Andy Warhol

Today marks the 85th Anniversary of iconic artist, Andy Warhol (born August 6th, 1928.)  He is best known for commemorating advertisements and celebrity culture in the1960's American art movement called Pop Art.   The Andy Warhol Museum has teamed up with Earthcam, and is streaming live video from his grave site in Pittsburgh, Pa. as well as from the nearby church where he was baptized all day Tuesday, August 6th.  Check out the link http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2013/08/06/209485959/for-andy-warhols-birthday-museum-streams-video-of-his-grave?utm_source=buffer&utm_campaign=Buffer&utm_content=buffer07851&utm_medium=twitter

It was during a childhood illness that Warhol discovered his love of art.  His mother, an artist, taught him to draw when he was bedridden for months.  She also gave him a camera (he was an avid movie fan)  and he set up a makeshift darkroom in his basement.  These gifts altered the course of his life.  He went on to graduate from Carnegie Mellon University with a degree in pictorial design.

Warhol started his career as a commercial artist and was very successful using his own blotted line technique and rubber stamps in a whimsical way while at Glamour magazine in the 1950's.  In the early 60's he started "Pop" Art - where he focused on mass produced commercial goods.   He first exhibited the now infamous Campbell soup paintings in 1962.  

These small canvases of a common consumer good propelled both Warhol and Pop Art into the public spotlight worldwide.

As Warhol himself put it, "Once you 'got' pop, you could never see a sign the same way again.  And once you thought pop, you could never see America the same way again."

He also painted Coca-Cola bottles, hamburgers and even vacuum cleaners.  He  used vivid, bold colors to paint portraits of some of the most legendary figures of the times - including Marilyn, Jackie and Elvis.  His series of the "Eight Elvis's" resold for a record $100 million in 2008, making it one of the most valuable pieces of art in history.

He opened "The Factory" in 1964 which quickly became the hot spot in NYC.  It was a vacuous silver-painted warehouse that the "it" socialites and celebrities flocked to.  Warhol himself became a celebrity and observed "more than anything people just want to be stars."

In the 1970's he released several books and went on to make over 60 films including Sleep, which depicts poet John Giorno sleeping for 6 hours and Eat, which shows a man eating a mushroom for 45 minutes.

"Warhol's life and work simultaneously satirized and celebrated materiality and celebrity.  On the one hand, his paintings of distorted brand images and celebrity faces could be read as a critique of what he viewed as a culture obsessed with money and celebrity.  On the other hand, Warhol's focus on consumer goods and pop-culture icons, as well as his own taste for money and fame, suggest a life in celebration of the very aspects of American culture that his work criticized.  Warhol spoke to this apparent contradiction between his life and work in his book The Philosophy of Andy Warhol, writing that 'making money is art, and good business is the best art.'"

Andy Warhol died on February 22, 1987.

Richard Rogers, Architect of the "Inside-Out" Style

Italian-British Architect Richard Rogers was born on July 23, 1933 in Florence.  He may be most well known for his contribution to the Centre George Pompidou in Paris which, according to the New York Times, "turned the architecture world upside down."

He was part of a team, along with Renzo Piano and Gianfranco Franchini, which won a Design Competition in 1971 for the Pompidou Centre.  Rogers had already established himself as a a High-Tech Architect, when he had partnered early in his career with Norman Foster.  High-Tech Architecture incorporates elements of the high-tech industry and technology into building design.  High-Tech Architecture served as a bridge (albeit with a few areas of crossover) between modernism and post-modernism, emerging in the 1970's.

In buildings such as the Pompidou Centre, the idea of revealed structure is taken to the extreme, with apparently structural components serving little or no structural role.  In this case, the use of "structural" steel is a stylistic or aesthetic matter.  The outside look of the building reflects the modern art kept inside.  Rogers developed his trademark style during the execution of this project, which was exposing most of the building's services on the outside of the building (water, heating and ventilation ducts, and stairs), leaving the interior spaces clutter-free and open for the art.  Some critics coined this look "Bowellism."   The Pompidou Centre was completed in 1977.

Roger's also incorporated this "inside-out" style in the design of the Lloyd Building in London in 1986.

Lloyd's Building - London

He has won countless awards during his long, illustrious career and has devoted his later years to wider issues surrounding architecture, urbanism, sustainability and the ways in which cities are used.

Victor Gruen, Inventor of the Modern Mall

Malcolm Gladwell referred to Architect Victor Gruen, inventor of the modern mall, as"one of the most influential architects of the twentieth century."

Photo of Victor Gruen - Courtesy of the American Heritage Center

Gruen was born in Vienna, Austria on July 18th, 1903 (died February 14, 1980.)  He was considered the pioneer of the shopping mall in America.  After emigrating to the United States in 1938, he worked as a draftsman for many shops in New York City.  He later to moved to Los Angeles and opened his own firm, Victor Gruen Associates.  He designed the first suburban open air facility outside of Detroit in 1954 called the Northland Mall.  Gruen followed up this success with the first enclosed shopping mall in Minnesota in 1956 for the owners of the Dayton Department Stores.  He went on to design Midtown Plaza in Rochester, NY (near where I grew up), which was the first downtown indoor mall in the United States, in 1962.

When Gruen designed Midtown Plaza, he was at the height of his career.  This project attracted national attention, including a nationally televised feature report on NBC's Huntley-Brinkley newscast on the night of it's opening April 1962.  City officials and planners from around the world came to see Gruen's solution to the mid-century urban crisis.  Midtown Plaza also won several design awards.

Clock Tower at Midtown Plaza - 1st Downtown Indoor Mall in America

Through the 1970's Gruen's firm designed over 50 malls.  In the late 1970's, Gruen disevowed shopping mall developments stating they "bastardized" his ideas.

Record Art Sales

On this date in 1982 Samuel Morses'(yes the same man who invented the telegraph) painting "Gallery of the Louvre" sold for a record $3,250,000 - a then-record for the sale of a painting by an American artist. Morse (1791-1872)  spent time in Europe honing his craft and in 1831 he began this monumental canvas depicting a grand room in Paris's Louvre Museum filled with famous masterpieces.  He later finished the piece back in the United States.  It sold for $1500.00 far short of his asking price of $2500.

Peter Paul Rubens' (1577-1640) painting "The Massacre of the Innocents" also sold on this date in 2002 for $76.2 million to Kenneth  Thomson, Lord Thomson at a Sotheby Auction.  Rubens painted this first version between 1611-1612.   He painted a second version toward the end of his life 1636-1638.  It depicts a story of the same name from the Gospel of Matthew.

Frida Kahlo

Renowned Mexican Artist and Self-Portraitist, Frida Kahlo, was born this day in 1907.  She died July 13, 1954.  Kahlo began painting following a serious bus accident that left her bed-ridden for many months.  All of her work was highly personal, often depicting the pain that she endured daily all of her life.  She painted moments of her life as if she were writing in the pages of her diary.  Kahlo, who taught herself to paint, used symbols to show pain, death and rebirth. "I never painted dreams, I painted my own reality."   Some considered her to be part of the Surrealist movement.  She was also politically active and was an outspoken feminist.   She later met and married Mexican Muralist, Diego Rivera.

Her first self-portrait, Self Portrait in a Velvet Dress, was painted in 1926.    She painted 53/55 self portraits during her career (out of the /143/200 paintings she created.)

In 1929, Kahlo married Rivera.  He was 20 years older than she, and almost a foot taller.

She painted her second self-portrait, "Time Flies," which exhibits her trademark, folkloric style.

In 1929, Kahlo married Rivera.  He was 20 years older than she, and almost a foot taller.

In 1931 Kahlo painted "Frida and Diego," from a wedding photograph.  

One of her most famous works is "Self-Portrait with Thorn Necklace and Hummingbird" from 1940,

Kahlo was born in Coyoacan, Mexico.  She grew up in "The Blue House" or "Casa Azul," which Diego Rivera donated as a museum in 1957, upon his death.

Kahlo's life and art has been the subject of many books, exhibitions and a  movie, "Frida," starring Salma Hayek and Alfred Molina (2002.)  I particularly enjoyed, Barbara Kingsolver's novel, "The Lacuna," featuring Kahlo, her life with Rivera and her affair with Trotsky.

Fruit, Garden and Home

Better Homes and Gardens launched on this date back in 1922 as Fruit, Garden and Home Magazine, a home and family service publication.    In 1924 the name was changed, to appeal to a wider audience,  to Better Homes and Gardens.

First Issue of Fruit, Garden and Home

June 1923 Issue

First Issue as Better Homes and Gardens

The first issues published as Better Homes and Gardens only had a staff of three and according to the Meredith Publishing timeline cost 10 Cents for a single issue and 35 Cents for a yearly subscription.  The publication was devoted to cooking, eating and dining.   BHG featured winning recipes (with cash prizes) sent in from their many readers and had the Cook's Round Table where readers shared their favorite dishes.

Better Homes and Gardens had a test kitchen built in 1928 that mirrored the look and functionality of the typical American kitchen of the times.

  In 1930 they published their first cookbook, My Better Homes and Gardens Cookbook.  This revolutionized cookbooks as it came in a ring binder so that it would lay flat on the countertop and had tabs for easy navigation.

A few additional fun facts about the magazine:

In 1938 an article called "Toss That Salad" appeared in the magazine, introducing tossed green salads to American families.

In 1939 pomegranate seeds made their debut to the public in a recipe for Citrus-Avocado Salad.

Backyard barbecuing was introduced to the readers in 1941.

Victory Gardens sprouted up everywhere in 1943 and BHG began giving recipes for pickling, preserving and canning.

1948 "the first truly new cake in 100 years was featured" - the Chiffon Cake.

BHG was the first to introduce the Microwave to it's readers in 1955.

Famous Foods from Famous Places became a regular feature in 1956 as families began to travel and eat out with some regularity and frequency.

The 1960's saw a rise in Cook-It-Yourself parties with the advent of fondue sets, hibachi grills and hot pots.

The Crock-Pot and self-cleaning ovens furthered the convenience of cooking (and cleaning) in 1971.

The health food movement came to BHG in 1972 with features on granola, bran, yogurts, etc. appealing to the now calorie conscious public.

2005 saw a revamping of the test kitchen providing the newest in technology so that BHG is equipped to lead Americans into the future of cooking and eating.

Today BHG sells over 7.6 million copies a month.

(All facts and dates above are taken from the Better Homes and Garden website.)

Antoni Gaudi

The Catalan architect and creator of many of the twisted, fantastical buildings around Barcelona, Antoni Gaudi was born on June 25, 1852.  His most famous structure was the Sagrada Familia, which he worked on for more than 15 years.

The Nave of the Sagrada Familia

Gaudi  incorporated his other crafts into his architecture:  ceramics, mosaics,

stained glass, iron work and carpentry.  

This is the roof top of Casa Batlio