Park West Gallery Auctions, Connecting Art Collectors with Artists

There’s something about meeting the artist in person that makes collecting art even more enjoyable. Through its art auctions on land and at sea, Park West Gallery continues to fulfill its mission of bringing art to everyone, connecting art collectors with renowned artists like Peter Max and Anatole Krasnyansky… ________________________________________________________
Dear Chris Lindsay, Art Auctioneer:

“I had a good time at the art auction last weekend, here in California. I wanted to let you and your staff know that we were well taken care of, you were very fun and funny and it made bidding of course very easy. (I think Park West figured that out long ago).

The hotel was nice and my interactions with Sam, EJ, Ashley, the brothers and Simon, they were all very professional. Even the Mac and Cheese was fine.

I loved talking to the artists; I could have listened to Anatole for hours. I am looking forward to my next auction, I still have wall space.

Oh and thanks for the door prize.”

Mary W. & Cindy F.
Long Beach, California
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“Please forward my heartfelt thanks and great appreciation to the proper department concerning your associates in sales and auctions. I was able to meet and participate on the recent New York/New England (Sept 30-Oct 10) cruise group; but due to prior commitments could not go for 10 days.

I wanted to really commend the friendly and caring staff who made my daughter and I welcome. Tim, Se’Belle, and Oscar seemed to be everywhere: smiling, engaging, answering questions, and keeping our group informed.

For the number of participants, everything went so smoothly. We enjoyed our time with the pre-cruise group and were thrilled to meet Peter Max. We are planning another visit to New York soon; as our appetites have been awakened!

Again many thanks. I promised the group that I would go on the next outing. Seeing the great preparations have made me a true fan and believer!”

Debrah W.
College Park, Maryland
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Dear Simon, Art Auctioneer:

“Leo & I would like to extend our thanks again to you and Park West Gallery for a wonderful weekend in Newport, RI. We had a wonderful time. The hotel was amazing, the food was fantastic and the artwork incredible!

Please extend our thanks to the entire team who all made us feel welcome. Meeting two exciting artists was quite the experience. Two true genuine and down to earth guys (who can really create awesome pieces!)

We look forward to displaying our latest acquisitions!”

Leo & Julie V.
Uxbridge, Massachusetts
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Related Links:

• Cruise Ship Guests Get Bitten By the Art Bug
• More Customer Reviews for Park West Gallery
• Cruise Ship Art Auctioneer: Not Your Average 9-to-5 Job
• Take the Park West Gallery Virtual Tour
• Park West Gallery – Anatole Krasnyansky Website

Artist Birthdays November 11 – PAUL SIGNAC

PAUL SIGNAC (November 11, 1863 – August 15, 1935)

• Nationality: French
• Field: Painting
• Art Movement: Neo-Impressionism, Pointillism
• ARTiFact: He loved to sail and paint the water. In 1892 he discovered St. Tropez while on a yachting trip; he bought a home on the island (which he named La Hune), where he often invited fellow-artists such as Henri Matisse, Paul Cezanne and Pierre Bonnard.
• Artist Quote: “The anarchist painter is not the one who will create anarchist pictures, but the one who will fight with all his individuality against official conventions.”
• Notable Artwork (shown below): The Bonaventure Pine in St Tropez, 1892.

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Related Links:

• Learn more about the artist Paul Signac
• More art puzzles and trivia
• Discover more about your favorite Park West Gallery artists

Art On the Berlin Wall – 20 Years Later

Artist Alfred “Alex” Gockel’s brilliant use of color and the graceful motion of his figures characterize his compositions. As a leading representative of Alfred Gockel art, Park West Gallery offers sculptures, jewelry and exclusive editions of the artist’s works. Visit the Park West Gallery/Gockel Website >>
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“Often in my paintings I use elements that reflect my challenging past… But my purpose is to express my joy in life, and to show that we can overcome many obstacles through the expressions of life’s beauties.” ~ALFRED GOCKEL

GERMANY — Twenty years after the fall of the Berlin Wall, German artist Alfred Gockel and the gallery Anders in Lünen (Germany) have come together to create a painting on one of the last existing original pieces of the wall.

Many other artists recently returned to the largest open-air gallery in the world, the so-called East Side Gallery in Berlin; a three-quarter mile stretch of the Berlin Wall decorated with approximately 100 colorful murals. In 1990, artists from all over the world came to paint the gray wall and in recent days, most have come to restore their works in honor of this year’s 20th anniversary of the wall’s opening.

The artwork painted by Alfred Gockel depicts the struggle of Germany during the Cold War between the USSR and the USA. A steel sculpture on top shows the excitement of the people jumping on that wall that day - November 9th, 1989.

[Photo Credit: Avant Art]
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Related Links:

• Park West Gallery - Alfred Gockel Website 
• Artist Biographies: Alfred Gockel
• Browse the Park West Gallery – Alfred Gockel Artwork Collection

Artist Birthdays November 10 – WILLIAM HOGARTH

WILLIAM HOGARTH (Nov. 10, 1697 – Oct. 26, 1764)

• Nationality: English
• Field: Painting, printmaking
• Art Movement: Genre Painting, Rococo
• ARTiFact: He wrote a famous treatise on aesthetics, The Analysis of Beauty (1753), in which he defines his theories on visual beauty and grace.
• Artist Quote: “I have generally found that persons who had studied painting least were the best judges of it.”
• Notable Artwork (shown below): Marriage A-la-Mode: The Tête à Tête, 1735.

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Related Links:

• Learn more about the artist William Hogarth
• More art puzzles and trivia
• Discover more about your favorite Park West Gallery artists

The Pompidou Mobile: Picassos, Matisses and Calders – Oh My!

Founded in 1969, Park West Gallery strives to connect people with fine art and the artists who create it through our galleries in Michigan and Florida as well as on cruise ships internationally. Paris’ renowned Pompidou Center is embarking on a new venture with a similar mission, “…bringing art to the people to awaken their desire…”
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Art Under the Big Top: The Roving Pompidou
By JENNY BARCHFIELD • AP | November 5, 2009

PARIS — Forget the lions, tigers and bears. Paris’ Pompidou Center plans to fill a colorful circus big top with Picassos, Matisses and Calders instead, creating a roving museum to take its masterpieces of modern art to France’s culturally deprived rural regions and rough suburbs.

The so-called “Pompidou Mobile” aims to be just as avant-garde in its design as the original Pompidou Center — the audacious, tube-covered structure that houses the city’s premier contemporary art museum and caused a furor when it opened in 1977.

Only part of the necessary funding has been raised and no itinerary has yet been drawn up. Visiting the roving Pompidou will be free, and the project’s priorities are rural regions and the poor, crime-ridden suburbs that ring France’s cities but are often largely cut off from the cultural offerings there.

“It’s about bringing art to the people to awaken their desire to go toward the art,” the Pompidou’s president, Alain Seban, said in a statement. “It’s a sign of our openness.”

Architect Patrick Bouchain, whose firm specializes in circus tents and other collapsible structures, showed sketches of his design for the new Pompidou structure at a presentation Thursday: several triangle-shaped modules that can be fitted together to create different structures fitted to the different environments in which the museum will pitch its tent.

“It has to be adaptable anywhere, from a parking lot at a suburban shopping center to maybe a country lot or field,” Bouchain said.

Inside the high-tech canvas structure, solid glass and plastic encasements will protect the artwork from vandalism and theft and keep the temperature and humidity constant, Bouchain said.

The total cost of the 1,000-sq. meter (10,700-sq. foot) structure is estimated at euro3 million ($4.43 million) — of which euro500,000 has been pledged so far, Seban said. He’s looking for sponsors to fund the balance.

Provided they get the money, the mobile museum will hit the road starting at the end of next year, Seban said. The 10-15 works from the Pompidou’s extensive permanent collection that are likely to go on display include Pablo Picasso’s Femme en Bleu (Women in Blue), a 1944 post-Cubist painting in shades of indigo, and a primary-colored mobile by American artist Alexander Calder.

Henri Matisse’s 1941 painting Nature morte au magnolia (Magnolia Still Life) — among the French artist’s personal favorites — could rub proverbial shoulders with America, America, a 1964 neon sculpture of fingers snapping, by Martial Raysse.

The artwork on display will change as the museum moves across the country, with exhibits loosely focused around broad themes like primary colors and black and white, the human body, and the energy of the city, said curator Emma Lavigne.

Three three-month-long stints will be organized per year, with regional governments footing the bill for the museum’s operating costs, Seban said.

[Source: AP]

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Related Links:

• Secret Images. Picasso and Japanese Erotic Prints
• Park West Gallery Master Sites: Pablo Picasso  
• Matisse, Picasso, and Modern Art in Paris
• Matisse and Rodin Tete-a-Tete in Paris
• Learn About the Park West Foundation and How You Can Help

Artist Birthdays November 9 – ADOLF DIETRICH

ADOLF DIETRICH (November 9, 1877 – June 4, 1957)

• Nationality: Swiss
• Field: Painting
• Art Movement: Naïvism
• ARTiFact: He lived his entire life as a bachelor, never leaving his parents’ farm and creating all of his artwork in his room at home.
• Notable Artwork (shown below): Schiffsuntergang vor Berlingen, 1935.

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Related Links:

• Learn more about the artist Adolf Dietrich
• More art puzzles and trivia
• Discover more about your favorite Park West Gallery artists

Secret Images. Picasso and Japanese Erotic Prints

UKIYO-E, or “pictures of the floating world”, is a genre of Japanese woodblock prints produced between the 17th and the 20th centuries, featuring motifs of landscapes, tales from history, the theatre, and pleasure quarters. Park West Gallery Japanese Woodcut Collection >>
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BARCELONA, SPAIN /AFP/ — The Japanese prints that inspired some of the erotic works of Pablo Picasso are the subject of a new exhibition at Barcelona’s Picasso Museum. Secret Images aims to show the influence of the 19 erotic prints on the works of the Spanish artist. The prints, from the 17th to the 19th century and which were part of Picasso’s private collection, are on show alongside the 27 engravings and drawings of Picasso that they inspired.

Picasso, who lived from 1881 to 1973, developed an interest in Japanese art through the works of Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, Edgar Degas and Vincent Van Gogh, all of whom were fascinated by eastern art.

Among the erotic Japanese prints is a work by Hokusai Katsushika, which depicts a woman and an octopus, a version of which was done by Picasso in 1903. He was most influenced by the detailed work of Japanese artists depicting genital organs during sex. The exhibition also includes books, catalogues and albums that illustrate the Japanese influence on Barcelona in the 19th century and on Picasso.

Given the fragility of the works on display, the exhibition cannot be transported to any other site, the organisers said.

[Source: AFP]

Secret Images is now on view through February 14, 2010.

For more information, please visit www.museupicasso.bcn.cat

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Related Links:

• About Ukiyo-E: Subjects in Japanese Prints 
• Browse the Park West Gallery Japanese Woodcut Collection 
• Park West Gallery Master Sites: Pablo Picasso  
• An Interview with the Artistic Director of the Museo Picasso Málaga

Artist Birthdays November 6 – EVERETT SHINN

EVERETT SHINN (November 6, 1876 – May 1, 1953)

• Nationality: American
• Field: Painting
• Art Movement: Ashcan School
• ARTiFact: He spent a year (1890) working at the Thackery Gas Fixture Works designing light fixtures, but was fired for doodling in the margins of his plans.
• Artist Quote: “It’s just that the uptown life with all its glitter was more good-looking… Ah, the clothes then, the movement of the satins, women’s skirts and men’s coats and swish of wild boas, oh Lord.”
• Notable Artwork (shown below): Dancer In White Before the Footlights, 1910.

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Related Links:

• Learn more about the artist Everett Shinn
• Artist Birthdays, August 13: GEORGE BENJAMIN LUKS
• Artist Birthdays – August 19: GEORGE BELLOWS
• More art puzzles and trivia
• Discover more about your favorite Park West Gallery artists