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Arts and Culture

Modern Art Monday Presents: The Wedding By Jacob Lawrence

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the wedding by jacob lawrence photo by gail worley
Photo By Gail

Jacob Lawrence (1917 – 2000) once wrote, “For me, the most important function of art is observation.” He was inspired by and created works based on his own experiences of everyday life in Harlem and the history of African Americans the United States. In  The Wedding (1948), Lawrence simultaneously depicted the solemnity and the joy of the marriage ceremony. Although the preacher’s face is only partially defined, he appears to look down with great seriousness at the couple as they contemplate their vows. The large, colorful urns overflowing with brilliant flowers signify the prosperity of this union

Photographed in the Art Institute, Chicago.

Arts and Culture

Modern Art Monday Presents: Isamu Noguchi, Miss Expanding Universe

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miss expanding universe by noguchi photo by gail worley
All Photos By Gail

Born in the United States, Isamu Noguchi (1904 – 1988) lived in Japan until he was 13 years old, and was deeply affected by Japanese art and culture. In 1930, the artist returned to Japan to study its sculptural traditions and ceramics

miss expanding universe flying 1 photo by gail worley

Miss Expanding Universe (1932) was the first sculpture Noguchi made upon his return to the United States in 1932. In this work, he combined machine-age streamlining with characteristics of ancient Japanese funerary sculpture (haniwa).

miss expanding universe flying photo by gail worley

Later that same year, the artist transformed this flowing form into a sacklike costume for the pioneering dancer and choreographer Ruth Page and her ballet, Expanding Universe.

miss expanding universe photo by gail worley

Photographed in the Art Institute, Chicago.

Arts and Culture

Modern Art Monday Presents: Ivan Albright, Picture of Dorian Gray

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picture of dorian gray by ivan albright photo by gail worley
Photo By Gail

Ivan Albright painted this lurid work for the 1945 movie adaptation of Oscar Wilde’s 1891 novel, The Picture of Dorian Gray. In Wilde’s tale, Dorian Gary commissions a portrait of himself as an attractive young man, and later trades his soul for an ever-youthful appearance.  As the still-handsome Gray leads an increasingly dissolute and evil life, his painted representation rots and decays, revealing the extent of his moral corruption. Albright’s renown as a painter of the macabre made him the ideal choice to paint the horrific image of Gray for the film. Although the movie was shot in black and white, director Albert Lewin filmed the painted portrait in color to emphasize Gray’s shocking transformation.

Photographed in the Art Institute, Chicago.

Arts and Culture

Modern Art Monday Presents: Claude Monet, Arrival of the Normandy Train, Gare Saint-Lazare

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arrival of the normandy train photo by gail worley
Photo By Gail

The Gare Saint-Lazare was the largest and busiest train station in Paris. Early in 1877, with help from his friend Gustave Caillebotte, Claude Monet rented an apartment in the nearby rue Moncey and began painting the first of twelve canvases showing this icon of modernity. Monet displayed seven of them, including this one, at the third Impressionist exhibition, in April of that year. Legend has it that he arranged to have the standing locomotives stoked with extra coal, so that he could observe and paint the effects of belching steam — dull grey when trapped inside the station, but white and cloudlike when seen against the sky.

Arrival of the Normandy Train, Gare Saint-Lazare (1877) was Photographed at  the Institute, Chicago.

Arts and Culture

Modern Art Monday Presents: Juan Gris, The Checkerboard

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Juan Gris The Checkerboard
Photo By Gail

Hailed as “the perfect painter” by avant-garde writer Gertrude Stein, Juan Gris developed his signature approach to Cubism beginning in 1911. Using classic café subject matter — such as the newspaper, seltzer bottle, and glass seen here — Gris made subtle adjustments to the conventions of picture making that render ordinary objects both familiar and newly intriguing. For example, in The Checkerboard (1915) and its  bird’s-eye view of a tabletop, a cunning reorganization of pictorial space places objects that should have volume into a single compressed plane. With a nod to play, Gris shows us a fragmented checkerboard, an emblem of the strategy and gamesmanship at the center of his art.

Photographed in the Art Institute Chicago