Exposition Art Blog: February 2017

Social Realist Art Jack Levine

Jack Levine (January 3, 1915 – November 8, 2010) was an American Social Realist painter and printmaker best known for his satires on modern life, political corruption, and biblical narratives.
Born to Lithuanian Jewish parents, Levine grew up in the South End of Boston, where he observed a street life composed of European immigrants and a prevalence of poverty and societal ills, subjects which would inform his work. He first studied drawing with Harold K. Zimmerman from 1924-1931. At Harvard University from 1929 to 1933, Levine and classmate Hyman Bloom studied with Denman Ross. As an adolescent, Levine was already, by his own account, "a formidable draftsman". In 1932 Ross included Levine's drawings in an exhibition at the Fogg Art Museum at Harvard, and three years later bequeathed twenty drawings by Levine to the museum's collection.Levine's early work was most influenced by Bloom, Chaim Soutine, Georges Rouault, and Oskar Kokoschka.Along with Bloom and Karl Zerbe, he became associated with the style known as Boston Expressionism.






From 1935 to 1940 he was employed by the Works Progress Administration. His first exhibition of paintings in New York City was at the Museum of Modern Art, with the display of Card Game and Brain Trust, the latter drawn from his observation of life in the Boston Common. In 1937 his The Feast of Pure Reason, a satire of Boston political power, was placed on loan to the Museum of Modern Art. In the same year String Quartet was shown at the Whitney Museum of American Art, and purchased in 1942 by the Metropolitan Museum of Art.The death of his father in 1939 prompted a series of paintings of Jewish sages.
From 1942 to 1945 Levine served in the Army. Upon his discharge from service he painted Welcome Home, a lampoon of the arrogance of military power; years later the painting would engender political controversy when it was included in a show of art in Moscow, and along with works by other American artists, raised suspicions in the House Un-American Activities Committee of pro-Communist sympathies. In 1946 he married the painter Ruth Gikow and moved to New York City.






With a Fulbright grant he traveled to Europe in 1951, and was affected by the work of the Old Masters, particularly the Mannerism of El Greco, which inspired him to distort and exaggerate the forms of his figures for expressive purposes. After returning he continued to paint biblical subjects, and also produced Gangster Funeral, a narrative which Levine referred to as a "comedy".Further commentary on American life was furnished by Election Night (1954), Inauguration (1958), and Thirty- Five Minutes from Times Square (1956). Also in the late 1950s, Levine painted a series of sensitive portraits of his wife and daughter. In the 1960s Levine responded not only to political unrest in the United States with works such as Birmingham '63, but to international subjects as well, as in The Spanish Prison (1959–62), and later still, Panethnikon (1978), and The Arms Brokers, 1982-83. Following the death of his wife in the 1980s came an increased interest in Hebraism, and with it a proliferation of paintings with themes from the Old Testament. In 1979 he was elected into the National Academy of Design as an Associate member and became a full Academician in 1982.Wikipedia





Junya Watanabe

Junya Watanabe(born in Fukushima, Japan in 1961) is a Japanese fashion designer, originally the protégé of Comme des Garçons designer Rei Kawakubo. Born in Fukushima, Japan in 1961, he went on to attend Bunka Fashion College in Tokyo, graduating in 1984.[2] At this time he began his apprenticeship at Comme des Garçons as a patternmaker. In 1987, he was promoted to chief designer of Tricot knitwear line and then moved on to design for the Comme Des Garçons Homme line. Starting in 1992, he has worked under his own name as part of Comme des Garçons. He started his own line under the Comme Des Garçons name called 'Junya Watanabe Comme Des Garçons' in 1993 and began showing in Paris that same year.








 “My idea of something being beautiful or aesthetically pleasing is completely different from what Rei Kawakubo’s vision of beauty is,” Watanabe allows. “To this day, seeing Rei Kawakubo’s work, I feel the same. I understand certain points and I can relate to certain areas ... That doesn’t mean that I completely agree. As a person-to-person relationship, I feel that I have a different idea, and I’ll always have a different vision of what is beautiful. Another reason, perhaps, I didn’t end up working right alongside Kawakubo is perhaps she felt that I had a different vision of my own. Maybe that’s why we parted, in terms of creating something that was different.” -Junya Watanabe.Wikipedia








Christian Perez de Carvasal

Combining symbolic elements of the figurative and the abstract, French artist Christian Perez de Carvasal creates stunning canvases that reflect all the movement and energy intrinsic to city life. Inspired by a childhood in Paris, the artist paints sprawling scenes highlighting
the majesty of modern architecture and the dynamismof crowded sidewalks and streets. Yet interspersed amid his urban landscapes are peaceful humanlike creatures which serve in juxtaposition to the harried pace that commonly defines city life. He explains, “I am inspired
by urban life, people in motion, architecture and colors. My mission is to provoke emotional and political reflections and visual expressions.”
One of the hallmarks of Carvasal’s work is his use of pure color accentuated with rich, complex textures. His powerful hues are set in edgy compositions that rely on
a distinct use of line and geometric form. By combining a variety of techniques and forms, he is able to infuse his cityscapes with new meanings, bridging the
mythologies of urban life to explore the depth of experience within.


Title . Barcelona
Technique. Brushes & knives
Oil painting on canvas
Size. 50 x 65 cm

Title .Barcelona 2
Technique . Brushes & knives
Oil painting on canvas
size . 50 x 60

Title. The city
Technique . Brushes & knives
Oil painting on canvas
Size . 80 x 100 cm


I am an artist who combines symbolism with the figurative and the abstract on canvas. I use a variety of art forms/techniques and I mostly paint with knives to keep the colors as pure as
possible. My main source of inspiration is large cities with their dynamic and modern architecture. I have always been fascinated by them, being a product of urban life myself, having grown up in Paris, close to the Eiffel Tower, and seeing the different scenes of
Parisian life clearly contributed to my artistic choices. In my work I try to show the peace and quiet you cannot create in busy city life by adding human-life creatures in different contexts. The idea is to provoke emotional and political reflections in my audience.”


Title. In the dark
Technique. brushes & knives
Oil painting on canvas
size. 45 x 45 cm

Title . North
Technique . brushes & knives
Oil painting on canvas
size , 70 x 90 cm

Titel . Tree of Knowledge
Oil painting on linen
Technique , Knives and brushes
Size . 90 x 150 cm


Mila Smagliy








Ceramic Art Paul Soldner

Paul Soldner (April 24, 1921 in Summerfield, Illinois – January 3, 2011 in Claremont, California) was an American ceramic artist, noted for his experimentation with the 16th-century Japanese technique called raku introducing new methods of firing and post firing, which became known as American Raku.
He served as an army medic during World War II and began to pursue a career in art upon returning to the United States. He earned degrees in art education and art administration from Bluffton College and the University of Colorado, then turned his attention to ceramics. He focused first on functional pottery.
In 1954, Soldner became Peter Voulkos' first student in the nascent ceramics department at the Los Angeles County Art Institute (now the Otis College of Art and Design).[3] As Soldner helped his teacher establish the program, he made several changes to the studio pottery equipment, which led to him founding Soldner Pottery Equipment Corp. in 1955, to market his inventions. He eventually held seven patents related to pottery equipment.
After receiving his MFA in ceramics in 1956, Soldner began teaching at Scripps College.







In the 1960s he helped found Anderson Ranch Arts Center in Snowmass, Colorado. He was also involved in starting the National Council on Education for the Ceramic Arts.
He developed a type of low-temperature salt firing.Along with Voulkos, Soldner has been credited with creating the "California School" of ceramic arts by combining Western materials and technology with Japanese techniques and aesthetics.
While teaching at Scripps College, he organized the Scripps Ceramics Annual - a nationally recognized ceramic exhibition. In addition, as a result of his lifelong friendship with ceramic collectors Fred and Mary Marer, Scripps became the fortunate recipient of the extensive Marer Collection of Contemporary Ceramics. In 1990, Scripps received an NEA Grant to research and organize and exhibition titled, "Paul Soldner:A Retrospective'" that travelled throughout the United States.
Soldner retired from Scripps in 1991. He lived and maintained studios in Aspen, Colorado and Claremont, California.Wikipedia







Miriam Schapiro

Miriam Schapiro (November 15, 1923 – June 20, 2015) was a Canadian-born artist based in America. She was a painter, sculptor, printmaker, and a pioneer of feminist art. She was also considered a leader of the Pattern and Decoration art movement. Schapiro's artwork blurs the line between fine art and craft. She incorporated craft elements into her paintings due to their association with women and femininity. She often used icons that are associated with women, such as hearts, floral decorations, geometric patterns, and the color pink. In the 1970s she made the hand fan, a typically small woman's object, heroic by painting it six feet by twelve fee






 Schapiro not only honored the craft tradition in women's art, but also paid homage to women artists of the past. In the early 1970s she made paintings and collages which included photo reproductions of Mary Cassatt's and Georgia O'keefe's paintings. In the mid 1980s she painted portraits of Frida Kahlo on top of her old self-portrait paintings. In the 1990s Schapiro began to include women of the Russian Avant Garde in her work. The Russian Avant Garde was an important moment in Modern Art history for Schapiro to reflect on because women were seen as equals. Early in her career, Schapiro started looking for maternal symbols to unify her own roles as a woman. Her series, Shrines was created in 1961-63 with this in mind. It is one of her earliest group of work that was also an autobiography. Each section of the work show an aspect of being a woman artist. They are also symbolic of her body and soul. Her painting, Big Ox No. 1, from 1968, references Shrines, however no longer compartmentalized. The center O takes on the symbol of the egg which exists as the window into the maternal structure with outstretched limbs.






 In the 1970s, Schapiro and Brach moved to California so that both could teach in the art department at the University of California. Subsequently, she was able to establish the Feminist Art Program at the California Institute of the Arts, in Valencia with Judy Chicago. The program set out to address the problems in the arts from an institutional position. They wanted the creation of art to be less of a private, introspective adventure and more of a public process through consciousness raising sessions, personal confessions and technical training.She participated in the Womanhouse exhibition in 1972. Schapiro's smaller piece within Womanhouse, called "Dollhouse", was constructed using various scrap pieces to create all the furniture and accessories in the house. Each room signified a particular role a woman plays in society and depicted the conflicts between them.






 Schapiro's work from the 1970s onwards consists primarily of collages assembled from fabrics, which she called "femmages". As Schapiro traveled the United States giving lectures, she would ask the women she met for a souvenir. These souvenirs would be used in her collage like paintings. Her 1977-1978 essay Waste Not Want Not: An Inquiry into What Women Saved and Assembled - FEMMAGE (written with Melissa Meyer) describes femmage as the activities of collage, assemblage, découpage and photomontage practised by women using "traditional women's techniques - sewing, piercing, hooking, cutting, appliquéing, cooking and the like..."
Schapiro's works are held in numerous museum collections including the Jewish Museum (New York), the National Gallery of Art,and the Flomenhaft Gallery. Her awards include the Distinguished Artist Award for Lifetime Achievement from the College Art Association and a 1987 Guggenheim Fellowship.Miriam Schapiro's estate is represented exclusively by Eric Firestone Gallery.Wikipedia




Christian Perez de Carvasal


Titel . Au cafe
Oil painting on linen
Technique , Knives and brushes
 Size . 100 x 100 cm

Title . Exodus
Oil painting on linen
Technique brushes & knives
Size 150 x 150 cm

Title . Exodus
Oil painting on linen
Technique brushes & knives
Size .90 x 100 cm

Title . Jeanne d Arc
Oil painting on linen
Technique brushes & knives
Size .90 x 150 cm

Title . With my dog
Oil painting on linen
Technique brushes & knives
Size .90 x 100 cm

Title . Charlize
Oil painting on wood board
Technique brushes
Size .59,5 x 84 cm

Titel . Acide skies
Oil painting on linen
Technique , Knives and brushes
 Size . 90 x 150 cm


Title  . Little girl
Oil painting on linen
Technique brushes
Size .45 x 75 cm







Titel . Dans mes baskets avec mon Flamant rose
Oil painting on linen
Technique , Knives and brushes
Size . 90 x 150 cm

Titel . Tree of Knowledge
Oil painting on linen
Technique , Knives and brushes
Size . 90 x 150 cm