Octave Tassaert

I have no particular reason to post this painting other than I came across it online in some secondary manner and I found it compelling for reasons that I cant quite ascertain.

Studio Interior, Octave Tassaert, France 1845

It is certainly beautifully rendered on myriad levels – light, composition, pallet, theme and more. Perhaps it’s the visual back story that intrigues me about the work.

At first glance, I thought this was a painting of a young man peeling potatoes by the hearth, but on closer inspection, I saw that this was either an artist himself, or an artist’s assistant perhaps taking a break while the master attends to something else in the studio. Or perhaps, the artist has yet to begin his work as it is clearly visible that the pallet is free from paint. For that matter, there appears to be no paint in the box whatsoever. Perhaps the project ahs yet to begin making this the calm before the storm so to speak.

It’s actually quite serene and peaceful and I’m sure there were worse places to be in 1845 in France - where and when this work was created. It now hangs in the Musée du Louvre in Paris. Perhaps I came across it there several years ago and its memory has drifted through my subconscious mind until this misty reacquaintance this early morning.

The artist was Octave Tassaert. At the age of 74, after Tassaert became an alcoholic and his health and eyesight deteriorated greatly, he took his own life. He never quite found the success of peer approval that he was seeking – it’s a rather tragic tale actually and you can read about it briefly here - http://www.terminartors.com/artistprofile/Tassaert_Octave

In Memoriam…

It was with sadness that I read of the passing of Dame Elizabeth Taylor. There will be much written and spoken about her now that she has died and I won’t attempt to compete here. I can say only that I found her to be a true master of her art and a great and cherished humanitarian.

To this day, I find myself riveted by some of her film performances. In particular of these is her well deserved Best Actress Oscar winning performance as Martha in “Who’s Afraid Of Virginia Woolf”. I have seen that film so many times that I have literally lost count. It is a timeless piece of movie mastery that will live in the halls of honor of film making.

I think I will honor her life this weekend when I am back at the shore with some good scotch and another screening of that astounding film…

Another brilliantly performed scene…

In Memoriam
Dame Elizabeth Rosemond Taylor
February 27, 1932 – March 23, 2011

De Niro helps to end Art Fraud.

Courtesy AFP/Getty Images

The actor Robert De Niro, who last year created a new art prize in honor of his late painter father's legacy, appeared in a packed courtroom on Friday to testify in the trial of Leigh Morse, a dealer who worked for Larry Salanderduring the notorious swindler's multimillion-dollar spree of art fraud. Appearing in the Manhattan court in a green corduroy blazer and white shirt, the actor — recently labeled a "post-empire" icon by Bret Easton Ellis— related how he had a deal to evenly split the sale of commissioned works with the gallery, but then failed to see any proceeds while noticing that Salander was flying around the world in a private jet. "It didn't seem to add up," the actor testified. MORE HERE - [Bloomberg].

The nude men clock - Huh?!

Who would want to see scores of tiny animated nude men in your browser telling you what time it is? The real question is – who wouldn’t?!

This cute and clever flash app was sent to me by my dear friend Denise. It does actually tell you the correct time, at least as shown on your computer. Click to switch back and forth between an analog clock and a digital read out. Check it out here:

http://lovedbdb.com/nudemenClock/index2.html

Oh those crazy 60’s….

I’m going to file this one under the WTF category. While it must have been fun while it lasted, this just seems like a game with, ultimately, disastrous results - or at least - an unpleasant throbbing headache hued sunrise search for a taxi the next morning. . .

The Associated Press: Pompeii exhibit in NYC shines light on buried city

NEW YORK (AP) - A new exhibition from Italy that opens Friday at New York's Discovery Times Square captures the last gasp of the ancient city of Pompeii before it was buried under volcanic ash, mud and rock when Mount Vesuvius erupted 2,000 years ago.

Copies of body casts that researchers made from the skeletal remains of residents buried alive are an eerie part of the exhibit - a crouching man covers his mouth, a chained dog appears contorted, a family of four huddle together.

A short film recreates what Pompeians might have felt as they tried to escape. The museum's floor vibrates as the volcano's furor grows; a movie screen rises and a double door opens to reveal a funereal scene of 20 "bodies" hardened in poses from their final moments.

Pompeii existed for 700 years before it was snuffed out in just 24 hours.

"Pompeii The Exhibit: Life and Death in the Shadow of Vesuvius" also chronicles life in the vibrant mercantile city before and after Vesuvius erupted. Colorful room and garden frescoes, mosaic floors, pottery and gold jewelry are among the artifacts featured.

Located on Italy's western coast, Pompeii's rich volcanic soil produced wine grapes, wheat and other crops. Both a river and sea port, the city exported goods throughout the Roman Empire and imported such items as lamps, pottery and olive oil from northern Italy, France and Spain.

Its 25,000 inhabitants were well-to-do farmers, bankers, ship captains and traders whose thriving city boasted 200 wine bars, inns and restaurants, 33 bakeries, and Thermoplia, the fast food shops that ladled hot foods from big terra cotta pots.

"The exhibition provides a complete picture of life in an ancient city. No archaeological excavation gives the totality of life like Pompeii," said Judith Harris, ...
http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/4e67281c3f754d0696fbfdee0f3f1469/Article_2011-03-04-Pompeii Exhibition/id-c49b4de85f334b1a8b114e86d79470f7
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Fab Fun Florida. . .

I've been in fabulous, sunny, Fort Lauderdale, Florida since Sunday afternoon and l'm loving every second of it. One lovely excursion yesterday was to the Coconut Grove Art Festival in Miami. It was a massive collection of some truly outstanding work by hundreds of talented artists and I'm glad I was able to attend on the last day of the event.

One sculptor in particular whose work was particularly compelling in a kitschy, voyeuristic manner was Marc Sijan. His works are startlingly lifelike poly-resin casts of live models which he sculpts and paints to an uncanny level of realism. I've either seen his work, or similar, somewhere before as it rang familiar, but nevertheless, it packs a whalop upon close inspection. Here are a few snaps I took of his work on display. . .

A cherry lover no doubt.

This model seemed to be popular with the artist

This work was particularly unsettling/amazing. Every pore seems to be accounted for. Of course, that is to be expected with a cast from a live model, but the artist truly has enhanced these works to add new dimensions to their lifelike appearance.

See this happy-go-lucky bald chap. He's not real.

By the way, the next time you find yourself in Miami, and are in the mood for something with a touch of European/Latin infused Bohemia - head over to 412 Espanola Way and Cafe Nuvo for a brilliant Mojito and an the outstanding "Europe's Favorite" platter for two. You'll be ever so happy you did. Plus, the people watching is fab. You'll never know when a Cuban model may show up for a photoshoot.

Keith Haring–on this day, Feb. 16. . .

Keith Haring was a visionary visual pop artist whose work seemed to be everywhere in the 1980’s.



In 1982, Haring had his first New York one-man show at the Shafrazi Gallery.

Untitled, 1982
marker ink and acrylic on found canvas
86 x 86 inches
218.44 x 218.44 cm

Untitled, 1982
vinyl paint on vinyl tarp
72 x 72 inches
182.88 x 182.88 centimeters



Haring opened Pop Shop in New York City in 1986. The store sold posters, t-shirts, and other items baring his artwork and designs. He was also interested many social causes, painting an anti-drug mural that same year. In all, he did more than 50 public works and held numerous workshops for children. In 1988, Haring discovered that he had AIDS. The next year he created the Keith Haring Foundation to support AIDS organizations and children’s programs.



Sadly, Keith Haring died on this day, February 16th in 1990 at the age of 31. Click on this link to read more about the fascinating life and brilliant, though sadly short-lived, career of this influential artist here.

Rest In Peace Betty Garrett

Somehow, the news of the passing of Betty Garrett three days ago slipped under my radar. I first became aware of her as a child growing up in the 70’s. She was a regular on television portraying Archie Bunker's liberal neighbor Irene Lorenzo in All in the Family and landlady Edna Babish in Laverne & Shirley. I was a fan of both of those programs and it was difficult not to notice the vitality, spunk, and fiery charisma Betty Garrett infused into those roles that certainly would have been missed had they been portrayed by a lesser actress.


Betty Garrett, lower right, in the cast of Laverne & Shirley

While she was quite good in those roles, her career consisted of far more than the sitcom sessions. She had a long and glorious career as a dancer, singer, Broadway star and musical film star. 

Though she and her husband Larry Parks had to suffer through the indignities of the Black List in the 1950’s she still managed to find work, she managed to land on her feet leading her to a career that only ended when she passed. According to to this LA Times obit, just last Wednesday, she “went to dinner with friends and afterward taught a weekly musical comedy class at Theatre West, the nonprofit theater she helped found in North Hollywood half a century ago.”

Now that’s what I call an artist.

In Memoriam
Betty Garrett
May 23, 1919 - February 12, 2011

Al Pacino to play Henri Matisse

Henri Matisse and Al Pacino … Photograph: Carl Van Vechten/Corbis and Frederick M Brown/Getty

This is intriguing – one of my favorite actors will portray one of my favorite painters on screen. Academy award winner Al Pacino will play the French artist Henri Matisse in a film about the painter's relationship with his nurse, model and muse, Monique Bourgeois, Variety reports 

Producers are still searching for two female leads for the film, titled “Masterpiece”. In 1941, Matisse, who lived most of the year in Nice in the south of France, developed cancer and underwent surgery. During the long recovery he was particularly helped by a young part-time nurse, Monique Bourgeois, who had answered his ad seeking "a young and pretty nurse" and who took care of Matisse with great tenderness.

Matisse asked her to pose for him, which she did. Several drawings and paintings exist. She later became a Dominican nun, and the pair re-encountered each other in Vence, France, where she inspired him to decorate the Chapelle du Rosaire, often known as the Matisse chapel and one of the most important works of art of the 20th century.

Bourgeois, or Sister Jacques-Marie as she was later known, died in 2005. She insisted her relationship with the painter had always been purely platonic. "I never really noticed whether he was in love with me," she told an interviewer in 1992. "I was a little like his granddaughter or his muse, but he was always a perfect gentleman."


Henri Matisse and Sister Jacques-Marie

The Indian-Canadian Oscar-nominated film-maker Deepa Mehta is set to direct a script by Donald Martin.

While thievery sucks, Art Thievery REALLY sucks…

It seems some unscrupulous person literally lifted a stunning eight-by-ten, black-and-white Polaraid snapped by photographer Jason Lee of the late actor Dennis Hopper  from a Los Angeles art gallery following the opening of a new exhibit, Friday night. 

Not only as a  professional visual artist who has had work stolen myself but also as someone who owned and operated a successful art gallery in Washington, DC for 11 years, I can tell you how reprehensible this is and how much it sucks.

This work is described as “extremely sentimental” to the photographer. So much so that Jason Lee has offered a no-questions-asked, no charges pressed, anonymous return of the work  reward of $25,000.

It is my sincerest hope that the perpetrator/s return the work, and if they have any self-respect at all (doubtful), they will refuse the generous reward.

More on the crime here - WE NEED YOUR HELP. Please spread the word.

Google Art Project: 'Street view' technology added to museums

Preview of the Google Art Project

Here’s some exciting news for all of you museum and gallery lovers out there (myself included). It seems that Google is bringing its "street view" technology indoors. With the launch of the Google Art Project, announced at a press conference in London this morning, Google jumps into the online art arena with tools that will allow web surfers to move through 17 of the most prominent art galleries in the world, with the option to look more closely at individual art works, including some that will be digitized so exhaustively that individual paint strokes and hairline cracks in the surface will be visible.

I think this is a brilliant and innovative idea that will only help bolster interest in the visual arts, especially for students around the world who have no access to these masterworks. It’s better to have an experience with the work on a computer than not at all.

For a complete article regarding the event, read about it in the Washington Post’s ArtsPost here:

http://voices.washingtonpost.com/arts-post/2011/02/google_launches_the_google_art.html?hpid=moreheadlines

“The world is life, fun, and energy.”

No matter what your stance on the validity of horoscopes, the following is of interest. The folks at www.informationisbeautiful.net wondered if horoscopes really all just say the same thing? They scraped & analyzed 22,000 predictions to see the results.

Frankly, I find the meta-horoscope composed of the most common words from 4,000 star sign predictions may be the only horoscope that I will ever need. . .



Words to live by no doubt. . . More  here -

www.informationisbeautiful.net/visualizations/horoscoped

A collection of work. . .

I’m in the process of updating some of the work on my visual artist website at www.sprouseart.com. Coupled with the fact that I recently was commissioned to create a “Narrative Portrait” work, I found myself revisiting some works that I’ve not examined in a while. I created an album on my Facebook page for the process and I found the synchronistic manner in which FB’s album app situated the works so that the eyes of each subject of the paintings are the main focus of the thumbnails rather uncanny.

You can see the full treatment, as well as the large version of each thumbnail plus a description of my “Narrative Portrait” process here - http://www.facebook.com/#!/album.php?aid=279568&id=767354227 

Feel free to share!

Crazy Cat Animation…

It’s Friday and the perfect time for this silliness…

Enjoy your weekend!

Xtras Café In Richmond’s “Carytown”

A couple of months ago, I became aware of a new hot spot in the “Carytown” section of Richmond called “Xtras Café” that just opened last September.

The place is off to a great start getting rave review after rave review in the Richmond press, including being named one of the best new restaurants in Richmond”  in the January issue of Richmond Magazine.

The reason that Xtras came across my radar is the fact that they have practically designed their phenomenal deco themed interior around one of my large-scale paintings entitled, “The Farewell”  which was purchased from The Chasen Gallery – a wonderful gallery with whom I have been represented for a number of years now.


(interior shot of Xtras Café with “The Farewell” center wall)

(detail of interior shot of Xtras Café with “The Farewell” center wall)

I’ve not had a chance to get to Xtras yet, but I have an artist friend who will be traveling to Richmond soon who plans to stop in and check it out. Based upon the reviews, I’ll make sure and do the same when I’m there next. I mean, after all, I already admire their great sense of taste! –

Recent reviews online:  

Dining Out Review: Xtras Café

and

Xtras Cafe impresses with design, patio

The Amazing Work of Brad Elterman

I’m not sure how the work of Brad Elterman, the phenomenally gifted photographer with a golden eye who visually documented some of the most iconic entertainers of the 70s and 80s, managed to slip under my radar for decades. I find his work incredible.

These are not just random paparazzi fluff photos – it takes a keen eye to capture these moments and an highly skilled artistic eye to select the best of the myriad frames to release.

“I did several photo session with Cherie Currie of The Runaways. One day in 1977 I drove out to the San Fernando Valley to photograph Cherie at home. She was rather carefree during a tour of the family kitchen, placed a lollipop in her mouth and I took the photo. It is incredible how you can accessorize a photo session with a lollipop!” 
Photo by Brad Elterman

Visit his website and review his amazing work from his book “Like It Was Yesterday” here :

www.bradelterman.com.

You won’t regret the visit…

“75, 25, 51”

Simply to make a rather blah January Monday fade a bit faster – a bit of digital collage to spark creativity…

Make of it what you will. Enjoy…


”75, 25, 51” Digital Collage, 2011 ©Michael Sprouse

William Dyce painting reappears…

While I’m glad that this work has reappeared, what I’m most curious about is the story behind its being lost for the last 100 years. Where had it been?

The current story here -

LONDON.- A stunning William Dyce painting that has been lost for over a century is to be offered for sale at Sotheby’s next week. The Meeting of Jacob and Rachel is expected to fetch between £100,000 – 150,000 when it is offered for sale in Sotheby’s Victorian and Edwardian Art sale on Wednesday 15 July 2009. The painting illustrates the Biblical text ‘Jacob kissed Rachel and lifted up his voice, and wept’ - Rachel’s father had tricked Jacob into working for him without payment on the understanding that he could marry Rachel. The work has been untraced since it was exhibited in the 1850s – first at the Royal Academy in 1850 and later at the Manchester Art Treasures exhibition in 1857. The discovery was made when an image of the work was sent to Sotheby’s specialists who were later able to identify it as the original by a small part of torn label on the reverse that identified it as having been in the Manchester exhibition.

Discussing the work Grant Ford, Senior Director and Head of Victorian Paintings at Sotheby’s said: “This is one of the most important pre-Raphaelite paintings to appear on the market for some time. It is thrilling to have uncovered the whereabouts of this striking Dyce work, especially as it was just last autumn that we set a record William Dyce, The Meeting of Jacob and Rachel, Est. £100,000 – 150,000 for a work by the artist at auction with Welsh landscape of two women knitting which was included in the sale of the Scott Collection at Sotheby’s London.”
The painting illustrates the Biblical text ‘Jacob kissed Rachel and lifted up his voice, and wept.’ Rachel’s father had tricked Jacob into working for him without payment on the understanding that he could marry Rachel. However, after fourteen years he insisted that Jacob should first marry his elder daughter Leah before eventually allowing him to marry Rachel. This theme must have been particularly meaningful to the artist as he had been forced to delay his own marriage until January 1890 – maybe on account of the 27 year age difference between him and his 19 year old bride.

Other highlights of the Victorian and Edwardian Art auction include Liverpool Docks, by John Atkinson Grimshaw, an atmospheric night-time depiction of 19th century Liverpool estimated at £250,000-350,000 and Wind and Sun by Dame Laura Knight – a light-filled costal scene painted in Cornwall expected to fetch £200,000-300,000.

More on Dyce here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Dyce

New home for Degas painting

Congratulations Saint Louis Art Museum for your recent acquisition, Edgar Degas’ phenomenal painting, The Milliners (Les Modistes).

Degas has long been one of my personal favorites of the late 19th and early 20th century European artists. I remember clearly the first time I saw his tremendous work in person the first time I ventured into the National Gallery of Art in Washington, DC in the summer of 1990.

I was in my early twenties and I had just moved to DC from a small university town in Kentucky. It was a pivotal and life changing move and that summer presented the expected torrent of discoveries and new experiences that naturally accompany youth and transition.

As an young artist in Kentucky, I had only read about the splendors of the famous museums and galleries during Art History class. Then, as if floating through a blur of a hundred fast forward buttons, one day I found myself standing in front of Degas’ astounding work, “Four Dancers” in the National Gallery Of Art in Washington, DC.

It was a mesmerizing moment and I became completely lost in it. Though, “moment” isn’t the correct word, and frankly, I’m not sure what would be. It wasn’t a moment as much as it was a cloak of eternity that enveloped my artistic psyche. My senses became one with the masterpiece – the colors, the composition, the flow, shapes, texture, expressions, form, movement and so much more. Each second of awareness of something extraordinary brought others that exploded like super-novae exponentially across the canvas and my mind.

I left the gallery a changed man and and artist.

So, I was quite pleased to learn of the purchase of The Milliners (Les Modistes) by the Saint Louis Art Museum – in particularly - for the following reasons

1. This is the first Degas to join the museum’s collection
2. The work had been in private hands since it was first sold after Degas’ death in 1917
3. If I ever get to Saint Louis, I now know one place to put on my “must see” list.

Details of the major acquisition can be found here - Saint Louis Art Museum Acquires Important Painting by Edgar Degas