Orange Blue Yellow - Visual Art Essay
Blue Sun
Alexander Calder (1898-1976), American
Lithograph printed in color ink on wove paper,
18" x 23" (w x h), 1971
Detroit Institute of Arts, Detroit, MI
Calder preferred not to analyze his work, saying, "Theories may be all very well for the artist himself, but they shouldn't be broadcast to other people." His father, Alexander Stirling Calder, and grandfather, Alexander Milne Calder, were also sculptors. In addition to sculptures, Calder painted throughout his career, beginning in the early 1920s. He picked up his study of printmaking in 1925, and continued to produce illustrations for books and journals. As Calder's professional reputation expanded in the late 1940s and 1950s, so did his production of prints. Masses of lithographs based on his gouache paintings were marketed, and deluxe editions of plays, poems, and short stories illustrated with fine art prints by Calder became available.
Radiance at Dusk
Curt Butler (1973- ), American
Oil on canvas, 40" x 30"
Sold, Charleston Art Gallery, Charleston, SC
Curt Butler (1973- ), an American contemporary artist residing near Charlotte, NC, art depicts low country scenery and wildlife. He received his B.A. from Kent State University and his M.F.A. from Savannah College of Art and Design. In 2004, Gaston Day School awarded him the title of Teacher of the Year, showcasing his dedication and talent as an educator. His art is in the collections of the Dallas Art Museum, Daniel Stowe Botanical Gardens, Gaston Day Gallery, and Duke University Cancer Center. His art is sold at the LePrince Fine Art Gallery, Charleston, SC.
Women Gather Sugarcane
America Martin (1980- ), American
Oil and acrylic on canvas, 60" x 48" (w x h), 2015
The artist's website HERE.
Ludwig's by the Mills, a painting by America Martin
hanging at The Alna Store, Alna, Maine is featured in
the July 2025 Conde Nast Traveler issue HERE.
The Alna Store is HERE.
America Martin (1980- ) is an American painter, sculptor, whose primary subject is the human form. She credits her Colombian roots for her aesthetic and tastes. Her uncle is painter Knox Martin; her father is artist and author Ernest J. T. Martin; her mother is an academic. As a child/teen she had an eight-year apprenticeship with Vernon Wilson, a professor at the ArtCenter College of Design in Pasadena. Martin also worked briefly as an actress, notably as Patsy in Disney's The Rocketeer, while attending Crossroads School for the Arts and Sciences in Santa Monica, California. In 2009, she received a residency at the Walter Anderson Museum of At, with a grant from the Mississippi Arts Commission.
Orange and Blue over Yellow
Ellsworth Kelly (1923-2015), American
Lithograph on paper, 24" x 17" (w x h), 1964-1965
Smithsonian American Art Museum,
Washington DC, Gift of the artist
In 2019 The United States Postal Service issued a set of stamps honoring Kelly's artwork pioneering of a "distinctive style of abstraction based on real elements reduced to their essential forms." Ten works are represented, including Yellow White, Colors for a Large Wall, Blue Red Rocker, Spectrum I, South Ferry, Blue Green, Orange Red Relief (for Delphine Seyrig), Meschers, Red Blue and Gaza. Previously, in 2007 Ellsworth Kelly's 13-part painting Spectrum VI (1969), which sold for $5.2 million at Sotheby's New York. In 2014 Kelly's painting Red Curve (1982) sold at auction for $4.5 million at Christie's New York. In Nov 2019, Christie's set an auction record for Ellsworth Kelly with the work Red Curve VII, which sold for a $9.8 million.
In the Bay
Christina Thwaites (1980- ) British
Oil on canvas, 56" x 34" (w x h)
$4,900, Carver Hill Gallery, Camden, Maine, HERE
Christina Thwaites grew up in Derbyshire, in rural England. She studied History of Art and French literature at the University of Edinburgh in Scotland and at the Ecole du Louvre in Paris. After her MA, she attended LaPortaBlu Art school in Rome to focus on painting. In Italy she ran an international art residency program near Rome. In Palestine she ran workshops in a refugee camp. She lived in a communal artist house in Amsterdam and in a remote village in Indonesia. In Canberra, Australia she worked with Australian National Capital Artists while continuing to exhibit in Europe with solo shows in London and Rome. Thwaites has exhibited in Australia's Canberra Contemporary Art Space, Rome's Palazzo delle Esposizioni and the Museum of Contemporary Art in Rome. She currently exhibits with galleries in Italy and the US and works from her home in Trieste, Italy where she lives with her husband and two children.
Summer of Apollo in Provincetown, Mass
Helen Frankenthaler (1928-2011), American
Oil on canvas, 14" x 18" (w x h), 1969
Asheville Art Museum, Asheville, NC
An influential abstract expressionist and a pioneer in the Color Field movement, Helen Frankenthaler spent several summers painting in Provincetown, Massachusetts. She first came in 1950 to the seaside town with a long history as an artist colony to study at Hans Hofmann's studio school and would return for more than a decade while married to the artist Robert Motherwell. Drawing inspiration from the natural scenery of Provincetown, she created paintings that go beyond the idea of landscape to capture the atmosphere and climate of this New England locale, whose works never fit neatly within any category of abstraction. In 2020 Sotheby's sold Royal Fireworks, a large 13' x 5' (w x h), for $7,895,300 USD, her maximum sold price. Christie's alone has sold 25 Helen Frankenthaler original paintings from $1,027,500 to $4,527,000 USD
Untitled
Sam Francis (1923-1994), American
Oil on canvas, 40" x 68" (w x h), circa 1956-58
Private Collection, New York
Because he worked and exhibited in the United States, Europe and Asia, Sam Francis is credited with helping secure international recognition for postwar American painting. His work has been seen most often and best understood in Europe and Japan. In 1991, he was elected into the National Academy of Design as an Associate member, and became a full Academician in 1994. In 2010, a 1957 Francis painting titled Middle Blue was sold at auction for $6,354,500, a record for his art. In 2013, Symphony in Blue, a 1958 watercolor and gouache on paper, set the record for a Francis work on paper, selling at Sotheby's for $1,145,000. In 2016, Summer #1, a 1957 Francis oil on canvas, sold for $11,842,000, a new world record for the artist. In 2022, Composition in Black and Blue, a 1955 Francis oil on canvas, sold for $13,557,500 at the Paul Allen sale at Christies, New York.
Seascape from the "Birkdale"
John Everett (1876-1949), British
Oil on paper, 14" x 10" (w x h),
National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, London
A seascape of a horizon from the merchant sailing ship Birkdale (1890s-1920s) that carried minerals. Through color and form Everett's painting concentrates on the visual effects of cloud shown as smudges of vivid color. Everett joined the barque, Birkdale, and sailed from Bristol to Sabine Pass, Texas, April to June 1920. It was his first journey after WWI. The Birkdale was due to take sulfur from Texas to the Cape, but when she arrived in Texas the ship was re-chartered to Australia. Everett, reluctantly, left her and came home by steamer. The Birkdale, built in 1892, was the last barque to fly the red ensign and spent nearly all her working life in the Chilean nitrate trade until the ship was wrecked on the Chilean coast after catching fire in 1927. In 2017 it was found that there are more paintings by John Everett in UK public art collections than any other artist.
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