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Art or Craft. William James Linton vs. William Morris. A posthumous dispute.
The MePri Collection holds a wondrous scrapbook on wood engraving, affectionately combined and carefully lettered. The object was offered by a seller of autographs and announced as follows: “An autographed letter by William James Linton signed, to William Abercrombie, discussing his books, saying there is no large paper copy of the Hints. [on Wood-Engraving]. Tipped […]
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Social Credit & Direct Democracy – William James Linton: “The English Republic”. London / Brantwood, 1850-55
Lintoniana I “We are Utopians, theorists, dreamers, enthusiasts, fanatics, madmen, in a word, we are republicans.” W.J. Linton, 1850 In December 1850, almost two years after the revolutionary hopes of a democratic change had been buried Europe-wide under a mantle of resignation and depression, radical artisan William James Linton began to proclaim his forceful vision […]
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Bernard Buffet – Terrain Vague – Dangerous terrain
“Bernard Buffet, 34, painter of the “misérables”, owner of a Rolls-Royce, whose figures with their elongated proportions are no longer being rewarded by French art dealers in line with the bestseller lists, has painted a 20 sq. m. cinema poster for the ballad of the wide boys, “Terrain Vague”, by that old master among directors, […]
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Van Goghs Favorites III: Arthur Boyd Houghton – Our One-eyed Artist in America
«Until now I never knew Boyd H[oughton] was so interesting (…) Very strange. (…) After you have seen my Boyd Houghtons from the first year of the Graphics you will understand more clearly what I wrote about the importance of this master’s work.» Vincent van Gogh to Anton van Rappard, February and April 1883 (Letters […]
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Van Goghs Favorites II: Hubert Herkomer and the School of English Social Realism
“There is something virile in it – something rugged – which attracts me strongly (…) In all these fellows I see an energy, a determination and a free, healthy, cheerful spirit that animate me. And in their work there is something lofty and dignified – even when they draw a dunghill.” Vincent van Gogh, October […]
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Van Goghs Favorites I: Xylographism unbound – The influence of illustrated journal graphics on the art of Vincent van Gogh.
Only in recent years has one gained the insight that Vincent van Gogh was not only a collector of Japanese graphic prints, like many of his artist colleagues, but was also imbued by a passion for the pictorial art of illustrated journals of his times. This was mainly thanks to two exhibitions: One, in spring […]
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Robert Weaver II – Split-Level Books
In the 1980s, frustrated by the increasing restrictions in the field of magazine design, Weaver shifted the focus of his activities more and more to teaching at the New York Visual School of Arts and expanded a loose sequence of diary-like motif books he began with in the 1970s to form an independent complex of […]
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Robert Weaver – The other Pittsburgher
In his “Songs for Drella”, Lou Reed claimed that no Michelangelo could ever come from the hicktown of Pittsburgh. But this does not stand up to close examination. Robert Weaver is from Pittsburgh and in 1949, the same year the other Pittsburgher Andy Warhol, the subject of Reed’s cycle of songs, moved to the metropolis […]