Art Of The Day Weekly
#491 - from 16 November 2017 to 22 November 2017
David Hockney, Barry Humphries, 26th, 27th, 28th March 2015, acrylic on canvas (one of an 82-part work), 121.92 x 91.44 cm © David Hockney Photo Credit: Richard Schmidt.
IN THE AIR
Hockney, a passion for portraits
BILBAO – We last saw him, glorified in a retrospective with very high attendance (over 650,000 visitors at the Centre Pompidou). And now he reappears with recent “traditional” works, portraits of people sitting, thus inscribing himself in a long tradition. He’s the man who was fascinated by technology, from the fax to the video, including the iPad! But here he simply picked up his paintbrush, some charcoal, and acrylic paint, and none of those adjuvants one could have accused him of using, such as photography or overhead projectors. When he was getting near his 80th birthday – which he has since surpassed- David Hockney launched himself into a great adventure: to create a sort of human comedy of the people around him - parents, friends, celebrities or simple gardeners. In doing so he respected one unchangeable principle, each person had to pose for three days. In the case of certain very busy stars such as Lord Rothschild or Larry Gagosian, he had to accept a limit of two days. They all sat on the same chair, with the same background. At the Guggenheim with its monumental spaces, the group of 82 paintings fits in one single room, thus giving the impression of a series. Each character is quickly defined, and their psychology is soon visible - tension, shyness, arrogance, physical presence. Special attention is given to details, the motifs on clothes, and even the shoes. One of the youngest persons being painted was in such a rush to get back to the football field that he offered Hockney to leave his shoes so he could finish the portrait. We don’t know if it is a coincidence or unconscious inspiration, but even though techniques differ immensely, the portrait of Brad Bontems, a confirmed landscape architect, seems like a copy of that of M. Bertin, painted two centuries earlier by Ingres…
• David Hockney, 82 portraits and 1 still-life at the Guggenheim Bilbao, from 10 November 2017 to 25 February 2018.
• Visitors to the Guggenheim will be able to take advantage and see the exhibition dedicated to Anni Albers (1899-1994), from the Bauhaus movement, who left her mark on textile art in the 20th century, and throughout her long life produced abstract tapestries. Josean Alija, the chef of the restaurant Nerua, in the bowels of the museum, has cooked up for 16 November a meal inspired by her works, which will surely be unforgettable.
EXHIBITIONS
Robert Pougheon, study for En robes de soie dans la forêt, ca 1927, pencil, black ink plume on paper, 17,1 x 12,5 cm, La Piscine - musée d'Art et d'Industrie André Diligent, Roubaix.
Pougheon, Art Déco with a touch of Ingres
ROUBAIX - The musée de la Piscine, which is undergoing an enlargement of its space that will end in the fall of 2018, has become a specialist in rediscovering unknown artists from the first half of the 19th century. This time the needle has hit on Robert Pougheon (1886-1955). Only a few, rare admirers remember he left a composition in the ballroom of the town hall of the 14th arrondissement in Paris, stained glass windows in the church of the Saint-Esprit, in the X12th arrondissement, that he participated in the decoration of the ocean liner Ile-de-France, and that he signed certain bank notes in the 1950s. One single painting, the best known, is presented, the enigmatic Serpent. It is used as an introduction to this exhibition that enhances the value of the museum’s collection. Indeed, it holds more than 1,000 drawings by the artist. His work to simplify forms merges influences that are as varied as Mannerism, Ingres, and Art Déco, to present its main subject. Her it is the naked woman, whether virgin or amazon, with breasts round and placed high on the torso, a stylized face, the body out of balance in a systematic contrapposto. Pougheon had many facets, not all of them very attractive. He was the director of Villa Medici in 1942 when it was moved to Nice, and he accepted an order for a tapestry dedicated to the glory of Pétain (although he was never considered as a collaborationist). The artist is emblematic of that scholarly painting, typical of the period between the two world wars, decorative and colorful, with clues and mysteries, based on a perfect knowledge of drawing. We now await a complete retrospective!
• , at the Piscine, from 14 October 2017 to 7 January 2018. Catalogue Gourcuff-Gradenigo, €35.
AUCTIONS
Sir Winston Churchill, The Goldfich Pool at Chartwell, signed with initials, oil on canvas, 40x50.5 cm. Executed circa 1962. Estimate: £50,000-80,000. Courtesy Sotheby's.
Churchill, his last canvas
LONDON - In November 1915, Winston Churchill, the First Lord of the Admiralty, was deeply affected by the defeat of the amphibious operation in the Dardanelles. Until then his career had progressed brilliantly. But at age 40, he resigned. He even thought of abandoning politics. In order to give a new meaning to his life he enrolled in a subordinate position on the French front. But most important, he found his true hobby that would allow him to overcome all the challenges in store for him: painting. The old lion setting up his easel right over the cliffs of Madeira has become a cliché. But Churchill was just as happy catching the changing reflections on the pond of Chartwell, his beloved property in Kent. As a matter of fact, it was one a version of this familiar landscape that set a record in 2014, shortly after the death of his last daughter, Mary Soames, at £1.7 million (circa €1.9 million). The version up for sale now is estimated at a much lower price – barely £50,000 – but it should easily go past that amount. It is much more abstract, closer to Japanese lacquers, with colors contaminated by a burning landscape of Monsù Desiderio. Most important, it has an enticing story. Dated 1962, it is most probably the very last painting Churchill did, at age 88, before deciding to hang up his paintbrushes.
• Modern and Post-War British Art at Sotheby’s, 21 November 2017.
OPENINGS OF THE WEEK
CLOUZOT AND VISUAL ARTS
17 November 2017 - PARIS - Topographie de l'art
The film director (1907-1977), famous for the Mistery of Picasso, is being challenged by 13 contemporary artists
BOOKS
Pras, a 2.0. version of Arcimboldo
The reputation of Arcimboldo, the Lombard painter from the 16th century, can be measured by the success of the exhibitions dedicated to his work. The museum of fine arts in Bilbao has just opened a large exhibit, highly mediatized, even though it only includes three paintings by the master. But they are special since they belong to Spanish collections, of which two called Flora are rarely shown. The heritage of Arcimboldo, that way of creating realistic paintings with motley components, has been kept alive by a great number of artists over the centuries. Today, the most spoken of is undoubtedly Vik Muniz at the international level. But Bernard Pras deserves to be better known. Born in the Charente region in 1952, he reinterprets icons of world art, and he produced in 2003 a surprising Louis XIV inspired from Rigaud, using rolls of toilet paper and bags of potato chips. His Christ of Loudun, created in 2009 at the Loudun collegiate with old rags, faces installations created in Africa using wood, seashells, horns, and grains. The Toreador by Manet, the The Milkmaid by Vermeer, or the Che photographed by Alexis Korda are successfully resurrected with vacuum cleaners, plastic pipes, and rusty hangers, all which could be interpreted as a criticism of consumer society. This book (bilingual) can be looked at as a beautiful series of images, but the reader regrets the texts that accompany them are too short, and the absence of a real analysis of each work of art.
• Bernard Pras, par Colin Lemoine, Somogy, 2017, 248 p., €
