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On this day in
1832 was born Paul Gustave Doré, French artist, engraver, and illustrator.
1872 Russian pianist and composer Alexander Nikolayevich Scriabin was born
1993 died Rudolf Nureyev , one of the greatest male ballet dancers of the 20th century
2004 died Francesco Scavullo, American photographer best known for his celebrity portraits. |
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Exhibition in Madrid: Arikha
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| Thursday, July 17, 2008 |
Avigdor Arikha (Bukovina, Rumania, 1929) is an Israeli painter and draughtsman who has lived in Paris since 1954. His work is known and appreciated by a select group of collectors, critics and artists. Arikha is also an acknowledged art historian and exhibition curator as well as a brilliant writer and lecturer. For decades he has passionately defended the practice of painting from life based on first-hand observation. Arikha’s portraits, nudes, landscapes and still lifes are particularly well known, executed in a spontaneous and realist manner, generally in a single sitting and without preparatory studies.
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El Violonchelo de Noga, 9 noviembre 1979 (Noga’s Cello, 9th november 1979) Oleo sobre lienzo, 161,3 x 129,5cm Colección privada |
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Following very early experiments with painting from life undertaken in his childhood and teenage years, Arikha’s career began in the 1950s. In 1953 and 1954 he became known as an illustrator, producing drawings to accompany texts by Rilke, Gogol and others. From around 1958 the artist produced dark, tormented abstract works that can to some extent be related to post-war Abstract Expressionism. March 1965 marked a crucial turning point for Arikha’s later output. Realising that he had embarked on an artistic dead-end, he decided that abstraction was finished and that he would abandon painting. According to the artist’s own account, on 10 March 1965 he got up in the morning and started to draw from life.
Mesa de Cristal en la Biblioteca, 28 diciembre-3 enero 2004
(Glass-table in the Library, 28th december-3rd january 2004)
Oleo sobre lienzo, 65 x 81 cm Colección Privada
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For eight years and in addition to studying art history, Arikha devoted all his efforts to working directly from life, producing only drawings and prints (mainly black and white etchings) until he returned to painting in late 1973. It was during these years (1965 to 1973) that Arikha developed and implemented his theory of working from life as for the artist only this approach has the authenticity that a work of art should possess. As a result, he works in a limited range of genres: portraits, nudes, still lifes, interiors and landscapes, and also limits the creative process to one or at the most two sessions without the use of preparatory drawings or photographic images.
His intention is to capture the traces of life in the chosen subject and his motifs are true fragments of reality, intensely experienced and depicted in a spontaneous manner using a nervous, energetic brushstroke, a diffused, whiteish light and a colour range often based on white and earthy tones. In addition we find a careful structuring of the picture surface, which gives Arikha’s works a distinctive and characteristic compositional rhythm and atmosphere.
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Lluvia, 18 julio 2001 (Rain, 18th july 2001) pastel sobre cartón, 23,8 x 31,8 cm Cortesía Marlborough Gallery, Nueva York |
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The exhibition is structured to offer a survey of Arikha’s career, starting in the key year of 1965 at the moment of his complete and definitive rejection of abstraction and his artistic “resurrection”. Almost 100 works are displayed in three different rooms. Two features his paintings, which are arranged more or less chronologically and (following the artist’s request) lit with natural light, while the third gallery offers a comprehensive display of his highly distinctive drawings and pastels that have played such an important role in his output.
Further information
Avigdor Arikha
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