The first ever Seattle Art Fair is in the books and by most accounts it's another feather in the cap for the Emerald City. The tech boom with its inherent money showers combined with our proximity to Asia make for an enticing mix and when Paul Allen throws his hat in the ring usually something good happens. I have been saying this for a while now; there are few cities in America as well positioned as Seattle to become one of the leading cities of the 21st century. The show consisted of a healthy mix of local galleries with some of the big boys from...
Susanna Hesselberg’s Underground Library
Every two years on the coast of Denmark the Sculpture by the Sea exhibition takes place. It is the nations largest outdoor exhibition and for this years incarnation 56 site-specific sculptures graced the Danish coast. Among them was Susanna Hesselberg's homage to her father and books: “When My Father Died It Was Like a Whole Library Had Burned Down” (a reference to Laurie Anderson’s song World Without End). Reminiscent of the rabbit hole in Alice in Wonderland the library descends deep underground. With the top sealed and only the page ends visible the library is completely inaccessible. The work powerfully portrays the depth of...
The Literary Portraits of Alvaro Tapia
Among the healthy portrait output of Chilean illustrator and filmmaker Alvaro Tapia reside a neat series of literary portraits. From Poe to Rushdie these captivating portraits remind me a bit of the work of Ralph Steadman Enjoy! Alvaro Tapia's website
Cream of Wheat and the Golden Age of Illustration
From 1903-1928 The Cream of Wheat Co. ran a national advertising campaign to promote their "breakfast porridge." The campaign featured American illustrators and appeared in the leading periodicals of the day. Lucky for them their campaign ran during the time of Americas Golden Age of Illustration. They hired the likes of N. C. Wyeth, James Montgomery Flagg, Jessie Willcox Smith and J. C. Leyendecker to help spread the word. By the time Cream of Wheat was acquired by Nabisco in 1962 the campaign was long forgotten. In 1980 Dave Stivers, the archivist at Nabisco Brands, hit the jackpot. In a group of metal lockers at the former headquarters...
R.B. Kitaj: First Series – Some Poets
Charles Olson R.B. Kitaj was one of the most significant painters of the post-war period. His collage-like figurative paintings were a major influence on the British Pop Art scene. Lucky for us much of his work also has literary underpinnings. Educated in the U.S. Kitaj spent most of his adult life in London. He returned to the US in 1967 to teach at the University of California Berkeley and then the University of California Los Angeles before returning to London in 1972. It was during his stint on the West Coast that Kitaj undertook, First Series - Some Poets, a series of portraits of mostly West Coast poets completed...