Félix Vallotton was associated with the group of French artists known as the Nabis, a word meaning 'prophets' in Hebrew, whose short-term affair with color lithography shifted to a renewed interest in woodblock printing thanks to the influence of Japanese prints in the late 19th century.
Each fall, the Grunwald Center for the Graphic Arts selects a small group of UCLA undergraduate art history majors to participate in a special independent study exploring the history of printmaking in the western world. Drawing primarily on the center’s remarkable collection of over 40,000 objects, this unique opportunity offers students hands-on experience handling, examining, and cataloging works on paper while also learning more about the cultural context in which these objects were produced.
Still searching for that perfect gift? We asked some of our most enthusiastic Hammer staff shoppers to tell us about their favorite items in the Hammer Store this holiday season.
Will 9th graders know what subjectivity means, or at least be interested in the concept? Will students be able to identify the social realities expressed in the works of Simone Leigh and Marwa Arsanios? Will they be able to draw connections between the works of these two artists in order to begin understanding how social commentary is communicated through artistic production?
“[B]y 1883, a break had occurred in my work. I had reached the end of Impressionism, and I had come to realize that I didn’t know how to paint nor draw. Simply put, I was in a deadlock,” declared Pierre-Auguste Renoir toward the end of his career. These words summarize the personal crisis Renoir was having with Impressionism in the early years of the 1880s, the same decade he painted Le repas des vendangeuses (Grape Pickers at Lunch) from c.1888, which forms part of the Armand Hammer Collection and is now on loan to El Museo de Arte Thyssen-Bornemisza in Spain for their exhibition Renoir: Intimacy on view until January 22, 2017.
