Roy Lichtenstein + Mark Rothko

I missed a day last week, so I am combining two artists into one post.

Roy Lichtenstein

Mark Rothko

"I am not an abstract painter. I am not interested in the relationship between form and color. The only thing I care about is the expression of man's basic emotions: tragedy, ecstasy, destiny."

Elisabeth Vellacott

If you've read all of the lists on the sidebar you'll notice that Elisabeth Vellacott is amongst my "loves". I really like the shapes in all of her pictures. This is one of my favourites precisely due to that. The arch is reflected in the sloping shoulders of the dwarf, his stout figure in the bright shabby coat a contrast with the stark, cold black-suited woman.

I also like Vellacott because she really seemed to mix about her dry and wet media, combining pastel with inks, which is something I like to do as well. Additionally she just sounds like one cool old lady.

The painting on the left is called "The Dwarf", by Elisabeth Vellacott, 1953, oil on canvas.

Here is a short biography of hers.

More works.

Info on The Dwarf.

Other favourites are "The madwoman banging her dustbin-lids" (movement is captured so cinematically); "Evening walk no. 2" (emotion); and "The Queue" (you feel their boredom).

Maggie Taylor

A dramatic change of pace regarding the artists, one of my next artists to focus on will be Maggie Taylor.

Her work reminds me of a mixture between fairytales and dreams - which in some ways can be the same thing. The fantastic and unusual blended with imaginary things.

Gustave Klimt

Emily introduced you to our secret project in the last post so I thought that I'd mention a few more artists who are going to be involved. There should be a total of 10 artists, five each, and here is one which I'm including.

You will of course know of Gustave Klimt. He & I share the same birthday, which is Bastille day, although there are several underlying differences between us:

1. Gustave Klimt was 96 years older than me,
2. Gustave Klimt was undoubtedly a pervert and,
3. Gustave Klimt was a man.

Best known for his iconic portrait in the shape of an erect phallus, you are probably familiar with The Kiss. (see right). The Kiss isn't actually my favourite picture. Klimt's portraits embody colour in a way that is so rich, yet he manages to not let it be overpowering. The faces, pale and stark by comparison with the gold-leaf shrouds his figures wear, draw the viewer's eyes to them immediately. There is a great sense of passion.

Klimt isn't a painter whose works I love, in the sense that I like the portraits but he wouldn't be on my list of favourites, far from it. So why did I choose to include him? Not sure myself really, perhaps the answer will lie in sleep.

clothing as art: part 2

over the next month or so, Anushka and I are going to be having a secret 'challenge' of sorts. to introduce this, over the next few days I will be writing a little bit on a few artists which are involved in this secret project.

first off, one of my recently discovered favorites: Edward Hopper. I had never heard of him, though I had seen one or two of his paintings. the Smithsonian magazine had a very interesting article on his work -- I will include a few excerpts from it as well as photos of Hopper's work.

-Rooms by the Sea

"Painting did not come easily to Edward Hopper. Each canvas represented a long, morose gestation spent in solitary thought. There were no sweeping brushstrokes from a fevered hand, no electrifying eurekas. He considered, discarded and pared down ideas for months before he even squeezed one drop of paint onto his palette."


""Hopper simply happens to be a bad painter. But if he were a better painter, he would, most likely, not be so superior an artist.""
-Clement Greenberg


"Hopper's 'equivocal human figures engaged in uncertain relationships mark his paintings as modern' as strongly as his gas pumps and telephone poles."