QUOTES

Gustav Klimt – “Anyone who wants to find out more about me – as an artist, which is all that’s of interest – should look attentively at my pictures.

”Geothe – “If the totality of a colour is presented to the eye from the outside in the form of an object, it will be pleasing to the eye, because it thereby encounters the sum of its own activity as reality.”

Claude Monet – “Colour is my day-long obsession, joy and torment.”

The Plum Blossoms by Matisse now at MOMA

MoMA Acquires a Mystery Matisse

By VERENA DOBNIKAssociated Press Writer
September 9, 2005,


NEW YORK -- The case of the mystery Matisse last seen in Paris more than three decades ago has been solved.

"The Plum Blossoms," a major painting by the French master, has resurfaced as a new acquisition of the Museum of Modern Art. The painting is likely worth at least $20 million.

"For our 1992 retrospective of Matisse, I'd traveled from Japan to Australia to Mexico to the Soviet Union -- and could not find this painting. So this summer, when the call came, I said, 'How could it be?'" John Elderfield, the museum's chief curator of painting and sculpture and a Matisse expert, said Thursday.

The work Henri Matisse created in 1948 was purchased for MoMA by the museum's new president, Marie-Josee Kravis, and her husband, financier Henry Kravis. One of the artist's late works before his death in 1954, it was last publicly displayed in 1970 at the Grand Palais in Paris and was then sold to an unidentified buyer, Elderfield said.

This summer, MoMA was approached by a New York dealer on behalf of a European collector who did not wish to be named. The price was not disclosed, since the transaction with the Kravises was private. But works of this artistic caliber generally go for tens of millions of dollars.
Although MoMA owns about 50 canvases and sculptures by Matisse, the museum did not have any of his late paintings.

In brilliant hues of red and orange, "The Plum Blossoms" shows a woman with a blank, featureless face sitting at a table, with a huge vase of flowers in the foreground. Matisse's aim in leaving the face blank was "to encourage you to look all over the surface of the painting," said Elderfield. "He realized we are biologically constructed to focus on faces more than anything. So he came to the conclusion that the way to make the eyes circulate freely in the space was not to paint the face."

"The Plum Blossoms" is one of seven interiors Matisse painted at his studio in the South of France, in Vence. The other six are owned by various museums and foundations.

"After this series, he really stopped painting," Elderfield said. In his 70s, Matisse ended his life's work by creating whimsical paper cutouts. He had kept "Plum Blossoms" after painting it, and it passed on to his heirs.

Elderfield said the work is in exceptionally fine condition.

"Paintings age, and the more they travel, the more they age," he noted. "This one hasn't traveled for a long time. The surface is so pristine, and the canvas so brilliantly white. It remains untouched."

Hanging the Boy on a Hook:

Artist note:

On: Put the boy on the Hook:

What does it mean? I have no clue.

I started with a square and then many hours later a picture was forming. I do ask myself what is happening, as I go along in the process. I did wonder why the picture inside the picture was a head of a boy facing up. And I questioned the hook - is that what the two naked guys are trying to attach the picture too?

Is there a subtle Christian thing going on with the idealized figure hung?

I tend to do pictures that are meditations. The colors mean something - they are like musical notes. The picture can be seen as a song.
-

Not actual size

Will be auctioned on Ebay starting today, ending next Sunday. We will see how this goes.

An original photographic Montage by American Artist Paul Grant
Suffering for us
(2005)

A small framed edition of this print was put on ebay.

Artist note:
On the picture: Suffering for Us:

As the country recovers from the disaster in New Orleans, we sometimes forget the suffering going on in other parts of the world, whether that be our soldiers or civilians.

The Abu Ghraib Prison is a shameful testament to human cruelty. Hooded, humilified, in some cases sadistically tortured and sexually abused- this was done all in our name.

The people who committed crimes upon the prisoners, did so as representatives of us.

We share in the guilt.

This little picture is just a reminder. By reflection on the darkest of humanity, sometimes, we appreciate the goodness in our lives, and the needto do something in positive directionto help make the world a better place.

-paul grant Memorial Day 2005

*If you would like an 8 x10 print of this for $10.00 please email me at zenseeds@gmail.com

(Thanks for supporting the arts)