Monday, December 19, 2011

DSH Interview with Mary Moorhead

INTERVIEW WITH DAVID SMITH-HARRISON
AN UNCONSCIOUS
DIALOGUE THROUGH
T H E C E N T U R I E S
By: Mary B. Moorhead
David Smith-Harrison lives and works in a carefully tended world apart.
 One enters his domain by way of a small patio that links his studio and home, and immediately delights in the magenta fuchsias, creamy calla lilies, thriving topiaried plants, the tart smell of ripe lemons, bushy palms against the blue sky, and several satisfied, sleeping cats. Here and there, a sharp eye can recognize plants from Smith-Harrison’s meticulous etchings and watercolors. Red-berried cotoneaster plants fill a balcony, and Smith-Harrison shows off a cotoneaster bonsai of his own creation.
Every inch of space serves a creative purpose, indoors and out. Smith-Harrison’s studio is dedicated
to designing and etching, and the home area acts as an extension: various stages of printmaking and editioning occur downstairs, while the upstairs is primarily for painting and watercolors. In both studio and home, visual imagery
is central and pervasive. The walls, hallways, doors, refrigerator, even the ceilings are covered collage-style with carefully placed images. Imagery comes from many sources, from art books and magazines to the camera of Smith-Harrison. His many etchings and watercolors are everywhere, side by side with the works of other artists. Two of Smith- Harrison’s larger etching , Yucatan and Dos Palmeras, framed and hanging against a collaged wall, rivet the viewer. Even the windows offer stunning visuals, ever-changing panoramas of the San Francisco Bay, Golden Gate Bridge, Albany Hill, and the East Bay hills.
We start our interview in Smith-Harrison’s home, moving between the kitchen, dining area and living room. Tall, sandyhaired, eloquently loquacious and lively, Smith Harrison would make a fantastic instructor in studio art or art history. He shakes his head when I remark on this, explaining that he prefers the life of the full time artist.

Mary Moorhead: You are so absolutely surrounded by imagery of all types. May I assume that the works of other artists inform your own?
David Smith-Harrison : Oh, yes. I look to the Old Masters, other well-known artists, and my contemporaries for both inspiration and education. It’s a common aspect of an artist’s education torefer to art that’s been created or is being created as they work.

MM: Can you cite specific examples?
DSH: Both here in my home and in the studio, there are dozens of books open to artists, architects, and photographers, past and present. My mentors include Old Masters artists, such as [Albrecht] Dürer, da Vinci, Michelangelo, [Giovanni Battista] Piranesi, [Andrea] Mantegna, and Rembrandt. Additionally, I look to nineteenth century pictorial photographers like Clarence White, [Alfred] Stieglitz or [Edward] Steichen, and nineteenth century botanical artists such as Joseph Redouté. The architectural monologues of Frank Lloyd Wright and Charles A. Platt also inform my work. And of course, there are my contemporaries: Trevor Southey, Betty Freedman, François Houtin, Eric Desmazières and Christopher Brown to name just a few. Their art inspires me and keeps me company while I work. When I take a break from drawing on a plate, I’ll flip through a book, either for my own pleasure or to understand how other artists solve problems, deal with compositional ideas, or line work. I study Old Masters print work primarily to see how they employ techniques such as crosshatching and drafting the contours of lines that describe forms. Occasionally I’ll flip to a page and study one particular aspect that relates to a current project. Say, for my rose prints, I’ll study how other artists handled the drawing of flowers. I don’t slavishly copy their works; it’s for inspiration, technical analysis, and to create a dialogue. And when I have created something that might have gained the interest, appreciation, or admiration of an artist long gone, sometimes I’ll say out loud, “Oh, my God, I’ve made a print that Rembrandt would admire.”

MM: Why all these pictures on the walls, even the ceiling? Is it to stimulate your subconscious?
DSH: Yes, I like to play with all of these images and then absorb them over time into my unconscious. That’s why I have so many open books and collaged walls. There are relationships happening with the collage. I’ll put the images up very unconsciously—think, “Oh, this goes here, that goes there,” but I let my unconscious mind do the placements. Then I’ll sit back and glance at the associations that become apparent and conscious at a later moment.

MM: This looks like so much work. It’s all so neatly and exactly placed. Why bother? Are you trying to say something?
DSH: No, not quite. It’s a way of seeing the world, about learning to see and appreciating what I see. For example, here, it might have been the humor of this Leonardo da Vinci that intrigued me. See, he’s pointing at these two women. A lot of times it can be the compositional movement of juxtaposed images. Look, these two reproductions are the same image. But I flipped one around so it looks like the figures are moving into each other. See it? I just hooked them up together. Often, I will unconsciously find lines that move into each other or colors that move into each other. When I juxtapose images, or when an artist’s compositional idea really appeals to me, I’ll reinterpret or expand the idea. As I mentioned, it’s a dialogue. As if to say, “Oh, you did this really well, let me see if I can do something a bit more personal with this particular articulation.”

MM: Is this an aspect of your creative process, as compared to someone else who would prefer the simplicity of white walls?
DSH: Yes, I need to see art, to play with images, see relationships. Look at my large intaglio print, El Olivo. See how the tree floats in the air above a cityscape? The compositional idea for that print developed out of a print made by Albrecht Dürer; the title escapes me. Dürer created a lovely cityscape rooftop view of houses, placed at the bottom of the image; in the sky above, there is an angel standing on a ball. As I worked out the compositional ideas for El Olivo, I ended up creating a very elaborate cityscape. I was not sure what to do with the skies. Then I came across that floating angel. Because I’m so drawn to creating tree imagery, it was natural for me to float the tree in the air, replacing Dürer’s compositional idea of the angel on the ball.

MM: Tell me more about your interest in Dürer.
DSH: Oh, I’ve always felt very connected to Albrecht Dürer’s work. He was Northern European Renaissance and very disciplined. Dürer influenced my approach to image making and line work. I also look heavily to the Italian Renaissance artists because of the way they handle both their crosshatching and line work. There’s a bit more fluidity to their compositions. Further, I like the combination of volume and space that appears in Renaissance art.
[Points to image on the wall] See how there’s this strong sense of volume, yet at the same time, there is a sense
of very deep space. It was a really important part of the Renaissance art to view space that way. [Smith-Harrison points to his color etching Cotoneaster and to an image on the wall.] I do not remember referring to this image when I created Cotoneaster. Yet looking at the image right now, I see the relationship. See the archway here and the two columns, and then the figure of the Christ in the middle? My cotoneaster plant is in the center of an archway, like the image of Christ. While my work is strongly rooted in the Renaissance and nineteenth century pictorial photography, my work is very modern. A nineteenth century or Renaissance artist would not have handled space the way I have in this image. [Pointing to his etching, Dos Palmeras] You see the way the trees are floating in and out of
the architecture like that? The way the tile-work at the bottom of the print blends and becomes this background space? This is somewhat Japanese, looking up like that. A Renaissance artist would rarely have done this kind of juxtaposition. And here are more modern influences: see these slashes, these very aggressive textural marks? Those take away the preciousness of the very tight drawing. They create a sense of atmosphere and movement. Further, they activate the surface of the image. They are equally important to the spirit and overall impact of the piece as the traditional elements.

MM: Looking around, it strikes me that you have clearly chosen etching as your print technique of choice thus far in your career. Was this happenstance or a purposeful choice?
DSH: Although my early training was primarily in lithography, I discovered that intaglio offers a very different surface quality. With intaglio, I can work sculpturally into the plate’s surface. Working deeper into the plate allows me to create a textural surface. These textural characteristics are then translated onto the print during printing. This extra, subtle dimension in the print surface is very important to me. If you were to look at this print under a magnifying glass [referring to Yucatan], you would see that the darkest dark, in these little spots here, is etched much deeper into the plate than these very delicate gray passages. This creates movement, moves your eye around the entire piece of work.

MM: Tell me why trees are often your subject matter.
DSH: There are many influences. When I was young, our family had a cabin near a canyon where there are many kinds of trees. I loved my time there and actually started drawing trees there. Later, as I discovered my art interests, I was largely influenced by the Utah artists working at that time. Many of the Utah artists were doing landscapes. So my early work was pretty traditional watercolors out on location. Then I started focusing on specific trees. Dürer’s plant studies were an early influence as well. As an adult, I did not intentionally set out to use trees as imagery and was not initially aware of their significance to me. Over time, looking at my work overall, it became clear that trees symbolized a variety of personal meanings. At times, the trees were self-portraits; they took on myself in certain settings. For example, when I created Dos Palmeras, I didn’t think about the relationship of those two trees together, the way their fronds interconnected. But later, I realized that the trees represented relationships that were going on in my life at the time. Further, I have learned from my work and reading that trees are a very important part of the human existence. They give us food, shelter, energy for heating, paper for writing, and contribute to many other aspects of our daily lives. Yet, we are endlessly destroying them, in the rain forests, in North America, all over the world. They deserve our reverence. I am also very inspired by [Piet] Mondrian. I especially love his early work—he was very much interested in landscape imagery early in his career, and then he became heavily focused on
trees for a period of time.

MM: And then he took the trees and abstracted them.
DSH: Yes, then he abstracted the trees and there was a transitional period, where realist imagery of trees became more abstract. Then of course he got all the way to this piece here. Broadway Boogie Woogie is somewhere around here. [Points to collage image of Broadway Boogie Woogie on wall] That one.



MM: What prompted your print, Homage, honoring Rembrandt?
DSH: Rembrandt created a print called The Little Shell. He did not make a lot of imagery that was based on still life. That print is unique in his work. The intimacy of that shell, its delicacy and nuance, always appealed to me from the very first time I saw the print. I loved the movement, the way the shell sort of starts out in one point, grows and evolves out. Many artists have created homages to the print, but usually they’ve created other shells. When I picked up this pine cone, which had fallen from a tree in my yard [Smith-Harrison shows me a large pine cone sitting on the kitchen window ledge], the spirals reminded me of Rembrandt’s Shell. I really wanted to do an homage to Rembrandt’s print without slavishly copying the motif and the subject matter. Because of my obsession with trees, I decided to use the spiraling quality of the pine cone, and the lights and darks of the shell. While my background composition and the placement of the pine cone is very close to copying Rembrandt’s composition, my use of a pine cone is very different. By creating a homage, I am tipping my hat, having a dialogue with Rembrandt.

MM: Let’s talk about chiaroscuro works of the fifteenth and sixteenth century. Do they inform your work or inspire you?
DSH: Oh, yes. Chiaroscuro uses darks, midtones, highlights, and the interpretation of light to create a sense
of volume. See this plate right here that I’m working on? It has the basics of chiaroscuro. There is an aquatinted tone on it already, so the background of the plate is gray. These lines here are going to be dark; I will etch them on the gray background, and then after I etch the plate, I’m going to burnish the highlights. I will pull the highlights of the rose out of the gray tone on that plate. Interestingly, chiaroscuro wasn’t just for woodcuts. During the Renaissance, artists used chiaroscuro to create ornamentation on houses, to decorate facades. Using chiaroscuro, they made what was essentially a painted image look like a sculpted one. For example [pointing to picture in a book], this was ornamentation on a house. It looks sculpted, but it’s a painted image. The excellent use of midtones, highlights, and darks creates volume and tricks the eye. It was painted to create an illusion.

MM: What are your thoughts on contemporary print work that’s not representational or figurative, but swaths of colors or shapes, without line work?
DSH: I respect and am drawn to the very best of modern art. I really love modern artwork, as much as I love the work of the Old Masters, where the figurative realist imagery is more apparent. I very much admire the work of Paulson Press and Crown Point Press, as well as the artists who work there. Many of them may have as much influence of realism as I do, but the end result is different. Their shapes, colors, and forms could be as equally inspired by landscape elements, the human figure, or historically by what other artists have done. But they choose what works for them, what excites their minds, and what gives energy to their work.

MM: How about the work of Chuck Close?
DSH: He’s an incredible draftsman. He can draw circles around the best of us. I love the scale of his work. I admire how he plays with a digitized image’s influence on the human experience; it’s great. For color and shape, there are many California artists, of course. I love Nathan Oliveira and Richard Diebenkorn. Much of Diebenkorn’s work is inspired by landscape, even though his work is abstracted and the elements don’t appear specifically related to landscape elements. I am very fond of many others, including Antonio Lopez-Garcia in Spain, Odd Nerdrum in Norway, and Eric Desmazières in Paris. It’s hard to isolate any one particular artist because I admire so many, and there may be artists that I don’t yet know.

MM: What are your thoughts on the computer as a matrix?
DSH: Some of our very best artists are using the computer as an artistic tool. Not in a formulaic way; they recognize it as an artistic creative tool. As far as the final output, I’m more attracted to computer generated imagery when the output ends up being a film process, such as animation or film, where you see it on the screen. I feel that the luminosity of the lighted screen generally presents pixels at their best. If the computer is used as a reproductive process, simply reproducing a painting, I’m less drawn to it. When it is used as the output process for the artistic manipulation of pixels by an artist who’s very talented with this work, it is beautiful, terrific artwork. Actually, I’m very attracted to digital work itself, digital photography. I enjoy taking photos of flowers from my garden and emailing them to my friends.

MM: Yes, thank you. The last one was gorgeous, especially against the background.
DSH: That flower was in front of this painting. Do you know how many photographs I took? About thirty! One can do this because shooting digitally is so cheap compared to traditional film. When I’m feeling inspired, I often take two hundred shots a day. I’ll show you the variations so you’ll see that I moved the flower into several locations, even in front of that painting. Also, I photographed it at different times of the day, and as the petals faded and fell off.

MM: It strikes me that your artwork grows from a complex interweave of artistic inspirations and subconscious connections, personal experiences, and meticulous hard work. Wouldn’t it be a good idea to include a short synopsis of this background story with each of your images? Say, in a gallery show, so that viewers could catch a glimpse of this richness?
DSH: Yes, you are correct, but I am not sure that it is necessary for viewers to know my story. Creating is a process of self-discovery, learning about my own individual motivations, my journey, and my purpose. There is depth and history underlying my images— it’s not just the initial surface representation, it’s everything that has gone on both in my life as an artist before creating that piece, as well as what’s taking place while it’s being created. Yet viewers will bring their own set of experiences to my work. They don’t have to know what the piece meant to me. Hopefully they will discover something universal, find some poetic depth that will grab hold of their experiences, makes the work meaningful to them.

MM: It has been a great pleasure to listen to your thoughts and absorb the rich ambience created by your collage work, wonderful gardens, your completed artwork and your works in progress. Any thoughts on your place in the history of art?
DSH: I’m excited about how my work might relate to artwork of the past as well as art that may be created five hundred years from now. I am now at the midpoint of my career; hopefully I will have endless amounts of energy to take advantage of the numerous images that continually develop in my mind. Of course, the greatest art in the world is timeless. I hope somehow to create a small niche in the world’s great artwork, a niche that will draw the respect of other artists, inspire other people to appreciate art in general, or learn to see. It’s the archetypal nature of subject matter that I’m drawn to. There may be something archetypal in my work that is not yet obvious, but will be meaningful to future generations. I don’t consciously choose certain themes, and I realize that what I’m doing is not necessarily new. But I’m hoping that I might be able to add one little increment of view to the great archetypal advancement of art. My work is very much about synthesis. Synthesis of everything that is the best of the past, and the best of the current, and hopefully envisioning the best of the future.

Friday, December 9, 2011

Marc Chagall: A Man in Love



Marc Chagall: A Man in Love
“In our life there is a single color, as on an artist's palette, which provides the meaning of life and art. It is the color of love. “– Marc Chagall
Marc Chagall was a well known Russian artist whose whimsical aesthetics continue to capture the attention of art lovers all around the world. Born during the summer of 1887, Chagall was the eldest of nine children. He lived a modest childhood, his father worked as a herring merchant and his mother sold groceries from their home. He began to show a serious interest art at the age of 13 and eventually relocated to St. Petersburg in 1908 to study at two of Russia’s most prestigious art schools. When Chagall returned home for the summer from his studies abroad in 1909 he met the woman that would forever be in his heart. Bella Rosenfled, having finished studying abroad, came to visit her friend, Teja Brachman, in Chagall’s home town of Vitebsk. In his autobiography, My Life, Chagall reminisces about his first encounter with Bella: “Her silence is mine, her eyes mine. It is as if she knows everything about my childhood, my present, my future, as if she can see right through me.”  They had met through mutual friends in town and became inseparable.  Bella wrote about Chagall shortly after they’d become acquainted, “I was so calm before. I lived in the peace of our house, read books, and avoided people as evil ghosts. But one young man has come and broken the calmness of my days.” Chagall went back to St. Petersburg but often came to visit Bella. In 1910 he moved to Paris to further develop his artistic style however, he missed his fiancé Bella and feared losing so he returned to Russia in 1914. Bella and Marc were married in 1915 and soon had their daughter Ida. He was constantly devoting paintings to Bella as she was often the subject of his work. She was more than his muse, she was his confidant. He deeply valued her opinion and rarely made a decision without consulting her first. They eventually moved to France but were forced to flee the country in 1941 due to the Nazi invasion during world war two. Chagall, Bella, Ida, and her husband arrived in New York City on June 23, 1941. On September 2, 1944, Bella died suddenly due to a viral infection, which went untreated due to the wartime shortage of medicine. Chagall simply stopped working for months. He was heartbroken.  When he did start working again his first pictures were about Bella and the preservation of her memory. In My Life, Chagall recounts “They dig, they shovel, they lift her and carry her off...” he was not ready for her to go and in a way he never let her go.  Though Chagall went on to have other relationships and continued to live his life, Bella was always close to his heart. When speaking of Bella, Chagall states, “I had only to open my bedroom window, and blue air, love, and flowers entered with her”. When looking at Chagall’s work it is very common to find bouquets of flowers. The flowers may be the focus of the piece or just a detail in the background, but it is believed that they are meant to be a representation of Bella’s presence. A story is often told that Chagall would bring Bella fresh flowers form the market once a week during their life together as a way to remind her that she brought flowers and happiness into his life simply with her presence. By continuing to put flowers in his art after her death Chagall had found a way to keep her spirit alive. I believe he said it best himself: “Only love interests me, and I am only in contact with things that revolve around love.” – Marc Chagall, so simply a man in love.

-Megan A. Hansen

Wednesday, November 23, 2011

Gallery Stroll


Season's Greetings!
     This Thanksgiving weekend, Old Towne Gallery will be having a show for Utah's Premier Artist, Allen Lund.  Both Friday and Saturday, Allen will be painting in the gallery from 2-9 pm.  Friday, the gallery will have a raffle at 8:45 pm for one of Allen's paintings.  Below you will find one of Allen's show pieces.  We will also have 7 other new pieces. 
     As you scroll down, you will also see the newest paintings from Asencio and Richard Johnson and the upcoming Winter Season show schedule.  Finally, you don't want to miss the much anticipated Michelangelo show during President's Day Weekend!  Please contact the gallery for any questions. 
Artist Guide
Allen Lund
Asencio
Johnson
Picasso
Show Schedule


Winding River 60 x 48
 
 "Winding River" by Allen Lund,  60x48
Beauty Unfolding 24x12
"Beauty Unfolding" by Henry Asencio,  24x12
 

Lilly

"Lilly" By Richard Johnson, 24 x 48

PICASSO 
Lysistrata
 
 "Kinesias and Myrrhina from Lysistrata" Pablo Picasso, 8 11/16 x 6" , Signed
 
Winter Season Show Schedule
December 30th -- Modern Masters Show
January 27th -- Native American Landscapes by artist Allen Lund
February 17th-20th -- Michelangelo Show  (6 Bronzes by Michelangelo)
February 24th -- "Best of Allen Lund"
March 17th -- "Picasso"
March 30th David Smith Harrison and Allen Lund
April 13th and 14th, Chagall, Matisse, Picasso
 Sincerely,
Colby Larsen
Owner
Old Towne Gallery
435.655.3910

 Family

Friday, October 28, 2011

Meet Allen!

Here is a brief Bio on Artist Allen Lund. He will be joining us for Gallery Stroll this evening! Stop by to meet this extremely talented artist for the inside scoop on his latest works of art!




Allen Lund
Allen was born in 1968. Growing up in the foothills of Utah’s Wasatch Mountains, Lund developed an early sensitivity to the incredible bounty and variety in the natural beauty of his home state. It is a vast and varied source for the subjects he now interprets skillfully into his work. Richly textured and exquisitely toned, his paintings have the authority and maturity that come from an extensive lifelong involvement with art. From the time he could hold a crayon until the age of 14, Lund learned and practiced painting and design under the tutelage of his mother and father, both professional artists.
However, Allen did not pursue painting seriously until the age of 25. Within a year, he had sold his first painting, and within three years he was painting full time, scarcely able to keep up with the sudden demand for his work. Lund selects subjects from his own photographs and uses them as points of embarkation into compositions that are 90 percent imaginative. His finished paintings are about the emotional resonance of a place and its atmosphere rather than representative any specific site.
          Atmospherics are important to Lund, whose favorite seasons are autumn, winter, and spring. His paintings give the spectator distinct sensory impressions beyond the purely visual. Viewers can feel humidity, stillness, movement of air, and ambient temperature, all cued visually but involving each of the senses and registering emotionally as a recollection of serene communion with nature. His works provoke a sense of fleeting perceptions like the scent of pine in the air or the musical murmur of water cascading in a secluded mountain brook.
Lund insists on first-rate craftsmanship in every step of making a painting. He uses only the finest stretched linen and the highest-quality archival grounds and pigments. He begins each painting session with a fresh palette and a fresh attitude.
Of his penchant to paint Utah scenes, Lund has said, “Utah has the most beautiful and diverse landscape I’ve ever seen. Living here, I’m always thoroughly inspired.”

Tuesday, October 18, 2011

Why We Fall In Love: The Power of Art and Emotion



    

     Art has the power to evoke feelings of hope, sadness, happiness, distress, etc.  It can also make us feel relieved, concerned, relaxed, blissful, or contemplative. But what is it that attracts us to the art engages all of these powerful emotions?

    Viewers are often attracted to an image that they find familiar because it evokes a feeling of sentimental recollection. People are attracted to nostalgic items for various reasons. It may remind them of a time full of carefree happiness or childhood memories. Nostalgia is often linked to certain smells, textures, sounds, and other sensory memories a person stores in the back of their mind. For example, an image of bare aspen trees freshly coated with snow may remind the viewer of the scent and cold bite in the air that comes with each year’s first snowfall. So even in the dead of summer you can glance as the piece and get chills as you remember the stillness of the first snow covered morning each year. It is, in a sense, a mental escape for a brief moment that allows us to let go of the present.  It can be an image of a creek that takes the viewer back to the first time they went fishing with their father. The tug on the pole the first time they reeled in a fish. Unlike a photograph of your first fishing trip, a painting leaves room for imagination and allows your mind to wonder. It gives the viewer time to relive the moment as they choose to remember it not necessarily how it really was.

    In contrast to nostalgic attraction, viewers are also attracted to images that provoke their imagination or bring pervious beliefs into question. Images that make the viewer want to know more. An abstract image that is open for interpretation allows the mind to wonder in any direction. Though the artist manipulates the mind with color and shape the rest is left to for you to figure out. Whether it is color or shape that initially attracts a viewer, it is a certain feeling they get that keeps them involved. Technical skills and complex imagery that is unfamiliar challenges the mind and imagination. An image can truly captivate you. The overwhelming ability of an image to open your mind to a new and unseen world, or capture your oldest memory is one of the most beautiful aspects of art.

     The reasons that you are attracted to one form of art over another can have to do with your state of mind. Your mood and/or occurrences in your life will determine the initial attractions you feel. The way you associate with a piece of art has to do with both personal interpretation and social perceptions. For instance you may be drawn to a Picasso piece not because of its esthetic beauty but rather its historical relevance. Familiarity with an artists’ name often creates a sense of assurance. Knowing that others know and like an artist can be enough to attract some viewers. Usually the initial interest is caused by attraction to an esthetic beauty, however, in some circumstances the viewer begins to discover the esthetic qualities after seeing a familiar signature.

    As humans we are very visual creatures. Every image will have an individual effect on a person’s emotions.  The way you perceive an image will be determined by the way you were brought up, your current lifestyle, the way you choose to see the world, and the biases that society puts in place. There is a complex combination of emotions and attractions that will cause you to fall in love with a work of art. Imagery is a very powerful thing that we simply can’t overlook.

Saturday, September 17, 2011

The One And Only Coco Chanel



            Gabrielle (Coco) Chanel was born Gabrielle Chanel in Saumur, France in 1883.  She had two sisters and two brothers.  When she was twelve her mother died and her father abandoned the four children.  She eventually went to live and work for the Henri Desboutin family in their little boutique.  Desboutin's brother was Marcellin Desboutin (French 1823-1902), a minor Parisian artist and confident of all the famous French Impressionists.  It is from him she first learned to draw. 
Coco's  first designs were for hats, which she altered from existing models.  By the beginning of World War I, her company grew old and she had over 300 employees.  All her clothing production was done in Spain from her drawings and fashion templates.  In 1917, she was introduced to Pablo Picasso (Spanish 1881-1973).  She also associated with the artists Andre Derain (French 1880-1954) and Salvador Dali (Spanish 1904-1989).  She designed costumes for stage productions, only if her friend Picasso did the stage design and backdrops.  Jean Cocteau (French 1889-1963) was an even closer friend and her drawings show more of his influence than Picasso's.  She financially supported Cocteau for years. 
In 1913, Coco met the artist-illustrator's SEM (French 1863-1934), Erte (Russian 1892-1990) and Paul Iribe (French 1883-1935).  Iribe was her friend and lover for several years.  He specialized in sensuous drawings for French fashion magazines.  He later designed jewels for both Cartier and Chanel.  He personally decorated Coco's Parisian apartment in the Ritz Hotel. It is believed she continued her drawing study under all these artists.
Coco's drawings ranged from quick illustrations for the Spanish workrooms, to mature art deco type figures in color.  She naturally found ideas were more easily and quickly tested on paper, rather than with expensive fabric.  They are signed with her nickname "Coco" rather than her full name, Gabrielle, as was her custom. 
Coco continued to associate with the most famous artists of the period.  Even Jean Renoir, son of the French Impressionist, asked her to do the costumes for his movies.  After Coco's death in 1971, there was a tremendous legal fight over her immense fortune.   Her personal art was overlooked.  Her small drawing collection was inherited by her favorite grand niece, Gabrielle Labrunie (nee Palasse).  They were deemed of little value compared to the copyrights for her couture designs and perfume formula.  According to French law, these drawings were stamped with her estate mark, so their authenticity could not be questioned.  On the reverse is Coco's niece's collector's mark.  They were not copyrighted as they were working sketches.  It is believed less than 46 survive.  They range from the sublime earliest hat designs  to complete outfits with color like for the famed flapper dress she invented.  They all exhibit the famed Chanel silhouette.  Drawings from her late years don't exist, as it is believed as Coco's business empire expanded she hired others to illustrate her ideas. As her clothing creations become unwearable and disintegrate, these rare drawings eventually will become the only original surviving examples of her art.  Her clothing was produced by others, while these important drawings were actually by her hand.

Wednesday, August 10, 2011

Andy Warhol’s Attraction to Mao Zedong



                      Mao Zedong, commonly referred to as Chairman Mao, was born December 26, 1893. He was a Chinese Communist revolutionary, guerilla warfare strategist, political philosopher, and the leader of the Chinese Revolution. Mao was the architect and founding father of the People’s Republic of China (PRC). From the establishment of the PRC in 1949, Mao, held authoritarian control over the nation until his death on September 9th 1976. He was both loved and feared by his people, which is one reason why Andy Warhol found him so intriguing.
Although it is often difficult to determine the motive behind an artists work, Warhol had many reoccurring themes and ideas that initially attracted him to Mao Zedong. Andy Warhol was obsessed with the idea of commercialism and how even a living breathing human being can be seen as an object due to the tremendous media attention that surrounds them. Warhol chose to use the portrait of Mao that was on the cover of his famous book titled Thoughts of Chairman Mao. The Portrait was found everywhere in china, in houses, on buildings, government offices, etc. Warhol was intrigued by the political propaganda and how repetition of this one image was used to create social power. In his Chairman Mao series, Warhol’s irreverent attitude toward his subject is blatantly obvious from his choice of colors and techniques. The images are flamboyant and highlighted by graffiti like marks. He used the image of Mao to appropriate western ideas of advertising.
Warhol was drawn to icons that were surrounded by mystery and tragedy. He used images of people like Jackie and Marilyn because he was attracted to the inscrutable and charismatic beings that captured the attention of the world. Mao was one of these beings, both revered and abhorred by his people, while holding the future in his hands.
The individuals that are shown in Warhol’s work are often glamorous and loved but they are commodities nonetheless; reproducible much like Campbell’s soup. Creating a silkscreen of Mao is in essence transforming him to a commodity. It is ironic in that Mao, who was a socialist opposed to consumerism was depicted as nothing more than a commodity by Warhol.
Many deem Chairman Mao’s reign as a very tragic time in history. His reputation of being responsible for millions of deaths may be what ultimately attracted the tragedy obsessed Warhol to this icon.