New Painting: "Girl With A Fig Leaf Parasol" by Amy Crehore

Here are some details of my new painting.

Follow this link to see large view of painting.

 

CLICK ON IMAGE TO ENLARGE

The Art of Amy Crehore (website)

(You can view the new painting large on the home page of my website, too)

artofamycrehore

 

Underneath the Woman is a Man

"Woman Ironing" by Picasso

The fact that Picasso started a portrait of a man and then switched his idea to "Woman Ironing" is no big deal. Painters do this all the time. I often sand down a head or face numerous times and make shifts in composition. If a painting takes months to work on, it may end up a whole different painting than I originally intended by the time I am done. The "process" of painting is fascinating- it keeps painters challenged and interested. We are allowed to change our minds and change our strokes. It looks like Picasso flipped his original sketch upside down and this may mean that he simply wanted to reuse the canvas and/or wasn't satisfied with his idea in the first place. Anyway, I'm glad Picasso decided to paint over it or we might have missed out on this masterpiece- "Woman Ironing"- which is currently on display at the Guggenheim in the exhibition "Picasso Black and White".

Go here> LINK (NYTimes) to reveal the painting underneath. Just scratch the image with your mouse! By the way, it is Picasso's birthday (born Oct. 25, 1881). He is definitely one of my favorite artists, warts and all. I have learned so much from looking at his art.

 

Stay tuned to this blog - I will reveal a new painting of mine very soon.

The Art of Amy Crehore

artofamycrehore.blogspot.com

Pal O Mine, Blind Willie McTell

This post is dedicated to my friend Ruth who loves blues music.

Giant Vases in Sargent Painting - Good Fun for Daughters

I always loved that John Singer Sargent painting because it has a hint of surrealism. You know, the one with the giant vases and young girls:  

The Daughters of Edward Darley Boit. The Boit family gave those giant Japanese vases to the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston (shown above). Apparently the girls used the vases to play games with as conservators found: coins, buttons, feathers, badminton shuttlecocks, tennis balls, chocolate wrappers inside the vases (see B&W photo above). Book about this painting available on the museum website: LINK

Little Nemo Himself

Was there anyone more inspiring than Winsor McCay?

His art is so imaginative, surreal and well-crafted.

CLICK photo to ENLARGE

Today, the Google logo celebrates his creation Little Nemo in Slumberland.

Here is a photo of Winsor McCay (sporting a gorgeous white suit and hat) in 1908 sketching for a charity benefit;
the young boy wearing the knickers and Nemo sash could actually be his son, age 12. The character of Nemo was supposedly modelled on his son Robert. LINK (Library of Congress photo)

Trivia: My grandmother's uncle Stanley Forde was in a silent film with McCay in 1924: The Great White Way. McCay played himself. LINK

Moonrise Kingdom - So Good

Wes Anderson's Moonrise Kingdom blew my socks off.

I finally went to see it and it did not disappoint.

In fact, it inspired. I can't say enough good things about it.

I want to see it again. Often. It has everything. So many great visuals.

Feels like a foreign film, yet so very American.

So dreamlike, yet so real.

Spilling over with nostalgic details -  

a New England summer setting, 1965.
Wonderful characters and great actors.

Oh joy.

 

The Art of Amy Crehore 

artofamycrehore

Frida Parade

I saw 10 Fridas parading down the sidewalk yesterday.

One was only about 6 years old. Beautiful.

(Maude Kerns Art Center)

 

The Art of Amy Crehore 

artofamycrehore

Newly Discovered Works by Magritte

Above are three examples of works- Night in Pisa 1953, Transatlantic Passenger 1936 and The Harvest of the Clouds 1927 by Rene Magritte published in Rene Magritte: Newly Discovered Works: Catalogue Raisonne Volume VI. Read more at artnews . This new book has 130 previously unseen works.  (Top and bottom: ©2012 CHARLY HERSCOVICI, BRUSSELS, middle: COURTESY SOTHEBY’S IMAGES.)

I love the way Magritte's mind works. It is easy to take him for granted because he was so good at what he did and his classic work was so often appropriated/copied.

Magritte invented his own unique world of visual poetry and it is nice that he is still being celebrated (upcoming show at MOMA in Sept. 2013).

 

The Art of Amy Crehore

artofamycrehore

 

Rocks as People

Early-twentieth century illustrations by Artuš Scheiner (1863 Benešov – 1938 Prague)

LINK (Thanks, 50Watts)

Chris Anthony book on Kickstarter

Project: poetic photographs done the old-fashioned way using wet plate collodion and tintype processes by Chris Anthony to be published in a book.

There is an Oct 17, 2012 deadline to support this project, Seas Without a Shore book (90 photographs) on Kickstarter.

I have another book by Chris (and a print) and his work is wonderfully imaginative and darkly elegant.

 

The Art of Amy Crehore 

artofamycrehore

 

Photo of the Day: Big Teeth

Bombay 1939 Berko Ferenc- LINK (varietas tumblr)

The Scream - animation by Sebastian Cosor

I love this animation by Sebastian Cosor.

(Thanks for tip, illustrator Carlos Lara)

 

Painting of the Day

 

Huile sur toile by Frances Picabia 1942-43

Collection Michael Werner © ADAGP, Paris 2012 LINK

Little Dancers in Eggs

Actor James Mason's Cat Drawings

Lou told me recently that he took a boat with his mom to Capri, Italy when he was young. The amazing actor James Mason of Lolita fame happened to be on the boat as well. How cool! Unfortunately, Lou got seasick and was throwing up most of the trip. Anyway, Lou's story prompted me to look up James Mason on wikipedia.

I found out that James Mason was a cat-lover and wrote a book with his wife Pamela in 1949 called The Cats In Our Lives. The wonderful thing is that he illustrated the book as well. His ink drawings are superb and perfectly capture the personalities of his pet cats in a few strokes. More illustrations can be found on Silents and Talkies blog.

 

The Art of Amy Crehore

Mondo Bizzarro International at Studioventuno

I'm in a show in Salerno, Italy Sept 16-Oct 27, 2012

sponsored by Mondo Bizzarro Gallery of Rome (they have a selection of my prints).

For photos of the show at Studioventuno and more
INFO 

Click on poster above to enlarge for names of artists in the show with me.

 

The Art of Amy Crehore 

Gerda and her husband Lili

Painting by Gerda of her husband.

Read the intriguing story of art deco painter/illustrator Gerda Wegener and her husband Einar Wegener (a.k.a.Lili Elbe) who was also an accomplished painter (he did landscapes). They married young and moved from Copenhagen to Paris in 1912. He used to pose for his wife's paintings- dressed as a woman (above). A little later, he was one of the first people to have sex re-assignment surgery (his autobiography was published in the 1950's-book shown above). Coilhouse has the story along with some examples of Gerda's whimsically erotic illustrations. The ending is a sad one, unfortunately. LINK

 A movie called "The Danish Girl" is being made with Nicole Kidman as Lili.

Girl on a Swing (Banksy Animated)

Thanks madebyabvh tumblr. I could look at this animated Banksy all day.

(follow link for more)

Photo of the Day

okay…, a photo by leslie m k on Flickr.

Cats love to jump on beds.This cat looks a lot like mine. Now why didn't I think of this? :)
(by leslie m k flickr acct., thank you)

My 3rd Essay for Boing Boing! by Amy Crehore

 I wrote an essay about Seth's wonderful picture-novella

 It's A Good Life, If You Don't Weaken

for the Boing Boing's series on Great Graphic Novels.

LINK 

The Art of Amy Crehore
My other two essays for boingboing are about Joseph Cornell(Utopia Parkway) and Ghost World (the movie): LINK

Photo of the Day

This seems familiar to me somehow. link

Emma Watson Portraits

Artist Mark Demsteader did some wonderful portraits of actress Emma Watson. They were shown in a gallery in June 2011 where a portion of sales benefitted a charity for the education of girls in Africa. Story: LINK

Wizard of Oz 1902

Click image to enlarge.

So beautiful. More images at Retronaut

Dreams of Toyland 1908

 

(Thanks, Kim Deitch)

Folk Art Find: Electric Pencil Drawings

I like these naive drawings that John Foster found on ebay by James Edward Deeds, Jr. View more images and read the story about them here:

Design Observer 

 

The Art of Amy Crehore

 

Photo of the Day

Here is a photo of Catherine Deneuve and her sister Francoise Dorleac (French actresses) when they were very young. Sadly, Francoise died at age 25 in a car crash. Catherine is still as beautiful as ever. I never knew the story of her sister, but I looked it up yesterday.

Thanks go to mardecortesbaja: LINK

Kesey Party 1992

Ken Kesey

Hokum Scorchers (Lou Reimuller and Amy Crehore)

Okay, so Jerry Garcia got sick in August of 1992.The Grateful Dead were supposed to headline an event called "Field Trip" in Veneta, OR, but they cancelled due to illness. So, the musicians that were also supposed to play at the event headed out to Ken Kesey's property. My band, The Hokum Scorchers, played music for 20 minutes on a makeshift stage in a field next to Kesey's house. All the food was gone when we got there, so we played on an empty stomach. I think they paid us $5.

Here's my badge (front and back views above) sporting Kesey's own psychedelic artwork. I believe Gus Van Sant was there that day, too, filming the part where Kesey read his childrens' book on stage (wearing a bear costume).

Unfortunately, Kesey's outfit caught on fire as he was doing his thing. I think I heard him scream, "Turn the cameras off!!". My memory is foggy, but I know that I wore my vintage Foster Grant sunglasses like I always do when we play hokum music. I remember asking Ken Babbs if Robert Stone was there because I had just illustrated a story of his for Esquire magazine. "Nope, he's not here, but Timothy Leary is supposed to show up". I remember knocking my microphone completely off the platform. Ka-Plunk! Everyone in the audience was stoned, so it really didn't matter what anyone did on stage. We walked past an old junker on our way out...it was "Further", the original hippie bus (photo above). Later, we would get to play music on Ken Kesey's float in the annual Eugene parade. He made us do a version of the song "Gloria". It must have been one of his favorites. There is a film of that somewhere...

The Art of Amy Crehore

P.S. I posted this story 3 years ago, but I am posting it again this morning as I head out to see the Eugene Celebration parade. I will always remember riding on that float with Ken Kesey who was dressed in his shaggy bear costume. Standing at the front of the float, he almost hit his head on a tree limb as we made our way down the streets of Eugene, OR. There is now a statue of Kesey in the middle of town. He is reading a book to children.

The Paternal Suit by F. Scott Hess

The Paternal Suit consists of over 100 paintings, prints, and objects created by artist F. Scott Hess as his own "family heirlooms" and presented as legitimate historical artifacts. It opens tonight: Halsey Institute of Contemporary Art, watch video and see more images here: LINK 

Exhibit runs: Aug 24- Oct 6, 2012

161 Calhoun Street
Charleston, SC 29401
 843.953.HICA (4422)

Wonderful idea and execution, with a good dose of humor.

The Art of Amy Crehore 
artofamycrehore
 

 

Geishas as Bathing Beauties (1900)

These geishas-as-bathing-beauties (1900) came from Okinawa Soba flickr

(featured on retronaut blog today)

 These are inspiring to me as I have been painting bathers for a while. So charming!

 

The Art of Amy Crehore