Monday, November 14, 2022

Yesterday Piranesi was mentioned.
Piranesi was a printmaker I learned a lot from, I had a large print book with all the carceri etchings.
One of my first large etchings was kind of an homage to him.

Giovanni Battista Piranesi
(1720 - 1778)

Giovanni Battista (or Giambattista) Piranesi also known as simply Piranesi; 4 October 1720 – 9 November 1778) was an Italian Classical archaeologist, architect, and artist, famous for his etchings of Rome and of fictitious and atmospheric "prisons" (Carceri d'invenzione). He was the father of Francesco Piranesi, Laura Piranesi and Pietro Piranesi [it].
Carceri d'invenzione or Imaginary Prisons (there are other translations) is a series of 16 etchings by the Italian artist Giovanni Battista Piranesi, 14 produced from c. 1745 to 1750, when the first edition of the set was published. All depict enormous subterranean vaults with stairs and mighty machines, in rather extreme versions of the capriccio, a favourite Italian genre of architectural fantasies; the first title page uses the term.


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giovanni_Battista_Piranesi
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carceri_d'invenzione


Le Carceri d'Invenzione, plate III: The Round Tower
1761
Oil on canvas
54 x 41,5 cm.
Princeton University Art Museum
https://artmuseum.princeton.edu/collections/objects/2961


 

Sunday, November 13, 2022

Pietro Gaspari
(1720 - 1785)
 

Pietro Gaspari was an Italian artist, known for veduta and capriccio in etchings and paintings. Some of them resemble a more barren and finely detailed Piranesi. He worked for many years in Munich, Germany. He was active mainly in Venice.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pietro_Gaspari

AEdis antiquae, AEdificiorumque adiacentium fragmenta (Ancient Aedes, and fragments of adjacent buildings)
1771
etching with engraving on laid paper
29.7 × 41.8  cm
National Gallery of Art, Washington DC
https://www.nga.gov/collection/art-object-page.206080.html

Saturday, November 12, 2022

Thomas Gainsborough
(1727 - 1788)
 

Thomas Gainsborough RA FRSA (14 May 1727 (baptised) – 2 August 1788) was an English portrait and landscape painter, draughtsman, and printmaker. Along with his rival Sir Joshua Reynolds, he is considered one of the most important British artists of the second half of the 18th century. He painted quickly, and the works of his maturity are characterised by a light palette and easy strokes. Despite being a prolific portrait painter, Gainsborough gained greater satisfaction from his landscapes. He is credited (with Richard Wilson) as the originator of the 18th-century British landscape school. Gainsborough was a founding member of the Royal Academy.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Gainsborough


Wooded Landscape with Church, Cow and Figure
 1753-54
Etching
10 x 15 cm
Royal Academy of Arts, London
https://www.royalacademy.org.uk/art-artists/work-of-art/wooded-landscape-with-church-cow-and-figure

Friday, November 11, 2022

 <b>William Walcot</b>
(1874 - 1943)
<i>William Walcot RE was a Scottish architect, graphic artist and etcher, notable as a practitioner of refined Art Nouveau (Style Moderne) in Moscow, Russia. His trademark Lady's Head keystone ornament became the easily recognisable symbol of Russian Style Moderne. In 1920s–1930s, he concentrated on graphic art and was praised as "the best architectural draftsman" in London. </i>

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Walcot

Interior of the del Gesu Rome
1925
Etching
49x60cm
https://manningfineart.co.uk/shop/william-walcott-interior-del-gesu-rome/


For more of his work:

https://elizabethharvey-lee.com/exhibitions/walcot/walcot_intro.htm

Thursday, November 10, 2022

Yesterday in the text from Wikipedia it was mentioned  that Martin Lewis  helped Edward Hopper learn the basics of etching.
So here is an etching by Hopper.
 
Edward Hopper
(1882- 1967)
 
Edward Hopper was an American realist painter and printmaker. While he is widely known for his oil paintings, he was equally proficient as a watercolorist and printmaker in etching. Hopper created subdued drama out of commonplace subjects 'layered with a poetic meaning', inviting narrative interpretations. He was praised for "complete verity" in the America he portrayed. His career benefited decisively from his marriage to fellow-artist Josephine Nivison, who contributed much to his work, both as a life-model and as a creative partner.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Hopper


The Lonely House
1923
Etching
19.9 x 25 cm
https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/366216

If someone happens to have a print…
https://www.antiquestradegazette.com/news/2017/record-for-edward-hopper-print-at-swann-auction-in-new-york/

Wednesday, November 9, 2022

Martin Lewis
(1881 - 1962)

Martin Lewis was born in Castlemaine, Victoria, Australia on 14 June 1881. He was the second of eight children and had a passion for drawing. At the age of 15, he left home and traveled in New South Wales, Australia, working as a post hole digger and a merchant seaman. He returned to Sydney and settled into a Bohemian community outside Sydney. Two of his drawings were published in the radical Sydney newspaper, The Bulletin. He studied with Julian Ashton at the Art Society's School in Sydney. Ashton, a famous painter, was also one of the first Australian artists to take up printmaking.
In 1900, Lewis left Australia for the United States. His first job was in San Francisco, painting stage decorations for William McKinley's presidential campaign of 1900. By 1909, Lewis was living in New York, where he found work in commercial illustration. His earliest known etching is dated 1915. However, the level of skill in this piece suggests he had been working in the medium for some time previously. It was during this period that he helped Edward Hopper learn the basics of etching. In 1920, after the breakup of a romance, Lewis traveled to Japan, where for two years he drew and painted and studied Japanese art. The influence of Japanese prints is very evident in Lewis's prints after that period. In 1924, he returned to etching and produced most of his well-known works between 1925 and 1935 Lewis's exhibitions in 1927-1928 were successful enough for him to give up commercial work and concentrate entirely on printmaking.


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martin_Lewis_(artist)

Relics. [Speakeasy Corner.],
1928
Drypoint
30 x 25 cm
The MET
https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/373557

Tuesday, November 8, 2022

 Another well known artist who made a lot of etchings was Goya:
 
Francisco José de Goya y Lucientes
(1746 - 1828)
 
Francisco José de Goya y Lucientes was a Spanish romantic painter and printmaker. He is considered the most important Spanish artist of the late 18th and early 19th centuries. His paintings, drawings, and engravings reflected contemporary historical upheavals and influenced important 19th- and 20th-century painters. Goya is often referred to as the last of the Old Masters and the first of the moderns.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Francisco_Goya


Los Disparates (1864) - No. 13 - Modo de volar (A way of flying)
This print is work No. 13 of the "Disparates" series
Between1815 and 1816
Etching, aquatint and drypoint
24 x 35,8 cm
Museo del Prado
https://www.museodelprado.es/coleccion/obra-de-arte/modo-de-volar/d770a3ed-9283-4f97-862e-6794ea89e4b6


Drawing

Artist’s proof before adding the aquatint background.

 J. M. W. Turner (1775 - 1851)   Joseph Mallord William Turner RA, known in his time as William Turner, was an English Romantic painter, pri...