Happy Thanksgiving, everyone! I thought I’d collect some turkeys for you. Most, at the moment of rendering, are inedible, but likely so is yours at this point. Be thankful you do not have to pluck, and enjoy the day.
Doris Lee, Thanksgiving, 1935
From https://www.artic.edu/artworks/21727/thanksgiving :
“Doris Lee’s bustling scene of women preparing a Thanksgiving feast became the object of national headlines when it was first exhibited at the Art Institute in 1935 and won the prestigious Logan Purchase Prize. The themes of Thanksgiving, rural customs, and family life, which Lee painted in a deliberately folksy manner, would have had great appeal to a country still in the midst of the Depression. Yet Josephine Logan, the donor of the prize, condemned the work’s broad, exaggerated style, founding the conservative “Sanity in Art” movement in response. This controversy only brought Lee fame, and Thanksgiving has been recognized as one of the most popular nostalgic views of this American ritual since that time.”
Chaim Soutine Hanging Turke, 1925
Soutine was a bridge from traditional painting into abstract expressionism. Relevant turkey.
George Luks’s Woman and Turkey, 1924
Now that’s a woman.
John Currin, Thanksgiving, 2003
From the Tate:
“Currin has claimed that Thanksgiving, completed in New York where he has lived and worked since the late 1980s, was ‘a failed painting that sat around in my studio’ until he decided to return to it when his wife, the artist Rachel Feinstein, became pregnant. Currin explained,
The funny thing is that the painting took me exactly nine months to finish, and the painting turned into an allegory of Rachel’s pregnancy. Certain kinds of paintings were on my mind at the time – Dutch genre paintings, Velázquez’s bodegones – but as soon as I began, it became more about Rachel, and she posed for the figures a lot. – Currin, quoted in Weg and Dergan 2006, p.326.”
I hope your Thanksgiving is at least three measures more cheerful than this one.
Richard Tuttle, Turkey (in 2 parts) 1970
I really have no idea how this is a Turkey (in 2 parts) but I enjoy it. Richard Tuttle’s minimalist of minimal drawings always give me a little giggle at the humor, and delight me with the (very) subtle textures and carefully considered open spaces.
Morris Graves, Turkey Hen 1950s. Charcoal on newsprint, 24 x 18
Artwork by Morris Graves always seems so sensitively rendered, so quiet, it slows me down. Maybe it’s because I’m also a child of the Pacific Northwest , and also with ties to Japan, but artwork by Graves always feels as familiar as my own whisper.
From Wiki:
“[Graves]…used the muted tones of the Northwest environment, Asian aesthetics and philosophy, and a personal iconography of birds, flowers, chalices, and other images to explore the nature of consciousness.”
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Neil Welliver is one of Patty Haller’s inspirational artists. See a resemblance? Neil Welliver in conversation with Edwin Denby Q. Why do you staple the big charcoal drawing to the white canvas? A. The charcoal drawing, when it is stapled to the white canvas, is ready to be transferred to the canvas and it’s been …
CoCA’s 24 Hour Art Marathon I just finished CoCA’s 24 hour marathon: 20 artists making artwork in a room for 24 hours. It’s a fun and fabulous premise. CoCA ran a great event, and I can’t thank them enough for inviting me, and for all the work they put into supporting the artists. Thanks to …
This is the beginning of a collection: examples of painted grass. When I paint grass I usually start with large shapes first, light swathes of masses break the canvas into smaller segments. I use a rag sometimes to form the first shapes, then a bristle brush so the bristles scrape away the paint as much as …
12 Turkey Pics
Happy Thanksgiving, everyone! I thought I’d collect some turkeys for you. Most, at the moment of rendering, are inedible, but likely so is yours at this point. Be thankful you do not have to pluck, and enjoy the day.
Doris Lee, Thanksgiving, 1935
From https://www.artic.edu/artworks/21727/thanksgiving :
“Doris Lee’s bustling scene of women preparing a Thanksgiving feast became the object of national headlines when it was first exhibited at the Art Institute in 1935 and won the prestigious Logan Purchase Prize. The themes of Thanksgiving, rural customs, and family life, which Lee painted in a deliberately folksy manner, would have had great appeal to a country still in the midst of the Depression. Yet Josephine Logan, the donor of the prize, condemned the work’s broad, exaggerated style, founding the conservative “Sanity in Art” movement in response. This controversy only brought Lee fame, and Thanksgiving has been recognized as one of the most popular nostalgic views of this American ritual since that time.”
Chaim Soutine Hanging Turke, 1925
Soutine was a bridge from traditional painting into abstract expressionism. Relevant turkey.
George Luks’s Woman and Turkey, 1924
Now that’s a woman.
John Currin, Thanksgiving, 2003
From the Tate:
“Currin has claimed that Thanksgiving, completed in New York where he has lived and worked since the late 1980s, was ‘a failed painting that sat around in my studio’ until he decided to return to it when his wife, the artist Rachel Feinstein, became pregnant. Currin explained,
I hope your Thanksgiving is at least three measures more cheerful than this one.
Richard Tuttle, Turkey (in 2 parts) 1970
I really have no idea how this is a Turkey (in 2 parts) but I enjoy it. Richard Tuttle’s minimalist of minimal drawings always give me a little giggle at the humor, and delight me with the (very) subtle textures and carefully considered open spaces.
Morris Graves, Turkey Hen 1950s. Charcoal on newsprint, 24 x 18
Artwork by Morris Graves always seems so sensitively rendered, so quiet, it slows me down. Maybe it’s because I’m also a child of the Pacific Northwest , and also with ties to Japan, but artwork by Graves always feels as familiar as my own whisper.
From Wiki:
“[Graves]…used the muted tones of the Northwest environment, Asian aesthetics and philosophy, and a personal iconography of birds, flowers, chalices, and other images to explore the nature of consciousness.”
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