Beatrix Potter born in London on July 28th 1866, was an English author, illustrator, natural scientist and conservationist best known for her imaginative children’s books featuring animals such as those in The Tale of Peter Rabbit.

Influenced by her father Rupert Potter a barrister who chose not to pursue his profession but his passion for art and photography, Beatrix was an imaginative and independent woman who was way ahead of her time in an era that kept women ‘properly’ inhibited.

“Thank goodness I was never sent to school; it would have rubbed off some of the originality.”

A fascination in the sciences and a love for animals and nature was an ongoing inspiration for Beatrix and her paintings and illustrations. At the age of eight Beatrix was already studying and recording the characteristics of a wide variety of animals, birds and insects in a home-made sketchbook.

This habit of spending time observing the form and structure of living things continued throughout her childhood and into adolescence. She observed and dissected animals in order to discover their precise physiognomy and anatomy. Her early passion for scientific investigation became integral to her method as an illustrator.

Educated by private governesses, which was common for wealthy families, Beatrix was able to pursue and excel in literature, science, history and private art lessons.

“I cannot rest, I must draw, however poor the result, and when I have a bad time come over me it is a stronger desire than ever.”

Through her 20s, Beatrix developed into a talented naturalist. She made studies of plants and animals at the Cromwell Road museums, and learned how to draw with her eye to a microscope. Her scientific studies were exceptional though not taken serious since she was a woman. However, her talent and capabilities would eventually earn her the respect she deserved in spite of discrimination.

Beatrix was also an accomplished still life painter and at age 15 produced remarkable paintings – though not widely known for this.

She painted for many years for her own amusement and story telling for family and friends before she decided to pursue commercial work.

“I hold that a strongly marked personality, can influence descendants for generations.”

Peter Rabbit the World’s Oldest Licensed Character

With a fondness for her rabbit character and story, she decided to turn it into a picture book. Determination to see the book published did not stop her even though the book was rejected by several publishers. She printed the book herself with 250 copies.

The “Tale of Peter Rabbit” was a great success with family and friends.

In 1902 Frederick Warne & Co. agreed to publish an initial quantity of 8,000 copies which sold out instantly and her career as a storyteller and illustrator was launched.

In 1903 Beatrix designed and patented a Peter Rabbit doll, making Peter Rabbit the world’s oldest licensed character.

Potter was also a canny businesswoman. As early as 1903 she made and patented a Peter Rabbit doll, the world’s oldest licensed character. It was followed by other “spin-off” merchandise over the years, including painting books, board games, wall-paper, figurines, baby blankets and china tea-sets. All were licensed by Frederick Warne & Co. and earned Potter an independent income as well as immense profits for her publisher.

With the proceeds from the book and a family inheritance she went on to purchase a farm, Hill Top Farm in Near Sawrey and over several decades purchased additional farms to preserve the unique hill country landscape.

Beatriz remained single until age 47 when she married William Heelis. They enjoyed a happy marriage of thirty years.

“Most people, after one success, are so cringingly afraid of doing less well that they rub all the edge off their subsequent work.”

Beatrix Potter published over twenty- three books and the best known are those written between 1902 and 1922.

She continued to write, illustrate and design spin-off merchandise based on her children’s books for Warne until the duties of land management and diminishing eyesight made it difficult to continue.

She died at age 77 of complications from pneumonia and heart disease. She left nearly all her property to the National Trust, including over 4,000 acres of land, sixteen farms, cottages and herds of cattle and Herdwick sheep. Hers was the largest gift at that time to the National Trust and it enabled the preservation of the lands now included in the Lake District National Park and the continuation of fell farming.

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For more than fifty years he has set a standard for American art. Like so many of the famous artists I’ve studied, many of them had their roots of art take hold in childhood. From the age of five Jasper knew he wanted to be an artist.

His work depicts commonplace emblems such as flags, targets, maps, and numbers, and through his genius manipulation to the canvas’ surface texture, he raises the images to iconic status. Constantly challenging the technical possibilities of printmaking, painting and sculpture,  Johns laid the groundwork for a wide range of experimental artists.

Jasper is one of the most significant figures in the history of postwar art. His work from 1955 to 1965 was pivotal, and he laid the groundwork for both Pop Art and Minimalism.

Since the 1980s, Johns produces paintings at four to five a year, sometimes not at all during a year. His large scale paintings are much favored by collectors and due to their rarity, it is known that Johns’ works are extremely difficult to acquire.

Today, as his prints and paintings set record prices at auction, the meanings of his paintings, his imagery, and his changing style continue to be subjects of controversy.

Media Highlights

Johns had painted his first American flag in 1954, and it is the image with which the artist is most often associated. His White Flag (1955) hangs in the Metropolitan; Three Flags (1958) is in the Whitneys permanent collection. A 1973 piece, Two Flags, sold for $12.1 million in 1989 — the second highest auction price ever achieved by the artist.

The National Gallery of Art acquired about 1,700 of Johns’ proofs in 2007. This made the Gallery home to the largest number of Johns’ works held by a single institution.

Sources:
christies.com/lotfinder/prints-multiples/jasper-johns-flags-i-5313639-details.aspx
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jasper_Johns

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Keith Haring’s art work was bold and graphical and has become a widely recognized visual language of the 20th century. His art made a statement and he became a sensation in the art world with his bold, cartoon style and graffiti influenced works. He created the art form of classic graffiti and brought recognition to street art. However his art was so much more than graffiti. He used his own work to highlight issues in New York and his own life. It was bold, vivid and expressive with roots in cartooning and graphic design. It’s not wonder though since his dad was a cartoonist, he inherited his unique style and talent.

Keith Grew up in Kutztown, Pennsylvania and spent many hours drawing with his father. Haring was fascinated by the popular cartoon art of Walt Disney and Charles Schultz. Haring was interested in art from an early age. From 1976 to 1978 he studied commercial art at The Ivy School of Professional Art, an art school in Pittsburgh. He soon lost interest in commercial art and moved on to study Fine Arts.

At age 19, in 1978, Haring moved to New York City, where he was inspired by graffiti art, and studied at the School of Visual Arts.

As Keith found his style and developed it, his artwork visually fought against mass consumption, racism, capitalism, violence, religion and injustice in all their forms, with a particular emphasis on the threat of nuclear war, the destruction of the environment, homophobia and the AIDS epidemic. His art expressed wherever he showed up.

While he never founded a school or an artistic movement, the curator of the current exhibit, Odile Burluraux, likens Haring to Andy Warhol, “the Pope of pop art”, who remained a friend and mentor.

Keith Haring is quoted as saying:
“I don’t think art is propaganda; it should be something that liberates the soul, provokes the imagination and encourages people to go further. It celebrates humanity instead of manipulating it.”

To quote David Hockney, Haring’s art existed “anywhere he stopped moving.” If Keith Haring were alive today, perhaps he’d tell us to stop, just for a moment.

Keith Haring died on February 16, 1990 at 31-years-old, of AIDS-related complications. His works continues to be exhibited around the world and many are owned by such prestigious museums as the Art Institute of Chicago, the Museum of Modern Art in New York City, and the Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris.

A vast commercial industry has been built around the visual aesthetic of Keith Haring. T-shirts, sneakers, jewelry, and greeting cards draw on the style of the “graffiti school” for their designs. Haring himself capitalized on his own image in a way painters never would have dreamed of before the mass media age.

“My contribution to the world is my ability to draw. I will draw as much as I can for as many people as I can for as long as I can.”
Keith Haring

And one of the most intuitive quotes:
“When I die there is nobody to take my place.”
Keith Haring

Sources: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keith_Haring
http://www.haring.com/

Featured image:
L: Keith Haring (1958–1990), Untitled (Self-Portrait),1985. Acrylic on canvas. Private collection. Keith Haring artwork © Keith Haring Foundation. R: Keith Haring, self-portrait, 1980-1981. One of four Polaroids. Collection of the Keith Haring Foundation.

Other sources:
http://deyoung.famsf.org/haring/about/biography

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Born March 30, 1853, Vincent van Gogh lived a tumultuous life full of color, drama, passion, illness and loneliness. In a short period of ten years, Van Gogh made approximately 900 paintings, 36 which were self-portraits. Ahead of his time, he died never knowing the reach of his art and fame. He passed away at 37 after he shot himself (though some scholars believe he was shot by accident).

Many of his paintings became famous after his death. He is famous for bold post-Impressionist style and many are familiar with his sunflowers. However, he created many self-portraits which give a raw glimpse inside his troubled mental state and his unique self-perspective.

Most likely, van Gogh’s self-portraits are depicting the face as it appeared in the mirror he used to reproduce his face, i.e. his right side in the image that is in reality, the left side of his face. Shown above is a rare photograph of van Gogh taken in 1873 when he was 19. At the time he worked for the Goupil & Cie art dealership in the Hague. It is the only know photograph of van Gogh’s face.

Below are a few of his most interesting self-portraits…

Self Portrait, 1889: Believed to be Vincent van Gogh’s Last Self Portrait

Painted only months before his death, it is interesting to note that the background in the painting is reminiscent of Starry Night. Swirling brush strokes, movement and contrast, the background is restless behind the intense stare of Vincent. Attention is focused on his face, his features anxious and stern.

Self Portrait for Paul Gauguin – Confiscated and Sold by the Nazis

Vincent van Gogh, Arles, (1888,) gift; to Paul Gauguin, (1888-1897).

During the Third Reich regime in Germany, Vincent van Gogh paintings were stolen and/or destroyed by German authorities. The self-portrait above that was dedicated to Gaugin, was one of the works branded as Degenerate art by the Nazis, confiscated and sold. The winning bid for this work was $US 40.00 by Dr. Frankfurter.

The Bandaged Ear – Not What It Seems?

Self-portrait with Bandaged Ear, January 1889

Did Van Gogh really cut off his ear in the legendary act of self-harm and present it to a prostitute who is said to have fainted when he handed it to her? Well, a book published in Germany by Hamburg-based historians Hans Kaufmann and Rita Wildegans, argues that Vincent van Gogh may have made up the whole story to protect his friend Gauguin, a keen fencer, who actually lopped it off with a sword during a heated argument. The historians say that the real version of events has never surfaced because the two men both kept a “pact of silence” – Gauguin to avoid prosecution and Van Gogh in an effort trying to keep his friend with whom he was hopelessly infatuated.

This painting is considered one of the most expensive paintings of all time (along with the self-portrait below to his mother). In the late 90s it sold for $90 million in a private sale.

Self-Portrait with a Straw Hat (obverse: The Potato Peeler)

Spending much of his adult life in poverty, van Gogh could not afford to hire models. The above portrait actually consists of two portraits on one canvas. To save money on canvases he would frequently use both sides of the canvas. On the back side is “The Potato Peeler”.

“I purposely bought a good enough mirror to work from myself, for want of a model.”

Birthday Gift for Mother – “Portrait of an Artist Without His Beard”

Portrait de l’Artiste Sans Barbe (Self-portrait without beard), 1889

This painting was Van Gogh’s self-portrait, which he gave to his mother as a birthday gift. Van Gogh painted Self-Portrait without beard just after he had shaved himself.

What made van Gogh’s “Portrait of an Artist Without His Beard” so special was that he painted it for his mother, Anna Cornelia Carbentus van Gogh, for her 70th birthday not long before his suicide in 1890. At the time, van Gogh was ill in Saint Remy, France, and wanted to reassure his mother that he was all right. He painted himself with chiseled features, a clean-shaven face and an intense stare.

The self-portrait is one of the most expensive paintings of all time, selling for $71.5 million in 1998 in New York. At the time, it was the third (or an inflation-adjusted fourth) most expensive painting ever sold.

“I try more and more to be myself, caring relatively little whether people approve or disapprove.”

Vincent van Gogh painted over 30 self-portraits between the years 1886 and 1889. His collection of self-portraits places him among the most prolific self-portraitists of all time.

To see even more of Van Gogh’s portrait, check out the video below.

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A starving artist early on, his masterpiece publication did not come easy and you will soon discover why!

John James Audubon (April 26th 1785 – January 27th 1851)  is considered America’s first great watercolorist of birds and he had a deep fascination that drove him to create his lifetime masterpiece “Birds of America”.

Audubon endured many hardships before finding success in his 40’s. Born illegitimate, Audubon’s mother passed away when he was just a few months old. When John Audubon was 18 years old, he was sent to the United States to avoid him being a part of Napoleon’s army. Originally named Jean Jacques, on the arrival to America, he changed his name to John James to sound more American.

As an adult for two decades in America he made several unsuccessful business ventures. His wife Lucy, a sharp hawk-like looking woman was a powerful and extraordinary woman who worked tirelessly to aid her husband in his landmark work. She encouraged him to focus on his deep fascination of birds. Frequently he used his drawing talent to trade for goods or sell small works to raise cash. He also make charcoal portraits on demand for only 5$ each and gave drawing lessons.

Audubon’s views as artist and naturalist presented a dramatic contrast to those of other naturalists of his time. He aimed to show and illustrate each species as close as possible to life size and engaged in a natural pose or activity. Audubon called his work Birds of America. He attempted to paint one page each day however decided his earlier works were inferior and re-did them. He hired hunters to gather specimens for him.

{As a side note, Audubon would be thrilled to know, in 2012 an original copy of Birds Of America fetched $7.9 million at auction. Today, 120 are known to exist, with 107 in institutions and 13 in private hands.}

Audubon approached publishers in North America and was disappointed that none would publish his work. He headed to London with his work in search of a publisher and to his delight, the British could not get enough of his images of backwoods America and its natural attractions.

Met with great acceptance he toured around England and Scotland, and was lionized as “the American woodsman.” He raised enough money to begin publishing his Birds of America.

This monumental work consists of 435 hand-colored, life-size prints of 497 bird species, made from engraved copper plates of various sizes depending on the size of the image. They were printed on sheets measuring about 39 by 26 inches (660 mm). Printed between 1827 and 1838 by London engraver Robert Havell the work contained just over 700 North American bird species. The cost of printing the entire work was an extreme cost of $115,640 (over $2,000,000 today), paid for from advance subscriptions, exhibitions, oil painting commissions, and animal skins, which Audubon hunted and sold.

It took more than 14 years of field observations and drawings, plus his single-handed management and promotion of the project to make it a success. A reviewer wrote, “All anxieties and fears which overshadowed his work in its beginning had passed away.”

The success of “Birds of America” brought him immediate fame as the book was as close to nature as possible. He was elected to be a fellow at the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1930. He went on to Illustrate other works before his death at 65.

Today, All 435 Illustrations from John J Audubon’s ‘Birds of America’ Are Available for Free Download.  The National Audubon Society has recently made John James Audubon’s seminal Birds of America available to the public in a downloadable digital library. Download and find out more here.

A man with driving artistic passion and affinity for birds he indeed lived the below quote out.

I felt an intimacy with them…bordering on frenzy [that] must accompany my steps through life…

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_James_Audubon

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Edward Hopper (July 22, 1882-May 15, 1967) was a prominent American realist painter and printmaker; his style conforms to the movements of Modernism and Social realism. Hopper’s work is divided between lonely landscape visages and illustrations of subjects in isolation. Essentially, Hopper captures the ambiance of his subject’s mood through the arrangement of the color scheme. Hopper’s rise to eminence as a figurehead in American modern art will be gleaned in connection to his trademark aesthetic.

The art movement of social realism burgeoned in the 1930s amid the Great Depression and correlated with Hopper’s artistic affluence. At the turn of the twentieth century, Hopper began his career as an illustrator by enrolling in New York School of Art and Design. His mentors included Robert Henri and William Merritt Chase who were the important figures of the Ashcan school- an art movement that strived to convey city life in New York’s poorer regions. Norman Rockwell was among the famous artists involved in the Ashcan school. Hopper’s time spent in art school proved seminal, as he sought to translate the standards of the Ashcan school in a different light. Instead of following the paradigm of his peers and Mentors who detailed crowded and bustling spaces, Hopper shifted the focus of social realism into encapsulating the loneliness of living in the city.

Automat: The Looming Atmosphere of the City

For a short spell, Hopper sought employment as an illustrator after he finished his career in school. Hopper spent several years venturing across Europe and studying the tradition of French realist artists, such as Édouard Manet. Hopper was inspired by the French realists to lend his powers of observation towards evincing the lackluster isolation that lurks in the backdrop of incessant bright lights and city noise.

His famous works- such as ‘Automat’ (1927) and ‘Office in a Small City’ (1953) – channels the collective distress of capitalist modernity. Hopper fashions the exterior spaces in these portraits to signify the subject’s interiority. In Automat, the starkly green background silhouettes the female subject who forlornly studies the content of her beverage. A murkiness shades both the city street in the environment behind the café and the woman’s clothing, which associates the looming atmosphere of the city with her despondency.

Office in a Small City: Reality Over-saturated with Artificiality and Confinement

The alienation of post-world war two American business is translated in ‘Office in a Small City.’ Hopper portrays a minimalist visage of a man seated in his office while absent mindedly observing at the city skyline. A sense of drab unmitigated confinement materializes from the man’s vacant response to performing everyday business tasks. The everyman’s claustrophobic boredom in this picture alludes to a pallid cost of perusing the American dream, which is the insipid routine of modern life. Hopper conveys the effects of a reality oversaturated with artificiality and confinement. A concern for the question of what constitutes an examined life in midst of monotony persists in the body of Hopper’s work. Hopper’s eminence as a prominent voice in the Age of Anxiety– see Munch’s ‘The Scream’– is attributed with conveying the mental rigors, or lack thereof, during capitalist modernity.

Nighthawks – One of the Most Recognized Paintings in American Art

Nighthawks painted in 1942 in New York City (and sold within months for $3,000), expresses lonely moments in time. The empty and flat composition expresses the following:
Coldness – the time of day – late at night, cool dark shadows, empty streets, lifeless.
Disconnected – the unsmiling interaction between the bartender, woman and man seemingly avoiding eye contact as a protection of personal space.
Man in a dark suit also disconnected with his back to the large window illuminating the dark and deserted urban streetcape.

The characters living in their own reality in the same space, yet apart. The painting invites a narrative interpretation. If you are reading this, what is your narrative on the painting?

Other favorite works:

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In 1884, he showed what is probably his best-known picture, Madame X (the size of the painting enormous measuring 82 inches by 43 inches or nearly 7 feet tall). He was disagreeably surprised when it caused a scandal as a result of its sexual suggestiveness of her pose and the pail pasty color of her skin. Sargent was known to be outlandish and it is said that after meeting her socially, he become obsessed by her. He let it be known that he wanted to do “homage to her beauty” in a portrait.

He did one line drawing after another of her head in profile, made studies in pencil and watercolor of her relaxing on a settee in a low-cut evening dress, painted her in oil drinking a toast, and numerous profiles and studies.

Upon the unveiling of the painting and discouragement of her reception, he moved permanently to London. His work was too avant-garde to appeal immediately to English taste so he moved on and the turning point for Sargent’s career in England came when he showed his Carnation, Lily, Lily, Rose (painted 1885-86) at the London Royal Academy.

The piece, undeniably one of Sargent’s masterpieces, incorporated Victorian themes and a calculated impressionist influence that depicted two girls lighting lanterns among flowers in spring. However there is much more going on in the painting then meets the eye. We will examine this at a another time!

Though he enjoyed the early recognition as a portrait painter in oils for a long period of time, he grew tired of the demands and never ending list of commissions. His painting changed focus for a more personal exploration and he began work in watercolors and landscapes.

His watercolors and style of work was on the brink of modernism and unconventional for the time. Disregarding contemporary standards, his watercolors were bold with loosely defined forms and vantage points. His watercolor work was also highly praised and he managed to make a name for himself as a watercolorist in addition to a painter.

Sargent passed away in his sleep on April 15, 1925 at the age of 69. He left behind a large body of work, including portraits, travel scenes, watercolors and impressionistic masterpieces that have defined his reputation into the current century; his works are still exhibited around the world.

I do not judge, I only chronicle.
-John Singer Sargent

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Wyeth was born July 12th 1917 and passed away January 16th 2009. He started drawing at a young age and was home-tutored because of his frail health as a child (interesting that he lived until 91 years old!). His father was an illustrator and artist (N.C. (Newell Convers) Wyeth), and his primary teacher who is said to have kept him sheltered and “obsessively focused”. Wyeth recalled of that time: “Pa kept me almost in a jail, just kept me to himself in my own world, and he wouldn’t let anyone in on it. I was almost made to stay in Robin Hood’s Sherwood Forest with Maid Marion and the rebels.”

By the time Wyeth was a teenager he had ongoing art lessons by his father, the only lessons he ever had. Under his father’s guidance he mastered figures study and learned techniques of many of the masters, especially Winslow Homer. His father guided him into illustration which was not his passion, however he produced these works under his father’s name while in his teens.

At the age of twenty, Wyeth had his first one-man exhibition of watercolors at the Macbeth Gallery in New York City. The entire inventory of paintings sold out, and his life path seemed certain.

His art path and talent was most certain, however tragedy struck Wyeth’s life when his father died in a tragic train accident when his car stalled on the tracks. Not only did this change his life but also the style of his work, the melancholic style that he is best known for today. The seed of creativity took root in not only Wyeth’s life but years later in his son, Jamie Wyeth, who followed his father’s and grandfather’s footsteps, becoming the third generation of Wyeth artists.

Christina’s World

In the 1940’s, Wyeth married Betsy Janes and through her met Christina Olson, who would become the model for the iconic Christina’s World. Wyeth was inspired by Christina, who, crippled with polio and unable to walk, spent most of her time at home. To him she was a model of dignity who refused to use a wheelchair and preferred to live in squalor rather than be beholden to anyone. It was dignity of a particularly dour, hardened, misanthropic sort, to which Wyeth throughout his career seemed to gravitate.

The painting however is actually composed with three different models. The figure’s wasted limbs and pink dress belong to Christina Olson. The youthful head and torso, however, belong to Betsy Wyeth who was then in her mid-20s (as opposed to Christina’s then-mid-50s). The most famous “model” in this scene is the Olson farmhouse itself, on the National Register of Historic Places since 1995.

Snatched up for $1,800

When Wyeth completed Christina World he thought the work was a “complete flat tire”. He sent if off to the Macbeth Gellery in Manhattan in 1948. It was hardly noticed after its completion, mainly because the Abstract Expressionists were making most of the arts news and the founding director of the Museum of Modern Art, Alfred Barr, purchased it immediately for $1,800. A smart move and intuition on a masterpiece that would become the icon for Wyeth.

Popularity – In the 1980’s collectors paid more that $1 million for his paintings.

After “Christina’s World” Wyeth’s fame skyrocketed. In 1949, Winston Churchill asked for Wyeth watercolors to decorate his room at the Ritz-Carlton in Boston. Harvard gave Wyeth an honorary degree in 1955. He made the cover of Time in 1963 when President Johnson gave him the Presidential Medal of Freedom. He painted portraits of Presidents Eisenhower and Nixon. A show of his work toured the country in 1966 and 1967, attracting huge crowds at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts in Philadelphia, the Whitney Museum and the Art Institute of Chicago. In the 1980’s during the 80’s, Japanese collectors were paying more than $1 million for a Wyeth.

In 1963, he was the first painter to receive the Presidential Medal of Freedom. In the following decade, he was the first American since John Singer Sargent elected to the Academie des Beaux-Arts, and he was asked to join the Soviet Academy of the Arts; he was subsequently the first living American artist elected to the British Royal Academy. In 1988, he was awarded the Congress Medal of Honor, the highest civilian honor awarded by Congress, with appreciation of an “austere vision” that “has displayed the depth and dignity of rural American life.”

In 2007, Wyeth received the National Medal of Arts, cited by the National Endowment for the Arts for portraying “an inner life that is elusive and enigmatic.” The artist’s reputation for secrecy had become intensified when his ample portfolio of neighbor Helga Tesorf was revealed in 1986. Working with this striking model for fifteen years, Wyeth made 246 sketches, studies, drawings, and paintings, and the magazine-cover stories were accompanied by speculation as to the nature of their relationship.

The implication of sex and Wyeth’s celebrity propelled Helga onto the covers of Time and Newsweek. The National Gallery of Art in Washington, which rarely organized shows of living artists, leapt to do an exhibition of the Helga pictures in 1987. The catalogue, with reproductions of Wyeth’s soft-core renditions of his recumbent model, became a Book-of-the-Month Club best seller.

The works and a few others were sold to a Japanese collector reportedly for $45 million.

Wyeth reached great and deserving fame as an artist. He stayed true to his style and passion though art was being redefined all around him by the Abstract Expressionists, who by the way didn’t like him.

For myself, Wyeth is my favorite American Artist. His style of work strikes a cord of nostalgia, an expression of solitude and sometimes sadness.

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Before the Scream Painting – A Brief Backstory

Edvard Munch was born December 12, 1863 in a farmhouse in the village of Ådalsbruk in Løten, United Kingdoms of Sweden and Norway. Often ill and kept out of school, Edvard would draw to keep himself occupied. He was tutored by his school mates and his aunt. His Father, Christian Munch also instructed his son in history and literature and entertained the children with vivid ghost stories and the tales of American writer Edgar Allan Poe.

In 1879, Munch enrolled in a technical college to study engineering, where he excelled in physics, chemistry and math. He learned scaled and perspective drawing, but frequent illnesses interrupted his studies. The following year, much to his father’s disappointment, Munch left the college determined to become a painter.

At this time he wrote in his diary:

I have in fact made up my mind to become a painter.

Self-Portraits – His Inner World

His self-portraits were a theme of expression throughout his career. They have been compared to Rembrandt. His first self-portrait (shown above) in 1881-82 is one of his very first surviving painting and completed at the age of 18.

Throughout his life, his work remained consistent in that it expressed both his inner world and the world how he viewed it. From what he felt to what he saw. His work expressed private pain and trauma to an expression of themes and events around him. One such event that he painted and expressed with intensity was the death of his young sister Sophie. The theme of death would haunt him for the rest of his life.

Despair

Munch often used color not for naturalist description but to convey feeling, anxiety and intensity. One of his earlier paintings that expressed anxiety through color (before The Scream) was Despair painted in 1892 (shown above). From this painting The Scream evolved.

The Scream

It’s interesting that The Scream was somewhat a wild child of Munch’s work. No other painting produced by Munch had the same look and intensity as The Scream did.

The Scream exists in four versions: two pastels (1893 and 1895) and two paintings (1893 and 1910). There are also several lithographs of The Scream (1895 and later).

In 2012, The Scream sold for 119.9 million to financier Leon Black an American private equity investor. The $119.9-million price set a record for the most expensive artwork sold at auction.

The Scream is Munch’s most famous work, and one of the most recognizable paintings in all art. It has been widely interpreted as representing the universal anxiety of modern man.

It departed from his earlier works in that the style was so harsh and coarsely applied. The mixed mediums – oils, gouche, tempura, pastel and pencil. The figure is devoid of identity and presence. It seems as if it’s frantically painted. The mouth forms a singular

O.

The wild red sky is an expression of the figures emotions: hopelessness and panic. The “loud, unending scream piercing nature,” comforts the viewer with emotions.

I Gave Up Hope

With this painting, The Scream, Munch met his stated goal of “the study of the soul, that is to say the study of my own self”. Munch wrote of how the painting came to be: “I was walking down the road with two friends when the sun set; suddenly, the sky turned as red as blood. I stopped and leaned against the fence, feeling unspeakably tired. Tongues of fire and blood stretched over the bluish black fjord. My friends went on walking, while I lagged behind, shivering with fear. Then I heard the enormous, infinite scream of nature.”

He later described the personal anguish behind the painting:

For several years I was almost mad… You know my picture, ‘The Scream?’ I was stretched to the limit—nature was screaming in my blood… After that I gave up hope ever of being able to love again.

Bordering on Insanity?

During the 1890’s and 1900’s Munch repeatedly defended himself against the charges of insanity and mental illness. However he had feared that he was genetically marked by mental illness from his father.

Munch wrote, “My father was temperamentally nervous and obsessively religious—to the point of psychoneurosis. From him I inherited the seeds of madness. The angels of fear, sorrow, and death stood by my side since the day I was born”.

Breakdown

In the autumn of 1908, Munch’s anxiety, compounded by excessive drinking and brawling, had become acute. As he later wrote, “My condition was verging on madness—it was touch and go.”

Experiencing hallucinations and feelings of persecution, he entered a clinic for eight months and received therapy which included diet and “electrification.” Munch’s stay in hospital stabilized his personality, and after returning to Norway in 1909, his work became more colorful and less pessimistic.

Later Years and Solitude

Munch never married and spent most of his last two decades in solitude at his nearly self-sufficient estate in Ekely, at Skøyen, Oslo. At this time he was a renowned and wealthy artist. Many of his late paintings celebrate farm life, including several in which he used his work horse “Rousseau” as a model. To the end of his life, Munch continued to paint unsparing self-portraits, adding to his self-searching cycle of his life and his unflinching series of takes on his emotional and physical states.

Upon his death in 1944 in Norway, at the age of 80, the authorities discovered—behind locked doors on the second floor of his house—a collection of 1,008 paintings, 4,443 drawings and 15,391 prints, as well as woodcuts, etchings, lithographs, lithographic stones, woodcut blocks, copperplates and photographs.

All his works of art were bequeath to the city of Oslo in Norway.

In May 2012, The Scream sold for $119.9 million, and is the second most expensive artwork ever sold at an open auction. (It was surpassed in November 2013 by Three Studies of Lucian Freud by painter Francis Bacon, which sold for $142.4 million)

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Ann Turner Cook (born November 20, 1926 – Died June 3rd, 2022)

The iconic Gerber baby illustration has been a familiar brand seen throughout the world. The face for the trusted baby food, propelled the Gerber brand forward.

However, not much has been shown on the actual artist/illustrator who was inspired to create the sketch of original Gerber Baby, Ann Taylor Cook. Keep reading to learn about Dorothy Hope Smith.

Ann Taylor Cook: Then and now, 4 months to age 95.

In 1927 when she was about 4 months old, her image was sketched in charcoal by their neighbor and friend artist Dorothy Hope Smith. Dorothy submitted a preliminary charcoal sketch to a Gerber baby contest. The sketch was created from a snapshot of Ann Turner. Dorothy’s unfinished submission was intended more as an inquiry as to what the age of the baby should be and what the ad size would be. Dorothy intended to finish the sketch if accepted. The judges loved it. They preferred the simplicity of the illustration compared to more elaborate entries.

Dorothy won $300 in the contest, selling the rights of her drawing to Gerber.

The drawing wasn’t intended to become the brand ‘face’ for Gerber. It was actually for a marketing campaign, however the public loved it so much that they even wanted to purchase copies of the sketch. Gerber was on to something big and the sketch of Ann Cook by Dorothy Hope Smith became a trademark.

Who was Dorothy Hope Smith?

Although today many may not know her name, her creation is household knowledge.
Dorothy was born October 1st in 1895 and died in 1955 at age 60. She studied illustration at The School of the Art Institute of Chicago. She was a talented commercial illustrator specializing in babies and children. She was one of the “Ivory Soap Baby” illustrators for Procter & Gamble, illustrating children’s books for Putnam and several magazine covers. She married and her husband was also an Illustrator.

Her work represents an era of when advertising was mainly illustration based. She was also one of the few women Illustrators in a time when the industry was dominated by males.

Today you can find copies of the Gerber Baby prints (the same ones that were sold years ago) at auctions.

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