Marc and Macke: Pioneers of Expressionism

Tuesday Afternoons - 12:30-3:30pm - 7 sessions - July 10 - August 21 - at the Palos Verdes Art Center

Franz Marc, Tiger, 1912; Oil on canvas, 111 x 111.5 cm; Stadtische Galerie im Lenbachhaus, Munich (click photo for larger image)August Macke, Our Street in Gray (Unsere Strasse in Grau), 1911, oil on canvas, Städtische Galerie im Lenbachhaus, Munich (click photo for larger image)Franz Marc and Auguste Macke were good friends--and major trailblazers of Expressionism. Marc--a German artist best known for the intense mysticism of his paintings of animals--was a pioneer in the birth of abstract art. French painter Macke's interests were directed toward gentle figurations of women, children, and the landscape--resulting in painted expressions of feelings and moods, rather than objective realities. Tragically, both of these artists’ lives were cut short by WWI. But their legacies significantly impacted modern art--and live on to the present day. On this fascinating journey--we’ll explore the lives and art of Marc and Macke--along with those artists who significantly influenced their work. We’ll also examine their enduring contributions to the history of art. Space is limited so register now! Click here for more info and to register.

Unseen Egon Schiele Work to be Unveiled at the New Richard Nagy Gallery in UK

Egon Schiele, Kneeling Nude in Coloured Dress, 1911. Gouache, watercolour, and pencil on paper, 56 x 38.4 cm (22 x 15 1/8 in). Private Collection, Courtesy of Richard Nagy Ltd, London

From ArtDaily.org

More than forty-five extraordinary works by Austrian artist Egon Schiele, previously unseen in the UK, will be unveiled at Richard Nagy’s new gallery on Old Bond Street from 07 February – 04 March 2011. Much of the four thousand works Schiele produced during his short lifetime can only be seen in Vienna; at the Belvedere, the Albertina and the Leopold Museum, or New York, primarily at the Neue Galerie

While Schiele is recognised as one of the greatest draftsmen of the 20th Century, with watercolours making over $11 million at auction, his work is absent from museum collections in the United Kingdom and has been given little public attention in the past twenty years. In 1989, the Royal Academy of Arts staged the first and last museum exhibition in the country, Egon Schiele and his Time. Since then Schiele’s work has only made fleeting appearances in group shows, to which Nagy has loaned pieces. Focusing exclusively on women, this exhibition provides a rare opportunity to discover museum-quality drawings and watercolours from the artist’s most creative ‘Mature Period’ (1910-1918).

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The Movement of Picasso

Pablo Picasso The Old Fisherman (Salmereon) 1895, Museu de Montserrat, Barcelona

Whenever I revisit the works of Pablo Picasso I discover new aspects and elements to his art and am in awe of his perpetual evolution. In surveys of Modern Art, I tell students that the broadest, most well-known movements within the period are Fauvism, Cubism, Expressionism, Dada, Surrealism, and Picasso. He cannot be categorized--and he influenced virtually all of his contemporaries, as well as the artists of later generations. His influence continues to be felt today One of my favorite class exercises is to show slides of 8 or 10 paintings--none of them with captions underneath--and ask students to try and name the artists who created these works. They come up with all kinds of answers. But...the answer is that all of the paintings I show were created by Picasso. Who would have thought--for example--that the painting shown here is a Picasso?