Contemporary, portrait, landscape, painting, best, top ten, paintings, oil, artist, artists, gallery, life, figure, graphite, sketch, Snowdonia, drawings, pencil, Art, geometry, composition, Master, Masterpiece, Welsh, Wales.
Contemporary, portrait, landscape, painting, best, top ten, paintings, oil, artist, artists, gallery, life, figure, graphite, sketch, Snowdonia, drawings, pencil, Art, geometry, composition, Master, Masterpiece, Welsh, Wales.
Douglas Cooper
by Graham Sutherland
In a previous posting looking into the history of destroyed artworks, I recounted the well-known story of the burning of Graham Sutherland's portrait of Sir Winston Churchill (the motive seems to have been vanity?).
Here, however, I'd like to follow-up with a previously unknown story about the same artist. This tale has come to me via an impeccable source, (but one who wishes to remain anonymous).
A brilliant recorder of the arts and times of the early 20th century, Douglas Cooper was famed, in particular, for his analysis and first-hand knowledge of the world of Picasso and the other Cubists. For many years I used his excellent books to help me to get to grips with a basic understanding of cubism for my own history of art teaching.
'The Essential Cubism' and 'The Cubist Epoch'
by Douglas Cooper
Cooper moved in the inner circle of the cubists for a period along with another historian, John Richardson, the biographer of Picasso. Here's a photograph of Richardson on the left with Cooper on the right pictured with Picasso in the 1950's.
Cooper has had portraits painted of him by various artists over the years (including these by Giacommetti and David Hockney),
.................but the one we're interested in here, is the portrait made by Graham Sutherland.
When Cooper received it, he hated it. However, because he thought that because Sutherland was a famous celebrity artist who had carried out Royal portrait commissions he, Cooper, may attract unnecessary condemnation if he destroyed the picture, and therefore he decided to keep it. However, thereafter he hung it facing the wall, so that it would never be seen during his lifetime!
When he came to make his will, he instructed his executor to build, after his death, a funeral pyre, on top of which the executor would place the painting. Leading art journalists would be invited from around the world and would be encouraged to witness and to record the burning of the portrait. This seems to have been a considered act of revenge against Sutherland, characterised by Coopers usual black humour.
However, Cooper was dissuaded from this course of action, largely because of the Daniel Buren case.
Buren had painted, in black and white, parts of some columns in the Palais-Royal in Paris, which caused something of a furore, and resulted in requests for the columns to be removed. The case went to trial, and the Court decided that the destruction of a work of art was impossible without the written agreement of the author, so the columns remained in their place.
This case persuaded Cooper to suppress that part of his will which dealt with the ritual burning, and so the painting was saved! It was left, along with the rest of his estate and art collection to Billy McCarty-Cooper, his companion.
So, on this occasion, an art work destined for destruction, was saved for posterity.
Douglas Cooper died on 1 April 1984 (Fools' Day), perhaps completely fitting, as he predicted.
(from Wikipedia).
by Graham Sutherland
In a previous posting looking into the history of destroyed artworks, I recounted the well-known story of the burning of Graham Sutherland's portrait of Sir Winston Churchill (the motive seems to have been vanity?).
Here, however, I'd like to follow-up with a previously unknown story about the same artist. This tale has come to me via an impeccable source, (but one who wishes to remain anonymous).
A brilliant recorder of the arts and times of the early 20th century, Douglas Cooper was famed, in particular, for his analysis and first-hand knowledge of the world of Picasso and the other Cubists. For many years I used his excellent books to help me to get to grips with a basic understanding of cubism for my own history of art teaching.
'The Essential Cubism' and 'The Cubist Epoch'
by Douglas Cooper
Cooper moved in the inner circle of the cubists for a period along with another historian, John Richardson, the biographer of Picasso. Here's a photograph of Richardson on the left with Cooper on the right pictured with Picasso in the 1950's.
Cooper has had portraits painted of him by various artists over the years (including these by Giacommetti and David Hockney),
.................but the one we're interested in here, is the portrait made by Graham Sutherland.
When Cooper received it, he hated it. However, because he thought that because Sutherland was a famous celebrity artist who had carried out Royal portrait commissions he, Cooper, may attract unnecessary condemnation if he destroyed the picture, and therefore he decided to keep it. However, thereafter he hung it facing the wall, so that it would never be seen during his lifetime!
When he came to make his will, he instructed his executor to build, after his death, a funeral pyre, on top of which the executor would place the painting. Leading art journalists would be invited from around the world and would be encouraged to witness and to record the burning of the portrait. This seems to have been a considered act of revenge against Sutherland, characterised by Coopers usual black humour.
However, Cooper was dissuaded from this course of action, largely because of the Daniel Buren case.
Buren had painted, in black and white, parts of some columns in the Palais-Royal in Paris, which caused something of a furore, and resulted in requests for the columns to be removed. The case went to trial, and the Court decided that the destruction of a work of art was impossible without the written agreement of the author, so the columns remained in their place.
This case persuaded Cooper to suppress that part of his will which dealt with the ritual burning, and so the painting was saved! It was left, along with the rest of his estate and art collection to Billy McCarty-Cooper, his companion.
So, on this occasion, an art work destined for destruction, was saved for posterity.
Douglas Cooper died on 1 April 1984 (Fools' Day), perhaps completely fitting, as he predicted.
(from Wikipedia).
quiz quiz quiz quiz quiz “details, details............” quiz quiz quiz quiz quiz
Any idea where we find this, and who painted it?
(The answer will be in the next posting.)
And here's the answer from the last posting -
by Vermeer, 1662-65, Royal Collection, St. Jame's Palace, London.
quiz quiz quiz quiz quiz “details, details............” quiz quiz quiz quiz quiz
"Art produces ugly things which frequently become more beautiful with time. Fashion, on the other hand, produces beautiful things which always become ugly with time."
Jean Cocteau
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. . . . and now, a Recommended Read . . .
The Painted Word
Tom Wolfe
Wolfe also has a wonderfully acute aversion to the pretentious in the artworld, which he lambasts mercilessly. For any artist who has been irritated by the irrelevant question 'what does it mean', this little book is a must.
"America's nerviest journalist" ("Newsweek") trains his satirical eye on Modern Art in this "masterpiece" ("The Washington Post")
Wolfe's style has never been more dazzling, his wit never more keen. He addresses the scope of Modern Art, from its founding days as Abstract Expressionism through its transformations to Pop, Op, Minimal, and Conceptual. This is Tom Wolfe "at his most clever, amusing, and irreverent" ("San Francisco Chronicle").
Wolfe's style has never been more dazzling, his wit never more keen. He addresses the scope of Modern Art, from its founding days as Abstract Expressionism through its transformations to Pop, Op, Minimal, and Conceptual. This is Tom Wolfe "at his most clever, amusing, and irreverent" ("San Francisco Chronicle").
Published on Picador USA
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