Photo of Frida Kahlo by Nicholas Murray
In 1980 on my first day of work at Metromedia in Los Angeles I was greeted by a large painting by Frida Kahlo. Metromedia had a large art collection spread out among its various facilities around the United States. I never forgot the stunning work and the experience of seeing it for the first time. The Bowers Museum in Santa Ana currently hosts Frida Kahlo: Her Photos through June 25, 2017. During her lifetime she amassed a large photo collection, mostly single prints, which were stashed away on her death. The collection came to light recently. This exhibition consists of over two hundred images, some taken by her but others by artists such as Edward Weston and Tina Modotti. You will not want to miss this so go to www.bowers.org for all the pertinent information. Maria Appleman was able to see it and shares the inspirational experience:
This exhibit was a look at the family album and personal
photographs of Frida Kahlo, a famous Mexican painter who lived a short,
productive, and difficult life (1907 – 1954).
It included photos of the wedding of her German father and Mexican
mother, her baby pictures, sisters and aunts, school mates, friends and
husband.
Because the photos were in chronological order, one could
see that as she became an adult, she developed a distinct personal style
reflecting her Mexican heritage and political views. There were photos of young
Kahlo in her school uniform. One photo of her at about 15 years of age showed a
thin girl with a page boy haircut and bangs in a dress worn by women in the
1920’s. By her 20s, she had hair pulled
back away from her face and dressed in traditional indigenous Tehuana dress of
long skirts, shawls and embroidered blouses worn with large jewelry in bold
designs.
Kahlo had a difficult life because of bad health and bad
luck. When she was only 6 years old, she had polio. The disease left her with a
shorter, weakened right leg causing her to limp and develop curvature of her
spine. At 18 years old she was hurt badly while riding in a bus that crashed
with a streetcar. She suffered multiple fractures of her spine, collarbone,
ribs, pelvis, and foot. The combination caused chronic pain and increasing
weakness. Photos show her in bed while in traction or with a brace around her
chest to alleviate her back pain. There were many photos of her recovering from
surgery because she had 30 operations during her lifetime. Although she was able
to stand and paint at the beginning of her career, by the end she was painting
while sitting in a wheelchair or in bed from a horizontal position.
There were many photos of her husband Diego Rivera, an internationally renowned Mexican painter and muralist. His photos showed an older, huge, ugly man with protruding eyes and a very round face. Although far from dashing or romantic looking, he was the obsessive love of Kahlo’s life. Diego was a notorious womanizer and, apparently, irresistible. Photos of his most famous conquests, the movie stars Maria Felix, Dolores del Rio, and Paulette Goddard, were part of Kahlo’s album. Photos showed how Kahlo’s world became increasingly smaller with time. In their early life together, Kahlo and Rivera traveled to various U.S. cities where Rivera worked on his mural commissions. Kahlo traveled to Paris alone to participate in an exhibition with surrealist painters although she rejected this label, saying she painted her actual reality, and not an alternate, surreal reality. She had interesting group photos from that same trip of Salvador Dali, Andre Breton and other surrealist painters dressed in suits and ties. By the end of her life at 47, Kahlo had had her right leg amputated at the knee and was dependent on a wheelchair and crutches for mobility. Photos of her last exhibition showed she attended while in a four poster bed. The Bowers Museum photo exhibit is about the life of a woman who had channeled her physical and emotional pain into art. We, the audience, could see that despite terrible calamities. Frida Kahlo had lived and loved with courage and bravado.
There were many photos of her husband Diego Rivera, an internationally renowned Mexican painter and muralist. His photos showed an older, huge, ugly man with protruding eyes and a very round face. Although far from dashing or romantic looking, he was the obsessive love of Kahlo’s life. Diego was a notorious womanizer and, apparently, irresistible. Photos of his most famous conquests, the movie stars Maria Felix, Dolores del Rio, and Paulette Goddard, were part of Kahlo’s album. Photos showed how Kahlo’s world became increasingly smaller with time. In their early life together, Kahlo and Rivera traveled to various U.S. cities where Rivera worked on his mural commissions. Kahlo traveled to Paris alone to participate in an exhibition with surrealist painters although she rejected this label, saying she painted her actual reality, and not an alternate, surreal reality. She had interesting group photos from that same trip of Salvador Dali, Andre Breton and other surrealist painters dressed in suits and ties. By the end of her life at 47, Kahlo had had her right leg amputated at the knee and was dependent on a wheelchair and crutches for mobility. Photos of her last exhibition showed she attended while in a four poster bed. The Bowers Museum photo exhibit is about the life of a woman who had channeled her physical and emotional pain into art. We, the audience, could see that despite terrible calamities. Frida Kahlo had lived and loved with courage and bravado.
Highlights
Now at the Palm Springs Museum
of Art is Women of Abstract
Expressionism. The exhibit opened February 18 and ends May 28, 2017.
This is exciting as it is the first time there has been a show devoted
specifically to these ground breaking women. The abstract expressionist
movement in art was the first truly American art movement in modern times.
Included are over fifty major works by twelve painters active in the ‘40s and
‘50s. Mary Abbott, Jane DeFeo, Elaine de Kooning, Perle Fine, Helen
Frankenthaler, Sonia Getchtoff, Judith Godwin, Grace Hartigan, Lee Krasner,
Joan Mitchell, Deborah Remington and Ethel Schwabacher are the artists being
celebrated. The museum also has a subsidiary museum in Palm Desert known as the
Galen. It is surrounded by the four acre Faye
Sarkowsky Sculpture Garden that features over ten significant
sculptures surrounded by landscaped gardens. A visit to these two venues make
it worth the drive. Google the museum or go to www.psmuseum.org
for current information.
Where
you can see my artwork
My artwork
is available at Rons. For
further information call the shop at 805.489.4747. Rons
is located at 850 W. Grand in Grover Beach a few blocks from the train station,
a golf course, and the beautiful Pacific Ocean. For more information go to Rons
website at www.ronsingroverbeach.com
or find him on facebook.
Not To
Be Missed – Museum Exhibits
Highlights of the
Permanent Collection celebrates the Santa Barbara Museum of Art’s 75th
anniversary. The exhibit features some of the museums most well-known pieces. The
Armand Hammer Foundation has loaned several amazing Impressionist and
Post-Impressionist paintings to the Santa Barbara Museum of Art. Of course, Portrait of Mexico Today, painted by David Alfaro Siquerios while
living in political exile in Los Angeles in 1932, has a home in the front
façade of the museum. It is intact and is in a protected spot. We are so lucky
to have it. Coming up May 7, 2017 the museum hosts Rodin and His Legacy. Rodin was the most influential
sculptor of the 19th Century. The installation examines the artist’s
innovative spirit. Check on line at www.sbmuseart.org/
for more details.
Picasso & Rivera: Conversations Across Time is
currently at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art until May 7, 2017.The exhibit
compares the two contemporary artists…where their paths intersected and how
both incorporated inspiration from the arts of the antiquities. Included are
over 150 works. Maholy-Nagy: Future Present is on display
through June 18, 1917. This prolific artist was a teacher at the Bauhaus and
later founded the Chicago Institute of Design. The artist was a painter,
photographer, writer and stage designer and this is the first comprehensive
exhibit of his works. Over 250 pieces are included and there is a separate
installation of a design he conceived in 1930 but that was not fulfilled during
his life. Room of the Present
is a contemporary construction of Maholy-Nagy’s vision. More information is at www.lacma.org on these exhibits.
The Summer of Love Experience:
Art, Fashion, and Rock & Roll is coming to the de Young Museum in San Francisco on
April 8 and will be there until August 20. The exhibit features rock posters,
photographs, interactive music and light shows as well as avant-garde films. Check
www.deyoung.famsf.org which will
have all you need to know. The de Young prides itself in making its exhibits
accessible and has instituted a plan for people who are unable to come to the
museum whether for medical reasons, distance or finances. They have two robots that will take visitors
on a tour via the internet. Rebecca Bradley is the Accessibility Curator. You
can email her office at access@famsf.org
if this great idea is of interest.
Monet: the Early Years is at the San Francisco Legion of
Honor through May 29. The show commences with the first painting Monet ever
exhibited publically in 1858 and closes in 1872 just before he exhibited in a
group show with artists that ultimately became known as the impressionists.
Photography was new at the time and actually helped artists explore new ways of
painting as they no longer felt it necessary to provide a realistic chronology.
It is an important exhibit because it is the first in the U.S. to show Monet’s
early works. The website provides an excellent overview of the show so check www.legionofhonor.famsf.org and
get more information.
Ongoing
at the Seattle Museum of Art is Big
Picture: Art after 1945.The exhibit includes some amazing works by
Rothko, Motherwell, Newman, Hoffman, etc. Go to www.seattleartmuseum.org to obtain
more information.
Now at the Clyfford Still Museum in Denver is a
collaborative effort with the Denver Museum of Art. Shade features the work of Clyfford Still at his namesake
museum and the work of contemporary artist Mark Bradford at the Denver Museum
of Art. The exhibit examines the use of the color black in the work of both
artists. Check out www.clyffordstillmuseum.org
for all the details.
Make Room for
Color Field
is a continuing exhibit at the Nelson-Atkins Museum in Kansas City, Missouri through
December 31, 2018. The installation consists of 4 works by the most prominent
painters of this genre, Helen Frankenthaler, Jules Olitski and Morris Louis. The
museum’s website at www.nelson-atkins.org will provide
more information.
Currently at the Saint Louis
Art Museum is the traveling exhibit, Degas,
Impressionism and the Paris Millenary Trade. It is there until May 7 then moves on to San
Francisco’s Legion of Honor where it will be housed June 4-September 24, 2017.
Over 100 pieces are included in this show and feature the work of Manet,
Morrisot and Renoir as well as Degas. Either of these museum websites will have
information and updates.
The Art Institute of Chicago is hosting Whistler’s Mother: An American Icon
Returns to Chicago for the first time in 60 years. The painting was
originally known as an Arrangement in Gray and Black No. 1. The exhibit runs
through May 12, 2017. Chicago has deep holdings of works by Whistler and this
will allow the exploration of Whistler’s use of family members as subject
matter. I am looking forward to Gauguin:Artist
as Alchemist which begins June 22, 2017 and ends in September. The show
looks past his iconic paintings and highlights other aspects of his art
including his work as a ceramist, sculptor, printmaker and decorator. I can’t
wait. More details are at www.artic.edu for
these fascinating exhibits.
The recent opening of the Smithsonian National Museum of African
American History and Culture in Washington D.C. is the culmination of
over a century of work. Founding Director Lonnie Bunch said, that “The African
American experience is the lens through which we understand what it is to be an
American.” The website welcomes us with its opening words: A People’s Journey,
A Nation’s Story. It is part of our national history. The museum contains much
memorabilia, including both negative and positive. Of course, there is much
history here, including examples of slave ships. However, there are more
current examples including Carl Lewis’ journey, clothes of James Brown and
Pearl Bailey, to a trumpet owned by Louis Armstrong and Chuck Berry’s red
Cadillac. Items also include some owned by Harriet Tubman, the dress Rosa Parks
was sewing when she refused to leave her seat, and clothes designed by Geoffrey
Holder for the award winning Broadway play The
Wiz. Areas include a sports museum and a visual arts museum among others.
The galleries will also feature changing exhibits so check out www.nmaahc.si.edu for information.
Menagerie: Animals on View will be at the Albright-Knox
Gallery March 11 through June 4.
The Albright-Knox Art Gallery in Buffalo, New York is one
of my favorite places. Animals have always been favorite motifs for artists and
this exhibit features over 50 paintings, drawings, sculptures, photographs and
videos by artists like Frida Kahlo, William Wegman, Giacomo Balla, Grace Hartigan
and Milton Avery. If you are in the area be sure and check it out.
All the details are at the website www.albrightknox.org
so be sure and take a peek.
Opening
at the Museum of Modern Art in New York is Robert
Rauschenberg:Among Friends. This retrospective is open May 21-September
17, 2017 and includes many facets of his work and those of friends like Jasper
Johns, Merce Cunningham and John Cage. It features over 250 works in various mediums
which cover over six decades. Meanwhile, the museum has pulled together a great
exhibit from its vaults featuring women artists. Making Space: Women Artists and Postwar Abstraction continues
through August 13. Concentrating on the work of female artists from about 1945
to 1968, it runs the gamut of what was happening the art world and contains
works by Frankenthaler, Mitchell, Nevelson and many others so go to www.moma.org for more information.
Up to date in Brooklyn at the
Brooklyn Museum of Art is Georgia
O’Keefe: Living Modern. The show will be at the museum until July 23.
The Brooklyn Museum is where the artist had her first solo show 90 years ago.
For more about the artist go to www.brooklynmuseum.org
and get information about this exhibit. In fact, there are exhibits featuring
the artists in two other countries as well. Georgia O’Keefe is at the Art Gallery of Ontario in Toronto
now through July 30, 2017. It features over 80 works by this modernist painter
who is quoted as saying that it takes courage to be an artist. If you will be
in Toronto go to http://www.ago.net/georgia-okeeffe
to get information on this show. O’Keefe,
Preston and Cossington Smith: Making Modernism features the work of
American painter Georgia O’Keefe and two Australian painters, all of which had
a profound effect on modernism in art. The Queensland Art Gallery plays host to
the ground-breaking exhibit, which will make its way across Australia. Find all
the information you need at http://blog.qagoma.qld.gov.au/
as well as its schedule.
Seurat’s Circus Sideshow is one of the Metropolitan
Museum’s iconic possessions. Painted in 1887-88, this masterpiece influenced
many artists such as Daumier and Picasso. The exhibit, which revolves around
the Met’s painting by Seurat, includes more than 100 paintings, drawings,
period posters and journals evoking the feeling of the traveling circuses and
seasonal fairs that were so popular in the late 19th century. It
will be on until May 29. The Met’s website will have info at www.metmuseum.org as well as dates and
times. Marsden Hartley’s Maine
is at the Met Breuer and is up through June 18. His home state is a constant
inspiration that runs through his work. The exhibit not only features his works
but those of artists who inspired him such as Cezanne, Hiroshige and Homer. At
the Met Fifth Avenue the exhibition celebrating what would have been
photographer Irving Penn’s one hundredth birthday is open until July 30th.
Irving Penn Centennial
features 150 of his photographs and includes his iconic fashion studies, photos
of celebrities like Capote, Picasso and Colette as well as still lifes and
Quechua children. His pared down style inspired many. Information on all these
exhibits is at the website above.
The Boston Museum of Fine Arts
will play host to Matisse in the
Studio from April 9-July 9. It is the first exhibit to examine the
artist’s personal collection of objects and their importance in his art.
Included are 36 paintings and 26 drawings as well as bronzes, cut-outs, prints
and an illustrated book by the artist. Many rare works are included and many
come from personal collections. It promises to be a wonderful show so look at www.mfa.org for more information.
Although the exhibit has
closed, there is a wonderful video that came out of this show, Monet and the Post Impressionists.
So many artists found inspiration in their gardens. Now there is a video
available, Painting the Modern Garden:
Monet to Matisse. Find out more by visiting www.royalacademy.org.uk and get the
whole scoop.
Currently at the the Tate
Britain is David Hockney. The
artist, approaching his 80th birthday, is known for changing styles
as he takes on new challenges. This is an opportunity to see his six decades of
work together and see how each previous style suggests the one to come. It will
be at the Tate until May 29. The show has an interesting video online that
accompanies it.
For more information on these
exhibits www.tate.org.uk will have
everything you need to know.
Manolo Blahnik: The Art Of Shoes opened earlier this
year in Milan and is a touring exhibit of the designer’s work. The State
Museum Hermitage in St. Petersburg, the Museum Kampa in Prague, and the Museo
Nacional de Artes Decorative in Madrid are all on the schedule. The final stop
is in Toronto at BATA shoe museum in 2017.The exhibit includes over 200 pairs
of shoes and 80 sketches. Available at http://www.wheremilan.com/events/exhibition-manolo-blahnik-art-shoes/
find the whole scoop.
Simply the Best:
The best place to find books on
the arts, Arcana is a very
special book store located in the Helms Bakery complex in Los Angeles…it’s
wonderful! I have known owner Lee Kaplan for decades and his selection of books
is as superb as his taste is impeccable. Arcana: Books on the Arts is at 8675 Washington Boulevard, Culver
City, CA 90232. For information go to http://www.arcanabooks.com
or call 310.458.1499.
Michiko Jewelry Design is an
incredible jewelry store in downtown Seal Beach, CA, featuring excellent
one-of-a-kind gifts. The shop owner and artist, Carol Matsumoto, custom designs
beautiful pieces. Michiko is
at 228 Main Street. Call 563.431.3237 for more information or check www.michikojewelrydesign.com
Places
to Go, People to See
This year is the 45th
annual Santa Barbara Writer’s Conference founded by Barnaby Conrad in 1972.
This year it takes place June 18-23 and is a wonderful place to meet other
writers, mentors, editors and agents. It’s a lovely place and inspirational as
well. Check out http://www.sbwriters.com/
if you are interested.
Homage to the Ranchers is an art exhibit that pays
tribute to the ranches of San Luis Obispo. The show of original paintings is
presented by the Morro Bay Art Association and takes place at the County Art
Center in Morro Bay. It runs through June 12. Go to www.artcentermorrobay for all the
information.
Paso
Robles is the place to be May 6-7. This annual event is famous in these
parts…these parts being Paso Robles. If you will be in that area and like old
things with patina be sure to check out Three
Speckled Hens Antique and Old Stuff Show. Of course you can keep up to
date at www.speckledhens.com where
all the details live.
Addendum:
Anna Olson, a budding
videographer and creative mind, put together a video featuring my work. Please
go to Nelson Fine Art Studio on Facebook to check it out…many thanks Anna.
Continue to check back as we will be posting upcoming shows here and on the exhibits page of my website…and again, there is always Facebook.
