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Norman Rockwell Museum - The Home for American Illustration

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Norman Rockwell Museum presents the world’s largest collection of original Norman Rockwell art as the best of American illustration.

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Lettres d'Arts, littérature et histoire des arts

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La qualité du trait permet de ranger ROCKWELL dans le courant hyperréaliste. L'artiste imite au plus près la réalité, presque comme une photographie. En sculpture, l'exemple le plus connu est celui de Duane HANSON (1925-1996) avec sa Supermarket Lady (1970) représentant une femme qui fait ses courses et qui semble réelle. ROCKWELL est réputé pour ses illustrations humoristiques dans le magazine Look ou pour des tableaux plus sérieux comme par exemple The Problem We All Live With ( Le Problème avec lequel nous vivons tous, 1964) grâce auquel il dénonce la ségrégation des Noirs aux États-Unis.

Un multiple portrait physique

Le miroir que l'on voit à l'arrière-plan est un outil de la représentation de soi, un gage d'authenticité. Ce qu'on nous montre correspond à la réalité. Nous assistons à une mise en abyme : l'œuvre se répète à l'intérieur d'elle-même. Ici c'est un peintre en train de se peindre.

Tout le matériel nécessaire est réuni : un grand miroir, une palette, des pinceaux, des tubes de peinture, une règle pour respecter les proportions.

Trois représentations de ROCKWELL sautent aux yeux dès le premier regard. Le titre est donc justifié. Toutefois, en observant de plus près, on peut trouver d'autres croquis rassemblés sur un petit papier, en haut à gauche de la toile. Ce sont les recherches et essais du peintre. Le portrait n'est pas simplement triple, il est multiple.

. Sa chemise
Norman se représente de dos, dans une attitude amusante bleue tranche avec la blancheur de l'atelier qui n'est qu'un espace vide. Comme si cela était la toile sur laquelle l'artiste s'apprête à peindre. Le coussin rouge sur le tabouret montre qu'il cherche son confort, il est penché de façon un peu maladroite. L'expression de son visage montre qu'il n'est pas tout à fait à l'aise et ne peut donc pas correspondre à ce qu'il veut peindre. Le portrait se réalise devant nous au fusain, avant qu'il n'applique sa peinture à l'huile.

La signature vient confirmer que celui qui se peint est l'auteur lui-même. D'ailleurs, bien qu'elle soit portée sur la toile dessinée, elle vaut pour l'ensemble du tableau que le public voit.

Dans la lignée des grands peintres

On peut voir en haut, à droite de la toile peinte, une série de célèbres autoportraits. Outre le fait qu'ils sont reproduits à l'identique, ils sont aussi une façon pour ROCKWELL de s'inscrire dans la lignée des grands artistes :

Albrecht DÜRER (1471-1528),

REMBRANDT (1606-1669),

Pablo PICASSO (1881-1973),

Vincent VAN GOGH (1853-1890)

Il existe un autoportrait du peintre autrichien Johannes GUMPP (1626-1728) daté de 1646, sans doute le premier du genre. L'artiste s'y représente trois fois dans une mise en scène assez proche. Il est de dos, se regarde dans un miroir à gauche et réalise sa peinture à droite.

Cela rappelle aussi une caricature faite par Honoré DAUMIER (1808-1879), Un français peint par lui-même. Le miroir est cette fois est à gauche et le tableau à droite ; de plus, ce n'est pas un autoportrait de l'artiste lui-même, mais celui d'un type de personnage : le français grincheux. (Planche n° 2 de la série Scènes d'ateliers. 1849. Lithographie, 2e état sur 2, avec la lettre. Épreuve sur blanc provenant du dépôt légal. 23,1 x 21,6 cm (au motif). Delteil 1722. Publiée dans Le Charivari, le 29 mars 1849. BnF, Estampes et Photographie, Dc-180j (16)-Fol).

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Un Portrait moral

Très vite, le public comprend que ce n'est pas que le portrait physique qui apparaît. ROCKWELL est un patriote, il est très attaché à son pays, les États-Unis, et souhaite le défendre. Comme souvent dans ses tableaux, des indices de cet attachement sont visibles : ici l'aigle et le drapeau américain qui reprennent les trois couleurs bleu, blanc et rouge.

D'autres détails attirent notre attention : le verre en déséquilibre sur un livre ouvert, posé sur une chaise déjà chargée, proche d'un genou qui pourrait faire un faux mouvement ; le chevalet est lui-même sur roulettes, il est donc instable et pourrait tout emporter avec lui.

De l'autre côté on voit de la fumée s'échappant du seau en référence à l'incendie de son atelier quelque temps avant.

Tout cela crée un effet dynamique, nous sentons une De toute évidence Norman ROCKWELL est un homme catastrophe imminente . distrait. C'est une des forces de l'artiste, faire sentir le mouvement et laisser imaginer la vie à partir d'un dessin immobile.

Si l'on revient sur le visage en noir et blanc, on remarque très vite qu'il est rajeuni. Le peintre nous trompe ? Il triche en se représentant dans une version

Certes, le peintre nous ment, mais il se montre en train de mentir. Il montre aussi la vérité. Il se moque de lui-même grâce à ce qu'on nomme auto-dérision.

C'est donc finalement une bonne dose d'humour qui traverse ce tableau, faisant de Norman ROCKWELL un peintre sympathique et talentueux. A travers ce triple autoportrait, il dépeint la condition des artistes, il met en avant une esthétique recherchée et il propose une nouvelle façon se représenter.

Ce travail repose sur une interprétation personnelle, n'hésitez pas à consulter le site officiel du Musée Norman Rockwell (en anglais).

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Le Triple Autoportrait de Norman ROCKWELL

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Triple autoportrait (1960) de Norman ROCKWELL (1894-1978) est à la peinture ce que les autobiographies sont aux écrivains : une façon de se représenter soi-même. Ce célèbre

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Un article de Wikipédia, l'encyclopédie libre.

Triple autoportrait (titre original en anglais, Triple Self-Portrait) est une illustration de couverture de magazine de Norman Rockwell, peinte à l'huile sur toile pour le numéro du Saturday Evening Post du , à l'occasion de la parution de son autobiographie dont le magazine publiait les premières pages. L'artiste utilise ici une mise en abyme, qui consiste à incruster dans une image cette image elle-même. Cette œuvre est comparée au tableau de Johannes Gumpp (1646), autre exemple notable de triple autoportrait. Le tableau original fait partie des collections du Norman Rockwell Museum de Stockbridge.

Description

Ce triple autoportrait servit d'illustration pour la couverture du Saturday Evening Post du . Norman Rockwell se représente de dos, en train de se regarder dans un miroir pour peindre son propre portrait. Tout en présentant de façon réaliste le travail du peintre, celui-ci est montré sous trois aspects différents : de dos, dans le reflet du miroir, et sous la forme de l'autoportrait qu'il est en train de réaliser sur la toile.

Norman Rockwell, vêtu d'une blouse bleue, d'une chemise rouge avec un nœud papillon et d'un pantalon gris clair, est assis sur un tabouret. Sa main droite posée sur un appuie-main peint la toile, et sa main gauche tient une palette de couleurs. Sur une chaise un livre d'art est ouvert à plat, sur lequel est posé un verre de coca-cola et un tube de couleur. On distingue de nombreux marque-pages. À l'arrière du livre, Rockwell a posé un miroir dont le cadre doré est surmonté d'un aigle sculpté, symbole des États-Unis d'Amérique et d'un blason aux couleurs de son pays. L'autoportrait dessiné sur la toile montre le visage de l'artiste, de trois-quart, une pipe au coin de la bouche. L'image qu'il reflète dans le miroir le montre portant des lunettes dont les reflets masquent les yeux. Un casque de pompier, acheté à Paris en 1923 dans un magasin d'antiquités, surmonte le chevalet et rappelle que son atelier d' Arlington a été dévasté par un incendie en 1943. Des pinceaux, des allumettes usagées, un tube de peinture ouvert gisent au sol. Un autre clin d'œil à l'incendie de son atelier est figuré par la poubelle métallique, remplie de papiers froissés d'où s'échappe de la fuméeprovenant d'une cigarette. À gauche, il a punaisé sur sa toile un dessin au fusain : il s'agit de cinq études pour son autoportrait. À droite, des reproductions de tableaux anciens sont également punaisées : il s'agit des autoportraits de Dürer, Picasso, Rembrandt, et van Gogh. Le tableau porte l'inscription " Norman Rockwell " sur la toile qu'il peint, en bas à droite.

Albrecht Dürer Autoportrait (1498)

Rembrandt, Autoportrait (1652)

Van Gogh, Portrait de l'artiste (1889)

Thème et inspiration

C'est le second autoportrait de Norman Rockwell publié pour une couverture du Saturday Evening Post, il s'était déjà représenté de dos, confronté à une toile blanche pour Blank Canvas, illustration du numéro du . Hormis ces deux œuvres, il s'est aussi représenté en personnage secondaire de plusieurs couvertures à la manière des caméos d' Alfred Hitchcock. Il figure comme un passant ou en observateur d'une scène dans les couvertures Soldier's Homecoming ou University Club, en tant qu'ancêtre d'un arbre généalogique pour Family Tree, ou comme victime de commérages pour The Gossips.

L'œuvre est conçue comme la représentation symbolique de Rockwell en tant qu'artiste. Les détails contribuent à la narration de la scène. Aucun élément n'est laissé au hasard, et est soigneusement choisi dans ce but. Ils donnent des indications sur les goûts artistiques et personnels du peintre. La fumée qui sort de la poubelle remplie de papiers, est une allusion à un événement passé de la vie de l'artiste, en 1943, une allumette mal éteinte jetée dans une corbeille de papier causa un incendie qui détruisit son atelier d' Arlington. L'absence de lunettes sur le portrait, à la différence de son reflet dans le miroir, est interprétée par Susan Meyer comme la dissociation entre l'homme du miroir et celui de la toile.

Citation

Le Triple autoportrait est cité par Steven Spielberg dans le début de son film le Pont des espions

Références

Voir aussi

Bibliographie

(en) Susan E. Meyer, Norman Rockwell's People, New York, Harrison House, (ISBN 0-517-62354-4 ), " Norman Rockwell: Portrait of the artist ", p. 218-225

Pascale Auraix-Jonchière, Écrire la peinture entre XVIII e et XIX e siècles, Presses universitaires Blaise-Pascal, (lire en ligne)

Robert Bared et Natacha Pernac, La Peinture représenté : Allégories, Ateliers, Autoportraits, Paris, Hazan, coll. " Guide des arts ", (ISBN 978-2-7541-0383-1 ), " Dans la profondeur du miroir ", p. 46-51

(en) Laura Claridge, Norman Rockwell, New York, Random House Publishing Group, , 576 p. (ISBN 1-58836-064-4 , lire en ligne), chap. 28 (" Picking Up the Pieces ")

Christopher Finch, Norman Rockwell, 332 magazine covers, Artabras - Abbeville publishing group, 1994.

Liens externes

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Un article de Wikipédia, l'encyclopédie libre. Triple autoportrait (titre original en anglais, Triple Self-Portrait ) est une illustration de couverture de magazine de Norman Rockwell, peinte à l'huile sur toile pour le numéro du Saturday Evening Post du , à l'occasion de la parution de son autobiographie dont le magazine publiait les premières pages.

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Toggle the table of contents

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The Problem We All Live With is a 1964 painting by Norman Rockwell that is considered an iconic image of the Civil Rights Movement in the United States.[2] It depicts Ruby Bridges, a six-year-old African-American girl, on her way to William Frantz Elementary School, an all-white public school, on November 14, 1960, during the New Orleans school desegregation crisis. Because of threats of violence against her, she is escorted by four deputy U.S. marshals; the painting is framed so that the marshals' heads are cropped at the shoulders.[3][4] On the wall behind her are written the racial slur " nigger" and the letters " KKK"; a smashed and splattered tomato thrown against the wall is also visible. The white protesters are not visible, as the viewer is looking at the scene from their point of view.[3] The painting is oil on canvas and measures 36 inches (91 cm) high by 58 inches (150 cm) wide.[5]

Ruby Bridges with US Marshals in 1960

The painting was originally published as a centerfold in the January 14, 1964, issue of Look.[5] Rockwell had ended his contract with the Saturday Evening Post the previous year due to frustration with the limits the magazine placed on his expression of political themes, and Look offered him a forum for his social interests, including civil rights and racial integration.[3] Rockwell explored similar themes in Southern Justice (Murder in Mississippi) and New Kids in the Neighborhood;[6] unlike his previous works for the Post, The Problem We All Live With and these others place black people as sole protagonists, instead of as observers, part of group scenes, or in servile roles.[7][8] Like New Kids in the Neighborhood, The Problem We All Live With depicts a black child protagonist;[7] like Southern Justice, it uses strong light-dark contrasts to further its racial theme.[9]

While the subject of the painting was inspired by Ruby Bridges, Rockwell used a local girl, Lynda Gunn, as the model for his painting;[10] her cousin, Anita Gunn, was also used.[11] One of the marshals was modelled by William Obanhein.[11]

After the work was published, Rockwell received "sacks of disapproving mail", one example accusing him of being a race traitor.[11]

Ruby Bridges and President Barack Obama view the painting in the White House. (video)

At Bridges' suggestion, President Barack Obama had the painting installed in the White House, in a hallway outside the Oval Office, from July to October 2011. Art historian William Kloss stated, "The N-word there - it sure stops you. There's a realistic reason for having the graffiti as a slur, [but] it's also right in the middle of the painting. It's a painting that could not be hung even for a brief time in the public spaces [of the White House]. I'm pretty sure of that."[1] Bridges and Obama viewed the painting together on July 15, 2011, and he told her, "I think it's fair to say that if it hadn't been for you guys, I might not be here and we wouldn't be looking at this together."[12]

A copy of the painting was used to " dress" O. J. Simpson's house during his 1995 murder trial by defense attorney Johnnie Cochran. Cochran hoped to evoke the sympathy of visiting jurors, who were mostly black, by including "something depicting African-American history."[13]

1. ^ Gerstein, Josh (August 24, 2011). "Norman Rockwell painting sends rare White House message on race". Politico. p. 1, 2.

2. ^ Solomon, Deborah (2013). American Mirror: The Life and Art of Norman Rockwell. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux. pp. 378. ISBN 9780374113094.

3. ^ Halpern, Richard (2006). Norman Rockwell: the underside of innocence. University of Chicago Press. pp. 124-31. ISBN 9780226314402.

4. ^ Greene, Bob (September 4, 2011). "America's glory in a civil rights painting". CNN.

5. ^ ""The Problem We All Live With," Norman Rockwell, 1963. Oil on canvas, 36" x 58". Illustration for "Look," January 14, 1964. Norman Rockwell Museum Collection. ©NRELC, Niles, IL". Norman Rockwell Museum.

6. ^ "O say, can you see". The Economist. December 25, 1993 - January 7, 1994.

7. ^ Grant, Daniel (July 24, 1989). "Exhibit Offers Clues to Rockwell's Sentiments". Christian Science Monitor.

8. ^ "Exile on Main Street". The Economist. December 2, 1999.

9. ^ Claridge, Laura P (2001). Norman Rockwell: A Life. Random House. ISBN 9781588360649.

10. ^ Bradway, Rich (October 6, 2019). "Remembering Lynda Jean Gunn - Norman Rockwell Museum - The Home for American Illustration".

11. ^ Carson, Tom (19 February 2020). "The true story of the awakening of Norman Rockwell". Vox.

12. ^ "Ruby Bridges visits with the President and her portrait". YouTube.

13. Bernstein, Richard, ^ "Shedding Light on How Simpson's Lawyers Won", The New York Times, October 16, 1996.

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The Problem We All Live With - Wikipedia

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Toggle the table of contents From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia The Problem We All Live With is a 1964 painting by Norman Rockwell that is considered an iconic image of the Civil Rights Movement in the United States.[2] It depicts Ruby Bridges, a six-year-old African-American girl, on her way to William Frantz Elementary School, an all-white public school, on November 14, 1960, during the New Orleans school desegregation crisis.

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Test your knowledge with a quiz

Rockwell, Rosie the Riveter

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Key points

America's entry into WWII created a demand for women's labor as the defense industry grew and men enlisted in the military. Women were encouraged to join the workforce as a patriotic service to their country. They also spearheaded support organizations and fundraising groups that supported the war effort.

Rosie the Riveter was an idealized mascot for women workers. First coined in a 1942 song, her identity came to represent the newly empowered woman. In Norman Rockwell's depiction, she combines femininity with a commanding muscularity. Rosie wears men's work clothes and holds a riveter in her lap as she pauses from her work to eat lunch.

Norman Rockwell's painting of Rosie the Riveter includes biblical and symbolic references that elevate the subject. The body and pose are copied from Michelangelo's painting of the prophet Isaiah from the Sistine Chapel. This is amplified by the snake-like form of the riveter, which suggests a reference to a righteous serpent that slayed an evil monster from the book of Isaiah (especially as Rosie crushes a copy of Adolf Hitler's Mein Kampf under her foot). She also evokes traditional depictions of the Madonna and Child.

Tensions arose as men returned home from war and re-entered the workforce. Women were not universally willing to relinquish their newfound freedom and independence. This started new debates on the role of women, especially in the workplace, in the modern era.

Go deeper
See this object at the Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art Learn more about this image as the cover of the Saturday Evening Post Read more about the contributions of women during WWII Learn about the evolution of the figure of Rosie the Riveter Listen to the original song about Rosie the Riveter from 1942 Read about what happened to women in the workforce as men returned home from the war
More to think about

Which details of this painting challenge female stereotypes, and which seem to reinforce traditional expectations of gender? Discuss contemporary attitudes about women in the workforce. Does Rockwell's painting still seems relevant in the message it presents about gender?

Smarthistory images for teaching and learning:
More Smarthistory images...

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Representing women who entered the workforce during WWII, Rosie is strong, determined, and eating a ham sandwich.

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women's rights and gender roles in the mid-20th century

the contribution of women to the war effort

U.S. participation in World War II

the United States and Allied victory over the Axis powers

the rise of Nazi Germany

By the end of this lesson, students should be able to:

discuss Norman Rockwell's Rosie the Riveter as a primary document that links to its specific historical context during the Second World War

understand the significance of women's participation in the war effort

apply the tools of visual analysis to support interpretation of the artwork

identify and elaborate on certain key issues related to Work, Exchange, and Technology, prompted by an example of American art

1. Look closely at the painting

Look closely at Rosie the Riveter by Norman Rockwell ( zoomable images, also available for download for teaching)
Questions to ask:

Describe the figure, including her expression, the position of her body, her clothing.

Try to sit like the figure. Does it feel natural?

How much of the composition is taken up by the figure?

What does the clothing depicted tell us about Rosie?

Rockwell is known for his realistic depiction of details and textures. What do you notice that heightens this sense of realism?

In what ways is this image not real at all? Why might Rockwell have made those decisions?

2. Watch the video

The video on Rockwell's Rosie the Riveter is only 7 minutes in length. Ideally, the video should provide an active rather than a passive classroom experience. Please feel free to stop the video to respond to student questions, to underscore or develop issues, to define vocabulary, or to look closely at parts of the painting that are being discussed. Key points, a self-diagnostic quiz, and high resolution photographs with details are provided to support the video.

3. Read about the painting and its historical context

Rockwell's Rosie the Riveter is just one of a number of illustrations associated with this female character hard at work for the war effort who first appeared in song in 1942. For other images, see Rosie Pictures: Select Images Relating to American Women Workers During World War II (Library of Congress)
A sense of continuity with the past
A sense of continuity with the past helps maintain stability in the midst of change. Beginning in the 1910s, the illustrator Norman Rockwell gave this to mass audiences in abundance. In Rockwell's America, cars, television antennae, and other complications of modern life are framed and defined by the persistence of the past, which lies reassuringly just beneath the thin veneer of modernity.

Rockwell is one of a handful of household names among America's image-makers who are broadly familiar to the general public. Yet, until recently, those who were serious about fine art-critics, museum curators, men and women of "taste" would have nothing to do with him. He was maligned for giving audiences what they wanted-a vision of a national life that never existed-rather than confronting them with difficult dilemmas (although he did take on race prejudice and the Civil Rights movement in a series of late works). In addition, he was merely an illustrator; most of his work was done for the Saturday Evening Post, a mass circulation middlebrow journal for which he produced 322 covers between 1916 and 1963....His critics believed that illustration required less skill than art: modern artists transform reality rather than merely mirror it. Yet the notion that illustration-and artistic naturalism more generally-is less "artful" than other forms of image-making is belied by Rockwell's compositions. He shows us not the way things were, but the ways in which many Americans wanted to believe they were....
The American way of life
Rockwell's images embodied "The American Way of Life," a populist notion of shared national character and core values. His magazine covers (often reprinted as posters) speak in a voice of social inclusiveness and shared humor. They imply a confidence that, confronted with the situations shown, we will respond the same way as Rockwell's subjects themselves.

Rockwell's exacting realism gave his depictions a feel of authenticity. From the 1930s on, his work enjoyed such wide circulation that at times it seemed to take the place of lived memories, reshaping the recollection of national life. Like the family snapshot that stands in for, and ultimately replaces, the actual event, his illustrations have, for many Americans then and now, become "our America." Yet those who do not recognize Rockwell's America as theirs feel a sense of alienation: "Where am I in this picture?"

Paradoxically, Rockwell's rise to fame between the world wars coincided with a time of unprecedented movement away from the ideals his images represent: small-town, face-to-face, rooted in stable social identity. In his upbringing, Rockwell himself had little direct experience of the small-town life he depicted on the covers of the Saturday Evening Post. His nostalgic vision was avidly consumed by millions of Post readers, yet the Post was a part of the national media, the newspapers and broadcasting, that were displacing regional and local identity. The consumer culture advertised by mass circulation magazines was taking the place of the older way of life commemorated in Rockwell's images. His appeal to the purportedly universal elements connecting people across class, regional, and ethnic lines was something that linked him to other purveyors of mass culture, such as his friend Walt Disney.

From Angela L. Miller, Janet Catherine Berlo, Bryan J. Wolf, and Jennifer L. Roberts, American Encounters: Art, History, and Cultural Identity (Washington University Libraries, 2018), p. 254, CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 (available for free download)

4. Discussion questions

1. Rockwell gives is an ideal image of a woman who symbolizes America's confidence and resilience, at a difficult time that tested those very values in the American people. Can you think of another image that offers an ideal, instead of presenting reality?

2. Rosie was a famous character before Rockwell's illustration. Compare the image from the cover of the published music to the 1942 song with Rockwell's painting. What are the differences and similarities?

5. Research question

In what ways was the experiences of "real" Rosies (actual women who went to work for the war effort) different from Rockwell's depiction? Were there groups of people who were not able to or discouraged from contributing to the war effort?

6. Bibliography
This painting at the Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art Rosie the Riveter from the Norman Rockwell Museum Rosie the Riveter: Real Women Workers in World War II from the Library of Congress The Real Rosie the Riveter Project from NYU Theresa Kaminski, "Complicating Rosie the Riveter," OUP Blog
Maureen Honey, Creating Rosie the Riveter: Class, Gender, and Propaganda During World War II (Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 1984).

James J. Kimble and Lester C. Olson. "Visual Rhetoric Representing Rosie the Riveter: Myth and Misconception in J. Howard Miller's "We Can Do It!" Poster." Rhetoric & Public Affairs, vol. 9, no. 4 (2006), pp. 533-569.

Carolyn L Kitch, The Girl on the Magazine Cover: The Origins of Visual Stereotypes in American Mass Media (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina, 2001).

Donna B. Knaff, Beyond Rosie the Riveter: Women of World War II in American Popular Graphic Art (Lawrence: The University Press of Kansas, 2012).

Melissa McEuen, Making War, Making Women: Femininity and Duty on the American Home Front 1941-1945 (Athens: University of Georgia Press, 2011).

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Teaching guideNorman Rockwell, Rosie the Riveter

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Rockwell's painting of Rosie the Riveter captured the power felt by the unprecedented number of women in the workforce during World War II. But how accurately did it depict the experiences of the diverse women who contributed to the war effort?APUSH: KC-7.3.III.C.iTEKS: 113.41.(17)(A)

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Caen (Calvados). On aurait pu croire que le peintre le plus populaire des États-Unis était Edward Hopper (1882-1967). Ses représentations de motels, pompes à essence, bureaux, rues ensoleillées et vides de villes anonymes et un peu somnolentes, sont devenues des symboles de l' "American way of life ".

Pourtant, un autre artiste semble " coller " encore mieux à la réalité de l'Amérique. Il s'agit de Norman Rockwell (1894-1978) dont le Mémorial de Caen présente la première monographie en France, en partenariat avec le Norman Rockwell Museum (Stockbridge, Massachusetts).

La programmation de l'exposition simultanément au 75e anniversaire du Débarquement et de la bataille de Normandie n'a rien d'anodin. Les commissaires savent qu'ils peuvent compter sur la curiosité des visiteurs qui traversent l'Atlantique à cette occasion, enclins à retrouver leur célèbre compatriote vu par la France. Cependant, la surprise vient de l'engouement des groupes scolaires qui se pressent pour voir cette manifestation. Est-ce l'effet de la chanson d'Eddy Mitchell Un portrait de Norman Rockwell (1996), ou, plus probablement, la conséquence des nombreux livres pour enfants illustrés par l'artiste, entre autres Tom Sawyer et Les Aventures de Huckleberry Finn de Mark Twain ? La carrière de Rockwell semble liée avant tout aux illustrations des couvertures du magazine Saturday Evening Post de Philadelphie avec lequel il collabore pendant quarante-sept ans. Le tirage important de ce journal a permis en effet de diffuser à grande échelle ces images qui mettent en scène la société américaine avec une empathie extrême, assurant à leur auteur une notoriété extraordinaire.

Une vision idéalisée de la société

L'exposition, sur deux niveaux, se concentre sur deux périodes essentielles de Rockwell, les années 1940, avant et pendant la guerre, et les années 1960. Elle a réussi l'exploit de faire venir l'œuvre la plus importante de l'artiste, Les Quatre Libertés (1943), qui quitte pour la première fois les États-Unis grâce aux efforts de Stéphane Grimaldi, directeur du Mémorial. Composée de quatre toiles, l'œuvre est inspirée par un discours du président Roosevelt, qui exalte les quatre libertés fondamentales de son pays - liberté d'expression, liberté de conscience, liberté de vivre à l'abri du besoin, liberté d'être protégé - que l'ordre tyrannique nazi menace. Candides, frôlant le pathos, les images de Rockwell sont toutefois traversées par un souffle extraordinaire qui leur donne leur puissance. On trouve la même qualité, et les mêmes défauts, dans les œuvres plus tardives de Rockwell, celles où l'artiste dénonce courageusement la ségrégation raciale, comme dans The Problem We All Live With, 1963 [voir ill.]. On y voit Ruby Bridges, la première enfant afro-américaine à intégrer une école réservée aux Blancs à La Nouvelle-Orléans. Entourée d'agents fédéraux, la fillette, vêtue d'une robe blanche, avance d'un pas déterminé vers son nouveau destin.

Cependant, les meilleures œuvres de cet artiste, dont la peinture reste classique, pointent les lieux communs de l'Amérique profonde. Ces scènes de genre, tels un repas copieux de Thanksgiving pris en famille, une mère qui met ses enfants au lit, présentent une vision certes idéalisée de la société, mais toujours empreinte d'une grâce tendre et d'un humour bienveillant. On songe aux films de Capra, en moins sophistiqué. Ce n'est certainement pas un hasard si le premier emploi de Rockwell était rédacteur en chef d'un journal pour les scouts.

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Très connu aux États-Unis, le peintre et illustrateur bénéficie de sa première exposition monographique en France, au Mémorial de Caen.

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Norman Rockwell le peintre d’une Amérique - USA Decouverte

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4.2/5 - (6 votes) La manière dont on fait connaissance avec un artiste est étrange. Pas forcément avec l’artiste en chair et en os mais avec son œuvre. Par André Girod Beaucoup apprennent d’un écrivain, d’un peintre, d’un sculpteur ou même d’un homme politique en étudiant d’abord l’œuvre à l’école puis en s’informant…

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La peinture américaine est l'un des arts développé aux États-Unis par les premiers colons et leurs successeurs, à partir du siècle. À l' époque moderne, les artistes européens franchissent l' Atlantique et créent les premiers tableaux sur le sol des Treize colonies. Les œuvres du Vieux Continent restent des modèles jusqu'au début du siècle : elles rejoignent les collections privées et les musées américains, alors que les peintres américains partent étudier l'art anglais, français, allemand ou italien. La Seconde Guerre mondiale marque un tournant : les États-Unis, première puissance financière, et New York en particulier, deviennent un centre dynamique qui attire les artistes européens.

Les thèmes de la peinture américaine ont suivi l' histoire du pays et l'évolution de sa société : portraits de l'élite coloniale aux et siècles, paysages et gens du peuple au siècle, progrès techniques et vie citadine, réalisme et modernisme des années 1900, puis abstraction des années d'après-guerre.

Époque coloniale

Peinture derrière l'autel de l'église San José de Gracia à Las Trampas (Nouveau-Mexique) (en) , deuxième moitié du XVIII e siècle[1]

Aux et siècles, les Espagnols ont conquis le Sud-Ouest des États-Unis actuels et la Floride. Ils établirent un réseau de missions, d'abord au Nouveau-Mexique puis dans le reste de la Nouvelle-Espagne. Pour réaliser l'objectif d' évangéliser les Amérindiens, ils utilisèrent les arts afin d'impressionner les autochtones. Les églises furent décorées de peintures religieuses baroques : beaucoup ont disparu à la suite des destructions provoquées par la révolte des Pueblos dans la deuxième moitié du siècle. Les peintures étaient importées du Mexique ou faites par les moines ou les Amérindiens dans le cadre de la mission. Les Franciscains copièrent le style de Pierre Paul Rubens.

Freake Limner, Elisabeth Freake et sa fille Mary, 1674, Art Museum, Worcester (Massachusetts)

Les premiers colons européens qui arrivèrent en Amérique du Nord apportaient avec eux leurs goûts artistiques et leurs traditions. Venus de différents pays d'Europe, ils avaient en commun leur attachement à la religion dont l'influence a marqué les premiers tableaux réalisés dans ce qui deviendra plus tard les États-Unis. La peinture de l' époque coloniale fut influencée par la diversité des origines des migrants. La Nouvelle-Angleterre fut le principal foyer d'une culture coloniale dominée par le puritanisme qui prohibait la représentation de personnages bibliques et les excès de l' art baroque.

Les premiers tableaux furent produits dans la seconde moitié du siècle et furent réalisés dans les colonies du Nord-Est (Nouvelle-Angleterre, vallée de l' Hudson et montagnes Catskill). Il s'agissait de portraits souvent anonymes peints par les limners, nom qui vient du français " enlumineurs ". Ces œuvres mettaient en valeur la prospérité de leurs commanditaires par la richesse de leurs vêtements, en conformité avec les règles somptuaires en vigueur à l'époque. Les portraits d'enfants furent nombreux : Margaret Gibbs, Elisabeth Freake et sa fille Mary, Les enfants Mason, Henry Gibbs, tous attribués au Freake Limner, un peintre dont on sait peu de choses. Ce dernier utilisait un style dérivé des arts élisabéthain et hollandais du siècle dont les principales caractéristiques étaient les couleurs vives, un fond obscur et une absence de perspective,. Il était au service des plusieurs familles de notables de Boston.

La peinture coloniale trouve aussi son expression dans les besoins de la vie matérielle : par exemple, les artisans décoraient les objets de la vie quotidienne comme les enseignes des boutiques ou les carrosses.

Les colons hollandais de Nouvelle-Néerlande dans la région de l'actuelle New York apportèrent avec eux leurs collections de tableaux et commandèrent des natures mortes et des paysages. Henri Couturier a peint le portrait de Peter Stuyvesant vers 1660-1663, aujourd'hui conservé à la New-York Historical Society. Enfin, dans le Sud-Ouest dominé par les Espagnols, les premières œuvres installées ou produites par les Européens étaient destinées à décorer les édifices religieux. Les aristocrates virginiens préféraient faire venir leurs peintures d'Angleterre ou allaient les acheter sur place.

Robert Feke, Portrait de la famille d'Isaac Royall, 1741, Fogg Art Museum, Cambridge (Massachusetts)

Le début du siècle fut marqué par l'arrivée d'artistes européens professionnels dans les colonies anglaises. Ils produisaient pour une clientèle qui vivait dans le luxe : ainsi, les peintres de l'école de la vallée de l' Hudson travaillaient pour le compte des grands propriétaires terriens qui commandaient des portraits pour orner leurs manoirs. En Nouvelle-Angleterre, les tableaux reflétaient la prospérité des marchands de Boston. Les planteurs des colonies du Sud faisaient appel à des artistes britanniques. La famille était l'un des thèmes majeurs des peintures coloniales.

Dans la première moitié du siècle, des peintres venus de différents pays d'Europe s'installèrent dans les Treize colonies. Jeremiah Theüs (1716 - 1774) est né en Suisse et travailla dans la région de Charleston, en Caroline du Sud. John Smibert (1688-1751), peintre d'origine écossaise, émigra à Boston où il peignit des portraits de l'élite citadine sans originalité. L'une de ses principales œuvres, L'entourage de Berkeley, appelé aussi Groupe des Bermudes (Yale University Art Gallery), adopte une composition baroque. Gustavus Hesselius (1682-1755) quitta la Suède en 1711 et vécut à Philadelphie et dans le Maryland. Il fut le premier à répondre à des commandes publiques dans les colonies américaines : il réalisa des tableaux religieux ( Le Dernier Repas pour l'église Saint-Barnabé du comté de Prince George) ainsi que de nombreux portraits, notamment le premier portrait d'un Amérindien. Le Britannique John Wollaston importa en Amérique le style rococo géorgien caractérisé par la grâce et la légèreté. Joseph Blackburn fut le professeur de John Singleton Copley et se spécialisa dans les portraits de femmes assises. William Willams (1721-1791) produisit quelque 200 œuvres. Son Portrait de Deborah Hall (1766) reprend le système symbolique en usage dans la vieille Europe.

Dans la seconde moitié du siècle s'affirma une génération de peintres nés en Amérique. Joseph Badger (vers 1708-1765) et Robert Feke réalisèrent de nombreux portraits des grandes familles de Boston. Mais la génération de la Révolution américaine, Benjamin West, John Singleton Copley, Charles Willson Peale, John Trumbull s'installa en Angleterre et y fit carrière.

Révolution américaine et néoclassicisme

Benjamin West, Le Traité de Penn avec les Indiens, 1771-1772, Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, Philadelphie

Charles Willson Peale, Portrait de John et Elizabeth Lloyd Caldwater et leur fille Anne , 1772, Philadelphia Museum of Art

La révolution américaine a inspiré de nombreux tableaux dès la fin du siècle. Elle eut également d'importantes conséquences sur la vie des peintres : les artistes loyalistes, comme Ralph Earl (1751-1801) ou Gilbert Stuart (1755-1828)), durent en effet fuir les colonies. Mais la Révolution américaine a également changé en profondeur les arts : l'indépendance politique précéda l'autonomie artistique des Américains qui cherchèrent à s'émanciper des manières européennes et à créer un style proprement américain. Les portraits se font plus fantaisistes comme en témoigne le Portrait de Molly Whales Leonard de Rufus Hathaway (1770-1822).

Les portraits des héros de la Révolution américaine furent nombreux. Ainsi, John Singleton Copley (1738-1815) représenta Paul Revere (1772) en tenue de travail avec réalisme, précision et sobriété. Il fit par la suite d'autres portraits : des enfants, des figures de la guerre d'indépendance comme James Warren (1763), John Hancock (1765) ou encore Samuel Adams (1770). Pour fuir la Révolution américaine, il partit pour l'Angleterre en 1774 où il passa la moitié de sa vie ; il visita également la France et l'Italie. Il s'essaya à la peinture d'histoire avec son Watson et le requin (1778, Musée des Beaux-Arts de Boston) ou encore avec La mort du Major Peirsons (1784, Tate Gallery, Londres). Copley est considéré comme " le meilleur peintre classique de l'époque coloniale ".

Benjamin West (1738-1820) fut le premier artiste américain à se rendre à Rome à l'âge de 22 ans où il fit la connaissance de Johann Joachim Winckelmann et se familiarisa avec le style néoclassique. En 1763, il s'installa définitivement à Londres et ne retourna jamais en Amérique. Il se spécialisa dans la peinture d'histoire, un genre qui était en train de s'affirmer à cette époque et dont il fut l'un des premiers grands représentants. Les premiers tableaux apparentés à ce genre datent du début des années 1770, soit une quinzaine d'années avant les grands tableaux historiques de Jacques-Louis David en France. Contrairement à ses confrères, il ne se limita pas à l'histoire ancienne. En 1770, par exemple, il réalisa le tableau néoclassique La Mort du général Wolfe qui montre les derniers instants du général britannique James Wolfe pendant la guerre de Sept Ans. En 1771, il mit en scène la rencontre entre William Penn et les Amérindiens dans sa Pennsylvanie natale, commémorant ainsi le traité signé par Penn avec les Amérindiens un siècle plus tôt. Ces œuvres connurent un immense succès et l'année suivante (1772) il fut nommé peintre d'histoire du roi de Grande-Bretagne ( George III). Il peignit quelque 60 toiles pour le souverain. En 1792, il succéda à Joshua Reynolds en tant que président de la Royal Academy de peinture où il enseigna des étudiants européens et américains.

John Trumbull (1746-1843) fut un autre grand peintre américain néoclassique : il servit dans l' Armée continentale sous les ordres de George Washington avant de s'installer à Londres en 1784 pour devenir président de la Royal Academy of Arts et peintre officiel de George III. Peintre à succès, il reçut de très nombreuses commandes. Il laissa plusieurs tableaux d'histoire dans un style académique et fougueux : on peut citer par exemple La Reddition de Lord Cornwallis (1787, Rotonde du Capitole de Washington) ou La Déclaration d'Indépendance (1795, Rotonde du Capitole de Washington). Il peignit également un portrait de George Washington (1780, MET, New York) qui annonce le thème du héros romantique.

Charles Willson Peale (1741-1827) arriva à Londres en 1767 mais revint en Amérique quelque temps plus tard. Il figura des portraits des Pères fondateurs des États-Unis. Il reçut des commandes du Congrès continental pour produire le premier portrait monumental de George Washington (232,7 cm sur 148,3 cm, 1779). Il est souvent considéré comme le fondateur du premier grand musée des États-Unis. On lui doit en effet la création du Peale Museum à Philadelphie. Sa famille comptait d'autres artistes et peintres renommés : son frère James Peale, portraitiste et miniaturiste, mais aussi ses fils, à qui il donna des noms de peintres flamands : Rembrandt (1778-1860) et Rubens Peale (1784-1864). Raphaelle Peale (1774-1825) se distingua par ses natures mortes qui s'inspiraient des tableaux flamands

Ralph Earl (1751-1801) signa un portrait de Roger Sherman auquel il donna l'impression de solennité et d'intégrité républicaine grâce à une grande maîtrise de l'espace.

Les plus célèbres portraits de George Washington furent l'œuvre de Gilbert Stuart (1755-1828) : ce dernier en exécuta une centaine durant sa carrière. Toutes ces copies sont issues de trois portraits effectués du vivant de George Washington : celui de 1795 (type Vaughan, exposé au Metropolitan Museum of Art) ; le portrait dit " de l'Athenaeum " (1796) ; enfin le portrait dit " de Lansdowne " (1796), conservé à la National Portrait Gallery à Washington. Le second portrait ( Athenaeum Portrait) a été réalisé à Philadelphie et resta inachevé : il inspira la figure du billet d'un dollar. La simplicité du décor inscrit ces portraits dans la tradition égalitariste de la peinture américaine.

John Vanderlyn (1776-1852) est le premier peintre américain à préférer Paris à Londres. Il fréquenta l' école des beaux-arts de Paris et fut l'élève de Jacques-Louis David qui lui enseigna le style néoclassique. Il réalisa des portraits, des tableaux d' histoire romaine et de mythologie dont une Ariane nue (1812, Pennsylvania Academy) qui le fit connaître en provoquant le scandale.

Samuel Morse (1791-1872), le développeur d'un télégraphe électrique et de l' alphabet, fut aussi un peintre néoclassique. Il suivit des études artistiques auprès de Benjamin West à Londres et peignit des tableaux historiques édifiants. En 1825, il fonda à New York la Société des beaux-arts ( Académie américaine de design) et devient son premier président. La municipalité lui commanda la même année un portrait de Lafayette.

De nombreux Américains continuèrent à se former en Europe ; l' école de Düsseldorf en Allemagne fut fréquentée des peintres comme Emanuel Leutze, Richard Caton Woodville ou Alfred Jacob Miller. Leur style se caractérise par une composition géométrique stricte, la présence de nombreux objets et des couleurs relativement ternes. Emanuel Leutze (1816-1868) se spécialisa dans la peinture d'histoire : son tableau le plus connu est Washington traversant la Delaware, réalisée en 1849. Bien qu'elle exalte le patriotisme américain dans la guerre d'indépendance, cette œuvre peinte en Allemagne était en réalité destinée au public germanique, après l'échec des révolutions de 1848.

Gilbert Stuart, George Washington, 1796, National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution

Les peintres naïfs du siècle poursuivent la tradition du portrait héritée de l'époque coloniale. Produit par des peintres sans formation académique, l' art populaire ( folk art en anglais) donne lieu à une floraison de toiles aux thèmes variés : portraits, paysages, scènes historiques ou religieuses. Souvent coloré, il ne respecte pas les règles de la perspective et des proportions.

L'un des principaux représentants du folk art aux États-Unis fut Edward Hicks (1780-1849). Il commença sa carrière comme artisan dans une fabrique de carrosses sur lesquels il exerça ses talents de peintre ainsi que sur des meubles et des enseignes,. Quaker convaincu, il puisa son inspiration dans la Bible et particulièrement dans le Livre d'Isaïe. Il réalisa quelque 150 toiles intitulées Royaume de la paix ( Kingdom of Peace) où les animaux incarnent la doctrine quaker. Sa Ferme Cornell (1832, National Gallery of Art) reflète l'idéologie puritaine des premiers colons

De nombreux peintres afro-américains s'illustrèrent dans le folk art parmi lesquels le premier portraitiste afro-américain Joshua Johnson (vers 1763-1832). D'autres suivirent aux et siècles : William Edmondson, Clementine Hunter, Horace Pippin, etc. Le genre inspira également plusieurs femmes dont Ammi Phillips (1788-1865) ou Grandma Moses (1860-1961).

Thomas Doughty (1793-1856) fut l'un des premiers peintres américains à s'intéresser aux paysages des États-Unis (en anglais, American Landscape) auxquels il donna une dimension lyrique. Washington Allston (1779-1843) fit connaître le romantisme aux États-Unis. Il peignit des scènes exprimant sa fascination pour le merveilleux ( Saul Witch Endor, 1820), le sauvage et le terrible ( Storm Rising at Sea, 1804, musée des beaux-arts de Boston). Ses paysages préfigurent ceux de l' Hudson River School.

Hudson River School

L'Hudson River School est un mouvement artistique influencé par le romantisme. Elle regroupe plusieurs peintres américains qui travaillèrent entre les années 1820 et les années 1870. Premier mouvement pictural né aux États-Unis, sa fondation est attribuée à Thomas Cole (1801-1848). Les peintres de la première génération s'attachèrent à représenter la vallée de l' Hudson River et les montagnes du Nord-Est des États-Unis avec beaucoup de soin. Ils figuraient essentiellement des paysages sur de grands formats. Pourtant, les peintres de l'Hudson River School n'étaient pas issus des mêmes milieux sociaux et n'avaient pas exactement le même style. Ils appliquaient la philosophie du Sublime. Ils pensaient que la Nature était la manifestation de la puissance et de la bonté divine,. Les paysages préservés des États-Unis furent comparés au Paradis originel.

Après la mort de Thomas Cole en 1848, Asher Durand (1796-1886) prit la tête du mouvement. Celui-ci devint le président de la National Academy of Design et codifia les règles de la peinture américaine du paysage. Il est connu pour ses études très fouillées d'arbres et de rochers. Frederic Edwin Church (1826-1900) peignit les Chutes du Niagara (1857, Corcoran Gallery, Washington), mais aussi des paysages de La Frontière, des Andes, du Proche-Orient et des régions polaires. Peintre d'origine allemande, Albert Bierstadt (1830-1902) est le dernier représentant de l'Hudson River School. En 1858, il participa à l'expédition du colonel Frederick W. Lander dans les Montagnes Rocheuses. Il retourna dans cette région en 1863 et en 1871-1873. Ses paysages de l' Ouest américain sont détaillés, grandioses, parfois écrasants. Son tableau Montagnes Rocheuses (Landers Peak, 1863) fut acheté par le magnat des chemins de fer James McHenry pour 25 000 dollars ; il révèle de nombreux détails ethnologiques et propose un paysage équilibré.

John Frederick Kensett, Martin Johnson Heade et Fitz Henry Lane se détachent de l'Hudson River School par leurs petites peintures contemplatives. Ils représentèrent des paysages ouverts (mer, lacs, marais salants) mis en valeur par les effets d'atmosphère. Ils formèrent le courant du luminisme qui considérait que la lumière du Nouveau Monde était particulière et qu'elle incarnait la manifestation de Dieu dans les paysages.

Avec la conquête de l'Ouest, les Américains furent confrontés aux Autochtones qui devinrent un des thèmes de la peinture américaine du siècle. George Catlin (1796-1872) fut l'un des premiers à s'intéresser aux sociétés amérindiennes et à l'exploration du Mississippi. L'artiste peignit plusieurs portraits d'Amérindiens en costume traditionnel sur commande de en 1845. Catlin est l'un des représentants de la peinture " scientifique " précieuse pour son intérêt ethnologique. La toile de John Wesley Jarvis, Black Hawk and his Son Whirling Thunder (1833) montre l' acculturation des Amérindiens : le père porte le costume occidental. Jarvis représenta les deux personnages comme il aurait peint des notables blancs. Les Amérindiens furent souvent présentés comme une menace, une entrave à la conquête de l'Ouest : George Caleb Bingham mit en valeur les jeux de lumière de Captured by Indians et Belated Wayfarers (1856). Alfred Jacob Miller qui voyagea dans l'ouest et produisit des aquarelles nerveuses sur les Amérindiens. Albert Bierstadt s'intéressa aussi aux Amérindiens ( View of Chimney Rock, Ogalillalh Sioux Village in Foreground, 1860 ; Indian Camp, 1858-1859). Frederick Remington ( The Smoke Signal, 1905) prolongea le thème des Amérindiens dans la première moitié du siècle. Le quotidien des cow-boys et des pionniers sur la Frontière se retrouve dans les toiles de Frederick Remington. D'autres peintres mirent en valeur les héros de l'ouest tels que Buffalo Bill. Plusieurs peintres tels qu'Emanuel Leutze peignirent la Destinée manifeste.

Après 1850, la conquête de l'Ouest, la Guerre de Sécession, l'urbanisation, l'industrialisation transformèrent les États-Unis qui accédèrent au rang de puissance mondiale. Ces mutations affectèrent la peinture de la deuxième moitié du siècle. Les artistes américains s'adaptèrent à l'ouverture internationale de leur pays et appliquèrent les techniques européennes. Leur succès et leur réputation allèrent en grandissant : les Américains furent ainsi les peintres étrangers les plus nombreux au salon annuel de Paris.

Peinture de genre

La peinture de genre s'épanouit au siècle et traite de la vie des gens ordinaires. Aux États-Unis, elle connaît un grand succès dans les années 1830-1840. William Sidney Mount (1807-1868) est considéré comme le fondateur de la peinture de genre américaine. Ses œuvres traitent du quotidien des fermiers de Long Island ( le Marchandage d'un cheval, 1835, New York Historical Society, New York) et s'inspirent des peintures de genre anglaises. Mount est également fasciné par les Afro-Américains qu'il représente toujours de manière digne. On retrouve les Noirs américains dans les toiles de John Lewis Krimmel (1787-1821), un Allemand qui émigra à Philadelphie en 1809. George Caleb Bingham (1811-1879) s'intéressa aux activités des trappeurs et des bateliers du Mississippi qui incarnaient les valeurs de l'Ouest, telles que l'indépendance, la solidarité et la liberté. L'élection au comté montre aussi un monde d'ivrognes, d'intrigants et d'inégalités sociales. La tradition de la peinture de genre se prolongea au siècle avec des artistes comme Thomas Hart Benton (1889-1975).

Le tonalisme (1880-1915) est un genre de peinture de paysage influencé par l' école de Barbizon,. Son principal représentant américain fut George Inness (1825-1894) dont les paysages montrent la bonté de la nature, ce qui témoigne de liens avec l' Hudson River School. Mais les paysages de George Inness ne sont plus sauvages et intègrent les aménagements humains tels que le chemin de fer ( The Lackawanna Valley, 1855).

William Morris Hunt, Homer Dodge Martin, Alexander Wyant, Jonathan Eastman Johnson, furent également des disciples de l'école de Barbizon. La plupart ont adopté le style français tout en représentant des sujets américains. Les productions de ce courant traduisent la nostalgie pour la vie rurale traditionnelle. William Morris Hunt admirait les œuvres de Jean-François Millet qui aimait traiter les sujets humbles avec gravité. Homer Dodge Martin se distingue par son style poétique.

Jean-Léon Gérôme influença de nombreux peintres américains. Julius Gari Melchers, Walter Gay, Frederick Arthur Bridgman, Francis Davis Millet (1846-1912) se spécialisèrent dans la peinture de genre (monde du travail, scènes religieuses) avec une touche d'orientalisme pour Bridgman. Plusieurs Américains se sont formés à l'école de Munich et ont représenté les basses classes sociales dans le style hollandais du siècle : on peut citer Frank Duveneck (1848-1919), William Merritt Chase (1849-1916) et Frank Currier.

Winslow Homer (1836-1910) fait partie des artistes américains de cette époque qui ne se sont pas formés à l'étranger. Homer est le principal représentant du réalisme américain et a privilégié les thèmes ruraux, sans négliger le monde des enfants. Installé dans le Maine à la fin de sa vie, il peint avec lyrisme des marines et des paysages, traduisant les forces spirituelles de la nature. Homer a su se distinguer par son sens très personnel de la couleur.

Thomas Eakins (1844-1916) fit des études de médecine aux États-Unis, fréquenta l'atelier du peintre Gérôme à Paris, avant de s'installer définitivement à Philadelphie. Eakins est le peintre des classes moyennes américaines et se rattache aux réalistes français. Il figura des baigneurs et des athlètes avec précision.

Albert Pinkham Ryder (1847-1917) subit une infection lui ayant abîmé la vue quand il était enfant. Comme Winslow Homer, il peint des marines et il est considéré comme " la personnalité la plus originale de l'époque romantique ". Par son univers fantasmagorique et ses couleurs vives, il est vu comme le précurseur de l' expressionnisme américain.

L' impressionnisme est un mouvement pictural qui apparut en France dans les années 1860. Il se caractérise par une tendance à noter les impressions fugitives à mobilité des phénomènes plutôt que l'aspect stable et conceptuel des choses. Le nouveau style fut mis à l'honneur aux États-Unis grâce à de grandes expositions à Boston et à New York dès les années 1880. Les premiers peintres américains impressionnistes tels que Theodore Robinson visitèrent la France et se lièrent d'amitié avec des artistes comme Claude Monet.

Des années 1890 aux années 1910, l'impressionnisme américain se développa dans les " colonies d'artistes ", c'est-à-dire dans des groupes de peintres vivant ensemble et partageant un même style. Elles se formaient dans de petites villes où le coût de la vie était raisonnable, où les paysages offraient des thèmes pour les tableaux et où les peintres pouvaient trouver une clientèle pour les acheter. Certaines de ces colonies continuèrent d'être actives dans les années 1920. En France, Giverny accueillit autour de Claude Monet des peintres américains entre 1887 et 1914 : Willard Metcalf, Louis Ritter , Theodore Wendel, John Leslie Breck.

La peinture impressionniste tomba en désuétude après l'exposition internationale d' art moderne de l' Armory Show, qui s'est tenue à New York en 1913. L'impressionnisme américain connut une renaissance dans les années 1950 lorsque les grands musées américains organisèrent des expositions sur ce style. Les impressionnistes américains furent les témoins des changements sociaux et culturels liés à l'urbanisation et à l'industrialisation. Ils peignirent l'agitation de la vie citadine ( New York par Childe Hassam) tout comme la sérénité des paysages ruraux (Sargent dans les Cotswolds, Chase à Southampton dans l' État de New York, Twachtman à Greenwich dans le Connecticut). Ils figurèrent des sujets plus intimistes dans des intérieurs tranquilles à l'instar de Mary Cassatt, Edmund Tarbell, Frank Weston Benson.

Parmi les peintres impressionnistes américains, Mary Cassatt (1844-1926) tient une place particulière : installée et formée en France, elle côtoya les impressionnistes français ( Edgar Degas et Claude Monet). Elle est considérée comme la première femme peintre américaine. Le thème de la mère et de l'enfant représente un tiers de sa production, alors qu'elle n'enfanta jamais. Mary Cassatt eut un rôle important dans la diffusion de l'impressionnisme auprès de ses compatriotes. James Whistler (1834-1903) est . Il partagea le sort des impressionnistes refusés au Salon officiel de Paris, même si son œuvre n'est pas impressionniste au sens strict. Ses peintures traduisent souvent ses sentiments intimes, comme la solitude. Il peignit des portraits élégants en utilisant des couleurs subtiles et des formes harmonieuses.

John Singer Sargent (1856-1925) a beaucoup voyagé, mais il finit son existence en Amérique. Ses portraits utilisent une palette sobre comparable à celle de Velasquez.

Parmi les impressionnistes américains, le groupe des dix exerce à New York et adopte des positions esthétiques radicales. Il fut formé par Thomas W. Dewing et Frank Benson en se séparant de la Society of American Artists. Weir introduit des ponts modernes, des éléments mécaniques dans ses toiles. Dewing se spécialise dans les scènes d'intérieur qui transpire la solitude ou la mélancolie. Robert Reid ne peint presque que des jeunes femmes dans un beau décor de plantes et de fleurs.

L'impressionnisme américain se subdivisa en écoles régionales : Edmund Tarbell et Frank Benson participent à la Boston School spécialisée dans la peinture des femmes élégantes en intérieur avec des références à Vermeer. Les autres écoles régionales correspondent aux colonies d'artistes dispersées dans le pays : Hoosier School (Indiana), School of Old Lyme (Connecticut), écoles de Pennsylvanie et de Californie. Les impressionnistes de la figure décorative représentent des femmes dans des jardins et des nus : ils forment la deuxième génération de peintres américains à Giverny et acquièrent une réputation internationale. On peut citer Parker, Guy Rose, E Graecen, Louis Ritman, F.C. Frieseke et R.E. Miller.

La première moitié du siècle est un moment de tâtonnements pour affirmer une identité artistique américaine. Les artistes américains de cette période sont méconnus en Europe. Après la Seconde Guerre mondiale, les États-Unis s'affirment comme un véritable foyer de création artistique.

Le début du siècle est entre autres marqué par la formation de l' Ash Can School, littéralement " école de la poubelle ". Il s'agit d'un style réaliste et social, hostile à la société inégalitaire de l'époque. Elle est connue pour la représentation de scènes de la vie quotidienne des milieux pauvres des villes. Elle est souvent confondue avec le " groupe des huit " ( The Eight), des peintres réunis autour de Robert Henri (1865-1929). En 1910, ces derniers participent à une exposition d'artistes indépendants. Plusieurs de ces peintres sont aussi des dessinateurs de presse.

Maurice Prendergast (1858-1924) est un aquarelliste américain postimpressionniste. Il appartenait, sur le plan technique, à l'École d'Ash Can et était proche des nabis. Il développe dans ses toiles une vision naïve, simple et douce. George Wesley Bellows ( Cliff Dwellers, 1913) met en scène la vie des immigrants à New York.

Charles Sheeler (1883-1965) et Charles Demuth (1883 - 1935) fondent le mouvement du précisionnisme au début des années 1920. Influencé par le cubisme (le cubisme orphique) et le futurisme, ce mouvement a pour autres représentants Elsie Driggs et Gerald Murphy. Une partie de l'œuvre de Georgia O'Keeffe, dont le mari Alfred Stieglitz fut aussi impliqué, peut aussi être associée à ce courant. Les thèmes des précisionnistes sont souvent des paysages industriels et urbains (cheminées d'usines, machines, bâtiments, châteaux d'eau) représentés de façon cubiste, parfois proches de l' abstraction, parfois réalistes. Ces représentations figuratives idéalisées sont généralement vides de toute présence humaine. Certaines œuvres (notamment The Figure 5 in Gold de Demuth) influenceront aussi bien plus tard le Pop Art. Le précisionnisme n'eut pas un grand retentissement en dehors des États-Unis.

C'est l' Armory Show de 1913, une exposition d'art moderne à New York qui fit connaître l'avant-garde européenne sur la côte est. Elle réunit 25 artistes américains, dont le but était de traduire l'art européen en langage américain. Les 1600 œuvres de l'Armory Show furent ensuite transportées à Boston et Chicago,. À la suite de cette exposition qui provoqua le scandale, se constituèrent les premières collections d'art moderne, par exemple par le docteur Barnes. Le photographe Alfred Stieglitz exposa des peintures modernes dans la galerie 291. Le MoMa fut fondée en 1929.

Plusieurs artistes américains modernes furent influencés par le cubisme et le futurisme, parfois en combinant les deux mouvements, en un courant spécifiquement américain appelé le précisionnisme : Joseph Stella (1877-1946), Max Weber (1881-1961) et Marsden Hartley (1877-1943). Stuart Davis (1894-1964) transposa les paysages de la Nouvelle-Angleterre ou objets de la vie quotidienne dans le style moderne. Sa représentation de motifs ou de thèmes liés à la vie quotidienne tels que des paquets de cigarettes font de Stuart Davis, tout comme Charles Demuth, un annonciateur du Pop Art. D'autres firent évoluer leur travail vers l'abstraction : John Marin (1870-1953) est connu pour ses paysages et ses aquarelles. Stanton Macdonald-Wright (1890-1973) fonde avec Morgan Russell (1886-1953) le synchromisme, un mouvement pictural abstrait né sur le sol américain. Thomas Hart Benton, Andrew Dasburg, Patrick Henry Bruce et Albert Henry Krehbiel explorèrent cette nouvelle voie. Pour Arthur Dove (1880-1946), les images expriment des sons.

Enfin, l'influence de Marcel Duchamp fut essentielle dans l'évolution de la peinture américaine. Il fit connaître le dadaïsme dès 1915 à New York,. En 1913, son Nu descendant un escalier provoqua le scandale. À New York, il entretint des liens avec Man Ray, Alfred Stieglitz et Francis Picabia avec qui il fonda la revue 291. Il fut naturalisé américain en 1955. L'art abstrait progresse avec la fondation de l'Association des Artistes Abstraits Américains en 1936.

Thomas Hart Benton, People of Chilmark (Figure composition), 1920.

La période de la Grande Dépression voit le succès du réalisme. Edward Hopper illustre la solitude dans des paysages urbains. Peintre de la société américaine, il produit des images totalement reconstruites et intègre dans son œuvre les techniques de la photographie et du cinéma (cadrage, décor).

La Grande Dépression provoque un chômage massif parmi les artistes des années 1930. Le New Deal mis en place par le président Franklin D. Roosevelt comporte un volet culturel visant à aider les artistes en difficulté. La Public Work of Art Project donne du travail à plusieurs milliers d'artistes. Elle ne dure que cinq mois. La Works Projects Administration (1935) met en route de nombreux projets dans le domaine des arts et de la littérature, en particulier les cinq programmes du fameux Federal One. La WPA permit la réalisation de 1 566 peintures nouvelles, 17 744 sculptures, 108 099 peintures à l'huile et de développer l'enseignement artistique. Elle donnait des subventions quel que soit le sujet de l'œuvre. À la fin du New Deal, le bilan est mitigé : si les artistes américains ont été soutenus par des fonds publics et ont acquis une reconnaissance nationale, cette politique culturelle est interrompue par la Seconde Guerre mondiale et la mort de Roosevelt. La WPA favorisa le sentiment communautaire chez les artistes américains. Les principaux peintres de cette période sont Thomas Hart Benton, John Steuart Curry, Grant Wood, Ben Shahn, Joseph Stella, Reginald Marsh, Isaac Soyer , Raphael Soyer, Jack Levine.

Les œuvres des années 1930 s'intéressent aux problèmes sociaux et au sort des plus démunis. La réalisme social ( Social Realism ou American Scene Painting) se développa durant cette période avec des artistes comme Ben Shahn (1898 - 1969). Il se fit connaître par ses tempera en faveur des anarchistes Sacco et Vanzetti réalisées en 1932. Réalisme social et activisme de gauche sont caractéristiques de son œuvre et de sa pensée politique. Jacob Lawrence (1917-2000) s'intéresse au sort des Afro-Américains.

Le régionalisme désigne un mouvement figuratif américain formé en réaction contre l'internationalisme de l'art abstrait. Il évoque les thèmes de la vie quotidienne de la ferme ou de la petite ville américaine. American Gothic de Grant Wood (1930, Art Institute of Chicago) en est l'œuvre la plus célèbre et reflète les valeurs du Midwest. La toile est devenue une icône de la nation américaine. La raideur de ses portraits n'est pas sans rappeler l'esthétique des primitifs allemands de la fin du Moyen Âge. On rattache aussi son œuvre au réalisme magique qui décrit précisément le réel tout en introduisant des objets ou des situations insolites. Thomas Hart Benton (1889-1975) est connu pour son style fluide et ses toiles représentant des scènes de la vie quotidienne du Midwest. Il part pour Paris en 1909 afin de parfaire sa formation artistique à l' Académie Julian. À Paris, Benton rencontre d'autres artistes nord-américains tels que Diego Rivera et Stanton Macdonald-Wright. Il revient à New York en 1913 et continue à peindre. En 1935, il part enseigner au Kansas City Art Institute à Kansas City. Là, il peint des scènes rurales et agricoles. Benton fut aussi l'un des enseignants du célèbre peintre Jackson Pollock au sein de la Art Students League de New York dans les années 1930.

Pendant la Grande dépression des années 1930, le régionalisme qui domina dans les programmes d'aide sociale. Il donna lieu à la décoration murale des bâtiments publics. Par exemple, Georgia O'Keeffe (1887-1986) remporte en 1932 le concours pour peindre les murs du Radio City Hall à New York. Sa peinture confine parfois à l'abstraction. Elle choisit de s'exprimer sur de grandes surfaces, manifestant une certaine sensualité (fleurs) grâce à des lignes épurées.

Durant l' entre-deux-guerres, l'achèvement du Santa Fe Railroad permirent aux artistes américains de découvrir et de s'installer dans le Sud-Ouest des États-Unis, notamment autour de Santa Fe et Taos. Des artistes comme Walter Ufer, Bert Geer Phillips , E. Irving Couse, William Henry Jackson, et Georgia O'Keeffe peignirent les Amérindiens et les paysages du sud-ouest.

Les origines de l' expressionnisme abstrait font l'objet de controverse : s'agit-il d'un art spécifiquement américain, ou doit-il beaucoup aux avant-gardistes européens ? Pour Anna Moszynska, il est " le premier et le plus célèbre mouvement d'art américain international ".

À partir de 1933, les États-Unis accueillent des artistes ayant fui l' Allemagne nazie : Hans Hofmann (1880-1966) est à l'origine de la technique du Push and Pull (" tiraillement "). Josef Albers (1888-1976) enseigna au Bauhaus de 1923 à 1933 avant de migrer aux États-Unis. Il est considéré comme un des initiateurs de l' art optique ou " Op art " et reprit les recherches de Paul Cézanne sur l'abstraction. Entre 1939 et 1942, Marc Chagall, Max Ernst, Fernand Léger, Piet Mondrian, Yves Tanguy, Roberto Matta, André Masson et André Breton émigrent à leur tour,. Entre 1940 et 1948, Salvador Dalí réside aux États-Unis où il connaît un grand succès commercial. En réalité, si l'on met de côté Matta, les artistes européens eurent peu de contact avec leurs homologues américains. Dès 1948, ces derniers avaient fondé leur voie propre. Après la guerre, New York devient le centre majeur de l'avant-garde. Les expressionnistes abstraits puisent leur inspiration et leur technique dans plusieurs sources. Ils sont marqués par les influences surréalistes : subconscient, écriture automatique, . Ils furent aussi marqués par l'abstraction de Vassily Kandinsky, d' Arshile Gorky et de Hans Hofmann.

Après la Seconde Guerre mondiale, les conditions économiques, politiques et artistiques suscitent une nouvelle manière de peindre, de voir et de donner à voir aux États-Unis. Après des années de crise, l'économie américaine repart. Avec le début de la guerre froide, la peinture américaine représente pour le gouvernement une arme culturelle exportable. L'expressionnisme abstrait apparaît en 1948, au cours d'une exposition à New York, financée par des fonds publics. Cet art qui se voulait avant-gardiste, cosmopolite et apolitique fait se déplacer le cœur de l'art moderne de Paris à New York. Cependant, l'expressionnisme abstrait suscite des débats au sein de la classe politique américaine. Les Républicains attaquent violemment ce courant et l'accusent d'être communiste. Au Congrès, ils dénoncent en outre les financements fédéraux qui sont attribués aux peintres expressionnistes. Le début des années 1950 voit le renforcement de cette opposition à cause du maccarthisme, les artistes soupçonnés de sympathies communistes deviennent l'objet d'enquêtes (" chasse aux sorcières "). Pourtant, la période est aussi marquée par le soutien du MoMA de New York, lui-même financé par la fondation Rockefeller. En 1952, le musée organise même un programme international de diffusion mondiale de l'expressionnisme abstrait. L'exposition The New American Painting n'a pas d'autres buts.

L'expressionnisme abstrait s'impose avec une nouvelle génération d'artistes vivant à New York d'où le nom d'" école de New York ". Il se caractérise par des toiles immenses, souvent entièrement peintes (), sans subdivisions : chaque coup de pinceau annule le précédent et le rapport de celui-ci avec la surface du fond. Procédé qui conduit à une répartition plus ou moins uniforme des éléments picturaux sur la totalité de la surface du tableau qui semble se prolonger au-delà des bords, éliminant ainsi le problème du champ. Il met en valeur la matière et la couleur utilisée comme matière. Il se divise en deux courants principaux : l'action painting et le Colorfield Painting.

Les peintres de l' action painting produisent de façon violente, avec des gestes rapides voire spontanés. Il est principalement incarné par Pollock, à partir de sa série de 1946 The sounds in the grass ( Les sons dans l'herbe) et de la mise au point en 1947 de la technique du , initiée dès 1943, De Kooning à partir de 1952 ou Franz Kline. Le dripping consiste à faire dégouliner de la peinture sur de grandes toiles disposées au sol ou au mur. Pollock employait des outils non conventionnels pour peindre (couteaux, truelle, baton, seringue).

Le Colorfield Painting (" champs colorés ") désigne la peinture de Mark Rothko (1903-1970) depuis 1946 avec ses peintures " multiform ", de Clyfford Still vers 1946 ou de Barnett Newman à partir de 1948. Rothko figure de larges bandes de couleurs pures dans de grands toiles qui invitent à la contemplation ou la méditation. Il voulait un art poignant et universel. Avec Barnett Newman, Clyfford Still et Ad Reinhardt, il devient l'un des artistes les plus représentatifs de la color field painting, qui est proche du minimalisme.

L'œuvre de Robert Rauschenberg (1925-2008) favorise le passage de l'expressionnisme abstrait au pop art avec ses combine paintings. Son approche fut parfois qualifiée de " Néo-Dada ". L'artiste américain refusait d'être rangé ni dans le courant du Pop Art, ni dans l'expressionnisme abstrait. Dans les années 1950, il s'installa ensuite à New York où il exposa ses monochromes. Il fit la connaissance de Jasper Johns, qui travaillait dans un atelier situé dans le même immeuble sur Pearl Street. Puis il se lança dans les collages sur des toiles expressionnistes appelés " Combine Paintings ". Dans les années 1960, Rauschenberg explora l'emploi du métal comme support pour la peinture, l' émail et les images sérigraphiées. À partir de 1962, les peintures de Rauschenberg commencèrent à intégrer non plus seulement des objets trouvés, mais aussi des images - transférant des photographies sur des toiles au moyen de la sérigraphie. Ce procédé permet à Rauschenberg d'interroger le principe de la reproductibilité de l'œuvre et de ses conséquences.

Photographie d'Andy Warhol en 1977

Le terme " pop art " (abréviation de " popular art " en anglais, ou " art populaire " en français) est né dans les années 1950 au Royaume-Uni et dans les années 1960 aux États-Unis, en réaction à l' expressionnisme abstrait jugé trop élitiste. Il puise ses origines dans le dadaïsme et dans l'œuvre de Marcel Duchamp, mais les prémices peuvent être trouvés dans des artistes américains tels que William Harnett et Charles Demuth ( Number 5, 1928). Jasper Johns et Robert Rauschenberg sont considérés comme des précurseurs du pop art. Ce mouvement artistique s'intéresse à la société de consommation et aux déformations qu'elle engendre dans notre comportement au quotidien. C'est à partir de ce principe que les artistes américains mettent en évidence l'influence que peut avoir la publicité, les magazines, les bandes dessinées, les affiches et la télévision sur les décisions des consommateurs. L'accueil est très bon dès les débuts du mouvement, car le pop art est a priori simple et accessible ; il semble remettre en cause le matérialisme. Les procédés utilisés par les artistes étaient souvent des nouveaux produits qui sortaient tout juste de cette société de consommation : acrylique, sérigraphie, etc. Les couleurs sont souvent vives et décalées par rapport à la réalité. Au-delà de la peinture, le pop art a usé des techniques picturales qui n'étaient auparavant pas considérées comme proprement artistiques, mais industrielles. Ce mouvement a perturbé le monde artistique d'autres manières, par exemple à travers la remise en cause du principe d'unicité d'une œuvre d'art. Le pop art utilise des symboles populaires, qui marquent l'inconscient dès l'enfance dans un but de désacralisation de l'œuvre d'art qui auparavant était réservée à une élite et qui ne couvrait que des sujets dit " importants ". Il représente des objets de la société consommation et de la culture populaire modifiés par la couleur, le format, la répétition ou encore intégrés au tableau par des collages.

Andy Warhol (1928-1987) est considéré comme l'un des chefs de file du pop art. Il représenta des marques, des personnalités médiatiques ( Marilyn Monroe (1962), Liz Taylor, Elvis Presley, Jackie Kennedy). Il reproduisait ses œuvres par centaines, parfois même par milliers, ce qui heurtait les idées classiques attribuant à une œuvre sa valeur car elle est unique. Il utilisa la sérigraphie pour figurer des bouteilles de Coca-Cola, des portraits de Marilyn Monroe, des boîtes de soupe Campbell (Campbell's Soup Cans, 1962). Mais il réalisa aussi une série d'œuvres traitant de sujet plus dramatiques, comme les Chaises électriques, les Suicides et les Accidents de la route.

Les toiles de Roy Lichtenstein (1923-1997) s'inspirent fortement de la publicité et de l'imagerie populaire de son époque, ainsi que des " comics " ( bandes-dessinées). Il décrira lui-même son style comme étant " aussi artificiel que possible ". Il mit en valeur des icônes symboliques de l'American Way of Life comme le hot-dog. Tom Wesselmann (né en 1937) se distingua par ses grands nus féminins ( Great American nude) et ses natures mortes ( Still life), réalisées à partir de collages d'images découpées dans des magazines et d'objets trouvés. L' érotisme est constamment présent dans la série de ses Grands nus américains, composés dans des formes planes et simplifiées. Wesselman en souligne fortement la bouche, les seins, les hanches et les cuisses, à la façon d'images publicitaires. L'environnement en est quelconque, salon ou chambre où apparaissent cependant aux murs des portraits de personnages historiques américains ( George Washington et Abraham Lincoln dans les Still life nr. 3 et 28 de 1963) ou des tableaux, notamment de Paul Cézanne, Matisse, Mondrian, Motherwell. Jim Dine (né en 1935) refusait d'être assimilé au pop art bien qu'il aimât représenter des objets du quotidien. Souvent très colorées, ses toiles utilisent la technique du fondu (contours estompés) et des séries, avec une infinité de variations notamment dans les nuances chromatiques. Le motif du crâne, présent comme un rappel dans les toiles au milieu de nombreux objets banals et usuels du monde contemporain, renoue avec la tradition de la nature morte ( A still life with a red pepper as October changes our valley, 1977). James Rosenquist (né en 1933) juxtapose des images sans rapport apparent, et ne respecte pas les rapports d'échelle entre les objets ( I Love You with My Ford, 1961). Influencé par son métier de peintre publicitaire, sur de très grands formats, comme les affiches de Broadway, sa perception des choses changera et il peindra des tableaux monumentaux et très colorés, des " fragments de réalité ".

Timbre allemand représentant Quathlamba de Frank Stella

L' Art minimal est contemporain du Pop Art mais choisit l'abstraction, le dépouillement, l'économie de moyens et la pureté. Héritier en partie du constructivisme, ce style est un prolongement des recherches de Joseph Albers. Le minimalisme invite le spectateur à la méditation et se rapproche du zen. Il exprime les valeurs américaines fondamentales (le puritanisme des origines), de pragmatisme et de matérialisme dans une période de forte croissance économique. En réaction aux tableaux extrêmement colorés et aux objets quotidiens élevés au rang d'œuvres d'art par les artistes du Pop art, les œuvres minimalistes se composent généralement de deux ou trois couleurs et de formes basiques : ronds, carrés, lignes droites, etc. La simplicité est primordiale et il n'existe aucune représentation subjective derrière le minimalisme ; il est dénué de toute symbolique et ne cherche à jouer que sur les formes et les couleurs en évitant l'émotion au sens littéral du terme : un art dénué de tous sentiments subjectifs et objectifs.

Robert Ryman (né en 1930) s'illustre avec ses Charter series, des monochromes blancs ou noirs. Bien qu'il soit classé dans le mouvement du Minimalisme, l'artiste préfère être authentifié comme un "réaliste" car il n'est pas intéressé par la création d'illusions, mais seulement par la présentation des matériaux qu'il a utilisés dans ses compositions. Durant toute sa vie, il n'a cessé d'expérimenter les différents supports et privilégia le support carré. Il laisse quelques espaces non peints dans les coins de la toile. Les autres peintres du minimalisme américain sont Ad Reinhardt ( Ultimate Painting n° 6, 1960, Centre Georges-Pompidou) et Frank Stella. Ce dernier est célèbre pour sa série de rapporteurs colorés et gigantesques ( protactors). Sol LeWitt a produit des dessins simples tracés directement sur les murs du lieu d'exposition ( Wall paintings). Mais le minimalisme inspira surtout des plasticiens et des sculpteurs ( Robert Morris, Dan Flavin, Carl Andre, Sol LeWitt, Donald Judd qui peignit des monochromes sur d'autres supports que la toile).

Né dans les années 1960 à New York et à Londres, le conceptualisme séduisit des artistes américains comme Robert Barry, Douglas Huebler, Joseph Kosuth, Lawrence Weiner. Son objectif est d'attirer l'attention sur les idées. Le conceptualisme marque l'aboutissement du minimalisme.

La peinture américaine des années 1970 et 1980 se caractérise par une grande variété de styles et de méthodes. L'école de New York connaît alors un déclin relatif. La période est notamment marquée par le retour en force de la figuration et du réalisme. À la suite de Milton Clark Avery (1885-1965), considéré par certains comme le " Matisse américain ", on trouve des artistes comme Philip Pearlstein (nus), Alex Katz (paysages et portraits) Jasper Johns (drapeaux, cibles), Larry Rivers (animaux, mariages, peinture d'histoire).

Dès la fin des années 1960 Chuck Close, Ralph Goings, Malcolm Morley, Audrey Flack, Don Eddy, Richard McLean, Richard Estes, Charles Bell, David Parrish s'essayent à l' hyperréalisme et produisent une peinture du quotidien proche du trompe-l'œil. Chuck Close (né en 1940) propose de gigantesques dessins de personnages patibulaires. Son premier tableau majeur, Big Nude, mesurait 3 mètres de haut sur 6,5 de large. S'il a d'abord visé à la reproduction photoréaliste des visages, il expérimente depuis un certain temps avec la pixellisation. Don Eddy et John Salt s'intéressent aux automobiles, alors que David Parrish représente des motos ( Motorcycle, 1971). Richard Estes (né en 1936) se distingue par l'aspect baroque et volontairement virtuose de ses compositions, jouant sur les reflets de toutes sortes et la fragmentation géométrique de l'espace (vues de vitrines, de cabines téléphoniques...). Les peintres new image tels que Jennifer Bartlett, Susan Rothenberg et Neil Jenney font également renaître la figuration.

Le néo-expressionnisme est un style de peinture contemporain qui a émergé vers la fin des années 1970 et a dominé le marché de l'art jusqu'au milieu des années 1980. Inscrit dans le prolongement de l' abstraction lyrique américaine, il s'est développé en réaction contre l' art conceptuel et minimaliste des années 1970. Les peintres néo-expressionnistes sont revenus à la peinture d'objets et motifs reconnaissables, tels que le corps humain, en adoptant un style violemment émotif, en utilisant des couleurs vives et des harmonies de couleur. Ils utilisent aussi un dessin cru de style bande dessinée pour provoquer. Julian Schnabel, David Salle, Robert Longo et Eric Fischl appartiennent à cette tendance.

Le Bad Painting emprunte aux arts de la rue, ( graffitis, pochoirs, affiches...) et s'inspire de la sub-culture ( punk, rock, rap, groupes afro-américains et hispano-américains...) et parfois en est même issu. Volontairement sale, négligé et politiquement incorrect, mais parfaitement maîtrisé en ses volumes, ce style s'inscrit dans la lignée de la figuration libre et est tout aussi libéré, voir éclaté. Jean-Michel Basquiat, peintre new-yorkais d'origine haïtienne, qui produit des toiles perçues comme violentes ( Red Face, 1981), Jonathan Borofsky, Buckley, Keith Haring, Arnulf Rainer en sont les principaux représentants.

Un critique d'art comme Edward Lucie-Smith n'hésite pas à inscrire certaines productions de plasticiens comme Jeff Koons (qui n'est pas seulement sculpteur) ou Eric Fischl dans la lignée du réalisme américain : on peut même parler ici d'un " néo-réalisme pictural ", revisitant et questionnant les aspects complexes et souvent paradoxaux de la postmodernité.

Notes et références

1. Jean-Michel Lacroix, Histoire des États-Unis, Paris, Presses Universitaires de France, 2007 (2°éd.) , p.60

2. Kevin Chantrel, " L'iconographie des guerres d'Indépendance dans la construction identitaire des États-Unis ", Sorbonne Université, , p.177

3. François Wehrlin, Philippe Guillemet, section " Les arts plastiques " de l'article " États-Unis ", in Encyclopædia Universalis, corpus 8, Paris, 2002, p.845

4. Collectif, L'Art des États-Unis, traduit de l'anglais par Christiane Thiollier, édition Citadelles et Mazenod, Paris, 1992, , p. 145

5. (en) Kevin J. Avery, " The Hudson River School ", The Metropolitan Museum of Art (consulté le )

6. Kamila Benayada, " La mythologie de l'Ouest dans l'art américain, 1830-1940 ", Transatlantica, vol. 1,‎ (lire en ligne)

7. Avery, Kevin J. & Fischer, Diane P. " American Tonalism: Selections from the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Montclair Art Museum ", in Burlington Magazine, Vol. 142, No. 1168, July, 2000. p.453

8. François Wehrlin, Philippe Guillemet, section " Les arts plastiques " de l'article " États-Unis ", in Encyclopædia Universalis, corpus 8, Paris, 2002, p.846

9. Ernst Hans Gombrich, "Histoire de l'art", édition, Phaidon, 2001, , p.530

10. François Wehrlin, Philippe Guillemet, section " Les arts plastiques " de l'article " États-Unis ", in Encyclopædia Universalis, corpus 8, Paris, 2002, p.848

11. " En 1943, Marcel Duchamp opte pour la nationalité américaine ", Élisabeth Lebovici " L'Américaine ", dans Beaux Arts magazine n° 75, janvier 1990, p. 57. Duchamp a dû attendre 1955 pour que sa naturalisation soit effective, cf. Judith Housez, Marcel Duchamp : Biographie, Grasset, 2006, p. 472

12. Alan Lawson, " The Cultural Legacy of the New Deal " dans Harvard Sitkoff, Fifty Years Later. The New Deal Evaluated, Phildelphie, Temple University Press, 1985, p.163

13. François Wehrlin, Philippe Guillemet, section " Les arts plastiques " de l'article " États-Unis ", in Encyclopædia Universalis, corpus 8, Paris, 2002, page 849.

14. Frédéric Martel, De la culture en Amérique, Paris, Gallimard, 2006, p.118

15. Frédéric Martel, De la culture en Amérique, Paris, Gallimard, 2006, p.117

16. Franz Kline, Painting Number 2, 1954, MOMA, New York

17. (en) Michael Kimmelman, " Robert Rauschenberg, Titan of American Art, Is Dead at 82 ", The New York Times, (consulté le )

18. François Wehrlin, Philippe Guillemet, section " Les arts plastiques " de l'article " États-Unis ", in Encyclopædia Universalis, corpus 8, Paris, 2002, p.850

19. Collectif, " La peinture américaine ", Americana 8, Paris, Presses de l'université Paris-Sorbonne, janvier 1991, , p. 14-16.

20. François Wehrlin, Philippe Guillemet, section " Les arts plastiques " de l'article " États-Unis ", in Encyclopædia Universalis, corpus 8, Paris, 2002, page 876.

21. Edward Lucie-Smith, Le Réalisme américain, Paris, La Martinière, 1996 - Introduction.

Sur les autres projets Wikimedia :

John Ireland Howe Baur (trad. Blaise Allan), L'Art moderne aux États-Unis : 50 peintres américains du XX e siècle, Paris, Nouveau Quartier Latin, , 283 p.

Jules David Prown, Barbara Rose, John Walker (trad. Yves Rivière), La Peinture américaine : De la période coloniale à nos jours American painting, 238 p.

Roland Tissot, Peinture et sculpture aux États-Unis, Paris, Armand Colin, , 304 p.

Madeleine Deschamps, La Peinture américaine : les mythes et la matière, Paris, Denoël,

Marcelin Pleynet, Les États-Unis de la peinture, Paris, Le Seuil, coll. " Fiction & Cie ", , 253 p.

Catherine Francblin, Peinture américaine, Paris/Paris, Galilée, , 200 p.

Monique Pruvot, La Peinture américaine, Paris, Presses de l'Université de Paris-Sorbonne,

Jennifer Martin, Claude Massu et Sarah Nichols (trad. de l'anglais par Christiane Thiollier), L'Art des États-Unis, Paris, Citadelles & Mazenod, , 637 p.

Georges Boudaille, La Peinture américaine, Paris/Amsterdam, Time-Life, , 191 p.

Irving Sandler, Le Triomphe de l'art américain, Carré, , 293 p.

Francesca Castria Marchetti (trad. de l'italien par Ida Giordano), La Peinture américaine, Paris, Gallimard, , 303 p.

Jules David Prown, La Peinture américaine : des origines à l'Armory Show, Skira Livres Soldes, coll. " Les Grands siècles de la peinture ", , 134 p. (ISBN 978-2-605-00109-5 et 2-605-00109-1 )

La Peinture américaine des années 1930 : The age of anxiety, catalogue d'exposition, Musée de l'Orangerie (Paris), Hazan, 2016 (ISBN 2754109781 et 9782754109789 )

Matthew Baigell, A Concise History Of American Painting And Sculpture : Revised Edition, Westview Press, , 462 pages

Robert Hughes, American Visions : The Epic History of Art in America, Knopf, , 648 p.

David Bjelajac et King Pu Laurence, American Art : A Cultural History, Prentice Hall, , 512 p.

Barbara Novak, American Painting of the Nineteenth Century : Realism, Idealism, and the American Experience With a New Preface, Oxford University Press, USA, , 352 p. (ISBN 978-0-19-530949-2 et 0-19-530949-9 )

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La peinture américaine est l'un des arts développé aux États-Unis par les premiers colons et leurs successeurs, à partir du siècle. À l' époque moderne, les artistes européens franchissent l' Atlantique et créent les premiers tableaux sur le sol des Treize colonies.

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Il y a maintenant 245 ans, le 4 juillet 1776, la Déclaration d'indépendance était signée, marquant la libération de l'Amérique du joug britannique. Cette fête patriotique a inspiré de nombreux artistes. Retour sur six peintures américaines célèbres dont les auteurs ont tenté de célébrer la liberté et la recherche du bonheur, les principes sur lesquels le pays a été fondé.

Emanuel Leutze, Washington Crossing the Delaware

S'étendant sur un mur entier du Metropolitan Museum of Art, Washington Crossing the Delaware ( Washington traversant le Delaware) d'Emanuel Leutze représente un moment crucial de la guerre d'indépendance de l'Amérique, la journée du 25 décembre 1776. Avec le général Washington à la barre entouré d'icebergs et le drapeau américain derrière lui, ce tableau de 1851 est riche des couleurs patriotiques rouge, blanc et bleu.

Childe Hassam, The Avenue in the Rain

Accrochées dans le bureau ovale de la Maison Blanche, les peintures de drapeaux de Childe Hassam sont peut-être ses plus célèbres. Cette œuvre a été peinte en 1917, juste avant l'entrée de l'Amérique dans la Première Guerre mondiale, et montre des rangées de drapeaux américains suspendus sur une Cinquième Avenue pluvieuse.

À lire aussi : 7 peintures de Londres à connaître absolument

Le style impressionniste et la composition témoignent de l'influence de l'œuvre La Rue Montorgueil, réalisée parMonet en 1878. La création de l'œuvre d'Hassam s'est avérée particulièrement opportune pour la cause américaine, car le patriotisme a augmenté avec les soldats envoyés en Europe en avril 1917.

Albert Bierstadt, Among the Sierra Nevada, California

Aucun autre artiste n'a su capturer les paysages spectaculaires de l'Amérique comme Albert Bierstadt. Son œuvre s'est popularisée à la fin des années 1860 et dans les années 1870, alors que la guerre civile prenait fin et que l'industrialisation était en plein essor. À mesure que le paysage américain changeait, Bierstadt dépeignait les scènes romantiques et vastes de l'Ouest, des pics montagneux escarpés aux criques immaculées bordées de pins. Son tableau le plus célèbre, Among the Sierra Nevada, California, a été peint dans les années 1860 lors d'un voyage en Californie, puis exposé dans toute l'Europe l'année suivante, faisant découvrir au public européen la splendeur brute de l'Ouest américain. Elle constitue aujourd'hui l'une des pièces maîtresses du Smithsonian American Art Museum à Washington.

Grant Wood, American Gothic

Parmi les œuvres les plus reprises et les plus parodiées des États-Unis, on retrouve American Gothic (1930) de Grant Wood, un tableau considéré à la fois comme une célébration et une moquerie de la vie rurale américaine, dans le sillage du crash boursier de 1929 et de l'imminente Grande Dépression. L'œuvre, qui représente la sœur de l'artiste et leur dentiste local de l'Iowa, est devenue un symbole de la robustesse de l'esprit américain malgré les grands défis.

Edward Hopper, Nighthawks

Tout comme American Gothi c, ce tableau, le plus célèbre d'Edward Hopper, se trouve aujourd'hui à l'Art Institute of Chicago. Le restaurant éclairé dans la rue sombre, vraisemblablement à New York, est caractéristique des scènes urbaines de Hopper qui capturent le quotidien des gens de l'époque.

À lire aussi : Jo, la femme derrière la carrière d'Edward Hopper

Souvent considéré comme une interprétation de l'aliénation et de la solitude ressenties dans les grandes villes pendant la Seconde Guerre mondiale, Nighthawks apparaît presque comme une capture de film, une image cinématographique de par ses couleurs et sa composition soignée.

Jasper Johns, Flag

Le drapeau américain est entré dans le vocabulaire de l'art moderne au milieu des années 1950 grâce à Jasper Johns, qui avait rêvé du drapeau après avoir quitté l'armée américaine. Cette peinture à l'encaustique (cire chaude) a été réalisée lors d'une résurgence de l'intérêt pour le symbole américain, avec les audiences McCarthy et le Flag Day. L'œuvre a été achetée par Philip Johnson à la galerie Leo Castelli et offerte au MoMA en 1968. Le drapeau deviendra ensuite un motif récurrent pour Johns, dont une version de 1958 a été vendue 110 millions de dollars en 2010.
Retrouvez plus d'articles sur le Magazine Barnebys !

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6 peintures américaines emblématiques | Magazine Barnebys

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Si " Les Nymphéas " de Monet, " La Liberté guidant le peuple " de Delacroix ou " Le Déjeuner sur l'herbe de Manet " ont été des œuvres importantes en France, comment l'art a-t-il impacté les autres pays ? Quelles œuvres sont, pour nos compères outre-Atlantique, sacrées et emblématiques de leur histoire ?

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Le pop art a influencé l'histoire de l'art et continue à subsister au travers des artistes actuels dans des mouvements artistiques tel le néo pop. Tout comme le pop art il refuse de voir l'art comme un domaine élitiste et privilégie une vision basée sur le fait que toute représentation provient de l'esprit humain et est donc populaire.

L'un des grands représentants du néo pop est le célèbre Jeff Koons. Il travaille également par série et dénonce une certaine idée de la mondialisation et du capitalisme. Ses " balloon dogs " mondialement connues se sont vendues à plusieurs millions d'euros.

Si nous quittons l'Europe et les États-Unis, nous pouvons aller jusqu'au Japon pour découvrir Takashi Murakami. Il est lui aussi l'un des représentant du néo pop. Son œuvre la plus populaire est Mr Dob créé en 1992. C'est un autoportrait inspiré des mangas et des animés. Ses œuvres connaissent toutes un grand succès et c'est l'un des artistes les plus chers au monde.

La cote des artistes pop

Sur le marché de l'art, les artistes les mieux cotés restent Martial Raysse, Robert Rauschenberg, et George Condo (dans la catégorie peintures et sculptures, on enregistre parfois des ventes records à plusieurs millions d'euros pour ces pièces de musée !).

À titre d'exemple, la moyenne des estimations d'un tableau de Martial Raysse se situe entre 500 et 3 millions d'euros.

Les artistes pop plus accessibles sont Valerio Adami, Peter Blake, ou encore Edward Kienholz : leurs œuvres restent en moyenne dans une fourchette qui se situe bien en deçà des centaines de milliers d'euros.

EN SYNTHÈSE

Le Pop Art a marqué l'histoire de l'art. Créé au milieu du siècle dernier, les artistes se destinaient à tirer un trait sur l'art des anciennes générations. En effet, la société d'après-guerre a changé et de nouvelles influences voient le jour comme la publicité et les médias.

Loin de s'en étonner, certains artistes trouvent dans cette nouvelle culture une inspiration sans limites et décident de produire des œuvres libres et diverses dans leurs techniques et leurs sujets.

Aujourd'hui nous pouvons admirer les toiles dans différents musées à travers le monde : Le Musée d'Art moderne (Paris), Le Centre Pompidou (Paris), Le Musée Maillol (Paris), Le Whitney Museum of American Art (USA), le MoMA (USA), Le Tate (UK).

Le Pop Art connaît toujours un grand intérêt, si vous avez une œuvre que vous pensez appartenir à ce mouvement artistique, faites-la expertiser par Barnie's.

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Qu'est-ce que le Pop Art ? Définition et Artistes

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Accédez à la définition du Pop Art, ainsi qu'à une explication de son évolution, au fil d'exemples d'oeuvres et d'artistes majeurs.

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Les artistes pop art connus : histoire, bio et oeuvres célèbres 🔎

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Dans ce guide illustré découvrez les artistes pop art connus qui ont marqué l'histoire de l'art contemporain.

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Keith Haring, American flag, 1988

Depuis le milieu du 20ème siècle, les États-Unis sont les leaders du marché de l'art. L'attribution du Lion d'Or à l'Américain Rauschenberg lors de la Biennale de Venise de 1964 témoigne du basculement de la primauté de l'École de Paris vers celle de l'École de New York. De nos jours, outre ses musées aux collections les plus prestigieuses, la " grosse pomme " est la ville recensant le plus de galeries. En effet, plus de 100 000 artistes y ont installé leur studio, profitant de la possibilité de pouvoir tenter leur chance auprès de plus de 1 500 galeries. De fait, les artistes américains du 20ème siècle ont été les catalyseurs de l'art moderne et de l'art contemporain. Artsper vous présente aujourd'hui 10 des plus fameux d'entre eux !

Les artistes américains mentors de l'art moderne

Edward Hopper (1882-1967) : entre réalisme et symbolisme de l'American way of life

Il est le peintre de l'Amérique urbaine du début du 20ème siècle. Conférant à ses représentations de la vie quotidienne une atmosphère mystique, Edward Hopper parvient à sublimer les sujets les plus anodins.

Né à New York, il se forme à l'illustration avant d'entrer dans une école de peinture. Il voyage plusieurs fois en Europe au début des années 1900. Il s'intéresse alors davantage aux impressionnistes, tels que Monet ou Degas, qu'aux avant-gardistes cubistes de son temps. À des représentations abstraites, le peintre américain Hopper privilégie celles naturalistes des paysages et des mœurs contemporaines. À son retour aux États-Unis, l'artiste débute une carrière de dessinateur publicitaire avant de décider finalement de se consacrer entièrement à la peinture.

C'est durant l'entre-deux-guerres qu'il acquiert une certaine renommée. Passionné d'architecture, il réalise, dans un premier temps, des aquarelles de demeures mansardées du 19ème siècle, très appréciées des collectionneurs. À la manière des impressionnistes, il prend pour sujet des bâtiments peints à différents moments de la journée. Il privilégie les levers et couchers de soleil, révélant son attrait pour la représentations des variations de luminosité.

Dépeignant par la suite la société américaine en pleine mutation, il est considéré comme l'un des principaux représentants du réalisme américain. De ses scènes se dégage systématiquement une certaine mélancolie. Dans son œuvre Nighthawks, elle est incarnée par la solitude des personnages, isolés et silencieux. C'est aussi le signe d'une nostalgie pour une Amérique révolue, qui s'urbanise autant qu'elle s'individualise...

Précieux témoin de son temps, il parvient à immortaliser sur sa toile des temps suspendus. La théâtralité de ses compositions, obtenue par un contraste puissant entre les ombres et une lumière crue, sera une source d'inspiration pour le monde photographique et cinématographique.

Man Ray (1890-1976) : du dadaïsme au surréalisme, le plus anticonformiste des artistes américains

Peintre, dessinateur, réalisateur, designer... cet artiste protéiforme, dont les œuvres sont disponibles sur Artsper, est surtout connu pour être le photographe des surréalistes.

Après avoir étudié le dessin industriel, il refuse d'intégrer une école d'architecture pour se consacrer pleinement à l'art. S'installant au début des années 1910 à New York, il fréquente alors la galerie " 291 " d'Alfred Stieglitz. Ce dernier l'initie à la technique de la photographie et l'introduit auprès de nombreux artistes de l'avant-garde européenne. En 1913, il participe à l' Armory Show. Il s'agit de la première exposition internationale d'art moderne regroupant des représentants du fauvisme, du cubisme ou encore du futurisme. Après une première exposition personnelle en 1915, il se joint au mouvement Dada. Né en réaction à l'absurdité de la Première Guerre mondiale, ce mouvement intellectuel, littéraire et artistique, se caractérise par un rejet radical des valeurs politiques, sociales et idéologiques de la société. C'est à cette période qu'il débute ses expérimentations en photographie.

Quittant l'Amérique pour Paris en 1921, il poursuit ses recherches et découvre par hasard une nouvelle technique photographique : la " rayographie ". En exposant à la lumière une feuille de papier blanc photosensible, les parties non-recouvertes par des objets noircissent. Il obtient alors des représentations aux formes spectrales, constitutives de paysages oniriques et mystérieux, dans lesquels les objets du quotidien sont transcendés.

Parallèlement, il s'engage dans le mouvement surréaliste, dont il participe à toutes les expositions à partir de 1925. Enfin, en 1929, il fait la rencontre de Lee Miller qui devient sa maîtresse et son assistante. Avec elle, il exploite le potentiel esthétique de la solarisation, procédé photographique consistant à exposer trop tôt une photographie. De cette façon, les zones d'obscurité et de luminosité sont inversées.

Si Man Ray a indéniablement marqué l'histoire de l'art, il a surtout définitivement révolutionné l'art de la photographie !

Norman Rockwell (1894-1978) : l'hyperréalisme du storyteller de l'Amérique

Connu pour ses illustrations de magazines, les œuvres de Norman Rockwell permettent de retracer toute l'histoire des États-Unis, de l'entre-deux-guerres à l'après-guerre.

Passionné par le dessin dès son enfance, il entre, dès l'âge de 16 ans, à l'Académie américaine de design de New York. Puis, dans un second temps, il intègre l'Art Students League, prestigieuse école des Beaux-Arts. Talentueux, avant même d'avoir atteint la majorité, des magazines pour la jeunesse lui commandent ses premières illustrations.

L'année 1922 marque un tournant dans sa carrière. En effet, il peint sa première couverture pour le célèbre journal The Saturday Evening Post. S'ensuit une collaboration de 47 années durant lesquelles Rockwell produira 321 autres couvertures. Dans un style réaliste, proche de la photographie, il dépeint la vie quotidienne de la classe moyenne américaine, toujours avec bienveillance et parfois humour. C'est en cela qu'il est rattaché au mouvement du régionalisme américain.

Durant la Seconde Guerre mondiale, ses illustrations affirment sa participation à l'effort de guerre. Inspiré par le discours du président Roosevelt, il réalise en 1943, une série de quatre tableaux intitulée Les Quatre Libertés. En effet, Franklin Roosevelt souhaitait, par son allocution, redonner le moral aux Américains en annonçant un avenir meilleur. Celui-ci serait fondé sur les droits de l'Homme et quatre libertés : la liberté de parole, de culte et celles d'être à l'abri de la peur et du besoin. Le peintre choisit alors de retranscrire ces quatre concepts dans des scènes de la vie quotidienne. Il veut montrer aux Américains qu'ils ne sont pas que des idéaux abstraits.

Les années suivantes, alors que le succès de ces quatre images le rend très populaire, ses commandes déclinent. En effet, les journaux commencent à préférer aux dessins de presse la photographie. Néanmoins, jusqu'à la fin de sa vie, il cherchera à mettre à profit son art pour défendre les causes qui lui tiennent à cœur : les droits civils, la lutte contre la ségrégation, la pauvreté et la guerre.

Jackson Pollock (1912-1956) : le pionnier du Dripping

Peintre américain de l' expressionnisme abstrait, notamment célèbre pour sa pratique de l' action painting, Jackson Pollock a eu une influence majeure sur les artistes peintres américains contemporains. Sa disparition en pleine consécration mondiale a favorisé la légende de cet artiste maudit.

Passant son enfance dans un milieu précaire, entre l'absence de son père et l'autorité de sa mère, très jeune, il devient alcoolique. À 11 ans, sa visite d'une réserve indienne et la découverte de motifs abstraits d'un art dit " primitif ", le marqueront profondément. L'art est, pour Pollock, avant tout un exécutoire. Il lui permet d'exprimer ses émotions et de se libérer de ses angoisses, rancœurs et colères. Dans ses action paintings, proches des performances, c'est l'action de peindre et non la peinture qui est importante.

Vivant une grande partie de sa vie dans le dénuement, pendant la Grande Dépression, il bénéficie du Federal Art Project. Mis en place par le gouvernement Roosevelt dans le cadre de la politique du New Deal, ce programme soutenait les artistes américains par d'importantes commandes publiques. Intégrant la section " Peinture murale " en 1935, il y est cependant exclu en 1938 pour absentéisme. À cette période, il débute une cure de désintoxication.

En 1943, il participe à une première grande exposition organisée par une célèbre collectionneuse américaine d'art moderne : Peggy Guggenheim. Parmi les membres du jury, Piet Mondrian et Marcel Duchamp émettent des avis favorables à son sujet, si bien que la fameuse mécène lui propose une rémunération mensuelle et lui dédie une exposition personnelle. Tandis qu'il se fait peu à peu un nom au sein du monde artistique, dès 1947, il débute la pratique du dripping. Elle consiste à déverser directement sur la toile des seaux de peinture. Par cette nouvelle technique de travail à l'horizontal, il rompt avec les codes traditionnels de la pratique picturale, tout en s'abandonnant à un art abstrait le plus total.

À l'apogée de son succès, ses vieux démons ne cessent toutefois pas de le hanter. Sombrant de nouveau dans l'alcool, il décède d'un accident de voiture, conduisant en état d'ébriété. Vous pouvez retrouver ses éditions sur le site Artsper.

Les artistes américains majeurs de la Pop Culture

Andy Warhol (1928-1987) : le père du Pop Art

Il a fait de l'art un produit de consommation tout en élevant au rang d'œuvres d'art les objets du quotidien. Andy Warhol est à juste titre considéré comme l'un des fondateurs du Pop Art.

Warhol, dont les créations sont disponibles sur Artsper, est issu de la classe ouvrière pauvre de Pittsburgh et fils d'émigrés slovaques. Il parvient à entrer à l'université pour y étudier les Beaux-Arts. Une fois son diplôme en poche, il s'installe à New York en 1949. Il y débute une carrière de dessinateur publicitaire pour les magazines de mode et acquiert rapidement une importante renommée dans le milieu de la pub.

Dès la fin des années 1950, il se consacre à la peinture. Il s'inspire tout d'abord du graphisme de la bande-dessinée. Mais ce sont ses toiles ayant pour sujets des objets de consommation, à commencer par les boîtes de soupe Campbell, qui marqueront l'histoire de l'art. Pour répondre à une demande quasi de masse, il use de la sérigraphie à partir de 1962. Cette technique d'imprimerie à partir de pochoirs lui permet de produire en quantité industrielle ses œuvres, déclinées en une multitude de couleurs criardes. Ses portraits de célébrités, telles que Marilyn Monroe, sont aujourd'hui présents sur les cimaises des plus grandes institutions d'art moderne du monde.

Par la suite, en 1964, il ouvre sa Factory, haut lieu de la vie artistique new-yorkaise. Il s'agit à la fois d'un atelier de production et d'un studio d'enregistrement pour ses films expérimentaux.

Célébré de son vivant et reconnu comme l'icône du Pop Art, il s'érige, à la fin de sa vie, dans les années 1980, en mécène des arts. Collaborant avec des artistes américains émergents tels que Jean-Michel Basquiat et Keith Haring, il aura fait de son nom une marque.

Keith Haring (1958-1990) : le militantisme par le Street Art

Mondialement connu pour ses fresques de figures colorées aux contours noirs épais, Keith Haring est également célèbre pour être un artiste engagé, notamment dans la lutte contre l'homophobie et le sida.

Tout comme Andy Warhol, il naît à Pittsburg et débute des études de graphisme publicitaire. Toutefois, souhaitant expérimenter librement ses propres recherches artistiques, il part pour New York. Là-bas, les graffitis l'inspirent. Désireux de faire sortir l'art de son cadre pour toucher un large public, il commence par dessiner à la craie sur les tableaux publicitaires noirs du métro. En parallèle, fréquentant le milieu artistique du New York underground, il réalise ses premières expositions en galeries. Finalement, la Biennale de Paris de 1985 le convie, alors qu'il est en pleine ascension internationale.

Derrière l'apparence de dessins enfantins, aux formes synthétiques, dont une partie est à retrouver sur le site Artsper, il traite de thèmes graves : racisme, violence, drogue, destruction de l'environnement... En s'exprimant dans la rue, il cherche à avoir plus de visibilité pour dénoncer les préjugés sociaux. Dans ce but, il participe à des programmes d'enseignement artistique auprès des plus jeunes et répond à plusieurs commandes publiques. Il exécute notamment une fresque sur l'un des murs de l'hôpital Necker en 1987.

Apprenant qu'il est atteint du sida en 1988, il met son art et sa notoriété au service de la défense de la cause LGBT et de la lutte contre cette maladie. À cette fin, il crée en 1989 la Keith Haring Foundation. Animé tout au long de sa carrière par une volonté de transformer le monde, il décède à seulement 31 ans. Malgré une courte existence, son héritage, artistique et social, n'en est pas moins considérable.

Jean-Michel Basquiat (1960-1988) : l'élévation de l'art urbain au rang des Beaux-Arts

Il est l'un des artistes afro-américains les plus célèbres au monde. En 2017, près de trente ans après sa mort, l'une de ses œuvres a été vendue aux enchères à un prix record de plus de 110 millions d'euros. Ainsi, Jean-Michel Basquiat, dont certains dessins vous sont proposés sur le site Artsper, est l'un des artistes américains les plus chers au monde.

Né à Brooklyn d'un père haïtien et d'une mère hispanique, ce génie précoce du dessin réalise ses premiers graffitis à l'âge de 16 ans. Il signe d'abord sous le pseudonyme de SAMO (" SAme Old Shit ", littéralement " Même vieille merde " ). Basquiat donne le ton : d'un tempérament contestataire, il refuse de se conformer aux diktats de la société.

Ambitionnant de devenir le premier artiste noir internationalement connu, il parvient par la suite à se faire repérer par son idole, Andy Warhol, à la fin des années 1970. Ce dernier l'introduit auprès des plus grands galeristes new-yorkais.

Ses œuvres, d'une grande singularité, effraient autant qu'elles fascinent. En effet, elles sont d'une grande violence. Aux nombreuses évocations de la mort, ses compositions se caractérisent par l'introduction d'éléments tribaux issus de son héritage culturel. Sa quête identitaire le pousse à dénoncer l'oppression des minorités, en représentant un monde chaotique, porteur d'un symbolisme puissant. Enfin, enfant de la Pop culture, il mélange différentes techniques dans une même composition : graffitis, peinture, collages. Il fait fi des traditions picturales et brouille les limites des beaux-arts.

Son décès suite à une overdose met fin à sa carrière à l'âge de 28 ans. Une carrière, certes courte, mais particulièrement prolifique : il a produit plus de 800 tableaux et 1 500 dessins. Son mal-être chronique, perceptible dans les traits agressifs de ses compositions, a, paradoxalement, précipité sa fin autant que son succès.

La relève des artistes américains contemporains

Jeff Koons (1955) : l'apogée de l'art commercial

Tout en étant l'un des artistes américains les plus célébrés du 21ème siècle, Jeff Koons est celui qui fait le plus polémique. Ses œuvres sont dénigrées par certains comme relevant d'un art industriel et jugées comme des contrefaçons par d'autres. Pourtant, elles font partie des plus onéreuses du monde et sont l'objet d'expositions dans les plus grandes institutions artistiques. Récit d'une success story !

Attiré très jeune par l'art, Jeff Koons ne rencontre pas le succès escompté avec ses premières créations. Contraint de travailler en tant que courtier dans la finance, ce n'est qu'à partir des années 1980 que ses sculptures monumentales, représentant des biens de consommation de masse, telles que ses Balloon Dogs et Inflatable Rabbits, deviennent prisées chez les collectionneurs. Il crée alors, à la manière d'Andy Warhol, un studio à New York regroupant une trentaine d'assistants. Aujourd'hui, il s'agit davantage d'une usine, dénombrant plus de 100 salariés. Ainsi, les œuvres estampillées Jeff Koons ne sont plus réalisées de ses mains.

De fait, les productions en acier inoxydable de Jeff Koons, disponibles sur Artsper, s'inscrivent dans la lignée du Pop Art en tirant leurs sources d'inspiration de l'imaginaire populaire. Il les détourne en leur conférant un caractère industriel, révélant certaines affinités avec les ready-made de Marcel Duchamp. Toutefois, si Andy Warhol a fait entrer l'art dans l'ère industrielle, l'homme des finances l'a fait s'inscrire dans l'ère de la mondialisation. Ses icônes kitsch sont visibles aux quatre coins du globe... Et cela ne va pas sans susciter quelques scandales !

En 2008, exposant ses sculptures au château de Versailles, une manifestation s'y est tenue, au nom de la défense de la " pureté artistique française ". Plus récemment, c'est son Bouquet de Tulipes qui a suscité de vives controverses. En effet, l'hommage aux victimes des attentats de Paris de 2015 et 2016 a été critiqué comme participant à l'enlaidissement de l'espace public.

Par ailleurs, le plasticien a été inculpé dans plusieurs affaires de plagiat. Il a été accusé de se réapproprier des sujets de photographies ou de publicités existantes. Il n'en reste pas moins que le règne de Jeff Koons semble avoir encore de beaux jours devant lui ! En mai 2019, la vente de son œuvre Rabbit en a fait l'artiste vivant le plus cher au monde, atteignant le prix de 91,1 millions d'euros.

JonOne (1963) : la consécration du graffiti en 11ème art

Considéré comme l'un des plus importants représentants de l'expressionnisme abstrait dans le monde du graffiti, JonOne, à découvrir sur le site Artsper, s'inscrit tant dans la descendance de Jackson Pollock que dans celle de Jean-Michel Basquiat. Nul doute que la succession des artistes peintres américains est assurée !

Né à New York, dans le quartier populaire de Harlem, et d'origine afro-américaine, comme Jean-Michel Basquiat, le jeune John adopte lui aussi l'école buissonnière. Adolescent, il arpente les lignes du métro new-yorkais où il y réalise ses premiers tags. Selon lui, " le métro, c'est un musée qui traverse la ville ", considérant le graffiti comme un art à part entière.

Sa rencontre avec le graffeur français Bando est décisive pour la suite de sa carrière. Ce dernier le convainc de le rejoindre à Paris. Là, délaissant le bitume sans pour autant abandonner ses bombes de peinture, il s'installe dans les années 1990 dans un atelier de l'Hôpital éphémère. Il y produit ses premiers tableaux. Rapidement, il se fait repérer et est exposé dans les plus importantes galeries françaises d'art contemporain.

JonOne parvient à toucher le public par la sensibilité et la poésie émanant de ses peintures. Laissant libre court à son imaginaire, elles lui permettent, selon ses mots, de s'ouvrir à soi-même. Évacuant toute référence figurative, il se laisse porter par le mouvement, les couleurs et l'énergie des villes. Dès lors, seule l'impulsion de ses émotions guide ses gestes d'où émergent des traînées de couleurs vives et spontanées.

À la croisée de l'abstraction lyrique et de l'art urbain, de l'art moderne et de l'art contemporain, JonOne parvient à tirer profit de son héritage artistique américain pour nous en proposer son renouvellement. L'hégémonie des artistes américains dans l'histoire de l'art est loin de toucher à sa fin !

Shepard Fairey (1970) : l'engagement politique du Street Art

Il est célèbre pour avoir réalisé l'affiche de campagne de Barack Obama pour les élections présidentielles de 2008. Démontrant que le street art a sa place en politique, l'Institut d'art contemporain de Boston l'a consacré comme le plus influent des artistes de Street Art.

Dessinant des tee-shirts et des skateboards dès l'adolescence, Shepard Fairey, représenté sur Artsper, rentre à l'École de design de Rhode Island en 1989. Avec une bande d'étudiants, il crée des autocollants et des affiches représentant le catcheur français André the Giant. Le visuel devient viral et se répand partout dans le monde. En 1998, associant l'image au mot " Obey " (signifiant " obéis "), il fait de cette parodie de propagande sa signature.

Mais c'est davantage par son poster Hope qu'il accède à une notoriété internationale. Soutenant la candidature du futur président Barack Obama, il crée une série d'affiches. La plus fameuse est un portrait de l'homme politique aux couleurs de l'Amérique. Emblème de la campagne présidentielle d'Obama, elle représente un candidat résolument tourné vers l'avenir. Propagée dans le monde, elle a fait la une du magazine Time. La National Portrait Gallery de Washington a finalement racheté l'originale.

Depuis, Shepard Fairey enchaîne les expositions tout en continuant ses activités de street artist. Il exécute notamment plusieurs fresques sur les murs d'immeubles du 13ème arrondissement de Paris en 2012 puis 2016. L'une d'entre elles représente une Marianne entourée de la devise nationale " Liberté, Égalité, Fraternité ". Elle a été réalisée à la suite des attentats du 13 novembre 2015. Ainsi, elle témoigne de son engagement perpétuel pour la défense de grandes causes, telles que la démocratie et les libertés. 8 ans après s'être investi dans la campagne électorale, Shepard Fairey réitère. Reprenant les mêmes codes graphiques, il change le slogan par " Nope " pour s'opposer à l'élection de Donald Trump. Fêtant en 2019 ses 30 ans de carrières au Grenoble Street Art Fest, Shepard Fairey semble s'être définitivement imposé dans le paysage artistique (et urbain) international !

Ainsi, ce tour d'horizon des artistes peintres américains, modernes et contemporains, révèle le rôle crucial des États-Unis comme berceau de la création artistique. Depuis le début du 20ème siècle, c'est sur son sol que sont nés les artistes majeurs de l'histoire de l'art. Sans filiation à l'égard de la tradition picturale européenne, ils ont su proposer de nouvelles solutions plastiques. D'abord teinté de nationalisme, l'art américain est devenu au milieu du 20ème siècle plus populaire et universel. Il en résulte son assimilation dans le monde entier et la consécration des États-Unis comme la première puissance artistique.

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10 artistes américains à connaître - Magazine Artsper

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Depuis le milieu du 20ème siècle, les États-Unis sont les leaders du marché de l'art. L'attribution du Lion d'Or à l'Américain Rauschenberg lors de la Biennale de Venise de 1964 témoigne du basculement de la primauté de l'École de Paris vers celle de l'École de New York.

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Grant Wood's American Gothic is a world-famous painting, so much so that it is considered to be the most misappropriated painting in art history! But do you know its history and hidden meanings?

In what context was this painting created? Who are the two characters? Why does it have the title "American Gothic"? Analysis of a masterpiece ...

In what context did Grant Wood paint this canvas?

Grant Wood (1891 - 1942) was an American painter known for his rural Midwest representations. After growing up on a farm in Iowa, he trained in the visual arts and then went to study in Europe in the 1920s. This trip allowed him to discover Flemish paintings, the German Renaissance and the New Objectivity, an artistic movement that developed in Germany and succeeded Expressionism.

In 1930, he painted American Gothic, at the very beginning of the Great Depression, the economic crisis that followed the stock market crash of 1929 and plunged the American rural world into great poverty.

Grant Wood, American Gothic - 1930 - 78 x 65,3 cm

Who are the characters depicted in this painting?

Mystery surrounds the two figures in the painting: who are the woman with the worried look and the man with glasses staring at us? Are they a couple or friends? The man is older, so it is possible that we are looking at a father and his unmarried daughter.

The man is dressed in overalls but also in a black jacket, while the woman is wearing a piece of jewellery: they have made an effort to dress up, perhaps for the painter or to celebrate an important moment in their lives.

To create them, Grant Wood had his dentist Dr McKeeby and his sister Nan pose.

Why the title "American Gothic"?

When the artist saw an unusual house in Iowa with an upper window with pointed arches usually found in churches, he was inspired to paint this picture with the kind of people he imagined would live inside.

The title 'American Gothic' is therefore a reference to the neo-Gothic architectural style of this house.

What does the fork represent?

The fork is the third character in this painting. If you look carefully, you will see it on the man's overalls, on his face and on the upper window of the house.

The fork reproduced in various places in the painting

While a peasant would hold it down to avoid an accident, here it is facing the viewer. Several interpretations have been put forward: it could be a way of preventing the devil from entering the house, or it could be an evocation of sexuality considered perverse in the Midwestern society inherited from a certain puritanism.

Unless, by this gesture, the man is telling us "No entry" to protect the secrets kept in this house, whose closed curtains in the middle of the day suggest that something is being kept from us...

Another interpretation: this dark atmosphere, associated with the worried look of the woman dressed in a black dress, evokes the mourning of a certain idea of America, lost in the serious economic crisis of the 1930s.

The reception of the painting

Immediately after its premiere, the painting had a mixed reception. Iowans saw it as a caricature of rural life and were angry at being portrayed as 'pinched, grimacing, fanatical puritans'. However, Grant Wood has always defended himself against this interpretation: for him the painting is a tribute to the rural population of the Midwest.

The artist's sister, Nan Wood Graham, was made to look ugly by the painting, which led to a family dispute!

American Gothic was successful in the art world: exhibited at the Art Institute of Chicago, the painting won a bronze medal and a $300 prize. The painting was featured in newspapers and quickly circulated throughout the country. In 1934, Time magazine ran a full-page reproduction of the painting, which helped make it famous.

The many diversions of American Gothic

Today American Gothic is a world-famous painting that has been hijacked in many ways. To name but a few, it has been used in the series Dexter, in the Disney cartoon Mulan, in The Simpsons, in the credits of Desperate Housewives and on the cover of Time in 1994.

Yours truly couldn't help but hijack it a few times too...

Where can we see this painting?

The work is part of the collections of the Art Institute of Chicago and it is therefore there that you should go from now on to be able to admire it!

Detail from painting American Gothic, signature by Grant Wood, 1930

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Grant Wood's American Gothic: the hidden meanings of a masterpiece

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Grant Wood's American Gothic is a world-famous painting, so much so that it is considered to be the most misappropriated painting in art history! But do you know its history and hidden meanings? In what context was this painting created? Who are the two characters? Why does it have the title "American Gothic"?

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Whistler's Mother of 1871, connue sous le titre original d' Arrangement in Grey and Black, Portrait No. 1, est l'un des portraits les plus célèbres du XIXe siècle. Et il est conservé dans l'un des musées que je ne cesse de visiter à chaque fois que je retourne à Paris, le musée d'Orsay.

Le sujet de l'œuvre

Au premier plan, le protagoniste de l'œuvre : la mère de l'artiste américain James McNeill Whistler. Très pensive, la femme est assise dans une pose raide, les mains agrippées à un mouchoir de dentelle blanche, ses cheveux gris sont relevés et ses vêtements noirs s'enroulent autour de son corps.

Le sentiment général qui est perçu est celui d'une grande austérité. Cela est dû à la combinaison des couleurs douces du fond et du noir saisissant des vêtements. Mais aussi à cause des lignes verticales et horizontales qui définissent le sol, la tensa, la chaise et les cadres. Pourtant, malgré ce sentiment de sévérité, il y a aussi un sentiment d'empathie et de fragilité de la femme. La mère de l'artiste, Anna McNeill Whistler (1804-1881), est devenue veuve en 1849. Elle a quitté l'Amérique en 1863 pour échapper à la guerre civile et a déménagé à Londres pour vivre avec son fils. Elle a une histoire qui fait d'elle une femme forte et en même temps éprouvée. Et aussi pour cette raison, cette œuvre est devenue le symbole de la femme austère mais douce et humaine.

Le mouvement Art for Art

Quelques années après avoir déménagé à Londres, Whistler commence à utiliser des termes musicaux dans les titres de ses peintures. Par exemple, il utilise la symphonie, la nocturne ou, comme dans cette œuvre, l'arrangement. Cela exprimait pour lui la conviction que la peinture s'intéressait plus aux qualités formelles - lignes, formes, couleurs - qu'au sujet. D'autres artistes de l'époque partageaient ce point de vue, et Whistler devint ainsi le porte-parole le plus influent de la doctrine qui allait devenir célèbre comme " l'art pour l'art ". Il devient l'un des protagonistes en raison de son magnétisme personnel et de sa façon de parler.

La série de portraits Arrangement en gris et noir

Arrangement en gris et noir, n. 1 a été exposé pour la première fois à la Royal Academy de Londres en 1872. Le comité de sélection l'a d'abord rejeté. Mais Sir William Boxall, directeur de la National Gallery de Londres et ami de Whistler, use de son influence pour le faire accepter.

En général, le portrait n'est pas reçu avec enthousiasme. Mais il a aussi des admirateurs, notamment l'écrivain Thomas Carlyle. Carlyle pense que ce travail a une énorme originalité. Il décide donc de charger Whistler de peindre un portrait de lui. Il est intitulé comme dans une série Arrangement en gris et noir, Portrait No. 2 et a été exécuté entre 1872 et 1873. En 1891, il a été acheté par la ville de Glasgow en Écosse, devenant ainsi le premier tableau de Whistler à être acquis d'une collection publique. Cela devient un tournant dans la carrière de Whistler. La même année, en effet, le portrait de la mère de Whistler est acheté par l'État français, qui l'avait entre-temps fait chevalier de la Légion d'honneur en 1889.

La mère de Whistler. Détails de l'œuvre

La femme de profil est la mère de

Whistler Whistler a représenté sa mère de profil. Cette forme de représentation a été largement utilisée par les artistes de la Renaissance. Et il n'était resté répandu que dans certains types de représentation spécifiques tels que les pièces de monnaie et les médailles. Mais il était rarement utilisé dans la peinture de portrait conventionnelle au XIXe siècle. Ce détail de portrait de la mère de profil fonde cependant la rigueur formelle de l'image. De plus, l'utilisation de la dentelle blanche rencontrant la robe noire du profil rappelle le travail de Frans Hals, un peintre hollandais du XVIIe siècle, que Whistler aimait beaucoup.

La chaise et le pouf

C'est le seul objet de la scène qui n'ait pas une géométrie forte faite de lignes verticales, horizontales et d'arêtes. L'histoire raconte que le portrait de la mère de Whistler était à l'origine censé être debout. Cependant, en raison de l'ancienneté de la femme et d'une maladie récente, la mère ne pouvait pas rester debout pendant des heures. Alors pour soulager la fatigue Whistler la représente assise et facilite son travail de modelage, qui demandait déjà beaucoup de patience.

De plus, l'artiste insère également un repose-pieds dans la représentation qui donne un sentiment de familiarité à l'image. Le repose-pieds sert en fait à soulager la fatigue de la mère, mais métaphoriquement il réduit également la lourdeur du bloc noir créé avec les vêtements de la femme. Grâce à une analyse aux rayons X de l'œuvre, il a été découvert que la hauteur du repose-pieds et de nombreux autres détails de l'œuvre étaient initialement différents. En effet, avant de trouver une version définitive, l'artiste semble avoir essayé diverses positions pour les bras et les genoux de la mère.

Mains et mouchoir

Représenter des mains dans un portrait n'a jamais été une tâche facile pour aucun artiste. Une pratique courante a donc toujours été d'occuper les mains du sujet avec un objet. Avoir un gant, une arme ou, comme dans ce cas, un mouchoir serré est une astuce utilisée par les peintres pour ne pouvoir représenter qu'une partie de la main et engager le protagoniste et le spectateur. et dans ce travail, outre le visage de la femme, la main est la partie la plus détaillée du travail.

L'oeuvre dans l'oeuvre

Sur le mur de la maison derrière la femme Whistler représente une estampe encadrée. Il s'agit d'une de ses propres œuvres : Black Lion Wharf de 1859. La gravure a été publiée en 1871 dans le cadre d'une série intitulée Seize eaux-fortes de scènes sur la Tamise. Et cela contribue à sa manière à établir la réputation de Whistler en tant que graveur. L'artiste vivait, en effet, près de la Tamise et le fleuve était l'un de ses sujets de prédilection.

Le rideau de gauche

Le rideau de gauche de Whistler's Mother est orné d'un motif floral rappelant l'art japonais que Whistler aimait beaucoup. Le Japon était resté isolé des autres pays du monde jusqu'en 1853, donc à partir de la fin de l'isolement au milieu du XIXe siècle, il a commencé à avoir une forte influence sur la culture et le goût occidentaux. De nombreux artistes européens commencent à admirer sa culture et sa tradition artistique et certains d'entre eux, comme Whistler, deviennent également des collectionneurs d'art japonais et incluent de petits détails dans leurs œuvres.

Contrastes de couleurs dans Whistler's Mother

Whistler était particulièrement attentif aux valeurs tonales des couleurs de ses œuvres. Et ici, il atteint un équilibre parfait entre la lumière et l'obscurité. Il aimait créer des effets de couleurs subtils et discrets. De plus, grâce à la couleur, il a créé une surface plane de l'image, plutôt qu'une profondeur tridimensionnelle. Ce type d'attention et de technique a grandement contribué à créer les conditions à partir desquelles l'art abstrait a émergé. Et c'est pourquoi l'art de Whistler était aussi radical.

La technique de fabrication de la mère de

Whistler Whistler était une perfectionniste autocritique et travaillait toujours très lentement. Il laissait souvent des peintures incomplètes ou même les détruisait lorsqu'elles ne répondaient pas à ses normes rigoureuses.

D'autres fois, il grattait la peinture ou la frottait sur la toile pour pouvoir recommencer. Étonnamment, tout ce processus laborieux n'est pas visible à l'œil nu sur ses œuvres finies. Whistler appliquait souvent une peinture très fine mais son utilisation variait considérablement. Et des passages légèrement brossés coexistent souvent avec des touches plus riches et plus crémeuses. Dans le portrait de sa mère, le visage ainsi que la main reçoivent un traitement plus détaillé qu'autre chose. Tandis que la coiffe et le mouchoir en dentelle sont peints avec des coups de pinceau légèrement plus secs que le reste de l'image.

L'utilisation de termes tels que symphonie dans les œuvres

L'une des œuvres les plus célèbres de Whistler est le portrait d'une jeune fille en blanc contre un rideau blanc. Ce travail a contribué à établir le nom de Whistler lors de son exposition au Salon des Refusés en 1863. Il représente sa logeuse de l'époque, Joanna Hiffernan. Whistler a initialement intitulé le portrait The White Girl, mais c'est grâce à un journaliste français que le terme symphonie a été introduit. En fait, se référant à cette œuvre, il la définit comme une " symphonie de blanc ". Et Whistler, sans manquer l'occasion, a adopté l'idée, ajoutant les mots au titre et les utilisant également pour d'autres œuvres.

James McNeil Whistler. L'histoire de l'artiste

Whistler a mené la vie d'un vrai cosmopolite. Il est né en Amérique mais vit également en Russie dans son enfance et passe la majeure partie de sa carrière à Londres et à Paris. Il passe même un séjour en Italie, à Venise.

Il est devenu l'une des figures les plus connues des milieux littéraires et artistiques londoniens, en partie à cause de son talent, mais aussi à cause de son intelligence et de son amour de la polémique. De nombreux critiques ont souvent pensé que son œuvre était suggestive mais semblait inachevée. A tel point qu'en 1877, Whistler poursuit l'un d'entre eux, et pas n'importe lequel, mais le plus célèbre critique anglais de l'histoire de l'art : John Ruskin. Whistler remporte le procès, mais les frais juridiques le conduisent à la faillite en 1879. Cependant, il recouvre également sa réputation.

A la fin de sa vie, il fut très honoré. Outre ses peintures, principalement des portraits et des paysages, il réalise de nombreuses gravures qui font de lui l'un des artistes les plus intéressants du XIXe siècle en Europe.
Couverture : James Abbott McNeill Whistler, Whistler's Mother (Arrangement in Grey and Black, Portrait No. 1), 1871, Musée d'Orsay, Paris.

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La mère de Whistler. Par qui est-il peint et que représente-t-il ? - Art&theCities

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La mère de Whistler est l'un des portraits les plus célèbres de l'art du XIXe siècle. Et il a été construit en 1871. Découvrons ensemble !

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Whistler's Mother of 1871, connue sous le titre original d' Arrangement in Grey and Black, Portrait No. 1, est l'un des portraits les plus célèbres du XIXe siècle. Et il est conservé dans l'un des musées que je ne cesse de visiter à chaque fois que je retourne à Paris, le musée d'Orsay.

Le sujet de l'œuvre

Au premier plan, le protagoniste de l'œuvre : la mère de l'artiste américain James McNeill Whistler. Très pensive, la femme est assise dans une pose raide, les mains agrippées à un mouchoir de dentelle blanche, ses cheveux gris sont relevés et ses vêtements noirs s'enroulent autour de son corps.

Le sentiment général qui est perçu est celui d'une grande austérité. Cela est dû à la combinaison des couleurs douces du fond et du noir saisissant des vêtements. Mais aussi à cause des lignes verticales et horizontales qui définissent le sol, la tensa, la chaise et les cadres. Pourtant, malgré ce sentiment de sévérité, il y a aussi un sentiment d'empathie et de fragilité de la femme. La mère de l'artiste, Anna McNeill Whistler (1804-1881), est devenue veuve en 1849. Elle a quitté l'Amérique en 1863 pour échapper à la guerre civile et a déménagé à Londres pour vivre avec son fils. Elle a une histoire qui fait d'elle une femme forte et en même temps éprouvée. Et aussi pour cette raison, cette œuvre est devenue le symbole de la femme austère mais douce et humaine.

Le mouvement Art for Art

Quelques années après avoir déménagé à Londres, Whistler commence à utiliser des termes musicaux dans les titres de ses peintures. Par exemple, il utilise la symphonie, la nocturne ou, comme dans cette œuvre, l'arrangement. Cela exprimait pour lui la conviction que la peinture s'intéressait plus aux qualités formelles - lignes, formes, couleurs - qu'au sujet. D'autres artistes de l'époque partageaient ce point de vue, et Whistler devint ainsi le porte-parole le plus influent de la doctrine qui allait devenir célèbre comme " l'art pour l'art ". Il devient l'un des protagonistes en raison de son magnétisme personnel et de sa façon de parler.

La série de portraits Arrangement en gris et noir

Arrangement en gris et noir, n. 1 a été exposé pour la première fois à la Royal Academy de Londres en 1872. Le comité de sélection l'a d'abord rejeté. Mais Sir William Boxall, directeur de la National Gallery de Londres et ami de Whistler, use de son influence pour le faire accepter.

En général, le portrait n'est pas reçu avec enthousiasme. Mais il a aussi des admirateurs, notamment l'écrivain Thomas Carlyle. Carlyle pense que ce travail a une énorme originalité. Il décide donc de charger Whistler de peindre un portrait de lui. Il est intitulé comme dans une série Arrangement en gris et noir, Portrait No. 2 et a été exécuté entre 1872 et 1873. En 1891, il a été acheté par la ville de Glasgow en Écosse, devenant ainsi le premier tableau de Whistler à être acquis d'une collection publique. Cela devient un tournant dans la carrière de Whistler. La même année, en effet, le portrait de la mère de Whistler est acheté par l'État français, qui l'avait entre-temps fait chevalier de la Légion d'honneur en 1889.

La mère de Whistler. Détails de l'œuvre

La femme de profil est la mère de

Whistler Whistler a représenté sa mère de profil. Cette forme de représentation a été largement utilisée par les artistes de la Renaissance. Et il n'était resté répandu que dans certains types de représentation spécifiques tels que les pièces de monnaie et les médailles. Mais il était rarement utilisé dans la peinture de portrait conventionnelle au XIXe siècle. Ce détail de portrait de la mère de profil fonde cependant la rigueur formelle de l'image. De plus, l'utilisation de la dentelle blanche rencontrant la robe noire du profil rappelle le travail de Frans Hals, un peintre hollandais du XVIIe siècle, que Whistler aimait beaucoup.

La chaise et le pouf

C'est le seul objet de la scène qui n'ait pas une géométrie forte faite de lignes verticales, horizontales et d'arêtes. L'histoire raconte que le portrait de la mère de Whistler était à l'origine censé être debout. Cependant, en raison de l'ancienneté de la femme et d'une maladie récente, la mère ne pouvait pas rester debout pendant des heures. Alors pour soulager la fatigue Whistler la représente assise et facilite son travail de modelage, qui demandait déjà beaucoup de patience.

De plus, l'artiste insère également un repose-pieds dans la représentation qui donne un sentiment de familiarité à l'image. Le repose-pieds sert en fait à soulager la fatigue de la mère, mais métaphoriquement il réduit également la lourdeur du bloc noir créé avec les vêtements de la femme. Grâce à une analyse aux rayons X de l'œuvre, il a été découvert que la hauteur du repose-pieds et de nombreux autres détails de l'œuvre étaient initialement différents. En effet, avant de trouver une version définitive, l'artiste semble avoir essayé diverses positions pour les bras et les genoux de la mère.

Mains et mouchoir

Représenter des mains dans un portrait n'a jamais été une tâche facile pour aucun artiste. Une pratique courante a donc toujours été d'occuper les mains du sujet avec un objet. Avoir un gant, une arme ou, comme dans ce cas, un mouchoir serré est une astuce utilisée par les peintres pour ne pouvoir représenter qu'une partie de la main et engager le protagoniste et le spectateur. et dans ce travail, outre le visage de la femme, la main est la partie la plus détaillée du travail.

L'oeuvre dans l'oeuvre

Sur le mur de la maison derrière la femme Whistler représente une estampe encadrée. Il s'agit d'une de ses propres œuvres : Black Lion Wharf de 1859. La gravure a été publiée en 1871 dans le cadre d'une série intitulée Seize eaux-fortes de scènes sur la Tamise. Et cela contribue à sa manière à établir la réputation de Whistler en tant que graveur. L'artiste vivait, en effet, près de la Tamise et le fleuve était l'un de ses sujets de prédilection.

Le rideau de gauche

Le rideau de gauche de Whistler's Mother est orné d'un motif floral rappelant l'art japonais que Whistler aimait beaucoup. Le Japon était resté isolé des autres pays du monde jusqu'en 1853, donc à partir de la fin de l'isolement au milieu du XIXe siècle, il a commencé à avoir une forte influence sur la culture et le goût occidentaux. De nombreux artistes européens commencent à admirer sa culture et sa tradition artistique et certains d'entre eux, comme Whistler, deviennent également des collectionneurs d'art japonais et incluent de petits détails dans leurs œuvres.

Contrastes de couleurs dans Whistler's Mother

Whistler était particulièrement attentif aux valeurs tonales des couleurs de ses œuvres. Et ici, il atteint un équilibre parfait entre la lumière et l'obscurité. Il aimait créer des effets de couleurs subtils et discrets. De plus, grâce à la couleur, il a créé une surface plane de l'image, plutôt qu'une profondeur tridimensionnelle. Ce type d'attention et de technique a grandement contribué à créer les conditions à partir desquelles l'art abstrait a émergé. Et c'est pourquoi l'art de Whistler était aussi radical.

La technique de fabrication de la mère de

Whistler Whistler était une perfectionniste autocritique et travaillait toujours très lentement. Il laissait souvent des peintures incomplètes ou même les détruisait lorsqu'elles ne répondaient pas à ses normes rigoureuses.

D'autres fois, il grattait la peinture ou la frottait sur la toile pour pouvoir recommencer. Étonnamment, tout ce processus laborieux n'est pas visible à l'œil nu sur ses œuvres finies. Whistler appliquait souvent une peinture très fine mais son utilisation variait considérablement. Et des passages légèrement brossés coexistent souvent avec des touches plus riches et plus crémeuses. Dans le portrait de sa mère, le visage ainsi que la main reçoivent un traitement plus détaillé qu'autre chose. Tandis que la coiffe et le mouchoir en dentelle sont peints avec des coups de pinceau légèrement plus secs que le reste de l'image.

L'utilisation de termes tels que symphonie dans les œuvres

L'une des œuvres les plus célèbres de Whistler est le portrait d'une jeune fille en blanc contre un rideau blanc. Ce travail a contribué à établir le nom de Whistler lors de son exposition au Salon des Refusés en 1863. Il représente sa logeuse de l'époque, Joanna Hiffernan. Whistler a initialement intitulé le portrait The White Girl, mais c'est grâce à un journaliste français que le terme symphonie a été introduit. En fait, se référant à cette œuvre, il la définit comme une " symphonie de blanc ". Et Whistler, sans manquer l'occasion, a adopté l'idée, ajoutant les mots au titre et les utilisant également pour d'autres œuvres.

James McNeil Whistler. L'histoire de l'artiste

Whistler a mené la vie d'un vrai cosmopolite. Il est né en Amérique mais vit également en Russie dans son enfance et passe la majeure partie de sa carrière à Londres et à Paris. Il passe même un séjour en Italie, à Venise.

Il est devenu l'une des figures les plus connues des milieux littéraires et artistiques londoniens, en partie à cause de son talent, mais aussi à cause de son intelligence et de son amour de la polémique. De nombreux critiques ont souvent pensé que son œuvre était suggestive mais semblait inachevée. A tel point qu'en 1877, Whistler poursuit l'un d'entre eux, et pas n'importe lequel, mais le plus célèbre critique anglais de l'histoire de l'art : John Ruskin. Whistler remporte le procès, mais les frais juridiques le conduisent à la faillite en 1879. Cependant, il recouvre également sa réputation.

A la fin de sa vie, il fut très honoré. Outre ses peintures, principalement des portraits et des paysages, il réalise de nombreuses gravures qui font de lui l'un des artistes les plus intéressants du XIXe siècle en Europe.
Couverture : James Abbott McNeill Whistler, Whistler's Mother (Arrangement in Grey and Black, Portrait No. 1), 1871, Musée d'Orsay, Paris.

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La mère de Whistler. Par qui est-il peint et que représente-t-il ? - Art&theCities

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La mère de Whistler est l'un des portraits les plus célèbres de l'art du XIXe siècle. Et il a été construit en 1871. Découvrons ensemble !

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James Whistler, La mère de l’artiste - Se connaître

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Analyse plastique du tableau de James Whistler, La mère de l’artiste. Le tableau doit valoir par les seuls mérites de son arrangement, ici en gris et noir.

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Roy Fox Lichtenstein (; October 27, 1923 - September 29, 1997) was an American pop artist. During the 1960's, along with Andy Warhol, Jasper Johns, and James Rosenquist, he became a leading figure in the new art movement. His work defined the premise of pop art through parody. Inspired by the comic strip, Lichtenstein produced precise compositions that documented while they parodied, often in a tongue-in-cheek manner. His work was influenced by popular advertising and the comic book style. His artwork was considered to be "disruptive". He described pop art as "not 'American' painting but actually industrial painting". His paintings were exhibited at the Leo Castelli Gallery in New York City.

, Drowning Girl, and Look Mickey proved to be his most influential works. His most expensive piece is Masterpiece, which was sold for $165 million in 2017.

Lichtenstein was born into an upper middle class German-Jewish family in New York City. His father, Milton, was a real estate broker, his mother, Beatrice (née Werner), a homemaker. He was raised on New York City's Upper West Side and attended public school until the age of twelve. He then attended New York's Dwight School, graduating from there in 1940. Lichtenstein first became interested in art and design as a hobby, through school. He was an avid jazz fan, often attending concerts at the Apollo Theater in Harlem. He frequently drew portraits of the musicians playing their instruments. In his last year of high school, 1939, Lichtenstein enrolled in summer classes at the Art Students League of New York, where he worked under the tutelage of Reginald Marsh.

Cap de Barcelona, 1992 sculpture, mixed media, Barcelona

Lichtenstein then left New York to study at Ohio State University, which offered studio courses and a degree in fine arts. His studies were interrupted by a three-year stint in the Army during and after World War II between 1943 and 1946. After being in training programs for languages, engineering in the Army Specialized Training Program, and pilot training, all of which were cancelled, he served as an orderly, draftsman, and artist.

Lichtenstein returned home to visit his dying father and was discharged from the Army with eligibility for the G.I. Bill. He returned to studies in Ohio under the supervision of one of his teachers, Hoyt L. Sherman, who is widely regarded to have had a significant impact on his future work (Lichtenstein would later name a new studio he funded at OSU as the Hoyt L. Sherman Studio Art Center).

Lichtenstein entered the graduate program at Ohio State and was hired as an art instructor, a post he held on and off for the next ten years. In 1949 Lichtenstein received a Master of Fine Arts degree from Ohio State University.

In 1951, Lichtenstein had his first solo exhibition at the Carlebach Gallery in New York. He moved to Cleveland in the same year, where he remained for six years, although he frequently traveled back to New York. During this time he undertook jobs as varied as a draftsman to a window decorator in between periods of painting. His work at this time fluctuated between Cubism and Expressionism. In 1954, his first son, David Hoyt Lichtenstein, now a songwriter, was born. His second son, Mitchell Lichtenstein, was born in 1956.

In 1957, he moved back to upstate New York and began teaching again. It was at this time that he adopted the Abstract Expressionism style, being a late convert to this style of painting. Lichtenstein began teaching in upstate New York at the State University of New York at Oswego in 1958. About this time, he began to incorporate hidden images of cartoon characters such as Mickey Mouse and Bugs Bunny into his abstract works.

In 1960, he started teaching at Rutgers University where he was heavily influenced by Allan Kaprow, who was also a teacher at the university. This environment helped reignite his interest in Proto-pop imagery. In 1961, Lichtenstein began his first pop paintings using cartoon images and techniques derived from the appearance of commercial printing. This phase would continue to 1965, and included the use of advertising imagery suggesting consumerism and homemaking. His first work to feature the large-scale use of hard-edged figures and Ben-Day dots was Look Mickey (1961, National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.). This piece came from a challenge from one of his sons, who pointed to a Mickey Mouse comic book and said; "I bet you can't paint as good as that, eh, Dad?" In the same year he produced six other works with recognizable characters from gum wrappers and cartoons.

In 1961, Leo Castelli started displaying Lichtenstein's work at his gallery in New York. Lichtenstein had his first one-man show at the Castelli gallery in 1962; the entire collection was bought by influential collectors before the show even opened. A group of paintings produced between 1961 and 1962 focused on solitary household objects such as sneakers, hot dogs, and golf balls. In September 1963 he took a leave of absence from his teaching position at Douglass College at Rutgers.

His works were inspired by comics featuring war and romantic stories. "At that time", Lichtenstein later recounted, "I was interested in anything I could use as a subject that was emotionally strong - usually love, war, or something that was highly charged and emotional subject matter to be opposite to the removed and deliberate painting techniques".

Period of Lichtenstein's highest profile

Drowning Girl (1963). On display at the Museum of Modern Art, New York

It was at this time that Lichtenstein began to find fame not just in America but worldwide. He moved back to New York to be at the center of the art scene and resigned from Rutgers University in 1964 to concentrate on his painting. Lichtenstein used oil and Magna (early acrylic) paint in his best known works, such as Drowning Girl (1963), which was appropriated from the lead story in DC Comics' Secret Hearts No. 83, drawn by Tony Abruzzo. ( Drowning Girl now hangs in the Museum of Modern Art, New York.) Drowning Girl also features thick outlines, bold colors and Ben-Day dots, as if created by photographic reproduction. Of his own work Lichtenstein would say that the Abstract Expressionists "put things down on the canvas and responded to what they had done, to the color positions and sizes. My style looks completely different, but the nature of putting down lines pretty much is the same; mine just don't come out looking calligraphic, like Pollock's or Kline's."

Rather than attempt to reproduce his subjects, Lichtenstein's work tackled the way in which the mass media portrays them. He would never take himself too seriously, however, saying: "I think my work is different from comic strips - but I wouldn't call it transformation; I don't think that whatever is meant by it is important to art". When Lichtenstein's work was first exhibited, many art critics of the time challenged its originality. His work was harshly criticized as vulgar and empty. The title of a magazine article in 1964 asked, "Is He the Worst Artist in the U.S.?" Lichtenstein responded to such claims by offering responses such as the following: "The closer my work is to the original, the more threatening and critical the content. However, my work is entirely transformed in that my purpose and perception are entirely different. I think my paintings are critically transformed, but it would be difficult to prove it by any rational line of argument." He discussed experiencing this heavy criticism in an interview with April Bernard and Mimi Thompson in 1986. Suggesting that it was at times difficult to be criticized, Lichtenstein said, "I don't doubt when I'm actually painting, it's the criticism that makes you wonder, it does."

His celebrated image (1963) depicts a fighter aircraft firing a rocket into an enemy plane, with a red-and-yellow explosion. The cartoon style is heightened by the use of the onomatopoeic lettering "Whaam!" and the boxed caption "I pressed the fire control ... and ahead of me rockets blazed through the sky ..." This diptych is large in scale, measuring 1.7 x 4.0 m (5 ft 7 in x 13 ft 4 in). Whaam follows the comic strip-based themes of some of his previous paintings and is part of a body of war-themed work created between 1962 and 1964. It is one of his two notable large war-themed paintings. It was purchased by the Tate Gallery in 1966, after being exhibited at the Leo Castelli Gallery in 1963, and (now at the Tate Modern) has remained in their collection ever since. In 1968, the Darmstadt entrepreneur Karl Ströher acquired several major works by Lichtenstein, such as Nurse (1964), Compositions I (1964), We rose up slowly (1964) and Yellow and Green Brushstrokes (1966). After being on loan at the Hessiches Landesmuseum Darmstadt for several years, the founding director of the Museum für Moderne Kunst Frankfurt, Peter Iden, was able to acquire a total of 87 works from the Ströher collection in 1981, primarily American Pop Art and Minimal Art for the museum under construction until 1991.

Lichtenstein began experimenting with sculpture around 1964, demonstrating a knack for the form that was at odds with the insistent flatness of his paintings. For Head of Girl (1964), and Head with Red Shadow (1965), he collaborated with a ceramicist who sculpted the form of the head out of clay. Lichtenstein then applied a glaze to create the same sort of graphic motifs that he used in his paintings; the application of black lines and Ben-Day dots to three-dimensional objects resulted in a flattening of the form.

Most of Lichtenstein's best-known works are relatively close, but not exact, copies of comic book panels, a subject he largely abandoned in 1965, though he would occasionally incorporate comics into his work in different ways in later decades. These panels were originally drawn by such comics artists as Jack Kirby and DC Comics artists Russ Heath, Tony Abruzzo, Irv Novick, and Jerry Grandenetti, who rarely received any credit. Jack Cowart, executive director of the Lichtenstein Foundation, contests the notion that Lichtenstein was a copyist, saying: "Roy's work was a wonderment of the graphic formulae and the codification of sentiment that had been worked out by others. The panels were changed in scale, color, treatment, and in their implications. There is no exact copy." However, some have been critical of Lichtenstein's use of comic-book imagery and art pieces, especially insofar as that use has been seen as endorsement of a patronizing view of comics by the art mainstream; cartoonist Art Spiegelman commented that "Lichtenstein did no more or less for comics than Andy Warhol did for soup."

Lichtenstein's works based on enlarged panels from comic books engendered a widespread debate about their merits as art. Lichtenstein himself admitted, "I am nominally copying, but I am really restating the copied thing in other terms. In doing that, the original acquires a totally different texture. It isn't thick or thin brushstrokes, it's dots and flat colours and unyielding lines." Eddie Campbell blogged that "Lichtenstein took a tiny picture, smaller than the palm of the hand, printed in four color inks on newsprint and blew it up to the conventional size at which 'art' is made and exhibited and finished it in paint on canvas." With regard to Lichtenstein, Bill Griffith once said, "There's high art and there's low art. And then there's high art that can take low art, bring it into a high art context, appropriate it and elevate it into something else."

Although Lichtenstein's comic-based work gained some acceptance, concerns are still expressed by critics who say Lichtenstein did not credit, pay any royalties to, or seek permission from the original artists or copyright holders. In an interview for a BBC Four documentary in 2013, Alastair Sooke asked the comic book artist Dave Gibbons if he considered Lichtenstein a plagiarist. Gibbons replied: "I would say 'copycat'. In music for instance, you can't just whistle somebody else's tune or perform somebody else's tune, no matter how badly, without somehow crediting and giving payment to the original artist. That's to say, this is 'WHAAM! by Roy Lichtenstein, after Irv Novick'." Sooke himself maintains that "Lichtenstein transformed Novick's artwork in a number of subtle but crucial ways."

Journal founder, City University London lecturer and University College London PhD, Ernesto Priego notes that Lichtenstein's failure to credit the original creators of his comic works was a reflection on the decision by National Periodical Publications, the predecessor of DC Comics, to omit any credit for their writers and artists:

Besides embodying the cultural prejudice against comic books as vehicles of art, examples like Lichtenstein's appropriation of the vocabulary of comics highlight the importance of taking publication format in consideration when defining comics, as well as the political economy implied by specific types of historical publications, in this case the American mainstream comic book. To what extent was National Periodical Publications (later DC) responsible for the rejection of the roles of Kanigher and Novick as artists in their own right by not granting them full authorial credit on the publication itself?"

Furthermore, Campbell notes that there was a time when comic artists often declined attribution for their work.

In an account published in 1998, Novick said that he had met Lichtenstein in the army in 1947 and, as his superior officer, had responded to Lichtenstein's tearful complaints about the menial tasks he was assigned by recommending him for a better job. Jean-Paul Gabilliet has questioned this account, saying that Lichtenstein had left the army a year before the time Novick says the incident took place. Bart Beaty, noting that Lichtenstein had appropriated Novick for works such as Whaam! and Okay Hot-Shot, Okay!, says that Novick's story "seems to be an attempt to personally diminish" the more famous artist.

In 1966, Lichtenstein moved on from his much-celebrated imagery of the early 1960s, and began his Modern Paintings series, including over 60 paintings and accompanying drawings. Using his characteristic Ben-Day dots and geometric shapes and lines, he rendered incongruous, challenging images out of familiar architectural structures, patterns borrowed from Art Déco and other subtly evocative, often sequential, motifs.[citation needed ] The Modern Sculpture series of 1967-8 made reference to motifs from Art Déco architecture.

In the early 1960s, Lichtenstein reproduced masterpieces by Cézanne, Mondrian and Picasso before embarking on the Brushstrokes series in 1965. Lichtenstein continued to revisit this theme later in his career with works such as Bedroom at Arles that derived from Vincent van Gogh's Bedroom in Arles.

In 1970, Lichtenstein was commissioned by the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (within its Art and Technology program developed between 1967 and 1971) to make a film. With the help of Universal Film Studios, the artist conceived of, and produced, Three Landscapes, a film of marine landscapes, directly related to a series of collages with landscape themes he created between 1964 and 1966. Although Lichtenstein had planned to produce 15 short films, the three-screen installation - made with New York-based independent filmmaker Joel Freedman - turned out to be the artist's only venture into the medium.

Also in 1970, Lichtenstein purchased a former carriage house in Southampton, Long Island, built a studio on the property, and spent the rest of the 1970s in relative seclusion. In the 1970s and 1980s, his style began to loosen and he expanded on what he had done before. Lichtenstein began a series of Mirrors paintings in 1969. By 1970, while continuing on the Mirrors series, he started work on the subject of entablatures. The Entablatures consisted of a first series of paintings from 1971 to 1972, followed by a second series in 1974-76, and the publication of a series of relief prints in 1976. He produced a series of "Artists Studios" which incorporated elements of his previous work. A notable example being Artist's Studio, Look Mickey (1973, Walker Art Center, Minneapolis) which incorporates five other previous works, fitted into the scene.

During a trip to Los Angeles in 1978, Lichtenstein was fascinated by lawyer Robert Rifkind's collection of German Expressionist prints and illustrated books. He began to produce works that borrowed stylistic elements found in Expressionist paintings. The White Tree (1980) evokes lyric Der Blaue Reiter landscapes, while Dr. Waldmann (1980) recalls Otto Dix's Dr. Mayer-Hermann (1926). Small colored-pencil drawings were used as templates for woodcuts, a medium favored by Emil Nolde and Max Pechstein, as well as Dix and Ernst Ludwig Kirchner. Also in the late 1970s, Lichtenstein's style was replaced with more surreal works such as Pow Wow (1979, Ludwig Forum für Internationale Kunst, Aachen). A major series of Surrealist-Pop paintings from 1979 to 1981 is based on Native American themes. These works range from Amerind Figure (1981), a stylized life-size sculpture reminiscent of a streamlined totem pole in black-patinated bronze, to the monumental wool tapestry Amerind Landscape (1979). The "Indian" works took their themes, like the other parts of the Surrealist series, from contemporary art and other sources, including books on American Indian design from Lichtenstein's small library.

Lichtenstein's Still Life paintings, sculptures and drawings, which span from 1972 through the early 1980s, cover a variety of motifs and themes, including the most traditional such as fruit, flowers, and vases. In 1983 Lichtenstein made two anti-apartheid posters, simply titled "Against Apartheid". In his Reflection series, produced between 1988 and 1990, Lichtenstein reused his own motifs from previous works. Interiors (1991-1992) is a series of works depicting banal domestic environments inspired by furniture ads the artist found in telephone books or on billboards. Having garnered inspiration from the monochromatic prints of Edgar Degas featured in a 1994 exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, the motifs of his Landscapes in the Chinese Style series are formed with simulated Ben-Day dots and block contours, rendered in hard, vivid color, with all traces of the hand removed. The nude is a recurring element in Lichtenstein's work of the 1990s, such as in Collage for Nude with Red Shirt (1995).

In addition to paintings and sculptures, Lichtenstein also made over 300 prints, mostly in screenprinting.

Group 5 Racing Version of BMW 320i, painted in 1977 by Roy Lichtenstein

In 1989, Lichtenstein created a giant two-panel mural especially for the Tel Aviv Museum of Art

In 1969, Lichtenstein was commissioned by Gunter Sachs to create Composition and Leda and the Swan, for the collector's Pop Art bedroom suite at the Palace Hotel in St. Moritz. In the late 1970s and during the 1980s, Lichtenstein received major commissions for works in public places: the sculptures (1978) in St. Mary's, Georgia; (1979) in Miami Beach; the 26 feet tall Brushstrokes in Flight (1984, moved in 1998) at John Glenn Columbus International Airport; the five-storey high Mural with Blue Brushstroke (1984-85) at the Equitable Center, New York; and El Cap de Barcelona (1992) in Barcelona. In 1994, Lichtenstein created the 53-foot-long, enamel-on-metal Times Square Mural in Times Square subway station. In 1977, he was commissioned by BMW to paint a Group 5 Racing Version of the BMW 320i for the third installment in the BMW Art Car Project. The DreamWorks Records logo was his last completed project. "I'm not in the business of doing anything like that (a corporate logo) and don't intend to do it again," allows Lichtenstein. "But I know Mo Ostin and David Geffen and it seemed interesting."

1977 Skowhegan Medal for Painting, Skowhegan School, Skowhegan, Maine.

1979 American Academy of Arts and Letters, New York.

1989 American Academy in Rome, Rome, Italy. Artist in residence.

1991 Creative Arts Award in Painting, Brandeis University, Waltham, Massachusetts.

1993 Amici de Barcelona, from Mayor Pasqual Maragall, L'Alcalde de Barcelona.

1995 Kyoto Prize, Inamori Foundation, Kyoto, Japan.

1995 National Medal of the Arts, Washington D.C.

Lichtenstein received numerous Honorary Doctorate degrees from, among others, the George Washington University (1996), Bard College, Royal College of Art (1993), Ohio State University (1987), Southampton College (1980), and the California Institute of the Arts (1977). He also served on the board of the Brooklyn Academy of Music.

In 2023, 5 of Lichtenstein's paintings will be featured on USPS Forever stamps: Standing Explosion (Red), Modern Painting I, Still Life with Crystal Bowl, Still Life with Goldfish, and Portrait of a Woman. Derry Noyes served as the stamp series' art director and designer.

In 1949, Lichtenstein married Isabel Wilson, who previously had been married to Ohio artist Michael Sarisky. However, the brutal upstate winters took a toll on Lichtenstein and his wife, after he began teaching at the State University of New York at Oswego in 1958. The couple sold the family home in Highland Park, New Jersey, in 1963 and divorced in 1965.

Lichtenstein married his second wife, Dorothy Herzka, in 1968. In the late 1960s, they rented a house in Southampton, New York that Larry Rivers had bought around the corner from his own house. Three years later, they bought a 1910 carriage house facing the ocean on Gin Lane. From 1970 until his death, Lichtenstein split his time between Manhattan and Southampton. He also had a home on Captiva Island.

In 1991, Lichtenstein began an affair with singer Erica Wexler who became the muse for his Nudes series including the 1994 "Nudes with Beach Ball". She was 22 and he was 68. The affair lasted until 1994 and was over when Wexler went to England with future husband Andy Partridge of XTC. According to Wexler, Lichtenstein and his wife Dorothy had an understanding and they both had significant others in addition to their marriage.

Lichtenstein died of pneumonia on September 29, 1997 at New York University Medical Center, where he had been hospitalized for several weeks, at age 73. He was survived by his second wife, Dorothy Herzka, and by his sons, David and Mitchell, from his first marriage.

Pop art continues to influence the 21st century. Pop Art from the Collection features a wide range selection of screenprints by Andy Warhol and Roy Lichtenstein, as well as an assortment of Warhol's Polaroid photographs known as the leading figures of the Pop Art movement of the 1960s and 1970s. Warhol and Lichtenstein are celebrated for exploring the relationship between fine art, advertising, and consumerism. Lichtenstein and Andy Warhol were both used in U2's 1997, 1998 PopMart Tour and in an exhibition in 2007 at the British National Portrait Gallery.

Among many other works of art lost in the World Trade Center attacks on September 11, 2001, a painting from Lichtenstein's The Entablature Series was destroyed in the subsequent fire.

In 1964, Lichtenstein became the first American to exhibit at the Tate Gallery, London, on the occasion of the show "'54-'64: Painting and Sculpture of a Decade." In 1967, his first museum retrospective exhibition was held at the Pasadena Art Museum in California. The same year, his first solo exhibition in Europe was held at museums in Amsterdam, London, Bern and Hannover. Lichtenstein later participated in documentas IV (1968) and VI in (1977). Lichtenstein had his first retrospective at the Guggenheim Museum in 1969, organized by Diane Waldman. The Guggenheim presented a second Lichtenstein retrospective in 1994. Lichtenstein became the first living artist to have a solo drawing exhibitions at the Museum of Modern Art from March - June 1987. Recent retrospective surveys include the 2003 "All About Art", Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, in Denmark (which traveled on to the Hayward Gallery, London, Museo Reina Sofia, Madrid, and the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, until 2005); and "Classic of the New", Kunsthaus Bregenz (2005), "Roy Lichtenstein: Meditations on Art" Museo Triennale, Milan (2010, traveled to the Museum Ludwig, Cologne). In late 2010 The Morgan Library & Museum showed Roy Lichtenstein: The Black-and-White Drawings, 1961-1968. Another major retrospective opened at the Art Institute of Chicago in May 2012 before going to the National Gallery of Art in Washington, Tate Modern in London, and the Centre Pompidou in Paris in 2013. 2013:Roy Lichtenstein, Olyvia Fine Art. 2014: Roy Lichtenstein: Intimate Sculptures, The FLAG Art Foundation. Roy Lichtenstein: Opera Prima, Civic Gallery of Modern and Contemporary Arts, Turin. 2018: Exhibition at The Tate Liverpool, Merseyside, United Kingdom.

In 1996 the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C. became the largest single repository of the artist's work when Lichtenstein donated 154 prints and 2 books. The Art Institute of Chicago has several important works by Lichtenstein in its permanent collection, including Brushstroke with Spatter (1966) and Mirror No. 3 (Six Panels) (1971). The personal holdings of Lichtenstein's widow, Dorothy Lichtenstein, and of the Roy Lichtenstein Foundation number in the hundreds. In Europe, the Museum Ludwig in Cologne has one of the most comprehensive Lichtenstein holdings with Takka Takka (1962), (1964), Compositions I (1964), besides the Frankfurt Museum für Moderne Kunst with We rose up slowly (1964) and Yellow and Green Brushstrokes (1966). Outside the United States and Europe, the National Gallery of Australia's Kenneth Tyler Collection has extensive holdings of Lichtenstein's prints, numbering over 300 works. In total there are some 4,500 works thought to be in circulation.

After the artist's death in 1997, the Roy Lichtenstein Foundation was established in 1999. In 2011, the foundation's board decided the benefits of authenticating were outweighed by the risks of protracted lawsuits.

In late 2006, the foundation sent out a holiday card featuring a picture of Electric Cord (1961), a painting that had been missing since 1970 after being sent out to art restorer Daniel Goldreyer by the Leo Castelli Gallery. The card urged the public to report any information about its whereabouts. In 2012, the foundation authenticated the piece when it surfaced at a New York City warehouse.

Between 2008 and 2012, following the death of photographer Harry Shunk in 2006, the Lichtenstein Foundation acquired the collection of photographic material shot by Shunk and his János Kender as well as the photographers' copyright. In 2013, the foundation donated the Shunk-Kender trove to five institutions - Getty Research Institute in Los Angeles; the Museum of Modern Art in New York; the National Gallery of Art in Washington; the Centre Pompidou in Paris; and the Tate in London - that will allow each museum access to the others' share.

Since the 1950s Lichtenstein's work has been exhibited in New York and elsewhere with Leo Castelli at his gallery and at Castelli Graphics as well as with Ileana Sonnabend in her gallery in Paris, and at the Ferus Gallery, Pace Gallery, Gagosian Gallery, Mitchell-Innes & Nash, Mary Boone, Brooke Alexander Gallery, Carlebach, Rosa Esman, Marilyn Pearl, James Goodman, John Heller, Blum Helman, Hirschl & Adler, Phyllis Kind, Getler Pall, Condon Riley, 65 Thompson Street, Holly Solomon, and Sperone Westwater Galleries among others. Leo Castelli Gallery represented Lichtenstein exclusively since 1962, when a solo show by the artist sold out before it opened.

Beginning in 1962, the Leo Castelli Gallery, New York, held regular exhibitions of the artist's work. Gagosian Gallery has been exhibiting work by Lichtenstein since 1996.

Big Painting No. 6 (1965) became the highest priced Lichtenstein work in 1970. Like the entire Brushstrokes series, the subject of the painting is the process of Abstract Expressionist painting via sweeping brushstrokes and drips, but the result of Lichtenstein's simplification that uses a Ben-Day dots background is a representation of the mechanical/industrial color printing reproduction.

Lichtenstein's painting Torpedo ... Los! (1963) sold at Christie's for $5.5 million in 1989, a record sum at the time, making him one of only three living artists to have attracted such huge sums. In 2005, was sold for a then record $16.2m (£10m).

In 2010, his cartoon-style 1964 painting Ohhh...Alright..., previously owned by Steve Martin and later by Steve Wynn, was sold at a record US$42.6m (£26.7m) at a sale at Christie's in New York.

Based on a 1961 William Overgard drawing for a Steve Roper cartoon story, Lichtenstein's I Can See the Whole Room...and There's Nobody in It! (1961) depicts a man looking through a hole in a door. It was sold by collector Courtney Sale Ross for $43 million, double its estimate, at Christie's in New York City in 2011; the seller's husband, Steve Ross had acquired it at auction in 1988 for $2.1 million. The painting measures four-foot by four-foot and is in graphite and oil.

The comic painting Sleeping Girl (1964) from the collection of Beatrice and Phillip Gersh established a new Lichtenstein record $44.8 million at Sotheby's in 2012.

In October 2012, his painting Electric Cord (1962) was returned to Leo Castelli's widow Barbara Bertozzi Castelli, after having been missing for 42 years. Castelli had sent the painting to an art restorer for cleaning in January 1970, and never got it back. He died in 1999. In 2006, the Roy Lichtenstein Foundation published an image of the painting on its holiday greeting card and asked the art community to help find it. The painting was found in a New York warehouse, after having been displayed in Bogota, Colombia.

In 2013, the painting Woman with Flowered Hat set another record at $56.1 million as it was purchased by British jeweller Laurence Graff from American investor Ronald O. Perelman.

This was topped in 2015 by the sale of for 95.4 million dollars at a Christie's auction.

In January 2017, Masterpiece was sold for $165 million. The proceeds of this sale will be used to create a fund for criminal justice reform.

1. Arnason, H., ^ History of Modern Art: Painting, Sculpture, Architecture, New York: Harry N. Abrams, Inc. 1968.

2. ^ Kaminer, Michael (October 18, 2016). "How Jewish Comic Book Heroes Inspired Roy Lichtenstein's Pop Art". forward.com. The Jewish Daily Forward. 'Lichtenstein's story, in many ways, is an assimilation story,' said Bethany Montagano, curator of "Pop for the People: Roy Lichtenstein in LA." 'Lichtenstein didn't speak often about being Jewish. There was just one interview in the 1960s where he spoke about his maternal grandfather who went to temple and spoke Hebrew.'

3. ^ "Oral history interview with Roy Lichtenstein, 1963 November 15-1964 January 15 | Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution".

4. ^ Iden, Peter , Lauter, Rolf (ed.), Bilder für Frankfurt, Bestandskatalog Museum für Moderne Kunst, Frankfurt am Main 1985, cover image, pp 82-83, 176-178. ISBN 978-3-7913-0702-2.

5. ^ Lauter, Rolf. Das Museum für Moderne Kunst und die Sammlung Ströher. Zur Geschichte einer Privatsammlung, MMK in der Galerie Jahrhunderthalle Hoechst, Frankfurt am Main 1994, ISBN 3-7973-0585-0

6. ^ "Collection Ströher". mmk.art. MUSEUMMMK für Moderne Kunst. The eighty-seven works from the former collection of Karl Ströher, an industrialist of Darmstadt, form the core of the museum's collection. Acquired by the city of Frankfurt in 1981‒82, they were a determining factor in the founding of the MMK. Ströher's collection was in turn based on the former collection of the New York insurance broker Leon Kraushar. Most of the works date from the 1960s and represent the American Pop Art and Minimalist currents. They include workgroups by such artists as Carl Andre, Francis Bacon, Walter De Maria, Jim Dine, Dan Flavin, Jasper Johns, Donald Judd, Roy Lichtenstein, Claes Oldenburg, Robert Rauschenberg, James Rosenquist, George Segal, Frank Stella, Cy Twombly or Andy Warhol, as well as German artists of the period, among them Blinky Palermo, Gerhard Richter, Reiner Ruthenbeck and Franz Erhard Walther.

7. ^ "Is He the Worst Artist in the U.S.?". . LichtensteinFoundation.org. January 31, 1964. Archived from the original on November 4, 2013.

8. ^ Griffith, Bill (2003). "Still asking, "Are we having fun yet?"". Interdisciplinary Comics Studies. Image TexT/University of Florida.

9. ^ Steven, Rachael (May 13, 2013). "Image Duplicator: pop art's comic debt". Creative Review. Archived from the original on October 2, 2013.

10. ^ Gravett, Paul (March 17, 2013). "The Principality of Lichtenstein: From 'WHAAM!' to 'WHAAT?'". PaulGravett.com.

11. ^ Priego, Ernesto (April 4, 2011). "Whaam! Becoming a Flaming Star". The Comics Grid, Journal of Comics Scholarship. Archived from the original on October 2, 2013.

12. Beaty, Bart (2004). "Roy Lichtenstein's Tears: Art vs. Pop in American Culture". Canadian Review of American Studies. 34 (3): 249-268.

13. ^ Gabilliet, Jean-Paul (2009). Of Comics and Men: A Cultural History of American Comic Books. University Press of Mississippi. p. 350. ISBN 978-1-60473-267-2.

14. Deborah Solomon (March 8, 1987), The Art Behind The Dots New York Times.

15. ^ Roy Lichtenstein: American Indian Encounters, May 13 - September 4, 2006 Archived December 26, 2011, at the Wayback Machine Tacoma Art Museum, Tacoma.

16. ^ Gayford, Martin (February 25, 2004). "Whaam! Suddenly Roy was the darling of the art world". The Daily Telegraph. London. Archived from the original on January 12, 2022.

17. ^ "'Roy didn't want a woman. He liked them young and juicy'". www.standard.co.uk. February 27, 2013.

18. ^ Nayeri, Farah (February 20, 2013). "Lichtenstein Widow Recalls Macro Diet, Love for Jazz". Bloomberg News.

19. ^ "The Roy Lichtenstein Foundation". lichtensteinfoundation.org. Archived from the original on June 23, 2012.

20. Hahn, Susan (November 19, 1970). "Record Prices for Art Auction at New York Auction". . p. 29.

21. ^ Selz 1981, pp. 454-455: "The process of painting is the subject matter in Roy Lichtenstein's Big Painting No. 6. This painting refers to the popular conception of Abstract Expressionist works: their large size broad brushstrokes, drips. But Lichtenstein's painting is all neat and clean. Since the simplification refers to printed color reproductions, Lichtenstein paints in the benday dots of the mechanical process. The affective content of an action painting is replaced by a painted image that, paradoxically, resembles an industrial product."

22. ^ Bloomberg Business Week, "Lichtenstein's $43 Million Pouting Redhead Helps Revive Market" Retrieved November 11, 2010

23. "Contemporary Art Evening Auction: New York - 09 May 2012 07:00 pm - N08853". Sotheby's. Archived from the original on September 24, 2015.

24. Souren Melikian (May 11, 2012), Disconnect in the Art Market New York Times.

Iden, Peter , Lauter, Rolf , Bilder für Frankfurt, Bestandskatalog Museum für Moderne Kunst, Frankfurt am Main 1985, cover image, pp 82-83, 176-178. ISBN 978-3-7913-0702-2.

Roy Lichtenstein Interview with Chris Hunt Image Entertainment video, 1991

Roy Lichtenstein Interview with Melvyn Bragg video

Adelman, Bob (1999). Roy Lichtenstein's ABC's. Boston: Bulfinch Press. ISBN 978-0-8212-2591-2.

Waldman, Diane (1988) [1st Pub. 1970]. Roy Lichtenstein : Drawing and Prints. Secaucus, N.J.: Wellfleet Books. ISBN 978-1-55521-301-5.

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Roy Fox Lichtenstein (; October 27, 1923 - September 29, 1997) was an American pop artist. During the 1960's, along with Andy Warhol, Jasper Johns, and James Rosenquist, he became a leading figure in the new art movement. His work defined the premise of pop art through parody.

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Au même titre qu'Andy Warhol, James Rosenquist ou Jasper Johns, Roy Lichtenstein est une figure inséparable du courant pop art. Artalistic revient sur la carrière de l'artiste américain à travers dix œuvres célèbres.
Roy Lichtenstein, figure de proue du pop art

Une icône de l'art contemporain

Roy Lichtenstein (1923-1997) est indissociable d'une esthétique pop art qu'il invente à partir des fondements de l'imagerie commerciale, de la culture populaire et de l'emploi d'une technique particulière: le recours aux points Benday, utilisés en imprimerie, notamment dans la bande dessinée, pour le design des dégradés et des textures. Il définit à lui tout seul un style à l'intérieur de ce courant d'art contemporain.

Les multiples apports de Roy Lichtenstein au pop art

Titulaire d'une maîtrise en beaux-arts obtenue à l'université d'État de l'Ohio en 1949 après avoir fréquenté l'Art Students League of New York après le lycée, Lichtenstein a été enseignant en menant en parallèle sa vie d'artiste.

Dès les années 1950, il s'inscrit dans une sorte de rébellion contre les idées strictes sur la forme et le contenu de l'art dit " snob ". Lichtenstein s'adresse aux masses via la conception d'un art nouveau qui emprunte souvent à la réinterprétation de supports déjà existants.

Sa vision constitue une avancée majeure dans la couleur, la forme, la composition et la communication globale d'une image à la puissance considérable.

10 pièces importantes de pop art signées Roy Lichtenstein

1. Masterpiece (1962)

Masterpiece est typique dans son exécution du style de Roy Lichtenstein qui rapproche dans de nombreuses œuvres le dessin animé ou la bande dessinée et la peinture. Pour l'artiste New Yorkais, le pop art est inséparable de culture populaire, ces deux matières se complètent et s'enrichissent, même.

En 2017, le tableau Masterpiece a été vendu pour la somme record de 165 millions de dollars au collectionneur Steven A. Cohen.

2. Drowning girl (1963)

Drowning Girl permet de se focaliser sur une autre facette du génie de Roy Lichtenstein et de son pop art décalé qui se concentre très souvent sur la capture d'images du quotidien. Ce tableau figure comme l'un des plus célèbres du créateur dont le travail a longtemps été rejeté par la critique contemporaine qui le qualifie d'usurpateur et de voleur. Le débat reste aujourd'hui largement ouvert! Pour l'anecdote, l'image de cette femme, la Drowning Girl, est apparue pour la première fois dans la bande dessinée Run for Love! publiée par en 1962.

3. Look Mickey (1961)

Look Mickey représente la transposition parfaite d'une scène de la culture populaire tirée du livre pour enfants de 1960 intitulé Donald Duck: Lost and Found. Les icônes Donald Duck et Mickey Mouse sont facilement identifiables!

4. Crying Girl (1963)

Autre célèbre peinture de pop art signée de Roy Lichtenstein, Crying Girl laisse largement entrevoir le style de l'artiste à base de plans cadrés sur les sujets, de larges aplats de couleur et de contours noirs appliqués aux personnages. Au final, ce style très visuel et percutant empruntant aux comics constitue l'une de ses empreintes majeures. Crying Girl existe en deux versions, une lithographie offset sur papier tissé léger et blanc cassé et une déclinaison en émail de porcelaine sur acier.

5. Happy Tears (1964)

Le pop art de Roy Lichtenstein regorge de portraits de femmes larmoyantes rongées par les soucis, la tristesse ou le chagrin, une façon de formaliser l'introspection de personnages expressifs de l'Amérique en pleine hyperconsommation et manquant parfois de repères. Happy Tears en est le parfait reflet, enrichi par la combinaison classique de lignes audacieuses et de couleurs appliquées sous forme de points.

6. Whaam! (1963)

Avec Whaam!, voici encore une très célèbre peinture de Roy Lichtenstein qui s'inspire de la bande dessinée All American Men of War. Si le pop art de Lichtenstein se veut populaire, il se montre aussi engagé, en témoigne ce tableau qui se moque gentiment du patriotisme américain et transpose la guerre sur le terrain du jeu plutôt que celui de l'affrontement mortifère.

7. In The Car (1963)

In the car est un tableau de pop art créé par Roy Lichtenstein en deux versions, la plus grande est conservée dans la collection de la Galerie Nationale d'Art moderne à Édimbourg depuis 1980. Les figures de l'homme et de la femme y sont présentes comme dans de nombreuses créations. La magistrale représentation graphique retranscrit en une seule image la tension de la scène et le mélodrame qui se joue entre les deux personnages. Une peinture d'une réelle puissance d'évocation et d'interprétation.

8. Hopeless (1963)

Cette peinture sur toile baptisée Hopeless reprend l'un des thèmes principaux de Roy Lichtenstein, la femme amoureuse en proie à des problèmes de romance. L'emploi de la bulle de dialogue eu de pensée est aussi l'une des marques de fabrique de l'artiste américain. Elle traduit ici l'amour sans espoir...

9. Ohhh... Alright... (1964)

Que serait le pop art de Roy Lichtenstein sans la présence de la figure féminine? Assurément amoindri d'une matrice essentielle à son expression et à sa signification! L'amour, avec ses affres et ses bonheurs, n'est-il pas le thème le plus universel dans l'histoire de l'art ? Ce tableau reprend une case de bande dessinée intitulée Secret Hearts (1963). Il atteignit en son temps des records de vente, depuis pulvérisés !

10. Oh, Jeff... I love you too... (1964)

" Oh Jeff, je t'aime aussi mais... " Tout est dit et résumé de l'une des faces majeures du pop art de Roy Lichtenstein dans cette œuvre. On notera que le gros plan sur le visage de la femme et la façon dont elle tient le téléphone de manière aussi dramatique constituent une parodie directe de nombreuses comédies romantiques de l'après-guerre, ce qui fait de Lichtenstein un artiste visionnaire, critique et joueur.

Si vous aimez le pop art de Roy Lichtenstein, et même dans le cas contraire, n'hésitez pas à parcourir les pages de ce site qui propose des créations d'artistes contemporains de tous horizons dans les domaines de la , de la , de la photographie ou du . Et faites confiance à Artalistic , l'une des plateformes de vente d'art en ligne les plus fiables et les plus exigeantes! À bientôt pour de nouvelles actualités artistiques!

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Blog - Roy Lichtenststein: le pop art dans toute sa splendeur - Artalistic

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Découvrez une figure majeure du pop art à travers dix œuvres emblématiques d'un artiste tout aussi génial que décrié: l'américain Roy Lichtenstein, célèbre pour son univers coloré et percutant reprenant la forme et les thèmes de la BD et des comics d'après-guerre.

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Edward Hopper,  peintre de la solitude - Culture Prime

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Thomas Hart Benton (April 15, 1889 - January 19, 1975) was an American painter, muralist, and printmaker. Along with Grant Wood and John Steuart Curry, he was at the forefront of the Regionalist art movement. The fluid, sculpted figures in his paintings showed everyday people in scenes of life in the United States.

His work is strongly associated with the Midwestern United States, the region in which he was born and which he called home for most of his life. He also studied in Paris, lived in New York City for more than 20 years and painted scores of works there, summered for 50 years on Martha's Vineyard off the New England coast, and also painted scenes of the American South and West.

Benton was born in Neosho, Missouri, into an influential family of politicians. He had two younger sisters, Mary and Mildred, and a younger brother, Nathaniel. His mother was Elizabeth Wise Benton and his father, Colonel Maecenas Benton, was a lawyer and four times elected as U.S. congressman. Known as the "little giant of the Ozarks", Maecenas named his son after his own great-uncle, Thomas Hart Benton, one of the first two United States Senators elected from Missouri.

Given his father's political career, Benton spent his childhood shuttling between Washington, D.C., and Missouri. His father sent him to Western Military Academy in 1905-06, hoping to shape him for a political career. Growing up in two different cultures, Benton rebelled against his father's plans. He wanted to develop his interest in art, which his mother supported. As a teenager, he worked as a cartoonist for the Joplin American newspaper, in Joplin, Missouri.

With his mother's encouragement, in 1907 Benton enrolled at The School of The Art Institute of Chicago. Two years later, he moved to Paris in 1909 to continue his art education at the Académie Julian. His mother supported him financially and emotionally to work at art until he married in his early 30s. His sister Mildred said, "My mother was a great power in his growing up."

In Paris, Benton met other North American artists, such as the Mexican Diego Rivera and Stanton Macdonald-Wright, an advocate of Synchromism. Influenced by the latter, Benton subsequently adopted a Synchromist style.

Camouflage pattern of the British ship S.S. Alban as documented by Thomas Hart Benton

After studying in Europe, Benton moved to New York City in 1912 and resumed painting. During World War I, he served in the U.S. Navy and was stationed at Norfolk, Virginia. His war-related work had an enduring effect on his style. He was directed to make drawings and illustrations of shipyard work and life, and this requirement for realistic documentation strongly affected his later style. Later in the war, classified as a " camoufleur", Benton drew the camouflaged ships that entered Norfolk harbor.

His work was required for several reasons: to ensure that U.S. ship painters were correctly applying the camouflage schemes, to aid in identifying U.S. ships that might later be lost, and to have records of the ship camouflage of other Allied navies. Benton later said that his work for the Navy "was the most important thing, so far, I had ever done for myself as an artist."

People of Chilmark (Figure Composition), 1920, in the Hirshhorn Museum collection in Washington, D.C.

At the age of 33, Benton married Rita Piacenza, an Italian immigrant, in 1922. They met while Benton was teaching art classes for a neighborhood organization in New York City, where she was one of his students. They were married for almost 53 years until Benton's death in 1975; Rita died eleven weeks after her husband. The couple had a son, Thomas Piacenza Benton (1926-2010), and a daughter, Jessie Benton, (1939-2023), who became a major figure in the Fort Hill Community founded by Mel Lyman; Benton himself was identified as a "benefactor" to the community, giving them "dozens of paintings".

In 1924, Benton depicted three landmarks in New York City's Madison Square within his painting New York, Early Twenties.

General Store (1922) drawing by Thomas Hart Benton, created during his 1920s tour of America

American Discovery Viewed by Native Americans (1922), Salem, Peabody Essex Museum.[16]

On his return to New York in the early 1920s, Benton declared himself an "enemy of modernism"; he began the naturalistic and representational work known as Regionalism. He toured America, making sketches and ink wash drawings of the things he saw. He would go back to these sketches again and again as reference for future paintings. He expanded the scale of his Regionalist works, culminating in his America Today murals at the New School for Social Research in 1930-31. In 1984, the murals were purchased and restored by AXA Equitable to hang in the lobby of the AXA Equitable Tower at 1290 Sixth Avenue in New York City. In December 2012, AXA donated the murals to the Metropolitan Museum of Art. The Met's exhibition "Thomas Hart Benton's 'America Today' Mural Rediscovered" ran until April 19, 2015. The murals were described as showing how Benton absorbed and used the influence of the Greek artist El Greco.

Benton broke through to the mainstream in 1932. A relative unknown, he won a commission to paint the murals of Indiana life planned by the state in the 1933 Century of Progress Exhibition in Chicago. The Indiana Murals stirred controversy; Benton painted everyday people, and included a portrayal of events in the state's history which some people did not want publicized. Some critics attacked his work for showing Ku Klux Klan (KKK) members in full regalia. The KKK reached its peak membership in 1925. In Indiana, 30% of adult males were estimated to be members of the Klan, and in 1924 KKK members were elected as governor, and to other political offices.

These mural panels are now displayed at Indiana University in Bloomington, with the majority hung in the "Hall of Murals" at the Auditorium. Four additional panels are displayed in the former University Theatre (now the Indiana Cinema) connected to the Auditorium. Two panels, including the one with images of the KKK, are located in a lecture classroom at Woodburn Hall.

In 1932, Benton also painted The Arts of Life in America, a set of large murals for an early site of the Whitney Museum of American Art. Major panels include Arts of the City, Arts of the West, Arts of the South and Indian Arts. In 1953 five of the panels were purchased by the New Britain Museum of American Art in Connecticut, and have since been displayed there.

On December 24, 1934, Benton was featured on one of the earliest color covers of Time magazine. Benton's work was featured along with that of fellow Midwesterners Grant Wood and John Steuart Curry in an article entitled "The U.S. Scene". The trio were featured as the new heroes of American art, and Regionalism was described as a significant art movement.

In 1935, after he had "alienated both the left-leaning community of artists with his disregard for politics and the larger New York-Paris art world with what was considered his folksy style", Benton left the artistic debates of New York for his native Missouri. He was commissioned to create a mural for the Missouri State Capitol in Jefferson City. A Social History of Missouri is perhaps Benton's greatest work. In an interview in 1973, he said, "If I have any right to make judgments, I would say that the Missouri mural was my best work". As with his earlier work, controversy arose over his portrayal of the state's history, as he included the subjects of slavery in the history of Missouri, the Missouri outlaw Jesse James, and the political boss Tom Pendergast. With his return to Missouri, Benton embraced the Regionalist art movement.[citation needed ]

He settled in Kansas City and accepted a teaching job at the Kansas City Art Institute. This base afforded Benton greater access to rural America, which was changing rapidly. Due to his Populist political upbringing, Benton's sympathy was with the working class and the small farmer, unable to gain material advantage despite the Industrial Revolution.[citation needed ]

During the late 1930s he created some of his best-known work, including the allegorical nude Persephone. It was considered scandalous by the Kansas City Art Institute, and was borrowed by the showman Billy Rose, who hung it in his New York nightclub, the Diamond Horseshoe. It is now held by the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art in Kansas City. Karal Ann Marling, an art historian, says it is "one of the great works of American pornography."

In 1937, Benton published his autobiography An Artist in America, which was critically acclaimed. The writer Sinclair Lewis said of it: "Here's a rare thing, a painter who can write." During this period Benton also began to produce signed, limited-edition lithographs, which were sold at $5.00 each through the Associated American Artists Galleries based in New York.

Benton's autobiography indicates that his son was enrolled from age 3 to 9 at the City and Country School in New York in exchange for his teaching art there. He included the school's founder, Caroline Pratt, in "City Activities with Dance Hall", one of the ten panels in America Today.

Benton taught at the Art Students League of New York from 1926 to 1935 and at the Kansas City Art Institute from 1935 to 1941. His most famous student, Jackson Pollock, whom he mentored in the Art Students League, founded the Abstract Expressionist movement. Pollock often said that Benton's traditional teachings gave him something to rebel against. With another of his students, Glen Rounds, who went on to become a prolific author and illustrator of children's books, Benton spent a summer touring the Western United States in the early 1930s. In the 1930s Benton taught at the Ste. Genevieve Art Colony in Ste. Genevieve, Missouri.

Benton's students in New York and Kansas City included many painters who contributed significantly to American art. They included Pollock's brother Charles Pollock, Eric Bransby, Charles Banks Wilson, Frederic James, Lamar Dodd, Reginald Marsh, Charles Green Shaw, Margot Peet, Jackson Lee Nesbitt, Roger Medearis, James Duard Marshall, Glenn Gant, Fuller Potter, William Fredrick Kautzman, and Delmer J. Yoakum. Benton also briefly taught Dennis Hopper at the Kansas City Art Institute; Hopper later became well known as an independent actor, filmmaker, and photographer.

During World War II, Benton created a series titled The Year of Peril, which portrayed the threat to American ideals by fascism and Nazism. The prints were widely distributed. Following the war, Regionalism fell from favor, eclipsed by the rise of Abstract Expressionism. Benton remained active for another 30 years, but his work included less contemporary social commentary and portrayed pre-industrial farmlands.

Again by Thomas Benton (ca. 1941), Washington, D.C., National Archives and Records Administration.

Benton was hired in 1940, along with eight other prominent American artists, to document dramatic scenes and characters during the production of the film The Long Voyage Home, a cinematic adaptation of Eugene O'Neill's plays. Benton was also an accomplished harmonica musician, recording an album for Decca Records in 1942 titled Saturday Night at Tom Benton's.

He continued to paint murals, including Lincoln (1953), for Lincoln University in Jefferson City, Missouri; Trading At Westport Landing (1956), for The River Club in Kansas City; Father Hennepin at Niagara Falls (1961) for the Power Authority of the State of New York; Joplin at the Turn of the Century (1972) in Joplin; and Independence and the Opening of the West, for the Harry S. Truman Library in Independence. His commission for the Truman Library mural led to his developing a friendship with Harry S. Truman that lasted until the former U.S. President's death.

Benton died in 1975 at work in his studio, as he completed his final mural, The Sources of Country Music, for the Country Music Hall of Fame in Nashville, Tennessee.

Benton was elected into the National Academy of Design in 1954 as an Associate member and became a full member in 1956. In 1961, Benton was chosen as one of 50 outstanding Americans of meritorious performance in the fields of endeavor, to be honored as a Guest of Honor to the first annual Banquet of the Golden Plate in Monterey, California. Honor was awarded by vote of the National Panel of Distinguished Americans of the Academy of Achievement.

Exterior of the Thomas Hart Benton Home and Studio State Historic Site

In 1977, Benton's 2 story late-Victorian residence and carriage house studio in Kansas City was designated by Missouri as the Thomas Hart Benton Home and Studio State Historic Site. The historic site has been preserved nearly unchanged from the time of his death; clothing, furniture, and paint brushes are still in place. Displaying 13 original works of his art, the house museum is open for guided tours. Benton was the subject of the eponymous 1988 documentary, Thomas Hart Benton, directed by Ken Burns and produced by WGBH-TV.

In December 2019, a lawsuit was filed by Benton's daughter, Jessie, her son, and her two daughters against the UMB Bank, a trustee of the Benton Trusts and manager of Benton's estate since 1979: "More than a hundred paintings gone, priceless works of art stored in subpar conditions, paintings sold for fire sale prices - those are the allegations put forward by a new lawsuit filed by the heirs of famous American artist Thomas Hart Benton." The bank did not directly respond to the specific allegations in the lawsuit but characterized them as misguided. The bank's president, Jim Rine, said that it regrets that the Bentons chose to resolve the issue through litigation and that the bank takes its role as trustee of Benton's art very seriously.

Benton, Thomas Hart (1951), An Artist in America, University of Kansas City Press.

Benton, Thomas Hart (1969), An American in Art: A Professional and Technical Autobiography, University Press of Kansas.

(Illustrated by Thomas Hart Benton) Europe After 8:15 - H.L. Mencken-1914

(Illustrated by Thomas Hart Benton) Schoolhouse in the Foothills - Ella Enslow-1937

(Illustrated by Thomas Hart Benton) Tom Sawyer - Mark Twain-1939

(Illustrated by Thomas Hart Benton) Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck-1940

(Illustrated by Thomas Hart Benton) Huckleberry Finn - Mark Twain-1941

(Illustrated by Thomas Hart Benton) Taps for Private Tussie - Jesse Stuart-1943

(Illustrated by Thomas Hart Benton) Benjamin Franklin's Autobiography & Other Tales -1944

(Illustrated by Thomas Hart Benton) Life on the Mississippi - Mark Twain-1944

(Illustrated by Thomas Hart Benton) The Oregon Trail - Francis Parkman-1945

(Illustrated by Thomas Hart Benton) Ozark Folksongs (4 Vols.) - Vance Randolph (endpapers only) - 1946-50

(Illustrated by Thomas Hart Benton) We the People - Leo Huberman-1947

(Illustrated by Thomas Hart Benton) Green Grow the Lilacs - Lynn Riggs-1954

(Illustrated by Thomas Hart Benton) Three Rivers South (Young Abe Lincoln) - Virginia Eifert - 1955

1. ^ Hufstader, Louisa (September 19, 2019). "Benton's Vineyard Legacy Lives On in His Work and Family". The Vineyard Gazette.

2. ^ "Thomas Hart Benton's Heirs Accuse UMB Bank of Mismanaging the Renowned Kansas City Artist's Works". December 19, 2019.

3. ^ "Jessie Benton, 83". Vineyard Gazette. February 22, 2023. Republished as: Jessie Benton Carried on Her Parents' Legacy

4. ^ "Once-Notorious '60s Commune Evolves into Respectability : After 19 Years the Lyman Family Prospers as Craftsmen and Farmers". Los Angeles Times. August 4, 1985.

5. ^ Van Zuylen-Wood, Simon (February 19, 2017). "The Life and Death and Rebirth of Boston's Counterculture". Boston Magazine.

6. ^ Cardin, Dinah (August 14, 2015). "Benton painting Native Americans". www.pem.org. Salem, Massachusetts: Peabody Essex Museum. Archived from the original on September 30, 2020.

7. ^ "The Collection" Archived 2012-08-25 at the Wayback Machine, AXA Gallery; accessed August 2, 2012.

8. ^ "Thomas Hart Benton'sAmerica Today Mural Rediscovered". The Metropolitan Museum of Art.

9. ^ Indiana University (July 27, 2009), IU Art Museum opens doors to conservation of famed Thomas Benton murals, IU News Room.

10. For an online reproduction of the cover, see ^ TIME Magazine Cover: Thomas Hart Benton, Time Archive: 1913 to the present, archived from the original on December 2, 2008.

11. ^ Dick, R. H.; Kerr, Scott (2004). An American art colony : the art and artists of Ste. Genevieve, Missouri, 1930-1940. St. Louis, Mo.: McCaughen & Burr Press. pp. 163-164. ISBN 978-0976242406.

12. ^ "Thomas Hart Benton Biography". New Britain Museum of American Art. 2010. Archived from the original on July 26, 2011.

13. ^ "Golden Plate Awardees of the American Academy of Achievement". www.achievement.org. American Academy of Achievement.

14. ^ "Lawsuit Alleges Missouri Bank Mismanaged Painter Thomas Hart Benton's Estate : NPR". NPR.org. December 27, 2019. Archived from the original on December 27, 2019. More than a hundred paintings gone, priceless works of art stored in subpar conditions, paintings sold for fire sale prices - those are the allegations put forward by a new lawsuit filed by the heirs of famous American artist Thomas Hart Benton.

15. ^ "Lawsuit Alleges Missouri Bank Mismanaged Painter Thomas Hart Benton's Estate". NPR.org. Archived from the original on December 27, 2019. Well, the bank hasn't responded to the specific allegations in the lawsuit, although it called them misguided. The bank's president said it regretted that the Bentons are choosing to resolve the issues here through litigation, and he said the bank takes its role as trustee of Benton's art very seriously.

Benton, Thomas Hart; Craven, Thomas (1939), Thomas Hart Benton: A Descriptive Catalogue of the Works of Thomas Hart Benton, Spotlighting the Important Periods during the Artist's Thirty-two Years of Painting, with an Examination of the Artist and His Work, Associated American Artists

University of Kansas Museum of Art (1958), Thomas Hart Benton: A Retrospective Exhibition of the Works of the Noted Missouri Artist Presented under the Patronage of Harry S. Truman and Mrs. Truman of Independence, Missouri, April 12 to May 18, 1958

Adams, Henry, "Thomas Hart Benton's Fall from Grace", Missouri Historical Review, 109 (April 2015), 145-57. Heavily illustrated.

Adams, Henry; Henry Art Gallery (1990), Thomas Hart Benton: Drawing from Life, Abbeville Press, ISBN 978-1-55859-011-3

Adams, Henry (2009), Tom and Jack: The Intertwined Lives of Thomas Hart Benton and Jackson Pollock, Bloomsbury Publishing USA, ISBN 978-1-59691-420-9

Baigell, Thomas (1975), Thomas Hart Benton, H. N. Abrams, ISBN 978-0-8109-2055-2

Berardi, Marianne; Adams, Henry (1993), Under the Influence: The Students of Thomas Hart Benton, Albrecht-Kemper Museum of Art, ISBN 978-0-9615372-2-7

Foster, Kathy A.; Brewer, Nanette Esseck; Contompasis, Margaret (2001), Thomas Hart Benton and the Indiana Murals, Indiana University Press, ISBN 978-0-253-33760-3

Low, Sam (July 2004). "It freed his heart". Martha's Vineyard Magazine. pp. 45-51, 92. It wasn't until Thomas Hart Benton came to the island in 1920 that he found himself, and the painting style for which he would become famous.

Wien, Jake Milgram, "The Gold Dust Twins: Thomas Hart Benton, Walt Disney, and the Mining of Frontier Mythology". The Magazine Antiques, May/June 2015

Wolff, Justin (2012), Thomas Hart Benton: A Life, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, ISBN 978-0-374-19987-6

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Thomas Hart Benton (painter) - Wikipedia

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Thomas Hart Benton (April 15, 1889 - January 19, 1975) was an American painter, muralist, and printmaker. Along with Grant Wood and John Steuart Curry, he was at the forefront of the Regionalist art movement. The fluid, sculpted figures in his paintings showed everyday people in scenes of life in the United States.

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Summary of Thomas Hart Benton

Thomas Hart Benton was one of America's most popular and heavily patronized modern artists during the decades leading up to World War II, and his murals were especially acclaimed. Along with Grant Wood and John Steuart Curry, Benton gained artistic fame as a Regionalist painter, depicting the people and culture of the American Midwest, in particular his native state of Missouri. While his subjects were primarily based in America's heartland, he lived in New York City for twenty years. Considered by many to be reactionary due to his outspoken and inflammatory diatribes against the art world, Benton, a populist, did in fact boldly use his art to protest the KKK, lynching, and fascism during the 1930s and 1940s. Benton was also an admired teacher at New York's Art Students League, offering students grounding in European art history, as well as an awareness of European modernism. The advent of Abstract Expressionism has all but eclipsed Benton's importance in the history of modern art.

Accomplishments

Benton's main contribution to 20th-century American art might be his thematic emphasis on images of ordinary people and common lore. His expressive realism stands out for its exaggerated curvilinear forms and shapes, and bold use of key colors. By shifting attention away from New York and towards the Midwest, Benton expanded both the scope of possible artistic subject matter, and the potential public for American art.

In his paintings and prints, Benton was devoted to the evocations of sound and music as a method of communication. His interest in sound, often vernacular songs and instruments, as well as stump-speeches and dialogue, can be seen as relating back to his family's history in Missouri politics, where one often spoke of the voice of the people; Benton sought to keep this popular voice alive in his artwork. The artist, a self-taught and often performing harmonica player, was also a collector, cataloguer, transcriber, and distributor of popular music.

By the mid-1940s, Benton became infamous for his outlandish claims against art critics and museums, at one point going on a homophobic rant. With his strong ego and stubbornness, Benton became a rather isolated persona-non-grata, even amongst his own field.

Jackson Pollock was Benton's most ardent follower in the 1930s and his early work bears a strong similarity to that of his teacher in terms of style and subject matter. Rather than a complete break from Benton, Pollock's move towards pure abstraction is best seen as an aesthetic shift. The shift from Regionalism to Abstract Expressionism can also be read in relation to a broader cultural and political shift from New Deal reformist politics, to the Cold War post-atomic age.

Important Art by Thomas Hart Benton

Self-Portrait with Rita

Painted in Martha's Vineyard, in this work Benton renounces his earlier experimentation in cubist-inspired abstractions. Standing bare chest alongside his scantily clad wife, Rita, Benton's self-portrait is among the most startling figure subjects of the early 1920s. Here, Benton classicized his own musculature, stressed the highly physical modern male body. The image of Rita conveys Benton's solid knowledge of 16 th-century Italian art.

Oil on canvas - National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution, Washington DC

City Building (Part of American Today Mural)

Commissioned by New York City's innovative and progressive New School for Social Research, Benton's America Today murals joyfully celebrate an America before the full impact of the Great Depression had been realized. Here, a multi-racial labor force - this in itself is modern and utopian image because of heavily segregated labor in America - busily build the city. Emphasis is placed on the producer, rather than on material consumption. Benton pictures high skyscrapers, which were markers of the new modern city, urbanism, and industrialism. The presence of a ship recalls Benton's earlier work for the US Navy, and reminds us of New York's prominence as a port city. Benton applied wood molding to the canvas to separate one vignette from the other, which gives a modern, cinematic quality to the overall composition. (Benton had earlier worked in the film industry as well.) His rapid compositional shifts in depth between the foreground and deep background recall cinematic effects. In addition to Benton's murals, the New School also commissioned the great Mexican muralist José Clemente Orozco to paint a suite of frescoes which complement Benton's tribute to the national by focusing on the international. Standing in front of this monumental and brightly colored image, one senses the city humming and pulsating with new energy.

Distemper, egg tempera, and oil glaze on linen - The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York City, NY

The Ballad of the Jealous Lover of Lone Green Valley

The work illustrates an old Ozark folk song of the same name in which a man stabs his wife on account of her supposed infidelity, only to find out later that his suspicion was unfounded. This work is typical of Benton's devotion to sound and music-making in his painting career. Elements of Synchromism - the musical characteristics of color - are evident such as the radiant layered halo connecting the man and wife in the background, which suggests music resonating. Early works by Pollock echo the undulating forms and use of space evident here in his teacher's painting, and in fact, Pollock who was close to Benton and his family, modeled for the harmonica player in the foreground.

Egg tempera and oil on canvas - Spencer Museum of Art, University of Kansas

Frankie and Johnny, from The Social History of Missouri Murals

Based upon a popular folk song that Benton felt was representative of Missouri lore and mythology, the tale of Frankie and Johnny might have in fact concerned an incident. Benton freezes the drama and its actors in mid-action as the gun at center fires a bullet. Benton's rhythmic composition is evident in the undulating line made up of the six figures. All the figures and action are heightened and exaggerated as if in a Baroque manner. The eye travels the length of the six characters in a curvilinear line typical of Benton's dynamic compositions and figures. Benton long depicted racial and ethnic minorities within his works, but at times was accused of creating racially stereotypical facial features. The bright note of red at center brings attention to this pivotal figure that creates the tumultuous action within the canvas.

Egg tempera on canvas

Susanna and the Elders

"Lewd, immoral, obscene...the lowest expression of pure filth"-- wrote one critic in condemnation of Benton's interpretation of Susanna and the Elders. The work demonstrates the difficulties of painting religious imagery and Biblical scenes with a contemporary vocabulary. Based on the religious parable from the Book of Daniel, Benton recasts the tale within rural America. Here, Susanna is shown bathing, unaware of two elderly, lecherous men who spy on her. The pair will demand that Susanna has sex with them; least they spread salacious rumors about her. In this scene, the men confer on their plan to blackmail the young Hebrew maiden. Benton's frank and realistic treatment of the Susanna's body, rather than an idealized and sanitized version, breaks from the long tradition of classicizing the female body dating back to antiquities, and would have been radical and shocking to audiences at the time.

Egg tempera and oil on canvas - California Palace of the Legion of Honor, San Francisco, CA

The Sowers: from The Year of Peril: A Series of War Paintings

In the wake of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Benton decided to paint large-scale propagandistic paintings to awaken Americans to the evils of fascism. In only six weeks, Benton produced eight works in a series he called The Year of Peril. His plan was to hang the works at the busy crossroads of Kansas City's Union Station wanting to jolt the travelers and commuters who passed by into awareness. His over-riding objective was to portray America's enemies as genocidal maniacs. Based on Millet's life-affirming and famous, The Sower, which shows a peasant sowing the fields, here, a craven giant with Asiatic facial features, tills a field of death as he casually tosses skulls onto a bloodied landscape.

Oil and tempera on canvas mounted on panel - State Historical Society of Missouri, Colombia, Missouri

The Sources of Country Music

In 1973, when Benton was eighty-four, he was convinced to come out of retirement to paint a mural for the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum in Nashville, which turned out to be his final work. In this painting, Benton celebrates American traditions including vernacular music. Benton himself was an amateur musician. Among the vignettes depicted are a barn dance, women singing church music, a white woman with a dulcimer who sing Appalachian ballads, an African American man strums the banjo. Stylistically and thematically, Benton's last work directly connects back to his Regionalist works of the 1930s when he was likened as America's most beloved painter. However, despite the stylistic innovations made by some of his former students such as Pollock, and the many artistic movements that followed, Benton remained unchanged and thus, outside of the progressive art world. Benton's work is a conservative, populist vision of painting American life.

Acrylic on Canvas - The Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum, Nashville, TN

Biography of Thomas Hart Benton

Childhood

Thomas Hart Benton was born in Neosho, Missouri in 1889 into a family of prominent politicians committed to political republicanism and populism. His father was a congressman, and his great-uncle, for whom he was named, was an important US senator. Benton later recalled that, "Politics was the core of our family life." Through his art, in particular his murals, Benton sought to continue his family's support of 19 th-century political republicanism, upholding the producers of society, and scornful of big business and big banks. Expected to follow his family's well-trodden path, instead, with his mother's encouragement he chose to study art. Starting at age seventeen he worked as a cartoonist for a local paper. Escaping the confines of small town life and rebelling against the stifling expectations of his family, Benton moved to Chicago where he enrolled in the Art Institute of Chicago in 1907, studying under Frederick Oswald.

Early Training

After two years at the Art Institute, in 1909, he chose the familiar path traveled by numerous other American artists and relocated to Paris to study at the famed Academie Julian. While in Paris, he became acquainted with the great Mexican artist, Diego Rivera, and also, was greatly inspired by the American painter Stanton Macdonald-Wright, the founder of Synchromism. Benton settled in New York City upon his return in 1913, the same year as the famed Armory Show. In the 1910s, he experimented with several modern styles including Synchromism, which stressed the musical qualities of color. He was greatly influenced by the compositional strategies of Cézanne. A fire that broke out in his studio destroyed much of his early experimentations and work.

Mature Period

During World War I, Benton was stationed in Norfolk, Virginia, where he served as an architectural draftsman and painted camouflage for the Navy. In his free time he read American history and sketched local scenes of shipyard life. The Navy's requirement for artistic realism and documentation strongly impacted on his later style. Up until this time he had struggled to find an artistic identity. It was his turn to depictions of everyday life of American and its people in a representational style that announced Benton's emergence as a mature artist. Because of his interest in American history and his family's deep roots in Missouri, Benton soon chose the American Historical Epic as a theme; his elongated figuration showing the influence of El Greco.

Upon his return to New York in the early 1920s, he unabashedly announced himself to be an "enemy of modernism," while simultaneously incorporating modernist aesthetics into his work. Like many artists during the 1920s and 30s, Benton was involved with the political left and leftist artists' groups such as the John Reed Club. His early work as a muralist capitulated Benton into the public eye. In 1930, New York's famed New School of Social Research commissioned Benton to paint a suite of murals entitled "American Today"; these now hang at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Along with Grant Wood and John Steuart Curry, Benton was heralded as one of the leaders of the Regionalist movement. The Regionalists were championed by Thomas Craven, a nativist and rabid anti-Semite, whose own bigoted views worked against the Regionalists. Despite his popularity, some critics downplayed Benton's artistic talents, disapproving of his allegedly provincial aesthetics and subject matter and his unabashed rejection of abstraction.

In 1925 the New York Art Students League hired Benton as an instructor, a post he held for ten years. While there, he taught some of the early practitioners of Abstract Expressionism. Among his students was Jackson Pollock, who stayed in contact with Benton for many years despite their aesthetic differences. Benton schooled Pollock in the rudiments of drawing and also, about the importance of the Old Masters. Benton expansive murals, along with those of José Clemente Orozco, may have influenced the large scale of Pollock's later drip paintings. The undulating rhythm within Pollock's early abstract works, emanating from a central vortex, relates back to lessons taught by Benton.

The 1930s proved fruitful for Benton. In 1932 he completed the Arts of Life in America murals for the Whitney Museum of American Art's library (now at the New Britain Museum of American Art, Connecticut), and in 1933 he completed a series of twenty-two mural panels titled the Cultural and Industrial History of Indiana, for the Century of Progress Exhibition in Chicago; these are now housed at the University of Indiana, Bloomington. In one panel, the artist defiantly portrayed the KKK's prominence in Indiana, which drew harsh criticism aimed at Benton. Attesting to his widespread popularity, Benton was featured on the cover of the December 24, 1934 issue of Time magazine. A year later, Benton-then at the height of his fame, took the opportunity to write an article in which he spuriously denounced the New York critics who had previously spurned him. That same year Benton abandoned New York in favor of a teaching position at the Kansas City Art Institute, marking his return to the Midwest.

During the late 1930s Benton completed numerous murals and individual canvases for various institutions across the country. Unfortunately, by the close of World War II, interest in Regionalism had waned and Benton could no longer lay claim to being one of America's vanguard artists. Abstract Expressionism was taking hold as the new force in the American art world.

Late Years and Death

Perhaps in reaction to his diminished spotlight, Benton was quite brash and vocal in his negative assessments of museums and their staffs, which only served to further ostracize him from the New York art world. Benton's creative output, however, was not to be stifled. He produced numerous works during the last decades of his life; only now his subject matter had shifted from large, epic narrative works, to simple landscapes and rural scenes. Benton still received commissions during his eighties. He died at the age of eighty-six in Kansas City, Missouri where he lived. His wife, Rita, died ten days later.

The Legacy of Thomas Hart Benton

Benton was one of the first American artists to combine modern aesthetic principles with long held academic constructs. Working as a Regionalist, he embraced the Midwest and its people as currency for his art work. His mural commissions predate the start of the New Deal Arts Program, and so, were influential to nascent muralists who likewise looked to the American scene and its people. Benton never worked for the federal projects thanks to his many mural commissions, and for his numerous illustrations for industry, publishing, and advertisements.

Often Benton is reduced to the role of "merely" being Jackson Pollock's teacher and the shift between them explained as generational progress. However, while Pollock claimed in his Oedipal battle with Benton that the elder artist served just as a force to rebel against, Pollock's own works show compositional similarities with those by Benton. Benton's characteristic machismo and hard-drinking was echoed later by Pollock, and several other male artists in the New York School of Abstract Expressionists. We would be hard-pressed to suggest a direct lineage of artists who followed in Benton's steps. Instead, we can consider Benton as having validated and encouraged the art of realism and representation.

Influences and Connections

Useful Resources on Thomas Hart Benton

The books and articles below constitute a bibliography of the sources used in the writing of this page. These also suggest some accessible resources for further research, especially ones that can be found and purchased via the internet.

Similar Art

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Thomas Hart Benton Paintings, Bio, Ideas

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Thomas Hart Benton was a Regionalist painter, depicting the people and culture of the American Midwest. He was also an admired teacher.

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Rockwell Video Minute: Triple Self-Portrait

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Andy Warhol (; born Andrew Warhola Jr.; August 6, 1928 - February 22, 1987) was an American visual artist, film director, producer, and leading figure in the pop art movement. His works explore the relationship between artistic expression, advertising, and celebrity culture that flourished by the 1960s, and span a variety of media, including painting, silkscreening, photography, film, and sculpture. Some of his best-known works include the silkscreen paintings Campbell's Soup Cans (1962) and Marilyn Diptych (1962), the experimental films (1964) and Chelsea Girls (1966), and the multimedia events known as the Exploding Plastic Inevitable (1966-67).

Born and raised in Pittsburgh, Warhol initially pursued a successful career as a commercial illustrator. After exhibiting his work in several galleries in the late 1950s, he began to receive recognition as an influential and controversial artist. His New York studio, The Factory, became a well-known gathering place that brought together distinguished intellectuals, drag queens, playwrights, Bohemian street people, Hollywood celebrities, and wealthy patrons. He promoted a collection of personalities known as Warhol superstars, and is credited with inspiring the widely used expression " 15 minutes of fame".

In the late 1960s, he managed and produced the experimental rock band The Velvet Underground and founded magazine. He authored numerous books, including The Philosophy of Andy Warhol and Popism: The Warhol Sixties. He lived openly as a gay man before the gay liberation movement. In June 1968, he was almost killed by radical feminist Valerie Solanas, who shot him inside his studio. After gallbladder surgery, Warhol died of cardiac arrhythmia in February 1987 at the age of 58 in New York City.

Warhol has been the subject of numerous retrospective exhibitions, books, and feature and documentary films. The Andy Warhol Museum in his native city of Pittsburgh, which holds an extensive permanent collection of art and archives, is the largest museum in the United States dedicated to a single artist. Warhol has been described as the " bellwether of the art market". Many of his creations are very collectible and highly valuable. His works include some of the most expensive paintings ever sold. In 2013, a 1963 serigraph titled Silver Car Crash (Double Disaster) sold for $105 million. In 2022, Shot Sage Blue Marilyn (1964) sold for $195 million, which is the most expensive work of art sold at auction by an American artist.

Early life and beginnings (1928-1949)

Warhol's childhood home. 3252 Dawson Street, South Oakland neighborhood of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania

Warhol was born on August 6, 1928, in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. He was the fourth child of Ondrej Warhola (Americanized as Andrew Warhola Sr.; 1889-1942) and Julia ( née Zavacká, 1891-1972), whose first child was born in their homeland of Austria-Hungary and died before their move to the US.

An infant Warhol (right) with his mother, Julia, and his brother, John (left); dated c. 1930.

His parents were working-class Lemko emigrants from Mikó, Austria-Hungary (now called Miková, located in today's northeastern Slovakia). Warhol's father emigrated to the United States in 1914, and his mother joined him in 1921, after the death of Warhol's grandparents. Warhol's father worked in a coal mine. The family lived at 55 Beelen Street and later at 3252 Dawson Street in the Oakland neighborhood of Pittsburgh. The family was Ruthenian Catholic and attended St. John Chrysostom Byzantine Catholic Church. Warhol had two elder brothers-Pavol (Paul), the eldest, was born before the family emigrated; John was born in Pittsburgh. Pavol's son, James Warhola, became a successful children's book illustrator.

In third grade, Warhol had Sydenham's chorea (also known as St. Vitus' Dance), the nervous system disease that causes involuntary movements of the extremities, which is believed to be a complication of scarlet fever which causes skin pigmentation blotchiness. At times when he was confined to bed, he drew, listened to the radio and collected pictures of movie stars around his bed. Warhol later described this period as very important in the development of his personality, skill-set and preferences. When Warhol was 13, his father died in an accident.

As a teenager, Warhol graduated from Schenley High School in 1945, and also won a Scholastic Art and Writing Award. After graduating from high school, his intentions were to study art education at the University of Pittsburgh in the hope of becoming an art teacher, but his plans changed and he enrolled in the Carnegie Institute of Technology, now Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, where he studied commercial art. During his time there, Warhol joined the campus Modern Dance Club and Beaux Arts Society. He also served as art director of the student art magazine, Cano, illustrating a cover in 1948 and a full-page interior illustration in 1949. These are believed to be his first two published artworks. Warhol earned a Bachelor of Fine Arts in pictorial design in 1949. Later that year, he moved to New York City and began a career in magazine illustration and advertising.

Warhol's early career was dedicated to commercial and advertising art, where his first commission had been to draw shoes for magazine in the late 1940s. In the 1950s, Warhol worked as a designer for shoe manufacturer Israel Miller. While working in the shoe industry, Warhol developed his "blotted line" technique, applying ink to paper and then blotting the ink while still wet, which was akin to a printmaking process on the most rudimentary scale. His use of tracing paper and ink allowed him to repeat the basic image and also to create endless variations on the theme. American photographer John Coplans recalled that "nobody drew shoes the way Andy did. He somehow gave each shoe a temperament of its own, a sort of sly, Toulouse-Lautrec kind of sophistication, but the shape and the style came through accurately and the buckle was always in the right place. The kids in the apartment [which Andy shared in New York - note by Coplans] noticed that the vamps on Andy's shoe drawings kept getting longer and longer but [Israel] Miller didn't mind. Miller loved them."

In 1952, Warhol had his first solo show at the Hugo Gallery in New York, and although that show was not well received, by 1956, he was included in his first group exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art, New York. Warhol's "whimsical" ink drawings of shoe advertisements figured in some of his earliest showings at the Bodley Gallery in New York in 1957.

Warhol habitually used the expedient of tracing photographs projected with an epidiascope. Using prints by Edward Wallowitch, his "first boyfriend", the photographs would undergo a subtle transformation during Warhol's often cursory tracing of contours and hatching of shadows. Warhol used Wallowitch's photograph Young Man Smoking a Cigarette ( c. 1956), for a 1958 design for a book cover he submitted to Simon and Schuster for the Walter Ross pulp novel The Immortal, and later used others for his series of paintings.

With the rapid expansion of the record industry, RCA Records hired Warhol, along with another freelance artist, Sid Maurer, to design album covers and promotional materials.

Warhol (left) and Tennessee Williams (right) talking on the SS France, 1967.

Warhol was an early adopter of the silk screen printmaking process as a technique for making paintings. In 1961 and 1962, Warhol resided at a 1342 Lexington Avenue apartment/art studio. In 1962, Warhol was taught silk screen printmaking techniques by Max Arthur Cohn at his graphic arts business in Manhattan. In his book Popism: The Warhol Sixties, Warhol writes: "When you do something exactly wrong, you always turn up something."

In May 1962, Warhol was featured in an article in magazine with his painting Big Campbell's Soup Can with Can Opener (Vegetable) (1962), which initiated his most sustained motif, the Campbell's soup can. That painting became Warhol's first to be shown in a museum when it was exhibited at the Wadsworth Atheneum in Hartford in July 1962. On July 9, 1962, Warhol's exhibition opened at the Ferus Gallery in Los Angeles with Campbell's Soup Cans, marking his West Coast debut of pop art.

In November 1962, Warhol had an exhibition at Eleanor Ward's Stable Gallery in New York. The exhibit included the works Gold Marilyn, eight of the classic "Marilyn" series also named " Flavor Marilyns", Marilyn Diptych, 100 Soup Cans, 100 Coke Bottles, and 100 Dollar Bills. Gold Marilyn, was bought by the architect Philip Johnson and donated to the Museum of Modern Art. At the exhibit, Warhol met poet John Giorno, who would star in Warhol's first film, (1964).

Campbell's Soup I (1968)

In December 1962, New York City's Museum of Modern Art hosted a symposium on pop art, during which artists such as Warhol were attacked for "capitulating" to consumerism. Critics were appalled by Warhol's open acceptance of market culture, which set the tone for his reception.

In early 1963, Warhol rented his first studio, an old firehouse at 159 East 87th Street. At this studio, he created his Elvis series, which included Eight Elvises (1963) and Triple Elvis (1963). These portraits along with a series of Elizabeth Taylor portraits were shown at his second exhibition at the Ferus Gallery in Los Angeles. Later that year, Warhol relocated his studio to East 47th Street, which would turn into The Factory. The Factory became a popular gathering spot for a wide range of artists, writers, musicians, and underground celebrities.

Warhol had his second exhibition at the Stable Gallery in the spring of 1964, which featured sculptures of commercial boxes stacked and scattered throughout the space to resemble a warehouse. For the exhibition, Warhol custom ordered wooden boxes and silkscreened graphics onto them. The sculptures-, Del Monte Peach Box, Heinz Tomato Ketchup Box, Kellogg's Cornflakes Box, Campbell's Tomato Juice Box, and Mott's Apple Juice Box-sold for $200 to $400 depending on the size of the box.

A pivotal event was The American Supermarket exhibition at Paul Bianchini's Upper East Side gallery in the fall of 1964. The show was presented as a typical small supermarket environment, except that everything in it-from the produce, canned goods, meat, posters on the wall, etc.-was created by prominent pop artists of the time, among them sculptor Claes Oldenburg, Mary Inman and Bob Watts. Warhol designed a $12 paper shopping bag-plain white with a red Campbell's soup can. His painting of a can of a Campbell's soup cost $1,500 while each autographed can sold for 3 for $18, $6.50 each. The exhibit was one of the first mass events that directly confronted the general public with both pop art and the perennial question of what art is.

In 1967 Warhol established Factory Additions for his printmaking and publishing enterprise.

Warhol in 1973, photographed by Jack Mitchell

As an advertisement illustrator in the 1950s, Warhol used assistants to increase his productivity. Collaboration would remain a defining (and controversial) aspect of his working methods throughout his career; this was particularly true in the 1960s. One of the most important collaborators during this period was Gerard Malanga. Malanga assisted the artist with the production of silkscreens, films, sculpture, and other works at "The Factory", Warhol's aluminum foil-and-silver-paint-lined studio on 47th Street (later moved to Broadway). Other members of Warhol's Factory crowd included Freddie Herko, Ondine, Ronald Tavel, Mary Woronov, Billy Name, and Brigid Berlin (from whom he apparently got the idea to tape-record his phone conversations).

During the 1960s, Warhol also groomed a retinue of bohemian and counterculture eccentrics upon whom he bestowed the designation " superstars", including Nico, Joe Dallesandro, Edie Sedgwick, Viva, Ultra Violet, Holly Woodlawn, Jackie Curtis, and Candy Darling. These people all participated in the Factory films, and some-like Berlin-remained friends with Warhol until his death. Important figures in the New York underground art/cinema world, such as writer John Giorno and film-maker Jack Smith, also appear in Warhol films (many premiering at the New Andy Warhol Garrick Theatre and 55th Street Playhouse) of the 1960s, revealing Warhol's connections to a diverse range of artistic scenes during this time. Less well known was his support and collaboration with several teenagers during this era, who would achieve prominence later in life including writer David Dalton, photographer Stephen Shore and artist Bibbe Hansen (mother of pop musician Beck).

1968 assassination attempt

On June 3, 1968, radical feminist writer Valerie Solanas shot Warhol and Mario Amaya, art critic and curator, at Warhol's studio, The Factory. Before the shooting, Solanas had been a marginal figure in the Factory scene. She authored the SCUM Manifesto, a separatist feminist tract that advocated the elimination of men; and appeared in the 1968 Warhol film . Earlier on the day of the attack, Solanas had been turned away from the Factory after asking for the return of a script she had given to Warhol. The script had apparently been misplaced.

Amaya received only minor injuries and was released from the hospital later the same day. Warhol was seriously wounded by the attack and barely survived; he was released after nearly two months. He had physical effects for the rest of his life, including being required to wear a surgical corset. The shooting had a profound effect on Warhol's life and art.

Solanas was arrested the day after the assault, after turning herself in to police. By way of explanation, she said that Warhol "had too much control over my life". She was subsequently diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia and eventually sentenced to three years under the control of the Department of Corrections. After the shooting, the Factory scene heavily increased its security, and for many the "Factory 60s" ended ("The superstars from the old Factory days didn't come around to the new Factory much").

Warhol had this to say about the attack:

Before I was shot, I always thought that I was more half-there than all-there-I always suspected that I was watching TV instead of living life. People sometimes say that the way things happen in movies is unreal, but actually it's the way things happen in life that's unreal. The movies make emotions look so strong and real, whereas when things really do happen to you, it's like watching television-you don't feel anything. Right when I was being shot and ever since, I knew that I was watching television. The channels switch, but it's all television.

In 1969, Warhol and British journalist John Wilcock founded magazine.

President Jimmy Carter and Warhol in 1977

In 1970, screens and film matrixes that had been used to produce original Warhol works in the 1960s were taken to Europe for the production of Warhol screenprints under the name "Sunday B Morning". Warhol signed and numbered one edition of 250 before subsequent unauthorized unsigned versions were produced. The unauthorized works were the result of a falling out between Warhol and some of his New York City studio employees who went to Brussels where they produced work stamped with "Sunday B Morning" and "Add Your Own Signature Here". Since the works began as a collaboration, Warhol facilitated exact duplication by providing the photo negatives and precise color codes. Some of the unauthorized productions bore the markings "This is not by me, Andy Warhol". The most famous unauthorized reproductions are 1967 Marilyn Monroe portfolio screenprints. These "Sunday B Morning" Marilyn Monroe prints were among those still under production as of 2013. Art galleries and dealers also market Sunday B Morning reprint versions of several other screenprint works including Flowers, Campbell's Soup I, Campbell's Soup Cans II,Gold Marilyn Monroe, Mao and Dollare bill prints. Although the original Sunday B Morning versions had black stamps on the back, by the 1980s they switched to blue.

Warhol had a retrospective exhibition at the Whitney Museum of American Art in 1971. His famous portrait of Chinese Communist leader Mao Zedong was created in 1973. In 1975, he published The Philosophy of Andy Warhol (1975). An idea expressed in the book: "Making money is art, and working is art and good business is the best art."

Compared to the success and scandal of Warhol's work in the 1960s, the 1970s were a much quieter decade, as he became more entrepreneurial. He socialized at various nightspots in New York City, including Max's Kansas City and, later in the 1970s, Studio 54.[unreliable source? ] He was generally regarded as quiet, shy, and a meticulous observer. Art critic Robert Hughes called him "the white mole of Union Square". In 1977, Warhol was commissioned by art collector Richard Weisman to create , ten portraits consisting of the leading athletes of the day.

According to Bob Colacello, Warhol devoted much of his time to rounding up new, rich patrons for portrait commissions-including Shah of Iran Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, his wife Empress Farah Pahlavi, his sister Princess Ashraf Pahlavi, Mick Jagger, Liza Minnelli, John Lennon, Diana Ross, and Brigitte Bardot. In 1979, reviewers disliked his exhibits of portraits of 1970s personalities and celebrities, calling them superficial, facile and commercial, with no depth or indication of the significance of the subjects. In 1979, Warhol and his longtime friend Stuart Pivar founded the New York Academy of Art.

Warhol had a re-emergence of critical and financial success in the 1980s, partially due to his affiliation and friendships with a number of prolific younger artists, who were dominating the " bull market" of 1980s New York art: Jean-Michel Basquiat, Julian Schnabel, David Salle and other so-called Neo-Expressionists, as well as members of the Transavantgarde movement in Europe, including Francesco Clemente and Enzo Cucchi. Warhol also earned street credibility and graffiti artist Fab Five Freddy paid homage to Warhol by painting an entire train with Campbell soup cans.

Warhol was also being criticized for becoming merely a "business artist". Critics panned his 1980 exhibition Ten Portraits of Jews of the Twentieth Century at the Jewish Museum in Manhattan, which Warhol-who was uninterested in Judaism and Jews-had described in his diary as "They're going to sell." In hindsight, however, some critics have come to view Warhol's superficiality and commerciality as "the most brilliant mirror of our times", contending that "Warhol had captured something irresistible about the zeitgeist of American culture in the 1970s."

In 1981, Warhol worked on a project with Peter Sellars and Lewis Allen that would create a traveling stage show called, A No Man Show, with a life-sized animatronic robot in the exact image of Warhol. The Andy Warhol Robot would then be able to read Warhol's diaries as a theatrical production. The play would be based on Warhol's books The Philosophy of Andy Warhol and Exposures. Warhol was quoted as saying, "I'd like to be a machine, wouldn't you?"

Warhol also had an appreciation for intense Hollywood glamour. He once said: "I love Los Angeles. I love Hollywood. They're so beautiful. Everything's plastic, but I love plastic. I want to be plastic." Warhol occasionally walked the fashion runways and did product endorsements, represented by Zoli Agency and later Ford Models.

Before the 1984 Sarajevo Winter Olympics, he teamed with 15 other artists, including David Hockney and Cy Twombly, and contributed a Speed Skater print to the Art and Sport collection. The Speed Skater was used for the official Sarajevo Winter Olympics poster.

In 1984, Vanity Fair commissioned Warhol to produce a portrait of Prince, in order to accompany an article that celebrated the success of Purple Rain and its accompanying movie. Referencing the many celebrity portraits produced by Warhol across his career, Orange Prince (1984) was created using a similar composition to the Marilyn "Flavors" series from 1962, among some of Warhol's first celebrity portraits. Prince is depicted in a pop color palette commonly used by Warhol, in bright orange with highlights of bright green and blue. The facial features and hair are screen-printed in black over the orange background.

In September 1985, Warhol's joint exhibition with Basquiat, Paintings, opened to negative reviews at the Tony Shafrazi Gallery. That month, despite apprehension from Warhol, his silkscreen series Reigning Queens was shown at the Leo Castelli Gallery. In the Andy Warhol Diaries, Warhol wrote, "They were supposed to be only for Europe-nobody here cares about royalty and it'll be another bad review."

In January 1987, Warhol traveled to Milan for the opening of his last exhibition, Last Supper, at the Palazzo delle Stelline. The next month, Warhol and jazz musician Miles Davis modeled for Koshin Satoh's fashion show at the Tunnel in New York City on February 17, 1987.

Warhol's grave at St. John the Baptist Byzantine Catholic Cemetery in Bethel Park, Pennsylvania

Statue of Andy Warhol in Bratislava, Slovakia

Warhol died in Manhattan at 6:32 a.m. on February 22, 1987, at age 58. According to news reports, he had been making a good recovery from gallbladder surgery at New York Hospital before dying in his sleep from a sudden post-operative irregular heartbeat. Prior to his diagnosis and operation, Warhol delayed having his recurring gallbladder problems checked, as he was afraid to enter hospitals and see doctors. His family sued the hospital for inadequate care, saying that the arrhythmia was caused by improper care and water intoxication. The malpractice case was quickly settled out of court; Warhol's family received an undisclosed sum of money.

Shortly before Warhol's death, doctors expected Warhol to survive the surgery, though a re-evaluation of the case about thirty years after his death showed many indications that Warhol's surgery was in fact riskier than originally thought. It was widely reported at the time that Warhol had died of a "routine" surgery, though when considering factors such as his age, a family history of gallbladder problems, his previous gunshot wound, and his medical state in the weeks leading up to the procedure, the potential risk of death following the surgery appeared to have been significant.

Warhol's brothers took his body back to Pittsburgh, where an open-coffin wake was held at the Thomas P. Kunsak Funeral Home. The solid bronze casket had gold-plated rails and white upholstery. Warhol was dressed in a black cashmere suit, a paisley tie, a platinum wig, and sunglasses. He was laid out holding a small prayer book and a red rose. The funeral liturgy was held at the Holy Ghost Byzantine Catholic Church on Pittsburgh's North Side on February 27, 1987. The eulogy was given by Monsignor Peter Tay. Yoko Ono and John Richardson were speakers. The coffin was covered with white roses and asparagus ferns.

After the liturgy, the coffin was driven to St. John the Baptist Byzantine Catholic Cemetery in Bethel Park, a south suburb of Pittsburgh, where Warhol was buried near his parents. The priest said a brief prayer at the graveside and sprinkled holy water on the casket. Before the coffin was lowered, Warhol's close friend and associate publisher of Interview, Paige Powell, dropped a copy of the magazine and a bottle of Beautiful Eau de Parfum by Estée Lauder into the grave. A memorial service was held in Manhattan for Warhol at St. Patrick's Cathedral on April 1, 1987.

By the beginning of the 1960s, pop art was an experimental form that several artists were independently adopting; some of these pioneers, such as Roy Lichtenstein, would later become synonymous with the movement. Warhol, who would become famous as the "Pope of Pop", turned to this new style, where popular subjects could be part of the artist's palette. His early paintings show images taken from cartoons and advertisements, hand-painted with paint drips. Those drips emulated the style of successful abstract expressionists such as Willem de Kooning.

From these beginnings, he developed his later style and subjects. Instead of working on a signature subject matter, as he started out to do, he worked more and more on a signature style, slowly eliminating the handmade from the artistic process. Warhol frequently used silk-screening; his later drawings were traced from slide projections. At the height of his fame as a painter, Warhol had several assistants, including notable artist George Condo, who produced his silk-screen multiples, following his directions to make different versions and variations.

Warhol's first pop art paintings were displayed in April 1961, serving as the backdrop for New York Department Store Bonwit Teller's window display. This was the same stage his Pop Art contemporaries Jasper Johns, James Rosenquist and Robert Rauschenberg had also once graced. It was the gallerist Muriel Latow who came up with the ideas for both the soup cans and Warhol's dollar paintings. On November 23, 1961, Warhol wrote Latow a check for $50 which, according to the 2009 Warhol biography, Pop, The Genius of Warhol, was payment for coming up with the idea of the soup cans as subject matter. For his first major exhibition, Warhol painted his famous cans of Campbell's soup, which he claimed to have had for lunch for most of his life.

It was during the 1960s that Warhol began to make paintings of iconic American objects such as dollar bills, mushroom clouds, electric chairs, Campbell's soup cans, Coca-Cola bottles, celebrities such as Marilyn Monroe, Elvis Presley, and Elizabeth Taylor, as well as newspaper headlines or photographs of police dogs attacking African-American protesters during the Birmingham campaign in the civil rights movement. His work became popular and controversial. Warhol had this to say about Coca-Cola:

What's great about this country is that America started the tradition where the richest consumers buy essentially the same things as the poorest. You can be watching TV and see Coca-Cola, and you know that the President drinks Coca-Cola, Liz Taylor drinks Coca-Cola, and just think, you can drink Coca-Cola, too. A Coke is a Coke and no amount of money can get you a better Coke than the one the bum on the corner is drinking. All the Cokes are the same and all the Cokes are good. Liz Taylor knows it, the President knows it, the bum knows it, and you know it.

In 1962, Warhol created his famous Marilyn series. The Flavor Marilyns were selected from a group of fourteen canvases in the sub-series, each measuring 20" x 16". Some of the canvases were named after various candy Life Savers flavors, including Cherry Marilyn, Lemon Marilyn, and Licorice Marilyn. The others are identified by their background colors.

Warhol produced both comic and serious works; his subject could be a soup can or an electric chair. Warhol used the same techniques-silkscreens, reproduced serially, and often painted with bright colors-whether he painted celebrities, everyday objects, or images of suicide, car crashes, and disasters, as in the 1962-63 Death and Disaster series.

In 1979, Warhol was commissioned to paint a BMW M1 Group 4 racing version for the fourth installment of the BMW Art Car project. He was initially asked to paint a BMW 320i in 1978, but the car model was changed and it didn't qualify for the race that year. Warhol was the first artist to paint directly onto the automobile himself instead of letting technicians transfer a scale-model design to the car. Reportedly, it took him only 23 minutes to paint the entire car. Racecar drivers Hervé Poulain, Manfred Winkelhock and Marcel Mignot drove the car at the 1979 24 Hours of Le Mans.

Some of Warhol's work, as well as his own personality, has been described as being Keatonesque. Warhol has been described as playing dumb to the media. He sometimes refused to explain his work. He has suggested that all one needs to know about his work is "already there 'on the surface'".

His Rorschach inkblots are intended as pop comments on art and what art could be. His cow wallpaper (literally, wallpaper with a cow motif) and his oxidation paintings (canvases prepared with copper paint that was then oxidized with urine) are also noteworthy in this context. Equally noteworthy is the way these works-and their means of production -mirrored the atmosphere at Andy's New York "Factory". Biographer Bob Colacello provides some details on Andy's "piss paintings":

Victor ... was Andy's ghost pisser on the Oxidations. He would come to the Factory to urinate on canvases that had already been primed with copper-based paint by Andy or Ronnie Cutrone, a second ghost pisser much appreciated by Andy, who said that the vitamin B that Ronnie took made a prettier color when the acid in the urine turned the copper green. Did Andy ever use his own urine? My diary shows that when he first began the series, in December 1977, he did, and there were many others: boys who'd come to lunch and drink too much wine, and find it funny or even flattering to be asked to help Andy 'paint'. Andy always had a little extra bounce in his walk as he led them to his studio.

Warhol with Jean-Michel Basquiat, Bruno Bischofberger, and Francesco Clemente in 1984

Warhol's 1982 portrait of Basquiat, Jean-Michel Basquiat, is a silkscreen over an oxidized copper "piss painting". After many years of silkscreen, oxidation, photography, etc., Warhol returned to painting with a brush in hand. In 1983, Warhol began collaborating with Basquiat and Clemente. Warhol and Basquiat created a series of more than 50 large collaborative works between 1984 and 1985. Despite criticism when these were first shown, Warhol called some of them "masterpieces", and they were influential for his later work.

In 1984, Warhol was commissioned by collector and gallerist Alexander Iolas to produce work based on Leonardo da Vinci's The Last Supper for an exhibition at the old refectory of the Palazzo delle Stelline in Milan, opposite from the Santa Maria delle Grazie where Leonardo da Vinci's mural can be seen. Warhol exceeded the demands of the commission and produced nearly 100 variations on the theme, mostly silkscreens and paintings, and among them a collaborative sculpture with Basquiat, the Ten Punching Bags (Last Supper). The Milan exhibition that opened in January 1987 with a set of 22 silk-screens, was the last exhibition for both the artist and the gallerist. The series of The Last Supper was seen by some as "arguably his greatest", but by others as "wishy-washy, religiose" and "spiritless". It is the largest series of religious-themed works by any American artist.

Artist Maurizio Cattelan describes that it is difficult to separate daily encounters from the art of Andy Warhol: "That's probably the greatest thing about Warhol: the way he penetrated and summarized our world, to the point that distinguishing between him and our everyday life is basically impossible, and in any case useless." Warhol was an inspiration towards Cattelan's magazine and photography compilations, such as Permanent Food, Charley, and Toilet Paper.

In the period just before his death, Warhol was working on , a series of paintings for Mercedes-Benz.

"Though he is often associated with printmaking-specifically silkscreen-Warhol was also an incredibly talented illustrator and draughtsman, and drawing was an integral part of his practice throughout his career. His early drawings on paper bare a resemblance to both continuous line and blind contour drawing techniques, giving his work a sense of ease and immediacy. While working primarily within commercial advertisement, he pioneered the blotted line technique, which synthesized graphite drawing on paper with elements of printmaking. Warhol continued his practice of drawing through the last years of his life and career, and the work from this later period exemplifies a long and storied career's worth of honed skill and technique."

The value of Andy Warhol's work has been on an endless upward trajectory since his death in 1987. In 2014, his works accumulated $569 million at auction, which accounted for more than a sixth of the global art market. However, there have been some dips. According to art dealer Dominique Lévy, "The Warhol trade moves something like a seesaw being pulled uphill: it rises and falls, but each new high and low is above the last one." She attributes this to the consistent influx of new collectors intrigued by Warhol. "At different moments, you've had different groups of collectors entering the Warhol market, and that resulted in peaks in demand, then satisfaction and a slow down," before the process repeats another demographic or the next generation.

In 1998, Orange Marilyn (1964), a depiction of Marilyn Monroe, sold for $17.3 million, which at the time set a new record as the highest price paid for a Warhol artwork. In 2007, one of Warhol's 1963 paintings of Elizabeth Taylor, Liz (Colored Liz), which was owned by actor Hugh Grant, sold for $23.7 million at Christie's.

In 2007, Stefan Edlis and Gael Neeson sold Warhol's Turquoise Marilyn (1964) to financier Steven A. Cohen for $80 million. In May 2007, Green Car Crash (1963) sold for $71.1 million and Lemon Marilyn (1962) sold for $28 million at Christie's post-war and contemporary art auction. In 2007, Large Campbell's Soup Can (1964) was sold at a Sotheby's auction to a South American collector for 7.4 million. In November 2009, 200 One Dollar Bills (1962) at Sotheby's for $43.8 million.

In 2008, Eight Elvises (1963) was sold by Annibale Berlingieri for $100 million to a private buyer. The work depicts Elvis Presley in a gunslinger pose. It was first exhibited in 1963 at the Ferus Gallery in Los Angeles. Warhol made 22 versions of the Elvis portraits, 11 of which are held in museums. In May 2012, Double Elvis (Ferus Type) sold at auction at Sotheby's for $37 million. In November 2014, Triple Elvis (Ferus Type) sold for $81.9 million at Christie's.

In May 2010, a purple self-portrait of Warhol from 1986 that was owned by fashion designer Tom Ford sold for $32.6 million at Sotheby's. In November 2010, Men in Her Life (1962), based on Elizabeth Taylor, sold for $63.4 million at Phillips de Pury and (1962) sold for $35.3 million at Sotheby's. In May 2011, Warhol's first self-portrait from 1963 to 1964 sold for $38.4 million and a red self-portrait from 1986 sold for $27.5 million at Christie's. In May 2011, Liz #5 (Early Colored Liz) sold for $26.9 million at Phillips.

In November 2013, Warhol's rarely seen 1963 diptych, Silver Car Crash (Double Disaster), sold at Sotheby's for $105.4 million, a new record for the artist. In November 2013, (1962) sold for $57.3 million at Christie's. In May 2014, White Marilyn (1962) sold for $41 million at Christie's. In November 2014, Four Marlons (1964), which depicts Marlon Brando, sold for $69.6 million at Christie's. In May 2015, Silver Liz (diptych), painted in 1963, sold for $28 million and Colored Mona Lisa (1963) sold for $56.2 million at Christie's. In May 2017, Warhol's 1962 painting Big Campbell's Soup Can With Can Opener (Vegetable) sold for $27.5 million at Christie's. In 2017, billionaire hedge-fund manager Ken Griffin purchased Orange Marilyn privately for around $200 million. In March 2022, Silver Liz (Ferus Type) sold for 2.3 billion yen ($18.9 million) at Shinwa Auction, which set a new record for the highest bid ever at auction in Japan. In May 2022, Shot Sage Blue Marilyn (1964) sold for $195 million at Christie's, becoming the most expensive American artwork sold at auction.

Collectors

Among Warhol's early collectors and influential supporters were Emily and Burton Tremaine. Among the over 15 artworks purchased, Marilyn Diptych (now at Tate Modern, London) and A boy for Meg (now at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, DC), were purchased directly out of Warhol's studio in 1962. One Christmas, Warhol left a small Head of Marilyn Monroe by the Tremaine's door at their New York apartment in gratitude for their support and encouragement.

Exploding Plastic Inevitable' (show) - the Velvet Underground & Nico, 1966, poster

The Souper Dress, 1967, screen-printed paper dress based on Warhol's Campbell's Soup Cans

BMW Group - 4 M1, 1979, painted car

Filmography

Screenshot from the 1964 film Empire

Warhol attended the 1962 premiere of the static composition by La Monte Young called Trio for Strings and subsequently created his famous series of static films. Filmmaker Jonas Mekas, who accompanied Warhol to the Trio premiere, claims Warhol's static films were directly inspired by the performance. Between 1963 and 1968, he made more than 60 films, plus some 500 short black-and-white " screen test" portraits of Factory visitors.

One of his most famous films, Sleep, monitors poet John Giorno sleeping for six hours. The 35-minute film is one continuous shot of the face of DeVeren Bookwalter supposedly receiving oral sex from filmmaker Willard Maas, although the camera never tilts down to see this. Another, (1964), consists of eight hours of footage of the Empire State Building in New York City at dusk. The film consists of a man eating a mushroom for 45 minutes.

Batman Dracula is a 1964 film that was produced and directed by Warhol, without the permission of DC Comics. It was screened only at his art exhibits. A fan of the Batman series, Warhol's movie was an "homage" to the series, and is considered the first appearance of a blatantly campy Batman. The film was until recently thought to have been lost, until scenes from the picture were shown at some length in the 2006 documentary Jack Smith and the Destruction of Atlantis.

Warhol's 1965 film is an adaptation of Anthony Burgess' popular dystopian novel A Clockwork Orange. Others record improvised encounters between Factory regulars such as Brigid Berlin, Viva, Edie Sedgwick, Candy Darling, Holly Woodlawn, Ondine, Nico and Jackie Curtis. The underground artist Jack Smith appears in the film Camp.

His most popular and critically successful film was Chelsea Girls (1966). The film was highly innovative in that it consisted of two 16 mm-films being projected simultaneously, with two different stories being shown in tandem. From the projection booth, the sound would be raised for one film to elucidate that "story" while it was lowered for the other. The multiplication of images evoked Warhol's seminal silk-screen works of the early 1960s.

Warhol was a fan of filmmaker Radley Metzger's film work and commented that Metzger's film, The Lickerish Quartet, was "an outrageously kinky masterpiece". -a film in which Warhol superstar Viva makes love in bed with Louis Waldon, another Warhol superstar-was Warhol's last film as director. The film, a seminal film in the Golden Age of Porn, was, at the time, controversial for its frank approach to a sexual encounter. Blue Movie was publicly screened in New York City in 2005, for the first time in more than 30 years.

In the wake of the 1968 shooting, a reclusive Warhol relinquished his personal involvement in film making. His acolyte and assistant director, Paul Morrissey, took over the film-making chores for the Factory collective, steering Warhol-branded cinema towards more mainstream, narrative-based, B-movie exploitation fare with , , and . All of these films, including the later Andy Warhol's Dracula and Andy Warhol's Frankenstein, were far more mainstream than anything Warhol as a director had attempted. These latter "Warhol" films starred Joe Dallesandro-more of a Morrissey star than a true Warhol superstar.

In the early 1970s, most of the films directed by Warhol were pulled out of circulation by Warhol and the people around him who ran his business. After Warhol's death, the films were slowly restored by the Whitney Museum and are occasionally projected at museums and film festivals. Few of the Warhol-directed films are available on video or DVD.

In the mid-1960s, Warhol adopted the band the Velvet Underground, making them a crucial element of the Exploding Plastic Inevitable multimedia performance art show. Warhol, with Paul Morrissey, acted as the band's manager, introducing them to Nico (who would perform with the band at Warhol's request). While managing The Velvet Underground, Andy would have them dressed in all black to perform in front of movies that he was also presenting. In 1966, he "produced" their first album The Velvet Underground & Nico, as well as providing its album art. His actual participation in the album's production amounted to simply paying for the studio time.

After the band's first album, Warhol and band leader Lou Reed started to disagree more about the direction the band should take, and their artistic friendship ended.[citation needed ] In 1989, after Warhol's death, Reed and John Cale re-united for the first time since 1972 to write, perform, record and release the concept album Songs for Drella, a tribute to Warhol. In October 2019, an audio tape of publicly unknown music by Reed, based on Warhols' 1975 book, "The Philosophy of Andy Warhol: From A to B and Back Again", was reported to have been discovered in an archive at the Andy Warhol Museum in Pittsburgh.

Warhol designed many album covers for various artists starting with the photographic cover of John Wallowitch's debut album, This Is John Wallowitch!!! (1964). He designed the cover art for The Rolling Stones' albums Sticky Fingers (1971) and Love You Live (1977), and the John Cale albums The Academy in Peril (1972) and in 1981. One of Warhol's last works was a portrait of Aretha Franklin for the cover of her 1986 gold album .

In 1984, Warhol co-directed the music video " Hello Again" by the Cars, and he appeared in the video as a bartender. In 1986, Warhol co-directed the music video " Misfit" by Curiosity Killed the Cat and he made a cameo in video.

Books and print

Warhol drawing and signature

Beginning in the early 1950s, Warhol produced several unbound portfolios of his work.

The first of several bound self-published books by Warhol was 25 Cats Name Sam and One Blue Pussy, printed in 1954 by Seymour Berlin on Arches brand watermarked paper using his blotted line technique for the lithographs. The original edition was limited to 190 numbered, hand-colored copies, using Dr. Martin's ink washes. Most of these were given by Warhol as gifts to clients and friends. Copy No. 4, inscribed "Jerry" on the front cover and given to Geraldine Stutz, was used for a facsimile printing in 1987, and the original was auctioned in May 2006 for US$35,000 by Doyle New York.

Other self-published books by Warhol include:

Warhol's book A La Recherche du Shoe Perdu (1955) marked his "transition from commercial to gallery artist". (The title is a play on words by Warhol on the title of French author Marcel Proust's À la recherche du temps perdu.)

After gaining fame, Warhol "wrote" several books that were commercially published:

(1968, ISBN 978-0-8021-3553-7) is a literal transcription-containing spelling errors and phonetically written background noise and mumbling-of audio recordings of Ondine and several of Andy Warhol's friends hanging out at the Factory, talking, going out.[citation needed ]

The Philosophy of Andy Warhol (From A to B & Back Again) (1975, ISBN 978-0-15-671720-5)-according to Pat Hackett's introduction to The Andy Warhol Diaries, Pat Hackett did the transcriptions and text for the book based on daily phone conversations, sometimes (when Warhol was traveling) using audio cassettes that Andy Warhol gave her. Said cassettes contained conversations with Brigid Berlin (also known as Brigid Polk) and former Interview magazine editor Bob Colacello.[citation needed ]

Popism: The Warhol Sixties (1980, ISBN 978-0-15-672960-4), authored by Warhol and Pat Hackett, is a retrospective view of the 1960s and the role of pop art.

The Andy Warhol Diaries (1989, ISBN 978-0-446-39138-2), edited by Pat Hackett, is a diary dictated by Warhol to Hackett in daily phone conversations. Warhol started the diary to keep track of his expenses after being audited, although it soon evolved to include his personal and cultural observations.

Warhol created the fashion magazine Interview that is still published. The loopy title script on the cover is thought to be either his own handwriting or that of his mother, Julia Warhola, who would often do text work for his early commercial pieces.

Other media

Although Andy Warhol is most known for his paintings and films, he authored works in many different media.

Silver Clouds reproduction at the Musée d'Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris, December 2015, Warhol Unlimited Exposition

Drawing: Warhol started his career as a commercial illustrator, producing drawings in "blotted-ink" style for advertisements and magazine articles. Best known of these early works are his drawings of shoes. Some of his personal drawings were self-published in small booklets, such as Yum, Yum, Yum (about food), Ho, Ho, Ho (about Christmas) and Shoes, Shoes, Shoes. His most artistically acclaimed book of drawings is probably A Gold Book, compiled of sensitive drawings of young men. A Gold Book is so named because of the gold leaf that decorates its pages.[197] In April 2012 a sketch of 1930s singer Rudy Vallee claimed to have been drawn by Andy Warhol was found at a Las Vegas garage sale. The image was said to have been drawn when Andy was nine or 10.[198] Various authorities have challenged the image's authenticity.[citation needed ]

Sculpture: Warhol's most famous sculpture is probably his Brillo Boxes, silkscreened ink on wood replicas of the large, branded cardboard boxes used to hold 24 packages of Brillo soap pads. The original Brillo design was by commercial artist James Harvey. Warhol's sculpture was part of a series of "grocery carton" works that also included Heinz ketchup and Campbell's tomato juice cases.[199] Other famous works include the Silver Clouds-helium filled, silver mylar, pillow-shaped balloons. A Silver Cloud was included in the traveling exhibition Air Art (1968-1969) curated by Willoughby Sharp. Clouds was also adapted by Warhol for avant-garde choreographer Merce Cunningham's dance piece RainForest (1968).[200]

Audio: At one point Warhol carried a portable recorder with him wherever he went, taping everything everybody said and did. He referred to this device as his "wife". Some of these tapes were the basis for his literary work. Another audio-work of Warhol's was his Invisible Sculpture, a presentation in which burglar alarms would go off when entering the room. Warhol's cooperation with the musicians of The Velvet Underground was driven by an expressed desire to become a music producer.[citation needed ]

Time Capsules: In 1973, Warhol began saving ephemera from his daily life-correspondence, newspapers, souvenirs, childhood objects, even used plane tickets and food-which was sealed in plain cardboard boxes dubbed Time Capsules. By the time of his death, the collection grew to include 600, individually dated "capsules". The boxes are now housed at the Andy Warhol Museum.[201]

Television: Andy Warhol dreamed of a television special about a favorite subject of his - Nothing - that he would call The Nothing Special. Later in his career he did create two cable television shows, Andy Warhol's TV in 1982 and Andy Warhol's Fifteen Minutes (based on his famous "fifteen minutes of fame" quotation) for MTV in 1986. Besides his own shows he regularly made guest appearances on other programs, including The Love Boat wherein a Midwestern wife (Marion Ross) fears Andy Warhol will reveal to her husband (Tom Bosley, who starred alongside Ross in sitcom Happy Days) her secret past as a Warhol superstar named Marina del Rey. Warhol also produced a TV commercial for Schrafft's Restaurants in New York City, for an ice cream dessert appropriately titled the "Underground Sundae".[202]

Fashion: Warhol is quoted for having said: "I'd rather buy a dress and put it up on the wall, than put a painting, wouldn't you?"[203] One of his best-known superstars, Edie Sedgwick, aspired to be a fashion designer, and his good friend Halston was a famous one. Warhol's work in fashion includes silkscreened dresses, a short sub-career as a catwalk-model and books on fashion as well as paintings with fashion (shoes) as a subject.[citation needed ] Warhol himself has been described as a modern dandy, whose authority "rested more on presence than on words".[204]

Performance Art: Warhol and his friends staged theatrical multimedia happenings at parties and public venues, combining music, film, slide projections and even Gerard Malanga in an S&M outfit cracking a whip. The Exploding Plastic Inevitable in 1966 was the culmination of this area of his work.[205]

Theater: Warhol's play Andy Warhol's Pork opened on May 5, 1971, at LaMama theater in New York for a two-week run and was brought to the Roundhouse in London for a longer run in August 1971. Pork was based on tape-recorded conversations between Brigid Berlin and Andy during which Brigid would play for Andy tapes she had made of phone conversations between herself and her mother, socialite Honey Berlin. The play featured Jayne County as "Vulva" and Cherry Vanilla as "Amanda Pork".[206] In 1974, Andy Warhol also produced the stage musical Man on the Moon, which was written by John Phillips of the Mamas and the Papas.

Photograph of Debbie Harry by Andy Warhol, taken in 1980 in the Factory on the day of the photo-shoot for her silkscreen portraits

Photography: To produce his silkscreens, Warhol made photographs or had them made by his friends and assistants. These pictures were mostly taken with a specific model of Polaroid camera, The Big Shot, that Polaroid kept in production especially for Warhol. This photographic approach to painting and his snapshot method of taking pictures has had a great effect on artistic photography. Warhol was an accomplished photographer, and took an enormous number of photographs of Factory visitors, friends, acquired by Stanford University.[207][208]

Music: In 1963, Warhol founded The Druds, a short-lived avant-garde noise music band that featured prominent members of the New York proto-conceptual art and minimal art community.[209]

Computer: Warhol used Amiga computers to generate digital art, including You Are the One, which he helped design and build with Amiga, Inc. He also displayed the difference between slow fill and fast fill on live TV with Debbie Harry as a model.[210]

Personal life

Warhol was homosexual. In 1980, he told an interviewer that he was still a virgin. Biographer Bob Colacello, who was present at the interview, felt it was probably true and that what little sex he had was probably "a mixture of voyeurism and masturbation-to use [Andy's] word abstract". Warhol's assertion of virginity would seem to be contradicted by his hospital treatment in 1960 for condylomata, a sexually transmitted disease. It has also been contradicted by his lovers, including Warhol muse BillyBoy, who has said they had sex to orgasm: "When he wasn't being Andy Warhol and when you were just alone with him he was an incredibly generous and very kind person. What seduced me was the Andy Warhol who I saw alone. In fact when I was with him in public he kind of got on my nerves....I'd say: 'You're just obnoxious, I can't bear you.'"

Billy Name also denied that Warhol was only a voyeur, saying: "He was the essence of sexuality. It permeated everything. Andy exuded it, along with his great artistic creativity....It brought a joy to the whole art world in New York." "But his personality was so vulnerable that it became a defense to put up the blank front." Warhol's lovers included John Giorno Billy Name, Charles Lisanby, and Jon Gould. Gould was the most photographed subject of Warhol's later career and worked as an American film executive at Paramount Pictures where he was responsible for films including John Travolta's Urban Cowboy. His boyfriend of 12 years was Jed Johnson, whom he met in 1968, and who later achieved fame as an interior designer.

The fact that Warhol's homosexuality influenced his work and shaped his relationship to the art world is a major subject of scholarship on the artist and is an issue that Warhol himself addressed in interviews, in conversation with his contemporaries, and in his publications ( e.g., Popism: The Warhol 1960s). Throughout his career, Warhol produced erotic photography and drawings of male nudes. Many of his most famous works (portraits of Liza Minnelli, Judy Garland, and Elizabeth Taylor and films such as Blow Job, My Hustler and Lonesome Cowboys) draw from gay underground culture or openly explore the complexity of sexuality and desire. As has been addressed by a range of scholars, many of his films premiered in gay porn theaters, including the New Andy Warhol Garrick Theatre and 55th Street Playhouse, in the late 1960s.

The first works that Warhol submitted to a fine art gallery, homoerotic drawings of male nudes, were rejected for being too openly gay. In Popism, furthermore, the artist recalls a conversation with the filmmaker Emile de Antonio about the difficulty Warhol had being accepted socially by the then-more-famous (but closeted) gay artists Jasper Johns and Robert Rauschenberg. De Antonio explained that Warhol was "too swish and that upsets them". In response to this, Warhol writes, "There was nothing I could say to that. It was all too true. So I decided I just wasn't going to care, because those were all the things that I didn't want to change anyway, that I didn't think I 'should' want to change ... Other people could change their attitudes but not me". In exploring Warhol's biography, many turn to this period-the late 1950s and early 1960s-as a key moment in the development of his persona.

Some have suggested that his frequent refusal to comment on his work, to speak about himself (confining himself in interviews to responses like "Um, no" and "Um, yes", and often allowing others to speak for him)-and even the evolution of his pop style-can be traced to the years when Warhol was first dismissed by the inner circles of the New York art world.

Images of Jesus from The Last Supper cycle (1986). Warhol made almost 100 variations on the theme, which the Guggenheim felt "indicates an almost obsessive investment in the subject matter".[226]

Warhol was a practicing Ruthenian Catholic. He regularly volunteered at homeless shelters in New York City, particularly during the busier times of the year, and described himself as a religious person. Many of Warhol's later works depicted religious subjects, including two series, Details of Renaissance Paintings (1984) and The Last Supper (1986). In addition, a body of religious-themed works was found posthumously in his estate.

Warhol regularly attended Mass, and the priest at Warhol's church, Saint Vincent Ferrer, said that the artist went there almost daily, although he was not observed taking Communion or going to Confession and sat or knelt in the pews at the back. The priest thought he was afraid of being recognized; Warhol said he was self-conscious about being seen in a Latin Catholic church crossing himself "in the Orthodox way" (right to left instead of the reverse).

Warhol's art is noticeably influenced by the Eastern Christian tradition which was so evident in his places of worship. Warhol's brother has described the artist as "really religious, but he didn't want people to know about that because [it was] private". Despite the private nature of his faith, in Warhol's eulogy John Richardson depicted it as devout: "To my certain knowledge, he was responsible for at least one conversion. He took considerable pride in financing his nephew's studies for the priesthood".

Collections

Warhol was an avid collector. His friends referred to his numerous collections, which filled not only his four-story townhouse, but also a nearby storage unit, as "Andy's Stuff". The true extent of his collections was not discovered until after his death, when The Andy Warhol Museum in Pittsburgh took in 641 boxes of his "Stuff".

Warhol's collections included a Coca-Cola memorabilia sign, and 19th century paintings along with airplane menus, unpaid invoices, pizza dough, pornographic pulp novels, newspapers, stamps, supermarket flyers, and cookie jars, among other eccentricities. It also included significant works of art, such as George Bellows's Miss Bentham. One of his main collections was his wigs. Warhol owned more than 40 and felt very protective of his hairpieces, which were sewn by a New York wig-maker from hair imported from Italy. In 1985, a girl snatched Warhol's wig off his head. It was later discovered in Warhol's diary entry for that day that he wrote: "I don't know what held me back from pushing her over the balcony."

In 1960, he had bought a drawing of a light bulb by Jasper Johns. Another item found in Warhol's boxes at the museum in Pittsburgh was a mummified human foot from Ancient Egypt. The curator of anthropology at Carnegie Museum of Natural History felt that Warhol most likely found it at a flea market.

Warhol collected many books, with more than 1,200 titles in his collection. Of these, 139 titles have been publicly identified through a 1988 Sotheby's Auction catalog, The Andy Warhol Collection and can be viewed online. His book collection reflects his eclectic taste and interests, and includes books written by and about some of his acquaintances and friends. Some of the titles in his collection include The Two Mrs. Grenvilles: A Novel by Dominick Dunne, Artists in Uniform by Max Eastman, Andrews' Diseases of the Skin: Clinical Dermatology by George Clinton Andrews, D.V. by Diana Vreeland, Blood of a Poet by Jean Cocteau, Watercolours by Francesco Clemente, Little World, Hello! by Jimmy Savo, Hidden Faces by Salvador Dalí, and The Dinah Shore Cookbook.

In 2002, the US Postal Service issued an 18-cent stamp commemorating Warhol. Designed by Richard Sheaff of Scottsdale, Arizona, the stamp was unveiled at a ceremony at The Andy Warhol Museum and features Warhol's painting "Self-Portrait, 1964". In March 2011, a chrome statue of Andy Warhol and his Polaroid camera was revealed at Union Square in New York City.

A crater on Mercury was named after Warhol in 2012.

In 2013, to honor the 85th anniversary of Warhol's birthday, The Andy Warhol Museum and EarthCam launched a collaborative project titled Figment, a live feed of Warhol's gravesite.

Warhol Foundation

Warhol's will dictated that his entire estate-with the exception of a few modest legacies to family members-would go to create a foundation dedicated to the "advancement of the visual arts". Warhol had so many possessions that it took Sotheby's nine days to auction his estate after his death; the auction grossed more than US$20 million.

In 1987, in accordance with Warhol's will, the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts began. The foundation serves as the estate of Andy Warhol, but also has a mission "to foster innovative artistic expression and the creative process" and is "focused primarily on supporting work of a challenging and often experimental nature".

The Artists Rights Society is the US copyright representative for the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts for all Warhol works with the exception of Warhol film stills. The US copyright representative for Warhol film stills is the Warhol Museum in Pittsburgh. Additionally, the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts has agreements in place for its image archive. All digital images of Warhol are exclusively managed by Corbis, while all transparency images of Warhol are managed by Art Resource.

The Andy Warhol Foundation released its 20th Anniversary Annual Report as a three-volume set in 2007: Vol. I, 1987-2007; Vol. II, Grants & Exhibitions; and Vol. III, Legacy Program.

The Foundation is in the process of compiling its catalogue raisonné of paintings and sculptures in volumes covering blocks of years of the artist's career. Volumes IV and V were released in 2019. The subsequent volumes are still in the process of being compiled.

The Foundation remains one of the largest grant-giving organizations for the visual arts in the US.

Many of Warhol's works and possessions are on display at the Andy Warhol Museum in Pittsburgh. The foundation donated more than 3,000 works of art to the museum.

Revelation in Brooklyn

From November 19, 2021 - June 19, 2022, the Brooklyn Museum displayed the Andy Warhol: Revelation exhibition. Revelation examines themes such as life and death, power and desire, the role and representation of women, Renaissance imagery, family and immigrant traditions and rituals, depictions and duplications of Christ, and the Catholic body and queer desire. Among the more than one hundred objects on view were rare source materials and newly discovered items that provide a fresh and intimate look at Warhol's creative process, as well as major paintings from his epic Last Supper series (1986), the experimental film The Chelsea Girls (1966), an unfinished film depicting the setting sun commissioned by the de Menil family and funded by the Roman Catholic Church, and drawings created by Warhol's mother, Julia Warhola, when she lived with her son in New York City.

In pop culture

Warhol founded Interview magazine, a stage for celebrities he "endorsed" and a business staffed by his friends. He collaborated with others on all of his books (some of which were written with Pat Hackett.) One might even say that he produced people (as in the Warholian "Superstar" and the Warholian portrait). Warhol endorsed products, appeared in commercials, and made frequent celebrity guest appearances on television shows and in films (he appeared in everything from to Saturday Night Live and the Richard Pryor movie Dynamite Chicken).

In this respect Warhol was a fan of "Art Business" and "Business Art"-he, in fact, wrote about his interest in thinking about art as business in The Philosophy of Andy Warhol from A to B and Back Again.

Warhol (right) with director Ulli Lommel on the set of Cocaine Cowboys (1979), in which Warhol appeared as himself

Warhol appeared as himself in the film Cocaine Cowboys (1979) and in the film (1982).

After his death, Warhol was portrayed by Crispin Glover in Oliver Stone's film (1991), by Jared Harris in Mary Harron's film I Shot Andy Warhol (1996), and by David Bowie in Julian Schnabel's film (1996). Bowie recalled how meeting Warhol in real life helped him in the role, and recounted his early meetings with him:

I met him a couple of times, but we seldom shared more than platitudes. The first time we saw each other an awkward silence fell till he remarked my bright yellow shoes and started talking enthusiastically. He wanted to be very superficial. And seemingly emotionless, indifferent, just like a dead fish. Lou Reed described him most profoundly when he once told me they should bring a doll of Andy on the market: a doll that you wind up and doesn't do anything. But I managed to observe him well, and that was a helping hand for the film [ Basquiat...] We borrowed his clothes from the museum in Pittsburgh, and they were intact, unwashed. Even the pockets weren't emptied: they contained pancake, white, deadly pale fond de teint which Andy always smeared on his face, a check torn in pieces, someone's address, lots of homeopathic pills and a wig. Andy always wore those silver wigs, but he never admitted it were wigs. One of his hairdressers has told me lately that he had his wigs regularly cut, like it were real hair. When the wig was trimmed, he put on another next month as if his hair had grown.

Warhol appears as a character in Michael Daugherty's opera (1997). Actor Mark Bringleson makes a brief cameo as Warhol in Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery (1997). Many films by avant-garde cineast Jonas Mekas have caught the moments of Warhol's life. Sean Gregory Sullivan depicted Warhol in the film (1998). Guy Pearce portrayed Warhol in the film Factory Girl (2007) about Edie Sedgwick's life. Actor Greg Travis portrays Warhol in a brief scene from the film (2009). Comedian Conan O'Brien portrayed Warhol in the film Weird: The Al Yankovic Story (2022).

In the movie Highway to Hell a group of Andy Warhols are part of the Good Intentions Paving Company where good-intentioned souls are ground into pavement. In the film Men in Black 3 (2012) Andy Warhol turns out to really be undercover MIB Agent W (played by Bill Hader). Warhol is throwing a party at The Factory in 1969, where he is looked up by MIB Agents K and J (J from the future). Agent W is desperate to end his undercover job ("I'm so out of ideas I'm painting soup cans and bananas, for Christ sakes!", "You gotta fake my death, okay? I can't listen to sitar music anymore." and "I can't tell the women from the men.").

Andy Warhol (portrayed by Tom Meeten) is one of main characters of the 2012 British television show Noel Fielding's Luxury Comedy. The character is portrayed as having robot-like mannerisms. In the 2017 feature The Billionaire Boys Club Cary Elwes portrays Warhol in a film based on the true story about Ron Levin (portrayed by Kevin Spacey) a friend of Warhol's who was murdered in 1986. In September 2016, it was announced that Jared Leto would portray the title character in Warhol, an upcoming American biographical drama film produced by Michael De Luca and written by Terence Winter, based on the book Warhol: The Biography by Victor Bockris.

Documentaries

Television

Warhol appeared as a recurring character in TV series , played by John Cameron Mitchell. Warhol was portrayed by Evan Peters in the American Horror Story: Cult episode " Valerie Solanas Died for Your Sins: Scumbag". The episode depicts the attempted assassination of Warhol by Valerie Solanas ( Lena Dunham).

In early 1969, Andy Warhol was commissioned by Braniff International to appear in two television commercials to promote the luxury airline's "When You Got It - Flaunt It" campaign. The campaign was created by the advertising agency Lois Holland Calloway, which was led by George Lois, creator of a famed series of Esquire Magazine covers. The first commercial series involved pairing unlikely people who shared the fact that they both flew Braniff Airways. Warhol was paired with boxing legend Sonny Liston. The odd commercial worked as did the others that featured unlikely fellow travelers such as painter Salvador Dalí and baseball legend Whitey Ford.

Two additional commercials for Braniff were created that featured famous persons entering a Braniff jet and being greeted by a Braniff hostess while espousing their like for flying Braniff. Warhol was also featured in the first of these commercials that were also produced by Lois and were released in the summer of 1969. Lois has incorrectly stated that he was commissioned by Braniff in 1967 for representation during that year, but at that time Madison Avenue advertising doyenne Mary Wells Lawrence, who was married to Braniff's chairman and president Harding Lawrence, was representing the Dallas-based carrier at that time. Lois succeeded Wells Rich Greene Agency on December 1, 1968. The rights to Warhol's films for Braniff and his signed contracts are owned by a private trust and are administered by Braniff Airways Foundation in Dallas, Texas.

Warhol strongly influenced the new wave/ punk rock band Devo, as well as David Bowie. Bowie recorded a song called " Andy Warhol" for his 1971 album . Lou Reed wrote the song "Andy's Chest", about Valerie Solanas, the woman who shot Warhol, in 1968. He recorded it with the Velvet Underground, and this version was released on the album in 1985. The band Triumph also wrote a song about Andy Warhol, "Stranger In A Strange Land" off their 1984 album Thunder Seven.

A biography of Andy Warhol written by art critic Blake Gopnik was published in 2020 under the title .

Comic books

Warhol is featured as a character in the Miracleman series of comics. It is first mentioned that he was resurrected by the alien scientist Mors and subsequently convinces the latter to mass-produce copies of himself. Later on, 18 copies of Warhol are seen in the underworld beneath the pyramid structure Olympus, where they produce pop art relating to the new superhuman regime. One Warhol clone numbered 6 is assigned to and develop a friendship with a clone of Emil Gargunza (Miracleman's creator) before the latter's betrayal and attempted escape.

Video games

Warhol (played by Jeff Grace) makes a cameo appearance in the 2022 video game Immortality.

References

Further reading

"A symposium on Pop Art". Arts Magazine, April 1963, pp. 36-45. The symposium was held in 1962, at The Museum of Modern Art, and published in this issue the following year.

Celant, Germano. Andy Warhol: A Factory. Kunstmuseum Wolfsbug, 1999. ISBN 978-3-7757-0773-2

Dillenberger, Jane D. (2001). The Religious Art of Andy Warhol. New York: Continuum International Publishing Group. ISBN 978-0-8264-1334-5. Archived from the original on May 11, 2015.

Doyle, Jennifer, Jonathan Flatley, and José Esteban Muñoz, eds (1996). Pop Out: Queer Warhol. Durham: Duke University Press.

Duncan Fallowell, 20th Century Characters, ch. Andy Lives (London, Vintage, 1994)

Foster, Hal (1996). The Return of the Real. An October Book, MIT Press.

Garrels, Gary (1989). The Work of Andy Warhol: Discussions in Contemporary Culture, no. 3. Beacon NY: Dia Art Foundation.

James, James, "Andy Warhol: The Producer as Author", in Allegories of Cinema: American Film in the 1960s (1989), pp. 58-84. Princeton: Princeton University Press.

Krauss, Rosalind E. "Warhol's Abstract Spectacle". In Abstraction, Gesture, Ecriture: Paintings from the Daros Collection. New York: Scalo, 1999, pp. 123-33.

Lippard, Lucy R., Pop Art, Thames and Hudson, 1970 (1985 reprint), ISBN 978-0-500-20052-0

Michelson, Annette (2001). Andy Warhol (October Files). Cambridge MA: The MIT Press.

Scherman, Tony, & David Dalton, POP: The Genius of Andy Warhol, New York, NY: HarperCollins, 2009

Suarez, Juan Antonio (1996). Bike Boys, Drag Queens, & Superstars: Avant-Garde, Mass Culture, and Gay Identities in the 1960s Underground Cinema. Indianapolis: Indiana University Press.

Watson, Steven (2003). Factory Made: Warhol and the 1960s. New York: Pantheon. ISBN 978-0-679-42372-0. Archived from the original on August 29, 2010.

Warhol, Andy; Hackett, Pat (1989). The Andy Warhol Diaries. Warner Books. ISBN 978-0-446-39138-2.

External links

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Andy Warhol (; born Andrew Warhola Jr.; August 6, 1928 - February 22, 1987) was an American visual artist, film director, producer, and leading figure in the pop art movement. His works explore the relationship between artistic expression, advertising, and celebrity culture that flourished by the 1960s, and span a variety of media, including painting, silkscreening, photography, film, and sculpture.

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Publié le 19 Février 2022

Considérée comme une œuvre mondialement connue, ce diptyque devient l’icône du Pop Art. Il est aussi une critique acerbe de la société de consommation.

Sérigraphie, Andy Warhol : l’un ne va pas sans l’autre. En 1962, l’artiste Pop Art est fasciné par la reproduction photographique. Cela va devenir le style par excellence du plasticien.

C'est une pure coïncidence si Warhol choisit de représenter Marilyn Monroe. La jeune femme est l’incarnation même du sex-symbol. Mais au lieu de peindre ou de dessiner le visage de l’actrice, le leader du Pop Art prend un cliché de la star que tout le monde connaît.

Le Pop Art sera alors le meilleur moyen de mettre en avant les personnes célèbres en avant et cela deviendra une des caractéristiques du mouvement artistique au cours des années 60. Mais Andy Warhol va plus loin  : dans ses œuvres, il va surtout émettre une critique violente sur l’obsession des médias de masse et le culte de la célébrité.

Image de la femme, crée par la société

« Marilyn Diptych » renvoie plutôt un produit et non une personne. On remarque que la technique de sérigraphie aplatit le visage de Marilyn, qui était déjà en deux dimensions.

En utilisant des couleurs chaudes, et moins de nuances, Warhol met en avant la planéité émotionnelle, il montre le côté superficiel de Marilyn Monroe : un sex-symbol créé par la société de consommation.

En somme, la société conforme l’image de la femme selon ses envies. Un aspect très réducteur que renvoie la société américaine sur l’actrice.

Quelques mois après l’inauguration du diptyque, Marilyn Monroe se donne la mort à l’âge de 36 ans à Los Angeles. Un lien avec l’œuvre de Warhol ? Rien n’est sûr, mais nous savions que l’actrice souffrait d’une vie privée désastreuse et n’était pas satisfaite de sa carrière.

En février, le Pop-Art est à l'honneur sur Museum TV. Rendez-vous sur notre plateforme de streaming Museum TV pour regarder encore plus de programmes sur le phénomène artistique.

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Zoom sur le diptyque « Marilyn » par Andy Warhol - Museum TV

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Ce diptyque de Marilyn est l’oeuvre la plus emblématique d’Andy Warhol. Retour sur une critique de la société de consommation américaine.

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Keith Allen Haring (May 4, 1958 - February 16, 1990) was an American artist whose pop art emerged from the New York City graffiti subculture of the 1980s. His animated imagery has "become a widely recognized visual language". Much of his work includes sexual allusions that turned into social activism by using the images to advocate for safe sex and AIDS awareness. In addition to solo gallery exhibitions, he participated in renowned national and international group shows such as in Kassel, the Whitney Biennial in New York, the São Paulo Biennial, and the Venice Biennale. The Whitney Museum held a retrospective of his art in 1997.

Haring's popularity grew from his spontaneous drawings in New York City subways-chalk outlines of figures, dogs, and other stylized images on blank black advertising spaces. After gaining public recognition, he created colorful larger scale murals, many commissioned. He produced more than 50 public artworks between 1982 and 1989, many of them created voluntarily for hospitals, day care centers and schools. In 1986, he opened the Pop Shop as an extension of his work. His later work often conveyed political and societal themes-anti- crack, anti- apartheid, safe sex, homosexuality and AIDS-through his own iconography.

Haring died of AIDS related complications on February 16, 1990. In 2014, he was one of the inaugural honorees in the Rainbow Honor Walk in San Francisco, a walk of fame noting LGBTQ people who have "made significant contributions in their fields". In 2019, he was one of the inaugural 50 American "pioneers, trailblazers, and heroes" inducted on the National LGBTQ Wall of Honor within the Stonewall National Monument in New York City's Stonewall Inn.

Haring was born in Reading, Pennsylvania, on May 4, 1958. He was raised in Kutztown, Pennsylvania, by his mother, Joan Haring, and father, Allen Haring, an engineer and amateur cartoonist. He had three younger sisters, Kay, Karen and Kristen. He became interested in art at a very young age, spending time with his father producing creative drawings. His early influences included Walt Disney cartoons, Dr. Seuss, Charles Schulz, and the Looney Tunes characters in The Bugs Bunny Show.

Haring's family attended the United Church of Christ. In his early teenage years, he was involved with the Jesus movement. He later hitchhiked across the country, selling T-shirts he made featuring the Grateful Dead and anti- Nixon designs. He graduated from Kutztown Area High School in 1976. He studied commercial art from 1976 to 1978 at Pittsburgh's Ivy School of Professional Art, but eventually lost interest, inspired to focus on his own art after reading The Art Spirit (1923) by Robert Henri.

Haring had a maintenance job at the Pittsburgh Center for the Arts and was able to explore the art of Jean Dubuffet, Jackson Pollock, and Mark Tobey. He was highly influenced around this time by a 1977 retrospective of Pierre Alechinsky's work and by a lecture that the sculptor Christo gave in 1978. From Alechinsky's work, he felt encouraged to create large images that featured writing and characters. From Christo, Haring was introduced to ways of incorporating the public into his art. His first significant one-man exhibition was in Pittsburgh at the Center for the Arts in 1978.

Haring moved to the Lower East Side of New York in 1978 to study painting at the School of Visual Arts. He also worked as a busboy during this time at the nightclub Danceteria. While attending school he studied semiotics with Bill Beckley and experimented with video and performance art. Haring was also highly influenced in his art by author William Burroughs.

In 1978, Haring wrote in his journal: "I am becoming much more aware of movement. The importance of movement is intensified when a painting becomes a performance. The performance (the act of painting) becomes as important as the resulting painting."

In December 2007, an area of the American Textile Building in the TriBeCa neighborhood of New York City was discovered to have a Haring painting from 1979.

Haring first received public attention with his graffiti art in subways, where he created white chalk drawings on black, unused advertisement backboards in the stations. He considered the subways to be his "laboratory," a place where he could experiment and create his artwork and saw the black advertisement paper as a free space and "the perfect place to draw". The Radiant Baby, a crawling infant with emitting rays of light, became his most recognized symbol. He used it as his tag to sign his work while a subway artist. Symbols and images (such as barking dogs, flying saucers, and large hearts) became common in his work and iconography. As a result, Haring's works spread quickly and he became exceedingly more recognizable.

The writings of Burroughs and Brion Gysin inspired Haring's work with lettering and words. In 1980, he created headlines from word juxtaposition and attached hundreds to lamp-posts around Manhattan. These included phrases like "Reagan Slain by Hero Cop" and "Pope Killed for Freed Hostage". That same year, as part of his participating in The Times Square Show with one of his earliest public projects, Haring altered a banner advertisement above a subway entrance in Times Square that showed a female embracing a male's legs, blacking-out the first letter so that it essentially read " hardón" instead of "Chardón," a French clothing brand.[1] He later used other forms of commercial material to spread his work and messages. This included mass-producing buttons and magnets to hand out and working on top of subway ads.

In 1980, Haring began organizing exhibitions at Club 57, which were filmed by his close friend and photographer Tseng Kwong Chi. In February 1981, Haring had his first solo exhibition at Westbeth Painters Space in the West Village. In November 1981, he had a solo show at Hal Bromm Gallery in Tribeca.

Haring painting a mural at the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam, Netherlands, 1986

In January 1982, Haring was the first of twelve artists organized by Public Art Fund to display work on the computer-animated Spectacolor billboard in Times Square. That summer, Haring created his first major outdoor mural on the Houston Bowery Wall on the Lower East Side. In his paintings, he often used lines to show energy and movement. Haring would often work quickly, trying to create as much work as possible-sometimes completing as many as 40 paintings in a day. One of his works, Untitled (1982), depicts two figures with a radiant heart-love motif, which critics have interpreted as a bold nod to homosexual love and a significant cultural statement.

In 1982, Haring participated in documenta 7 in Kassel, where his work were exhibited alongside Joseph Beuys, Anselm Kiefer, Gerhard Richter, Cy Twombly, Jean-Michel Basquiat and Andy Warhol. In October 1982, he had an exhibition at the Tony Shafrazi Gallery with his collaborator graffiti artist Angel "LA II" Ortiz. That year, he was in several group exhibitions including Fast at the Alexander Milliken Gallery in New York.

In February 1983, Haring had a solo exhibition at the Fun Gallery in the East Village, Manhattan. That year, Haring participated in the São Paulo Biennale in Brazil and the Whitney Biennial in New York. In April 1983, Haring was commissioned to paint a mural, Construction Fence, at the construction site of the Haggerty Museum of Art in Milwaukee. Later that year, Haring took part in the exhibition Urban Pulses: the Artist and the City in Pittsburgh by spray painting a room at the Pittsburgh Center for the Arts and creating an outdoor mural at PPG Place. In October 1983, Elio Fiorucci invited Haring to Milan to paint the walls of his Fiorucci store. While Haring was in London for the opening of his exhibition at the Robert Fraser Gallery in October 1983, he met and began collaborating with choreographer Bill T. Jones. Haring used Jones' body as the canvas to paint from head to toe.

Haring and Angel "LA II" Ortiz produced a T-shirt design for friends Willi Smith and Laurie Mallet's clothing label WilliWear Productions in 1984. After Haring was profiled in magazine, fashion designer Vivienne Westwood reached out to editor-in-chief Kim Hastreiter to facilitate a meeting with Haring. Haring presented Westwood with two large sheets of drawings and she turned them into textiles for her Autumn/Winter 1983-84 Witches collection. Haring's friend Madonna wore a skirt from the collection, most notably in the music video her 1984 single " Borderline."

As Haring rose to stardom he continued to draw in the subways, contrasting the rocketing prices for his work. Haring enjoyed giving his work away for free, often handing out free buttons and posters of his work. In 1984, he released a book titled Art in Transit, which featured photography by Tseng Kwong Chi and an introduction by Henry Geldzahler. Haring's swift rise to international celebrity status was covered by the media. His art covered the February 1984 issue of Vanity Fair, and he was featured in the October 1984 issue of .

In 1984, the New York City Department of Sanitation asked Haring to design a logo for their anti-litter campaign. Haring participated in the Venice Biennale. He was invited to create temporary murals at the National Gallery of Victoria and the Art Gallery of New South Wales. During his visit to Australia, he painted the permanent Keith Haring Mural at Collingwood Technical College in Melbourne. That year, Haring also painted murals at the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis and in Rio de Janeiro. Later that year, he designed the stage set for the production of Bill T. Jones and Arnie Zane's Secret Pastures at the Brooklyn Academy of Music.

Haring was commissioned by the United Nations to create a first day cover of the United Nations stamp and an accompanying limited edition lithograph to commemorate 1985 as International Youth Year. He designed MTV set decorations and painted murals for various art institutions and nightclubs, such as the Palladium in Manhattan. In March 1985, Haring painted the walls of the Grande Halle de la Villette for the Biennale de Paris. In July 1985, he made a painting for the Live Aid concert at J.F.K. Stadium in Philadelphia. Additionally, he painted a car owned by art dealer Max Protetch to be auctioned with proceeds donated to African famine relief. Haring continued to be politically active as well by designing Free South Africa posters in 1985, and creating a poster for the 1986 Great Peace March for Global Nuclear Disarmament.

Barking dog sculpture by Haring in Dortmund, Germany

In the spring of 1986, Haring had a solo museum exhibition at the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam, and he painted a mural. In 1986, Haring also created public murals in the lobby and ambulatory care department of Woodhull Medical and Mental Health Center on Flushing Avenue in Brooklyn.

In June 1986, Haring created a 90-foot banner, CityKids Speak on Liberty, in conjunction with The CityKids Foundation to commemorate the centennial anniversary of the Statue of Liberty's arrival in the United States. Later that month, he created his Crack is Wack mural in East Harlem, visible from New York's FDR Drive. It was originally considered as vandalism by the New York Police Department and Haring was arrested. But after local media outlets picked up the story, Haring was released on a lesser charge. While in jail, Haring's original work was vandalized. This mural is an example of Haring's use of consciousness raising rather than consumerism, "Crack is Wack" rather than " Coke is it." He painted an updated version of the mural on the same wall in October 1986.

On October 23, 1986, Haring created a mural on the Berlin Wall for the Checkpoint Charlie Museum. The mural was 300 meters (980 ft) long and depicted red and black interlocking human figures against a yellow background. The colors were a representation of the German flag and symbolized the hope of unity between East and West Germany.

Haring began collaborating with Grace Jones, whom he had met through Andy Warhol, for an interview magazine shoot in 1984. Haring painted a skirt for Jones to wear in her music video " I'm Not Perfect (But I'm Perfect for You)" (1986) and he was the assistant director for the video. He also body painted Jones for live performances at the Paradise Garage, and for her role of Katrina the Queen of The Vampires in the 1986 film . Haring collaborated with David Spada, a jewelry designer, to design the sculptural adornments for Jones.

Haring also illustrated vinyl covers for various artists such as David Bowie's " Without You" (1983), N.Y.C. Peech Boys' Life Is Something Special (1983), Malcolm McLaren's "Duck For The Oyster" (1983), and Sylvester's " Someone Like You" (1986).

Haring painting a mural at the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam, Netherlands, 1986

In April 1986, Pop Shop opened in Soho, selling shirts, posters, and other items showing Haring's work. This made Haring's work readily accessible to purchase at reasonable prices. Having achieved what he wanted, which was "getting the work out to the public at large," Haring completely stopped drawing in the subways. He also stopped because people were taking the subway drawings and selling them.

Some criticized Haring for commercializing his work. Asked about this, Haring said, "I could earn more money if I just painted a few things and jacked up the price. My shop is an extension of what I was doing in the subway stations, breaking down the barriers between high and low art." The Pop Shop remained open after Haring's death until 2005, with profits benefiting the Keith Haring Foundation.

The Pop Shop was not Haring's only effort to make his work widely accessible. Throughout his career, Haring made art in subways and on billboards. His attempts to make his work relatable can also be seen in his figures' lack of discernable ages, races, or identities. By the arrival of Pop Shop, his work had begun reflecting more socio-political themes, such as anti- Apartheid, AIDS awareness, and the crack cocaine epidemic.

From 1982 to 1989, Haring was featured in more than 100 solo and group exhibitions and produced more than 50 public artworks in dozens of charities, hospitals, day care centers, and orphanages. Haring was openly gay and used his work to advocate for safe sex. He was diagnosed with AIDS in the autumn of 1988. He used his imagery during the last years of his life to speak about his illness and to generate activism and awareness about AIDS.

In 1987, Haring had exhibitions in Helsinki, Paris, and elsewhere. During his stay in Paris for the 10th anniversary exhibition of American artists at the Centre Georges Pompidou, Haring and his partner Juan Rivera painted the Tower mural on an 88-foot-high (27 m) exterior stairwell at the Necker-Enfants Malades Hospital. While in Belgium for his exhibition at Gallery 121, Haring painted a mural at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Antwerp.

That same year, Haring was also invited by artist Roger Nellens to paint a mural at his Casino Knokke. While working there, Haring stayed in Le Dragon, a monster-shaped guest house owned by Nellens which had been designed by artist Niki de Saint Phalle. With the consent of both the designer and the owner, Haring painted a fresco mural along an interior balcony and stairway.

Haring designed a carousel for André Heller's , an ephemeral amusement park in Hamburg from June to August 1987 with rides designed by renowned contemporary artists. In August 1987, Haring painted a large mural at the Carmine Street Recreation Center's outdoor pool in the West Village. In September 1987, he painted a temporary mural, Detroit Notes, at the Cranbrook Art Museum in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan. The work reveals a darker phase in Haring's style, which Cranbrook Art Museum Director Andrew Blauvelt speculates foreshadowed the confirmation of his AIDS diagnosis.

Haring designed the cover for the 1987 benefit album A Very Special Christmas and the Run-DMC single " Christmas In Hollis"; proceeds went to the Special Olympics. The image for the A Very Special Christmas compilation album consists of a typical Haring figure holding a baby. Its "Jesus iconography" is considered unusual in modern rock holiday albums.

Todos Juntos Podemos Parar el SIDA (1989) mural near the Museum of Modern Arts, Barcelona, Spain

Also in 1987, Haring painted a mural in the Philadelphia neighborhood of Point Breeze titled 'We the Youth' to commemorate the bicentennial of the United States Constitution. Originally intended as a placeholder, a new rowhouse was never built and the lot became a park. The mural underwent a major restoration in 2013 and is Haring's longest standing public mural at its original location.

In 1988, Haring joined a select group of artists whose work has appeared on the label of Chateau Mouton Rothschild wine. In January 1988, he traveled to Japan to open Pop Shop Tokyo; it closed in the summer of 1988. In April 1988, Haring created a mural on the South Lawn for the annual White House Easter Egg Roll, which he donated to Children's National Hospital in Washington, D.C. Late in the summer, Haring traveled to Düsseldorf for a show of his paintings and sculptures at the Hans Mayer Gallery. In December 1988, Haring's exhibition opened at the Tony Shafrazi Gallery, which he stated was his most important show to date. He felt he had something to prove because of his health condition and the deaths of his friends Andy Warhol and Jean-Michel Basquiat.

In February 1989, Haring painted the Todos Juntos Podemos Parar el SIDA mural in the drug-infested Barrio Chino neighborhood of Barcelona to raise awareness of the AIDS epidemic. In May 1989, at the invitation of a teacher named Irving Zucker, Haring visited Chicago to paint a 480-foot mural in Grant Park along with nearly 500 students. Three other Haring murals materialized in Chicago around the same time: two at Rush University Medical Center, the other at Wells Community Academy High School. The latter was completed days before Haring's arrival in Chicago, as a sort of welcome. According to Zucker, Haring sent the school a design template for the mural, which was executed by a fellow teacher, Tony Abboreno, an abstract artist, and Wells High School art students, but Haring gave it his final approval and signed it himself.

For The Center Show, an exhibition celebrating the 20th anniversary of the Stonewall Riots, Haring was invited by the Lesbian and Gay Community Services Center in New York to create a site-specific work. He chose the second-floor men's bathroom to paint his Once Upon a Time... mural in May 1989. In June 1989, Haring painted his Tuttomondo mural on the rear wall of the convent of the Sant'Antonio Abate church in Pisa. Haring criticized the avoidance of social issues such as AIDS through a piece called Rebel with Many Causes (1989) that revolves around a theme of "hear no evil, see no evil, speak no evil". During the last week of November 1989, Haring painted a mural at the ArtCenter College of Design in Pasadena for "A Day Without Art". The mural was commemorated on December 1, the second annual AIDS Awareness Day. He commemorated the mural on December 1, World AIDS Day, and told the Los Angeles Times: "My life is my art, it's intertwined. When AIDS became a reality in terms of my life, it started becoming a subject in my paintings. The more it affected my life the more it affected my work." From Pasadena, Haring flew to Atlanta for the opening of his dual show with photographer Herb Ritts at the Fay Gold Gallery on December 2. In 1990, Haring painted a BMW Z1 at the Hans Mayer Gallery in Düsseldorf. He traveled to Paris for what would be his last exhibition, Keith Haring 1983, at Galerie 1900-2000/La Galerie de Poche in January 1990.

On February 16, 1990, Haring died of AIDS-related complications at his LaGuardia Place apartment in Greenwich Village. He was cremated and his ashes were scattered in a field near Bowers, Pennsylvania, just south of his hometown of Kutztown. Three months after his death, Haring posthumously appeared in Rosa von Praunheim's documentary film Silence = Death (1990) about gay artists in New York City fighting for the rights of people with AIDS. It was released on May 4, which would have been his 32nd birthday.

Soon after moving to New York to study at the School of Visual Arts, he became friends with classmates Kenny Scharf, Samantha McEwen, and John Sex. Eventually, he befriended Jean-Michel Basquiat, who would write his SAMO graffiti around the campus. When Basquiat died in 1988, Haring wrote his obituary for magazine, and he paid homage to him with the painting A Pile of Crowns for Jean-Michel Basquiat (1988).

In 1979, Haring met photographer Tseng Kwong Chi in the East Village. They became friends and he documented much of Haring's career. In 1980, Haring met and began collaborating with graffiti artist Angel "LA II" Ortiz. Haring recounted: "We just immediately hit it off. It's as if we'd known each other all our lives. He's like my little brother." Ortiz's artistry formed an important part of Haring's work that has gone unacknowledged by the art establishment. Following Haring's death, Ortiz stopped receiving credit and payment for his part in Haring's work. According to Montez, author of the book Keith Haring's Line: Race and the Performance of Desire, the Keith Haring Foundation and the art world have since made strides to rectify Ortiz's erasure.

By the early 1980s, Haring had established friendships with fellow emerging artists Fab 5 Freddy and Futura 2000, and singer Madonna. Andy Warhol, who befriended Haring in 1982, was the theme of his 1986 series. Warhol also created a portrait of Haring and his partner Juan Dubose in 1983. Through Warhol, Haring became friends with Grace Jones, Francesco Clemente, and Yoko Ono. He also formed friendships with George Condo, Jean-Charles de Castelbajac, and Claude Picasso.

Art dealer Yves Arman was Haring's close friend, and Haring was the godfather of his daughter. Haring said Arman was "probably the best supporter I had in the art world." In 1989, Arman was killed in a car accident on his way to see Haring in Spain.

In 1988, Gil Vazquez was invited by a friend to visit Haring's Broadway studio. Haring and Vazquez became close friends and spent a great deal of time together. Before his death, Haring set up a foundation bearing his name. He appointed his assistant and studio manager Julia Gruen to be the executive director; she began working for him in 1984. Vazquez is the board president of the foundation, which is based at Haring's Broadway studio.

Tuttomondo (1989) mural at the church of Sant'Antonio Abate in Pisa, Italy

In 1989, Haring established the Keith Haring Foundation to provide funding and imagery to AIDS organizations and children's programs. The foundation's stated goal is to keep his wishes and expand his legacy by providing grants and funding to non-profit organizations that educate disadvantaged youths and inform the public about HIV and AIDS. It also shares his work and contains information about his life. The foundation also supports arts and educational institutions by funding exhibitions, educational programs, and publications. In 2010, the foundation partnered with the AIDS Service Center NYC to open the Keith Haring ASC Harlem Center to provide HIV peer education and access to care services in Harlem.

As a celebration of his life, Madonna declared that the final American date of her 1990 Blond Ambition World Tour would be a benefit concert for Haring's memory. The more than $300,000 the show made from ticket sales was donated to the Foundation for AIDS Research. The act was documented in the 1991 film Madonna: Truth or Dare.

Haring's work was featured in several of Red Hot Organization's efforts to raise money for AIDS and AIDS awareness, specifically its first two albums, Red Hot + Blue (1990) and Red Hot + Dance (1992), the latter of which used Haring's work on its cover. His art remains on display worldwide.

In 1991, Haring was commemorated on the AIDS Memorial Quilt with his famous baby icon on a fabric panel. The baby was embroidered by Haring's aunt, Jeannette Ebling, and Haring's mother, Joan Haring, did much of the sewing.

Tim Finn wrote the song "Hit The Ground Running," on his album Before & After (1993), in memory of Haring.

In 2006, Haring was named by Equality Forum as one of their 31 Icons of LGBT History Month.

In 2008, Haring had a balloon in tribute to him at the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade.

On May 4, 2012, on what would have been Haring's 54th birthday, Google honored him in a Google Doodle.

In 2014, Haring was one of the inaugural honorees in the Rainbow Honor Walk. The Rainbow Honor Walk is a walk of fame in San Francisco's Castro neighborhood noting LGBTQ people who have "made significant contributions in their fields."

In June 2019, Haring was one of the inaugural fifty American "pioneers, trailblazers, and heroes" inducted on the National LGBTQ Wall of Honor within the Stonewall National Monument (SNM) in New York City's Stonewall Inn. The SNM is the first U.S. national monument dedicated to LGBTQ rights and history, and the wall's unveiling was timed to take place during the 50th anniversary of the Stonewall riots.

The Boxers (1987) sculpture in Berlin, Germany

Haring's signature style is frequently seen in various fashion collections. His estate has collaborated with brands such as Adidas, Lacoste, UNIQLO, Supreme, Reebok, and Coach.

Haring is the subject of a composition, Haring at the Exhibition, written and performed by Italian composer Lorenzo Ferrero in collaboration with DJ Nicola Guiducci. The work combines excerpts from popular chart music of the 1980s with samples of classical music compositions by Lorenzo Ferrero and synthesized sounds. It was featured at "The Keith Haring Show," an exhibition which took place in 2005 at the Triennale di Milano.

In 2008, filmmaker Christina Clausen released the documentary The Universe of Keith Haring. In the film, Haring's legacy is "resurrected through colorful archival footage and remembered by friends and admirers such as artists Kenny Scharf and Yoko Ono, gallery owners Jeffrey Deitch and Tony Shafrazi, and choreographer Bill T. Jones".

Madonna used Haring's art as animated backdrops for her 2008/2009 Sticky and Sweet Tour. The animation featured his trademark blocky figures dancing in beat to an updated remix of " Into the Groove".

Keith Haring: Double Retrospect is a monster-sized jigsaw puzzle by Ravensburger measuring in at 17 by 6 feet (5.2 by 1.8 m) with 32,256 pieces, breaking Guinness Book of World Records for the largest puzzle ever made in 2011. The puzzle uses 32 pieces of his work and weighs 42 pounds (19 kg).

In 2017, his sister Kay Haring wrote a children's book, Keith Haring: The Boy Who Just Kept Drawing, which ranked among the top ten sellers every week for over a year in the Amazon category of Children's Art History.

In July 2020, BBC Two broadcast the documentary Keith Haring: Street Art Boy, which is built from a series of interviews between Haring and art critic John Gruen in 1989. The documentary, which was directed by Ben Anthony, aired in December 2020 on PBS as part of the American Masters series.

Haring's work demonstrates political and personal influences. References to his sexual orientation are apparent throughout his work, and his journals confirm its impact on his work. There are symbolic allusions to the AIDS epidemic in some of his later pieces, such as Untitled (cat. no. 27), Silence=Death and his sketch Weeping Woman. In some of his works-including cat. no. 27-the symbolism is subtle, but he also produced some blatantly activist works. Silence=Death, which mirrors the ACT UP poster and uses its motto, is almost universally agreed upon as a work of HIV/AIDS activism.

Haring was influenced by William Burroughs' work with Brion Gysin and their book The Third Mind. He was also influenced by fellow artists, including Andy Warhol, Jean-Michel Basquiat, George Condo, and Angel "LA II" Ortiz. In some of his art he drew connections between the end of the world and the AIDS virus. In a piece that he made with William Burroughs, he depicts the virus as demon-like creatures, the number 666, and a mushroom cloud.

Haring's proximity to the nuclear meltdown at Three Mile Island had a large impact on him. His fear of nuclear disaster started to appear in his art. An example of this is a black and white striped flag that he said symbolized the danger of a nuclear apocalypse.

Haring was deeply influenced by the Jesus Movement as a youth, and it continued to play a role in his art for his entire career. The movement was an extremely evangelical, loosely organized, diverse group of Christians. They were known for their anti-materialism and anti-establishment beliefs, focus on the Last Judgment, and their compassionate treatment of the poor. As a young teenager, Haring became very involved in the movement. Religious symbols started to be incorporated into his drawings around that age as well as Jesus Movement sentiments. This includes anti-church establishment views that can be seen in some of his later work. Though his time as a "Jesus Person" did not last beyond his teenage years, religious images, symbols, and references continued to appear in his art. In an interview near the end of his life he commented, "[All] that stuff stuck in my head and even now there are lots of religious images in my work. Some people even think my work is by a religious fanatic or maniac."

When Haring was drawing graffiti in the subway, he used a tag to sign his work. His tag, the Radiant Baby, depicts a baby with lines radiating from it, alluding to the Christ Child. He continued to make images depicting the Christ Child, including Nativity scenes in his characteristic style during his time as a subway artist. His last pieces were two religious triptychs; both went to Episcopal cathedrals. In them he illustrates the Last Judgment, though who is being saved in the pieces is ambiguous.

Tower (1987) mural at Necker-Enfants Malades Hospital in Paris, France

During his lifetime, Haring had over 50 solo exhibitions, and was represented by well-known galleries such as the Tony Shafrazi Gallery and the Leo Castelli Gallery. Since his death, has been featured in over 150 exhibitions around the world. He has also been the subject of several international retrospectives.

Haring had his first solo exhibition at Westbeth Painters Space in February 1981. That month he also participated in New York/New Wave exhibit at MoMA PS1. Later that year he had a solo exhibition in the Hal Bromm Gallery, followed by his breakthrough exhibition at the Tony Shafrazi Gallery in 1982. That same year, he took part in documenta 7 in Kassel as well as Public Art Fund's Messages to the Public series in which he created work for a Spectacolor billboard in Times Square. In 1983, Haring contributed work to the Whitney Biennial and the São Paulo Biennial. He also had solo exhibitions at the Fun Gallery, Galerie Watari in Tokyo, and his second show the Tony Shafarzi Gallery.

In 1984, Haring participated in the group show Arte di Frontiera: New York Graffiti in Italy. He participated in the Venice Biennale in 1984 and 1986. In 1985, Haring took part in the Paris Biennial and he had his first solo museum exhibition at the CAPC in Bordeaux. In 1986, three of Haring's sculptures were placed at Dag Hammarskjöld Plaza outside the United Nations headquarters. Two of the works were displayed at Riverside Park from May 1988 to May 1989. In 1991-92, Haring's Figure Balancing on Dog was displayed in Dante Park in Manhattan.

In 1996, a retrospective at the Museum of Contemporary Art Australia was the first major exhibition of his work in Australia. His art was the subject of a 1997 retrospective at the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York, curated by Elisabeth Sussman. The Public Art Fund, in collaboration with the Estate of Keith Haring, organized a multi-site installation of his outdoor sculptures at Central Park's Doris C. Freedman Plaza and along the Park Avenue Malls. This public exhibition occurred simultaneously with the retrospective at the Whitney.

In 2007, Haring's painted aluminum sculpture Self-Portrait (1989) was displayed in the lobby of the Arsenal in Central Park, as part of the retrospective exhibition The Outdoor Gallery: 40 Years of Public Art in New York City Parks.

In 2008, there was a retrospective exhibition at the MAC in Lyon, France. In February 2010, on the occasion of the 20th anniversary of the Haring's death, the Tony Shafrazi Gallery showed an exhibition containing dozens of works from every stage of Haring's career. In March 2012, a retrospective exhibit of his work, Keith Haring: 1978-1982, opened at the Brooklyn Museum in New York. In April 2013, Keith Haring: The Political Line opened at the Musée d'Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris and Le Cent Quatre. In November 2014, then at the De Young Museum in San Francisco.

From December 2016 to June 2017, the Petersen Automotive Museum in Los Angeles exhibited The Unconventional Canvases of Keith Haring, which featured five vehicles that Haring painted. In 2019, Haring's work was exhibited at Gladstone Gallery in Belgium. The first major UK exhibition of Haring's work, featuring more than 85 artworks, was at Tate Liverpool from June to November 2019. From December 2019 to March 2020, the National Gallery of Victoria in Melbourne exhibited Keith Haring and Jean-Michel Basquiat: Crossing Lines.

In February 2021, the Museum of Contemporary Art Denver opened the exhibition Keith Haring: Grace House Mural, which displays 13 panels from a mural Haring painted at a Catholic youth center on the Upper West Side of Manhattan in either March 1983 or 1984. The mural-which featured Haring's radiant baby, barking dog, and dancing man figures-spanned three floors and 85 feet. When Grace House was sold, its operator, the Church of the Ascension, went against the Keith Haring Foundation's wishes of securing a buyer who would maintain the work. Instead, the church had sections of the mural cut out and sold at auction in 2019 to an anonymous private collector for $3.86 million. The panels are on loan to the museum and will appear on exhibit until August 22, 2021.

In 2022, the exhibition Keith Haring: Grace House Mural was displayed at the Schunck Museum in Heerlen. In 2023, The Broad presented Haring's first museum exhibition in Los Angeles, Keith Haring: Art is for Everyone.

A CBS Evening News report from October 1982 shows scenes from Haring's solo exhibit at the Tony Shafrazi Gallery in SoHo. It was reported that over a quarter of a million dollars worth of paintings were sold within the first few days of the show's opening. Although he was an established artist by 1983, Shafrazi stated that Haring wanted to keep his prices low. His prices ranged from $3,000 for a drawing to $15,000 for a large painting. By 1984, his works were selling for up to $20,000 and he had an annual income of $250,000.

Haring created the Pop Shop in 1986 in the SoHo district of Manhattan, selling T-shirts, toys, posters, and other objects that show his works-allowing his works to be accessible to a larger number of people. Speaking about the Pop Shop in 1989, Haring said: "For the past five or six years, the rewards I've gotten are very disproportionate to what I deserve...I make a lot more money than what I should make, so it's a little bit of guilt, of wanting to give it back."

Haring was represented until his death by art dealer Tony Shafrazi. Since his death in 1990, his estate has been administered by the Keith Haring Foundation, which is represented by Gladstone Gallery. In May 2017, Haring's painting Untitled (1982), which features his signature symbols-the radiant baby, barking dogs, angels and red Xs-sold for $6.5 million at Sotheby's in New York, becoming the most expensive Haring artwork sold at auction. However, the winning bidder, Anatole Shagalov, failed to pay and Sotheby's resold it for $4.4 million in August 2017.

In October 2020, the Keith Haring Foundation hired Sotheby's to hold an online auction of more than 140 works from Haring's collection. Dear Keith surpassed its estimate of $1.4 million to achieve $4.6 million with a 100 percent sell-through rate by lot. All proceeds from the sale went to the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual & Transgender Community Center of New York. In December 2021, Haring's 1982 painting Untitled (Acrobats) from the collection of Peter M. Brant and Stephanie Seymour, sold for $5.5 million at Sotheby's in New York.

In 2022 the drawing of ''Radiant Baby'' that he had made on the wall of his childhood home in the early 1980s was removed by its owners, together with part of the wall panelling, and offered for sale.

Haring's work is in major private and public collections, including the Museum of Modern Art, the Morgan Library and Museum, and the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York City; Los Angeles County Museum of Art; the Art Institute of Chicago; the Bass Museum in Miami; Musée d'Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris; the Brant Foundation Art Study Center in Greenwich, Connecticut; the Carnegie Museum of Art and the Andy Warhol Museum in Pittsburgh; the Ludwig Museum in Cologne; and the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam. He also created a wide variety of public works, including the infirmary at Children's Village in Dobbs Ferry, New York, and the second floor men's room in the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual & Transgender Community Center in Manhattan, which was later transformed into an office and is known as the Keith Haring Room. In January 2019 an exhibit called "Keith Haring's New York" opened at New York Law School in the main building of its Tribeca campus.

The Nakamura Keith Haring Collection, established in 2007 in Hokuto, Yamanashi, Japan, is an art museum exhibiting exclusively the artworks of Haring.

There is no catalogue raisonné for Haring, but there is copious information about him on the estate's website and elsewhere, enabling prospective buyers or sellers to research exhibition history. Whilst no formal catalogue raisonne exists for Haring's works "Keith Haring 1982-1990: Editions on Paper - the Complete Printed Works" by Klaus Littmann is widely considered to be the most authoritative guide on the subject of his printed editions. In 2012, the Keith Haring Foundation disbanded its authentication board to focus on its charitable activities. That same year, it donated $1 million to support exhibitions at the Whitney Museum of American Art. In 2014, a group of nine art collectors sued the foundation, claiming that it has cost them at least $40 million by refusing to authenticate 80 purported Haring works. In 2015, a judge ruled in favor of the foundation.

Blinderman, Barry (1990). Keith Haring: Future Primeval. University Galleries, Illinois State University. ISBN 978-1-55859-378-7.

Gruen, John (1991). Keith Haring: The Authorized Biography. Simon & Schuster. ISBN 978-0-671-78150-7.

Haring, Keith. Keith Haring Journals, Penguin Classics, 2010. ISBN 978-0143105978

Reading Public Museum, Keith Haring: Journey of the Radiant Baby, Piermont, New Hampshire : Bunker Hill Publishing Co., 2006. ISBN 978-1-59373-052-9

Van Pee, Yasmine. Boredom is always counterrevolutionary: art in downtown New York nightclubs, 1978-1985 (M.A. thesis, Center for Curatorial Studies at Bard College, 2004)

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Keith Allen Haring (May 4, 1958 - February 16, 1990) was an American artist whose pop art emerged from the New York City graffiti subculture of the 1980s. His animated imagery has "become a widely recognized visual language". Much of his work includes sexual allusions that turned into social activism by using the images to advocate for safe sex and AIDS awareness.

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Découvrez ou redécouvrez Keith Haring, cet artiste du pop art qui peignait essentiellement dans la rue, sur les murs ou les trottoirs.
Ses personnages sont mondialement connus. Rappelez vous l'oeuvre et la vie de cet homme dédiées à la lutte contre toutes les discriminations, à la paix, à l'espoir.

Tout le monde le connaît, sans le connaître vraiment.
En effet, ses toiles, ses motifs sont devenus ultra populaires. Ils se sont disséminés très vite à travers la planète alors que l'artiste était encore en vie.
L'artiste est célèbre parce que les personnages stylisés utilisés sur ses toiles sont universels. Il a connu la reconnaissance du public et du monde de l'art très tôt. Il est aussi connu parce qu'il est un des artistes décédés trop jeune du sida, en 1990, à l'âge de seulement 31 ans.
On l'associe parfois à Basquiat car les deux artistes ont été proches. Ils étaient issus des mêmes mouvances : le graffiti, le street art.
De plus, ils ont connu la gloire rapidement, le succès et l'argent et sont morts très jeunes. Keith a été profondément marqué par le décès de son ami, dû à la drogue, et lui a dédié une toile : Un pile of crown (Un tas de couronnes).
L'artiste a connu le succès dans le monde entier, aux Etats-Unis, en Europe et surtout en France. Il a été invité dès 1984 à venir exposer et s'exprimer dans les musées et galeries français. Il y rencontre des artistes de sa génération, proches de son univers : Hervé di Rosa et Robert Combas.
Il a reçu de nombreuses commandes pour des supports très variés : Hôpital des Enfants Necker à Paris, Eglise de Pise, étiquettes de grands vins,....

LesKeith Haring oeuvres appartiennent au pop art.
Il peint des silhouettes de bonhommes cernés d'un trait noir épais. Elles sont reconnaissables immédiatement, très colorées avec des teintes vives. Elles apparaissent sur les murs, les fresques. Comme les pictogrammes auxquels elles ressemblent, les silhouettes de l'artiste révèlent un sens immédiat.
Les personnages sont dessinés dans diverses positions ou actions : danser, se donner la main, marcher, s'embrasser,...

Ils sont entremêlés, multipliés, ils remplissent la surface de la toile. Son personnage le plus reproduit est le Radiant Baby, littéralement bébé radieux.
Ses silhouettes semblent très simples à dessiner, évoquent les dessins d'enfants.
Il est facile de les reproduire. Comme Basquiat, l'artiste insérait parfois des mots en anglais, des inscriptions, des slogans.

Quels sont les thèmes chers à Keith Haring ?

Mur de Berlin avant sa chute - Keith Haring

Les thèmes traités par l'artiste sont plus que jamais d'actualité. Les conflits armés sont nombreux, la planète souffre, les droits des personnes LGBT ne sont pas reconnues partout. La tolérance, la protection de l'environnement, les droits des personnes LGBT sont des luttes qui n'ont pas cessé.
Au contraire, elles sont plus que jamais nécessaires.

L'artiste est une référence pour les jeunes artistes influencés par le pop art et le street art.
Comme avec Basquiat ou Warhol, les peintres puisent dans lesKeith Haring oeuvres et utilisent ses techniques, ses motifs, ses couleurs, ses thèmes.
Les personnages sont réemployés dans des scènes inédites. Ils sont reproduits sur des supports originaux. Ils sont peints ou dessinés dans d'autres teintes, avec d'autres outils.

Tout d'abord, Virginie Schroeder est une artiste qui travaille au Canada. Très proche du pop art pendant longtemps, elle a tout naturellement été imprégnée par les Keith Haring oeuvres.
Dans ses recherches esthétiques, elle redonne de la visibilité à des personnages populaires de la bande dessinée, du cinéma : Wonderwoman, Mickey, Astérix, la Panthère Rose, Harry Potter et beaucoup d'autres.
Elle les montre sous un nouvel aspect. Elle propose une image des héros peu communes avec celles dont on a l'habitude. Elle leur donne une version psychédélique, pop.
Virginie Schroeder déforme, colorise les silhouettes de l'artiste en les traitant avec des couleurs vives, à dominante rose pour évoquer la paix, l'amour sur la planète toute entière. Sa toile en hommage à l'artiste célèbre la fraternité entre tous les hommes.
Elle utilise une technique au couteau pour sculpter les silhouettes et leur donner du mouvement. Sa toile dégage un sentiment d'amour universel, reflète un futur pacifié possible.

Patrick Cornée, artiste français, a l'habitude d'évoquer les grandes figures du pop art et de la culture populaire (bande dessinée, comics, cinéma, musique). Il a déjà invoqué les grandes icônes américaines ou anglaises : David Bowie, Mickey, Andy Warhol, John Lennon, Basquiat,... Il les insère dans ses toiles et les détourne ou les glorifie. Il les met en scène dans des situations actualisées. Comme Basquiat, Patrick Cornée introduit des personnages populaires dans sa toile hommage aux Keith Haring oeuvres. Cette fois il s'agit de Popeye, un personnage de comics puis de dessin animé bien connu pour sa force lorsqu'il avale des épinards. Dans sa toile, Frédéric Cornée montre Popeye cerné par les bonhommes de Keith Haring. Popeye est connu pour sa force, sa brutalité. C'est un marin, tatoué et musclé. Les silhouettes de Haring semblent le piétiner, l'écraser. Colorées, elles contrastent avec un Popeye en noir et blanc.

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Découvrez ou redécouvrez Keith Haring, cet artiste du pop art qui peignait essentiellement dans la rue, sur les murs ou les trottoirs. Ses personnages sont mondialement connus. Rappelez vous l'oeuvre et la vie de cet homme dédiées à la lutte contre toutes les discriminations, à la paix, à l'espoir.

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Contexte et analyse de l'œuvre

Le contexte

Dans les années 80 à New York, la culture alternative s'exprime en marge des galeries et musées pour se répandre dans les rues, les entrepôts ou le métro. C'est dans ce foisonnement underground que Keith Haring rencontre Kenny Scharf et Jean-Michel Basquiat, deux artistes new yorkais avec lesquels il devient ami.

Au même moment, Haring organise et participe à des expositions ou des performances dans un lieu mythique de l'avant-garde : le Club 57.

Dans les années 80 encore, les graffitis commencent à envahir les murs des cités et Haring cède à la tentation en laissant son empreinte à la craie blanche sur les murs noirs du métro de New York. Ses fameux "subway drawings" sont nés...

En 1986, profitant de sa notoriété grandissante, Haring ouvre une boutique de produits dérivés de ses œuvres. Une initiative qui n'est pas du goût de tout le monde, sauf d'Andy Warhol, son mentor absolu.

L'analyse de l'œuvre
1. En termes de forme et techniques
Les œuvres de Haring se caractérisent par une répétition de formes synthétiques entourées de noir et souvent remplies de couleurs aussi chaudes qu'éclatantes (jaune, vert, rouge, bleu). Leur graphisme est relativement simple et épuré, mais il donne la plupart du temps l'impression que les personnages de ces œuvres sont en mouvement grâce à des traits empruntés à l'univers de la bande dessinée.

Quel que soit le support, la ligne continue reste l'élément indissociable du style Haring. Qu'elle soit réalisée au marqueur, à la craie, au feutre ou à l'encre, peinte à l'acrylique ou à la bombe, le trait de la ligne est constant et fluide.

Pour ses dessins, Haring utilise différents supports sans jamais faire de croquis préalables ni apporter de corrections, même sur ses plus grandes créations. Haring a réalisé des peintures murales, des dessins, des tableaux, des objets peints, des t-shirts, des badges et des affiches imprimées...
2. En termes de signification
Les œuvres de Haring représentent des personnages, des objets ou des animaux de manière symbolique. Parfois, ils racontent une histoire, mais toujours ils suscitent l'émotion chez celle ou celui qui les regardent.

Un "bébé rayonnant", ou à 4 pattes, un chien à la gueule rectangulaire, une télévision, une soucoupe volante... Tous ces symboles humains ou non souvent "croqués" par Haring se reconnaissent entre 1 000.
3. En termes d'usage
Haring a saisi toutes les opportunités offertes dans le New York des années 80 pour s'adresser et rendre son art accessible à un public le plus large possible, comme le montrent son utilisation des panneaux publicitaires de la ville, ou la création de sa boutique de produits dérivés.

La plupart des sujets qu'il met en scène reflètent sa vie ou les questions que se posaient ses congénères à l'époque. Ils traduisent ainsi l'énergie de toute une génération, portée par la musique hip hop et la break dance qui faisaient bouger New York.

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Aborder l'art contemporain, à la manière de Keith Haring | Canson®

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