Every so often we watch one of the several hoarding related shows and for several days afterward I have panic attacks about the empty box that would be perfect for mailing something or my collection of Blueprint Magazines. What I have realized is that I have been hoarding electronic media, while that box and the stack of magazines are a visual reminder of having too much I forget quickly how many bookmarked web sites, open online accounts and or random digital images of my cats I have.

What does this have to do with art? Well I am not going to part with any of my art books (okay, Who Owns Antiquity will be sold back at the end of class) but I am going to do a few group / mass posts of links that  I have been saving. Once they are posted, goodbye from my bookmark list. Let the cleansing begin with some museums that I some day hope to visit.  This is also not an easy task as I am VERY bad at tagging, which my husband would point out makes it hard to find the bookmark when you are looking for it.

National Museum of Women in the Arts – Washington D.C.

Montreal Museum of Fine Art – Montreal, hopefully I will get a chance to visit in June.

The Hyde Collection – Glens Falls, NY, a small museum but they have an interesting exhibit of book illustration coming up at the end of the year.

Olana – Hudson Valley, the home of Frederic Church.

New Britain Museum of American Art – New Britain, CT, right now there is a pretty cool looking exhibit by Lisa Hoke: The Gravity of Color.

Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art – Hartford, CT, they have a costume and textiles collection that they rotate every two years.

The Walters Art Museum – Baltimore, MD, not a long trip from DC so hopefully this will be an easy one to visit.

High Museum of Art – Atlanta, I would like to get into their Works on Paper study room.

Kykuit – The Rockefeller Estate.

San Francisco Museum of Art – San Francisco, CA, not sure what is actually on display as many items on their site say they are not on display, but the The Steins Collect exhibit looks good.

Tate – I have been to Tate Britain, but there are so many other museums in the Tate collection that I would like to see.

Gemeente Museum – Netherlands, they have several period rooms including a The Gobelin Room which I had never heard of.

Guggenheim Museum – Any and all, I have not had a chance to visit any of their locations.

The Hepworth Wakefield – Wakefield, UK, Not yet open, but in a few months.

The Kreeger Museum – It is so close, no reason to not check it out.

Hill-Stead Museum – Farmington, CT, they have a box collection and a clock collection.

That feels good (true one could argue that all I did was move the bookmarks) I can also delete the Louvre bookmark, don’t think I needed to bookmark to begin with…

The first artist highlighted in Art Talk is Barbara Hepworth and thanks to Carol one of my fellow readers at GoodReads I found out that her birthday was yesterday. What helped her stand out to me while reading the book was that she was a sculptor and I have not known of many female sculptors.

Barbara Hepworth, Tides I, 1946, Tate ©

Born and raised in England, Hepworth was one of four children and while studying art at the Leeds School of Art meet another English sculptor Henry Moore, who became a lifelong friend. From Leeds she went on to study at the Royal Collage of art in London and then in Italy. She was married twice, both times to artists and had four children, including triplets in 1934. In her interview with Cindy Nemser she said about being a mother and wife;

“I found it was a great inspiration to me. I loved the family and everything to do with them. I loved the environment and the cooking. I used to cook and go in my studio. I had to have methods of working. If I was in the middle of work and the oven burned or the children called for me, I used to make an arrangement with music, records or poetry, so that when I went back to the studio, I pick up where I left off. I enjoyed it, you see; it was part of me. (p.14)”

Her work evolved over time, sometimes completely abstract shapes and at others figures or other forms where apparent. Many of my favorite pieces by her are the circular, curved, hollow shapes. In fact I have discovered that one of her pieces is in the Hirshhorn Sculpture Garden here in D.C., a goal for this year is to go see it in person. In fact it has been a while since I visited the Hirshhorn and this may be the excuse I need.

Barbara Hepworth Figure For Landscape, 1960, Hirshhorn Sculpture Garden

She did continue to gain recognition, both in her native England and around the world, one of her pieces is in the United Nations Plaza in New York City (Single Form) and in 1965 she was made a Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire.  On May 20, 1974 she died in a fire at her home, today the house is the Barbara Hepworth Museum and Sculpture Garden, part of the Tate museums in England.

Links:

• Barbara Hepworth
• Book on Barbara Hepworth
• National Museum of Women in the Arts

As I prepare to study Art History I have done a lot of thinking about why I like art, what art I like, what I hate and getting to know more about artists and their work. In thinking about where to start this blog the answer was simple, start with the painting that inspired me to know more about art in the first place.  It was this painting -

Carnation, Lily, Lily, Rose, John Singer Sargent, 1885-1886, Tate Gallery, London, England

I first saw it when I was twelve on the cover of my Cricket Magazine. Inside there half a page of information about how the artist worked on the painting. I fell in love with the painting and the story behind it, at the age of 18 I saw the piece in person and feel even further in love and still remains a sentimental favorite.

Painted by John Singer Sargent, an American living in England, it is one of his most recognized pieces. Sargent is one of the best known portrait artists, he painted high society in both Europe and the United States during his life. This painting however is not of a rich client, rather children of friends. The goal was to capture the late summers evening light reflected on the flowers and the children. Not any easy task for an artist working outside (like the impressionist painters of the time), from life. The perfect moment of light passed so quickly, he painted only a few minutes each day, stretching into November. As the days got colder the two girls would wear layers under their dresses to stay warm and fresh flowers had to be brought into the garden. The painting was not finished that year – instead by the end of November it was put away until the following year and completed by October of 1886.

This story of how Sargent worked to capture light had me hooked as a child,  when seeing the piece in person, it was the colors that created the light in the lanterns that I was captivated by. As an adult understanding that he painted this light and airy image a year after the “Madame X” scandal is very interesting.

Links:

• John Singer Sargent Virtual Gallery
• Tate Britain