Showing posts with label poster. Show all posts
Showing posts with label poster. Show all posts

Thursday, October 15, 2026

Visual Preferences (20th Century: 1991)

Lynne Cohen
Spa
1991
gelatin silver print
Ottawa Art Gallery, Ontario

David Lance Goines
No War
1991
lithograph (poster)
Los Angeles County Museum of Art

Nan Goldin
Lynette and Donna at Marion's Restaurant, New York
1991
C-print
Portland Museum of Art, Maine

Jasper Johns
Green Angel
1991
color etching
San Diego Museum of Art

Jeff Koons
Bourgeois Bust - Jeff and Ilona
1991
marble
Art Institute of Chicago

Rostislav Lebedev
The Bolshevic [sic] by Kudisodiev
1991
acrylic on canvas
Nasher Museum of Art, Durham, North Carolina

Roy Lichtenstein
Modern Room
1991
lithograph, woodcut and screenprint
Akron Art Museum, Ohio

Manuel Neri
Figure with Legs Crossed
1991
painted bronze
Denver Art Museum

Manuel Neri
Kneeling Figure
1991
painted bronze
San Jose Museum of Art, California

Nicholas Nixon
Jamie Watkins
1991
gelatin silver print
Fralin Museum of Art, Charlottesville, Virginia

Gerhard Richter
Betty
1991
lithograph
Dallas Museum of Art

Susan Rothenberg
Head and Foot
1991
cast iron
Walker Art Center, Minneapolis

Tomás Sánchez
Second Version of Dump on the Beach
1991
acrylic on canvas
NSU Art Museum, Fort Lauderdale, Florida

Cindy Sherman
Untitled
1991
C-print
Lowe Are Museum, University of Miami

Jay Steensma
The Pond
1991
oil on canvas
Tacoma Art Museum, Washington State

Comme des Garçons (Japan)
Dress
1991
polyester crepe lined with acrylic fur
Denver Art Museum

from In Praise of Limestone

Watch, then, the band of rivals as they climb up and down
     Their steep stone gennels in twos and threes, at times
Arm in arm, but never, thank God, in step; or engaged
     On the shady side of a square at midday in
Volatile discourse, knowing each other too well to think
     There are important secrets, unable
To conceive a god whose temper tantrums are moral
     And not to be pacified by a clever line
Or a good lay: for, accustomed to a stone that responds,
     They have never had to veil their faces in awe
Of a crater whose blazing fury could not be fixed;
     Adjusted to the local needs of valleys
Where everything can be touched or reached by walking,
     Their eyes have never looked into infinite space
Through the lattice-work of a nomad's comb; born lucky,
     Their legs never encountered the fungi
And insects of the jungle, the monstrous forms and lives
     With which we have nothing, we like to hope, in common.
So, when one of them goes to the bad, the way his mind works
     Remains comprehensible: to become a pimp
Or deal in fake jewellery or ruin a fine tenor voice
     For effects that bring down the house, could happen to all
But the best and the worst of us . . . 
                                                          That is why, I suppose,
     The best and worst never stayed here long but sought
Immoderate soils where the beauty was not so external,
     The light less public and the meaning of life
Something more than a mad camp. "Come!" cried the granite wastes,
     "How evasive is your humor, how accidental
Your kindest kiss, how permanent is death." (Saints-to-be
     Slipped way sighing.) "Come!" purred the clays and gravels,
"On our plains there is room for armies to drill; rivers
     Wait to be tamed and slaves to construct your tomb
In the grand manner: soft as the earth is mankind and both
     Need to be altered." (Intendant Caesars rose and
Left, slamming the door.) But the really reckless were fetched
     By an older colder voice, the oceanic whisper:
"I am the solitude that asks and promises nothing;
     That is how I shall set you free. There is no love;
There are only various envies, all of them sad."

– W.H. Auden (1948)

Saturday, October 10, 2026

Slice

Franz Eybl
Berry-picker against Mountain Landscape
1844
oil on panel
Liechtenstein Museum, Vienna

Equipo Crónica (art collective)
The Pamphlet
1973
acrylic on canvas
Institut Valencià d'Art Modern

George Engleheart
Miniature Portrait of a Man
1804
watercolor on ivory
Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge

William Etty
Académie
ca. 1820-30
oil on board
National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa

Christoffer Wilhelm Eckersberg
Archer sharpening Arrow
1812
oil on canvas
Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek, Copenhagen

Frank Samuel Eastman
Half-Length Study of Model
ca. 1910
drawing
Harvard Art Museums

Otto Eckmann
Solitude
1894
photogravure by Eckmann of a painting by Eckmann
Kunstbibliothek, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin

Rudolf Eickemeyer
Portrait Study
1902
platinum print
Kunstbibliothek, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin

Richard Ernst Eurich
Lyme Regis
1930
oil on canvas
Manchester Art Gallery

Allart van Everdingen
View of Dordrecht
ca. 1660
oil on canvas
Dordrechts Museum, Netherlands

Cornelis Engebrechtsz
Christ taking Leave of his Mother
ca. 1515-20
oil on panel
Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam

Elisabeth von Eicken
Spring
ca. 1895
oil on canvas
Kunstmuseum, Ahrenshoop, Germany

Hans Rudi Erdt
With our Heroes on the Somme
1917
lithograph (poster)
Kunstbibliothek, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin

Bonaventura Emler
Dante's Purgatory
1859
drawing
Kupferstichkabinett, Staatliche Kunstsammlungen, Dresden

Bonaventura Emler
Dante's Purgatory
ca. 1859
watercolor on paper
Graphische Sammlung Albertina, Vienna

James Ensor
Bourgeois Salon
ca. 1910
oil on canvas
Clemens-Sels Museum, Neuss, Germany

The reformed St. Denis as realized by Suger thus differed very considerably from the reformed St. Denis as imagined by St. Bernard, and in one essential respect there was not only a difference but an irreconcilable contrast between the one and the other.  [In St. Bernard's vision] no figural painting or sculpture, except for wooden crucifixes, was tolerated; gems, pearls, gold and silk were forbidden; the vestments had to be of linen or fustian, the candlesticks and censers of iron; only the chalices were permitted to be of silver or silver-gilt.  Suger, however was frankly in love with splendor and beauty in every conceivable form; it might be said that his response to ecclesiastical ceremonial was largely aesthetic.  For him the benediction of the holy water is a wonderful dance, with countless dignitaries of the Church, "decorous in white vestments, splendidly arrayed in pontifical miters and precious ophreys embellished by circular ornaments," walking "round and round the vessel" as a "chorus celestial rather than terrestrial."  The simultaneous performance of the first twenty masses of the new chevet is a "symphony angelic rather than human."  Thus, if the spiritual pre-eminence of St. Denis was Suger's conviction, its material embellishment was his passion: the Holy Martyrs, whose "sacred ashes" could be carried only by the king and took precedence over all other relics however much revered, had to have the most beautiful church in France. 

From the earliest years of his abbacy Suger had begun to raise funds for the reconstruction and redecoration of the basilica, and when he died he left it "renewed from its very foundations" and filled with treasures second only – perhaps even superior – to those in Hagia Sophia.  . . .  In short, by making concessions to the zeal of St. Bernard in matters of morals and major ecclesiastical policy, Suger gained freedom and peace in all other respects.  Unmolested by the Abbot of Clairvaux, he made his Church the most resplendent in the Western world and raised pomp and circumstance to the level of fine art.  

– Erwin Panofsky, from Abbot Suger on the Abbey Church of St. Denis and its Art Treasures (1946)

Sunday, July 26, 2026

Visual Preferences (20th Century: 1940)

Reginald Marsh
Mink and Mannequin
1940
watercolor on paper
Dallas Museum of Art

Gordon Coster
Metallic Evening Clutch with Couple in Mirror
1940
gelatin silver print
Art Institute of Chicago

Helen Levitt
New York
1940
gelatin silver print
Art Institute of Chicago

Russell Lee
Lunch Break
Consolidated Airplane Factory, San Diego, California

1940
gelatin silver print
Portland Museum of Art, Maine

Clarence Chatterton
Road to Ogunquit
1940
oil on panel
Portland Museum of Art, Maine

Raphael Gleitsmann
Untitled
1940
watercolor on paper
Akron Art Museum, Ohio

Raoul Dufy
Café Marocain
1940
watercolor on paper
Dallas Museum of Art

John Buczak
44th Annual Exhibition by Artists of Chicago and Vicinity
1940
screenprint (WPA poster)
Art Institute of Chicago

John Vachon
Rents Are Going Up In Memphis, Tennessee
1940
gelatin silver print
Memphis Brooks Museum of Art, Tennessee

Horace Pippin
Christ and the Woman of Samaria
1940
oil on canvas
Barnes Foundation, Philadelphia

Henry Moore
Shelter Scene - Swathed Figures
1940
ink, chalk, crayon and watercolor on paper
Manchester Art Gallery

Bendik Riis
Portrait of a Man
1940
oil on panel
Lillehammer Kunstmuseum, Norway

Arthur Dove
Thunder Shower
1940
oil on canvas
Amon Carter Museum, Fort Worth, Texas

Diego Rivera
Portrait of Dr Otto Ruhle
1940
oil on panel
Dallas Museum of Art

Edward Steichen
Sunflowers
1940
dye imbibition print
Art Institute of Chicago

Unknown American Maker
Beach Clogs
1940
wooden soles with cotton-braid straps
Texas Fashion Collection, Denton

from The Cave of Making 
        
For this and for all enclosures like it the archetype
     is Weland's Stithy, an antre
more private than a bedroom even, for neither lovers nor
     maids are welcome, but without a
bedroom's secrets: from the Olivetti Portable,
     the dictionaries (the very
best money can buy), the heaps of paper, it is evident
     what must go on. Devoid of
flowers and family photographs, all is subordinate
     here to a function, designed to 
discourage day-dreams – hence windows averted from plausible
     videnda but admitting a light one
could mend a watch by – and to sharpen hearing reached by an 
     outside staircase, domestic 
noises and odors, the vast background of natural
     life are shut off. Here silence
is turned into objects. 

– W.H. Auden (1964)

Saturday, July 11, 2026

Visual Preferences (20th Century: 1925)

George Copeland Ault
House in Brittany
1925
oil on canvas
Portland Museum of Art, Maine

Edward Bawden
Natural History Museum, South Kensington
1925
lithograph (poster)
Art Institute of Chicago

Claude Cahun
Untitled
1925
gelatin silver print
Institut Valencià d'Art Modern

Theo van Doesburg
Counter-Composition XVI
1925
oil on canvas
Kunstmuseum, The Hague

Durr Freedley
Portrait of Mr & Mrs H.H. Freedley
1925
tempera on board
Indianapolis Museum of Art

Paul Morgan Gustin
Guardians of the Pont du Carrousel
1925
etching
Frye Art Museum, Seattle

Frederic Charles Herrick
Arrest the Flying Moment
1925
lithograph
(poster for London Underground)
Art Institute of Chicago

Wassily Kandinsky
Three Elements
1925
oil on board
Musée d'Art Moderne et Contemporain, Strasbourg

Paul Manship
Diana
1925
bronze
North Carolina Museum of Art, Raleigh

Daniel de Monfreid
Hommage à Gauguin
1925
oil on canvas
Musée Hyacinthe Rigaud, Perpignan

Gerald Murphy
Watch
1925
oil on canvas
Dallas Museum of Art

Axel Nilsson
Still Life with Pots
1925
oil on canvas
Moderna Museet, Stockholm

Pablo Picasso
Three Dancers
1925
drawing
Menil Collection, Houston

Alexander Rodchenko
The Workers' Club - International Exhibition
of Decorative Arts and Modern Industry, Paris

1925
gelatin silver print
Art Institute of Chicago

Edward Weston
Neil
1925
palladium print
Art Institute of Chicago

Richard Wyndham
Le Vieux Quartier, Marseille
1925
graphite and watercolor on paper
Manchester Art Gallery

from The Aliens

Wide though the interrupt be that divides us, runers and counters,
from the Old World of the Plants, all lapped in a tolerant silence,
where, by the grace of chlorophyll, few of them ever have taken
life and not one put a sceptical question, we nod them as neighbours
who, to conclude from their friendly response to a gardener's handling,
like to be given the chance to get more than self-education.
As for the hot-blooded Beasts, we didn't need Darwin to tell us
horses and rabbits and mice are our cognates, the double-voiced song-birds
cousins, however removed: unique as we seem, we, too, are
shovelled out into the cold, poodle-naked, as male or as female,
grab at and gobble up proteins, drop dung, perform the ungainly
brute-with-two-backs until, dared and doddered by age, we surrender,
lapse into stagnant stuff, while they by retaining a constant
visible shape through a lifetime, accord with our human idea of
having a Self. 

– W.H. Auden (1970)