You Can Hire an Artist

Half-Naked Birthday: Leonardo and Thomas Hart Benton

Posted by Kathleen Benton on Apr 15, 2010

This Half-Naked Thursday, April 15th, is tax day in the US.  So a few diversions from the inevitable are in order and, as always, art  does provide.   

This day in history is also the birthday of Leonardo da Vinci (Italian, 1452–1519) and Thomas Hart Benton (American, 1889–1975).  Little else will align these two artists.  Born almost four hundred years apart, their styles are naturally quite different.  Leonardo, working at the center of his art world at the same time of Raphael and Michelangelo, strived in his painting for classic beauty, proportion, and composition.  Thomas Hart Benton, on the other hand, eschewing the art worlds of New York and Paris for a Midwestern regionalist lifestyle  and subject matter, worked in a decidedly mannerist style.  Leonardo was probably a homosexual and Thomas Hart Benton was a documented homophobe.  I wonder how an astrologist would work out all these contradictions. 

Here are examples of each artists approach to myth:

 

 

 

For more scholarly information on Leonardo probable homosexuality and an extensive bibliography for further reading click here.  For more on Thomas Hart Benton’s life  and views read his biography at The Artchive.

Kathleen Benton

 

© 2010 All rights reserved Kathleen Benton | You Can Hire an Artist

 

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Half-Naked Thursday: Gerhard Richter

Posted by Kathleen Benton on Nov 12, 2009

For the last few weeks I had been anticipating last Saturday’s opening at Marian Goodman Gallery here in New York:  Gerhard Richter: Abstract Paintings 2009 which runs from November 7, 2009 to January 9, 2010.  I’ve been looking forward to it because Gerhard Richter is one of my favorite living artists.   I had planned to attend the opening, take pictures to include in a post, and possibly meet Mr. Richter himself.  But other circumstances prevented these plans from becoming action and I had to put off seeing the show.  Oh well, the abstract paintings are just one aspect of Gerhard Richter’s oeuvre.  And in that fact lies the key to one of the reasons why I think Gerhard Richter is such a great artist.

I’ve not seen a show of Richter’s work since MoMA mounted the wonderful exhibit  Gerhard Richter: 40 years of Painting back in 2002.  Then we were treated to the entire variety of his work.  If you have not followed Gerhard Richter’s long career (b. 1932) you may not be aware of his tendency to avoid being pigeon-holed by a style, subject matter, or medium.  If you only went to see his latest abstracts, then you do not know the landscapes, the seascapes, animals, architecture, the nudes, the portraits, the over-painted photographs, mirrors, and sculptures.  Richter avoids giving subject matter a value and meaning by finding no commitment to any one genre.  He pushes this further by obstructing or skewing our examination of any particular subject with paint which is blurred, scraped, layered, or smoothed to acquire a paint surface that we cannot escape.

Here then are some of Richter’s paintings of nudes whose dates range over thirty years.  These are shown in chronological order.  Roter Akt (Red Nude) was completed in 1965 and the latest nude I was able to find, Torso, is from 1997.  There is no consistency in Richter’s depicting of the nudes, not in range of palette, texture, canvas size or shape, or detail.  Maybe we can begin to guess that each work is Richter’s because of the characteristic blurring of the edges of the subjects.  But it is very difficult to be certain that the paintings are all done  by the same artist. 

The eschewing of style is rare among artists whose ambition is international acclaim.  Look at Lucio Pozzi.  (Who?, you say.  Another time, but soon.) In Richter’s case (and Pozzi’s) style intentionally gets lost through his method of working. During the course of his career Richter has collected sketches, images and photographs.  Some photos he has taken, some found, others out of books and magazines.  He has put them into a collection he calls the Atlas.  From this he takes his subject matter and lets the selection dictate the content, color, and composition of his paintings.  With this method he need not make many subjective decisions, and leaves a great deal to chance. In his way, with a lack of meaning in his subject matter and an emphasis on painting itself, Richter is continuing the Modernist mantra of painting as object, a mantra that a few decades ago seemed to be pointing to The Death of Painting, a theory that has been often written about  but never totally caught on.  By giving us our recognizable subject (but at the same time leaving it undefined and elusive) Richter returns painting to its classic traditions as well (minus the meaning).  And Richter gives no answers to anything. 

Maybe its not right then to even show some of his nudes as a group.  If we want to see the randomness that Richter prefers — the lack of cohesiveness, hierarchy, and  style — perhaps viewing his work chronologically is the only way to appreciate that.  But I have a feeling even that is over-thinking the premise.  Randomness can also include happy coincidence.  And I’ve got Half-Naked Thursday as a theme.  And, after all, Richter has his abstraction paintings exclusively in a show at present.  So I’ll get going into midtown Manhattan and give you the report.  But I promise you more of Gerhard Richter’s work, and not just the new abstractions. 

Kathleen Benton

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

(Click on images to enlarge, read title translations, and details.  Click again to return to page.)

All paintings by Gerhard Richter (German, b. 1932)

Roter Akt (Red Nude), 1965, Oil on canvas,60 cm X 50 cm

Ema (Akt auf einer Treppe) (Ema (Nude on a Staircase)), 1966, Oil on canvas, 200 cm X 130 cm, Museum Ludwig, Cologne, Germany

Akt (Nude), 1967, Oil on canvas, 105 cm X 95 cm

Olympia, 1967, Oil on canvas, 200 cm X 130 cm, Böckmann Collection, Neues Museum, Staatliches Museum für Kunst und Design, Nuremberg, Germany

 I.G., 1993, Oil on canvas, 72 cm X 102 cm

Kl. Badende (Small Bather), 1994, Oil on canvas, 51 cm X 36 cm

 Torso, 1997,  Oil on aluminium, 55 cm X 48 cm

To see complete details of these works and more visit gerhard-richter.com

 

Half-Naked Thursday: Lucian Freud

Posted by Kathleen Benton on Oct 15, 2009

I’ve been painting specifically for a gallery show coming up in December here in Yonkers.   The Blue Door Gallery show’s theme is Small Gems: Arts For Giving and is promoted as an “affordable” holiday sale.   The gallery’s commission is to be 30% and so I must consider the price of the works with that in mind as well.  And when settling on prices, the question is not only the value of the work but what patrons might be willing to pay for the art, especially in these economically challenging times.   When calculating the value of the art I consider the cost of  materials, my time spent making it, the previous price for similar works, a bit of a profit (if possible), and additionally then gallery commission is tacked on (when not sold directly through this website).  Lately, in order not not price myself out of a sale, those calculations rarely involve profit and even a lowering of the rate for my time.

Musing about the value of art got me to thinking about the value of art for artists with worldwide reputations.  I wondered what fluctuations the values of their works  have endured in a world recession.  It was widely publicized that in May of 2008 Lucian Freud’s Benefits Supervisor Sleeping was sold at Christie’s in Manhattan for $33,640,000 to Roman Abramovich, a Russian billionaire living in the UK.  This was a record for the sale of a living artist’s work.   At that time I’m sure some indicators of a severe economic downturn were already visible, as even the reports of the sale included the word “recession”.   Around that time President Bush was sending Americans an economic stimulus check for $600 with the hopes of avoiding a greater downturn.  (I wonder how much of that money was spent on art?   I bought Santa Clara pottery in Taos, New Mexico, and felt rather patriotic in doing so.)

By October 2008 a further slowing of the market was apparent; only 58% of lots were being sold at the big art auction houses.  Freud’s Portrait of Francis Bacon sold at Christie’s in London  for a mere  £5,417,250 ($9,404,346).  The sale was considered a blessing for the auction house even though the estimates hoped for as much as £7 million.  

In the spring of this year several works of art owned by the victims of Bernie Madoff  were sold on the auction block at Christie’s.  Even with the “conspicuous consumption”  label daunting buyers, the prices achieved were more than adequate in my view.  When a late Picasso, Musketeer With a Pipe, 1968, sold for $14.6 million I thought the economy just can’t be as bad as they say.  (Do you know Christie’s only charges a 25% commission for the first $50,000?   Then the percentage rate actually goes down.  Many galleries charge as much as 50% commission.)   

I must say my opinion of Lucian Freud’s later painting is much more positive than my view of late Picasso’s.  I think I’ve been aware of Freud’s work since my college days, when his early work was included in contemporary art survey courses.  Then his portraits were much more stylized, simplified and flat, and always a bit odd-looking as portraits go (every subject had the same eyes).  As Freud has matured his eye for detail and individuality has become more keen and his paint application has become heavier and more textural.  The more true-to-life his portraits have become, the more impressive to me.  Freud’s  unvarnished honesty regarding his subject is facinating, whether we recognize the sitter or not.  John Singer Sargent once said “Every time I paint a portrait I lose a friend.”  Sargent’s respectable portraits have nothing on Lucian Freud’s.  One must be very comfortable in one’s own skin to sit for Lucian Freud.

Time marches on and the world’s economic status seems to be improving a bit.  Lucian Frued is doing well and so are the owners of Picassos (even when your money’s been stolen you can always sell your art).  I would like to think that with yesterday’s close of the New York Stock Exchange ending with the Dow Jones Industrial Average over 10,000 as a bellwether for the economy.  Let’s hope that there are also better times ahead  for art collecting  and  a generous holiday season as well.  Let’s hope that trend finds it way to Yonkers.  Still, what price art? 

 Kathleen Benton
 

PS – It’s Half-Naked Thursday and therefore I’m including this clip of Lucian Freud talking to Omnibus director Jake Auerbach in 1988.    Freud seems very uncomfortable having to express himself verbally, perhaps as self-conscious as being half-naked (Perhaps that’s not a good analogy.  Freud is rumored to have fathered over 50 children).  It’s one of five segments all available on YouTube.

(Click on images to enlarge and read details.  Click again to return to page.)

Lucian Freud (British, b. Germany, 1922), Benefits Supervisor Sleeping, 1995, Oil on canvas, 59 5/8 x 86¼ in., Private collection