Murray Miller: Portrait Painter and Teacher

I have always been drawn to the figurative paintings. As a child, I remember being fascinated by the paintings of "Pinky," (as we called the portrait) by Sir Henry Raeburn, and "Blue Boy," by Whistler that flanked the stage in the auditorium of my elementary school. I tried to imagine the lives of the children in the portraits and of the creative impulse by which the paintings were executed. This fascination stayed with me and evolved to include numerous artists who did portraiture and their subjects. In high school, I began to realize how difficult capturing and painting a portrait is when I was assigned to do a self-portrait in one of my art classes. Since that time, I have flirted with portraiture, and in some cases, created a successful work.
In my early 30's I chanced to get an introduction to a portrait painter who, then, was in his 70's. I called him, and was invited to his home/studio in Queens, NY. As soon as I entered the house, I saw magnificent paintings-mostly portraits---lining the walls. I thought I had stumbled into a museum or, for that matter, paradise. And there was Mr. Miller (as I called him): a short, well-built man, who said nothing as I tried to take it all in. Finally, we talked for a while and I showed him some pencil work I had been doing. My detailed drawings were from photographs: mostly heads. He remarked that I had "something" and told me to do still-life to get a feeling of composition and space. I rushed home to paint two still-lifes in oils. Six months later I called Mr. Miller, who was mildly surprised that I was still around. On the other hand, I had thought of little else while painting away my days and nights.


Ellen Fisch on 03.31.08 @ 07:57 AM EST [more..] [No Comments]

THE ARMORY SHOW 2008

It was 11:53 a.m. on Saturday, March 29, 2008 and there I was grazing outside Pier 94 with the rest of the art cattle. It was yet another round-‘em-up moment as we waited in line for the opening of The Armory Show 2008. It would be my very first Armory Show on what was a chilly spring day, but fortunately the sun was shining, reminding me that the tropics would soon get their way in Manhattan.

People in line! Please step aside so that these folks can get through!" yelled the security guard behind me.

"Those are the important people, I guess!" said the guy ahead of me in line. It turns out that guy is New Zealand born artist James Robinson. Robinson now lives in Williamsburg, Brooklyn which is the new hot spot for art in New York City. While we waited in line, we chatted briefly about the art world and why events like the Armory Show have become so commercial. Good guy, nice chat. If he’s willing, I may write something about him in the future.


Michael Corbin on 03.31.08 @ 07:33 AM EST [more..] [No Comments]

Visual Artists Copyrights Under Attack: Open letters from Brad Holland and Cynthia Turner - Forwarded by Walter King

I am forwarding these letters to all of you at absolutearts.com and the various feeds they service. This issue is of great importance to all visual artists as well as anyone who regularly creates and provides creative content and intellectual property for publication in any form.

Brad Holland and Cynthia Turner have been working on this issue for quite some time. When I was the Chair of Illustration at the Columbus College of Art and Design CF Payne brought the issue of artist rights to me. Together we organized a round table discussion giving early exposure to an issue of great importance to all artists. The dialogue on illustrators rights and the need for an organization to help educate artists and help illustrators protect their rights was beginning to resonate. That was more than10 years ago. Shortly after that round table a biennial Illustrators Conference was established igniting a debate on the issue of stock art companies, copyrights and collecting societies. Shortly after that the Illustrators Partnership was forged separately. The Partnership has come to maturity during the last decade in which copyright issues have come to the forefront because of contemporary business models and the confusion caused by the internet. Brad testified before Congress a while back helping to defeat the previous version of this upcoming bill. He feels that this next version has strong support in both houses and might pass. The letters are very informative. Especially the last part of the second letter which clearly shows why this issue is important to visual artists. Certainly Illustrators should be aware but all visual artists essentially will be affected.


Walter King on 03.27.08 @ 07:35 PM EST [more..] [19 Comments]

TRIBUTE TO YONA FRIEDMAN - “You do your city”

For the next four months, the whole city of Bordeaux pays tribute to the Hungarian architect Yona Friedman. The Musée des Beaux Arts is displaying an exhibition around the fantastic creator, now eighty-five years old. The CAPC Museum of Contemporary Art and the Architectural Centre Arc en Rêve have also organised a number of rooms showing the genius of Yona Friedman, the architect and the artist.

In six of the monumental rooms of the CAPC, the beautiful stone walls are covered with the mostly phantasmagorical projects of the artist. Walls covered not only with the many photographs drawn over with white marker pen, but also prints of his more educational side, dispensing ideas and thoughts about different subjects, trying to communicate his view of a healthy way of life.


Alice Cavender on 03.24.08 @ 03:20 PM EST [more..] [1 Comment]

THE FINE ART OF ART COLLECTING: AN INTERVIEW WITH EDWARD GOLDMAN

Every few months, Edward Goldman takes 20 students on a series of Saturday morning art adventures to explore ‘backstage’ of the contemporary Los Angeles art scene. His students have the unique opportunity to visit and interact with gallery owners and museum curators; private collectors in their homes and artists in their studios.

Mr. Goldman is himself a popular figure on the L.A. art scene, with a reputation as the “Raconteur of Los Angeles” and his Fine Art of Art Collecting classes are a natural outgrowth of his interests and expertise. Since 1988, he’s been the art consultant for prominent corporate collections and his distinctive Russian accent has been heard every week on the Los Angeles NPR-Affiliate, KCRW, with his “Art Talk” program.


Laurie Lamson on 03.20.08 @ 08:23 AM EST [more..] [7 Comments]

The Flying House has landed

If you have been reading this blog regularly you will know that I have tended to moan that it's hard to find Emirati artists Well ... I am delighted to say that a whole house full of them turned up in January. Apparently they were also annoyed that nobody seemed to know who they were and so they created the Flying House. http://www.the-flyinghouse.com/index.asp

This is the private house of Abdul Raheem Sharif and it contains the archives and ongoing work of several generations of contemporary Emirati artists. Abdul Raheem, a former businessman, has spent a lot of his own money and time establishing the Flying House after despairing at how much of the work of his two artist brothers, Hassan and Hussain, was getting lost or damaged in the absence of any appropriate storage or display space.


Valerie Grove on 03.17.08 @ 08:06 AM EST [more..] [3 Comments]

mood: Deeper Meaning?

It seems that the further we advance, guided by our new technological toys, the more we are plunging into mass autism, happy to move through life in different shades of grey. This is probably a natural reaction. Too much to take-in in one single life-time; too many fears to juggle. We love the Beast but we are weary of what it will do. On the one hand there’s so much going on on the outside, but on the other, very little trickles back in that is meaningful beyond the immediate gratification of the senses.

There is no need to elaborate much more but in essence we fool ourselves into believing we are out there riding the wave and sharing so much with so many when in reality 90% of the time we’re running for cover, covering up traces of the shallowness of our exploits lest the cool and the hip we so wish to be a part of find us out.

What does this have to do with Art? Heaps.

We’ve forgotten what it is for.


Jose Freitas Cruz on 03.13.08 @ 07:48 AM EST [more..] [20 Comments]

Copyright Bullies

One of the many and varied jobs that I undertake within the art world is as a visual arts copyright consultant for a membership based copyright organisation. This position involves; advising artist's on their rights, advising clients on their responsibilities, issuing copyright licences and investigating possible infringements.

Being on the front line of visual arts copyright means that I have the opportunity to experience the problems associated with this issue from both sides of the fence.
The task of keeping both the artist and the client (image users such as dealers, galleries, cultural institutions, media etc.) happy is difficult at the best of times primarily because of the conflicting priorities and the complexity of copyright law. It is astounding how many people are against the payment of royalties to artist's when images of their works are used by someone else for financial gain. Just when I think that I have heard every excuse and objection to the payment of copyright fees to an artist I am confronted with another that is even more desperate and irrational.


Nicholas Forrest on 03.10.08 @ 08:29 AM EST [more..] [37 Comments]

The time of invention is over

The time of invention is over. We live in times of repetition, quoting, recycling and appropriation. Rigorously everything today is potentially recognizable and sellable as art by the system. Everything, even paintings and sculptures!

We lost historical perspective. We do not even deny the tradition, we simply ignore it. The only interest of all the artistic movements of the past concerns the repertoire of ingredients provided for the post-modern recombinations. Nevertheless, to understand the implications of this new scenario, we must interpret it historically.


Luciano Trigo on 03.06.08 @ 08:13 AM EST [more..]

Is there life after virtual life?

Some time back I found a two video box set of Fritz Lang’s famous films ‘Metropolis’ and the somewhat less successful ‘Things to Come‘ in the cut out bin at a local video outlet. I was thrilled. I love old sci-fi stories and films. I had loaned an earlier copy of Metropolis to a friend who’d never seen it and of course I never saw my video again either. So when I was able to replace it for about the same price from the cut-out bin but got the second film VIRTUALLY FOR FREE! But after thinking about the term virtual and the total amount of money I’d actually spent I realized that I had practiced a bit of creative book keeping in my mind. Truth be told I got nothing for free. Even though I replaced my original film with two for the same price as I paid for the one previously lost I still ended up with two films for the price of two films when I could have had three. The only one who got something for free was my friend who never returned the original. Fooling ourselves into such belief is dangerous. Like virtual money, i.e. our paper economy and more recently our plastic economy, we should worry about abuse, fraud and identity theft. People are living more and more of their lives virtually. It is easy to be fooled or simply to fool ourselves in a virtual world. Think about that. The very words virtual and reality are in opposition pretty much negating each other. Rather than walking down the street and running into an old friend at the mall and sitting down for a cup of coffee and a chat we now say we “ran“ into old friends on the internet. True, we may both be sitting in an internet café having coffee while checking email but it isn’t the same when your are sitting on different sides of the planet.


Walter King on 03.03.08 @ 04:59 PM EST [more..]