Lucy Tikiq Tunguak is contemporary Inuit artist famous for her work with basalt and the figure. Tunguak’s work brings to mind the round people of the Colombian artist Francis Botero. Lucy Tikiq Tunguak was born in the Baker Lake, Nunavet Territory, Canada in the year 1939.
In this clip we visit a work by Lucy Tikiq Tunjuak set to go to auction.
price range information: The artist work mainly with basalt and works range from $600 to $3,000.
No more info on this artist but more Inuit art coming soon!
Eva Hesse was a wonderful sculptor best known for her use of unusual for the art world materials. She was very modern in materials using rubber, cheesecloth, fiberglass, latex, and plastic among other items. Eva Hesse was born to Jewish parents who were living in Hamburg, Germany. The couple realized their safety would soon be compromised and relocated to the Netherlands, followed by England, and then finally New York City.
Below we visit the San Fransisco Museum of Modern Art and listen to a curator talk about the varied materials Eva Hesse employed.
In this clip we visit a show in Scotland that features both large and small experimental sculpture works by Eva Hesse.
She was quite productive over her career and may be classified as both abstract and a female figurative artist.
For her artistic education Eva Hesse attended Pratt Institute for one year, then three years at Cooper Union School in New York and finally Yale University where she earned a bachelors degree and mentored under Josef Albers. and also took classes at the Art Students League of New York City. Albers was renown for his use of basic rectangular or square shapes augmented with flat bright color. Below a great example of Albers’ style.
Other influences were Jean DuBuffet and Joseph Beuys.
Hesse had a tough life. Her parents divorced in 1945 and her mother committed suicide in 1946. At the age of 34 years old she was diagnosed with a brain tumor and passed away in 1970 at 34 years of age.
After her passing the Guggenheim held a retrospective of the artist’s career, it was a first for a woman artist.
price range information: Artwork ranges from $50,000 for an original watercolor or gouache to $4.5 million for an original oil painting titled “Iterate.”
Another montage of works by Hesse. Eva Hesse is the woman that appears in the first image on this clip.
Sad to see Eva passed away at such a young age. She was a great modernist and at a time when artists like Lucio Fontana are setting new auction records , look for more works of Hesse to be on the market soon.
Hong Hao is a fantastic contemporary Chinese photographer that enjoys digital effects and with photography to create unique Pop art statement on the current Chinese culture. Hong Hao was born in the year 1965 in Beijing, China. For his artistic education Hao attended the Central Academy of Fine Arts located in Beijing, China where he studied printmaking.
His first series of prints were silkscreen prints that resembled ancient Chinese maps.
Started to work with photographs in 1999. 2001 makes his first well received series with photographs, titled My Things. To make these images Hao uses hundreds of items that he scans onto his computer. He then manipulates the image so they all fit into a neat box. These are indeed a snapshot of consumer culture in China. His work is representational of the wants, needs, and desires of his culture. What a great idea!
Another series he has been working on more recently involves taking an image of ancient Chinese scrolls but inserting people from modern times onto the image. In this clip from a show we see some examples of this type of work. Pictures start at 47 seconds into the clip.
Other well received series include famous icons of China and another where Hong is usually seated at a luxurious poolside event with a servant enjoying the proceeds and profits of his artistic stardom. He is a great model of someone that has achieved world wide success and tries to capture for the viewer what life a the top is like.
Currently lives and works out of Beijing, China.
Price range information: Most works range between $5,000 and $30,000.
Lawren Stewart Harris was a wonderful Impressionist painter born in the year 1885 in Brantford, Ontario, Canada. Harris painted portraits but is renown for his wonderful abstract landscape works which bring to mind the wonderful American artist Ed Mell. Below an example of Ed Mell’s work. I love the way both artist paint the sky, very abstract and fun cloud shapes!
For his collegiate studies Harris attended school in Berlin, Germany.
And in this clip an entire room dedicated to Lawren Harris paintings!
In 1913 Harris put up money to purchase the Student Building of Canadian Art located in Toronto, Ontario. This building would be the foundation of the representational group of Canada titled the Group of Seven. Unfortunately their efforts were disrupted by the first world war. Harris went into the army.
After service his ideas about painting changed and the artist looked toward a vision more concerned with spirituality. Harris joined a group that included other artists Piet Mondrian and Wassily Kandisky, the group was called the Theosophical Society.
After the war his work changed in that his palette had less color and vibrancy. Harris put his focus on creating an eye pleasing combination of shapes that he chose to include in his paintings. In his search for a spiritual solution to painting the landscape the artist enjoyed the painting the rough mountainous landscapes of the Northern Areas of Canada.
Harris moved to New Mexico and became part of the Transcendental Group. A group that tried to portray emotion of a scene rather than a photographically correct landscape.
For his artistic career he spent time in New Mexico and Ontario. The couple only lived in New Mexico and went back to live in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada after the outbreak of World War 2.
Lawren Harris passed away in 1970 at the age of 85 years old.
Price range information: Works in granite can be had for a few thousand dollars up to $8,000. Original works in oils usually range in the high five figures to low six figures. The artist has broken the 3 million dollar mark at auction. Below we revisit this auction and the name of the work is ” The Old Stump.”
And to close another artwork at auction breaks the one million dollar barrier.
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