Fredrick Prescott is an exciting artist born in 1949 renown for his work with kinetic sculpture. The works of Prescott are meant to be touched by the viewer. What I enjoy about his art is the liveliness and well drawn aspects of the work. The artist works with some studio assistants and is based out of Hawaii. Prescott usually constructs works out of steel that involve crowds of people.
Price range information: Works range from $2,000 to $45,000.
If I had to compare this artist to another artist it would be Red Grooms. Red Grooms has the same cartoony and whimsical style of drawing. Below are some examples of Red Grooms.
In this clip we view one Frederick Prescott’s famed kinetic animal sculptures of a buffalo! The movement makes the steel come to life.
In this clip we view another Prescott work featuring a tiger:
Yaacov Agam is an artist born in Mandate, Palestine in the year 1928. Agam is renown for his work that consists of a “rainbow palette” and the use of geometric shapes. For his artistic education Agam attended the Bezalel Academy of Arts and Design located in Jerusalem. The movement most associated with Agam is kinetic art. Kinetic art involves a type of movement, sometimes machine driven, in the end result.
Agam’s favorite medium is sculpting.
The artist works in a very large scale with some public commissions larger than 30 feet.
Works are found in Israel, Los Angeles, and Paris.
Yaacov Agam is based out of Paris, France.
price range information; Works range from $1,000 for a screenprint to $250,000 for a large sized sculpture.
In this clip the artist shows a beating heart!
A short bio/ documentary about Yaacov Agam.
A quick trip to the Museum in Tel-Aviv to view works by Agam.
In this short clip this is a great example of kinetic art, as you move from right to left around the picture the image changes! One sculpture the artist made for children was meant to change for them as they grew taller.
Other kinetic arts profiled here include Jesus Rafael De Soto and Carlos Cruz Diez.
Constantin Xenakis was born in Cairo, Egypt in the year 1931. Xenakis now spends much of his time in Paris, France where he moved in 1955. The artist is renown for his use of text, math, and symbols in his art. The artist also produces kinetic sculptures. Kinetic energy has to do with the energy an object has due to its motion.
Made a Chevalier of the Order of Arts and Letters.
In this clip we view a collection of works that shows the many symbols used by the artist. It could be text such as letters from the Hebrew or Greek alphabet. Symbols seen on your daily walks through town could be used or letters from a math or chemistry equation. The show was titled Codes, Secrets, and Lost Symbols.
In this clip Xenakis wishes us well in 2013. I love his use of repeating shapes and patterns in these intricate works.
Has work in the National Museum of Greece.
Price range information: The artist has worked in many mediums including acrylics which $10,000 to $25,000. Oils range from $1,500 and up. Watercolors $2,000 to $8,000.
If you enjoy looking at text and letters make sure and read my post about Dennis Brown and visit his website. He hails from Ireland and studied calligraphy in college though starting at a young age. Sometimes he builds his letters using glass. A link for Denis Brown’s website : http://quillskill.com/
Below a wonderful collection of sculptures by Alexander Calder.
Calder is given credit for inventing the moving sculpture. In this clip see some of his mobile artworks.
A few months ago you may remember a post about Ilya Bolotowsky. He was a Russian painter who was abstract in his art. A customer of a Goodwill store came upon a work by Bolotowsky, but didn’t know it. The customer just enjoyed the art! She eventually had the artwork appraised at it was an original work of art by Ilya Bolotowsky. It later sold at auction for $36,000. What a great story!
Another lucky customer of a Goodwill store has come across an art bargain. This time the artist was Alexander Calder, our featured artist of the moment. A teacher named Kathy Mallet was able to find a print by Calder at a Goodwill store and paid $12.34 for it. The work was a lithographic print by Alexander Calder and it sold for $9,000 this past week! Mallet is employed by Georgetown University in their public relations department.
Here is a picture of Kathy Mallet with the artwork she bought using her loyalty card. The original price was $12.99, with her loyalty card the price was taken down to $12.34.
Alexander Calder was born in Lawton, Pennsylvania in the year 1898. His father Alexander Stirling Calder was well known sculptor who was awarded many public commissions. His father was very skilled at working with both the male and female figure. Much of his work was very large in scale, public sized if you will. Below is an sample of his style of sculpture. Stirling Calder passed away in 1945.
Alexander Calder is also known for making many miniature sized figure works out of wire. His goal was to create an entire miniature circus.
In 1902 Calder posed for his father in a sculpture work that is now owned by the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. The work was titled THE MAN CLUB.
As a child his family lived in Arizona, California, and then back in Philadelphia. Then the artist’s father got a great position as head of sculpture with the Panama Pacific International Exposition. The family would move back and forth between New York and California.
For college the artist attended the Stevens Institute of Technology in New Jersey. His bachelor’s degree was in mechanical engineering. For a short time he was a mechanic on a ship that sailed to many exotic locales around the world. For his art skills, he took a job at the National Police Gazette where he was given an assignment to draw the Ringling Brothers circus. This would become a favorite lifelong theme for Calder.
He would move to New York and start taking classes at the Art Students League of New York.
Calder eventually settled in Paris raising two small children. He went on to make wearable art in addition to his paintings and sculptures.
Calder died in 1976 after a well received opening at a solo exhibition at the Whitney Museum of Art in New York city.
Price range info: Sculptures can go as much as $4.4 million dollars. Works in gouache can be found in the six figures, less than $120,000. Ink works can be found for $20,000 to $50,000.
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