Happy Birthday JMW!

My favourite artist of all time, Joseph Mallard William Turner, was born on this date in 1775.  He was the master of light and wind and of both motion and stillness.

Giudecca, La Donna della Salute and San Giorgio. Oil on canvas. 24 x 36 in (61 x 91.5 cm).

Snow Storm – Steam-Boat off a Harbour’s Mouth

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I Love Colour

I love colour. I try to show this is in my art work and photographs with varying degree of success. The always valuable Creative Report brings me news of a new book called “The Atlas of Rare and Familiar Colour” that really intrigues me.

The shelves of the Forbes Pigment Collection, based in Harvard University’s Art Museum buildings, are organised mostly by hue. The effect of this “curious chromatic ordering” ensures that the archive resembles “an installation exploring the very nature of painting”, as colour historian Victoria Finlay writes in the foreword to An Atlas of Rare & Familiar Colour, a new book that catalogues highlights from the collection. Published by Atelier Éditions, the Atlas features images by photographer Pascale Georgiev of a handful of the collection’s 2,500 rare pigments and examines their material composition, providence and application …

Violet de Cobalt

Many of the colours are rare and some are unlikely to be made ever again. Finlay writes that Indian Yellow, for example, originally came from the urine of cows that had been fed mango leaves, while Mummy Brown – as the name suggests – really was collected from the mummified bodies of ancient Egyptians (and was still available in London in the 1920s, courtesy of Roberson).

Wonderful stuff!

 

 

Happy 85th Birthday Yoko Ono!

Aubrey Beardsley

Today we celebrate the genius of Aubrey Beardsley on what would have been his 145th birthday.  Hard to imagine what he would have accomplished had he grown older.

Michael Kluckner Exhibition

Grandview’s own Michael Kluckner, watercolorist, author, and heritage expert, is having his first exhibition in Vancouver since 2006. The exhibition will include watercolours, oils, and drawings “mainly about Vancouver”.

The show is at the VanDusen Gallery Gallery on Oak Street, between April 29th and May 27th. Admission is free. An opening reception will be on Saturday 29th April from 2:30 to 5:30pm.

Michael is also streaming a complete virtual show at his website.

Don’t miss it!

Art — Again

Over the years, I have presented a number of posts on the fall and rise of the super-rich art market: the  market continues during the crash;  after the economic crash in 2008;  a new peak in 2009; the Chinese were leading the recovery in 2010. There have been others but I have been busy elsewhere for the last few years and haven’t been writing too much about art and sales. But I have been keeping an eye open.

I watched the market fall flat through most of last year. The oligarchs seemed to have put their money more in additional real estate than art or football clubs for the last year or two, distorting property markets across the globe, and flattening the top end of the art market. This spring’s auctions are supposed to give us a clue as to whether that disappointment will continue this year or whether the current stock exchange record highs will help propel a new burst.

In what might have been a special case or may indeed be a harbinger of the year to come, Russian billionaire Dmitry Rybolovlev sold a Gauguin last night for US$33.5 million. It was a picture he had purchased in 2008 for US$85 million, leaving him with a 74% loss.

But it is early days yet. This series of 20th century auctions at Christies is hoped to fetch a total of about US$450 million by the time it is complete in the middle of March. What they actually achieve will give us a better idea of where the market is heading.

Transit As Design Template

In London, there are companies turning out fine furnishings and accessories which celebrate the iconic design style of the London Underground.  These images are from Creative Review:

The bottom two items are inspired by the Piccadilly Line upholstery (left), and the Tube’s floor patterns (right).

My question is: Will anything Translink ever does inspire anyone to do anything creative?