Featured Artist Friday - Chuck Close: A Contemporary Master

Chuck Close -Roy II - 1940 - Oil on canvas, 102 x 84 in. (259.1 x 213.4 cm) - Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC (click photo for larger image)American artist Chuck Close (born 1940) achieved fame as a photorealist, through his massive-scale portraits. Though a catastrophic spinal artery collapse in 1988 left him severely paralyzed, he has continued to paint and produce work that remains sought after by museums and collectors.

Featured Artist Friday: Sylvia Plimack Mangold

Sylvia Plimack Mangold - The Maple Tree (Summer) - 2011 - oil on linen - 15 x 20 in/38 x 51 cm - Photo:  Joerg Lohse (click photo for larger image)American artist Sylvia Plimack Mangold (born 1938) studied at the Cooper Union and Yale University. She known for her representational depictions of interior spaces and the natural environment, which sometimes inclde trompe l’oeil elements. Mangold lives and works in New York, and her works can be found in some of the most prestigious museums in the country.

Clown Sleeping While Sitting on a NYC Park Bench Is Actually Part of the Lightness of Being Public Art Installation

Photo by Scott Beale“If you are in City Hall Park in New York City, you might happen upon a colorful ‘big-bellied’ clown sleeping while sitting on a park bench...” don’t be fooled!

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Rammellzee - A Man Ahead of his Time

Contemporary Graffiti artist and art theorist Rammellzee was known for his East Village wild style of tag work.(click photo for larger image)

“Always ahead of his time, New York artist and performer Rammellzee (1960-2010) is credited with being one of the inventors of graffiti art as we know it. Through writing, drawing and painting on subway cars in spray paint and felt-tip pen in the late ‘70s, he became interested in the symbolic value of letters.”

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Rammellzee was born in 1960 in Far Rockaway, Queens, New York, and died there on June 28, 2010, sadly, at the age of 49.

Damien Hirst

Damien Hirst - Isolated Elements Swimming in the Same Direction for the Purpose of Understanding (Left) - 1991 - Glass, painted MDF, ramin, steel, acrylic, fish and formaldehyde solution (click photo for larger image)Damien Hirst (born 1965) is an English artist, entrepreneur and art collector. He is the most prominent member of the group known as the Young British Artists, who dominated the art scene in Britain during the 1990s. He is reportedly Britain’s richest artist!