Jan. 20: Alabama Gallery: Marcia Weber Art Objects

Ok, so I know I had WAY more fun at the '09 FolkFest in Atlanta than you did. . . but I really liked the collections from this gallery & K at work told me it was a great place to visit. It's in Montgomery: Marcia Weber Art Objects.  

How could you not be moved by this mission?

The Mission of the gallery remains the same today as it was when the gallery was Marcia Weber Art Objects, Inc. is dedicated to trying to locate, to promote and to preserve the art of genuine contemporary folk and outsider artists. The gallery supports photo documentation and primary field research to establish facts concerning the lives, works and environments of these artists. A special emphasis is placed on artists who are still alive. Gallery research is shared with any interested party. Source documents are donated to libraries to aid and to insure the possibility of future research in this field.

Here's a sampling of a few artists and works I like, in no particular order:

Title: Parlor Tunes

Artist: Tory Casey

Size: 10.5 x 13.5

Medium: acrylic on canvas in artist's black frame

Price: $300

Title: Moonlight Serenade

Artist: Tory Casey

Born: 1951

Location: North Carolina

Size: 15.5 x 12.5

Medium: acrylic on canvas in artist's black frame

Price: $400

Title: Full Moon Valley
Artist:  Eric Legge
Location: Rubun Gap, GA
Size: 44 x 31.75
Medium: Acrylic on wood
Price: $900

Title: Wolf Fork Sunset

Artist:  Eric Legge

Location: Rubun Gap, GA

Size: 9.75 x 11.75

Medium: Acrylic on wood

Price: $155

Title: Fredia's House

Artist: Della Wells

Born: 1951

Location: North Carolina?

Medium: Collage on paper in natural frame

Size: 26.5 x 20.5

Price: $1000

Title: Listen Little One the Time Is Near

Artist: Della Wells (seen on her site, not the gallery's)

Born: 1951

Location: North Carolina?

Medium: Mixed Media collageSize: 16 x 12

Price: $550

Plus, so many of their bios are just so quaint and interesting.

Jan. 1: The Rape of Europa

Artist: Titian, Italian Painter
Title: Rape of Europa

Medium:

Classifications: Mythological paintings, Renaissance art

Date produced: 1562

Original's location:

Painting description (from britannica.com): The Rape of Europa is surely one of the gayest of Titian's "poesies," as he called them.  Taken by surprise, Europa is carried off, arms and legs flying, on the back of Jupiter in the form of a garlanded white bull. A putto ( chubby, naked little boy) on the back of a dolphin appears to be mimicking her, and cupids in the sky follow the merry scene

Compare it to this Painting by Guido Reni

Artist: Guido Reni

Date: 1637-9

Original's Location: The National Gallery

This painting is unusual with its inclusion of Cupid--here Europa is shown at the moment when her "disquiet at being abducted begins to turn to love."

About the myth: Europa was the daughter of Agenor, King of Tyre. Zeus fell in love with her and transformed himself into a docile bull to abduct her from the shore where she was playing. She climbed on his back and they swam to Crete. They had 3 sons: Minos, Rhadamanthys, and Sarpedon.

This myth was one of the most popular classical subjects for 17th-century paintings.

Things that strike me as interesting:

The comparison of the 2 paintings

How many similar works depict a woman dragged away with "angels" or other mythological entities watching? Feels familiar