Artists Materials

Make pigments, brushes, bamboo pens, palettes, felt-tip markers, etching needles, woodblock press, a portable drafting table, more.

Lucio Fontana (1899-1968) is widely regarded as one of the most influential and innovative post-World War II Italian artists. This title presents a technical study in English of this important painter and an informative overview of Fontana's life and work.

The career of the German-American painter and educator Hans Hofmann (1880–1966) describes the arc of artistic modernism from pre–World War I Munich and Paris to mid twentieth-century Greenwich Village. His career also traces the transatlantic engagement of modern painting with the materials of its own making, a relationship that is perhaps still not completely understood. In these interrelated narratives, Hofmann is a central protagonist, providing a vital link between nineteenth- and twentieth-century art practice and between European and American modernism. The remarkable vitality of his later work affords insight not only into the style but also the literal substance of this formative period of artistic and material innovation. This richly illustrated book, the fourth in the Getty Conservation Institute’s Artist’s Materials series, presents a thorough examination of Hofmann’s late-career materials. Initial chapters present an informative overview of Hofmann’s life and work in Europe and America and discuss his crucial role in the development of Abstract Expressionism. Subsequent chapters present a detailed analysis of Hofmann’s materials and techniques and explore the relationship of the artist’s mature palette to shifts in the style and aging characteristics of his paintings. The book concludes with lessons for the conservation of modernist paintings generally, and particularly those that incorporate both traditional and modern paint media. This book will be of value to conservators, art historians, conservation scientists, and general readers with an interest in modern art.

The next title in the respected Artist’s Materials series offers groundbreaking analysis of Sam Francis’s working methods and materials American artist Sam Francis (1923–1994) brought vivid color and emotional intensity to Abstract Expressionism. He was described as the “most sensuous and sensitive painter of his generation” by former Guggenheim Museum director James Johnson Sweeney, and curator Howard Fox called him “one of the acknowledged masters of late-modern art.” Francis’s works, whether intimate or monumental in scale, make indelible impressions; the intention of the artist was to make them felt as much as seen. At the age of twenty, Francis was hospitalized for spinal tuberculosis and spent three years virtually immobilized in a body cast. For physical therapy he was given a set of watercolors, and, as he described it, he painted his way back to life. The exuberant color and expression in his paintings celebrated his survival; his five-decade career was an energetic visual and theoretical exploration that took him around the world. Francis’s idiosyncratic painting practices have long been the subject of speculation and debate among conservators and art historians. Presented here for the first time in this volume are the results of an in-depth scientific study of more than forty paintings from the late 1940s to early 1990s, which reveal new discoveries about his creative process, inventive techniques, and specially formulated paints and binders. The data provides a key to the complicated evolution of the artist’s work and informs original art historical interpretations.

The first significant publication on Clyfford Still and his work in more than twenty-five years celebrates one of abstract expressionism’s founders. Best known for his compelling abstract works with jagged fields and powerful expanses of color, Clyfford Still (1904–1980) stands among the giants of post–World War II art. Together with Jackson Pollock, Mark Rothko, Franz Kline, and Barnett Newman, Still helped shape abstract expressionism. This vividly illustrated book presents more than one hundred of Still’s greatest works and is the first comprehensive catalogue of the new Clyfford Still Museum in Denver. The book offers intimate reflections written by his daughters Sandra Still Campbell and Diane Still Knox; Dean Sobel chronicles the origins of the new museum; and David Anfam, one of the world’s foremost authorities on Still’s work, gives a new scholarly and critical perspective of Still, made possible by the opening of the museum. Illustrations include monumental paintings, works on paper, and Still’s only sculptures, many of which have never been published or publicly exhibited.

Which canvas fabric is best for oil paints? When should you use colored inks? How can you avoid the darkening of acrylics over time? Choosing the right materials for your artwork can be tricky. Artist's Materials is a compact, indispensable and comprehensive guide to help you with these dilemmas, useful for both experienced and aspiring artists. Full of detailed advice on an array of materials and techniques, topics include: • How to pick your paints, be it oils, acrylics, watercolors or tempera • Painting techniques, including encaustic painting and gesso grounds • How to use fixatives, primers and varnishes • Making your own materials, such as canvases, paints and glues • Information on drawing materials, color mixing and brushes With a pigment color index, a glossary of key terms and information on caring for and storing your finished artwork, this book will equip you with all the tools you need to become a confident and versatile artist.

This in-depth study of the paintings of Willem de Kooning (1904-1997) from the 1940s through the 1970s breaks new ground in its analysis of the artist's working methods and yields new information about previously unreported materials. De Kooning's idiosyncratic working methods have long engendered intense speculation and debate among conservators and art historians, primarily on the basis of visual inspection and anecdotal accounts rather than rigorous technical analysis. This is the first systematic study of de Kooning's creative process to use comprehensive scientific examinations of the artist's pigments, binders, and supports to inform art historical interpretations, thereby presenting a key to the complicated evolution of the artist's work. Written for conservation scientists, conservators, specialists in modern art history, museum curators, and practicing artists, this book offers insights into the way an artist can achieve radical changes in style. The technical discussions will have practical applications for conservators, curators, collections managers, and collectors who care for twentieth-century art.

Jean Paul Riopelle (1923-2002) was one of the most important Canadian artists of the twentieth century, yet he is relatively unknown in the U.S.. He began his career in Montreal in the 1940s, where he played a role in the influential Automatist movement, and established his reputation in the burgeoning art scene of postwar Paris, where his circle included André Breton, Samuel Beckett, and Sam Francis. During his career, Riopelle produced over six thousand works, including more than two thousand paintings. This volume, the second in the Artist's Materials series, grew out of a research project of the Canadian Conservation Institute. Initial chapters present an overview of Riopelle's life and situate his work within the context of twentieth-century art. Subsequent chapters address Riopelle's materials and techniques, focusing on his oil paintings and mixed media works, and on conservation issues. The preface is by Yseult Riopelle, the artist's eldest daughter and editor of his catalogue raisonné. This first book-length study of the artist in English will interest curators, conservators, conservation scientists, and general readers.

This title, dedicated to the memory of Caroline Villers, is the proceedings of a conference in London in 2005.

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