Last weekend I had a chance to check out Diana Vreeland: The Eye Has to Travel, the much anticipated documentary on legendary fashion icon Diana Vreeland. Directed by her granddaughter-in-law, Lisa Immordino Vreeland, the film is a brilliant portrait of a kooky, eccentric and often hilarious woman who lived a fabulous life filled with celebrity friends and, of course, fashion. Vreeland spent 25 years as the fashion editor of Harper’s Bazaar before becoming editor-in-chief of Vogue in 1962. As an editor Vreeland was far ahead of her time in terms of trends and she pushed the boundaries of fashion, conceptualizing fantasy-like shoots that took readers on a journey. Her creativity inspired a fashion revolution that influenced the way women around America dressed. After her tenure at Vogue Vreeland took on a role as special consultant to the Costume Institute at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, where she oversaw its special exhibitions, turning clothes into art and showcasing fashion in a way that it had never been seen before. Vreeland was a true visionary and is credited with transforming the Costume Institute into the widely celebrated attraction that it is today. This documentary is a must-see for fashion lovers and I highly recommend seeing it if you have the chance! You can click here to find out where the film is playing in your area and also watch the trailer below for a sneak peek!
Francine Turk inside her gallery at Chicago Art Source
During a visit to Chicago earlier this year I made a special trip to the Chicago Art Source gallery to check out the latest from Francine Turk, an artist whose work I adore. Turk is best known for her graceful charcoal drawings and paintings of nude figures and her work strikes the perfect balance between simplicity and drama. When she first opened her studio several years ago, business was off to a slow start so she decided to participate in Chicago’s Antique market to boost her visibility. On her very first day at market she was approached by a set designer for the film “The Break-Up” who instantly fell in love with her work and purchased a large quantity of Turk’s pieces to be prominently featured in the apartment of the characters played by Jennifer Aniston and Vince Vaughn, which is where many of the movie’s scenes took place. And so “The Break Up” became Turk’s big break and from that point on, her drawings and paintings were in high demand and serious collectors, top interior designers and celebrities began gobbling up her work. Below are a few of the snaps I took at the Francine Turk Gallery inside Chicago’s Art Source. And a bonus…a clip from LXTV where Turk gives an inside look at her fabulous Chicago townhome. I found it interesting that she says much her inspiration is originates with interior design! Enjoy the photos and the video clip below!
I just discovered an amazing new resource for affordable original art that I couldn’t wait to tell you about! Zatista is is an innovative new online marketplace for high-quality original art which gives you access to fine and contemporary works from artists across the globe. Zatista’s virtual gallery makes browsing its broad selection of photography, paintings, drawings, digital art and mixed media works a breeze and you can find pieces at all price points to fit any budget. And if you’re new to collecting or don’t know where to start, the site’s Art 101 section provides useful information and resources to help the novice art buyer take the first steps towards building a collection. Be sure to check out Zatista and below are my top 5 picks for amazing artwork…all under $100 and all available at Zatista.com!
If you’re an Elliott Puckette fan like me you’ll be happy to know that the Condé Nast Store is currently offering a limited-edition Puckette print for sale.
The print was created exclusively for Vogue magazine and is 15″x20″ unframed at a cost of $374. A framed option is also available.
In case you’re not familiar with Elliott Puckette, her abstract works of art art are the result of a laborious process that involves multiple applications of gesso, and ink, usually on wooden panels or paper, combined with the etching of calligraphic lines and strokes, done with a razor blade. Her works currently reside in the permanent collections of prominent institutions such as the Whitney Museum of American Art in
New York, The New York Public Library and the Fogg Art Museum
in Boston. They are also sold in some of the most prestigious art galleries in the world.
The Guinness/Puckette Residence, as featured in Vogue
Puckette also happens to be the wife of British artist Hugo Guinness. The couple’s home was featured in Vogue and can be seen in the book Vogue Living: Houses, Gardens, People. You can purchase Elliott Puckette’s limited-edition print here.
Kehinde Wiley poses in his studio with one of his two Italian greyhounds. Photo: Martien Mulder for Interview
Kehinde Wiley is an artist who has been on my radar for several years now. I first read about him in The New York Times, when he was just making a name for himself in the art world, generating lots of media attention for his first solo exhibition at the Brooklyn Museum and gaining a strong celebrity following. After reading the Times article, I began seeing his name everywhere! From House & Garden and Elle Decor to Vibe and Rolling Stone, Kehinde Wiley was being praised as the next up and coming artist to watch. The media attention and buzz quickly catapulted his career and now, at just 32, Kehinde Wiley is one of the most well-known contemporary artists of our time.
“Rubin Singleton”- Oil on Canvas, 2008
After graduating with a MFA from Yale in 2001, Wiley, originally from Los Angeles, moved to New York to hone his craft and make a name for himself in the art world. He became an artist-in-residence at the Studio Museum in Harlem and during his tenure there he developed his current style of portraiture which marries references from classical paintings by some of the Renaissance masters with urban male subjects to create provocative, larger-than-life works of art that touch on issues of masculinity, race, spirituality and power. Most of his subjects are cast from the streets of Harlem, Brooklyn and even urban meccas around the world such as Mumbai and Rio de Janeiro. Wiley’s subjects assume poses from old master paintings which are reinterpreted in his urban meets classical style which as he puts it, positions these young black males within the field of power that radiates throughout the paintings he references for inspiration.
Wiley’s Chancelor Seguier on Horseback, Oil on Canvas, 2006
Charles Le Brun’s Chancellor Séguier at the Entry of Louis XIV into Paris, 1655-61, Musée du Louvre, Paris
Above is a perfect example of the signature Kehinde Wiley style of portraiture that he is best known for.
Photo: libbyrosoff’s flickr stream
And this photo from Wiley’s last exhibition titled Down gives a sense of the grand scale of many of his paintings.
Photographs from Black Light. L: After Sir Joshua Reynolds’ Portrait of Doctor Samuel Johnson, R: After Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres’ The Virgin with the Host.
Recently, Kehinde Wiley took a departure from painting and debuted his first exhibition of photography at Deitch Projects, a top contemporary art gallery in New York. Titled Black Light, the series features painterly photographs that have been manipulated with light and digital technology. His subjects were hand plucked from Brooklyn’s Fulton Street Mall. Above are two of the 17 photographs on exhibition. The patterns that you see in the backgrounds of the photos were extracted from home decor magazines from the 50s as well as from Martha Stewart’s 1999 home collection! The exhibition is on view until September 26th. Here are the details:
Black Light: Kehinde Wiley
September 3-September 26, 2009
Deitch Projects
76 Grand Street, NYC.
If you’re not able to get to New York to view the exhibition you can order a copy of his latest book, also titled Black Light, which features all the works from his the series. You can order a copy from Barney’s here. And if you’re curious to learn more about the artist, the below clip from the Today Show provides a great introduction to Kehinde Wiley and his creative process. You can also visit his website here.
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