My virtual museum

Let’s start with a small Van Gogh, shall we? Atelier des lumières, Paris. Two years ago. They have put up several splendid shows with lights and projectors in an old warehouse in Paris. I don’t know how they can survive the current situation. Live performance has been suspended just about anywhere.

Bird family, by Norval Morrisseau (1931-2007). (c)ourtesy Alex. She bought it in Toronto a little while back. Morrisseau was a Canadian artist from the Anishinaabe First Nation.

Willy Ronis (1910-2009) was a French photographer who rose to fame in the 50’s documenting French life of the era. This work is sometimes referred to as “Le nu Provençal”. I seem to remember the model was his wife. Note the small washbasin. In 1945, only half of the households had a full bathroom in France.

Klimt. Atelier des lumières. 2018.

“Pandora, 1927″, by Hugo Pratt. Pratt was one of the most accomplished artists of the European school of comic strips. Pandora is a character from Pratt’s “Una ballata del mare salato”. The Ballad of the salty sea. Pratt, as many Italian artists in the field was a master of ink. Pure blacks and whites. A consequence of post-war printing limitations. He later developed a great watercolour hand. (Wonderful expo in Lyons, Musée Confluences, coupla years back) (I wish I had that piece. Anyone hear of a burglary at that museum, don’t look at me. I will have an alibi.)

Mother and son. Susanne Valadon and her son, Maurice Utrillo. Valadon started as a model for the likes of Renoir or Monet, who called her “Susanne” (and the old men) in reference to a Bible theme painted by many artists, including Rembrandt. The “old men” in her case, were the painters. Valadon later became a painter, one of the rare women artists then. She lived in Montmartre all her life, with her son Maurice, another painter in his time.

“D‘après moi.” “After, or according, to me”. Self portrait by Suzanne Valadon, 1912. The house she lived in has been preserved and is now part of the Musée Montmartre. A must see. Love the corkscrew with its vine handle. Let’s not forget that wine consumption was high in France then, and among artists. Cheap. Keeps you warm in the winter, when there’s no money to buy coal.

Mother and son again. A few, many, years later. Suzanne Valadon and Maurice Utrillo.

Klimt again at the Atelier des lumières. The original painting was probably done before or during WWI. He died in 1918 from the Spanish flu.

Élégante in Paris. By Willy Ronis. Mid-late fifties. Compare the hat with Klimt’s model above. I remember seeing those hats on the street in Paris when I was a child. They went on until the sixties.

“Pueblo”. City. 1995. By Botero (b. 1932 in Medellín, Colombia). At the Botero museum, Bogotá. Many old cities in Colombia look a bit like that.

I‘ll be damned if I remember where I took this. I think it is street art in Montmartre. c. 2018. Allow me to call it “Angela Davis in the mirror”?

Revelations series, by Andrés Gamiochipi. Acme Art salon #7, Mexico city, February 11, 2020. The last expo we went to. And then the crap hit the bloody fan. (Pardon my French)

The billiard room. Van Gogh. Atelier des lumières, Paris. 2019.

Cat. (I think). By Botero. Botero museum, Bogotá.

Georges-Henri Manuel by Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec. 1891. Musée Maillol, Paris. Bührle collection. (No idea who the bloke was)

“Light and strength” (Luz y Fuerza. The slogan of the Mexican power company), by Marta Palau (b.1934), at the MUAC. University Museum of Contemporary Art. UNAM, Mexico city.

Bronze by Maillol. Tuileries gardens. c.2014. Paris.

“L‘illusion d’optique” The illusion. By Cazenave. 1794. My parents had bought this engraving in Holland. The young woman and the little boy are relations of Danton, French revolutionary guillotined by Robespierre. I checked in my boxes in Paris 2 years ago. I think the engraving is gone. Pity. Just scanned this from an old negative of mine.

Acme Art Salon Mexico city 2020. I may have featured another picture of those young artists in a previous post. Refreshing to see that Art is still very much alive and kicking. Barefoot too.

Pandora, right, and Tarao, the young Maori boy, in The Ballad of the salty sea. By Hugo Pratt. Dated 1917. To be compared to the other portrait above dated 1927. This is a recent scan of a 1975 Ilford negative in B&W of a pure ink on paper sketch. I find it amazing how modern scanners manage to “find” colour in B&W.

“Nude with joyous music”, by Lichtenstein. 1994. (Source Le Point). This little beauty was just sold for 46 frikkin’ million Dollars. I was just a few bucks short. Missed the sale… Darn! 46 million Dollars? Seriously?

Acme Art Salon, Mexico city. February 11, 2020. A year ago day after tomorrow. Amazing, isn’t it? Mark my words: we shall go back. We shall overcome.

Ladies and gentlemen, thank you very much. The visit is over. Do come back at leisure though. The Equinoxio Museum is open 24/7, all year round. Door’s always open and the light on. Stay safe.