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Morton Roberts, Isaak Brodsky and the Revolution
The distinction between historical art and political art can be fuzzy. Whether a painting or illustration falls into one category or the other is often a subjective judgment. One might think that a...
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Herman Richir, Belgian Portrait Artist
Herman Jean Joseph Richir (1866-1942) painted subjects other than portraits, but he seems to have been best-known for the latter. Biographical information in English is skimpy on the Internet, so you...
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Museum of Flight: July 2014 Visit
Every so often I leave the realm of painting and illustration to post about architecture, design, transportation, museums and such. Today's post deals with a museum devoted to flight and, to a lesser...
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L Fellows: Car Tires and Men's Fashion Illustration
Laurence Fellows (1885-1964), who signed his illustrations "L. Fellows," had an important role in the commercial art of the 1920s, 30s and into the 1940s. I know this because I saw plenty of his work...
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Tim Huhn's Retro-Deco Art
There is little personal information about Tim Huhn on the Internet. His own Website has this biographical snippet, and an art gallery site tells us this.Essentially, Huhn comes from up here in the...
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Dieselpunk Airplanes
I'm sort of a sucker for the 1920s and 1930s. Call it a "false nostalgia" thing. For that reason, I've developed a peculiar semi-fascination with Dieselpunk imagery where actual 'tween-wars art,...
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Violet Shading in Circa-1930 Illustration
I'll leave it to art history scholars to tease out the various "firsts" related to this post. Instead, I'll just offer some approximations. For instance, if the French Impressionists didn't originate...
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John E. Sheridan: Conventionally Competent
John E. Sheridan (1880-1948) is yet another illustrator I've been writing about lately who had a reasonably successful career, yet is little remembered. And like so many other technically competent...
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The Dieselpunk World of "donaguire"
I have no idea who "donaguirre" is. He signs his illustrations "aguirre" and it seems that he's based in Germany (could he be originally from Spain?). And I wouldn't be surprised if it turns out that...
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Did Mead Schaeffer Dislike His Best Art?
According to the article on Mead Schaeffer (1898-1980) in issue No. 45 of Illustration magazine, he was quoted as saying in 1945:"I longed to do honest work, based on real places, real people, and real...
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Clarence F. Underwood: Prolific Then, Unknown Now
Clarence F. Underwood (1871-1929) was born in Jamestown in western New York State, trained at the Art Students League in New York and the Académie Julian in Paris, returned to America around 1901, and...
View ArticleOne Million Pageviews
Really successful Internet sites such as Drudge Report can clock one million pageviews in an hour. Some blogs can probably hit that mark in a couple of months or maybe less time.Art Contrarian is a...
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Jacek Malczewski and Muses
Jacek Malczewski (1854-1929) made astonishing paintings. Not astonishingly good paintings, necessarily, but paintings that astonish. Not only do they astonish, they fascinate. This is mostly because of...
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Molti Ritratti: Marchesa Luisa Casati
I can't get the thought out of my mind that already I posted about portraits of the Marchesa Luisa Casati (1881-1957). I found a directory containing images of her dating from three years ago, but some...
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Charles Curran's Hilltop Women
Charles Courtney Curran (1861 â 1942) was of the same ilk as his Boston School contemporaries, though he did his work in New York State and Ohio rather than in or near The Hub. His Wikipedia entry is...
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John Sloan's Topographical Paintings
I was never fond of the works of Ashcan School painter John Sloan (1871-1951) -- Wilipedia entry here.To my way of thinking, Sloan was one of those artists whose paintings became progressively less...
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Marie Laurencin: Cubist Groupie to Dolce Far Niente
Marie Laurencin (1883-1956) hung out with Picasso and Georges Braque, was muse and mistress to Apollinaire, and early in her career was considered by some a serious modernist artist. Biographical...
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Great Ideas in 1950s Style
If you want a one-stop shop of 1950s style graphic design, I suggest the Container Corporation of America's advertising series called "Great Ideas of Western Man" that also embodied the now more or...
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Towards the End: Franz von Stuck
Franz von Stuck (1863-1928) was a leading figure in the Munich art world, both as a secessionist and as an establishment art instructor. Although he painted fairly conventionally when it came to...
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In the Beginning: Edward Hopper
Some people laughed back in December 24th of 1956 when Time Magazine (it was an important publication then, with an actual raison d'ĂȘtre) featured Edward Hopper (1882-1967) on its cover. Hopper was...
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