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Mrs R J Kellingwell just enlarged her photo from Australia _ she paid £2.95 for an A3 high gloss print _ We framed it for £19.99 and shipped

 

Andy Warhol – World is for him

A quarter century after Andy Warhol’s death, his work resonates more than ever. Several museum  exhibitions are focusing on his influence in painting, photography, film, performance, and more

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Sale of a major Constable – The Lock – News!

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“For Spain, the loss of The Lock is of a seriousness that is difficult to measure,” wrote Francisco Calvo Serraller, former director of the Prado Museum, in the Spanish daily El País. “Faced by this terrible loss, any art lover will feel not only terrible pain, but also a legitimate rage resulting from the shady, tricky and unexplained way this awful affair has been carried out.”

ohn Constable’s The Lock (1824), one of the English painter’s acknowledged masterpieces, depicts an idyllic and quintessentially English pastoral scene in which the sky and atmosphere are endowed with a vibrancy the Impressionists would later aspire to. In recent years the painting has hung in the Thyssen-Bornemisza Museum in Madrid, placed there on extended loan from the personal collection of the Baroness Carmen Thyssen-Bornemisza.

Not anymore. Last summer the baroness abruptly withdrew the painting from the museum to put it up for auction at Christie’s London, where in July it fetched £22.4 million ($35.2 million). The sale provoked anger in Spanish art circles, protest among museum trustees, and public squabbling among members of the Thyssen-Bornemisza family.

 

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Who is Edward Lear? First For Prints Investigates

Edward Lear (12 May 1812 – 29 January 1888) was a British artist, illustrator, author, and poet, renowned today primarily for his literary nonsense, in poetry and prose, and especially his limericks, a form that he popularised.

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Lear was already drawing “for bread and cheese” by the time he was aged 16 and soon developed into a serious “ornithological draughtsman” employed by the Zoological Society and then from 1832 to 1836 by the Earl of Derby, who had a private menagerie. His first publication, published when he was 19, was Illustrations of the Family of Psittacidae, or Parrots in 1830. His paintings were well received and he was favourably compared with Audubon.

Lear was born into a middle-class family in the village of Holloway, the 21st child of Ann and Jeremiah Lear. He was raised by his eldest sister, also named Ann, 21 years his senior. Ann doted on Lear and continued to mother him until her death, when Lear was almost 50 years of age. Due to the family’s failing financial fortune, at age four he and his sister had to leave the family home and set up house together.

Lear suffered from health problems. From the age of six he suffered frequent grand mal epileptic seizures, and bronchitis, asthma, and in later life, partial blindness. Lear experienced his first seizure at a fair near Highgate with his father. The event scared and embarrassed him. Lear felt lifelong guilt and shame for his epileptic condition. His adult diaries indicate that he always sensed the onset of a seizure in time to remove himself from public view. How Lear was able to anticipate them is not known, but many people with epilepsy report a ringing in their ears (tinnitus) or an aura before the onset of a seizure. In Lear’s time epilepsy was believed to be associated with demonic possession, which contributed to his feelings of guilt and loneliness. When Lear was about seven he began to show signs of depression, possibly due to the constant instability of his childhood. He suffered from periods of severe depression which he referred to as “the Morbids.”

What is Art Nouveau? First For Prints Investigates

Art Nouveau is an international philosophy and style of art, architecture and applied art—especially the decorative arts—that were most popular during 1890–191] The name “Art Nouveau” is French for “new art”. It is known also as Jugendstil, German for “youth style”, named after the magazine Jugend which promoted it, as Modern (Модерн) in Russia, perhaps named after Parisian gallery “La Maison Moderne”, as Secession in Austria-Hungary and its successor states after the Viennese group of artists, and, in Italy, as Stile Liberty from the department store in London, Liberty & Co., which popularised the style.

Britain

In the United Kingdom, Art Nouveau developed out of the Arts and Crafts Movement. The beginning of an Art Nouveau style can be recognized during the 1880s, in a few progressive designs such as the architect-designer Arthur Mackmurdo’s book cover design for his essay on the city churches of Sir Christopher Wren, published during 1883. Some free-flowing wrought iron from the 1880s could also be adduced, or some flat floral textile designs, most of which owed some impetus to patterns of 19th century design. The most important location in Britain eventually became Glasgow, with the creations of Charles Rennie Mackintosh and his colleagues. The cluster of artists known as the Dunbar School were active in, what was known in Scotland, as Art Noo-voo.

Arthur Heygate Mackmurdo (12 December 1851 – 15 March 1942) was a progressive English architect and designer, who influenced the Arts and Crafts Movement, notably through the Century Guild of Artists, which he set up in partnership with Selwyn Image in 1882.

Mackmurdo was the son of a wealthy chemical manufacturer. He was educated at Felsted School, and was first trained under the architect T. Chatfield Clarke, from whom he claimed to have learnt nothing. Then, in 1869, he became an assistant to the Gothic Revival architect James Brooks. In 1873, he visited John Ruskin’s School of Drawing, and accompanied Ruskin to Italy in 1874. He stayed on to study in Florence for a while; despite the influence of Ruskin, the Italian architecture he was most impressed by was that of the Renaissance. That same year, Mackmurdo opened his own architectural practice at 28, Southampton Street, in London.

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History of the Mona Lisa – First For Prints Investigates

 

The Mona Lisa is 16th century oil painting created by the renowned Leonardo da Vinci. The work of art depicts an enigmatic woman gazing at the viewer, and it is said that if you move across the room while looking into her eyes, they’ll follow you. It is definitely one of the most popular paintings worldwide and has been the center of many artistic, religious, and theoretical debates. The French government currently owns the Mona Lisa and it is featured at the Musee du Louvre in Paris. The painting can also be referred to as La Gioconda or La Joconde.
The name of the painting stems from the name of the woman in the portrait, Lisa Gherardini, the wife of a wealthy businessman in Florence, Italy named Francesco del Giocondo. Mona means ‘my lady’ or ‘madam’ in modern Italian, so the title is simply Madam Lisa. Art historians agree that Leonardo da Vinci likely began painting the Mona Lisa in 1503, and completed it within 4 years. In 1516 the King of France, King Francois, bought the painting and it is thought that after Leonardo’s death the painting was cut down. Some speculators think that the original had columns on both sides of the lady, whereas other art critics believe that the painting was never cut down in size. It has been suggested that there were 2 versions of the Mona Lisa painting, but many historians reject the second version. The duplicate copy can be found at the Dulwich Picture Gallery. After the French revolution the painting was moved to the Louvre, and Napoleon had it placed in his bedroom for a short time before it was returned to the Louvre. The popularity of the Mona Lisa increased in the mid 19th century because of the Symbolist movement. The painting was thought to encompass a sort of feminine mystique.
In 1911 the Mona Lisa was stolen from the Louvre. The art thief hid in a broom closet until the museum closed, stole the painting, hid it under his jacket and walked out the front door. Eduardo de Valfierno was the mastermind behind the theft and has planned to make copies of the original and sell them as the real thing. Eventually, in 1913, he was caught when trying to sell the original to a Florence art dealer. The Mona Lisa is most famous for her facial expression, her enigmatic smile and da Vinci’s mastering of tone and color in the painting. There is much mythology and interpretations relating to the painting that mystify the world. Many art critics and art history buffs suggest that the Mona Lisa is actually a portrait of da Vinci himself in feminine form. In addition, most viewers see the meaning behind Mona Lisa’s smile very differently.

Classic Photography – First For Prints

First For Prints has new Classic Photography in stock… Prints and Posters from £4.95 plus free delivery on canvases over £40

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The Best Art Museums in Paris – First For Prints Investigates

Three important attractions. The Louvre and Orsay Museums, and the Pompidou Center, have some of the best art collections in the world.

The Louvre Museum – The best art museum in the world is right here in Paris. Popular even before The DaVinci Code, Musee du Louvre has much, much more to offer visitors besides the Mona Lisa. The lower ground floor is famous for its top examples of Egyptian, Greek and Roman Antiquities. The ground floor, with one of the best collections of 16th – 19th century Italian sculptures in the world, also features sculptures from 5th – 18th century France. A museum visitor will find Winged Victory on the stairs to the first floor, and it is this floor which has the Mona Lisa (follow the large, slow-moving crowd) and many other top examples of Italian paintings from the 13th to the 17th century. Art from the Middle Ages and the Restoration also abound. The second floor of the Louvre Museum features German, Flemish and Dutch paintings and drawings, as well as prints, paintings and drawings from 14th-17th century France. Any one of the floors of the Louvre Museum would be a world-class museum on its own. When seen together, it’s almost difficult to get one’s mind around the sheer quantity of these amazing ancient, Medieval and Classical art collections.

The Orsay Museum – Chronologically starting roughly when the art of the Louvre ends, Musee du Orsay provides the link between the Louvre and the Pompidou. The Impressionist and Post-Impressionist Periods (mid-19th century to early 20th century) are featured in full splendor at the Orsay Museum; set up to be accessible, yet commanding respect from museum visitors, the Orsay is many Paris travelers’ favorite big museum. The ground floor features the earliest art in the Orsay. Sculptures flank the center aisle here, with Pre-Impressionism works by Degas, Delacroix, Manet, Monet and more among the paintings, drawings and decorative arts on this floor. The middle level has the famous Seine, Rodin, and Lille Terraces, along with paintings and sculptures by Denis, Galle, Klimt, Munch, and other famous artists. The upper level of the Orsay Museum is where the Impressionism and Post-Impressionism art really shines. More Degas, along with Cezanne, Gauguin, Manet, Matisse, Monet, Pissaro, Renoir, Seurat, Van Gogh and Whistler are here, each work of art astonishing in its accessibility. It’s exciting to be amid all these top examples of famous art, and it’s completely acceptable to photograph many of these works, providing the museum guest turns of the camera flash.

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The Pompidou Center – Centre Pompidou is clearly a home for modern art; it’s hard to miss the brightly colored tubes and pipes making up the exterior architecture while walking in its relatively staid Paris neighborhood. The Musee National d’Art Moderne, or Museum of Modern Art, is at the Pompidou, along with a public library and performance spaces. No vacation in Paris is complete, for a modern art buff anyway, without a visit to the Pompidou. The Dada and Surrealism movements are well represented at the Pompidou. Warhol, Jackson Pollack, Rothko, Kandinsky, Miro and Picasso are all featured prominently here, along with Marcel Duchamps and his “ready-made” works of art.

The National Centre for Art and Culture Georges Pompidou was the brainchild of President Georges Pompidou in the heart of Paris to create an original cultural institution entirely dedicated to creating modern and contemporary art where voisineraient with theater, music, movies, books, and the spoken word … Located in the heart of Paris, in an iconic piece of architecture of the twentieth century, designed by Renzo Piano and Richard Rogers, Pompidou Centre opened in 1977. Renovated from 1997 to December 1999, it opened to the public on 1 January 2000, by offering expanded museum spaces, surfaces and enhanced reception. It is again therefore one of the most visited attractions in France. Some 6 million visitors per year, the Centre Pompidou’s hosted in 30 years, nearly 190 million visitors.

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ART BOOKS & ART PRINTS – FREE DELIVERY (orders over £40)

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REVIEW – EGON SCHIELE

Schiele’s oils have often been reproduced and are well recognized. However, limited access to the fragile works on paper and dispersion among several collections have made for an unbalanced representation of his work as a draftsman.This book assembles drawings and watercolors from public and private collections and reproduces work from every year of the artist’s career, beginning with the juvenilia and early academic studies. The focus means that work that is rarely reproduced is represented extensively, providing a unique opportunity to study the rapid artistic development of Schiele over the course of his brief twelve-year career.The book is organized chronologically and divided into year-by-year sections. Each section includes a text that discusses the major events in Schiele’s life and the interrelation between the artist’s drawing and developments in his oil painting. Features a previously unpublished Schiele watercolor and several works that have never been reproduced in color.(

Who is Paul Gauguin? First For Prints Investigates.

He was born in Paris, France, to journalist Clovis Gauguin and Alina Maria Chazal, daughter of the half-Peruvian proto-socialist leader Flora Tristan, a feminist precursor. In 1849 the family left Paris for Peru, motivated by the political climate of the period. Clovis died on the voyage leaving eighteen-month-old Paul, his mother, and sister, to fend for themselves. They lived for four years in Lima with Paul’s uncle and his family. The imagery of Peru would later influence Gauguin in his art. It was in Lima that Gauguin encountered his first art. His mother admired Pre-Columbian pottery;  –  Inca pots that some colonists dismissed as barbaric, she collected. And one of Gauguin’s few early memories of his mother was of her wearing the traditional costume of Lima, one eye peeping from beneath the mysterious one-eyed veil, her manteau, that all women in Lima went out in. “Gauguin was always drawn to women with a ‘traditional’ look. This must have been the first of the colourful female costumes that were to haunt his imagination.

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