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MAY 13 PICTORIAL
Remember Korea / Gondolj Koreara (1952)
Budapest, 1952
Bencze László
The key issue of the graphic portfolio created by the Hungarian artist Bencze László is the massacre near Sichon, North Korea, in the autumn and winter of 1950 with more than thirty thousand victims, mainly civilians. From the Communist side, these war atrocities were attributed to the American invading forces. Like Picasso's famous painting Massacre en Corée (1951), Laszlo´s graphic cycle was conceptually inspired by the example of Goya. In terms of motifs, the influence of the Chinese revolutionary woodcut movement under Lu Xun is distinctive, of artists like Li Hua, Zhao Yannian, or Zheng Yefu, to whom László tries to come close in his pen and ink drawings, also in structural respects.
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Zentrales Thema der von dem ungarischen Künstler Bencze László geschaffenen grafischen Mappe ist das Massaker bei Sichon in Nordkorea, dem im Herbst und Winter 1950 mehr aus dreißigtausend überwiegend Zivilisten zum Opfer gefallen waren. Von kommunistischer Seite wurden die Kriegsgreuel der amerikanischen Invasionsarmee zugeschrieben. Wie Picassos berühmtes Gemälde Massacre en Corée (1951) ist auch Lászlós graphischer Zyklus konzeptuell vom Vorbild Goyas inspiriert. Motivisch ist der Einfluss der chinesischen revolutionären Holzschnittbewegung unter Lu Xun unverkennbar, von Künstlern wie Li Hua, Zhao Yannian oder Zheng Yefu, denen László in seinen Federzeichnungen auch strukturell nahe zu kommen versucht. -
MARCH 13 PICTORIAL
The Translation of the Arch-Imperator
Henri Durand-Brager / Charles Nicolas Lemercier
H. Durand-Brager: Sainte-Hélène, 1844 / C. N. Lemercier: Translation du corps de Napoleon, ca.1842
Special Artist Henri Durand-Brager had made a name for himself with an opulent documentation of the return of the remains of Napoleon I from foreign, British occupied soil to his homeland. Brager´s expedition report Sainte-Hélène was published in an impressive folio format in 1844. What is remarkable, is that the cycle completely disregards the actual subject-matter, the emperor´s coffin and the pivotal act of transporting it back. In the lithographic accordion-fold in which the befriended illustrator Charles Nicolas Lemercier recorded the subsequent procession of the corpse from the Champs-Élysées to the new grave at Les Invalides this coffin quite naturally forms the magnetic centre. -
FEBRUARY 13 PICTORIAL
Evil Empires I
Jean Veber: Concentration camps in the Transvaal
During the Second Boer War the prestige of the British Empire sank to an all-time low. The main reason was the establishment of concentration camps in South Africa as a measure against the guerrilla war led by the local farmers against the Empire. Over 26,000 Boers, mainly women and children, died of hunger and diseases due to the catastrophic conditions of their detention. In September 1901, Jean Veber dedicated a whole issue of the French satirical magazine "Assiette au Beurre" to this topic. The depiction of the British King Edward VII as a butthead led to some diplomatic quarrels and censorship measures. On the German side,in the course of the two world wars, this issue was repeatedly used as propaganda material against England. A slightly modified reprint was published by the Nazi publishing house "Verlag für Militärgeschichte" in 1941, the same year in which the so-called "final solution", the Holocaust, was decided.
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Während des Zweiten Burenkriegs sank das Ansehen des britischen Empire auf einen Tiefpunkt. Anlass war die Einrichtung von Konzentrationslagern in Südafrika als Maßnahme gegen den Guerrillakrieg, den die einheimischen Farmer gegen das Imperium führten. Über 26.000 Buren, vor allem Frauen und Kinder, starben auf Grund der katastrophaler Haftbedingungen an Hunger und Krankheiten. Jean Veber widmete diesem Thema im September 1901 eine ganze Ausgabe des französischen Satiremagazins "Assiette au Beurre". Die Darstellung des britischen Königs Edward VII. als Arschgesicht führte zu diplomatischen Querelen und zog Zensurmaßnahmen nach sich. Auf deutscher Seite wurde dieses Heft während der beiden Weltkriege wiederholt als Propagandamaterial gegen England ins Feld geführt. Ein leicht abgeänderter Reprint wurde 1941 von dem nationalsozialistischen "Verlag für Militärgeschichte" publiziert, im gleichen Jahr, in dem die so genannte "Endlösung", der Holocaust, beschlossen wurde. -
DECEMBER 12 PICTORIAL
Skizzen vom Moor
Oliver Grajewski
Dieses Pictorial besteht in einer Zusammenstellung von Zeichnungen, die entweder gar nicht oder in anderer Form in Oliver Grajewskis Grafik Novel "Der Tag im Moor" Eingang gefunden haben. Die Zeichnungen sind lose in der Reihenfolge der erzählten Kapitel angeordnet. Tusch - und Bleistiftzeichnungen verbinden sich in dieser experimentellen Spuk-Doku-Fiktion mit digitaler Fotografie und informeller Computergrafik.
Zum Inhalt: Eigentlich wollte Oliver nur seine Eltern in der schleswig-holsteinischen Heimat besuchen, doch merkwürdige Vorfälle im Moor und ein alter Zeitungsartikel bringen ihn auf die Spur eines Geheimnisses ... (Das Buch ist bei Breitkopf- Editionen erschienen: gb@breitkopf-editionen.de) -
NOVEMBER 12 PICTORIAL
A Thomas Nast - Gallery
His career in 38 images
Thomas Nast (1840-1902) started his career as a "special artist" at the age of fifteen. His pictorial journalism marked the peak of graphic art as far as its influence and popularity in the 19th century is concerned. No artist was ever more successful in regard to the intensity, scope and lastingness of his political impact than this North American draughtsman.
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Thomas Nast (1840-1902) begann seine Karriere als Pressezeichner im Alter von fünfzehn Jahren. Mit seiner Bildpublizistik befand sich die grafische Kunst im 19. Jahrhundert im Zenit ihrer Einflussmöglichkeiten und ihrer Popularität. Kein Künstler war je, was die Intensität, das Ausmaß und die Nachhaltigkeit seiner politischen Wirkungskraft betraf, erfolgreicher als dieser nordamerikanische Zeichner. -
OCTOBER 12 PICTORIAL
Defiant People. Drawings of Greece Today.
London 1952
by Paul Hogarth
"Fate intervened in the person of Betty Ambatielos, the indomitable Welsh schoolteacher wife of Tony Ambatielos, a prominent Greek Communist leader who faced execution by the regime of Marshall Papagos which ruled Greece in those days. I was asked to depict his trial against the background of Greece itself, the first victim of the Cold War. I arrived in Athens during August 1952 and found a country exhausted by five years civil war which had only ended three years previously." (Paul Hogarth,1990) -
SEPTEMBER 12 PICTORIAL
Museo di Storia Naturale di Venezia
Sketchbook
by Matthias Reinhold
Matthias Reinhold, author of the interactive illustrated encyclopaedia "Ikonlog", conducted research in Venice in July and August 2012. The sketchbook on hand was created on August 9 at the Museum of Natural History. As in all museums and churches in Venice, taking photos is forbidden.
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Matthias Reinhold, Autor der interaktiven Bildenzyklopädie "Ikonlog" hat im Juli und August diesen Jahres in Venedig geforscht. Das vorliegende Skizzenbuch ist am 9.8. im Naturgeschichtlichen Museum entstanden.
Wie in allen Museen und Kirchen Venedigs ist das Fotografieren dort verboten. -
AUGUST 12 PICTORIAL
Animal Fury
Masters of Faits Divers - Painting III
"Le Petit Journal" was the origin and the leading example of the faits divers press. "Somewhat analogous to a surrealist writing game, fait-divers reportage was an impersonal form of literary production that owed everything to the coincidental arrangement of its sentence elements." (Robin Walz, Pulp Surrealism) The cover illustrators of" Le Petit Journal" created congenial pictorial equivalents to this incoherent literary scheme. -
JUNE 12 PICTORIAL
Manuela A. Beck:
spiegeln (mirroring) - Pictorial Improvisations on Heine´s Winter´s Tale
Cycle of aquatint etchings
In her extensive cycle of graphics, which she began with in 2011, Manuela A. Beck references in a free associative manner motifs drawn from Heinrich Heine´s complex philosophical-political verse-epic. The technique of etching is not employed for reproductive purposes here, but as the original medium of pictorial composition.The artist succeeds in creating pictographic-abstract formulations that are unparalleled in contemporary graphic arts in terms of their density and evocative presence.
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In ihrem umfangreichen Grafikzylus, den sie 2011 begonnen hat, bezieht sich Manuela A. Beck in freier assoziativer Form auf Motive aus Heinrich Heines komplexem philosophisch-politischem Versepos. Die Technik der Radierung wird hier nicht zu reproduktiven Zwecken eingesetzt, sondern als originäres Medium der Bildfindung. Dabei gelingen der Künstlerin piktographisch - abstrakte Formulierungen von einer Dichte und evokativen Präsenz, die in der zeitgenössischen Grafik ohne Beispiel sind. -
MAY 12 PICTORIAL
Kyung-hwa Choi-Ahoi:
Funeral ceremony for Georg Valsamakis in Athens
Athens, Greece
"Enzyklopädie Personae"
In this episode of her "Enzyklopädie Personae"- project Kyung-hwa Choi-Ahoi attends the obsequies for the late George Valsamakis in Athens. He was a wholesaler of electrical appliance.
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In dieser Episode ihres "Enzyklopädie Personae"- Projekts besucht Kyung-hwa Choi-Ahoi die Trauerfeierlichkeiten für den verstorbenen
Georg Valsamakis in Athen. Er war Großhändler für Elektroartikel.
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APRIL 12 PICTORIAL
Accidents will happen
Masters of Faits Divers - Painting II
The list of outstanding illustrators who worked for the weekly supplement of the tabloid "Le Petit Journal"is impressive: Jose Belon, Charles Bombled, Henri Brispot, Eugene Damblans, Frederic Lix, Fortune Louis Meaulle, Henri Meyer, Lionel Royer, Osvaldo Tofani and Charles Gaston Yrondy. Most of them were trained history painters with a specific talent for catching the fruitful moment.
The most brillant and prolific master of faits divers-painting in the 20th century was Achille Beltrami, a disciple of the noted Italian history painter Francesco Hayez. Beltrami worked for the weekly "La Domenica del Corriere" for almost fifty years.
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MARCH 12 PICTORIAL
der stein nr. 1
Julie Doucet
In the late 1990s Canadian cartoonist Julie Doucet abandoned the medium of comic books and went back to printing. Woodcuts, linocuts, silkscreen printing, followed by an abundant production of artist's books. "Der Stein" is one of the most incisive and enduring examples of contemporary private press or fanzine culture. It is written in bad German and centered on a serious and annoying subject. Eight numbers are published so far. Here is the legendary initial issue of May 2010 in a bilangual version. -
FEBRUARY 12 PICTORIAL
Robert Weaver VII
The Woolworth - Motion
By Robert Weaver
What´s Come Over Old Woolworth? (Fortune, January 1969)
"There are assignments for `Fortune´, where I am realistically and symbolically going up the corporate ladder at Woolworth´s. It starts with the stockboy, and I use chairs as a metaphor for power. The chairs become more and more elaborate as we go to top. The drawings where rendered from life. (...) As for process, essentially there is not a hell of a lot of transformation between the sketches and the finishes. I´ve actually made the pictures more decorative. My sketches are notes, and the color variations stay in the mind. I make the drawings without colours, and later simply bathe the picture in what I remember to be the proper light." (Robert Weaver in conversation with Steven Heller, 1986)
The original drawings: 27,5 x 35,5 cm, pencil on paper. (MePri-Collection)
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JANUARY 12 PICTORIAL
Kyung-hwa Choi-Ahoi:
Werner Pflaum and Peter Schlosser, Bad Gastein
Bad Gastein, Austria
"Enzyklopädie Personae"
In this adventurous episode of her "Enzyklopädie Personae"- project Kyung-hwa Choi-Ahoi accompanies two Austrian hunters on their nightshift in a deerstand.
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In dieser abenteuerlichen Episode ihres "Enzyklopädie Personae"- Projekts begleitet Kyung-hwa Choi-Ahoi zwei österreichische Jäger auf ihrer Nachtschicht im Hochsitz
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DECEMBER 11 PICTORIAL
Journal de L'expédition des Portes De Fer (1839 - 44)
Adrien Dauzats, Gabriele Descamps, Charles Nodier, Auguste Raffet
The well-known writer and literary critic Charles Nodier, who was a close friend of the Duc d´Orleans, who had died shortly beforehand, was responsible for the text. The illustration work featured three of the most prominent exponents of artistic Orientalism, the two painters Adrien Dauzats and Gabriele Descamps and draughtsman Auguste Raffet. But the work was also a milestone in regard to reproduction graphics. "The Portes de fer will forever remain the masterpiece in the history of modern French wood engraving." (Henri Bouchot, 1887)
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Verantwortlich für den Text zeichnete der bekannte Schriftsteller und Literaturkritiker Charles Nodier, der ein enger Freund des kürzlich verstorbenen Duc d´Orleans war. Auf der Illustrationsseite bot das Werk mit den beiden Malern Adrien Dauzats und Gabriele Descamps sowie dem Zeichner Auguste Raffet drei der prominentesten Vertreter des künstlerischen Orientalismus auf. Aber auch in reproduktionsgrafischer Hinsicht stellte es einen Meilenstein dar. "Die Portes de fer werden in der Geschichte des modernen französischen Holzschnitts immer das Meisterwerk bleiben." (Henri Bouchot, 1887) -
NOVEMBER 11 PICTORIAL
Cartoons Social and Political
London, 1893
by Martin Anderson aka "Cynicus"
"Cynicus" was the penname of the Scottish cartoonist Martin Anderson, who became a successful cartoonist in London in the late 1880s. Critics praised him as the new Rowlandson, but when his hand-coloured "Cartoons Social and Political" appeared in 1893, he was blamed for being "almost brutal" in his directness. Their socialist impulse was promoted by his friendly contact to artists of the Fabian Society. Although one can trace an apparent influence by the decorative interventionist illustrations of Walter Crane, the unique blunt and minimalistic style of Anderson´s cartoons is connected a good deal more to the graphic satires of early British radicalism, to the Jacobin caricature campaigns of Thomas Spence and to the woodcuts of the Cruikshank & Hone collaborations.
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OCTOBER 11 PICTORIAL
Morning conference at The Guardian with Alan Rusbridger
London, 2002
CS-Report by Alexander Roob
Impressions of a morning conference in the editorial office of The Guardian with editor-in-chief Alan Rusbridger. The British journal shook the foundations of Rupert Murdoch´s News Corporation by uncovering the phone-hacking scandal and was named newspaper of the year at the 2011 Press Awards for its partnership with WikiLeaks. -
SEPTEMBER 11 PICTORIAL
La Retraite et la Prise de Constantine
Retraite De Constantine / Prise De Constantine
by Auguste Raffet
"Retraite de Constantine" was one of the most widespread examples of Auguste Raffet´s series of annual lithography albums. It was published in spring of 1837 by Gilhaut Freres and gives an account of the first failed attempts at conquering the Algerian fortress. The ignominious retreat of the French army in November 1836 was mainly blamed on the Siberian weather conditions of the winter setting in. Raffet, who never set foot on Algerian ground,mainly reverted to topoi of the Napoleonic Russia campaign and in doing so decidedly placed the colonial adventure in a continuum of Bonapartist mythification. In October 1837, after fights with the defenders that caused an extremely high number of casualties, Constantine was finally captured. The fact that Raffet?s next lithographic cycle "La Prise de Constantine" is far more differentiated and authentic, owes to his intense research studies and also to a longer journey to the Orient which he had meanwhile taken. -
AUGUST 11 PICTORIAL
Crashes and Collapses
Masters of Faits Divers - Painting I
In 1863 a new kind of journalism with particular emphasis on sensational news stories, the so called faits divers, was introduced to the French press landscape by the foundation of the daily "Le Petit Journal". It´s editor M.P. Millaud had coined the much quoted phrase "dare to be stupid". In the 1890s this leading French penny paper had a circulation of a million copies and by 1884 it also included a weekly illustrated four page supplement. The pictorial news were created by some of the best illustrators of the decade and the dramatic style they established, merging documentary with phantasmagorial elements, became highly influential for magazine covers wordwide.
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JULY 11 PICTORIAL
Kyung-hwa Choi-Ahoi:
Ihlayel A.M. Megdad, Humsum 03.02.2009
Krankenhaus Husum, Notaufnahme
"Enzyklopädie Personae"
In this episode of her "Enzyklopädie Personae"- project Kyung-hwa Choi-Ahoi observes the daily routine of a physician in the emergency department of the city hospital Husum.
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JUNE 11 PICTORIAL
The Lake Country-Sketchbook
June 23-July 18th 1863
by William James Linton
In addition to a number of studies on the flora of the Lakes, two sketchbooks of Linton with landscape views have come down to us. One is in the collection of Yale University, another in the Linton-Archive of the Melton Prior Institute. The latter contains watercolours and drawings made during hikes in the North East of the Lakes along a route between Lake Ullswater and the Helvellyn from June 23 to July 18, 1863. Both sketchbooks served to prepare a series of one hundred wood engravings which he made for a literary travel guide of his third wife, the writer Eliza Lynn. It was published in an extravagant edition under the title The Lake Country in 1864. The pictorial shows the complete 13 x 8 cm pocket-sketchbook in conjunction with the worked-out engravings.
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Neben einer Reihe von Studien zur Flora der Lakes sind von Linton zwei Skizzenbücher mit Landschaftsansichten überliefert. Eines befindet sich in der Sammlung der Yale University, ein weiteres im Linton-Archive des Melton Prior Instituts. Letzteres enthält Aquarelle und Zeichnungen, die auf Wanderungen im Nordosten der Lakes auf einer Route zwischen dem Lake Ullswater und dem Helvellyn zwischen dem 23. Juni und 18.Juli 1863 entstanden sind. Beide Skizzenbücher dienten der Vorbereitung einer Serie von einhundert Holzstichen, die er für einen literarischen Reiseführer seiner Frau, der Schriftstellerin Eliza Lynn verfertigt hatte. 1864 war er in prächtiger Aufmachung unter dem Titel The Lake Country erschienen. Das Pictorial zeigt das komplette 13 x 8 cm grosse Pocket- Skizzenbuch im Zusammenhang mit den ausgeführten Stichen. -
APRIL 11 PICTORIAL
Documenting an excavation
Tell Munbaqa, Syria, Sept. 2010
by Theo de Feyter
In this series of drawings and paintings of the archaeological work at the ancient hill of Munbaqa in Syria Dutch artist and archaeologist Theo de Feyter caught the situations and atmosphere which are characteristic for this kind of activity. The images depict the working procedures of the Syrian labourers and the members of the excavation teams of the Technische Universität of Hamburg-Harburg and Martin-Luther-Universität Halle-Wittenberg, Germany. Tell Munbaqa is situated on the east side of Lake Assad. -
MARCH 11 PICTORIAL
Kyung-hwa Choi-Ahoi:
Suzanne von Borsody, Hamburg 18.02.2009
Ernst Deutsch Theater ( Stück: Spurensuche)
"Enzyklopädie Personae"
The series of drawings was made by the Korean artist Kyung-hwa Choi-Ahoi in the course of her "Enzyklopädie Personae"- project. Here she records the activities of the noted German actress Suzanne von Borsody behind the scenes of the Ernst Deutsch Theatre in Hamburg. -
FEBRUARY 11 PICTORIAL
The Monsters of Society
L´Assiette au Beurre No. 79, 4 Octobre 1902
by Charles Lucien Léandre
Following the traces of Honoré de Balzac, whose "Comédie humaine" was modelled on a theory of zoological species, Charles Lucien Léandre drafts a dire panorama of the Parisian Society as a freak show. His special edition for Samuel Schwarz´ anarchistic magazine "L Assiette au beurre" represents a late apocalyptic variation of a long tradition of caricatural menageries or bestiaries, which was shaped by graphic cycles of Grandville, Gustave Doré, Paul Hadol and Alfred Le Petit.
Léandre was one of the last students of the historical painter Alexandé Cabanel, whose lucid kind of "L'art pompier" is reflected in many of the monstrous sceneries. -
JANUARY 11 PICTORIAL
On Cotman´s Trail in Normandy
by Brigitte Pallast and Hans Lukas Lang
John Sell Cotman is mainly known for his groundbreaking retinal and neoclassical approach to landscape painting which showed him as an early precursor of Cezanne. In contrast, his huge body of etchings enjoys a rather bad reputation. It is said that his printed works, which he mainly executed in commission of his patron Dawson Turner, a banker and amateur antiquary, exhausted his creative and physical resources. Especially the one hundred etchings that he accomplished from 1817 - 20 for Dawson Turner´s "Architectural Antiquities of the Normandy" are made responsible for an outbreak of depressions. The degradation of Cotman´s printed work neglects the fact that his revolutionary painterly views mainly derived from his experiences as a graphic artist. His Normandy series, where he operated for the first time with the mobile camera lucida, show him at the crest of his artistic development.
Brigitte Pallast and Hans Lukas Lang, collaborators of the Melton Prior Institute, picked up the rather bulky travelogue from the collection and visited some of the spots that Cotman had depicted nearly two hundred years ago. The pictorial shows the meeting of two types of mobile cameras, the digital and the lit room one.
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DECEMBER 10 PICTORIAL
Robert Weaver VI
Book Illustrations
By Robert Weaver
"Weaver established the idea of the draughtsman being an equal to the writer of the text. He should have had a great influence on the world of text and image publishing, but for the most part, art directors and editors did not demand the kind of picture-writing that Weaver had in mind. In fact, few illustrators were capable of producing the sort of work he aspired to -- and so illustration remained a form of visual decoration for the page of text."
(Ben Katchor, Weaver as a teacher. 2005)
"I met Robert Weaver in September 1984 (..) The first thing I noticed about him was that he was white. I´d expected he´d be black" (Kevin McCloskey in: drawing/sva, december 1997)
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NOVEMBER 10 PICTORIAL
Kyung-hwa Choi-Ahoi:
Münir Camli, Hamburg 23.10.2010
Centrum Moschee / Neugraben Moschee
"Enzyklopädie Personae"
Die "Enzyklopädie Personae", ein `work in progress´ der koreanischen Künstlerin Kyung-hwa Choi-Ahoi, besteht mittlerweile aus 48 Din A 5 grossen Heften, in denen sie jeweils einen Tag lang Begegnungen mit Menschen aus ganz unterschiedlichen Zusammenhängen festhält. Am 23.10.2010 ist sie dem Imam der Centrum Moschee in Hamburg begegnet, dem Ort, an dem sie seit 1994 lebt.
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By now, the "Enzyklopädie Personae", a work in progress by Korean artist Kyung-hwa Choi-Ahoi, consists of 48 notebooks ( size A5), where she records her encounters with people from various contexts. On October 10, 2010 she met the imam of the Centrum Moschee in Hamburg, where she lives since 1994. -
OCTOBER 10 PICTORIAL
Burning Cetewayo´s house and other incidents of the British Zulu-War
by Melton Prior etc.
- encounter with a Zulu - punitive expedition - death of the Prince Imperial - Special Artists setting fire on a Kraal - the corpse of the Prince Imperial- Queen Victoria´s return from the Highlands in mourning - in search of King Cetewayo - the pursuit of Cetewayo - Cetewayo´s treasures - ambassadors from King Cetewayo to sue for peace - the captivity of Cetewayo - Cetewayo as a prisoner of war in Capetown - Zulu warriors dancing at The Folies Bergére - -
SEPTEMBER 10 PICTORIAL
Daumier and the Franco - Prussian "Dance of Death"
Honore Daumier - Henri Meyer - Fortune L. Meaulle - Eugene Damblans - Paul Iribe - Abel Faivr
Daumier´s late cartoons on the Franco-Prussian war are counted among his best. They were inspired by Alfred Rethel´s famous wood-cut cycle "Dance of Death" and of course by Goya´s visionary etchings. The future relationsships between the newly founded German Reich and its neighbour provoked series of imaginative adaptions by some influential graphic artists like Henri Meyer, who was one of the leading illustrators of the penny paper "Le Petit Journal" and Paul Iribe, the famous precursor of the Art Deco-movement.
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JULY 10 PICTORIAL
Meredith Nelson
Illustrated Russia
These drawings were made on-site on a stay in Moscow and the provincial towns around from July 08 to August 09 of 2009. The series focuses on Russia as a country of dramatic transitions, on the contrast between the remnants of its czarist and Soviet past and the current signs of a new global capitalist economy.
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JUNE 10 PICTORIAL
Robert Weaver V
Industrial Scenes II
By Robert Weaver
The image of "Fortune" was deeply connected with
a specific artistic American tradition of Social Realism. The Magazine was founded in 1939, in the era of the Great Depression and an art director like Leo Lionni, who was resonsible for the appearence of the magazine from 1940 on,updated this specific ethos by engaging illustrators like Robert Weaver, who continued the tradition of the "Masses" and the Ashcan School by sending artists on stories. "Lionni trusted the artist, and once he picked the right practitioner, he let him alone"
(Robert Weaver, in: Steven Heller, Innovators of American Illustration.1986) -
MARCH 10 PICTORIAL
Japanese prisoner-of- war camps
Ronald Searle - Jack Chalker - Charles Burki - Willy Muttelsee
Four different artists give pictorial informations about their experiences in Japanese prisoner-of- war camps: The German lance-corporal Willy Muttelsee spent four years, from 1916 - 1920, behind barbed wires in the refined atmosphere of the exemplary Bando camp on Shikoku island. The Dutch illustrator Charles Burki (1909 - 1994) was arrested in camp Fukuoka close to Nagasaki when the American A-bomb fell. The two British artists Jack Chalker (b.1918) and Ronald Searle (b.1920) experienced the brutal conditions in Changi Prison in the eastern part of Singapore and in the Thai-Burma Railway camps. -
FEBRUARY 10 PICTORIAL
The Art of Émile Cohl
Émile Cohl (born as Émile Courtet) had a preference for the graphic depictions of metamorphoses and puzzles of all kinds. His best cartoons are included in the caricature magazine "La Nouvelle Lune", which was founded by Cohls friend and mentor André Gill. After Gills mental breakdown in 1880 Cohl took on the editorship.
He also contributed to Edouard Drumont´s antisemitic journal "La Libre parole" -
JANUARY 10 PICTORIAL
Robert Weaver IV
Industrial Scenes I
By Robert Weaver
From the mid-fifties on, Robert Weaver made constant contributions to the famous business magazine "Fortune". "Fortune" kept a long tradition of brillant visual documentaries of industrial themes provided by artists like Walker Evans, Philip Guston, Robert Matta, Ben Shahn or Diego Rivera. -
NOVEMBER 09 PICTORIAL
The Art of "Petit Pierre"
Graphic Cycles of Théophile Steinlen
It was mainly Théophile Steinlen's merit of having transformed the rather jovial style of the late Daumier into an effective and dramatic means of expression for socialist class struggle.
The few cover illustrations which Steinlen made for "Le Chambard Socialiste" by using his anarchistic pen name "Petit Pierre" became milestones of the socialist art of the 20th century. "Petit Pierre" is a French translation of Steinlen or Steinlein. The name is of Swabian origin and is a diminutive form of "stone". He probably has chosen this pseudonym with an anti-church suggestion in mind.
The influence of his "Assiette au Beurre" classic, "La Vision de Hugo," (26.2.1902) on artists like Alfred Kubin and Willibald Krain can hardly be overestimated.
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OCTOBER 09 PICTORIAL
Robert Weaver III
Kennedy´s Last Chance to be President
Esquire Magazine. April, 1959
by Robert Weaver
In the end of 1958 famous graphic artist Robert Weaver was commissioned by the "Esquire Magazine" to accompany the Senate re-election campaign of John F. Kennedy with his sketch-pad and his pencil.
As usual Weaver reworked his hasty, but very decided sketches later in his studio. The striking drawing, showing J.F.K. from behind in his car became the illustrative part of the masthead of the MePri-Site. The handwritten dedication indicates that Weaver later gave this important sketch to his long time agent "Dick" Darwin Bahm, who also acted for the young illustrator Andrew Warhola. -
SEPTEMBER 09 PICTORIAL
Some Frightful War Pictures
London 1915
by William Heath Robinson
The art of William Heath Robinson can be qualified as an anarchic heightening of the inventions of the early masters of science fiction cartooning, of George Cruikshank and Albert Robida. In this collection of war cartoons, which appeared during the early stages of WWI, when the Trench warfare had just begun with its poison gas attacks, he created some of the most penetrative pictorial statements against the tragic absurdities of war.
B.P.
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JUNE 09 PICTORIAL
Karagoez
Türkisches Karikaturmagazin
Im Zeitschriftenarchiv Horst Moser, München befinden sich einige Beispiel früher Ausgaben des Satiremagazins "Karagöz", die Zeugnis ablegen von der hohen graphischen Qualität der osmanischen Karikatur zu Beginn des 20. Jhds. Die Anziehungskraft und Popularität von Karikaturmagazinen hält auch heute noch in der türkischen Gesellschaft unvermindert an.
Die beiden Protagonisten der 1908, nach der Wiedereinführung der Verfassung und der Aufhebung eines jahrzehntelangen Karikaturverbots im osmanischen Reich gegründeten Satirezeitschrift sind dem traditionellen osmanischen Schattentheater entlehnt: Der tölpelhafte und draufgängerische Karagöz (Schwarzauge) und sein Kumpel, der gebildete und besonnene Hacivad.
Abbildungen: Horst Moser/ Übersetzungen: Kinay Olcaytu -
JUNE 09 PICTORIAL
Lagerbuch / Prison Camp Book
Ksar-es-Souk , 1944 - 1947
von Heinz Zantis
Das Album von Heinz Zantis zählt wegen seiner stilistischen Vielfalt zu den interessantesten Exemplaren einer Sammlung von Lagerbüchern des MePri. Geführt wurde es in der Art eines Poesiealbums. Zantis war von 1944 bis 1947 in einem Sonderlager der französischen Exilregierung für deutsche Unteroffiziere in Ksar-es-Souk in Marokko inhaftiert.Das Buch umfasst 35 Seiten (21,5 x 19,5 cm) -
MAY 09 PICTORIAL
Ikonolog
Baum
Bleistift auf Papier, Digitalcollage, 2007/08
von Matthias Reinhold
Der Bilderstrang aus Matthias Reinholds "Ikonolog" (www.ikonolog.de) repräsentiert den rhizomatischen Strukturgedanken dieses Zeichnungsprojekts, das auf infinite Durchlässigkeit und Verästelung aus ist. Aperspektivische, organismische Raumerfahrungen und Beobachtungen vegetativen Wachstums verbinden sich hier auf poetische Weise mit analytischen Feldern der technischen Konstruktions- und Explosionsgrafik, mit Zeichenweisen also, die auf chirurgische Weise funktionale Zusammenhänge offen legen.
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APRIL 09 PICTORIAL
World War I: Flanders III
"Kriegsbriefe"
by Theodor Rocholl
At the age of over sixty, Theodor Rocholl ended his long career as a war artist taking part in the First World War. In his War Letters from the west front in Flanders, which were printed in 1916, he did not avoid describing fear and destruction. However, in the gouaches and watercolours of this propaganda publication, he conveyed the impression of belonging to the idyllists of a war who in the centres of confrontation knew nothing of green boy scout romanticism anymore. That this was not the case is revealed by a number of unpublished works in the collection of the Stadtmuseum Hofgeismar that with rare ruthlessness also depict the hardships of this war. -
MARCH 09 PICTORIAL
World War I: Flanders II
Aquarelle (Watercolours)
by Adolf Hitler
This portfolio with a small selection of watercolours, which Adolf Hitler painted in the course of his military service during World War I, was edited about 1935 by his official photographer Heinrich Hoffmann. It is assumed that Hitler was involved in the editing process. Even so, shortly after the appearance he withdrew and stopped the delivery. The seven collotype reproductions mainly show architectural motifs in Flanders. He apparently had a preference for romantic ruins and deserted sites. In his technique Hitler tried to follow the example of his favourite artist, the famous Viennese veduta painter Rudolf Ritter von Alt.
The period of World War I marked a last heyday of the long tradition of graphic reporting and the art of watercolour, with artists like François Flameng, John Singer Sargent and the late Theodor Rocholl as their most excellent purveyors.
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JANUARY 09 PICTORIAL
Landschaftsalbum vom Kriegsschauplatz (1870)
Berlin - Hamburg, 1871
von Eugen Krüger
Die Mappe mit insgesamt sechsunddreissig
grossformatigen Darstellungen von verlassenen Schlachtfeldern des preussisch-französischen Kriegs erschien im Herbst 1871, circa ein halbes Jahr nach der französischen Kapitulation. Gedruckt wurde sie in vier der führenden lithographischen Anstalten Deutschlands, u.a. bei W. Korn & Co. in Berlin und Charles Fuchs in Hamburg.
Die Raffiniertheit der Bildfindungen, die zwischen kühler Sachlickeit und spätromantischer Schauerlicheit changieren, so wie die Brillanz der druckgraphischen Ausführungen markieren einen nie wieder erreichten Höhepunkt auf dem Gebiet der künstlerischen Chromolithographie. Der früh verstorbene Hamburger Lithograph und Maler Eugen Krüger hatte sich zu Mitte der sechziger Jahre bereits mit atmosphärisch dichten Tier-und Jagdszenen einen Namen gemacht, als er den Auftrag zu diesem Mappenwerk erhielt. In dem erfindungsreichen künstlerischen Umgang mit dem fotografischen Abbild und der subtilen Integration von zeichnerischen Elementen, die vor Ort entstanden sind, ist sein künstlerischer Ansatz durchaus vergleichbar mit dem von anderen, ungleich erfolgreicheren Kollegen gleichen Alters wie Gustave Doré oder Edouard Manet.
In der Sammlung des MePri befinden sich achtzehn Blätter dieses raren Albums, einige davon sind handsigniert.
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DECEMBER 08 PICTORIAL
CS: Neurologische Versuchslabore
Affenversuche Bremen
Universität Bremen; September 2003
von Alexander Roob
Der Streit um Tierversuche zwischen dem Bremer Senat und der Uni eskaliert.Weil sie »ethisch nicht gerechtfertigt« seien, will der Bremer Senat dem Hirnforscher Andreas Kreiter seine umstrittenen Affenversuche an der Bremer Universität endgültig verbieten; die Hochschule pocht dagegen auf die Forschungsfreiheit und will bis vor das Bundesverfassungsgericht ziehen. Das Schicksal des Wissenschaftlers und seiner 24 Makakenäffchen wird damit zum Präzedenzfall. An ihm entscheidet sich, wie es künftig um die Ansprüche von Tierschützern und die Rechte von Forschern in Deutschland bestellt ist.
(DIE ZEIT, 20.11.2008) -
NOVEMBER 08 PICTORIAL
Amtsgericht Hamburg Mitte / Archiv
12 Bleistiftzeichnungen
von Henrik Hold
Einer so genannten Arbeitsgelegenheit mit Mehraufwandsentschädigung verdankt der Hamburger Zeichner Henrik Hold seine intimen Einblicke in die kafkaeske Untergrundwelt des örtlichen Amtsgerichts. Sämtliche Zeichnungen sind im Frühjahr 2007 vor Ort entstanden.(Im Textem Verlag, Hamburg ist eine Publikation erschienen, die diese Zeichnungsreihe im Duotondruck reproduziert.) -
OCTOBER 08 PICTORIAL
Original Drawings and Print Versions in the MePri - Collections # I
1812 - 1902
Drawings by Albrecht Adam, Paul Gavarni, Hubert von Herkomer, Frederic Theodore Lix, William Simpson, Melton Prior, Joseph Pennell and their representations in the Pictorial Press. -
SEPTEMBER 08 PICTORIAL
Skizzen aus der Anatomie
Oktober 1989 - Januar 1990
von Bernhard Kucken
Einige Beispiele aus einem Zeichenzyklus, der in einem Präparierkurs der Anatomischen Fakultät der Uni Düsseldorf entstanden ist.
"Bis auf wenige Blätter im DinA3-Format sind alle Skizzen mittels 2B, 6B TK-Stiften auf DinA4-Briefpapier gezeichnet. Mit meinem umgehängten Zeichenbrett konnte und musste ich meinen Standpunkt zwischen den präparierenden Studierenden jederzeit meinem Interesse und geeigneten Blickrichtungen anpassen."
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Some examples from a drawing cycle, made on location in a dissecting course of the Anatomy Department of Düsseldorf University at the end of 1989.
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JULY 08 PICTORIAL
Becheret Palmach
1948/50
von Menachem Sofer
The book, published in a small edition in Israel in the early 1950s, is dedicated to the memory of the "Palmach" member Menachem Sofer. In 1948, during the Palestinian War, Sofer fought in this paramilitary unit of the Jewish underground organization "Hagana" and two years later became the victim of a lethal landmine accident.
In his drawings, he describes his everyday life as a military police officer and reports on the events of this first Arab-Israeli war. The extremely idiosyncratic, posthumous compilation contains, apart from Popeye-like cartoons of army-life and documentary sketches, examples of Sofers ambitious artistic work. The then 16-year-old had to postpone his plans to apply to an art academy due to his military service.
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Das Buch, das zu Anfang der fünfziger Jahre in
kleiner Auflage in Israel erschienen war, ist dem Andenken an das "Palmach"-Mitglied Menachem Sofer gewidmet. Sofer hatte 1948 während des Palästinakriegs in dieser paramilitärischen Einsatztruppe der jüdischen Untergrundorganisation "Hagana" gekämpft und war zwei Jahre später Opfer eines tödlichen Landminen-Unfalls geworden.In seinen Zeichnungen beschreibt er seinen Alltag als Militärpolizist und reportiert Ereignisse aus diesem ersten arabisch-israelischen Krieg. Die äußert eigenwillige posthume Zusammenstellung enthält neben Popeye-artigem Komisscartooning und dokumentarischen Skizzen auch Beispiele aus Sofers ambitionierterem künstlerischen Werk. Der damals Sechzehnjährige hatte mit seinem Militärdienst den Plan, sich auf einer Kunstakademie zu bewerben, zurückstellen müssen. -
JUNE 08 PICTORIAL
Tracing #2
News
1997-2007
Reinhard Doubrawa
Reinhard Doubrawa arbeitet seit 1997 an seiner «News»-Serie, einer fortlaufenden Reihe von Freihandzeichnungen, die nach Fotos des Nachrichtenmagazins «Der Spiegel» entstehen.
Die Motive rücken das globale Zeitgeschehen in den Blick und erscheinen von der Spiegel-Redaktion gefiltert und thematisch inszeniert auf dem Höhepunkt ihrer Aktualität.
Spätestens mit der neuen Ausgabe werden die Meldungen und Berichte jedoch von jüngeren verdrängt und geraten in Vergessenheit. Es erscheint zunächst als ein Widerspruch, vergängliche Medienbilder, die meist dazu dienen, eine inhaltliche These zu stützen oder auf einen Text aufmerksam zu machen, mit Feder und Tusche abzuzeichnen. «Ich schreibe die Bilder nochmal ab», beschreibt Reinhard Doubrawa seine Arbeitsweise und enthebt die Motive damit ihrer Natur als vergängliche Massenware. So entsteht ein Querschnitt durch die Gesellschaft und jüngere Zeitgeschichte. Politiker und Prominente tauchen ebenso auf wie anonyme Laborarbeiter oder Konsumenten, spektakuläre Motive wechseln sich mit weniger eindrucksvollen ab. Die Zeichnungen sind Teil des globalen Bildgedächtnisses und führen uns unsere mediale Zeitzeugenschaft vor Augen.
Maria Anna Tappeiner
Tusche auf Karton, je: 30,5 x 21,5 cm
(Unter dem Titel "News" ist 2004 eine Dokumentation dieses Zeichenprojekts im Salon Verlag, Köln erschienen.) -
MAY 08 PICTORIAL
Tracing #1
«Superdocumenta»
1994
Clemens Krümmel
«Superdocumenta» was created in the winter of 1994, on an invitation by Gunter Reski, as a contribution to the Hamburg-related text reader «Team Compendium - Selfmade Matches. Selbstorganisation Bereich Kunst», ed. by Rita Baukrowitz and Karin Günther. Initially supposed to be a written text on the actuality of the curatorial principle developed by Harald Szeemann for documenta 5, the contribution was done at a safe distance from suitable libraries on contemporary art, and with no Google or internet support whatsoever.The essay is mostly based on a heap of photocopied reviews and a copy of the legendary orange plastic file that was used instead of a catalogue for documenta 5 (1972), carried along by the author to a study sojourn in Italy. It seemed remarkable that all of the reviews used more or less the same images. Thus, a critical approach on the pictorial level - in the manner of a 1970s student zine - seemed more fitting than any more affirmative looking essay that was only written text. The ants meandering through these eight pictorial pages are gleaned from the catalogue file's cover. There they arrange their bodies, in the style of a Maoist dancing troupe, to form a huge «5».<br />
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APRIL 08 PICTORIAL
Salzburger Fusseln
von Thorsten Streichardt
Die hier auf Videostills zu erkennenden minimalen Zeichnungen des in Berlin lebenden Künstlers Thorsten Streichardt entstanden vor zwei Jahren im Rahmen eines Salzburg-Aufenthalts. Streichardt, der zuvor stärker in skupturalen und installativen Modi an so etwas wie einer Pathologie des Bürokratismus gearbeitet hat, interessiert sich für Zeichnung als ein psychophysisches Medium der Welterfahrung, das er in bewusst regressiver Geste mit dem und gegen das von ihm gleichzeitig verwendeten technischen Bildmedium Video einsetzt. Wie in einer Karikatur des postmodernen Gemeinplatzes Kamera-als-Phallus/Kamera-als-Gewehr bastelt er hier Kamera und Zeichenstift zusammen, und so sind Zeichnung und Aufzeichnung aufs Innigste miteinander verbunden. Mit dieser Vorrichtung bewehrt macht sich Streichardt in die Reste öffentlichen Stadtraums auf, die es an einem Ort wie Salzburg noch geben mag, bringt kaum sichtbar fusselartige Bleistiftmarkierungen an und entfaltet den semantischen Raum des Zeichnens und Bezeichnens - wird dabei aber (nicht gänzlich unerwartet) nach wenigen Minuten von den Repräsentanten staatlicher Ordnungsmacht gestört.
