Steven A. Bash Arts

16/09/2024

N.B. In response to Facebook's new censorship policies and the potential threat of deletion of our account fifteen (15) photographs which originally were included in this gallery have been removed. FB does not consider photography an art.

Brassaï (1899-1984) was one of the numerous Hungarian artists who flourished in Paris between the World Wars. A sculptor and occasional filmmaker as well as a photographer, he made his name as a chronicler of the night, with images that ranged from reflections on wet cobblestones to the denizens of bars and brothels. Indeed, no one captured Paris at night better.

The Transylvanian born, Hungarian speaking, photographer had first moved to Paris in 1924, when he was still known by his birthname Gyula Halász. He took up residence in Montparnasse, taught himself French by reading the works of Marcel Proust and was soon hanging out with writers Léon-Paul Fargue, Jacques Prévert and Henry Miller. His job as a journalist provided ample opportunity for him to explore the city by night, an avocation which soon became a passion. To make some extra francs he took up photography and had the good fortune to be tutored in it by fellow Hungarian expatriate André Kertész. By 1930 his photos were regularly accompanying his articles, published now under the more French-sounding pseudonym Brassaï, derived from Brassó, the town of his birth.

Midnight in Paris was prime time for Brassaï, who would venture into the deserted streets of the City of Light to capture those who emerged only after dark -- the prostitutes, the street cleaners, the rag pickers, the lone pedestrians, even the occasional escaped con. Henry Miller famously called him the "Eye of Paris"; others, noting his penchant for photographing the Parisian demimonde, "Toulouse-Lautrec with a camera." Brassaï's path-breaking book "Paris de nuit" (1932) chronicled the activities and topography of the city after dark -- from the louche bars of Montparnasse to the trees and bridges flanking the Seine -- bequeathing us a veritable "time warp" through which we may revisit the Paris of the Thirties.

This gallery presents a selection of over 130 of his photos, the majority from the 1930s. As is MWW custom, they are arranged in rough chronological order and many contain background information, compiled from standard sources, on the people or places depicted. (Click "See More" to the right of the full-screen image to access these.) More information about the photographer himself accompanies his self-portraits.

Other entries in the "MWW Great Photographers" series include:
* #1 - Alfred Stieglitz
* #2 - Edward Steichen
* #3 - Dorothea Lange
* #5 - Paul Strand
* #6 - Ansel Adams
* #7 - Imogen Cunningham
* #8 - Man Ray
* #9 - Edward Weston & Tina Modotti
* #10- Henri Cartier-Bresson
* #11- Yousuf Karsh
* #12- Robert Capa
* #13- Walker Evans & the FSA Photographers
* #14- Richard Avedon
(The easiest way to get to these is to click on the "Photos" icon below the timeline cover photo, and then click on "Albums")

16/09/2024

https://gofund.me/8bef8f09
Update: 9-16-2024. New enlarging lung nodule to be biopsied. Heart echogram done with interpretation Monday. Lingering chemo side effects. Shortness of breath and A-Fib ongoing. Staying active, gardening, creating art and doing photography. Thanks everyone for continued encouragement and support!!
https://gofund.me/8bef8f09

Update: 1-3-2024 Surgeon says tumor is metastatic Colon Cancer spread… Steven A Bash needs your support for Steven A. Bash COPD and Lung Cancer Recovery Fund

15/09/2024

"I can very well do without God both in my life and in my paintings, but I cannot, ill as I am, do without something which is greater than I, which is my life -- the power to create." -- Vincent van Gogh to his brother Theo

This is the first of five MWW Van Gogh galleries, all of which are now online and which together present all of his paintings, as well as a large selection of his many drawings and watercolors. The introductions to each gallery include a biographical sketch that covers Vincent's life during the period in question.

During these five years as an essentially self-taught, amateur artist, van Gogh completed 261 pictures, all of which are included here, arranged by catalogue number, which roughly reflects the order in which they were executed. Interspersed throughout this gallery are also 52 drawings and watercolors from the period, as well as several "close-ups" of selected paintings. Many of the artworks are accompanied by commentary which should enhance the viewer's appreciation of the artist and his work .

SEE ALSO these MWW Van Gogh exhibits/galleries:
* Van Gogh in Paris (March 1886-Jan. 1888)
* Van Gogh at Arles (Feb. 1888 - April 1889)
* Van Gogh at St.-Rémy (May 1889 - May 1890)
* Journey's End: Van at Auvers (20 May-29 July 1890)

15/09/2024

https://gofund.me/8bef8f09
Update: 9-15-2024. New enlarging lung nodule to be biopsied. Heart echogram done. Lingering chemo side effects. Shortness of breath and A-Fib ongoing. Staying active, gardening, creating art and doing photography. Thanks everyone for continued encouragement and support!!
https://gofund.me/8bef8f09

Update: 1-3-2024 Surgeon says tumor is metastatic Colon Cancer spread… Steven A Bash needs your support for Steven A. Bash COPD and Lung Cancer Recovery Fund

14/09/2024

"I advised him to go to New Orleans, but he decided it was too civilized. He had to have people around him with flowers on their heads and rings in their noses before he could feel at home." -- Edgar Degas on Gauguin

"I felt stirrings of rebellion: a whole clash between your civilization and my barbarism. Civilization from which you suffer. Barbarism which for me is a rejuvenation." -- Gauguin to August Strindberg

"A time will come when people will think I am a myth, or rather something the newspapers have made up." -- Gauguin to Georges-Daniel de Monfreid (Tahiti, October 1897)

An artist's life usually pales in interest beside his art. Gauguin may be the exception, for his life reads like that of a star-crossed hero of a romantic novel. He spent the greater part of his childhood in Peru, signed up as a novice pilot aboard a sailing ship at 17, spent a couple years wandering through South America, returned to France to join the Navy, sees action in the Mediterranean during the Franco-Prussian War, leaves the Navy at 23 to become a stockbroker and is by age 35 prosperous and married with two children, and gaining a reputation as an amateur painter. The stock market crash of 1882 leaves him without a job and much of his fortune. Unable to support them any longer, he leaves his family in the care of his wife's parents in Denmark. Over the next six years, he keeps painting, even exhibiting with the Impressionists, but is scrambling for a living, constantly on the move. An emissary for the radical republicans of Spain, a gig with a tarpaulin manufacturer in Roubais, a stint as a bill paster, an assistant to an art dealer, finally off to Panama to work on the Canal, where he contracts malaria and is forced to return after a year. In 1888, his luck changes. The art dealer Theo van Gogh, at his brother's urging, becomes his agent and offers him a monthly stipend if he will join Vincent in Arles. The stay there proves to be ill-fated, though it produces some fine paintings, and Gauguin, increasingly convinced that the industrial civilization of the West is completely "out of joint," moves to Brittany to live with and paint the peasants of that backward region of western France. Two years later, in the quest for an environment unsullied by the least trace of civilization, he moves to Tahiti -- a "missionary in reverse." as he put it -- where he spends all but two of the remaining years of his life, and occupies a modest grave to this day adorned only with one of his ceramic sculptures. Somerset Maugham's "The Moon and Sixpence" was inspired by his life.

Lure of the Exotic? Flight from Civilization? Quest for the Pristine? No matter what label one places on his unique career, the paintings and drawings remain as a living testimony to an exceptional and original talent. As with many of the other MWW Exhibits, the works here are arranged in rough chronological order and the selection aspires towards a representative sample of the artist's entire output. It also includes all of Gauguin's self-portraits, most which are accompanied by commentaries on various periods or aspects of his life.

Gauguin was prolific in several other media besides painting. Along with the over 300 paintings it includes, this gallery has a selection of his sculptures, watercolors, woodcuts and drawings. More of these form part of the MWW Sculpture Garden and Modern Prints & Drawings galleries.

See also the five MWW Van Gogh exhibits for a look at an artist closely associated with Gauguin.

14/09/2024

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13/09/2024

"I don't belong to any school. I work in my corner. I admire Degas." -- Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec

By all accounts as isolated from mainstream society as by his own account he was isolated from artistic circles, Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec recorded Paris's underworld from brothels to cabarets. Born an aristocrat, he broke both legs in childhood; during his convalescence he turned to drawing and painting. In 1882 Toulouse-Lautrec began studying art in Paris, where he met Post-Impressionists like Vincent van Gogh. By 1885 he had a studio in Montmartre, the notorious center of Parisian nightlife. He exhibited at the Salon des Indépendants in Paris from 1889 and in Brussels. In 1891 his first posters brought him immediate recognition. Hospitalized for alcoholism in 1899, he continued making art and died in 1901. Toulouse-Lautrec loathed professional models; prostitutes and cabaret performers provided him with the natural, unconstrained movement he sought. He painted quickly, frequently in thinned oil paint on unprimed cardboard, using its neutral tone as a design element and conveying action and atmosphere in a few economical strokes. Japanese prints inspired his oblique angles of vision, near-abstract shapes, and calligraphic lines. In later years graphic works took precedence; his paintings were often studies for lithographs.

The 350 pictures in this gallery are arranged, as is MWW custom, roughly in the order in which they were created. The comments attempt to give background on the pictures and the people they portray. Taken as a whole, they should provide a good introduction to the pop culture of Paris in the "Gay Nineties."

* All of Toulouse-Lautrec's posters are included in the MWW Poster Alley.
* More of his drawings & lithographs are in the MWW Modern Prints & Drawings Collection.

12/09/2024

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12/09/2024

https://gofund.me/8bef8f09
Update: 9-12-2024. New enlarging lung nodule to be biopsied ASAP. Heart echogram today. Lingering chemo side effects. Shortness of breath and A-Fib ongoing. Staying active, gardening, creating art and doing photography. Thanks everyone for continued encouragement and support!!
https://gofund.me/8bef8f09

Update: 1-3-2024 Surgeon says tumor is metastatic Colon Cancer spread… Steven A Bash needs your support for Steven A. Bash COPD and Lung Cancer Recovery Fund