Displaying items by tag: avantgarde

Now on view at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C. is Pre-Raphaelites: Victorian Art and Design, 1848-1900, the first major survey of Pre-Raphaelite art to take place in the United States.

The Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, which formed in 1848, was a group of English painters, poets, and critics who rejected the traditional approaches to art and painting established by the Mannerist artists who succeeded Raphael (1483-1520) and Michelangelo (1473-1564). Instead, the Pre-Raphaelites turned to medieval and early Renaissance art for inspiration often painting subjects from Shakespeare and the Bible. Pre-Raphaelitism, which rattled Britain from 1848 to 1900, was considered the country’s first avant-garde movement.

The exhibition at the National Gallery features approximately 130 paintings, sculptures, works on paper, and decorative objects by the movement’s leading members including John Everett Millais (1829-1896), Dante Gabriel Rossetti (1828-1882), and William Holman Hunt (1827-1910). Organized by Tate Britain in collaboration with the National Gallery, Pre-Raphaelites: Victorian Art and Design will be on view through May 19, 2013.  

Man Ray Portraits opens today, February 7, 2013 at the National Portrait Gallery in London. The first major Man Ray (1890-1976) exhibition to focus on his portraits, the show presents over 150 vintage prints and important works from international museums as well as private collections. A number of the photographs on view are on loan from the Man Ray Trust Archive. Taken between 1916 and 1968 in both Paris and the United States, many of the works have not been exhibited in the UK until now.

Born Emmanuel Radnitzky in Philadelphia, Man Ray spent most of his career in Paris. He made significant contributions to the Dada and Surrealist art movements and worked in a variety of media, but became best known for his avant-garde photography as well as his fashion and portrait work. Man Ray was keen on experimentation, which led to the production of camera-less Rayographs. With the help of fellow photographer, Lee Miller (1907-1977), who was also Man Ray’s muse and lover, he invented solarisation, a technique that involves recording an image on a negative or on a photographic print, reversing the image’s tone so that dark areas appear light and vice versa.

Arranged chronologically, the exhibition features Man Ray’s portraits of artists, friends, celebrities, and lovers including Miller, Marcel Duchamp (1887-1968), Pablo Picasso (1881-1973), Kiki de Montparnasse (1901-1953), and Catherine Deneuve (b. 1943). Man Ray Portraits will be on view through May 27, 2013.  

Wassily Kandinsky, the Russian-born painter famous for his vibrant colors and early abstract techniques, is set to break records at Christie's this November. His 1909 painting "Study for Impression 8" was recently announced as the "first star lot" of the auction house's upcoming Impressionist and Modern Art sale, boasting an estimated price tag of $20-$30 million, according to Reuters.

"Study for Impression 8" is being sold by the Volkart Foundation, the charitable trust of 160-year-old Swiss commodities trading firm Volkart Brothers. After having spent time on loan to numerous art museums like London's Tate Modern and Musée des Beaux-Arts in Montréal, it's now poised to become Kandinsky's most expensive masterpiece, beating out his "Study for Improvisation 3," which sold for a whopping $16.9 million at Christie's in 2006, and the reigning auction record holder "Fugue," which went for $20.9 million at Sotheby's in 1990.