Happy birthday to Henri Matisse, born 143 years ago today!

You’ve likely seen many paintings by Matisse, but have you ever looked closely at his drawings? For Henri Matisse, drawing was an intimate medium, a means of capturing the fleeting gestures and emotions of both subject and artist.  He made drawings to work out problems of structure and composition for subsequent works. Matisse viewed printmaking as an extension of drawing, and would turn to printmaking after extended periods of painting, as if to digest his experience through the use of a new medium.  Between the years of 1900 and 1954, Matisse created more than 800 prints!

Image: Henri Matisse, Fée au chapeau de clarté, Souvenir du Mallarmé (Fairy in a Luminous Hat, Souvenir of Mallarmé), as viewed through Artscope.

Happy birthday to Jean-Michel Basquiat, who would have been 52 years old today.  

A remarkable capacity for introspection and distillation made itself apparent in the graffiti work of Basquiat’s teen years, wherein he adopted the pseudonym SAMO and sprayed messages onto walls throughout NYC.  This craft of creating metaphors, and a sense of play in staging opposing dichotomies (integration and segregation, wealth and poverty, etc.) came to define his work as a painter. 

Pictured here is a detail of Untitled (Venus/The Great Circle), a work currently on view as part of the Logan Collection at SFMOMA.

cheatingdeath:

I took some pics of Victor Man’s work at SFMOMA’s Six Lines of Flight exhibition.  There’re two other big paintings that I didn’t get so you’ll just have to go there and see them.  It ends the 31st of this month.  I highly recommend you check it out.

Great reminder- Six Lines of Flight, a terrific exhibition of contemporary art from all over the world, closes on Dec. 31! 

Happy first official day of winter! Here’s to a safe and cozy holiday season :)

Image: Jan Staller, Stoplight, 1984; Collection SFMOMA © Jan Staller

Ed Ruscha, The Los Angeles County Museum on Fire, 1968

via Proposal for a Museum: Ed Ruscha

“May your holidays be full of sparkle magic.” - Erica Gangsei shares a unicorn triple whammy this week for Erica’s Visitor Postcard Picks.

parkavenuearmory:

Go figure… Ann Hamilton and Annie Liebovitz are old chums.

Annie photographed Ann for a feature on her work that appeared in Vogue in March 1994. The portraits are telling and beautiful, and the story (by writer/curator Neville Wakefield) is worth a read too.

See for yourself here.

We HIGHLY recommend that you all click-through and check out those photos in Vogue— they’re beautiful!

Fun fact: back in 2007, Ann Hamilton installed Indigo Blue, another hugely provocative work, here at SFMOMA. You can see a fascinating time-lapse video of the installation here.

FINAL WEEKS: Six Lines of Flight, an exhibition of contemporary art from around the globe, closes on Dec. 31!

Image: Install shot (top) and detail (bottom) of Lebanese artist Akram Zaatari’s “Studio Shehrazade” (2006).

chinchinburraburra:

‘Field Conditions’ at the SFMOMA

Love this photo! Reminder: Field Conditions is only open until January 6, so get in here and see it soon!

Can there be architecture without buildings? What if elements of architecture – such as a floor or a wall – extended endlessly? 

Curator Joseph Becker was motivated by these questions when organising the exhibition Field Conditions, now on view at SFMOMA. Read an interview w/ Becker on these questions and more here.

Image: Lebbeus Woods, ‘Conflict Space 2′, 2006, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. © Lebbeus Woods

Happy 12/12/12 at 12:12pm!

To celebrate this phenomenon, we’ve pulled together 12 works of art from our permanent collection that somehow feature the number twelve. Enjoy!

Pictured above: Unknown artist, “Untitled [Twelve Round Portraits of Theodore Roosevelt]” ca. 1901-1909. Collection SFMOMA; Gift of Gordon L. Bennett.

Lucas Samaras, AutoPolaroids, 1969-71, 1969-1971; Collection SFMOMA, Gift of Dr. William and Nancy Tsiaras; © Lucas Samaras

Warren de la Rue, The Moon, ca. 1863; photograph; Collection SFMOMA, Accessions Committee Fund purchase.

Robert Ryman, A painting of twelve strokes, measuring 11 1/4” x 11 1/4” signed at the…, 1961; painting; Collection SFMOMA, Purchase through a gift of Mimi and Peter Haas; © Robert Ryman

A. W. Bawtree, Gall fly, magnified twelve times, ca. 1870s-1880s; photograph; Collection SFMOMA, Gift of Gordon L. Bennett.

Nathan Oliveira, Bee’s End, from the suite Twelve Intimate Fantasies, 1964; print; Collection SFMOMA, Gift of Mrs. Edgar Sinton; © Estate of Nathan Oliveira

Ansel Adams, Oak Tree, Snow Storm, Yosemite, from Portfolio One: Twelve Photographic Prints, 1948; photograph; Collection SFMOMA, Gift of Mrs. Walter A. Haas; © The Ansel Adams Publishing Rights Trust

Buckminster Fuller, Buckminster Fuller, Motor Vehicle- Dymaxion …, from the portfolio Inventions: Twelve Around One, 1981; print; Collection SFMOMA, Gift of Chuck and Elizabeth Byrne; © Estate of Buckminster Fuller

Unknown, Untitled [Group portrait of twelve people], ca. 1850s; photograph; Collection SFMOMA, Accessions Committee Fund purchase.

Pirkle Jones, Figures in Rain, San Francisco, from Portfolio Two: Twelve Photographs by…, 1955; photograph; Collection SFMOMA, Acquired through purchase and exchange; © The Pirkle Jones Foundation