Archive for November 16, 2013

Artist of the moment…..Street Artist Nuria Mora

{ November 16, 2013 @ 6:04 pm } · { Uncategorized }
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Nuria Mora is a street artist based out of Madrid, Spain. She is renown for her abstract and very colorful imagery. The artist takes time to make sure her geometric based abstract works will coincide with the texture and patterns that already exist. She enjoys leaving her mark everywhere.

In addition to the painterly street arti, Nuria Mora also creates three dimensional art. She enjoys putting up this work and feels its refreshing to look at something pleasing and interesting to the eye rather than the usual bombardment of advertisements that usually exist.

In this clip we see the artist at work:

I truly love the work of this artist. Such organized abstraction with a sense of color that reminds of such masters as Rex Ray or Wassily Kandinsky. Of all the work I have seen, the floral imagery of the artist strikes me the most.

Her three dimensional work is done with paper and the artist practices origami regularly. Mora loves to display these works in very public spaces such as bus stop locations. The works even light up at night. If you are in Madrid, Spain you can view these three dimensional works at Tirso de Molina Square.

A link to the website of Nuria Mora:

http://www.nuriamora.com/

Price range information: Sorry none available.

I only wish more women would make street! Some world renown female street artists include Swoon who is based out of the states  and Faith47 based out of South Africa. I have already posted articles on both of these great artists before.

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Artist of the moment….Olivia de Berardinis

{ November 16, 2013 @ 12:04 pm } · { Uncategorized }
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Olivia de Berardinis is one of the most renown artists working with the pin up girl as her subject of choice. Olivia de Berardinis was born in Long Beach, California in the year 1948. She grew up on the east coast and attended the New York School of Visual Arts.

When Olivia (that is her name she is known by the most) first began her career she worked as a minimalist painter appearing in shows alongside Frank Stella. In the mid 1970s she began to work in the “pin up girl” style and had great success. Her work regularly appears in the magazine Playboy.

She and her current husband started a company to produce greeting cards painted by the artist. Soon after they started another company to sell her “pin up style” artwork.

In this clip we meet the artist and she talks about beginning her career:

In this clip a great montage of works by Olivia de Berardinis:

Olivia works in acrylics, watercolors, and gouache.

Price range information: Original works range from $5,000 to $20,000. Prints can be found starting around $100.

Great to see such innovation in this genre. If you enjoy the pinup girl genre another artist working with this style is the great Mel Ramos. He combines Pop Art with the female figure, below a great example of Mel Ramos’ work.

mel

Olivia and her husband are now based out of Malibu, California.

Another piece featuring a show with Olivia from 2008:

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Artist of the moment……photographer Erwin Blumenfeld

{ November 16, 2013 @ 3:02 am } · { Uncategorized }
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Erwin Blumenfeld was a fantastic photographer born in Berlin, Germany in the year 1897. Blumenfeld worked in a very modern style and specialized in fashion photography. Blumenfeld was published in the leading fashion magazines of the day including Vogue and Harper’s Bazaar. Blumenfeld enjoyed creating and made collages and drawings in addition to his photographic works.

Blumenfeld received his first camera as a gift when he was 11 years of age.

Blumenfeld was drafted into the army and had to enter World War 1 and fight for Germany. The artist had planned to desert the army, his mother had a different idea and turned him in and he was arrested.

After the war he moved to the Netherlands and opened up a women’s accessory store located in Amsterdam. He moved the store to a new location and the new building included a fully equipped dark room. Blumenfeld photographed some clients of his, sometimes even taking nudes.

In 1935 he was published in a national magazine in France.

His leather store failed in 1936. It went bankrupt and closed it’s doors. Blumenfeld moved to Paris, France and immediately started a successful photography studio taking pictures of artists and celebrities including Josephine Baker, the famous dancer of the Moulin Rouge.

In 1950 Blumenfeld was the highest paid photographer in the world. Later in the decade he would start to make movies and short films with the idea of using film to sell beauty supplies. Blumenfeld was certainly ahead of his time in that regard!

In this clip we view some of his short movies made by Blumenfeld that were to be used to market beauty supplies:

Erwin Blumenfeld passed away in 1969 in what could be called a suicide. Blumenfeld had a heart condition but didn’t take his medication. Then to cause himself to have a heart attack, ran up and down the Spanish steps in Rome, Italy where he was living. The plan worked and he died on July 4th of 1969.

I love the very modern look the Blumenfeld achieved in his work. Like a great painting, its very important to leave somethings out to inspire the viewer to think. Blumenfeld did this is much of his photography work. In addition he wasn’t afraid to experiment with different techniques.

Price range information: Works range from $5,000 to $120,000.

And to close we look at a clip from a documentary about Erwin Blumenfeld:

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Artist of the moment…..Antoine Blanchard

{ November 16, 2013 @ 12:58 am } · { Uncategorized }
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Antoine Blanchard was born in the Loire Valley of France in the year 1910 and his birth name was Marcel Masson. An important figure in the artist’s beginning was his father who was a carpenter. His father sent him to a school to improve his already great drawing skills at young age. Blanchard was most influenced by the Impressionistic style of painting.

Price range information: Works range from $5,000 to $50,000. Most works are oils on canvas.

In this clip we view a great selection of works by Antoine Blanchard set to French music:

Blanchard progressed to painting and studied at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts de Rennes, France. Blanchard then furthered his studies at Ecole des Beaux-Arts in Paris, France. It was in Paris that the artist first began painting his famous Parisian street scenes.

In this clip another montage of works by Antoine Blanchard set to piano music:

Blanchard married and then was drafted to serve in World War 2 in 1939. After his discharge from he immediately got back to painting in 1942.

As a fan of Paris street scenes the artist is very similar in style to Edouard Leon Cortes. Cortes loved to paint the street life of Paris including flower markets and main boulevards such as the Les Champs Elysee. Below are two examples of street scenes from Edouard Leon Cortes.

In the mid 1950s Marcel Masson was selling works in galleries across the United States and took the name Antoine Blanchard.

The artist had two daughters that went on to become professional painters. The family as a whole reminds of the Wiggins family that includes three generations of painters renowned for painting snow scenes and the landscapes of New York. Nicole Blanchard was born in 1943 and below are two examples of her style. Her favorite subject matter was the same as her painterly father’s, Parisian street scenes.

Another daughter of the artist was named Eveline Blanchard. Like father and sister she was fond of painting the street life of Paris. Eveline Blanchard lived from 1946 until 2008. Below a fine example of her style of street painting.

eveline

Antoine Blanchard passed away in 1988.

Yet another family with multiple generations of  artists! I can imagine dad teaching his daughters to paint since they were children and having wonderful paint outs on the streets of Paris with many onlookers watching the three of them painting.

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