Maira's World

Edith Sitwell

As if you really need me to tell you to go see the Maira Kalman show that’s now up at the Jewish Museum in New York.

New Yorkistan

There will be work you know (whether you know it or not).

Pina Bausch

And work you’ll wonder why you’ve never seen before.

But the paintings are only part of the story. The show of some 100 artworks is part retrospective, part installation.

Herring and Philosophy Club

So not only do we get to see the lovely color and brushiness of Kalman’s gouaches in the flesh ...


we get to view treasured objects from her personal cabinet of curiosities.

Like the famous onion ring collection she assembled with her late husband, Tibor Kalman, along with other objects by the design duo.

MoMA Moves to Queens
Philippe

Kalman’s influences—Steinberg, Matisse, Hockney, even Duchamp—waft through the airy galleries. You will meet her many literary and historic inspirations as well.




Kalman savors the perfection of
things as they are.
Be it a map of the U.S. drawn by
her immigrant mother …
A package tied with string …
Or a shoebox (size 7½ B) of mosses.

Lady Birley

Kalman uses fashion almost as a language, and with it, she communicates volumes. She is absolutely fluent in hats. Many wonderful hats appear throughout her work, along with shoes, stoles, lace collars and lingerie.

Pink Dress

And for goodness’ sake, where else will you find a pale salmon summer dress, embroidered with the first lines of Dante’s Inferno?


Maira Kalman: Various Illuminations (of a Crazy World)
The Jewish Museum, 1109 5th Ave at 92nd St., New York
Through July 31, 2011

Have you read Ken Johnsons’s sexist review of the show in the New York Times? I’d be interested in hearing what others thought about it.

Atta Kwami

Suggestion for Black Friday—avoid it altogether and head over to the Howard Scott Gallery in Chelsea. There you will be surrounded by the color-saturated, light-infused work of Ghanaian artist Atta Kwami.

The banded patches of color that instantly suggest kente cloth (Kwami’s mother was an artist and textile designer), also suggest the architecture, sign painting and music of Kumasi, Ghana’s second largest city, where the artist lives, works, and teaches. And like any intricately chaotic, yet purposeful city, the best way to navigate the paintings is to wander through them and even get lost while savoring the variety of brushwork and imagery.

I was lucky enough to meet the artist, and was surprised to learn that many of the pieces in the show were painted in London, and in Washington D.C. during a recent fellowship. Kwami emanates a natural warmth, and when I asked how he could produce these extraordinarily colorful canvasses in such gray places, his answer that “the light comes from within,” was absolutely real and made perfect sense.

With light and peace on this Thanksgiving day …

The show is called Fufofo (Coming Together) and runs
through November 27.

Dzigbordi

Sanku

Dzidefo

Lanier Place Goddess II

Primping for Day of the Dead

Illustrator and comics artist Ann Decker had enough foresight to leave the country before the Tea Party comes into power. She lives in Mexico now. Here are two paintings she has in a show for Día de los Muertos. I’m glad to see that Ann hasn’t totally forgotten NYC. She seems to have recalled Manhattan’s social x-rays perfectly.

Check out Ann's website to see more of her work.

Luis Meléndez Still Lifes

‘Tis the season to eat berries! It’s probably my single favorite thing about summer—the produce—especially fruit. This year I find myself generally smitten with cherries, but my passion extends over many species. Last week I swooned over some raspberries I had the pleasure of picking right off the vine. And nothing compares to watermelon in humidity like this.

In wanting to pay homage to the delectable flesh of summer, I thought of the sumptuous still lifes by 18th century Spanish painter Luis Meléndez, whose work was the subject of an exhibit last summer at the National Gallery in Washington, D.C.

As a student at the Royal Academy of Arts in Madrid, the talented Luis aspired to become a royal portrait painter. However, he and his father (who taught at the academy) clashed with the administration and were both expelled. Unsuccessful in petitioning the court for a position, he was relegated to painting still lifes and died in poverty.

Fast forward to a google image-search and yet another Luis Meléndez having difficulties with the court. Nestled among the ripe tomatoes and voluptuous melons, is a wanted poster by the New Bedford Police Department for our painter’s namesake. He failed to appear in court on the last day of his trial, which resulted in a conviction for cocaine trafficking. He faces a minimum mandatory sentence of 10 years in a state prison.

If anyone has information on Mr. Meléndez’s location or sees him, they are urged to either call 911, call New Bedford Police’s Violent Crime Tip Line at 508-961-4584 or the State Police Unit assigned to the Bristol County District Attorney’s Office at 508-993-2016.

The public should not attempt to apprehend or subdue Mr. Melendez on their own.

The notice is dated 2007, with no status update. I can only hope that he is now safely behind bars, and has taken up painting.

I strongly urge you to visit the Prado Museum site to see the incredible detail of the images when enlarged (below).








Source

To see other paintings in the Prado collection, go to the Prado on-line gallery search and enter Luis Meléndez.

Reflections: Paintings by Susan Tammany

Paintings by Susan Tammany are on exhibit this month at Druids,
736 Tenth Avenue (between 50th and 51st Streets), in New York.

The recent works, which are oil on canvas and pastel on paper, are mostly portraits of women. Each sitter happens to be an artist of some kind (dancer, photographer, etc.), and each is situated in her own stage-set of an environment--complete with dramatic lighting, lush fabrics, and glowing jewel-tone color. These portraits are not as much about likeness as they are about the sitter as the star of her own personal drama. Which makes perfect sense since Tammany is both a painter and a playwright. Her plays, not coincidentally, are about the drama of creative women, most notably, a trio of plays, each one about a different female poet in history.

There is a reception tomorrow night, Wednesday, at 7:00. If you are in town, please stop by and meet the artist.






REFLECTIONS: An Exhibition of Paintings by Susan Tammany

DRUID'S RESTAURANT
736 Tenth Avenue (between 50 & 51Streets)
New York City

June 29 - July 31, 2010

OPENING RECEPTION: WEDNESDAY, JULY 14, 7p.m.

The Art of Suicide

Yet another awesome flickr set by Gunther Stephan. This Berlin-based "image jockey" has 4,838 Facebook friends for a reason. Go here to view the entire set, and here to check out his other sets on flickr.

Margaret Bourke-White, Suicides of Germans in Leipzig City Hall, 1945



George Tooker, Cornice, 1949


A nice Word add-on



George Frederick Watts, Found Drowned, 1867




Edouard Manet, Le suicide, 1877



Christoph Niemann, My Life with Cables



Roy Lichtenstein, Drowning Girl , 1963

I'm Jealous of The Jealous Curator!

What a brilliantly simple idea—find art that thrills you because it’s so smart, beautiful, original, etc. and post it, while ranting that you wish you had thought of doing it.

The Jealous Curator defines her site as “A collection of artwork that inspires and depresses me. I know it’s good when I’m left thinking DAMN I WISH I THOUGHT OF THAT”

So, she gets to post great stuff, while channeling all that jealous energy in a positive direction. DAMN I WISH I THOUGHT OF THAT!

Here are some of her finds--the artist's name links to The Jealous Curator's post. After that I link to the artist's website…

Lauren Dicioccio, This is not a plastic bag. It is EMBROIDERY ON ORGANZA!! Her website is here.


Kelly Reemsten , her website here.


Wayne White Great use of thrift shop art. His website is here.


Tina Berning, her website is here.


Gary Taxali, his website is here.


Vivian Maier, website for her photos is here.


Xavier Veilhan, his website is here.


Holly Farrell, her website is here.


Joe Ryckebosch, his website is here.


Tiina Heiska, her website is here.


Lauren Dicioccio (again), her website is here. She explains the method to her madness ...

‘I lay a sheet of frosted mylar over a magazine page. I assign a color to every letter (numbers are shades of greyscale) and apply tiny dots of paint over every character on the page according to my color-code.’

Archie Scott Gobber, his website is here.


Sarah Williams, her website is here.


Anthony Zinonos I’m jealous of his cool initials! His website is here.


Mairead O’hEocha, see more of here work here.