Artist of the day: Women in arts

Showing posts with label Women in arts. Show all posts

Tuesday, May 1, 2018

Artist of the day, May 1: Ellen Lupton, American graphic designer, writer, curator, and educator

Ellen Lupton (1963) is a graphic designer, writer, curator, and educator. Well known for her fascination and study within typography, Lupton decided to expand her love for design and took on the graphic design world. Lupton is the curator of contemporary design at Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum in New York City and is the director of the Graphic Design MFA program at Maryland Institute College of Art (MICA) in Baltimore.

Like so many other design legends that came of age in the era of “commercial art,” Lupton was not aware of design as a viable field of study before college. It wasn't until she began as a fine art student at Cooper Union in 1981 that she discovered the expressive potential of typography. The visual art of writing was an inspiration to a self-professed “art girl” who came from a family of English teachers. Realizing the potential for an expanded critical discourse in graphic design provoked a shift in her ambitions.

In the mid-1980s Lupton founded the Design Writing Research lab with partner J. Abbott Miller as a so-called “after school” supplement to their early working lives. “We were young and had theories,” she says, “so we created DWR as a thing where we could take on work with clients and do artsy-fartsy stuff for the real world.” The fledgling studio provided the ideal climate for the kind of seamless integration between theory and practice that would characterize the scope of Lupton's career. Ideas from the Design Writing Research studio and early curatorial explorations at the Lubalin Center formed the basis for Design/Writing/Research: Writing on Graphic Design, co-authored and designed by Lupton and Miller in 1996. The Lupton/Miller partnership has yielded many accomplishments, both professionally and personally, from the Chrysler Design Award in 1993 to the ultimate collaboration: their two children, Ruby and Jay.

© 2018. All images are copyrighted © by Ellen Lupton. The use of any image from this site is prohibited unless prior written permission is obtained.

Monday, April 30, 2018

Artist of the day, April 30: Elisabetta Sirani, Italian Baroque painter and printmaker

Women in the arts: Elisabetta Sirani (1638 –1665) was an Italian Baroque painter and printmaker who died in still unexplained circumstances at the early age of 27. She was the most famous woman artist in early modern Bologna and established an academy for other women artists.

According to written records, when she died at 27, she had already produced 200 paintings, drawings, and etchings. An independent painter by 19, Sirani ran her family’s workshop. When her father became incapacitated by gout, she supported her parents, three siblings, and herself entirely through her art.

Sirani spent her life in Bologna, a city famous for its progressive attitude toward women’s rights and for producing successful female artists. She became known for her ability to paint beautifully finished canvases so quickly that many visited her studio to watch her work. Her paintings were acquired by wealthy, noble, and even royal patrons, including the Grand Duke Cosimo III de Medici.

Sirani’s funeral was an elaborate affair involving formal orations, special poetry and music, and an enormous catafalque decorated with a life-size sculpture of the deceased. In addition to her substantial oeuvre, Sirani left an important legacy through her teaching.

By her 24 she was credited with over 90 artworks, and in just three years she would create more than 80 more. Painting was a gift that gave freely to the women of Bologna. Elisabetta’s commissions brought in more than enough money to support her entire family, and often she would paint with a wide gallery of onlookers, many head over heels in love with the attractive and focused young artist — Ragg saying “she has so much self-assurance, and so little self-consciousness, that their presence is no embarrassment to her. Her sweetness is not insipid. Her strength is free from self-assertion. She is comely and devoid of vanity, eminently attractive, and entirely virtuous.”

But in 1665, Elisabetta was first touched by the mysterious ailment that would take her life. A stomach pain that “went away of itself without the aid on any remedy”. It was the beginning of a quick change in the demeanor of the young woman, who lost weight, and suffered melancholy spells. Her pain became more frequent and intense, her fingers turned purple, and finally, she received sacraments from the local priest and died. After a post-mortem examination, the family physician Dr. Gallerati declared her death the result of “corrosive poison”.

Elisabetta’s death made her a martyr. The beautiful, focused and selfless painter had become a symbol of a progressive and healthy Bologna, a place where women were encouraged to grow creatively, and express themselves through art and music.