Harold Frank was an American painter renown for his paintings of the female face and figure. Harold Frank was born in South Hampton, England in the year 1917. Frank and his family immigrated to the United States when he was four years old in 1921. The artist was considered an abstract expressionist painter.
Frank served in the United States Army.
The artist was raised in New York City. Harold Frank attended the National Academy of Design and the Pratt Institute located in New York City. Frank also attended college in Los Angeles studying at U.C.L.A. and the Chouinard Art Institute.
The artist worked in oils, acrylics, and mixed media.
Joe Goode is an American artist renown for his work which is both abstract and representational at the same time. Joe Goode was born in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma in the year 1931. For his collegiate education Goode attended the Chouinard Art Institute located in Los Angeles, California.
Goode is associated with the Pop Art movement. Much of his work during his early years has to do with painting milk bottles and paintings that represent clouds.
Goode is also thought of as a being a colorfield painter with his early works featuring a milk bottle painted in front of single color.
Goode is part of many prominent museum collections including the Museum of Contemporary Art Los Angeles, the Whitney Museum and the Museum of Modern Art both located in New York City.
Price range information: Works range from $3,000 for a print to $250,000 for an original.
I enjoy the torn cloud series works the best. When looking at the painting its hard to imagine its not real paper, but at the same time one recognizes the work as a clouds. A wonderful style that is both very real and very abstract at the same time.
Millard Sheets was born in Pomona, California in the year 1907. Sheets was renown for his painting skills, but also produced fantastic mosaics and sculptures. Sheets not only created the mosaics for a branch bank that existed in California, he also was the major architect of the buildings.
Sheets attended the Chouinard Art Institute located in Los Angeles, California. Its fair to see he mastered the medium at an early age. Whilst still a teen, he was accepted into some prestigious watercolor societies. Sheets was also given the opportunity to teach the art of watercolor before he graduated from Chouinard.
The artist was also renown for his wonderful skill at teaching. Sheets served as director for the Otis Art Institute located in Los Angeles. He helped the program develop new artistic programs.
The artist worked for such nationally renown companies as Life as an illustrator. He also did illustration work for the United States Army.
Sheets completed large mosaic murals and the one pictured below is located in Dallas, Texas. The work was completed in 1959.
Millard Sheets passed away in 1989.
In this clip fellow artists talk about Millard Sheets. Some works are also shown:
Price range information: The artist worked in watercolors and oils. Works range from $10,000 to $150,000.
What a fascinating artist! From painting, to sculpture, and even mosaics and architecture, his creativity had no limit!
Rex Brandt was an American artist renown for his illustrations and abstract landscapes. Rex Brandt was born in San Diego, California in the year 1914. His landscapes are painted often in cubist style.
Brandt excelled in art from a young age, at thirteen he took his first lessons at the Chouinard Art Institute located in Los Angeles, California. Brandt continued with lessons at Riverside Junior College before obtaining a degree from the University of California at Berkeley.
Brandt was a member of the American Watercolor Society and California Watercolor Society.
The artist had a great sense of design and was also an accomplished printmaker. My favorite work in the gallery is the print of San Francisco, a wonderful birds eye view including the famed San Francisco Bridge.
Price range information: Works range from $3,000 to $20,000.
Brandt worked mainly in watercolors.
Rex Brandt passed away in 2000.
The artist was also most popular teachers of watercolor and art in California. He published many instructional books which can be found on Amazon for a great price.
If you enjoy this style of painting be sure and check out watercolor master John Pike. Both were masters of the watercolor medium, its great for depicting the mood and atmosphere, if you can control the medium with the landscape you can find a wonderful mixture of geometric and organic shapes.
John Altoon was born in Los Angeles, California in the year 1925. Altoon attended many art institutions located in Los Angeles including the Otis Art Institute, the Chouinard Art Institute, and the Art Center For Design located in Los Angeles.
Altoon was renown for his art which is similar to Richard Diebenkorn, in that Altoon painted very abstract works. Some are pure abstract works whilst some are abstracted views of nature and the figure.
Altoon, like Diebenkorn, did a well received series of the coastline that could be compared to the Ocean Park series of Diebenkorn. Atloon also liked to work plant shapes.
The artist was renowned for being the life of the party, pushing the limits, and had many friends.
Altoon suffered from emotional distress and was diagnosed as a schizophrenic. Eventually after seeing a good doctor Altoon was able to overcome his problems before passing away from a heart attack in 1969.
Altoon was married two times in his life.
Price range information: Works range from $5,000 to $40,000.
William Brice was born in New York City in the year 1921. Brice was renown for his wonderful blend of abstract and figurative works. Brice worked in many mediums including printmaking, oils, ink, charcoal, and pastel.
Price range information: Sorry none available.
His mother was a well known actress and radio personality named Fannie Brice. Below a picture of his mother.
The artist’s father had a tough life. He enjoyed gambling and sometimes ripped people off with various schemes in order to gamble.
As his mother made good money acting William Brice had a private art teacher in his early years. The artist enjoyed the paintings of Picasso and Matisse. I can easily see Matisse coming into play for his great use of color. Brice when on to study at the Chouinard Art Institute in Los Angeles, California. Later the artist would attend the Art Student’s League of New York City.
Brice had his first solo show at the age of 26 years of age at the Santa Barbara Museum of Art.
In this clip we view a collection of 25 years of drawings from Brice and hear about his influence on another artist:
The artist was also a teacher in Los Angeles working for the Jepsen Art Institute and then U.C.L.A.
Brice passed away at the age of 86 years of age in 2008.
David Hammons is an American artist born in Springfield, IL in 1943. Over his career Hammons has worked with sculpture and assemblage, installations, and performance art. For his collegiate studies Hammons attended the Chouinard Art Institute and the Otis Art Institute both located in Los Angeles, California.
I enjoy Hammons work for his use of unconventional materials. In the gallery above check out the piece with elephants walking around at the base. In the middle is painted elephant dung/ poop. You might not notice its dung as its painted! Very cleaver!
Another series done by David Hammons that received much critical acclaim was a series done called body parts. Hammons used body parts that were greased and then made an imprint on paper. The piece in the gallery above a black man is titled Spade. Spade was a term used by the “in” crowd in the 1970s for an African- American.
For his performance art Hammons loves to push boundaries and try very unique ideas. Among his first efforts was to stand outside during a snowstorm and sell premade assorted snowballs of various sizes.
In the late 1980s his work caused a great deal of anger among African Americans. He painted the religious leader Jesse Jackson with blonde hair and blue eyes. On the billboard it was written, “How you like me now?” The piece was violently destroyed by angry African American men.
price range information: Sorry none available.
Another performance type of art took place when he took 20,000 feet of display area at a gallery that was very dark and the viewers job was to navigate their way through the area with only some flashlights. Very unique in his ideas! Below we get a viewing from this show. I don’t recommend to watch the whole thing, I hope you have some art to work on after you finish reading this article, but you get a great idea for Hammons’ level of creativity.
David Hammons received the MacArthur Fellowship award in 1991.
In this clip we catch up with our art lover friend James Kalm (yeah!) to check out a show featuring the work of David Hammons.
I find the artist very interesting not only for his unique performance ideas, but also because he attended prestigious art institutions but doesn’t really like to show in galleries, preferring to show his art on the streets.
In this last clip we see a great mix of unique ideas, text and Kool Aid!
In this clip see an actual installation. Keep in mind in person the walls are white, and one is framed with neon lighting. In the clip everything appears a shade of blue, but you can grab the idea of his work.
Price range information: Most works are priced from $100,00 to $400,000
Doug Wheeler is another light artist known mainly for his large scale installations. Wheeler was born in Globe, Arizona in the year 1939.Similar to other artists like John McLaughlin Wheeler is thought of as a hard edge abstract artist. He deals with basic geometric shapes and infuses light as he sees fit. The light and space movement is seen as a movement inspired by John McLaughlin. In addition the artists used brand new at the time materials such as resin, neon, and flourescent lighting.
For his artistic education Wheeler attended the Chouinard Institute in Los Angeles, California. His first solo exhibition was in 1968 at the Pasadena Art Museum. With two other artists recently featured here Larry Bell and Robert Irwin took place in the first show outside the United States featuring the Southern California light and space artists.
Make sure to check out the other light and space artists featured here!
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Peter Shire is an American artist that was born in Los Angeles, California in the year 1947. He makes wonderful sculptures with geometric and organic shapes. Shire also makes ceramics and designs furniture. The artist still resides and keeps a studio in Los Angeles.
For his collegiate art education Shire attended the Chouinard Institute of Art located in Los Angeles, Calfornia.
Below is a clip with the an interview featuring the artist. Shire explains some ideas behind his sculpture work.
Shire has done a great amount of public and private commissions with a majority in California. Shire has received many awards for his public works on display throughout the city of Los Angeles. He also works in smaller sizes often producing cups in ceramic.
In this clip we see Peter Shire at work on a very large sized public commission in California.
Peter Shire is part of museum collections including the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York city, the Brooklyn Museum, and Victoria and Albert Museum located in London, England.
First exhibition took place in 1990.
Price range information: The artist has worked in enamels which range from $200 to $2500. Human size larger sculptures range from $2,500 to $10,000. Some of these may even contain moving parts, such as something that his moved by wind.
In this clip see some of the artists enamel jewelry pieces. Shire is sometimes associated with 1981 to 1988 group Memphis Group. This was a group of Italian designers who used a similar palette and many times the same shapes.
Shire reminds me of the great modern abstract artist Wassily Kandinsky. Kandinsky is my favorite abstract artist because his sense of design was so great. His works have great movement across the canvas and beautiful color. Below is a great example of Kandinsky’s abstract style, to me Peter Shire is the three dimensional version of him!
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