Hungarian painter, printmaker, graphic designer and animated film director, is known for his mathematically inspired works, impossible objects, optical illusions, double-meaning images and anamorphoses. The geometric art of István Orosz, with forced perspectives and optical illusions, has been compared to works by M. C. Escher.

 

Studied at the Hungarian University of Arts and Design (now Moholy-Nagy University of Art and Design) in Budapest as pupil of István Balogh and Ernő Rubik. After graduating in 1975 he began to deal with theatre as stage designer and animated film as animator and film director. He is known as painter, printmaker, poster designer, and illustrator as well. He likes to use visual paradox, double meaning images and illusionistic approaches while following traditional printing techniques such as woodcutting and etching. He also tries to renew the technique of anamorphosis. He is a regular participant in the major international biennials of posters and graphic art and his works has been shown in individual and group exhibitions in Hungary and abroad. Film director at the PannóniaFilm Studio in Budapest, Habil. professor at University of West Hungary in Sopron, co-founder of Hungarian Poster Association, member of Alliance Graphique International (AGI) and Hungarian Art Academie. He often uses OYTIΣ, or Utisz, (pronounced: outis) (No one) as artist's pseudonym.

 

During the last two decades - when most of the works shown here were made – the activities of the poster designer, the printmaker, the illustrator, and the film director have completed each other. Many motive, stylistic features, technical solutions appeared in all of the media and for Orosz it seemingly did not cause any problem to cross the borders of the different genres. When he was drawing a poster usually he did it with the preciseness of illustrators, when he was illustrating a book, he did it with the narrative mood of filmmakers, if he was animating films, sometimes he used the several layers approach of etchers and engravers and for prints he often chose the emblematic simplifying way of depiction of posters. If we call him only a poster designer based on his functional prints, we narrow down his field of activity, we go closer to the truth if we associate him with „postering" as a way of thinking, or if we call his many sided image depicting ourselves and our age as the poster-mirror of István Orosz. (Guy d'Obonner: Transfiguration of Poster - detail)

 

István Orosz was known as poster designer in the first part of his career. He made mainly cultural posters for theatres, movies, galleries, museums and publishing houses. At the time of the revolutions of 1989 in Eastern Europe he drew some political posters too. His "Tovarishi Adieu" (also used with text "Tovarishi Koniec" – that means Comrades it is over) appeared in many countries and it was known as symbolic image of changes in the area.

 

Artists who design anamorphosis (anamorphosis is Greek for "re-transformation") play with perspective to create a distorted image that appears normal only when viewed from the correct angle or with the aid of curved mirrors. The technique was often used by Renaissance-era artists. Orosz tries to renew the technique of anamorphosis and his aim is to develop it as well when he gives a meaning to the distorted image, too. It is not an amorph picture any more, but a meaningful depiction that is independent from the result that appears in the mirror or viewed from a special point of view. This approach of anamorphoses is suitable for expressing more sophisticated messages.

Oil on canvas; 115 x 136.8 cm.

 

By the time László Moholy-Nagy turned towards painting after graduating from law school and developed his own abstract style influenced by Malewitsch and El Lissitzky, it was inevitable that he would become one of the most important artists of Constructivism. He soon exposed himself in Hungary as the founder of the artist group "Ma", but left his home country after the failure of the revolution.

He moved to Berlin In 1920 where Gropius noticed him and invited him to join the "Bauhaus" in 1923. There Moholy-Nagy ran the metal class but also worked in all other areas of design in which he was equally influential. The artist published his ideas in the series of Bauhaus books, for example "Malerei, Fotografie, Film" (1925). Moholy-Nagy wanted an "experimental, functional artist […] who considers art as a laboratory for new forms of expression which were then supposed to be employed in all areas of modern life" (Karin Thomas).

 

The expectations of the age of technology and his new media led Moholy-Nagy to a functional use of Abstraction, which he managed to show in all areas of design and which guided him through different phases of experimenting. His varied oeuvre ranges from painting, photography, film, design and stage design to experiments with photograms which considerably influenced the development of light art and kinetic art. László Moholy-Nagy left the "Bauhaus" in 1928 together with Gropius and worked in Berlin as a stage designer, exhibition organiser, typographer and film producer. He emigrated to the USA in 1937 and ran the "New Bauhaus" in Chicago. Moholy-Nagy opened his own art institute, the "School of Design", in Chicago in 1938 and enlarged it in the following years by adding the faculties economics, psychology and information theory.

 

László Moholy-Nagy became severely ill and died one year later, in 1946.

Siponto Manfredonia Foggia Puglia Italia © 2016 All rights reserved by Michele Masiero

 

FotoSketcher: lively

Nikon coolpix p 7100

 

Statua ( In rete metallica ) di Edoardo Tresoldi

Statue (made of wire mesh) by Edoardo Tresoldi

  

Il Parco archeologico di Siponto, è situato a pochi chilometri dalla città di Manfredonia in Puglia.

Nell’area archeologica accanto alla chiesa di Santa Maria Maggiore di origine medievale, sono presenti i resti di una basilica paleocristiana del IV sec. d.C. a tre navate con abside centrale e pavimento a mosaico. Al fine di valorizzare tutta l’area archeologica, che comprende anche il restauro del complesso della chiesa di San Leonardo posto nelle vicinanze, e preservare i resti archeologici della basilica paleocristiana, il ministero dei beni culturali e la sopraintendenza archeologica della Puglia utilizzando fondi europei , ha approvato e finanziato il progetto dello scultore lombardo Edoardo Tresoldi.L’opera d’arte a carattere permanente di Edoardo Tresoldi, ricostruisce sui resti archeologici della basilica paleocristiana , i volumi in scala reale della basilica stessa sino ad una altezza di 14 metri ,utilizzando reti in metallo galvanizzato trasparenti. L’Opera d’arte,unica al mondo, ha richiesto l’utilizzo di sette tonnellate di rete metallica leggera e trasparente , e un lavoro protrattosi per circa tre mesi di una equipe di una trentina di persone tra cui archeologi, ingegneri e architetti e il gruppo di giovani creativi che collaborano con Tresoldi da diversi anni.

 

Edoardo Tresoldi

 

Scultore, pittore e scenografo, Edoardo Tresoldi ha un approccio artistico e di ricerca creativa e libera. Studia design e arti visive all'istituto d'arte di Monza. Nel 2009 si trasferisce a Roma e inizia a lavorare come pittore di scena per vari progetti cinematografici. La scenografia diventa un laboratorio di sperimentazione. Dal 2013 realizza sculture ed installazioni in rete metallica. Edoardo ha 28 anni, è di Cambiago, in provincia di Milano ed è considerato uno dei talenti della street art italiana. Si fa aiutare da una squadra in cui l’età media è 25 anni e anche i responsabili di Sovrintendenze ed Ente Paesaggistici, hanno riconosciuto il valore delle sue opere. A lui sono state affidati luoghi importanti, come le installazioni alla Vigna di Leonardo a Milano e alla Basilica di Siponto a Manfredonia.

  

.The Archaeological Park of Siponto, is located a few kilometers from the town of Manfredonia in the Puglia region. In the archaeological site next to the church of Santa Maria Maggiore of medieval origin, there are the remains of a paleoChristian basilica of the fourth century. after Christ, with three naves and central apse and mosaic floor. In order to enhance the whole archaeological area, which also includes the restoration of the complex of the church of San Leonardo nearby, and preserve the archaeological remains of an early Christian basilica, the Ministry of Cultural Heritage and the archaeological superintendence of Puglia using European funds, have approved and funded the project the Lombard sculptor Edoardo Tresoldi. The work of art, unique in the world, a permanent nature by Edoardo Tresoldi, reconstructs on the archaeological ruins of the paleoChristian basilica, the full-scale real volumes of the basilica itself up to a height of 14 meters, using wire mesh galvanized transparent.The Art work required the use of seven tons of transparent metal mesh, and a job that lasted for about three months in a team of thirty people including archaeologists, engineers and architects and the group of young creatives that cooperate with Tresoldi from several years.

 

Edoardo Tresoldi

  

Sculptor, painter and stage designer, Edoardo Tresoldi has an artistic and creative research approach and free. He has studied design and visual arts at the Institute of Art of Monza. In 2009 he moved to Rome and began working as a scene painter for various film projects. The scenery becomes a testing laboratory. From 2013 makes sculptures and installations made of wire mesh. Edoardo is 28 years old, is born at Cambasio, in the province of Milan and is considered one of the talents of the Italian street art. It was helped by a team where the average age is 25 years. To him they were

  

From facebook and Dailybest

Mysore Shrinivas Sathyu (b1930) has worked as Art Director, Cameraman, Screenwritter,, Stage Designer, Producer and Direcror and Chairman of Asian Cinema Competition Jury

Jan Fabre tekende met het kolossale Searching for Utopia voor een van de spectaculairste bakens van de hele kustlijn. De sculptuur, die de kunstenaar als ruiter op een vergulde bronzen schildpad voorstelt, meet drie meter hoog, meer dan zeven meter lang en vijf meter breed. Negen bedrijven werkten mee aan de realisatie ervan. De 5,5 ton wegende kolos werd met een laagje vliegtuiglak weer-en windbestendig gemaakt. Zaterdagochtend werd Searching for Utopia met een speciaal transport naar Nieuwpoort gevoerd, waar het onder massale belangstelling werd opgesteld.

 

De schildpad is een vaak terugkerend thema in het (beeldende) werk van Fabre. Het gepantserde dier duikt zowel in zijn tekeningen als in zijn dans- en theatervoorstellingen op. In diverse culturen werd en wordt het schild door zieners gebruikt in rituelen die de toekomst voorspellen. In Nieuwpoort ziet die toekomst er rooskleurig uit: schildpad en ruiter zijn op weg naar 'Utopia'. Fabre ziet zichzelf als een hedendaagse ziener/mysticus die met zijn kunst een positieve kracht aan de samenleving geeft. Eenzelfde symboliek duikt op in De man die de wolken meet - waar the sky niet the limit is - op het dak van het S.M.A.K. in Gent en deSingel in Antwerpen.

 

Jan Fabre

 

Jan Fabre (born 1958, Antwerp, Belgium) is a Belgian multidisciplinary artist, playwright, stage director, choreographer and designer.

 

He studied at the Municipal Institute of Decorative Arts and the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Antwerp. Between 1976 and 1980 he wrote his first scripts for the theatre and made his debut performances.

 

Established in 1986, Troubleyn/Jan Fabre is a theatre company with extensive international operations, with its home base in Antwerp, Belgium.

 

From 1980 he began his career as a stage director and stage designer

 

Blood Swept Lands and Seas of Red, marking the centenary of the outbreak of the First World War. Created by ceramic artist Paul Cummins, with setting by stage designer Tom Piper, 888,246 ceramic poppies will progressively fill the Tower’s famous moat.

Gisleni Monument in Santa Maria del Popolo in Rome

 

The tomb of Giovanni Battista Gisleni, an architect and stage designer who worked for the Polish royal court during 1630–1668, is another rather macabre funeral monument. It is set between a wooden booth and a stone half-column on the right side of the counterfaçade. The memorial was designed and installed by the architect himself in 1670 two years before his death.

 

On this tomb the skeleton is not the personification of Death as in other Baroque tombs but a representation of the deceased (the transit image) on his way towards the resurrection and due to this "death became a symbol for life"

 

The church of Santa Maria del Popolo in Rome is filled with art but most visitors come to see the two Caravaggio paintings: Crucifixion of St Peter and Conversion of St Paul). The church also has a fine chapel designed by Raphael while Bernini gave the church a Baroque makeover that was stripped back somewhat in the early 20th century to restore the Renaissance appearance.

Oil on canvas; 67 x 54 cm.

 

Russian painter, draughtsman and stage designer. He studied at the University of St Petersburg (later Petrograd) in 1908 and in the private studio of Savely Zeidenberg (1862–1924). In 1909–10 he attended the studio of Yan Tsyonglinsky (1850–1914) in St Petersburg, where he became acquainted with the avant-garde artists Yelena Guro (1877–1913), Mikhail Matyushin and Matvey Vol’demar (1878–1914). In 1911–12 he worked in the studios of Maurice Denis and Félix Vallotton in Paris, then in Switzerland (1913) before returning to St Petersburg. As a painter he was a modernist, and his work developed rapidly towards abstraction, although he did not adhere to any particular branch of it. His works of the time use various devices of stylization and decorativeness, and some of them echo the free associations of Marc Chagall, but fundamentally they remain geometrically based compositions. In 1919–20 he made a series of abstract sculptural assemblages and a great number of abstract collages.

 

Annenkov became popular as an illustrator, producing elegant drawings for a number of magazines in Petrograd in 1913–17, including Satirikon, Argus, Lukomor’ye and Solntse Rossii. He designed and illustrated many books for Moscow and Petrograd publishing houses in the 1910s and 1920s. In the early 1920s he designed a great number of book covers in the Constructivist style. He illustrated children’s books, especially for the private publishing house Raduga in Petrograd. But his most important illustrations were those for Aleksandr Blok’s revolutionary poem Dvenadtsat’ (‘The Twelve’; St Petersburg, 1918), which were successful improvisations on the poem’s themes, combining stylization and emotion. He also drew and painted a great number of portraits, especially of cultural and political figures. His monumental Portrait of the Red Army Leader L. Trotsky (1923; Moscow, Cent. Mus. Revolution), which has an urban background in Constructivist style, was particularly successful.

 

From 1913 Annenkov worked as a stage designer. He worked for the Krivoye Zerkalo (Distorting Mirror) Theatre in Petrograd (1914–15) and for the Komissarzhevsky Theatre in Moscow (1914–18). He then worked for a number of theatres in Petrograd, sometimes as designer and producer. He collaborated with Vsevolod Meyerkhold (e.g. Lev Tolstoy’s Pervyy vinokur, ‘First distiller’, Hermitage Theatre, Petrograd, 1919) and with Nikolay Yeureinov. Annenkov’s designs for Bunt mashin (‘Revolt of the machines’, Georg Kaiser adapted by Aleksey Tolstoy, Bol’shoy Dramatic Theatre, Petrograd, 1924) used a Constructivist-inspired mechanized set. Annenkov also designed a number of celebrations and pageants commemorating the Revolution of 1917, including the ambitious re-enactment of the storming of the Winter Palace, which took place in Uritsky (now Dvortsovaya) Square in Petrograd on 7 November 1920 and involved monumental scenery and c. 7000 performers. In 1922–4 he led the revival of the activities of the World of art group and in 1924 worked towards the establishment of the Society of easel painters. The same year he settled in Paris, where he aligned himself with the Ecole de Paris. He continued to design books, stage and film sets in France and Germany, and he exhibited at many joint Russian and French exhibitions. He also became active as an exhibition organizer himself, especially for the USA.

 

V. Rakitin From Grove Art Online

© 2009 Oxford University Press

    

Oil on masonite: 60 x 65 cm.

 

Mexican painter, printmaker, illustrator and stage designer. In 1903 he began studying painting in Guadalajara under Félix Bernardelli, an Italian who had established a school of painting and music there, and he produced his first illustrations for Revista moderna, a magazine that promoted the Latin American modernist movement and for which his cousin, the poet Amado Nervo, wrote. In 1905 he enrolled at the Escuela Nacional de Arte in Mexico City, where Diego Rivera was also studying, and won a grant to study in Europe. After two years in Madrid, Montenegro moved in 1907 to Paris, where he continued his studies and had his first contact with Cubism, meeting Picasso, Braque and Gris.

 

After a short stay in Mexico, Montenegro returned to Paris. At the outbreak of World War I he moved to Barcelona and from there to Mallorca, where he lived as a fisherman for the next four years. During his stay in Europe he assimilated various influences, in particular from Symbolism, from Art Nouveau (especially Aubrey Beardsley) and from William Blake.

 

On his return to Mexico, Montenegro worked closely with José Vasconcelos, Secretary of State for Public Education during the presidency of Alvaro Obregón in the early 1920s, faithfully following his innovative ideas on murals and accompanying him on journeys in Mexico and abroad. He was put in charge of the Departamento de Artes Plásticas in 1921 and was invited by Vasconcelos to ‘decorate’ the walls of the former convent, the Colegio Máximo de S Pedro y S Pablo in Mexico City. The first of these works, executed in 1922, consisted of the mural Tree of Life , relating the origin and destiny of man, and two designs for richly ornamented stained-glass windows influenced by popular art: Guadalajara Tap-dance and The Parakeet-seller. They were followed by two further murals in the same building: the Festival of the Holy Cross (1923–4), representing the popular festival of 3 May celebrated by bricklayers and stonemasons, and Resurrection (1931–3), with a geometric composition bearing a slight Cubist influence. Further murals followed, including Spanish America (1924; Mexico City, Bib. Ibero-Amer. & B.A.), an allegory of the historical and spiritual union of Latin America in the form of a map, and The Story, also known as Aladdin’s Lamp (1926; Mexico City, Cent. Escolar Benito Juárez), a formally designed painting with Oriental figures similar in style to a mural made for Vasconcelos’s private offices.

 

Although Montenegro claimed to be a ‘subrealist’ rather than a Surrealist, in his easel paintings he mixed reality and fantasy; two such works, which fall well within the bounds of Surrealism, were shown in 1940 at the International Exhibition of Surrealism held at the Galería de Arte Mexicano in Mexico City. In his later work Montenegro evolved an abstract style, although he never lost his interest in popular, pre-Hispanic and colonial art. He was also a fine portrait painter, and from the 1940s to the 1960s he produced a splendid series of self-portraits in which he is shown reflected in a convex mirror, thus combining elements of Mannerism and popular art. He illustrated books, made incursions into stage design, working for both the ballet and the theatre, and in 1934 created the Museo de Arte Popular in the recently inaugurated Palacio de Bellas Artes in Mexico City, becoming its first director.

 

Leonor Morales

From Grove Art Online

 

© 2009 Oxford University Press

Etching; 14.5 x 14.9 cm.

 

Mexican painter, printmaker, illustrator and stage designer. In 1903 he began studying painting in Guadalajara under Félix Bernardelli, an Italian who had established a school of painting and music there, and he produced his first illustrations for Revista moderna, a magazine that promoted the Latin American modernist movement and for which his cousin, the poet Amado Nervo, wrote. In 1905 he enrolled at the Escuela Nacional de Arte in Mexico City, where Diego Rivera was also studying, and won a grant to study in Europe. After two years in Madrid, Montenegro moved in 1907 to Paris, where he continued his studies and had his first contact with Cubism, meeting Picasso, Braque and Gris.

 

After a short stay in Mexico, Montenegro returned to Paris. At the outbreak of World War I he moved to Barcelona and from there to Mallorca, where he lived as a fisherman for the next four years. During his stay in Europe he assimilated various influences, in particular from Symbolism, from Art Nouveau (especially Aubrey Beardsley) and from William Blake.

 

On his return to Mexico, Montenegro worked closely with José Vasconcelos, Secretary of State for Public Education during the presidency of Alvaro Obregón in the early 1920s, faithfully following his innovative ideas on murals and accompanying him on journeys in Mexico and abroad. He was put in charge of the Departamento de Artes Plásticas in 1921 and was invited by Vasconcelos to ‘decorate’ the walls of the former convent, the Colegio Máximo de S Pedro y S Pablo in Mexico City. The first of these works, executed in 1922, consisted of the mural Tree of Life , relating the origin and destiny of man, and two designs for richly ornamented stained-glass windows influenced by popular art: Guadalajara Tap-dance and The Parakeet-seller. They were followed by two further murals in the same building: the Festival of the Holy Cross (1923–4), representing the popular festival of 3 May celebrated by bricklayers and stonemasons, and Resurrection (1931–3), with a geometric composition bearing a slight Cubist influence. Further murals followed, including Spanish America (1924; Mexico City, Bib. Ibero-Amer. & B.A.), an allegory of the historical and spiritual union of Latin America in the form of a map, and The Story, also known as Aladdin’s Lamp (1926; Mexico City, Cent. Escolar Benito Juárez), a formally designed painting with Oriental figures similar in style to a mural made for Vasconcelos’s private offices.

 

Although Montenegro claimed to be a ‘subrealist’ rather than a Surrealist, in his easel paintings he mixed reality and fantasy; two such works, which fall well within the bounds of Surrealism, were shown in 1940 at the International Exhibition of Surrealism held at the Galería de Arte Mexicano in Mexico City. In his later work Montenegro evolved an abstract style, although he never lost his interest in popular, pre-Hispanic and colonial art. He was also a fine portrait painter, and from the 1940s to the 1960s he produced a splendid series of self-portraits in which he is shown reflected in a convex mirror, thus combining elements of Mannerism and popular art. He illustrated books, made incursions into stage design, working for both the ballet and the theatre, and in 1934 created the Museo de Arte Popular in the recently inaugurated Palacio de Bellas Artes in Mexico City, becoming its first director.

 

Leonor Morales

From Grove Art Online

 

© 2009 Oxford University Press

  

Black chalk on reddish paper; 533 x 423 mm

 

German architect, painter, and designer, active mainly in Berlin. Schinkel was the greatest German architect of the 19th century, but until 1815, when he gained a senior appointment in the Public Works Department of Prussia (from which position he effectively redesigned Berlin), he worked mainly as a painter and stage designer. His paintings are highly Romantic landscapes somewhat in the spirit of Friedrich, although more anecdotal in detail (Gothic Cathedral by a River, Staatliche Museen, Berlin, 1813-14). He continued working as a stage designer until the 1830s, and in this field ranks among the greatest artists of his period. His most famous designs were for Mozart's The Magic Flute (1815), in which he combined the clarity and logic of his architectural style with a feeling of mystery and fantasy.

 

The Tower Of London remembers the First World War 1914-1918

 

The major art installation Blood Swept Lands and Seas of Red at the Tower of London, marked one hundred years since the first full day of Britain's involvement in the First World War. Created by ceramic artist Paul Cummins, with setting by stage designer Tom Piper, 888,246 ceramic poppies progressively filled the Tower's famous moat between 17 July and 11 November 2014. Each poppy represented a British military fatality during the war.

 

The poppies encircled the iconic landmark, creating not only a spectacular display visible from all around the Tower but also a location for personal reflection. The scale of the installation was intended to reflect the magnitude of such an important centenary and create a powerful visual commemoration.

 

All of the poppies that made up the installation were sold, raising millions of pounds which were shared equally amongst six service charities.

Oil on canvas; 110 x 77 cm.

 

Altman was born in Vinnytsia, Imperial Russia. From 1902 to 1907 he studied painting and sculpture at the Art College in Odessa. In 1906 he had his first exhibition in Odessa. In 1910 he went to Paris, where he studied at the Free Russian Academy, working in the studio of Wladimir Baranoff-Rossine, and had contact with Marc Chagall, Alexander Archipenko, and David Shterenberg. In 1910 he became a member of the group Union of Youth. His famous Portrait of Anna Akhmatova, conceived in Cubist style, was painted in 1914. After 1916 he started to work as a stage designer.

 

In 1918 he was the member of the Board for Artistic Matters within the Department of Fine Arts of the People's Commissariat of Enlightenment together with Malevich, Baranoff-Rossine and Shevchenko. In the same year he had an exhibition with the group Jewish Society for the Furthering of the Arts in Moscow, together with Wladimir Baranoff-Rossine, El Lissitzky and the others. In 1920 he became a member of the Institute for Artistic Culture, together with Kasimir Malevich, Vladimir Tatlin and others. In the same year, he participated in the exhibition From Impressionism to Cubism in the Museum of Painterly Culture in Petrograd. From 1920 to 1928 he worked on stage designs for the Habimah Theatre and the Jewish State Theatre in Moscow. In 1923 a volume of his Jewish graphic art was published in Berlin. In 1925 he participated in Exposition Internationale des Arts Decoratifs et Industriels Moderns (Art Deco) in Paris. His first solo exhibition in Leningrad was in 1926.

  

Mixed technique of canvas; 104 x 130 cm.

 

Italian painter and stage designer, born in Udine. Full name Afro Balsadella, but is usually known as Afro; brother of the sculptor Mirko Balsadella (Mirko). Father a leading decorator. Studied at secondary schools specialising in art subjects in Florence and Venice, and had his first one-man exhibition at the Galleria del Milione, Milan, in 1932. Began by painting still lifes, landscapes, portraits and murals. Moved in 1938 to Rome. War service and in the Resistance 1940-4. Developed a near-abstract style in 1947-8 under the influence of Klee and late Cubism. Held regular exhibitions at the Catherine Viviano Gallery, New York, from 1950-68 and made frequent visits to the USA, developing a looser, more improvisatory abstract style partly under the influence of Gorky, Kline and de Kooning. Joined the group Otto with Birolli, Corpora, Moreni, Morlotti, Santomaso, Turcato and Vedova in 1952. Painted a mural for the UNESCO headquarters in Paris 1958. Awarded the City of Venice painting prize at the 1956 Venice Biennale and Second Prize at the 1959 Pittsburgh International; also designed sets and costumes for the ballet and the opera. His late works, from c.1970, had more precise shapes. Died in Zurich.

 

Published in:

Ronald Alley, Catalogue of the Tate Gallery's Collection of Modern Art other than Works by British Artists, Tate Gallery and Sotheby Parke-Bernet, London 1981, p.2

Michele Marieschi - View of the Cannaregio, looking towards the Grand Canal

 

This exceptionally executed and beautifully preserved canvas is a newly discovered picture by Michele Marieschi, one of the greatest Venetian vedutisti of the 18th century. That it has hung and remained in the same family collection for over 100 years has no doubt contributed to its wonderful condition, and indeed also explains the fact that it has remained unpublished. Long considered by the current owner’s family an anonymous Venetian work, it has only recently been rightly identified as an important addition to the mature oeuvre of Marieschi, and is without question among the most important rediscoveries by this artist to appear on the market in years.

 

The extraordinarily good condition of this painting allows us to admire the technique that distinguished Marieschi from other vedutisti: the wide-angled canal view enveloped in a swirl of dynamic pink and white clouds; the canal itself punctuated by gentle waves, the crests of which are painted with a swift touch of the brush; and the impasto on the façades of the buildings, with their varying hues of deep rusty red and ochre that successfully convey the effect of dappled sunlight on marble and stone. It is unclear what time of day it is, whether it is sunny or cloudy, but the figures on land and water go about their daily business with Marieschi carefully observing.

 

The design relates to two well-known versions of the composition. Both of these—one at Bowhill in the collection of the Duke of Buccleuch, the other at Schloss Charlottenburg, Berlin—have been dated by scholars to circa 1737-1739 (see F. Montecuccoli degli Erri and F. Pedrocco, Michele Marieschi, La vita, l’ambiente, l’opera. Milan 1999, pp. 94 and 98, cat. nos. 95 and 98, reproduced). As with a number of Marieschi’s versions, the essential architectural elements running through the pictures are entirely consistent. Of notable difference, however, is the staffage and small gondole which calmly move through the paved streets and under the Ponte delle Guglie of the Cannareggio. Furthermore, Marieschi has here imbued the atmosphere surmounting the scene with a particularly dynamic and vigorously painted cloud formation. The swirling sky above stands in contrast to the seemingly more subdued and gentle counterparts in the Bowhill and Charlottenburg versions.

 

Marieschi approaches both sky and water in a stylistically similar example, also from circa 1737, depicting A Stonemason's Yard on the Grand Canal, Venice, which was sold with a pendant in New York at Christie’s, 15 April 2008, lot 54, for $3,401,000. This comparable work employs a similarly vigorous impasto application within the architecture, as well as more clearly delineated waves one more often finds with the mature work of Canaletto.

 

Little is known of Marieschi’s early training although it is probable that he began his artistic career as a stage designer. His first recorded work in Venice was a 1731 set design for the setting of Carnival Thursday in the Piazzetta, prepared for the impresario Francesco Tasso. His early painted works took the form of capricci and vedute influenced by the work of fellow Venetians Luca Carlevarijs and Marco Ricci. Marieschi’s painting of vedute was further encouraged by the success Canaletto had with the genre. His paintings differ from those of his contemporaries, however, in his more theatrical compositions, exaggerated perspectives, atmospheric color and animated handling of figures. Marieschi’s first recorded vedute date from 1736 and were executed for Johann Matthias, Graf von der Schulenburg (1661-1747), around the same moment that this superlative painting was also created.

 

We are grateful to Charles Beddington for endorsing the attribution after first-hand inspection. We are also grateful to Dario Succi for endorsing the attribution based on photographs. Professor Succi plans to include this work in his forthcoming monograph on Marieschi and considers it the earliest of all the known versions of the composition.

 

www.sothebys.com/en/auctions/ecatalogue/2017/master-paint...

Czechoslovakian postcard by Tisk Severogravia Decin, no. 10-521-O-7. Photo: still from Dobry vojak Svejk/The Good Soldier Svejk (Jirî Trnka, 1955).

 

Because of his brilliant puppet animations, Czech puppeteer and stop-motion film-maker Jiří Trnka (1912-1969) was called ‘the Walt Disney of Eastern Europe’. For Dobry vojak Svejk/The Good Soldier Svejk (1955), he adapted the classic anti-war satire 'Švejk' by Jaroslav Hašek.

 

Jiří Trnka was born in the city of Pilsen, Austria-Hungary (now Plzeň, Czech Republic) in 1912. From the moment he could hold a pencil, Trnka drew pictures. At secondary school, his drawing teacher was the puppeteer and man of the theater Josef Skupa. Trnka studied at Prague's School of Arts and Crafts, and in 1936 he began a wooden puppet theatre on Prague’s Wenceslas Square, which was disbanded after the outbreak of WWII. During the war, he designed stage sets and illustrated Špalíček veršů a pohádek, a collection of Czech rhymes and fairy tales by František Hrubín. In the immediate wake of World War II, Trnka founded Bratři v triku (Brothers in Tricks) with fellow animators Eduard Hofman and Jiří Brdečka. This studio, dedicated to the production of traditional, hand-drawn animation, lives on today. Their first film was Zasadil dědek řepu (Grandpa Planted a Beet), followed by the puppet film Christmassy Betlém (Bethlehem), which captures the atmosphere of a Czech folk Christmas. In 1947, Trnka made the puppet film Špalíček (The Czech Year), which told six separate folk tales of Czech life. It was a defining moment for Trnka as he won several international awards three years running across Europe. Puppet animation is a traditional Czech art form, of which Trnka became the undisputed master. Most of his films were intended for adults and many were adaptations of literary works. These included feature-length covering working-class traditions and national heroes, such as Bajaja/Prince Bayaya (1950), and Staré povesti ceské/Old Czech Legends (1953). They made him an internationally recognized artist and the winner of film festival awards at Venice and elsewhere. He was a puppet-maker, a sculptor, and a set and stage designer. All of these talents were abundantly well utilised in his highly distinctive film work.

 

To explore the classics of Czech literature, Jiří Trnka decided in 1955 to adapt to the screen the immensely popular novel Osudy dobreho vojaka Svejka za svetove valky (The Good Soldier Švejk) written by Jaroslav Hašek. This anti-war satire is the most translated novel of Czech literature. At the time, there already existed film adaptations with real actors, such as Dobrý voják Švejk/The Last Bohemian (Martin Frič, 1931), starring Saša Rašilov as Švejk. Trnka however was the first to make an animated film about the bumbling soldier who earnestly attempts to follow orders. For the construction of the puppets, Trnka was inspired by the illustrations for the original book made by Josef Lada, which in the popular imagination were closely associated with the characters of Hašek. Dobry vojak Svejk/The Good Soldier Svejk (Jirî Trnka, 1955) is divided into three episodes, which tell the grotesque adventures of Švejk during World War I. The narrator was Jan Werich. The humorous film received several awards at international festivals. Trnka's masterpiece was Sen noci svatojánské/A Midsummer Night’s Dream (Jirî Trnka, 1959), which was presented in Cannes in 1959, which made him the icon of ‘Eastern country’ animators. Cerise Howard at Senses of Cinema: “a stunningly beautiful, highly faithful adaptation of Shakespeare’s play. Several years in the making, the puppet animation is more liquid, more balletic than ever.” Trnka's last film, Ruka/The Hand (Jirî Trnka, 1965), was an unexpected and surprising break in his work thus far. It was something completely new in content and form. The Hand is a merciless political allegory, which strictly follows the story outline without developing lyrical details as usual. In 1968, he received the international Hans Christian Andersen Medal for illustrators, recognizing his career contribution to children's literature. Jiri Trnka died in 1969 in Prague, only 57 years old. Four months later, The Hand was banned; all copies were confiscated by the secret police, put in a safe, and the film was forbidden for screening for the next twenty years.

 

Sources: Cerise Howard (Senses of Cinema), Edgar Datko (Animation World Magazine), Daniel Yates (IMDb), Europe of Cultures, Dangerous Minds, Wikipedia, and IMDb.

 

And, please check out our blog European Film Star Postcards.

Swedish painter, draughtsman, tapestry and stage designer. After studying under various artists in Tumba and elsewhere, in 1922–3 he attended the Konsthögskolan in Stockholm and in 1922 visited Berne, Nuremberg and Berlin. His early works, such as Jeårj (1923; Stockholm, Mod. Mus.), were loosely painted and naive in appearance and drew on vernacular art. In 1924 he visited Paris and Italy, and in 1924–5 he helped decorate the cinema in Malmö, one of numerous early decorative projects. In 1925 he was a founder-member of the Fri Konst group of artists, which included Carl Alexandersson (1897–1941), Sven Hempel (1896–1944) and others. The following year the membership was expanded to nine by the addition of such artists as Gustav Alexanderson (b 1901) to form the Nio Unga (Nine Young Men) group. Erixson travelled extensively around Europe in the late 1920s, and in 1932, after the dissolution of Nio Unga, he was a founder-member of Färg och Form (Colour and Form) with whom he exhibited thereafter. His painting of this period retained the earlier naivety but became more expressive, as in Dance Hall at Telemarken (1931; Stockholm, Mod. Mus.). After travels in Spain and Morocco in 1935–6 Erixson designed two large tapestry cartoons for the Konserthus in Göteborg, which were executed by the Gobelins. In 1938–40 he executed two large frescoes for the chapel at Skogskyrkogardens crematorium in Stockholm. From 1942–3 he produced painted glass windows for the St Gertrud chapel at Malmö crematorium, and in 1943 he became a professor at the Konstakademi in Stockholm. Erixson produced numerous theatrical set designs in the 1940s and 1950s, such as those for Federico García Lorca’s Blood Wedding (1944), and Shakespeare’s Richard III (1946) and Romeo and Juliet (1953), which were performed at the Dramaten theatre in Stockholm. He continued to paint interior scenes, townscapes and landscapes in this period, such as Autumn in Tattby (1944; Göteborg, Kstmus.), which still showed the influence of folk art. His later work was of much the same style though the details were pared away as in the powerful Memory of Nacka Hospital (1965; see 1969–70 exh. cat.). He was also involved in further decorative projects, producing cartoons, painted windows and theatre designs. Together with Bror Hjorth, Erixson was influential in revitalizing the folk art tradition in Sweden.

 

Grove Art excerpts - Electronic ©2003, Oxford Art Online

Oil on canvas; 29 x 35 cm.

 

(b Faenza, 4 Aug 1909; d Rome, 5 April 1981). Italian painter, illustrator and stage designer. He began his training in Faenza in the workshop of the Italian painter and ceramicist Mario Ortolani (1901-55). After living briefly in Bologna (1927) and Paris (1928) he settled in Rome in 1929, first exhibiting his work at the Venice Biennale in the following year. His paintings at this time, such as Nude (Susanna after her Bath) (1929; Faenza, Pin. Com.), were characterized by an emphasis on tonal relationships and on the influence of the Scuola Romana. In 1934 he began to work with growing success as an illustrator for the journals Quadrivio and Italia letteraria. The contacts he established with Paris were intensified with his move there in 1947, resulting in three one-man shows at the Galerie Rive Gauche (in 1950, 1953 and 1957), and in his paintings he evolved a cautious balance between the representation and the disassembling of the image. Some of his best-known series of paintings date from this time, including his Cathedrals (e.g. Cathedral with Still-life and Dog, 1960; Rome, Vatican, Col. A. Relig. Mod.), pictures of town squares populated by acrobats and musicians, and later female nudes and a series entitled Mermaids.

 

Oil on canvas.

 

Mexican painter, printmaker, illustrator and stage designer. In 1903 he began studying painting in Guadalajara under Félix Bernardelli, an Italian who had established a school of painting and music there, and he produced his first illustrations for Revista moderna, a magazine that promoted the Latin American modernist movement and for which his cousin, the poet Amado Nervo, wrote. In 1905 he enrolled at the Escuela Nacional de Arte in Mexico City, where Diego Rivera was also studying, and won a grant to study in Europe. After two years in Madrid, Montenegro moved in 1907 to Paris, where he continued his studies and had his first contact with Cubism, meeting Picasso, Braque and Gris.

 

After a short stay in Mexico, Montenegro returned to Paris. At the outbreak of World War I he moved to Barcelona and from there to Mallorca, where he lived as a fisherman for the next four years. During his stay in Europe he assimilated various influences, in particular from Symbolism, from Art Nouveau (especially Aubrey Beardsley) and from William Blake.

 

On his return to Mexico, Montenegro worked closely with José Vasconcelos, Secretary of State for Public Education during the presidency of Alvaro Obregón in the early 1920s, faithfully following his innovative ideas on murals and accompanying him on journeys in Mexico and abroad. He was put in charge of the Departamento de Artes Plásticas in 1921 and was invited by Vasconcelos to ‘decorate’ the walls of the former convent, the Colegio Máximo de S Pedro y S Pablo in Mexico City. The first of these works, executed in 1922, consisted of the mural Tree of Life , relating the origin and destiny of man, and two designs for richly ornamented stained-glass windows influenced by popular art: Guadalajara Tap-dance and The Parakeet-seller. They were followed by two further murals in the same building: the Festival of the Holy Cross (1923–4), representing the popular festival of 3 May celebrated by bricklayers and stonemasons, and Resurrection (1931–3), with a geometric composition bearing a slight Cubist influence. Further murals followed, including Spanish America (1924; Mexico City, Bib. Ibero-Amer. & B.A.), an allegory of the historical and spiritual union of Latin America in the form of a map, and The Story, also known as Aladdin’s Lamp (1926; Mexico City, Cent. Escolar Benito Juárez), a formally designed painting with Oriental figures similar in style to a mural made for Vasconcelos’s private offices.

 

Although Montenegro claimed to be a ‘subrealist’ rather than a Surrealist, in his easel paintings he mixed reality and fantasy; two such works, which fall well within the bounds of Surrealism, were shown in 1940 at the International Exhibition of Surrealism held at the Galería de Arte Mexicano in Mexico City. In his later work Montenegro evolved an abstract style, although he never lost his interest in popular, pre-Hispanic and colonial art. He was also a fine portrait painter, and from the 1940s to the 1960s he produced a splendid series of self-portraits in which he is shown reflected in a convex mirror, thus combining elements of Mannerism and popular art. He illustrated books, made incursions into stage design, working for both the ballet and the theatre, and in 1934 created the Museo de Arte Popular in the recently inaugurated Palacio de Bellas Artes in Mexico City, becoming its first director.

 

Leonor Morales

From Grove Art Online

 

© 2009 Oxford University Press

David Hockney

David Hockney (born 9 July 1937) is an English painter, draftsman, printmaker, stage designer, and photographer. As an important contributor to the pop art movement of the 1960s, he is considered one of the most influential British artists of the 20th century.

Oil on canvas; 146.4 x 114.3 cm.

 

Eugène Berman and his brother Leonid Berman were Russian Neo-romantic painters and theater and opera designers.

 

Born in Russia, they fled the Russian revolution in 1918. In Paris the Bermans exhibited at the Galerie Pierre where their work earned them the name "Neo-Romantics" for its melancholy and introspective qualities, having taken inspiration from the Blue Period paintings of Picasso. Other Neo-Romantic painters were Christian Berard, Pavel Tchelitchev, Kristians Tonny and, later in America, their friend Muriel Streeter (wife of their art dealer Julien Levy).

 

Eugène's work was characterized by lonely landscapes featuring sculptural and architectural elements, often ruins, rendered in a neo-classical manner, whereas that of Leonid depicted beaches with fisherman's boats and nets in many parts of the world. In 1935 Eugène left for New York where he exhibited frequently at the Julien Levy Gallery (as did Leonid after the war). Later, in the 1940s, Eugène settled in Los Angeles and married the actress Ona Munson, while Leonid remained in New York and married the harpsichordist Sylvia Marlowe.

 

In America, Eugène became well-known as a stage designer for ballet and opera. Following the suicide of his wife in 1955, he moved to Rome where Princess Doria-Pamphilj provided an apartment and studio for him in a wing of her palazzo on the via del Corso. He continued to paint there until his death in 1972. Leonid died in New York in 1976.

 

From 5 August 2014 to 11 November 2014, a major artistic installation entitled 'Blood Swept Lands and Seas of Red' saw the Tower of London's famous dry moat filled with over 800,000 ceramic poppies to create a powerful visual commemoration for the First World War Centenary.

 

The ceramic poppies were available to buy for £25 each and the net proceeds, hoped to be in excess of £15 million if all poppies were sold, would be shared equally amongst a group of carefully selected Service charities including the Royal British Legion.

 

The installation, in collaboration with ceramic artist Paul Cummins and theatre stage designer Tom Piper, was unveiled on 5 August 2014, one hundred years since the first full day of Britain's involvement in the First World War.

 

The poppies, a symbol of Remembrance in the UK, encircled the iconic landmark, creating not only a spectacular display visible from all around the Tower, but also an inspiring setting for performance and learning activities, as well as providing a location for personal reflection. The scale of the installation intended to reflect the magnitude of such an important centenary.

  

There were 888,246 poppies installed, one for each British and Colonial fatality during the war.

Studley Royal Park including the ruins of Fountains Abbey is a designated World Heritage Site in North Yorkshire, England. The site, which has an area of 800 acres (323 ha), features an 18th-century landscaped garden, some of the largest Cistercian abbey ruins in Europe, ruins of a Jacobean mansion and a Victorian church designed by William Burges.

 

Originally separate estates, after the Dissolution of the Monasteries, the Fountains estate was owned by the Gresham, Proctor, and Messenger families. At the same time, the Studley estate was separately held by the Mallorie (or Mallory) and then Aislabie families, after the marriage of Mary Mallory and George Aislabie. The estates were combined on 22 December 1767, when William Aislabie purchased the Fountains estate from John Messenger. In 1966, the property came into public ownership after its purchase by West Riding County Council. In 1983, it was acquired by the National Trust.

 

The gardens and park reflect every stage in the evolution of English garden fashion, from the late 17th century to the 1780s and beyond. Most unusually, both John and William embraced new garden fashions by extending their designed landscape rather than replacing and remaking outmoded parts. As a result, the cumulative whole is a catalogue of significant landscaping styles.

 

Background

Studley Royal Park is an estate in North Yorkshire, England. The land broadly slopes and east-facing views are a feature of its landscape. The River Skell runs through the site, cutting through layers of Upper Carboniferous sandstone and Permian Magnesian limestone. The park was formed through the aggregation of the former land-holdings of Fountains Abbey, which were purchased by the Gresham family after the Dissolution, and the estate of Studley Royal.

 

Whilst the prehistoric origins of the land upon which Studley Royal Park now stands are under-researched, there is evidence for settlement in the area. An excavated flint assemblage from the park demonstrates the presence of people working flint on the site. There is evidence of farming activity dated to 4,500 years ago.

 

Material from the Iron Age is also associated with the site, including a lost gold torc. Iron Age enclosures at Mackershaw date from the sixth to fifth centuries BC. In the later phases of that enclosure, Romano-British material, including an Egyptian glass bangle, has also been discovered. The presence of Romano-British communities is also attested by the excavation of four skeletons by the vicar of Wath in 1881.

 

Documentary sources and place-name evidence, rather than archaeological excavation, provide insight into the early medieval period in the area. The Venerable Bede recorded that king Alhfrith of Deira granted land for a monastery near Ripon to Eata.

 

History

Fountains Abbey was founded in 1132 by Benedictine monks who left St Mary's Abbey, York to follow the Cistercian order. During the medieval period, monastic landholding steadily increased. For example, in the 1220s, Cassandra de Aleman donated land at Swanley to become part of the monastic grange.

 

After the dissolution of the monasteries in 1539 by Henry VIII, the Abbey buildings and over 40% of the former monastic estate was sold by the Crown to Sir Richard Gresham, a merchant. The Greshams, as new owners of a formerly monastic site had a responsibility to render it incapable of future religious use. This was done through a programme of demolition and sale of goods, which included the stripping of lead from the buildings, the removal of glass and Nidderdale 'marble' from the church. 

 

The property was passed down through several generations of Sir Richard's family, then sold to Stephen Proctor in 1596. This included the precinct, Fountains Park and Swanley Grange. It was Proctor who built Fountains Hall probably between 1598 and 1604. The hall is a Jacobean mansion, built partly with stone from the Abbey ruins. Proctor was subsequently imprisoned and sold Fountains Park to pay his legal fees.  In April 1622 the Fountains estate was re-combined by Timothy Whittingham, who re-mortgaged it the same year to Humphrey Wharton. Over the subsequent two years, parts of the estate were ceded to several creditors, but ultimately Wharton regained control. The 1627 estate sale includes details for a lead casting workshop in the Warming House; the estate was bought by Richard Ewens and his son-in-law John Messenger.  During the English Civil War Messenger reputedly fought at the Battles of Marston Moor and at Naseby. In 1655 Ewens' grandson, William Messenger, inherited the estate. 

 

The Messengers were never wealthy, and in 1676 William Messenger had to arrange mortgages on the estate in order to pay for his daughters marriages. Other financial troubles led William to leave his family, and he died in Paris in 1680, leaving his three-year-old son, John Messenger, to inherit.  He married Margaret Scrope in 1698, a year after he came of age, and around this time he began re-building works on Fountain Hall. He rented out areas of the former abbey, including the mill; however these leases excluded mineral extraction, which were kept by Messenger. The family were also keenly interested in the ruins of the abbey itself, and allowed people to visit from as early as 1655. 

 

In 1736, William's son Michael James married Elizabeth Sayer and took responsibility for the estate. He commissioned the first measured survey of the abbey in 1758. The family's financial position was declining and by 1765 Michael was selling oaks from the estate. Michael James died in 1766 and his son John Michael inherited. On 22 December 1767, John Michael sold the Fountains estate to William Aislabie for £18,000. 

 

Studley estate development

From 1452 onwards, Studley Royal was inhabited by the Mallory family, most notably by MPs John Mallory and William Mallory. A depiction of the enclosed park first appeared on Christopher Saxton's 1577 map of Yorkshire. In 1607 John Mallory commissioned the first surviving survey of the estate. This listed land-holdings and it demonstrated that the estate formerly extended beyond the park.  During the English Civil War, William Mallory and his son John, were loyal to the Crown; John commanded a force that defended Skipton Castle. They only surrendered in December 1645. William died in 1646 and John was fined by Parliament for half the value of the estate. Paying off the fine was attempted by selling off his wife's family estate, as well as other property, including a mill at Galphay and a farm at Nunwick. However, despite this, when John died in January 1656, and his son William inherited, aged only eight years old, debts had mounted up to £10,000. During this time it was John's widow, Mary, who managed the estate and managed to bring it within its means once more. However, in 1667, William died aged nineteen and the estate passed to his sisters: the eldest Mary, who was married to George Aislabie, as well as Jane and Elizabeth. 

 

Aislabie was the son of a farmer from Osgodby in North Yorkshire. He worked as a clerk for William Turbutt in the church courts at York. As part of Turbutt's household, Aislabie inherited £200 at his death in November 1648. After Turbutt's death Aislabie remained as part of the household, working for the widowed Elizabeth Turbutt. There is a suggestion made by John Richard Walbran that the pair may have had a romantic attachment, but this is unproven. Nevertheless he was the primary beneficiary of Turbutt's will when she died in 1662 – a result of which he purchased Treasurer's House in York. It was around this time that he married Mary Mallorie. George was killed in a duel in 1676.  It was George who began plans for the re-establishment of an enlarged park with Studley Royal in its centre. Studley Great Gate, now more commonly known as East Gate, the largest probable remnant of his plans.

 

George Aislabie's wife, Mary, preserved the estate, but by the time of her death in 1683 was in debt. Trustees to the estate were appointed until the heir, Mallorie Aislabie, came of age: William Robinson, husband of the eldest daughter Mary and Arthur Ingram.  Mallorie died in 1685 and was succeeded as heir by his brother George, who inherited but then died in 1693. The third brother, John Aislabie inherited the Studley estate.  A survey in 1694 describes both an 'old park' and a 'new park' which invites consideration of expansion under his father.

 

By 1695 John Aislabie was the Tory Member of Parliament for Ripon, and in 1718 became Chancellor of the Exchequer.  This enabled some of the family's perhaps long held plans, to landscape the park, to begin. This included the construction of a tower on How Hill, and the canal and cascade that became the foundation of the Water Garden. Aislabie was a principal sponsor of the South Sea Company scheme, the bill for which was promoted by him personally. In 1720 this vast financial operation collapsed, and in 1721 he was expelled from Parliament and disqualified for life from public office. Stocks from the South Sea Company were grafted to the East India Company, of which his brother William was a director.

 

Development of the gardens

Aislabie returned to Yorkshire and from 1723 devoted himself to the landscaping of the estate. This included the construction of a boundary wall along the western side of the valley between the Fountains Abbey and Studley Royal estates. This wall had at least one viewing platform and connected to the path known as High Walk. Boundaries including ha-has were also constructed at this time.  It is possible the design was influenced by his kinsman William Benson's knowledge of neo-Palladian design. Other early features included The Upper Canal and Drum Falls. Flooding subsequently damaged these early developments, and by 1726 approximately 100 men were working to create water features, which included canals and ponds.  The design of the cascade and the fishing lodges is attributed to Roger Morris, who worked with Colen Campbell. The cascade and the canal was described in 1729 by Stephen Switzer in his volume of engineering, Hydrostatics. Aislabie and Morris's works did not just extend to the water gardens, but also to other areas of the estate. By 1728 work was also underway on the High Stables, which can still be seen in the deer park. 

 

During the 1730s and 1740s, there were a number of head gardeners employed by Aislabie. William Fisher worked on the estate from at least 1717 to 1732, when he was paid off. He was followed by John Hossack (left 1738), Mathias Mitchell (dismissed 1742) and then James Lockey (died 1744). Another significant employee was Robert Doe, who was a builder, mason and later head gardener too. Doe later worked on building projects for Castle Howard and for Swinton Castle.  This was also a period of expansion, during which Aislabie changed the lease on Mackershaw – making it permanent, rather than leased for agriculture. During this phase, the Grotto was constructed and changes were made to footpaths around its location; the Temple of Piety was also built.

 

In 1738 the first known plan of the gardens was made by Sir John Clerk of Penicuik, who was visiting them as part of a northern tour. At the same time the Octagon Tower was also constructed and it was glazed and decorated during 1735; subsequently stuccowork was added by Francesco Vassalli.  Other buildings constructed at this time include the Bathing House and the Boathouse. The planting at this time was perhaps sparser than that of the estate in the early twenty-first century: eighteenth-century visitors reported seeing bare rock between the trees.  The late 1730s also saw a revision of the statuary scheme in the gardens, which included the introduction of a statue of Neptune, centrally located in the Moon Pond. 

 

After Aislabie's death on 18 June 1742, his son William inherited, and whilst little is known about William's life, it is known that he set out on a Grand Tour in 1720, which was thwarted by political turmoil in France. In 1724 he married Lady Elizabeth Cecil, with whom he had six children: two sons and four daughters. Elizabeth and two of their daughters died in a smallpox outbreak in 1733. William's first scheme for the gardens was the construction of a funerary pyramid, modelled on the one at Stowe Gardens. He also extended the designed landscape further down the Skell Valley and introduced in 1745 a 'Chinese house', inspired by fashion at the time. 

 

In 1745 William re-married, to Elizabeth Vernon, who was the niece of his step-mother.  Perhaps, as a result, Studley Hall was renovated, which included the decoration of two rooms in a chinoiserie style. In the 1750s a gardeners house was built near the Kitchen Garden and two ice houses were constructed. A private garden with aviary was also created next to Studley Hall during this period. William also added new architectural features to the park: an obelisk at the western end of the main avenue and the Belvedere, which was a Gothic garden room. In addition to new buildings, existing ones had a change of character: for example the Temple of Venus had family portraits installed in it and its name changes to that of 'Banqueting House'.  In the 1750s the network of footpaths around the gardens were also much greater than the modern-day lay-out. Overall, William extended the landscaped area in the picturesque romantic style, contrasting with the formality of his father's work. Between them, the two created what is arguably England's most important 18th-century landscape gardens.

 

Combined estates

On 22 December 1767, William Aislabie purchased the Fountains estate from John Messenger, combining the Studley and Fountains estates. 

 

In February 1768, the gardens were flooded, which resulted in repairs and renovations. Subsequently the reservoir was expanded from a two acre, to a three and a half acre capacity. This period also included the insertion of new garden buildings, such as the Green Arch and the White Seat. In addition, new water features were added to the south-east of the gardens.  1768 also saw Robert Doe, on the instruction of Aislabie, begin to clear and stabilise the abbey ruins; work which continued until at least 1773.  Part of this scheme of work included the demolition of the Lay Brothers' Cloister. It also included construction: the Gazebo was built under the east Window, which provided visitors with an elevated view of the nave.

 

Anne Boleyn's Hill is first named as part of the gardens in 1771, where an antiquarian headless statue looked out on the valley. The statue moved and was restored to its location in 2004. The last mention of the Rotondo and the Coffin Lawn date to 1775, and it is likely the former was used to infill the latter. The canalisation of the Skell near the Abbey was undertaken in 1773, which used the river as a framing device for the view of the abbey from Anne Boleyn's Seat (constructed c.1789–91).

 

William also added ornamentation to parts of the ruins, adding detailing, but most significantly recreating the location of the high alter through the repositioning of medieval tiles found throughout the site. He also added planting to the cloister, in the form of shrubs and flowers. Greater security was also introduced to the abbey, with lockable doors and gates. However there was contemporary criticism of these changes, in particular from William Gilpin, who visited Studley on a tour of the north of England. 

 

William died on 17 May 1781 in London. The estate passed to his elder daughter, Elizabeth Allanson, after his two sons predeceased him.  Whilst she spent the majority of her time as owner at her home in Twickenham, Elizabeth did continue her family's civic work in Ripon – donating to the poor, funding streetlighting and building Ripon Town Hall.  However, although she appointed Christopher Hall as agent, during her ownership, and her lack of presence at the estate, many areas of the designed landscape became neglected.

 

Elizabeth died on 8 March 1808 and was succeeded by her niece, Elizabeth Sophia Lawrence, who lived at Studley from 1808 until her death in 1845.  An influential woman in the area, she used her position to influence (and punish) voters.[10] Under her ownership, she made further additions to the grounds, which included the stone Obelisk, as well as Robin Hood's Well, which enclosed a small spring. She also made repairs to the abbey, including to Huby's Tower. It was under her ownership that John Richard Walbran first undertook excavations in 1840.  In her will she left bequests totalling £237,000, including £1000 to fund a dispensary in Ripon.

 

The estate then devolved to Thomas Philip, 2nd Earl de Grey, a distant relative. Under de Grey, Walbran undertook further excavation.  These excavations in the 1850s also piqued public interest further in the site. This was furthered by the opening of curative springs nearby in Harrogate bringing a large tourism audience with it.  Management of the huge increases in the numbers of tourists entailed the creation of new routes, including the De Grey Walk and the Well Walk. In 1847 a new one shilling entrance fee was introduced.  The first record of a school trip to the site was from St Peter's School, Dallowgill, in September 1851. In 1858 the first museum for the site was opened in the Muniments Room, above the Warming House.  The 1850s also saw major events held at the estate for the first time. These raised funds for a variety of causes, such as the Ripon Mechanics Institute, to celebrate peace in Crimea, and a 'Great Musical Celebration' in 1868. In 1869 the third-earliest bicycle race to be held in England ran through the estate. 

 

On de Grey's death in 1859, the estate passed to his nephew, George Frederick Samuel Robinson, the Marquess of Ripon, and later the Viceroy of India. He redeveloped areas of Studley Hall, as well as renovating the gardens near the house. He also constructed the Pheasantry at the edge of the estate, as well as building a golf course, whose first professional was Harry Vardon. He also built St Mary's church in the park.  During his ownership of the estate, three structures were added: Studley tea room, an oval island in the lake, and the High Seat in the west of the gardens. During this period, more exotic trees were introduced as part of the planting scheme – for example a Wellingtonia gigantea was planted by the Prince of Wales in 1863.  In 1886 a pageant was held on the estate, celebrating Ripon's millennium; a similar event was repeated in 1896 for the Diamond Jubilee of Queen Victoria.

 

George Frederick Samuel Robinson, the Marquess of Ripon died in 1909 and his son Frederick Oliver inherited the estate. On the death of Frederick Robinson, 2nd Marquess of Ripon in 1923, the estate was acquired by his cousin Clare George Vyner. Visitor income became more significant for the Vyner family, than it had been for the Robinsons, yet the family had a strong sense of social responsibility and in the 1930s established the Fountains Abbey Settlers Society, which provided work and skills to unemployed families. This also included a work scheme that dredged the river.  In addition to the scheme on the estate, Vyner also funded the construction of a model village in Swarland, Northumberland. The Settlers Society ended at the outbreak of the Second World War, but its accommodation was repurposed to house German and Polish refugees.  During the war much of the estate's land was cultivated for the first time in 600 years, as part of the 'Dig For Victory' campaign.  Studley Hall after doing war service as the home of Queen Ethelburga's School, was destroyed by fire in April 1946. After the war, the upkeep of the estate became too expensive for the Vyner family, who sold it to Broadlands Properties for £1,250,000. They subsequently also sold Fountains Hall to West Riding County Council in 1969.

 

Public ownership

In 1966 much of the estate was purchased by West Riding County Council from Broadlands Properties, and the property was reopened to the public in 1967. However resource pressures meant that the local authority was keen to find another owner for the estate. There had been previous appeals to the National Trust to undertake running the site, including in 1923. In 1983 the property was acquired by the National Trust.

 

English Heritage is responsible for conservation of the abbey under a guardianship agreement, but managed on a day to day basis by the National Trust. St Mary’s Church is owned by the State and managed by the National Trust under a local management agreement. In 1986 the entire estate was designated a World Heritage Site by UNESCO. It gained recognition as it fulfils the criteria of “being a masterpiece of human creative genius, and an outstanding example of a type of building or architectural or technological ensemble or landscape which illustrates significant stages in human history”.  The initial proposal for World Heritage Status only extended to Fountains Abbey and St Mary's Church; it was on the recommendation of the International Council on Monuments and Sites (ICOMOS) that the listing extended to include Studley Royal. In 1992, a new visitor centre and car parks were designed by Ted Cullinan to accommodate growing visitor numbers. Lying north-west of the Abbey above the valley floor, the new visitor centre incorporated a shop, large restaurant, lecture theatre and exhibition space (currently office space) arranged around an open courtyard.

 

In 2015 stage designer Gary McCann was commissioned to produce work in response to the buildings on the property; the resulting exhibition, entitled Folly!, installed works in spaces such as the Banqueting House. In 2016, Mat Collishaw created Seria Ludo and The Pineal Eye in the Temple of Piety. In 2018, Charles Holland, Lucy Orta and Flea Folly Architects created artworks to reimagine lost follies in the landscape. In 2021, Steve Messam created three artworks in an exhibition entitled These Passing Things and in 2022 Joe Cornish created a photographic exhibition Still Time to Wonder in various buildings on the property.

 

Significance

Studley Royal, under National Trust ownership, is the preserved core of a once much more substantial Aislabie project, which incorporated the surrounding agrarian landscape that they owned, long distance views to Ripon and beyond, and rides extending to other designed landscapes including Laver Banks and Hackfall (seven miles from Studley), 177–184 The gardens and park reflect every stage in the evolution of English garden fashion, from the late seventeenth-century to the 1780s and beyond. Most unusually both John and William embraced new garden fashions by extending their designed landscape rather than replacing and remaking outmoded parts. As a result, the cumulative whole is a catalogue of significant landscaping styles. This includes John Aislabie's ground-breaking appreciation of natural topographical landforms, for him it was not necessary to level ground and create a garden, the garden could be made to accommodate and display the underlying landscape.

 

Major features

The park incorporates Fountains Abbey, Fountains Hall, and a number of other notable historic features.

 

Studley Royal Water Garden

The water garden at Studley Royal created by John Aislabie in 1718 is one of the best surviving examples of a Georgian water garden in England. It was expanded by his son, William who purchased the adjacent Fountains Estate. The garden's elegant ornamental lakes, canals, temples and cascades provide a succession of dramatic eye-catching vistas. It is also studded with a number of follies including a neo-Gothic tower and a palladian-style banqueting house.

 

St Mary's Church

St Mary's Church was built by the architect William Burges and commissioned by the family of the First Marquess of Ripon. It has been suggested that the construction of this place of worship was prompted by the death of Frederick Grantham Vyner, who was kidnapped and killed in Greece in 1870.

 

Burges' appointment as architect was most likely due to the connection between his greatest patron, John Crichton-Stuart, 3rd Marquess of Bute and Vyner, who had been friends at Oxford. St Mary's, on Lady Ripon's estate at Studley Royal, was commissioned in 1870 and work began in 1871. The church was consecrated in 1878. As at Skelton, Burges' design demonstrates a move from his favoured Early-French, to an English style. Pevsner writes of "a Victorian shrine, a dream of Early English glory." The interior is spectacular, exceeding Skelton in richness and majesty. The stained glass is of particularly high quality. St Mary's is Burges' "ecclesiastical masterpiece."

 

Both marquesses and their wives are buried there.

 

How Hill Tower

Prior to 1346, a chapel dedicated to St Michael the Archangel was built on How Hill. This became a minor medieval pilgrimage site. Visitors to the site could see both York Minster and Ripon Cathedral from its summit. The flooring was made of mosaic tiles, similar to those attributed to a painted pavement dating to between 1236 and 1247. The chapel was repaired by Marmaduke Huby between 1494 and 1526. Post-reformation the chapel continued to be used between 1551–54 for the churching of women, until falling into ruin.

 

A tower was constructed next to the ruins, and re-using some of their masonry by, John Aislabie. Likely designed by Sir John Vanburgh, the view from the tower extended across the Studley estates, and York could even be seen twenty-six miles away.

 

In 1810 an estate survey recorded a farmhouse on the site, but by 1822 the description had changed to 'How Hill House & Tower'. Presumably the site had lost its significance as a garden building in a designed landscape and was commissioned to a more functional use. Whilst its role as a home stopped in the 1930s, there was another use-change: during the Second World War the Home Guard used it as an observation post.

 

Deer park

The deer park, where the church stands, is home to deer, and a wealth of other flora and fauna. At Studley there are three types of deer: Red Deer, Fallow Deer and Sika Deer. John Clerk, visiting in 1738, described how the buck deer moved in a group, so that they "resemble a moving forrest [sic]".

 

Buildings and structures

Studley Royal House (or Hall) stood in the north-west corner of the park. Originally a medieval manor house, there is a record from the 1220s of an extensive garden created by Cassandra de Aleman. It consisted of a main block with forward projecting wings, it burned down in 1716 and was rebuilt by John Aislabie. He filled in the centre, to which his son William added a portico in 1762 to complete its Palladian appearance.

 

It was altered and developed by the First Marquess of Ripon, who created a new entrance hall, a royal suite, and the reorganisation of the domestic service areas. He also added a Catholic chapel at the western side of the house in 1878.

 

The house burnt down in 1946, and its remains were demolished by the Vyner family, who could not afford repairs to it. Instead the splendid Georgian stable block, built for John Aislabie’s racehorses between 1728 and 1732, was converted into an elegant Palladian country house set in 2½ acres of private formal gardens on high ground overlooking the deer park towards Ripon Cathedral in the distance.

 

Built of stone under a slate roof with distinctive pavilion towers in each of the four corners, the pristine, 11,708sq ft house surrounds a central square courtyard overlooked by all the main rooms and dominated by the working clock tower.

 

Studley Magna

The deserted medieval village of Studley Magna mainly lies within the boundaries of the park. Excavation demonstrated that the village was aligned with the important road to Aldfield. The earliest ceramics from the site date to c.1180–1220, whilst the latest finds date from c.1300. The site included a large two-storey miller's house with a stone fireplace that was rare for the period. The house was sold in 1362 by Widow Horner to Richard Tempest.

 

The Banqueting House

Documentary evidence suggests that the Banqueting House was being completed in 1731, and is described in the estate accounts as 'the new building'. The structure had several phases of alteration after construction, and other documents refer to it as 'the Greenhouse'. In front of the façade a deep coffin-shaped lawn was introduced, who sightlines connected the building and the Rotondo. Above the Banqueting House, amongst the trees, is an oval platform, which is likely to be the Dial Lawn, which is described in accounts in 1730s.

 

The Temple of Piety

The building was constructed based on a sketch by Palladio owned by Lord Burlington, and was initially known as the Temple of Hercules. Documentary evidence shows that it was constructed and named by April 1736.

 

Mackershaw Lodges

These buildings were constructed after 1731, with the change in terms of the loan (to acquisition) of the Mackershaw area. They compromise two small lodges with classical pediments either side of a central arch, constructed from rough, undressed stone, with Venetian windows.

 

Lost buildings

Wattle Hall

One of the buildings most frequently attested in the early eighteenth-century is the Wattle Hall. Surviving records suggest that it was made of bent branches rather than brick or stone, and it was repaired in 1732.

 

Rotondo

Close to Kendall's Walk and in the north-east corner of Coffin Lawn, evidence for the Rotondo first appears in a painting dating to 1734–41. It was demolished in the 1770s. A close comparison to this would have been the Temple of Venus in Stowe Gardens. 

 

Pyramid

William's first building work for the gardens was ordering the construction of a funerary pyramid, modelled on the one at Stowe Gardens. Whilst designs for this building exist, its location is unknown. It is possible that the stone was cut, but it was never constructed.

 

Chinese house

The Chinese house was constructed in 1745 and a 1751 visitor described it as having blue columns, gilded decoration, a white ceiling, a variety of Chinese ornaments and stuccowork by Giuseppe Cortese. It also had a balustrade seat running inside the columns.  There is a surviving sketch of the building, but only the plinth for its survives. It was located beyond the southern limit of National Trust estate.  The area around the house was known as the Chinese Wood, to which two chinoiserie-style bridges provided access.

 

The National Trust (Welsh: Ymddiriedolaeth Genedlaethol; Irish: Iontaobhas Náisiúnta) is a charity and membership organisation for heritage conservation in England, Wales and Northern Ireland. In Scotland, there is the separate and independent National Trust for Scotland.

 

The Trust was founded in 1895 by Octavia Hill, Sir Robert Hunter and Hardwicke Rawnsley to "promote the permanent preservation for the benefit of the Nation of lands and tenements (including buildings) of beauty or historic interest". It was given statutory powers, starting with the National Trust Act 1907. Historically, the Trust acquired land by gift and sometimes by public subscription and appeal, but after World War II the loss of country houses resulted in many such properties being acquired either by gift from the former owners or through the National Land Fund. Country houses and estates still make up a significant part of its holdings, but it is also known for its protection of wild landscapes such as in the Lake District and Peak District.

 

In addition to the great estates of titled families, it has acquired smaller houses, including some whose significance is not architectural but through their association with famous people, for example, the childhood homes of singer/composers John Lennon and Paul McCartney of The Beatles.

 

One of the largest landowners in the United Kingdom, the Trust owns almost 250,000 hectares (620,000 acres; 2,500 km2; 970 sq mi) of land and 780 miles (1,260 km) of coast. Its properties include more than 500 historic houses, castles, archaeological and industrial monuments, gardens, parks, and nature reserves. Most properties are open to the public for a charge (members have free entry), while open spaces are free to all. The Trust has an annual income of over £680 million, largely from membership subscriptions, donations and legacies, direct property income, profits from its shops and restaurants, and investments. It also receives grants from a variety of organisations including other charities, government departments, local authorities, and the National Lottery Heritage Fund.

 

The Trust was incorporated on 12 January 1895 as the "National Trust for Places of Historic Interest or Natural Beauty", which is still the organisation's legal name. The founders were social reformer Octavia Hill, solicitor Sir Robert Hunter and clergyman Hardwicke Rawnsley.

 

In 1876, Hill, together with her sister Miranda Hill, had set up a society to "diffuse a love of beautiful things among our poor brethren". Named after John Kyrle, the Kyrle Society campaigned for open spaces for the recreational use of urban dwellers, as well as having decorative, musical, and literary branches. Hunter had been solicitor to the Commons Preservation Society, while Rawnsley had campaigned for the protection of the Lake District. The idea of a company with the power to acquire and hold buildings and land had been mooted by Hunter in 1894.

 

In July 1894 a provisional council, headed by Hill, Hunter, Rawnsley and the Duke of Westminster met at Grosvenor House and decided that the company should be named the National Trust for Places of Historic Interest or Natural Beauty. Articles of association were submitted to the Board of Trade and on 12 January 1895, the Trust was registered under the Companies Act. Its purpose was to "promote the permanent preservation for the benefit of the Nation of lands and tenements (including buildings) of beauty or historic interest"

Blood Swept Lands and Seas of Red at the Tower of London, marking one hundred years since the first full day of Britain's involvement in the First World War. Created by ceramic artist Paul Cummins, with setting by stage designer Tom Piper, 888,246 ceramic poppies will fill the Tower's famous moat over the summer. Each poppy represents a British military fatality during the war.

Oil on canvas; 105.4 x 75.6 cm.

 

Eugène Berman and his brother Leonid Berman were Russian Neo-romantic painters and theater and opera designers.

 

Born in Russia, they fled the Russian revolution in 1918. In Paris the Bermans exhibited at the Galerie Pierre where their work earned them the name "Neo-Romantics" for its melancholy and introspective qualities, having taken inspiration from the Blue Period paintings of Picasso. Other Neo-Romantic painters were Christian Berard, Pavel Tchelitchev, Kristians Tonny and, later in America, their friend Muriel Streeter (wife of their art dealer Julien Levy).

 

Eugène's work was characterized by lonely landscapes featuring sculptural and architectural elements, often ruins, rendered in a neo-classical manner, whereas that of Leonid depicted beaches with fisherman's boats and nets in many parts of the world. In 1935 Eugène left for New York where he exhibited frequently at the Julien Levy Gallery (as did Leonid after the war). Later, in the 1940s, Eugène settled in Los Angeles and married the actress Ona Munson, while Leonid remained in New York and married the harpsichordist Sylvia Marlowe.

 

In America, Eugène became well-known as a stage designer for ballet and opera. Following the suicide of his wife in 1955, he moved to Rome where Princess Doria-Pamphilj provided an apartment and studio for him in a wing of her palazzo on the via del Corso. He continued to paint there until his death in 1972. Leonid died in New York in 1976.

 

Oil on canvas; 74 x 48 cm

 

German architect, painter, and designer, active mainly in Berlin. Schinkel was the greatest German architect of the 19th century, but until 1815, when he gained a senior appointment in the Public Works Department of Prussia (from which position he effectively redesigned Berlin), he worked mainly as a painter and stage designer. His paintings are highly Romantic landscapes somewhat in the spirit of Friedrich, although more anecdotal in detail (Gothic Cathedral by a River, Staatliche Museen, Berlin, 1813-14). He continued working as a stage designer until the 1830s, and in this field ranks among the greatest artists of his period. His most famous designs were for Mozart's The Magic Flute (1815), in which he combined the clarity and logic of his architectural style with a feeling of mystery and fantasy.

 

COLECCIÓN DEL MUSEO RUSO.

Avenida Sor Teresa Prat, nº 15.

MÁLAGA.

 

“Victory over the Sun”

is a Russian Futurist opera

premiered in 1913 in Saint Petersburg.

Stage designer was Kazimir Malevich.

Russian painter, draughtsman and stage designer. He studied at the University of St Petersburg (later Petrograd) in 1908 and in the private studio of Savely Zeidenberg (1862–1924). In 1909–10 he attended the studio of Yan Tsyonglinsky (1850–1914) in St Petersburg, where he became acquainted with the avant-garde artists Yelena Guro (1877–1913), Mikhail Matyushin and Matvey Vol’demar (1878–1914). In 1911–12 he worked in the studios of Maurice Denis and Félix Vallotton in Paris, then in Switzerland (1913) before returning to St Petersburg. As a painter he was a modernist, and his work developed rapidly towards abstraction, although he did not adhere to any particular branch of it. His works of the time use various devices of stylization and decorativeness, and some of them echo the free associations of Marc Chagall, but fundamentally they remain geometrically based compositions. In 1919–20 he made a series of abstract sculptural assemblages and a great number of abstract collages.

 

Annenkov became popular as an illustrator, producing elegant drawings for a number of magazines in Petrograd in 1913–17, including Satirikon, Argus, Lukomor’ye and Solntse Rossii. He designed and illustrated many books for Moscow and Petrograd publishing houses in the 1910s and 1920s. In the early 1920s he designed a great number of book covers in the Constructivist style. He illustrated children’s books, especially for the private publishing house Raduga in Petrograd. But his most important illustrations were those for Aleksandr Blok’s revolutionary poem Dvenadtsat’ (‘The Twelve’; St Petersburg, 1918), which were successful improvisations on the poem’s themes, combining stylization and emotion. He also drew and painted a great number of portraits, especially of cultural and political figures. His monumental Portrait of the Red Army Leader L. Trotsky (1923; Moscow, Cent. Mus. Revolution), which has an urban background in Constructivist style, was particularly successful.

 

From 1913 Annenkov worked as a stage designer. He worked for the Krivoye Zerkalo (Distorting Mirror) Theatre in Petrograd (1914–15) and for the Komissarzhevsky Theatre in Moscow (1914–18). He then worked for a number of theatres in Petrograd, sometimes as designer and producer. He collaborated with Vsevolod Meyerkhold (e.g. Lev Tolstoy’s Pervyy vinokur, ‘First distiller’, Hermitage Theatre, Petrograd, 1919) and with Nikolay Yeureinov. Annenkov’s designs for Bunt mashin (‘Revolt of the machines’, Georg Kaiser adapted by Aleksey Tolstoy, Bol’shoy Dramatic Theatre, Petrograd, 1924) used a Constructivist-inspired mechanized set. Annenkov also designed a number of celebrations and pageants commemorating the Revolution of 1917, including the ambitious re-enactment of the storming of the Winter Palace, which took place in Uritsky (now Dvortsovaya) Square in Petrograd on 7 November 1920 and involved monumental scenery and c. 7000 performers. In 1922–4 he led the revival of the activities of the World of art group and in 1924 worked towards the establishment of the Society of easel painters. The same year he settled in Paris, where he aligned himself with the Ecole de Paris. He continued to design books, stage and film sets in France and Germany, and he exhibited at many joint Russian and French exhibitions. He also became active as an exhibition organizer himself, especially for the USA.

 

V. Rakitin From Grove Art Online

© 2009 Oxford University Press

Oil on canvas; 73 x 100 cm.

 

Russian painter, draughtsman and stage designer. He studied at the University of St Petersburg (later Petrograd) in 1908 and in the private studio of Savely Zeidenberg (1862–1924). In 1909–10 he attended the studio of Yan Tsyonglinsky (1850–1914) in St Petersburg, where he became acquainted with the avant-garde artists Yelena Guro (1877–1913), Mikhail Matyushin and Matvey Vol’demar (1878–1914). In 1911–12 he worked in the studios of Maurice Denis and Félix Vallotton in Paris, then in Switzerland (1913) before returning to St Petersburg. As a painter he was a modernist, and his work developed rapidly towards abstraction, although he did not adhere to any particular branch of it. His works of the time use various devices of stylization and decorativeness, and some of them echo the free associations of Marc Chagall, but fundamentally they remain geometrically based compositions. In 1919–20 he made a series of abstract sculptural assemblages and a great number of abstract collages.

 

Annenkov became popular as an illustrator, producing elegant drawings for a number of magazines in Petrograd in 1913–17, including Satirikon, Argus, Lukomor’ye and Solntse Rossii. He designed and illustrated many books for Moscow and Petrograd publishing houses in the 1910s and 1920s. In the early 1920s he designed a great number of book covers in the Constructivist style. He illustrated children’s books, especially for the private publishing house Raduga in Petrograd. But his most important illustrations were those for Aleksandr Blok’s revolutionary poem Dvenadtsat’ (‘The Twelve’; St Petersburg, 1918), which were successful improvisations on the poem’s themes, combining stylization and emotion. He also drew and painted a great number of portraits, especially of cultural and political figures. His monumental Portrait of the Red Army Leader L. Trotsky (1923; Moscow, Cent. Mus. Revolution), which has an urban background in Constructivist style, was particularly successful.

 

From 1913 Annenkov worked as a stage designer. He worked for the Krivoye Zerkalo (Distorting Mirror) Theatre in Petrograd (1914–15) and for the Komissarzhevsky Theatre in Moscow (1914–18). He then worked for a number of theatres in Petrograd, sometimes as designer and producer. He collaborated with Vsevolod Meyerkhold (e.g. Lev Tolstoy’s Pervyy vinokur, ‘First distiller’, Hermitage Theatre, Petrograd, 1919) and with Nikolay Yeureinov. Annenkov’s designs for Bunt mashin (‘Revolt of the machines’, Georg Kaiser adapted by Aleksey Tolstoy, Bol’shoy Dramatic Theatre, Petrograd, 1924) used a Constructivist-inspired mechanized set. Annenkov also designed a number of celebrations and pageants commemorating the Revolution of 1917, including the ambitious re-enactment of the storming of the Winter Palace, which took place in Uritsky (now Dvortsovaya) Square in Petrograd on 7 November 1920 and involved monumental scenery and c. 7000 performers. In 1922–4 he led the revival of the activities of the World of art group and in 1924 worked towards the establishment of the Society of easel painters. The same year he settled in Paris, where he aligned himself with the Ecole de Paris. He continued to design books, stage and film sets in France and Germany, and he exhibited at many joint Russian and French exhibitions. He also became active as an exhibition organizer himself, especially for the USA.

 

V. Rakitin From Grove Art Online

© 2009 Oxford University Press

This an installation by ceramnic artist Paul Cummin with the setting by stage designer Tom Piper. It was superb and on the day I was there it was packed with viewers

Brush and India ink, watercolor, gouache and paper collage on paper; 37.1 x 27.9 cm.

 

Eugène Berman and his brother Leonid Berman were Russian Neo-romantic painters and theater and opera designers.

 

Born in Russia, they fled the Russian revolution in 1918. In Paris the Bermans exhibited at the Galerie Pierre where their work earned them the name "Neo-Romantics" for its melancholy and introspective qualities, having taken inspiration from the Blue Period paintings of Picasso. Other Neo-Romantic painters were Christian Berard, Pavel Tchelitchev, Kristians Tonny and, later in America, their friend Muriel Streeter (wife of their art dealer Julien Levy).

 

Eugène's work was characterized by lonely landscapes featuring sculptural and architectural elements, often ruins, rendered in a neo-classical manner, whereas that of Leonid depicted beaches with fisherman's boats and nets in many parts of the world. In 1935 Eugène left for New York where he exhibited frequently at the Julien Levy Gallery (as did Leonid after the war). Later, in the 1940s, Eugène settled in Los Angeles and married the actress Ona Munson, while Leonid remained in New York and married the harpsichordist Sylvia Marlowe.

 

In America, Eugène became well-known as a stage designer for ballet and opera. Following the suicide of his wife in 1955, he moved to Rome where Princess Doria-Pamphilj provided an apartment and studio for him in a wing of her palazzo on the via del Corso. He continued to paint there until his death in 1972. Leonid died in New York in 1976.

 

Watercolor; 67.6 x 48.9 cm.

 

Rosenberg Lev Samoylovich called Bakst was a painter and a stage designer of Belorussian birth. Born into a middle class Jewish family, Bakst was educated in St Peterburg, attending the Academy of Arts. Bakst traveled regularly to Europe and North Africa and studied in Paris with a number of notable artists at the Academie Julian. With Alexander Benois and Serge Diaghlev he was a founder of the WORLD OF ART group in 1898. In 1906 he became a drawing teacher at the Yelizaveta Zvantseva's private school in St Peterburg.

 

Bakst realized his greatest artistic success in the theatre. In 1909 he collaborated with Diaghilev in the founding of Ballets Russes, where he acted as artistic director, and his stages designs rapidly brought him international fame. Between 1909 and 1921 his name became inseparable from the Ballets Russes. He also designed for other celebrities, included the artist producers Vera Komissarzhervskaya in 1906, Ida Rubinstein between 1911 to 1924. He settled in Paris in 1912, having being exiled from St Peterburg where, as a Jew he was unable to obtain a residence permit.

 

Bakst was arguably the most accomplish painter, as well as designer, in the World of Art group. His early preferences were for Realist painters and Old Masters, such as Rembrandt and Velazquez. The animated line and relaxed postures in his portraiture also suggest the influence of his close friend Valentin Serov. Through Benois and his circle Bakst was attracted to "retrospectivism" and Orientalism, and motifs from ancient Greece and Egypt became signatures in his easel paintings and theoretical work. The Benois circle also introduced him to Symbolism and Art Nouveau.

 

Boris Kustodijev (Russian 1878-1927)

Oil on canvas

EKM VM 416

Kadriorg Museum

Tallinn, Estonia

  

Boris Mikhaylovich Kustodiev (Russian: Бори́с Миха́йлович Кусто́диев; 7 March [O.S. 23 February] 1878 – 28 May 1927) was a Russian painter and stage designer.

  

Boris Kustodiev was born in Astrakhan into the family of a professor of philosophy, history of literature, and logic at the local theological seminary.

  

His father died young, and all financial and material burdens fell on his mother's shoulders. The Kustodiev family rented a small wing in a rich merchant's house.

  

It was there that the boy's first impressions were formed of the way of life of the provincial merchant class. The artist later wrote, "The whole tenor of the rich and plentiful merchant way of life was there right under my nose... It was like something out of an Ostrovsky play."

  

The artist retained these childhood observations for years, recreating them later in oils and water-colours.

  

Between 1893 and 1896, Kustodiev studied in theological seminary and took private art lessons in Astrakhan from Pavel Vlasov, a pupil of Vasily Perov.

  

Subsequently, from 1896 to 1903, he attended Ilya Repin’s studio at the Imperial Academy of Arts in St. Petersburg. Concurrently, he took classes in sculpture under Dmitry Stelletsky and in etching under Vasiliy Mate.

  

He first exhibited in 1896.

  

"I have great hopes for Kustodiev," wrote Repin. "He is a talented artist and a thoughtful and serious man with a deep love of art; he is making a careful study of nature..."

  

When Repin was commissioned to paint a large-scale canvas to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the State Council, he invited Kustodiev to be his assistant. The painting was extremely complex and involved a great deal of hard work.

  

Together with his teacher, the young artist made portrait studies for the painting, and then executed the right-hand side of the final work.

  

Also at this time, Kustodiev made a series of portraits of contemporaries whom he felt to be his spiritual comrades. These included the artist Ivan Bilibin (1901, Russian Museum), Moldovtsev (1901, Krasnodar Regional Art Museum), and the engraver Mate (1902, Russian Museum).

  

Working on these portraits considerably helped the artist, forcing him to make a close study of his model and to penetrate the complex world of the human soul

  

In 1903, he married Julia Proshinskaya (1880–1942).

  

He visited France and Spain on a grant from the Imperial Academy of Arts in 1904. Also in 1904, he attended the private studio of René Ménard in Paris.

  

After that he traveled to Spain, then, in 1907, to Italy, and in 1909 he visited Austria and Germany, and again France and Italy.

  

During these years he painted many portraits and genre pieces. However, no matter where Kustodiev happened to be – in sunny Seville or in the park at Versailles – he felt the irresistible pull of his motherland.

  

After five months in France he returned to Russia, writing with evident joy to his friend Mate that he was back once more "in our blessed Russian land".

  

The Russian Revolution of 1905, which shook the foundations of society, evoked a vivid response in the artist's soul.

  

He contributed to the satirical journals Zhupel (Bugbear) and Adskaya Pochta (Hell’s Mail).

  

At that time, he first met the artists of Mir Iskusstva (World of Art), the group of innovative Russian artists. He joined their association in 1910 and subsequently took part in all their exhibitions.

  

In 1905, Kustodiev first turned to book illustrating, a genre in which he worked throughout his entire life. He illustrated many works of classical Russian literature, including Nikolai Gogol's Dead Souls, The Carriage, and The Overcoat; Mikhail Lermontov's The Lay of Tsar Ivan Vasilyevich, His Young Oprichnik and the Stouthearted Merchant Kalashnikov; and Leo Tolstoy's How the Devil Stole the Peasant's Hunk of Bread and The Candle.

  

In 1909, he was elected into Imperial Academy of Arts. He continued to work intensively, but a grave illness—tuberculosis of the spine—required urgent attention.

  

On the advice of his doctors he went to Switzerland, where he spent a year undergoing treatment in a private clinic.

  

He pined for his distant homeland, and Russian themes continued to provide the basic material for the works he painted during that year. In 1918, he painted The Merchant's Wife, which became the most famous of his paintings.

  

In 1916, he became paraplegic. "Now my whole world is my room", he wrote.

  

His ability to remain joyful and lively despite his paralysis amazed others. His colourful paintings and joyful genre pieces do not reveal his physical suffering, and on the contrary give the impression of a carefree and cheerful life.

  

In the first years after the Russian Revolution of 1917 the artist worked with great inspiration in various fields. Contemporary themes became the basis for his work, being embodied in drawings for calendars and book covers, and in illustrations and sketches of street decorations, as well as some portraits (Portrait of Countess Grabowska).

  

His covers for the journals The Red Cornfield and Red Panorama attracted attention because of their vividness and the sharpness of their subject matter.

  

Kustodiev also worked in lithography, illustrating works by Nekrasov. His illustrations for Leskov's stories . . . were landmarks in the history of Russian book designing, so well did they correspond to the literary images.

  

The artist was also interested in designing stage scenery. He first started work in the theatre in 1911, when he designed the sets for Alexander Ostrovsky . . . Such was his success that further orders came pouring in. In 1913, he designed the sets and costumes for The Death of Pazukhin at the Moscow Art Theatre.

  

His talent in this sphere was especially apparent in his work for Ostrovsky's plays; It's a Family Affair, A Stroke of Luck, Wolves and Sheep, and The Storm. The milieu of Ostrovsky's plays—provincial life and the world of the merchant class—was close to Kustodiev's own genre paintings, and he worked easily and quickly on the stage sets.

  

In 1923, Kustodiev joined the Association of Artists of Revolutionary Russia. He continued to paint, make engravings, illustrate books, and design for the theater up until his death of tuberculosis on 28 May 1927, in Leningrad.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boris_Kustodiev

Altman was born in Vinnytsia, Imperial Russia. From 1902 to 1907 he studied painting and sculpture at the Art College in Odessa. In 1906 he had his first exhibition in Odessa. In 1910 he went to Paris, where he studied at the Free Russian Academy, working in the studio of Wladimir Baranoff-Rossine, and had contact with Marc Chagall, Alexander Archipenko, and David Shterenberg. In 1910 he became a member of the group Union of Youth. His famous Portrait of Anna Akhmatova, conceived in Cubist style, was painted in 1914. After 1916 he started to work as a stage designer.

 

In 1918 he was the member of the Board for Artistic Matters within the Department of Fine Arts of the People's Commissariat of Enlightenment together with Malevich, Baranoff-Rossine and Shevchenko. In the same year he had an exhibition with the group Jewish Society for the Furthering of the Arts in Moscow, together with Wladimir Baranoff-Rossine, El Lissitzky and the others. In 1920 he became a member of the Institute for Artistic Culture, together with Kasimir Malevich, Vladimir Tatlin and others. In the same year, he participated in the exhibition From Impressionism to Cubism in the Museum of Painterly Culture in Petrograd. From 1920 to 1928 he worked on stage designs for the Habimah Theatre and the Jewish State Theatre in Moscow. In 1923 a volume of his Jewish graphic art was published in Berlin. In 1925 he participated in Exposition Internationale des Arts Decoratifs et Industriels Moderns (Art Deco) in Paris. His first solo exhibition in Leningrad was in 1926.

Prospect Cottage, the home and garden of the late film director, stage designer, diarist, artist, gardener, and author Derek Jarman.

 

The gable wall carries John Donne’s poem, “The Sun Rising” :

 

Busy old fool, unruly Sun,

Why dost thou thus,

Through windows, and through curtains, call on us ?

Must to thy motions lovers' seasons run ?

Saucy pedantic wretch, go chide

Late school-boys and sour prentices,

Go tell court-huntsmen that the king will ride,

Call country ants to harvest offices ;

Love, all alike, no season knows nor clime,

Nor hours, days, months, which are the rags of time.

In that the world's contracted thus ;

Thine age asks ease, and since thy duties be

To warm the world, that's done in warming us.

Shine here to us, and thou art everywhere ;

This bed thy center is, these walls thy sphere

The poppy installation at the Tower to remember the first world war. On armistice day, the 11th of November, 2014 the 886.246 poppies will all be planted to remember the British soldiers, who died in that war. The installation was designed by ceramic artist Paul Cummins and the setting was designed by stage designer Tom Piper

888,246 ceramic poppies filling the Tower of London's famous moat over the summer; each representing a fallen British soldier during WW1. Created by ceramic artist Paul Cummins, with setting by stage designer Tom Piper,

Halftone on paper. Printed by Central Print and Litho. Co., Chicago.

 

Arthur Szyk was a graphic artist, book illustrator, stage designer and caricaturist. He was born into a Jewish family in Łódź, in the part of Poland which was under Russian rule in the 19th century. He always regarded himself both as a Pole and a Jew. From 1921, he lived and created his works mainly in France and Poland, and in 1937 he moved to the United Kingdom. In 1940 he settled permanently in the United States, where he was granted American citizenship in 1948.

 

Arthur Szyk became a renowned graphic artist and book illustrator as early as the interwar period – his works were exhibited and published not only in Poland, but also in France, the United Kingdom, Israel, and the United States. However, he gained real popularity through his war caricatures, in which, after the outbreak of World War II, he depicted the leaders of the Axis powers – mainly Adolf Hitler, Benito Mussolini and Emperor Hirohito. After the war, he also devoted himself to political issues, this time supporting the creation of Israel.

 

Szyk's work is characterized in its material content by social and political commitment, and in its formal aspect by its rejection of modernism and drawing on the traditions of medieval and renaissance painting, especially illuminated manuscripts from those periods. Unlike most caricaturists, Szyk always showed great attention to the coloristic effects and details in his works.

 

Today, Szyk is a well-known and often exhibited artist only in his last home country – the United States. In Europe, since the late 1990s exhibitions of his art has been mounted in the Polish cities of Kraków, Warsaw, and Łódź as well as in Berlin, Germany. The recent publication of a Polish-language edition Szyk's biography and public broadcasts of the documentary film "Arthur Szyk - Illuminator" (Marta Tv & Film, Telewizja Polska (Łódź), 2005) also have improved Szyk's stature in his mother country, Poland.

 

www.youtube.com/watch?v=fhJmRWQc6Yg

 

Oil on canvas; 84 x 110 cm.

 

Italian painter, illustrator and stage designer. He began his training in Faenza in the workshop of the Italian painter and ceramicist Mario Ortolani (1901-55). After living briefly in Bologna (1927) and Paris (1928) he settled in Rome in 1929, first exhibiting his work at the Venice Biennale in the following year. His paintings at this time, such as Nude (Susanna after her Bath) (1929; Faenza, Pin. Com.), were characterized by an emphasis on tonal relationships and on the influence of the Scuola Romana. In 1934 he began to work with growing success as an illustrator for the journals Quadrivio and Italia letteraria. The contacts he established with Paris were intensified with his move there in 1947, resulting in three one-man shows at the Galerie Rive Gauche (in 1950, 1953 and 1957), and in his paintings he evolved a cautious balance between the representation and the disassembling of the image. Some of his best-known series of paintings date from this time, including his Cathedrals (e.g. Cathedral with Still-life and Dog, 1960; Rome, Vatican, Col. A. Relig. Mod.), pictures of town squares populated by acrobats and musicians, and later female nudes and a series entitled Mermaids.

  

Oil on canvas; 94 x 140 cm

 

German architect, painter, and designer, active mainly in Berlin. Schinkel was the greatest German architect of the 19th century, but until 1815, when he gained a senior appointment in the Public Works Department of Prussia (from which position he effectively redesigned Berlin), he worked mainly as a painter and stage designer. His paintings are highly Romantic landscapes somewhat in the spirit of Friedrich, although more anecdotal in detail (Gothic Cathedral by a River, Staatliche Museen, Berlin, 1813-14). He continued working as a stage designer until the 1830s, and in this field ranks among the greatest artists of his period. His most famous designs were for Mozart's The Magic Flute (1815), in which he combined the clarity and logic of his architectural style with a feeling of mystery and fantasy.

 

1952 SCHWINN HORNET

 

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America's Favorite Bicycle

 

What a combination! Trim dashing lines, superior Schwinn workmanship, and a complete line-up of equipment including streamlined tank with built-in horn, powerful Rocket-Ray headlight, sturdy luggage carrier, and truss rods. No wonder more kids choose the Schwinn Hornet than any other bicycle... and the low price will amaze you. Full guaranteed As-long-As-You-Own-It. Ask to see the "Hornet" at your Schwinn dealers. 26 inch model No. D-19.

 

Antique Center of Red Bank

226 West Front Street, Red Bank, NJ 07701

Phone: (732) 842-4336

 

We pride ourselves as a family of dealers dedicated to providing those hard to find treasures, collectibles, jewelry and furnishings. The Red Bank Antique Center has been the destination for designers, collectors, movie & stage designers and dealers for over 40 years. The center was started in 1964 by the Johnson family as a permanent antique show with 12 dealers. Today it has grown to over 100 dealers in two building in the heart of the Red Bank Historical District located 1/2 mile from the shoreline of the Navesink River. Operated by Guy Johnson, we have grown to be the largest antique district in New Jersey.

Oil on canvas; 192 x 142 cm.

 

(b Faenza, 4 Aug 1909; d Rome, 5 April 1981). Italian painter, illustrator and stage designer. He began his training in Faenza in the workshop of the Italian painter and ceramicist Mario Ortolani (1901-55). After living briefly in Bologna (1927) and Paris (1928) he settled in Rome in 1929, first exhibiting his work at the Venice Biennale in the following year. His paintings at this time, such as Nude (Susanna after her Bath) (1929; Faenza, Pin. Com.), were characterized by an emphasis on tonal relationships and on the influence of the Scuola Romana. In 1934 he began to work with growing success as an illustrator for the journals Quadrivio and Italia letteraria. The contacts he established with Paris were intensified with his move there in 1947, resulting in three one-man shows at the Galerie Rive Gauche (in 1950, 1953 and 1957), and in his paintings he evolved a cautious balance between the representation and the disassembling of the image. Some of his best-known series of paintings date from this time, including his Cathedrals (e.g. Cathedral with Still-life and Dog, 1960; Rome, Vatican, Col. A. Relig. Mod.), pictures of town squares populated by acrobats and musicians, and later female nudes and a series entitled Mermaids.

 

Oil on canvas sandblasted; 81 x 65.2 cm.

 

(b Faenza, 4 Aug 1909; d Rome, 5 April 1981). Italian painter, illustrator and stage designer. He began his training in Faenza in the workshop of the Italian painter and ceramicist Mario Ortolani (1901-55). After living briefly in Bologna (1927) and Paris (1928) he settled in Rome in 1929, first exhibiting his work at the Venice Biennale in the following year. His paintings at this time, such as Nude (Susanna after her Bath) (1929; Faenza, Pin. Com.), were characterized by an emphasis on tonal relationships and on the influence of the Scuola Romana. In 1934 he began to work with growing success as an illustrator for the journals Quadrivio and Italia letteraria. The contacts he established with Paris were intensified with his move there in 1947, resulting in three one-man shows at the Galerie Rive Gauche (in 1950, 1953 and 1957), and in his paintings he evolved a cautious balance between the representation and the disassembling of the image. Some of his best-known series of paintings date from this time, including his Cathedrals (e.g. Cathedral with Still-life and Dog, 1960; Rome, Vatican, Col. A. Relig. Mod.), pictures of town squares populated by acrobats and musicians, and later female nudes and a series entitled Mermaids.

 

Mexican painter, printmaker, illustrator and stage designer. In 1903 he began studying painting in Guadalajara under Félix Bernardelli, an Italian who had established a school of painting and music there, and he produced his first illustrations for Revista moderna, a magazine that promoted the Latin American modernist movement and for which his cousin, the poet Amado Nervo, wrote. In 1905 he enrolled at the Escuela Nacional de Arte in Mexico City, where Diego Rivera was also studying, and won a grant to study in Europe. After two years in Madrid, Montenegro moved in 1907 to Paris, where he continued his studies and had his first contact with Cubism, meeting Picasso, Braque and Gris.

 

After a short stay in Mexico, Montenegro returned to Paris. At the outbreak of World War I he moved to Barcelona and from there to Mallorca, where he lived as a fisherman for the next four years. During his stay in Europe he assimilated various influences, in particular from Symbolism, from Art Nouveau (especially Aubrey Beardsley) and from William Blake.

 

On his return to Mexico, Montenegro worked closely with José Vasconcelos, Secretary of State for Public Education during the presidency of Alvaro Obregón in the early 1920s, faithfully following his innovative ideas on murals and accompanying him on journeys in Mexico and abroad. He was put in charge of the Departamento de Artes Plásticas in 1921 and was invited by Vasconcelos to ‘decorate’ the walls of the former convent, the Colegio Máximo de S Pedro y S Pablo in Mexico City. The first of these works, executed in 1922, consisted of the mural Tree of Life , relating the origin and destiny of man, and two designs for richly ornamented stained-glass windows influenced by popular art: Guadalajara Tap-dance and The Parakeet-seller. They were followed by two further murals in the same building: the Festival of the Holy Cross (1923–4), representing the popular festival of 3 May celebrated by bricklayers and stonemasons, and Resurrection (1931–3), with a geometric composition bearing a slight Cubist influence. Further murals followed, including Spanish America (1924; Mexico City, Bib. Ibero-Amer. & B.A.), an allegory of the historical and spiritual union of Latin America in the form of a map, and The Story, also known as Aladdin’s Lamp (1926; Mexico City, Cent. Escolar Benito Juárez), a formally designed painting with Oriental figures similar in style to a mural made for Vasconcelos’s private offices.

 

Although Montenegro claimed to be a ‘subrealist’ rather than a Surrealist, in his easel paintings he mixed reality and fantasy; two such works, which fall well within the bounds of Surrealism, were shown in 1940 at the International Exhibition of Surrealism held at the Galería de Arte Mexicano in Mexico City. In his later work Montenegro evolved an abstract style, although he never lost his interest in popular, pre-Hispanic and colonial art. He was also a fine portrait painter, and from the 1940s to the 1960s he produced a splendid series of self-portraits in which he is shown reflected in a convex mirror, thus combining elements of Mannerism and popular art. He illustrated books, made incursions into stage design, working for both the ballet and the theatre, and in 1934 created the Museo de Arte Popular in the recently inaugurated Palacio de Bellas Artes in Mexico City, becoming its first director.

 

Leonor Morales

From Grove Art Online

 

© 2009 Oxford University Press

Pablo Ruiz y Picasso, known as Pablo Picasso (Spanish: [ˈpaβlo piˈkaso]; 25 October 1881 – 8 April 1973) was a Spanish painter, sculptor, printmaker, ceramicist, and stage designer who spent most of his adult life in France. As one of the greatest and most influential artists of the 20th century, he is known for co-founding the Cubist movement, the invention of constructed sculpture,[2][3] the co-invention of collage, and for the wide variety of styles that he helped develop and explore. Among his most famous works are the proto-Cubist Les Demoiselles d'Avignon (1907), and Guernica (1937), a portrayal of the German bombing of Guernica during the Spanish Civil War.

 

Picasso, Henri Matisse and Marcel Duchamp are regarded as the three artists who most defined the revolutionary developments in the plastic arts in the opening decades of the 20th century, responsible for significant developments in painting, sculpture, printmaking and ceramics.[4][5][6][7]

 

Picasso demonstrated extraordinary artistic talent in his early years, painting in a realistic manner through his childhood and adolescence. During the first decade of the 20th century, his style changed as he experimented with different theories, techniques, and ideas. His revolutionary artistic accomplishments brought him universal renown and immense fortune, making him one of the best-known figures in 20th-century art.

 

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pablo_Picasso

 

Vladimir Yevgrafovich Tatlin, Ukrainian painter, sculptor, and architect remembered for his visionary “Monument to the Third International” in Moscow, 1920.

 

Tatlin was educated at the Moscow Academy of Fine Arts, graduating in 1910. Late in 1913 he went to Paris, where he visited Pablo Picasso, whose reliefs in sheet iron, wood, and cardboard made a deep impression on him. Returning to Moscow, Tatlin created constructions that he called “painting reliefs,” which he exhibited at a Futurist exhibition held in Petrograd (now St. Petersburg) in February 1915. He became the leader of a group of Moscow artists who tried to apply engineering techniques to the construction of sculpture. This developed into a movement known as Constructivism.

 

This type of avant-garde art continued for a brief period after the Russian Revolution of 1917, during which time Tatlin created his most famous work—the “Monument to the Third International,” which was one of the first buildings conceived entirely in abstract terms. It was commissioned in 1919 by the department of fine arts and exhibited in the form of a model 22 feet (6.7 m) high at the exhibition of the VIII Congress of the Soviets in December 1920. A striking design, it consisted of a leaning spiral iron framework supporting a glass cylinder, a glass cone, and a glass cube, each of which could be rotated at different speeds. The monument’s interior would have contained halls for lectures, conferences, and other activities. The monument was to be the world’s tallest structure—more than 1,300 feet (396 m) tall—but it was never built owing to the Soviet government’s disapproval of non-figurative art.

 

About 1927 Tatlin began experimentation with a glider that resembled a giant insect. The glider, which he called Letatlin, never flew, but it engaged his interest throughout his later life. After 1933 he worked largely as a stage designer.

Vladimir Yevgrafovich Tatlin, Ukrainian painter, sculptor, and architect remembered for his visionary “Monument to the Third International” in Moscow, 1920.

 

Tatlin was educated at the Moscow Academy of Fine Arts, graduating in 1910. Late in 1913 he went to Paris, where he visited Pablo Picasso, whose reliefs in sheet iron, wood, and cardboard made a deep impression on him. Returning to Moscow, Tatlin created constructions that he called “painting reliefs,” which he exhibited at a Futurist exhibition held in Petrograd (now St. Petersburg) in February 1915. He became the leader of a group of Moscow artists who tried to apply engineering techniques to the construction of sculpture. This developed into a movement known as Constructivism.

 

This type of avant-garde art continued for a brief period after the Russian Revolution of 1917, during which time Tatlin created his most famous work—the “Monument to the Third International,” which was one of the first buildings conceived entirely in abstract terms. It was commissioned in 1919 by the department of fine arts and exhibited in the form of a model 22 feet (6.7 m) high at the exhibition of the VIII Congress of the Soviets in December 1920. A striking design, it consisted of a leaning spiral iron framework supporting a glass cylinder, a glass cone, and a glass cube, each of which could be rotated at different speeds. The monument’s interior would have contained halls for lectures, conferences, and other activities. The monument was to be the world’s tallest structure—more than 1,300 feet (396 m) tall—but it was never built owing to the Soviet government’s disapproval of non-figurative art.

 

About 1927 Tatlin began experimentation with a glider that resembled a giant insect. The glider, which he called Letatlin, never flew, but it engaged his interest throughout his later life. After 1933 he worked largely as a stage designer.

Giovanni Paolo Pannini or Panini was an Italian painter and architect, mainly known as one of the vedutisti or (veduta, or "view painters").

 

As a young man, Pannini trained in his native town of Piacenza as a stage designer. In 1711, he moved to Rome, where he studied drawing with Benedetto Luti and became famous as a decorator of palaces, including the Villa Patrizi (1718–1725) and the Palazzo de Carolis (1720). As a painter, Pannini is best known for his vistas of Rome, in which he took a particular interest in the city's antiquities. Among his most famous works are the interior of the Pantheon, and his vedute — paintings of picture galleries containing views of Rome. Most of his works, specially those of ruins have a substantial fanciful and unreal embellishment characteristic of capriccio themes.

 

In 1719, Pannini was admitted to the Congregazione dei Virtuosi al Pantheon. He taught in Rome at the Accademia di San Luca and the Académie de France, where he influenced Jean-Honoré Fragonard. His studio included Hubert Robert and his son Francesco Panini. His style would influence a number of other vedutisti, such as his pupil Antonio Joli, as well as Canaletto and Bernardo Bellotto, who sought to appease the need by visitors for painted "postcards" depicting the Italian environs.

Watercolor and gouache on paper on board; 158 x 140 cm.

 

Rosenberg Lev Samoylovich called Bakst was a painter and a stage designer of Belorussian birth. Born into a middle class Jewish family, Bakst was educated in St Peterburg, attending the Academy of Arts. Bakst traveled regularly to Europe and North Africa and studied in Paris with a number of notable artists at the Academie Julian. With Alexander Benois and Serge Diaghlev he was a founder of the WORLD OF ART group in 1898. In 1906 he became a drawing teacher at the Yelizaveta Zvantseva's private school in St Peterburg.

 

Bakst realized his greatest artistic success in the theatre. In 1909 he collaborated with Diaghilev in the founding of Ballets Russes, where he acted as artistic director, and his stages designs rapidly brought him international fame. Between 1909 and 1921 his name became inseparable from the Ballets Russes. He also designed for other celebrities, included the artist producers Vera Komissarzhervskaya in 1906, Ida Rubinstein between 1911 to 1924. He settled in Paris in 1912, having being exiled from St Peterburg where, as a Jew he was unable to obtain a residence permit.

 

Bakst was arguably the most accomplish painter, as well as designer, in the World of Art group. His early preferences were for Realist painters and Old Masters, such as Rembrandt and Velazquez. The animated line and relaxed postures in his portraiture also suggest the influence of his close friend Valentin Serov. Through Benois and his circle Bakst was attracted to "retrospectivism" and Orientalism, and motifs from ancient Greece and Egypt became signatures in his easel paintings and theoretical work. The Benois circle also introduced him to Symbolism and Art Nouveau.

Russian painter, draughtsman and stage designer. He studied at the University of St Petersburg (later Petrograd) in 1908 and in the private studio of Savely Zeidenberg (1862–1924). In 1909–10 he attended the studio of Yan Tsyonglinsky (1850–1914) in St Petersburg, where he became acquainted with the avant-garde artists Yelena Guro (1877–1913), Mikhail Matyushin and Matvey Vol’demar (1878–1914). In 1911–12 he worked in the studios of Maurice Denis and Félix Vallotton in Paris, then in Switzerland (1913) before returning to St Petersburg. As a painter he was a modernist, and his work developed rapidly towards abstraction, although he did not adhere to any particular branch of it. His works of the time use various devices of stylization and decorativeness, and some of them echo the free associations of Marc Chagall, but fundamentally they remain geometrically based compositions. In 1919–20 he made a series of abstract sculptural assemblages and a great number of abstract collages.

 

Annenkov became popular as an illustrator, producing elegant drawings for a number of magazines in Petrograd in 1913–17, including Satirikon, Argus, Lukomor’ye and Solntse Rossii. He designed and illustrated many books for Moscow and Petrograd publishing houses in the 1910s and 1920s. In the early 1920s he designed a great number of book covers in the Constructivist style. He illustrated children’s books, especially for the private publishing house Raduga in Petrograd. But his most important illustrations were those for Aleksandr Blok’s revolutionary poem Dvenadtsat’ (‘The Twelve’; St Petersburg, 1918), which were successful improvisations on the poem’s themes, combining stylization and emotion. He also drew and painted a great number of portraits, especially of cultural and political figures. His monumental Portrait of the Red Army Leader L. Trotsky (1923; Moscow, Cent. Mus. Revolution), which has an urban background in Constructivist style, was particularly successful.

 

From 1913 Annenkov worked as a stage designer. He worked for the Krivoye Zerkalo (Distorting Mirror) Theatre in Petrograd (1914–15) and for the Komissarzhevsky Theatre in Moscow (1914–18). He then worked for a number of theatres in Petrograd, sometimes as designer and producer. He collaborated with Vsevolod Meyerkhold (e.g. Lev Tolstoy’s Pervyy vinokur, ‘First distiller’, Hermitage Theatre, Petrograd, 1919) and with Nikolay Yeureinov. Annenkov’s designs for Bunt mashin (‘Revolt of the machines’, Georg Kaiser adapted by Aleksey Tolstoy, Bol’shoy Dramatic Theatre, Petrograd, 1924) used a Constructivist-inspired mechanized set. Annenkov also designed a number of celebrations and pageants commemorating the Revolution of 1917, including the ambitious re-enactment of the storming of the Winter Palace, which took place in Uritsky (now Dvortsovaya) Square in Petrograd on 7 November 1920 and involved monumental scenery and c. 7000 performers. In 1922–4 he led the revival of the activities of the World of art group and in 1924 worked towards the establishment of the Society of easel painters. The same year he settled in Paris, where he aligned himself with the Ecole de Paris. He continued to design books, stage and film sets in France and Germany, and he exhibited at many joint Russian and French exhibitions. He also became active as an exhibition organizer himself, especially for the USA.

 

V. Rakitin From Grove Art Online

© 2009 Oxford University Press