September 09

Sol LeWitt: Art as Concept

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On the 9th of September 1928, American Conceptual artist Solomon “Sol” LeWitt was born in Hartford Connecticut. LeWitt was pivotal in the creation of the new radical aesthetic of the 1960’s that was a revolutionary contradiction to the ‘Abstract Expressionism’ current in the 1950’s and 60’s New York school. He had no interest in inherent […]

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September 08

Body-Consciousness in the Art of Maria Lassnig

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On the 8th of September 1919, artist Maria Lassnig was born in Kappel am Krappfeld, Carinthia, Austria and died in May 2014 aged 94. She is remembered for her daring self-portraits and her theories of ‘body sensation’ and ‘body awareness’ which she explored in her painting. Seeing the innovations of expressionism and surrealism in her […]

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September 07

Grandma Moses’ Emancipation Through Art and Duty

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On the 7th of September 1860, American folk artist Anna Mary Robertson Moses, better known as Grandma Moses, was born in Greenwich, New York, the US. Little in her early years indicated the artistic path that her life would eventually follow. As a farmer’s daughter she was expected to do her chores, learn how to […]

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September 06

Feminism and Royalty: A Paradox

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On the  6th of September 1997, the funeral of Diana, Princess of Wales, took place in London. Two thousand people attended the ceremony in Westminster Abbey and the British television audience reached 32.78 million, one of the country’s highest viewing figures ever. Two billion people followed the ceremony worldwide, making it one of the most watched events in history. In death, […]

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September 05

John Cage’s Music of Chance and Change

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On the 5th of September 1912, American composer, theorist, writer, and the pioneer of indeterminacy in music John Cage was born in Los Angeles, California. After having studied piano in LA and Paris, he came under the influence of such musical innovators as Richard Buhling, Henry Cowell, Adolph Weiss, and Arnold Schönberg. By the late […]

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September 04

Victorian Idyllism and Social Realism in Lionel Smythe’s Art

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On the 4th of September 1839, Royal Academician Lionel Percy Smythe, an English artist and etcher, was born in London. Smythe painted rural landscapes, genre and maritime scenes, people and animals in both oils and watercolours. He became associated with a group of artists called The Idyllic school (or the Idyllists), a 19th-century art movement […]

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September 03

American Concentration Camps in Masumi Hayashi’s Photoramas

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On the 3rd of September 1945, Japanese-American photographer Masumi Hayashi was born in Rivers, Arizona, in the Gila River War Relocation Camp, an internment camp built by the War Relocation Authority (WRA) for the internment of Japanese Americans during WWII. Shortly after the end of the war, her family moved to Los Angeles, where she began her education, […]

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September 02

Welcome to the Jungle… The Mindscapes of Henri Rousseau

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On the 2nd of September 1910, French Naïve painter Henri Rousseau died in Paris aged 66. A puzzling cult figure during his lifetime, Rousseau was very much a self-taught artist with a unique style, famous most of all for his visionary jungle scenes. The inspiration for his art seems to have come from various sources. […]

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September 01

“September 1, 1939”: The Prophecies of W. H. Auden

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”September 1, 1939” is a poem by W. H. Auden, an Anglo-American poet, regarded by many as one of the most influential poets of the twentieth century. Auden moved from England to America at the beginning of 1939. Some perceived his move as a cowardly act of escape dictated by the rumours of the approaching […]

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August 31

Helen Levitt’s Snapshots of New York Street Life

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On the 31st of August 1913, American photographer Helen Levitt was born in Brooklyn, New York. Alongside Berenice Abbott and Ruth Orkin, Levitt tried to document the changing life of New York. But whilst Berenice Abbott sought to capture the architecture of New York before the skyscrapers changed the skyline forever, and Ruth Orkin was […]

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