Wise words from artist Jean-Michel Basquiat, who would have turned 52 years old today.

Happy birthday to Mark Rothko!

Fun fact: Rothko’s No. 14, 1960 is absolutely THE most photographed piece in our permanent collection. In this screen shot of a Google image search for “SFMOMA + Rothko,” it’s interesting to see how the orange and blue hues vary from image to image.

Have you taken a photo of this marvelous work (or other paintings by Rothko)? If so, photo reply w/ it!

Hey photography lovers! It’s hard to believe, but we’re approaching the FINAL WEEKS of Cindy Sherman at SFMOMA. If you haven’t seen the show yet, be sure to plan a visit before October 8!

Happy 100th Birthday to John Cage!

There is no such thing as an empty space or an empty time. There is always something to see, something to hear. In fact, try as we may to make a silence, we cannot. - John Cage

Pictured: Robert Rauschenberg’s White Paintings (1951), which influenced Cage’s seminal silent composition, 4’33”. See Robert Rauschenberg pay tribute to John Cage here.

radicalsnails:

On exhibition at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. This is one of the most beautiful paintings I have come across in the art world.

Diego Rivera’s The Flower Carrier [formerly The Flower Vendor] (1935), part of our permanent collection.

Happy 82nd birthday to Jasper Johns!

From our website: In the 1950s Jasper Johns developed a distinctive painting style that would help lead American art away from the then-dominant movement of Abstract Expressionism. The exact correspondence of figure and ground in his work challenged the traditional distinction between an object and its depiction. At the same time, variations on each theme dissolved the “natural” link between the symbol and its meaning. Johns thus questioned the basic underpinnings of our representational system, and specifically the mechanisms of fine art.

Pictured: Jasper Johns, Flag (1960-1969) 

Happy birthday Willem de Kooning!

A central figure in the mid-century New York school of painting, Willem de Kooning was trained in Rotterdam in commercial arts. He emigrated to the U.S. in 1926 and worked initially as a house painter, and as an artist for the Works Progress Administration.

By the 1940s, de Kooning had developed an abstract style distinguished by thick, heavily worked surfaces and vigorous brushwork. He then shocked the art world in 1953 by returning to figuration at the moment of abstraction’s greatest success. His flattened depictions of women provide both a critique of Western standards of beauty and an exploration of male sexual fantasies and anxieties.

De Kooning’s later period focused mainly on abstracted landscapes. In the 1980s, in failing health, he developed an entirely different abstract style, using primary colors and open, ribbonlike forms.

Source: SFMOMA

Pictured here: de Kooning’s Woman, 1950

cavetocanvas:

Photograph of Claes Oldenburg

cavetocanvas:

Soft Toilet - Claes Oldenburg, 1966

Check out SFMOMA’s “Woman” by de Kooning here.

cavetocanvas:

Woman - Willem de Kooning, 1947