Robert Vickrey

Artist: Robert Vickrey
Title: Shadow Play 
Size: 18 1/4 x 24 in

Vickrey, born in Massachusetts in 1926 would one day become one of today's most crucial surreal artists.  His use of shadow and sunset portray very vivid almost dreamlike paintings.  His paintings remind me of childhood imagination to put it simply.  He died last year in Naples, Fl at age 84.

Ed Roth

Artist: Ed Roth
Title: Nitro Sheriff

Ed Roth was a cartoonist, painter, and custom car painter.  He was renowned for his monstrous characters driving hot rod cars.  He did the cover artwork for the album "Junkyard" by the Birthday Party.  Later in his career he began sculpting miniature hot rod cars.  Hotwheels even did a Rat Fink line of cars. 

James Ensor

Artist: James Ensor
Title: the rower
Size: 79 x 99 cm
date: 1883

  Ensor (13 April 1860 – 19 November 1949) was a Belgiam painter/print maker.  He gave took heed on a surrealist style.  He dropped out of school at age 15 to study the arts,  he learned from two local painters.  Many of work was credited to be sacrilegious in taste and was looked down upon by the authority but his paintings continued to gain respect and acknowledgment throughout his art community. 

Francisco de Goya

Artist: Francisco de Goya
Title: El Lazarillo de Tormes
Date: 1746-1828

Goya was regarded as the last of the old painters an the first of the new.  He was a spanish court painter who dove deeply into the romantic category. He painted the portraits of many kings and queens.  He also painted all sides of the Peninsular war between France and Spain and remained neutral throughout the whole ordeal.

Nick Blinko

Artist: Nick Blinko
Title: Asylum


Blinko was born Sept. 4th 1964 in Britain.  He always drew nearly microscopic whimsical creatures.  When he was age 4 he was diagnosed with Schizophrenia which is very evident in his work.  He was also in a band called Rudimentary Peni where he did vocals/guitar/ and all the artwork.  He is now retired musically but still is very renowned in the art world for his work.  He still has art shows to this day.

Claude Cahun

Title: "What do you want from me?"
Artist: Claude Cahun
Date:1928
Medium: photograph

Cahun was a for-runner for Feminist Art.  She was openly lesbian and often cross-dressed.  Her work wasn't discovered and shown proper light until the 1980's.  It was rare for a woman to be openly gay in her time yet she revered much respect from fellow artists.  This is a self portrait which shows a demonic spirit whispering into the ear of her naive counterpart.

Salvador Dali

Artist: Salvador Domènec Felip Jacint Dalí i Domènech
Title: "Sleep"
Date: 1933

Medium: oil on canvas

Dali was a very talented Draftsmen and was renowned for his surreal, neurotic imagery.  His works include film,  sculpture, paintings, and photography.  He was born in Catalonia, Spain on May 11th, 1904.  Dali has been renowned as a public figure as well with his charismatic demeanor and odd/witty interviews.  He is a huge inspiration to many modern artists.

Kandinsky

Artist:Vasily Vasilyevich Kandinsky
Title: "On White"
size:105x98 cm
medium: oil on canvas

Born Dec. 18th 1866 in Moscow, Russia. Kandinsky was one of the first creators of abstraction in the modern form. He had many groundbreaking avant-garde exhibitions and later became solely an abstractionist. He was also an accomplished musician and played the piano. Color is the keyboard, the eyes are the harmonies, the soul is the piano with many strings. The artist is the hand that plays, touching one key or another, to cause vibrations in the soul.

Dr. Seuss

Artist:Theodor Seuss Geisel
Title:Martini Bird
Size: 20x30


Born in Springfield Massachusetts, German immigrant, parents were brewers and he grew up on fairytales.  Most of his work reflects his childhood memories.  In college he started doing comics for Jack-o-Lantern, his colleges Humor magazine.  After college and a long adventure in Europe Theodor returned to America to become a cartoonist.

Fracis Bacon

Artist: Francis Bacon
Size: 24 1/4 x 18"

Bacon was born in Dublin Ireland, he received no formal training in the arts. He was renowned for his massive, distorted, fleshy objects which symbolize the evils of the human condition.  He was a man who lived a life where nothing in particular interested him.  Over all, his paintings depict the isolation of the subjects from the world around them, much like Bacon's reality..

La Vie

Artist: Pablo Picasso
date: 1903
Size: 2 meters tall

Picasso painted this piece during his blue period (hence the colors).  The setting of the painting is in Picasso's studio.  The man in the painting is none other then Carlos Casagemas, one of Picasso's good friends who killed himself when denied by a lover.  Picasso never gave his own interpretation of the painting.

Altre scoverte fatte nella luna dal Sigr

http://www.sil.si.edu/imagegalaxy/imagegalaxy_imageDetail.cfm?id_image=9169

 Title: "Altre scoverte fatte nella luna dal Sigr"
 Medium: 6 leaves of pilates: all mounted and hand colored
Size: 57 x 46 cm
Artist: Leopoldo Galluzzo

 This piece displays the firm elements of line, space, and form.  Line is the primary building block to any work of art,  it is well executed in this piece for it keeps proportion and creates form.  The space in this piece shows the depth and also helps maintain proportions.  The forms of the "space craft" and all its travelers all show great movement and excitement. 


   I selected this piece because it depicts an excitement for further knowledge and exploration.  In this hand colored lithograph you see men and women all in a hot air balloon journey to the moon.  In the days of the industrial revolution, humanity wanted to conquer the planets obstacles through man-made machines and science.  In today's world we just sit complacent with all of these advances made by our ancestors.  Is this thirst for knowledge and progress still apparent, or has it reluctantly died off in this overweight, dull, computer world where excitement is just one click away?