frantiques

[frantiques]

George Barbier was one of the great French illustrators of the early 20th century. Born in Nantes, France on 16 October 1882, Barbier was 29 years old when he mounted his first exhibition in 1911 and was subsequently swept to the forefront of his profession with commissions to design theatre and ballet costumes, to illustrate books, and to produce haute couture fashion illustrations.

          Original Gouache on paper by  Georges Barbier in 1913 – Signed and dated –  12.75in. X 9.5in.(image size). Framed 21″ x 17″

For the next 20 years Barbier led a group from the Ecole des Beaux Arts who were nicknamed by Vogue “The Knights of the Bracelet”—a tribute to their fashionable and flamboyant mannerisms and style of dress. Included in this élite circle were Bernard Boutet de Monvel and Pierre Brissaud (both of whom were Barbier’s first cousins), Paul Iribe, Georges Lepape, and Charles Martin. During his career Barbier also turned his hand to jewellery, glass and wallpaper design, wrote essays and many articles for the prestigious Gazette du bon ton. In the mid-1920s he worked with Erté to design sets and costumes for the Folies Bergère and in 1929 he wrote the introduction for Erté’s acclaimed exhibition and achieved mainstream popularity through his regular appearances in L’Illustration magazine. Barbier died in 1932 at the very pinnacle of his success.

  George Barbier, Master of Art Deco Fashion, Illustration and Graphic Design George Barbier was one of the great French illustrators of the early 20th century. Born in Nantes, France on 16 October 1882, Barbier was 29 years old when he mounted his first exhibition in 1911 and was subsequently swept to the forefront of his profession with commissions to design theatre and ballet costumes, to illustrate books, and to produce haute couture fashion illustrations.

[frantiques]

A dialogue with Solitude...DAVE EATH

A dialogue with Solitude…DAVE EATH

David Martin “Dave” Heath (June 27, 1931 – June 27, 2016) was an American documentary and humanist photographer, whose most famous work was candid street photography. He was a mostly self-taught photographer.He was born in Philadelphia and was inspired by Life magazine, most notably an article Bad Boy’s Story by Life photographer Ralph Crane in 1947, and the 1946 book Photography is a Language by…

[frantiques]

Japanese General – CIRCA 1890

  A strict policy of isolationism and non-interference was instituted by Japan’s Shogun Tokugawa in the early 17th century, resulting in a medieval society locked in time. It was not until the overthrow of the Shogun and his Samurai by imperial forces in 1868 that Japan began to modernize. The reinstatement of full power to the Imperial court and fourteen year old Prince Mutsuhito initiated Japan’s period of industrial growth. The title “Meiji.” which means enlightened peace, was given to the new Emperor and his reign–a period which lasted forty-five years until his death in 1912.

The Meiji Restoration, as this period came to be known, was the beginning of great change in Japan. With the return of power to the young Emperor and the opening of Japan’s seaports in 1854 to Commodore Perry and the American Navy, the Westernization of the country began to take hold. Emperor Meiji encouraged his people to study abroad and return with new ideas and technology. At the same time he invited experts from Europe and America to visit his country and bring with them important information which would assist in Japan’s progress.

The people of Japan, living in a society of extreme politeness and formality which regarded life as a series of ceremonial acts, showed little interest in Beato’s black and white documentary photographs of landscapes, village and trades-people. In an effort to infuse photography with traditional Japanese aesthetics and to gain a greater acceptance for his work, Beato, who was familiar with both the long history of the Japanese colored woodblock prints and the practice of adding color highlights to photographs in Europe, decided to start hand coloring his albumen prints. Working with Wirgman, an accomplished watercolorist, they began selling their delicately tinted photographs. The Japanese people loved them at once, feeling that they were truly Japanese, as was a silk kimono, a painted fan, or a lacquer. They felt these prints were a perfect souvenir for western travelers who desired to collect the cultural and artistic objects of Japan.

The popularity of these hand-colored images was so great that Beato hired Japanese artisans who traditional painted woodblock prints to subtly color his photographs. This time consuming process could take a meticulous painter as long as twelve hours to complete two or three prints. Later this tedious procedure was modified to a production line where several colorists each worked on a particular area of the photographs: one artist colored the faces, then passed it along to another who tinted the clothing. And so on increasing the output to as many as twenty or thirty prints a day.

Another important photographer of Meiji Japan was Austrian-born Baron Raimund von Stillfried. Von Stillfried was a painter who brought his European cultural and artistic background to photography. His work was psychological in character and offered a deeper insight into the lives and social classes of the people he photographed. The photograph he made, primarily in the studio, often incorporated plain backgrounds and a minimal number of props. In 1872 he opened a photography studio in competition with Beato’s firm, and in 1877 von Stillfried purchased Beato’s studio, along with his glass plate negatives and equipment.

While in Japan, Baron von Stillfried apprenticed Japanese assistants in his studio, many of whom later went on to continue the photographic style established by the Europeans. Kusakabe Kimbei was one of his special assistants who had a great talent for the art of photography. He worked closely with von Stillfried and in 1885 purchased most of his photographic stock. He operated his own studio in Yokohama from 1885 to 1912, where he produced portraits, scenes from daily life, and views of Japan. Often Kimkei’s photographs were like theatrical sets in which he was the director. He selected the costumes, backgrounds and props, then carefully positioned the “actor” to reflect the polite social and religious ceremonies, rituals, and customs of the Japanese people.

The photographs of Beato, von Stillfried, Kimbei, and other photographers, many of who have remained anonymous, resembled the Japanese woodblock prints in content, style and coloring technique. Ukiyo-e prints, then the most popular art of Japan, represented the superficial, earthly life that passes quickly. The photographers of the Meiji period used the subjects of the earlier printmakers as models for their photographs, maintaining the Old World sensibilities of their Japanese customers while at the same time satisfying the western demand for pictures of classical Japan. They made portraits of Samurai warriors, street musicians, and tattooed grooms, not as individual personalities, but as stylized representations of social classes. They photographed the serene beauty and landscape of the country showing Mt.Fuji, Lake Hakone, simple teahouses and elaborate temples. The photographers idealized old Japan and ignored its transformation from an insular, medieval country to a modern land. This one -sided photographic view gave outsiders the misleading impression that Japan was a quaint, archaic nation well into the twentieth century.

Source: Richard W. Gadd (Richard Gadd is the Director of the The Monterey Museum of Art, Monterey, California.)

  Fascinating Samuraïs… Japanese General - CIRCA 1890 A strict policy of isolationism and non-interference was instituted by Japan's Shogun Tokugawa in the early 17th century, resulting in a medieval society locked in time.

[frantiques]

Sid Avery shot “Giant”, starring James Dean © Sid Avery, 1956 Sid Avery (October 12, 1918 – July 1, 2002) was an American photographer and director who was best known for capturing the private moments of legendary Hollywood celebrities like Elizabeth Taylor, Rock Hudson, James Dean, Marlon Brando, Humphrey Bogart and Audrey Hepburn as showcased in his book, "Hollywood at Home."

[frantiques]

László Moholy-Nagy... The photographer who painted with light

László Moholy-Nagy… The photographer who painted with light

Untitled photogram from the Lászlo Moholy-Nagy (8½x11¾”) – 1940s Monoskop – Lászlo Moholy-Nagy (8½x11¾”) – 1940s Among the early twentieth-century’s avant-garde, Hungarian-born photographer László Moholy-Nagy (1895-1946) was one of the most ardent seekers of the “New Vision.” His preoccupation with the phenomenon of light was a defining influence on every period of his work, and one of his great…

[frantiques]

Danny Lyon wrote: " We are frail flowers in the field "

Danny Lyon wrote: ” We are frail flowers in the field “

James DEDIOS, Dulce, New Mexico, 1997 Jicarilla Apache (Courtesy of Edwynn Houk Gallery) Danny Lyon (born March 16, 1942) is an American photographer and filmmaker. All of Lyon’s publications work in the style of photographic New Journalism meaning that the photographer has become immersed in with, and is a participant of, the documented subject. He is the founding member of the publishing group…

[frantiques]

Of course you know her...PhoebeNewYork

Of course you know her…PhoebeNewYork

Libby Schoettle was born in Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania. She currently lives and works in New York City, where her artwork takes the form of original collages, photographs, drawings, and street art, as well as a small run of limited edition prints (and custom prints that are available upon request). Libby’s art centers on the character “PhoebeNewYork.” PhoebeNewYork is the artist’s alter ego, and…

[frantiques]

Martin Munkácsi's influence...

Martin Munkácsi’s influence…

  Martin Munkácsi (born Mermelstein Márton; 18 May 1896 – 13 July 1963) was a Hungarian photographer who worked in Germany (1928–34) and the United States, where he was based in New York City. Munkácsi was a newspaper writer and photographer in Hungary, specializing in sports. At the time, sports action photography could only be done in bright light outdoors. Munkácsi’s innovation was to make…

[frantiques]

Andreas Feininger, not only a Pictorialist...

Andreas Feininger, not only a Pictorialist…

Andreas Bernhard Lyonel Feininger (December 27, 1906 – February 18, 1999) was an American photographer and a writer on photographic technique. He was noted for his dynamic black-and-white scenes of Manhattan and for studies of the structures of natural objects. Feininger was born in Paris, France, the eldest son of Julia Berg, a German Jew, and the American painter and art educator Lyonel…

[frantiques]

Ernst Heinrich Philipp August Haeckel (February 16, 1834 – 1919) was a philosopher, professor, physician, naturalist, biologist and artist.

“Prosobranchia” – Original lithograph – 1899

Early Life and Contributions:

After receiving a degree in medicine in 1857, Haeckel obtained a doctorate in zoology from the University of Jena and taught zoology there. Haeckel’s contributions to zoological science were a mixture of sound research and assumptions often with insufficient evidence. He was a renowned figure whose popularity with the public was substantially higher than it was with many of his scientific peers.

Legacy:

Although best known for the famous statement “ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny”, he also invented many words commonly used by biologists today, such as phylum, phylogeny, and ecology.

Haeckel also proposed the idea that all multicellular animals derived from a theoretical two-layered (ectoderm and endoderm) animal, the Gastraea, a theory that provoked much discussion. He engaged in much valuable research on marine invertebrates, such as the radiolarians, jellyfish, calcareous sponges, and medusae, and wrote a series of monographs on these groups based largely on specimens brought back by the Challenger Expedition.

He was also the first to divide the animal kingdom into unicellular and multicellular animals. An ardent Darwinist, Haeckel made several zoological expeditions and founded the Phyletic Museum at Jena and the Ernst Haeckel Haus, which contains his books, records, and other effects.

An effective popularizer of science, Haeckel produced numerous tree diagrams, showing evolutionary relationships between different species. Modern scientists and science historians have varied on the value of these diagrams but many also praised his work and creativity. Haeckel also produced artwork, much of it quite beautiful, starting with his atlas of radiolarians, published in 1862.

It has been argued that what he saw was influenced by Jugendstil, the Art Nouveau form popular in Germany at the time. Whether or not artistic style influenced Haeckel’s illustrations, his illustrations certainly influenced later art forms, including light fixtures, jewelry, furniture, and even a gateway to the Paris Word Fair in 1900. In 1906 the Monist League was formed at Jena with Haeckel as its president. The League held a strong commitment to social Darwinism in which man was seen as part of nature and in no way qualitatively distinct from any other organic form.

Later in his career, Haeckel produced Art Forms in Nature, a work that he published in a series of 10 installments. Designed to interest the general public in naturalism, Haeckel’s own illustrations of animals, plants and microscopic organisms were introduced. In 1913, he published a set of photographs titled Nature as an Artist, aimed at countering allegations that his illustrations could be misleading. Today, however, many scientists and science historians share the conviction that his images were often highly contrived, beautiful as they may be.

Haeckel was the first person known to use the term “First World War”. Shortly after the start of the war Haeckel wrote:

“There is no doubt that the course and character of the feared “European War” will become the first world war in the full sense of the word.”

The “European War” became known as “The Great War”, and it was not until 1931, with the beginning realization that another global war might be possible, that there is any other recorded use of the term “First World War”. He was one of the first to consider psychology as a branch of physiology. His chief interests lay in evolution and life development processes in general, including development of nonrandom form, which culminated in the beautifully illustrated art forms of nature.

Although Haeckel’s ideas are important to the history of evolutionary theory, and he was a competent invertebrate anatomist most famous for his work many speculative concepts that he championed are now considered incorrect but still he has been admired greatly for his work.

Haeckel died on Aug. 9, 1919, Germany, leaving behind his great inventions for others to serve as a source of inspiration.

Ernst Haeckel…inventor of the word “ECOLOGY” Ernst Heinrich Philipp August Haeckel (February 16, 1834 – 1919) was a philosopher, professor, physician, naturalist, biologist and artist.

[frantiques]

Muhammad Ali by Gordon Parks Vintage photograph by Gordon Parks, Muhammad Ali, 1966 at Miami (8 x 10 inches) Gordon Parks (November 30, 1912 – March 7, 2006) was an American photographer, musician, writer and film director, who became prominent in U.S.

[frantiques]

Irving Penn Irving Penn (June 16, 1917 – October 7, 2009) was an American photographer known for his fashion photography, portraits, and still lifes.

[frantiques]

Todd WEBB: The Forgotten Master of 1940s NYC Street Photography… Photograph by Todd WEBB, Gelatin silver, printed later HARLEM, 1946 14 x 11 inches Todd Webb (September 5, 1905 – April 15, 2000) was an American photographer notable for documenting everyday life and architecture in cities such as New York, Paris as well as from the American west.

[frantiques]

Josephine Baker by Emil Bieber

Josephine Baker by Emil Bieber

“Surely the day will come when color means nothing more than the skin tone, when religion is seen uniquely as a way to speak one’s soul, when birth places have the weight of a throw of the dice and all men are born free, when understanding breeds love and brotherhood. “- Josephine Baker Vintage photograph of Josephine Baker photographed by Emil Bieber in 1920s Size: 9′ 1/4 x 7′ PHOTO FOR SALE…

[frantiques]

Andy Warhol and Horst P. Horst The photographer HORST serving up ANDY WARHOL in the 1980's. Warhol in his panelled boardroom at the FACTORY serving cold cuts at his Irish Regency sideboard.

[frantiques]

Josef Albers (1888 – 1976) was a German-born American artist and educator whose work, both in Europe and in the United States, formed the basis of some of the most influential and far-reaching art education programs of the twentieth century. He was known to meticulously list the specific manufacturer’s colours and varnishes he used on the back of his works, as if the colours were catalogued components of an optical experiment.His work represents a transition between traditional European art and the new American art.

It incorporated European influences from the Constructivists and the Bauhaus movement, and its intensity and smallness of scale were typically European,[16] but his influence fell heavily on American artists of the late 1950s and the 1960s.”Hard-edge” abstract painters drew on his use of patterns and intense colors, while Op artists and conceptual artists further explored his interest in perception.

Josef ALBERS: The Magic and Logic of Color Josef Albers (1888 – 1976) was a German-born American artist and educator whose work, both in Europe and in the United States, formed the basis of some of the most influential and far-reaching art education programs of the twentieth century.

[frantiques]

Once upon a time in New York

Once upon a time in New York