Photorealism - artists, an exhibition, a video and 71 photos

The Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery is the only place in the UK which is playing host to the first and largest European retrospective exhibition of Photorealism until 30 March 2014. You can see a set of 71 photographs of the exhibition on Flickr. It's a great pity that the photographs do not identify the artists by name.

Showcasing key photorealist artists from the 1960s to the present day, the exhibition explores the questions and debates raised by the movement on what makes an authentic image and the ways in which we perceive the world.

This is a video of the exhibition Hyperrealism 1967-2012 at the Thyssen-Bornemisza Museum in Madrid from when the exhibition was on display at this famous museum in Madrid.

Photorealism At the Thyssen-Bornemisza from Leland James on Vimeo.

This is the first exhibition in Spain to trace Hyperrealism’s development from its beginnings to the present. When the movement made its appearance in the United States in the late 1960s, Louis K. Meisel dubbed it “Photorealism”, describing Photorealists as artists who used the camera unreservedly as an aid to painting and transferred their images to canvas by mechanical, semi-mechanical or technical methods in such detail that the high resolution gave their paintings the illusion of being photographs.
Hyperrealism Microsite

The video features both Louis K. Meisel talking about the meeting up of the painters - plus commentary by the artists featured in the exhibition who include:

The Great British Paint-Off: BBC1 searches for best amateur artists

The BBC is looking for the best of Britain's best amateur artists - with a passion for painting and drawing - for a competitive art series on BBC1 which I guess will be the art equivalent of the The Great British Bake-Off and The Great British Sewing Bee!

Let's guess - could this new competitive art series possibly be called The Great British Paint-Off?

BBC Arts & culture Page

I don't know who gets to stand in for Mary Berry and Paul Hollywood but it might be interesting to speculate as to who could fill those shoes - with expertise and cutting comment!

The BBC has had all sorts of success with different programmes involving amateurs competing in skills based series. I guess it's logical that this should be the next spin of the dice!

Painting programmes have enjoyed a great following on television - but haven't necessarily always been transmitted at the right time of day. Who can forget Watercolour Challenge?

So here's my summary of the call for artists.

Who can enter?

• amateur painters from all over the UK - definitely NOT professional artists
• people with "a passion for painting and drawing"
• over 16 years of age

This is their definition of "amateur artist" as per their terms and conditions - I've highlighted in bold the relevant bits for those earning income from their art.

Do you think these are the sexiest works of art ever?

Jonathan Jones has very clearly forgotten that half of the population is female! 

In my opinion, his article The top 10 sexiest works of art ever in today's Guardian represents a very masculine oriented perspective and some gruesome choices from a female perspective!

Maybe he needs an education on what women think about his choice?  Or his definition of sexy?

Which work(s) of art would you not have included?

Would you have even found the need to create a list?

British Pathé film of Stanley Spencer

Cover of Stanley Spencer 
- the Catalogue raisonné by Keith Bell

This is a British Pathé film of Sir Stanley Spencer going about his business in Cookham in 1950.

The topic is "Royal Academy Take Back Old Rebel" and concerns his return to exhibiting at the Royal Academy of Arts from which he has resigned as a member in 1935 after two of his paintings were rejected from the Summer Exhibition.

The paintings were:

• Saint Francis and the Birds - which is now owned by Tate Britain
• The Dustman or The Lovers - which is now part of the Laing Art Gallery Collection

I'm not surprised he resigned!

Links:

• About Stanley Spencer - English Painter - my website about Spencer
• 'Stanley Spencer: Heaven in a Hell of War' at Somerset House - about the recent exhibition of his First World War Paintings at Somerset House
• Cliveden, Cookham and Stanley Spencer - about a visit I paid to Cookham in 2007

A Compendium of Colour

This is the second in my compendium posts about Popular Art Topics from the Archives. This one is all about colour.  Feel free to bookmark it!

(ie I've got my head down writing my book about drawing and sketching!)

It's maybe worth mentioning that my blog posts about colour and colour theory also got the thumbs up from James Gurney in the Internet Resources about Colour identified in his book "Color and Light - A Guide for the Realist Painter" which I'm also very happy to recommend!

makingamark.blogspot.com - Various resources for artists, including summaries about colour theory with additional linksJames Gurney

Goethe Colour Diagramsin the first plate of Zür Farbenlehre (Theory of Colors) (1810)
courtesy WebExhibits - Colour Vision and Art
Curated by Michael Douma

What is Colour? (9th June 2008) 

Sets out the seven ways I've decided to try and answers the question "What is Colour?"

Colour - a scientific perspective (10 June 2008)

This post focuses on the science of colour – in simple terms:

• The defining characteristics of colour
• How colour is made
• How we see and think about colour

Colour - a materials perspective #1 - pigments and dyes (25 June 2008) 

This post provides a materials perspective on colour for artists and a basic overview of pigments and dyes.

Colour - pigments and related colours (26 June 2008)

I want a table which tells me all about different colours - and relates pigment to colour names to chemical names and then explains what all that means. But can I find one on the internet? (Note: I was well advanced with this table but then lost if when a computer blew up and haven't had the heart to try and reinstate it!)

Colour - naming dyes, pigments and paints (27 June 2008) 

Every pigment has an international classification and standardised name but not every colour is what it says it is.

Hues - a systems perspective (8th July 2008) 

A detailed examination of systems which explain primary colours

Describing a colour space - there's more than one colour wheel! (10 July 2008) 

About a Matrix of Theories about Colour Space - which is the method I've adopted to categorise some of the people who have tried describe colour in terms of spatial relationships - to describe a colour space.

A Matrix of Colour Space Theories (pdf file) (2008) 

Table of colour theories organised by approach to colour theory - additive, subtractive and partitive

Complementary Colours and mixing neutral colours (15 July 2008) 

How to identify complementary colours in the context of different shapes which explain colour theory

Analogous Colours 

This post is an attempt to redress the balance on the paucity of online information about analogous colours - but it also recommends other sources of even better advice and information!

Colour Schemes: Split Complementaries, Triads and Tetrads (18 July 2008) 

Discusses and explains three colour schemes used by professional artists:

• Split Complementary - a colour plus the two colours either side of its complementary colour 
• Triad - any three colours which are equidistant on the colour wheel
• Tetrad - any four colours which are equidistant on the colour wheel

Symbolic Colour (24 July 2008) 

This post provides an overview of some of the meanings of different colours - and the origins of some of those meanings.

Why your colours onscreen don't look the same when printed (10 March 2011) 

Have you ever wondered why your images onscreen don't come out looking the same when printed? This post discusses: how the CMYK model works; why RGB files don't look like CMYK files and how to convert an RGB file to a CMYK file for printing purposes

Artist Quality Pigments & Artists' Colourmen 

Lots of photos of pigments and some links to websites which describe and record Artists' Colourmen.

Book Reviews

• Learning about Colour - Art Book Reviews for Artists #1
• Using Colour - Art Book Reviews for Artists #2

Resources for Artists

Information sites created by makingamark

• Colour - Resources for Artists
• Colour Theory for Artists
• The Best Art Books - Colour
• The Best Artist Guides for Mixing Colours