May 2018
By Donald Kolberg, Art Bookmarks Editor
Monthly highlights of online resources and websites informative and inspiring for artists or art enthusiasts. Most are free. Suggestions are welcomed.
Kolberg Lands Cover Art
This little ditty of a bookmark is mine. Gage Publishing published their May/June magazine and my artwork is on the cover. Hope you like it.
Sam Francis: Online Catalogue Raisonné Project
The Sam Francis Foundation has expanded its 2011 guide of Catalogue Raisonné of Canvas and Panel Paintings, 1946–1994 to now include Unique Works on Paper. This reformatted online guide is an incredible insight into the Francis creative spirit and his visual accomplishments. The dynamic oeuvre of his works on paper, canvas, and panel paintings are a joy to explore in this sequential and chronological presentation. The idea that the guide will be updated as new research becomes available should bring you back to the site on a regular basis.
Who Owns the Conceptual Artwork of Sol LeWitt in a Houston Home
So how cool would it be to have an original Sol LeWitt mural in your house. Now before you get too excited you need to understand how this is…and isn’t an original artwork. “Wall Drawing #679” itself isn’t the swaths of color on brick in the home of dentist and art collector Joanna Hitchcock. The artwork is actually the idea of the work in the form of instructions left by LeWitt for how to execute the piece. Confused? Well, that’s what the conceptualist artists of the time seemed to be working toward. The article is rich in explanation and deserves to be read.
“How could any modern art lover who sees a LeWitt peeking out from behind crumbly sheetrock resist?” says Hitchcock. “What art lover wouldn’t scratch the paint?”
Helen Frankenthaler Prints
When you think of Helen Frankenthaler you get visions of large-scale abstract expressionist paintings. But there is another side to her work. In the 1960s she began an exploration of printing that produced more than thirty editioned prints. Madame Butterfly is seen as the ultimate translation of Frankenthaler’s style into the medium of woodcuts, as it embodies her idea of creating an image that looks as if it happened all at once. A show of her print work can be seen at the Art Institute of Chicago through September. In the meantime, check out some of her prints here.
My Life As a Failed Artist
This is the incredible original article that got the New York magazine’s senior art critic, Jerry Saltz, the Pulitzer Prize for Criticism. It was written in April 2017 and is worth a read. If you are not familiar with his essays, you need to connect. His wit and sarcasm are matched by his insight and knowledge of most everything that is going on in the art world.
David Hockney’s Seventeenth-Century Inspiration
Jump ahead a year from Jerry’s article and you find a David Hockney painting on the cover of the New Yorker, (almost as good as mine, see above). But what’s truly interesting to us art junkies is what inspired the work. Hockney was inspired to create the work by the seventeenth-century Dutch artist Meindert Hobbema’s painting “The Avenue at Middelharnis.” According to David, speaking to the New Yorker, “What’s fascinating is that, in the painting, there are two vanishing points. One is in the center of the painting, with the disappearing road. But the other is in the sky. You’re always looking up, because the trees are so tall.” I for one am thrilled to get insight into a painter’s inspiration. The cover was adapted from his unconventionally shaped canvas “Tall Dutch Trees After Hobbema.” Hop over to the article in the New Yorker so you can see both paintings.
That’s it for this month. Remember if you would like to reach me you can at dkolberg@thewoventalepress.net
Copyright 2018 Woven Tale Press LLC. All Rights Reserved.