Wrapped Snoopy House, Project for Charles M. Schulz Museum, 2005 by Christo

Wrapped Snoopy House, Project for Charles M. Schulz Museum, 2005; Lithograph with collage of broadcloth, thread, and masking tape, on Rives BFK paper mounted to board (as issued); Signed Christo and numbered 130/250 in pencil upper right; Landfall Press ink stamp bottom left verso; Copyright 2005 Christo ink stamp bottom right verso; Size - 24 1/2 x 21 1/8", Frame 33 3/4 x 30 1/2"; Framed using a black wood frame, acid free mat, linen liner, and UV plexiglass.

To purchase this work or to visit the Art Gallery, CLICK HERE!

"Any element of impermanence in an artwork creates a feeling of fragility, even vulnerability, as well as a sense of urgency about viewing it. There is at the same time an inherent awareness of the loss we feel at its absence, knowing that tomorrow it will be gone." - Christo 

Christo Vladimirov Javacheff (1935-2020) was an artist most associated with the Process Art Movement and noted for his large-scale and site specific environmental installations. He and his wife Jeanne-Claude Denat de Guillebon (1935-2009) were born on the same day in Bulgaria and Monocco, respectively. They met and married in Paris in the late 1950's and began working together under Christo's name; later crediting artwork created by both of them under the joint name of 'Christo and Jeanne-Claude" Their works were usually large, visually impressive, controversial, and often taking years or decades of preparation to execute. The creation process included: developing technical solutions, political and legal negotiation, permitting, environmental approval, private/public hearings, and a lot of persuasion. To raise money for the associated costs, they would refuse grants, scholarships, donations, or public money; and instead financed the works through the sale of their own artwork. The most recognized completed projects includes the Wrapped Reichstag, The Pont Neuf Wrapped, Running Fence in California, and The Gates in New York City's Central Park.

 

Close up of the Christo's signature and the edition number.

Close up of "Wrapped Snoopy Doghouse," 2005 by Christo

Close up of the Copyright 2005 Christo ink stamp bottom right verso.

In January 1958 Christo first began to wrap objects, starting with a simple paint can. His collection of wrapped household items included shoes, telephones, and other objects and would be jointly known as his Inventory. The wrapping of an object results in the viewer's change in perception, and the increased need for exploration of the object. The viewer has to deal with the transformative effect of the fabric and the the resulting tactile surface. The concealment caused by the wrapping challenges the viewer to reevaluate the object beneath, and the space in which it exists. The point of the wrapping has less to do about concealment, as it does to altering the environment and the challenge to conventional interpretation. The artistic advancement from the Inventory was to graduate to larger and more recognized objects/buildings/landmarks.

The cartoonist Charles M. Schulz, known for his Peanuts comic strip, met Christo and Jeanne-Claude in 1975. Schulz really admired the extraordinary environmental artworks by the pair and paid tribute to them in the 1978 Peanuts comic strip pictured below:

 

 

Twenty-five years later, Christo returned the compliment by creating Wrapped Snoopy House, a life-sized doghouse wrapped in tarpaulin, polyethylene, and ropes; and presented it to Jean Schulz for permanent display at The Charles M. Schulz Museum.

 

 

Wrapped Snoopy House, 2004

Close up of the Landfall Press ink stamp bottom left verso.

Framed "Wrapped Snoopy House," 2005 by Christo

 

Christo also designed and completed a work for The Charles M. Schulz Museum and Research Center. A limited edition, signed and numbered lithograph with collage of broadcloth, thread, and masking tape entitled Wrapped Snoopy House-Project for the Charles M. Schulz Museum. The piece was sold in order to help fund the Museum and Research Center, and it sold out very quickly. The limited edition with collage wrapped doghouse is an absolutely fantastic work by the great Process artist Christo, and would be a wonderful addition to any art collection!

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Cerulean Blue Macchia with Violet Lip Wrap, 1986 by Dale Chihuly

Monumental Cerulean Blue Macchia with Violet Lip Wrap, 1986; Free blown, flared form with undulating rim, dappled with pink, white, and yellow with a cerulean blue interior and violet lip wrap; Engraved Dale Chihuly 1986 bottom; Size: 32" x 22" x 11".

To purchase this work or to visit the Art Gallery, CLICK HERE!

"My work, to this day revolves around a simple set of circumstances: fire, molten glass, human breath, spontaneity, centrifugal force, gravity." - Dale Chihuly

Dale Chihuly was born on September 20, 1941 and is an American glass sculptor. His works are considered to be exceptional in the field of blown glass; and he has adapted the technical difficulties of the medium to explore and implement installations, as well as environment specific artwork.

Chihuly first began experimenting with glass blowing in 1965 and began an extensive education centered around sculpture. He earned a Master of Fine Arts degree in sculpture from the Rhode Island School of Design in 1968; and that same year was awarded a Louis Comfort Tiffany Foundation grant for his work in glass, as well as a Fulbright Fellowship. He traveled to Venice to work at the Venini factory on the island of Murano, where he first saw the team approach to glass blowing. In 1976, while in England, he was involved in a head-on-car crash which propelled him through the windshield. His face was severely cut by glass and he was permanently blinded in his left eye. After recovering, he continued to blow glass until he dislocated his right shoulder in 1979 while body surfing.

No longer able to hold a glassblowing pipe, he was able to utilize the team approach to glass blowing he had seen in Murano, and hired other artists to do the physical work. Chihuly explained the change saying, "Once I stepped back, I liked the view." He felt liberated and more free to see the work from multiple perspectives, and the change enabled him to anticipate problems earlier and to react. His role in the studio changed from participate, to supervisor and problem solver. One of the most critically acclaimed series by Chihuly was the Macchia series. Macchia, which is Italian for spot, was begun in 1981 and continues today.

 

As Chihuly has explained:

"The Macchia series began with my waking up one day wanting to use all three hundred of the colors in the hot shop. I started by making up a color chart with one color for the interior, another color for the exterior, and contrasting color for the lip wrap, along with various jimmies and dusts of pigment between the layers of glass. Throughout the blowing process, colors were added, layer upon layer. Each piece was another experiment. When we unloaded the ovens in the morning, there was the rush of seeing something I had never seen before. Like much of my work, the series inspired itself. The unbelievable combination of color - that was the driving force."

From Timothy Anglin Burgard, Chihuly the Artist: Breathing Live into Glass, 2008:

 (The Macchia) Often balanced slightly off-center, they attempt to capture the essence of glass in its most volatile sate - simultaneously hot and flowing, but also cool and congealing. The blurred edges of the color striations and "spots" suggest that they are being dissolved by heat or have coalesced into opal-like mineral deposits. Chihuly's "lip wraps," think ribbons of colored glass that run along the vessel's lip suggest the presence of a super-heated inner core and recall the leading edge of a lava flow, breaking through the congealing perimeter of a magma mass. - Chihuly's Macchia are permanently aglow with the fires of their creation."
 

 

The following are various views of Cerulean Blue Macchia with Violet Lip Wrap, 1986 by Dale Chihuly:

From Robert Hobbs, The Rhoda Thalhimer Endowed Professor of American Art History, Virgina Commonwealth University: 

"In the Macchia, Chihuly makes this former (Classic Venetian blown glass) static orientation dynamic and enlarges this conservative scale to awesome proportions. He heightens tensions between inside and outside through dissonant color combinations and through contrasts of opacity, translucency, and transparency. Rather than continuing the preciousness of the filigree of the Bianconi examples, he creates a bolder impact by rolling ships of colored glass into the walls of the vessel for a mottled effect."

Chihuly and his team of artists have been the subjects of several documentaries, extensive printed articles, monographs, and collections. For a complete list of Museum collections, please click on the link below:

Dale Chihuly Museum Collections

Engraved Dale Chihuly signature and 1986 date, bottom.

"Cerulean Blue Macchia with Violet Lip Wrap," 1986 is an exceptional example of Dale Chihuly at his best. This monumental Macchia is composed of cerulean blue as the dominant interior color, pink and yellow spots set against a white ground on the outside, and finished with a contrasting violet colored lip. An absolutely stunning and massive piece of modern glass by the most important glass artist of his time, and a standout of any art collection!

#Chihuly #DaleChihuly #Artglass #Blownglass #Macchia #glass #Art #artist #untitledartgallery #MacchiaSeries

Diamond Dust Candy Box, 1981 by Andy Warhol

Diamond Dust Candy Box, 1981; Synthetic polymer paint, diamond dust, and silkscreen ink on canvas; Stamped with the Estate of Andy Warhol and the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts stamps; Numbered VF PA13.005 on the overlap; Numbered twice 'PA13.005' on the stretcher; Size - Canvas: 14 x 10", Frame 17 x 13 1/4"; Framed using a black wood frame and plexiglass.

To purchase this work or to visit the Art Gallery, CLICK HERE!

"You take some chocolate... and you take two pieces of bread... and you put the candy in the middle and you make a sandwich of it. And that would be cake." - Andy Warhol

Andy Warhol loved chocolate and many days, at lunchtime, he would go the Upper East side restaurant "Serendipity" for it's speciality; a glass of frozen hot chocolate. He also had an insatiable sweet tooth, he said "When I was a child I never had a fantasy about having a maid, what I had a fantasy about having was candy. As I matured that fantasy translated itself into 'make money to have candy,' because as you get older, of course, you get more realistic." In the 1980's Warhol would seize on his love of chocolate candy to create a series of paintings and prints that had as their subject matter open and closed chocolate boxes.

Close up of the Estate of Andy Warhol and the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts stamps; and the unique authentication number VF PA13.005 on the overlap.

Close up of the unique authentication number VF PA13.005 inscribed twice on the stretcher.

Andy Warhol's paintings of candy boxes was a refreshing return to his 1960's consumerism as well as nod to his love of chocolate. The artworks that were created were used as holiday and personal gifts to friends and associates. Some of the paintings show a beautifully wrapped heart shaped chocolate box (invented by the English chocolatier Richard Cadbury), while this example showcases the chocolate candy contained within a rectangular box. Unlike the paintings of just the boxes, some of the paintings of the chocolates themselves are also diamond dusted. The glittering diamond dust adds to the delectable, delicious, and decadent appeal of the chocolate bon bons.

Warhol's use of diamond dust is owed to his friend John Reinhold; who was a diamond dealer and art collector. One day John gave Warhol a jar of diamond dust, suggesting he could incorporate it into his artwork; which lead to the Diamond Dust series for both prints and paintings. John Reinhold's wife Susan co-founded the Reinhold-Brown Gallery, and Warhol painted portraits of John Reinhold and his and Susan's ten year old daughter Berkeley. In 1981 Warhol gave Berkeley an 80 page leather-bound diary. On each page was drawn abstract forms that slowly progress and develop page-by-page into a beautiful dollar sign. In 2010 Rizzoli published a reproduction of the diary in book form entitled "Andy Warhol: Making Money.

Framed "Diamond Dust Candy Box," 1981 by Andy Warhol 

 

Back of framed "Diamond Dust Candy Box," 1981 by Andy Warhol 

"Diamond Dusted Chocolate Box" is an exceptional example of Pop Artist Andy Warhol as his best. The image of an open box of glittering chocolate candies is instantly recognized and immediately causes the viewer's mouth to water. The inconsistent screen printing of the chocolates likens back to Warhol's rough screening of the Campbell's Soup Cans and Marylin Monroe paintings of the 1960's. This is an absolutely fantastic unique work on canvas by the great Pop artist Andy Warhol and would be a standout of any art collection!

Video of the surface of "Diamond Dust Candy Box" 1981 by Andy Warhol

#Warhol #AndyWarhol #PopArt #WarholFoundation #UniqueWarhol #UniqueAndyWarhol #BobColacello #CandyBox #Chocolate #JohnReinhold #WarholAuthenticated #untitledartgallery #Diamond Dust Candy Box #WarholPainting #DiamondDust