Domingo Ulloa and PACIFIC STANDARD TIME

My friend Erin has a very prestigious leaf on her family tree.  Her grandfather is Domingo Ulloa, a master painter considered to be the father of Chicano Art.  His paintings are included in an extraordinarily exciting cultural project taking place across Southern California, Pacific Standard Time: Art in LA. 1945-1980.

Domingo Ulloa, Short Handled Hoe, 1975, private collection

With over 60 participating cultural institutions, Pacific Standard Time is the largest arts project ever organized in Southern California.  Showcasing a wide range of disciplines, including painting, ceramics, architecture, performance art, photography and conceptual art, the project celebrates the birth of the distinctive and globally influential LA art scene.  If you live in Southern California, attend an event or exhibition or two.  The project runs through April 2012.

Domingo Ulloa, Braceros, 1960, Private Collection

Back to Erin’s grandfather.  Domingo Ulloa (1919-1997) studied art at the Acadamia de San Carlos in Mexico City and the Jepson Art Institute in Los Angeles.  His paintings captured the struggle and inhumanity experienced by the everyday field worker, and he assisted in forming the United Farm Workers of America (UFW) after befriending Cesar Chavez.  In 1993 the State of California created a resolution formally declaring him “The Father of Chicano Art.”

As part of the Pacific Standard Time cultural project, his paintings are included in Art Along the Hyphen:  The Mexican-American Generation at the Autrey National Center in Los Angeles.

And a very dear endnote to this post.  A portrait of my friend Erin Hay, at the age of 2 or 3, by her grandfather, Domingo Ulloa.  How special is that?!

Domingo Ulloa, Sweet Erin, c. 1988, private collection

The BIGGEST ART FRAUD of the 20th century

PROVENANCE: How a Con Man and a Forger Rewrote the History of Modern Art. 

I just read this book and highly recommend it.  It’s a fast, fun extremely interesting read.  And what is the wackiest twist to this wild story?  First take a look at the publisher’s description of the book, and then I’ll tell you. 

Filled with extraordinary characters and told at breakneck speed, Provenance reads like a well-plotted thriller. But this is most certainly not fiction. It is the astonishing narrative of one of the most far-reaching and elaborate cons in the history of art forgery. Stretching from London to Paris to New York, investigative reporters Laney Salisbury and Aly Sujo recount the tale of infamous con man and unforgettable villain John Drewe and his accomplice, the affable artist John Myatt. Together they exploited the archives of British art institutions to irrevocably legitimize the hundreds of pieces they forged, many of which are still considered genuine and hang in prominent museums and private collections today.

Okay, sounds good, right?  But what’s the wacky twist?  Years after the story in the book ends, the forger John Myatt, was asked by the Scotland Yard detective who investigated him to paint a family portrait.  The men are now close friends, and Myatt has become a highly successful painter of ”legitimate fakes” — admitted forgeries signed with his own name.

Check out his site www.johnmyatt.com, and read the book.  It’s quite a page turner!

Jewelry celebrating AMERICA’S MASTER ARTISTS

Lisa Confetti has a gorgeous new necklace collection celebrating America’s great 19th and early 20th century artists.  The images are truly stunning!

VENETIAN REPOSE reversible necklace, $52

John Singer Sargent, Nonchaloir (Repose), 1911

Collection of The National Gallery of Art, Washington DC

CASHMERE reversible necklace, $52

John Singer Sargent, Cashmere, 1908

The Bill Gates Collection

BEACH BABIES reversible necklace, $48

Mary Cassatt, Children Playing on the Beach, 1884

Collection of The National Gallery of Art, Washington DC

FLOWER TEA reversible necklace, $48

Mary Cassatt, The Cup of Tea, 1880-81

Collection of The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

ROYAL BEAUTY reversible necklace, $52

Maxfield Parish, Queen Gulnare of the Sea Summoning her Relations, 1910

Visit lisaconfetti.com to see the collection and purchase beautiful jewelry you will love.

EDGAR DEGAS was 177 yesterday. 07/19/1834

I’m celebrating Edgar Degas’ birthday one day late because his art is so gorgeous I couldn’t let the occasion slip by unrecognized.  And I usually relay a bit of information about my birthday artists, but not now.  His paintings are too beautiful for words.  Simply take a minute and enjoy.

Dance Class, 1874

Collection of The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

Waiting, 1880-1882

Collection of Norton Simon Museum, Pasadena

 

The Laundress, 1873

Collection of Norton Simon Museum, Pasadena

Dancers in the Wings, 1880

Collection of Norton Simon Museum, Pasadena

Ballerina Bouquet necklace by Lisa Confetti

The Ballerina, 1876

Collection of San Diego Museum of Art

Performance necklace by Lisa Confetti

God speed CY TWOMBLY. I’m sorry I didn’t know you.

A story on the MSN website caught my interest today:  ”American painter Cy Twombly dies at 83.” 

I thought I was pretty up on artists, so why didn’t I know about Cy Twombly?  I Googled his name, and for those of you who want a bit of information, Wikipedia says this:

Edwin Parker (Cy) Twombly, Jr. (April 25, 1928 – July 5, 2011) was an American artist well known for his large-scale, freely scribbled, calligraphic-style grafitti paintings, on solid fields of mostly gray, tan or off-white colors.  He exhibited worldwide.

For those of you who simply want to be inspired, enjoy the magnificent images below.  God speed, Cy Twombly.  Thank you for sharing your great beauty with this world.

ANTONI GAUDI is 159 today. 6/25/1852

Over the course of his career, renowned Spanish Catalan architect Antoni Gaudi developed a sensuous, curving, almost surreal design style which established him as the innovative leader of the Spanish Art Nouveau movement. With little regard for formal order, he juxtaposed unrelated systems and altered established visual order. Gaudi’s characteristically warped form of Gothic architecture drew admiration from other avant-garde artists. Although categorized with the Art Nouveau, Gaudi created an entirely original style.

At the age of 31, Gaudi began work on his masterpiece, the Roman Catholic cathedral, Sagrada Familia.  Although still incomplete, the church is a UNESCO World Heritage site, and it was consecrated and proclaimed a minor basilica by Pope Benedict XV.  85 years after Gaudi’s death at the age of 73, construction on the structure continues with an anticipated completion date of 2026. 

Click this image to enlarge it so you can see the magnificent spiral staircase.

Have you been to Barcelona and seen the cathedral?  If so, please, please tell us about it.  (I’ve never been and would love to read your account.)

By the way, if you are at all interested in Gothic cathedrals, their history and construction, I highly, highly recommend Ken Follett’s Pillars of the Earth.  (I have read it 3 — count ‘em 3 — times.)  It is the fictionalized, but dazzlingly researched account of an English village, the centuries-long construction of it’s cathedral, the men who built it and the drama surrounding them.

PAUL GAUGUIN is 163 today. 6/7/1848

After taking painting lessons from the master Impressionist artist Camille Pissarro, Paul Gauguin resigned from his prosperous brokerage businsss to devote his life to painting.  His work did not sell and he and his family were reduced to poverty, but Gauguin felt called to be a great artist, and he never abandoned his painting.   During his lifetime he realized no artistic success or recognition.

Spending much of his adult life painting in Tahiti and the Marquesas Islands, Gauguin developed a deeply personal style that was a complex combination of Eastern and Western themes, primitive life and brilliant color.

His massive masterpiece Where Do We Come From?  What are We?  Where Are We Going? is now considered to be one of the greatest artistic and philosphical statements in Western history.

 

Where Do We Come From? What are We? Where Are We Going?  1879-98

Collection of Museum of Fine Arts, Boston

Spirit of the Dead Watching, 1892

Collection of Albright -Knox Art Gallery, Buffalo, New York

The Vision of the Sermon (Jacob and the Angel), 1888

Collection of National Gallery of Scotland, Edinburgh

Ia Orana Maria, 1891

Collection of Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

Paul Gauguin is classified as a post-Impressionist, but what exactly is post-Impressionism?  It is not an artistic style, but a term applied to a group of painters who worked in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. 

These artists retained the shimmering light effects and outdoor palette of the Impressionists (Monet, Renoir, Pissarro), but they preferred more formal compositions, believing the Impressionists neglected too many of the traditional elements of picture-making in their focused recording of the fleeting impressions of light and color. 

Claude Monet, Impression Sunrise, 1872

Collection of Musee Marmottan Monet, Paris

Claude Monet’s Impression Sunrise (above) gave name to the experimental group of Impressionist artists who chose color and light as the subjects of their paintings.  Their singular goal of studying and recording plein air atmospheric changes was too simplistic for the following generation of post-Impressionists .

Eventually the achievements of the post-Impressionists would give birth to modern abstraction.  Thomas Hoving, former Director of the Metropolitan Museum of Art writes:

To me it’s more accurate to call the [post-Impressionist] period pre-Modern.  The last quarter of the 19th century and the first years of the 20th was a time when artistic experimentation was rampant, and a bewildering number of styles were invented.  In that sense, the period is a mirror of contemporary times.

In addition to Paul Gauguin, other post-Impressionist artists include Vincent van Gogh, Georges Seurat and Paul Cezanne (who is considered to be the father of Modern Art).

Vincent van Gogh, The Night Cafe, 1888

Collection of Yale University Art Gallery, New Haven, Connecticut

Georges Seurat, Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte, 1884-86

Collection of Art Institute of Chicago

Paul Cezanne, The Peppermint Bottle, c. 1893

Collection of National Gallery of Art, Washington DC

 

SOURCES:
Art in Our Times: A Pictorial History 1890-1980, Peter Selz, 1981.
Mainstreams of Modern Art, John Canaday, 1981.
Gardner’s Art Through the Ages, Seventh Edition, Louise Gardner, 1980.
Art for Dummies: A Reference for the Rest of Us!, Thomas Hoving, 1999.
(Hey, don't diss the Dummies series.)

Can you define CARYATID?

car.y.at.id (kair-ee-AT-id) n.  Architecture.  A pillar sculpted in the form of a female figure.

Erechtheion, Athens, Greece

 

Sanssouci, Potsdam, Germany

 

Book Tower, Detroit, Michigan

 

A.ma.de.o  Mo.digl.ia.ni (ah-may-DAY-o  mo-deel-YAH-nee) n.  Person. An Italian artist (1884-1920) who became known for paintings and sculptures in a moden style characterized by mask-like faces and elongation of form.

Caryatid, 1913

Collection of Musee National d’Art Moderne, Paris

 

Caryatid, 1914

Collection of The Museum of Modern Art, New York

 

Rose Caryatid, 1914

Collection of Norton Simon Museum of Art, West Palm Beach, Florida

 

Li.sa Con.fet.ti (LEE-sa c’n-FET-ee) n. Business. A jewelry company that celebrates the world’s great artists.

Lisa Confetti reversible necklace, Caryatid

Showing Amedeo Modigliani, Caryatid, 1913

Collection of Musee National d’Art Moderne, Paris

 

Reverse side of Caryatid necklace

Showing Amedeo Modigliani, Portrait of a Woman with Blue Eyes, 1917

Private Collection

 

Lisa Confetti reversible Clementine necklace 

Showing Caryatid, 1914

Collection of The Museum of Modern Art, New York

 

Reverse side of Clementine necklace

Showing Amedeo Modigliani, Bust of a Young Woman, 1911

Private Collection

 

Lisa Confetti Jeanne necklace

Showing Rose Caryatid, 1914

Collection of Norton Simon Museum of Art, West Palm Beach, Florida

 

 

 

Reverse side of Jeanne necklace

Showing Amedeo Modigliani, Portrait of a Woman with Hat, 1918

Collcction of The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

PRINCESS BRIDE

Have you ever gone shopping on Etsy.com? If not, you are missing out.  It’s a fabulous site.

In celebration of that intimate little family affair we will all be attending on April 29th, I have created a “Princess Bride” Etsy treasury. Take a peek, and if you like what you see, leave a comment (or add a treasure to your shopping cart).

 

MUSEUM OF FINE ARTS, HOUSTON custom jewelry

It was great fun to create custom jewelry for the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston.  Rings and necklaces highlighting beautiful impressionist paintings from their wonderful permanent collection.

Vincent van Gogh, The Rocks, 1888

 

Mary Cassatt, Susan Comforting the Baby, c. 1881

 

Pierre-Auguste Renoir, La Lecture (A Girl Reading), c. 1890

 

Jean Frederic Bazille, Le Petit Jardinier (The Little Gardener), c. 1866-67

 

Mary Cassatt, Susan Comforting the Baby, c. 1881

 

Thank you Museum of Fine Arts, Houston for a splendid opportunity!