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ARTISTS AND THEIR
WORK
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CERI RICHARDS
 Ceri Richards was born in Dunvant on the outskirts of
Swansea in1903. Many consider his works from the
1930s to be some of the most famous from this period
by any British artist. He was a natural draughtsman,
making drawings, and also a stained glass designer,
but more than anything, he was an extremely good
artist.
Images with kind permission of Ceri Richards
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• He was also a great
print maker and, time
after time, he was seen
to turn to this medium
throughout his career.
He saw it as an
important way of
expressing art. Indeed,
one of his prints was
described as the best
produced in the 20th
century. Two series of
prints are outstanding,
namely the Beethoven
Series and the Dylan
Thomas Series.
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Images with kind permission of Ceri Richards
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Images with kind permission of Ceri Richards
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REBECCA HORN
 Rebecca Horn is one of
Germany’s most famous
contemporary artists. In
her work, she combines a
variety of media: video,
performance, installations
and sculpture. Since the
early 1970s, she has also
been associated with filmmaking.
 She designs and makes
instruments used for
presenting the human
body: spatial installations
where the human being is
one of the main elements
of presentation.
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 In her work, Horn holds a
multi-layered conversation
on issues of Nature,
Culture and Technology.
Frequently she uses
mythological references.
The basic subject of her
work is human
oversensitivity, emotional
nature, obsessions and
fears
 Frequently, she uses
locations that have been
identified historically or
emotionally in some
specific way as a setting for
her projects; sometimes,
she creates her
environments outside the
locality of any museum.
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Click here to see
examples of the
artists work
 This example, River of the Moon: Room of Lovers, includes
violins, motors and a bed. The picture was taken in the
Peninsular Hotel, Barcelona, in 1992. The title, the fact that
she uses a hotel room and the sound of violins convey
romantic images; the arbitrary setting of the numerous
violins suggests dancing. It is as though the lovers have left
the room and left a visual reminder of their reminiscences
for us.
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CLAES OLDENBURG
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 Claes Oldenburg is one of America’s most creative and
popular artists.
 He was born in Stockholm in 1929. While he was
young his family moved to New York, then settled in
Chicago. He attended Yale University between 1946
and 1950 and then after a period as a news reporter
started teaching courses in Chicago Art College.
 Claes Oldenburg has changed the way everyday items
look. Claes Oldenburg does this by making hard
materials soft and soft materials hard. He made small
things large. He used bright colours and put
sculptures in public places e.g. the local park or in the
city centre so that everyone can admire them.
Click here to see
examples of the
artists work
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WASSILY KANDINSKY
 Wassily Kandinsky, a man from Russia. Full name
VASILY VASILYEVICH KANDINSKY
 An artist born in Russia, and one of the first to create
pure abstract in modern painting. Following
successful avant-garde exhibitions, he established an
influential group in Munich called Der Blaue Reiter
(The Blue Rider; 1911-14) and started to make pure
abstract paintings. His forms evolved from fluid and
Click here to see
examples of the
artists work
organic to geometric and, finally, pictographic (e.g.,
Tempered Élan, 1944).
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• As an accomplished musician, Kandinsky said once that
colour is the keyboard and the eyes are the harmony, the
soul is the piano with its many strings. The artist is the
hand that plays, touching one keyboard or another, to cause
vibrations in the soul.
• There is a long history to the concept that there is a link
between colour and musical harmony, and it has ignited
the curiosity of scientists such as Sir Isaac Newton.
Kandinsky used colour in an extremely theoretical way,
linking tone and quality (character of sound), shade with
pitch, and saturation with the amount of sound. He even
maintained that when he saw colour he could hear music.
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 The observer has quite a shock when moving from the
apocalyptic emotion of Composition VII to the
geometric rhythm of Composition VIII. Composition
VIII was painted ten years later in 1923, and it reflects
the influence of Suprematism and Constructivism
that absorbed Kandinsky while he was in Russia,
before he returned to Germany to teach in the
Bauhaus.
Composition
VII
Composition
VIII
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 Here, Kandinsky has moved from colour to form as the element in the composition
that dominates most. Now, the contrast between forms gives the work dynamic
balance; the large circle in the upper left plays against the network of precise lines in
the right hand part of the canvas. Also note how Kandinsky uses different colours
within the forms to energise their geometry: a yellow circle with a blue halo against
a blue circle with a yellow halo; a right angle filled with blue and an acute angle
coloured pink. The background also works to enrich the dynamic nature of the
composition. The design does not appear as a geometric exercise on a flat plane, but
it appears as though it is taking place in an undefined space. The layers of
background colours – light blue at the bottom, pale yellow at the top and white in
the middle – define this depth. The forms tend to recede and move forward within
this depth, creating a dynamic pulling and pushing effect.
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Cubism
 Cubism emphasises the importance of form over everything including colour.
 Usually only black, brown and grey were used.
 It shows a subject in a geometric way, using shapes such as cylinders, cones and
cubes.
 Frequently images are changed so much that the image cannot be identified.
 Cubism and modern art were visual and came from the eye and the mind.
 Cubism is the division of a 3D form into a flat surface of colour and pattern.
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PABLO RUIZ PICASSO
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 Pablo Picasso went through a number of phases during his
life when he employed a number of various artistic styles
to express the different emotions which he was
experiencing at the time, namely realism, cartoons, the
blue period the rose period and Cubism.
Girl with a
Mandolin
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Analytical Cubism
 By 1910 Picasso developed Cubism into analytical
cubism.
 The objects were divided into components, and the
parts were put together so that the back and front
were visible at the same time.
 An object would be painted from different angles
using more the one light source.
 The aim of analytical cubism was to show The Guitar Player
an image in a conceptual way, showing
facts also, rather than as a visual image.
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Other Cubist Artists
 Braque
 Metzinger
 Gris
 Leger
 African Culture, especially masks
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HENRI MATISSE
 Matisse was the leader of the Fauvist movement early in his career. It is a
method that emphasises the expression of bright, strong colours and
powerful brush lines. He believed that the arrangement of colour was just
as important as the subject within the picture in conveying the meaning,
and expression of emotion. Many of his subjects were figurative. He
suffered from nervous tension, and this was turned into quiet art. He saw
his art as comfort and rest for himself.
 Matisse argued that an artist did not have control over colour and form,
rather that colour, shape and line called out to sensitive artists. He said
that he gave himself to colour and form, and worked out how colour and
shape are arranged in order to create a suitable picture.
Image La
Musique
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NEALE HOWELLS
 It is difficult to imagine any artist working in worse working conditions
than Neale Howells. His studio and storeroom are at the bottom of his
garden at his house in Neath. He is a wild and aggressive character, but he
is totally passionate about his work. The titles of his work are alarming;
“Perverts in Chapel” and “Buy this or I’ll Kill my Wife and Kids”.
 Neale Howells’ paintings hit one right in the face! He uses emulsion paint,
gloss paint and charcoal, pencil, collage, anything that comes to hand. He
even searches for things on the street and in skips. Howells’ work is not
portrait or landscape but rather pictures of the attitude of our society.
graffiti, slogans, the marks that we see on the walls of our valleys’ and
cities’ streets. His work is much more inventive than it looks at first glance.
Cliciwch yma i weld gwaith
yr arlunydd.
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