#american artists

vivipiuomeno1:

Lisa Oppenheim visual art. (New York, U.S.A. 1975) ‘Lunagrams, 2010’ - #4, Unique silver toned photograms, 50.5 x 40.3 cm. serie of 11 ph.

Eater, 12x12″ oil on panel. - Arabella Profffer

Deluge, 12x12″ oil on panel - Arabella Proffer

Astronomer, 30x30″ oil on panel - Arabella Proffer

Person Making a Picture on the Beach, 1966
Minor White (American; 1908–1976)
Gelatin silver print
Princeton University Art Museum, Princeton, New Jersey
© Trustees of Princeton University

David Hammons. Untitled (Orange Is The New Black), 2015.

Cats didn’t need the internet to achieve feline fame. 

Our@archivesofamericanart has a new exhibition, “Before Internet Cats: Feline Finds from the Archives of American Art,” which explores how cats are represented in rare documents like sketches and drawings, letters, and photographs from the 19th century through the early 2000s.

We decided to let the cat out of the bag…er, box with this collage postcard sent from fiber artist Lenore Tawney to filmmaker Maryette Charlton. Tawney’s postcards often featured intricate layers of found media and handwritten notes. Animals, especially cats, were a frequent motif.

While we think the whole exhibition is purrfect (we couldn’t help it), here are some of our favorite pieces from the archives:

Georges Mathieu, a French painter, embellished this oversize letter to painter Hedda Sterne. It’s among the cat-themed correspondence from Mathieu that are in Sterne’s papers.

Cats often make ideal studio companions. They serve as sympathetic critics and elegant muses. 

In this photo, Pozy the cat watches muralist Edna Reindel work in her California studio. (Pozy is also the subject of the wall mural behind them.)

Photos of artists in their studios enhance our understanding of their stories and their working processes.

Reginald Gammon was known for his evocative portraits of prominent African Americans (and not cats) but in the mid-1960s he illustrated a children’s book that chronicles the friendship between a boy and a bespectacled cat.

Thousands of sketches in the Archives of American Art offer insight into artists’ creative processes. A 1948 sketchbook of watercolor studies by muralist and children’s book illustrator Emily Barto highlights the distinct personalities of several felines—here’s one taking a cat nap.

#BeforeInternetCats is on view through Oct. 29 in the Lawrence A. Fleischman Gallery (the first floor of the National Portrait Gallery). You can also paw your way through the exhibition online. 

Coles Phillips (1880-1927), “Good Housekeeping”, Feb. 1913

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Walt Simonson, “Alien - The Illustrated Story”, 1979

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Dorothy P. Lathrop (1891-1980), “Tales from the Enchanted Isles” by Ethel May Gate, 1926

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Ray Frederick Coyle (1885-1924), ‘Jurgen: A Comedy of Justice’ by James Branch Cabell, 1929

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Por do sol . 1954 . Sunset

Paisagem com escada, nuvem e cogumelos . 1947 . Landscape with ladder, cloud and mushrooms

concha e folha  1958  shell with leaf.

floresta.forest 

Perfect Posture - Hernan Bas 

There’s so much I like about Bas’ work.  His artquirky instagram is @hernanbas.  There’s an Artspace interviewandLehmann Maupin has an online gallery with a ot of his work, including his A Queer and Curious Cabinet installation from 2013.

prominent-nipple:

Broken Circle, 1971 –– Robert Smithson

Forever one of my greatest inspirations. 

“Shadows”, Edward Hopper, 1921. 

Winslow Homer, The Gulf Stream, 1899
Oil on canvas

Image released into the public domain.