. More

Pablo Picasso's masterpiece, Guernica was painted in 1937 when he was commissioned by the Spanish Republican government to create a mural for the Spanish Pavilion at the Paris International Exposition. The inspiration for this piece came in the most unexpected and tragic way. On April 26, 1937, the town of Guernica, in Vizcaya, was bombed for about two hours during the Spanish Civil War by warplanes of the Nazi Germany Condor Legion, commanded by Colonel Wolfram von Richthofen, in support of the Nationalistic Spanish rebels led by Francisco Franco. The horrific carpet bombing attack was the first of its kind in history and reportedly an opportunity to test out new weapons and tactics.
Picasso completed the work quickly on June 4 1937, a grey, black and white painting, on a canvas 11 ft 5 in tall and 25 ft 6 in across, which portrays the suffering brought by violence and chaos. Prominently featured in the composition are a gored horse, a bull, screaming women, a dead baby, a dismembered soldier, and flames.captured the horror and desolation caused by the war.

In 1939, after being displayed in parts of Europe before WWII broke out, the painting was sent to New York on a tour for the benefit of the Spanish Refugee Committee. When World War II broke out later that year, Picasso requested that Guernica, as well as a number of other of his works, be held at the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) on extended loan. Most of his works were returned to Europe after the war, however Picasso  asked that Guernica stay at the MoMA until the “reestablishment of public liberties” in Spain. The death of Picasso in 1973 and objections by Picasso's heirs who questioned Spain’s democratic credentials delayed Guernica's return to Spain until September 10, 1981 after being in the custody of New York's Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) for more than four decades.

Once landed in Madrid, the work was initially installed in the Casón del Buen Retiro, which was specially adapted to exhibit it under special security conditions, with armored glass protection. This location had a special significance since it was part of the Prado Museum of which Picasso was director. Later, in July 1992, the work made a final trip to the Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía.

Henri Émile Benoît Matisse (1869 – 1954) was a French visual artist, painter, draftsman, printmaker, and sculptor, Matisse is widely regarded as the greatest colorist of the 20th century. known for both his use of color and his fluid and original draughtsmanship. More

"When you think about the word “art,” what comes to mind? A child’s artwork pinned to the fridge? A favorite artist whose work always inspires? Abstract art that is hard to understand? "...."Although everyone has their own concept of what defines art, one thing is universally true: Creativity is a defining feature of the human species".... More at The Conversation ➜