Liz Myhill (b. 1980) is a Scottish artist whose practice encompasses painting, linocuts, collage and mixed media. Being an avid walker and traveller, her work is often on the subjects of nature and landscape.
She has produced public art works for NHS Scotland and illustrated book and album covers… and even cartons of milk.
Her work is shown and sold at Birch Tree Gallery, Frames Gallery and Gallery Q. Greeting cards with her prints are currently for sale on Down to Earth Cards.
Marcel Gromaire (1892-1971) was a French fine artist and painter of buildings landscapes, portraits and nudes.
When dentist and art collector, Dr Maurice Girardin discovered Gromaire, he purchased his entire back catalogue. Unsurprisingly, Dr Girardin was also a supporter and patron of another of our favourite artists, Bernard Buffet. On his death, Girardin had 110 Gromaires in his collection.
In 2011, Gromaire’s L’après-midi d’été (1930), sold at Sotheby’s in Paris for $295,477 USD.
If you can’t afford one of his originals, there are prints available on Etsy and eBay. In addition, there is a brilliant looking book – Marcel Gromaire: L’élégance de la force – available on Amazon.
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Josef Herman (1911-2000) was a Jewish Polish-born fine artist and painter. In 1938, he immigrated to Belgium and then on to the UK in during the 2nd World War. He went to Wales in 1944 and was especially taken by the industrial town of Ystradgynlais. He remained there for 11 years, during which time he created work that was heavily influenced by the local miners and surrounding area.
In his memoir published in 1975, Related Twilights: Notes from an Artists Diary he remembers:
It was in 1944, either a June or a July day, I can no longer remember, but I vividly recall the heat of that afternoon and how deeply I was struck by the quiet of the village around me. There was hardly a soul to be seen. In the distance, low hills like sleeping dogs and above the hills a copper-coloured sky – how often I later returned to the colour and mood of that sky! Its light reddened the stone walls of the cottages and the outlines of the stark trees. The railing and the cement blocks of the bridge had golden contours. Under the bridge, out of a cold shadow, trickled a pool of water which got thinner and thinner as it ran on amidst the dry stones and glittering pebbles. Then, unexpectedly, as though from nowhere, a group of miners stepped onto the bridge. For a split second their heads appeared against the full body of the sun, as against a yellow disc – the whole image was not unlike an icon depicting the saints with their haloes. With the light around them, the silhouettes of the miners were almost black. With rapid steps they crossed the bridge and like frightened cats tore themselves away from each other, each going his own way. The magnificence of this scene overwhelmed me.
The Tate produced this short film examining some of Herman’s sketches of Wales – here it is below.
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Ruth Asawa (1926-2013) was a California-born, Japanese-American fine artist whose practise involved creating large-scale sculpture using woven wire. Her back-story is both tragic and inspiring.
In 1942, during World War II and after the bombing of Pearl Harbour, Asawa’s father (who’d been living in the U.S.A. for forty years) was arrested and taken to New Mexico to be interned. She, her mother and five of her siblings were also interned – in Arkansas. Ruth didn’t see her father for 6 years. One of her sisters, who was on a trip to Japan at the time, was barred from re-entering the US; she had to spend the rest of the war away from her family.
Despite all this, in 1994, Asawa shared:
I hold no hostilities for what happened; I blame no one. Sometimes good comes through adversity. I would not be who I am today had it not been for the internment, and I like who I am.
In 1939, in a school competition, she won 1st prize for her drawing of the Statue of Liberty – a project to produce an artwork that represents what it means to be an American. While at internment school, she gained a scholarship from a Quaker organisation to attend teacher training college in Milwaukee. Later at college in North Carolina, she was tutored by Buckminster Fuller, John Cage, Franz Kline and Josef Albers.
Her balloon-shaped wire works were originally inspired by Mexican basket makers she encountered during a trip to the country in 1947.
I was interested in it because of the economy of a line, making something in space, enclosing it without blocking it out. It’s still transparent. I realized that if I was going to make these forms, which interlock and interweave, it can only be done with a line because a line can go anywhere.
Asawa’s artworks sell at luxury auction houses such as Bonhams and Christie’s, often fetching millions of U.S. dollars.
For those like us who can’t afford an original example of her work, there are numerous books about her an her work that are available from Amazon and eBay. Titles include: A Life Made by Hand: The Story of Ruth Asawa by Andrea D’Aquino, Everything She Touched: The Life of Ruth Asawa by Marilyn Chase, The Sculpture of Ruth Asawa: Contours in the Air by Daniell Cornell, Ruth Asawa: Life’s Work by Tamara Schenkenberg, Aruna D’souza, et al. and Ruth Asawa: A Sculpting Life by Traci Van Wagoner Joan Schoettler.
Later this year (2020), The U.S. Postal Service will be issuing a series of commemorative stamps with a selection of Asawa’s designs.
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