Two Good Stories: Soutine and the Barnes

I'm now teaching a class I'm calling 'Midnights in Paris' (thanks to Woody Allen for the idea) which looks at the 'fantasy' eras of French art and history. The first in the series, the early 20th century, includes an artist we'll be seeing more of once the Barnes Collection reopens later this month. Chaim Soutine is the artist, and his story with Dr. Barnes makes a good headline: Starving Russian Artist Saved from Misery and Oblivion by famed American Millionaire Art Collector. The full story, of course, has a bit more to it. Soutine, born in a small Russian village in 1893, was beaten up at age 13 for breaking strict Jewish rules by drawing his rabbi - after weeks in the hospital he took the 25 rubles awarded as damages and got out of town - first to art classes in Minsk, and then to the art mecca of the time - Paris. For 10 years he lived hand to mouth in a series of creaky artist studios in Montparnasse, where he became close friends with other artists, especially Modigliani. His first art dealer, Leopold Zborowski, supported him after a fashion without much real success in selling his work - until the fateful day in 1922, when Dr. Barnes walked into the gallery run by Paul Guillaume (a garage mechanic who rose to be a celebrated art dealer and collector) and noticed a small painting of an unlikely subject - a pastry cook. An introduction to Zborowski, a trip to Soutine's studio, and Barnes snaps up the whole lot of Soutine's work - some say 60 paintings, some say 100 - for a total of $3000. As far as Soutine was concerned, this was the treasury of Midas - as soon as Barnes left the premises, Soutine closed the door, hailed a cab and had the driver take him to Nice on the French Riviera, 200 miles away. It was a true turning point - the infusion of cash and belief in his work may even have saved a starving artist's life. Soutine returned to Paris and built on his success; his work began selling, he acquired a new apartment and studio, nice clothes (it is said that he became a 'dandy' in elegant shirts and silk ties) and wealthy patrons. Rollercoaster years followed, with health problems and an ornery disposition causing problems - and then came the Nazi occupation of Paris. Soutine, a Jew, fled Paris and when he tried to return was refused. He made it back at the very end of his life, assisted by Marie-Berthe Aurenche, the ex-wife of Max Ernst, and died in a Paris hospital. His 1943 funeral at the Montparnasse cemetery - 'on a sunny day' according to Marie-Berthe - was small and quiet, but Picasso was there to pay his last respects. The US, thanks to Dr. Barnes, is the place to see the best of Soutine's work. Though sometimes classed as an Expressionist, his quirky, animated swirly style is unique. The charming and the grotesque balance precariously in his saturated compositions, whether the subject is landscape or still life, raw carcass (a favorite) or portraits of friends and patrons. Barnes's recognition of the unknown Soutine is, for me, one of the signatures of his own extraordinary story: the confidence and exceptional eye signaled by the purchase make this landmark collection significant for more than the fantastic array of works alone. It marks a symbiosis between art and collector that is rare at any age.
In 2006 one of Soutine's carcass paintings 'La Boeuf Ecorche' sold for $13.8 Million.
Paintings shown are representative of Soutine's work, not necessarily those in the Barnes Collection.
http://www.barnesfoundation.org/collections/art-collection/artist/51/chaim-soutine

Art - Fine and Online - Etsy, FAA, Behance, Spoonflower

Sally Mara Bee Buzz on Etsy

Anna Gonzalez on Etsy

Marilyn MacGregor on Etsy

P Maure Bausch on FAA

Eric Hancock on Behance

Cestlaviv - Vivian Ducas on Spoonflower

It's not that hard to call yourself an artist - the word has become almost meaningless. Being an artist, however, is still not easy, and making a living as one is as tricky as it's ever been - maybe more so. Galleries are invaluable - as in Philadelphia's Old City area, good galleries and dealers can center the energy of a lively, thriving arts community and provide vital community spaces. It can be tough, though, for an artist to find the right one or to find one at all. But thanks to the technology we all love/hate, there are lots of opportunities for artists - and for viewers and collectors - that didn't exist before. So this blog post is dedicated to working artists who engage with the promise and potential of online galleries as the newest way to get their work noticed and, with luck, sold. A disclaimer: I'm on that list. I'm a believer in social media as a living community, and in the opportunities made available by online art spaces - my participation is a vote for these avenues as a good thing for human and arts interactions. You probably know the biggest of these sites - Etsy. Etsy, which got started in 2005 (it has a Wikipedia page, surely a mark of success!) is well-known as the go-to site for charmingly hand-crafted home decor, clothing, kid's stuff and objets in general. It also allows vintage sellers and craft suppliers. What you may not know is that there are a lot of very good artists on Etsy, often successful illustrators or gallery artists who like having a way to sell lower cost prints or even originals direct from their studios. Fine Art America is another big site, one that is more focused on 'fine art.' There's a lot of very amateur and questionable work to sort through, unfortunately, but it's worthwhile taking a careful look - you can find truly 'fine' artists on FAA offering their work as low priced prints and cards. Behance is another quality online portfolio site, this time geared towards illustrators and graphic artists - some really amazing things. Some of the work is for sale, or you can find links to where you can purchase prints. Major illustrators and designers show their work on Behance - as with all these sites, you can show your appreciation for impressive skill and imagination with a comment or a click on a button. Recently I've been working with an agent (Montage Licensing) on designs and illustration work for the Art Licensing field, including paper, textile, and other uses - in the course of learning more about this field I've discovered another fun site where you can find original art, this time fabric designs. It's called Spoonflower - browse through an abundance of original designs by real artists and purchase fabric for a pillow or a complete overhaul of your upholstery! Most artists by nature are multi-taskers. These sites are a few of the ways that they can show their work in more than one dimension and for multiple purposes. It's a huge opportunity for buyers too. It may take a little patience to sort through and find favorites, but life is like that - it's nothing new - and it can be fun and very rewarding. You'll be looking at art and artists from all over the world. (Anna Gonzalez - at the top of the page - lives in the Canary Islands) I've included some examples from each of these sites, chosen almost at random in a search for high quality and my own taste, with links to the work on the sites (click on the captions). I've also included my links - please take a look and leave me a comment or a click!
http://www.etsy.com/shop/MacGregorArt
http://fineartamerica.com/profiles/marilyn-macgregor.html
http://www.marilynmacgregor.com/

http://www.behance.net/marilynmacgregor/frame

Photography Cut and Stitched: German Gomez at the Bridgette Mayer Gallery

Photography can be a passive medium, and photography presented as art can sometimes seem only inches away from what anyone can do with a digital camera and a sunny day. Rarely are there sensual clues - surface technique or obvious texture - as in other mediums. A fine eye and quick reflexes often make the difference between the ordinary and the significant in photography, but such nuances may be missed or taken for granted. German Gomez, whose work is currently at Bridgette Mayer Gallery in Philadelphia, is not so subtle. His large format portraits of men take different forms and address different issues, but all are bold statements enhanced in some way by subtractive or additive manipulation, including cutting, stitching and collage. Gomez, who is from Madrid, appears to have chosen his subjects for their dark-eyed, romantic good looks; even jagged alterations to faces and bodies fail to mar a sturdy attractiveness. A section of the show called 'Tatuados' (Tattooed) features 'fichados' - men with police records - posed with the insouciance of fashion models while flaunting memorable, delicately drawn tattoos; the hard facts of their police identities under the photos both contradict and emphasize the beauty of the images. Gomez's Composed series, as the series title implies, includes collaged portraits that incorporate different angles of the same face, evoking a surreal play of mental and physical identity. Some portraits make use of stitching with black thread and translucent layers, a rich effect with endless possibilities, while others have a harsher, more insistent push into the macabre. Gomez's work is provocative and at times unsettling, yet it never relinquishes a enduring sense of clean magnetic beauty.

http://www.bridgettemayergallery.com/exhibitions
Images courtesty of the Bridgette Mayer Gallery