The Works Progress Administration commissioned Automotive Industry for a library in Detroit, the automobile capital of the world. Beerbohm celebrated the nation's industrial might and the sweat of the labourers who made it happen. At the very centre of this mural is a cutaway view of an engine, showing the piston arm pushing down and around the crankshaft to turn the wheels. Beerbohm repeated this shape eight times across the span of the image in the muscular arms of the men who build the cars. The different parts and processes of the factory surround these workers who are like the motor's piston and its connecting arm, at the very heart of the enterprise. The WPA commissioned thousands of images like this, not only to encourage blue-collar workers but to help the nation's artists feel that they were a vital part of America's workforce.
[Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington - Oil on canvas mounted on board, 202.6 x 483.2 cm]
Tags: Art Paintings Marvin Beerbohm
Jack Earl (Uniopolis, Ohio, August 2, 1934 - June 17, 2023) was an American ceramic artist and former teacher, known for drawing inspiration from his home state of Ohio to create rural pieces “with meticulous craftsmanship and astute details… to where you could smell the air, hear the silence and swat the flies.”
The full title of this work is ‘There was a little city, and few men lived within it, and there came a great king against it, and built great bulwarks against it. Now there was found in it a poor wise man and he by his wisdom delivered the city, yet no man remembered that same poor man.’
[Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington - White earthenware and oil paint, 68.9 × 57.0 × 55.2 cm]
Tags: Art Earthenware Jack Earl
This work dates to de Lempicka’s second period in New York, following a period spent in Hollywood, where she had become closely associated with a glamorous and fashionable circle of actors, directors, and models. It exemplifies the influence of these surroundings; at once seductive and aloof, the subject might be one of the actresses she had met during her time there. At the same time, as with much of de Lempicka’s best work, there is also a timeless quality to this portrait which alludes to the Old Masters that the artist so revered. The result is a compelling and enigmatic work entirely indicative of de Lempicka’s artistic vision.
[Sotheby’s, London - Oil on Masonite, 48.5 x 43.5 cm]
Tags: Art Paintinngs Tamara de Lempicka
[Christie’s, New York - Watercolour on Japan paper, 27.5 x 22.6 cm]
Tags: Art Paintings Emil Nolde
[Museum of Modern Art, New York - Synthetic polymer paint, oil, urethane enamel, fluorescent alkyd, and printing ink on canvas, etched magnesium, aluminium, and fibreglass, 293.3 x 491.1 x 61 cm]
Tags: Art Paintings Frank Stella