Tag Archives: morgan library

Arts and Culture

Modern Art Monday Presents: Jean Dubuffet, Four Figures

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four figures photo by gail worley
Photo By Gail

Jean Dubuffet (1901 – 1985) sought to replicate the immediacy of the art of the untutored. In this sheet, he incised four figures into a ground of opaque watercolor, exposing the sandpaper he used as a support. The technique shares more with graffiti and the scrawls of children than with academic drawing. The artist once remarked, “When I say ‘draw,’ I’m not to the slightest degree thinking of faithfully reproducing objects . . . No, its a matter of something quite different: to animate the paper, to make it palpitate.”

Photographed in the Morgan Library in Manhattan.

 

Arts and Culture

Modern Art Monday Presents: Celia in Hollywood, May 1984 By David Hockney

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celia in hollywood hockney photo by gail worley
Photo By Gail

The British textile and fashion designer Celia Birtwell has been a close friend and confidant of David Hockney‘s since the 1960s. Sharing northern roots and a similar sense of humor, the two found that they had much in common from their first meeting, and together they were at the heart of Bohemian London. Hockney has always been fascinated by the changing nature of Celia’s face and she remains, to this day, one of his favorite models.

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Arts and Culture

Modern Art Monday Presents: Wayne Thiebaud, Nine Jelly Apples

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Nine Jelly Apples
Photo By Gail

Wayne Thiebaud’s interest in investigating the properties of each medium lead him to create a series of works of the same subject using different techniques. In the pictured watercolor of Nine Jelly Apples (1964) he used a wide range of pink and purple hues to suggest the luminous surface of the confection. In the black ink version, he relied instead on the vivid dark and light contrast to emphasize shininess. In the pencil version, however, the exacting precision suggests the brittle surface of hardened sugar.

Photographed in The Morgan Library in NYC.

 

 

Arts and Culture

Modern Art Monday Presents: Wayne Thiebaud, Candy Ball Machine

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Candy Ball Machine
Photo By Gail

Wayne Thiebaud (b. 1920) is an American painter widely known for his colorful works depicting commonplace objects — pies, lipsticks, paint cans, ice cream cones, pastries, and hot dogs — as well as for his landscapes and figure paintings. In his defense of common objects as being suitable for painting, as seen with Candy Ball Machine (1977), Thiebaud often mentions the gumball machine.  “A gumball machine can be a kind of icon, with its simple beauty, its colors, its relationship, its magic — we put in a penny and out comes a brightly colored gumball or prize. It is  a glorious toy which we adults miss the wonder of.”

Photographed as Part of the Exhibit, Wayne Thiebaud, Draftsman, Which is on View at The Morgan Library in NYC Through September 23rd, 2018.