As a contemporary and friend of ROBERT RAUSCHENBERG, one often speaks of JASPER JOHNS in the same breath.
In his works you not only see the beginnings of POP ART, but by incorporating language, the seeds of the CONCEPTUAL movement that was to follow.
Obama just awarded Johns the Presidential Medal of Freedom, an exclusive award presented to only a few.
With love,
Mom
The career of painter/sculptor ROBERT RAUSCHENBERG was pivotal, bridging the New York expressionists while foreshadowing the pop art that was to follow. He collected debris from the streets and assembled it in his studio, often merging newsprint and photographic materials.
With love,
Mom
Dear Sophie -
This is the luminous California based painter RICHARD DIEBENKORN.
Like a breath of fresh air.
Look at the artist LENORE GOLUB in relation to Diebenkorn. A strong abstract painter with a beautiful palette who is developing a formidable body of work.
With love,
Mom
Dear Sophie -
It's all about the gesture with these guys.
With love,
Mom
Dear Sophie -
These beautiful paintings are by ADOLF GOTTLIEB.
A true New Yorker, he lived for a while on east 10th street (and didn't change his name...).
With love,
Mom
Dear Sophie -
BARNETT NEWMAN often titled his paintings with biblical themes. He tells epic tales by reducing them to their essence.
Mom
Dear Sophie -
Fiercely private, the Abstract Expressionist CLYFFORD STILL removed himself from the center of the art world and worked privately at his studio in Maryland.
A museum in Denver opened only recently with a cache of his works that had been sealed from view for 25 years.
With love,
Mom
"the ability to simplify means to eliminate the unnecessary so that the necessary may speak".
Dear Sophie -
HANS HOFFMAN was a dedicated teacher as well as an artist with his own practice. His influence was a catalyst for a range of students including JOAN MITCHELL, LEE KRASNER, HELEN FRANKENTHALER and RAY EAMES.
Dear Sophie -
FRANZ KLINE was a friend of De Kooning, who recommended that he project his smaller drawings. The result was large bold forms where the stroke became the narrative. His thesis and career launched from that point forward.
The Cedar Tavern in the west village of Manhattan was where the the Abstract Expressionists met for storied drunken evenings, and the myth of the macho artist was born.
With love,
Mom
Dear Sophie -
ABSTRACT EXPRESSIONISM was all about the power of the gesture. No one personified this more that JACKSON POLLACK and his drip paintings.
Pollack lived and worked in East hampton New York, was a friend of De Kooning and was married to the artist LEE KRASNER. He laid out his raw canvas on the floor and used sticks, house paints and his whole body for his "Action Painting". Alcohol ended his tumultuous life.
With love,
Mom
Dear Sophie -
Wow, can this guy paint.
WILLEM DE KOONING was at the forefront of the NEW YORK SCHOOL and the ABSTRACT EXPESSIONISTS, although he was quoted as saying: "It is disastrous to name ourselves". He and his artist/wife ELAINE DE KOONING lived and worked in Easthampton, New York.
With love,
Mom
Dear Sophie -
ALFRED JENSEN had a completely individualistic mind blending learnings from mathematics and physics along with ancient Greek, Mayan and Eastern thought in his quest for spirituality.
CHRIS MARTIN paid homage to the cool dude.
Dear Sophie -
Mark Rothko leaves me speechless.
With love,
Mom
ARTHUR DOVE bucked his ivy league education and chose to be an artist instead. In fact, he became a darn good one.
From one dove to another...
With love,
Mom
Dear Sophie -
After MARSDEN HARTLEY travelled throughout Europe, soaking up the influences of the cubists in France among Gertrude Steins circle, and the likes of Kandinsky in Berlin, he returned home to Maine, seeking spirituality through his work.
With love,
Mom
Dear Sophie -
Despite his short life, ARSHILE GORKY was a pivotal artist in the development of ABSTRACT EXPRESSIONISM.
Mom
Dear Sophie -
JOSEPH CORNELL was an American artist who transformed bits of everyday found materials to a poetic, celestial, magical world.
His mind was populated with songbirds and famed divas with storied pasts, while his reality inhabited a modest house in Queens, NY.
With love,
Mom
KURT SCHWITTERS was a typographer, a poet and collage artist transforming random bits of found objects into new meanings. His Merzbau construct may well be the first installation art.
We have to give thanks to all of these brilliant German artists whose lives were disrupted by politics and war. They came to our shores having to create new lives and communities as refugees. The culture and erudition they brought to America was formidable. They changed and informed our physical and intellectual landscape.
With love,
Mom
Dear Sophie -
GEORGE GROSZ illustrated life in Berlin Germany in the 1920's. He documented his criticism of the bourgeosie, the corruption of the church and his hatred for the arrogance and brutality of the military.
His visual attacks were accompanied by equally damning captions in three languages.
Fortunately he safely got out of dodge and settled in Bayside, Queens.
Dear Sophie -
BERTOLT BRECHT was an innovative avant garde German playwright who often collaborated with the composer KURT WEILL and Weill's wife, the singer/actress LOTTE LENYA. Brecht believed that theater could be an effective forum for political ideas and social change.
His most famous production was THE THREEPENNY OPERA with the memorable song MACK THE KNIFE, a Marxist critique of the capitalist world. Told from Berlin in the 1920's where there was corruption among the rich, and deprivation among the poor.
Mack the Knife Sung by Lotte Lenya - YouTube
He would probably roll in his grave if he knew that his masterpiece was now on youtube with a hotel.com ad as a trailer.
Lotte Lenya sings Kurt Weill (vaimusic.com) - YouTube
Brecht escaped the Nazi's by coming to America, only to be challenged by McCarthy and The House Committee on Un-American Activities.
With love,
Mom