Leon Underwood was a British painter and sculptor. Leon Underwood was born in Shepherds Bush, London, England in the year 1890. Much of the artist’s body of work explored the figure.
Underwood attended the Royal College of Art located in London, England. In addition he attended the Regent Street Polytechnic, and the Slade School of Art.
One of the artist’s first jobs was to design and hide observation points, during times of war, in camouflage.
Here is a clip featuring some sculptures and paintings by Underwood. What a keen eye he had for finding fluid shapes in his figure work:
Leon Underwood passed away in 1975.
Underwood also made furniture.
Price range information: Prints are the cheapest starting around $2,000. Underwood was a prolific engraver. Bronzes can reach as high as $50,000.
What a great artist who never tired of experimenting with a new medium.
John Piper was a British artist renown for his abstract and landscape paintings in addition to designing theater stages and sets. John Piper was born in Epsom, England in the year 1903. The city is within 20 miles of London, England. Piper also worked with stained glass and was an avid printmaker.
A wonderful montage of works by John Piper set to relaxing music:
The artist began collegiate studies hoping to become a lawyer. After failing his law exams and the passing of his father (his father opposed his decision to become an artist)Piper gave art school a try. Piper would attend the Royal College of Art and the Richmond School of Art.
Piper served in World War Two was made an official war officer from the years 1940 to 1942.
The artist had two children who also became artists.
Below is a clip from a documentary featuring John Piper:
John Piper passed away in 1992.
Price range information: Works range from $10,000 to $500,000.
Edward Burra was a wonderful British painter who is often overlooked. Burra is renown for his paintings of very expressive figures. Edward Burra was born in East Sussex, England in the year 1905. The artist was a painter and draftsman in what I would classify as Social Realism. Though he is British, Burra is perhaps best known for his paintings of the African American Experience in Harlem, New York.
Burra was well schooled attending both the Chelsea School of Art and the Royal College of Art.
Burra declined membership in the prestigious Royal Academy of Art.
Edward Burra served as an inspirational artist to previous post Beryl Cook. You can see both paint the figure in a similar manner.
In this clip a brief bio and works by Edward Burra. Burra’s art starts at 1:42 . I think he captures the essence of the 1920s with his renderings of ladies dancing (the Charleston?)
Edward Burra passed away in 1976.
price range information: Works can reach as high $2 million at auction. Watercolor and pencil works start at $20,000.
Ben Johnson is a British artist born in Llandundo, North Wales in the year 1946. Llandundo is in this day still a small city of slightly more than 20,000 people. Ben Johnson paints landscapes in a photorealistic style. In fact Ben Johnson is the only artist to be made an honorary member of the Royal British Society of Architects.
price range information: Sorry none available. The artist is also an avid printmaker.
At the National Gallery fans were allowed to watch the artist at work, here is a clip of the artist painting:
With his photorealist style, Johnson uses as many as eleven assistants to help him finish his large commissioned works. One example of this is a painting that shows the city of Liverpool and hangs in the Liverpool Art Museum. Eleven assistants took nearly 24,000 to complete this painting. His normal year round staff consists of three assistants.
In this clip we have an interview with Ben Johnson explaining his art:
For most of his work Ben Johnson uses acrylic paints.
A link to the website of Ben Johnson. One reason he uses assistants is his use of technology. The website asks you to set your pixel resolution rather high in order to take in all the detail:
Johnson attended the Royal College of Art located in London, England.
Ben Johnson is included in many European collections including the British Museum and the Victoria and Albert Museum.
I enjoy the black and white works the most of the artist. Other artists that have painted many cities in a photorealistic style profiled here included Raphaella Spence and Stephen Wiltshire, a wonderful artist from the U.K. who is also autistic.
Adrian Berg was a wonderful British artist and printmaker renowned for his work with plants, trees, and gardens. Adrian Berg was born in the year 1929. His father was a doctor who studied with renowned Dr. Sigmund Freud.
Berg earned a college degree where he studied English from Trinity College. Berg took a job as an English teacher.
Berg was soon bitten by the artist bug and entered the Saint Martin’s School of Art and the Royal College of Art. Two classmates that would remain in close contact with the artist include David Hockney and Paul Huxley.
The artist was inspired to work with his subject matter after seeing a Tate exhibition of the Impressionist Claude Monet. Berg was very impressed with the way Monet brought vivid color and life to simple items like a haystack.
Berg was made a member of the Royal Academy.
Adrian Berg passed away in 2011 at the age of 82 years old.
price range information: Sorry none available.
I love the way the artist was able to capture the mood, atmosphere, and color of trees in the changing seasons. His design as a printmaker was impeccable.
Sue Coe was born in Tamworth, England in the year 1951. I so enjoy artists who look to improve the lives of our animals friends. Coe takes her passion for animals to heart and is renowned for her works celebrating their plight as many species are dying out as human progress impedes their natural habitat. For her collegiate education Coe attended the royal College of Art located in London, England. Coe is a very avid printmaker and painter.
As a child her family lived close to a slaughterhouse thus forming her opinion about the treatment of animals.
In this clip a brief interview with Sue Coe and Jane Velez -Mitchell:
Coe can also be described as a Social Realist attacking such modern issues as A.I.D.S, September 11th , and war.
Sue Coe was elected to the National Academy of Design.
Price range information: Most works range from $1,000 to $12,000.
Sue Coe first had her art appear in the New York Times when she was 21 years old. This was the same year the artist moved to the United States to begin a career as an illustrator.
In this clip some works by Coe that signify her push animal rights:
I always enjoying when artists use their work to promote good causes and ideas they support.
Su Blackwell is a British artist that turns ordinary items like books of stories, into the story itself! I couldn’t believe it when I first saw the artists work, it was like watching a Dicken’s novel come to life! What creativity. For her artistic education Blackwell attended the Royal College of Art located in London, England. Blackwell has mastered the skill of design so that at each moment it seems something is in movement, be it trees or people. I enjoy her butterfly works the most, sometimes a dress or a book is in the middle of transforming into a butterfly.
The artists finds her vintage books and clothing at second hand stores. She enjoys using very old books that may have worn edges or beverage stains, this also helps add intrigue in her work.
In this clip we see the artist working at her craft:
In this clip the artist cuts to music:
Some holiday cuttings here:
In closing, its nice to see one advantage the old book has over newer items like the Kindle or Nook, its ability to be used for an artistic medium of expression!
Peter Phillips is one of the most famous Pop Artists that was based outside of the United States. Peter Phillips was born in 1939 in Birmingham, England. Phillips works in many different subjects and enjoys working with mixed media compositions with unusual shapes for the outside shape of the art. He also has done many works celebrating women and also architecture.
For his collegiate education Phillips studied at the Birmingham School of Art and the Royal College of Art where his peers trained such as Frank Bowling and David Hockney.
Phillips won a fellowship to study in the States and moved to New York where he lived from 1964 to 1966. Phillips moved back to Europe where he is now based.
Married in 1970 and immediately set about traveling the globe. The young couple would live in Zurich, Switzerland for most of the 1970s.
The 1980s brought his work to Australia followed by the North America in the 1990s.
Wife died from cancer in 2003 and the artist dedicated an exhibition to her in 2004.
Phillips still is an active artist and loves to visit New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco, and Sydney, Australia.
Below a wonderful montage of the artist’s work set to music.
Price range information: Phillips is a prolific artist and many prints are available for less than $1,000 dollars. Originals can reach as high as $60,000.
Frank Bowling, whose government name is Richard Sheridan Franklin Bowling, is a fantastic artist born in what is now Bartica, Guyana, South America. In Guyana his father was a policeman and his mother was a seamstress. At the age of fifteen Bowling moved to England and the artist moved in with an uncle.
In England he studied at the Chelsea School of Art and the Royal College of Art. At the Royal College of Art several now famous artists were his classmates including David Hockney and Peter Phillips.
Bowling began as a painter working with the landscape and doing paintings that the public would expect from an artist in the Caribbean. Thus after he left London for New York city. It was in New York city where Bowling was able to produce what most critics say are his strongest works. This was the period of time in the United States when Abstract Expressionism was en vogue.
Bowling came to the United States in the mid 1960s.
From 1969 to 1972 was an editor for Arts Magazine.
Winner of two Guggenheim Fellowships.
Two very important honors for the artist include being elected a member of England’s royal Academy of Arts. The first person of color to be a member!
Appointed an Officer of the Order of the British Empire in 2008.
Price range information: Sorry none available.
In this clip a brief bio from the Tate.
A brief clip from a longer biographical documentary filmed about Frank Bowling.
If you love this artist’s work as much as I do then be sure and check out artist Richard Mayhew. Mayhew is also a person of color born in 1924 that enjoys painting landscape but in a loose and relaxed manner that has more to do with tonalism and feeling of the atmosphere rather than a specific time or space. Below an example of Richard Mayhew’s.
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.
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