Lucien Freud and Kitty Garman

Lucien Freud - Portrait - 1947 - Oil on canvas - 47 cm (18.5 in.), Width: 38.1 cm (15 in.) Private Collection (click photo for larger image)Kitty Garman, daughter of sculptor Jacob Epstein, was one of three high-flying and scandalous sisters in the London set—the bohemian Bloomsbury set, between the wars—and she was Lucien Freud’s (1922-2011) first wife. The painting featured here was his first portrait of her, completed the year before their marriage. Freud was a former lover of Lorna Garman, Kitty's aunt.

Avian Avatars

The Realist: A Red-Tailed Hawk. @ Broadway between 37th and 38th (click photo for larger image)If you're in New York City, April marks the final month to see "Avian Avatars", a group of five enormous sculptures , each symbolizing a unique, mythical bird, on Broadway’s Garment District Plazas, between 36th and 41st streets.

"Crafted from maple saplings, wire ties and found objects, the sculptures stand from 18 to 26 feet tall, with each bird sharing a unique myth. Avian Avatars is meant to indicate transformation, encouraging the public to heed to the stories about current human impact on the changing natural world."

Read all about it HERE...

Signs - Symbols and More…

Adolph Gottlieb - “Pictograph” - c. 1941-1946, National Museum of American Art, Washington D.C. (click photo for larger image)Adolph Gottlieb (1903-1974) was an American painter, sculptor, and printermaker—regarded as an Abstract Expressionist. According to ArtLex, he “referred to the elements of his paintings as pictographs, meaning signs, symbols, calligraphs, or glyphs. Sometimes he set each of these within its own compartment, as he did here, and sometimes he layered one above another, as he did in many later examples of his work.”

Feelings and Emotion

Hans Hofmann, “Simplex Munditiis” - 1962, oil on canvas, 84 x 72 inches, Santa Barbara Museum of Art, CAAbstract Expressionist typically applied paint rapidly and forcefully to huge surfaces, to show feelings and emotions. They painted gesturally and non-geometrically, using large brushes, dripping paint, and even throwing paint and other objects onto the surface. Abstract Expressionism appears to be accidental and based on chance, but it is actually highly planned. Hans Hofmann (1880-1966) was “…celebrated for his exuberant, color-filled canvases, and renowned as an influential teacher for generations of artists….”

Romare Bearden: In His Own Words

Romare Bearden - The Prevalence of Ritual Baptism - 1964 - Romare H. Bearden, American, b. Charlotte, North Carolina, 1912–1988 - Photomechanical reproductions, paint, and graphite on board, 9 1/8 x 12 in. (23.2 x 30.5 cm) - Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC (click photo for larger image)

“I am afraid, despite my intentions, that in some instances commentators have tended to overemphasize what they believed to be the social elements in my work. But while my response to certain human elements is as obvious as it is inevitable, I am also pleased to note that upon reflection many persons have found that they were as much concerned with the aesthetic implications of my paintings as with, what may possibly be, my human compassion.” 

- Romare Bearden, 1969, quoted in Twentieth-Century Artists on Art