Surrealism Roland Penrose

Sir Roland Algernon Penrose (14 October 1900 – 23 April 1984)".English Surrealist painter and poet, best known for his exhibitions and books about the work of his friends Picasso, Ernst, Miró, Man Ray, and Tàpies. He planned the International Surrealist Exhibition in 1936, which led to the establishment of an English Surrealist movement. His bold and enigmatic Surrealist paintings, drawings and objects are some of the most enduring images of the movement. He is best known for his post card collages, samples of which are found in major national collections worldwide. Tea hosts this exhibition which brings together pieces of this intellectual British artist and other works of his contemporaries and friends. "(webtenerife.co.uk/events/penrose.htm)

 "In his early twenties Roland Penrose moved to France and there met most of the major figures in Surrealism. Initially he came under the influence of Picasso and Braque but from about 1925 he came into the circles around Breton. Arising from his close friendship with Picasso the 1950 he wrote a sympathetic biography Picasso - His Life and Work, followed by books on Miro, Man Ray and Tapies for Thames and Hudson. In the 1940s he became a gallery owner, collector and art organiser, indeed he founded the Institute of Contemporary Arts (ICA) in 1946.
Early in the 1930's Penrose became driven to promote surrealism in Britain. He organised the first International Surrealist Exhibition at the New Burlington Galleries, London, in June 1936. As this was such a key event in surrealism in Britain we will look at this before turning to examine Penrose's own paintings.It was attended by André Breton, Paul Éluard and Salvador Dalí. It included works by many of the emerging Continental surrealists, Victor Brauner, De Chirico, Dali, Oscar Dominguez, Max Ernst, Magritte, Wolfgang Paalen, Yves Tanguy and many others. Also included in the exhibition were some British painters, John Banting, John Selby Bigge, Reuben Mednikoff, Gail Pailthorpe and others. "(surrealism.website/Penrose.html)

Geometric abstraction Nadir Afonso

Nadir Afonso (December 4, 1920 – December 11, 2013) was a Portuguese geometric abstractionist painter. Formally trained in architecture, which he practiced early in his career with Le Corbusier and Oscar Niemeyer, Nadir Afonso later studied painting in Paris and became one of the pioneers of Kinetic art, working alongside Victor Vasarely, Fernand Léger, Auguste Herbin, and André Bloc.
As a theorist of his own geometry-based aesthetics, published in several books, Nadir Afonso defended the idea that art is purely objective and ruled by laws that treat art not as an act of imagination but of observation, perception, and form manipulation.
Nadir Afonso achieved international recognition early in his career and many of his works are in museums. His most famous works are the Cities series, which depict places all around the world. He was known to have painted into his later years and died on December 11, 2013, at a hospital in Cascais.
During his life he achieved great honors, representing his country at the finest level.Wikipedia

Tachisme and abstract painting Andre Lanskoy

Andre Lanskoy (31 March 1902 – 24 August 1976) was a Russian painter and printmaker who worked in France. He is associated with the School of Paris and Tachisme, an abstract painting movement that began during the 1940s.
He was born in Moscow. After 1905, the family moved to St. Petersburg, the capital in 1909. In 1918, he moved to Kiev where he painted his first paintings. During the Russian Civil War he fought in the Tsarist White Army. After an injury he moved to Constantinople and in 1921, he went to Paris. Recalling his arrival in the French capital, Lanskoy said: "Literally in the first night I started to paint and I haven’t stopped since." In Paris, he met Serge Poliakoff and later Nicolas de Staël.

 Lanskoy spent a lot of time at museums and was influenced by James Ensor’s and Vincent van Gogh’s use of color. In 1923, he participated in his first group exhibitions of Russian painters at the La Licorne Gallery in Paris. Wilhelm Uhde discovered Lanskoy’s paintings at the Salon d'Automne in 1924 and became a collector of his works in the years that followed. In 1925, Lanskoy had a solo exhibition and his works were acquired by museums and important private collectors. After 1937, his paintings began a transition towards abstraction and he studied both Paul Klee and Wassily Kandinsky.

 After 1942, he painted only abstract works. The interaction of form and color became the major theme running through his oeuvre: "Even though every brushstroke represents for itself a transformed reality, it receives its true meaning in the context of surrounding shades of color." In 1944, Lanskoy exhibited at the Jeanne Bucher Gallery in Paris where he met Nicolas de Staël. In 1948, he showed at the Louis Carré Gallery and in 1951 at the Galerie Jacques Dubourg. The Tooth and Sons Gallery showed his work in 1953 and The Loeb Gallery in New York City followed in 1959. In 1962, he began to work on a large project of original prints and collages to accompany Nikolai Gogol’s novel Diary of a Madman. He worked for fourteen years until his death on this project resulting in 150 collages and 80 lithographs. In 1966 he had an exhibition at the Museé Galliéra, Paris. The Neue Galerie in Zürich held an exhibition in 1969. Lanskoy died on 24 August 1976 in Paris. The Aras Gallery collected the extensive Diary of a Madman series of prints and staged a major posthumous exhibition in 1989.Wikipedia

Henry Musiałowicz

Henry Musiałowicz (b. January 5, 1914 in Gniezno, d. February 24, 2015) - Polish artist painter
"Henryk Musiałowicz is an artist recognised and valued around the world,man full of energy and eagerness to work who keeps searching, wondering at, admiring and getting bewildered by the surrounding world with a childlike curiosity"

Hans Erni

Hans Erni (February 21, 1909 – March 21, 2015) was a Swiss graphic designer, painter, illustrator, engraver and sculptor. Born in Lucerne, the third of eight siblings, to a cabin cruiser engineer, he studied art at the Académie Julian in Paris and later in Berlin,and admired artist such as Pablo Picasso and Georges Braque. He is known for having illustrated postage stamps, his lithographs for the Swiss Red Cross, his participation on the Olympic Committee as well as his activism. His 1939 works and first major public success was a mural titled Switzerland: "Vacation Land of the People" was commissioned and displayed for the national exhibition in Zürich. The Hans Erni Museum, situated in the grounds of the Swiss Museum of Transport in Lucerne, contains a large collection of artwork, he also designed ceramics and theatre costumes and sets. He did the art for Swiss bank notes, in the 1940s but, after the notes were already printed they were never published, because a member of the State Council of Lucerne criticized that Erni was deemed as a communist. However, Erni was never member of any political party. In 2004, he was awarded the honorary citizenship of the city of Lucerne. On 10 January 2009 he received the SwissAward for lifetime accomplishment. In his career, he realized about 300 posters and several murals (for the Red Cross, the IOC, the United Nations, ICAO, and many public and private enterprises). He illustrated about 200 books and created 90 Postage stamps and 25 medals

 Erni was commissioned by the Lucerne Museum Fine Arts to organize an exhibit about Pablo Picasso. The Spanish artist remained grateful for that opportunity to show his art in Switzerland. In 1936 he started to work with abstract art. From 1940 to 1945 he was soldier in the Swiss army and was engaged as a camouflage painter because of his experience with large-size murals. In 1948, he was a competitor in the 1948 Summer Olympics' painting competitions. Between 1950 and 1952 he participated to exhibitions in Latin America. However his participation to the Biennale of São Paulo was not authorized by Federal Councillor Philipp Etter. After a stay in Mauritania and Guinea he painted African topics. In 1960 he organized with Alfred Pauletto, Celestino Piatti, Hugo Wetli and Kurt Wirth an exhibition in Olten about graphic design and painting. He participated to the 1964 Documenta exhibition in Kassel, in the graphic design department.

 On 15 September 1979 the Swiss Museum of Transport opened a large personal collection of Erni's works. He realized a 30 meter long mural for the Museum. Erni was very interested in sport received the United States Sports Academy award of sport artist of the year in 1989. In 1993 his works were exhibited at the Pence Gallery in San Francisco.He celebrated his 100th birthday in 2009. His sister, Maria Strebi-Erni (January 14, 1907 – January 29, 2014), died at the age of 107. Erni died on March 21, 2015, aged 106. His first wife Gertrud Bohnert had died in a horse-riding accident, they had one daughter artist Simone Fornara Erni and with his second wife Doris, he had a son and two daughters.Wikipedia

Conceptual Art Leon Ferrari

León Ferrari (September 3, 1920 – July 25, 2013) was a contemporary conceptual artist known for his protest art.Ferrari was born in Buenos Aires to Susana Celia del Pardo and Augusto César Ferrari; his father was a well-known painter from San Possidonio, Italy. The younger Ferrari went on to employ methods such as collage, photocopying and sculpture in wood, plaster or ceramics. He often used text, particularly newspaper clippings or poetry, in his pieces. His art often dealt with the subject of power and religion; images or statues of the saints, the Virgin Mary or Jesus may be found in cages, sinks, meat blenders or frying pans. He has also dealt with issues of United States foreign policy; in his best-known work, La civilización occidental y cristiana ("Western-Christian Civilization", 1965), Christ appears crucified on a fighter plane, as a symbolic protest against the Vietnam War .

 Ferrari also wrote many articles for left-leaning newspaper Página 12. His work and his politics brought him much controversy and notoriety. He was forced into exile in São Paulo, Brazil from 1976 to 1991 following threats by the military dictatorship, which "disappeared" his son Ariel in 1977. He returned to Argentina in 1991.
His work was again the subject of controversy when in 2004, a retrospective of his works at the Palais de Glace exhibition hall in Recoleta, Buenos Aires, was forced to close following intervention by Pope Francis (then Archbishop of Buenos Aires) and a subsequent court order. Protests and government action allowed the exhibition to reopen.

 In 2009 the Museum of Modern Art in New York City featured his work in a major exhibition with artist Mira Schendel called Tangled Alphabets. His work was also exhibited at the Rencontres d'Arles Festival, in Arles, France.
He earned among many other awards and recognitions the São Paulo Association of Art Critics Award for Best Art Exhibition of 1983, a Guggenheim Fellowship in 1995, the Leone D'Oro at the Venice Biennale in 2007, and in 2012 Konex Foundation in Argentina granted him the Diamond Konex Award for Visual Arts as the most important artist in the last decade in his country.
Ferrari died on July 25, 2013 at the age of 92; he was buried at La Chacarita Cemeter.Wikipedia