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.
Pham An Hai is a wonderful abstract artist born in Hanoi, Vietnam. in the year 1967.
An Hai attended the Hanoi Institute of Fine Arts.
Though best known for his abstract works the artist has also experimented with Expressionist and figure painting.
Price range information: Sorry none available.
Pham An Hai has a great sense of color. The artist seems to apply paint using many different ways of applying paint giving the surface a wonderful variety texture that is a visual feast for the eyes.
In this clip a short documentary on Pham An Hai:
A favorite subject matter for Pham An Hai is the lotus plant. An Hai sees the flower as a great symbol for his beloved hometown of Hanoi.
Chaim Soutine was born in Smilavichy, Russian Empire in the year 1893. Soutine painted landscapes but is better known for his very expressive style of painting portraits. This area is now Minsk, Belarus.
A great montage of works by Chaim Soutine shown here:
Soutine attended the Academy of Fine Arts located in Vilnius, which is now part of Lithuania. After his studies there he moved abroad to Paris, France where he would attend the Ecole Des Beaux Arts.
In this clip we visit a show featuring the works of Chaim Soutine with our dear art loving amigo James Kalm!:
The painter Modigliani was a close friend and painted Chaim Soutine often.
Soutine also loved to paint animal carcasses. On many occasions neighbors complained of the smell of decaying animals and would call upon the police to remove the smell of their neighbor the artist! Soutine was inspired to paint these works based on the famous work Rembrandt completed of decaying meat.
Soutine found support from an American collector, and did rather well for himself before the onset of World War 2. He was in France and it was invaded by the Germans. As he was Jewish, he fled and spent time sleeping outside and always on the run. He developed an ulcer and tried to seek emergency surgery to fix it, but the surgery didn’t help and he passed away in 1943 at the age of 50 years old.
Price range information: Chaim Soutine is heavily collected and prices for a small oil painting start in the mid six figure range up to $20 million for a larger original oil.
I love the expressiveness of his sitters in the portraits. I enjoy looking at portraits of people who are living and breathing in the painting such as those by the Dutch master Frans Hals.
The great American actor Tony Curtis, famous for his role in the movie with Marilyn Monroe ,” Some Like it Hot!” was also an outstanding painter and sculptor. Tony Curtis was born Bernard Schwartz in the year 1925 in Manhattan, New York.
Curtis is associated with the Expressionists and Surrealist movements.
price range information: Sorry none available.
In this outstanding clip from a few years back we visit a show with Tony Curtis that took place at Harrod’s of London, England:
Curtis began his acting career with a contract at the age of twenty- three years of age.
Its important to note that many of the actors who influenced by Tony Curtis, were also personal friends of the artists. In this clip we visit his studio and he talks about some of his friends including Matisse, who played a large role in Curtis’ development of an artist:
Tony Curtis passed away in 2010 at the age of 85 years of age.
Curtis has a star on the famed Hollywood Walk of Fame.
Surely everyone is familiar with some of this actor’s work in Star Wars or currently he was celebrity on Dancing With the Stars, Billy Dee Williams. Billy Dee Williams was born in 1937 in New York City. For his artistic education Billy Dee Williams attended National Academy of Fine Art and Design located in New York City.
Williams refers to his art as “abstract reality.”
Williams grew up in Harlem and was raised mainly by his grandparents as his parents worked several jobs. Williams loved to paint, but found the materials very expensive and took up acting as a way to earn money to pay for his art supplies.
Billy Dee Williams is part of the collection of the National Portrait Gallery.
In this clip we visit a gallery in Toronto for a show featuring the work of Billy Dee Williams. The clip includes a great interview with Billy Dee Williams:
Williams paints with oils and acrylics. Williams works with acrylics using the brush and also the airbrush.
Price range information: Works range from $5,000 to $50,000.
What a talented artist capable of working in many different mediums. Other well known actors who paint would be Eve Plumb from the Brady Brunch who was already profiled here. The actor Tony Curtis was also a talented painter and will be an upcoming post.
Billy Dee Williams was the recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship at the age of nineteen years old.
Georg Baselitz who was born Hans-Georg Kern, and is a German painter born in was later to be East Germany in a city called Deutschbaselitz. As a youngster he enjoyed looking at drawings at the school library. The artist would later rename himself after his own hometown. What a great tribute! Basetlitz is a painter and avid printmaker working in a Neo-Expressionist manner. Baselitz enjoys distorting the figure until he finds the expression he is looking for.
First solo exhibition was in 1963 and it took place in Berlin.
For his artistic education Baselitz attended school in East Berlin. In 1958 Baselitz moved from East to West Berlin. The artist also began to find his own artistic voice and produce works having his own unique style.
In this clip we visit a show featuring the work of Georg Baselitz from 2013:
Price range information: Prints can be had starting at $5,000. Original oils have brought more than $2 million dollars at auction.
Neo Rauch is an German painter born in Leipzig, East Germany in the year 1960. The artist studied at the Honschule fur Grafik and Buchkunst located in Leipzig, Germany. The artist is considered part of the New Leipzig school .His work is a mix of story telling and surrealism. Some critics consider his art social realism. In this regard I compare him to the great David Levine. Rauch works in ceramics, painting, and as a printmaker.
Price range information: Works range from $10,000 to over $1 million dollars at auction for an original oil.
The artist’s parents were killed in a train accident when Neo Rauch was only four weeks old. The artist was raised by his grandparents.
Rauch has exhibited widely in Europe including shows in the Netherlands, Germany, and Poland, and even a show composed for the Metropolitan Museum of Art located in New York City.
Rauch is included in prestigious collections including the Museum of Modern Art in New York City and the Stedelijk Museum of Amsterdam, Netherlands
Price range information: Works range from
The artist remains based out of Leipzig.
In this clip we visit a show featuring Neo Rauch with the great James Kalm:
Asaad Arabi was born in Damascus, Syria in the year 1941. Arabi works in a very modern style and blends a great sense of design with cultural motifs to create some truly magnificent paintings. Arabi enjoys painting city scenes with women in lengthy Arabic clothing. My personal favorite of the artists are his works of jazz musicians.
Asaad Arabi likes to paint not only what we see, but what might be hidden just beneath the surface.
Arabi is based out of Paris, France.
For his collegiate education Asaad Arabi attended the Sorbonne where he earned a PhD in Aesthetics.
Some prominent collections holding his works include the Los Angeles County Museum of Art and the Barcelona Contemporary Museum of Art.
Price range information: Sorry none available.
Most works painted by this artist are in acrylic. He seems to lay it on very thick, the works have a great paint quality to them. Very expressive indeed!
Ernst Ludwig Kirchner was born in Aschaffenburg, Germany in the year 1880. The artist was a painter, sculptor, and printmaker.
For his artistic education Kirchner attended school in Dresden and Munich, Germany. He studied art and architecture.
Kirchner was part of the legendary New York City Armory Show of 1913.
Was a participant in World War 1 but was discharged due to a nervous breakdown.
In this clip some works by Kirchner set to music:
Kirchner had much of his art seized by the Nazi party. His work was called degenerate and the artist was made to resign his position as a member of the Prussian Academy where he had been in the position for six years. Much of his work was destroyed or sold.
After having so much of his art and career ruined by the Nazi party, Ernst Kirchner took his own life in 1938.
In this clip a work from 1913 by Kirchner is talked about by a curator at the M.O.M.A.:
Price range information: Works range from $5,000 for prints to more than $2 million for works at auction.
Kirchner is part of several important collections including the Museum of Modern Art and Metropolitan Museum of Art both located in New York City.
Leon Kossoff is British artist born in London, England in the year 1926. In many ways the artist reminds me of the great British painter Lucien Freud. Both Kossoff and Freud looked to capture feeling and emotion in their works. And like the wonderful Joaquin Sorolla, Kossoff enjoys working with very think and impasto texture. Kossoff is considered an expressionist painter. Kossoff is renown for his landscape and portraiture work.
His birthday was December 7th.
Price range information : His work seldom comes on the market but oils have broken the one million dollar mark at auction. The artist also did etchings and worked in pastels.
Kossoff attended school in London and Norfolk. For his collegiate education Kossoff attended Saint Martin’s School of Art located in London, England where he studied commercial art. Kossoff also attended Borough Polytechnic.
Leon Kossoff has taught at many well known art institutions including Saint Martin’s and the Chelsea School of Art.
If you enjoy this style of painting be sure and check out the work of Frank Auerbach!
Lately the artist has been painting cityscapes of London. This exhibition will be traveling the globe worldwide in 2013 and 2014.
Has been shown at the National Gallery of Art in London.
Kossoff turned down the offer of being appointed Commander of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire.
In this clip we visit his recent show about London landscape paintings:
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