Pierre Solanges at 102*: Painting Reflective Beauty

 

 

Pierre Soulages (1919-) was born in Rodez, France and moved to Paris to study art. However, he decided not to go to art school and returned to his home.

 In 1940, he was called to serve in World War II. After the war, he returned to Paris, found a studio, and had his first exhibit at age 28. Since then, he has received many awards and recognition. One of his outstanding achievements is to be the first living artist to exhibit in the The Hermitage in St. Petersburg, Russia.

 During his long career, Soulages has dabbled in many different media. His works range from stained-glass windows to lithography, engraving, set designing and painting. He is most famous for his black paintings.

 According to his bio, Soulages has always been fascinated with black. Even as a child, he used black to express himself in his paintings. (He doesn't find any of this strange because even the ancient drawings were made with charcoal.)

While traveling in East Asia, he was taken back to his childhood painting by the beauty of the Japanese black calligraphy on white paper. It was part of what influenced Soulages to paint a series in black which he titled, "Outrenoir." (Beyond Black)

This series would mark a turning point in his career. He is considered to be one of the most highly regarded abstract painters after WW2.

 To quote Wikipedia: He sees light as a matter to work with; striations of the black surface of his paintings enable him to make the light reflect, allowing the black to come out from darkness and into brightness, thereby becoming a luminous colour"

 Since making his gallery debut in 1947, Soulages has exhibited at the Museum of Modern Art,, the Louvre, and the State Heritage Museum (he was the first living artist to show at the institution), and his work has been acquired for the collections of the Centre Pompidou, the Guggenheim, Tate Modern, and the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C. At auction, Soulages’s work regularly sells for seven-figure prices. 

*This remarkable artist will celebrate his longevity when he turns103 in December, 2022...  félicitations et encore de nombreuses années à faire de l'art.

 

 

Maria Luisa Pacheco: Her Eyes Looked to Her Past

 

Today's blog is about the work of a Bolivian painter and mixed-media artist who you may not know. Her name? Maria Luisa Pacheco. (1919-1982). Yet, she was an international award-winning artist who also received three consecutive Guggenheim fellowships.

 

 

Pacheco studied at the art academy in her hometown of La Paz, Bolivia, where she would also be a faculty member. Later, she worked as an illustrator and editor of the literary section for a daily newspaper. 

 

A scholarship awarded by the Spanish government, allowed her to continue her studies in Madrid.This is where she explored techniques to achieve a 3-dimensional effect on a 2-dimensional surface.

 

 

 

Eventually, Pacheco would settle in New York where she worked as a magazine illustrator and textile designer. She would live the rest of her life in New York as an American citizen. Yet, it was her homeland that called to her in her art - particularly as she evolved toward Cubism.

 In fact, her best-known art reflected her childhood views of Bolivia. Her most famous and masterful paintings were inspired by the indigenous people as well as the glaciers and peaks of the Andes mountains.

Below are some of Pacheco's abstract paintings of the mountains in all their majesty. (She incorporated wood, sand and cloth into her collages and paintings to add textural relief. ) 

 

Honore' Daumier: Artist of the People, For the People

Can't say why, but I am drawn to artists who create art in spite of the danger of doing so. Goya, Pissarro, and Luce all paid a price. So did Honore' Daumier.

Honore' Daumier (1808-1879) was a lithographer, caricaturist, sculptor and painter. Born into a family  with hard financial circumstances, young Daumier took a job at age 12 as a delivery boy. In his spare time, he sketched from paintings at the Louvre.

 

When Daumier was age 22, he studied lithography and found work with small publishing houses. He became a very good satirical political cartoonist poking fun at the king and the upper class.  He often showed the king as a pear shape and wealthy aristocrats as "fat cats."

 

 

 

Eventually, his lithograph titled "Gargantua" of Louis-Phillipe, the reigning monarch, would lead to a 6-month stint in jail. Nevertheless, he continued to "voice" his displeasure with the French oligarchy. 

 

 

 Daumier is considered one of the most prolific artist of the 19th century. During his lifetime, he produced 4000 graphics, 300 paintings, 800 drawings, 1000 woodcuts and sculptures. He is most remembered for his lithograph titled, "Rue Transnonain, le 15 avril 1834" To fully appreciate what Daumier was portraying, it helps to have a little background.

 During Louis-Phillipe's reign, there were anti-worker laws enacted such as those that prevented forming labor unions. The terrible working conditions that existed and the new laws generated resistance. During the resistance, a sniper shot a police officer and the police went on a rampage in the building where they thought the sniper was located.

The police shot everyone they could find in the building - even women and children. Daumier, who lived only 3 blocks from the building, was so upset that he created a large lithograph. A print seller placed one of the prints in his shop window. 

Daumier was enraged. Out of this anger, he produced the finest lithograph of his career. He knew the risk because he'd gone to jail for "Gargantua." Whereas, his caricatures had caused amusement, this one was different.

When the authorities learned about the lithograph, all known prints were confiscated and the original lithographic stone was destroyed. Fortunately, some prints were successfully hidden away from the authorities. Daumier didn't go to jail this time. Instead, presses were shut down and caricatures were legally forbidden.

Look carefully and closely at the print. Did you note the little child? It was Daumier doing what photos and videos do today - making repression and brutality real.

 

Victor Horta: Architectural Innovator of Art Nouveau

 In this blog, I have written about painters, sculptors, and printers but little about architects. It was not an oversight. It was because many avant garde architects such as Gaudi and Gehring have been widely recognized. Then, I came across Victor Horta (1861-1947) who has been called, "the key European Art Nouveau Architect." 

 

Born in Ghent, Belgium, Horta was educated in music, art, design and architecture. Early in his career, he began to work with iron and glass - often thought of as hard and angular materials. Horta designs wove them into sinuous shapes for both the exterior and interior. 

 

 

He designed a few houses, but quickly moved on to designing public buildings. His signature design was the whiplash curves which you can see in the photos here. These have a certain feeling of plant tendrils and became part of the description of the Art Nouveau period. 

  After WWI, Horta moved from the curving, sweeping style to a more geometrical one. This evolution would lead to Art Deco and Modernism. However, modernist felt no connection to Horta's Art Nouveau style and several of his buildings were demolished in the 1960s. 

 

UNESCO stepped in and preserved some of Horta's houses and buildings as World Heritage Sites. We are lucky to have these beautiful designs.

 

Here's more examples of the detail in Horta's works: