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| NACIMIENTO: 1929 MUÑOZ |
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Murió el 27 de diciembre de 2000: Antonio
Rodríguez Valdivieso, pintor español. nacido en Granada
en 1918. — Considerado uno de los grandes exponentes de la pintura figurativa de la segunda mitad del siglo XX, la obra de Rodríguez Valdivieso fue reclamo habitual de la galería Buchholz de Madrid junto a la producción de autores como Lago, Lara, Guerrero y Palazuelo. Su carrera pictórica evolucionó desde el expresionismo de los primeros años hacia la sobriedad y los signos figurativos de su época de madurez. Para la crítica, su principal aportación a la pintura radica en la espontaneidad y la inmediatez de sus pinceladas, en las que utilizó un reducido lenguaje cromático. |
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Born on 27 December 1929: Lucio Muñoz,
pintor español nacido en Madrid y fallecido en su ciudad natal el 24 de
mayo de 1998. — Estudió en la Escuela de Bellas Artes de San Fernando (1949-1954), donde fue discípulo de Eduardo Chicharro hijo. Allí conoció a los que más tarde serán conocidos como los "realistas madrileños": Antonio López, los hermanos López Hernández, y la que será su mujer, en 1960, Amalia Avia. En 1956 viajó a París, becado por el gobierno francés, en donde conoció la tendencia francesa denominada "Art Autre" y se interesa por la obra de artistas como Wols, Dubuffet, Fautrier o Tàpies. Interesado desde sus comienzos por el realismo, en 1955 su obra se decanta hacia la abstracción. A partir de 1957, preocupado por los valores de la materia, comenzó a utilizar la madera y papeles quemados en obras en relieve, lo que supuso su incorporación a la estética informalista. En 1960 es seleccionado en importantes muestras internacionales, como fueron las celebradas en Nueva York, "Before Picasso, after Miró" del Guggenheim Museum y "New Spanish Painting and Sculpture" del MOMA. En 1962 realizó una obra monumental para el ábside de la Basílica de Aránzazu. Su evolución posterior ha pasado por diferentes estados, en donde se dan acercamientos a la estética del objeto, imágenes fantásticas en un mundo imaginario de paisajes, para, después de unos años dedicado a la obra gráfica, retornar al paisaje y a la naturaleza de una manera más lírica. Este pintor se destacó con originalidad en el academizado repertorio de motivos, conceptos y maneras que, salvo excepciones como la suya, caracterizan al arte contemporáneo. La bien definida personalidad de Lucio se distinguió siempre en todas sus etapas. En 1998 Lucio Muñoz, unos meses antes de su muerte, fue contratado por la Asamblea de Madrid para que decorase su nueva sede con un impresionante mural de 138 metros cuadrados. |
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Died on 27 December 1950: Max Beckmann,
German Expressionist painter born on 12 February 1884. — Max Beckmann, often hailed as Germany's greatest 20th-century artist and one of the founders of what we now call modern art. In Beckmann's 1939 painting Woman with Large Shell and Wine Glass, the vibrant colors are applied with quick, edgy brushstrokes. This painting is a beautiful example of the joyous aspects of Beckmann's work that began during his Paris years. Max Beckmann is not known for his joyousness. Born in Germany — he died in the US — he is famous for brooding, symbol-laden self-portraiture, for his mastery of the morose. Sometimes mythic and always dramatic, Beckmann may well be the epitome of Expressionism, Germany's great contribution to modern art. It's a style critics came to love; Hitler to hate (and even some Hitler-haters concur with Hitler on this one point). But at the start, he was just a gifted, if romantic, realist. He was a very fine academic person; he studied the traditions, especially Rembrandt. He was an excellent draftsman; his anatomy was perfect. He had a perfect understanding of human structure. Beckmann's canvases grew with his ambition. The Titanic, painted in 1912, is as busy as turbulent, as theatrically tragic as the scene it depicts. But it was World War I that forged Beckmann's famed Expressionism. A medic on the front, the artist faced such brutality that he simply broke down. His post war work is radical, dark, and, above all, personally expressive, as in 1917's Christ Saving an Adulteress From Stoning — a Christ who looks a lot like Max Beckmann. Beckmann was one of the great stars in Germany, one of the hottest painters of the time. For what did he need to go to Paris? He wanted to be a cosmopolitan, a painter recognized on the European level such as Picasso, Matisse, and Braque were recognized internationally. In 1929, Beckmann moved to Paris, to exhibit there and get the French art world to take a German as seriously as it did its own. In Beckmann's Resting Woman with Carnations, a serene, sensuous figure is set against an intricate, decorative pattern of stylized stripes, tiles, and latticework. This may be compared to Henri Matisse's exotic Odalisque With Green Scarf (or Harem Woman), which was painted in 1926. The model in Beckmann's Resting Woman with Carnations also takes an alluring seated pose. Beckmann's model is his second wife, Quappi. He painted Quappi flamboyantly, dozens of times, in various stages of dress and undress. Part of his new Paris persona: Macho artist with sexy wife. Beckmann didn't just challenge Matisse, however, but Picasso as well. An example of Picasso's classical style of the 1920's is a portrait called The Reader. Beckmann's response is a woman reading. The German took up specifically French themes as well: The French seaside is serene to Matisse; to Beckmann, it's an occasion for a bizarre bathing scene. Rugby teams to France's Robert Delaunay are all color. By contrast, Max Beckmann's tangled web of soccer players by contrast bristles with dark feeling. Even Beckmann's still-lifes are emotional. Consider a marine comparison: Picasso's catch of the day, almost funny; Braque's flat, formal, elegant. Beckmann's creatures, however, convey menace and a sense of drama in the composition through these enormous teeth that the fish show, giving it a harshness and a forcefulness that goes away from a purely esthetic rendering of objects or shapes. Ultimately, Beckmann was rejected by France, and not long after, the king of German painting was spurned by his own country as well. A surviving photo shows how mildly this painting had begun in 1933: Beckmann, the proud sovereign; Quappi, his young queen. But in 1937, the Nazis had turned on him, confiscating hundreds of his paintings and taunting several in their infamous degenerate art show. Beckmann reworked this painting in 1937 when he was declared degenerate and made it more brooding and less of a self-portrait than almost like a dark and dramatic painting that almost forebodes the terrible things that are going to come. Beckmann fled to Holland, safe in part because his son was a surgeon in the Luftwaffe. There, he painted fineart''' is gone the acrobats. He sees dark things, ugly things. The paintings take on a gloomy look. There's a Roman soldier with a spear that's a thinly disguised Nazi. There's a bellhop coming in. The bellhop in Beckmann's paintings is always a messenger bringing news of various kinds, usually bad. And the acrobats refers to people who make their living by creativity, who are onstage, disguising themselves, taking different roles, like Beckmann himself, who sometimes played the acrobat. It was after the war that, fed up with Europe, Beckmann was offered a teaching job in America, at Washington University in St. Louis. There, art student Wally Barker became his assistant. St. Louis was in a sense Beckmann's Paris, but here, he ruled the roost at last. In 1950, receiving an honorary degree from Washington University, he summed up: "Greatness," he said in his speech, "depends alone on the fertile imagination of the individual. If you love nature with all your heart, new and unimaginable things in art will occur to you." New and unimaginable things: It might as well be the motto of modern art. And if Max Beckmann hasn't attained the stature of his French rivals, well, maybe it's because they're more important, or maybe because his nervy, odd imagery is just a bit harder to appreciate. — LINKS — Selbstbildnis als Krankenpfleger (1915, 55x38cm) _ Beckmann served in the medical services in eastern Prussia, then in Flanders and at Strasbourg. He was a witness to the first mustard gas attacks around Ypres. At Courtrai, he was present at operations that surgeons attempted on the wounded and made detailed drawings of them. His self portrait is built around three elements: the eye that scrutinizes, the hand that draws, and the red cross. There is hardly any color. A few months later, Beckmann was sent home to Germany after suffering a serious mental breakdown. He sought refuge in Frankfurt where he slowly took up painting again. — Self Portrait in Olive and Brown (1945, 62x50cm) — Christ with a Woman Taken in Adultery (1917) _ Beckmann came out of a war very badly hurt, physically and mentally. In this picture you see this guy with blood all over his hands, the guy who's so superior to the adulteress. What Beckmann is actually saying here is a plea for mercy, protecting someone. Beckmann the painter used various modern devices, seeing his subjects from multiple points of view, for instance. You can look down on the feet of Christ. And about halfway up the picture you're looking straight across at him. And at the top of the picture, you're looking up, like we're seeing the underside of the guy's face. Different perspectives on one scene — it's what French Cubism was known for: Picasso's double faces, seen at once head-on and in profile; Braque's still-lifes, seen both straight ahead — the legs that hold up the table — and from above — the newspaper and the tabletop itself. Playing with perspective intrigued Beckmann, but he was more interested in emotions, in energy. — Family (1920) — Dancing Badden Badden (1923) — Tux — Man and Women — Umberto — Afternoon (1946) — Argonaux — 26 Jun - 29 Sep 2003 MOMA exhibition (PDF) with images of [Self-Portrait? with Trumpet?], Small Death Scene (1906), The Sinking of the Titanic (1912), The Night (1919), Family Picture (1920), The Dream (1921), The Harbor of Genoa (1927), Russian Actor Zeretelli (1927), Self-Portrait with Sailor Hat (1926), Self-Portrait in Tuxedo (1927), Departure (1933), Journey on the Fish (1934), The Actors (1942), Hell of the Birds (1938), Falling Man (1950) — 27 etchings at FAMSF |
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