All Art Friday

All Art Friday

All Art Friday Spotlights

✭ British artist Julian Merrow-Smith began a painting-a-day project in February 2005. His Postcard from Provence site brings together the results of his gorgeous work — landscapes and still lifes — from most recent to oldest. Many of his paintings have sold. Signed, limited-edition giclees are available. Merrow-Smith selected 148 paintings from his more than 1,500 to date for his book of the same name (signed copies are available from the artist).

A new book, Cherries from Chauvet's Orchard: A Memoir of Provence (Red Ochre Press), by Ruth Phillips, a cellist and Merrow-Smith's wife, tells the story of Postcard from Provence, the author's and painter's life in France, and the life of the paintings once they leave the artist's hands. The memoir is to be published in June in paper and e-book format; for a preview, go here. To order signed, limited-edition copy, go here.

Painting-a-Day Archive

Postcard from Provence on FaceBook and Twitter

✭ London's Field, a digital art and graphic design studio, is the creator of stunning "generative" illustrations, live drawing software (designers, artists, and programmers are invited to test "Nervous Ink"), interactive "sound environments" experimental short films, animations, light games, music videos, art installations for museums, and other extraordinary work for a range of media. Of particular note is the marvelous "10,000 Digital Paintings", a project for a paper manufacturer''s print test brochure (see video below and additional images, each unique, here); each abstract image is of a different close-up view on a huge "hypercomplex sculpture" that exists only in virtual space. Go here to view other projects conceptualized and achieved with computational design, interactive technologies, and "generative strategies". Also see "Cloud Atlas"; "Eyes"; and "Longji" ("Dragon's Backbone"), amazing views of rice terraces of Longsheng;  for a forthcoming project. Field's work is exhibited worldwide at media arts festivals, galleries, and conferences.

Field's principals are Marcus Wendt and Vera-Maria Glahn. They founded Field in 2009.

10,000 Digital Paintings from FIELD on Vimeo.

Field on Twitter and Vimeo

✭ If you haven't visited Hanneorla's photostream on Flickr, you're missing out on more than 41,000 images of art and architecture sorted into more than 500 distinct sets with detailed captions. The husband-and-wife photography team shoots all over the world. Since Hanneorla began uploading images in 2005, the site has received more than 7.1 million views.

Exhibitions Here and There

✭ In Reston, Virginia, Greater Reston Arts Center's Spring Focus exhibitions include Heidi Neff's installation, Fire and Ice, inspired by Robert Frost's poem of the same title and comprising 98 paintings divided into two parts. According to the press release, the installation represents "an apocalyptic vision of the present state of political divisiveness" in the United States, with "Fire" symbolizing "liberal" issues and "Ice" the "conservative" perspective. 

The show, which opened on April 28, runs through June 10.

Heidi Neff, Fire and Ice, ceiling C (The Triumph of Fire)

Oil on Canvas, 72" x 96"

© Heidi Neff

✭ In Lorton, Virginia, Workhouse Arts Center is featuring through May 29 "Influence: 25 Years of Glass Art", with work by Harvey K. Littleton, who founded the Studio Glass Movement in the United States; and Dante Marioni, Dale Chihuly, John Littleton and Kate Vogel, and Judith La Scola, among other stellar names in the field.

John Littleton & Kate Vogel, Lens Gem

Cast Glass Hands Hold Cut Glass Gem

© John Littleton & Kate Vogel

Workhouse Arts Center on FaceBook and Twitter

Archives of American Art Oral History Interview with Harvey K. Littleton

Harvey K. Littleton Artwork in Smithsonian American Art Museum

White House Collection of American Crafts: Harvey K. Littleton and John Littleton

✭ Colorist and abstract painter Sonia Delaunay (1885-1979) is  the subject of "Color Moves: Art and Fashion by Sonia Delaunay" at the Smithsonian's Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum in New York City. On view until June 19, the exhibition features fashion designs from Delaunay's Atelier Simultane in Paris in the 1920s  and textiles the artist designed for Metz & Co. department store in Amsterdam in the 1930s. Examples are drawn from public and private museums and collections in Europe and the United States.

Color Moves Website

For those unable to get to New York to see the exhibition, this video is a recording of a discussion of the artist and her work.

Cooper-Hewitt on FaceBook, Twitter, and YouTube

Cooper-Hewitt Design Blog

Phyllis Tuchman, "The Colorful Life of Sonia Delaunay", Obit, June 25, 2009

Profile of Sonia Delaunay at National Museum of Women in the Arts

✭ As part of its Currents 105 series devoted to contemporary art, the Saint Louis Art Museum is featuring Ian Monroe, whose new work speaks to the juncture of St. Louis and aviation history, when the city opened in 1956 Lambert-St. Louis International Airport, designed by Minoru Yamasaki, who was the chief architect of New York's World Trade Center. The show, on view through July 31, includes Monroe's figurative collages as well as an abstract sculptural installation using airport materials and aviation memorabilia. Selected images may be viewed here.

Ian Monroe,  Ghost (detail), 2011

Vinyl on Acrylic; 12-3/4" x 21-1/4"

Photo Credit: Haunch of Venison and Ian Monroe

© Ian Monroe

Exhibition Brochure (pdf)

See this Links page for additional sites about Minoru Yamasaki, the Lambert terminal he designed, and St. Louis Airport history.

SLAM on FaceBook and Flickr