Artist Showdown

b. February 12, 1925. Chicago, Illinois. Died October 30, 1992. Paris.

A leading figure of the second generation of Abstract Expressionists in New York City, Joan Mitchell was born in Chicago to a wealthy family. She showed early art talent and attended Smith College from 1942 to 1944 and then transferred to the Chicago Art Institute, earning a B.F.A. in 1948 and an M.F.A. in 1950.

She said that although her paintings seemed total abstractions, they were, in fact, “about a feeling that comes to me from the outside, the landscape.” She distinguished herself from other Abstract Expressionists because she had a pre-established design, a single image, to anchor her painting rather than leaving the result to subconscious, totally emotion-based expression.

From 1948 to 1949, she was in France and then lived in New York City, where she came under the influence of the Abstract Expressionists. She was particularly influenced by the work of Willem de Kooning and Franz Kline and adopted their strong, gestural brushwork and aggressive color. She had her first solo exhibition in 1951 and continued to exhibit after she moved to Paris, France in 1955.

Many of her paintings are based on landscape themes, sometimes the wooded countryside near Vetheuil, France where she moved in 1968. Others are from winter scenes she remembered from her childhood in Chicago.

b. 1940 in Monroe, Washington, USA.

He studied at the University of Washington School of Art, Seattle (1960–2), Yale University (1962–4), and in Vienna, Austria (1964–5). A photo-realist painter of large portraits.
In 1988, in mid-career, Close was paralyzed due to a blood clot in his spinal column. He regained partial use of his arms, and was able to return to painting after developing techniques, using mechanical and electronic aids, which allowed him to work from a wheelchair. Make note of the dimensions of the original works when you view Close’s work on the Internet. His portraits are typically enormous, and immensely powerful in person.

The remarkable career of artist Chuck Close extends beyond his completed works of art. More than just a painter, photographer, and printmaker, Close is a builder who, in his words, builds “painting experiences for the viewer.” Highly renowned as a painter, Close is also a master printmaker, who has, over the course of more than 30 years, pushed the boundaries of traditional printmaking in remarkable ways.

Almost all of Close’s work is based on the use of a grid as an underlying basis for the representation of an image. This simple but surprisingly versatile structure provides the means for “a creative process that could be interrupted repeatedly without…damaging the final product, in which the segmented structure was never intended to be disguised.” It is important to note that none of Close’s images are created digitally or photo-mechanically. While it is tempting to read his gridded details as digital integers, all his work is made the old-fashioned way—by hand.

Close’s paintings are labor intensive and time consuming, and his prints are more so. While a painting can occupy Close for many months, it is not unusual for one print to take upward of two years to complete. Close has complete respect for, and trust in, the technical processes—and the collaboration with master printers—essential to the creation of his prints. The creative process is as important to Close as the finished product. “Process and collaboration” are two words that are essential to any conversation about Close’s prints.

Painter, muralist. Born on December 8, 1886, in Guanajuato, Mexico.

Diego Rivera is now thought to be one of the leading artists of the twentieth century, Rivera began drawing as a child. He studied art at the San Carlos Academy of Fine Arts while in his teens and then traveled to Europe to live and work on his art. He had some success as a Cubist painter, but the course of world events would strongly change the style and subject of his work. Inspired by the political ideals of the Mexican Revolution (1914?15) and the Russian Revolution (1917), Rivera wanted to make art that reflected the lives of the working class and native peoples of Mexico.

In 1921, through a government program, Rivera began to express his artistic ideas about Mexico?its people and its history?by starting a series of murals in public buildings. In the 1930s and 1940s, Rivera painted several murals in the United States. Some of his works created controversy, especially the one he did for the Rockefeller family in the RCA building in New York City. The mural, known as Man at the Crossroads, featured a portrait of Russian communist leader Vladimir Lenin. The Rockefellers protested, but Rivera refused to remove the portrait. The Rockefellers had Rivera stop work on the mural and had it destroyed.

His personal life was as dramatic as his artwork. In 1929, he married artist Frida Kahlo, who was roughly 20 years his junior. The two had a passionate, but stormy relationship, divorcing once in 1939 only to remarry later. She died in 1954. He then married Emma Hurtado, his art dealer. Rivera died of heart failure on November 24, 1957, in Mexico City, Mexico

Text written by Patricia Ellis

Hermann Nitsch was born in Vienna in 1938. While studying graphic illustration, he became interested in religous art. He made copies from Rembrandt’s 100 Gulden Blatt and Christ Crucified, and from other religious themes by artists such as Tintoretto and El Greco. Other drawings Hermann Nitsch made at this time were strongly influenced by Cézanne, Klimt and Munch, amongst others. From around 1957 onwards, the depiction of Dionysian revelry and ceremonies began to feature in his work.

In 1957, Hermann Nitsch’s idea for a radical theatre was conceived, which he called the Orgien Mysterien Theater. The O.M. Theatre took its shape from ideas about Aristotelian catharsis, Freudian psychology, conventional theatre, and Dionysic orgy. It is an attempt to create a Gesamtkunstwerk, a ’total art’, or mystical experience that involves all the senses.

The first performances of the O. M. Theatre consisted of Hermann Nitsch and friends using animal carcasses, entrails, and blood in a ritualistic way. The cloths, bandages and other fabrics used in these performances introduced Nitsch to the idea of making paintings. 1960 saw the first exhibition of his ‘Aktion’ paintings in Vienna. In the mid-60’s Nitsch’s theatre pieces were also performed in Vienna.

During that period, his use of taboo images put him out of favour with the authorities. His ’Aktions’ were interrupted by the police and closed down. Hermann Nitsch served time in prison for blasphemy and provoking a scandal. In 1968, Jonas Mekas invited him to New York, where he met the Fluxus performance artists. He staged ‘Aktions’ in the streets of New York, as well as at the Judson Church & Cinematheque.

In 1971 Hermann Nitsch bought Prinzendorf castle in the wine-producing area of northern Austria, so that it might become a centre for the activities of the O. M. Theatre. During this time Hermann Nitsch staged performances and exhibitions in Italy, France, the US, and Germany. He was also planning a three day (and night) performance.

www.jgoodwinstudio.com

Outstading figurative/portrait contemporary artist

Biography
1964 Born in Porto Alegre, Brazil
1993 Meisterschüler
1987 - 1998 Studies at the Kunstakademie Karlsruhe / Prof. Max Kaminski and Prof Helmut Dorner
1999 Helmut-Stober-Prize
www.hardingmeyer.de

Banksy is a well-known yet pseudo-anonymous English graffiti artist, possibly named Robert Banks. It is believed that Banksy is a native of Yate (near Bristol) who was born in 1974, but there is substantial public uncertainty about his identity and basic personal and biographical details. However, according to Tristan Manco, Banksy “was born in 1974 and raised in Bristol, England.

The son of a photocopier engineer, he trained as a butcher but became involved in graffiti during the great Bristol aerosol boom of the late 1980s.” His artworks are often satirical pieces of art which encompass topics from politics, culture, and ethics. His street art, which combines graffiti with a distinctive stencilling technique, has appeared in London and in cities around the world.