Willy Ronis was a French photographer (The first image is the artist himself.) Willy Ronis was born in Paris, France in the year 1910. His parents had left their home countries of Odessa and Lithuania because of their treatment of Jewish people. His father ran a portrait photography studio and his mother gave piano lessons.
His father would pass away from cancer in the mid 1930s and Ronis took over the family business of shooting portraits. This business would fail soon after his father’s death, and Willy Ronis would go on to be a free lance photographer.
Price range information: Most works priced between $2,000 and $20,000.
The artist became the first French photographer to work for the magazine Life.
Ronis was the recipient of a gold medal award at the 1957 Venice Biennial.
Below a wonderful selection of images by Willy Ronis:
Willy Ronis passed away in 2009.
Similar to other luminaries such as Diane Arbus, Willy Ronis did a wonderful job at capturing the feeling of a moment. Be it romance or a cat that is taken by a bird or a something in a window, the artist was magnificent at documenting fleeting moments of time.
Broken Fingaz is a street artist collective from Israel. The collective consists of four members named Tant, Deso, Kip, and Unga. As a group they have completed many illustrative assignments including music album covers, murals, fashion design, and even animation.
Price range information: Sorry none available.
Broken Fingaz draws inspiration from tatoos, the skateboard culture, and also from comic books.
In this clip we view something new on the street art scene, animated street art! A wonderful clip showing the works of Broken Fingaz if they were able to move and to be brought to life:
The group is based out of Haifa, Israel.
Works of the group are part of the collection of the Tel Aviv Museum of Art.
In this clip more great animated works by Broken Fingaz:
What a great team of artists! If you like this style of street art be sure and check out my article on Barry McGee, who has a very similar style.
Dorothea Lange was an American photographer was renown for his images of the Great Depression era. Dorothea Lange was born in Hoboken, New Jersey in the year 1895. Her most famous works deal with migrant workers and
Lange had a difficult childhood as her father abandoned the family. She also was a victim of the disease polio. This caused her to have weak legs and she walked with permanent limp.
The artist attended Columbia University located in New York City where she studied photography. After college was able to work in the studios of many famous photographers.
Lange worked for the government program (F.S.A.) at the Farm Security Administration.
Talk about an artistic husband and wife duo, Dorothea Lange was married to American western painter Maynard Dixon. The couple had two children. After the couple divorced Lange married an economics professor. Lange and the professor travelled about the country and Lange took photographs of people whilst the professor would interview them and add them to the his economic studies.
Her most famous photograph dealt with a migrant worker who lived in camp that was nearly dying trying to put food on the table for her and her two kids. Lange also photographed Americans that were of Japanese decent who were sent to American Internment Camps. The photographs of the Internment camps angered the army.
In this clip we take a closer look at the most renown work of Lange, that of the migrant mother who is starving:
Dorothea Lange passed away in 1965 at the age of 70s years old.
Price range information: Photographs and prints range from $5,000 to $500,000.
In this clip some works of the Depression area are shown:
Lange was wonderful at capturing the mood of people. Her use of black and white photography also plays a key role in this aspect of her work.
Raymond Howell was an African American painter that produced works dealing with the African American experience. Howell also tried to help bring art to minority children. Howell’s work is a fantastic blend of surrealism and realism.
Raymond Howell was born in the year 1931.
Howell was very popular in his home region of San Francisco, California. Raymond Howell Day takes place every year on his birthday, September 7th.
Raymond Howell passed away in 2002.
The artist is part of the collection of the Oakland Museum of Art.
Price range information: Howell created a small number of prints which can be found for $1,000. Originals in oils can reach $10,000. The artist also worked in acrylics.
Below a montage of great works by Raymond Howell from a private collection:
Robert Frank was born in Zurich, Switzerland in the year 1924. Frank is renown for his photography featuring the many classes of people and ethnic groups that make up America. Frank produced a book of his images called the Americans in 1958.
Coming from Europe, the artist found the pace of life in America to fast. He also thought too much attention is given to money.
Here we see a collection of works by Robert Frank presented by the Smithsonian:
Price range information: Works range from $5,000 to nearly $700,000 for his famous work featuring a trolley car in New Orleans. This work is the third from the bottom in the picture gallery.
In addition to photography Frank was a film maker who enjoyed shooting documentaries. The artist produced a film that covered the Rolling Stones whilst on a music tour. The film was controversial and the Stones ended up suing Frank for the copyright to the film. The movie can only be shown 5 times per year and Frank must be present.
What an interesting story. As compared to other New York City area photographers such as Diana Arbus, already profiled here, who captured dwarfs and very unique people in the big Apple. Frank travelled the world over shooting wonderful works of people going about their daily business. His highest selling work, the trolley, is a great snapshot of American life in a major metropolitan city.
Rone is a fantastic street artist from Australia who is renowned for his paintings of people. Rone was born in Australia in the year 1980.
Rone has his favorite subject matter which includes skateboarding and video games.
In this clip we view a show from 2011 that featured Rone and other artists painting live! Other artists are featured but Rone is shown painting using a stencil on canvas at 40 seconds into the clip:
Price range information: Sorry none available.
Rone works in the field of graphics design.
Like my favorite street artist Swoon, Rone also uses wheatpastes when he doesn’t have to paint images. He works in the daytime as his work is very detailed and he prefers to work in full light. The artist also uses stencils in his work.
Clay Rice is the grandson of the silhouette artist Carew Rice. Like his grandfather both artists specialize in making cut paper silhouettes. Though his grandfather was famous for his cut paper work and Clay Rice saw him work many times, the artist didn’t begin to take cut paper silhouette work with the vigor of a professional artist until he was in his twenties.
Clay Rice has done by his own account more than 900,000 portrait works. Most of these works take around one minute to complete as you can see in the film clip.In this clip we watch as Clay Rice gives us a live demonstration of a cut paper silhouette:
Rice has also produced children’s books containing his fantastic cut paper artwork. Rice has won awards for his children’s books. Clay Rice has very high standards for himself as he hopes to win a Caldecott award which is given for outstanding pictures and illustrations in children’s literature.
In addition to children’s books Rice’s work has appeared in the television series Army Wives.
Rice says he has been doing silhouette cuts for a little more than three decades time.
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!
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:
Leon Gaspard was born in Vitebsk, Russia Empire in the year 1882. Gaspard was renowned for his paintings of landscapes and small towns of Russia and Asia. Gaspard enjoyed making works with large crowds of people. For his mediums of choice Gaspard worked in oils for the most part but did use watercolor, gouache, and pastels in addition.
Price range information: Works range from $5,000 to $800,000.
His father was a salesman of rugs and furs. His mother loved to play the piano.
For his artistic education Gaspard attended the Academy Julien located in Paris, France. Gaspard also studied with famed figure painter Willaim Adolphe- Bougereau.Whilst in school his parent’s passed away and though he quit studying, he was far enough advanced as artist to find a dealer to represent his work.
Gaspard met and married an American woman who was a professional ballerina. He joined the French Aviation Corps and was injured in the field.
The couple moved back to the United States. The couple lived in New York City before relocating to the Taos, New Mexico area.
Once in Taos, New Mexico the artist flourished and gained much attention and fame for his paintings of his native Russian homeland.
Leon Gaspard passed away in 1964.
What I love about the Russian Impressionist painters is their color palette. The sky is full of amazing blue grey color and clothes are a great compliment to the skies.
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