The Retro World of Pierre de Mougins

There are plenty of images on the internet of Pierre de Mougins' paintings, but almost nothing in the way of biographical information. This link will have to do.

Mougins was born in 1966 in Antony, France (a little ways west of Orly airport), claims to be self-taught and inspired by the likes of de Chirico and 1920s painters. He has lived in Berlin in recent years where he has begun painting on stones.

The paintings that interest me the most have an Art Deco look to them. There is something about the passage of time that allows us to create an image (not necessarily accurate) in our minds that is a distillation of a past era. Which is part of what Mougins does, though he can't completely escape influences from his own times.

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De fête au café

Au Lapin Agile
The Lapin Agile was an artists' hangout on Montmartre around the turn of the 20th century. It still exists.

billiards

How Long is Now

Rue de la soie

Jazz club

La grande parade

Suze
Well, that's my guess as to the title. It could be reference to a French drink or possibly to 1930s cabaret singer Suzy Solidor, who the blonde strongly resembles.

Riviera scene

backstage

dancer

In the Auction Room

William Arthur Breakspeare, Victorian Painter

William Arthur Breakspeare (1855-1914) was from Birmingham, getting much of his art training there. He spent a brief period in Paris, and lived in London starting in 1881 while retaining ties to Birmingham. His Wikipedia entry contains those and a few other details. There is little else about him on the Internet.

Breakspeare could paint competently and was able to made a career as an artist in Victorian and Edwardian times. His subjects tended to be 17th century scenes, pianos and pretty women. And his interpretations of these were conventional most of the time. As is the case for many lesser-known artists, he occasionally could make paintings worth noting.

Here are examples of Breakspeare's paintings.

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The Contract
In theory, this might be an illustration or otherwise a reference to literature or an historical event because there is little intrinsic meaning in the depiction.

The Eve of Battle
The same applies here.  There is little in the way of the drama or tension I would expect in a real-world pre-battle situation.  In this painting, the men at the table seem quite calm and satisfied.  The cavalier at the right has a look of concern, but serves no dramatic purpose unless the painting is an illustration of an historical or literary source.

If Music be the Food of Love
Breakspeare usually included pianos where music was part of the action.  Here the man seems to be playing an organ.

Distant Thoughts
More of a sketch than a finished work, but interesting in that regard.

Resting
One of his better-known works.  Pretty fancy girl for a harvester.

The Alluring Student
Hmm.  A piano also beckons.

The Reluctant Pianist
This looks like the same piano and bench, but away from the window.

Blue Eyes
She is the same woman wearing the same dress as in the previous painting.

The End of the Evening
Finally, a scene that's not Victorian.  Very Edwardian in spirit, I'd say.

Austin Briggs, an Illustrator Who Could Really Draw

Austin Briggs (1908-1973) never settled into a distinctive style, shifting over time according to his personal artistic development and the influence of changing illustration fashions and client expectations. What was consistent was his great skill in drawing people.

A short Wikipedia biography is here and a fairly brief biography on the Norman Rockwell Museum site is here. A more detailed biography can be found here. Commentary on his methods is here. Some statements by Briggs himself are here and here. David Apatoff writes about Briggs' sketchbooks here.

Briggs was a top-notch illustrator. I hope a book about him and his art is in the works somewhere.

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Flash Gordon - Sunday spread - 21 December 1947
Briggs drew the daily Flash Gordon comic strip and later took over the traditional Sunday version from its creator, Alex Raymond. Raymond was the best at drawing it, but Briggs was not far behind.

American Airlines ad - Saturday Evening Post - 15 January 1949

American Airlines ad art

Plymouth ad art - late 1940s
This was an odd advertising campaign for a low-priced car because a Plymouth does not appear. Some luxury can brands had used this strategy, however, apparently somewhat successfully.

Illustration - c. 1957

Ad art - 1951
I'm not sure if this is for Buick or American Airlines. And it might not be for an advertisement. I am clueless regarding this.

Briggs illustrated for American Airlines and General Motors. The DC-6 in the background is positioned similarly to such planes in a series of American Airlines ads, but it lacks the complete AA paint scheme. The Buick is clearly a Buick, not the sort of anonymous car design illustrators placed in settings unrelated to a specific automobile brand. The Buick also seems to have a New York license plate, something unusual in car ad illustrations.

Nero Wolfe story illustration

Archie Goodwin depicted in a Nero Wolfe story illustration - Saturday Evening Post - 21 June 1958

Service with a Smile - Douglas Aircraft ad art
From the days when smoking was allowed on flights.

Drawing

Vanished and Vanishing New York: 1960s Photos

New York City has been demolishing its past and rebuilding since it was established by the Dutch in 1624. Recent decades have seen successful efforts to preserve buildings that otherwise might have been destroyed.

This post is a photo essay showing some photos I took in April of 1962 when I was stationed at Fort Slocum (also gone), the summer of 1963 when I was at Fort Meade, Maryland, and in June of 1965 when I was gathering information for my Masters thesis. Perhaps some readers who are New York fans might appreciate them.

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Art Students League, West 57th Street (1962)
The building still exists, but overshadowed and overhung by a large modern tower, as this Observer article reports.

Columbus Circle, Gallery of Modern Art under construction (1962)
Millionaire Huntington Hartford favored a more traditional variety of modern art, so he had this building created to display it. The exterior was sheathed in marble, but only bits were in place when I photographed it. Edward Durell Stone was the architect. I visited it once, and all I remember was that it seemed cramped. The museum closed in 1969 and this explains what happened since. Yes, that's the Empire State Building at the left, sighted down Broadway.

Savoy Plaza Hotel (1963)
It's the building to the right. This isn't a good photo and many fine ones can be found on the internet. I include it because it's mine. The hotel was replaced by the large, nondescript, General Motors Building. The tall building is the Sherry-Netherland hotel-plus-apartments that still stands. The Savoy Plaza Wikipedia entry is here.

Singer Building (1963)
This was for a short while (1908-09) the tallest building in the city. It was demolished by taking it apart bit-by-bit in 1968. Its tall shaft was capped by the slightly bulbous top pictured here.  It never looked right to me. More information is here.

Tribune Building (1962)
During the late 1800s some newspaper offices clustered near City Hall, and the Tribune was one of them. The building by Richard Morris Hunt was completed in 1875 and demolished in 1966. More information is here.

Subway entrance/exit, Park Avenue South & East 28th Street (1963)
This is what subway entrances often looked like early in the 20th century. They were disappearing when I made a point of taking this picture. The drab-looking neighborhood has been gentrified, if Google street views are any guide.

42nd Street, west of Times Square (1965)
This stretch of 42nd Street has been spruced up a little in recent times. Fifty years ago it was more gritty, as can be seen here. Those movie theaters were second-run houses. When a movie had its initial run, it would be seen around the corner in Times Square on Broadway or Seventh Avenue. When attendance fell off, the film would move to a house on 42nd where prices were lower and affordable for people with limited entertainment budgets. Back in those pre-internet days, one way of telling the commercial success of a movie was to take note of how long it lasted in Times Square before it went to 42nd.

Railroad yard revealed below new construction, Park Avenue (1965)
The Wikipedia entry on Park Avenue mentions that the street is partly built over railroad tracks. In my New York days, the New York Central and New Haven lines came down Park and then around 50th Street fanned out to Grand Central Terminal's gate system. The photo was taken while construction was getting underway at 299 Park Avenue, the Westvaco Building, as it was first called. The link mentions that the tracks under the building site were those of the New Haven. Since not many buildings are built along this stretch of Park, my camera captured a rare sight.

Ziegfeld Theatre (1965)
The Ziegfeld Theatre designed by Joseph Urban opened in 1927 and was demolished in 1966 as this Wikipedia entry reports. When my photo was taken it was clearly on its way out. So, like the subway entrance above, I made sure to photograph it.

The Layered World of Sergio Cerchi

I really need to see an actual painting by Florentine artist Sergio Cerchi to be sure of what he's doing. This site suggests that his paintings are built atop collections of panels. But just looking at images of the on the internet, I can't rule out the possibility that those seeming panel edges are simply lines painted on a normal artists' canvas.

Another difficulty I'm experiencing with this post is that information regarding Cerchi on the internet is almost nil. For instance, nowhere have I found his birthdate. What we know is that he has spent all or nearly all his life, training and career in Florence and that he has a strong interest in music as well as art. Here is his own web site. It's a bit hard to navigate, but clicking on his photo leads to a brief self-statement. Otherwise, there are many examples of his work.

Cerchi interests me because he seems knowledgeable about history and art history. Plus, he is skilled at depicting people and giving them a sense of psychological mystery in many cases. His use of rectangular elements is quirky, but adds additional interest for the viewer. Also, many of his works are square, often having a one-meter format, the same as Gustav Klimt used for his Attersee landscapes.

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Appuntamento

Il Drago

Quixote II

La Passeggiata

Samurai

Diana

Eva

Leda

Ventaglio II

Butterfly

Cielo

New York City People: 1965

During the 1960s, rigid following of women's clothing and grooming fashions began to fall away. I find it fairly easy to guess the approximate dates of when photos taken in the years from around 1910 until about 1960, even if there were no cars in the background to refine my analysis. But after 1960, it isn't at all that simple.

Yes, the current scene of casual clothing with plenty of dominant logotypes is different from what one saw 50 years ago, but not by all that much. Today, 50-year-old scenes don't strike me as old-fashioned  seeming as 50-year-old scenes did in 1966 -- or 100-year old scenes do today (the same scenes, of course, from 50 years farther out).

Below are photos I took of people in New York City in June of 1965. While the subjects do not appear totally modern, they are close enough that they can be seen as simply people, and not participants in a retro costume party.

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Tourists on Sixth Avenue.

Women on Fifth Avenue, Rockefeller Center in background.

Women near Sixth Avenue.

Passing out pamphlets, Fifth Avenue & 49th Street.

Window shopper, East 49th Street.

Vendor, Downtown Manhattan.

Vendor, Sixth Avenue & 51st Street.

Carriages at the Plaza.  The building at the left across Fifth Avenue is the Sherry-Netherland, at the right is the Savoy Plaza.

Unloading a Cadillac, Central Park South.

Masked girls crossing Madison Avenue for some unknown purpose.