Picasso Museum Antibes - Nicolas de Stael

While in Antibes recently, I returned again to the Picasso Museum in the Chateau Grimaldi. I think this is one of my favourite art galleries in the world: it is neither too big or too small; it is a beautiful building housing beautiful work; it has a sculpture terrace overlooking the Mediterranean; it is in the heart of old Antibes. I would say it is the heart of old Antibes!

This year there was an exhibition of recent acquisitions and an exhibition to complement the large Nicolas de Stael painting "Le Concert" which permanently occupies a wall in the gallery. I know I posted this picture a year ago, but I love it, so here it is again:

This gallery view gives an idea of the scale:

Nicolas de Stael was born in St. Petersburg in 1914 and died in Paris, a French citizen, in 1955. I like this photograph of him in his studio.

I remember seeing this painting at the exhibition in Antibes and like it for it's abstract simplicity.

I enjoy the simplified forms and colour of de Stael paintings, the two below as other examples.

Just Kids

Yesterday I finished reading Patti Smith's "Just Kids", her story (mostly) of the relationship between her and artist Robert Mapplethorpe and their early time together in New York. Smith's writing is beautiful and the love with which it is written is so pure. Of course, I was bawling my eyes out at the end, knowing the inevitable devastation at the death of Mapplethorpe.

I had the great fortune to see an exhibition of Mapplethorpe's flowers on my second trip to New York in 1981. I was obsessed with yellow tulips at the time myself and he photographed them beautifully. I love his photos of flowers. Here is Calla Lily from 1984:

And Poppy from 1988:

And a portrait of Patti Smith from 1986:

I am always interested in finding new things by Patti Smith -- she is a very generous artist (poet, painter, musician). Here she shares some advice for writers given to her by William Burroughs. And here she is performing a wonderful tribute to Virginia Woolf.

Before xmas I came across a review of and link to the film Patti Smith: Dream of Life by Steven Sebring in Brainpickings and finally had time to see the film which was ten years in the making. The review and film can be accessed here. It is a wonderful and insightful 2007 documentary which also includes older footage. A joy to watch.

Monoprints!

I have been working on some watercolour pencil sketches for the new work, Fever Afterimages, but have found it taking too long. I want a sense of immediacy! I did some test monoprints in three different sizes with acrylic paint, but again I felt dissatisfied. So over the past couple of days have been searching, both locally and over the internet for some water-soluble ink to do my monoprints with. Happily I found one jar of Speedball water soluble block printer's ink in the local school supply shop (the local art supply shop was mystified by my description of the product!). Out came my roller, wooden spoon, various papers, and plastic utensils for drawing into the ink once it is rolled on a glass plate. If I am happy with the results I will have a look for my linoblocks, get out the lino tools and do an edition. But first things first!

Classic Abstraction

As I am preparing new abstract work, my thoughts are revisiting classic abstract artists whose work had a great effect on the way I like to paint. I love this picture of Helen Frankenthaler in her studio. I have never had a large work space but have always made good use of the space I have!

A gorgeous, ethereal Frankenthaler painting.

Mark Rothko's paintings have always appealed to me. About 1980 I read Lee Seldes' 1979 book, The Legacy of Mark Rothko, and was convinced that Rothko's suicide was a set-up. Bad dealings of galleries and corporate greed made interesting reading but unfortunately it was a well-researched factual book, not a novel.

I have only gotten to experience the Rothko Room once, when it was still at Tate Britain (it was moved to Tate Modern but must be in storage as the paintings are never on display when I visit London!). I was lucky to have no one else around in the room and was seated on my own. The paintings seemed to hum and open a door into thoughtfulness.

I think it was in 1981 when, with several of art school graduates, I visited the Albright-Knox Gallery in Buffalo. There is a large collection of Clyfford Still paintings there which are huge. I remember being hugely impressed by their colour and size!

Abstraction was also happening in Canada in the same time frame as the New York school of classic abstract expressionism (1950s) and being in art school in Toronto I became familiar with Canadian content! I liked the work of Paul Emile Borduas.

There was a huge show in the Art Gallery of Ontario of Gershon Iskowitz in the early 1980s. Again I could not fail to be impressed by the size and colour of his paintings.

Jack Bush is probably the best known of the Canadian abstract artists.

Another American abstract artist whose work appeals to me is Robert Motherwell.

I love seeing work from Motherwell's Elegy series. I can imagine myself painting the paintings with large brushes, plenty of space, etc. A painting fantasy!

I probably saw the work of Richard Diebenkorn on visits to museums in New York in the early 80s.

It is the application of paint and working out of composition in his work that really appeals to me.

It is Diebenkorn's work which is echoing in my mind when I am thinking of my next paintings Fever Afterimages.

Fever Afterimages

Though I haven't quite finished with my "Moments" series (there is at least one more related painting that I want to do) -- I have had ideas for another group of monoprints and a painting percolating for the past year! With this in mind, I started preparing canvas. The painting will be a free-hanging piece, unstretched. I am making use of end pieces of canvas, I have sewn 5 pieces together and made hanging loops. I wanted to pre-soak the canvas, so here it is hanging outside to dry. I plan to apply texture in the form of newsprint glued on, though it will be completely covered by paint not as per Maritime Alps and Tree Kids where the paint was translucent. 

As is my usual practice, ideas for new work generally show up on my greeting cards first. These were all created in 2013 for various occasions. I haven't yet decided on the composition or colouration for the painting, but I expect to have it worked out with the help of the monoprints and drawings, which I am starting this week.

 I am titling this body of work "Fever Afterimages". For once I am not tentative about the title!

Artist Biography Films

Over the past few days I have been catching up on some of the films I have wanted to see for awhile. I am not sure if it is a coincidence or I just happened to be in the mood for artist biography films, but that is what I watched. Gustav Klimt is one of my favourite artists so I don't know why it has taken me so long to see this bio pic. "Klimt" stars John Malkovich in the title role, which gives a clue as to the type of film it is -- enigmatic, hard to follow, interesting...I love films about artists so I cannot be an objective critic here as I love seeing the necessary bits of painting as the artist is at work and reproductions of paintings like the one below, Two Women Friends, which was destroyed in a fire in the 1940s.

Klimt's drawings are always amazing.

Egon Schiele, Klimt's protegé and friend, was portrayed in the film by Nikolai Kinski. I cannot help being an admirer of Schiele's drawings. Below is a portrait of Klimt by Schiele. There is a fantastic scene in the film where Klimt and Schiele are in a café and take turns working on a drawing, just as something artists might do while having a coffee...

I read an interview with Michael Douglas when "Behind the Candelabra" was at Cannes last year and this film was put on my "to see" list. Douglas really was Liberace and the film co-starred Matt Damon. It is a fabulous film, fabulously and sympathetically presented, and the actors showed a real relationship between the older, eccentric Liberace and the younger, romantic lover. As a child I loved watching Liberace specials on TV because he was so entertaining and this film shows how he was so well loved by his audiences.

The third artist film that I watched recently was "Pollock" with the wonderful Ed Harris playing the artist and Marcia Gay Harden also doing an amazing interpretation of Pollock's wife, fellow painter Lee Krasner. The scenes of both Pollock and Krasner painting really got my heart beating!

Spring in Wicklow - Kilmacurragh

Spring is definitely here, hurray! The last few days have been beautifully sunny and the plants are just loving it. I have been watching the pink blossoms on the tree outside my house get more abundant with each passing day and I am looking forward to "petal pollution" by the end of the month. Saturday required a return visit to the National Botanic Gardens at Kilmacurragh, about a half hour drive south of here (Bray). The snowdrops were in abundance.

Though the trees are slow to bud, the daffodils were happily looking around.

and so were the gorgeous purple - and the odd white - crocii. There were some low ropes along some footpaths, new since last time we were at Kilmacurragh, and I thought they might just be for temporary protection of these growing wildflowers.

I think this is probably not that unusual sight but seeing an artist painting en plein air is idyllic nonetheless. I did not want to disturb the artist at work, so never found out if it was a man or woman; despite the day that was in it, the air was still pretty chilly and the artist was well wrapped up for outdoor painting!

Kilmacurragh has only recently been taken over by the National Botanic Gardens, so it is still a hidden treasure: I think I saw the painter and 3 other people there. There was a poster for rhododendron walks every Sunday in March and there are a lot of trees on the property. I could see that all the rhododendrons were in bud, but this one tearaway section of a budding tree was in full bloom!