Showing posts with label actors. Show all posts
Showing posts with label actors. Show all posts

Wednesday, October 30, 2019

Twentieth-Century Faces by Celebrated Photographers

George Platt Lynes
Gian Carlo Menotti
1938
gelatin silver print
Art Institute of Chicago

Yousuf Karsh
Audrey Hepburn
1956
gelatin silver print
Art Institute of Chicago

George Platt Lynes
Kay Boyle
ca. 1935
gelatin silver print
Art Institute of Chicago

Paul Strand
Young Boy, Gondeville, Charente, France
1951
gelatin silver print
Art Institute of Chicago

Robert Frank
Chattanooga, Tennessee
1955-56
gelatin silver print
Art Institute of Chicago

The Children of Stare

Winter is fallen early
On the house of Stare;
Birds in reverberating flocks
Haunt its ancestral box;
Bright are the plenteous berries
In clusters in the air.

Still is the fountain's music,
The dark pool icy still,
Whereupon a small and sanguine sun
Floats in a mirror on,
Into a West of crimson,
From a South of daffodil.

'Tis strange to see young children
In such a wintry house;
Like rabbits' on the frozen snow
Their tell-tale footprints go;
Their laughter rings like timbrels
'Neath evening ominous:

Their small and heightened faces
Like wine-red winter buds;
Their frolic bodies gentle as
Flakes in the air that pass,
Frail as the twirling petal
From the briar of the woods.

Above them silence lours,
Still as an arctic sea;
Light fails; night falls; the wintry moon
Glitters; the crocus soon
Will open grey and distracted
On earth's austerity:

Thick mystery, wild peril,
Law like an iron rod: –
Yet sport they on in Spring's attire,
Each with his tiny fire
Blown to a core of ardour
By the awful breath of God.

– Walter de la Mare (1906)

George Platt Lynes
George Tooker
1945
gelatin silver print
Art Institute of Chicago

Robert Frank
Movie Premiere, Hollywood
1955-56
gelatin silver print
Art Institute of Chicago

George Platt Lynes
Burt Lancaster
1947
gelatin silver print
Art Institute of Chicago

Elliott Erwitt
Batsk, Siberia
1967
gelatin silver print
Art Institute of Chicago

George Platt Lynes
Farley Granger
1947
gelatin silver print
Art Institute of Chicago

Blythe Bohnen
Self Portrait, Pivotal Motion from Chin, Medium
1974
gelatin silver print
Art Institute of Chicago

Blythe Bohnen
Self Portrait, Pivotal Motion from Chin, Large
1974
gelatin silver print
Art Institute of Chicago

Blythe Bohnen
Self Portrait, Horizontal Elliptical Motion, Small
1983
gelatin silver print
Art Institute of Chicago

Blythe Bohnen
Self Portrait, Vertical Motion Up, Medium
1983
gelatin silver print
Art Institute of Chicago

Yousuf Karsh
Jessye Norman
1990
gelatin silver print
Art Institute of Chicago

Monday, October 28, 2019

Modern Personalities on Film (1905-1977)

Gertrude Käsebier
Miss Dix
ca. 1905
platinum print
Art Institute of Chicago

August Sander
The Painter Otto Dix and his wife Martha
1925-26
gelatin silver print
Art Institute of Chicago

Brassaï
Crosswalk on the Rue de Rivoli
1937
gelatin silver print
Art Institute of Chicago

Irving Penn
Ballet Theatre, New York
1948
platinum palladium print
Art Institute of Chicago

Bruce Davidson
Boy and Girl at Cigarette Vending Machine
1959
gelatin silver print
Art Institute of Chicago

Bruce Davidson
Slumber Party
1959
gelatin silver print
Art Institute of Chicago

from Upon being Asked by a Reader 
whether the Verses contained in this Book were True

And is it True? It is not True.
And if it were it wouldn't do,
For people such as me and you
Who pretty nearly all day long
Are doing something rather wrong.
Because if things were really so,
You would have perished long ago,
And I would not have lived to write
The noble lines that meet your sight . . .

– Hilaire Belloc (1923)

Irving Penn
Frederick Kiesler & Willem de Kooning
1960
platinum palladium print
Art Institute of Chicago

Duane Michals
Two Circus Performers, Paris
1962
gelatin silver print
Art Institute of Chicago

Duane Michals
Ray Barry
1963 and 1977
gelatin silver prints
Art Institute of Chicago

Duane Michals
René Magritte
1965
gelatin silver print
Art Institute of Chicago

Duane Michals
Kim Novak
1967
gelatin silver print
Art Institute of Chicago

Duane Michals
Warren Beatty
1967
gelatin silver print
Art Institute of Chicago

Duane Michals
Death comes to the Old Lady
1969
gelatin silver prints
Art Institute of Chicago

On a Sleeping Friend

Lady, when your lovely head
Droops to sink among the Dead,
And the quiet places keep
You that so divinely sleep;
Then the dead shall blessèd be
With a new solemnity,
For such Beauty, so descending,
Pledges them that Death is ending.
Sleep your fill – but when you wake
Dawn shall over Lethe break.

– Hilaire Belloc (1923)

Joel Snyder
Untitled
1971
platinum print
Art Institute of Chicago

Tuesday, June 5, 2018

Late Eighteenth-Century Portrait Prints

Anonymous German printmaker after Anton Graff
Portrait of Apollonia Helena Potocka
ca. 1775
hand-colored lithograph
British Museum

Lavinia, Countess Spencer after Richard Cosway
Portrait of Lavinia, Countess Spencer reading
ca. 1785-1800
hand-colored etching
British Museum

Lavinia,  Countess Spencer (1762-1831) – Eldest daughter of 1st Earl of Lucan. Wife of George John, 2nd Earl Spencer.  Amateur artist.  

Richard Brookshaw after Allan Ramsay
George the III, King of Great Britain
ca. 1773-79
hand-colored mezzotint
British Museum

Richard Marshall after Allan Ramsay
George-the-III-King-of-Great-Britain
ca. 1760-70
hand-colored mezzotint
British Museum

Anonymous French printmaker after Claude-Louis Desrais
 L'Ami du peuple - Marat
ca. 1790-95
hand-colored etching
British Museum

Jean Paul Marat (1743-1793) – Revolutionary politician, physician, journalist and agitator.  Born Boudry, Switzerland.  Editor of L'Ami du Peuple (created September 1789).  Murdered by Charlotte Corday (13 July 1793) and celebrated as a martyr of the French Revolution.  At first buried in the garden of the Club des Cordeliers, his remains were transferred into the Pantheon (21 September 1794) in great pomp, before being moved to the cemetery of Saint-Étienne-du-Mont (8 February 1795). 

Anonymous French printmaker after Joseph Boze
 Louis Seize, Roi des Franceais
1792
hand-colored etching
British Museum

"This is an altered version of a plate engraved at an earlier date as a conventional portrait (ca. 1785).  The added Phrygian cap and the last line of the lettered inscription, also a later addition, pointedly allude to the events that occurred on 20 June 1792, when Louis XVI was forced to wear the cap following the invasion of the Tuileries palace.  The title has been altered from Roi de France et de Navarre to Roi des Franceais, reflecting the decision of the Assemblée Nationale on 19 October 1789 to change the King's title."

Paul-André Basset (publisher)
Voltaire
(at writing-table between laurel trees)
ca. 1793
hand-colored etching
British Museum

Alexander Beugo (publisher)
Portrait of Charles Cranmer
(Royal Academy porter and model)
ca. 1770-80
hand-colored etching
British Museum

James Gillray
Mendoza
(portrait of boxer Daniel Mendoza)
1788
etching and aquatint
British Museum

James Gillray
A Dash up St James's Street
(Capt. Francis Cunynghame in Light Horse uniform, Coldstream Guards)
1797
hand-colored etching
British Museum

John Thornthwaite after James Roberts
Mr. Mattocks in the Character of Achilles
1777
hand-colored etching and engraving (from Bell's British Theatre)
British Museum

Anonymous English printmaker
Mrs Siddons
ca. 1790
hand-colored etching
British Museum

Anonymous English printmaker
Mrs Elizabeth Brownrigg
(midwife hanged for murder of her apprentice)
1767
hand-colored etching
British Museum

Anonymous English printmaker
Baron Frédéric Trenck in prison
ca. 1753-60
hand-colored woodcut
British Museum

Baron Frédéric Trenck (1726-1794) – Officer in Prussian army.  1745, imprisoned by Frederick II of Prussia but escaped a year later.  1753 recaptured and imprisoned for ten years in Magdeburg.  1787, wrote an autobiography which was widely translated and brought his story to public attention.  1794, in Paris as an observer of the French Revolution on behalf of the Austrian government, guillotined. 

– descriptive and biographical notes from the British Museum

Wednesday, May 30, 2018

Edward Francis Burney (1760-1848)

Edward Francis Burney
Summer Exhibition, Royal Academy of Arts
Great Hall (North Wall) Somerset House
1784
drawing
British Museum

Edward Francis Burney
Summer Exhibition, Royal Academy of Arts
Great Hall (East Wall) Somerset House
1784
drawing
British Museum

Edward Francis Burney
Summer Exhibition, Royal Academy of Arts
Great Hall (West Wall) Somerset House
1784
drawing
British Museum

"Burney came from a family prominent in the arts.  His uncle was the musicologist Dr Charles Burney and his cousin the writer Fanny Burney.  Edward Burney enrolled in the Royal Academy School in 1776, staying until sometime in the early 1780s.  He became acquainted with James Barry and other less prominent artists, and was soon encouraged in his career by the Academy President, Joshua Reynolds.  A virtuoso draughtsman, Burney devoted the greater part of his career to producing book illustrations [including those for Fanny Burney's Evelina], although he also painted some portraits.  He rarely exhibited at the Royal Academy, and never married.  His performances on the violin as part of amateur private concerts receive occasional mention in contemporary journals."

"Burney possessed a fine comic sense and his use of wit and irony, combined with his somewhat rococo drawing style, connects him with William Hogarth.  His most important and interesting work is a set of four large watercolours [directly below] from the 1820s in which he satirises contemporary musical and social life.  Two of these are in the Victoria & Albert Museum, London and two are in the Yale Center for British Art, New Haven, Connecticut.  The Tate Gallery owns an oil version of one of the Yale watercolours, Amateurs of Tye-Wig Music (Musicians of the Old School)."

– biographical notes from the Tate Gallery

Edward Francis Burney
An Elegant Establishment for Young Ladies
ca. 1820
watercolor
Victoria & Albert Museum

"This famous caricature mocks women's education that consists only of lessons in deportment and dress, music and dance.  Such an education is shown to be both superficial and self-indulgent.  The artist implies that these were the only accomplishments thought necessary for a 'career' of marriage and motherhood.  Indeed, one girl is seen in the act of eloping with her suitor through the window.  She is the finished product of this kind of schooling."

– curator's notes from the Victoria & Albert Museum

Edward Francis Burney
The Waltz
ca. 1820
watercolor
Victoria & Albert Museum

"Watercolor drawing of a waltzing party, caricaturing the dancers who are all either unusually matched or accident prone, except one young couple in the centre who hand their heads.  There are many inscriptions regarding humorous and spurious dance rules.  A band are also depicted comically, as are two disapproving women, a praying woman and a man with an ear-trumpet who look on from the opposite balcony.  The scene is chaotic with several people having fallen over and glasses smashed on the floor.  Some of the dancers are in a rage and others are evidently miserable.  In the middle of the floor, a kitten dances with a puppy."

– curator's notes from the Victoria & Albert Museum

Edward Francis Burney
The Triumph of Music
ca. 1820
watercolor
Yale Center for British Art

"This drawing, also known as The Glee Club, appears to be part of a coherent group along with The Waltz, An Elegant Establishment for Young Ladies, and Amateurs of the Tye-Wig Music.  All four pictures are of similar format and finish are are linked by their musical theme.  Although no printed version has yet been identified, it is possible that Burney may have intended to publish them, but they may also have been created for the amusement of his private circle.  The Triumph of Music depicts the type of musical group to which the Burney family belonged, a group of gentlemen (and sometimes ladies) who met to sing, eat, and drink together.  Specifically, it refers to types of songs popular during the period; the numerous inscriptions are the title of catches, canons, glees, and rounds.  Glees in particular are characterized by their double, sometimes obscene meanings and the repetition of words or fragments of words.  Here, the formal attributes of the picture echo the structures of glee and canon singing: the figures of the three old women on the right, for example, are repeated in the three young women on the left, and salacious visual puns abound.  The tall, thin man on the left may be a self-portrait."

– curator's notes from the Yale Center for British Art

Edward Francis Burney
Amateurs of Tye-Wig Music
ca. 1820
watercolor
Yale Center for British Art

Edward Francis Burney
Amateurs of Tye-Wig Music
(Musicians of the Old School)

ca. 1820
oil on canvas
Tate Gallery
 
Of the four large musical watercolors, Amateurs of Tye-Wig Music is " . . . the only one, apparently, which Burney reworked as an oil painting.  Its theme is the battle between 'modern' and 'traditional' taste in the music world.  The modern is represented by references to Beethoven, Mozart and others in the foreground, while traditional taste is epitomised by Handel,  whose bust looks down upon a group of musicians, appropriately dressed, who are playing (discordantly) music by his great contemporary Arcangelo Corelli.  The concert takes place in a room whose decorations are predominantly Gothick in style, a further indication of the revival of ancient tastes.  Burney includes many apparent and traditional amusing details such as the howling dog, noisy children, striking clocks, a careless servant, and a sneezing, coughing, snoring and throat-clearing audience."

– curator's notes from the Tate Gallery

Edward Francis Burney
View of Philippe Jacques de Loutherbourg's Eidophusikon
ca. 1782
drawing
British Museum

"The Eidophusikon opened in February 1781 in Lisle Street, Leicester Square and held up to 130 people, who paid 5 shillings entrance.  The stage was ten feet wide, six feet high and eight feet deep.  The performance consisted of changes of scenes accompanied by coloured light effects and vocal and instrumental music.  This particular scene from 'Paradise Lost' was first shown on 31 January 1782 . . . titled, Satan Arraying his Troops on the Banks of a Fiery Lake, with the Raising of the Palace of Pandemonium." 

– curator's notes from the British Museum

Edward Francis Burney
Académie - Tom Tring the Boxer
ca. 1790-1800
drawing
British Museum

Edward Francis Burney
Académie - Tom Tring the Boxer
ca. 1790-1800
drawing
British Museum

Edward Francis Burney
Académie - Nude with Sword and Shield
ca. 1790-1800
watercolor
Yale Center for British Art

Edward Francis Burney
Académie - Seated Nude
ca, 1790-1800
watercolor
Yale Center for British Art

Edward Francis Burney
Antique Warrior's Head
before 1848
drawing
British Museum

Edward Francis Burney
Portrait Bust of David Garrick by Joseph Nollekens
before 1817
drawing
British Museum

"The portrait takes the form of a classical memorial, set in a wash frame that forms a trompe-l'oeil niche, the bust turned away from the viewer to emphasize the actor's profile.  It is not inscribed with the name of the sitter, sculptor or artist and is not known to have been engraved, making it likely that this was a personal and private commission from the artist's cousin Charles for his collection.  . . . Charles Burney (1757-1817), the second surviving son of the historian of music of the same name [and brother of Fanny Burney], was expelled from Cambridge for stealing books from the library, and finished his degree elsewhere.  He became a successful schoolmaster in London and classical scholar and was ordained in 1808.  His greatest achievement was the library he amassed which was purchased for the nation after his death.  Mostly classical texts, it also included 400 volumes of material on the English stage, including newspaper clippings, prints, playbills, etc. with which he intended to write a history of the theatre.  This drawing is one of three watercolours relating to the actor David Garrick (1717-1779) that were removed from one of the volumes still in Prints and Drawings [at the British Museum].  The rest are now in the British Library.  . . .  J.T. Smith recorded that Mrs. Garrick visited the Print Room in 1821 in order to look over the portraits of Garrick collected by Charles Burney." 

– curator's notes from the British Museum