Archive for October 22, 2013

Artist of the moment…..photographer Thomas Struth

{ October 22, 2013 @ 9:46 pm } · { Uncategorized }
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Thomas Struth was born in Geldern, Lower Rhein, Germany in the year 1954.  For his artistic education Struth studied with the husband and wife team Bernd and Hilda Becher at the Dusseldorf Academy of Art. Some subjects the artist has explored include portraits, interior design and decoration. Struth was also very interested in architecture and also did a large body of work showcasing the fronts of buildings.

Other popular series include skyscrapers and cityscape.

In this clip a retrospective of Thomas Struth’s career:

Thomas Struth has received commissions from the King and Queen of England.

Struth has exhibited at the Tate Liverpool and was also included in a Venice Biennale.

Struth divides his time amongst Berlin and New York City.

The artist is married to an author named Tara Bray Smith.

In this clip a brief interview with Thomas Struth:

Price range information: Works range from $10,000 to $100,000 for the most part. At auction a work has broken the one million dollar barrier.

The Becher family were great teachers!

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Artist of the moment…..Rafael Tufino

{ October 22, 2013 @ 10:28 am } · { Uncategorized }
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Rafael Tufino was a wonderful artist from Puerto Rico born in the year 1922. Amongst his people Tufino was given the name “The Painter of the People.” The artist was born in Brooklyn, New York and lived in the United States until he was 10 and he went to live with his grandmother in Puerto Rico. Began his art career at the age of twelve painting signs and working with letters as his chosen form of art. This would come in very handy years later when working on producing posters.

Price range information: Sorry none available.

Tufino was part of World War 2 serving in the army. After his service the artist took off for Mexico where attended the San Carlos Academy studying painting and printmaking.

Rafael Tufino is included in many prominent museum collections including the Museum of Modern Art, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and the National Gallery of Art of Puerto Rico.

As a fan of all art forms I think that poster art has been under appreciated until recently. At auction some artists featured here such as Toulouse- Lautrec or David Klein have broken the $10,000 barrier mark at auction. To me the art of making posters is just a cheaper version of a lithographic print. You must be a great artist to make fun and exciting posters.

A wonderful selection of works by the artist. As you can tell through some etchings Tufino was a great draftsman:

A brief interview with the artist. The artist’s voice is interpreted:

Rafael Tufino passed away in 2008 at the age of 85 years of age.

What a great style the artist had. When I compare it to other great poster artists such as David Klein, its amazing to see how they made the letterform the main part of their artwork. Long before the days of computers its important to remember it was all done by hand. If you enjoy the letterform as art be sure and check out my favorite artist in this category, Robert Cottingham. Below an example of Cottingham’s style with the letterform.

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