Tag Archives: the met

Arts and Culture

Modern Art Monday Presents: Balthus’ Lelia Caetani

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Lelia Caetani
Photo By Gail

By 1935, when Marguerite Caetani, Princess Bassiano, commissioned this portrait of her daughter Lelia, Balthus (Balthasar Klossowski) had grown tired and resentful of the painting commissions that were his only source of income. Depicted in the elegant Rond-Point des Champs-Elysées in Paris, Lelia is unfashionably dressed and appears considerately older than her twenty-two years. Her limbs are elongated and she dwarfs her surroundings, awkwardly towering over the trees and lamp posts, just as Lew Carroll’s Alice would do from time to time. Balthus later called his stylized, unflattering, and even bizarre portraits his “monsters.”

Photographed in the Metropolitan Museum of Art in NYC.

Arts and Culture

Modern Art Monday Presents: John Chamberlain, Dorkdorf

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John Chamberlain Dorkdorf
All Photos By Gail

I didn’t get turned on to the unique sculptural style of John Chamberlain until his Spring 2012 Retrospective at The Guggenheim, at which point Chamberlain had only recently passed away. Chamberlain was best known for his dynamic sculptures created with scrap metal from salvaged cars, which are held in many public collections.
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Arts and Culture

Modern Art Monday Presents: Leonora Carrington, Self-Portrait

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Leonora Carrington Self Portrait
Photo By Gail

Surrealist painter Leonora Carrington (1917–2011) was born and educated in England but lived most of her adult life in Mexico City. She was one of the last surviving participants in the Surrealist movement of the 1930s. At one point, Carrington was involved in a relationship with fellow surrealist Max Ernst, but the couple never married.

Here is a detailed description of Self-Portrait from Met Museum:
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Arts and Culture

Modern Art Monday Presents: Ellsworth Kelly, Spectrum V

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Ellsworth Kelly Spectrum V
Photo By Gail

I want you to appreciate that I had to wait patiently for about 15 minutes for a child and her oblivious mom to stop effing around in front of this 13 panel color field installation that makes up legendary minimalist Ellsworth Kelly’s Spectrum V (1969) before I could (finally) get this photo. You’re welcome.

Ellsworth Kelly (1923 – 2015) was an American painter, sculptor, and printmaker associated with hard-edge painting, Color Field painting and the minimalist school. His works demonstrate unassuming techniques emphasizing simplicity of form, similar to the work of John McLaughlin and Kenneth Noland. Kelly often employs bright colors. He lived and worked in Spencertown, New York.

Spectrum V, a gift of the artist, is part of the permanent collection in the Modern Art wing of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in NYC.

Arts and Culture

Modern Art Monday Presents: Bridget Riley Blaze I

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Bridget Riley Blaze 1
Bridget Riley, Blaze 1, 1962 (Photo By Gail)

While at Goldsmith’s College in London, Bridget Riley (born 1931) became interested in the optical vibrations initiated by Georges Seurat’s Pointillist technique of the 1880s. By 1961, Riley was painting solely in Black and White, and her paintings of the early 1960s are pioneering examples of what came to be known as Op Art.
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