MIKE HEALEY

The Studio and Gallery of Mike Healey

Saturday, 31 October 2009

Winter - Montagne Noir, France

For five months I lived in the Montagne Noir region of southern France.

These beautiful mountains, covered in lush forests and dotted with remote, beautiful villages, was the inspiration for a series of paintings.

The one above depicts winter foliage on rocks high in the Montaigne Noir.

Posted by Mike Healey at 11:03

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Welcome

There are over 200 articles on art in this blog, ranging from ancient Greece to contemporary artists.

Please feel free to scroll on through until you find something that particularly interests you.

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About Me

Mike Healey: Painter, writer, former TV, film and stage Director/Producer now living and working in Kendal, (Lake District), UK

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Mike Healey

Green Door

Green Door is a collective of professional artists living and working in the Lake District (Cumbria, UK) and North Lancashire

I am delighted to say that I am now a member of this group

Apart from mutual support, Green Door hold regular exhibitions and, once a year, stage an Art Trail when members of the public can visit our studios throughout the region.

To find out more, please click on the link below:

GREEN DOOR

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What are YOU reading at the moment?

Amy is reading one of her novels. Maybe you too should!

Bic Pic

The Biro pen is a tool that most of us use all the time but how many, I wonder, can create work with it of the quality shown in the image below?

1

The artist is Gerard Gachet.

He was born in Fez (Morocco) but studied in Paris. He subsequently moved to Strasbourg as a trainee stage designer.

2

Although the ball-point pen was invented by an Hungarian newspaper editor in 1888, the 'Biro' itself came into existence on the 15th June, 1938 - courtesy John Laud.

The rest, as they say, is history!

3

Although the Biro pen is used by other artists, I cannot think of anyone to match the quality and originality of Gachet's extraordinary drawings.

Do you love crime fiction? Then...

Jonathan Wolstenholme

...look no further!

I am not only a painter but a writer of historical novels, crime fiction and stage plays

You can find my work on Amazon and other online outlets.

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MIKE'S POETRY

Dionysus - Confessions of a pagan god
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Art blogs of note

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Mike Healey - Deviant

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You can also see Mike's work on display at Eliza The Gallery.

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MIKE AT ELIZA THE GALLERY

This month's painting

This month I have chosen a stunning work by Paul Delvaux

Its called L'Homme de la Rue and was painted in 1940, the year before I was born.

It is, in my view, one of his most beautiful paintings and technically superb - on a par with Renaissance masters like Botticelli or Tintoretto.

I have featured Paul Delvaux elsewhere in this blog - including the hauntingly beautiful nude glimpsed in the above photograph.

It is called Chrysis and was painted in 1967.

Like so much of Delvaux's work, it has that dreamlike quality - beautiful but also disturbing.

The early work of Paul Delvaux is also very interesting - not least his obsession with trains and railway stations.

I will be featuring this aspect of his work sometime soon on this blog.

Meanwhile, enjoy this hugely evocative, somewhat sombre painting called Le canape bleu (1967) :-

Favourite Artists

I have many favourite artists, some of whom have influenced my own work.

I have featured quite a few in this blog already and will be adding a few more in the near future.

Do please come back again soon.

Mike Healey

Featured Painting

Max Ernst

Books on Surrealism

Rene Magritte Animation

If you like the Surreal world of Rene Magritte, check out this animation I found recently on You Tube

Click on the link below for direct access:

ANIMATED MAGRITTE

Picture Choice

Since there is a dream theme this month on my blog, I have chosen as this month's painting The Nightmare by Henry Fuseli

Fuseli painted The Nightmare in 1782.

He was always interested in 18th Century notions of the Sublime in painting but his own work tended towards the horrifying and the fantastic

The grotesque element in his work found its natural outlet in his interpretations of scenes from Shakespeare's plays - as in (above) his version of the three witches in Macbeth.

Fuseli's extravagant Germanic imagination and exaggerated Italian Mannerism cleared the way for the more extreme elements of Romanticism - not least Mary Shelley's Frankenstein (1818).

Fusei's The Nightmare is a great painting but I would bet my pension on it not being based on a real dream but only on Henry's somewhat lurid imagination!

Book Choice

My book choice this week is a remarkable account of the life of Sigmund Freud by Robert Ariel

The drawings are by Michel Simeon and are what give this hugely enjoyable, comic-strip account of Freud's life its unique quality

Graphite and wash on paper

Simeon's surrealistic drawings evoke the dreams and fantasies that play such a central role in psychoanalysis

The Libido

Freud's life is told in comic-strip format, often graphically illustrated by Simeon

Life of Freud

This remarkable book was first published in New York in 1978 by Holt, Rinehart and Winston

Copies may be difficult to come by these days but do buy this book if you can!

Fernando Botero

Since we are on the subject of 'fat' this week, this might be a good oportunity to celebrate the work of Fernando Botero

Fernando was born in Medellin, Columbia

As a young man he led an impoverished yet interesting life, at one point (in 1944) training to be a matador

From 1949 he worked as a set designer, later studying fine art in Bogata, then Madrid and Barcelona

Fernando Botero now lives in France

His unique style is widely appreciated (no pun intended!) and his paintings now sell for millions of dollars

For Fernando, fat is good!

Botero

Fernando Botero

Footnote

If you would like to know more about Fernando Botero, then click on the link below:

FERNANDO BOTERO

Do you love books? Then read on:

Oscar Epfs

This year we celebrate the centenary of the birth of Lawrence Durrell, author of The Alexandia Quartet

Laewrence Durrell

What is not widely known, perhaps, is that Durrell was also a painter

You might be forgiven for not knowing this because Durrell kept this hobby a secret, known only to his family and a few close friends

When his work did finally appear in public, it was under the name 'Oscar Epfs'!

I think it would be fair to say that Lawrence Durrell was a far better writer than he was painter

For him however, art was an escape and a release from the tremendous pressures of writing

'Oscar's' first exhibition was in Paris in March, 1964

Great fun was had by Durrell himself attending the exhibition, claiming that he was a frend of Epfs - a 'reclusive Dutchman working as chef de gare at Mount Athos, Greece'

Later that evening Durrell slipped away and rang the gallery owner, pretending to be Epfs himself

The exhibition ran for two weeks and made £60!

Two weeks after the opening the truth leaked out, in Elle magazine

The above photograph of Lawrence Durrell was taken in 1985, looking more like 'Oscar Epfs' than Epfs himself

He was called 'Oscar', said Durrell, because the painter deserved one and 'Epfs' because it sounded like a fart!

Footnote

You can find out more about Lawrence Durrell (and his younger brother, Gerald Durrell author of My family and other animals) by clicking on the links below:

INTERNATIONAL LAWRENCE DURRELL SOCIETY

THE DURRELL SCHOOL OF CORFU

Thanks to Richard Pine for access to the two paintings by 'Epfs' shown above

Photos of Durrell are taken from Through the dark labyrinth: a biography of Lawrence Durrell by Gordon Bowker, published by Pimlico (1998)

What is Beauty?

Most of you looking at the etching below would consider it beautiful

It is in fact a variation by Jiri Anderle of an engraving by Leonardo da Vinci

The problem of course is : What exactly do you mean by 'beauty'?

This question has taxed artists and philosophers alike for centuries

To get some take on this tricky question, why not check out Melvyn Bragg's discussion with three experts on the subject to be found on the BBC's In Our Time

Click on the link below for direct access:

BEAUTY - IN OUR TIME

Prize-winning Blog

In 2009 and 2010 this blog won the prestigious Silver Award from Artmajeur - one of the biggest online galleries on the planet

Silver Award for this blog!

Cool, eh?!

Well, this year (2011) we did it again! That makes THREE years in a row!

Many thanks to all the guys and gals at Artmajeur and for all of you who regularly visit my studio and gallery

We will be going for Gold this year so watch out!

Favourite Painting No.33

Since Paul Delvaux features elsewhere on this blog, I have chosen this week my favorite painting by him

It is called Chrysis

Crysis

Chrysis was painted in 1967.

It measures 160 x 140 and features a young, blond model who appears in many other of his paintings at this period

Drawing

This beautiful India ink and pencil drawing is an early study for
Chrysis

It is one of many similar etudes of great delicacy and technical accomplishment that have survived, revealing the care with which Delvaux prepared the larger, finished paintings

The images used to illustrate this brief article are taken from Paul Delvaux, published by Foundation Paul Delvaux, Saint-Idesbald, Belgium in 2007

Favourite Painting No.34

Those of you who regularly follow this blog will know of my love of the Symbolists

My choice this week is a Czech Symbolist called
Frantisek Kobliha

The beautiful lithograph shown below is simply called Eve

Kobliha was born in Prague in 1877 and famous as the illustrator of novels and poems by Nerval, Edgar Allen Poe, Oscar Wilde, Huysmans and Maeterlinck

He died in 1962

Eve

Grasmere

After sunset, Grasmere - W.Heaton Cooper (1903-1995)

This lovely watercolour of Grasmere by W.Heaton Cooper brings back fond memories for me.

When my father retired from the Royal Air Force he moved to Grasmere.

He used to make a 'pirate' map which my children would find hidden in the house.

It was a treasure map!

Later that day we would take a rowing boat and go to the little island in the middle of the lake in Grasmere and dig up the treasure - usually gold 'coins' made of chocolate!

How the treasure chest got there they never knew!

W.Heaton Cooper, Grasmere

W.Heaton Cooper was an important landscape artist who lived and worked in Grasmere, Cumbria

My father knew him well and they would often sit on a bench on the village green and chat

Today, the Heaton Cooper family still have a gallery and shop in the village selling prints, sculpture, art materials and books

You can reach them by clicking on the link below:

HEATON COOPER, GRASMERE

Below are the books that they are currently recommending

Favourite Painting No.35

My choice this week is by a comparatively unknown French artist and one of the most beautiful pastel drawings that I have ever seen

Eve

The artist is Lucien Levy-Dhurmer (1865-1953)

He was born in Algiers and was part of the Symbolist Movement in France

The above pastel drawing is represents Eve. It can be found in the Michel Perinet Collection, Paris

Artmajeur

Artmajeur Online Gallery has 1,593,167 artworks on display - twelve of which are mine!

If you would like to check out both the gallery and my work currently on display, then click on the link below

Mike Healey at Artmajeur

Saatchi Gallery

The Saatchi Gallery is one of the largest online galleries in the world

You can see a selection of my work there by clicking on the link below:

Saatchi Online Gallery

Favourite painting No.36

My choice this week is a painting by Howard Hodgkin, called After Degas (1993)

After Degas

I first discovered Howard Hodgkin some years ago at the Tate Gallery in London.

I was completely bowled over by his colours and the deceptively simple construction of his strangely beautiful, wholly seductive "landscapes"

Memories of Max (1991-95)

There is also something hugely theatrical about his paintings, prompted in part by his tendency to paint the wooden frames as if they were an integral part of the painting itself

For me they are like the proscenium arches of the theaters in which I began my professional career as a stage director

In Paris with you

There is no British artist alive today who has Hodgkin's colour sense nor who, with a few strokes of his brush, can create such depth of field

If you would like to see more of this amazing British artist, then look at The Complete Paintings of Howard Hodgkin published by Thames and Hudson (2006)

Favorite Painting No.35

My favorite painting this week is by the Belgium Surrealist, Paul Delvaux

Pompei by Paul Delvaux

Pompei was painted in 1970.

I first saw this painting in Brussels sometime in the late 1970's and was bowled over by Delvaux's extraordinary technique and the dreamlike quality of his work

Nuit sur le mer

For many years I kept a dream diray and to this day use my dreams as source material for my own work

This haunting, dreamlike picture called Nuit sur la mer, was painted in 1976.

It features the young blonde model who regularly appears in his work

Chrysis

Delvaux began as a student studying architecture but after one year abandoned that and eventually took up art.

His early works - in the 1920's - were predominately landscapes although his interest in trams, trains and stations also date from this period

Vue de la gare du Quartiere Leopold

The Edinburgh Museum of Modern Art has a number of fine examples of Paul Delvaux's art, including this one:

The Tram by Paul Delvaux

Favorite Artist No. 36

My choice this week is Oldrich Kulhanek, a Czech artist of international renown

Kulhanek

In 1971 Kulhanek was arrested, jailed and his prints condemned.

His etchings - a combination of bold eroticism and politics - were too preovocative for the Czechoslovak Communist regime at that time

Kulhanek

His drawing techniques are absolutely extraordinary - as anyone who has tried to draw hands knows only too well!

I first came across Oldrich Kulhanek's remarkable engravings some years ago in Prague.

Sadly I did not get to meet him but I was able to buy a small print

Like many East European artists, he is a product of an art school system (especially in Poland and Czechoslovakia itself) where drawing is still highly valued

The results of this training are evident in his wonderful graphic art

Kulhanek

Few contemporary artists that I know can draw this well - the human figure still being the ultimate test for a figurative artist

Kulhanek

Back to the Drawing Board Part 2

Since drawing is this month's theme, let me show you my own humble drawing board.

It was made by my Dad over fifty years ago and I still use it!

Me at work!

It sits comfortably on your lap or flat on a table.

Its made of plywood. There is a slim drawer at its base in which to keep pencils, rubbers and tape

The "secret" drawer!

It also houses a number of useful gadgets.

To begin with, it is hollow, allowing you to store finished work and even drawing paper inside...

Mike at work!

...and somewhere to park your pencils!

Pancil Port!

If I am out and about I can either sling it over my shoulder with straps or carry it by its brass handle

Off we go!

Nice one, Dad!

PS Photos by Mitch Phillips

Book Choice No.45

My book choice this week is Stephane Guegan's Ingres - Erotic Drawings

This early drawing by Ingres is based on an engraving by Rene Boyvin (c.1525-c.1589)

Ingres, like many other artists, developed his drawing skills by copying earlier artists.

From the number of erotic drawings in Guegan's book, Ingres was clearly also drawn to the subject matter!

Below are two similar drawings by Ingres and the original engravings by Giulio Bonasone (c.1510 - after 1576) that inspired them

Ingres

Bonasone

Whatever the nature of these drawings, the skills developed are clearly evident in Ingres' masterworks that followed, not least his celebrated Venus Anadyomene (c.1808) - a detail from which is shown below

Ingres' Venus

Like his early drawings, the later paintings by Ingres are erotically charged - not least the famous Turkish Bath (1859-63), a detail of which is shown below

Ingres - Turkish Bath (detail)

I have long been struck by the similarity in drawing style between Picasso and Ingres

According to John Richardson (Picasso's biographer) Picasso first encountered this painter at the great Ingres Retrospective in Paris in 1905

The earliest influence of Ingres is evident - according to Richardson - in Picasso's Woman with a fan (1905)

Picasso

The inspiration for this exquisite little drawing is an oil painting by Ingres dated 1819

The best way to see the direct influence of Ingres on Picasso is to compare two self-portraits.

The first is by Picasso, dated 1917-19

And here is the "inspiration" - a self-portrait by Ingres dated nearly one hundred years earlier!

But Picasso was not content with merely using Ingre's drawing style.

According to John Richardson, Picasso admired:

Ingres's glacial serenity, languorous eroticism and arbitrary way with anatomy; those swan-like throats, boneless arms, jointless fingers, wrap-around eyes; those shoulders, haunches, breasts piled up like satin cushions, as in some lubricious adolescent fantasy

Ingres - Tu Marcellus Eris

It is not of course unusual for one artist to draw upon the work of others - it has always been the nature of art to develop in this way

We should be grateful that the genius of Ingres fed into that of a great artist like Pablo Picasso

John Richardson's great biography of Picasso is published by Jonathan Cape

Stephane Guegan's Ingres - Erotic Drawings was first published in French by Editions Flammarion, Paris in 2006

Editions Flammarion

Featured Artist No.37

This week I would like to feature a British artist I first met in 1992.

His name is David Hiscock.

That year David had been appointed Britain's official artist for the Barcelona Olympic Games.

Hiscock

David is an artist who cunningly combines photography and painting.

I first saw his work at a gallery in London. They were dark, disturbing and very dramatic.

This picture and the one shown above, is part of a series called The Gates of Hell.

In January, 1992 I met David at his London studio

I was making a film for Channel Four on the history of art connected with the Olympic Games

We were joined that day by champion swimmer Duncan Goodhew.

The picture that resulted was, in effect, commissioned by me for my film!