Jean-Philippe Dallaire

"Jean-Philippe Dallaire(9 June 1916 – 27 November 1965) is best known for his festive paintings populated by strange and macabre people. In his work, the real and the imaginary intermingle in a world of form and colour. Critics have described Dallaire as a man who lived in an air of mystery “ in a private world with his own landscape and climate, its architecture and its people.”  Dallaire was a representational painter despite an interest for abstraction. He played a leading role as a precursor in the return of figure painting in Canada at the end of the 60’s.He started drawing at the age of eleven. Although he attended art classes in various cities, including Toronto, Boston, and Montreal, he was mostly self-taught. In October 1938, with a stipend from the Québec government, Dallaire traveled to Paris to attend the Atelier d'art sacré, and the Lhote studio. He also worked in his own studio in Montmartre. In France, he became familiar with the work of Picasso, the surrealists and the Canadian artist, Alfred Pellan. The works from this period are characterized by their strong architectural motifs and flattened planes.

 In 1940, Dallaire was arrested by the Gestapo and spent the next four years in prison. While in prison he continued to draw and study Italian. After his liberation he took a course in the art of tapestry. He completed his apprenticeship in Aubusson under the painter Jean Lurçat who was responsible for renewing the art of tapestry in France.
In 1945, Dallaire returned to Canada. He taught painting at the École des beaux-arts in Québec City from1946-52, and worked for the National Film Board in Ottawa from 1952-57, where he illustrated short educational films. Many works from this period were also commissioned murals. The works show varied stylistic influences and are recognized for their draftmanship and spontaneity in subject and use of colour.  Dallaire was inspired by Italian theatre, mythological figures, surrealism, synthetic cubism and art brut.In 1959, Dallaire returned to France where he spent the last years of his life in Vence. The works from this period show a very personal approach to modernism. They are characterized by their festive air, and highly schematized forms and rich colours. Dallaire discovered the liberating qualities of abstraction.
In 1968 the first retrospective exhibition of his work was held at the Musée d’art contemporain, Montreal and the Musée du Québec, Quebec."(klinkhoffart.com)

European Classical Sculpture Domenico Guidi

Domenico Guidi (1625 – March 28, 1701) was a prominent Italian Baroque sculptor.
Born in Carrara, Guidi followed his uncle, the prominent sculptor, Giuliano Finelli to Naples. As the nephew of a sculptor noted for his feud with Bernini, it is not surprising that Guidi was never employed by the eminent master. Instead, when he fled Naples in 1647 during Masaniello's revolt, he joined the studio of the main competitor, Alessandro Algardi, where he remained for seven years. While in Algardi's studio, he worked on projects with another pupil, Ercole Ferrata. For example, both helped complete their master's unfinished Vision of Saint Nicholas (completed 1655) at San Nicola da Tolentino.
Guidi gained independence with Algardi's passing in 1654. He also worked closely with the French sculptor in Rome, Pierre - Etienne Monnot. Relative to sculptors of other major studios, he was prolific. His works include the Monument to Natale Rondinini in Santa Maria del Popolo (1657) and the relief over the altar of Capella di Monte di Pieta showing a Lamentation over the dead body of Christ (1667 - 76). Guidi has Algardi's competence in carving and his figures show the classical emotional detachment, but the designs are uninspired when compared to his Master. He was awarded one commission directed by Bernini, the scultping of one of the angels for the Ponte Sant'Angelo.

Classicism

Gutai Group - Minoru Onoda

Minoru Onoda  was an important member of the Gutai Group's younger generation having joined the group in 1965. His 'Paintings of Propagation' theory was a crucial step in his early career. He was included in the important retrospectives on the Gutai Group at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York in 2013 and the National Art Center in Tokyo in 2012.Minoru Onoda was born 1937 in Manshu, North-East District, China (Japanese-occupied Machuria Jilin Province, China). He studied at the Institute of Fine Arts, Osaka, Japan from 1956 to 1958 and from 1958–1960 at the Osaka School of Art (currently Osaka College of Art). He lived most of his life in Himeji, Japan where he died in 2008.After publishing his "Paintings of Propagation' theory in 1961 and participating in the 3rd International Exhibition for Young Artists in Paris in 1964, Onoda Minoru joined Gutai and stayed faithful to their leader Yoshihara Jiro's motto to "do what has never been done before" for the rest of his career. The Gutai Group was the first radical artistic movement after World War II in Japan. This influential group was involved in large-scale multimedia environments, performances, and theatrical events and emphasizes the relationship between body and matter in pursuit of originality.
Through newly-available materials and artistic freedom post WWII, Onoda questioned new forms, styles and hierarchy through lines and circles.
Awed by manufacturing concepts of repetition and quantity, he chose amalgamations of gradually-sized dots on panel with relief, creating organically-growing shapes, progressing to infinite circles and finally monochrome painting where the edge matters.
During his lifetime Onoda chose to sell primarily to museums and institutions. His paintings have been extensively exhibited in Japan and were included in the major retrospectives: "Gutai, The Spirit of an Era", National Art Center Tokyo, in 2012 and "Gutai : Splendid Playground” at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, in 2013.Wikipedia

Rome Blood

 Just art whatever come to my done a lot of Street stuff

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Photo Gallery - Harry Callahan

“Harry Callahan (1912-1999) is regarded as one of the most innovative and influential artists in the history of 20th-century US photography. Deichtorhallen Hamburg is taking the artist’s creative intensity, the aesthetic standing his oeuvre enjoys in the context of 20th-century US photography and the fact that 2012 marked the 100th anniversary of his birth as an opportunity to present his oeuvre in an extensive retrospective with over 280 works from March 22 through June 9, 2013. The exhibition is to date the most extensive show of his work, and includes both his black-and-white gelatin silver prints and his color works produced using the dye-transfer process.

Harry Callahan was one of the first to overcome the prevailing aesthetics of Realism by advancing the New Vision, which László Moholy-Nagy had established in the New Bauhaus in Chicago, and Ansel Adams’ so-called “straight photography” in an innovative, highly sensitive way. Between 1946 and 1997 the Museum of Modern Art in New York alone honored Callahan’s photographic oeuvre in a total of 38 exhibitions. Together with the painter Richard Diebenkorn, Callahan represented the USA at the 1978 Venice Biennale, the first photographer ever to do so. Nonetheless, in Europe Callahan’s multifaceted work is still considered a rarity in the history of photography.

In addition to photographs of nature and landscapes, Callahan’s oeuvre, spanning a period of nearly 60 years as of 1938, embraces pictures of his daily strolls through cities such as Detroit, Chicago, Providence, Atlanta, and New York. Portrayed frequently in very intense light, his leitmotifs were streets, shop windows, buildings and pedestrians hurrying past. Very early on he regarded photography as a purely artistic medium, and saw himself as an art photographer rather than a representative of applied photography. In later years other works, in which his wife Eleanor and daughter Barbara were the focal point, were superseded by another major experiment: the photographs he took on numerous trips to France, Italy, Morocco, Portugal, and Ireland. His works document the emergence of Modernism, which was taking an ever-greater hold on everyday life. Relating to his three main themes, nature, the familiar figure of his wife Eleanor, and cities, Callahan’s images reflect his life in ever-new references that become increasingly less interwoven with one another. At the same time they trace the social and cultural transformation in the USA discreetly, elegantly, and with a tendency to abstraction, recording the changes as a seismograph does earth tremors. In his images Callahan consistently reflects on both his own and the camera’s way of seeing..."(artblart.com/tag)

Photo Gallery

Surrealism Leon Bellefleur

"Leon Bellefleur was born in Montreal on february 8, 1910. His father objected to his desire to study at Beaux Arts. After graduating from École normale Jacques-Cartier, he starts his career as a school teacher which will last for twenty-five years. He marries Rita Jolicoeur in 1934. They have five children together.
He starts making drawings before he is ten years old. Eventually, he goes into painting. In 1946, he holds his first exhibition presented along with the drawings of the children he is teaching to . The following year, he publishes "Plaidoyer pour l'Enfant". (Plea in favour of children).
In 1951, he wins the first prize for modern painting at the Spring Exhibition of the Fine Arts Museum of Montreal. He previouly held an exhibition at The Agnès Lefort Gallery. He also participated in a collective exhibition of young artists in Europe and to the Sao Paulo Biennial.

 In 1954, he retires from teaching and devotes himself entirely to his art. In the fall, he holds a major exhibition at the Montreal Fine Arts Museum and thereafter leaves with Rita to go and live in Paris where they will spend most of the next ten years. In 1958, his talent is acknowledged by the Arts Council of Canada which grants to Bellefleur a significant scholarship. In France, he joins the surrealists and becomes a friend of André Breton's. In the midst of the 1960s, he comes back to Quebec which is going through its Quiet Revolution.
Bellefleur's exhibitions multiply not only in Montreal but also elsewhere in Quebec and in Ontario. But it is in 1968 that full consecration fo his talent takes place: the National Art Gallery holds an important retrospective fo Bellefleur's works first in Ottawa and then in London, Ontario and finally in Montreal. Bellefleur is awarded a second scholarship by the Arts Council of Canada.

 His solo exhibitions continue to multiply as far as London, England in 1973 and Denmark in 1975. In 1977, he becomes the first recipient of the Borduas Award newly created by the Quebec Government. This honour is followed by the Saint Jean Baptiste Society price in 1985. In 1986, a major exhibition of his work is held in Toronto and in 1987 he is awarded a honorary Phd by Concordia University in Montreal.
In 1988, one of the most famous art writers in Quebec, Mr Guy Robert, publishes in both french and english a major book on the life, the carreer and the work of Bellefleur. This book contains unpublished writings by Bellefleur, great pictures of the artist and his family as well as numerous reproductions of the artis's works from the various periods of his career: drawings,gouaches, etching, lithographs and oil. This book is published by Éditions Iconia and is entitled BELLEFLEUR.
At ninety years old, Léon Bellefleur still has a great enthusiasm and a profound passion for painting. He continues his work. Léon Bellefleur has been a man of great generosity and of great loyalty to people around him, family and friends. He never preoccupied himself with making money, getting honours or reaching celebrity. Humble and truthful, he always believed and said that his work would move along its own course. And he won. Without having compromised on the basic principles of integrity, generosity and respect for others.Léon Bellefleur is certainly one the great canadian painters of the second half of the twentieth century. And a great human being."(clarencegagnon.com)

Inspirations