Category Archives: Art and Sculpture

Robert Herrick: Poems of Christmas

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The poem ‘To Daffadills’ beginning ‘Faire Daffadills, we weep to see/You haste away so soon’ graces many an anthology. It is often mistakenly thought of as by Wordsworth. But the author was Robert Herrick, a 17th-century country vicar who made a speciality of lyric verse in short lines. Although Herrick’s life was a quiet one, yielding few facts, his work displays an appealing hedonism and deep preoccupation with the fleeting nature of time. He penned the famous lines: ‘Gather ye Rose-buds while ye may/Old Time is still a flying’ which open the poem ‘To the Virgins, to make much of Time’.

Hesperides: or The Works both Humane and Divine of Thomas Herrick, printed in London for John Williams and Francis Eglesfield, in 1648, contained the poet’s collected verse. As the ‘humane’ poems occupy 398 pages of the octavo volume, compared to just 79 pages for the divine, one can deduce that sacred subjects were not his favourite. Hesperides remained an under appreciated book for two centuries, though Anthony Wood recorded that the volume made Herrick ‘much admired in the time … especially by the generous and boon loyalists’ (Wood, Athenae Oxonienses, 1721, II, pp. 122-123). It is a rare book today. Sotheby’s sold the Stockhausen copy for $35,000 in 2015, and the Huth copy for £15,000 in the same year.

One subject that seems to bridge the secular and religious divide in Hesperides is Christmas. Herrick’s Christmas poems include two splendid carols, sung before James I at Whitehall and set to music by Henry Lawes, as well as ‘An Ode of the Birth of Our Saviour’. In the latter, the poet is deeply shocked that the ‘pretty Baby’ and ‘Kingly Stranger’ should have his birthplace in a ‘base Out-stable’, preferring him to possess a cradle of ‘interwoven osiers fragrant posies/Of daffodils and roses’. This is the country cradle of rushes deployed in nativity scenes such as Georges de la Tour’s Adoration of the Shepherds. ‘As Gospel tells’ the actual cradle ‘Was nothing else,/But here a homely manger’. But the poet promises to totally transform the conditions spoken of in the Gospel. The baby’s rough clothing will be exchanged for silks sewn with ‘precious jewels’ and ‘lily-work’, the manger will be turned into a chamber of ivory and amber:

But we with silks, not crewels,
With sundry precious jewels,
And lily-work will dress thee;
And as we disposses[s] thee
Of clouts, we’ll make a chamber,
Sweet babe, for Thee, of ivory,
And plaister’d round with amber.

The allusions to silks, jewels and other precious commodities would have been made from a standpoint of knowledge as Herrick was born into a family of goldsmiths in 1591, the seventh child of Julia Stone and Nicholas Herrick. He was named after an uncle, Robert Herrick (or Heyrick), Member of Parliament for Leicester. Tragedy struck when, the year after his birth, his father died in a possible case of suicide (he fell from an upper window of his house in Cheapside two days after making his will). Fortunately, his uncle provided for him.

In 1607 Herrick was apprenticed to another uncle, Sir William Herrick, a goldsmith with close ties to James I. He got through six years of the ten year apprenticeship, then sought a different future in law. At the comparatively advanced age of 22, he matriculated at St. John’s College, Cambridge. Surviving letters to Sir William indicate that his nephew’s finances could barely cope with a year’s carousing at St. John’s, and he moved to Trinity Hall where he spent three more years reading law, graduating in 1617.

For reasons we don’t know Herrick never became a practising lawyer. In the twelve years between his graduation from Cambridge in 1617, and his appointment as vicar of Dean Prior ‘tantalisingly little’ is known for certain about his life (see poetryfoundation.org). It is widely accepted that he spent much of his time in London. Writing in the mid- 19th century, Henry Vizetelly described him as being ‘in familiar intercourse with the chief wits, and writers of the age. Herrick had for his early intimates Ben Jonson, [John] Selden, William Lawes the eminent composer, and Endymion Porter, groom of the chamber to the King, besides many others of equal note’ (Christmas with the Poets, London, David Bogue, 1851).

The teacher/pupil relationship with Ben Jonson (1572-1637) was real enough for Herrick to address five poems to him, including an epitaph. The first verse of ‘His Prayer to Ben. Jonson’ pays due homage to the great classicist, as a playwright ranked second only to Shakespeare:

When I a Verse shall make,
Know I have praid thee,
For old Religions sake,
Saint Ben to aide me.

Endymion Porter (1587-1649) was a diplomat and patron of the arts, fiercely loyal to Charles I, who also wrote verses. Both he and his wife, Olivia, niece to the Duke of Buckingham, were painted by van Dyck. While Herrick himself never married, he was preoccupied with women as a subject, writing about Julia and other ‘mistresses’ in as many as 158 poems. It is possible that none of the women he so admired in verse existed as real people.

It may have been owing to the influence of Endymion Porter that Herrick briefly obtained the position of assistant chaplain to the Duke of Buckingham, playing his part in the catastrophic expedition to free the French Huguenots on the Ile de Ré in 1627. But that was the beginning and end of his military career. He was appointed to the living of Dean Prior in South Devon in 1629, a post he took up in 1630, perhaps with the conscious aim of having more time and opportunity for his poetry.

Dean Prior in the 17th century must be regarded as extremely remote and therefore ideal for a hermit like Herrick. The nearest towns, Exeter and Plymouth, were almost a day’s ride away. London was a five-day trek. Though the vicarage next to the church was by no means ostentatious, the poet-clergyman never agitated for change and lived in Dean Prior for a total of 31 years, the period split into two by the civil war.

Whereas Herrick was a royalist and traditional Anglican, and is often grouped among 17th-century ‘cavalier poets’, the population of the west country was strongly sympathetic to the Puritan cause. The Civil War which began in 1642 made his position precarious; in 1647 he was among 142 Devonshire clergymen expelled from their parishes because of their loyalty to the King. He went to live in Westminster, where he could be supported by his family and friends. His first period as vicar had lasted for 17 years. On his return to Devon at the Restoration of 1660, he served for 14 years more, ending with his death in 1674. While the 14th-century parish church of St. George the Martyr still stands, his gravestone has disappeared, exactly as he predicted it would.

Herrick would certainly have missed old friends on his return to the capital. Ben Jonson had died ten years earlier, William Lawes had been killed at the siege of Chester, Endymion Porter had fled abroad, returning to England only to die in poverty in 1649. ‘Selden alone survived in the enjoyment of a green old age’ (Vizetelly). New literary friendships were forged with Charles Cotton, translator of Montaigne and contributor to The Compleat Angler, and Sir John Denham, the bard of Cooper’s Hill. Herrick also had his octavo volume of poetry, largely written in Devon, to think about for the press. Being close to the printers must have been a stimulus despite the existence of this biblical quatrain preceding the errata:

For these transgressions which thou
here dost see
Condemne the Printer, Reader,
and not me;
Who gave him forth good Grain,
though he mistook
The Seed; so sowed these
Tares throughout my Book.

Herrick revised his work, carefully considered what order to place the poems in, and even went to the trouble of versifying the table of contents. The religious poems have an independent title, His Noble Numbers, and separate pagination; dated 1647, the year of his return from Dean Prior, they may originally have been intended for separate publication

Hesperides contains some 1400 lyrics in all, of which there are sixteen or so Christmas poems. While this is only a fraction of the content, it is hard to think of any other poet who has taken such pains to record the festivities. We are used to thinking of indulgent Christmases as a Victorian invention. Reading Herrick’s accounts of wassailing and other Christmas ‘ceremonials’ will show this to be a misconception. For Christmas traditions in 17th-century Devon are time honoured and have no identifiable beginning.

As opposed to being treated as a single day in modern fashion, Christmas drinking and feasting lasts for a whole season, coming to another climax on Twelfth Night, and even extending up to Candlemas Eve on 1st February. There is little if any mention of young children. It is maidens and young men who are at the centre of Herrick’s Christmas, and happy carousing, happy eating of plum pies and pastries, are the order of the day.

‘Ceremonies for Christmas’ is primarily about the lighting of the Christmas log. The speaker demands that it be brought into the room, accompanied by a suitable uproar of noise from the ‘merry boys’. Thanks to ‘my good dame’, a generous hostess, drinking opportunities are unlimited:

Come, bring with a noise, My merry, merry boys, The Christmas log to the firing; While my good dame, she Bids ye all be free And drink to your heart’s desiring.

The speaker next demands that the new block of wood for the Christmas fire be lit with a piece of the old wood, saved from the previous Christmas: ‘With the last year’s brand/Light the new block’. The middle stanza also refers to the ‘psaltries’ (or guitars) that have to be played as the wood kindles, bringing ‘sweet luck’. Once these ceremonies have been performed, the orders are to:

Drink now the strong beer,
Cut the white loaf here;
The while the meat is a-shredding
For the rare mince-pie,
And the plums stand by
To fill the paste that’s a-kneading.

It’s an abrupt end but typically matter of fact in manner. From this poem alone Herrick’s approval of wassailing or drinking to excess is unquestionable. However, his poem ‘Wassail’, written in 3-line stanzas, is ironically so called, for it takes to task the miserly household that refuses to open its doors for Christmas. Nothing is so grievous as the lack of beer. ‘Alas! We bless, but see none here/That brings us either ale or beer;/ In a dry house all things are near’. Neither are there any happy noises in a house ‘Where chimneys do for ever weep/For want of warmth, and stomachs keep,/With noise, the servants’ eyes from sleep’.

‘Twelfth Night or King and Queen’ describes the ‘cake full of plums’ (the ancestor of our Christmas pudding), and the election of the Twelfth Night king and queen by the successful recovery of a bean and pea hidden inside it: ‘Now, now the mirth comes/With the cake full of plums,/Where bean’s the king of the sport here’. Once the election is decided, the invitation is issued to all to ‘…make/Joy-sops with the cake’, and drink to a cup’s limits:

… let not a man then be seen here,
Who unurged will not drink,
To the base from the brink,
A health to the king and queen here.

The reference to ‘lamb’s wool’ in the penultimate stanza becomes less puzzling once ‘… a bowl full/With gentle lamb’s wool’ is recognised as the Devonshire name for a bowl of spiced beer. Herrick even provides a list of ingredients: ‘sugar, nutmeg and ginger,/With store of ale, too’, all necessary ‘to make the wassail a swinger’. Guests are encouraged to wassail the king and queen, and an assurance is given that the drinking is all good natured:

… though with ale ye be wet here,
Yet part ye from hence
As free from offence
As when ye innocent met here.

Herrick’s poems could be very short indeed. Two of the Christmas lyrics consist of only one 4-line stanza. ‘Another to the Maids’ warns the maids in a household against kindling the Christmas fire with ‘unwash’d hands’, the belief being that this will only put the fire out:

Wash your hands, or else the fire
Will not teend to your desire;
Unwash’d hands, ye maidens, know,
Dead the fire, though ye blow.

A second short poem, called simply ‘Another’, forms a companion-piece to the first, advising the maids to wassail the fruit trees in order to improve their fertility:

Wassail the trees, that they may bear
You many a plum and many a pear:
For more or less fruits they will bring,
As you do give them wassailing.

At fifty lines in length ‘A New Year’s Gift sent to Sir Simon Steward’ was one of the more ambitious Christmas poems. It is a composition that can be dated. Sir Simon (1575-1632) had been a student at Trinity Hall living on there for some years after his graduation. Besides combining the roles of a Justice of the Peace, High Sheriff, and MP, he was an occasional poet. Herrick sent him his long string of rhyming couplets in January, 1624, starting that no kind of bad political news would be the subject his letter. Instead Sir Simon should expect to find:

… here a jolly
Verse, crown’d with ivy and with holly,
That tells the winter’s tales and mirth,
That milkmaids make about the hearth,

In the mid stage of the poem various ‘Christmas sports’ and customs are affectionately named or mentioned, not least the choosing of the Twelfth Night king and queen. Sir Simon and his household are urged to read the poem, and ‘Remember us in cups full crown’d’. But the mood is not all joyful; in the final part Herrick touches on his favourite theme of the brevity of time, and insists that thoughts of future Christmases are preferable to ‘fled Decembers’. Better, it is suggested, to drink on until Father Bacchus ‘twirls the house about your ears’, attaching ‘your cares’ to the past year not the future one:

Then as yet sit about your embers,
Call not to mind those fled Decembers,
But think on those that are t’appear
As daughters to the instant year:
Sit crown’d with rosebuds, and carouse
Till Liber Pater twirls the house
About your ears; and lay upon
The year your cares that’s fled and gone.

However, the last piece of advice is light hearted. It is to enjoy the Christmas plays, and ‘Frolic the full twelve holidays’.

‘Ceremonies for Candlemas Eve’ is another poem about transience and the need to avoid regret. Who hasn’t taken down the Christmas decorations with a sense of relief and a feeling that it’s time to move on? Herrick captures that feeling, beginning his poem with the call to take down the Christmas greenery on Candlemas Eve (i.e. 1st February). He is happy to see a new plant, ‘the greener box … domineer’ instead. However, the box also has its time limit in the house, holding sway only up to ‘dancing Easter day’. His poem begins:

Down with the rosemary and bays,
Down with the mistletoe;
Instead of holly, now up-raise
The greener box (for show).
The holly hitherto did sway:
Let box now domineer
Until the dancing Easter day,
Or Easter’s eve appear.

As the year progresses, there is a recognisable succession of plants traditionally used for adornment. The ‘youthful box’ renews houses but when ‘Grown old, surrender must his place/Unto the crisped yew’. The yew is followed by the birch ‘And many flowers beside’ which do honour to Whitsuntide. In the final stanza, ‘green rushes’, ‘bents’ (so called because they are flowers which bend or droop?) and ‘cooler oaken boughs’ are considered ‘comely ornaments/To re-adorn the house’. But the poem does not end there.

Herrick adds an extra couplet to remind us that, as greenery goes in and out of favour in the house, so the shifts of time effect change in all things:

Green rushes, then, and sweetest bents,
With cooler oaken boughs
Come in with comely ornaments
To re-adorn the house.
Thus times do shift; each thing
his turn does hold;
New things succeed,
as former things grow old.

Through these varied poems Herrick gives us a remarkably strong picture of what a 17th-century Christmas in Devon was like, something to think about as we are enjoying our Christmas in the early 21stcentury. Anyone interested in reading more of his work should consult the website luminarium.org where his poems are available online.

John Constable and the Stour Valley

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I can’t think of a painter who was as influenced by, or devoted to recording the landscape of his boyhood, as John Constable R.A. (1776-1837). He is famously recorded as saying: “Still I should paint my own places best; painting is with me but another word for feeling, and I associate ‘my careless boyhood’ with all that lies on the banks of the Stour; those scenes made me a painter, and I am grateful.”

He was born in East Bergholt in Suffolk and the villages of the Stour Valley were the subjects of his early work. However, as Michael Rosenthal points out in his excellent book ‘Constable, the painter and his landscape’ published in 1983, it was not all plain sailing. Despite the familiarity and love of the place, there were emotional associations that precluded Constable painting certain aspects of his childhood landscape. For instance, he was incapable of painting land owned by his father, Golding, a successful farmer, mill owner and grain merchant, until Golding came to terms with is son’s desire to become a painter. Golding wanted him to join and then run the family business, as John’s elder brother had learning difficulties. By 1799, Golding had relented to some extent, granted his son a small allowance and John then entered the Royal Academy Schools.

In 1808 Golding gave him a small grain store in East Bergholt to convert into a studio, now owned by my friend, Susan Morris. She’s the only one of my friends who has a fridge magnet of her house! Father and son were truly reconciled.

In 1816 he married Maria Bicknell, whom he had known since 1809. Their love was a source of great comfort to Constable, but the union was not approved of by Maria’s grandfather, Dr Rhudde, rector of East Bergholt, who threatened to disinherit her. He thought the Constables were socially inferior. However, Golding and Ann Constable died in quick succession and John inherited one fifth of the family business, which eased the financial pressure.

Now with several children to support, he embarked on an ambitious plan to enhance his reputation by producing large canvases for exhibition in both London and Paris. He returned to his beloved Stour Valley for these and produced a series of ‘six footers’ (the size of the canvas), of which the most famous is ‘The Hay Wain’.

It was exhibited at the Paris Salon in 1824, where it caused a sensation, because of its vibrant technique and colour and its truth to nature. It was awarded a gold medal by Charles X. Delacroix repainted the background of his ‘Massacre de Scio’, as a result of seeing it.

By the early 1820s, Maria was showing signs of tuberculosis and Constable took lodgings in Brighton for her health. He made numerous drawings of the South Downs and Coast, and produced a marvellous oil painting of the ‘Chain Pier, Brighton’, which was exhibited in 1827. Sadly, the sea air did not save Maria and after the birth of their seventh child, Maria died in November 1828. Constable was distraught. He wrote to his brother, also called Golding, ‘hourly do I feel the loss of my departed angel…the face of the world is totally changed for me’.

The period following Maria’s death was a profoundly melancholic one for Constable. He dressed in black and was prone to anxiety. I always think that Hadleigh Castle sums up Constable’s state of mind at this time. A lonely figure and his dog stand beside the ruined castle, whilst a storm approaches from the sea, with just two shafts of light to suggest some source of hope. The palette is subdued but the brushwork vigorous, the product of a troubled mind.

On a less sombre note, there is a charming story that Constable relates to his friend Archdeacon Fisher of Salisbury. He was travelling in the 1820s in a carriage from Ipswich to London with two strangers. By way of making conversation, he pointed out of the window and remarked “Don’t you think this is a beautiful landscape?” One of the strangers said “yes I do, Sir, but you should remember this is Constable country.”

Dale Chihuly

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Dale Chihuly is an Internationally renowned American glass artist known for his innovative and intricate glass sculptures and installations. He was born on September 20, 1941, in Tacoma, Washington, USA. Chihuly’s early life played a significant role in shaping his career as an artist, here are some key points.

Family Background

Dale Chihuly was raised in a middle-class family in Tacoma, Washington. His father worked as a meatpacker and union organiser, while his mother was a homemaker.

Early Interest in Art

Chihuly developed an early interest in art and began working with glass in the early 1960s while studying interior design at the University of Washington in Seattle. During this time, he had the opportunity to work at the Venini glass factory in Venice, Italy, which ignited his passion for glassblowing.

Education

After completing his undergraduate studies, Chihuly pursued a Master of Fine Arts (MFA) degree in ceramics at the Rhode Island School of Design (RISD).

Founding Pilchuck Glass School

In 1971, Chihuly co-founded the Pilchuck Glass School in Stanwood, Washington. This school played a crucial role in the development of the American studio glass movement, providing a space for artists to experiment and collaborate with glass as a medium.

Artistic Influences

Chihuly was influenced by various artistic movements and styles, including the Murano Italian glassblowing tradition, Native American art, and the Studio Glass Movement. His work often combines traditional glassblowing techniques with contemporary artistic concepts.

Career Development

Dale Chihuly’s early career was spent in experimentation and innovation in glass art, which resulted in the production of his best-known series of glass sculptures, including the iconic Macchia and Persian series.

International Recognition

Over the years, Chihuly’s work has gained international acclaim, and he has become one of the world’s best known and most prominent glass artists. Here are just six of his most famous and widely recognised works and projects.

Chihuly’s body of work extends far beyond these few examples, and his contributions to the world of glass art are extensive and influential.

Here are some lesser-known facts about Dale Chihuly:

Early Interest in Interior Design:

Before becoming a renowned glass artist, Chihuly initially pursued a degree in interior design at the University of Washington. His interest in design played a role in his creative approach to glass art and sculpture.

Inspiration from Indigenous Art:

Chihuly has drawn inspiration from indigenous art and cultures around the world. In particular, he has been influenced by Native American art, and some of his works incorporate elements reminiscent of Native American basketry and design.

Innovation in Glassblowing:

Chihuly is known for his innovative techniques in glassblowing. He introduced the concept of the “team approach” to glassblowing, where he works closely with a team of skilled artisans who help bring his intricate and large-scale designs to life.

Blind in One Eye:

In 1976, Chihuly was involved in a car accident in which he lost vision in one eye after being struck by a metal rod. Despite this life changing injury for any artist working in any medium, he continued to create glass art and adapted his techniques to accommodate his visual impairment.

Collections in Unusual Places:

Chihuly’s work can be found in some unexpected places. In addition to galleries and museums and private homes his glass sculptures have been displayed in unique locations such as botanical gardens, casinos, and even underwater. For example, his glass installations have been featured in underwater settings like aquariums and also Venice during his “Chihuly Over Venice” in 1996, see 5 on previous page.

After looking at some of the images of Dale’s huge installations and projects you would be forgiven for thinking that owning a piece is only possible for the elite collector with deep pockets and lots of space! Happily, Dale makes some beautiful table size and smaller single pieces that all use the exact same wonderfully uplifting ‘hot’ colours and flowing shapes. The first Exhibition of Dale’s work I saw was at the Halcyon Gallery London in January 2108. I remember being blown away by the vibrancy of his colours and the sheer energy and scale of the larger pieces and the gem like qualities of the smaller works which were all beautifully displayed in elegant glass display cases.

Chihuly’s works come up at auction fairly regularly and also appear on the art selling sites, Artsy and 1st Dibs, I have made a small selection of auction sales with prices and estimates as a guide and some currently available pieces for sale on these two main selling sites, which I hope will further wet your appetite for works by the master of glass, Dale Chihuly.

Andy Warhol’s Birthday

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Andy Warhol, born Andrew Warhola, was born on August 6, 1928, in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, to Slovakian immigrant parents. Andy was the fourth of five children, his father worked as a construction worker, and his mother was a homemaker and they lived in a working-class neighbourhood in Pittsburgh.

Andy was ‘dogged’ by illness, at the age of eight, he contracted a rare and severe illness called Sydenham’s chorea. This left him bedridden for several months, during which time his mother helped fill his days by giving him drawing lessons, which ignited his passion for art. Andy attended Schenley High School in Pittsburgh, where he demonstrated early artistic talent and where he was recognised and encouraged in these abilities. After graduating in 1945, he went on to study at the Carnegie Institute of Technology (now Carnegie Mellon University) in Pittsburgh.

After completing his studies in 1949, Andy moved to New York City, where he began his career as a commercial artist and illustrator. He worked for magazines, advertising agencies, and retail stores, quickly gaining recognition for his unique and imaginative art style.

By the late 1950s, he had started experimenting with Fine Art and had begun producing paintings, drawings, and prints. He found his inspiration in everyday objects and popular culture, leading him to create many of the works that would become iconic representations of the Pop Art movement and synonymous with Andy Warhol.

In the 1960s, he established his now famous studio space called “The Factory.” It was a hub for creative collaborations, attracting artists, musicians, writers, and celebrities, alike and it rapidly became a centre for the avant-garde in New York City.

Warhol’s fascination with celebrity culture led him to create portraits of many famous personalities, including Marilyn Monroe, Elvis Presley, and Elizabeth Taylor.

Andy Warhol’s creativity extended way beyond painting and drawing and he ventured into film, creating the experimental movies “Chelsea Girls” (1966) and “Empire” (1964), a slow-motion film of the Empire State Building.

Andy Warhol, well known for his contributions to the Pop Art movement and his choice of subjects for his art, was heavily influenced not only by celebrity and popular culture but also brand names, crime and for some reason car crashes. Some of his most famous paintings include the following:

The market for Warhol’s work has existed from day one and interest from buyers is truly international, with his work being sold across the world, where it is both a highlight and a mainstay of all the major and minor auction houses and galleries across the world. His major works continue to change hands for multi-million pound sums and the second and third most expensive Warhol works sold at auction to date are as follows:

Andy Warhol's art and history

Behind the scenes Andy Warhol is just as fascinating, here are a few little known facts about him.

Time Capsules:
Warhol was an avid collector and archivist. He had a fascination with preserving everyday items and created what he called “Time Capsules.” These Time Capsules were essentially cardboard boxes in which he stored various objects such as newspapers, correspondence, photographs, art supplies, and random items from his daily life. Over the years, he filled over 600 of these Time Capsules, which provide a unique insight into his life and the culture of the time.

Religious Devotion:
Despite his flamboyant and controversial public persona, Warhol was a devout Byzantine Catholic. He attended church regularly, and his religious beliefs played a significant role in his life. He even commissioned religious-themed artworks, including several portraits of Jesus Christ.

Art Collector:
Warhol was an enthusiastic art collector and he had his own extensive collection of art, including works by fellow contemporary artists and art pieces from various periods and styles. Following his death, Sotheby’s auction house held a nine-day auction in 1988 where they sold off more than 10,000 items from Warhol’s personal collection, which fetched tens of millions of dollars.

Underground Filmmaker:
As mentioned earlier in this piece Warhol is well-known for his contributions to the visual arts and he was also a pioneer in underground filmmaking. In the 1960s, he produced a series of experimental films that challenged traditional cinematic conventions. One of his most famous films is “Sleep” (1963), which depicts his friend John Giorno sleeping for over five hours. Warhol’s films often explored themes of monotony, voyeurism, and the passage of time.

Wig-Wearing Icon:
Andy Warhol’s signature silver-white wig became an essential part of his public image. He began wearing wigs in the 1960s to create a distinctive look, and it quickly became one of his trademarks. The wig allowed him to transform his appearance and present himself as an enigmatic figure in the art world and popular culture

Cookbook Author:
In 1959, Warhol and his friend Suzie Frankfurt co-authored a quirky and amusing cookbook titled “Wild Raspberries.” The book, which was never intended to be a practical guide to cooking, featured illustrations and handwritten recipes for dishes like “Omelet Greta Garbo” and “Piglet a la Cubist.” This limited edition book is now a highly sought-after collector’s item.

These lesser known facts highlight the diverse and eccentric aspects of Andy Warhol’s life and artistic pursuits. His impact on various forms of art and culture continues to be influential and celebrated to this day.

Throughout his life, Andy Warhol continued to push the boundaries of art, leaving a lasting impact on the art world and popular culture. His early experiences and upbringing shaped his artistic style and many of the themes he explored in his work.

 

Read more about investing in Warhol art here.

To get in touch about a valuation, visit our Contact Us page.

How to look after paintings

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Pictures, like small children, prefer consistency of treatment. In the case of paintings and watercolours this means no violent fluctuations in temperature or humidity.

If you have a damp room a de-humidifier can bring the relative humidity down to around 40%-60%, above this level and there is a possibility of mould growing on surfaces and this can stain the paper on which watercolours, drawings and prints have been worked, irrevocably. Some moisture in the air is good, especially for inlaid furniture and panel pictures. I was in the Pinacoteca in Bologna 40 years ago, where there was about zero relative humidity and the great wooden altarpieces were groaning like ships’ timbers, as they dried out and moved. It’s not like that now!

water damage - caring for paintings

Hanging paintings above radiators or chimney breasts is to be avoided as the paint layer dries out and becomes brittle and if the painting is on a panel it can warp. The same applies to furniture.

Direct sunlight is a no-no, especially for watercolours. I remember seeing a large pair of watercolours by Turner hanging in a lightwell. They had been there since 1800 when the owner’s forbear had bought them at Christie’s. I tracked the sale. Instead of being worth £200,000 (they were obviously very early ones) they were worth about £5,000 as curiosities. All the colour had been bleached out – no blues, no greens, just pale pink and brown smudges. What a tragedy!

light damage on a painting

Whether light travels in waves or pulses, it equals heat and this will damage anything subjected to it. Ultra violet inhibiting strips can be put on windows, but they are only about 60% effective and should not be exclusively relied upon. Old-fashioned velvet curtains, with brass rods stretched through the bottoms are an ideal way of protecting watercolours in daytime and can, be turned back at night.

Artificial lighting can be harmful too, although it lacks the sun’s power, so low energy bulbs should be used and try to avoid picture lights on brass arms attached to the frame of an oil painting. They are too close to the surface of the painting and can cause stress to an old carved and gilded frame.

The cleaning of all paintings must be left to well-trained professional conservators. It is a highly complex procedure requiring in-depth knowledge of chemistry. Never use a damp cloth to clean the gilding on a frame. If it is water-based gilding, as opposed to oil, it will dissolve. A feather duster is preferable to a cloth duster as it is less likely to snag the carving and pull it off. You can dust the surface of an oil painting, very gently, with a cloth duster.

caring for paintings - feather duster

Lastly, never dust the glass on a pastel, it can cause static electricity to build up and the pastel (powdery chalk), which was never treated with a fixative in the 17th, 18th and 19th Centuries, will jump off the paper and adhere to the inside of the glass!

Some things you just have to live with such as houseflies whose poo can stain an oil painting and can only be removed with a scalpel (don’t try this yourself!).

Thunderflies, in high summer, can find their way under the tightest-fitting glass and litter the surface of a watercolour or drawing. Wait until autumn and take the backing off the work on paper, dust them out and reseal. Silverfish are a menace. If they get into a Victorian watercolour they can munch their way through the pigments, which have been impregnated with gum Arabic (the substance that Osama Bin Laden’s family fortune was based on) leaving patches of bald paper. Try to keep on top of silverfish by regular hoovering.

It is a very good idea to have your paintings regularly valued, which will involve keeping a good photographic record. This could prove very useful to a conservator and loss adjuster should you have the misfortune to have water or fire damage.

King Charles III, Passionate Painter

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King Charles III first began painting in 1970, inspired by Robert Waddell, his art master at Gordonstoun School in Scotland. The school has a 200-acre woodland campus, and is within walking distance of the beaches of the Moray Firth and so provided the young prince with a wealth of subject matter. His Majesty began painting with watercolour at Gordonstoun and has stuck with it until now, despite it’s occasionally unforgiving nature.

The King says it gives him a greater sense of immediacy and ease of working ‘en Plein Air’. He also likes the speed of working in watercolour, it means he is quicker to finish a picture, and so doesn’t have to keep his security detail waiting for too long while he finishes a sketch.

The King is following a tradition first begun by Queen Victoria, who also only used watercolours and as a young girl was taught by well known artists such as William Leighton Leitch (1804-1883) . After leaving school King Charles initially received instruction from the then President of the Royal Academy and Architect Sir Hugh Casson, and his early work clearly shows Casson’s influence. Subsequently he was taught by some of Britain’s most famous Royal Academicians artists, including John Napper, John Ward, the Royal Family’s favourite painter, Edward Seago, and the Anglo Irish artist Derek Hill, who also facilitated painting trips in Ireland for the King.

The King’s style has evolved over the years into something that is clearly his own and for me as a specialist is immediately recognizable, often simply signed with a capital C. Favourite subjects to paint are outdoor scenes, particularly mountains, streams, and the surrounding areas of the Royal estates in Scotland and Norfolk. However other subjects include overseas landscapes including Saudi Arabia and the South of France.

He is a generous supporter of many causes and all profit and sales benefit the Prince’s Trust for Children and the Arts. As a regular Charity auctioneer myself I have brought the gavel down on many of his signed, limited edition colour lithographs all generously donated and selling for prices between £3-£8,000 depending on the event and subject. These also regularly appear for sale on the auction and retail market and so are available for anyone to buy either from traditional galleries or online vendors for between £6-10,000 again depending on subject and rarity. As for the original watercolours, it is my belief that these are only given as personal gifts from the King to his artist and other friends and therefore are kept as treasured gifts and so never sold.

Very very occasionally an original watercolour will find its way onto the auction market, and these are well worth looking out for. King Charles has continuously shown his work in non selling events over the years beginning with his first exhibition in 1977 held at Windsor Castle, where his work was displayed alongside works by Queen Victoria and the Duke of Edinburgh, himself an enthusiastic painter and sometime designer, whose sketches helped create the stained-glass windows in the Private Chapel of Windsor Castle.

The King rather modestly refers to himself as an “enthusiastic amateur,” however sales of his work have raised an estimated £2 million from the sales of signed limited edition prints of his watercolors from 1997 to 2016, making him one of the country’s best-selling living artists. Additionally in conjunction with Hugh Maxwell Casson ,King Charles illustrated a children’s book, “The Old Man of Lochnagar,” about an old, cave-dwelling man who meets a bubble-blowing god of the sea!

I imagine a King’s duties may leave less time for painting, hopefully not as the result is very pleasing to all concerned and is clearly a source of relaxation and pleasure in achievement for our New King.

The Nude

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For the next in my series of articles on what inspires artist to paint, I have chosen The Nude. This is such a vast subject, that I intend to look at Western Art, exploring only paintings from the Renaissance to the present day. Of course sculpture has a very important part to play in the history of The Nude, but for the most part, I am going to ignore it for brevity’s sake.

Sir Kenneth Clark, as he was then, in his brilliant book “The Nude”, (published by John Murray 1956), begins chapter one thus:

“The English language, with its elaborate generosity, distinguished between the naked and the nude. Naked is to be deprived of our clothes and the word implies some of the embarrassment which most of us feel in that condition. The word nude, carries, in educated usage, no uncomfortable overtone. The vague image it projects into the mind is not of a huddled and defenceless body, but of a balanced, prosperous and confident body: the body re-formed.”

Since classical antiquity, the human body has been central to art. We are mostly familiar with sculpture, as so little painting has survived. During the Renaissance, excavations of ancient sites in Rome, Naples and elsewhere unearthed a vast treasure trove of naked gods and goddesses.

These antiquities invited scholars, collectors and artists alike to embrace a classical notion of ideal beauty and Diana, Venus, Danae, Sea Nymphs and various other creations of Greek and Roman mythology became a rich seam for admirers of the nude to mine. Gods and goddesses seldom wore clothes!

The Bible, too has a store of subjects involving the nude from Adam and Eve in the garden of Eden to Lot and his daughters and Bathsheba.

The obvious potential for eroticism, was reduced by certain conventions in depicting the nude. The bodies, although adult, were hairless and had the look of polished marble rather than flesh – the look of a classical statue, as opposed to a “page 3” girl. This anodyne look, with a few subtle variations, lasted until the mid-19th Century.

There was a convention that allowed little boys to be painted completely naked and they are, frequently, as Cupid and Putti (winged cherubs). Little girls, however, have their lower abdomens covered by draperies. Sometimes adult females are draped too but the folds in the draperies often merely accentuate what is hidden.

The 17th Century ushers in a new aesthetic in Western painting. The dramatic light and shade of Caravaggio’s art in Italy found its way to the North of Europe, via Utrecht artists who worked in Rome. Rembrandt was one who embraced this new realism. When he painted his mistress, Hendrikje Stoffels, as “Bathsheba at Her Bath”, she is very much a woman of flesh and blood. Rembrandt records her rather large feet and hands and slightly tubby torso. He also includes the lump in her left breast, which may have been the cause of her death, aged 39, but her death may have been caused by the Plague, which killed thousands in Amsterdam in 1663. In any event, she is nothing like the classical ideal nude of a century earlier.

With the painting of François Boucher in 18th Century Paris, we return to a notion of ideal beauty. Against a background of political and social turmoil, Boucher depicts a world where elegant and beautiful gods and goddesses float and frolic blissfully.

In the 19th Century painters had a new and potentially devastating invention to contend with, photography. What could a painter do, that a photograph could not? The answer is, interpret the object in front of it, rather than merely record it, which is why, nearly 200 years after the invention of photography we still have war artists.

Édouard Manet’s “Olympia”, exhibited at The Paris Salon in 1865, is partly a return to the ideal, with Olympia’s marmoreal body, but it is also a snapshot of the moment her maid arrives with a bunch of flowers.

In England, three decades after Olympia, John William Godward is painting Campaspe as a living sculpture. She is not as pale as Olympia, but she is definitely statuesque and conventional, to conform with Victorian sensibilities. It is worth remembering that some Victorians draped the legs of their pianos, as legs were suggestive – of what I wonder? Furthermore, librarians separated books by male and female authors, lest they jostle against one another on the bookshelves – I think I know what they are getting at, the possibility of two books turning into a library.

Now we come to the 20th Century, when, as we all know, the rule book is thrown out of the window. There is no norm. Whilst Amadeo Modigliani, is painting an ideal nude, inspired by Italian Renaissance painting, Picasso is producing Cubist nudes in strokes of muted grey and Egon Schiele is producing sexually explicit nudes, which still have the power to shock profoundly and are the subject of censorship in many parts of the world. I’m not going to illustrate one!

Surrealism, of course, has its own take on the nude and Rene Magritte’s “Attempting the Impossible” of 1928 has the artist wearing a brown suit painting a living female nude model in 3-D, standing in the same space that he occupies. It is a witty take on Art imitating Art. The model is little more than a painted statue.

No Study of The Nude is complete without an in depth look at the work of Lucian Freud, a man obsessed with the nude, although he hated the word. In his maturity, he possessed a technique which uses thick impasto (paint) with light scumbles (like light washes) over the top to create a sense of the colour and texture of living flesh. Freud’s sitters are as far removed from the ideal as it is possible to be. The men often appear vulnerable and awkward, as do many of his women.

Sue Tilley, the model for one of his most famous nude portraits, “Benefits Supervisor Sleeping”, became a muse for him in the 1990s. The painting of her asleep on a sofa in Freud’s studio is a masterpiece of observation, empathy and reportage. She is seen from above, lying on his sofa, and the sense of her volume and the space she occupies is breathtaking. She sold at Christie’s for $33.6M, which, at the time, was the world record for a living artist.

The Nude has provoked much thought and inspired the spilling of litres of ink over the centuries. The Guerilla Girls, a group of anonymous American female artists produced a poster of Ingres’ “Grande Odalisque”, a white-skinned female nude seen from behind, with a gorilla’s head and in bold type posed the question: “Do women have to be naked to get into the Met. Museum?” It went on to say “Less than 5% of the artists in the Modern Art Sections are women, but 85% of the nudes are female”.

Through all the convulsions and twists that art has taken from the Renaissance, through Abstraction to the modern day, it is interesting to reflect that Life Classes, drawing the human body using a live model, still go on in every corner of the globe. There are three within a five mile radius of where I live ! To be able to draw the human form is clearly the starting point of all art.

World record prices at auction for the artists mentioned:

Lucas Cranach £9.43M
Cavaliere d’Arpino £325,000
Rembrandt van Rijn £20.2M
François Boucher $2.4M
Édouard Manet $65.126M
John William Godward £1.3M
Amadeo Modigliani $170M
Pablo Picasso $179M
Rene Magritte £59.4M
Lucian Freud $86.2M

10 Celebrities who you never knew were artists!

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‘Never judge a book by its cover’ – that’s what we’re always told. We never know what’s really happening beneath someone’s public persona – and none more so than with famous actors or musicians, who we think we know so well through their film or music. But this fame and celebrity can often be misleading as many of the most famous celebrities have kept a secret from their fans – the secret being that they are artists (painters, photographers, sculptors) independent of their day jobs. In fact, in some case, the celebrities identify more as visual artists than their more famous personas!

Below are 10 celebrities who might surprise you with their double life!

David Bowie

David Bowie was undoubtedly one of the greatest creative forces of the 20th century, known for his ability to effortlessly reinvent himself over and over. It’s not surprising, therefore, that his creativity was also multifaceted and that he was a practicing visual artist for as long as he was a musician. Until 1994, however this side of his work remained unknown to the public. For the glam icon, painting was an essential part of the musical process.

As he explained during a conversation with The New York Times in 1998: ‘I’ll combine sounds that are kind of unusual, and then I’m not quite sure where the text should fall in the music,’ he explained, ‘Or I’m not sure what the sound conjures up for me. So then I’ll go and try and draw or paint the sound of the music. And often, a landscape will produce itself.’

Bowie was also a devoted art collector, and he had a close affinity with the work of Jean-Michel Basquiat.

‘I feel the very moment of his brush or crayon touching the canvas, there is a burning immediacy to his ever-evaporating decisions that fires the imagination ten or fifteen years on, as freshly molten as the day they were poured onto the canvas. It comes as no surprise to learn that he had a not-so-hidden ambition to be a rock musician. His work relates to rock in ways that very few other visual artists get near.’

Jim Carrey

Jim Carrey’s comedy and movie background is already legendary, but most people don’t realise that he is also an artist with a number of public exhibitions under his belt! Carrey has been drawing and painting since childhood, and not surprisingly considering his sharp wit and edgy sense of humour, his art is highly political and satirical; criticising and digging into the woes of modern-day America. Carrey is both a painter, sculptor and print maker.

In common with many of his actor / artist contemporaries, Carrey uses his art to ground and settle him, to enable him to switch off. As he says, ‘When I sculpt and paint is when I feel the most present and in harmony with the environment; as if all time has been suspended, all gravity disappears.’

Bob Dylan

As if he wasn’t content with being one of the most iconic musicians of modern times, Bob Dylan has also established himself as a painter and sculptor of international acclaim. The ‘Blowin In The Wind’ singer has been given pretty much every award you can think of, including the Pulitzer Prize, The Presidential Medal of Freedom, the Nobel Prize for Literature, an Oscar, and the National Medal of Arts.

Dylan dates the beginning of his work as a visual artist to the early 1960s. A few drawings reached the public gaze with album covers like Music from Big Pink (1968) and Self Portrait (1970), but it was not until 1974, that Dylan started to take his art serious. He spent two months studying art with Ashcan School tutor Norman Raeben, who philosophised the importance of ‘perceptual honesty’ – painting life as it as seen, not imagined. Dylan says of this time: ‘He put my mind and my hand and my eye together, in a way that allowed me to do consciously what I unconsciously felt.’

The inspiration behind Dylan’s art are travels – the cities and towns he visits appear on the canvases he produces, interpreted in the brightly graphic, expressionistic style he has made his own. He says his art is about the instant moment of a place, person and time, and it has found enormous appeal with audiences worldwide. The combination of the Dylan name and his accessible imagery is a winning combination.

Dylan’s first major retrospective, Retrospectum, opened in the Modern Art Museum Shanghai in 2019/20 and was visited by over 100,000 people in the first three months. He is now represented by a number of heavy hitting international galleries such as Halcyon and Opera Galleries.

Dennis Hopper

From Hell’s Angels and hippies to the streets of Harlem, Dennis Hopper’s photography powerfully captures American culture and life in the 1960s, a decade of progress, violence and enormous upheaval.

Hopper carved out a place in Hollywood history, with roles in classic films like Apocalypse Now, Blue Velvet, True Romance and Easy Rider. He is less well known, though no less respected, for his work as a photographer.

In 2014 Hopper’s photographic work was the subject of a major retrospective exhibition at the Royal Academy in London – entitled: Dennis Hopper – The Lost Album. This exhibition brought together over 400 images, taken during one of the most creative periods of his life in the 1960s.

This was a decade of huge social and political change, and Hopper was at the eye of the storm. With his camera trained on the world around him he captured Hell’s Angels and hippies, the street life of Harlem, the Civil Rights movement and the urban landscapes of East and West coast America. He also shot some of the biggest stars of the time from the worlds of art, fashion and music, from Andy Warhol to Paul Newman.

Together, these images are a fascinating personal diary of one of the great countercultural figures of the period and a vivid portrait of 1960s America.

Lucy Liu

More commonly known for her roles in the movies Kill Bill and Charlie’s Angels, as well as the TV show Elementary, the American actress Lucy Liu is also a very talented abstract artist. She has painted for years, under the pseudonym Yu Ling.

Liu’s interest in art began at the age of fifteen, when she started experimenting with collage and photography at Stuyvesant High School in New York City. She graduated from the University of Michigan in 1990 with a B.A. degree in Asian Languages and Culture, before moving to Los Angeles to pursue her interest in acting. Her first solo exhibition, Unraveling, at Cast Iron Gallery in New York in 1993, was a photographic exhibition that earned her a grant to study at Beijing Normal University. Liu found this period in China to be extremely valuable, not only as an opportunity to learn more about her Chinese heritage, but also to expand her understanding of the symbolic potential of art. The trip became the subject of a body of work shown at her next one-person exhibition, Catapult, at Los Angeles’ Purple Gallery in 1997. Liu remained in Los Angeles for several years, during which time she continued to work in collage and photographic portraiture. She returned to New York City in 2004 and enrolled in painting classes at the New York Studio School from 2004-2007.

Ongoing conceptual concerns in Liu’s artwork have been the notions of security, salvation, and the long-term effects of personal relationships on our physical and emotional selves–themes that she addresses in painting, sculpture, collage, silkscreen, or the appropriation of discarded objects, which Liu recontextualizes in handmade constructions that function as reliquaries.

Her work has been featured in numerous gallery exhibitions and international art fairs, and is included in multiple private and corporate collections. Liu currently lives and works in New York City.

Paul McCartney

The Beatles were a true global phenomenon within contemporary culture – arguably the world’s most famous band, against who all other bands are measured. In addition to this, Paul McCartney is one of the most successful composers and performers of all time. He has written or co-written 32 songs that have reached No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100, and as of 2009, had sales of 25.5 million RIAAcertified units in the United States.

For more than thirty years, alongside his music career, McCartney has been a committed painter, finding in his work both a respite from the world and another outlet for his drive to create. His paintings were a very private endeavour until 1999 when he decided to share his artwork with a public exhibition and a book titled ‘Paul McCartney Paintings.’ His work is now represented by a number of galleries internationally.

McCartney’s works are full of intense colour and life – his paintings reveal McCartney’s tremendously positive spirit as well as a visual sophistication. The combination of techniques, such as scratching, wiping and applying paint directly from the tube, clearly documents on the one hand the artistic process as it takes place on the canvas but creates on the other hand the illusion of objective realism, with the elements air, water and earth. Faces abound in his paintings and humour plays against a more sombre imagery, while his landscapes radiate a sense of place.

Joni Mitchell

Think of Joni Mitchell and think primarily of her incredible career as a singer, songwriter and musical innovator, whose songs have helped define an era and generation. She has received many accolades, including nine Grammy Awards, and has released 19 studio albums. Much less has been written of her life as a painter. It might surprise fans to hear that Joni has always considered herself to be a painter first and a musician second!

Joni started painted extensively in the ’60s and has never stopped since, except for a few brief, ill-advised forays into photography in the 1980s. The ’60s paintings are almost exclusively portraits of those around her, often drawn from reproductions of sketchpad drawings made on the road or in recording studios. Those around her are mostly men: some of them lovers (Graham Nash, David Crosby), some friends and professional barometers (Neil Young, Bob Dylan), but for their cheery, empty impersonality, they might as well be strangers.

Stevie Nicks

Stevie Nicks, the evocative lead singer of the folk rock band Fleetwood Mac, has painted throughout her long career, but yet she says she doesn’t really think of herself as a painter. This modesty belies a body of work which almost perfectly reflects the essence of her music, and evokes the bucolic feel of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood. Her paintings are at once folkish and deeply biblical.

‘They’re all angels,’ she said of her art. ‘I only draw angels. I started to draw when my best friend got Leukemia. And that’s what she’s left me. And so I know she’s really excited now because it has finally, after the last 9 years, come to fruition, and people have finally started appreciating it. But I never drew a thing before she got sick.’

Sylvester Stallone

Sylvester Stallone has been an icon in the film world for decades, best known for writing and starring in the blockbuster movie franchise Rocky. But few of his fans realise that he has been painting for almost as long as he has acted – nearly 50 years.

Stallone’s work has evolved over the decades, with later canvases veering towards abstract forms and a reduced colour palette of black, white, and red. Stallone cites the works of Jean-Michel Basquiat, Francis Bacon, and Kasimir Malevich as his key influences, as well as Andy Warhol, for whom he famously posed in a series of photographic portraits in the 1980s. A prolific screenwriter, he often used art to help conceptualize his characters; including his 1970s painting Finding Rocky served as a means of entry into his character’s mindset. Stallone’s works have been featured in retrospective museum exhibitions in St. Petersburg, Russia, and Nice, France.

Ronnie Wood

Who would have thought it, but this quintessential bad boy of rock ‘n roll has consistently found solace in art and has painted throughout his wild days in the Rolling Stones. Ronnie Wood says: ‘There is no kind of therapy like the one you have from starting a picture and then seeing it through to the end.’

Having received formal art training at Ealing College of Art, Ronnie has been a prolific painter since his teens. He has described painting as being like therapy and would create portraits of figures he admired. Elvis Presley, Jimi Hendrix and fellow band member Mick Jagger are just a few of those he has painted, along with other musicians, friends and family.

Varying his medium depending on the mood he wishes to evoke, Ronnie creates his original pieces in charcoals, oils, watercolours, spray paints, oil pastels and acrylics. His subjects range from band members and musicians he admires to close friends and self-portraits.

For Ronnie, music and art have always gone hand-in-hand, and the intensity that he brings to the guitar translates onto canvas and paper with rhythmic line and vibrant colour. Ronnie’s paintings are a record of his many talents and loves. One of the things he most enjoys is to paint the views from his farm in County Kildare Ireland and the horses he keeps in stables there, allowing him time to take time out from both the media attention that follows him everywhere and also work on his future projects, both with the Rolling Stones and other musicians, in a more secluded atmosphere.

‘I apply musical theory to my art. I build artworks in much the same way as studio overdubs, the more defined ones are things that stand out in the mix.’

The Art of Picasso

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Pablo Picasso died on April 8, 1973, which makes 2023 the 50th anniversary of his death. Incidentally it is also exactly 50 years since I started my career in the Art world at Thomas Agnew in Old Bond Street, where I first had the privilege of handling Picasso’s work.

Picasso was very much a polymath, sculptor, printmaker, ceramicist and all round genius who was always making art and is widely regarded as one of the most influential artists of the 20th century. He was a pioneer of the Cubist movement and his groundbreaking works continue to captivate audiences around the world. On the 50th anniversary of his death, it is a time to reflect on his legacy and contribution to art and the world. Picasso’s works can be seen in many of the world’s most famous museums and galleries, and continue to inspire new generations of artists.

His impact on the art world continues to be felt today and many very well known and highly regarded artists have been influenced by Picasso’s groundbreaking style and innovative techniques, including:

  1. Georges Braque: A close collaborator of Picasso’s during the development of Cubism, Braque was deeply influenced by Picasso’s work and the two artists had a major impact on each other’s style.
  2. Juan Gris: A Spanish painter and sculptor, Gris was also a key figure in the Cubist movement and was heavily influenced by Picasso’s work.
  3. Henri Matisse: While Matisse is known for his distinctive style, he was also influenced by Picasso’s use of colour and form, and the two artists maintained a close friendship throughout their careers.
  4. Joan Miró: A Spanish surrealist artist, Miró was inspired by Picasso’s bold experimentation with form and colour, and the two artists were close friends.
  5. Frida Kahlo: While Kahlo is primarily known for her distinctive self-portraits, she was also influenced by Picasso’s innovative approach to portraiture and the two artists shared a close friendship.

Place and culture was a great influence on Picasso and he lived in many different places throughout his life, some of the most significant include;

  1. Barcelona, Spain: Picasso was born in Malaga, Spain, but spent much of his childhood and early artistic career in Barcelona.
  2. Paris, France: In 1904, Picasso moved to Paris, which was then very much seen as the centre of the art world, and he lived and worked there for many years. During this time, he was associated with the Cubist movement and developed many of his most famous works.
  3. Cannes and Antibes, France: After World War II, Picasso spent much of his time in the south of France, living and working in the towns of Cannes and Antibes.
  4. Mougins, France: In 1961, Picasso moved to the small town of Mougins in the south of France, where he lived until his death in 1973.

Pablo Picasso’s work can be divided into several distinct periods, each characterised by its own dominant colour palette. Some of the most well-known colour periods of Picasso’s work are:

  1. The Blue Period (1901-1904): During this period, Picasso’s works were primarily painted in shades of blue and blue-green, with themes of poverty, loneliness, and sadness.
  2. The Rose Period (1904-1906): This period saw a shift to warmer, pinkish hues, and the introduction of more playful themes such as circus performers and harlequins.
  3. The African-Influenced Period (1907-1909): In this period, Picasso was influenced by African art and started incorporating abstract and geometric shapes into his works, resulting in a bold and experimental style.
  4. The Analytical Cubism Period (1909-1912): During this period, Picasso and Georges Braque developed the style of Analytical Cubism, characterised by fragmented and abstracted forms.
  5. The Synthetic Cubism Period (1912-1919): This period saw a further simplification of form, with the use of cut-out paper and printed materials incorporated into the paintings.

While these are some of the most significant colour periods of Picasso’s work, it is important to note that Picasso was always experimenting and evolving, and his style changed frequently throughout his very long career of almost unceasing endeavour to make art.

Some of his most well-known works include:

There are dozens of exhibitions taking place around the globe all marking this major anniversary each taking a differing approach, the link below gives you a taste of their variety dates and locations, hopefully you will be able to get to see at least one of them to witness for yourself the energy and sheer creative genius of Pablo Picasso.

Click here to read more about the dozens of exhibitions worldwide marking the 50th anniversary of Pscasso’s death.

 

Art on Yachts

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What art to put in your super yacht and how to look after it, might seem to be the ultimate in first world problems, but due to the everincreasing growth of the yacht market, these questions are fast being real issues for many UHNW individuals, with a knock-on effect for the insurance industry.

Ownership of a luxurious super yacht has become the new status symbol for the ultra-wealthy, over taking ownership of a private jet which was the status symbol of 90s and early 2000s. The ability to cruise the Caribbean or the Mediterranean in total privacy in your own floating hotel, whilst simultaneously advertising loudly your enormous wealth carries much appeal to many ultra-wealthy.

Once you have your new super yacht – the decision of what you put in it in terms of artwork is the next challenge – the interiors must match the exterior in the glamour stakes! But housing art on a yacht in a maritime environment brings with it a unique set of concerns and issues – from theft to damage, from casual mishandling by inexperienced staff to the effect of salt in the atmosphere. There are a number of issues which need to be considered from the start when housing art on a yacht.

How to Protect Artwork on Board

With the strength of the art market pushing values ever upwards, it is not unusual for the value of art on board a super yacht to be worth millions of pounds. It is, therefore, essential that owners consider how best to protect their collection on board from damage, bearing in mind that a maritime environment brings with it a unique set of conditions which need to be taken into account. Clearly the most obvious of these factors are ‘physical forces’, such as the variable levels of movement caused by waves and wind. Other factors which can damage or harm artwork on board include:

  • Temperature variations
  • Excessive light and UV
  • Excessive humidity and salt
  • Pests
  • Pollutants
  • Water damage
  • Fire hazards
  • Thieves and vandals
  • Dissociation (the loss of information surrounding the object’s provenance or history)

The air quality and temperature within each room is important: humidity is bad for art, as is salt, air and direct sunlight – you always have to be aware of humidity and heat on board. The most effective way to counter these threats is to try to maintain as stable an environment on boards as possible. Luckily, modern super yachts are now designed with air-conditioning, lighting and humidity control systems that rival those found in art galleries.

As ‘physical forces’ like movement and vibrations are significantly greater at sea, on board artwork must be securely fastened to the yacht or hung with museum glue for extra secure installation. It is also important that owners consider the salinity of the air at sea and how this could affect artworks. In many cases, bespoke framing and cases can help prevent light and external damages as well – the purpose being to create as adding harmonious an environment on board as possible.

Installing Artwork on Yachts Correctly to Reduce the Risk of Damage

Installing artwork on board a moving boat is considerably more complicated than hanging a work of art in a static environment. It is not possible to simply hang a painting on board, not as simple as installing in a client’s house – it needs to be screwed to the wall and secured against sudden movement. The same applies for sculptures and objects, which all need to be fixed firmly and securely. Here ‘museum glue’ comes into play and – it is a clear product that fixes objects to surfaces (though not irrevocably) to stop them shifting in a swell.

Insurance and Security

A working alarm system is an obvious starting point and essential to gain insurance cover. Similarly, special alarm systems which alert the crew to atmospheric changes may be required for higher value collections.

Marine insurance policies are rarely standardised and general marine insurances will not normally cover artwork as a norm, so owners need to insure their artwork on board with a separate and specialist art policy. These policies often require an annual renewal inspection of both the artwork and the general environment in which it is housed, due to the specific nature of the environment on board a ship. Insurance companies generally expect owners to employ a professional art management service to guarantee maximum protection where all possible negative influences are avoided from day one.

It should also be remembered that many contain geographical navigational limits. Beyond such limits, the yacht will be off-cover unintentionally.

Other insurance clauses for art and super yacht owners to consider is that rules and taxation brackets vary between countries, with artwork to be imported and taxed under a ‘temporary admission basis.’ Different import tariffs apply depending on where the ship is physically when the artwork is imported and loaded on board. It is in the owner’s best interests to understand these variations as it will cost dearly if they get it wrong. Import tax rates for importing art in the EU and UK vary from 5% to 13% – a mistake in where art importation is registered can cost dearly.

Strict insurance requirements mean that even museums must fulfil high standards before important pieces are allowed to be shown and the same applies for a super yacht. As a rule of thumb, the more expensive the artwork, the more attention needs to be given to how it is transported, stored and displayed.

Staff Training

Damage to artwork by accident or mishap is one of the most common causes of insurance claims on artwork housed on a vessel. This is not surprising when one considers that most people have very limited experience in how to handle artwork. The scope for costly accidents to happen as a result of unintentional negligence is high and the most efficient way to counter this is to ensure that all staff receive specialist training on how to handle various types of artworks and what to do should an accident happen.

Often these actions are not complicated, and in some cases, they are just common sense, however, if all crew members are made aware of potential threats to artwork, then the risk of expensive mistakes is mitigated. Simple measures such as wearing art handling gloves, and knowing how to carry and store paintings efficiently sound basic but it’s at the core of successful collection management. Equally important is training in what to do in the event of an accident – often more damage can be done unwittingly post-accident than the accident itself. In most cases the less that is done to an object or artwork after an accident is better in the long run. Staying calm and assessing the situation before diving in is always recommended. The first point to note is that the crew should generally do absolutely nothing. Trying to fix something without the requisite skills can make matters worse.

There are a number of companies who can arrange flexible training course in on board collection management – most notably the UK based company ‘Art on Superyachts’. Courses can be developed which are both flexible and modular, which give an overview of the art world, the art market and what is involved in the study of art history. Additional art handling modules teach the management, care and handling of valuable objects on board along with the full scope of collectors’ services. The cost of focused training for yacht crews is a very wise investment for any yacht and art owner to make. Ultimately, awareness and vigilance are the key to protecting any on board art collections.