|
|
|
|
WELCOME TO THE EAST FINCHLEY OPEN ARTISTS JUNE NEWSLETTER
|
|
|
This Month - Artists Open Houses - David Bowie's furniture - Colour Temperature - Art Quiz - Members News - Herman Wald - and more
If you are viewing on gmail remember to click 'display images' and 'view entire message' when you reach the bottom.
|
|
|
COMING UP IN JUNE - OUR MAJOR EVENT OF THE YEAR - THE ARTISTS OPEN HOUSE WEEKENDS
|
|
I think we need to know about this!
MIKE COLES writes:-
David Bowie (David Robert Jones - 8 January 1947 – 10 January 2016.) was an English songwriter, singer and musician. He had an art and drama training, so it was not a surprise that as he became famous, he began to collect art.
Among his collection were more than 110 pieces of furniture and decorative art from the Memphis Design Group. “Art was, seriously, the only thing I’d ever wanted to own,” Bowie told the New York Times in a 1988 interview. (Although the musician was a passionate patron of the art world, and even a painter himself, the interview was one of only a handful of times he had alluded to his private art collection.)
|
|
So, who were the Memphis Design Group?
61-year-old Ettore Sottsass was an Italian architect and designer based in Milan, Italy, when, in the evening of December 11, 1980, a group of young designers and architects gathered in his living room.
Sottsass’s plan was to create a design collective in a reaction to the status quo. He centred the group's thinking around “radical, funny, and outrageous”—essentially, disregarding what was considered in “good taste” at that time. Art deco, the colour palette of Pop Art and a Kitsch theme from the 1950's inspired their work. Their materials were Formica, fibreglass, MDF, plastic, chipboard, perspex and metal.
The story goes that at the meeting, Bob Dylan's Blonde on Blonde album was playing, and the needle started to jump on the 'Stuck Inside of Mobile with the Memphis Blues Again' track - constantly repeating Memphis over and over again.
Thus the Memphis Group was born, with a two-fold reference to the ancient capital of the Egyptian pharaohs and the birthplace of Elvis Presley in Tennessee. A few days later, a revolutionary collection of design objects was discussed and outlined.
The group focused heavily on furniture design with an emphasis on the unconventional. The designers became known for their bright and bold pieces with clashing colours. At the time, furniture was solely meant to be functional. However, the Memphis Group sought to prove otherwise. With their highly decorative pieces they poked fun at mere functionality, and turned them into works of art. One critic likened their work as a cross between "a shotgun wedding between Bauhaus and Fisher-Price". Often described as ugly, expensive, and impractical. Many assumed the movement was a brief flash in the pan. Few would have predicted its ultimate cultural impact, or the revival of the aesthetic three decades on.
|
|
So how did Bowie become involved?
Bowie came across Memphis early on when, his then girlfriend Iman, had asked Teddy Antolin, (Bowie’s hairdresser), What should I get David for his birthday? Teddy suggested the Memphis Group Bel Air chair. She contacted Peter Shire, the chair’s designer and Memphis member, and said What do I do? Shire said 'Leave it with me' and went to Milan to make sure that they had a nice one for him, and she bought it. When he got it Bowie was hooked and began his Memphis collection.
Peter Shire remembers -“I was, to say the least, pleasantly surprised and validated because he’s a person that I respect in his trajectory.”
|
|
|
The Carlton bookcase/room divider/piece of art
|
|
Arguably the most iconic piece bought by Bowie, is Ettore Sottsass' Carlton. Built from sections of laminated MDF, the Carlton could be seen as a bookcase, a room divider or a dresser – or all three – but like many of the Memphis Group's creations, it seems equally comfortable as a modern art installation. Designed in 1981, copies of it can be found in design museums around the world and is still available for purchase from the Memphis Group website for a modest £11,636 plus VAT and shipping.
Speaking in 2002 about Memphis furniture, Bowie said “It didn’t look serious. It looked like a prank. It mixed formica attitude with marble diffidence. Bright yellows against turquoise. Virus patterns on ceramics. It couldn’t care less about function. each piece of furniture offered a plethora of possibilities, options and inconclusive open ends.”
In retrospect, it’s fitting that these bold, iconic pieces should be owned by a man who was such a non-conformist icon himself, though few people knew of Bowie’s penchant for Memphis-era furniture while he was alive. Unlike the paintings that would have hung untouched and pristine on his walls, Bowie actually used this furniture, (when it wasn’t being loaned to museums.)
|
|
“When I was five, I spent an awful lot of time reading and drawing on the living room table, just like this. I don’t want to follow this line of thought to the inevitable conclusion, but it does look as though all that I’m missing is a model train set. The table is by the peculiar Milanese design company Memphis and is probably made out of hardboard and old socks.”
Memphis Group products were never intended to be timeless, or to have mainstream appeal. They were a statement; a protest against the neutral, understated and functional Modernism that preceded them. Here was a passionate movement driven by form, not function – designed to provoke an emotional response.
Their unconventional ideas were controversial at the time, but have now become widely recognised and appreciated. Conceived to be a deliberate ‘fad', Sottsass dismantled the group in 1986. He and the Memphis Movement had made a form of ‘political’ statement which was intended to unsettle the design world and aimed to blur the barriers between high and low class design. “Every strong idea lasts a very short time,” he said later. “Strong ideas are strong, but they cannot be developed, they are what they are. They come down like bolts of lightning, they are there, but finite.”
Although the movement, and the group behind it, no longer exists, its influence within graphic, interior and textile design is as strong today as it has ever been. Contemporary designers looking for inspiration find many aspects of Memphis design invaluable to their work. Whilst not to everyone’s taste, the boldness of the movement and its creative freedom inspire many to come up with designs regardless of whether they are perceived as being against current trends.
After the collective shut down, its members continued practicing individually. Sottsass himself was a successful postmodernist architect, and it was only after his death in 2007 that interest in the Memphis design aesthetic was re-awakened in a big way.
Memphis was a cultural revolution. Like Bowie’s music it straddled the line between punk pop aesthetics and high art.
After his death in 2016 Bowie's extensive art collection was auctioned at Sotheby’s over three days, raising £1.4 million.
|
|
|
Left; the Valentine typewriter (the most expensive typewriter ever sold) right: Ettore Sottsass
|
|
|
One highlight was a lipstick-red Olivetti Valentine typewriter by Sottsass – estimated at £300-500, it sold for £47,500 – as well as an iconic Casablanca Sideboard from the original 1981 Memphis Group exhibition. “Every colour has a history,” Sottsass said, “Red is the colour of the Communist flag, the colour that makes a surgeon move faster and the colour of passion.”
|
|
MEMBERS NEWS - JUDITH DEVONS
Judith has an exhibition in Edgware
|
|
MEMBERS NEWS - LAURA FISHMAN
Laura has a watercolour workshop coming up at Stephens House and Gardens
|
|
HERMAN WALD
A couple of months ago we did a piece on diamonds which featured the South African Oppenheimer family who controlled the De Beers company, the largest diamond mining company in the world.
It turns out that the father-in-law of EFOA member Gail Altschuler was the famous South African sculptor Herman Wald, who did a number of commissions for Harry Oppenheimer.
Herman Wald (1906 - 1970) was born in Hungary and studied in Budapest, Vienna, Berlin and London. He moved to South Africa in 1937 where he lived and worked until his death.
He was responsible for many large public works in South Africa including the Stampede in central Johannesburg. He also created almost 400 other works that are in collections around the world.
He was born in Cluj, Hungary in 1906, to Rabbi Jacob and Pearl Wald. One of 8 children, he grew up in an atmosphere of old-world Jewish Orthodoxy. The Jewish learning which he received from his father and religious teachers left a deep impression on his life and work.
Between 1926 and 1930 he studied in Budapest at the National Academy of Arts under Zsygmond Kisfaludi Strobl and then in Vienna at the Department of Sculpture of the Kunstgewerbeschule under Eugen Gustav Steinhof and Anton Hanak. He then went to Berlin to work and study with the sculptor Totila Albert. In 1933 the rise of Hitler made it advisable for him to leave, and he went to Paris and then London. By the end of 1933, he had obtained a post at the Working Men's College, teaching sculpture. His own work won him praise and encouragement from Jacob Epstein.
Meanwhile, his brother, Dr. Marcus Wald, had settled in South Africa, where he was appointed Minister to the Kimberley Jewish community. Marcus invited Herman to come to South Africa, and Herman immigrated in 1937. He settled in Johannesburg, where he established a studio, and met Vera Rosenbaum, whom he married in 1942, and had three children, Michael, Pamela and Louis.
In 1956, he created the Monument to the Martyred European Jewry, which stands in the Westpark Jewish Cemetery, Johannesburg, and was ceremoniously unveiled at a special service attended by thousands in May 1959.
In 1960, he was commissioned by Harry Oppenheimer, to design and erect two fountains in memory of his father, the late Sir Ernest Oppenheimer, one in Kimberley, the "Diamond Diggers", situated in the Oppenheimer Memorial Garden at the Kimberley Civic Centre, and the other in Johannesburg - a study of leaping stampeding impala, familiarly known as the 'Oppenheimer Fountain', in the centre of Johannesburg.
In 2011 a bronze cast of a "Diamond Diggers" 3m high figure was erected at the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg with the title “The Unknown Miner”. The iconic status of the work led to the University commissioning a 30cm high, 3D printed version that is presented as an academic prize annually.
Herman Wald lies buried in the Westpark Jewish Cemetery in Johannesburg, beside the massive monument he created to Martyred European Jewry.
|
|
Here is a short quiz about Art - see how much you know
- Which of Picasso’s famous paintings was inspired by the bombings of civilians during the Spanish War?
- American Gothic is one of the most recognizable paintings in the world. Who painted it?
- Who was the first living person to have their art displayed in The Louvre?
- Where did Vincent Van Gogh paint the famous “Starry Night”?
- Who designed the Guggenheim Museum?
- Which abstract expressionist was known for using the “drip technique”?
- This artist is most famous for their close-up perspective paintings of flowers
- Which famous painting by Leonardo Da Vinci was used for target practice by Napoleon’s soldiers
- La Giaconda is better known as what?
- How many words long is Pablo Picasso’s full name?
- The famous painting, “Birth of Venus” by Botticelli, features a goddess floating in the ocean on what?
- Complete the name of this famous painting by Johannes Vermeer. ‘Girl with a _____ ______”
- Which country is Gustav Klimt from?
- Which French artist 'painted' ‘The Snail’ and ‘Goldfish’?
- Which Spanish artist painted ‘The Third of May 1808’?
- The New York City art studio known as The Factory was ran by what famous Pop Art artist?
- The Bauhaus school of design was established by which famous architect?
- The first ceramics were produced by which cultural civilisation?
- During his lifetime, how many paintings did Vincent Van Goh sell in total?
- Which British artist is known for an exhibit which featured a tiger shark preserved in formaldehyde?
- The Angel of the North is by which British sculptor?
- Which artist painted The Night Watch?
- What Dutch artist is famous for his strange geometrical puzzles?
- Who created the Sagrada Familia in Barcelona.
- What was Paul Gauguin's job before he started painting?
ANSWERS AT THE BOTTOM OF THE PAGE
|
|
You can't always trust your eyes! - Colour temperature, and why it’s important.
One of the marvellous features of our sight is its ability to adapt to different lighting situations. Whether we are at home at night with tungsten lighting, in the supermarket with fluorescent lights or at the seaside in bright sunshine, white always looks like white, red always looks like red etc.
Light is a type of electromagnetic radiation – visible light is, in fact, only a small segment of the total electromagnetic spectrum, but it is the one form the eye can perceive. (Colours are specific wavelengths and range from about 400 nm at the violet end of the spectrum to 700 nm at the red end.)
Your brain may be able to decide what is white, but light sources can't and range from warm (e.g., candles) to cool (shaded daylight) and produce light at specific, and differing frequencies.
Why is this important in Art? To make or judge a piece of art it needs to be painted and viewed ideally in the same colour temperature of light.
Certainly, since the Renaissance North light (in the Northern Hemisphere) has been considered the ideal. North light is sunlight coming through a north-facing window. Because it does not come directly from the sun, it remains at a consistent angle and colour throughout the day and does not create sharp shadows. (In the Southern hemisphere, unsurprisingly, it’s called South Light)
Colour temperature is measured in degrees Kelvin. In the graphic below you will see that a candle is around 1500 degrees Kelvin, tungsten lighting around 3200 Kelvin and bright sunlight around 5600 degrees – shaded sunlight can go even high – 9000K and beyond. Counter-intuitively, the higher the Kelvin temperature, the 'cooler' the light. Whatever the colour of the source of the light your brain still make white look white.
Before artificial lighting, both the artist and their audience would both see art under natural light (either coming from the north or scattered in some way to reduce glare). However, museums and galleries have become reliant mostly on electric lighting. This means that the audience may see art differently to how it was intended and may also miss out on observing subtle changes in shadows and highlights as light moves throughout the day.
Studies into art perception have found that the colour temperature of north light (around 6000K) may be too cool for optimum appreciation of most art. For example, a 2004 study found 3600K (roughly domestic evening lighting), to be the preferred temperature – a warm colour temperature which is commonly used in museums. A 2008 study by the Optical Society of America used different methodology to suggest 5100K as the optimal temperature – although this is still slightly warmer than natural north light.
However, the most comprehensive study on this topic was done by the University of Vienna in 2019. It somehow divided appreciation further into 'beauty', 'emotional arousal' and 'interest', and studied both portraits and abstract art. While the findings for portraits suggest a warmer colour temperature in line with previous studies, a cooler colour temperature was preferred for abstract art.
So there you have it – here is a simple guide aimed at photographers but it applies generally:-
|
|
QUIZ ANSWERS
1 Guernica
2. Grant Wood
3. Georges Braque
4. From the window of his asylum room at Saint-Rémy-de-Provence
5. Frank Lloyd Wright
6. Jackson Pollock
7. Georgia O’Keeffe
8. The Last Supper
9. The Mona Lisa
10. 23 words
11. A seashell
12. Pearl earing
13. Austria
14. Henri Matisse
15. Francisco Goya
16. Andy Warhol
17. Walter Gropius
18. Japan
19. One
20. Damian Hirst
21. Antony Gormley
22. Rembrandt
23. M.C. Escher
24. Antonio Gaudi
25. A stockbroker
|
|
ABOUT EAST FINCHLEY OPEN ARTISTS
Find out about us on our website www.eastfinchleyopen.org.uk
There you will find details of all our current members plus photo's of their work and contact details plus information on recent and upcoming exhibitions
MEMBERSHIP: If you are interested in joining East Finchley Open Artists please contact the Membership Secretary at membership@eastfinchleyopen.org.uk
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
