A new Dick Frizzell print arrived this morning. It is a collaborative work with Fane Flaws called "Cover Art". It celebrates the fact that well known artist and designer (and good friend of Frizzell) Flaws worked on the design for Dick's new book "Dick Frizzell: The Painter".
We are really looking forward to buying our office copy of "Dick Frizzell: The Painter" as soon as it is released on October 2 2009. From the publisher's blurb it promises to be a great read:
"Dick Frizzell's images populate our world - you find them on t-shirts, on TV ads, in shop windows, on wine bottles, on cushions and t-towels, and in art shows. People appropriate (or borrow) his images in much the same way that he too appropriated many of the images he has painted over the years. He's reached iconic status in NZ - we love him, he's one of our own. As Dick himself says with a surprised chuckle, "I'm just like the Topp Twins now - I can do no wrong, they all love me!"
Dick has a great story: After going to art school he found himself in his 20s married and with a young family to support. He worked in advertising until 1974, when his artistic urges made him leave the ad agency to take up working in the vege markets in the early hours of the day so that he could pursue his art.
His paintings combined the pragmatics of an adman's need for a compelling motif with the visceral pleasures of expressive modernist paintings. His first images of gaudy fish-tin labels and comic strip characters caught everyone's imaginations. Dick's talent, energy and his deadpan humour meant that his art was highly successful.
Dick Frizzell: The Painter contains all of his major paintings, the story of his life in his own thoughtful and highly articulate words, and an essay by Hamish Keith on Dick's work and its place in the New Zealand art world."
We'll post a review as soon as we get our hands on a copy!
Weston Frizzell - New Prints by Mike Weston and Otis Frizzell
Weston Frizzell is the collaborative identity of artists Otis Frizzell and Mike Weston.
Art and branding collide again with Weston Frizzell's new series of prints. According to Mike and Otis their new prints represent "the next level of the Weston Frizzell strategic evolution applying a combination of approaches, styles, and ideas to explore the iconography of NZ fine art art and popular culture." Subversive commercialism and the outright audacity of their appropriated subject matter in their latest prints shows the fearlessness that the Weston Frizzell brand has come to signify.
In nine years of working together Otis Frizzell and Mike Weston’s creative partnership has evolved from celebrity artist and his art dealer into a full blown art collaboration.
Described by Artnews as "a high performance art partnership", their Warhol influenced production line methods and an entertainment industry honed promotion and management strategy has taken Weston Frizzell from the street art and pop culture melting pot of Auckland's K Rd into the fine art world. Their output draws heavily on appropriated imagery, style and content presented with satiric and often ironic subtext - Weston Frizzell prints challenge notions of authorship and originality.
Both artists have their roots deep in New Zealand's counterculture . The range of skills and influences they share is diverse and eclectic. The Weston Frizzell partnership equally acknowledges contribution of ideas, craft, celebrity, management, and labour in the production and marketing of shared output of works and in the division of the proceeds.
According to Mike Weston and Otis Frizzell their combined skills and the diversity of influences express an aesthetic that is positioned at the "very high end of the low brow".
We were delighted to receive three new prints, Aotearoa, Aroha and World of Love from Weston Frizzell's latest series this morning.
Tony Ogle Print of Matheson's Bay
We have just listed another great new Tony Ogle print this morning. It is of a homestead overlooking Matheson's Bay - a popular holiday spot just north of Auckland.
New Zealand Contemporary Landscape prints by Hamish Allan
We are noticing an exciting new trend of New Zealand prints being produced both on fine art paper and printed directly onto canvas. (Although it does make it harder to catalogue new artwork though because we don't want to clutter up our galleries with multiple images in different formats. We have therefore decided to catalogue the prints on paper and add the information about canvas availability, price etc to the main image page).
Christchurch contemporary landscape artist Hamish Allan is part of this trend releasing a series of six prints available both on fine art paper and printed directly onto genuine artists' canvas in the same size.
Allan worked as a physiotherapist before working initially as a sculptor before starting painting fulltime in 2002. Hamish writes that his "approach to painting and design is clear - less is more. Keeping imagery clean and simple, use deeply contrasting tones and texture to add natural quality and visual impact. Local stylised landscapes are integrated into blocks of colour and texture and lifted by perspective and detail. The horizon is used with striking effect as a focal point from which the painting emerges. Horizontal and vertical plains are integral and emphasized, drawing the viewer into the work."
Shown is the delightfully named print "Yawning" by Hamish Allan - another print featuring New Zealand's iconic cabbage tree...
Rita Angus' Painting of Cass - Who is the person standing on the railway station platform?
The question of who was the model for the lone figure standing on the platform of Cass railway station in Rita Angus' famous painting may have been finally answered by a recent letter to the editor published in "Your Weekend" Magazine on August 8 2009 in response to an article on the settlement of Cass that was published the previous week.
"I read with great interest your Heartland column on Cass. The man on the station in the painting by Rita Angus is my late father, Percy Harold Morey. He was District Engineer for Railways from 1924 - 1945, in Dunedin, the West Coast and Canterbury. He travelled the lines inspecting washouts and slips, and frequently stayed at the Railway House at Cass. During the 1940s he build a bach that still stands to the right of the gate as you enter the settlement, and I have wonderful memories of exploring the surrounds while staying there during school holidays - Pamela Gray, Rolleston."
Are there any other candidates that have been put forward over the years?
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