We just wanted to give you a quick, little preview of some of the art and design books that have arrived from publishers in the past couple of weeks. We’ve got a few other blog posts already in the pipeline, but the next Bookmarks review won’t be far off!
image credit: Julie Klima
A new discovery (at least for us!) this week is this fantastic artwork. It’s called “Cartonlandia” and is the work of Mexican American artist Ana Serrano. You can’t tell from this image, but it’s HUGE - well over 5 foot tall! Have a look at her blog to see the making process.
image credit: Julie Klima
A new discovery (at least for us!) this week is this fantastic artwork. It’s called “Cartonlandia” and is the work of Mexican American artist Ana Serrano. You can’t tell from this image, but it’s HUGE - well over 5 foot tall! Have a look at her blog to see the making process.
Stanley Spencer, Riveters, 1941 | © Imperial War Museum
Perhaps it was listening the recent BBC Radio 2 programme about one of my favourite songs - Elvis Costello & Clive Langer’s Shipbuilding that reminded me of one of my favourite artists - Stanley Spencer. He created beautiful works often on an epic scale about war, industry and religion.
Click on the image above to see a larger version… and also click here to get an idea of the size of the work!
If I’ve whetted your appetite for more there’s a great book entitled Men of the Clyde: Stanley Spencer’s Vision at Port Glasgow available on Amazon
Kolonihavehus, 2010 | steel, found plexiglass, paint | 12’ x 12’ x 14’
We can’t get enough of neon brights for our Tuesday Huesday blog posts at the moment - it must be a subconscious antidote to the grey, wet weather we’ve been having!
When I came across Kolonihavehus (Danish for allotment) by Tom Fruin it just blew me away - there just aren’t enough superlatives to describe it! I’d have loved a visit to Copenhagen to see the installation in the flesh (or should that be “in the glass”?)
Go to his website to see more of his sculptural artwork - his Brooklyn watertower is breathtaking! It’s there until June 2013 so maybe I’ll just have to take a trip to New York instead!
This striking painting from 1914, entitled Returning to the Trenches is by C R W Nevinson, considered one of Britain’s greatest war artists. The image conveys the movement and sound of the marching troops so vividly. I prefer his earlier style of work of which this is my favourite example - much influenced by the Futurist and Vorticist Movements.
You can see a larger selection of his work on the Bridgeman Art, Culture, History website. There’s a very rare book entitled, ‘C.R.W.Nevinson: The Twentieth Century’ by Richard Ingleby. There are currently only two copies available on Amazon - the cheaper being a mere £260.64!
What a lovely surprise - and what a lovely present!
We have Jane Blease to thank. We recently sold this Danish table & chairs to Jane & her partner, Neil. When they came to collect the set from Todmorden last weekend she gave us one of her artworks. It was really kind of her - and we love it!
A corner of our bedroom is all shades of yellow ochre & brown - the seed head design is fabulous and echoes the shape of the clock on the wall above. We think it looks great in its new home!
She produces these intricate & distinctive pieces using coloured embroidery threads and wood veneers. As well as framed artworks she makes light shades, jewellery and accessories. We’ve admired her displays at the Great Northern Contemporary Craft Fair and have featured her work in previous posts.
If you like the look of her work check out Jane’s shop!
We’ve not made a trip down to London in YEARS! It’s not that far for us to travel - only about five hours away, but Fudge isn’t good at spending time in kennels.
There are two art exhibitions on at the moment in the capital that we’d really love to see - completely different work, but equally exciting. They are the Yayoi Kasama at Tate Modern and Lucian Freud at the National Portrait Gallery.
They both run until early summer, so hopefully we’ll manage to fit in a visit! Have you been to see either? Are there any others you’d recommend? Let us know!
We’ve just discovered Jennifer Maravillas, a USA-based, self-titled, “Transcontinental Cartographer”. Many of her cityscape works bring to mind the illustrations of one of our favourite artists, Miroslav Sasek.
Her prints are very reasonably priced - so get yourself over to her shop!
Longtime followers of our blog will know that we love the art of Charley Harper. This one, entitle “Octoberama” is one of our favourites! He was very prolific and his work can be found as originals artworks, prints, books, calendars, stationery, mouse mats… the list goes on & on… all of which can be bought from either the Charley Harper estate website or Amazon UK or USA.
Adelle entered an online competition recently. Up for grabs on the Vintage by Hemingway blog were 3 copies of a Bridget Riley catalogue - and she won!! This is the package that arrived this week.
The catalogue has been produced to accompany an exhibition of the artist’s work being held at Kettle’s Yard in Cambridge.
And, taking a quick peek inside, here are a few of Bridget Riley’s classic & influential designs.
We’ll enjoy reading our copy - thanks to the guys at Vintage by Hemingway!
P.S. - The exhibition has just been extended until 31st December 2011.
These are the big eyes of our latest owl - in this case a pottery money box.
They never stay with us long as these feathered friends are consistently popular in our shop.
Whether in the form of money boxes, mugs, pot stands, textile prints, pictures or book illustrations.
We’ve blogged a fair few times about the great illustrator, Kenneth Townsend. He designed the cutest owl as part of his Menagerie series - apparently the owl was his favourite animal!
Another wonderful illustrator with a thing for owls was Celestino Piatti who once said, “You can draw an owl a thousand times, and never find out its secret”.
image credit: Fishink
We’ve had a quick trawl on the web for some more owls - here are some favourites:
image credit: Vintage Kids’ Books my Kid Loves
Wise Ol’ Canister, Orange: £118 - Anthropologie
Happy owl open edition print by Matte Stephens: $35 - Etsy
image credit: mmmcrafts
image credit: Shailesh Chavda
Abstraction (still life), 1948
Welcome to a new slot on our blog entitled Tuesday Huesday, where we highlight a pattern, artwork, interior, illustration, clothing etc whose colour combination catches our eye.
Abstraction (still life), 1948
We start off with the Uruguayan artist, José Pedro Costigliolo (1902-1985), whose work is very reminiscent of the cubist style.
Many thanks to Kevin Anzalone of Mid-Centuria for introducing us to this wonderful artist!
Original images via Castells, Uruguay.
We do love a crisp, sunny, winter dog walk. This picture, a 1960s Athena original print on board, really captures the scene & atmosphere.
It’s on its way to our antiques centre pitch - one of those items that’s hard to part with, but we’ve had the pleasure of living with it for a long time. Having said that, it might never make it - it’s stalled near the front door as we give it admiring glances all over again.
It’s by artist Edward Ripley and is entitled Winter Morning. We’d really like to view the original oil - anyone of you out there own it?!!
You can sense that there’s real texture to the paint, particularly in the snowy fields.
The image is so strong though that it still makes a fabulous print!
These were an interesting little purchase recently.
This collection of watercolours caught our eye as we passed a secondhand shop in Clitheroe.
They were housed in a mish-mash of quite horrible frames, but we could see that they were in fact, original watercolour sketches… and very well executed.
They really capture the essence of the Northern country landscape with which we’re so familiar…
…moorlands, fells, river valleys, lanes, dry stone walls, farms and fields.
The artist is J A Hurley - who actually lives & works in the Clitheroe area. We’ve seen prints of his work in art galleries, so it was a nice to find a bundle of originals. Especially as we paid a very reasonable £40.00 for a total of 11 small paintings.
We’re planning to re-frame them and put them up for sale in our pitch in Picture House Antiques… after snaffling a couple away for our own walls!
