Charles Garabedian

 

 Charles Garabedian (1923 – 2016) was an American-Armenian artist known for his paintings and drawings rich in references to Greek and Chinese symbolism. His artwork reveals a deeply personal world that explores the relationship between painting and sculpture.
Garabedian was born in Detroit, Michigan, to Armenian immigrants who had come to the U.S. to escape the Armenian genocide. Garabedian's mother died when he was two and his father was unable to take care of the three children.Garabedian lived in an orphanage until age nine, when he, his father, and siblings moved to Los Angeles, California.
"Charles Garabedian’s paintings are not beautiful because they depict scenes from classical mythology, but because they render the world of classical mythology real. I’ve never imagined Prometheus surrounded by his own shit, for example, terrified and in unbearable agony from having his liver torn out on a daily basis. But Garabedian did, and did so with such inventive detail and visceral humor that he transports the classical to the present day, here. After hundreds of years of art history fetishizing classical aesthetics, Garabedian’s paintings remind the viewer that the world of Olympic gods and titans is one that is not perfect — instead, it is idyllic and savage and surreal all at once. ..As a late-blooming artist, Garabedian was never interested in making things that look like art; instead, he gave himself over to his instincts, pretensions, and mistakes, unafraid to explore and even embrace what others considered to be “bad.” He states in one interview, “The bad — I’m responsible for that and there must be something there. You know, you can’t just dismiss it by saying, ‘Oh, well he said that’s bad, this is good.’” His willingness to constantly question and prod at preconceived notions of good and bad is what earned him a spot in Marcia Tucker’s notorious “Bad” Painting exhibition at the New Museum in 1978, what later cemented his reputation as an artist’s artist, and what makes his work so compelling, even today."(hyperallergic.com)

 

Gustavo Foppiani

"Gustavo Foppiani was born the 12th july of 1925 in Piacenza and died the 5th August of 1986 in Udine.Foppiani is probably the most important artist belonging to the so called "Piacenza School".Aesthetically speaking, he prefers a crepuscular lyricism and he uses ashen and warn tones for the passing of years on the board, that he subjects to some expert processes of getting old.
It is during the years of surrealistic and abstract landscapes, that he devotes himself to the visual research about the composition.Now, it is already present the fascination for the "symbol" that continues also during the following phases, when the author concentrates mostly about contents, especially reflecting upon the enigma and the anxiety, creating lively sensations of mystery.
Afterwards, this symbolic-existential component is developed by Foppiani on the scope of the human figure and scenery; so, this is a narrative scenery, animated by the presence of a man, who is like a "homini lupus".

The aggression theme is prevalent, so much that, making a long jump in the time and in the space, we remember the Sartre's causticity.In fact, in spite of the calculated "naiveté" of the formal description, of the gratification for the amazement, and of a certain sweet sentimentalism, picks the harshness of the problematic and dangerous situations of the dark atmosphere and of the anatomic deformation.One of the fundamental themes of Foppiani's works of art is the precariousness, that peeps out in the form of uncertainty. Sometimes this reality is mitigated by the sweetness of love, that sometimes is put on a dramatic relevance, and the author lingers over the instant that compromises the quiet and that preludes the catastrophe.Thinking about the dramatic victim's experience, Foppiani discusses also the aggression, lingering over the obsession for the guilty, for the accusation, and for the punishment inflicted by the persecutor. These feelings involve psychologically the protagonist with a such a strength that he is put in a big anguish. Or the aggression acts physically, in an ambiguous and anxious play of disability, or it raises real sentences of death.

But after the tragic moments, the ironic separation phase cannot be absent: this phase is lived with strabilliant energy and presence of mind. It can configure itself as social irony, for example he focuses the empty stylistic feature of the aristocratic portrait, but the ironic distance becomes cynic when it leaves a specific contest in order to become universal....and skeletons in the cupboard appear .When Foppiani arrives to a global reflection about the existence, suggested for instance by the symbol of book, he expresses himself with calmness, committing to the solemnity of the theme, the gravity of his conclusions. Foppiani seems to incarnating in his figures, that interrogate the moon with anxious and penetrating glance but that don't receive any answer, because the moon is a dumb witness (and "ll cantico notturno di un pastore errante dell'Asia" of Leopardi comes to our mind).(rogallery.com)

Abdel Hadi Al Gazzar

Abdel Hadi Al Gazzar (1925-1966) was an Egyptian painter. He occupies a unique position among the artists of his generation. Since his death, his work has not ceased to challenge artists, intellectuals and critics both in Egypt and abroad.
Abdel Hady Mohammad El- Gazzar was born on March 14, 1925 in the Akkabri district in Alexandria; he was son of a Sheikh, a religious scholar. In 1940, his family moved to Cairo and settled in the district of Sayyida Zaynab.
At Helmiyya Secondary School, Al Gazzar attended courses at the 'artistic club’ organized by Hussein Youssef Amin, the founder of The Group of Contemporary Art, in 1944; this group constituted one of the major early attempts to ground Egyptian arts in its own culture. The artists embarked on a search for Egyptian traditions and applied folk symbols mixed with popular philosophy in order to rid Egypt's art of romantic and unrealistic traces left by the earlier Western Orientalist painters. Al Gazzar was a member of this group, which included other Egyptian important artists such as Hamed Nada and Samir Rafi'.
In 1950, Al Gazzar graduated from the Cairo School of Fine Arts, where he subsequently worked as an assistant professor. He had his first personal exhibition held at the Museum of Modern Egyptian Art in Cairo during the period December 17–24, 1951. Al Gazzar obtained two scholarships in Rome, Italy, in 1954 and in 1957. He obtained a diploma from the School of Art and Restoration of Rome. He visited schools of Fine Arts in England, France and Italy.
From 1958 to 1965, Al Gazzar participated in many national and international exhibitions, winning several medals and prizes. In 1965, shortly before his death, he participated for the second time in the Alexandria Biennial.
He died in 1966 of a heart condition.Wikipedia 

Kuzma Petrov-Vodkin

Kuzma Sergeevich Petrov-Vodkin (November 5, 1878 – February 15, 1939) was an important Russian and Soviet painter and writer.
Kuzma Petrov-Vodkin was born in Khvalynsk (Saratov Oblast) into the family of a local shoemaker. His first exposure to art was in his early childhood, when he took some lessons from a couple of icon painters and a signmaker. Still, Petrov-Vodkin didn't quite see himself in art at that time; after graduating from middle school, he took a summer job at a small shipyard with plans to get into railroad college in Samara. After failing his exam, he turned to "Art Classes of Fedor Burov" in 1896
In April 1895, Burov died and for some time Petrov-Vodkin took different painting jobs in the vicinity of Saratov. By chance, his mother's employer invited a well-known architect, R. Meltzer. Petrov-Vodkin was introduced to the guest and impressed him enough to get an invitation to study art at Saint Petersburg. The education was financed by a charitable subscription among local merchants. He also met at this time Borisov-Musatov, an important painter resident in Saratov, who encouraged Petrov-Vodkin to continue his studies.Wikipedia

“I had three versions. In the process of working I set out more and more demands from the purely painterly side which would even out the form and content, the things which would give the painting social importance.” – Kuzma Petrov-Vodkin
"At the time when the Russian Empire was suspended between two revolutions and was undergoing a radical social and political changes, emerging avant-garde artists were working on manifesting new modes of artistic expression. They either rejected classical art altogether in favor of completely innovative approach, or stylized art of different epochs and cultures endowing it with new meanings. Kuzma Petrov-Vodkin  synthesized both approaches when he painted Bathing of the Red Horse in 1912.

There are at least three obvious historical influences that Petrov-Vodkin could draw upon when painting Bathing of the Red Horse: Russian icons, Byzantine frescoes that inspired the Russian classical iconography, and Neoclassicist art. The boy’s peaceful and humble face instantly reminds us of the detached, yet compassionate expression of saints. Christian religious references are also seen in the triptych-like elements within the panting: three horses and three boys and the dominant red/blue palette traditionally used by European painters to identify Christ and the Virgin Mary. The spherical directionality in the painting could have been derived from the frescoes on curved surfaces of the domed spaces in Byzantine churches. And, finally, nudity was most probably inspired by the Neoclassical tradition, in its turn based upon cultures of Ancient Greece and Rome.
That being said, it should be noted that the powerful blood-red stallion was a product of the artist’s own world. Or could it have been the world of his student? It is believed that Petrov-Vodkin was inspired by a sketch “Red Horses” by his pupil, painter Sergey Kalmykov, who would become a model for the boy. The choice of the setting, circular composition and symbolism pervading the work also brings to mind Frantisek Kupka’s L’Eau.

A simple plot, rounded lines, dominating intense red and clear bright colors in the background, and finally not quite mythological but rather a symbolic horse – made this work an icon of the Russian avant-garde. Consequently, this image would become not simply iconic but even prophetic after the Bolsheviks took over the Imperial government and transformed the Russian Empire into the USSR. The red flag would serve as a symbol of the new country for the following seventy years. Petrov-Vodkin returned to the subject once again in 1925 with a painting titled Fantasia, (featured in this article) where the boy on horseback is now flying over the mountains."(galleryintell.com)

Symbolism David Boyd

David Fielding Gough Boyd  (23 August 1924 – 10 November 2011) was an Australian artist, and a member of the Boyd artistic dynasty.
The Boyd artistic dynasty began with the marriage of Emma Minnie à Beckett (known as Minnie) and Arthur Merric Boyd in 1886. Both were already established as painters at the time of their marriage. Their second-born son Merric Boyd married Doris Gough and had five artistic children, Lucy de Guzman Boyd, Arthur Boyd, Guy Boyd, David Boyd, and Mary Elizabeth Boyd.
Boyd entered the Melba Memorial Conservatorium of Music in Melbourne at seventeen, but was conscripted to the army after one year. Upon his return, he studied art at the National Gallery School on an ex-serviceman's grant.
In 1946, he worked with his brother Guy at the Martin Boyd Pottery in Sydney. He also established a pottery studio in London in the early 1950s and continued working mainly in pottery through to the mid-1960s. In 1956, Boyd and his wife became widely known as leading Australian potters. They introduced new glazing techniques and potter's wheel use in shaping sculptural figures.

Boyd's painting career began in 1957 with a series of symbolic paintings on Australian explorers that aroused much controversy at the time, focusing as they did on the tragic history of the Aboriginal Tasmanians. In 1958 he exhibited a series of paintings based on the histological episodes in the explorations of Burke and wills and Bass and Flinders.[3] He joined the Antipodeans Group in the 1950s. Boyd discovered a technique in 1966 that he named Sfumato, after da Vinci's usage of the word to describe graduations of smoky tones in painting. Boyd's method achieved this effect through a new technique involving candle flame.

 Boyd and his family moved to Rome in 1961, and later moved to London. They also spent several years creating art in Spain and the south of France before returning permanently to Australia in 1975.
David Boyd was artist-in-residence at the School of Law, Macquarie University, Sydney from 1993–1996.In a September 2004 art review, Alex McDonald of State of the Arts magazine stated that David Boyd's work was 'ahead of his time in addressing the mistreatment of Indigenous people in Australia, but commented that an 'explanation for his frosty reception from Australian critics and dealers may have something to do with his choice of subject matter'. McDonald explained that the controversy may have stemmed from the fact that the 'legal system, race relations and religion' are 'not exactly popular issues' and were not 'up for debate in the late 1950s'.Wikipedia

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