No Love Lost Between Artist & Dealer

Love sculpture by pop artist Robert Indiana

Renowned pop artist Robert Indiana is being sued by a Monaco-based art dealer for renouncing the authenticity of sculptures once valued as high as $1 million. Best known for his 1964 block letter creation featuring an L-O arranged on top of a V-E, Indiana's works are part of the permanent collection of major museums including the Museum of Modern Art, the Smithsonian Institution and the Whitney Museum of Modern Art. The LOVE design was featured on an 8-cent U.S. postage stamp issued on Valentine's Day in 1973.

Conceived in a time when the United States was consumed by the Vietnam War, LOVE became a symbol for Peace. This famous sculpture is one of the most celebrated works within the pop art movement as well the art world as a whole.

The iconography first appeared in a series of poems originally written in 1958, in which Indiana stacked LO and VE on top of one another. The first LOVE sculpture was carved out of a solid block of aluminum, highly unpolished, that the pop artist had made for a show at the Stable Gallery in 1966. The idea for the sculptural piece originated from a visit to a Christian Science church in Indianapolis, where Robert was taken by an adorned banner that read "GOD is LOVE." He then created a painting for an exhibition held in what was formerly a Christian Science church. It depicted the reverse of the previous banner, stating "LOVE is GOD."

Shortly after, Indiana was commissioned to design a Christmas card for the Museum of Modern Art, for which he made three small paintings of the word love in red, blue and green. These cards were printed in 1965 and since have been the most popular card MoMA has ever published. Since then LOVE has become a cultural icon and has been used extensively throughout the art world and media, with and without the artist's approval.

According to the lawsuit filed in superior court in Rockland, Maine, art buyer Joao Tovar paid $481,625 for 10 sculptures of the word PREM, a Sanskrit term meaning "love," from John Gilbert, a one-time business partner of renowned pop artist Robert Indiana. He states that he bought the artwork in good faith believing that Indiana had officially licensed their production.

Indiana, who lives on an island off the Maine coast, renounced the sculptures in a 2009 letter to New York dealer Simon Salama-Caro, saying they had been conceived by Gilbert in India and made without his permission. The move led auction house Christie's to remove them from an upcoming sale. Indiana's denial of his approval "rendered the sculptures worth little more than the materials from which they were made," says the suit, which was filed April 30, 2012.

Tovar says that he relied upon a 2008 certificate of authenticity provided by Gilbert that includes Indiana's signature and the words "To Tovar" at the bottom of the page near Gilbert's signature. Court filings show that Indiana acknowledged that the signature on the document was his but that it was meant as a souvenir for Tovar, rather than acknowledgement that the work was his.

An Art Weekend In St Augustine

We just got back for an art week-end in St. Augustine Florida. The city has a monthly art walk, where numerous galleries are open and serve hors d'oeuvres and wine. The city even offers a free trolley ride. We had a wonderful time and got to see both local and some more famous artwork, including the Florida Highwaymen.

One of my favorite artists was Sandra Pierce. Her bold flower designs on a black canvas were simply stunning! If you get a chance to go to the art walk, it is held on the first Friday of the month. We stayed at the Carriage Way Bed and Breakfast located in the historic district and had a wonderful stay. One nice bonus to our art week-end was that I sold a print of my Rock Through the Ages painting while in St. Augustine.

Artist of the Week: Gustav Klimt

Gustav Klimt was an Austrian Symbolist painter and one of the most prominent members of the Vienna Art Nouveau movement. His major works include paintings, murals, sketches, and other art objects, many of which are on display in the Vienna Secession gallery. Gustav Klimt's primary subject was the female body, and his works are marked by a frank eroticism--nowhere is this more apparent than in his numerous drawings in pencil. Gustav Klimt was a controversial figure in his time. His work was constantly criticized for being too sensual and erotic, and his symbolism too deviant. Today, they stand out as the more important paintings ever to come out of Vienna.

Gustav Klimt was born in Baumgarten, near Vienna, and was the second of seven children. All three sons displayed artistic talent early on. His father, Ernst Klimt, formerly from Bohemia, was a gold engraver. Ernst married Anna Klimt, whose unrealized ambition was to be a musical performer. Klimt lived in poverty for most of his childhood, as work was scarce and the economy difficult for immigrants. In 1876, Gustav Klimt was awarded a scholarship to the Vienna School of Arts and Crafts, where he studied until 1883, and received training as an architectural painter. Klimt revered the foremost history painter of the time, Hans Makart. Gustav Klimt readily accepted the principles of a conservative training; his early work may be classified as academic. In 1877 his brother Ernst, who, like his father, would become an engraver, also enrolled in the school. The two brothers and their friend Franz Matsch began working together; by 1880 they had received numerous commissions as a team they called the "Company of Artists", and helped their teacher in painting murals in the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna.

Gustav Klimt's style grew increasingly experimental and his murals for Vienna University, commissioned by the State in 1894, were roundly attacked by critics for their fantastical imagery and their bold, decorative style. Gustav Klimt became interested in Symbolism and Art Nouveau and he and fifteen other artists, dedicated to challenging the conservative Academy of Fine Arts. resigned from the Viennese Artist's Association and founded the Vienna Secession in 1897. Gustav Klimt was elected president and the group secured its own exhibition space and published an illustrated magazine. Influenced by European avant-garde movements represented in the annual Secession exhibitions, Gustav Klimt's mature style combined richly decorative surface patterning with complex symbolism and allegory, often with overtly erotic content. Gustav Klimt was commissioned to paint three allegorical panels representing Philosophy, Medicine and Jurisprudence for the ceiling of the Great Hall of the University of Vienna in 1894. Read More---->

Literary Artists

Although we focus on the visual arts, we want to send a shout out to all the great literary artists. Like painters, authors paint us a story. They weave a tale that evokes emotions ranging from love to terror. All of us have a favorite author and its easy to get stuck on one genre or writer, ignoring all the rest. With summer right around the corner its time to discover some of the great authors in Literature.

With the invention of Kindles, and IPads, we can easily read on the go without having to invest in costly books or go to the library. Here are a few of my favorite authors to help you get inspired.

• Dean Koontz- One of the most popular writers of chillers and horror thrillers of the 1980s and '90s, Dean Koontz has been a regular denizen of the bestseller lists. The secret of his success lay in his ability to create likable, easy to identify with, and believable characters and place them in macabre or mind-bending futuristic situations. 
• William Faulkner-  William Faulkner, one of the 20th century's most gifted novelists, wrote for the movies in part because he could not make enough money from his novels and short stories to support his growing number of dependents. The author of such acclaimed novels as "The Sound and the Fury" and "Absalom, Absalom!", Faulkner received the Nobel Prize for Literature for 1949 and he received two Pulitzer Prizes, for "A Fable" in '1955 and "The Reivers", which was published shortly before he died in 1962.
• John Steinbeck- American novelist, story writer, playwright, and essayist. John Steinbeck received the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1962. He is best remembered for his 1939 novel The Grapes of Wrath, widely considered to be a 20th-century classic. The impact of the book has been compared to that of Harriet Beecher Stowe's Uncle Tom's Cabin. Steinbeck's epic about the migration of the Joad family, driven from its bit of land in Oklahoma to California, provoked a wide debate about the hard lot of migrant laborers, and helped to put an agricultural reform into effect. 
• Edgar Allan Poe- The name Poe brings to mind images of murderers and madmen, premature burials, and mysterious women who return from the dead. His works have been in print since 1827 and include such literary classics as “The Tell-Tale Heart,” “The Raven,” and “The Fall of the House of Usher.” He was the first well-known American writer to try to earn a living through writing alone, resulting in a financially difficult life and career.

Plein Air Painting

It's springtime and what better time to discover plein air painting. A French tern plein air literally translates into 'open air', and is defined as painting or drawing done outside, in the open air. The equivalent term in Italian would be alfresco. As seen in the painting Philodendrons, plein air painting can bring new life to your artwork.

Although painting outdoors has always been around, it became particularly important during Impression when lighting became a key resource in artwork. Because painters began to paint outside on a regular basis, they needed an easy way to travel with their canvas and tools and so born out of necessity was the French Box Easel. It is uncertain who developed it first, but these highly portable easels, with telescopic legs and built-in paint box and palette, made treks into the forest and up the hillsides less onerous. Still made today, they remain a popular choice even for home use since they fold up to the size of a brief case and thus are easy to store.

Practiced by such great artists as Claude Monet, Camille Pissarro, and Pierre-Auguste Renoir, plein air painting may inspire you to create a true masterpiece!

Artist of the Week: Georgia O'Keeffe

Among the great American artists of the 20th-century, Georgia O’Keeffe stands as one of the most compelling. For nearly a century, O’Keeffe’s representations of the beauty of the American landscape were a brave counterpoint to the chaotic images embraced by the art world. Her cityscapes and still life's filled the canvas with wild energy that gained her a following among the critics as well as the public. Though she has had many imitators, no one since has been able to paint with such intimacy and stark precision. With exceptionally keen powers of observation and great finesse with a paintbrush, Georgia O'Keeffe recorded subtle nuances of color, shape, and light that enlivened her paintings and attracted a wide audience.

Georgia O'Keeffe's primary subjects were landscapes, flowers, and bones, explored in series over several years and even decades. The images were drawn from her life experience and related either generally or specifically to places where she lived. Remarkably, she remained independent from shifting art trends and stayed true to her own vision, which was based on finding the essential, abstract forms in nature. Born in 1887 near Sun Prairie, Wisconsin, Georgia O'Keeffe received art training at the Art Institute of Chicago school (1905), the Art Students League of New York (1907–8), the University of Virginia (1912), and Columbia University's Teachers College, New York (1914–16). Georgia O'Keeffe became an art teacher and taught in various elementary schools, high schools, and colleges in Virginia, Texas, and South Carolina from 1911 to 1918. During one such position, Georgia O'Keeffe produced a remarkable series of charcoal drawings that led her art, and her career, in a new direction.

Georgia O'Keeffe was married to the pioneer photographer Alfred Stieglitz (1864-1946) in 1924. Alfred Stieglitz was 54 when Georgia arrived in New York, 23 years her senior. Educated in Berlin, he had studied engineering and photography before returning to the States at the turn of the century and opening the 291 gallery. He pioneered the art of photography, and single-handedly introduced America to the works of Picasso, Matisse, and Cezanne at the gallery, along with publishing his well respected "Camera Works" magazine. It was at Stieglitz's famed New York art gallery "291" that her charcoal drawings were first exhibited in 1916. The union lasted 22 years, until Stieglitz's death.

During the long winter months in New York Georgia O'Keeffe began to paint her very large flowers, some of her most popular work today. Georgia O'Keeffe completed her first enormous flower painting in 1924.The giant flower paintings were first exhibited in 1925. A Calla Lily painting would sell for $25,000 in 1928 and draw media attention to "O'Keeffe" like never before. Georgia's financial success would finally prove to her that an artist could make a living with a paintbrush. "I know now that most people are so closely concerned with themselves that they are not aware of their own individuality, I can see myself, and it has helped me to say what I want to say...in paint" ,stated Georgia O'Keeffe referring to the 300 photos taken of her by her husband.
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Artist of the Week- Thomas Kincade RIP

Thomas Kinkade is renowned as “The Painter of Light”. By infusing light into his paintings for a dramatic effect of pictorial lighting, Thomas Kinkade creates incredibly romantic and tranquil scenes that seem to glow from within. This incredible ability combined with Thomas Kinkade’s choice of wholesome themes has made Thomas Kinkade America’s most collected living artist. Thomas Kinkade grew up in Northern California in the small town of Placerville, along the foothills of the Sierra Mountains. Though the family did not have wealth, Kinkade often says they were "rich in the greatest form of wealth; a nurturing and affirming love." It was during these lean years, that Thomas Kinkade embraced the Christian faith that later would shape his approach to life and Thomas Kinkade’s art. The beauty and need of simplicity and life-affirming values entwined themselves deep in Thomas Kinkade and since then can be found running through all of his works.

Thomas Kinkade's first "collector" was his mother, who would frame his childhood drawings and use them to decorate the family home. In Placerville, he was a boy with crayons, a kid who could draw. He was also the local newspaper delivery boy, an avid swimmer and loyal friend. As a child he constantly read biographies of artists, including those of painters and illustrators like Norman Rockwell, Maxwell Parrish and Howard Pyle. At age 11, he had his first "apprenticeship." Charles Bell, a local painter, instructed him in basic techniques.

In high school, Thomas Kinkade came face to face with twentieth-century modernism in the person of Glenn Wessels, a former professor in the art department at the University of California. Wessels encouraged Kinkade both to tie his art more directly to emotion (rather than observation alone) and to experiment with highly personal forms of expression. He also influenced Kinkade's decision to attend the University of California at Berkley. Kinkade studied art at the University of California at Berkeley, where his roommate was the now-renowned artist James Gurney. Gurney, famous for his Dinotopia creations, has collaborated with Thomas Kinkade, and the two remain close friends. Kinkade spent a summer on a sketching tour with Gurney producing the best-selling instructional book, "The Artist's Guide to Sketching". Kinkade and Gurney set off on an artistic adventure, traveling coast-to-coast by rail, stopping in small towns and sketching, soaking up the color and learning about their subjects wherever they happened to be.  Read More

3 Things You Didn’t Know About Vincent van Gogh

One of the most mesmerising, brilliant and intriguing artist – both professionally and personally – to ever walk this earth was Dutch painter Vincent Van Gogh, born Vincent Willem van Goghwas. The post-Impressionist painter is known for his emotional honest oil paintings, fused with bold and bright colour and coarse beauty. Despite his widespread fame and impact, several aspects of Van Gogh’s professional and personal life are not well known to the public. They are as follows:

Posthumous fame obscenely outweighs his contemporary standing Most artists find their artwork appreciates in value after the die, which is of course one of the supreme ironies of art. If you live long enough, however, the world might just catch up to your genius, as did Picasso, Matisse and Monet, for example. Unfortunately, Van Gogh, like Alfred Sisley, belongs to the former camp: in his life he only sold one painting, The Red Vineyard (1888), for 400 Swiss Francs, or the equivalent of about USD $1,600 today.

Now consider how much Van Gogh’s oil paintings are worth today (all prices adjusted for inflation): his 1890 oil painting Portrait Of Dr. Gachet is the fourth most expensive painting ever, sold for $144.1 million. The second most expensive Van Gogh painting is Portrait of Joseph Roulin (1889), sold for $107 million. Next is Irises (1889), which was sold for $105.1 million, followed by Self-Portrait Without Beard (1889) for $98.5 million, A Wheatfield With Cypresses (1889) for $89.2 million, Vase With Fifteen Sunflowers (1888) for $79.9 million and Peasant Woman Against A Background Of Wheat (1890) for $66.8 million. Add up the seven oil paintings and the total is more than $670 million, an amount that Van Gogh could have only dreamt of. In fact, the artist was so financially destitute that most of his support came from his brother Theo.

Special brotherly bond If there was a prize for Best Supporting Brother in Artistic Drama, the Oscar would have to go to Theo Van Gogh. Vincent’s younger brother made it possible for his brother to paint, and for Van Gogh’s paintings to have the impact they have on the world today. He supported Vincent throughout his whole life, not just financially but emotionally and intellectually – important factors, considering Vincent’s near-constant depression. Theo died just six months after Vincent’s passing, apparently overcome with the loss compounding other physical ailments. As in life, the pair are together in death. They are buried next to each other in Auvers-sur-Oise. Was he accidentally shot?

Pulitzer Prize winning biographers Steven Naifeh and Gregory White Smith argue in Van Gogh: the Life, that the artist was accidentally shot by either a boy or two boys known to have a gun in the area. Their counter-evidence, CSI style! Firstly, Van Gogh had no experience with guns. Secondly, revolvers were tremendously rare in rural France. Thirdly, his stomach wound is very unusual for someone whom shoots themselves in a suicide attempt. Also, the traditional story is that Van Gogh shot himself in a wheat field after a session of painting – however, no painting easel was ever found, and the revolver was not found either. Finally, the authors contend that there was no motivation, perhaps the most important factor in any suicide: Van Gogh had just sold his one and only painting, he received praise from Monet and Parisian critics, and he didn’t leave a suicide note to his beloved brother Theo, who was on his way to visit him. As the authors said: “It just doesn’t make sense.”

Tracy Raian is passionate about everything paintings and arts. Whenever she's not out having fun she writes about oil paintings. For more information on the most popular oil painting reproductions on the market, please visit cheapoilpainting.com

Artist of the Week: Mary Cassatt

Mary Cassatt was an artist of surprises, mostly small, but often subtle and profound. Cassatt is known as a "painter of mothers and children." Mary Cassatt often created images of the social and private lives of women, with particular emphasis on the intimate bonds between mothers and children. Mary Cassatt is considered the first American Impressionist artist, she was born in Pittsburgh and lived in France. Mary Stevenson Cassatt was born on May 22, 1844 in Allegheny City, Pennsylvania, into a well-to-do family. The Cassatt family was of French Huguenot origin; they escaped persecutions and came to New York in 1662. Cassatt grew up in an environment that viewed travel as integral to education; she spent five years in Europe and visited many of the capitals, including London, Paris, and Berlin. Mary Cassatt had her first lessons in drawing and music while abroad and learned German and French. Mary Cassatt's first exposure to French artists Ingres, Delacroix, Corot, and Courbet was likely at the Paris World's Fair of 1855. Also exhibited at the exhibition were Degas and Pissarro, both of whom would be future colleagues and mentors.

Mary Cassatt chose career over marriage, and left the United States in 1865 to travel and study in Europe. The fact that Mary Cassatt had chosen to seek a vocation at all would have been startling to any well-to-do parents of a daughter in the early 1860s. Her decision to become a professional artist must have seemed beyond the pale, given that serious painting was largely the domain of men in the 19th century. Often traveling alone, Mary Cassatt studied in Paris, Rome, Parma and Seville, before returning and settling permanently in the French capital in 1874. Aided by her elder sister, Lydia, who joined Mary in Europe, she took an apartment and studio. Lydia was not only her older sister, but also Mary Cassatt's closest friend and often times her model. There are eleven known works with Lydia, including "Lydia Crocheting in the Garden at Marly." The painting, painted in Cassatt's early Impressionist manner, was posed at Marly-le-Roi, some forty miles west of Paris, where the artist's family spent the summer of 1880. The painting was included in the exhibition held by the French Impressionists in Paris in 1881. The most important influence on Cassatt in the years before 1875 was exercised by Edouard Manet. Although he did not accept students, Mary Cassatt saw his works and they were much discussed both by painters and art critics. The paintings she produced in this period, of women flirting, tossing flowers, sharing refreshment with a bullfighter, reveal a young artist eager to combine the skill of the Old Masters with the adventuresome subject matter of the moderns. It was while walking past a Paris gallery window in 1874 that Mary Cassatt first saw a bold pastel of ballet dancers by Edgar Degas. That same year, Degas saw Cassatt's entry in the French Academy Salon.  read more

Sunflower Triptych

Michael Arnold's newest art is "Sunflower Triptych" This was by far the largest painting project to date. Painted on 3 separate canvases. "Sunflower Triptych" measures 85 inches wide and 48 inches high. The stunning artwork combines a modern pop art design with bits of whimsical detail, making it truly a unique Michael Arnold painting. The painting is on 3 museum quality canvases, with all edges painted, eliminating the need for a frame.

Artist of the Week: Stuart Davis

I have always liked hot music. There's something wrong with any American who doesn't. But I never realized that it was influencing my work until one day I put on a favorite record and listened to it while I was looking at a painting I had just finished. Then I got a funny feeling. If I looked, or if I listened, there was no shifting of attention. It seemed to amount to the same thing--like twins, a kinship. After that, for a long time, I played records while I painted"- Stuart Davis Considered a forefather of the Pop Art movement, Stuart Davis translated the visual imagery of New York City and the jazz music of the mid-20th Century into iconographic abstract paintings of squiggly lines and flashy colors. The career of Stuart Davis has encompassed the entire span of modern art in the United States. Stuart Davis was an American cubist painter whose colorful compositions, with their internal logic and structure, often camouflaged the American flavor of his themes.

As a boy in Philadelphia, Stuart Davis was surrounded by painters. Stuart’s father was art editor with the Philadelphia Press and among his employees was the young artists John Sloan, William Glackens, Everett Shinn and George Luks. Helen Stuart Foulke, Stuart’s mother, was a prominent sculptor who exhibited at the annual exhibitions of the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts and the Philadelphia Museum of Art. In the company of his parents and their famous artist friends, young Stuart Davis grew up surrounded by art. The Davis family moved to East Orange, New Jersey at the same time as the Philadelphia artist, Robert Henri, opened his school in New York City, and Stuart Davis left high school to attend it. Like other Henri students Stuart Davis supported himself by doing illustrations for Harper's Weekly. Stuart Davis exhibited watercolors in the famous Armory show of 1913. That show exposed Stuart Davis to the revolutionary paintings of modern Europe. read more

Artist of the Week: Toulouse Lautrec

Toulouse Lautrec was a French painter, printmaker, draftsman, and illustrator, whose immersion in the colorful and theatrical life of fin de siècle Paris yielded exciting, elegant and provocative images of the modern and sometimes decadent life of those times. Toulouse-Lautrec is known along with Cézanne, Van Gogh, and Gauguin as one of the greatest painters of the Post-Impressionist period. The French painter Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec depicted the Parisian night life of cafés, bars, and brothels, the world that he inhabited at the height of his career. Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, a direct descendant of an aristocratic family of a thousand years, was born on November 24, 1864, at Albi, France, to Alphonse-Charles and Adèle Zoë. The Lautrec family was very wealthy and kept apartments in Paris as well as country estates around Albi, not far from Toulouse in south-west France. However, the child's aristocratic stock did him much more harm than good. Though his parents seemed complete opposites, his father, a wild eccentric hunter of women as well as animals; his mother, quiet and devout, they were in fact first cousins. And although he at first appeared a beautiful and healthy child, young Henri had inherited a congenital weakness of the bones. He was a delicate child, but led a normal life until he was fourteen. Then, in minor accidents, Toulouse Lautrec broke first one thigh bone and then the other. The bones did not heal properly due to a rare bone disease and when he could finally walk again, he had a normal torso with abnormally stunted legs. In spite of the popular legend that Lautrec remained a midget, he did in fact grow to over five feet tall. It was his large head and ill-proportioned body which made him appear dwarfish. Since Toulouse Lautrec had shown talent in drawing as a very young child, his parents encouraged him to take lessons with various teachers in Paris. Toulouse-Lautrec's father and uncle were accomplished draughtsman, and the young Henri seems to have received some encouragement from them. By the age of 14, he was being tutored by a professional artist, Rene Princeteau, a deaf-mute who specialized in horses and hunting subjects. In his late teens, Lautrec was honored to become a student of the artist Fernand Cormon, whose studio was located on the hill above Paris. He stayed in the Montmartre section of Paris, the center of the cabaret entertainment and bohemian life that he loved to paint. Circuses, dance halls, nightclubs, racetracks and Parisian brothels, all these spectacles were set down on canvas or made into lithographs. Toulouse-Lautrec was very much a part of all this activity. He would sit at a crowded nightclub table, laughing and drinking, and at the same time he would make swift sketches. Toulouse-Lautrec preserved his impressions of these places and their celebrities in portraits and sketches of striking originality and power. Outstanding examples are "La Goulou Entering the Moulin Rouge" ,(shown) "Jane Avril Entering the Moulin Rouge", and "Au salon de la rue des Moulins". Toulouse-Lautrec moved freely among the dancers, the prostitutes, the artists, and the intellectuals of Montmartre. From 1890 on his tall, lean cousin, Dr. Tapié de Celeyran, accompanied him, and the two, depicted in At the Moulin Rouge (shown here), made a colorful pair. Despite his deformity, Toulouse-Lautrec was extremely social and readily made friends and inspired trust. He came to be regarded as one of the people of Montmartre, for he was an outsider like them, fiercely independent, but with a great ability to understand everything around him. Among the painter's favorite subjects were the cabaret dancers Yvette Guilbert, Jane Avril, and La Goulue and her partner, Valentin le Désossé, the contortionist.

Artist of the Week: Lucian Freud

Lucien Freud's artwork makes a very valid statement in its almost frightening, painterly realism. He is the son of Jewish parents Ernst Ludwig Freud, an architect, and Lucie née Brasch. Lucien Freud is the grandson of Sigmund Freud, brother of the late broadcaster, writer and politician Clement Raphael Freud and of Stephan Gabriel Freud, and uncle of radio and television broadcaster Emma Freud. Lucian was born in 1922 and along with British artists such as Francis Bacon, Leon Kossoff, and Frank Auerbach, rose from obscurity to pick up the pieces of English art in the aftermath of destruction following WW II. Lucien Freud's early paintings are often associated with surrealism and depict people, plants and animals in unusual juxtapositions. These works are usually painted with relatively thin paint, but from the 1950s Lucian Freud began to paint portraits, often nudes, to the almost complete exclusion of everything else, employing a thicker impasto. With this technique Lucien Freud would often clean his brush after each stroke. The colors in these paintings are typically muted. Often Freud's portraits depict only the sitter, sometimes sprawled naked on the floor or on a bed or alternatively juxtaposed with something else, as in Girl With a White Dog. Freud's subjects are often the people in his life; friends, family, fellow painters, lovers, children. To quote the artist: "The subject matter is autobiographical, it's all to do with hope and memory and sensuality and involvement, really." Born in Berlin on 8 December 1922, Lucian Freud moved to Britain in 1933 with his parents after Hitler came to power in Germany. His father, Ernst, was an architect; his mother the daughter of a grain merchant. Freud became a British national in 1939. He started working as a full-time artist after being invalided out of the merchant navy in 1942, having served only three months. Freud enrolled at the East Anglian School of Painting and Drawing, Dedham, run by Cedric Morris. Apart from a year in Paris and Greece, Lucien Freud spent most of the rest of his career in Paddington, London, an inner-city area whose seediness is reflected in Freud's often somber and moody interiors and cityscapes. In the 1940s Lucien Freud was principally interested in drawing, especially the face, as in Naval Gunner. Lucian Freud began to turn his attention to painting, however, and experimented with Surrealism, producing such images as the Painter's Room (shown here), which features an incongruous arrangement of objects, including a stuffed zebra's head, a battered chaise longue and a house plant, all of which survived his Surrealist phase and appeared separately in later paintings. Lucien Freud was also loosely associated with Neo-Romanticism, and the intense, bulbous eyes that characterize his early portraits show affinities with the work of other artists associated with the movement, such as John Minton, whose portrait he painted in 1952

Artist of the Week: Richard Estes

Richard Estes is an American painter best known for his photorealistic paintings which generally consist of reflective, clean, and inanimate city and geometric landscapes. Estes is regarded as one of the founders of the international photo-realist movement of the late 1960's, with painters such as Ralph Goings, Chuck Close, and Duane Hanson. Their work exhibits a high finish, fine details and an almost photographic fidelity to reality. Richard Estes belongs to a rich history of artists who have depicted New York City, and has a detailed knowledge of the city's diverse architecture, infrastructure and habitants. Although not a native New Yorker, New York has been his home and a recurring motif in his work for over 30 years. Habitually depicting urban landscapes, Estes begins with photography to collect and record information. Richard Estes then works free-hand to paint in a fluid and open-ended process his remarkably intricate and realistic scenes. While unquestionably reconstructing reality, Estes' paintings and prints expand the sensory range of the viewer allowing a greater focus and providing more information than the naked eye. His prints are no exception in creating this extrasensory experience. They are built up in layers of color and capture a palette and vitality similar to the detailed clarity of his paintings. Richard Estes remains a prominent figure in the contemporary art world, and has secured a place in art history as one of the most captivating American realists to date. Richard Estes was born in 1932 in Kewanee, Illinois. He moved to Chicago at an early age and studied fine arts from 1952 to 1956, with a concentration on figure drawing and traditional academic painting, at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Richard Estes frequently studied the works of realist painters such as Degas, Hopper and Eakins, who are strongly represented in the Art Institute's collection. Richard Estes moved to New York City in 1956, after he had completed his course of studies, and worked for the next ten years as a graphic artist for various magazine publishers and advertising agencies in New York and Spain. During this period Richard Estes painted in his spare time, and by 1966 he had saved enough money so that he could devote himself full-time to painting. Most of Estes' paintings from the early 60's are of New Yorkers engaged in everyday activities. It was around 1967 that a shift occurred in his city scenes: Richard Estes began to paint storefronts and buildings with glass windows partially reflecting images of the street scene in front of the building. These paintings were based on color photographs he would make of his object, which trapped the evanescent nature of the reflections, which would change in part with the lighting and the time of day. While some amount of alteration was done for the sake of aesthetic composition, it was important to Estes that the central and the main reflected objects be recognizable, but also that the evanescent quality of the reflections be retained. Richard Estes had his first of many one-man shows in 1968, at the Allan Stone Gallery in New York.

Artist of the Week: Gustave Caillebotte

French painter Gustave Caillebotte was a member, and patron of the group of artists known as Impressionists, though he painted in a much more realistic manner than many other artists in the group. Gustave Caillebotte was noted for his early interest in photography as an art form. Wealthy and generous, Caillebotte financially supported his Impressionist friends by purchasing their works at inflated prices and underwriting many of the expenses incurred for the exhibitions. Caillebotte was a painter of great originality. Like the Impressionists, Caillebotte pursued an instant of vision, recording it with a fullness of truthful detail. Caillebotte, however, attempted to portray the rhythms of an industrial society with his regimented figures and the clock-like precision of his Paris. In this aspect, Gustave Caillebotte was very much like the Realists. Gustave Caillebotte was born in 1848 to Martial and Caleste Caillebotte in a popular part of Paris. He grew up in comfort and moved to a luxurious home in the upper-class part of Paris when he was 18. His father was in the textile business and was quite successful thanks to the increased spending of Louis Napoleon on the army. He provided the French army with bedding. Beginning in 1860, the Caillebotte family began spending many of their summers in Yerres, a town on the Yerres River about 12 miles south of Paris, where Martial Caillebotte, Sr. had purchased a large property. It was around this time that Gustave Caillebotte probably began to draw and paint. Caillebotte earned a law degree in 1868 and a license to practice law in 1870. Gustave Caillebotte was also an engineer. Shortly afterwards, he was drafted to fight in the Franco-Prussian war, and served in the Garde Nationale Mobile de la Seine. After the war, Gustave Caillebotte began visiting the studio of painter Léon Bonnat, where he began to seriously study painting. He developed an accomplished style in a relatively short period of time and had his first studio in his parents' home. In 1873, Caillebotte entered into the École des Beaux-Arts, but apparently did not spend much time there. Gustave Caillebotte inherited his father’s fortune in 1874 and the three sons divided the family fortune after their mother’s death in 1878. Around 1874, Gustave Caillebotte met and befriended several artists working outside the official French Academy, including Edgar Degas and Giuseppe de Nittis, and attended,but did not participate in, the first Impressionist exhibition of 1874. Gustave Caillebotte used this fortune to enable himself to paint and to help out his fellow artists in the Impressionist group. Gustave Caillebotte’s wealth may have caused his relationship with the other impressionist to become unequal. In any event, Caillebotte’s role within the Impressionist group was more than that of a simple fellow participant, and it was his financial support, rather than his critical success, which was most crucial to his colleagues. This financial aid that Caillebotte contributed to the group changed people’s conception of him. His status within the Impressionist group was never solidified and the true reason for his membership was questionable. Gustave Caillebotte's painting themes were catholic. For example, he painted portraits and interior scenes, urban life, still lifes, and landscapes and seascapes. Gustave Caillebotte often chose an overhead vantage point for his compositions and depicted elegantly dressed figures strolling with the expressionless look of sleep walkers. His metropolitan scenes led editor Anne Distel to title a book about him, Gustave Caillebotte: Urban Impressionist. Gustave Caillebotte is best known for his paintings of urban Paris, such as The Bridge 'De l'Europe', and Paris Street; Rainy Day. It's almost unique among his works for its particularly flat colors and photo-realistic effect which gives the painting its distinctive and modern look, almost akin to American Realists such as Edward Hopper.

Artist of the Week: Walter Sickert

English painter, art critic, and one of the persons suggested as Jack the Ripper. Walter Sickert was a dominant figure in 19th-century British Impressionism. For much of Walter Sickert's career he painted in a shadowy naturalistic way. Sickert's most famous works include the "Camden Town" paintings, which present the grim, seedy side of urban life. A member of the Camden Town Group, Sickert was a cosmopolitan and eccentric who favored ordinary people and urban scenes as his subjects. Walter Richard Sickert was born in Munich on May 31, 1860 into a Danish-German family. His father, Oswald Adalbert Sickert, was an artist. With others he contributed to the satiric magazine Die fliegenden Blätter. Sickert's mother, Eleanor Louisa Moravia, on account of the money she received from one of her relatives, was in practice the financial mainstay of the family. Sickert's sister, Helena, became later a champion of women's rights and published a book of memoirs in 1935. In 1868 the family settled in England. The young Walter Sickert was sent to University College School from 1870-1871 before transferring to King's College School, Wimbledon, where he studied until the age of 18. Though Walter Sickert was the son and grandson of painters, he at first sought a career as an actor. Walter Sickert appeared in small parts in Sir Henry Irving's company, before taking up the study of art as assistant to James McNeill Whistler. Sickert's early works were signed "pupil of Whistler". Walter Sickert later went to Paris and met Edgar Degas, whose use of pictorial space and emphasis on drawing would have a powerful effect on Sickert's own work. Later he described the elder master as having a "rollicking and somewhat bear like sense of fun, half regarded and half affected to regard me, erroneously I fear, as the typical and undoubted Englishman". Walter Sickert developed a personal version of Impressionism, favoring somber coloration. Following Degas' advice, Sickert painted in the studio, working from drawings and memory as an escape from "the tyranny of nature". Walter Sickert painting "The Camden Town Murder"Walter Sickert's earliest major works were portrayals of scenes in London music halls, often depicted from complex and ambiguous points of view, so that the spatial relationship between the audience, performer and orchestra becomes confused, as figures gesture into space and others are reflected in mirrors. The isolated rhetorical gestures of singers and actors seem to reach out to no-one in particular, and audience members are portrayed stretching and peering to see things that lie beyond the visible space. This theme of confused or failed communication between people appears frequently in his art. Walter Sickertt lived in Dieppe and spent some time in Venice. When Oscar Wilde was released from prison, he fled the ostracism of London for France, where he met Sickert and Aubrey Beardsley. They, however, were not happy to see him. In 1885 Sickert married Ellen Melicent Ashburner Cobden, the daughter of the influential Liberal politician Richard Cobden. Born in 1848, she was much older that Sickert. The marriage was childless, and apparently unhappy. According to some sources, Walter Sickert had an affair with an attractive artist's model named Annie Crook, who gave birth to Joseph "Hobo" Sickert. Sickert spent much of his time away from home, afraid that his infidelity would be made public. Officially Ellen divorced him in 1899. Back in London in 1905, Walter Sickert set up a studio in Soho and took rooms in Camden Town. His output was now almost exclusively music hall scenes and the faded life around him. Walter Sickert taught at the Westminster Institute, started a school for etching, and held shows at London and Paris galleries. In 1911 Sickert founded the Camden Town Group, enlarged and renamed the London Group three years later. It was influenced by Post-Impressionism and Expressionism, but concentrated on scenes of often drab suburban life; Sickert himself said he preferred the kitchen to the drawing room as a scene for paintings. Walter Sickert painting based on Jack the Ripper " Jack the Ripper's Bedroom"Walter Sickert had studios in the East End, a working-class section of London, where between August and November 1888 five prostitutes were murdered. In 1909, Sickert produced a series of paintings, known as the Camden Town Murders, which were based on these killings. The killer was given the nickname "Jack the Ripper". It came from the flow of letters, signed "Yours truly, Jack the Ripper". Sickert was interested in the Jack the Ripper crime and believed that he had lodged in the room used by the infamous serial killer, having been told this by his landlady, who suspected a previous lodger. Walter Sickert painted the room, entitling it "Jack the Ripper's bedroom," portraying it as a dark, brooding, almost unintelligible space. In 1976, Stephen Knight's Jack the Ripper: The Final Solution contended that Sickert had been forced to take part as an accomplice in the Ripper murders. His information was derived from Joseph Gorman, who claimed to be one of Sickert's illegitimate children. From this developed a popular conspiracy theory, which accuses royalty and freemasonry of complicity in the crimes. Jean Overton Fuller, in Sickert and the Ripper Crimes , claimed that Sickert was the actual killer. In 2002, crime novelist Patricia Cornwell, in "Portrait of a Killer: Jack the Ripper - Case Closed", presented her theory that Walter Sickert was responsible for the murders, one of the motivating factors being an alleged defect in his penis. Cornwell purchased 31 of Sickert's paintings and it is claimed that she destroyed one or more of them searching for his DNA. She said eventually she was able to scientifically prove that the DNA on a letter attributed to the Ripper and one written by Sickert belong to one per cent of the population. Sickert specialists and Ripperologists view Cornwell's theory with derision.

Artist of the Week: Henry Tanner

The most distinguished African-American artist of the nineteenth century, Henry Ossawa Tanner was also the first artist of his race to achieve international acclaim. Tanner is often regarded as a realist painter, focusing on accurate depictions of subjects. While his early works, such as "The Banjo Lesson" were concerned with everyday life as an African American, Tanner's later paintings focused mainly on the religious subjects for which he is now best known. It is likely that Tanner's father, a minister in the African Methodist Church, was a formative influence in this direction.

Tanner was born on June 21, 1859, in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania , to Benjamin Tucker and Sarah Miller Tanner. Tanner's father was a college-educated teacher and minister who later became a bishop in the African Methodist Episcopalian Church. Sarah Tanner was a former slave whose mother had sent her north to Pittsburg gh through the Underground Railroad. Tanner's family moved frequently during his early years when his father was assigned to various churches and schools. In 1864 Tanner's family settled in Philadelphia where his early artistic interests were developed. At age thirteen, Tanner decided to become an artist when he saw a painter at work during a walk in Fairmount Park near his home. Throughout his teens, Tanner painted and drew constantly in his spare time and tried to look at art as much as possible in Philadelphia art galleries.

Henry's first artistic efforts were marine scenes and animals painted at the Philadelphia Zoo. In 1878 he painted several Adirondack landscapes while convalescing from an illness. In 1879, Tanner enrolled at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, where he joined Thomas Eakins's coterie. Tanner moved to Atlanta in 1889 in an unsuccessful attempt to support himself as an artist and instructor among prosperous middle class African-Americans. Bishop and Mrs. Joseph C. Hartzell arranged for Tanner's first solo exhibition, the proceeds from which enabled the struggling artist to move to Paris in 1891.

Henry moved to Paris France to escape the racial prejudice that was an impediment to the aspirations and ambitions of all African Americans in that era. Paris was a welcome escape for Tanner; within French art circles the issue of race mattered little. Tanner acclimated quickly to Parisian life.

In Paris, Tanner was introduced to many new artworks that would affect the way in which he painted. At the Louvre, Tanner encountered and studied the works of Gustave Courbet, Jean-Baptiste Chardin and Louis Le Nain. These artists had painted scenes of ordinary people in their environment and the effect in Tanner’s work is noticeable. One example is the striking similarity between Tanner’s “The Young Sabot Maker” (1895) and Courbet’s “The Stonebreakers” (1850). Both paintings explore the theme of apprenticeship and menial labor. Henry Tanner studied under renowned artists such as Jean Joseph Benjamin Constant and Jean-Paul Laurens. With their guidance Tanner began to make a name for himself. His painting entitled “Daniel in the Lions Den”, was accepted into the 1896 Salon. Later that year he painted “The Resurrection of Lazarus”. The critical praise for this piece solidified Tanner’s position in the artistic elite and heralded the future direction of his paintings, to mostly biblical themes. This painting would eventually lead to Tanner's first trip to the Middle East. In 1893 on a short return visit to the United States, Tanner painted his most famous work, The Banjo Lesson. The painting shows an elderly black man teaching what is assumed to be his grandson how to play the banjo. This deceptively simple-looking work explores several important themes. Blacks had long been stereotyped as entertainers in American culture, and the image of a black man playing the banjo appears throughout American art of the late 19th century. Tanner worked against the familiar stereotype of minstrel banjo players by producing a sensitive reinterpretation. Instead of a generalization the painting portrays a specific moment of human interaction. The two characters concentrate intently on the task before them. They seem to be oblivious to the rest of the world which magnifies the sense of real contact and cooperation. Skillfully painted portraits of the individuals make it obvious that these are real people and not types. In addition to being a meaningful exploration of human qualities, the piece is masterfully painted. Tanner undertakes the difficult endeavor of two separate and varying light sources. A natural white, blue glow from outside enters from the left while the warm light from a fireplace is apparent on the right. The figures are illuminated where the two light sources meet; some have hypothesized this as a manifestation of Tanner’s situation in transition between two worlds, his American past and his newfound home in France Henry O. Tanner continued to paint until the mid 1930s. He died in Paris, France on May 25, 1937.

Artist of the Week: Francis Bacon

Francis Bacon's artwork is known for its bold, austere, homoerotic and often violent or nightmarish imagery, which typically shows room-bound masculine figures isolated in glass or steel geometrical cages set against flat, nondescript backgrounds. Francis Bacon is considered to be one of the most important painters of the figure in the second half of the twentieth century. There is hardly a museum in the world that doesn't own at least one of Francis Bacon's artworks, or wish they did. And invariably they are ghastly, beefy, ugly things even his friends refuse to hang in their living rooms. Often there is a discordant homosexual theme running through his triptychs, usually stopping just short of the obscene, but never in traditional "good taste." Recurring images of popes, sides of beef, wrestling nude men, distorted, cubistic to a point, truncated, but never without a keen sense of sharp insight into himself, others, and society in general. Francis Bacon was born in Dublin to an Irish-born mother, and Australian-born English father. His father, Eddy Bacon, was a veteran of the South African Boer War who became a racehorse trainer. His mother Winnie, an heiress to a Sheffield steel business and coal mine, was noted for her outgoing, gregarious nature, a stark contrast to her highly strung and argumentative husband. Raised with three siblings, Francis Bacon is a descendant of the sixteenth-century statesman and essayist of the same name. A sickly child with asthma and a violent allergy to dogs and horses, Bacon was often given morphine to ease his suffering during attacks. The family shifted houses often, moving back and forth between Ireland and England several times leading to a feeling of displacement that would remain with the artist throughout his life. Though Francis was a shy child, he enjoyed dressing up. This, coupled with his effeminate manner, often enraged his father and created a distance between them. "I've never known why my paintings are known as horrible. I'm always labeled with horror, but I never think about horror. Pleasure is such a diverse thing. And horror is too. Can you call the famous Isenheim altar a horror piece? Its one of the greatest paintings of the Crucifixion, with the body studded with thorns like nails, but oddly enough the form is so grand it takes away from the horror. But that is the horror in the sense that it is so vitalizing; isn't that how people came out of the great tragedies? People came out as though purged into happiness, into a fuller reality of existence". - Francis Bacon

Artist of the Week: Otto Dix

Otto Dix, the great German Expressionist, was famous for his unique and grotesque style. Although Hitler's Nazi regime destroyed many of Otto Dix's works, the majority of his paintings can still be seen in museums throughout Germany. Noted for his ruthless and harshly realistic depictions of Weimar society and of the brutality of war, Otto Dix, along with George Grosz, is widely considered one of the most important artists of the Neue Sachlichkeit. Otto Dix lived through Germany’s most turbulent and exciting times of the early twentieth century and depicted the harsh realities of these times in his work. Some of his most famous work originated from his World War I experiences. Dix concentrated on portraying the energy and spectacle of war and only represented the true horrors of war in the post-war years, when he returned to Dresden. Otto Dix, the son of Franz Dix and Louise Amann, was born in Unternhaus, Germany, in 1891. After attending elementary school he worked locally until 1910 when he became a student at the Dresden School of Arts and Crafts. To help fund his education, Otto Dix accepted commissions and painted portraits of local people. When the First World War erupted, Otto Dix enthusiastically volunteered for the German Army. He was taken to a field artillery regiment in Dresden. In the fall of 1915 he was assigned as a non-commissioned officer of a machine-gun unit in the Western front and took part of the Battle of the Somme. Otto Dix was seriously wounded several times. In 1917, his unit was transferred to the Eastern front until the end of hostilities with Russia. Back in the western front, Otto Dix fought in the German Spring offensive. Otto Dix earned the Iron Cross and reached the rank of vice-sergeant-major. Dix was profoundly affected by the sights of the war. Otto Dix would later tell about his recurring nightmare where he was crawling through destroyed houses. He produced a series of drawings and prints that reflected that traumatic period, including "Stormtroops Advancing Under Gas" shown above. After the war, in Dresden, Otto Dix co-founded a secession called "Gruppe 19" and later "Young Rhineland." During the 20's and 30's, Otto Dix dabbled in Dada and a movement he started himself called "Neue Sachlichkeit" (new objectivity). Otto Dix' paintings became his expression of the bleaker side of life, especially war. Otto Dix used realistic pictures of disfigured soldiers as his model. Like the work of his friend and fellow veteran George Grosz, Dix's material was extremely critical of contemporary German society and often dwelled on the act of Lustmord, or sexual murder. As well as grotesquely and starkly depicting the realities of post-war German society, Otto Dix also began working with portraiture, which as his career developed, became famous for its “evil eye” as he always emphasized the weaknesses and worse characteristics of his sitters from whatever class of society they came from, friends or strangers. Art Dealer Karl Nierendorf convinced Dix to move to Berlin in 1925 and this period of just over a year, during Germany’s “Golden Twenties”, was a fascinating era in his career. Here Otto Dix produced his finest and most mature portraits and had his first one-man exhibition. After the excitement of metropolitan Berlin, Dix returned to Dresden in 1927 to teach at Dresden Academy as well as building a family. Otto Dix began to enjoy a very happy time in his life, which became noticeable in some of his work. In his six years at the Academy Otto Dix completed two more masterpieces; ‘Metropolis’ (shown above) and ‘War’, which are described as “a summation of all his ideas on the two main themes of his work: sex and war (death).” Emulating the triptych style of the middle ages, Dix began painting his own triptychs. In "Metropolis" Dix paints himself in the left-hand panel as a crippled soldier returning from the trenches. In the center, healthy patrons of a nightclub dance the night away, blithely unaware of the physical and psychological cost paid by men such as Dix. The decadence of the Weimar Republic days glares like neon in these images, especially in the right-hand panel, where a series of modishly clad women file past without a second glance a legless veteran begging for help. In 1933 Adolf Hitler came to power in Germany. Hitler and his Nazi government disliked Dix's anti-military paintings and arranged for him to be sacked from his post as art tutor at the Dresden Academy. Dix's dismissal letter said that his work "threatened to sap the will of the German people to defend themselves". Dix left Dresden and went to live near Lake Constance in the south-west of Germany. Soon afterwards, two of Dix's paintings, The Trench and War Cripples, appeared in an Nazi exhibition to discredit modern art. The show called Reflections of Decadence was held in Dresden Town Hall. Later, several of Dix's anti-war paintings were destroyed by the Nazi authorities in Germany. The Nazis actually arrested Otto Dix in 1939, charging him with plotting to kill Hitler, but released him later. At the end of World War II, as the Nazis conscripted every warm body into their failing war effort, they forced Dix to fight again for Germany. After the war, Otto Dix returned to his native Dresden, which had been ravaged by the infamous firebombing. Unlike his World War One paintings which aimed to depict the realities of war, his paintings during World War Two attempted to redeem those horrific times through religion. By that point, even Dix was unable to accept and confront the true sadness and horror of war. After the war, Dix’s work still suffered as he was divided between two Germanys with opposing ideologies, meaning he was never able to commit to any style. At the end of his life Otto Dix continued painting religious allegories, landscapes and of course portraits, but many say his work had lost the accuracy and “tautness” Otto Dix brought the truth about war out of the trenches and into the light of day, thrusting it before the eyes of an ignorant world that refused and still refuses to see.

Wino painting is now a tattoo

Our Wino painting has been a big hit with one of our viewers. He decided to have this Michael Arnold original painting tattooed onto his forearm!

Sun Worshipper

"Sun Worshipper" 2010 Acrylic on canvas 30 x 40 inches

"Sun Worshipper" is an original, signed acrylic painting on a gallery-wrapped canvas by Citrus County Florida Artist Michael Arnold. "Its light nourishes us. Its warmth comforts us. Even with worries of the world and manmade creations crowding in around us, the Sun’s rays flit across the Earth’s surface weaving their through brick and mortar until they bathe us in light and warmth. It cannot be contained, nor can we fathom a time when it won’t wake us in the morning or thrill us with its beauty at sunset". Be sure to look at the additional views of "Sun Worshipper" to truly capture the vibrant color tones of this Michael Arnold original painting on canvas. This acrylic painting on canvas makes a bold statement on any wall where it is displayed. "Sun Worshipper Fauvism Style art painting is on a quality gallery wrapped canvas. All sides are painted with no staples showing. The painting is ready to be hung and can be displayed with or without a frame. Each painting by award winning Citrus County artist Michael Arnold is an original one of a kind signed piece of art and comes with a certificate of authenticity. The painting is delivered on a stretched canvas. "Sun Worshipper" prints may be purchased here. This artwork was created using acrylic paint on a high quality wrapped canvas. Acrylic paint works very well on stretched canvas. When purchasing artwork many people aren't sure what the difference is between acrylic and oil paintings. The main difference between acrylics and oil paints is the inherent drying time.

Purchase Price $625

Michael Arnold Art Saxophone a part of Mural

Sue Duda's "Fiddle", "Banjo" and "Guitar" Batik , Steven Johnson's "Strummin' Blues" and Michael Arnold's "Saxophone" were combined to create this 20 ' x 15' mural installed in Thunder Road Steakhouse and Cantina, a new restaurant in Albuquerque, New Mexico. The Mural was designed by I-5 Design and Manufacture.

Faith

2010 Acrylic on canvas 24 x 36 inches

“Faith” is an original, signed acrylic painting on a gallery-wrapped canvas by Citrus County Florida artist Michael Arnold. "People need faith in something to reassure their existence and to reaffirm their values in life. We live in world where we are constantly bombarded by images—visually and cerebrally. "Faith" contains various suggestions that one with faith may find relevant. Some may enjoy searching for the individual image hidden within, or will merely enjoy the overall experience of the work. For those of you, who like a challenge, try to find as many of the hidden images as possible. The process for this painting was a little different from what I normally attempt. I washed the entire canvas with four coats of phthalocyanine blue mixed with water. Then without using any sketches or drawing anything on the canvas to guide me I painted suggestions of the various scenes using a mixture of Payne’s Gray and phthalocyanine blue. Using the same mixture, I went back over the entire work drawing in cuneiform-like marks. I then I masked the original scenes even further with azo orange. SPOILER ALERT: Beneath the surface see if you can spot the following stories contained in the Bible including the Four Horseman of the Apocalypse; Christ on the Cross, Adam and Eve; the forbidden fruit; the serpent; the Pearly Gates of Heaven; the last supper; the Tree of Knowledge; the Tree of Life; Daniel in the lion’s den; and Noah’s ark." The original acrylic painting "Faith" makes a bold statement on any wall where it is displayed. art painting is on a quality gallery wrapped canvas. Additional views of this acrylic painting on canvas may be viewed here. All sides are painted with no staples showing. The painting is ready to be hung and can be displayed with or without a frame. Each painting by award winning Citrus County artist Michael Arnold is an original one of a kind signed piece of art and comes with a certificate of authenticity. The painting is delivered on a stretched canvas. "Faith" prints may be purchased here.

Purchase price $400

"Eric Arnold"

“Eric Arnold” is an original, signed graphite work by artist Michael Arnold. Eric is my youngest brother. He was a great father and husband, whose time on Earth was far too short. He had an adventurous spirit, wasn't afraid to try anything or do anything and faced life's challenges with hope and enthusiasm; relishing every opportunity that came his way. All who knew him, loved him.

"Don't Wear Your Heart on Your Sleeve Denim Jacket"

The American Cancer Society's annual "Cattle Barons Ball" is a critical effort that not only raises funds for all of the local endeavors to assist cancer victims and their loved ones, but also raises awareness and support in the hopes that one day this disease will never take another life! This event scheduled for January 30, 2010, at the Citrus Springs Community Center, allows area artists to contribute their special talents by designing an unique piece of artwork on a denim jacket. All jackets will be displayed during the ball and guests will be allowed to purchase tickets toward the jacket of their choice. Later on in the evening tickets will be drawn and the announcement of the lucky winners will be made! All proceeds will go directly into Citrus County's American Cancer Society funds to reach out to local cancer survivors. "Don't wear your heart on your sleeve" was created by local award winning artist Michael Arnold. The inspiration for this original artwork came from an earlier sketch made by the artist. He combined the sketch with an idea to make to artwork completely from hearts and the end result was this beautiful and unique piece of art! The drawing was sketched out on the back on a denim jacket and then painted in using acrylic paints. The artwork took repeated coats of paints since the denim jacket absorbed paint easily. All parts of the painting, including the girl and the background is made entirely by using different sizes of heart shapes. After the painting was completed the artist added several coats of varnish over the top of the artwork to preserve it. This unique artwork is signed by the artist and is truly breathtaking to view!

Dave Arnold

2008 18 x 24 inches acrylic on canvas painting

“Dave Arnold” is an original, signed acrylic painting on a gallery-wrapped canvas by artist Michael Arnold. This is a portrait of my son, Dave Arnold. The painting is based on a picture that was taken on Dave's honeymoon. He is standing on the balcony of an ocean side hotel room in Daytona Beach. When I saw the vivid colors of the photo, I knew right away that I wanted to create a painting from it. I believe the painting captures both the spirit of my son and the beautiful natural setting of Daytona Beach, Florida. The painting was a gift and is not available for purchase. I have also painted a portrait of Dave's wife and it can be viewed here. The painting makes a bold statement on any wall where it is displayed. Click on the additional views button below to get a better close up of the color and design of this unique painting. "Dave Arnold" prints can be purchased here. This artwork was created using acrylic paint on a high quality wrapped canvas. Acrylic paint works very well on stretched canvas. When purchasing artwork many people aren't sure what the difference is between acrylic and oil paintings. The main difference between acrylics and oil paints is the inherent drying time.

The Rose

2007 18 x 24 inches acrylic painting on canvas

“The Rose” is an original, signed acrylic painting on a gallery-wrapped canvas by artist Michael Arnold. I created this painting in my art class. One of the students had a rose and I wanted to capture the inner natural beauty of the flower. My interpretation of the flower gives it an abstract and surreal tone, but to me this is exactly how the rose looked, with it's beautiful petals! I have shown this painting in the frame because I felt like the black frame added to the art piece. This original painting is unavailable for purchase. The painting makes a bold statement on any wall where it is displayed. "The Rose" is available as the front of note cards and the prints can be purchased here. This artwork was created using acrylic paint on a high quality wrapped canvas. Acrylic paint works very well on stretched canvas.

Face in the Crowd

2008 Acrylic on canvas 24 x 18 inches “Face in the Crowd” is an original, signed acrylic painting on canvas by artist Michael Arnold. This painting was created from a photograph I took at my daughter-in-laws college graduation. I was looking around and notices everyone was turned and facing the graduates, except this one person. The thoughtful expression on his face was intriguing and I wanted to share the emotion through my painting.

Purchase Price $200

Ode to the Gators Presents" It's Amazing"

Michael Arnold Art Video

"Lilies in Window"

2008 Acrylic on canvas 24 x 30 inches“Lilies in Window” is an original, signed acrylic painting on a gallery-wrapped canvas by artist Michael Arnold. This painting was a commission piece done for a client. The design was made from a picture the client had found in a magazine. The painting was created in greys and white with a pop of color added to the tops of the lilies.

"Life One"

2008 Acrylic on canvas 30 x 40 inches “Life One” is an original, signed acrylic painting on canvas by artist Michael Arnold. I don’t pretend to know or understand how life formed around us; whether through spontaneous generation, omne vivum ex ovo (everything living from an egg) or intelligent design. My painting, in fact, could be interpreted as all three; I’ll leave that to the viewer to decide. Instead, I’ll talk about how I created “Life One.” First I picked a focal point and began drawing random diagonals through the focal point. Once I had covered the canvas in diagonals, I alternately painted the spaces formed by the diagonals in watered down magenta and green. I chose those two colors because I felt they would recede and make the yellows, oranges and reds pop more once they were painted over them. Then using a white colored pencil I freehand sketched the approximation of the Fibonacci Spiral beginning at the focal point. I then began drawing amorphous shapes following the outline of the spiral. Once the drawing was complete I began painting in two shades of yellows, two shades of oranges and a shade of red. I chose their placement by feel with no real plan of where each color would end up. I built up a half dozen layers of paint through glazes before mixing thicker layers of paint to create the shadows and highlights for the shapes.

Purchase Price $750

Flying the Coop

2006 Graphite on paper 18 x 24 inches

Flying the Coop is an original 18x24, pencil drawing by Citrus County Florida artist Michael Arnold. "The drawing’s inspiration was from a montage I created using cutout magazine ads. I wanted to merge indoor and outdoor elements with the man in the drawing caught in mid leap between the two. This drawing was one of my first efforts after deciding to take my art more seriously. As a side note, at one time I owned a cabinet shop, and my love for cabinetry is something I wanted to showcase in the artwork " This is artwork is created on white art paper and drawn with high quality graphite pencils. "Flying the Coop is an one of a kind art piece by award winning Citrus County Florida artist Michael Arnold. The artwork is displayed with a double matting, one gold and the other black in a simple gold frame. This art piece is not for sale.

Citrus County Courthouse 1900

2006 Colored Pencil Drawing 18 x 24 inches

Citrus County Courthouse is an original 18x24, colored pencil drawing by Citrus County Florida artist Michael Arnold. "The drawing is from a photograph of the old wooden courthouse in Inverness around 1900. The courthouse was replaced by a stone structure in 1912, and was where Elvis Presley filmed the climatic court scene in Follow That Dream in 1961. I enjoyed incorporating negative space into the artwork by working on black paper and using white, gray, blue and yellow colored pencils. This unique style adds age to the courthouse, while displaying it as you would find it back in 1900. " This is artwork is created on black art paper and drawn with high quality color pencils. Citrus County Courthouse 1900 is an one of a kind piece that combines both history and art.

StipeThree

2008 Acrylic on canvas 40 x 30 inches

“Stipe Three” is an original, signed acrylic painting on a gallery-wrapped canvas by artist Michael Arnold. This is the third painting in my Michael Stipe series. I painted the background using a painting knife loaded with modeling paste and a mix of yellow oxide, cadmium yellow medium and buff titanium. I placed lines of red oxide, permanent green light and phthalocyanine blue side by side to build up the various tones for the portrait. I used touches of cadmium yellow light and medium to add some highlights and finished it off with pure yellow oxide to punch up the neutral tones.

Purchase $625

Psychedelic Stipe

2008 Acrylic on canvas 24 x 30 inches

“Psychedelic Stipe” is an original, signed acrylic painting on a gallery-wrapped canvas by artist Michael Arnold. I am working through a series of portraits of Michael Stipe, the lead singer for the alternative rock band R.E.M..I plan to work different designs and colors into my portraits to add variety. I used the psychedelic colors and lines to add a pop art design to this portrait, hoping to to try to capture a rock and roll feeling.

Purchase Price $525

"Sunset"

2008 Acrylic on canvas 24 x 30 inches

“Sunset” is an original, signed acrylic painting on a gallery-wrapped canvas by artist Michael Arnold. I love the vivid colors created when the sun sets. The bold color palette captures the beauty and warmth of the sun in this abstract nature painting. The broad strokes and course lines describe nature as a living, changing entity.

Purchase Price $475

"Stipe"

2008 Acrylic on canvas 24 x 24 inches

“Stipe” is an original, signed acrylic painting on a gallery-wrapped canvas by artist Michael Arnold. I had the opportunity to see REM perform in Atlanta this year. The show was great and so was Michael Stipe. This painting attempts to capture the emotion within the artist. I used small watercolor brushes to create the fine lines and details, attempting to give the artwork a charcoal drawing feel to it. The basic color palette also adds to the emotional state of the painting.

Purchase Price $550

Giraffe

2008 Acrylic on canvas 18 x 36 inches

“Giraffe” is an original, signed acrylic painting on gallery-wrapped canvas by artist Michael Arnold. This painting is done in a similar pop art style to “Sunflower,” “Blue Girl” and “She’s Got Legs.” I like simplifying the painting to interesting shapes and shadows. The basic color palette helps induce the feel of the Serengeti plains in Africa. The tall canvas displays the giraffe in all it's glory.

Purchase Price $400

Tulips

2008 Acrylic on canvas 36 x 24 inches

"Tulips" is an original, signed acrylic painting on a gallery-wrapped canvas by artist Michael Arnold. This my first attempt at tulips. I would definitely like to revisit this subject in the future."Tulips" uses nature's bright colors to create a springtime impressionistic style painting .

Purchase Price $500

Two Roses

2007 Acrylic on canvas 20 x 24 inches

Two Roses” is an original, signed acrylic painting on a quality canvas by Citrus County Florida Artist Michael Arnold. "Roses are another favorite subject of mine. These are two roses from my wife’s rose bushes I sketched one morning. I then combined them into a single painting. "Two Roses" utilizes amazing detail and vivid color bring this original painting to life. . Michael Arnold's "Two Roses" acrylic painting is on a quality canvas. This acrylic painting is on a quality canvas. The sides are not painted and it needs to be hung with a frame. Each painting by award winning Florida resident Michael Arnold is an original one of a kind signed piece of art and comes with a certificate of authenticity. The painting is delivered on a stretched canvas. Be sure to look at the additional views of "Two Roses" to truly capture the vibrant color tones of the acrylic painting on canvas. "Two Roses" original acrylic painting makes a bold statement on any wall where it is displayed. "Two Roses" original acrylic painting prints may be purchased here and note cards may be purchased here.

Purchase Price $350