American painter, whose highly individualistic works are landmarks of American realism. His paintings embody in art a particular American 20th-century sensibility that is characterized by isolation, melancholy, and loneliness.
Hopper was born on July 22, 1882, in Nyack, New York, and studied illustration in New York City at a commercial art school from 1899 to 1900. Around 1901 he switched to painting and studied at the New York School of Art until 1906, largely under Robert Henri. He made three trips to Europe between 1906 and 1910 but remained unaffected by current French and Spanish experiments in cubism. He was influenced mainly by the great European realists—Diego Velazquez, Francisco de Goya, Honore Daumier, Edouard Manet—whose work had first been introduced to him by his New York City teachers. His early paintings, such as Le pavillon de flore, were committed to realism and exhibited some of the basic characteristics that he was to retain throughout his career: compositional style based on simple, large geometric forms; flat masses of color; and the use of architectural elements in his scenes for their strong verticals, horizontals, and diagonals.
Although one of Hopper's paintings was exhibited in the famous Armory Show of 1913 in New York City, his work excited little interest, and he was obliged to work principally as a commercial illustrator for the next decade. In 1925 he painted House by the Railroad, a landmark in American art that marked the advent of his mature style. The emphasis on blunt shapes and angles and the stark play of light and shadow were in keeping with his earlier work, but the mood—which was the real subject of the painting—was new: It conveyed an atmosphere of all-embracing loneliness and almost eerie solitude.
Hopper continued to work in this style for the rest of his life, refining and purifying it but never abandoning its basic principles. Most of his paintings portray scenes in New York or New England, both country and city scenes, all with a spare, homely quality—deserted streets, half-empty theaters, gas stations, railroad tracks, rooming houses. One of his best-known works, Nighthawks, shows an all-night café, its few uncommunicative customers illuminated in the pitiless glare of electric lights.
Although Hopper's work was outside the mainstream of mid-20th-century abstraction, his simplified schematic style was one of the influences on the later representational revival and on pop art. He died May 15, 1967, in New York City.

http://www.mcs.csuhayward.edu/~malek/Hopper.htm

It's a photo begging for a story to accompany it. What would that story be?

It happened while A.T. and I were having calamari at Pepe’s on the Wharf, one of P-Town’s many waterfront restaurants, visions of scallops, wellfleet oysters, and littleneck clams from the menu still swimming in my head. Our table was by the window overlooking the harbor and, when I looked up, there they were. Children, no older than five or six, playing on a boat by the shore. They were squealing in delight, far too engrossed in their late afternoon frolic to mind the cacophony of commerce a short distance away. Nothing remarkable about the scene, really, but there was a familiarity to it. I was viewing it through a window, framing the scene like a canvas, just enough shades of white and brown and blue brushed in to channel a different planet. It was the planet of Edward Hopper and Andrew Wyeth and Winslow Homer. An hour earlier, A.T. and I had been in a couple of art galleries along Commercial Street looking at landscape paintings, thinly veiled homages to the idyllic coastlines and countrysides of the three masters. Those images and the sight of the children losing themselves in play at the beach, made me feel that I’d finally arrived – and not merely in the physical sense – in the New England. It’s a good feeling.

After dinner, we were back among the busy throng of vacationers walking or biking along Commercial Street: buff gay men in their muscle shirts (it was Circuit Week that week); college-age sweethearts; yuppies and straight families and their kids. P-Town was growing on me every minute. I knew very little about it before coming here; some friends have been here but said little other than being a gay resort town. I had imagined a Fire Island with its flashy pieces of real estate and underwear parties but quainter, less drugs, more low-key. While I can imagine the Pines boys itching to flaunt their tight asses at High Tea, Low Tea and a smattering of circuit parties, there was frankly little there that piqued my interest (save for the minor scandal involving local massage therapists slandering each other by way of lamppost announcements).

While I’m walking beside A.T., the revelry and flurry of Commercial Street, P-Town’s Broadway, make it hard to believe I’m in just one town. It’s a happy confusion of towns – of borders and vernaculars and sensibilities overlapping into each other – but never one town too many. Within a block, you can find a dive bar, high-end art galleries, jewelry and antique shops, a bike rental outlet and a fancy seafood resto. All the same, P-Town’s heritage as a hub of artists and writers dating back to the 1890s is intact., Tennessee Williams, Eugene O’Neill, Willem de Kooning and Jackson Pollock have at one point called P-Town home; to this day, art galleries and theatre houses are strewn all over the main avenue. I know this sketch tries too hard, but I’ll make it anyway: gay men partying in Fire Island, sweat dripping down their sinewy bodies; P-Town a massive canvas for a drip painting, the frenzied, electric energy behind the random streaks and splotches of city folks, drag queens, lobsters, ice cream, leather and children playing in boats oblivious to the rest of these things, making for a dynamic, inspired, oddly Gestalt work of art. Just like Pollock’s action paintings, P-Town is pretty much all over the place.

It was getting late and A.T. and I decided to stay overnight at a place called Pilgrim House; it was lucky that we got ourselves a room on a Fourth of July weekend. We spend the rest of the evening checking out the different shops and having drinks; I spotted John Waters at least three times that evening. Back at Pilgrim House, I fell asleep as soon as my head hit the pillow. At around four in the morning, I woke up to the loud sound of skin slapping hard against skin. Panicked, I looked down: “Chastity belt still in place, thank God”. I turned around to face A.T. who was wide awake and listening intently to something: “Shhhh. The guys in the next room are having a foursome. Somebody just took a shower and they’re now in the second round.” Ah, how could I have forgotten about P-Town also being the mecca of hormonally-driven party boys? Within the next twenty minutes, A.T. and I became acquainted with the erotic adventures of Justin (who got asked about the soap in the shower), Josh, Kevin and the unnamed fourth person who kept saying “Harder! Harder!” to alternate with the slapping and grunting sounds. I heard Kevin talk animatedly about something that “tastes like shit and yogurt”. When everyone – in the next room, let me be clear -- has had their fill of the bacchanalia and two of the gentlemen left to go back to their own lodgings, the sky outside the window was starting to turn light. Before dozing off again, I remember thinking, "Isn't it just lovely to wake up in a town that can make everybody happy!" 

Florent

1985 - 2008

What started out as an unassuming French bistro serving New Yorkers good food round-the-clock in a low-key, congenial, 'downtown' atmosphere has become an icon that could've very well saved New York from itself. I've been to Florent three times before, whether on dates or dining with good friends and I have nothing but lovely memories of it. Some good things never last, true -- Florent is closing due to prohibitive rent prices -- but that didn't stop my incredibly talented photographer-friend M.O. from capturing Florent in one of its last few sunrises. We arrived at 69 Gansevoort St. in the Meatpacking District at 3AM the Friday morning before it closed. 

Somehow the next picture reminds me of Edward Hopper's Nighthawks, his best-known work from 1942 which captures the exterior of -- and glimpses of the patrons in -- a diner in the Village. 

Hey guys an' galls... Ruby here. So Emil is very happy at his new job working with Travis at the bookstore and I'm still at the Green Coffee Cup which I enjoy. But I do miss being involved in art so I enrolled in a late night drawing class at the local art college. We do plenty of life drawing and quick sketches and it's really kickass

What got me back into art was my birthday present from Emil. He gave me a framed photo of three Edward Hopper paintings (He knows I love Hopper paintings). Edward Hoppers most famous painting is called Nighthawks, but the image above is called Hotel Room and it's one of my favourites. Yes it's a bit morbid, but is it? What I love about Hopper paintings like Hotel Room is you can really use your imagination and try and think about what is going on in the picture. Look at the body language of the subjects and objects in the frame. It all tells a story... I've always wondered what that letter in her hand says.

Take this couple in a New York Restaurant - What's he saying to her? Is he handing her a ring? Is she relaxed or backing slightly away from him. Is that waitress listening in? The lady with the dark hair is smiling, has she overheard something funny???

This is all pretty obvious maybe, but I love to look at Hoppers paintings and just make up little stories. I'm sure some people may do this and others may not care but I love these paintings. I'd love to know if anybody else does this.

Oh and also...check out Homers butt crack! : )

Ruby :)

Anders gewendet: Wenn alle Künstler sind, dann will der Künstler lieber Philister sein als Künstler, zur Not sogar Bildungsphilister. Das gebietet einfach seine Liebe zum Unterscheidungsvermögen. Würde denn ein Goya je sagen: „Wie schön, die Welt ist voller Goyas!“? Höbe nicht genau dieser Welt-Zustand, also eine universale Goyahaftigkeit, alle Motive des Goya’schen Strebens auf? Müsste Goya angesichts einer Goya’schen Schöpfung nicht augenblicklich danach streben, ein Edward Hopper zu sein?

Die Messlatte für wirkliches Künstler-Sein hat, natürlich, Samuel Beckett aufgehängt. Und zwar verdammt hoch. Denn Beckett hat über seinen Kollegen William S. Burroughs einmal gesagt: „He’s a writer.“ Das heißt: Ihm ist es ernst. Das heißt: Er ist sein eigenes Genre. Das heißt: Keiner kann wie er sein. Das heißt: Möchten Sie in einer Welt wohnen, die von lauter William S. Burroughses bewohnt wird? Von Junkies, Waffennarren und begeisterten Kammerjägern? Dann doch lieber nur einer, der ein writer ist, und der Rest bleibt Dr. Philister.

The British Museum

The American Scene : Prints from Hopper to Pollock
Until 7 September 2008

The exhibition is on view in Room 90/ Free




The American Scene features around 150 outstanding prints by 74 leading modern American artists, including George Bellows, Edward Hopper, Grant Wood, Josef Albers, Alexander Calder, Louise Bourgeois and Jackson Pollock.

The Fifth Column: Artist: Hugo Gellert, 1943,
Colour Screenprint.
Copyright: Courtesy of the Mary Ryan Gallery, New York

The first half of the 20th century was a period of great change in America, and this exhibition examines American society and culture through the prints produced by some of the most important artists of the time.

The exhibition begins with John Sloan's Ashcan School etchings of everyday urban experience in the 1900s and concludes with Jackson Pollock and the triumph of abstract expressionism in the 1950s.

Hitch-hiker; 1937. Artist: Robert Gwathmey.
Colour screenprint.
Copyright DACS 2008

Share Croppers; 1944. Artist: Robert Gwathmey.
Colour screenprint.
Copyright DACS 2008

Combo: Artist: James McConnell, 1951
Colour Screenprint.

Many of the images in the intervening period explore the changing urban landscape of New York, the onset of the Depression, the romanticised visions of the American heartlands by the Regionalists, the response to the rise of Fascism in Europe and America’s entry into the Second World War.

All the works come from the British Museum’s own American print collection, which is the most comprehensive outside the United States covering this period.

© Text Courtesy he British Museum
© Photos. All rights reserved. Any use strictly is prohibited

Links

• The British Museum
• American Late: Independence Day at the British Museum

Espaces Arts & Objets Swiss Art Gallery

Disclaimer & Copyright

My colleague (who I will call Al, because I haven't asked him if he minds my using his name) is something of an expert on the subject of creativity. Al has been studying it and writing on the subject for a number of years. In May, Al took a trip he had wanted to take for many years. He would soon turn sixty and decided he'd waited long enough to make the journey.

Did he go to an exotic place? Well, yes and no. It depends on what you think of as exotic. But anyone who has found herself on Chicago's Lake Shore Drive on a Saturday night will probably admit that it is exotic enough for most of us!

Al made an art and architecture trip to Chicago. He started with with the Edward Hopper exhibit at the Art Institute, went on to explore Frank Lloyd Wright's home and studio, and explored all things deco and nouveau. He found it somewhat disconcerting to discover that Marshall Fields is now Macy's and that Carson, Pirie, Scott is closed. He was happy, though, that Macy's had the good sense to keep the original name plates intact on the building and that he could still see the Louis Sullivan ornamental iron trim at the edge of the scaffolding on the old Carson's building.

He had a great time. He likened it to a mythic journey. He took so many photographs that he was still taking them in his dreams when he returned and emailed me to tell me about the trip.

Al was rejuvenated, inspired, and in creative overdrive as a result of that trip. And his journey is instructive.

If we want rich, full, creative lives, we have to surrender to where life wants to take us sometimes. Life wanted to take Al to Chicago. (That last sentence makes me want to whip out an old Fenton Robinson CD and play "Going to Chicago, " or, at the very least, burst into song, myself.) Al was smart enough to allow the excuse of his impending sixtieth birthday to lead him there. He has enough material for his studies and writing on creativity (both from the trip and from the creative juices it cranked up in him) to last for months.

Now that was a good use of time.

One last thing. Al told me that Edward Hopper made the following comment when asked about one of his last paintings, one of a light-drenched sun in an empty room: "I'm after ME." Now isn't that what living the dream is all about? Isn't that what creative expression is all about? Isn't that the best reason for doing anything that maybe takes us away from our hurly-burly lives?

I think so. What do you think?

Melanie

I took this photo at night (yes, trying a 1/4 sec exposure was too much for my movement stabilized lens, the full sized eight megapixel was slightly fuzzy), getting an unusual, perfect blue glow on part of the facade, while the whole image made me recall Edward Hopper's Nighthawks.

In Fine is an exclusive "we mix your own perfume" outlet, with this medieval building being their business card location.

While I still regret not having checked the image sharpness, I was quite pleased with the natural blue glow delivering an out of this world atmosphere

By the way, welcome to http://antwerpen.wordpress.com, my photo-only 2nd blog about Antwerp.

Previous post were imported from my main blog over at http://antwerp.wordpress.com, a blog with a much wider scope. I will make an effort to post original Antwerp photos here as frequently as possible, but I won't make any promises ;-)

I took this photo at night (yes, trying a 1/4 sec exposure was too much for my movement stabilized lens, the full sized eight megapixel was slightly fuzzy), getting an unusual, perfect blue glow on part of the facade, while the whole image made me recall Edward Hopper's Nighthawks.

In Fine is an exclusive "we mix your own perfume" outlet, with this medieval building being their business card location.

While I still regret not having checked the image sharpness, I was quite pleased with the natural blue glow delivering an out of this world atmosphere

Wordpress is currently offering a great photo-blog template, which I just installed to provide the perfect backdrop for a photo-only 2nd blog about Antwerp. At present, it's only a carbon copy of this blog, but I will make an effort to post original pictures. You may want to check out http://antwerpen.wordpress.com.
I'll soon find out if anyone cares for yet another Antwerp photo-blog, but I will make sure to keep my main focus on this blog

My favorite Hopper works are his studies of light on classic old buildings; the psychodramas that make up much of his later work are interesting, but they don't add that much meaning for me.  I think a great deal can be implied simply by the human details (without the humans).  Besides, I think he was better at rendering buildings than humans.  

The Chicago exhibit was among the best art exhibitions we have seen.  It is over, but you can review some of Hopper's work at the following websites.

http://www.artic.edu/aic/exhibitions/exhibition/hopper

http://www.artchive.com/artchive/H/hopper.html

On the return trip from Chicago on the South Shore Line, an interurban railroad, I photographed a woman sitting alone on the passenger seat across from me.  I think it shows how I was channelling Edward Hopper on this wonderful day.

This is part of a weblog documenting my travels and photography. I am primarily a nature photographer, and you can see more of my work at http://www.leerentz.com

Click on the photograph below to see a larger version.

I left myself a note to look into that, and my lovely sister saw the note (in our shared "notes" space under the blog hood) and sent me this (actually, she sent several, but this one is it):

It's not exactly right, of course, but it has exactly the feel of the episode. Compare it to this:

And now look at this Hopper:

...and compare it to Roger and Joan again:

Here's the whole Babylon closing sequence.

Papasquiaro (1953-1998 ) fundó junto a Roberto Bolaño y otros autores mexicanos el movimiento infrarrealista. La editorial Fondo de Cultura Económica ha editado una antología poética que acabo de comenzar a leer y está siendo para mí todo un descubrimiento.

Después me acerqué a la librería Panta Rhei, que está especializada en las artes visuales contemporáneas. Estuve viendo unos cuantos libros muy interesantes y, finalmente, me compré una guía de San Francisco y un libro de Mark Strand, en el que el autor comenta una selección de pinturas de Edward Hopper (el libro reproduce todas las obras de Hopper que comenta el autor). Se titula Hopper y lo edita Lumen.

Y después de todas estas compras, Fernando y yo fuimos a la tienda que acaba de abrir Crumpler en el número 10 de la calle Barquillo, para comprarnos unas bolsas de bandolera la mar de chulas :-) Merece la pena darse una vuelta por su web, que es de lo más friki (y las bolsas, maletas y fundas de portátil son excelentes).

He thought he'd take to the sea
for awhile.
A house on stilts amidst the froth and surf
down on a carolina coast.
Flee the trees, mountains, metal boxes of things,
mere ceilings, visors, long hairs in the eyes.

Here things lived in opposites:
day, night
horizontal, vertical
wet, dry
sky, land, water.
Extremes of each end.

Sunburn burnt deep in cracked skin
was the place's physical testament,
but more than just skin deep,
His soul weary and sunbleached
barren as nothingness of seas, sands, skies.

--

sonnet

Rooms by the Sea
Sad men dive into salty shallows
and crawl out a ways, the coast of the bay
surveyed. Veins of salt flow like rivers
in cracked skin that has been burnt for days.
There are no ceilings here, no flies in the eyes
only flat expanse on carolina coastline.
Wet, dry, blinding, dark –– extremes tan hides
to numbness. Winds blow but aren't felt. Sun
scorches but doesn't warm. Their walls are empty
they no longer see beauty and the colors run
to grays. Cans from the fridge crack cleanly
and they sit, watching the sea, or is it the sun?
Weary souls rattle between the walls,
bleached into nothing.

It's almost 3am, and I'm waking back up at 6:30am to get around to catch the 8:55am train to Chicago...whee!

I'm going with my writers group (well, part of it, our 'leader' of sorts with her family and another member, and then myself) to the Art Institute to see the special Edward Hopper / Winslow Homer exhibits. We're eating lunch in Millennium Park, hitting the galleries at 2:30pm and then catching the 5 or 7pm train back home.

It's going to make for a very long day, but I'm excited. It should be a very fun day with some special people in my life. I haven't been to Chicago or any other real city for a while, so I'm really looking forward to it. I was in Chi-town for Wired's NextFest in 2005, that was my last voyage.

Very little sleep...lots of coffee...2.5-hour train ride, a day and evening in a big city, hours spent wandering an art gallery, then who knows what before crash...I love it. I wish this were what my life more often resembled, but I'll take it today and then see if I can start making changes here and there to incorporate these kinds of things more often...need to get out, smell city air, see the motions of people, read more, write more, sit and watch more.

Enough rambling for now, be safe out there kids!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4tgzFal

Hopper chooses ordinary scenes; houses, streets, rooms, lobbies, buildings, seashores. They are dominated by shapes of color and bathed in light. Squares, rectangles and trapezoids, decorated at times with ornamental curves. Sometimes people are present, sometimes the space is completely empty, save for that Hopper light. If he includes people they strike routine poses, but what they are thinking is omitted. Usually we are peering into their private spaces as we pass by on light rail, or simply looking out the kitchen window. Nature frequently finds its way into Hopper's works.

House At Dusk, 1935

Mark Strand, a recent poet laureate, has studied Hopper at length. In his 1994 book entitled Hopper, Mr. Strand makes these observations.

Hopper's paintings are short, isolated moments of figuration that suggest the tone of what will follow just as they carry forward the tone of what preceded them. The tone but not the content. The implication but not the evidence. They are saturated with suggestion. The more theatrical or staged they are, the more they urge us to to wonder what will happen next; the more lifelike, the more they urge us to construct a narative of what came before. They engage us when the idea of passage cannot be far from our minds—we are, after all, either approaching the canvas or moving away from it... Hopper's paintings are not vacancies in a rich ongoingness. They are all that can be gleaned from a vacancy that is shaded not so much by the events of a life lived as by the time before life and the time after. The shadow of dark hangs over them, making whatever narratives we construct around them seem sentimental and beside the point.

The exhibit was beautifully staged on the second floor of the Rice building. Early works on paper through to the final canvases. At about the half way mark we encounter New York Movie. This is Hopper immersed in the urban environment of a meteoric America. On the left side of the canvas is a crowded movie theater, elaborately decorated in the palatial style of the old grand movie houses. People escaping their daily problems through the newly discovered art form of cinema. On the right side is a lone figure. A blonde usherette, leaning against the wall of a simple space completely detached from the emotional rake of the movie theater. She works in a house of escape, but is tortured by something very real in her life. Perhaps she could use her flashlight to illuminate the answer to her problem. We can see that Hopper's characters always ponder, we just never know if they are making progress. He floats space on one side, and fixes it on the other. This is classic New York Hopper, showing a dense city that feels completely empty.

New York Movie, 1939

Naturally, Nighthawks took center stage in the exhibit. The Art Institute recognized this masterpiece immediately after it was painted in 1942, and acquired it for $3,000. It has been one of the museum's gems ever since. The image is iconic, so much so I don't even need to post it and everyone reading this can close their eyes and easily conjure up a detailed picture of it in their mind. Art is power.

There was a glass case in one of the galleries that displayed two of Hopper's personal journals. He would make a small pencil drawing of the painting just completed and then scribe notes beneath it. Fascinating to get a brief glimpse into his thoughts. The journals were inexpensive hardbound ledgers. He did not require an overabundance of creature comforts and lived in a 4th floor walk up at Number 3 Washington Square North in New York. He and his wife Jo frequented small, locally owned restaurants.

The last canvas in the show, and one of my favorites was, Sun in an Empty Room. Although not his final work, it came less than four years before his death in 1967. There is always an emotional undercurrent to Hopper's work. More imagination than observation. So much so that it's easy to forget the work is very personal. When he was asked what he was after with this painting he responded, "I'm after ME." A truly American response by a pure American.

Hopper once said,

All I wanted to do was paint sunlight on the side of a house. 

This once in a lifetime opportunity ends in Chicago on May 11th. If you missed it in Boston or Washington, D.C., or here in Chicago, then you have truly missed something. But you can see Hopper all over the country. Go see it.

Link to The National Gallery of Art's interactive web site on Hopper here. They have a very interesting timeline of Hopper here.

After my return, I tried to track down Hammershøi's paintings in London Galleries, only to discover that they are not currently on display – and there are not that many of them. Edward Hopper has always been one of my favourite painters – that indescribable sense of isolation and solitude is something I always find haunting. You look at some of Hopper's late paintings – Sunlight in an Empty Room (1963) for example – your mind would wonder what goes on outside the picture, the things that are felt but not seen. I get the same feeling when I listen to Sciarrino's music; I have heard Omaggio A Burri (1995) and Esplorazione del Bianco II (1986) in concert, and they were possibly the most intense listening experiences I have ever had – very unsettling.

Why is Hammershøi's art so neglected outside Denmark – just as the way Nielsen's music once was? I know Michael Palin made a documentary called The Mystery of Hammershøi in 2005 for the BBC, which I have not seen. I wonder how much it helped to make non-Danish speakers aware of this marvellous painter.

On a brighter note, most of Dreyer's movies are now available on DVD; my copies of Ordet (1955) and Gertrud (1964) have just arrived. Something for the bank holiday weekend when I get a bit stuck with the composing.
 

If the Coming of Age exhibition at Dulwich has whetted your appetite for American art, don’t miss a fascinating complementary exhibition on until September at the British Museum.

The American Scene – Prints from Hopper to Pollock not only namechecks many of the same artists on display in Dulwich. It develops the theme of an emerging confidence in US themes, topics and style.

Pollock’s work – the highlight of the show at Dulwich - are some of the least interesting works at the BM. There’s one intriguing print where a series of repeated motifs – hands, eyes, feet – writhe on the page. But most of the action in this show is to be found elsewhere.

New York was to these artists what Paris was to the previous generation. Quite simply, it was where it was happening; it contained all human life, jammed together in a thrillingly modern landscape.

Artists homed in on this teeming life; dancing, working, playing, sleeping and embracing in all-too-close proximity. John Sloan’s closely-worked etchings of men, women and children sleeping on tenement rooves through a sweltering New York summer, or making out, four to a bench, in the forgiving dark of Central Park, are tender and funny slices of life.

George Bellows makes dramatic use of light and shadow heighten the tension and strangeness of his scenes, such as the startling Dance at the Asylum.

Then Edward Hopper takes this style to a new level, with evocative etchings that bring out the loneliness of the individual among the crowd. Evening Wind, perhaps the most beautiful in the show, has a woman undressing alone, with curtains billowing into the room. His Night on the El Train is a concentrated moment of drama, giving you the impression that the artist has captured a life-changing conversation between the two late-night travellers.

But where some saw the city’s people, others saw its buildings. Subways, skyscrapers, architecture and angles dominate other prints, including woodcuts by modernist artists like Blanche Lazzell, who echoes Cubism with a primative palette.

There’s plenty more, not all of it urban. But my favourites by far are these snapshots from New York in the jazz age, when all was exciting, new and strange.

www.thebritishmuseum.ac.uk

Photo: Thanks to Debra and Adrian on Flickr (CCL)

© Beñat Sarasola

You are more like the sunlight
of Edward Hopper,
especially when it slants
against the eastern side
of a white clapboard house
in the early hours of the morning,
with no figure standing
at a window in a violet bathrobe,
just the sunlight,
the columns of the front porch,
and the long shadows
they throw down
upon the dark green lawn, baby.

-- Billy Collins

 

Adriana Naveh

Alan Hayes

Alan Hunt

Alan Ingham

Alessandro Botticelli

Alex Pauker

Alex Perez

Alexander Archipenko

Alexander Astahov

Alexander Borewko

Alexander Calder

Alexander Chen

Alexander Ivanov

Alexander Millar

Alexandra Nechita

Alfred Alexander Gockel

Alicia Quaini

Allan Mardon

Allen Friedman

Alwen Harris

Amedeo Modigliani

Amy Lynn

Anatole Krasnyansky

Andrew Bone

Andrew Warden

Andy Craig

Andy Warhol

Anna Chromy

Anna Thornhill

Ari Gradus

Arshile Gorky

Arthur Seiden

Ashot

Avi Ben-Simhon

B.H. Brody

Barbara James

Berit Kruger-Johnsen

Bernard Oulie

Beryl Cook

Bill Mack

Bindi Harris

Bogdan Grom

Bracha Guy

Brian Jarvi

Bruce McKay

Calman Shemi

Camille Pissaro

Carlo Beninati

Carol Matyia-Ross

Caroline Schultz

Caroline Shotton

Cecil Rice

Cecil Smith

Cecilia Garcia Amaro

Chad Coleman

Chaim Goldberg

Chaim Gross

Charles Bragg

Charles Chamot

Charles Duback

Charles Fazzino

Charles Magistro

Charles Pabst

Chris Hill

Chris Parsons

Christian Daniel

Clarence Holbrook Carter

Claude Monet

Csaba Markus

Dani Bergson

Daniel Riberzani

Daphne Mumford

David Azuz

David Cain

David Dodsworth

David Freeman

David LaChapelle

David Schluss

Dean Kendrick

Debbie Gillingham

Deborah Crone

Debra Stroud

Dennis Paul Noyer

Dion Salvador Lloyd

Domenech

Dorit Levi

Doug London

Douglas Hofmann

Drew Darcy

Duaiv

Duane Bryers

Edgar Degas

Edouard Manet

Eduardo Faradje

Edvard Munch

Edward Hopper

Edward Plunkett

Elaine Jones

Elizabeth Lennard

Elke Sommer

Ellsworth Kelly

Eric Christensen

Ernest Walbourn

Erte

Everett Hibbard

Evgeni Chekrygin

Fabian Perez

Fanch Ledan

Felix Mas

Ferdie Pacheco

Ferjo

Fernand Leger

Fernando Botero

Fioravanti

Ford Smith

Francois Fressinier

Frane Mlinar

Frank Jenson

Fred Fieber

Frederic Remington

Gary Benfield

Gary Longordo

Ged Mitchell

George Braque

George Chemeche

Georges Seurat

Gholam Yunessi

Giancarlo Impiglia

Gina Lombardi

Gisela Isabella Fabian

Gloria Marojevic

Goli Mahallati

Gordon King

Govinder Nazran

Graciela Rodo Boulanger

Grant Wood

Gustav Klimt

Guy Begin

Hamada

Hamish Blakely

Hans Hofmann

Harry McCormick

Harry Schaare

Hazel Soan

Helen Covensky

Helen Hayse

Helen Rundell

Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec

Henri Matisse

Henri Rousseau

Henry Asencio

Henry Gorski

Henry Koehler

Hessam Abrishami

Holland Berkley

Howard Koslow

Hua Chen

Ibanez

Igor Kovalev

Igor Medvedev

Ion Plubeu

Isaac Abrams

Isaac Kahn

Isaac Maimon

Itzchak Tarkay

J. C. Leyendecker

Jack Brusca

Jack Hofflander

Jackson Pollock

Jacqueline Fogel

James Coleman

James Gill

Jan Vermeer

Jane Bazinet

Jane Wooster Scott

Janet Treby

Jasper Johns

Jean Claude Maas

Jean de Brunhoff

Jean-Claude Picot

Jeaneen Barnhart

Jeff Cornell

Jennine Parker

Jeremy Barlow

Jeremy Sanders

Jim Jonson

Joan Melnick

Joan Miro

Joan Somerville

Joel Thompson

John Alvin

John Bond

John Duillo

John Meyer

John Silver

John Steuart Curry

John Waterhouse

John Wilson

Jon Carsman

Jorge Tarallo

Joseph Vance

Joy Kirton-Smith

Juan Noel

Julia Ogden

Julian Askins

KAT

Kazimir Malevich

Kelly Jane

Kevin Dixon

Kevin Slingsby

Kim Donaldson

Knox Martin

Laura Bowman

Lauri Blank

Lawrence Coulson

Lenner Gogli

Leonardo da Vinci

Leroy Neiman

Leslie Lew

Levi Dorit

Leviels

Linda Bastian

Linda Jane Smith

Linda Le Kinff

Linda Ravenscroft

Lorenzo Quinn

Louis Robichaud

Lowell Nesbitt

Lucelle Raad

Lucien Pissarro

Luis Luque

Lynn Poland

Mackenzie Thorpe

Malcolm Farley

Mandie Haywood

Marc Chagall

Marcel Mouly

Marcus Bohne

Marion McClanahan

Marisol Escobar

Mark Godwin

Mark Holland-Hicken

Mark King

Mark Rothko

Mark Spain

Martin Barooshian

Martin Eichinger

Martin Roberts

Marvel Comics

Matthew Craven

Max Beckmann

Maxfield Parrish

Maxim Lipzer

Maya Eventov

Melissa Mailer-Yates

Mersad Berber

Michael and Inessa Garmash

Michael Flohr

Michael Jackson

Michelangelo Buonarroti

Miguel Avateneo

Miguel Perez

Mihail Chemiakin

Nadeem Chughtai

Nati Peralbo

Nel Whatmore

Nicholas Krushenick

Nick Andrew

Nicola Read

Nicola Simbari

Nina Paull

Nina Rose

Noel Daggett

Norman Rockwell

Oleg Zhivetin

Pablo Picasso

Paine Proffit

Patricia Govezensky

Paul Cézanne

Paul Gauguin

Paul Horton

Paul James

Paul Jansen

Paul Kavanagh

Paul Powis

Paula McArdle

Paulémile Pissarro

Peter Fellows

Peter Hildick

Peter Keating

Peter Max

Peter Nixon

Peter Smith

Philippe Noyer

Phillip Stuttard

Pierre Auguste Renoir

Pierre Bonnard

Pierre Clerk

Pietro Adamo

Pino

Rafael Leva

Rainer Gross

Rajinder

Rembrandt

Remo Farruggio

Rene Magritte

Reuben Colley

Richard Karwoski

Richard Nahmias

Rina Schiller

Rob Ford

Robert Anderson

Robert Beauchamp

Robert Deyber

Robert Heindel

Roberta Peck

Roberto Carbone

Rochelle Steiner

Rockwell Smith

Rolf Harris

Romero Britto

Ron Lim

Ronnie Wood

Roy Fairchild

Roy Lichtenstein

Roy Tonkin

Royo

Sabina Teichman

Salvador Dali

Sam Shendi

Sami Zilkha

Sarah Jane Szikora

Scott Jacobs

Sebastia Boada

Sebastian Kruger

Sergey Ignatenko

Sergey Kovrigo

Sergio Mooro

Sergon

Sheryl Finnegan

Sidney Randolph Maurer

Simbari

Simon Claridge

Sir Winston Churchill

Stephen Holland

Steve Barton

Steve Burgess

Steve Johnston

Steve Winterburn

Stuart Davis

Sue Guthrie

Sung Sam Park

Sveta Esser

Tamara Lempicka

Terri Hallman

Terry Donnelly

Thomas Hart Benton

Thomas Kinkade

Tomar Levine

Tomasz Rut

Toni Goffe

Tony Bechara

Tony Forrest

Tony Smith

Trudy Good

Tzvi Ben-Aritz

Unknown Artist (NA)

Vic Herman

Vicente Dopico-Lerner

Victor Ostrovsky

Victor Shvaiko

Victor Vasarely

Vincent van Gogh

Vladimir Volegov

W. Eddie

Walt Disney

Warner Brothers

Wassily Kandinsky

Wayne Ensrud

Wendy Corbett

Willem de Kooning

William Taggart

Willy Pogany

Wong

Wu Ching-Ju

Wyland

Yaacov Agam

Yuri Shiller

Yuroz

Zamy Steynovitz

Zerner

Zheng Li

18 April 2008 - 10 August 2008

Admission free

This major exhibition captures the excitement of the steam train in art from the earliest days, through the boom years of Victorian railways to the end of the line in the 1960s.

Art in the Age of Steam is the most wide-ranging exhibition yet held to look at how artists responded to the extraordinary impact that steam trains had on landscape and society. It is one of the major highlights of Liverpool’s European Capital of Culture year.

Around 100 paintings, photographs, prints and drawings from some of the world’s greatest art collections come together in a dazzling display including:

“Aboard these great machines, passengers travelled at faster speeds than ever before and notions of time and space were forever changed. Nothing has been done on this scale before – visitors are transported on an exhilarating journey in the company of some of the world’s great artists.” Julian Treuherz, Co-Curator and former Keeper of Galleries at the Walker

Exhibition organised by the Walker Art Gallery, National Museums Liverpool and The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, Missouri, USA. The exhibition will be staged at The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art from 13 September 2008 to 18 January 2009.

Daily Telegraph review, 22 April, 2008

The coming of the railways transformed the way people lived - and provided glorious inspiration for artists, photographers and filmmakers. By Richard Dorment

The modern world came into being with a shriek and a rattle and a puff of dirty smoke on the day in 1830 when the first passenger train pulled out of Liverpool on its way to Manchester. The steam engine... changed man's perception of the world and his place in it.

(complete article - many more pics!)