An Artist Who Inspires- Vilhelm Hammershøi

There is something so very intriguing and mysterious about viewing someone’s back.

A lot of images in my art depict people’s backs. 

First of all, they are interesting visually, because they are the least body-like body-part. They are like a wall, or a blank page. There is an inherent tension created by being in someone’s presence, yet not being able to discern their expression, like they have closed eyes, or are wearing a mask. 

I recently found a postcard I have had for years. Before the internet, anytime I went to a museum, I would buy a slew of postcards to take home with me, because collecting images didn’t just happen with the click of a button.

This postcard says it was produced by The Louvre. This means I bought it around 1998. I’ve had it in my possession ever since. I was drawn to its elegance, simplicity and mystery.

Vilhelm Hammershøi was born in 1864 in Copenhagen, Denmark. His style is distinctive and consistent. His landscape are muted and empty, and even when he painted citiscapes, he found an unusual point of view to express an atmosphere of mystery. But he is best known for his interiors, and the multiple depictions of people’s backs, particularly the nape of a woman’s nape neck.
 

Vilhelm Hammershøi, Rest

Vilhelm Hammershøi, Ida Sitting and Reading

Vilhelm Hammershøi, Interior

Vilhelm Hammershøi, Bedroom

Vilhelm Hammershøi, Ida, Interior with a White Chair

Vilhelm Hammershøi, Figures By the Window

An Artist Who Inspires- Suzanne Valadon

On my social media I often share posts about other artists who inspire me. I have decided to start a blog post series based on the same thing. Here is the first installment.

An Artist Who Inspires- Suzanne Valadon

Suzanne Valadon has what might be the coolest biography anyone could hope for.
She was born named Marie-Clémentine Valadon in Montmartre district of Paris. 

What is Montmartre? The site of the famous Moulin Rouge, and an incubator of art and culture. A partial list of artists who hung out there over the years include Renoir, Toulouse-Lautrec, Degas, van Gogh, Raoul Dufy, Picasso, Les Nabis (Vuillard, Bonnard), Matisse, André Derain, and later Langston Hughes, Josephine Baker, and Django Reinhardt.
And yes, she was born there! 

She was very poor, and her father is unknown. She quit school at age 11 and by age 15 was an acrobat at the famous Cirque Fernando. An acrobat!

Paintings of the Cirque by Toulouse-Lautrec and Degas

But very soon after she started, she fell from a Trapeze, injuring her back, and that was the end of that. 

She started modeling for artists, such as Puvis de Chavannes, Renoir, and Toulouse-Lautrec. During this time, she gained the nickname "Suzanne" after the biblical story of Susanna and the Elders (a story where dirty old men spy on a naked young woman). 

Paintings of Suzanne Valadon by Toulouse-Lautrec

Valadon by Renoir- him, being Renoir, may have idealized her just a bit.

 While observing her artist employers, she began to teach herself how to draw, and then paint. Degas, in particular, encouraged her and bought her work. She became an accomplished and respected artist. 

Etude de Chat by Suzanne Valadon

Valadon’s work seems to be mostly post-impressionism, but she really stood out because of the subjects she was willing to handle. 

Most female painters at that time, such as Cassatt and Morisot confined themselves to landscape, still life, and domestic scenes involving children and women. Valadon painted all these subjects, as well...  but she also did nudes.

Reclining Nude by Suzanne Valadon

 Nudes nudes nudes. She did nude women, but did not idealize their bodies.

The Blue Room by Suzanne Valadon

She did self portraits and recorded her aging face.

Self portraits by Suzanne Valadon

 She drew her son as he bathed or slept.

My Son Utrillo by Suzanne Valadon

 And she painted nude men, unheard of at that time, and one of the first and few examples of a man being seen through the “female gaze”.

Casting the Net by Valadon- model is her husband Andre Utter

At 18, Valadon had a son who also became a famous painter, Maurice Utrillo. She married twice, once to a wealthy banker, and then to a man 21 years younger than she, Andre Utter. She died of a stroke in 1938 at age 72.
To top off the world’s coolest biography, she also has a crater on Venus named after her. And an asteroid.
How cool is that?

A Brief Primer on Collage.

Some of you have never seen my work in person. But even those of you who have, it can be difficult for people to tell how I make my art using collage. Often people don’t realize it is collage at all.

There are many ways to make collage art. I would organize it into two main techniques:
1. Cutting up and combining recognizable found images
2. Using colored paper as a form of paint, building an image similar to the way a pointillist uses dots.

Many artists use some combination of the two. Each combination of techniques has its pluses and minuses, and lends itself to different intents. Borrowed imagery tends to be more conceptual, because it makes us think about the imagery in a different way. Using colored paper as paint tends to be more formal or aesthetic. 

Although the deep history of collage is ancient, the modern concept of collage probably started with Georges Braque, in 1914 (though some credit his buddy Pablo Picasso with this)

Georges Braque, Still Life on a Table Gillette, 1914

Braque first added wall paper with a wood grain print to his cubist drawings as a sort of visual pun. The collaged paper also functioned as a color to support the abstract cubist design.

Georges Braque, Mandoline, 1914

He went on to use found objects and images such as text from newspapers and advertisements. Can you believe these darn things are over 100 years old?

A good example of an artist who uses found images is Hannah Hoch, who was a pioneer of the art form and used found imagery to create art that made social commentary.

Hannah Hoch, Da-Dandy, 1919

Hannah Hoch, Untitled, 1930

In the 1960's, Robert Rauschenberg combined found images with silk screen, paint and drawing. 

Robert Rauschenber, Skyway, 1964

Robert Rauschenberg  Mirthday Man, 1997

A couple of contemporary artists who do similar things are Ellen Gallager, and fellow Portland artist, Karen Wippich!

Ellen Gallagher, Getting Hair Did, 2005?

Karen Wippich, Basket of Adorables, 2017

Kurt Schwitters is a good, early example of an artist who used paper primarily as one would use paint, to create abstract designs. Although he did use text and photographic images, they were used as color, value and texture, rather than for conceptual references. (He was also an early developer of installation art.)

Kurt Schwitters, Fur Moholy, 1934

Kurt Schwitters, Santa Claus, 1922

Many collage artists used found images in combination with using colored paper as a form of paint. Romare Bearden was a master of this, using photographic images to create narrative and reference, mixed with pure colored paper to support the formal aspects of the picture.

Romare Bearden, House in Cotton Field

Romare Bearden, Springway, collage on paperboard 1964

Finally, some artists use colored paper exclusively, with no found images, to build a picture from the ground up. This is the technique I use, and Romare Bearden also used this technique in his "Black Odyssey" series.

Romare Bearden, The Water Nymph, 1970's

Leslie Peterson Sapp, Ino and Odysseus Have a Chat, 2017

At times I will also use text, but in the manner that Schwitters did, simply as color and texture.

Leslie Peterson Sapp, The Paradigm, 2016

Finally, there is contemporary encaustic art, which often uses found imagery embedded in layers of wax, creating an atmospheric, layered affect.

Bridget Benton, Catching the Fall, 2016

I don't tend to use borrowed imagery because, frankly, my mind doesn't seem to work that way, and I just get all confused while I am doing it. I have chosen to do collage because cutting paper forces me to simplify shapes in a way that makes my art stronger.  But who knows what direction my art will eventually go????