February 2017
By Donald Kolberg, Art Bookmarks Editor
Monthly link highlights to online resources and websites that seem informative and inspiring for artists or art enthusiasts. Most are free. Suggestions are welcomed.
Beloved Grafitti in Texas
In Keller, Texas, a graffiti artist has been at work painting under its Bear Creek Parkway Bridge. After the first painting of a doe mid-stride appeared on January 1, city officials didn’t have the heart to paint over it; in response, the graffiti artist painted three more images over the course of the month: a bird, an armadillo, and a snapping turtle. The city’s response? Via their official Facebook page, an offer to prepare the space better for artwork so the vandal can create an entire mural under the bridge. “We’re not sure who is more excited,” they quip in a post, “the Park’s folk or the Public Arts Board.” Unfortunately, the city announced at the beginning of the month that the vandalism had been vandalized, and the wildlife art had to be painted over. Still, check out the images from this anonymous artist, and follow Keller on Facebook for updates—and, we can only hope, a potential reveal or revival.
Documentaries Every Art Lover Should Watch
On Artnet.com Artnet’s Henri Neuendorf provides a comprehensive list of the ten documentaries he believes every art lover should view. If you are an art aficionado, you won’t want to pass up the opportunity to view an interview in the studio of the reclusive photographer Cindy Sherman. Tom Donahue and Paul Hasegawa’s “Guest of Cindy Sherman” provides viewers with just that. Or you might be one of a handful who still hasn’t seen the Jean-Michael Basquiat documentary ‘The Radiant Child.” Although the subject matter skews American, the list covers a range of topics from individual artists and art movements to art foundations, and is worth a visit for any artist or art enthusiast on a slow Saturday afternoon.
Botticelli visits America
Botticelli, whose most recognizable work is the “Birth of Venus,” was esteemed during his lifetime and is now considered one of the most prolific artists of mythology. For the first time, an isolated Venus painting by Italian master Sandro Botticelli will go on view in the United States, according to a post on businesswire.com: “In his time, he also replicated the central figure of his iconic ‘Birth of Venus’ in the Uffizi gallery in Florence in paintings with dark backgrounds stripped bare of place and time, just displaying the solitary beautiful nude.” This is the image that has never before been displayed in the United States:
Botticelli and the Search for the Divine: Florentine Painting between the Medici and the Bonfires of the Vanities will go on view at Muscarelle Museum of Art in Virginia before traveling to Museum of Fine Arts in Boston. The exhibition will include an additional sixteen works, many life sized, by the master, and six works from his master Filippo Lippi. The exhibition will be open at the Muscarelle Museum on February 11, 2017-April 6. It will then be open to the public in Boston on April 18–July 9.
Artists on Art
If the free article that Artists on Art has available on their web site is any indication of the quality of this online endeavor, I for one will be watching them closely. According to their website, their quarterly digital magazine will “connect readers to master artists, their work, and connoisseurs who embrace it.” Each magazine will include ten illustrated articles, step-by-step guides, and videos. Readers will enjoy a direct, thought-provoking connection with today’s top artists, learning their techniques and hearing their ideas. I hope they hold true to this!
artists-on-art.com also hosts a “community” page, where there is a large stream of blog posts from artists about their art or process, think pieces on classic artists, and posts on art in general. As a subscriber, you have the opportunity to submit your own blog post. The posts accessible by the public seem to be dated; however, subscribers may have access to a more recent archive.
Lots of Links: American Craftsmanship
I love the American Arts and Craft movement. Nonie Gadsden, the Katharine Lane Weems Senior Curator of American Decorative Arts at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, put it well when she said: “One of the things that’s most important to realize about Arts & Crafts is that it really was a philosophy about a way of life, in which art played an integral role. It was not a style of art. It was interpreted in different ways around the world.” A virtual tour of the collection at the MFA Boston is here. Art and Antique magazine’s article The Hand of the Craftsman covers the ideas that inspired Stickley, Wright, Rohlfs, and the Greenes and brought us their furnishings and fittings. This is a free downloadable article that should become a part of your art library. If you don’t have a library set up on your computer, start today. We at The Woven Tale Press will help to fill it with wonderful, thoughtful bookmarks.
Gazette Drouot
There is an online, international magazine that I have been reading for the past few years. It’s free, but that’s not my first reason for liking it—although that does help. As its website boasts, La Gazette Druout features information on auctions, exclusive interviews, and reports on the current trends in the art world. In a flipbook-style digital format not unlike WTP’s, the February issue covers car auctions from Paris, France, results of major art auctions, coverage of the Shanghai Biennial, an interview with designer, Pierre Yovanovitch and much more. This is a no brainer for your library.
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