Artist of the day: February 2025

Wednesday, February 26, 2025

Artist of the Day, February 26, 2025: Charlotte Mayer, a Czech-born British sculptor (#2227)

Charlotte Mayer (1929 – 2022) was a Czech-born British sculptor. She was born in Prague, the only child of Kurt Fanta and Helen Marie Stutzová. Kurt and Helen divorced in 1937, and two years later Helen married Ludwig “Frederick” Mayer. In 1939, aged 10, Mayer and her mother emigrated to the United Kingdom to flee the Nazi occupation of Czechoslovakia.

Despite pleas from Helen, Mayer’s maternal grandparents, Růžena and Eduard Stutz, chose not to accompany their daughter and granddaughter to the UK, and remained in Prague. In 1942, Růžena was transported to the Theresienstadt Ghetto, and subsequently to the Treblinka extermination camp, where she was murdered.

In 1945, Mayer studied Fine Art at Goldsmiths, University of London, under the tutelage of Edward Folkard, Harold Wilson Parker and Ivor Roberts-Jones. She continued her studies at the Royal College of Art, enrolling in 1950. Her tutors at this time included Frank Dobson, John Skeaping and Heinz Henghes.

Mayer received her first public commission in 1953: Mother and Child, a carved alabaster piece for the maternity ward of Epsom General Hospital. The sculpture, however, was criticised as being “too modern”, and never put on display.

Following a twelve-year hiatus to focus on raising her three children, Mayer returned to sculpture in the mid-1960s. Initially producing human figures, a visit to New York City in 1967 inspired a series of timber – and later steel – sculptures entitled Black Cities. Mayer’s fascination with modern cities continued into the 1970s, and the ring-like forms of Source, Cascade, Flow and Nebula stem from her observations of smoke rising from Battersea Power Station.

In the early 1980s, Mayer began to work with the Pangolin Editions foundry. This collaboration led to bronze, silver and steel castings of her subsequent sculptures.

Mayer’s interest in spiral forms permeates her work. In 1984, three years after the Toxteth riots, Sea Circle was installed in central Liverpool. The 240cm high ammonite-inspired bronze sculpture followed smaller whorled table and wall pieces,

Mayer’s works drew influence from her regular practice of meditation, as well as seismic events in her personal life: Tree of Life, and later further tree-inspired forms such as Joy, Unity, Abundance, Friendship, Laughter and Hope (2006) stem from the impact of the death of her son Julian in 1989.

In 2006, through the creation of Thornflower, Mayer confronted her experience of the Holocaust, and the personal impact of the loss of her grandmother. Mayer gradually came to regard the work not only as a Holocaust Memorial piece, but as a sculpture that speaks of reconciliation and unity in times of darkness and inhumanity. In 2019, the piece joined the permanent collection at Coventry Cathedral.

Mayer continued to work consistently until her death in 2022, experimenting with a wide range of media and painting.

© 2025. All content on this blog is protected by international copyright laws All images are copyrighted © by Charlotte Mayer 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

Ms. Charlotte Mayer

Ms. Charlotte Mayer and her work

Double Steel Tower, 1960s

Tree of Life, 1970s

Goat, 1980

Cockerel, 1980

Largo, 1998

Voyager, 1994

Sea Scarf, 2003

Kasta, 2005

The Thornflower, 2006

Luna, 2008

Moon Dance, 2008

Small Journey, 2008

Scintilla, 2009

Solar, 2009

Flight II, 2013

Rising, 2013

Double Ribbon Pendant, 2014

Peppercorn Brooch, 2014

Turning, 2015

Monumental Turning, 2016

Ascent, Barbican, London

Caring Hands, Bromborough Pool, Merseyside

Sea Circle, Liverpool

Tree

Unison

Tuesday, February 25, 2025

Artist of the Day, February 25, 2025: Edward Penfield, an American illustrator, graphic artist (#2226)

Edward Penfield (1866 – 1925) was an American illustrator in the era known as the "Golden Age of American Illustration" and he is considered the father of the American poster. His work has been included in almost every major book on American Illustration or the history of the poster. He is also a major figure in the evolution of graphic design.

He was born in Brooklyn, New York, to Ellen Lock Moore and Josiah B. Penfield. He first studied at New York's Art Students League. He worked under George de Forest Brush, who was known for his romantic scenes of American Indian life. He first worked for Harper's Weekly and later became art director. He developed his own unique style of simplified figures with bold outlines in settings free of extraneous detail. He believed, "A design that needs study is not a poster, no matter how well executed." He wrote and published a book titled Holland Sketches, which was published by Scribner's in 1907.

Penfield lived in New Rochelle, New York, a popular art colony among actors, writers and artists of the period. The community was most well known for its unprecedented number of prominent American illustrators. He was one of the founding members of the New Rochelle Art Association which was organized in 1912.

His posters were bold and stood out from a distance with great clarity. As artists like Alphonse Mucha, Théophile Steinlen and Toulouse-Lautrec popularized the poster in Europe, Penfield accomplished the same feat in the United States. For his posters, Penfield utilized simple shapes and a limited palette of colors that lent themselves to the primitive methods of reproduction of the era.

© 2025. All content on this blog is protected by international copyright laws All images are copyrighted © by Edward Penfield 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