David Hockney (b.1937) is perhaps one of the most famed and influential British artists to exist within the 20th and 21st century. Born in Bradford, Hockney attended the Bradford School of Art from 1953 to 1957 and subsequently The Royal College of Art from 1959 to 1962, which provided him with the foundations for his … Continued
Roy Lichtenstein (1923-1997) was an artist engaged in American Pop Art and was born in New York to an upper-middle class Jewish family. During the 1960s, alongside Jasper Johns, Andy Warhol, and James Rosenquist, Lichtenstein became a prominent figurehead in this new art movement and his work served to define the premise of Pop Art … Continued
Helen Frankenthaler woodcuts are especially celebrated for her use of woodcut amongst all of the printmaking techniques and media used by the artist. A particularly rigid and difficult artistic medium to use, woodcuts are a far cry from the spontaneous, energetic painting Frankenthaler is also well known for. Her creative process was driven by a … Continued
Jim Dine Prints Born in 1935 in Cincinnati, Ohio, Jim Dine became one of the most prolific of all the printmakers, painters, poets, sculptors and performance artists of the 20th Century. The son of Jewish parents who had fled Eastern Europe in the ‘20s to settle in the US, much of Dine’s artistic works were … Continued
In the first of a series of short essays exploring artistic movements, we look at the definitions of ‘Modern Art’ and ‘Contemporary Art’. Modern Art The term ‘Modern Art’ is generally used to describe work made during the period of extraordinarily rapid change in the world from 1880 to the 1960’s, a time presided over … Continued
Recognition of Neo Dadaism Neo Dadaism certainly holds its own in the art world for many years although perhaps it is not as widely recognised by the general public as more famous movements like Impressionism, Surrealism or Minimalism. The term “Neo Dada” came about in the mid-part of the 20th century and was applied to … Continued
Abstract Expressionism was a broad movement that swept across America in the latter part of the 1940s and became very popular in Western works during the 1950s. Most prominent Abstract Expressionist names include Willem de Kooning, Robert Motherwell, Sam Francis, Helen Frankenthaler and Jackson Pollock. The majority of such artists lived, worked and exhibited their … Continued
What is a Print? The term “print” is sometimes used to describe just about any picture that is not an original painting or drawing. Photographs, cheap posters, reproductions in art books…. Some people refer to all of these as “prints”. In the art world, the word “print” has a far more specific meaning, and anyone buying prints must … Continued
The Early Bauhaus When founding the Bauhaus in 1919, Walter Gropius strongly associated it with the Middle Ages. His original ambition was to create a new school of artists working together with craftsman on interdisciplinary workshop projects. The horror of WW1 was important for the original founding of the Bauhaus. The machine, which was … Continued
1. Hockney swims every day, staying fit by spending half an hour in the pool each morning. 2. Hockney’s autobiography, A Bigger Book, weighs 35kg. It measures 200cm in width at full spread and is 500 pages long. 3. Hockney has often been voted as ‘the greatest living artist’. … Continued
The Young British Artists (YBAs) are taking a word and running with it, creating a whole other art style that they’ve grown popular with. Sensationalism is the use of something (whether stories or art) to shock someone, regardless of accuracy. This is done to get the public rather excited or interested in them. While the … Continued
In November of 2013, while in New York City for the IFPDA Print Fair, Graphicstudio Director Margaret Miller encountered the work of Sandra Cinto at Tanya Bonakdar Gallery. Piece of Silence included cellos and violins painted white and intricately decorated with black ink line drawings, mounted to the gallery walls that had been covered with … Continued
First appearing in New York beginning the early 1960s, Minimalism was a renunciation of the contemporary art which seemed stale and academic in the eyes of young artists. New influences and rediscovered styles motivated these young artists to question and push conventional boundaries, very similar to the social movements of the decade. By the end … Continued
Rembrandt etchings and drypoints, were made working on copper plates, creating ink-holding furrows in these plates either directly (using a drypoint needle) or with etching (drawing through a wax-like substance covering a plate, then bathing the plate in acid to create furrows). At some point in this process he might take an impression to see … Continued
Who can legally issue a certificate of authenticity for a work of art? Well, I can. After all, I founded and directed a graduate program in art connoisseurship, I’ve published lots of articles on print connoisseurship, I have a doctorate from Harvard, I have years of experience dealing in prints… But guess what? So can … Continued
Let’s say that Chagall decides to make a lithograph one day (not likely, since he is dead, but this is just an example). He prepares the stone and delivers it to the printer. The printer prints the edition. Chagall may sign the individual prints in pencil, or he may not: that’s another issue (for more about signatures, see HERE). But … Continued
Without a doubt, the stickiest question when it comes to buying modern prints is the signature. An artist can sign a print in two ways: in the plate or by hand. a. While the artist is preparing the matrix he can inscribe his signature in it. This signature thus becomes part of the image and, … Continued
