*It would be a few years more before she discovered Prada
Carolus-Duran (French, 1838-1917)
Marie-Anne Carolus-Duran (The Artist’s Daughter), 1874
Oil on canvas
Legion of Honor, San Francisco
July 7th, 2017
Tag: art
San Francisco is… the eclectic Legion of Honor
A haven for European Art spanning 4000 years; paintings, sculptures, decorative objects, frames as precious as the works they adorn, ancient art from the Mediterranean basin and mummies from Egypt, all under this beautiful French neoclassical structure, a replica of the French Pavilion at San Francisco’s Panama Pacific International Exposition of 1915, itself a replica of the Palais de la Légion d’Honneur in Paris, an 18th-century landmark on the left bank of the Seine. 
Michael Sweerts (Flemish, Brussels 1618-1664 Goa)
Portrait of a Youth, ca. 1655-1661
Oil on canvas
Louis Léopold Boilly (French, 1761-1845)
After Clodion (Claude Michel)
Triumph of Amphitrite, ca. 1785-1799 (details)
Oil on paper mounted on canvas
Honoré Daumier (French, 1808-1879)
Third-Class Carriage, 1856-1858
Oil on panel
Jean-Léon Gérôme (French, 1824-1904)
The Bath, ca. 1880-1885 (detail)
Oil on canvas
Konstantin Makovsky (Russia, 1839-1915)
The Russian Bride’s Attire, 1889
Oil on canvas
William-Adolphe Bouguereau (French, 1825-1905)
The Broken Pitcher, 1891
Oil on canvas
Jules Bastien-Lepage (French, 1848-1884)
Sarah Bernhardt, 1879
Oil on canvas
John Anster Fitzgerald (British, 1823-1906)
Fairies in a Bird’s Nest, ca. 1860
Oil on canvas
Albert-Ernest Carrier-Belleuse (French, 1824-1887)
Mary Queen of Scots, ca. 1860-1869
Terracota
Celestial and terrestrial globes, Dutch, ca. 1600
Jodocus Hondius, the elder (Joos de Hondt, 1563-1612), cartographer
Metal, walnut and paper
Table from Italy, Bologna, 17th century
Walnut
Auguste Rodin (French, 1840-1917)
The Three Shades, 1898
Bronze
Paneled room
France, ca. 1680 and later
Painted and gilt wood and mirror
William Blake
”Time in advance… ”and ”Time, having passed on…,” from The Complaint, and the Consolation; or, Night Thoughts, by Edward Young
[Night Thoughts was first published in 1742 and its continuing popularity more than fifty years later inspired publisher Richard Edwards to bring out a new, deluxe edition, for which he commissioned William Blake to provide illustrations.]
July 7th, 2017
San Francisco is… keeping its hats on
[In the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, hats were a social obsession, subjects of acclaim and critique. The Paris millinery industry was at its financial and creative peak between the mid-1870s and 1914, the period between the Franco-Prussian War and the outbreak of the World War I, decades that coincided with the ear of French Impressionism. The women who made and sold hats – milliners, or modistes in French – as well as those who purchased them, fascinated Edgar Degas and other artists in his circle.]
Bonnets of the 1880s by Mangin Maurice (left) & Cordeau et Laugaudin (right)
Bonnet, ca. 1894 by an unknown designer, France
Jean Béraud, 1849-1935
Fashionable Woman on the Champs-Élysées, n.d.
Oil on canvas
Edgar Degas (1834-1917)
Woman Adjusting Her Hair, ca. 1884
Oil on canvas
Hat by Maison Virot, ca. 1900 (with alterations)
Hat by Camille Marchais, ca. 1895
Bonnet by Mesdemoiselles Cotel, ca. 1885 (left) & Capote by E. Gauthier, ca. 1890
Hat by Caroline Reboux, ca. 1904-1905 (left) & by Au Bon Marché, retailer, ca. 1884
Capote by Auguste Poussineau, known as A. Félix, ca. 1880-1885 (front) & Hat by Monsieur Heitz-Boyer, 1898 (back)
Hat by an unknown designer, ca. 1890
Édouard Manet (1832-1883)
Berthe Morisot, ca. 1869-1873
Oil on canvas
Louise Catherine Breslau (1856-1927)
The Milliners, 1899
Pastel on paper mounted on board
Paul-César Helleu (1859-1927)
The Final Touch, ca 1885
Pastel on paper
Degas, Impressionism, and the Paris Millinery Trade exhibition ran until September 2017 @ the Legion of Honor*
July 07th, 2017
*If, by any chance, September 2018 finds you in San Francisco, please do make me jealous and go see the current exhibition, Truth and Beauty: The Pre-Raphaelites and the Old Masters!
Happy Labor Day!
The Spirit: ”Teacher’s Pet” page 1
September 10, 1950
Ink on paper
From WILL EISNER: The Centennial Celebration 1917-2017 retrospective @ the Society of Illustrators.
June 3rd, 2017
San Francisco is… Coit Tower & The Views
So what if the line went round and round, forming a complete circle at the base of the tower. There was so much to see during the hour we waited to reach the lift that, for once, I didn’t feel the pain. For the entire ground floor is adorned with floor to ceiling murals painted in 1934 by a group of artists employed by the Public Works of Art Project, a precursor to the Works Progress Administration (WPA).
They depict life in California during the Depression, with emphasis on the theme of industry and commerce and distinctive touches of leftist political ideas, clearly evident; like on Bernard Zakheim’s “Library” which depicts fellow artist John Langley Howard reaching for a copy of Karl Marx’s ”Das Kapital” (spelled here ”Das Capital”). Touches one is familiar with in Europe, but rather unusual in the States. Perhaps it is true, after all, San Francisco may well be a very European city.
The Tower & details the Murals
Industries of California
Ralph Stackpole
Industries of California
Ralph Stackpole
Newsgathering
Suzanne Scheuer
Library
Bernard B. Zakheim
City Life
Victor Arnautoff
City Life
Victor Arnautoff
Scientist-Inventor
Mallette Harold Dean
City Life
Victor Arnautoff
City Life
Victor Arnautoff
Banking and Law
George Harris
California
Maxine Albro
The (360°) views
You can buy tickets on-line in advance and skip the lines. But where is the fun in that?
July 5th, 2017
The saddest little girl
“Look at her”, said my companion, “this must be the saddest little girl in the world!”
“He is right”, I thought, captivated by the palette, contrasting colours, their facial expressions and composition of the painting.
Until I read the description on the wall and, for a moment there, it was I who seemed to be the saddest little girl in the world…
Unknown Artist
A Family Group, ca. 1850
Oil on canvas
{”This painting of an unidentified family bears the hallmarks of high-style portraits produced in New York during the antebellum era: saturated colours; attentiveness to details of costume, coiffure and jewellery; accurate facial depictions. The setting is a richly appointed Rococo Revival parlour. Seen through the window is a castellated Gothic Revival villa, possibly the family’s home, perched on a cliff overlooking the Hudson River. While it is similar to many designed by architects such as Alexander Jackson Davis during the period, it may be the home they aspired to, rather than their actual house. Details suggest that the child is deceased: the woman wears a cameo brooch carved with Orheus holding his lyre, a reference to the myth of Orpheus’ attempt to rescue his beloved Eurydice from the underworld; the possibly phantom house (a castle in the sky?); and the adults are wearing sombre black clothing.”}
The Metropolitan Museum of Art
July 2nd, 2017
Inception of a painting
In Central Park
June 24th, 2017
Watch This Space
On 20 July 2018, ESA astronaut Alexander Gerst welcomed the legendary electronic band Kraftwerk and 7500 visitors to the Jazz Open Festival on Stuttgart’s Schlossplatz – live from the International Space Station, where he will live and work until mid-December 2018.
Watch them perform live. In real-time. In direct line. With space.
Alexander Gerst: […”The ISS is a Man-Machine. The most complex and valuable machine humankind has ever built. Here, in the European Columbus Laboratory, the successor to the Spacelab, the European Space Agency (ESA) is researching things that will improve the daily life on Earth. More than a 100 different nations work together peacefully here and achieve things that a single nation could never achieve”…]
∞ °•° ∞
Paired with the reflective, illusionary, upside down, spacey architecture by Samara Golden.
The Meat Grinder’s Iron Clothes, 2017 was a site-specific installation using insulation foamboard, extruded polystryrene, epoxy resin, carpet, vinyl, fabric, acrylic paint, spray paint, nail polish, plastic, altered found objects and mirror.
The 2017 Whitney Biennial
June 10th, 2017
hypermobility °•°||°•° hyperbolicity
°•°hyper°•°new°•°york°•°city°•°
The 2017 Whitney Biennial
June 10th, 2017
Look || See || Feel
The Emptiness Within
Jay DeFeo
b. 1929 Hanover, NH
d. 1989 Oakland, CA
The Eyes, 1958, Graphite pencil on paper, 42 × 84 3/4 in. (106.7 × 215.3 cm).
The artist inscribed the back of this drawing with a stanza from a poem by Philip Lamantia, a fellow member of San Francisco’s Beat community: ”Tell him I have eyes only for Heaven as I look to you Queen Mirror of the Heavenly Court”.
The 2017 Whitney Biennial
June 10th, 2017
The Humble Fabulist 