Hessam Abrishami is a painter and printmaker renown for his contemporary work with the figure. Hessam Abrishami was born in Shiraz, Iran in the year 1951.
The artist now lives in California. Abrishami is one of eight children.
Abrishami attended college in Iran where he studied architecture. The artist also earned a master’s degree from a college located in Perugia, Italy.
price range information: Sorry none available.
Below a great selection of works by Hessam Abrishami set to music:
What I enjoy most about this artist is his use of color. I first became aware of Hessam Abrishami as a hospital I visited often had many prints of his work. I find his work to uplifting and warm, a perfect fit for a hospital.
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.
Tayyabb Mehta was a wonderful painter of the figure using a modernist approach born in Kapadvanj, India in the year 1925.
For his collegiate studies Mehta attended he Sir J.J. School of Art.
Price range information: The artist has had works break the 2 million dollar barrier in acrylics and the 3 million dollar barrier in oils. Lithographs and smaller works in ink or charcoal can be found between $10,000 and $50,000.
Based out of Mumbai, India for the majority of his painting career.
Had stints abroad in London and New York that increased his skill level.
Had a wife and 2 children.
Receipient of Rockefeller Fellowship.
Also a producer of short length movies including a very well received work titled Koodal, a movie shot at a slaughter house.
One theme the artist enjoyed was portraying a person pulling a rickshaw. Very common and used daily in Indian life.
In this clip we see a drawing with crayon on paper by Mehta.
Tayeb Mehta has had a work sell for $1.5 million at auction. In this clip we visit this magnificent work.
Mehta passed away in 2009 at the age of 83 years old.
Tony Cragg was born in Liverpool, England in the year 1949. Cragg is renown for his sculpture works which can be very abstract and very real at the same time. A great example of this is the last picture in the gallery, what seems to be very abstract shapes are really faces!
Tony Cragg is a sculptor working with the figure in a modern manner. This clip features an exhibition for Cragg given at the Scottish National Gallery of Art.
For his collegiate education the artist first was lab technician at the national rubber producers research association. He then studied arts at the Gloucestershire College of Art and the Wimbledon College of Art where he finished his bachelors of art degree. Cragg went on to earn a masters degree from the Royal College of Art.
First show in 1977.
In this clip we visit a show in Dallas of 2012.
Currently head of an art school in Dusseldorf, Germany. The school is famous for producing such artists like Gerhard Richter and Sigmar Polke. He was part of the teaching faculty at this school for ten years from 1978 to 1988.
Elected to the Royal Academy of London.
Price range information: The artist is very prolific and works in many mediums including gouache paintings which range $2,000 to $250,000. Etchings and aquatints can be found between $500 and $2,000. The artist once sold a work done in steel for $812,000.
Cragg considers himself to be highly materialistic and enjoys working not only in bronze, but also in wood, and marble and other found materials.
If you enjoy looking at a great mix of realism and abstraction in sculpture check out the work of Ju Ming whom I posted about with the past week. A wonderful artist hailing from Taiwan that enjoys carving fighting figures out of many different materials. Below an example of Ju Ming’s style.
Fang Lijun is a world renown artist that works with the figure in a heavily stylized manner. Fang Lijun was born in the year 1963 in Handan, in Hebei Province in China. Lijun was part of the Cynical Realist movement that swept through China in the early 1990s. The artist has done a large body of work that tells the story of modern day China. From the youth who want to enjoy a more Western and urbanized lifestyle, to the youth that were involved in Tianamen Square massacre some twenty years ago. He often inserts his own portraits in his work, the bald headed man. Lijun was born into a very wealthy family.
Attended Railroad School in the Province from age nine to seventeen.
The next three years Lijun attended Hebei Light Industry School where he specialized in ceramic studies.
Also attended the Central Insitute of Fine Arts in Beijing, China.
In 1992 moved with many other artists forming a sort of art colony.
Likes to promote the bald head as he believes in the Chinese culture they are seen as slow and sometimes not so intelligent. Another theme incorporated in many works is water. Water is used to represent major social change and ideas.
First exhibition in 19095 in Paris, France.
Price range information: The artist is one of the leading painters in the world today and his work is in high demand. Woodcuts start around $3,000 to 15,000. Originals have broken the four million dollar barrier. Originals in acrylics have broken the three million dollar mark. Lijun has also produced work in bronze and porcelain, but not enough information to form a consistent pricing schedule.
He now is based out of Beijing, China.
In this clip we see and hear some background behind one of the artist’s paintings and his thoughts on the future of mankind.
In this clip a great montage of the artist’s works.
Robert Gwathmey was born in Richmond, Virginia in the year 1903. Though his style is associated with African Americans, Gwathmey himself was white. Gwathmey was known for creating pictures of the rural south and for painting the very human side of people of color.
The artist had a difficult childhood for reasons beyond his control. Gwathmey’s father was a railroad engineer. While still a child his father was killed in a train wreck whilst on the job. To pay the bills the older kids took jobs. This led Robert Gwathmey to see the social inequalities of his own local neighborhood.
For his collegiate education Gwathmey attended several schools. He attended the North Carolina State College, the Maryland Institute of Design, and the Pennsylvania Academy of the Arts.
Which artist does Gwathmey remind me of the most? It would be Ernest Crichlow. The now deceased African American painter who painted people of color with remarkable patterns and backgrounds. Below is an example of Crichlow’s style of art. Crichlow lived from 1914 to 2005. Along with artists Norman Lewis and Romare Bearden, Crichlow founded the the Cinque Gallery which gave a venue to disadvantaged artists.
Robert Gwathmey was married to professional photographer Rosalie Gwathmey. The couple had a son who became a famous architect named Charles Gwathmey. So here we have another painter/ photographer couple similar to Georgia O’Keefe and Alfred Steiglitz. Rosalie Gwathmey enjoyed photographing people of color much in the same manner her husband enjoyed painting people of color. Below is an example of a gelatin silver print of hers. She was quite famous in the photography world and is included in the Smithsonian Museum of Art collection.
Most gelatin silver prints by Rosalie Gwathmey are selling from $2,000 to $3,000.
Price range information on Robert Gwathmey: The artist was very prolific and made many lithographic prints that sell from $300 to $1200. Color lithographs can reach $2,000. Watercolors can range from $3000 to $9000. Works in oils range from $8000 to $72,000.
Charles Gwathmey was the couples only son and was born …… He went on to become famous for his designs of rather large industrial buildings. His company has helped design many such locales in New York city. Below is a clip of a large building that was designed by Charles Gwathmey and his firm.
Below I found a great example of a loft designed by Gwathmey and Seigel in New York city. The loft has 2 bedrooms and 2.5 baths. The cost is $2.7 million U.S. dollar$. His designs come at a hefty price! Charles Gwathmey gained much publicity for his renovation of the Guggenheim Museum in New York.
Robert Gwathmey passed away in 1988 at the age of 85 years old.
Auguste Rodin was born today in Paris, France on November 12th in the year 1840. He is best known for his sculpture works, the most famous being the “Thinker.” This was a piece of art quite familiar to me as I grew up watching Dobie Gillis who always went to contemplate life whilst posing close to the statue. Here you can see what I am talking about, even watching just the first minute of the clip! Rodin is considered by many art historians to be the father of modern sculpture.
Born to middle class parents. Father worked for the police department. Rodin tried on multiple occasions to be accepted into the Grand Ecole, a wonderful school of fine arts in France. He was rejected for his clay sculptures, they were too modern looking. After this setback Rodin took to designing ornaments and working in the commercial art field.
The artist wasn’t able to fully realize making money from his art until he was in his thirties. Rodin earned an alright living working in the commerical decoration business, but it was later in life when he would become super successful as both an artist and as a businessman. He met his partner Rose, in 1864 and the couple would have one son.
He went on to take sculpting lessons with Antoine-Louis Barye, a great sculptor of animals. This taught the artist how to capture motion in clay.
He was gradually able to save up enough money to travel in Europe and when he saw Michelangelo it changed his life! He found more belief in his way of seeing the world and thanked Michelangelo for breaking him free of the shackles of the Neo Classical style Rodin hated.
Gradually the artist was able to gain public commissions and he also assisted other more popular artsits in their work. One commission that garnered him much recognition was a work titled the Burghers of Calais. The piece was commissioned by Calais. A small city that during the days of princes and knights was told everyone in the city would be killed in mass bloodshed unless six well known citizens came to the new powers to be and gave themselves up ready to die. Rodin made this work into a bronze weighing nearly two tons.
A great selection of many sculptures made by the Auguste Rodin.
A musuem in his name has more than 6,000 sculptures and more than 7,000 drawings. It is located in Paris, France.
Price range info: The french government ended up passing a law to deal with the possibility of fakes. It also was to cement the idea that only twelve copies of an artist’s casts can be made for it to be considered by the artist. If a work has a certified history, or provenance, it can be worth millions. In 2008 a work sold at the auction house Christies for 18.9 million dollars. Smaller works done in bronze can be found for less than one thousand dollars. Lithographs can be found from a few hundred to five thousand dollars.
In this footage see some very old film of Rodin walking around a statue. What a beard the man had! Santa Clause would be jealous!
Let us compare the works of another master sculptor, who is famous like Vincent Van Gogh even among those who don’t love art, Michelangelo. Michelangleo depicted gods and goddesses and of course his masterpiece David. He exaggerated body parts and limbs to make humans appear more divine. The approach of Rodin was the opposite. He was out to capture a person without idealizing or making them more beautiful than they appeared. Many critics when seeing his work for the first time didn’t like this new approach. Rodin stuck to his method and eventually the entire art world changed their minds! Rodin was considered a master of a new type of modern sculpture.
Some major works that you may heard of by the artist besides the thinker are The Kiss, The Walking Man, and The Age of Bronze.
At the turn of the century he was the sculptor held in highest regard and was known world wide.
He had a steady lover and companion named Rose, but they didn’t get married until the last year of both of their lifes. The couple were married in January. Rose died just two weeks later in February. August Rodin passed away in November of the same year (1917) at the age of seventy seven.
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