Damien Hirst: "The Physical Impossibility of Death in the Mind of Someone Living"

The Physical Impossibility of Death in the Mind of Someone Living is an artwork created in 1992 by Damien Hirst, an English artist and a leading member of the "Young British Artists" (or YBA). It consists of a tiger shark preserved in formaldehyde in a vitrine. It was originally commissioned in 1991 by Charles Saatchi, who sold it in 2004, to Steven A. Cohen for an undisclosed amount, widely reported to have been $8 million dollars, however the title of Don Thompson's book, The $12 Million Stuffed Shark: The Curious Economics of Contemporary Art, suggests a higher figure. It is considered the iconic work of British art in the 1990s,[2] and has become a symbol of Britart worldwide.[3]

Its technical specifications are: "Tiger shark, glass, steel, 5% formaldehyde solution, 213 x 518 x 213 cm."

"Mr. Hirst often aims to fry the mind (and misses more than he hits), but he does so by setting up direct, often visceral experiences, of which the shark remains the most outstanding. In keeping with the piece’s title, the shark is simultaneously life and death incarnate in a way you don’t quite grasp until you see it, suspended and silent, in its tank. It gives the innately demonic urge to live a demonic, deathlike form."[8]

*Due to deterioration of the original 14-foot (4.3 m) tiger shark, it was replaced with a new specimen in 2006. It is on display at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City until 2010.[1]

1. ^ Smith, Roberta (16 October 2007). "Just When You Thought It Was Safe". The New York Times. http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/16/arts/design/16muse.html?_r=1&hp&oref=slogin. Retrieved 2007-10-16. 2. ^ Brooks, Richard. "Hirst's shark is sold to America", The Sunday Times, 16 January 2005. Retrieved 14 October 2008. 3. ^ Davies, Serena. "Why painting is back in the frame", The Daily Telegraph, 8 January 2005. Retrieved 15 October 2008.4. ^ a b "Saatchi mulls £6.25m shark offer", BBC. Retrieved 23 February 2007 5. ^ a b Barber, Lynn "Bleeding art", The Observer, 20 April 2003. Retrieved 1 September 2007. 6. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Vogel, Carol "Swimming with famous dead sharks,2 New York Times, 1 October 2006. Retrieved 23 February 2007 7. ^ "Damien Hirst", The Artchive. Retrieved 23 February 2007 8. ^ Smith, Roberta (16 October 2007). "Just When You Thought It Was Safe". The New York Times. http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/16/arts/design/16muse.html?_r=1&hp&oref=slogin. Retrieved 2009-08-16. 9. ^ Akbar, Arifa. "A formaldehyde frenzy as buyers snap up Hirst works", The Independent, 16 September 2008. Retrieved 16 September 2008. 10. ^ Kennedy, Maev "Art market a 'cultural obscenity'", The Guardian, 3 June 2004. Retrieved 1 September 2007. 11. ^ Alberge, Dalya. "Traditionalists mark shark attack on Hirst", The Times, 10 April 2003. Retrieved 6 February 2008. 12. ^ "A Dead Shark Isn't Art" on the Stuckism International web site Retrieved 21 September 2008

The Illustrations of Laurie Lipton

School has got me busy, sorry about the lack of posts. I have a lot to post but very little time to do so. Thanks for checking back. I promise you that it's going to get interesting....


"Laurie Lipton was born in New York. She was the first person to graduate from Carnegie-Mellon University in Pennsylvania with a Fine Arts Degree in Drawing (with honours). She has lived in Holland, Belgium, Germany and France and has made her home in London since 1986."


"It was all abstract and conceptual art at my university. I cut my classes and sat for hours in the library copying Durer, Memling and Van Eyck. So even though I went to one of the best universities for art in the USA, I am self-taught. My weird way of drawing took a horrendous amout of time, but I was able to get the same kind of luminous quality that the Renaissance Flemish painters had achieved. My teachers tried to dissuade me and get me to "draw for drawing's sake" and loosen up, but I knew what I wanted. I ached to make something no one had ever seen before with pencil."

"Diane Arbus was another of my inspirations, and her use of black and white (the color of ghosts, memory and madness) opened up a world of possibilities for me."

Check out Laurie's site. Prints are available for purchase.

Artist Harry Clarke

''Clarke was born in Dublin in 1889. His father was a craftsman who produced, among other objects d'art, stained glass windows. Most know Clarke's work from his drawings which are all too often and all too unfairly compared to Beardsley, but it was as a stained glass designer and artisan that he devoted the most of his too-short life. He studied in his father's studio and for a short time in London. In 1907 he was exposed to the works of Beardsley at the Irish International Exhibition, but was likewise entranced by the art of Rossetti, Annie French, E.J. Sullivan and others. By 1909 he was accepting the occasional graphic commission and working at the more creative and critical aspects of the stained glass process. That same year he was awarded a Scholarship in Stained Glass and commenced daily classes with A.E. Child at the Dublin Art School.''

''His first entry to the Board of Education National Competition won the Gold Medal in the stained glass competition in 1910. It was The Consecration of St. Mel, Bishop of Longford, by St. Patrick, as seen at left, and demonstrates the maturity he displayed early on in his chosen field of endeavor. His education continued via scholarship and he won the Gold Medal for stained glass in the National Competition three times. After his three year course, he traveled to London where he began his illustrative career with two major efforts that never saw print: The Rape of the Lock and Rime of the Ancient Mariner. The former was a private commission that raises a lot of questions. Beardsley had illustrated the poem not 20 years prior and comparisons would have been inevitable due to the stylistic similarities. It strikes me as perhaps a youthful challenge that Clarke dared not refuse. It may never have been intended for publication and the extant images are not that impressive. The Rime of the Ancient Mariner was much more mature and displayed the density of texture and design that would be his trademark.''

''While in London in 1913, he made the rounds of the publishers looking for illustration work. He met with no success at a dozen publishing houses. Then George Harrap divined his genius and hired him, on the spot, to provide illustrations for an edition of Andersen's Fairy Tales in both a trade and deluxe edition - almost unheard of for an untested, unknown and very young illustrator. The image at right is from The Nightingale and shows Clarke's debt to both Dulac and Nielsen. The Rime was put on hold and work began immediately on the Andersen. This was to occupy several years and finally see print in 1916, the same year that The Rime project was abandoned after most of the drawings and all of the blocks were destroyed in a devastating Dublin riot called the "The 1916 Easter Rising." By this time, however, Harry was already planning and working on Tales of Mystery and Imagination by E.A. Poe.''

''Swinburne was published in 1928, giving him a total of six major books illustrated in 15 years. Compare that to the more than 130 stained glass windows that he and his studio designed and crafted and it becomes very evident where his passions lay. His techniques and talents in glass often surpassed the drawing skills of other artists. The colors, patterns and expressions surpass much of what was being published at the time. And this is merely a small portion of one half of one of eight panels of one stained glass job.''

''Ill-health plagued him much of the last years of his life. He worked at a feverish pace creating glass and book illustrations while trying to maintain his father's decoration studio, which he and his brother Walter ran after the untimely death of their father in 1921. In 1930, shortly before his death, he split the stained glass business off from the decorating business and closed the latter. Walter died in July and Clarke worked even harder, despite his own frailty, to inspire confidence in his newly formed studio. He died in early 1931 while trying to recuperate from his efforts. He was 41.''


Nicola Gordon Bowe, 1979 Douglas Hyde
Nicola Gordon Bowe, 1983 Dolmen
Nicola Gordon Bowe, 1989 Irish Academic Press

source of text & more on Clarke

Randoms: Death

The Commissioned Art of Michael J Deas

"Michael J. Deas is one of the nation’s premier illustrators, combining a "sense of grace and serenity" (in the words of Communications Arts Magazine) unrivaled by today's realists. His superb eye and phenomenal control of the oil medium has earned him numerous awards and citations, including four Gold Medals and one Silver Medal from the Society of Illustrators. His luminous redesign of the Columbia Pictures logo led to a feature article on the cover of America's leading graphics publication, Communication Arts, Sept/Oct 1998. The extensive story included more than 15 illustrations, highlighting portraits, advertising art, logos, editorial & book designs, and U.S. Postage Stamps."


My favorite. Earthbound

Hell House, novel by Richard Matheson, 1999

The Vanished Child, novel by Sarah Smith, 1995

The Empty Summer, 1993

Interview With The Vampire, Anne Rice

"His paintings have graced the cover of Time Magazine and more than a dozen postage stamps commissioned by the U.S. Postal Service. He is the artist behind two of the best-selling postage stamps in United States history, Marilyn Monroe and James Dean. In addition to painting numerous private portrait commissions, Deas has illustrated dozens of book covers, most notably the 25th-anniversary edition of Anne Rice's Interview with the Vampire. The Columbia Pictures logo remains one of the most familiar icons in cinema history. Michael J. Deas is cited in Walt Reed's definitive history of illustration, The Illustrator in America, 1860-2000, and in 1999, his work was featured in major exhibition at The Norman Rockwell Museum in Stockbridge, Massachusetts."

Check out Deas site.

Earl Cunningham: His Atlantic Coast

1893-1977. "Cunnigham was a self-taught artist who painted mostly landscapes of the coasts of Maine, Nova Scotia, Georgia and Florida. He used vivid colors, flat perspective, and a few recurrent themes. He added incongruous details, such as flamingos in Maine and Viking ships in Florida, to his work."

"Largely considered a folk artist, Cunningham painted the American landscape of the Atlantic coast and its intercoastal ecosystem with dock workers, fishermen, farmers, wildlife and even American Indian tribes. As he traveled up and down the coast he painted his reflections of the surroundings. He depicted accurately detailed shoreline features in the tradition of memory painting. He painted over 400 landscapes, of which a large number reside at the Mennello Museum of American Arts in Orlando, FL."


"Cunningham moved to Saint Augustine, Florida in 1949 and opened an art gallery and curio shop. In 1961 he sent a painting titled "The Everglades" to Jacqueline Kennedy that is on display at John F. Kennedy Library and Museum in Boston. In 1969, his work began to attract serious notice, and in 1970 was exhibited at the then Loch Haven Art Center in Orlando. He reputation continued to grow, and a large number of his paintings were shown at the Museum of Arts and Sciences in Daytona Beach, Florida in August 1974. Cunningham took his own life on December 29, 1977. He was 84. "



Amy Crawford. Smithsonian
American folk art museum
Earl Cunningham: "Painting an American Eden". Publishers Weekly