Archive for September 12, 2012

Artist of the moment…..Bernard Buffet…

{ September 12, 2012 @ 7:52 pm } · { Uncategorized }
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The artist was born in France in 1928.  Went to the School of Fine Arts in Paris. Was a studio assistant to well known painter, Eugene Narbonne. Narbonne was primarly a figure painter.

A great clip here showing  a work of the artist that sells at auction for $56,000. Very exciting!

Refreshing images of the artist set to music here. After seeing so many great impressionist paintings of coastal europe its quite refreshing to see someone that is dependent on lines and as an artist keeps many sharp edges. His paintings are like etchings in that regard.

Buffet was a true artist and mastered many mediums over his career. He worked in crayon, oils, etching, watercolor, acrylics, and drypoint.

High price range:  Oil painting of a clown broke the $200,000 mark earlier this year.  Watercolor high is $32,000.  Gouache is $122,000.

Low price range: Many lithographs are available from $1,000 to $2,000. Works done in pencil mainly priced from $1,000 to $5,000.

Part of a group called the Anti- Abstract Movement.  The artist illustrated a book that won many fans titled “LE CHANTS DE MALDORER.”

In 1955 a magazine gave the artist first prize amongt ten up and coming post world war II artists. When he was thirty the first restrospective of his career was held.

The artist was lover to the fashion designter Yves St. Lauren.

After this arrangement ended he married an actress and writer named Annabel Schwob. The couple ended up having two daughters and one son.

A musueum showing exclusive works by the artist was opened in Japan in 1976.

In 1978 at the request of the French Postal Service he designed a special stamp featuring the arts. At this moment the post office also held a retrospective of the artist’s career.

Very prolific as an artist, right up there with Grandma Moses! He produced more than 8,000 original paintings and drawings and a great number of prints in addition to the originals.

The artist died in a sad manner. Buffet developed Parkinson’s disease and was unable to work. The artist was seventy one years old when he took his own life in Tourtour, France. He put his head in a plastic bag that was attached to his neck with tape. The artist died in 1998.

The artist was fascinated for both his private life and his painting career. Similar to Van Gogh in his feeling the need to express himself. Also for the fact he took his own life since he could no longer paint. What a sad ending to life that brought us the viewer more than 8,000 works! The main thing to learn from this artist is to master your own style. If line is part of your end result, VARY THE LINES!
And of course PAINT PAINT PAINT!

Create!

D

Artist of the moment……Grandma Moses….

{ September 12, 2012 @ 11:31 am } · { Uncategorized }
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The artist was born on September the seventh in the year 1860 on a farm in Greenwich, New York.

In an era where Life magazine was the leader in its industry, the magazine featured her on its September 19th cover in 1960 in celebration of her one hundredth birthday!

When I think of Grandma Moses I am reminded of going to the shed and bringing in Christmas lights and decorations. Marketers used her work to advertise the major holidays. She painted wonderful winter scenes with children skating about a new coat of fresh fallen snow.

As you can guess she was highly successful as a commercial artist. Some items that bore her artwork were cigarettes, lipstick, curtains, cookie jars, and dinner ware.

Grandma Moses also won women of the year award from magazines and even manufacturers.

Grandma Moses collection of artwork below set to music.

She came from a family of ten children.  She didn’t marry until the age of  twenty seven, but Moses herself had ten children, but five of them died as infants.  She married a hired hand of the farm. The couple moved to Virginia and started their own farm. Her husband died in the mid 1920s and one of her sons helped her to run the farm. She remained on the farm until old age forced to move in with her daughter in 1936.

When living on a farm you have much down time in which to create things like clothes and paintings. Grandma Moses as a young mother used to embroider. Her pieces were very well received and admird by friends and family. As the artist grew older and hit the age of seventy, Moses developed arthritis and gave up embroidery. A friend suggested she start painting. Thus, a new career and star in the art world was born!  Moses herself said she started painting to make a gift for the postman that was easier to make than embroidery.

The artist was very prolific as a an artist producing more than 1,600 paintings in little more than three decades time.

If this artist isn’t incredible for her life story, she also has quite a story on being discovered. When she first started out she sold her paintings for $2 for a smaller work and $3 for a large painting. An art collector was driving through a city and saw somenworks for sale in a drug store. He bought them all! He then went to the house of Grandma Moses and purchased ten additional works.

The year 1939 she was included in a show about unknown American painters. She gained worldwide critical acclaim over the next couple of years and was highly collected in the art markets outside of the United States.

Moses has a book about her lifestyle titled “Grandma Moses, My Life’s History.”

Grandma Moses passed away in 1961 at the young age of 101 years old!

High price range:  $1.2 million for a work in oils at auction.

low price range: Many prints such as greeting cards available for less than $50.

D