The human figure was Francis Bacon's principal object of study throughout his career.  This picture belongs to a series of eight paintings, which began as a portrait of Bacon's friend and biographer David Sylvester but became, in the final project, studies of a seated pope. They are inspired by the Velazquez 'Portrait of of Pope Innocent X' (Palazzo Doria, Rome), Eisenstein's Nurse in 'The Battleship Potemkin', and Eadweard Muybridge's sequential photos of the human body in movement. Bacon made his figures more and more agititated until, in the final painting, the pope is convulsive. Here his ambiguous facial expression rests somewhere between the grimace of Portrait V and the horrific scream of Portrait VII.

This painting is one of the first Francis Bacon paintings acquired by an American museum.

Study for Portrait VI

Unlike many of his fellow Surrealists who rejected the influence of the past, Dali maintained a deep admiration for the art of the Old Masters. This work was conceived by Dali as an homage to the 17th century Spanish artist Diego Velázquez, and it loosely quotes several elements from two of the great master's most famous works, The Maids of Honor and the Portrait of Juan Pareja. Those elements most easily discerned are: the palace official from The Maids of Honor who stands in the doorway at left; and, Juan Pareja's hand with extended thumb at bottom center. More elusive to the viewer, however, is the profile of Juan Pareja, the outline of which is defined by a figural grouping from the The Maids of Honor. Velázquez's easel defines the bridge of Pareja's nose, while the Spanish princess and her attendants form his mustache and beard.

Portrait of Juan de Pareja, the Assistant to Velázquez

Street artist Swoon considers her work an addition to the naturally occurring collage of the city. She usually pastes her life-size, woodcut block print portraits directly onto a wall of a city street, enjoying the way it flakes and decays over time. In this multi-media piece, Swoon has transplanted a collaged cityscape into a gallery space by constructing a sculptural canvas out of salvaged urban materials. The scrap metal and wood wraps around a corner of the gallery, breaking the boundaries of traditionally hung artworks, and suggestive of a street setting. In much the same way that Swoon inscribes her subjects into the urban milieu, she has inscribed the urban milieu into a museum gallery.
The two figures depicted in this sculpture are Brooklyn-based poets and fellow street artists Alixa and Naima, who together form the duo Climbing PoeTree. Known for using art and poetry as tools for education, community organizing, and social activism, Climbing PoeTree seeks to overcome destructive elements with creativity. The two women hold each other, eyes closed and unaware of the viewer, who has been allowed to share in this intimate, loving, and joyful moment.

Alixa and Naima

Shinro Ohtake is one of Japan’s leading and most innovative contemporary artists. His practice extends from the creation of visual arts projects and artist books to sound and architectural projects. Ohtake’s vast scrapbook collection—first begun in 1977—forms the backbone of his multifaceted practice, which ranges from painting, to assemblage, collage, drawing, monumental sculpture, architectural environments, and experimental noise music. Through his noise band JUKE/19 (1978–82), Ohtake has also influenced the direction of experimental music in Japan.
In Time Memory / Fault 11, Ohtake builds on his collage practice to create sculptural, volumetric forms that jut from the canvas support. As the title suggests, the varying layers of paper scraps create fissures and fault lines in layers of memory like shifting tectonic plates, while the drawn-in lines of ballpoint pen reference the uneven flow of time. Ohtake’s crusty agglomeration of materials is riddled with tears, punctures, and other flaws that mimic the messy, imperfect nature of memory in a highly visceral manner.

Time Memory / Fault 11

Peppered with bizarre and medieval-looking creatures, Funeral March for the Minimal Man is part of a long art-historical tradition of the grotesque, as found in the drawings of Leonardo Da Vinci and paintings of Hieronymous Bosch. The artist, who is self-taught and based in Minneapolis, makes use of fantastical imagery in his work in order to comment directly on the mental health profession.

Funeral March for the Minimal Man

As America moved into the prosperous postwar years of the 1950s and early 1960s, artists shifted their focus from emotional subjects like war and the nuclear age to commentaries on American prosperity, consumption, and commercialism. Roy Lichtenstein’s paintings embody this shift. His work first captured the world’s attention in the 1960s with a signature style borrowed from mass culture—particularly comic books and advertising—which brought the look and feel of commercial printing to fine art. Lichtenstein adapted the imagery and techniques of comic strips: black outlines, stripes, Benday dots, brushstrokes, flat fields, foils, and patterns. Appropriating such imagery from popular culture transformed the artist into a leader of the international Pop art movement along with such artists as Andy Warhol.

Vicki! I--I Thought I Heard Your Voice!

Quirt (1902-1968) began his painting career in the 1930s as a Social Realist. Throughout his life, Quirt felt that art should serve society. His earliest works were heavily influenced by Marxian values ---railing against capitalism and the social inequalities heightened by the Depression.

Precipitated by his experiences with psycho-analysis, Quirt began to delve into Surrealism and the unconcious. He wanted to tap into his subconscious in order to produce universal symbols through which he could express his Socialist beliefs. By the 1940s and into the 1950s, this Abstract Surrealism can be seen in his work. Man Plus Horse (1960) demonstrates his ability to use line and color to suggest the movements and the dynamism that is felt when rider and horse are one.

Man plus Horse

This is one of fifteen canvases of olive trees that van Gogh executed between June and December of 1889. Earlier that year he had interned himself in the asylum of St-Paul, in the town of St-Rémy in southern France, where he would create his most profound works. The vibrant oranges and yellows suggest that the picture dates to the autumn months. Van Gogh left St-Rémy in May 1890, moving to Auvers, near Paris, where he continued to paint until his death by suicide in July.

Next.js. Demo

Lightbox Links

Direct Links