Posted on 11/04/2009 3:20:11 PM PST by kristinn
.SNIP
ARTnews has reported that the White House has quietly de-listed a painting by Alma W. Thomas that it chose last month, among some 45 pieces borrowed from several Washington museums, to decorate the private White House residence and the West and East Wings.
Titled, “Watusi (Hard Edge)” from 1963, the work takes a Matisse collage and, as Holland Cotter wrote in The New York Times, praising the selection, “shifts the pieces around, cools the colors down, and adds a title that refers to a Chubby Checker song.”
“But through copying Matisse,” Mr. Cotter added, “she began to work out a format she would use again and again.”
Some conservative Web sites, like Freerepublic.com, had criticized the painting as a fraud, calling it a “re-colored reprint” and questioning the wisdom of hanging it in the White House. By late October, the painting, which had been destined for the East Wing, had been removed from the list of works bound for 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, ARTnews reported, though a second Thomas painting from 1973 remains on the list. The Hirshhorn Museum, which owns the painting, confirmed that the 1963 work had been sent back, but no one involved with the White House loans at the museum would say why, the publication said.
Semonti Stephens, the deputy press secretary for Mrs. Obama, said that the painting had been intended to go in the first lady’s office and that the the decision not to put it there was made only because its dimensions did not work in the space in which it was to hang.
(Excerpt) Read more at artsbeat.blogs.nytimes.com ...
It was done to subvert the art world and public perceptions of art. Now we’ve had nearly 100 years of anti-art. It is the new establishment.
Close enough to be plagiarism even in most public high schools.
Excellent!
Now I wonder if it’s common practice to borrow paintings from museums to decorate the WH. I’ve not heard of this being done by presidents in the past.
Have the Obombas been using Ward Churchill as an art consultant?
Um. was this a black artist by any chance? A feminist icon for some reason?
There has to be a reason they chose it. Just diss the original, maybe?
The railing around them to keep people from fondling the red, yellow, or blue squares cracks me up. As if a replacement print couldn’t be produced in ten minutes if one were damaged.
I’ve got the original hanging on my refrigerator! It’s from my grandkid’s nursery school.
Yours is a fruad I have the original hanging on my refrigerator. My granddaughter painted it.
Titled, “Watusi (Hard Edge)” from 1963, the work takes a Matisse collage and, as Holland Cotter wrote in The New York Times, praising the selection, “shifts the pieces around, cools the colors down, and adds a title that refers to a Chubby Checker song.”
The emperor's new clothes really ARE snazzy.
I think this masterpeice, the original, is just a color test for Matisse.
If we could talk to the dead... lol.. “Masterpeice? Your talking about my color palette test!”
Semonti Stephens, the deputy press secretary for Mrs. Obama, said that the painting had been intended to go in the first lady’s office and that the the decision not to put it there was made only because its dimensions did not work in the space in which it was to hang.
I’ve got the original hanging on my refrigerator! It’s from my grandkid’s nursery school.
Yours is a fruad I have the original hanging on my refrigerator. My granddaughter painted it.
When I saw it, the railing was there. Like it’s the Mona Lisa.
LOL
That’s great
the work takes a Matisse collage and, as Holland Cotter wrote in The New York Times, praising the selection, “shifts the pieces around
I bet they had a 3-page explanation about how Red, Yellow and Blue was a comment on materialism, war and the awfulness of western civilization.
Ah, c’mon now, great artistic minds think alike, doncha know??? ; )
You’ll have to ask Michelle yourself.
A package of color construction paper....
So much art, even before you cut them!
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