A passionate and personal view of England by one of our greatest living photographers, In England reflected on England from the 1950s to the present day. For half a decade McCullin recorded images of England, highlighting issues surrounding wealth, race, class and social justice. This was the first ever exhibition dedicated exclusively to this aspect of his work.
The images, taken mainly from two books – Homecoming (1979) and In England (2007) – are often imbued with their social or political context. Several exhibited photographs were taken during McCullin’s trips to Bradford and around his own home city, London, as well as Liverpool and the North East. The exhibition also included McCullin’s first ever published photograph, The Guv’nors.
Dr Marcus Bunyan
Many thankx to the National Media Museum for allowing me to publish the photographs in the posting. Please click on the photographs for a larger version of the image.
A passionate and personal view of Britain by one of our greatest living photographers is being showcased in a major free-to-enter exhibition at the National Media Museum from 8 May – 27 September 2009.
Don McCullin – In England reflects on Britain from the 1950s to the present day. For half a decade McCullin, in addition to travelling the world photographing war ravaged countries to great acclaim, has been recording England and highlighting issues surrounding wealth, race, class and social justice.
The National Media Museum is hosting the first ever exhibition dedicated exclusively to this aspect of his work. Curator Colin Harding said: “Although Don is probably best known for his war photography, he is not purely a war photographer and does not class himself as such. However, many of the 70 black and white images displayed in this new show are clearly influenced by his experiences abroad. Don’s vision of England is not a pretty one. He photographed what he saw and what he saw was often harsh – poverty, unemployment, discrimination, but he always photographs with passion and empathy.”
Many of the images have a political or social context and are taken extensively from two books – Homecoming (1979) and In England (2007); coincidentally published in the same years Margaret Thatcher came to power and Tony Blair left power respectively. Some of the images will be publicly displayed for the first time.
Don McCullin – In England gives audiences the chance to see his first ever published photograph – of The Guv’nors, a 1950s gang from his neighbourhood around Finsbury Park, London. The picture appeared in The Observer newspaper after a policeman was murdered by one of the gang members.
Several exhibited photographs were taken during McCullin’s trips to Bradford (the National Media Museum’s home city) and around his own home city, London, as well as Liverpool and the North East. Other aspects of English life are featured – a series of landscapes, including a study of Hadrian’s Wall taken earlier this year, a 1968 shoot with The Beatles, and trips to the seaside and Royal Ascot.
To complement the exhibition a new area will be produced on the Museum’s website offering exclusive video interviews, images, further information, and links to other relevant websites.
Text from the National Media Museum website Nd [Online] Cited 12/09/2009 no longer available online
Photographer Don McCullin on his early years In 2009 Don McCullin spoke to us about his early years as part of his In England exhibition at the museum.
According to McCullin, a postcard of this photograph sold ‘like hotcakes’ in Australia. McCullin found Snowy, the man in the portrait, standing by the side of the road with an ice-cream barrow in Cambridge, in the early 1970s. He pulled the mouse out of his pocket and put it into his mouth as McCullin took pictures.
Hill & Adamson (Scottish, active 1843-1848) [Lane and Peddie as Afghans] 1843 Salted paper print from a paper negative 20.6 × 14.3cm (8 1/8 × 5 5/8 in.) The J. Paul Getty Museum
The team of Hill and Adamson initially began making dramatic portrait photographs as studies for one of Hill’s composite paintings. They also produced costume studies, including this scene in which Arabic scholar Mr. Lane and Mr. (Peddie) Redding appear in foreign garb.
What a fabulous selection of photographs to illustrate a fascinating “scene”. I love staged, theatrical, constructed, conceptual, collaged, surreal, imaginary, narrative photography.
Dr Marcus Bunyan
Many thankx to the J. Paul Getty Museum for allowing me to publish the photographs in the posting. Please click on the photographs for a larger version of the image.
Unknown maker, French Woman Reading to a Girl c. 1845 Daguerreotype 9.1 × 7.1cm (3 9/16 × 2 13/16 in.) The J. Paul Getty Museum
Through a skilful manipulation, the light coming from above and behind the figures casts the faces of mother and child in a softly modulated half-shadow. Their close grouping and familiar, intimate gestures evoke tenderness. The reflected light on the woman’s pointing finger and on the glowing white pages of the open book forms a strong visual triangle, drawing the viewer’s eye and serving to integrate and balance the composition.
Oscar Gustave Rejlander (British born Sweden, 1813-1875) The Infant Photography Giving the Painter an Additional Brush c. 1856 Albumen silver print 6 × 7.1cm (2 3/8 × 2 13/16 in.) The J. Paul Getty Museum
Oscar Rejlander’s photograph could be read as a metaphor of his own career. The additional “brush” or image-making tool provided by photography to painters was evident from the beginnings of the medium. Many early practitioners arrived at photography from painting, as did Rejlander. Photographs were often thought of and used as sketching tools for painters. Although photographs never managed to signal the death of painting as initially predicted, they did frequently assume the function that drawing had traditionally held in relation to painting.
Compositionally, this is an unusual photograph. Rejlander employs a narrative device from painting: the use of figures, or parts of figures, as allegorical representations for ideas. A very young child represents the infant medium of photography. The Painter appears only as a hand extending into the frame at the upper left, although the traditional arts are also represented by the sculpture reproduction in the lower left corner. The Infant Photography, identified by the camera on which the child supports himself, faces away from the camera, his features totally obscured. The mirror behind the child gives a clear reflection of Rejlander at his camera, making this image.
Roger Fenton (English, 1819-1869) Contemplative Odalisque 1858 Albumen silver print 35.9 × 43.8cm (14 1/8 × 17 1/4 in.) The J. Paul Getty Museum Gift of Professors Joseph and Elaine Monsen
Three years after traveling in the Crimea, Roger Fenton made a series of Orientalist photographs in his London studio using props gathered during his travels and non-Eastern models. Orientalism refers to just such romanticised depictions of imagined scenes of Muslim culture in the Ottoman Empire and its territories in the Near East and North Africa.
Orientalist scenes were more often fiction than fact. Cultural biases and misunderstandings were laid down on paper or canvas and frequently became the only source of information on the subjects depicted. When a group of these Orientalist photographs was exhibited in 1858, one reviewer described them as “truly representing some phases in the life of this interesting people.”
But not everyone so easily accepted Fenton’s images at face value; a more astute critic called for “the necessity of having real national types as models.” The same model shown here also appears as “Nubian” and “Egyptian” in other photographs by Fenton. This photograph may have originally been exhibited with the title The Reverie. The odalisque, meaning a slave or concubine in a harem, poses upon her sofa. Barefoot, blouse open, her surroundings convey a sensual disarray that conforms to an Orientalising fantasy of the available woman.
Julia Margaret Cameron (British, born India, 1815-1879) The Rosebud Garden of Girls June 1868 Album silver print 29.4 × 26.7cm (11 9/16 × 10 1/2 in.) The J. Paul Getty Museum
As evolutionary science and increasing secularism transformed the way Victorians understood the world, Cameron remained a devout Christian. She photographed influential public figures of her day as well as the women of her household, casting them in allegories of literary and religious subjects. Like her artistic contemporaries, the Pre-Raphaelite painters, who modelled their work on medieval religious and mythological art, Cameron intended her photographs to evince a connection between the spiritual and the natural realms.
Julia Margaret Cameron (British, born India, 1815-1879) Venus Chiding Cupid and Removing His Wings 1872 Album silver print 32.4 × 27.3cm (12 3/4 × 10 3/4 in.) The J. Paul Getty Museum
Lewis Carroll (British, 1832-1898) Saint George and the Dragon June 26, 1875 Albumen silver print 12.2 × 16.2cm (4 13/16 × 6 3/8 in.) The J. Paul Getty Museum
Like Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and his other books, Carroll’s photographs are fantasies starring the children of his friends. In this production, the Kitchin siblings enacted the romantic legend of Saint George, the patron saint of England, who slayed a child-eating dragon before it devoured a princess. George later married the rescued princess and converted her pagan town to Christianity. Using crude stagecraft to reference key plot points, Carroll condensed the entire legend into a single scene in which the princess appears as both damsel in distress and bride.
Baron Wilhelm von Gloeden (German, 1856-1931) Untitled [Two Male Youths Holding Palm Fronds] c. 1885-1905 Albumen silver print 23.3 × 17.5cm (9 3/16 × 6 7/8 in.) The J. Paul Getty Museum
Baron Wilhelm von Gloeden (German, 1856-1931) L’Offerta (The Offering) 1902 Albumen silver print 22.4 × 16.8cm (8 13/16 × 6 5/8 in.) The J. Paul Getty Museum
Von Gloeden left Germany and settled in a coastal town in Sicily, where he took up photography. His subjects were young native boys, whom he often photographed nude in classical compositions. Rather than reenact specific historical or literary scenes, von Gloeden mused nostalgically on the ancient Greek and Roman ancestry of his attractive models.
Guido Rey (Italian, 1861-1935) [The Letter] 1908 Platinum print 21.9 × 17cm (8 5/8 × 6 11/16 in.) The J. Paul Getty Museum
A deliberate homage to an earlier artistic style that Guido Rey admired, the composition derives from a painting made by Dutch artist Jan Vermeer in the 1600s. In this posed scene, a young suitor bearing flowers approaches a woman seated at her writing desk, with her pen poised in mid-air as she turns to greet him. A leaded glass window opens into her room, providing a natural light source for the photograph’s illumination. The mounted corner clock, decorative jar on the desk, and painting on the wall were Rey’s everyday household items or objects borrowed from friends, carefully chosen for period accuracy. Likewise, a seamstress who lived in the attic of Rey’s home in Turin created the costumes to his specifications.
Photography, although commonly associated with truthfulness, has been used to produce fiction since its introduction in 1839. The acceptance of staging, and the degree of its application, has varied greatly depending on the genre and the historical moment, but it has persisted as an artistic approach. The photographs in this exhibition, drawn exclusively from the J. Paul Getty Museum’s collection, make no pretence about presenting the world as it exists; instead, they are the productions of directors and actors who rely on stagecraft and occasional darkroom trickery to tell stories.
 Spanning photography’s history and expressing a range of sentiments, the images in this exhibition are inspired by art history, literature, religion, and mainstream media.
Like Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and his other books, Lewis Carroll’s photographs are fantasies starring his friends’ children. In the image below, children enact the mythological story of Saint George, the patron saint of England, slaying a child-eating dragon before it could devour a princess.
Life Imitating Art
Well-represented in this exhibition are tableaux vivants (living pictures), inspired by the popular Victorian parlour game in which costumed participants posed to resemble famous works of art or literary scenes.
The genre paintings of 17th-century Dutch masters Johannes Vermeer and Pieter de Hooch fascinated Guido Rey. Not self-conscious about being slavish to the past, he carefully studied the paintings and then arranged similar tableaux for his camera. His photographs captured equally serene domestic scenes and mimicked the minute architectural details of 17th-century interiors, such as the leaded-glass windowpanes and the checkerboard floor.
A number of photographs in the exhibition explore the medium’s capacity to visualise subjects of the imagination by using darkroom trickery to manipulate prints.
 An optician and family man, Ralph Eugene Meatyard photographed his children, friends, and neighbours enacting dramas in suburban backyards and abandoned buildings near his Lexington, Kentucky, home. He often used experimental techniques, such as multiple exposures and blurred motion. Uncanny details imbue Meatyard’s otherwise ordinary vernacular scenes with the qualities of a dream or supernatural vision.
Theatricality as a Critical Strategy
In recent decades there has been renewed interest in theatricality among contemporary photographers whose highly artificial scenes critique mainstream media and representation.
 In her series Family Docudrama Eileen Cowin blurs the boundaries between truth and fiction, and private behaviour and public performance. Drawing equally from family snapshots and soap operas, Cowin presents staged domestic scenes in which she and members of her family, including her identical twin sister, perform as actors. In these ambiguous, open-ended narratives, dramatic moments are exaggerated, and the camera’s glare is ever present.”
Judging from his inclusion of this image in other photographic compositions, Man Ray must have considered Tears one of his most successful photographs. A cropped version of it with a single eye also appears as the first plate in a 1934 book of his photographs.
Like the emotive expression of a silent screen star in a film still, the woman’s plaintive upward glance and mascara-encrusted lashes seem intended to invoke wonder at the cause of her distress. The face belongs to a fashion model who cries tears of glistening, round glass beads; the effect is to aestheticise the sentiment her tears would normally express. Man Ray made this photograph in Paris around the time of his breakup with his lover Lee Miller, and the woman’s false tears may relate to that event in the artist’s life.
In this picture Dora Maar constructed her own reality by joining together several images and rephotographing them. The seamlessness of the photographic surface makes this construction believable and leaves the viewer wondering about the strange world the figure inhabits. On closer examination, the viewer may notice that the floor is an upside-down ceiling vault, that the bricked-in windows are drawn in by hand, and that the figure was added separately. Despite these discoveries, the picture resists logical interpretation.
An optician and family man, Meatyard photographed his children, friends, and neighbours enacting dramas in the suburban backyards and abandoned buildings of Lexington, Kentucky. He often used experimental techniques, such as multiple exposures and blurred motion. Uncanny details imbue Meatyard’s otherwise ordinary vernacular scenes with the qualities of a dream or supernatural vision.
In this self-portrait, Lucas Samaras reaches out as if trapped in the photograph. In sharp contrast to the indistinct background of his upper body, his crisply defined fingers curl forward, as if he is searching for a way to transcend a two-dimensional world of his own creation. An overriding sense of claustrophobia defines this image, underscored by the small scale of the Polaroid print. Samaras, a hermit-like person, made many Polaroid self-portraits like this in the 1970s as a means of observing himself. The images are open to a wide range of interpretation. Here, Samaras may have tried to convey the sense of isolation he experiences as a reclusive person.
As if engaging in a tug-of-war with himself, Lucas Samaras confronts and struggles with his own reflection in this self-portrait. The leg-less reflection is incomplete, however, giving the impression of a deformed adversary. A monochromatic polka-dot background and a vibrant green and red border act as a stage for this dramatic struggle.
Samaras’s Photo-Transformations, which he made in the 1970s as a means to examine various facets of himself, could be understood as visual manifestations of internal conflict. They are complex psychological investigations that, according to at least one critic, illustrate one person’s efforts toward spiritual healing.
Submerged in narcissism, nothing remains… but “me and myself, I am my own audience, the other, contemplating my existence.”
Made in the 1970s as a means of studying himself, Lucas Samaras’s photographs illustrate the internal struggle that can occur between conflicting aspects of one personality. Bent over a captain’s chair, Samaras rests his head as if he is at the guillotine. Another blurry form hovers above, about to violently attack the submissive figure.
Samaras made his Photo-Transformations, a series of self-portraits, with SX-70 Polaroid film. Still wet, the film’s emulsions could be manipulated to alter the finished image. He used straight pins, rubber erasers, and other simple tools to “draw” into the developing surface. For this portrait, he created a diamond pattern over and around the dominant figure that underscores the frenzy of motion.
In her series Family Docudrama Cowin blurs the boundaries between truth and fiction, and private behaviour and public performance. Drawing equally from family snapshots and soap operas, she presents staged domestic scenes in which she and members of her family, including her identical twin sister, perform as actors. In these ambiguous, open-ended narratives, dramatic moments are exaggerated and the camera’s glare is ever present.
The J. Paul Getty Museum 1200 Getty Center Drive Los Angeles, California 90049
Exhibition dates: 24th July – 12th September, 2009
Vera Lutter (American, b. 1960) Campo Santa Sofia, Venice, XV: December 12, 2007 2007 Unique gelatin silver print 68 5/16 × 56 in (173.5 × 142.2cm)
I really like this atmospheric work – the scale, the ‘grandness’ of it, the dismemberment through verticality, the immersion into inky darkness – there is something almost subterranean (man living under-earth, under-evolution) about the pictures vestigial structures.
Dr Marcus Bunyan
Many thankx to Gagosian Gallery for allowing me to publish the photographs in the posting. Please click on the photographs for a larger version of the image.
Vera Lutter (American, b. 1960) Campo Santa Sofia, Venice, XXIII: December 17, 2007 2007 Unique gelatin silver print 85 7/16 × 112 in 217 × 284.5cm
Vera Lutter (American, b. 1960) Ca Del Duca Sforza, Venice II: January 13-14, 2008 2008 Unique gelatin silver print 104 1/2 × 168 in 265.4 × 426.7cm
Vera Lutter (American, b. 1960) Calle Vallaresso, Venice XXVII: January 31, 2008 2008 Unique gelatin silver print 55 3/8 × 68 1/4 in 140.7 × 173.4cm
“Instability, uncertainty, suspense, and monumentality are entities that I consider and think about; they inform my work.”
~ Vera Lutter
Gagosian Gallery is pleased to announce an exhibition of large-scale unique photographs by Vera Lutter. This is her first exhibition in Los Angeles.
In Lutter’s conceptual approach to the camera obscura, the most rudimentary form of photography, the apparatus records in a very direct and immediate way what exists in the world outside. By choosing to retain the negative image, she transforms the visual facts of her chosen environments into uncanny scenes that reflect on the two principal realities of time and space.
In recent years, Lutter has made the hauntingly romantic city of Venice an object of prolonged study. Building on her previous recordings of industrial landscapes and cities surrounded by water, such as Old Slip, New York (1995), and Cleveland (1997), the works created in Venice elaborate her intention “to create an image in which the city appears to be suspended above its own reflection, rendering a place that appears to exist outside of gravity.”
During the anticipated high-water season of 2005, Lutter captured mirage-like emanations of San Marco and Piazza Leoni in which the spectral landmarks appear to hover above their own reflected image in the placid water. Lutter returned to Venice the following year to record the area where the Grand Canal flows into the Bacino, which then opens up into the lagoon. This unstable body of water not only gives Venice its special ethereal character; it also threatens the floating city’s very existence.
Lutter revisited Venice in 2007 and 2008 to explore further the physical, technical, and architectural complexities of the city. Works such as San Giorgio (2008), Campo Santa Sofia (2007) and Calle Vallaresso (2008) reveal certain innate qualities and conditions of the city that elude direct observation and can be experienced only through her luminous incarnations, the physical image.
Text from the Gagosian Gallery website [Online] Cited 01/09/2009 no longer available online
Vera Lutter uses the camera obscura, the most basic photographic device, to render in massive form images that serve as faithful transcriptions of immense architectural spaces. The camera obscura was originally developed during the Renaissance as an aid in the recording of the visible world.
Vera Lutter is best known for monumental black-and-white photographs of cityscapes. Her unique silver gelatin prints are negatives made by transforming a room into a pinhole camera obscura chamber. Directly exposed, often over many hours, onto photosensitive paper, these vistas appear as solarised images, their ethereal platinum tones imbuing the scenes with a haunting melancholy. From an early concentration on the Manhattan skyline, Lutter has turned lately to more industrial sites, including a dry dock, a zeppelin factory, an airport runway, a marina and a deserted warehouse.
Vera Lutter Biography on the Metro Art Works website [Online] Cited 01/09/2009 no longer available online
Installation views of Vera Lutter works at Gagosian Gallery, Beverly Hills
Vera Lutter (American, b. 1960) San Giorgio, Venice XVIII: January 26, 2008 2008 Unique gelatin silver print
Vera Lutter (American, b. 1960) San Marco, Venice, XIX: December 1, 2005 2005 Unique gelatin silver print 92 ¼ x 112 ¾ in 234.3 x 286.4cm
Vera Lutter (American, b. 1960) Ca’ del Duca Sforza, Venice XXXI: July 14, 2008 2008 Unique gelatin silver print 56 × 80 3/4 in 142.2 × 205.1cm
Vera Lutter (American, b. 1960) Ca del Duca Sforza, Venice, XXXXIII: July 24, 2008 2008 Unique gelatin silver print 50 1/2 × 67 1/8 in 128.3 × 170.5cm
Vera Lutter (American, b. 1960) Ca del Duca, Venice, XA: December 8, 2007 2007 Unique gelatin silver print
Gagosian Gallery 456 North Camden Drive Beverly Hills, CA 90210 Phone: 310.271.9400
Exhibition dates: 28th August 2009 – 21st February 2010
Opening: Thursday 27th August 2009 Artists: Christine Godden, Max Pam and Matthew Sleeth
Opening night crowd for Long Distance Vision at NGV Australia, Melbourne with Senior Curator of Photography, Dr Isobel Crombie, at left of photograph Photo: Marcus Bunyan
A small but social opening of the latest photography exhibition at NGV Australia. Wonderful to see Edwin Nicholls and Sophie Gannon from Sophie Gannon Gallery, Richmond in attendance along with Dr Isobel Crombie, Senior Curator of Photography at the NGV and Susan van Wyk, curator of this exhibition and Curator of Photography at the NGV. Also in attendance were the NGV Director, Gerard Vaughan and Frances Lindsay, Deputy Director of the NGV. The exhibition was opened by Associate Professor Christopher Stewart from RMIT University.
Dr Marcus Bunyan
Many thankx to Alison Murray and Sue Coffey for allowing me to take photographs of the opening, and for allowing me to publish the photographs in the posting. Please click on the photographs for a larger version of the image.
Opening night crowd for Long Distance Vision at NGV Australia, Melbourne Photos: Marcus Bunyan
Long Distance Vision will include over 60 photographs from the NGV Collection exploring the concept of the ‘tourist gaze’ and its relationship with the three artists.
Susan van Wyk, Curator Photography, NGV said the exhibition provides a fascinating insight into the unusual perspective brought by the three photographers to their varied world travel destinations.
“There’s a sense in the works in the exhibition that the photographers are not from the places they choose to photograph, and that each is a visitor delighting in the scenes they encounter.
What is notable about the photographs in Long Distance Vision is that rather than focussing on the well known scenes that each artist encountered, they have turned their attention to the ‘little things’, the details of the everyday,” said Ms van Wyk.
From the nineteenth century, photography has been a means by which people could discover the world, initially through personal collection and albums, and later via postcards, magazines, books and the internet.
Dr Gerard Vaughan, Director, NGV said that both contemporary photographers and tourists use the camera as a means to explore and capture the world.
“Through their photographs, the three artists featured in Long Distance Vision show us highly individual ways of seeing the world. This exhibition will surprise and delight visitors as our attention is drawn to not only what is different but what remains the same as we travel the world,” said Dr Vaughan.
Long Distance Vision: Three Australian Photographers is on display at The Ian Potter Centre: NGV Australia, Federation Square from 28 August 2009 to 21 February 2010. The Ian Potter Centre: NGV Australia is open every day 10am-5pm. Entry to this exhibition is free.”
Press release from the NGV
Opening night crowd for Long Distance Vision at NGV Australia, Melbourne looking at the work of Max Pam from his Tibet series (see the four images below) Photos: Marcus Bunyan
Sophie Gannon and Edwin Nicholls at the opening of Long Distance Vision at NGV Australia, Melbourne Photo: Marcus Bunyan
Dr Isobel Crombie, Senior Curator of Photography at the NGV (left) with Susan van Wyk, Curator of Photography at the NGV and curator of the exhibition (right) at the opening of Long Distance Vision Photo: Marcus Bunyan
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Opening night crowd for Long Distance Vision at NGV Australia, Melbourne looking at the work of Max Pam from his Tibet series (see two images below) Photos: Marcus Bunyan
David Goldblatt (South African, 1930-2018) Family at Lunch, Wheatlands Plots, Randfontein, September 1962 1962 Gelatin silver print
One of the greats.
Marcus
Many thankx to the New Museum for allowing me to publish the photographs in the posting. Please click on the photographs for a larger version of the image.
David Goldblatt (South African, 1930-2018) A new shack under construction, Lenasia Extension 9, Gauteng 1990 Gelatin silver print
David Goldblatt (South African, 1930-2018) Monuments celebrating the Republic of South Africa (left and JG Strijdom, former prime minister (right), with the headquarters of Volkskas Bank, Pretoria. 25 April 1982 1982 Black and while photograph on matte paper Courtesy the artist and Goodman Gallery, Johannesburg
David Goldblatt (South African, 1930-2018) Man with an injured arm. Hillbrow, Johannesburg, June, 1972 1972 Black and while photograph on matte paper Courtesy the artist and Goodman Gallery, Johannesburg
David Goldblatt (South African, 1930-2018) Mofolo South, Soweto, September 1972 1972 Gelatin silver print
Over the last fifty years, David Goldblatt has documented the complexities and contradictions of South African society. His photographs capture the social and moral value systems that governed the tumultuous history of his country’s segregationist policies and continue to influence its changing political landscape. Goldblatt began photographing professionally in the early 1960s, focusing on the effects of the National Party’s legislation of apartheid. The son of Jewish Lithuanian parents who fled to South Africa to escape religious persecution, Goldblatt was forced into a peculiar situation, being at once a white man in a racially segregated society and a member of a religious minority with a sense of otherness. He used the camera to capture the true face of apartheid as his way of coping with horrifying realities and making his voice heard. Goldblatt did not try to capture iconic images, nor did he use the camera as a tool to entice revolution through propaganda. Instead, he reveals a much more complex portrait, including the intricacies and banalities of daily life in all aspects of society. Whether showing the plight of black communities, the culture of the Afrikaner nationalists, the comfort of white suburbanites, or the architectural landscape, Goldblatt’s photographs are an intimate portrayal of a culture plagued by injustice.
In Goldblatt’s images we can see a universal sense of people’s aspirations, making do with their abnormal situation in as normal a way as possible. People go about their daily lives, trying to preserve a sense of decency amid terrible hardship. Goldblatt points out a connection between people (including himself) and the environment, and how the environment reflects the ideologies that built it. His photographs convey a sense of vulnerability as well as dignity. Goldblatt is very much a part of the culture that he is analysing. Unlike the tradition of many documentary photographers who capture the “decisive moment,” Goldblatt’s interest lies in the routine existence of a particular time in history.
Goldblatt continues to explore the consciousness of South African society today. He looks at the condition of race relations after the end of apartheid while also tackling other contemporary issues, such as the influence of the AIDS epidemic and the excesses of consumption. For his “Intersections Intersected” series, Goldblatt looks at the relationship between the past and present by pairing his older black-and-white images with his more recent colour work. Here we may notice photography’s unique association with time: how things were, how things are, and also that the effects of apartheid run deep. It will take much more time to heal the wounds of a society that was divided for so long. Yet, there is a possibility for hope, recognition of how much has changed politically in the time between the two images, and a potential optimism for the future. Goldblatt’s work is a dynamic and multilayered view of life in South Africa, and he continues to reveal that society’s progress and incongruities.”
Joseph Gergel, Curatorial Fellow
Text from the New Museum website [Online] Cited 15/08/2009. No longer available online
David Goldblatt (South African, 1930-2018) Wreath at the Berg-en-Dal Monument which commemorates the courage – and the sarcophagus which holds the bones – of 60 men of the South African Republic Police, who died here 27 August 1900 in a critical battle of the Anglo-Boer War. Dalmanutha, Mpumalanga. December 1983. 1983 Courtesy the artist and Goodman Gallery, Johannesburg
David Goldblatt (South African, 1930-2018) The swimming bath rules at the rec, Cape Blue Asbestos Mine, Koegas, Northern Cape 2002
David Goldblatt (South African, 1930-2018) The mill, Pomfret Asbestos Mine, Pomfret, North-West Province, 20 December 2002 2002
David Goldblatt (South African, 1930-2018) Johannesburg from the Southwest 2003
David Goldblatt (South African, 1930-2018) Incomplete houses, part of a stalled municipal development of 1000 houses. Lady Grey, Eastern Cape, 5 August 2006 2006
New Museum 235 Bowery New York, NY 10002 212.219.1222
Clarence Sinclair Bull (American, 1896-1979) Greta Garbo c. 1935 Gelatin silver print, printed later 14 x 11″
Clarence Sinclair Bull was born in Sun River, Montana in 1896. His career began when Samuel Goldwyn hired him in the 1920 to photograph publicity stills of the MGM stars. He is most famous for his photographs of Greta Garbo taken during the years of 1926-1941. Bull’s first portrait of Garbo was a costume study for the Flesh and the Devil, in September 1926.
Bull was able to study with the great Western painter, Charles Marion Russell. He also served as an assistant cameraman in 1918. Bull was skilled in the areas of lighting, retouching, and printing. He was most commonly credited as “C.S. Bull.” Bull died on June 8, 1979 in Los Angeles, California, aged 83.
Laure Albin Guillot (French, 1879-1962) La Flamme (Woman’s Head) c. 1935 Vintage gelatin silver print 6 3/8 x 4 3/8″
Anonymous photographer Acrobats c. 1920 Vintage gelatin silver print 8 5/8 x 5 5/8″
Pierre Nobel Still Life c. 1935 Vintage gelatin silver print mounted on paper 9 1/4 x 6 3/4″
Charles Jones (English, 1866-1959) Plum, Laxton Early Red c. 1910 Vintage gelatin silver print from a glass plate negative 6 x 4 1/4″
Modernism presents a wonderful and intriguing selection of photographs from the private collection of Robert Flynn Johnson. Robert Flynn Johnson is emeritus faculty in the Printmaking department. He is the curator in charge of the Achenbach Foundation for Graphic Arts at the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, a position he has held since 1975.
This exhibition coincides with the publication of his second book on vernacular photography, The Face in the Lens: Anonymous Photographs (University of California Press).
“When I am asked what it takes to become an accomplished collector, it is not the qualities of knowledge, judgment or that elusive term “taste” that comes to mind. Instead, it is the ability to be curious that is the crucial element in the makeup of a true collector – the ability to ask questions, to learn, and to get answers regarding works of art that catch your eye and move your emotions,” Robert Flynn Johnson said.
He added, “For more than thirty-five years I have followed my curiosity in passionately seeking out photographs that have stirred my imagination. Some of them have been by great artistic masters of the medium, while others have been anonymous photographic orphans that have nothing going for them but the image itself. Both types of photographs are included in this exhibition.”
“I have made a varied, and some may say eccentric, selection of images. From a heart-stopping snapshot of acrobats posed in a three-man handstand perched on the ledge of the 108th floor of the Empire State building, to a tender portrait of Marilyn Monroe and Joe DiMaggio that captures the instant before their lips meet in their first kiss as a married couple, They these pictures are a true reflection of my collecting philosophy that is attracted to profound, beautiful, humorous, and absurd aspects of life and art.”
“Nevertheless, I hope they these works convey some of the visual surprise and delight to you that I felt when I first saw each and every one of them.”
Oscar Wilde once said that the only person that liked all art equally was an auctioneer! I do not expect viewers to appreciate all the photographs in this exhibition, but through my visual curiosity in collecting them over time, I did, and that is why they are here together today.
Text from Artdaily.org website
Carelton Watkins (American, 1829-1916) San Francisco c. 1868 Vintage albumen print 8 x 12 1/8″
Mammoth-plate photograph of San Francisco taken from the top of Telegraph Hill showing the Golden Gate in the background.
Eugène Atget (French, 1857-1927) Landscape, Environs of Paris (Étang, Ville-d’Avray) 1917 vintage albumen print 7 x 9 1/4″
Anonymous photographer (Czechoslovakia) Train c. 1930 Vintage gelatin silver print 9 1/4 x 11 5/8″
Anonymous photographer (United Kingdom) Train c. 1930 Vintage gelatin silver print 9 1/2 x 11 1/2″
Sasha Archer Leaping Through the Air c. 1930 Vintage gelatin silver print 7 3/8 x 9 3/8″
Leopold Hugo (American born Poland, 1866-1933) Craters of the Moon, Idaho 1920 Tinted vintage gelatin silver print 7 3/8 x 9 3/8″
Anonymous photographer Acrobat Piroska at the Latin Quarter (Published in ‘Life Magazine’) c. 1945 Vintage gelatin silver print 9 5/8 x 9″
Felix Bonfils (French, 1831-1885) Woman in Burka c. 1870 vintage albumen print 8 3/4 x 6 5/8″
Modernism 724 Ellis Street San Francisco, CA 94109
Until you are reminded by the photographs you sometimes forget what a fantastic auteur Cecil Beaton was.
Marcus
Many thankx to the Walker Art Gallery for allowing me to publish the photographs in the posting. Please click on the photographs for a larger version of the image.
A stunning exhibition of nearly 50 portraits by Cecil Beaton, one of the most famous photographers of the 20th century, captures the glamour and excitement of some of the world’s greatest celebrities.
Cecil Beaton: Portraits 26 June – 31 August 2009 brilliantly reflects the astonishing talents of the photographer who was also a writer, artist, designer, actor, caricaturist, illustrator and diarist.
He photographed a dazzling array of superstars and leading personalities ranging from the Queen to Mick Jagger, Marilyn Monroe to Audrey Hepburn and Winston Churchill to Lucian Freud.
Beaton (1904-1980) was himself a charismatic character who could charm and cajole, amuse and flirt, electrify and calm. He was known for his elegant sartorial style which exactly matched and reflected the circles he moved in.
His long career covered an era of great change from the Roaring Twenties to the dawn of the New Romantics.
Jessica Feather, Walker curator, says:
“Cecil Beaton had a remarkable gift of bringing out the personalities and flair of his sitters so that he created some of the great iconic images of the age. The portraits still cast a spell with their timeless appeal, giving deep insights into the extraordinary people who came before his camera.”
Beaton’s career as a photographer began with his earliest portraits of his sister Baba taken in 1922, when he was a teenager.
After Cambridge, his early photographs were published in society magazines The Sketch, Tatler and Eve from 1925 onwards. In 1927, 23-year-old Beaton secured a contract with Vogue to provide portraits, caricatures and social commentary. His career – with the exception of two short breaks – continued with Vogue for the rest of his life.
In the 1930s he published books packed with glamorous portraits and artwork and photographed the wedding of the Prince of Wales to Wallis Simpson. Beaton also took a striking series of romantic studies of Queen Elizabeth (later the Queen Mother).
His work took on a grittier aspect during the war and post-war years when he worked for the Ministry of Information and as an official war photographer.
Beaton reached the height of his powers in the 1950s and 60s when he became a household name. As well as creating great portraits of a new generation of film actresses such as Audrey Hepburn and Marilyn Monroe, he won Oscars for his design work in the blockbuster films Gigi and My Fair Lady.
Knighted in 1972, Beaton had a stroke in 1974 but returned to photography three years later. Among his subjects in his final years were fashion designers and international celebrities.
Press release from the Walker Art Gallery website [Online] Cited 05/08/2009. No longer available online
Kyra Vaslavovna Nijinsky (19 June 1913 – 1 September 1998), was a ballet dancer of Polish and Hungarian ancestry, with a Russian dance and cultural heritage. She was the daughter of Vaslav Nijinsky and the niece of Bronislava Nijinska. In the 1930s she appeared in ballets mounted by Ida Rubinstein, Max Reinhardt, Marie Rambert, Frederick Ashton, Antony Tudor.
Her father Vaslav (1889-1950) was a truly world-famous dancer with Ballets Russes in Paris. Her aunt Bronia (1891-1972) also excelled in dance and was a leading choreographer, initially with Ballets Russes. Her mother Romola de Pulszky was a socialite and author. Romola’s mother, Kyra’s grandmother, was Emilia Márkus, a popular Hungarian actress. …
“We also met Nijinsky’s daughter, Kyra, who is fascinating. Sturdily built and full of exuberance, she has the most engaging smile and what must be her father’s eyes, of an unusual grey-green, or is it green-brown? She is an artist and uses bright colours. Her father is a frequent subject, but I noticed all her paintings show him in ballet roles, never as himself. When she was describing a Russian dance she made a momentary gesture of her right arm across her brow, and I could see Nijinsky exactly. There was something in her movement and her face that expressed all there is to say about dancing in that one instant, and I can never forget it.”
Dame Margot Fonteyn on meeting Kyra in San Franciso in 1951
This major retrospective exhibition brings together captivating images from Cecil Beaton, one of the most celebrated photographers of the 20th century. Renowned for his images of elegance, glamour and style, Beaton’s work has inspired many famous photographers including David Bailey and Mario Testino.
The exhibition reflects the astonishing talents of the photographer who was also a writer, artist, designer, actor, caricaturist, illustrator and diarist. There are four sections in the exhibition covering Beaton’s career and capturing 50 years of fashion, art and celebrity:
The Early Years: London to Hollywood, 1920s and 1930s
Photographs of Hollywood stars such as Marlene Dietrich and Fred Astaire and artists including John (Rex) Whistler, Pablo Picasso and Salvador Dali.
The Years Between: The War and Post-War Arts, 1940s
Featuring Greta Garbo, Vivian Leigh and Laurence Olivier as well as Princess Elizabeth and Sir Winston Churchill.
The Strenuous Years: Picturing the Arts, 1950s
Portraits of Queen Elizabeth II, Francis Bacon, Jackie Kennedy Onassis, Lucian Freud and Marilyn Monroe.
Partying and the Partying Years: Apotheosis and Retrospection, 1960s and 1970s
Includes images of Audrey Hepburn, Prince Charles, Harold Pinter, Katherine Hepburn, Mick Jagger, Barbara Streisand
and Elizabeth Taylor.”
Text from the Walker Art Gallery website [Online] Cited 23/03/2019 no longer available online
Cecil Day-Lewis (or Day Lewis) CBE (27 April 1904 – 22 May 1972), often writing as C. Day-Lewis, was an Anglo-Irish poet and the Poet Laureate of the United Kingdom from 1968 until his death in 1972. He also wrote mystery stories under the pseudonym of Nicholas Blake.
During World War II, Day-Lewis worked as a publications editor in the Ministry of Information for the UK government, and also served in the Musbury branch of the British Home Guard. He is the father of Sir Daniel Day-Lewis, a noted actor, and Tamasin Day-Lewis, a documentary filmmaker and television chef.
Sarah Amos (Australian, b. 1965) Red Walk 2009 Collagraph and Monoprint
An interesting exhibition of Collagraphs (a type of collage printmaking)1 and etchings is presented by Sarah Amos at Gallery 101, Melbourne, work that is full of delicate coloured layering, topographical mapping and nodal, rhizomic and Spirogyra-type structures.
The ‘flux’ of the work, it’s musical cadence if you like, is the fusion of palimpsestic markings as viewed from the air – the dotted contours, the ploughed fields, the beautiful spatial layering that has an almost Kandinsky-like effect – with the aesthetics of Japanese paper, matt black colour (that subtly glistens on close inspection) and the tactility of the surface of the work. These intersections produce images that have some outstanding resonances: vibrations of energy that ebb and flow around the gallery space. These works are captivating!
For me the simpler images were the more successful especially the series named Intersections with their muted tonalities, shifting colours and topographical structure. They also reminded me of the black and white aerial landscape photography of Emmet Gowin (see below).
While I am unsure of the validity of the ‘landscape’/’urban lens’ ‘urban temperature’ references (which I found unnecessary and slightly irrelevant) these works and their synaptic interfaces must be experienced. For the viewer they hold a strange attraction as you stand before them drawn, inexorably, into their penumbral spaces. Recommended.
Dr Marcus Bunyan
Many thankx to gallery 101 for allowing me to publish the art work in the posting. Please click on the photographs for a larger version of the image.
1/ “A Collagraph print is a collage printmaking technique and is a form of Intaglio printing. The collagraph plate is printed in the same way as etchings, but also include the basic principle of relief printing and can be printed either as intaglio or relief.
The term collagraph refer to a collage board where the materials are assembled on a flat base or plate (matrix) to form a relief block with different surface levels and textures.
Collagraph plates are created by sticking and gluing materials like textured paper or fabric onto the plate and then coat it with varnish or acrylic medium afterwards to protect the materials.
Anonymous. “Printmaking: Collagraphs/Collage Blocks,” on the ArtistTerms.com website [Online] Cited 03/08/2009. No longer available online
Sarah Amos (Australian, b. 1965) Storm Loading 2009 Etching and hand drawing on Shiramine Japanese paper
Installation views of Intersections by Sarah Amos at Gallery 101, Melbourne Photos: Marcus Bunyan
Emmet Gowin (American, b. 1941) Harvest traffic over agricultural pivot near Hermiston, Orgeon, 1991 1991 Gelatin silver print
Sarah Amos (Australian, b. 1965) Intersections 8 2009 Collagraph with gouache
“(Flux) – where a total electric or magnetic field passes through a surface.”
 My work is a fusion of both land and cityscape. I am interested in interpreting spatially dynamic, real and half forgotten landscapes through an urban lens. New to this body of work is my interest in the visual graphics of scientific diagrams in which dynamic and informative landscapes are drafted into linear minimal lines. I have absorbed this distilled language, translating it into an architectural and organic landscape where the intersections of line, volume and space are constantly in flux. This obscure knowledge is pared down, simplified and ordered into a clean analysis ready for instant translation.
The Australian landscape is central to my work and influences my use of colour, idiosyncratic marks and open space. These works are personalised maps of accumulated information, like printed histories, that record the duelling intersections where the weathers of the landscape and the urban temperature have begun to take on new and vital immediacy.”
Sarah Amos, 2009
Text from the Gallery 101 website [Online] Cited 01/08/2009. No longer available online
Sarah Amos (Australian, b. 1965) Lute 2009 Collagraph
Klisze przechowuje sie (Negatives are to be stored) Photographs by Stefania Gurdowa Text by Jerzy Lewczynski and Dariusz Czaja Hardcover: 218 pages 22 x 28.5cm
Publisher: Fundacja Imago Mundi / Muzeum Etnograficzne w Krakowie. ISBN 978-83-925914-4-3
Stefania Gurdowa (Polish, 1888-1968) Untitled (anonymous individuals) Nd From the series Negatives Are To Be Stored Glass plate negative
Stefania Gurdowa (Polish, 1888-1968) Untitled (anonymous individuals) Nd From the series Negatives Are To Be Stored Glass plate negative
Stefania Gurdowa (Polish, 1888-1968) Untitled (anonymous individuals) Nd From the series Negatives Are To Be Stored Glass plate negative
Stefania Gurdowa (Polish, 1888-1968) Untitled (anonymous individuals) Nd From the series Negatives Are To Be Stored Glass plate negative
Eleven years ago, in the attic of a tenement house in the town of Debica, more than 1,000 damaged glass negative plates were discovered. Most of them depicted expressive portraits of anonymous individuals who lived in the neighbourhood during the 20s and 30s.
At first sight, we could guess hardly anything about the author of the plates, although her name appeared on them. But our deepening research shed light upon someone extraordinary for her time: an independent, gifted woman of consequence whose workshops existed far away from the grand cultural capitals, and whose art lay in taking orderly portraits of her neighbours: shopkeepers, craftsmen, peasants, priests and Jews.
Stefania and Kazimierz Gurda divorced, and from her home in Debica, the photographer took only her daughter, Zosia – and the piano. In the late 30s she settled in Silesia. Under Nazi occupation her business was taken over by the Germans, and she found herself a paid worker in her own workshop.
After the end of the war, Zosia migrated to France. Stefania Gurdowa decided to stay in Poland, and once more she started all over again – this time in Lodygowice, near Zywiec. She took care of her granddaughter, Basia for some years, until the girl was reunited with her mother in France. And she established yet another photographic workshop. Her former clients remember that there were always fresh flowers in her chilly rented flat-and-atelier – as well as a permanent Christmas tree!
Gurdowa, the distinguished artist, died in 1968. Her apartment was cleaned after she passed away, and her immense photographic archive was disposed of and lost. Only a fragment of her art endures, together with a question without an answer: who hid a collection of glass plates behind a wall in the attic of her workshop in Debica? Perhaps it was her own decision to preserve them this way. As a responsible professional, she must have been aware of the rule that “negatives are to be stored.”
All photographs are of work in the exhibition. Many thankx to the De La Warr Pavilion for allowing me to publish the photographs and art work in the posting. Please click on the photographs for a larger version of the image.
Dr Marcus Bunyan
Joseph Beuys (German, 1921-1986) Untitled (Sun State) 1974 Chalk and felt-tip pen on blackboard with wood frame 47 1/2 x 71 1/8″ (120.7 x 180.7cm)
Joseph Beuys (German, 1921-1986) I like America and America likes me action 1974
Joseph Beuys (German, 1921-1986) Ãœberwindet endlich die Parteiendiktatur – Poster, N070815SE_118_098 – Overcome Party Dictatorship Now 1971 Print on paper 278 x 395 mm ARTIST ROOMS Tate and National Galleries of Scotland Galleries of Scotland through The d’Offay Donation with assistance from the National Heritage Memorial Fund and the Art Fund 2008
German artist Joseph Beuys (1921-1986) is widely recognised as one of the most influential and extraordinary artists of the twentieth century.
 Artist, educator, political and social activist, Beuys’s philosophy proposed the healing power and social function of art, in which everyone can participate and benefit. The works in this exhibition provide an opportunity to experience this expanded concept of art as he understood it. Collectively, the exhibition presents the ‘constellation of ideas’ central to Beuys’s practice, revealing his ideas on zoology, ecology, homeopathy, economics, politics, social activism, teaching and learning. Beuys incorporated into his work various materials such as felt, fat and metal, selected because of their inherent properties such as insulation, conduction and protection which all have associations with Beuys’s ideas.
The exhibition is largely selected from the ARTIST ROOMS collection and brings together well-known sculptures, drawings, vitrines and a remarkable selection of posters recalling live actions and events. Works include Fat Chair (1964-1985) and, in Gallery 2, a single major work Scala Napoletana (1985) is shown for the first time in the UK. In addition nearly twenty notable multiples are included within the exhibition selected from National Galleries of Scotland. The multiple was a form of communication for Beuys – a means by which he could share and distribute his ideas beyond the confines of the artworld.
Text from the De La Warr Pavilion website [Online] Cited 23/07/2009. No longer available online
Joseph Beuys (German, 1921-1986) Fettstuhl (Fat Chair) 1964-1985 Wood, glass, metal, fabric, paint, fat and thermometer 1830 x 1550 x 640 mm ARTIST ROOMS Tate and National Galleries of Scotland Galleries of Scotland through The d’Offay Donation with assistance from the National Heritage Memorial Fund and the Art Fund 2008
Joseph Beuys (German, 1921-1986) Entwurf für ein Filzenvironment (Model for a Felt Environment) 1964 Wood, glass, felt, oil paint and lead 1840 x 1680 x 840 mm ARTIST ROOMS Tate and National Galleries of Scotland Galleries of Scotland through The d’Offay Donation with assistance from the National Heritage Memorial Fund and the Art Fund 2008
The neat rolls of grey felt on painted wood inside this vitrine are intended as a model for an ‘environment’. Felt insulates and absorbs, representing protection but also a sense of constriction, like being suffocated. The same type of felt rolls are seen in the ‘environment’ Plight (1958/1985), now in the Pompidou Centre, in which the walls and ceiling are covered with felt to create a stifling atmosphere. Beuys used felt in an infamous ‘action’ performed the same year this model was made. The Chief saw the artist being wrapped in a felt blanket, fighting claustrophobia to lie practically still, as if in a coffin, for a nine-hour period.
Joseph Beuys (German, 1921-1986) Fettecke (Prozess) (Fat Corner (Process)) 1968 Wood, glass, 2 cardboard boxes and fat 1835 x 1680 x 840 mm ARTIST ROOMS Tate and National Galleries of Scotland Galleries of Scotland through The d’Offay Donation with assistance from the National Heritage Memorial Fund and the Art Fund 2008
Looking inside the two boxes in this vitrine, we can see that in one, the fat has been neatly shaped into the corner to make a wedge. In the other, the shape of the fat has a disturbing biological look to it, like inner organs which have been unceremoniously dumped in a heap. Beuys used triangles of fat in both his sculptures and ‘actions’. From around 1963, he would use wedges of fat or felt to mark the boundaries of a space when performing an ‘action’.
Joseph Beuys (German, 1921-1986) Langhaus (Vitrine) 1953-1962 Wood, glass, felt, oil paint and paper 1830 x 1545 x 640 mm ARTIST ROOMS Tate and National Galleries of Scotland Galleries of Scotland through The d’Offay Donation with assistance from the National Heritage Memorial Fund and the Art Fund 2008
Langhaus can be variously translated as ‘nave’ such as one finds in a church, or ‘longhouse’, such as the dwelling house for one or several families found in early north European regions or, still today, in tribal communities in the Amazon region or the South Seas. The block of wood has a small piece of felt attached to the top, suggesting, according to Beuys’s usual iconography, the idea of protection, a connotation strengthened by the length of felt also lying in the vitrine. The walking stick lying alongside the felt is a traditional Beuysian symbol for leadership and protection, much as a shepherd looks after his flock.
Beuys is recognised as one of the most influential artists of the late twentieth century. Adopting the roles of political and social activist and educator, his philosophy proposed the healing power and social function of art for all.
From the 1950s onwards, many of his works are made from a distinctive group of materials, in particular felt, fat and copper. These were chosen for their insulating, conductive, protective, transmitting and transforming properties. Animals of all kinds appear in his work, but he was particularly drawn to stags, bees and hares. A childhood interest in the natural sciences remained with him throughout his life, fuelling a desire to explore themes and experiment with the properties of materials.
Beuys produced a vast body of work that includes performance, drawing, print-making, sculpture and installation. His complex, interlocking themes cover science, myth, history, medicine and energy. Beuys’ own image and life story is inextricably linked to his work through his persona of the Shaman, shepherd or stag-leader.
This group of works covers forty years of Beuys’s career. Included are nature-based drawings of the 1950s, images and scores recording 1960s ‘actions’ and later installations, in addition to sculptures and vitrines. The collection brings together drawings with sculpture from the 1960s like the iconic Fat Chair, and images relating to Actions and installations like Coyote and Show Your Wound. It culminates with the sculpture Scala Napoletana which was made only a few months before the artist’s death, and relates to the theme of communication with the beyond.”
Text from the National Galleries of Scotland website [Online] Cited 23/07/2009. No longer available online
Joseph Beuys with Rose for Direct Democracy 1973
Joseph Beuys (German, 1921-1986) Schwangere und Schwan (Pregnant Woman with Swan) 1959 Oil paint and watercolour on paper 276 x 214 mm ARTIST ROOMS Tate and National Galleries of Scotland Galleries of Scotland through The d’Offay Donation with assistance from the National Heritage Memorial Fund and the Art Fund 2008
The tiny swan in this painting looks as if it is swimming serenely inside the woman, replacing the foetus inside her pregnant body. The drawing combines male and female elements, with the phallic nature of the swan’s neck. Beuys had been fascinated with swans since childhood. A sculpture of a large golden swan sat on top of the tower of Schwanenburg castle (Swan Castle) in his home town of Cleves, and was visible from his bedroom window while he was growing up. With his interest in language, the artist would also have delighted in the similarity between the German words for pregnant woman (Schwangere) and swan (Schwan).
Joseph Beuys (German, 1921-1986) Felt Suit 1970 Felt and wood 1660 x 660 x 260 mm ARTIST ROOMS Tate and National Galleries of Scotland Galleries of Scotland through The d’Offay Donation with assistance from the National Heritage Memorial Fund and the Art Fund 2008
Beuys began producing works in multiples in the 1960s, partly as a way to combat the elitism of the art world. This is probably his most famous multiple. It has its origins in the performance Action the Dead Mouse/Isolation Unit of 1970, where Beuys wore a felt suit with lengthened arms and legs, like the one seen here. He described the suit as an extension of the sculptures he made with felt, where the material’s insulating properties were integral to the meaning of the work. Beuys intended this concept of warmth to extend beyond the material to encompass what he described as ‘spiritual warmth or the beginning of an evolution’.
Joseph Beuys (German, 1921-1986) Stark beleuchteter Hirschstuhl (Brightly-Lit Stag Chair) 1957-1971 2 works on paper, oil paint, graphite and masking tape 1390 x 963 mm ARTIST ROOMS Tate and National Galleries of Scotland Galleries of Scotland through The d’Offay Donation with assistance from the National Heritage Memorial Fund and the Art Fund 2008
Although Beuys began this collage in 1957, it was not finished until 1971. The chair is similar to the subject of the artist’s 1972 sculpture Backrest for a fine-limbed person (Hare-type) of the 20th Century A.D. This is a cast iron impression of a child’s plaster corset, made as a multiple. However, the striding feet of the chair in this collage give it a human aspect, making it seem almost confident and self-possessed. The curved back of the chair is echoed in the lightbulb shape at the top of the image. The stag, in Beuys’s bestiary, guided the soul in its journey to the afterlife.
Joseph Beuys (German, 1921-1986) Passage der Zukunftplanetoiden (Hearts of the Revolutionaries: Passage of the Planets of the Future) 1955 Watercolour on card 295 x 490 mm ARTIST ROOMS Tate and National Galleries of Scotland Galleries of Scotland through The d’Offay Donation with assistance from the National Heritage Memorial Fund and the Art Fund 2008
The choice of red for this painting would seem like an obvious one, reflecting both the heart and the virtues of honour and courage of the revolutionary in the title of the piece. Red also represents socialism, a belief of Beuys which became central to his later work. However, the colour red is used sparingly and symbolically in the artist’s work, and here it makes a bold statement on life, vitality and the future. The inclusion of the round shape to represent a planet brings an astronomical element into the work.
Joseph Beuys (German, 1921-1986) Scala Napoletana 1985 Overall dimensions variable: 11000 x 10000 x 6000mm (room size at Bexhill) Ladder: 4510 x 250 x 80mm, Lead spheres: 500mm diameter each ARTIST ROOMS Tate and National Galleries of Scotland Galleries of Scotland through The d’Offay Donation with assistance from the National Heritage Memorial Fund and the Art Fund 2008
Much of the work Beuys made in his last few years includes objects or themes which suggest death. This sculpture was originally inspired by a ladder the artist found while recovering from illness on the island of Capri in Autumn 1985, which he hung with two stones. When he visited Amalfi at Christmas in the same year, he purchased a ladder (Scala Libera) from a landlord which he used to make this sculpture. Held in suspension, it appears as if the pair of lead weights are preventing this heavy wooden ladder from soaring into the air. This is one of the last sculptures Beuys made. He died in January 1986.
Joseph Beuys (German, 1921-1986) Sled 1969
The materials used in the making of this work relate to Beuys’s experience of being rescued by nomadic Tartars when his plane was shot down during the Second World War. Fat was rubbed into his body and he was wrapped in felt to keep him warm. The sled looks as if it has been prepared for an expedition or in response to an emergency, with a survival kit strapped to it. The flashlight represents the sense of orientation, the felt is protective, and the fat is for food.
Joseph Beuys (German, 1921-1986) Ohne Titel (Untitled) 1970 Gelatin silver print on canvas 2330 x 2275 mm ARTIST ROOMS Tate and National Galleries of Scotland Galleries of Scotland through The d’Offay Donation with assistance from the National Heritage Memorial Fund and the Art Fund 2008
Wearing his unmistakeable felt trilby hat, with his fishing vest poking through a luxuriant fur-lined jacket, this large image (over two metres square) shows Beuys at his most iconic. The clothes he wears here were part of his artist’s ‘uniform’, chosen for comfort and practicality (the multi-pocketed vest was particularly useful) but also as a way to create his image. Fittingly, he is depicted with one of his most distinctive sculptures. In the foreground is The Pack (1969), a group of twenty-four sledges. Each one has its own survival kit including fat for sustenance, felt for warmth and a torch for navigation, making the artist’s signature materials part of this image too.
Text under images from the National Galleries of Scotland website [Online] Cited 23/07/2009. No longer available online
De La Warr Pavilion Bexhill-on-Sea, East Sussex, TN40 1DP
![Hill & Adamson (Scottish, active 1843-1848) '[Lane and Peddie as Afghans]' 1843 from the exhibition 'In Focus: Making A Scene' at The J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles, June - Oct, 2009](https://artblart.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/09/hill-and-adamson-lane-and-peddie-as-afghans-web.jpg "Hill & Adamson (Scottish, active 1843-1848) '[Lane and Peddie as Afghans]' 1843 from the exhibition 'In Focus: Making A Scene' at The J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles, June - Oct, 2009")
![Baron Wilhelm von Gloeden (German, 1856-1931) 'Untitled [Two Male Youths Holding Palm Fronds]' c. 1885 - 1905](https://artblart.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/09/gloeden-two-male-youths-holding-palm-fronds-web.jpg "Baron Wilhelm von Gloeden (German, 1856-1931) 'Untitled [Two Male Youths Holding Palm Fronds]' c. 1885 - 1905")
![Guido Rey (Italian, 1861-1935) '[The Letter]' 1908](https://artblart.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/09/guido-rey-the-letter-1908-web.jpg "Guido Rey (Italian, 1861-1935) '[The Letter]' 1908")
![Joseph Beuys (German, 1921-1986) 'Entwurf für ein Filzenvironment [Model for a Felt Environment]' 1964](https://artblart.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/07/beuys-filzenvironment-web.jpg "Joseph Beuys (German, 1921-1986) 'Entwurf für ein Filzenvironment [Model for a Felt Environment]' 1964")
![Joseph Beuys. 'Fettecke (Prozess) [Fat Corner (Process)]' 1968](https://artblart.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/07/beuys-fettecke-web.jpg)
Art Blart _ art and cultural memory archive 
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