Displaying items by tag: illustrator

On June 15, 2013 the Brandywine River Museum in Chadds Ford, PA will present the exhibition Jamie Wyeth, Rockwell Kent and Monhegan. Located off of the coast of Maine, Monhegan has been a popular destination for artists looking to capture its rugged wilderness, sweeping ocean views, and enduring inhabitants.

The Brandywine River Museum’s exhibition will focus on the works of Jamie Wyeth (b. 1946), a contemporary realist painter who favors figurative compositions over landscapes, and Rockwell Kent (1882-1971), a realist painter, printmaker, and illustrator who often drew inspiration from the natural world and man’s relationship with its almighty forces. While Wyeth and Kent never met, their works are inextricably linked thanks to Monhegan’s evocative nature. Together, their works tell the story of the island and its people, which spans a century.

Highlights from the exhibition include Wyeth’s most recent paintings of Monhegan as well as a number of Kent’s coastal landscapes from Wyeth’s personal collection. Jamie Wyeth, Rockwell Kent and Monhegan, which was organized by Maine’s Farnsworth Museum, will be on view through November 17, 2013.

On April 26, 2013 an exhibition featuring 30 paintings by N.C. Wyeth (1882-1945) will open at the Farnsworth Museum in Rockland, ME; the works are being loaned by the Brandywine River Museum in Chadds Ford, PA

Every Picture Tells a Story: N.C. Wyeth Illustrations from the Brandywine River Museum spans four decades and includes Wyeth’s early western paintings, paintings that were used as illustrations for Robert Louis Stevenson books, and later works that boast a more experimental style. Wyeth, an American artist and prolific illustrator, divided his time between Pennsylvania’s Brandywine Valley and coastal Maine. The Farnsworth often highlights Wyeth’s Maine-related works.

Every Picture Tells a Story will be on view through December 29, 2013.

Andrew Wyeth’s ‘Ides of March:’ The Making of a Masterpiece is currently on view at the Brandywine River Museum in Chadds Ford, PA. The exhibition is part of a five-year sequence of events that will culminate in 2017 with a centennial celebration of the realist painter Andew Wyeth (1917-2009), including a major retrospective of the artist’s work. A native of Chadds Ford, Wyeth was a prominent force in the art world during the mid-20^th century.

The privately owned Ides of March (1974), which is rarely exhibited, will be presented alongside more than 30 of Wyeth’s preliminary studies for the tempera painting. The exhibition offers viewers a rare glimpse into Wyeth’s painstaking approach to composition and his renowned use of evocative imagery.

Organizers hope that The Making of a Masterpiece and the museum’s future events will introduce Wyeth as well as his family members to a new crop of art enthusiasts. Wyeth’s father, N.C. Wyeth (1882-1945), was a celebrated American artist and illustrator and his son, Jamie Wyeth (b. 1946), is a well-known realist painter and heir to the Brandywine School of painters, which was created by his grandfather and father.

The Making of a Masterpiece will be on view at the Brandywine River Museum through May 19, 2013. Visitors of the museum can also take a tour of Wyeth’s studio now through November 19, 2013.

On March 9, 2013 the Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art opened a sweeping exhibition focused on the work of the widely popular 20^th century painter and illustrator, Norman Rockwell (1894-1978). Rockwell is best known for his archetypical portrayals of American life as well as his cover illustrations for The Saturday Evening Post magazine, a job he fulfilled for over 40 years.

American Chronicles: The Art of Norman Rockwell is a traveling exhibition that features 50 original Rockwell paintings as well as the 323 covers the artist created for the Saturday Evening Post. The show features some of Rockwell’s most recognized images including Triple Self-Portrait (1960), Girl at Mirror (1954), and Going and Coming (1947) as well as portraits of presidents Dwight D. Eisenhower and John F. Kennedy. American Chronicles includes a number of pieces from Rockwell’s archives such as preliminary sketches, color studies, photographs, letters, manuscripts, and detailed drawings.

The well-rounded exhibition allows visitors a glimpse into Rockwell’s artistic process and illustrates how he came to be the visual interpreter of day-to-day life in post-World War II America. American Chronicles: The Art of Norman Rockwell will be on view at the Crystal Bridges Museum through May 27, 2013.

During a career that spanned much of the 20^th century, Russian artist Marc Chagall (1887-1985) was associated with a number of artistic movements, making a name for himself as a pioneer of modernism. Considered one of the most successful artists of his time, Chagall drew inspiration from his Orthodox Jewish upbringing, a theme that prevailed through the many mediums and styles he explored.  

The Musee de Luxembourg in Paris has organized an exhibition devoted to the artist titled Chagall: Between War and Peace. The show, which focuses on Chagall’s work between 1914, when he developed his own style, and the mid-1950s, when many critics deemed his work repetitive, includes approximately 100 oil paintings, watercolors, drawings and etchings in relatively chronological order.

Between War and Peace is broken into four pivotal periods in Chagall’s life and work. After living in Paris from 1910 to 1914 and associating with many prominent figures of the avant-garde, Chagall returned to his native Russia to be with his future wife, Bella. “Russia in Wartime” explores Chagall’s work from this period, which was haunted by the brutality and horrors that World War I brought to his homeland.

In 1922, Chagall left Russia for Berlin. He soon returned to Paris where he re-established himself as a painter. “Between the Wars” focuses on this period, which includes Chagall’s work as an illustrator. Many of the pieces from this time feature landscapes, portraits of the artist with his wife, circus scenes, and hybrid creatures, which are prime examples of Chagallian bestiary.

In 1937, Nazis seized any works by Chagall that resided in public collections in Germany. As World War II unfolded, Chagall left France for New York, which is the subject of “Exile in the United States.” His work took a somber turn as his native land was ravaged by the war. A particularly productive time for Chagall, he also created a number of works devoted to Bella, who died in 1944.

The exhibition’s final portion, “The Post-War Years and the Return to France,” explores Chagall’s move back to Europe in 1949. During this time Chagall experimented with stained glass, sculpture, ceramics, mosaic, and various engraving techniques. His works from this period radiates with light and emotional tonalities.

Chagall: Between War and Peace is on view through July 21, 2013.

Genre-defying painter, sculptor, and illustrator, Richard Artschwager (1923-2013), died February 9, 2013 in Albany, NY. He was 89.

Artschwager, who was often linked to the Pop Art movement, Conceptual Art, and Minimalism, resisted classification through his clever genre mixing. His most well known sculpture, Table with Pink Tablecloth (1964) is an amalgamation of Pop Art and Minimalism and consists of a box finished in colored Formica, creating the illusion of a wooden table draped in a pink tablecloth. Artschwager often used household forms in his work including chairs, tables, and doors. In his paintings, Artschwager often painted black and white copies of found photographs and then outfitted them with outlandish frames made of painted wood, Formica or polished metal.

Artschwager was born in 1926 in Washington, D.C. and went on to study at Cornell University. In 1944, before he could finish his degree, he was drafted into the Army and sent to Europe. Upon returning to the United States after World War II, Artschwager completed his degree and decided to pursue a career in art. He moved to New York City and began taking classes at the Studio School of the painter Amédée Ozenfant, one of the founders of Purism. With a growing family and bills to pay, Artschwager took a break from making art to start a furniture-making business. After a fire destroyed his workshop, Artschwager returned to making art, developed his defining style, and was taken on by the Leo Castelli Gallery, which represented him for 30 years.

A few days prior to Artschwager’s death, the Whitney Museum of American Art in Manhattan closed a major career retrospective of his work. It was the second of its kind to be organized by the museum.    

Concurrent Rockwell Kent (1882–1971) exhibitions will open at St. Lawrence’s University’s Richard F. Brush Art Gallery and Owen D. Young Library on October 15. An American painter, printmaker, illustrator, and writer, Kent spent most of his adult life living and working at Asgaard Farm in New York’s Adirondack Mountains. A prominent artist, author, activist, and adventurer, Kent was one of the most noted figures of his time.

The two St. Lawrence exhibitions will present key areas of Kent’s multi-faceted career as a painter and printmaker. A student of William Merritt Chase and Robert Henri, Kent’s early paintings exhibit an impressionistic style and simple three-plane composition that anticipated his later, more modern inclinations to simplify his paintings’ compositions. A select group of books highlight Kent’s preeminence as one of the finest illustrators of his time. The prints and drawings on view show Kent’s mastery of chiaroscuro and his knack for reworking original imagery into everything from commercial greeting cards and advertisements to seals and pottery.

Rockwell Kent: The Once Most Popular Artist includes nearly 75 works spanning Kent’s entire artistic career as well as his varied endeavors into different mediums. Kent specialist, Scott R. Ferris, who will also give a lecture at the exhibitions opening on October 15, curated the show. The Once Most Popular Artist will be on view through December 14, 2012.