Musical references permeate Cubist painting and sculpture. The guitar, which Picasso depicted often, is one of the movement’s most recognizable motifs. Like a Cubist painting, Henri Laurens‘ painted terracotta sculpture, The Guitar (1919), blurs, even inverts, the relationship between solids and voids; solids appear to recede, while voids assume physical presence. This effect is particularly apparent in the depiction of the sound hole and strings on the face of the guitar.
Photographed in the Metropolitan Museum of Art in NYC.
Fernand Leger arranged impersonal elements of a new machine age like a cheerful assembly of children’s building blocks in Mechanical Elements (1920). Initially, his infatuation with modern technology did not go over well with collectors. As the artist later recalled, “For two years, Leonce Rosenberg, my dealer at the time, could not sell any of the work from my ‘mechanical period,’ while the mandolins of the Cubists moved briskly.”
Photographed in the Metropolitan Museum of Art in NYC.
Juan Gris (1887 – 1927), a master of disguised images, presents a table brimming with coffee cups, stemmed wineglasses, a large white-footed fruit compote (see from the side and from above) containing thickly painted grapes, a bottle of red wine, a bottle of Bass extra stout ale with its distinctive red diamond logo, a newspaper, and a guitar. Yet, Still Life with Checked Tablecloth (1915) has another equally compelling identity: a Bull’s head. The coffee cup at lower center doubles as the animal’s snout, black-and-white concentric circle at left is a “bull’s eye,” the bottle of ale is an ear, and the sinuous edge of the guitar is the horn. The letters “EAU” on the wine label, which ostensibly stand for “bEAUjolais” can just as easily represent “taurEAU” (Bull).
Photographed in the Metropolitan Museum of Art in NYC
Influenced by the Cubist language of flat, overlapping planes and wedges, Stuart Davis (1892 – 1964) used geometric shapes in related colors to create this still life, Percolator (1927). Here, he deconstructs the cylindrical forms of a mass-produced, percolator coffeepot and renders the everyday object both abstract and undefinable. By choosing an industrially produced consumer product as his subject, Davis put a new spin on the spatial innovations of the previous decade’s European avant-garde art movements.
Photographed in the Metropolitan Museum of Art in NYC.
Woman with a Cat (1921) belongs to group of monumental female figures that Fernand Léger (1881 – 1955) painted throughout the 1920s. Motionless and frontal, this nude might be made of stone or metal, evoking at once a classical sculpture and a futurist robot. While Léger’s subject is rooted in European, particular French, artistic traditions, his streamlined style reflects contemporary design aesthetics that the painter’s friend, the architect Le Corbusier, advocated and popularized.
Photographed in the Metropolitan Museum of Art in NYC.
In the early 1920s, in response to the industrial age and increasing consumerism, Stuart Davis began to incorporate commercial goods and advertising graphics into his art. Edison Mazda (1924), with its flattened space and collage-like composition, resembles the Cubist still lifes of Pablo Picasso and Georges Braque. But rather than portraying pipe racks and candlesticks, Davis includes a contemporary manufactured object: a blue, seventy-five watt light bulb.
Photographed in the Metropolitan Museum of Art in NYC.
In 1922, upon discovering the cubist paintings of Pablo Picasso, Georges Braque and Juan Gris in the window of a Paris gallery, Gerald Murphy told his wife, “If this is painting, then this is what I want to do.” Soon after, he ended his career as landscape architect and turned to painting.
In Wasp and Pear (1929), Murphy combined an abstract background with an anatomically detailed but highly stylized wasp, pear, leaf and honeycomb. The artist credited “the large technically drawn and colored charts of fruits, vegetables…[and] insects” in a classroom where he has studied during his military training as his inspiration.
Gerald Murphy (1888 – 1964) painted only fourteen known works, seven of which remain.
I think this is my favorite photo I took at the 3D Print Show: a fantastically detailed bust of Ben Franklin. Look at the startling realism around his eyes — amazing! I also love how this was done with a variety of different colored filaments to create a mosaic cubist motif that’s just mind-blowing.
Though Fernand Léger built his reputation as a Cubist, his style varied considerably from decade to decade, fluctuating between figuration and abstraction and showing influence from a wide range of sources. Léger worked in a variety of media including paint, ceramic, film, theater and dance sets, glass, print, and book arts. While his style varied, his work was consistently graphic, favoring primary colors, pattern, and bold form.
Léger embraced the Cubist notion of fracturing objects into geometric shapes, but retained an interest in depicting the illusion of three-dimensionality. Léger’s unique brand of Cubism was also distinguished by his focus on cylindrical form and his use of robot-like human figures that expressed harmony between humans and machines.
Influenced by the chaos of urban spaces and his interest in brilliant, primary color, Léger sought to express the noise, dynamism, and speed of new technology and machinery often creating a sense of movement in his paintings that captured the optimism of the pre-World War I period.
In its embrace of recognizable subject matter and the illusion of three dimensionality interspersed with or often simultaneous with experiments in abstraction and non-representation, Léger’s work synchronizes the often competing dualities in much of twentieth-century art.
The Baluster, painted in 1925, is part of the permanent collection of the Museum of Modern Art and is on view in Painting and Sculpture I, Gallery 7, 5th Floor.
All Photos By Gail (Click On Any Image to Enlarge for Detail)
The fall gallery season kicked off in a huge way on the evening of September 11th, with dozens of opening receptions competing for attention and the streets of the Chelsea Gallery District packed like Sixth Avenue during the annual Village Halloween Parade as art lovers scrambled to make it to as many shows as possible. It was a blast! Our first stop of the evening was one of our favorite spots, Joshua Liner Gallery, for Invisible Ruler, featuring new works by Wayne White, an exhibit which did not disappoint!
Wayne White has had an extensive career as an artist and art director. A three-time Emmy Award winner for his production design on Pee-wee’s Playhouse, White is also noted for his music videos for Peter Gabriel and The Smashing Pumpkins. And, as you will see by the works in this fun exhibit, he is an accomplished Sculptor, Puppeteer, Painter and Illustrator.
For Invisible Ruler, Liner’s large front gallery is dominated by an exhibit of White’s signature Word Paintings. For this series, White paints bold slogans, phrases or single words over mundane, bucolic landscapes and vintage offset lithographs to create a startling and thought provoking contrast of images.
Favorite Bee Gees’ Song
I believe with this one, your mind might fill in a couple of seemingly “missing” letters. These Word Paintings are lots of fun.
There is also a selection of the artist’s Cubist-style watercolor drawings, which he created during his residency at the Rauschenberg Foundation. Joshua Liner did nice job of painting the gallery wall to match the style of these works.
These two, above are especially beautiful
The Oh Wow moment arrives when you unexpectedly come upon this pair of 15-foot, hand cut kinetic sculptures (tucked away in the rear gallery space) that White has named The Louvin Brothers — giant cardboard puppets based on American country music duo Ira and Charlie Louvin. This installation was the most impressive piece of art I saw in the entire two-hour course of the evening’s art crawl, and it definitely elevates Invisible Ruler to the status of a Must-See show.
It was nice to meet Wayne White in person at the gallery that evening; he is super cool. Thanks for the great art, Wayne!
Wayne White’s Invisible Ruler will be on Exhibit through October 11th, 2104, at Joshua Liner Gallery, Located at 540 West 28th Street, NYC. Gallery Hours are Tuesday — Saturday, 11:00 AM — 6:00 PM.
