Piet Mondrian

Composition C (No.III) with Red, Yellow and Blue 1935

Dutch pioneer of abstract art, who developed from early landscape pictures to geometric abstract works of a most rigorous kind. Born in Amersfoort, Utrecht. Studied painting at the Amsterdam Academy 1892-4 and again, part-time, 1896-7. Friendship with the painter Simon Mans and painted landscapes in the Hague School tradition. Began to work in a more vividly coloured and sometimes pointillist style in 1908, joined the Theosophic Organisation in 1909 and made some works of a Symbolist character.

 

Pantone - Colour of 2014

Pantone have revealed the colour for 2014 as 18-3224 Radiant Orchid. Such a beautiful dramatic shade of purple, Radiant Orchid complements olive and deeper hunter greens, and offers a gorgeous combination when paired with turquoise, teal and even light yellows.

http://youtu.be/w7nh3NNBlUo 

Jean-Michel Frank

Jean-Michel Frank

Jean Michel Frank was not a minimalist. Some view him as a 1930's maitre of minimalism, However Frank was surprisingly multidimensional.

Frank's life was sadly tainted in 1915 with the death of his two brothers in ww1. His father committed suicide. In 1928, he lost his mother who had been in a Swiss asylum for several years.

Jack Vettriano

Born in Fife, Scotland in 1951, Jack Vettriano left school at sixteen to become a mining engineer. For his twenty-first birthday, a girlfriend gave him a set of watercolour paints and, from then on, he spent much of his spare time teaching himself to paint. In 1989, he submitted two paintings to the Royal Scottish Academy’s annual exhibition; both were accepted and sold on the first day. 

Art Deco style

One of my favourite styles, absolutley timeless, a classic!

Art deco (c.1908 to 1935)

Art deco began in Europe, particularly Paris, in the early years of the 20th century, but didn't really take hold until after World War I. It reigned until the outbreak of World War

 

 

It was not just for the elite. By the 1930s, mass production meant that everyone could live in the deco style. Travel became popular. African safaris were all the rage and animal skins, ivory, mother of pearl, and tortoiseshell began to appear in the home. After Tutankhamun's tomb was discovered, Egyptian pyramids and sphinxes adorned everything.

Style

• geometric and angular shapes
• chrome, glass, shiny fabrics, mirrors and mirror tiles
• stylised images of aeroplanes, cars, cruise liners, skyscrapers
• nature motifs - shells, sunrises, flowers
• theatrical contrasts - highly polished wood and glossy black lacquer mixed with satin and furs
• 

Influences

• art nouveau - deco kept the nature motifs of its predecessor but discarded its flowing organic shapes and pastels for bolder materials and colours such as chrome and black
• cubism -painters such as Picasso were experimenting with space, angles and geometry
• early Hollywood - the glamorous world of the silver screen filtered through to design using shiny fabrics, subdued lighting, and mirrors. Cocktail cabinets and smoking paraphernalia became highly fashionable

The names

• Eileen Gray - furniture
• Raymond Templier - jewellery
• Clarice Cliff - china
• René Lalique - glass and jewellery

At the time

• 1912 RMS Titanic sails
• 1922 Tutankhamun's tomb is discovered
• 1922 Ulysses by James Joyce is published
• 1931 Empire State Building is completed
• Film stars - Greta Garbo, Marlene Dietrich, Ginger Rogers and Fred Astaire
• The charleston and tango are the latest dance crazes, jazz is born and the singer Josephine Baker thrills Paris

Get the look

• Furniture - choose strong, streamlined shapes for furniture and in single pieces rather than suites.
• Fabrics - stick to plain or geometric fabrics and add highlights with cushions also in one solid block of colour.
• Floors - plain polished parquet is perfect for floors. Linoleum in abstract designs or black and white chequerboard vinyl tiles are also typical.
• Rugs - floors would have been overlaid with a large rug in geometric patterns. These were often handmade by artists such as Duncan Grant (of Bloomsbury Group fame).
• Fireplaces - fireplaces should be rectangular and bold. Surrounds were often tiled in pink, green or beige. They were made of concrete and not many survive today.
• Colour - halls suit bold colour schemes such as silver, black, chrome, yellow and red. Creams, greens and beige, or oyster and eau-de-nil suit living rooms and bedrooms.
• Cupboards - cabinets, wardrobes, etc should be in pale veneered wood and simple shapes in keeping with the light, airy feel.
• Design - the stepped profile is the epitome of the art deco shape, found everywhere from uplighters to picture surrounds. Also look for zigzags, chevrons and lightning bolts.
• Lighting - lights featuring female figures holding the ball of the lamp are typical and good reproductions abound. Also look for chrome, a brand new material at the time, and glass. Glass would have been etched, sandblasted or enamelled rather than coloured.

Wrong era? nope these are the bring young things!

 was a nickname given by the tabloid press to a group of bohemian young aristocrats and socialites in 1920s London.^[3] They threw elaborate fancy dress parties, went on elaborate treasure hunts through nighttime London, and drank heavily and experimented with drugs—all of which was enthusiastically covered by the journalists such as Tom Driberg.^[

What to invest in

• ceramics by Susie Cooper and Clarice Cliff
• original art deco rugs
• original posters featuring Bugatti cars etc

Where to see it

• Hoover factory, Middlesex
• The Savoy, London
• Burgh Island Hotel, Bigbury-on-Sea, Devon
• Eltham Palace, London
• Miami Beach, Florida

 

Sourced from:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/homes/design/period_artdeco.shtml

 

Freda Kahlo De Rivera

Artist Frida Kahlo was born on July 6, 1907, in Coyocoán, Mexico City, Mexico. Considered one of Mexico's greatest artists, Frida Kahlo began painting after she was severely injured in a bus accident. Kahlo later became politically active and married fellow communist artist Diego Rivera in 1929. She exhibited her paintings in Paris and Mexico before her death in 1954.

Mies Van Der Rohe

Ludwig Mies van der Rohe 

 (1886-1969), a German-born architect and educator, is widely acknowledged as one of the 20th century's greatest architects. By emphasizing open space and revealing the industrial materials used in construction, he helped define modern architecture.


Born in Aachen, Germany, Mies spent the first half of his career in his native country. His early work was mainly residential, and he received his first independent commission, the Riehl House, when he was only 20 years old. Mies quickly became a leading figure in the avant-garde life of Berlin and was widely respected in Europe for his innovative structures, including the Barcelona Pavilion. In 1930, he was named director of the Bauhaus, the renowned German school of experimental art and design, which he led until 1933 when he closed the school under pressure from the Nazi Regime.

Bauhaus

The Bauhaus was founded in 1919 in the city of Weimar by German architect Walter Gropius (1883–1969). Its core objective was a radical concept: to reimagine the material world to reflect the unity of all the arts. Gropius explained this vision for a union of art and design in the Proclamation of the Bauhaus (1919), which described a utopian craft guild combining architecture, sculpture, and painting into a single creative expression. Gropius developed a craft-based curriculum that would turn out artisans and designers capable of creating useful and beautiful objects appropriate to this new system of living.

The yellow effect!

Mixing antiques with zesty colors for a more contemporary feel. so much fun!