1926

Self-Portrait in a Velvet Dress

Earlier in the year, artist Frieda Kahlo painted a self-portrait entitled Self-Portrait in a Velvet Dress. Kahlo appears half length, wearing an elegant velvet dress, against a background of stylized waves. She presents herself as a comely young woman of the time, her hair neatly parted in the center and combed into a chignon that highlights her oval face and symmetrical features. Her compelling gaze—wide dark eyes under strongly defined brows that almost meet in the middle—expresses challenge and confidence, as if she is daring the viewer to look away. The dress Kahlo is wearing in the portrait has a wine-red color and she has been described as having a regal appearance. The self-portrait is notable for being the first time Kahlo depicted herself with a prominent unibrow, which would go on to become a staple of her work. This self-portrait is notably less graphic than many of her later paintings.

The Cello Player

Sheet music from a Beethoven quartet leads us into the picture and, with the two keyboard instruments at the right, suggests again the equation of painting and music, a notion widely accepted among Provincetown artists, as well as members of Stieglitz's circle, in particular Marsden Hartley. That the music in the picture is purely visual is once again indicated by the picture's undermined narrative coherence, with objects positioned not for use but to create visual rhythms and harmonies, and more explicitly by preventing the cellist from playing. The hand that would finger the notes is not in position and the bow hand has no bow to play with. Further, the music is for a string quartet, but only one string instrument is present, and the cellist's position prevents the piano, not a stringed instrument in any case, from being played. But the formal character of the painting does not mean that the objects have no meaning. Dickinson himself admitted that many of them represented his interests at the time, including a book on the Arctic explorer Fridtjof Nansen, and Driscoll notes that a teapot on the right was one given to Dickinson by a Southern woman who told him that General Sherman had once used it.

Cirque Calder

Cirque Calder is an artistic rendering of a circus created by the American artist Alexander Calder. It involves wire models rigged to perform the various functions of the circus performers they represent, from contortionists to sword eaters to lion tamers. The models are composed of diverse materials, most notably wire and wood. During his time in Paris, Calder began improvising circus shows. During the performance, it is said that he would make comments in French. 

The Basket of Bread

The Basket of Bread is a painting by Spanish surrealist Salvador Dalí. The painting depicts four pieces of bread with butter on them sitting in a basket. One is separated from the others and is half-bitten. The basket sits on a white cloth. The painting is now residing in the Salvador Dalí Museum, St. Petersburg, Florida. Dali said that he completed the painting earlier in the year when he was twenty-two years old, after he finished his formal art class in Madrid where he said he was studying under the Dutch Masters.

Quappi

Beckmann, affiliated with the Expressionist movement, is known for his powerful and resonant works that captures the psychological state and individuality of his subjects. The portrait genre, in which this piece falls, is a significant aspect of Beckmann’s oeuvre. In the artwork, one observes a figure, presumably Quappi, dressed in a blue garment with a ruffled collar that lends a modest classic touch to the attire. The subject’s face and upper torso are dominant within the frame, offering a direct gaze that engages the viewer. Beckmann’s use of bold, contrasting colors and sharp angles aligns with the Expressionist tendency to evoke emotional responses over realistic depiction. The brushwork is vigorous and the composition is structured in such a way that the viewer’s focus is drawn to the expressive facial features and the vividly blue garment of the subject. Beckmann’s portrayal of Quappi exhibits a sense of depth and character, reflective of the introspective and often dramatic nature of Expressionist art.

Spoon Woman

Evoking a female body through simplified shapes that suggest a head, shoulders, a chest, and a wide, concave womb, this sculpture was inspired by a ceremonial ladle created by the Dan communities of Liberia and Cote d’Ivoire. These objects, known as a wakemia or wunkirmian, likewise incorporate anthropomorphic forms into their construction, and they are exhibited frequently in museums in Paris. Objects like these were of immense interest to European artists, including Alberto Giacometti, who appreciated their geometry, their literal rendering of bodily volumes, and the alternatives they presented to Western modes of modeling and carving. 

Chinese Head

The sitter was a young man named Chia-Chu Chang born in 1902. Chia-Chu Chang was born in Jiading, near Shanghai. His father was a doctor and a philanthropist who collected ancient Chinese art. In the early 1920s he was sent to America to learn English and studied at Clark College in Massachusetts and at Columbia University in New York. On his return to China, while making travel arrangements in Paris, Chang was approached by a man sent by Gordine to ask whether he would sit for a portrait head. He agreed and the sittings were completed over three intensive days. He evidently enjoyed the experience and on his return to China sent Gordine a series of affectionate postcards. In China, Chang was involved in various cultural activities, including organizing a lecture tour of China by the Nobel Prize-winning Bengali poet Rabindranath Tagore.

Love

Hannah Hoch made some of the most interesting Dada collages and photomontages, including Love, an image of two strange composite female. Hoch’s technique of pasting images together from magazine clippings and advertisements was a response to the modern era of mass media, and a way of criticizing the bourgeois taste for ‘high art’. In many of her works, Hoch explores the identity and changing roles of women in modern society.

The Bridge near Wiesen

The center of the painting depicts the railway viaduct of the Rhaetian Railway over the Land Wasser River near Davos-Wiesen, a well-known structure of Alpine railway architecture. The structure had been completed in 1909, so it was still quite new when the painting was made. Kirchner depicts a view of the viaduct as seen from the south. Compared to Kirchner's earlier depictions of buildings and structures, which often showed distorted proportions and perspectives, this image is closer to reality. In his depiction, Kirchner pays attention to the lines of the bridge and precisely reproduces the parabolic construction of the main arch and the semicircular formation of the smaller arches. The colors of the picture do not correspond to reality, but to Kirchner's artistic conception. A red and white railway signal can be seen above the bridge on the left side of the painting, a so-called Hippsche turning disc.

The Difficult Crossing

In this work, the bilboquet seems to play an inanimate role analogous to a tree or plant. In other instances, such as here with The Difficult Crossing, the bilboquet is given the anthropomorphic feature of a single eye. Another common feature of Magritte's work seen here is the ambiguity between windows and paintings. The back of the room shows a boat in a thunderstorm, but the viewer is left to wonder if the depiction is a painting or the view out a window. Near the bilboquet stands a table. On the top, a disembodied hand is holding a red bird, as if clutching it. The front right leg of the table resembles a human leg.

The Musings of a Solitary Walker

The artwork portrays a somber and evocative scene where a figure, clothed in a dark coat and bowler hat, stands with their back turned. The landscape is twilight, with an overcast sky and distant trees lining a tranquil river that curves gently to the right. In the foreground, an androgynous, bald figure reclines horizontally, seemingly floating, with a serene yet lifeless expression. The scene bridges dreamlike surrealism with an almost poignant reflection, characteristic of Magritte’s enigmatic style. The juxtaposition of the tangible and the ethereal elements invites the viewer to delve into the deeper realms of thought and existence. 

Nuit d'Amour

Currently, Georges Malkine hasn't come out about his art, but I'm sure that this will be one that will be displayed in museums for centuries to come.

Yellow Odalisque

Henri Matisse, an artist renowned for his vibrant use of color and fluid draughtsman ship, presents a reclining nude figure that dominates the composition with an unguarded and relaxed posture. The figure is situated against a backdrop of vivid patterns and hues, portraying a rich tapestry of drapery and decorative screens. Matisse skillfully integrates flat planes of color with bold outlines, an approach that aligns with the artistic innovations of Post-Impressionism, which sought to express more symbolic and emotive content than its Impressionistic predecessors. The use of the color yellow in both the title and the prominent element of the artwork reflects Matisse’s focus on color as a principal conveyer of feeling and composition. The ‘odalisque,’ a term referring to a female slave or concubine in a harem, traditionally an exoticized figure in Western art, is depicted here in a manner that draws attention to the sensuality of form and the pure aesthetic pleasure of the scene, free from explicit narrative context. 

Statue of Abraham Lincoln

A statue was finally finished honoring the great Abraham Lincoln earlier this year, I highly recommend that you go and tour the Civic Center in San Francisco when you get the chance.

Morning

Starting in 1922, Dod Proctor began to paint a series of simple, monumental portraits of young women she knew, while utilizing the fall of light across the figure to give them a sense of volume. The model in this painting is rumored to be Cissie Barnes, the sixteen-year-old daughter of a fisherman from Newlyn, the Cornish village where Dod Proctor currently lives.

The Breakdown

In Souter's painting, a jazz musician is in full white tie evening dress with a top hat; he sits on a cast down and shattered classical statue of Minerva, the goddess of virginity and traditional values. Nearby, an androgynous female dancer – a flapper with short, bobbed hair– has her eyes are closed, as if she is in a trance. Her hastily discarded lingerie and green leather shoes are scattered on the ground, with just one green earring visible. A flesh-colored stocking lies draped over the statue's broken arm. The musician's race and instrument signify that he is playing jazz music. He is black and the woman is white, playing on contemporaneous concerns about the popularity of (predominantly black) jazz music to the (predominantly white) British public, and the perceived threat posed by hypersexualized and exoticized black men to white women. However, according to critic Karl Toepfer, "the musician gazes not at the woman but out toward the spectator, and the implication is that jazz and dance together allow man and woman to cross racial barriers and form a new and mysteriously intimate (or trusting) sort of couple, each immersed in separate aspirations."