Today’s “Feel Art Again” is a double-header. First up was a post on the German-English artist Johann Zoffany (1733-1810); now this post delves into his painting “The Tribuna of the Uffizi.” Read both to get the full story on this talented artist.

In the summer of 1772, Johann Zoffany was sent by Queen Charlotte to Florence with £300 and a letter of introduction. He was to paint highlights of the Grand Duke of Tuscany’s collection as they were displayed in the Uffizi Palace’s Tribuna. The result: “The Tribuna of the Uffizi.”

1. In Italian, tribuna refers to the semi-circular or semi-polygonal domed end of a basilica. The Tribuna at the Uffizi is an octagonal domed room that was intended as “a sort of Holy of Holies within the palace.” Designed for Francesco I de’Medici in the late 1580s, the Tribuna is the display room for the most important of the Medici collection of antiquities and paintings.

2. Zoffany’s painting may have been inspired by Jacob de Formentrou’s “Cabinet of Paintings” (at the time attributed to Gonzales Coques), which hung in Queen Charlotte’s workroom. “The Tribuna of the Uffizi” takes “Cabinet of Paintings” to the next level with almost twice as many paintings and people, plus the addition of sculptures.

3. Although Zoffany has been praised for his accurate reproduction of the Tribuna, he actually brought in art from elsewhere in the Medici collection, re-arranged works, and adjusted the perspective of the interior. Zoffany arranged the paintings and sculptures in his depiction of the Tribuna so that the stylistic, historical, and thematic relationships between artists could be appreciated. The perspective—which may not have been exactly intentional, but of which Zoffany was aware—is more like that of a cut-away model or a stage viewed from the back theater. The altered perspective enabled Zoffany to fit more of the works of art and the people, and to better group them.
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Today’s “Feel Art Again” is a double-header. First up is this post on Johann Zoffany, followed by a post delving into his painting “The Tribuna of the Uffizi.” Read both to get the full story on this talented artist.

Johann Zoffany (1733-1810) was a German-born English painter and favored portraitist of King George III and Queen Charlotte. It was said that when Zoffany was given a paintbrush, magic was created.

1. Johann Zoffany, who ran away from home at age 13 to study in Rome, was only able to move to England 12 years later due to the dowry he received upon marrying his wife. Once in England, though, he was well paid as the portraitist of the royal family. He painted George III, Charlotte, and their children in “charmingly informal scenes,” making him the first artist to depict the king’s family so informally. (While portraits such as “Queen Charlotte with her two eldest sons,” shown above, may appear formal to us today, at the time it was considered less formal than the standard royal portrait.)

2. As “the real creator and master of [the] genre,” Zoffany was well-known for his “theatrical conversation pieces.” The portraits depicted prominent actors in character, often with scenery behind them. It’s fitting, then, that Zoffany is referenced in the theatrical production The Pirates of Penzance, by Gilbert & Sullivan. In it, the Major-General sings of being able to distinguish works by Raphael from works by Zoffany.
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(This post was a week in the making, due to the overabundance of articles, reviews, and critiques on Walker and her art.)

The American artist Kara Walker had achieved “both notoriety and acclaim in the art world while still in her twenties.” Her art—much of which would be considered “not safe for work”—usually sells at prices between $30,000 and $80,000, despite (or perhaps because of) the ire and controversy it causes. Still only 40 years old, Walker is considered one of the most “prominent,” “controversial,” “provocative,” and “prolific” American artists alive today.

1. Kara Walker and her family moved from California to Stone Mountain, GA, (the birthplace of the Ku Klux Klan) when she was 13. Walker suddenly “became black in more senses than just the kind of multicultural acceptance” in California. “Blackness became a very loaded subject,” a subject now reflected in Walker’s art. Her artwork addresses racism, sexuality, stereotypes, and violence, resulting in images that have been described as “tableaux that Toni Morrison might construct if possessed by Hieronymous Bosch.”

2. When a show of German Expressionist and Neo-Expressionist art arrived in Atlanta in the mid- or late-1980s, Walker found her calling. It seemed to her that “They hate themselves, they hate the world, and they hate painting.” The paintings were “fraught with urgency and rage, and somewhere underneath all of that, a kind of—it can’t be called love—passion.” She thought to herself, “That’s what I want to do.”

3. Walker, who earned degrees from Atlanta College of Art (BFA) and Rhode Island School of Design (MFA), once received an assignment to complete 100 drawings in one sitting. She has maintained the practice every since. According to Walker, “sometimes the first 75 are the dumbest, most idiotic, nondrawing, moronic stuff. You have to find a rhythm.”
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“Feel Art Again” returns with our first ever Icelandic artist. Einar Hákonarson, who celebrated his 64th birthday yesterday, is “one of Iceland’s best known artists.” Considered to be the artist who “brought the figure back into Icelandic painting,” Hákonarson has created art that spans from pop to figurative to expressionistic.

1. Einar Hákonarson began attending The National Art School of Iceland, where he studied for 4 years, at the young age of 15. After a stint at Sweden’s Valand Art University, Hákonarson returned to The National Art School, this time as a 21-year-old instructor. Younger than many of his students, Hákonarson grew a beard to look more the part of an instructor. He’s worn the beard ever since.

2. Hákonarson is a leader in the Icelandic arts world. He was the driving force behind the formation of the Icelandic Printmakers Association in 1969 and served as its first president. The following year, he co-founded an art school, Myndsyn, a colleague. When Hákonarson became the director of The National Art School in 1978, he founded the printmaking department and the sculpture department and reconstructed the ceramics department.
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A performance by Kseniya Simonova on Ukraine’s Got Talent has become a viral hit on the internet, receiving more than 6 million views. We’ve scrounged up some background information on the 24-year-old artist and her performance…

1. Kseniya Simonova wasn’t trained as an artist and hasn’t been practicing for very long, either. Her business was one of many to fall apart with the credit crunch, and she used her newfound time to begin drawing in sand. She started out drawing in the sand at the beach and had only been experimenting with the medium for about a year when she appeared on Ukraine’s Got Talent.

2. Simonova’s sand animation—a series of evolving images drawn in a sand-filled lightbox projected onto a screen—brought the audience and judges to tears with its depiction of the “Great Patriotic War” (as Ukrainians call the USSR’s fight against the Nazis during WWII). Simonova received a standing ovation and was named the inaugural winner of the television competition, netting approximately $120,000.
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At the request of readers Melanie & Johnny, today’s “Feel Art Again” features Gustav Klimt (1862-1918). The Austrian artist overcame poverty in his youth to create paintings decorated with gold leaf, such as “Adele Bloch-Bauer I” (above left) and “The Kiss”(above right).

1. Adele Bloch-Bauer, depicted in the painting above left, was the only person to be the subject of more than one Gustav Klimt portrait. His first painting of Bloch-Bauer, which measures 138 cm x 138 cm, took 3 years to complete and is considered the Austrian Mona Lisa. It was acquired in 2006 by Ronald Lauder, of the Estee Lauder fortune, for $135 million after a protracted legal dispute, which stemmed, in part, from the Nazi seizure of the portrait during WWII. The painting is featured in 3 documentaries: The Rape of Europa (2006), Stealing Klimt (2007), and Adele’s Wish (2008).

2. Klimt, who never painted a self-portrait, stated, “I am less interested in myself as a subject for a painting than I am in other people, above all women…” The artist was renowned for his womanizing and fathered at least 14 children.
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Mary Moser (1744-1819) was “one of the most celebrated women artists of 18th-century Britain,” yet today she’s mostly overlooked. In honor of the 265th anniversary of her birth, we’ve rounded up some of the most interesting facts about Moser.

1. Mary Moser received training from George III’s own drawing master—her father, George Michael Moser, an artist and enameller. Thanks to her inherent skill and her father’s tutelage, Moser was an accomplished artist by her teens, winning her first Royal Society of Arts medal at age 14.

2. In 1786, Moser was one of the 36 founding members of the Royal Academy. (Her father was also a founder.) Angelica Kauffmann was the only other female founding member. More than 115 years passed after Moser’s death before another woman (Dame Laura Knight) would be elected a full member of the Royal Academy.
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”Feel Art Again” has gotten a little off schedule due to the plethora of information available about Ernie Barnes and Maurice Sendak. We’ll be working this coming week to get back on track.

In honor of last weekend’s big screen premiere of the classic children’s book Where the Wild Things Are, today’s “Feel Art Again” post features on the artwork of the man behind the masterpiece, Maurice Sendak.

Where the Wild Things Are (1963)

Arguably Maurice Sendak’s most popular work, Where the Wild Things Are was originally titled Where the Wild Horses Are, with none of the monsters for which Sendak is now known. Sendak had picked the title first, because it sounded “poetic,” but changed course when, as he says, “it became very plain that I couldn’t draw horses, nor would I ever be able to draw horses. And a whole book of horses was hopeless.” Instead, Sendak created a book full of monsters inspired by his “detested Brooklyn relatives,” the type who would “lean way over with their bad teeth and hairy noses, and say something threatening like, ‘You’re so cute I could eat you up.’”

Although the book has received some criticism for perhaps being too frightening for children, it has clearly hit home with readers: since Where the Wild Things Are was first published, more than 2 million copies have sold and it has been translated into 15 different languages. It was even brought to the stage as an opera by Sendak himself in 1979.

Purchase from HarperCollins here.

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By the time Ernest “Ernie” Barnes, Jr. (1938-2009) passed away this past April, he had truly achieved the American dream. He went from being a “fat” and “introverted” child who wasn’t allowed into art museums because he was black to a renowned artist with exhibitions in prestigious galleries. Along the way, he was also an accomplished athlete.

Some things you might not know about Ernie Barnes…

1. He was paid a football salary to spend 6 months painting.

After six seasons of professional football (including a stint in Canada), Ernie Barnes had to retire from the game at the age of 26 due to an injury. The next year, the owner of the New York Jets, Sonny Werblin, contracted Barnes “to just paint” for six months at $14,500, about $1,000 more than Barnes’ football salary the previous year. The contract culminated with Barnes’ first solo exhibition, held at the prestigious Manhattan gallery founded by John Singer Sargent, the Grand Central Art Galleries, at which all 30 of Barnes’ paintings sold.

2. Singers loved his artwork for their album covers.

Barnes’ most famous painting, “The Sugar Shack,” was used by Marvin Gaye for his album I Want You. Other cover artwork includes “Late Night DJ” for Curtis Mayfield’s Something to Believe In, an untitled painting for Donald Byrd’s Donald Byrd and 125th Street, NYC, “Head Over Heels” for The Crusaders’ The Good and Bad Times, and “In Rapture” for B.B. King’s Making Love is Good for You.

3. Even as a pro athlete, he was devoted to his art.

“Big Rembrandt,” as his teammates called him, often spent team meetings, review sessions, and his time on the bench drawing, even though he was fined $50 each time his coach caught him. Playing for the San Diego Chargers, Barnes sketched the portraits of his teammates that appeared in the game programs. Those portraits spiraled into an appearance on Regis Philbin’s first talk show and an assignment to write and illustrate an article for a magazine. With the Denver Broncos, Barnes was asked to show his work at a team party. Six of the 11 works he displayed sold, and Barnes’ reluctance to sell his favorite painting, “The Bench,” resulted in a Sports Illustrated article, his first real national exposure as an artist.
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Reader Paul A. lives in Bahrain, part of a region whose artists have not yet been covered in “Feel Art Again.” While much less information is available (especially in English) on Bahraini artists (and artists from other small countries), I focused on Bahraini artists today because it’s important for us to remember that there are accomplished artists in regions other than America and Europe.

Today’s post features two talented Bahraini artists, Abbas Yousif and Adnan AlAhmed, who were both born in 1960.

Although Abbas Yousif received a BA in Arabic Literature, not art, from Qatar University, he has made a name for himself in the art world. His works have been included in exhibits in Abu Dhabi, Bahrain, Bangladesh, Bulgaria, China, Croatia, Denmark, Egypt, England, France, Germany, Iran, Italy, Japan, Jordan, Kuwait, Macedonia, Morocco, the Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Syria, UAE, Ukraine, USA, and Yugoslavia. In addition to his work as an artist, Yousif writes about fine arts for local news.

Adnan AlAhmed is not as widely known as Yousif, but his works are still quite traveled. He has exhibited in Bahrain, Egypt, France, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Switzerland, Taiwain, UAE, and UK. AlAhmed graduated from the École des Beaux-Arts in 1986. He works as a décor designer for the Bahrain Broadcasting and Television Corporation.

Larger versions of the two works pictured (the titles are unknown) are available. Just click on the images themselves for the larger versions.

Fans should check out the Yousif and AlAhmed galleries from the Bahrain Arts Society; Yousif’s works at the Zara Gallery; and Yousif’s web site.

For more information about Bahraini artists, check out the Bahrain Arts Society.

* Distance in title calculated from the center of New York City (where our online operations are based) to the center of Bahrain.

“Feel Art Again” appears three times a week. Looking for a particular artist? Visit our archive for a complete listing of all 250+ artists that have been featured. You can e-mail us at feelartagain@gmail.com with details of current exhibitions, for sources or further reading, or to suggest artists. Or you can head to our Facebook page, where you can do everything in one place.