Artist of the day: November 2022

Wednesday, November 30, 2022

Artist of the Day, November 30, 2022: Masayuki Nagare, a modernist Japanese sculptor (#1713)

Masayuki Nagare (1923 – 2018) was a modernist Japanese sculptor, nicknamed "Samurai Artist" for his commitment to traditional Japanese aesthetics. He was born in Nagasaki to Kojuro Nakagawa, the founder and president of Ritsumeikan University in Kyoto. As a teenager, he received training in the martial arts of a samurai, particularly swordsmanship, and lived in several temples in Kyoto, where he observed the patterns of rocks, plants, and water created by traditional landscape artists.

In 1942, he enrolled at Ritsumeikan University, where he studied Shintoism and was apprenticed to a master swordsmith. He left university in 1943 to join the Imperial Japanese Navy and did not return to complete his studies. Nagare served as a Zero Fighter pilot in the Pacific War. After the War, he traveled all over Honshu Island until the mid-1950s, witnessing the desolation of the ruined countryside, developing a thorough understanding of the Japanese landscape, and becoming interested in local crafts such as pottery. His fascination with graveyard tombstones that had survived wartime bombing led to his longtime choice of stone as his preferred medium.

Nagare's art is strongly influenced by Shintoism, Zen Buddhism, and traditional Japanese martial arts. His principal stone-carving techniques include warehada ("cracked skin" or "broken texture"), in which the surface is left rough, with visible chisel marks, and shinogi awase ("ridges joined together"), which describes the meeting of two highly polished surfaces. Some of his works exhibit the contrast between the two techniques. His sculptures' clean lines often follow the subtle curvature of Japanese swords.

© 2022. All content on this blog is protected by international copyright laws All images are copyrighted © by Masayuki Nagare or assignee. Apart from fair dealing for the purpose of private study, research, criticism or review as permitted under the Copyright Act, the use of any image from this site is prohibited unless prior written permission is obtained. All images used for illustrative purposes only

Masayuki Nagare

Cloud, 1958

Pinnacle, 1960

Remembered Promise, 1963

Sleep, 1963

Untitled, 1963

Confluence, 1964-65

1965 Ancestor, 1965

1965 Mind to Mind, 1965

Rising, 1965

Untitled, 1965

Untitled, 1966-68

Calm, 1967
(Property from The Anna Moffo Sarnoff Estate)

Stone Praise, 1970

Untitled, 1970

Untitled, 1979

1979 Untitled, 1979
(Property from The Estste of Laurence S. Rockefeller)

Wind’s Impression, 1979

Modori Bachi, 1982

Sakimori, 1987

Bulldog, 1989

Eyelashes for Love, 1990

Itinerant Priest, 1993

Momo, 1997

Untitled, 1999

Sunset of Seto, 2000

Courage

Middelheim Museum

Tuesday, November 29, 2022

Artist of the Day, November 29, 2022: Joe Caroff, an American graphic designer (#1712)

Joe Caroff (1921) is an American graphic designer, best known for his design of film posters and corporate logos.

Joseph Caroff was born in Linden, New Jersey, to Jewish immigrant parents from Babruysk. After graduating high school, Caroff studied at the Pratt Institute in Brooklyn until 1942. While still a student, he worked as an assistant in the Manhattan studio of French poster designer Jean Carlu. Shortly after finishing his studies, Caroff was drafted for service in the U.S. Army and stationed in Molesworth, Great Britain.

After returning to New York from active duty, Caroff was employed at Alan Berni Associates, then worked freelance for publishing, packaging, and film production projects. In 1965, he founded the agency J. Caroff Associates, Inc. In 1986, he partnered with Lon Kirschner to form the agency Kirschner Caroff. In 2006, at the age of 85, Caroff ended his graphic design career and dedicated himself to paintings and drawings which were presented at art exhibitions. Joe Caroff and his wife Phyllis live in New York City, where they sponsor the Phyllis and Joseph Caroff Foundation for Health and Mental Health funding need based scholarships for students attending Hunter College School of Social Work.

In 2021, German designer Thilo von Debschitz managed to contact the mostly forgotten Caroff. After several interviews, Debschitz published an eight-page article in the German Grafikmagazin in August 2021 (the month of Caroff's 100th birthday) and a six-page article in the British design magazine eye in December 2021. In the articles, Debschitz looks back on the life and work of Joe Caroff.

At the age of 27, under the name Joseph Karov, Caroff created the book jacket for Norman Mailer’s first novel, The Naked and the Dead. The design was exhibited at the Book Jacket Designers Guild Exhibition (1948) as well as at the 28th Annual Exhibition of Advertising and Editorial Art by the Art Director’s Club of New York and at the exhibition “Modern Art in Your Life” at the Museum of Modern Art (1949).

Caroff created the poster design for the movie West Side Story (1961), often wrongly credited to Saul Bass who did design the animated title sequence for the film.

For the launch of the James Bond movie franchise in 1962, Caroff conceptualized 007 with the integral pistol which became the signature of the brand, which remains in use.

Some of the work his agency J. Caroff Associates created were posters and lettering for over 300 movies including Cabaret (director: Bob Fosse), Last Tango in Paris (director: Bernardo Bertolucci) and Zelig (director: Woody Allen).

In addition, Caroff designed animated title sequences, e.g. for The Last Temptation of Christ (director: Martin Scorsese) or Death of a Salesman (director: Volker Schlöndorff). Other work conceived by Caroff’s associates at the studio include Burt Kleeger’s lettering and posters for the Woody Allen comedies Manhattan and Stardust Memories.

Beside film posters, Joe Caroff created product and company logos, e.g. for the TV broadcasting station Fox or ABC Olympics (a sports reporting subbrand of the broadcasting service ABC). The last-mentioned project led to a lawsuit between ABC and a sculptor who had come up with a similar formal idiom.

Handdrawn lettering by Caroff inspired designers in the development of complete typefaces. In 2008, British type designer Jonathan Hill created the typeface Laser Disco based on Caroffs lettering for the movie Rollerball. In 1975, British type designer Colin Brignall created the font Tango based on Caroffs lettering for Last Tango in Paris.

© 2022. All content on this blog is protected by international copyright laws All images are copyrighted © by Joe Caroff or assignee. Apart from fair dealing for the purpose of private study, research, criticism or review as permitted under the Copyright Act, the use of any image from this site is prohibited unless prior written permission is obtained. All images used for illustrative purposes only