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  Robert Breer “Untitled” Oil on canvas 1950

  ROBERT BREER (1926-2011) USA

  Untitled 1950

  Oil on canvas, white-gold leaf and lacquer frame

  Marks: Untitled, 1950, Robert Breer, 26×32, No. 29 in a circle (paper label)

  Provenance: Robert Breer, Private Collection, Chicago

  Canvas: H: 25 3/4” x W: 32”

  Framed: H: 32 1/4” x W: 39″

   

  “Breer acknowledges his respect for this purist, “cubist” cinema, which uses geometric shapes moving in time and space”

   

  Robert Breer’s career as an artist and animator spans 50 years and his creative explorations have made him an international figure. He began his artistic pursuits as a painter while living in Paris from 1949-59. Using an old Bolex 16mm camera, his first films, such as “Form Phases”, were simple stop-motion studies based on his abstract paintings.

  Breer has always been fascinated by the mechanics of film. Perhaps it was his father’s fascination with 3-D work that inspired Breer to tinker with early mechanical cinematic devices. His father was an engineer and designer of the legendary Chrysler Airflow automobile in 1934 and built a 3-D camera to film all the family vacations. After studying engineering at Stanford, Breer changed his focus toward handcrafted arts and began experimenting with flip books. These animations, done on ordinary 4″ by 6″ file cards have become the standard for all of Breer’s work in fim.

  Like many of his generation, Breer did early work influenced by the various European modern art movements of the early 20th century, ranging from the abstract forms of the Russian Constructivists and the structuralist formulas of the Bauhaus, to the nonsensical universe of the Dadaists. As a result of his association with the Denise René Gallery, which specialized in geometric art, he saw the abstract films of such pioneers as Hans Richter, Viking Eggeling, Walter Ruttmann and Fernand Léger. Breer acknowledges his respect for this purist, “cubist” cinema, which uses geometric shapes moving in time and space.

  In 1955, he helped organize and exhibited in a show in Paris entitled “Le Mouvement” (The Movement), which paved the way for new cinema aesthetics. During this period, Breer also met the poet Allen Ginsberg and introduced him to his film “Recreation” (1956), which made use of frame-by-frame experiments in a non-narrative structure. Although Breer resisted being labeled a beatnik, the film does capture some aspects of beat poetry and music.

  When Breer returned to the United States in the late 1950s, the American avant-garde was thriving and films by Kenneth Anger, Stan Brakhage, Peter Kubelka and Maria Menken were creating a new visionary movement. Breer found kindred spirits within the New York experimental scene. As Pop Art emerged as a phenomenon in the 1960s, Breer befriended Claes Oldenburg and others. He worked on the TV show, “David Brinkley’s Journal”, filming pieces on art shows in Europe; at the same time, he made his debut documentary on the sculptor Jean Tinguely in 1961.

   

   

   

   

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  Alyssa Monks “Push” Oil on Canvas 2006

  ALYSSA MONKS (b.1977) USA

  Push 2006

  Oil on canvas

  Signed: Alyssa Monks 2006 (on lower back of canvas)

  Exhibited: DFN Gallery, New York 2006

  Illustrated: American Art Collector, May 2006, p. 155

  H: 30” x W: 56”

  “Push” is somewhat of a response to the long tradition of bathtub paintings where a nude woman is displayed. However, the figure is me, the painter, so that the subject is also the artist, juxtaposing the objectification of women in that tradition. Also, the figure wears a black negligee and red lipstick, white makeup gently drips down the cheek, closing the door on naturalism.

  At the New York Academy of Art, Alyssa Monks studied with Vincent Desiderio, Wade Schuman, Brenda Zlamany, John Jacobsmeyer, Harvey Citron, Deane Keller, Edward Schmidt, Steven Assael, Lisa Bartolozzi, Patrick Connors, Peter Cox, Jon DeMartin, Leonid Lerman, and Hong Nian Zhang. Alyssa’s sensibility of paint and color allows one to be seduced into the illusion of each image. Striving for anatomical and realistic accuracy, it is her intention to elicit a serious confrontation. The work requires attention to detail and a slow and rich execution. It is this artist’s concern to visually relate the contemporary human experience with sensitivity, empathy, and integrity.