Lighting the way for art

Swedish sculptor Claes Oldenburg has brought another of his fantastic sculptures to the City of Brotherly Love. His fifty-one foot high sculpture, Paint Torch, has been erected at the Philadelphia Academy of the Fine Arts much to the applause of school officials, students and visitors. 

The sculpture, Paint Torch, is actually in two parts, the large paintbrush, erected at a sixty degree angle and the "smaller" six foot tall blob of paint below. The Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, the nation’s oldest school of fine arts, has placed the sculpture in Lenfest Plaza, a central location of the campus that is also seeing new renovations.

Inspiration:

Paintbrush

Claes Oldenburg

Pencil, colored crayon

2010

Collection Claes Oldenburg,

Photo courtesy the Oldenburg van Bruggen Foundation

Copyright 2010 Claes Oldenburg

For the school, the sculpture represents how far fine art has grown and developed over the years and links that development with students at the school, the surrounding city and the international community. The Torch also serves to identify PafA as the first school for studying and practicing art and further solidifies Oldenburg's connection with the city of Philadelphia.

Man of the House

American Gothic, 1930

Grant Wood (1891-1942)

Oil on Beaver Board

A very happy and blessed birthday to my father, 

man on the house and the best guy I know!

xxoo A

Eggleston

I haven't done a post devoted solely to photography, surprisingly being that I have been an avid fan and practicer for many years. Thinking about whom I wanted to highlight, of course I thought of Avedon and Leibovitz, Capa and Arbus, but I began thinking about an exhibition I saw in 2004 at the SFMOMA, one of my first photography shows, and began to reminisce on the works by William Eggleston. 

Working throughout the mid-20th century, Eggleston brought color photography to life and into galleries, when black and white was still the norm. Growing up in the south he used ordinary and mundane subject matter, rendering them timeless and magnificently brilliant with color and angle. 

all images courtesy of the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art 

A Celebration

Happy Birthday To My Wonderful Mother

For All You Are And All You Do

xxoo A

Mother and Child

Mary Cassatt (1884-1926)

1905

Oil on canvas

The Art of Theft

I received a package the other day with a return label that I did not recognize, yes I was very intrigued…a secret admirer sending me a gift? Upon opening it, I found a little card from my aunt in Los Angeles and the book Museum of the Missing. A wonderfully thoughtful gift, I immediately dove into reading it as my family knows I love anything that has to do with art and am also very interested in art crime.

Author Simon Houpt give numerous example after example of the great masterpieces that have been stolen throughout the world, some recovered but most not. He relays stories of the Nazi assault on art in Europe, museums thefts, such as the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston, where art has literally been lifted off the walls and taken, and fictional accounts like The Thomas Crown Affair, which follows a wealthy and bored private equity banker as he plots to steal from the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Why do people steal these pieces?
For money? For the thrill of it? Surely most pieces have to end up in private collections, no one would dare purchase Johannes Vermeer's The Concert, knowing the piece is red-hot. These are the type of questions Houpt asks and delves into throughout the book while providing great cultural background and information (and awesome pictures).

Chemin de Sèvres

Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot (1796-1875)

1858-1859

Oil on canvas

Also interesting, Julian Radcliffe, Director of the Art Loss Register, offers his knowledge in the foreword of the book, discussing what agencies around the world and companies like his are currently doing to help thwart thieves and recover stolen art.

The Concert

Johannes Vermeer

c. 1664

Oil on canvas

Feeling BLUE

not sad...just the color

all images re-blogged from Pinetrest

time lapse...

my greatest apologies for being bad the last two weeks and not blogging...I have been traveling and running around like a crazy lady but I am back in groove again and am excited to bring new things to the blog in the upcoming weeks! 


xxoo A

The Persistence of Memory

Salvador Dalí (Spanish, 1904-1989)