Eugène Leroy (1910 – 2000)

 

Eugène Leroy (1919-2000) was introduced to the Dutch Old Masters Rembrandt and Jordaens as a teenager, and later to El Greco and Goya. From 1931 to 1932 he studied at the École des Beaux‑Arts in Lille and Paris, but he quickly decided that the methods and approaches of the academies did not correspond with his understanding of art. He moved to Roubaix, where he worked as a Latin and Greek teacher. He consistently pursued his painting during this time. In 1936 he saw “The Jewish Bride” by Rembrandt in the Amsterdam Rijksmuseum and the abstraction of materiality and the flesh were to fascinate him throughout his life. He had his first exhibition in Lille in 1937. He continued to teach during World War II. His post-war works are characterized by dark colors and have a strong connection to the North Sea. This style of painting was thematically interrupted by a crucifixion scene that he created for a chapel in Roubaix in 1946-48. In 1954 he exhibited with Sam Francis, Serge Poliakoff and Marcel Pouget. His first solo exhibition took place at the Tourcoing Museum in Dunkirk in 1956. Leroy’s move to Wasquehal in 1958 is clearly evident in his œuvre, as there is a noticeable shift in his compositions towards more abstraction. From 1955-70 he exhibited in the May Salon in Paris. Numerous exhibitions followed, and the 1988 retrospective in the Musée d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris deserves special mention. In 1992 he took part in the documenta IX in Kassel and in 1995 in the Venice Biennale.
Leroy died 2000 in Wasquehal.

 

 

Exhibitions and Distinctions (Selection)

 
2022

Hall Art Fondation, Kunstmuseum Schloss Derneburg, Holle, Germany
 
2021

MUBA, Tourcoing, France

 
2009

Donation of 600 works to the Musée des Beaux-Arts de Tourcoing

 

2004

Musée d’Art et d’Industrie, La Piscine, Roubaix

 

2001

Musée d’Art Moderne,  Villeneuve d’Ascq

 

2000

Art Association for Rhineland and Westphalia, Dusseldorf.

 

Albright-Knox Art Gallery, Buffalo (NY)

 

1997

Kunsthalle Basel

 

1996/97

Retrospective at Centre díArt Contemporain Bignan, Centre díArt Contemporain Rennes and Musée des Beaux-Arts de Rennes

 

1996

Grand Prix National de la Peinture

 

1995

45th Venice Biennale

 

1994

Galerie Daniel Blau, München

 

1993

Musée d’Art Moderne et d’Art Contemporain, Nice

 

1992

Documenta IX, Kassel

 

1991

Participation at 21st Sao Paolo Biennale

 

1987

Musée d’Art Moderne, Villeneuve d’Ascq

 

1988

Stedelijk Van Abbemuseum, Eindhoven

 

Musée d’Art Moderne de La Ville de Paris

 

1982

Museum van Hedendaagse Kunst, Gent

 

1977

Ecole des Beaux-Arts, Lille

 

1970

Wiener Sezession, Wien

 

1960-65

Collaboration with Claude Bernard Gallery, Paris

 

1957

Prix Emile-Othon Friesz

 

1956

Musée des Beaux-Arts, Tourcoing

 

 

Literature (Selection)

 

Eugène Leroy – Alles ist Farbe, ed. by Kunstverein für die Rheinlande und Westfalen, Dusseldorf, 2000

 

Bernard Marcadé, Eugène Leroy, Paris, 1999

 

Eugène Leroy – Peintures, ed. by Kunsthalle Basel, 1997

 

Hector Obalk, Eugène Leroy – Oil Paintings, Tokyo 1991

 

Eugène Leroy – Bilder und Zeichnungen, ed. by Galerie Daniel Blau, Munich, 1994

Freud is one of the most widely acclaimed British artists of our time; »Lucian Freud: Portraits«, with plentiful illustrations and essays by celebrated curator Sir Norman Rosenthal, brings Freud’s lesser-known etchings deservedly to the forefront of our appreciation of his art.

 

Lucian Freud, one of the foremost figurative artists working today, has redefined portraiture and the nude through his unblinking scrutiny of the human form. While most of his admirers are familiar with Freud’s thickly impasted paintings, few realise how integral etching has become to his art. This volume features principally his portraits executed as etchings. It presents an exceptional overview of Freud’s works on paper over a career that spans more than 60 years and highlights the artist’s unconventional approach to the printing medium. Standing the copper etching plate upright on the easel, Freud treats the plate like a canvas as he portrays his sitters – very often friends, family members, or fellow artists – by creating meticulous networks of finely etched lines. Among Freud’s most notable trademarks is his tendency to dramatically crop figures, isolating them against empty backgrounds. This juxtaposition creates a startling sense of psychological tension and formal abstraction.

 

Introductory essay by Norman Rosenthal.
This publication was produced to accompany the exhibition ‘Lucian Freud: Portraits‘ at Galerie Daniel Blau, Munich, May 5 – June 3, 2011.
76 pages, 27 colour illustrations, illustrated bibliography
24 × 28 cm, hardcover

 

Published by Hirmer Verlag/Daniel Blau(ed.) 2011. Printed in Italy.

 

ISBN: 978-3-7774-3971-6

 

Chuck Close (*1940)

 

Chuck Close was born 1940 in Monroe,Washington. In 1962 he received his B.A. from the University of Washington, Seattle, and in 1964 his M.F.A from Yale University, New Haven. After a Fulbright grant in Vienna he worked as an art teacher at the University of Massachusetts. A spinal artery collapse in 1988 left Close almost completely paralyzed. He lives and works in New York.

 

Solo Exhibitions (Selection)

 

2010
Chuck Close: Portraits,Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, Richmond,Virginia

 

Chuck Close: Prints: Process and Collaboration, Scottsdale Museum of Contemporary Art, Scottsdale

 

2009/10

Familiar faces: Chuck Close in Ohio Collections, Akron Art Museum, Ohio.

 

Faces, Chuck Close and Contemporary Portraiture, Nevada Museum of Art, Nevada

 

2008

Chuck Close: Seven Portraits, The State Hermitage Museum,Winter Palace, St. Petersburg

 

2007

Chuck Close: Portaits 1996-2006, Ludwig Forum für Internationale Kunst, Aachen

 

2003/10

Chuck Close Prints: Process and Collaboration: Bluffer Gallery, University of Houston; travelled to: Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; Knoxville Museum of Art; Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth,Texas; Boise Art Museum, Idaho; Portland Art Museum,Oregon; Sungkok Museum of Art, Seoul; San Jose Museum of Art, California; Scottsdale Museum of Contemporary Art,Arihona; Corcoran Gallery of Art,Washington

 

1998/99

Travelling exhibition:The Museum of Modern Art, New York; Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago; Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington; Seattle Art Museum, Seattle; Hayward Gallery, London

 

1997

Chuck Close, Large Polaroids 1984-1995, Galerie Daniel Blau, Munich

 

1993

A Print Project by Chuck Close,The Museum of Modern Art, New York “6th Annual Infinity Award of Art”, International Centre of Photography Travelling exhibition:Art Institute of Chicago;The Friends of Photography, Ansel Adams Cent

 

1984/85

Chuck Close, Paper Works: Herbert Palmer Gallery, Los Angeles; Spokane Center of Art, Cheney,Washington; Milwaukee Art Museum; Columbia Museum, South Carolina

 

1980/81

Close Portraits, travelling exhibition:The Walker Art Center, Minneapolis; St. Louis Art Museum, Missouri; Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago;Whitney Museum of American Art, New York

 

1976

Baltimore Museum of Art, Maryland

 

1975

Chuck Close: Keith: travelled to Mint Museum of Art, Charlotte, North Carolina; Phoenix Art Museum,Arizona;The Minneapolis Institute of Art, Minnesota

 

1972

Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago

 

1970

Bykert Gallery,NewYork

 

 

Literature (Selection)

 

Christopher Finch, Chuck Close: Life, Munich, 2010

 

Christopher Finch, Chuck Close: Work, Munich, 2007

 

Chuck Close: Pinturas 1968/2006, ed. by. Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía, Madrid 2007

 

Martin Friedman, Close Reading: Chuck Close and the Art of the Self-Portrait. New York,2005

 

Bisson Frères

 
Louise-Auguste Bisson (1814-1876) was a 19th century French photographer. He opened a photographic studio in 1841 and soon after this he was joined as a partner by his brother Auguste-Rosalie Bisson (1826-1900). Together, these pioneering photographers became known as the Bisson Frères.
 
They were active during a rich time of photographic sponsorship and were able to develop processes for creating very large prints (such as the Collodion process, with large negatives) and for taking on important commercial projects. During the 1850s they employed up to thirty employees.
 
The Bisson brothers were members of the French Society of Photography. They travelled avidly, and a significant number of their many pictures were taken outside of French territory. They are perhaps best remembered for their series of photographs on the Savoy Alps, commissioned by Napoleon III in 1860.
The Bisson Frères also gained recognition for their wide range of photographic styles and for the best-known portrait of of Honoré de Balzac (1842).
 
Selected exhibitions:
 
2014

“Impressionist France: Visions of Nation from Le Gray to Monet”, Saint Louis Art Museum,
Saint Louis, USA
 
2007

“Johnson Gallery, Selections from the Collection 44”, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, USA
 
2005

“Master Photographs from the Gilman Collection: A Landmark Acquisition”, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, USA
 
2002

“As It Happened: Photographs from the Gilman Paper Company Collection”, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, USA
 
1994

“The Waking Dream: Photography‘s First Century, Selections from the Gilman Paper Company Collection”, National Gallery of Art, Washington D.C, USA
 
1993

“The Waking Dream: Photography‘s First Century, Selections from the Gilman Paper Company Collection”, Edinburgh International Festival, Edinburgh, Scotland

 

Andy Warhol (1928 – 1987)

Andy Warhol is arguably the best-known artist of the second half of the 20th century. His works Double Elvis, Gold Marilyn and his Campbell’s Soup Cans are iconic. In 2011 a batch of drawings from the 1950s –the first decade Warhol spent in New York – was discovered among the works he left in his estate. In these early drawings Warhol establishes a precedent for his subsequent work. We come across: Portraits, Flowers, Guns, Car Crashes and Famous People. Through these drawings we see Warhol as a sensitive and ingenious draftsman.
He was particularly inspired by the blossoming magazine culture and its pictorial language. Extensive research by Daniel Blau has now identified the majority of the sources he used for his 1950s works. Warhol drew a large number of subjects from the world-famous LIFE magazine.

 

Selected Exhibitions
 
2019
“Andy Warhol-From A to B and Back Again”, SFMOMA, San Francisco, USA
“Contact Warhol: Photography Without End”, Cantor Arts Center, Stanford, USA
 
2019
“Andy Warhol: By Hand (Drawings 1950s-1980s)”, New York Academy of Art, New York, USA
 
2018
“Andy Warhol-From A to B and Back Again”, Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, USA
 
2015
“Andy Warhol: Campbell’s Soup Cans and Other Works 1953–1967”, The Museum of Modern Art, New York, USA
“YES!YES!YES! Warholmania”, Museum Brandhorst, Munich, Germany
“From Marilyn to Mao: Andy Warhol‘s Famous Faces”, Columbia Museum of Art Columbia, USA
“Andy Warhol and William Morris”, Modern Art Oxford, Oxford, England
“Pop To Popism”, Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia
“Transmitting Andy Warhol”, Tate Liverpool, Liverpool, England
 
2014
“Andy Warhol: Death and Disaster”, Kunstsammlungen Chemnitz, Chemnitz, Germany
“Audubon to Warhol: The Art of American Still Life”, Philadelphia Museum of Art,Philadelphia, USA
“From Photo to Print. Prints from Andy Warhol to Gerhard Richter”, Museum Folkwang, Essen, Germany
“SUPERPOP!”, Serlachius Museum Gosta, Mantta, Finland
“Andy Warhol: Life, Death and Beauty”, Beaux-arts Mons, Mons, Belgium
 
2013
Pinakothek der Moderne, Munich
 
2013
Teylers Museum, The Netherlands
 
2013
Louisiana Museum, Denmark
 
2009
Grand Palais, Paris
 
2000
Lousiana Museum, Humlebaek
 
1999
Large travelling exhibition at Kunsthalle Hamburg; the Andy Warhol Museum, Pittsburgh; International Center for Photography, New York
 
1993
Kunsthalle, Basel
 
1989
Travelling exhibition at Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh; University of Pennsylvania-Institute of Contemporary Art, Philadelphia; Serpentine Gallery, London; Newport Harbor Art Museum, Newport Beach; Fondation Cartier pour l’Art Contemporain, Jouy-en-Josas
 
1981
Museum of Modern Art, Vienna
 
1979
Whitney Museum of American Art, New York
 
1977
Museum Folkwang, Essen
 
1972
Walker Art Center, Minneapolis
 
1970
Travelling exhibition at Pasadena Art Museum; Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago; Stedelijk Museum Eindhoven; Musée d’Art Moderne de la Ville, Paris; TheTate Gallery, London; Whitney Museum, NewYork
 
1966
The Velvet Underground is formed
 
1963
The Factory is founded
 
1962
First Campbell’s Soup and Coca Cola screen-print series, exhibited at Ferus Gallery, Los Angeles. Participation at The New Realists, Janis Gallery, New York
 
1956
Thirty Fifth Annual Art Director’s Club Award for his commercial shoe drawings
 
1952
Hugo Gallery: Fifteen Drawings based on the Writings of Truman Capote

 

Literature (Selection)

 

From Silverpoint to Silver Screen – Andy Warhol 1950s Drawings ed. Daniel Blau, published by Hirmer January 2013
 
Andy Warhol – Zeichnungen 1942-1987, ed. The Andy Warhol Museum Pittsburgh, 2005
 
Andy Warhol – Catalogue Rainsonné Vol. 2 (Paintings and Sculptures 1964-69), Georg Frei, Neil Printz, London, 2004
 
Andy Warhol – Catalogue Rainsonné Vol. 1 (Paintings and Sculptures 1961-63), Georg Frei, Neil Printz, London, 2002
 
Warhol Pre-Pop, Jesse Kornbluth, München, 1989
 
Andy Warhol – Das zeichnerische Werk 1942-1975, ed. by Württembergischer Kunstverein, Stuttgart, 1976
 
 

Amongst the founding members of the LE GUN group and the publication of the same name, these London-based artists are united by the medium of illustration on paper.

 

Stephanie von Reiswitz
Munich-born and very much immersed in the London universe, Stephanie von Reiswitz depicts surreal tales of past glories and tragedies, while rendering through her sombre colours and shapes an aesthetic reminiscent of the Weimar Republic.

 

Chris Bianchi
A self-invented Maltesian, Chris Bianchi’s somewhat surreal ideas are rendered in landscapes where new perspectives lead onto more and the viewer will find their mind pleasantly boggled.

 

Robert Rubbish
A unique Londoner and notorious Soho character, Robert Greene (a.k.a. Robert Rubbish), comprises half of the Victorian punk revivalist duo, the Rubbish Men, and shares generously a slice of his world through an adventurous synthesis of drawings and writing.

 

Bill Bragg
An illustrator with an appreciation for the deeper shades that a pencil can afford, this Englishman depicts fragmentary tales of mystery and conjures unlikely characters in a beautifully noir-esque style.

 

Neal Fox

Neal Fox was born 1981 in London, studied graphic design at Camberwell College of Art and illustration at the Royal College of Art in London. Fox is co-founder of LE GUN, an illustrative collective and their publication of the same name. He lives and works in London.

A.R. Penck (1939 – 2017)
 
Penck was born in Dresden, Germany in 1939 as Ralf Winkler. In his early teens he took painting and drawing lessons with Jürgen Böttcher, known by the pseudonym Strawalde, and joined with him to form the renegade artists’ group Erste Phalanx Nedserd (Dresden spelled backward). He later worked for a year as a trainee draftsman at the state advertising agency in Dresden. After failing to gain admission to the fine-arts academies in Dresden and East Berlin, Penck worked for several years as a stoker, a newspaper deliverer, a margarine packer and a night watchman.

 

Penck later studied together with a group of other neo-expressionist painters in Dresden. He became one of the foremost exponents of the new figuration alongside Jörg Immendorff, Georg Baselitz and Markus Lüpertz. Under the East German communist regime, they were watched by the secret police and were considered dissidents. In the late 1970s they were included in shows in West Berlin and were seen as exponents of free speech in the East. His work was shown by major museums and galleries in the West throughout the 1980s.

 

Penck first attracted attention with a series of paintings and sculptures, made in the 1960s and early 1970s, that he called Standarts, a conflation of “standard” and “art”, with an echo of the German word for banner or flag, Standarte. In the 1980s he became known worldwide for paintings with pictographic, neo-primitivist imagery of human figures and other totemic forms.

 

Penck’s sculptures, though less familiar, evoke the same primitive themes as his paintings and drawings. They use common everyday materials such as wood, bottles, cardboard boxes, tin cans, masking tape, tinfoil, and wire, and are crudely painted and assembled.The sculptures are often reminiscent of the stone heads of Easter Island and other Oceanic art.
After leaving East Germany, Penck settled in Kerpen, southwest of Cologne, but in 1983 he moved to London. He later relocated to Dublin. At the time of his death, Penck lived and worked in Berlin, Düsseldorf, Dublin and New York City.

 

Penck died on 2 May 2017 in Zürich at the age of 77.

 

Exhibitions (Selection)

 
2022
A.R. Penck, Museum Jorn, Silkeborg, Denmark
 

2022
A.R. Penck, Museo d’arte Mendrisio, Switzerland
 

2020
A.R. Penck, Kunstmuseum Den Haag, Den Haag, The Netherlands
 

2019
A.R. Penck – „Ich aber komme aus Dresden (check it out man, check it out).”, Albertinum Dresden, Dresden, Germany
 

2019
A. R. PENCK: I THINK IN PICTURES, Ashmolean Museum, Oxford, UK
 

2017
A.R. Penck – Rites de passage, Fondation Marguerite et Aimé Maeght, Saint‑Paul-de-Vence, France
 

2015
A. R. Penck – System, Signal, Störung, Staatliches Museum für Kunst und Design, Nürnberg, Germany
 

2013
A. R. Penck – Eine Retrospektive, Kunstakademie Düsseldorf, Germany
 

2011
A.R. Penck – Holzschnitte, Radierungen, Lithographien, Kunstmuseum Heidenheim, Heidenheim, Germany
 

2010
A.R. Penck, Vergangenheit, Gegenwart, Zukunft, Museum Ludwig, Cologne, Germany

 
 

Literature (Selection)

 

A.R. Penck—Retrospektive, ed. by Ingrid Pfeiffer und Max Hollein, Frankfurt Düsseldorf, 2007
 
A.R. Penck—Konfessionen, Bilder 1988-1995, ed. by Christian K. Scheffel, Bad Homburg, 2000
 
A. R. Penck—Holzschnitte 1966-1995, ed. by Städtisches Kunstmuseum Spendhaus, Reutlingen, 2004
 
A.R. Penck, A.R. Penck—Zeichungen 1958-1985 Frauen Skulpturen Abstraktes, Bern, 1986
 
A. R. Penck—Zeichnungen bis 1975, ed. by Kunstmuseum Basel, 1978

 

Matt Mullican (*1951)

 

Matt Mullican was born 1951 in Santa Monica, California. He studied at the California Institute of the Arts, as well as in Valencia, Spain. His complex language and logic systems, as expressed on paper, glass and various media, have gained in versatility and applicability with the growth of computers and the internet. Mullican lives and works in New York and Berlin.

 

Exhibitions and Distinctions (Selection)

 

2011
Haus der Kunst, Munich

 

2010
Institut d’art contemporain, Villeurbanne, France

 

2008
Museum of Art, Liechtenstein

 

2006—2007
Stuttgart Museum of Art showing at Stuttgart Airport

 

2005—2006
Lentos Museum, Linz

 

2005
Museum Ludwig, Cologne

 

2003
Internationaal Kunstcentrum, Antwerpen

 

2001
Kunsthalle Basel. Fundació Antoni Tàpies, Barcelona

 

1999
Städtische Galerie im Lenbachhaus, Munich

 

1997
Stedelijk van Abbemuseum, Eindhoven (with Lawrence Weiner) Documenta IX, Kassel

 

1995
New National Gallery and Alexanderplatz Station, Berlin

 

1990
Visiting professorship at Städelschule, Frankfurt

 

1989
Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington

 

1988
Museum of Modern Art, New York

 

1984
Centre d’Art Contemporain, Geneva

 

1982
Documenta 7, Kassel

 

 

Literature

Matt Mullican—Model Architecture, ed. by Lentos Kunstmuseum, Linz, 2006

 

Matt Mullican—DC: Learning from that Person’s Work, ed. by Museum Ludwig, Cologne, 2005

 

Matt Mullican, Brooke Alexander, Galerie Daniel Blau, Mai 36 Galerie, New York, Munich, Zürich, 2000

 

Matt Mullican—Works 1972-1992, ed. by Ulrich Wilmes, Cologne, 1993