Toby Wright, (b.1976)

Dogma, 40"x30", Oil on Canvas


Toby Wright was born 1976. He began his art studies at university in England with four years studying illustration, earning a B.A. (Hons) degree in 1988. Unfulfilled with much of the instruction he received, he enrolled at the Florence Academy of Art in 1999. While studying, he was invited to assist teaching and later became the director of the drawing program for the sculpture department before moving on to being a principal instructor in the advanced painting program.

Since 2010, Toby has set up his own studio in the South of France, where he works on various projects and commissions. Some of Toby’s figurative work explores a psychological narrative, occasionally with elements of symbolism, inviting the viewer to explore a scenario that they may identify with, or to which they may simply be an onlooker. He strives to unite the visual experience with the living experience of interacting with the subject, to create a dialogue between artist, subject and viewer.

Inspired by various old masters of painting and sculpture from the 17th and 19th Century, Toby Wright believes in the method of working form life to capture the full depth of his subjects, with particular interest in the language of the human form through figurative compositions, such as the portrait or full figure. Always working from a model in the studio, orchestrating light for a still life, and spending many hours outdoors for his landscapes to give the full visual story.

Louise Camille Fenne (b. 1972)

Portrait of Lena, 25"x17", oil on canvas

Louise Camille Fenne was born in Copenhagen, Denmark in 1972. Louise studied drawing in Aix-en Provence, France and at The Glyptothek, Copenhagen, before enrolling at The Florence Academy of Art in 1995, being intrigued by the possibility of studying traditional painting and drawing techniques. There she studied cast and figure drawing until moving to Amsterdam in 1997 and later Lucca, Italy, with the American painter Charles Weed, from whom she learnt the basic painting techniques necessary for exploring this medium further on her own.

Since 1990 she has shared a studio with Weed in Svendborg, Denmark, where they live with their two children. Louise has participated in numerous group exhibitions both in Europe and in the United States.

“I paint mainly portraits, still lifes and interiors. My inclination to paint is driven primarily by the desire to make a visual statement rather than an intellectual one. Therefore my subjects tend only to be the means to a greater aesthetic end. The paintings are observations made over time, in layers, that I hope finally result in a harmony, giving the painting its own life and allowing it to speak for itself.”

Joakim Ericsson (b. 1972)

October Full Moon, Oil on Canvas, 29x37 inches.



Joakim Ericsson was born in Sundsvall Sweden in 1972. He began his formal study of art in 1993 at the Stockholm Art School. Disappointed by the school’s lack of emphasis on traditional technique, he left after one year to pursue independent study. Over the next four years, he was often frustrated by his artistic isolation, yet sometimes heartened by the success of the very few contemporary artists who shared in his classical ideas.

In 1998, Joakim was thrilled to discover The Florence Academy of Art. After studying there for three years, he returned to Sweden to paint and in2002 began spending summers in Norway under the tutelage of Odd Nerdrum, who had been an inspiration to the artist as a young man. After two years of work in Sweden, Joakim returned to Florence to teach at the Florence Academy of Art, and was co-Director of the Painting Program until 2006. In January 2007 he started up FAA's first branch school in Gothenburg, Sweden. He works and teaches there today.

Click here to see more of Ericsson's work: http://galeriemichael.com/artists/ericsson-joakim/

Miro: Femme et Chien Devant la Lune

Miro, Joan; Woman and Dog Before the Moon, 1936; Pochoir; #911392

From the portfolio published by Adlan, Barcelona. Miró executed this work for his friends in the group Adlan (Amigos de la arte Nuevo – Friends of the new art), a group devoted to modern Spanish art and architecture, and one the groups to organize the monographic show of Picasso in Spain. According to Dupin, Kandinsky and Hélion also contributed work for portfolios sponsored by the group.

This screen-printed pochoir, from an original gouache (pictured right) dating from the same year, is one of several works in this medium executed by Miro in the years leading up to the Spanish Civil War, each dealing more directly with the effects of the war. It prefigures Miro’s response to the massacre at Guernica, a large painting which hung with Picasso’s famous canvas in a show of solidarity with their home country.

Pochoir is a print medium akin to silkscreen, in which stencils formed in zinc sheets demarcate mostly flat color fields with strong edges. Many of his pochoirs were executed during his “savage” period, beginning in 1934 as the political situation in Spain began to deteriorate. Dupin, in his catalogue raisonne produced with the artist, notes the pochoir created for D’aci I d’alla (pictured left) stating “the violence of the pure tones harmonizes with the cruel distortion of the forms translating the feeling of terror gripping the bodies at the approach of the great disturbances which have been threatening.”

Miro left Spain in 1936, after the outbreak of civil war in July, and remained away until 1940. While he had been living primarily abroad for some time, he was unable to return to his homeland in Catalonia. Caught without a studio, and distressed at his exile, he was a steady supporter of the antifascist movement in general, though he never joined the Communist or other party.

Since 1934 his work was populated with increasingly distorted depictions of the extreme anxiety and distress of those oppressed by the oncoming civil war. But it was not until 1936 that his work began to exhibit a more direct approach to events. Femme et Chien Devant la Lune was one of the earlier manifestations of a contorted citizen wailing to the sky, of the type later to be seen in his own and Picasso’s work during the war. The bold, flat fields of color were emblematic of both his work of the period and the physical considerations of the medium. That they were intended to evoke an emotional response to the situation is emphasized by the next pochoir he created.

Aidez l’Espagne (pictured above) appeared in Cahiers d’Art 12, nos. 4-5, and art review which in the face of the impending crisis devoted multiple issues to Spain. This issue featured a poem on Guernica by Éluard and Picasso’s Songe et mensonge de Franco (Dream and Lie of Franco), and was to raise funds for the Republican forces. Miro’s contribution is a pochoir in the style of Femme et Chien Deavant la Lune, in a more hopeful vein, and was accompanied by Miro’s hopes against the disaster for his country. His handwritten caption for the print read: “In the present conflict I see the decrepit forces of the fascists, and on the other side the people, whose vast creative resources will five Spain a strength that will astonish the world.”

If Femme et Chien Devant la Lune is reflected stylistically in Miro’s other pochoir, perhaps the ultimate compositional corollary his canvas painted in what amounted an international display Spanish artists against fascist Spain. The Reaper, created in 1937 for the Spanish Republican Pavilion at the Paris World’s Fair, was lost after the exhibition. It is similar in tone to Picasso’s Guernica, which was created for the same solidarity exhibition. It depicts a Catalan peasant with flailing arms and contorted visage whose sickle represents at once his labor, growing communist tendencies and, as a modified scythe, a symbol of death. It is one of his most unequivocally political statements, and an important indicator of the impact the events in Spain had on the artist despite his absence.

Goya: Spain's Rembrandt

Francisco de Goya, born 1746 Fuendetodos, Aragón, Spain and is Spain’s most influential Master Painter and Printmaker of the 18^th century. Goya is to Spain as Rembrandt is to the Netherlands. From an early age Goya studied to be a painter. At the age of 14 Goya entered into apprenticeship with Jose Juzan, a local Spanish Master Painter, and then later went to apprentice with Anton Raphael Mengs, popular artist with the Spanish Royals, laying a strong foundation in the niche of Spain’s Royal families.

In 1763 and 1766 Goya was rejection by the Royal Academy of Art but did happen to enter and win 2^nd place at a completion in the City of Parma, Rome. Later Goya began to paint with Francisco Bayeu y Subias, this who Goya picked up the color palette and tonalities that he became famous for.

In 1783 Goya was hired by the Spanish Crown to create designs for tapestry’s and eventually created hundreds of works that not only changed art history but chronicled the political and social world. Goya’s artistic mastery was very scholarly and highly prized however this isn’t all he is known for. Goya took artistic liberties with his art by taking his personal views and outer imperfections of the royalty depicted and placed them within the art. Many of the people painted were subject to actual renditions of their likeness, sparing no mole melancholy smirk or crocked smile which was extremely radical of the time. But somehow he escaped the scrutiny of the court, perhaps because of his close relationship with Queen Sophia. The Queen was a huge admirer of Francisco de Goya’s work as was King Charles IV and eventually the Queen would save him from persecution later in his career.

Francisco de Goya grew ill in1792 with a combination of nervous and physical troubles, which have yet to be diagnosed even today. This illness left Goya almost def and took hold of his art. His subject matters and palate became an outward depiction of his inner turmoil; bitter, secretive, and dark.

Like his successor Picasso, Goya took major political stances with his art especially turning the later dark periods in his life. The Spanish Inquisition was well into fruition and drew Francisco de Goya further and further into a torturous dark place allowing for personal angst and desolation to fester inside. Goya combined his inner pain with the pain of the Spanish Inquisition, social anxiety, and widespread corruption of the Catholic Church giving way to the perfect rendition of dark and lucid trepidation of 80 etchings, Los Caprichos.

Feburary 6^th, 1799 Goya finished work on his most famous and treacherous series Los Caprichos, created during the Spanish Inquisition. The works sold for 320 Reales about 35 dollars for the set, about 35 cents a print. Only 27 copies were sold and Goya stopped the sale of the works.

This series is by far one of the most politically charged statements of its time. So much so that Goya withdrew the works from the public after selling only a handful party because of the inquisition and fear of the Crown implicating him in a plot against it and partly because of its failure to sell.

However, Goya did not slip by persecution as he hoped and was brought in for questioning. Fortunately due to Francisco de Goya’s relationship with the queen of Spain he was let go and gave the plates and prints to King Charles IV. Some history books claim this was Goya’s decision but one can speculate that Francisco de Goya ‘agreed’ or was ‘persuaded’ to hand over the 80 plates to Spain as a barter for his freedom. While other historians state that the Spanish government demanded the unsold works and copper plates be handed over and thus saved Goya from a life of imprisonment or even death. (The Spanish government held the collection of etchings for many years before allowing the world to see them. In fact it wasn’t until the 1950’s did Spain allow the works to be seen in public.)

Between 1815 and 1824 Goya created his final print series Los Proverbios a series of 18 etchings depicting satirical rendition of life in Spain and others nightmarish darkness or evil. The working proofs were called Los Disparates or “Follies” and thus known by the two titles. These works are also very much tied into his Black Paintings period created in the same time period. The Los Proverbios could be considered the print versions of the Black Paintings.

In1819 Goya had moved completely into himself working on a series of 14 paintings called the Black Paintings, again referencing witchcraft and war similar to that of the Los Caprichos series but much darker and less political. It is speculated that the 14 works were never intended to be on display by the artist, painted directly on the walls and never mentioned in writings. The Black Paintings are on permanent display at the Museo del Prado, housing the largest public collection on Goya’s art.

By 1845 Goya lost all faith and nationality with Spain and moved to Bordeaux (and only visited Spain twice after that) where he died in 1928 at the age of 82.

Goya and 18th Century Painting (from Prado Museum)

More than 140 paintings by Francisco de Goya offer the visitor to the Prado the chance to analyse the artist’s development in considerable depth. Goya’s art arises from the Spanish tradition and Velázquez was his master, as he himself said. Goya was a brilliant and unique artist on a level with the other great masters of painting and far above his contemporaries in Spain. Among the most important works by the artist in the collection of the Museo del Prado are the tapestry cartoons The Parasol and The Crockery Vendor, and portraits of The Duke and Duchess of Osuna and their Children, The Countess of Chinchón, Don Gaspar Melchor de Jovellanos, The Family of Charles IV and The Marchioness of Santa Cruz. In addition there are the two Maja paintings, which have acquired near-iconic status. Goya as a history painter is represented by major works such as The Assault on the Mamelukes and The Executions on Príncipe Pío, better known as The Second and Third of May, respectively. Among works from the last two periods of Goya’s career are the Black Paintings, executed in Madrid, and The Milkmaid of Bordeaux, which the artist completed during his final years when he lived in that French city.

Also forming part of the 18th-century Spanish collection is a large group of still lifes by Luis Meléndez; small, cabinet paintings by Paret y Alcázar such as The Masked Ball and Charles III eating before the Court; tapestry cartoons by the Bayeu brothers; and other interesting paintings such as Antonio Carnicero’s The Ascent of a Montgolfier Balloon in Aranjuez.

Home sweet home!

Home sweet home!

We at Galerie Michael have been following closely the restoration project on Van Gough's masterpiece The Bedroom. We would like to share the experience with you. (click the title of the posting)

Miro: Blue Star

Miro, Joan (1893-1983)
Blue Star, 1927
Oil on canvas

Auction estimate: 5,000,000 - 7,000,000 Euro (7,195,279 - 10,073,391 usd)
Sold for: 11,586,520 EUR (16,673,650 USD) PREMIUM

Picasso: Les Communicants

Picasso, Pablo
Les Communiants, 1919
Oil on Canvas
13 7/8 x 9 1/2 inches
Provenance: Private. Upon Request
Literature: Private. Upon Request

By 1919, the year following the end of the First World War, Picasso was committed to two radically different stylistic tendencies in his painting. The first approach was a continuation of Synthetic Cubism. The problems of depicting objects in space continued to intrigue the artist, and he generally used a Cubist method when painting still-lifes. The second approach was Picasso’s new Neoclassical, manner, stemming from his work with Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes, in which he forged a style based on the linear precision of Ingres and the Old Masters. To counter the mechanical and analytical character of Cubism, which to many reflected the breakdown of traditional order during the war years, Picasso sensed that the time was right for a new approach to the figure, and his Neoclassical manner was essentially a recovery of figuration and re-examination of traditional formal values.

However, few admirers of the artist’s work found this stylistic bipolarity easy to accept. Critics thought that the artist was being insincere and was attempting to pander to public tastes. “Depending on one’s aesthetic point of view, Picasso’s Neoclassism of the late teens and early twenties represents either an eclectic blossoming or a chaotic decay because of ths refusal to work in an exculsivly Cubist style. Yet, stylistic complexity is the central issue of Picasso’s art in these years, and it was crucial to his worldwide fame” (M.C. FitzGerald, Making Modernism: Picasso and the Creation of the Market for Twentith Century Art, New York, 1995, pp. 100-101). Towards the end of the decade Picasso began to shift his allegiance form the pro-cubist Leonce Rosenberg, director of the Galerie de l’Effort Moderne, who had taken over Picasso’s sales during the war years while Daniel-Henry Kahnweiler had to remain in Germany, to his brother Paul, whose gallery was more conservatively oriented toward Renoir and the Impressionists. In 1919 Picasso had his one and only show at Galerie de l’Effort Moderne, a survey of Cubism, and thereafter he showed exclusively at the Galerie Paul Rosenberg, where his stylistic eclecticism was warmly received and generated more sales.

The present painting represents one side of Picasso’s stylistic coin at the end of the ‘teens. Based on an old photograph he kept, the subjects a young girl and boy on the occasion of their first communion. While some elements in the composition, such as the chair in the foreground and the sitters’ hands, are instantly recognizable, the children’s bodies have been broken down into sharply angular columnar plans and integrated within the space; the background is contrasted by means of the curved folds of drapery.

During the same winter Picasso painted a companion picture, almost three times the height of the presents work, but in a Neoclassical manner, Les premiers communiants (J. Palau I Fabre, op. cit., no. 347; coll. Musee Picasso, Paris), for which there are additionally several studies. The placement of the two children is identical and the chair is similarly arranged, although slightly angled into the picture plane. In place of a composed background in the Cubist version, Picasso borrows from the photograph a vague, empty space for the background of the Musee Picasso picture, in which shadows hint at depth.

The formal elements in both pictures seem diametrically opposed, and the subject itself carries very different connotations in each version. In the present painting the subject is only marginally relevant to overall conception of the picture, which is dominantly formal in intent and largely devoid of sentiment. The Neoclassical version is formally less innovative (except as an alternate response to the Cubist method). However the subject comes to the fire, and while there is a certain folk-like charm and refreshing simplicity in this rendering, modernists would surely object to its genre-like sentimentality and pietism. It is perhaps for this reason (and whatever personal meaning the photograph possessed) that Picasso did not sign and exhibition les premires communainats.

Picasso’s involvement in Neoclassicism began to diminish in th elate 1920’s as he exhausted the possibilities inherent in a limited range of subjects. However, throughout this period he continued to mine the richer vein of Cubism; it proved to be a durable formal discipline capable of periodic rejuvenation. After 1925, Picasso’s interest in the new surrealist movement provided the impetus for reasserting the formal concepts of Cubism, and this time subject matter would come mainly from his own inner life, his internal conflicts and emotional relationships with others.

Michael Visits the Florence Academy

This past February Owner and President of Galerie Michael, Michael Schwartz, visited the Florence Academy of Art, Florence Italy, to hand select artists to exhibit at Galerie Michael's Florence Academy Alumni Exhibition in September. Not only did Michael visit the studios of artists such as Daniel Graves, Founder of the Academy (Philosophy of Art), Professor and Alum's Robert Bodem and Hunter Eddy, and students Louis Fenne, Cornelia Hernes, and Vitaliy Shtanko but he also selected and commissioned some of the works for the gallery's upcoming show. (right: Alicia Ponzio, Below: Robert Bodem's sculpture studio)




The Florence Academy was founded in 1991 and specializes in highly skilled Realistic painting, drawing, and sculpting in the traditions of the Old Masters. The students of the academy go through a rigorous 4 year training followed by an apprenticeship.


During the first year of study the students focus on academic drawing and rarely pick up a paintbrush in fact it's not until they have the background, discipline, skills and knowledge do the students start painting. First the artists study the basics such as the materials needed to create defining works, the differences between manufactured paint and handmade oils, how to stretch canvas, make frames, and students study in depth the works of the Old Masters. (Right: Eran Webber and his studio)



Keeping in the tradition of the Old Masters, it's not until this basic foundation is laid, do the students study form, light and basic compositions. The models come in and the students start to create drawings and basic sculptures from live models.


The next step is taking what is learned and applying it to the canvas, however before this happens the old tradition of sketching is taught. Then once the sketch is created and reworked until the students the students learn light, shadow and color by the absence of color. Sepia tones and black and white tones are first used to gain understanding of light, shadow, depth, movement of paint and tones. After this step is mastered the artist has graduated and uses color but you will notice the colors are used as an accent in most of these artists' works, a way to accentuate the subject, move the eye, and enhance the overall image. (Right: Hege Elisabeth Haugen studio, Above: Alicia Ponzio's studio)



With this intensive study that the artists are able to create masterpieces that move and envelope its viewers. This technique is drastically different than the Impressionist who use conflicting colors to create movement, the Realists tend to lean on the enhancement of color or sometimes the lack of color to bring drama and focus to their work. (below: Cody Swanson's studio)


We hope that you can join the gallery in September in welcoming the first annual Florence Academy Alumni Exhibition! More information to come closer to the event.

Exhibition

A Renoir Legacy
A Great-Grandson's Homage to the Impressionist Master
Opening May 6th

Renoir will paint on the Via Rodeo May 7th

Alex Renoir: A Visual Composer

When one looks at a painting by Alexandre Renoir one will see a glimpse at the “Impressionist” movement as characterized by an artist’s ability to render a fleeting moment in time, creating candid compositions, and capturing an “impression” of the ever changing effects of light and atmospheric compositions. Viewers can detect Alexandre’s great-grandfather’s artistic essence and techniques in the works he is creating today, which are augmented with his own original flair.

The use of various palette knives in oil paint allows Alexandre to create a sculptural feel to the canvas. The paint is very thick and bold. It allows one to feel good. Impressionism is one of those styles that include the viewer as much as it does the artist. No two people will see the canvas the same way.

His paintings evoke a certain magic within. You can see the expressions on the viewers faces. It’s that invisible bond between the viewer and the painting. It captures the soul and brings a serenity that is not explainable.

The textures and colors flow across the canvas creating an affect that is captivating. His style is a mix of Impressionism-old and new. We delight in the results of his strokes of genius.

Alexandre Renoir was born in 1974 in Cagne Sur Mer in the south of France. We now have a great opportunity to experience his ethereal work.