Winslow Homer Goes to England

An exhibition currently at the Worcester Art Museum focuses on the time that American artist Winslow Homer (1836–1910) spent in England and how it affected his later art.

Winslow Homer, Hark! The Lark, 1882,

The show is based on two major works by Homer, and it includes a lot of his drawings and watercolors. Homer's work shows the influence of well-known English artists such as J. M. W. Turner and Lawrence Alma-Tadema....

Breton, The Lark

....and some French painters such as Jules Breton.

It also includes the work of some lesser known artists such as John Robertson Reid, whose 1879 painting "Toil and Pleasure" shows some fieldworkers watching the hunt go by in the distance.

Winslow Homer, The Gale, 1883-93, American, 1836-1910, Oil on canvas

The show is accompanied by a catalog published by the Yale University Press which authoritatively explores how these artistic encounters affected Homer and his work.

According to the authors, "he attempted to reconcile his affinity for traditional subject matter with his increasingly modern aesthetic vision. Coming Away complicates our understanding of his work and convincingly argues that it has more cosmopolitan underpinnings than previously thought."
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Catalog: Coming Away: Winslow Homer and England, hardbound, 168 pp., more than 79 color plates.
Exhibition: Coming Away: Winslow Homer and England" at the Worcester Art Museum through February 4, 2018. It then continues at the Milwaukee Art Museum starting March 2.

Harry Anderson book on its way

The Art of Harry Anderson is the next in the lavish series of hardcover monographs from The Illustrated Press, the small company that previously produced the books on Tom Lovell, Jon Whitcomb, and Dean Cornwell.

Born in 1906, Harry Anderson is best known as for his magazine illustrations of children and romantic situations, probably the hardest subjects to pull off successfully.  

He was always a resourceful colorist. Look how the painting above is restricted almost entirely to blue-green, red-violet, and yellow ochre.

Although I haven't actually held the book in my hands yet, it will start off with a short biography, but the bulk of the pages will be devoted to big, beautiful color illustrations — 300 of them in the 224 page hardbound book. I wish all art books gave so much space to art.

There are representative examples from all the categories of art he was engaged in: editorial, advertising, calendar, religious, and gallery art. 

Much of the art in the book is reproduced from originals, but some is printed from vintage tearsheets. I like seeing those too because it gives a sense of the graphic presentation in the magazine layouts, so characteristic of the time.

The standard edition is $44.95 USD, and there's also a special edition for $64.95 that comes in a custom slipcase and is limited to 100 copies. Both editions are hardbound, 12 x 9 inches.

You'll never see these books at Barnes and Noble or a museum bookstore, because it just doesn't pay for small publishers like the Illustrated Press to deal with brick-and-mortar retail accounts or to warehouse an overly large printing. The earlier books, The Art of Jon Whitcomb and Tom Lovell—Illustrator books have sold out, and are only available on the secondary market at much higher prices. The Dean Cornwell book was brought back into print by popular demand and is still available.

You can preview the entire book online and preorder the book now at Illustrated Press. Shipping is expected to take place in March of 2018. 

The Orientalists

The best art book on Orientalism was written by Kristian Davies, who I sketched in New York.

Orientalists: Western Artists in Arabia, the Sahara, Persia and India is lavishly illustrated with paintings by leading artists such as Jean-Léon Gérôme, Ludwig Deutsch, and Leon Belly (whose painting appears on the cover).

He includes a whole chapter on the painting "Zaporozhian Cossacks of Ukraine Writing a Letter in Reply to the Sultan of Turkey" by Ilya Repin (1844-1930), quoting the exact written exchange between the Sultan and the Cossacks. It's too spicy to quote in this blog, but you can read it here.

There's also a chapter telling the story of Gustav Bauernfeind, who created ambitious paintings, yet died unknown in Palestine in 1904.

Davies traveled all over the Middle East, Europe, and North Africa researching his book, and even found many of the locations that the paintings were based on. He shares insight into the actual experience of European artists working in the Near East, including renting market stalls and painting the view seen through little window slits to avoid censure.

The Arab Sentinel by Antonio Maria Fabres y Costa

Unfortunately, most other recent books on Orientalist art repeat the usual angle about the evils of colonialism, and they skip over any meaningful insights about the paintings themselves, how they were created, and how they were received in their day.

Orientalists: Western Artists in Arabia, the Sahara, Persia and India (Link goes to Amazon) is unfortunately out of print and is getting rather expensive, but if you love the subject, it's worth it.
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Previously on GurneyJourney
Arab Guard
Contre Jour Lighting

Andrew Wyeth Centennial

This will be a good summer for fans of Andrew Wyeth's work.

On July 12, to honor what would have been his 100th birthday, The US Postal Service will release a pane of stamps of his artwork, including this slightly cropped version of Christina's World.

There's an exhibit of his original art called "Andrew Wyeth at 100: A Family Remembrance" at the Fenimore Art Museum in Cooperstown, New York. The curator is his granddaughter Victoria, who included some artwork, ephemera, and photos that haven't been seen before.

The Brandywine River Museum in Chadds Ford, Pennsylvania is hosting a large exhibition called "Andrew Wyeth: In Retrospect," showcasing some of his best known portraits, landscapes, and interiors from Chadds Ford, Pennsylvania, where he lived, and from Maine, where he spent his summers.

Along with that exhibit is a catalog published by Yale University Press called Andrew Wyeth: In Retrospect. The book is heavy with academic writing, and as one Amazon review put it, "I bought it for the pictures. Who really reads these things?"

For those who want a slim, affordable book with lots of artwork, I recommend the new book by Rizzoli publishers book called Andrew Wyeth: People and Places. This compact book (8 x 7 inches, softcover) features highlights from his seven decade career. After a short biographical introduction, the rest of the book is all his most famous artwork.

Rizzoli has also released a book American Treasures: The Brandywine River Museum of Art featuring the highlights of the Brandywine River Museum, with photos, artwork, and stories about the artistic heritage of the Pennsylvania valley.

If you want a book that gets into Wyeth's thought process, I recommend Andrew Wyeth: A Spoken Self-Portrait, based on extensive interviews with his biographer Richard Meryman. Meryman's definitive biography Andrew Wyeth: A Secret Life is also a must read. Wyeth himself picked out Meryman to be his biographer, told him everything, and encouraged him not to spare any of the hard truths.


One of the best video documentaries about Wyeth's life is the one produced by former Python Michael Palin. (Link to YouTube)
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Links
Cooperstown, New York: Fenimore Art Museum "Andrew Wyeth at 100: A Family Remembrance"
will be on view through September 4, 2017.
Chadds Ford, Pennsylvania: The Brandywine River Museum, "Andrew Wyeth: In Retrospect" will be on view through September 17.
Books
Andrew Wyeth: In Retrospect
Andrew Wyeth: People and Places
American Treasures: The Brandywine River Museum of Art
Andrew Wyeth: A Spoken Self-Portrait
Andrew Wyeth: A Secret Life

Book Review: Portrait Drawing by Mau-Kun Yim

I recently had a chance to read a copy of Lessons in Masterful Portrait Drawing: A Classical Approach to Drawing the Head by Chinese-born artist Mau-Kun Yim.

The book consists mainly of Mr. Yim's charcoal portrait drawings from life.  

The book includes many step-by-step sequences that show his process. He starts with a foundation of straight lines to establish the structure of the head and the placement of the features.

Then he adds masses of tone in a sculptural but painterly way. He describes drawing as "painting without color," and he compares making a drawing to building a house. Edges and highlights are reserved for last.

The title of the book, "Lessons in Masterful Portrait Drawing: A Classical Approach to Drawing the Head" is a bit of a misnomer, because it's not really presented as specific lessons to follow so much as ideas and drawings to be inspired by. 

The book is helpful for the drawings themselves, which are well reproduced. A gallery section of full-page examples takes up the last 50 pages of the 144 page hardcover book. I found the book is also helpful for understanding his philosophy, which he has developed through his study of many traditions of drawing: not only Chinese, but also European, American, and Soviet. 

He quotes the teaching of Soviet master Konstantin Maksimov on the principle of wholeness: "Start with large blocks, straight lines, and masses of light and shadow, before gradually moving on to the features, details, and expression in a drawing. If you can get the relationship between the building blocks right, then a harmonious whole will emerge."

He is a believer in keeping a sketchbook. "Sketch often and sketch slowly," he recommends. "Is faster better in sketching?" he asks. "Not always! I've seen many private studios in the West, Hong Kong and Taiwan where the time allowed for nude sketches is so short that the paintings come out looking like wild scrawls."

There are several videos showing his method on YouTube, such as this one, sponsored by Nitram Charcoal. There are other videos on his own YouTube channel, where he also shares his masterful oil portraits. (Link to YouTube)

Lessons in Masterful Portrait Drawing: A Classical Approach to Drawing the Head 

His website is Mau-Kun Yim

New Book on Bernie Fuchs

Bernie Fuchs was a living legend when I entered the illustration world in the late 1970s, best known for the golden, glowing effect of his oil rub-out technique.



What I didn't appreciate until later was Fuch's versatility. He painted in various media and styles, always with arresting approaches to color, composition, and viewpoint.

Bernie Fuchs (1932-2009) got his start in the midwest and soon was hired by Detroit as one of the background artists for car ads. When he arrived in the New York illustration market, he rose quickly to the top and was the youngest to be honored in the Society of Illustrators Hall of Fame.

 

Dan Zimmer, publisher of Illustration magazine, continues his series of illustrator monographs with the first comprehensive book on Fuchs, spanning all the diverse artwork he produced over a long and successful career.

The 240-page book has more than 300 illustrations, and it begins with a 28-page bio by David Apatoff, author of the "Illustration Art" blog.

Most of the reproductions are from original paintings and drawings, along with quality reproductions of preliminary drawings, sketches, and vintage tearsheets.

A low-resolution preview lets you check out all the art in the book. You can now preorder the book directly from the publisher for $44.95. It will ship in July.

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You can follow the book's author, David Apatoff, who is now writing about illustration art for the Saturday Evening Post. Here's an article about the William Heath Robinson exhibit in Wilmington, and here's another free online article about how magazines became an important patron of the arts in the 20th century.

Bernie Fuchs (1932-2009) on Wikipedia.

"Fundamentals of Painting" now in English

The best source for Russian academic teaching methods are the two books by Vladimir Mogilevtsev, the head of the Drawing Department of the Russian Academy of Arts (also known as the Repin Institute) in St. Petersburg.

But for a long time, his teaching was difficult to access unless you could speak Russian. Fortunately, last fall, his book Fundamentals of Drawing was released in an English edition, and now his companion volume called "Fundamentals of Painting is also available in English.

It's a big hardbound book in full color with high quality printing, 13 3/4" x 9 3/4" (35 x 25cm), 96 pages.

It includes concept, materials, charcoal drawing, preliminary sketches, color relationships, copying, and final details.

The book is organized in a series of extended step-by-step demos: a female head study, a male portrait with hands, a male nude figure, and a copy of a Rembrandt portrait.

There's a fixed layout. On the right hand page is a large reproduction of a work in progress. On the left hand page is a commentary about each stage, with additional illustrations to illuminate his points.

About the charcoal preliminary, he says: "We are solving two tasks: composition and large proportions. Then we mark out the shape of the head, hands, clothes etc. In the silhouette of the head we find the outline of the face and hair...Draw according to the principle from general to specific."

Mr. Mogilevtsev discusses issues that face any painter, such as color relationships, mutual penetration of colors, tonal value, silhouette, mass, and shapes. 

Throughout the presentation, he shows teaching examples by masters of the past, such as Titian, Holbein, Repin, Serov and Fechin.














The quotes from the text are very helpful and no-nonsense, for example:

"Look at your sketch and determine what are the most important and what are the minor details. You should not allow all details to be equal. The sense of unity and completion is achieved when the details vary in significance and the degree of execution. In a portrait, the most important detail is usually the eyes. Next are the nose, the mouth, and the chin, then the forehead and the neck. After that we create variety in edges of the silhouette of the face, the hair, and the clothes."





At Amazon:

Fundamentals of Painting (English edition)

Fundamentals of Drawing (English Edition)

You can also buy them directly from the publisher 4-Art in Russia.

Also recommended 
Academic Drawings and Sketches  is 168 pages, softcover, 9.5" x 13.5".
Anatomy of Human Figure: The Guide for Artists (RUSSIAN language)