When Henri Cartier-Bresson (1908-2004) switched his focus from paintbrush to camera, the essence of photography was still the subject of fierce debate. Should photographers aspire to art or remain as mere documenters of reality?
Author Archives: Mary Manion
Art Markets: World War I poster art rooted in propaganda
When the empires of Europe went to war in August of 1914, almost everyone involved dreamed of a swift campaign of glory for their side, and of returning home covered in victory laurels by Christmas.
Art Markets: Lichtenstein’s work parodies popular culture
Although Andy Warhol became the celebrity of Pop Art in the 1960s, he wasn’t the movement’s only leading light. Pop was in the air in New York City by 1960 and one of Warhol’s peers, Roy Lichtenstein (1923-1997), probably defined its aesthetic as precisely as anyone.
Art Markets: Nazi takeover couldn’t crush Bauhaus School movement
In 2009, art museums and historians observed the 90th anniversary of the last century’s most influential art and design school. The Bauhaus, established in 1919 in Weimar, Germany, was the subject of major exhibitions in New York and Chicago and reappraisals the world over.
Art Markets: LeRoy Neiman prints gaining momentum
Sixty years is a long time for success in any field. Since the 1950s, LeRoy Neiman has been a popular oil painter whose successes are measured less through the accolades of critics and academics than by commissions and auction results.
Art Markets: Is Leibovitz a ‘Picasso’ in our midst?
Annie Leibovitz was a “service brat,” spending her childhood on the go from base to base with her father, an officer in the U. S. Air Force. The camera bug bit her in the Philippines, where her father was stationed during the Vietnam War.
Art Markets: Warhol buys abstract expressionists a Coke
When he moved to the Big Apple in 1949, Andy Warhol was in tune with the sentiment of the song “New York, New York” and the line, “If I can make it there, I’ll make it anywhere.”
Art Markets: Gallery label prompts investigation of attic find
Recently, as I was examining a collection of framed artwork for a quick verbal appraisal, I was reminded of an important but often overlooked piece of valuable information: a gallery label on the verso or backside.
Art Markets: Legitimate Kandinsky artwork is cataloged
In Russia, modernism at the end of the 19th and the beginning of the 20th century often meant an embrace of all things ancient. In music, Igor Stravinsky shocked Western audiences with the violent rhythms of “The Rite of Spring” (1913), which derived from Russian folk music.
Modernism in America introduced by The Eight
The famous Armory Show of 1913 exposed American tastemakers to the latest developments in European modernism through exhibiting paintings by Picasso, Braque, Matisse, Kandinsky, Duchamp and others.