It’s Maurice De Vlaminck’s Birthday – Raw Power

Maurice de Vlaminck (b. 1876-1958 Paris, France). was one of the original founders of a group of artists called the Fauvists. The small group of artists, whose members included Henry Matisse and Andre Derain used pure of vibrant colour, this caused them to be named ‘Fauves’ (wild beasts) by art critic Louis Vauxcelles after seeing

Happy Birthday Max Ernst!!

Max Ernst born 1891- 1976 was a Surrealist artist. Born in Germany, he became a Naturalised American in 1948 and French in 1958. He was prolific in painting, sculpture, poetry and graphic art and a leading light and pioneer in his artistic approach to Surrealism and Dadaism. A lot of information about the artist and

Room Full of Mirrors (Part One)

“I used to live in a room full of mirrorsAll I could see was meThen I take my spirit and I smash my mirrorsAnd now the whole world is here for me to see” It seems that we have always lived in a room full of mirrors.  Our fascination with our own reflection has never

New Random Art An A-Z ‘A’

Random art – An A-Z Alphabetical Random Artists. The aim is to feature one for each letter of the alphabet. This is not only to expand my knowledge – but to get me back into blogging more regularly. My method will be to choose alphabetically 3 at random, look at them all and pick the

My 500th post

It’s not really my 500th post – that was yesterday, but I wanted to commemorate the Titanic.  I have been playing around with WordPress’ slide show tutorial and I thought what could be more fitting than to try to make a slide show of some of the items I have featured on my blog so far.  Starting in

On the Town

It was National Museum day 1st February.  I followed the Tate Modern London, Tate Liverpool, Dox Prague and Beamish.  But you don’t have to wait for a special day to support museums – you can support them any time and the best way is to actually visit them.  I love popping into the Manchester City

Art I LOVE:The Sound of Silence – Vermeer

Sometimes the sound of silence can actually be very informative.  I’m talking of course about the sort of silent narrative that some of the old Master’s used to convey quietness, closeness and intimacy.  Dutch artist Johannes Vermeer (c.1632 -1675) is a good example of capturing the private moment and sharing it with you.   When you look

‘Happy Birthday Dear Dali!’

It’s legendary artist Salvador Dali’s birthday today!  He would have celebrated his 105th birthday (and been in the Guinness Book of Records) is he’d have lived!  He died in Figueres Spain (his birthplace) of heart failure in 1989, aged 84. He is in my opinion the  personification of a painter: talented, original and as mad