Happy Birthday, Jaune Quick-to-See Smith!

"CLARA." CLARA. N.p.,n.d. Web 12 Jan 2015

Born in 1940 on the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Indian Reservation, Montana, Jaune Quick–to–See Smith is an internationally renowned painter, printmaker and artist.

She earned a BA in Art Education from Framingham State College, Massachusetts, and an MA in Art from the University of New Mexico.  Smith has been awarded four honorary doctorates from Minneapolis College of Art and Design, Pennsylvania Academy of the Arts, Massachusetts College of Art and the University of New Mexico.

Smith has been creating complicated abstract paintings and lithographs since the 1970s. She employs a wide variety of media, working in painting, printmaking and richly textured mixed media pieces. Such images and collage elements as commercial slogans, sign-like petroglyphs, rough drawing, and the inclusion and layering of text are unusually intersected into a complex vision created out of the artist’s personal experience. Her works contain strong, insistent socio-political commentary that speaks to past and present cultural appropriation and abuse, while identifying the continued significance of the Native American peoples.

"Jaune Quick–to–See Smith." Wikipedia. Wikimedia Foundation, n.d. Web. 12 Jan. 2015.

Happy Birthday, Roy DeCarava!

Bio.com. A&E Networks Television, n.d. Web. 08 Dec. 2014.
Roy DeCarava 

Photographer (1919–2009)

Roy DeCarava started off painting but traded in his brushes for a camera. His images of African-American life—scenes in Harlem, the civil rights movement and jazz musicians—are now iconic. In 1952, DeCarava was the first black photographer to receive a Guggenheim grant. In 1996, the Museum of Modern Art put on a retrospective of his work. DeCarava was awarded a National Medal of Arts in 2006. He died in New York City on October 27, 2009.
Bio.com. A&E Networks Television, n.d. Web. 08 Dec. 2014.

Roy DeCarava:  Coltrane and Elvin, New York.  1960.  Smithsonian American Art Musuem.

Roy DeCarava
Billie Holiday
1952/1991
ClampArt

                                         

Happy Birthday, Alfred Sisley!

"Alfred Sisley." Wikipedia. Wikimedia Foundation, 27 Oct. Web 28 Oct. 2014.

Sisley was born in Paris, France, on October 30, 1839 to British citizens. His father was a wealthy businessman, and his mother was a music connoisseur. Although Sisley lived in France virtually all of his life, he never became a French citizen. Supposedly, his command of the English language was limited.

Sisley enjoyed painting landscapes and countryside scenes. He painted some beautiful winter pictures such as "Snow on the Road, Louveciennes". Some people criticized Sisley because they felt that he didn't try to diversify his style in the way that Monet and Renoir did.

Sisley had suffered from throat cancer for several years and died at the age of 59 in his beloved town of Moret-sur-Loing, France. He passed away shortly after the death of his wife Marie. It was only after Sisley's death that his reputation as a great painter was properly recognized.

"A Forgotten Artist." A Forgotten Artist. N.p., n.d. Web. 28 Oct. 2014.

Alfred Sisley, Le pont de Moret, 1893, Musée d'Orsay, Paris

Alfred Sisley, Villeneuve-la-Garenne on the Seine, 1872, Musée de l'Ermitage Saint-Pétersbourg

Happy Birthday, Maya Lin!

Lin portrait, courtesy Maya Lin Studio

"Sometimes I think creativity is magic; it's not a matter of finding an idea, but allowing the idea to find you."      

                               - Maya Lin                           

Visit www.mayalin.com to find out more information about Maya Lin and her current Art Works.

Maya’s design turned into the polished, black granite wall with the names of over 58,000 individuals who were missing in action or killed in Vietnam. The memorial now sits in Washington D.C. It was dedicated in 1982 on Veteran’s Day, and is known to many as “the Wall.
psarts.org

Happy Birthday, Jean Arp (Hans Arp)!

Jean Arp (also known as Hans Arp) was a German-born French sculptor, painter, collagist, printmaker and poet. Born in September 16, 1886, he studied at Kunstschule in Weimar and the Académie Julian in Paris. Arp was best known as a founding member of the Dada movement in Zurich. He was also a member of the surrealist group starting in 1925 and later founded the Abstraction-Création style.
via http://arthistory.about.com/cs/namesaa/p/arp.htm

Shirt Front and Fork, painted wood, 1922, National Gallery of Art

Hans Jean Arp, Torse-nombril, 1915, bois naturel, 25 x 17 x 4 cm, Fondation Arp, Clamart, photo : J. P. Constantini. © ADAGP Paris 2008

Happy Birthday, Eugene Atget!

 

• OCCUPATION: Actor, Photographer
• BIRTH DATE: February 12, 1857
• DEATH DATE: August 04, 1927
• PLACE OF BIRTH: Libourne, France

• PLACE OF DEATH: Paris, France

Best Known For:

French photographer Eugène Atget recorded everything he considered picturesque or artistic in and around Paris, with an eye for strange and unsettling images.

"Eugène Atget." 2013. The Biography Channel website. Feb 12 2013, 09:35 http://www.biography.com/people/eug%C3%A8ne-atget-38199

- Look at the image below, then create a story of how you think the artist felt when the image was photographed, or write about the subject. 

  - Post your response in the comment box below.

Eugene Atget, Organ Grinder, 1898

 

Quote of the Week:

What do you think Miro' was trying to say with the following quote?   

"I try to apply colors like words that shape poems, like notes that shape music."

Joan Miro', 1893-1983, Spanish Surrealist

Invent a history with James Rosenquist

Happy Birthday, James Rosenquist! 

 (November 29, 1933)

- Look at the image below, then invent a history for it and type it as your comment.  

- Create a story of how you think the artist was feeling when it was painted, or write about the subject. 

Untitled, James Rosenquist, 1978

 

Idle Hands from Dana Harel

Idle Hands from Dana Harel 
Original Article published on Monday November 12, 2012 
http://www.juxtapoz.com 


Israeli-born and San Francisco-based illustrator Dana Harel's large scale graphite illustrations explore humans' places in the natural world. Using the repeated motifs of hands and wings, Harel's illustrations fuse the human body with plant and animal structures, provoking viewers to re-consider the human "hubris" as a dominant species.

Compare and Contrast the image above 

to MC Escher's Drawing of Hands Below:

Quote of the Week:

What do you think Schopenhauer was trying to say with the following quote?  

" We should comport ourselves with the masterpieces of art as with exalted personages -- stand quietly before them and wait till they speak to us." 

- Arthur Schopenhauer, 1788-1860, German Philosopher
(click on the link above to find out more information on Arthur Schopenhauer)

Quote of the Week:

What do you think Picasso was trying to say with the following quote? 

 
"There are painters who transform the sun into a yellow spot, but there are others who, thanks to their art and intelligence, transform a yellow spot into  the sun."



  - Pablo Picasso, 1881-1973, Spanish Cubist Painter
 (click on the link above to find out more information on Pablo Picasso)

Quote of the Week:

"You should keep on painting no matter how difficult it is, because this is all part of experience, and the more experience you can have, the better it is - unless it kills you, and then you know you have gone too far."                   - Alice Neel, 1900-1984, American Painter 

                                             (click on the link above to find out more information on Alice Neel)

Invent a history with Childe Hassam

Happy Birthday, Childe Hassam! 

(October 17, 1859 – August 27, 1935)

 Look at the image below, then invent a history for it and type it as your comment.  Create a story of how you think the artist was feeling when it was painted, or write about the subject. 

Rainy Night, Childe Hassam, 1895

Quote of the Week:

"I am always doing what I cannot do yet, in order to learn how to do it." 

 - Vincent Van Gogh,1853-1890,Dutch Artist

(click on the link above to find out more about Vincent Van Gogh)

Paul Klee

"A line is a dot that went for a  walk."  

Paul Klee is a Swiss and German painter whose highly individual style is best known by an often childlike perspective and spidery hieroglyph-like symbols. Klee was heavily influenced by the expressionist, cubist and surrealist movements. Klee taught at the Bauhaus for ten years, where he became close with Wassily Kandinsky built a legacy teaching color mixing and theory.

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Quote of the Week:

"A Painter paints a picture with the same feeling as that with which a criminal commits a crime."

- Edgar Degas, 1834-1917, French Post-Impressionist

Happy Birthday, Frederick Remington!

Quote of the Week:

"Talent! What they call talent is nothing but the capacity for doing continuous work in the right way." - Winslow Homer, 1836-1910, American Artist

Quote of the Week:

 " An artist who is self-taught is taught by a very ignorant person indeed."

 - John Constable, 1776-1837, English Painter