Ricardo Asensio

Ricardo Asensio

 

Ricardo Asensio  (born February 27, 1949) is an Spanish painter.

Prestigious portraitist of the illustrious and the intellectuals, he is an artist who has a compromise with the renovation in paint. His artwork started as purely figurative, only centered in the face of person that he was painting as well as the landscape, in oil or pastel, his palette managing to make a turnaround from a realism almost photographic due to the perfection of his drawing to an expressionism very strong in sober hues and well defined compositions. He studied in Valencia, Barcelona and Rome.

Exhibitions: More than 30 years in many individual an group shows in art galleries, museums, biennials and international arts fairs in European countries and in the United States.

Awards: He has obtained numerous awards granted by important international competitions dedicated to figurative painting such as Honorary Mention in New York, even thought it is in Italy where the artist reaches the peak of his career in 1979 when he became a finalist for the scholarship in painting granted by the Spanish Academy in Rome where he lives and exhibits his portraits obtaining the Award "Villa Alessandra" in 1981. Prize "Controvento", 1982. The fine Arts Merit Medal 1996. "Villa Serravalle" award Florence, 1997. The "Gran Collare d´Argento" Palinuro nel Mondo . The award "Old Florence" and "The Oscar of Culture" 2001. The Italy Grand Award 2003. "La Dea Alata" award Florence, 2003. The Gold Medal of the Trophy "Medusa Aurea", 26th edition, Rome, 2003 granted by the Modern Art International Academy . Great Award "Maremma" in the Trophy Costa d´Argento , Toscana, Italy. The Great Award "City of Florence" 2003 from "Il Marzzoco"Academy. The first prize "Costa Toscana", IV Italy Biennial. The first prize "Europe 2004", Turin. The first prize "Sant Ambroggio d´Oro". Milan 2004. The "Gran Collare Academico" Rome 2004. The Gran Prize Europe Art "Mediolanum" Milan 2005. First Prize "Hans Christian Andersen Festival", Copenhagen (Denmark). First Prize "Rembrandt" 2006, Netherlands. Career Award Prize Sever, Milan. "Artist of the year 2007"Academy Severiade, Milan. Prize for culture "Artistic Centre La Conca" Roma. Prize "Leonardo Da Vinci" 2009. "Prize Universal " 2009, Florence.
NOBEL Prize for the Arts, Milan Italy... and many others.

Honors: He is an "Honorary Academician"Michelangelo Order from the International Santa Rita Academy of Turin; Academician from the Universal Academy "Antonio Canova"; Academician from the International "Il Marzzoco" Academy in Florence; Academician from the "Greci-Marino" Academy; Academician from the"Verbano" (Arts, Sciences and Literature), Italy.

Collections: As a portraistwe should mention as oustanding his magnificent portrait of NOBEL Prize Camilo José Cela, the writer Antonio Buero Vallejo, the Princess of Orleans, Isabel Preysler, Marisa of Borbon, Carmen Martinez Bordiu, actresses Kim Novak, Virna Lisi, Brooke Shields, Dalila Di Lazzaro, Victoria Vera and Faye Dunaway.

Artworks are in public and private collections in the United States, France, Italy, Germany and Spain.

Helmut Newton

Helmut Newton

Helmut Newton, born Helmut Neustädter (October 31, 1920, Berlin, Germany – January 23, 2004, West Hollywood, California, USA) was a German-Australian fashion photographer noted for his nude studies of women.

Born in Schoneberg, Berlin, to a German-Jewish button-factory owner and an American mother, Newton attended the Heinrich-von-Treitschke-Realgymnasium and the American School in Berlin. Interested in photography from the age of twelve when he purchased his first camera, he worked for the German photographer Yva (Else Neulander Simon) from 1936. The increasingly oppressive restrictions placed on Jews by the Nuremberg laws meant that his father lost control of the factory in which he manufactured buttons and buckles; he was even briefly interned in a concentration camp. ‘Kristallnacht’ on 9 November 1938 compelled the family to leave Germany. Newton's parents fled to Chile. He was issued with a passport just after turning 18, and left Germany on 5 December 1938. At Trieste he boarded the 'Conte Rosso' (along with about two hundred others escaping the Nazis) intending to journey to China. After arriving in Singapore he decided to remain as a reporter for the Straits Times and worked as a portrait photographer.

In 1946, Newton set up a studio in fashionable Flinders Lane and worked primarily on fashion photography in the affluent post-war years. He shared his first joint exhibition in May 1953 with Wolfgang Sievers, a German refugee like himself who had also served in the same Company. The exhibition of ‘New Visions in Photography’ was held at the Federal Hotel in Collins Street and was probably the first glimpse of 'New Objectivity' photography in Australia. Newton went into partnership with Henry Talbot, a fellow German Jew who had also been interned at Tatura, and his association with the studio continued even after 1957 when he left Australia for London. The studio was renamed 'Helmut Newton and Henry Talbot'.

Newton's growing reputation as a fashion photographer was rewarded when he secured a commission to illustrate fashions in a special Australian supplement for Vogue magazine, published in January 1956. He won a twelve-month contract with British Vogue and he left for London in February 1957, leaving Talbot to manage the business. He left the magazine before the end of his contract and went to Paris where he worked for French and German magazines. He returned to Melbourne in March 1959 to a contract for Australian Vogue.

He settled in Paris in 1961 and continued work as a fashion photographer. His works appeared in magazines including, most significantly, French Vogue and Harper's Bazaar. He established a particular style marked by erotic, stylised scenes, often with sado-masochistic and fetishistic subtexts. A heart attack in 1970 slowed his output somewhat but he extended his work and his notoriety/fame greatly increased, notably with his 1980 "Big Nudes" series which marked the pinnacle of his erotic-urban style, underpinned with excellent technical skills. He also worked in portraiture and more fantastical studies.

Newton was extremely fond of his hometown of Berlin, and in October 2003 he donated an extensive photo collection to the Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation, establishing the Helmut Newton Foundation. The foundation’s aim is the conservation, protection and presentation of the oeuvre of Helmut Newton and Alice Springs.

In his later life, Newton lived in Monte Carlo and Los Angeles. He was killed when his car hit a wall in the driveway of the famous Chateau Marmont, the hotel on Sunset Boulevard which had for several years served as his residence in Southern California. It has been speculated that Newton suffered a heart attack in the moments before the collision.[citation needed] His ashes are buried next to Marlene Dietrich at the Städtischen Friedhof III in Berlin.

Henri Toulouse-Lautrec

Henri Toulouse-Lautrec

Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec was one of the impressionists. Impressionis was a new tendency in painting at the second part of the 19th century. It was started by a scandal caused by the first official show of Manet painting “Picnic on the Grass” in 1863. Shortly speaking impressionism was a new approach to light and a decomposition of geometrical forms and ussual things, esspecialy in Cezzane’s works.
Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec was born on November 24th in 1864, in Albi, France. He was an aristocrat, the son and heir of Comte Alphonse-Charles de Toulouse and last in line of the family that dated backs a thousand years. Henri's father was rich, handsome, and extravagant. His mother was extremely devoted to her only child. She was assigning the blame for his disability to herself (doctors maintained that the reason of her son’s state was her close relation with husband). Henri was weak and often sick. By the time he was ten he had begun to draw and paint.
In 1878 and 1879 Toulouse-Lautrec had two unfortunate fractures. The bones failed to heal properly, and his legs stopped growing. He had a trunk of normal size but with abnormally short legs. He was only 4 1/2 feet (1.5 meters) tall and had a difficult gait, which neccesitated the use of cane.
With his aristocratic origin and excentirc appereance he was not afraid to drop all social prejudices and stayed in the Montmartre section of Paris, the center of the cabaret entertainment and bohemian life. He began to work as an illustrator of life of the cabarets such as Moulin-Rouge where he had reserved table every night. He chose a life in the wings. He was drawing portraits of celebritis of cabarets and nightclubs such as clowns and dancers. He was painting decorations in famous (partly thanks to him) theathre “Moulin-Rouge”. First of all, he was creatinig posters. He was able to make sketches at the same time while laughing and drinking at a crowded nightclub.
To become a part of Montmartre life and to protect himself against crowd’s laugh at his appearance he began to drink heavily. As he would say he strarted to commit a “moral suicide”. At the same time he also managed to travel, visited England and Spain.
Despite his dissolute life, he had extremaly good relations with parents. He could count on them every time he needed money or moral support.
In 1090’s the drinking started to affect his health. He was confined to a sanatorium and finally he got back home to his mother’s care. All of this for nothing. He could not stay away from an alcohol. Toulouse-Lautrec died on September 9th in 1901, at the family house.
The aim of his art was to penetrate the life of cafes and cabarets of Montmartre. His main heroins were prostitutes, cancan dancers, and singers. His works are regarded to be a great portrait of the “fin de siecle”. His genuity is mostly based on a mixture of compasion to the people from a margin of society and their tragedy. Only in impressionistic ways of expression he managed to present that completely.
His paintings and posters (particularly the `Moulin Rouge' group) bring high prices at auctions and art sales.
Based on Toulouse-Lautrec’s biography the film “Tolouse-Lautrec” was made by Roger Planchon. The director tried to show us the world throught an impressionistic convention. Every scene is composed like the hero’s paintings, full of live and colours. The film is a kind of living painting, a reflextion of Toulouse-Lautrec’s works. In that film Planchon is speaking about an artist using his ways of expression, his own language.

Poeme d'automne

Poeme d'automne

Les roses sont faites pour mourrir Sous le corps d'un rayon de soleil de novembre Aux soupirs rayonnant de plaisir A rendre jaloux septembre et decembre... Les roses sont faites pour mourir A l'automne de fleurs tremblantes Que le temps en terre laisse deperir Sans regard pour leur grace tremblante... Avant de mourir dans l'austère saison Sacrifiées par la froideur d'un soleil enrhumé Privé de ses rayons s'enfuyant dans l'horizon.

T´adore

Mon amie je pense à toi,

A ta couleur de soleil à ta grace.

La maison est vide depuis que mon rayon de soleil

Est allé se plonger dans la mer.

Si tu vois les sous-marins

Dis-leur que je t'aime.

Si les nauges s'accumulent

Dis-leur que je t'adore.

Si la tempete fait rage contre les rocs du rivage

Dis-leur que tu es ma pierre précieuse.

Si quelque grain de sable brille entre les mille grains

de sable de la plage

Dis-lui que tu es la seule gemme que j'aime.

Quand tu verras le facteur

Dis-lui avec quelle impatience j'attends tes lettres.

Je t'envoie mille baisers mille caresses

Qui te rejoindront comme les mots rejoignent

l'antenne de la télégraphie sans fil.

Si tu vois des blessés

Dis-leur que ma seule blessure est celle que tu as faite

à mon coeur.

Si tu penses parfois songe que ma pensée est toujours

avec toi.

Et que je t'adore.

Édouard Manet

Édouard Manet

Édouard Manet was born in Paris on 23 January 1832, to an affluent and well connected family. His mother, Eugénie-Desirée Fournier, was the daughter of a diplomat and the goddaughter of the Swedish crown prince, Charles Bernadotte, from whom the current Swedish monarchs are descended. His father, Auguste Manet, was a French judge who expected Édouard to pursue a career in law. His uncle, Charles Fournier, encouraged him to pursue painting and often took young Manet to the Louvre. In 1845, following the advice of his uncle, Manet enrolled in a special course of drawing where he met Antonin Proust, future Minister of Fine Arts, and a subsequent life-long friend.

At his father's suggestion, in 1848 he sailed on a training vessel to Rio de Janeiro. After twice failing the examination to join the navy, the elder Manet relented to his son's wishes to pursue an art education. From 1850 to 1856, Manet studied under the academic painter Thomas Couture, a painter of large historical paintings. In his spare time he copied the old masters in the Louvre.

From 1853 to 1856 he visited Germany, Italy, and the Netherlands, during which time he absorbed the influences of the Dutch painter Frans Hals, and the Spanish artists Diego Velázquez and Francisco José de Goya.

In 1856, he opened his own studio. His style in this period was characterized by loose brush strokes, simplification of details, and the suppression of transitional tones. Adopting the current style of realism initiated by Gustave Courbet, he painted The Absinthe Drinker (1858-59) and other contemporary subjects such as beggars, singers, Gypsies, people in cafés, and bullfights. After his early years, he rarely painted religious, mythological, or historical subjects; examples include his Christ Mocked, now in the Art Institute of Chicago, and Christ with Angels, in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.