Alex Katz
b. 1927
Alex Katz, born in 1927 in Brooklyn, New York, is an American figurative artist associated with the Pop art movement. In particular, he is known for his paintings, sculptures, and prints. In the early 1960s, influenced by films, television, and billboard advertising, Katz began painting large-scale paintings, often with dramatically cropped faces. In 1965, he also embarked on a prolific career in printmaking. Katz would go on to produce many editions in lithography, etching, silkscreen, woodcut and linoleum cut. After 1964, Katz increasingly portrayed groups of figures. He would continue painting these complex groups into the 1970s, portraying the social world of painters, poets, critics, and other colleagues that surrounded him. He began designing sets and costumes for choreographer Paul Taylor in the early 1960s, and he has painted many images of dancers throughout the years. In 1974 The Whitney Museum of American Art showed Alex Katz Prints, followed by a traveling retrospective exhibition Alex Katz in 1986. In the 1980s, Katz took on a new subject in his work: fashion models in designer clothing.
Anselm Kiefer
B. 1945
Anselm Kiefer was born in 1945, in Donaueschingen. He is a German painter and sculptor. He studied with Joseph Beuys and Peter Dreher during the 1970s. His works incorporate materials such as straw, ash, clay, lead, and shellac. The poems of Paul Celan have played a role in developing Kiefer's themes of German history and the horror of the Holocaust, as have the theological concepts of Kabbalah. In his entire body of work, Kiefer argues with the past and addresses taboo and controversial issues from recent history. Themes from Nazi rule are particularly reflected in his work; for instance, the painting "Margarethe" (oil and straw on canvas) was inspired by Paul Celan's well-known poem "Todesfuge" ("Death Fugue"). His works are characterized by a musty, nearly depressive, destructive style and are often done in large scale formats. In most of his works, the use of photography as an output surface is prevalent and earth and other raw materials of nature are often incorporated. It is also characteristic of his work to find signatures and/or names of people of historical importance, legendary figures or places particularly pregnant with history. All of these are encoded sigils through which Kiefer seeks to process the past; this has resulted in his work being linked with a style called "New Symbolism."
Bridget Riley
B. 1931
The London born English painter, Bridget Riley is one of the foremost proponents of Op Art movement (Optical art) in the 1960s. A graduate from the Royal College of Art in 1955, Riley's mature style, developed during the 1960s, was influenced by a number of sources. Visually, her work relates to many concerns of the 60s era: a perceived need for audience participation, challenges to the notion of the mind-body duality which led some people to experiment with hallucinogenic drugs; concerns with a tension between a scientific future which might be very beneficial or might lead to a nuclear war; and fears about the loss of genuine individual experience in a Brave New World. In 1965, Riley exhibited in the Museum of Modern Art in New York City show, “The Responsive Eye”, the exhibition which first drew worldwide attention to her work and the Op Art movement. After a trip to Egypt in the early 1980s, where she was inspired by colourful hieroglyphic decoration, Riley began to explore colour and contrast. In 1968 Riley represented Great Britain in the Venice Biennale. She was the first British contemporary painter, and the first woman, to be awarded the prestigious International Prize for painting.
El Anatsui
B. 1944
El Anatsui is a Ghanaian sculptor active for much of his career in Nigeria and a graduate of College of Art, University of Science and Technology, in Kumasi, in central Ghana. Anatsui's preferred media are clay and wood, which he uses to create objects based on traditional Ghanaian beliefs and other subjects that he has turned to installation art. Anatsui also incorporates uli and nsibidi into his works alongside Ghanaian motifs. El Anatsui has exhibited his work around the world, including at Art Dubai (2010); the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (2008-09); National Museum of African Art, Washington, D.C. (2008); Venice Biennale (2007); Hayward Gallery (2005); Liverpool Biennial (2002); the National Museum of African Art (2001); the Centro de Cultura Contemporania Barcelona (2001); the 8th Osaka Sculpture Triennale (1995); and the Venice Biennale (1990).
Gerhard Richter
B. 1932
German visual artist, Gerhard Richter was born in Dresden, Germany, in 1932. He grew up in the countryside, in Reichenau (1935) and Waltersdorf (1942) in Saxony's Oberlausitz. In the early 1960s Richter was exposed to both American and British Pop art, which was just becoming known in Europe, and to the Fluxus movement. Richter consistently regarded himself simply as a painter. He began to paint enlarged copies of black-and-white photographs using only a range of greys. The evident reliance on a ready-made source gave Richter's paintings an apparent objectivity that he felt was lacking in abstract art of the period. The indistinctness of the images that emerged in the course of their transformation into thick layers of oil paint helped free them of traditional associations and meaning. Richter concentrated exclusively on the process of applying paint to the surface. As early as 1966 he had made paintings based on colour charts. Although these paintings, like those based on photographs, were still dependent on an existing artefact, all that was left in them was the naked physical presence of colour as the essential material of all painting. All vestiges of subject-matter seem to have been abandoned by Richter in the paintings that he began to produce in 1976. Even these supposedly wholly invented paintings retained a second-hand look, as if the brushstrokes had been copied from photographic enlargements. The extreme variety of Richter's work left him open to criticism, but his rejection of an artificially maintained consistency of style was a conscious conceptual act that allowed him to investigate freely the basic principles of painting.
Luciano Castelli
B. 1951
Luciano Castelli was born in Lucerne, Switzerland in 1951. He achieved notoriety between 1970 and 1983 as a member of a school of expressive and gestural painting known as the “Jungen Wilden” that had been formed by a group of painters in Berlin. Thanks to the influence of Franz Gertsch, Castelli’s early artistic career began to build with the exhibition of some sculptures at Documenta V in Kassel. Over the course of his career, his works have become increasingly complex and balanced. On one hand, they are characterized by an elegant line, common to Matisse and other French artists; on the other, they are rendered recognizable by an expressionism of gesture and color that refer to the influences of Hartung and de Steal, which however he mitigates, thus creating works of great originality and artistic quality. Among the great number of exhibitions in which he has participated; Geneva’s Center of Contemporary Art, the Kunstmuseum in Lucerne and the Maison Européenne de la Photographie in Paris; he has had group shows at the 39th Venice Biennial of Art, the Galleria Civica d’Arte Moderna in Modena, at Basel’s Kunsthalle, at the Museum of Modern Art in New York, and at the San Paolo Biennale. Many of his works figure in the collections of museums and cultural institutions around the world.
Tracey Emin
B. 1963
Tracey Emin was born in 1963, a British artist and part of the group known as Britartists or YBAs (Young British Artists). In 1997, her work “Everyone I Have Ever Slept With 1963–1995”, a tent appliquéd with names, was shown at Charles Saatchi's Sensation exhibition held at the Royal Academy in London. In 1999, she was a Turner Prize nominee and exhibited “My Bed”, an installation, consisting of her own unmade dirty bed. In March 2007, Emin was chosen to join the Royal Academy of Arts in London as a Royal Academician. She represented Britain at the 2007 Venice Biennale. Her first major retrospective, “20 Years” was held in Edinburgh 2008, and toured Europe until 2009. Tracey Emin is a panelist and speaker, she has lectured internationally at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London, the European Graduate School in Saas-Fee, Switzerland, the Art Gallery of New South Wales in Sydney (2010), the Royal Academy of Arts (2008) and the Tate Britain in London (2005) about the links between creativity and autobiography, and the role of subjectivity and personal histories in constructing art. Emin's art takes many different forms of expression including needlework and sculpture, drawing, video and installation, neon, fabric, photography and painting.
Andy Warhol
1928 - 1987
Andrew Warhola in 1928, known as Andy Warhol, was an American painter, printmaker, and filmmaker who was a leading figure in the visual art movement known as pop art. After a successful career as a commercial illustrator, Warhol became famous worldwide for his work as a painter, avant-garde filmmaker, record producer, author, and member of highly diverse social circles that included bohemian street people, distinguished intellectuals, Hollywood celebrities and wealthy patrons. Warhol has been the subject of numerous retrospective exhibitions, books, and feature and documentary films. He coined the widely used expression "15 minutes of fame." In his hometown of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, The Andy Warhol Museum exists in memory of his life and artwork. The highest price ever paid for a Warhol painting is $100 million for a 1963 canvas titled Eight Elvises. The private transaction was reported in a 2009 article in The Economist, which described Warhol as the "bellwether of the art market." $100 million is a benchmark price that only Jackson Pollock, Pablo Picasso, Vincent van Gogh, Pierre-August Renoir, Gustav Klimt and Willem de Kooning have achieved.
Anselm Reyle
B. 1970
Berlin based artist Anselm Reyle was born in 1970 in Tübingen, Germany. In his large-scale paintings, sculptures, and painted reliefs, Reyle deals with the modernistic vocabulary of Abstract Expressionism, while exploring the union between the mundane and the highly seductive. Using materials like aluminum foil, neon colours and neon light, Reyle achieves intense colours, light, and surface effects that intensify and deconstruct common and familiar composition patterns of abstract painting styles. The artist's past solo exhibitions include shows at the Modern Institute in Glasgow (2007) and Galerie Almine Rech, Paris. He has also participated in numerous international group exhibitions including ones at Tate Modern, London and the Palazzo Grassi, Venice, Italy.
Daniel Buren
B. 1938
Daniel Buren was born in 1938 in Boulogne-Billancourt, Hauts-de-Seine, he is a French conceptual artist. In 1986 he created a 3,000 m² sculpture in the great courtyard of the Palais Royal, in Paris: "Les Deux Plateaux", more commonly referred to as the "Colonnes de Buren" ("Buren's Columns"). This provoked an intense debate over the integration of contemporary art and historic buildings. Sometimes classified as an abstract minimalist he is known best for using regular, contrasting maxi stripes to integrate the visual surface and architectural space, notably historical, landmark architecture. In the late 1960s Buren hit on the mark that connected him with ideas of space and presentation arising through deconstructionist philosophies background in the May 1968 student demonstrations in France. Working in situ (on site), he strives to contextualize his artistic practice using the. He began producing unsolicited public art works using striped awning canvas common in France. Denoting the trademark stripes as a visual instrument or ‘seeing tool’ he invites us to take up his critical standpoint challenging traditional ideas about art. As a conceptual artist, he was regarded as visually and spatially audacious, objecting to traditional ways of presenting art through the museum/gallery system while at the same time growing in hot demand to show via the system. By the 70s and 80s he was exhibiting in Europe, America and Japan. In 1986 when François Mitterrand was President, he attained leading artist status after a contentious work in the Palais Royal court, Paris. That same year, he represented France at the Venice Biennale and won the Golden Lion Award. Often referred to as ‘the stripe guy’ Buren also expresses his theme in paint, laser cut fabric, light boxes, transparent fabrics and ceramic cup sets. His stripes are displayed in private homes, public places and museums worldwide. In 2007 Buren was awarded the Praemium Imperiale.
Georg Baselitz
B. 1938
Born in 1938 in what was then East Germany, before moving to what was then the country of West Germany. German Painter Georg Baselitz's style is interpreted as Neo-Expressionist. His career was kick-started in the 1960s after police action against one of his paintings, the “Die große Nacht im Eimer” (1963), because of its provocative, offending sexual nature. Baselitz is one of the world's best-selling living artists. He is a professor at the renowned Hochschule der Künste in Berlin. His style usually focuses on deformation, the power of subject and the vibrancy of the colors. He became famous for his upside-down images and his ability to shock his audience. He is seen as a revolutionary painter as he draws the viewer’s attention to his works by making them think and sparking their interest. Throughout his career, Baselitz has varied his style, ranging from layering substances to his style, since the 1990s, which focuses more on lucidity and smooth changes. Baselitz currently lives and works near Munich and in Imperia, Italy.
Jaume Plensa
B. 1955
Jaume Plensa was born in 1955 in Barcelona, Catalonia, Spain, he is an internationally renowned contemporary artist and sculptor. Plensa studied art in Barcelona, in the "Llotja" School and in the Escola Superior de Belles Arts de Sant Jordi. One of Jaume Plensa's most notable works of art is the “Crown Fountain” at Millennium Park in Chicago, Illinois in the United States. It opened in July 2004.The fountain is composed of a black granite reflecting pool placed between a pair of glass brick towers. The towers are 15.2m tall, and they use light-emitting diodes (LEDs) to display digital videos on the inward faces. On 16 June 2008 Jaume's sculpture of a listening glass entitled “Breathing” was dedicated by the incumbent Secretary-General of the United Nations, Ban Ki-moon, as a memorial to journalists killed whilst undertaking their work. The sculpture in steel and glass sits atop a new wing of Broadcasting House in London. At 22:00 GMT each evening a beam of light will be projected from the sculpture extending 1 km into the sky for 30 minutes to coincide with the BBC News at Ten. “El alma del Ebro” sculpture was created for the International Exposition in Zaragoza, the theme of which was "Water and Sustainable Development". It is eleven meters high, the sculpted letters representing cells of the human body which is over 60% water. Its white letters and hollow structure invite the view to look inside and reflect on the relationship between human beings and water.
Thomas Struth
B. 1954
Thomas Struth was born in 1954 in Geldern in the German state of Nordrhein-Westfalen, near Düsseldorf. He trained under Gerhard Richter and Bernd and Hilla Becher at the Kunstakademie Düsseldorf from 1973 to 1980. Richters early blurred photo paintings as well as the Bechers direct, methodically composed black-and-white photographs of Germanys industrial landscape left a lasting impression on the young artist. Initially interested in painting, Struth turned his attention to photography in 1976. In the mid-1980s, Struth began a series of color and black-and-white portraits of individuals and family groups, using the same large-format camera he employed for his cityscapes. As a result of his portrait work, Struth developed an interest in Renaissance painting, which precipitated his best-known series, the Museum Photographs.n the past decade, Struth has expanded his photographic vocabulary to include natural landscapes (jungles, deserts, forests), intimate nature studies, celebrated architectural monuments (Notre Dame, Milans cathedral), and Chinese cityscapes.
Veronica Bailey
b. 1965
She was born in London 1965. She attended Ecole Nationale Superieure des Art Decoratifs in Paris, Midlesex University (BA) and Central Saint Martin (MA).Her work includes the Jerwood Photographic Prize-winning 2 Willow Road [2003], in which Bailey offered an interpretation of the lives and relationship of modernist architect, Ernö Goldfinger, and his wife, Ursula Blackwell, using nothing more than a selection of books from their library. Her later body of work, Postscript [2005], is a visually arresting meditation on the passionate yet volatile wartime affair between Lee Miller and Roland Penrose, the Lee Miller Archive granting Bailey access to their correspondence from that period - a simple and spare resource, usually regarded as the rather arid fiefdom of the professional biographer rather than the raw materials for a fine artist. Her last series, Hours of Devotion, is the result of several months delving into the physical residue of Coutts Bank 300 years of continuous activity in the financial market.