World’s Most Creative Papercraft Artists

http://weburbanist.com/2008/12/02/papercraft-creative-paper-art-design-sculpture/

I CAN DO THAT !

Picasso self-portrait found stacked against a bedroom wall with a Stubbs and a Munnings : By LUKE SALKELD -



Etreinte: The watercolour depicts Picasso and his lover in bed

As artworks by Picasso go, it might be considered a steal.
The chance to own one of the great painter's works has come up - with a guide price of just £100,000. The seven and a half inch by four and three quarter inch watercolour shows the artist naked in bed with one of his many girlfriends. It is being sold by an anonymous private collector, to the delight of the auctioneer who was called to value the painting along with works by two other well known artists. It is considered rare in the art world for works by artists of such repute to be sold by regional auction house instead of the famous companies of London and New York. But Duke's auction house in Dorchester, Dorset, is to sell the small watercolour by Picasso entitled "Etreinte" as well as equine paintings by the British artists George Stubbs and Sir Alfred Munnings. The sexually-charged Picasso piece depicts the artist and his lover in bed and was probably painted in 1901 or 1902 when the artist was in his early 20s. In 1969 the Spanish master was shown the painting and confirmed its authenticity on the reverse of the picture. He also recalled dedicating the cover of the sketchbook from which it came "Pour Louise". Louise Lenoir, known as Odette, is thought to have been Picasso's first girlfriend in Paris. Auctioneer Guy Schwinge said: "It was a breathtaking find to discover these paintings that were stacked against the wall of a house. "To find just one of these works would have been incredible - but to find three was quite exceptional. "Of course, everybody has heard of Picasso and this is an early work thought to be of him in a naked clinch with his girlfriend Odette." He added that the guide price reflects the fact that the work is not one of Picasso's "iconic" pieces, is quite small, and is painted in water colour rather than oil. However, it is generally known that lots can eventually be sold for many times their estimated value. The same auctioneer was responsible for finding art worth millions in the terraced house of the late spinster and art collector Jean Preston. At her home in Oxford they found a 19th century watercolour by the English painter Dante Gabriel Rossetti in the kitchen, and an oil painting by Sir Edward Burne-Jones, which was kept in the living room. Treasures already taken from the house include a rare edition of the works of Geoffrey Chaucer found under a cardigan in a wardrobe. It was later sold for £74,000. And hanging behind the door in the spare bedroom were two lost 15th century Fra Angelico paintings worth an astonishing £1.7million. Next month's auction by Duke's will include the work by Stubbs (1724-1806) which is thought to have been painted for John Thane, 10th Earl of Westmorland, who was Lord Privy Seal (1798-1806). The painting is a typical work by the artist and depicts a grey horse against a dark background. It is signed and dated 1786. The oil by Sir Alfred Munnings (1878-1959) is entitled "The Irish Grey Mare" and it retains the original giltwood frame by Townshends of Norwich. It is an atmospheric and freely painted work and features in the artist's autobiography.It does not appear to have been sold at auction before and Duke's are anticipating that it could sell for in excess of £100,000.Mr Schwinge added: "Quality paintings of horses are always popular and the two we have by Stubbs and Munnings are fine works."Both have well deserved reputations as painters of horses and are truly masters of their craft.
"In fact, Stubbs dissected horses in order to make his paintings more accurate.
"It will be a great honour to sell these great works and already there has been a great deal of interest in them."

Don Maclain - VINCENT - Van Gogh

When there is no hope...what is the point of carring on ?



Are you going to Scarborough Fair?
Parsley, sage, rosemary & thyme
Remember me to one who lives there
She once was a true love of mine
Tell her to make me a cambric shirt
(On the side of a hill in the deep forest green)
Parsely, sage, rosemary & thyme
(Tracing a sparrow on snow-crested ground)
Without no seams nor needlework
(Blankets and bedclothes a child of the mountains)
Then she'll be a true love of mine
(Sleeps unaware of the clarion call)
Tell her to find me an acre of land
(On the side of a hill, a sprinkling of leaves)
Parsely, sage, rosemary, & thyme
(Washed is the ground with so many tears)
Between the salt water and the sea strand
(A soldier cleans and polishes a gun)
Then she'll be a true love of mine
Tell her to reap it in a sickle of leather
(War bellows, blazing in scarlet battalions)
Parsely, sage, rosemary & thyme
(Generals order their soldiers to kill)
And to gather it all in a bunch of heather
(And to fight for a cause they've long ago forgotten)
Then she'll be a true love of mine
Are you going to Scarborough Fair?
Parsley, sage, rosemary & thyme
Remember me to one who lives there
She once was a true love of mine.

For the love of art and money

Damien Hirst's £50 m skull, unveiled yesterday, throws a hand grenade into the decadent world of art collecting, writes Richard Dorment
In pictures: Hirst's £50m skull
At the dark heart of Damien Hirst's new show Beyond Belief is a piece entitled For the Love of God. Shown in an illuminated glass case in a darkened room on the top floor of the White Cube gallery in St James's, it consists of a life-size cast of a human skull in platinum, its surface covered by 8,601 flawless pavé diamonds, weighing a total of 1,106.18 carats. Crucial to the work's meaning is the asking price of £50 million.

Damien Hirst's platinum cast of a human skull is covered with 8,601 ethically-sourced diamonds If anyone but Hirst had made this curious object, we would be struck by its vulgarity. It looks like the kind of thing Asprey or Harrods might sell to credulous visitors from the oil states with unlimited amounts of money to spend, little taste, and no knowledge of art. I can imagine it gracing the drawing room of some African dictator or Colombian drug baron. But not just anyone made it - Hirst did. Knowing this, we look at it in a different way and realise that in the most brutal, direct way possible, For the Love of God questions something about the morality of art and money.This is something I've often wondered about when I read of the fantastic prices private individuals pay for works by Picasso, Klimt and Warhol. How do these people sleep at night, knowing that the hundred million they just spent could have endowed schools, built hospitals, eradicated diseases and alleviated hunger? Don't they think about the morality of pouring so much wealth into something as dead as a diamond necklace, a painting, a private jet?
Once you begin to think in this way, Hirst's title becomes ambiguous, for it is a phrase that can be said in exasperation - as in "For the love of God, what are we all thinking?" For the Love of God is a hand grenade thrown into the decadent, greedy, and profoundly amoral world where art meets money.



But it is more.

By ensuring that the price he is asking for the skull receives the maximum amount of publicity, Hirst has also made sure that whoever buys it will never be able to enjoy it. Like the Ring of the Nibelung, this glittering, deadly prize will prove at some level a curse to the person who possesses it. I can't remember another art work that so perfectly embodies the cynicism and ambivalence successful artists must feel towards those who promote and collect their work. Part of what interests me so much about this whole project is the fact that Hirst is the main person who will profit by its sale. Confusing, but fascinating. And if you think I may be attributing to Hirst a subtlety that his art doesn't sustain, look at the rest of the show at White Cube. Hirst turns the whole large gallery into a meditation on life and death, good and evil. On the walls of the ground-floor galleries, he hangs paintings based on photos taken during the difficult birth of his son by caesarean section. Painted by studio assistants, from a technical or formal point of view, these are pretty abysmal. But as expressions of the joy, pain and horror of life (as opposed to the utter nullity of the diamond-covered skull) they are immensely touching.
Even the horrible paintings based on photos of cancer cells and the eviscerated fish and animals shown in vitrines in the basement are part of a natural cycle of life and death that the skull doesn't belong to. As usual, Hirst gives these works titles that make it impossible to miss their Christian context. The most beautiful work of all is a dove with outstretched wings in a glass vitrine. It is a dove of peace, but also the emblem of the Holy Spirit, which is after all, the love of God. Its title, The Incomplete Truth links it directly to the skull. For the dove symbolises the exact opposite of everything the skull stands for, and yet the one is incomplete without the other, just as the totality of human experience is made up of evil as well as good.
At White Cube, Mason's Yard, London SW1, and at White Cube, Hoxton Square, London N1, until July 7. For tickets for Mason's Yard, go to http://www.whitecube-tickets.com/