Figureworks

fine art of the human form

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Jacquelyn Schiffman
Cendrillon, encaustic on Spun-Web, 23" x 14-1/4" x 2"

20th CENTURY
ARTWORK
**UPDATED 1/9/12**

Figureworks is pleased to offer original 20th century drawings, paintings and sculpture by prominent WPA, regional and international artists. Artwork will be continually updated as works are sold and/or catalogued. Please contact us for more information concerning pieces posted or additional pieces by listed artists.

20th CENTURY ARTIST LIST

© NOTICE: All works within this site are copyrighted and can not be used without Figureworks permission.

ELLEN EMMET RAND
ELLEN EMMET RAND

JANUARY 13 - MARCH 4, 2012

Figureworks is pleased to start 2012 with a two-person exhibition by Ellen Emmet Rand and Ellen Emmet Rand, grandmother and granddaughter. The work in this show will combine Ellen Emmet Rand’s portrait paintings and drawings from the turn of the century with Ellen Emmet Rand's new abstract collage paintings, which have been inspired from and created directly over a series of her earlier figurative paintings done in the 1990’s. Though these women have created quite different works in technique and subject, there is a remarkable similarity in palette, use of light, and a unified sensitivity to composition. These women, having come from very different generations, paths and circumstances, manage to share a unique bond of creativity and perspective.

Ellen Emmet was born in 1875 in San Francisco, California. At a very young age Ellen showed artistic promise and was encouraged to pursue her drawing. When she was nine years old, her father died and she moved with her mother and sisters to New York to be closer to other family members. She studied drawing in Boston with Dennis Bunker, painting with William Merritt Chase at the Art Students League as a teenager and later attended the Chase Shinnecock School of Art. She began illustrating for HARPER'S WEEKLY and VOGUE when she was 17, becoming the major breadwinner for the family and managing to save enough to get herself to Paris. The highlight of early training took place in Paris from 1896 to 1900. Here she studied with Frederick MacMonnies, an American sculptor and painter living in Paris. His training provided her with unique tools and confidence from which she was able to independently support her family exclusively through portrait commissions throughout her career.

Returning to New York City in 1900, she opened a studio in Washington Square. Ellen was one in a handful of women painters elected as a full Academician at the National Academy of Design. In 1911, she married and changed her professional name to Ellen Emmet Rand. She had highly successful one-person shows including one at Boston's Copley Hall, where only James Whistler, John Singer Sargent, and Claude Monet had had such exhibits.  Ellen’s portrait commissions, over 800 works, include many notables from society, politics, business and artistic circles. The Metropolitan Museum owns her portraits of Augustus Saint-Gaudens and Benjamin Altman.

A second generation later, Ellen Emmet Rand was named after her successful grandmother but ironically wasn't allowed to study art in high school. She was encouraged to study music. She came to painting after studying stage design and working in the theatre for a number of years.  The solitude of painting was infinitely more satisfying to her than the high pitch of the theatrical backstage. Unlike her grandmother, Ellen is entirely self-taught having spent countless hours shut away from the world painting and scraping and re-painting.  

In 2004, like many artists excited by the burgeoning Brooklyn art scene, Ellen opened Art 101, a contemporary fine art gallery in the heart of Williamsburg.  A consuming task, she worked exclusively for the first 5 years on developing this masterpiece.  When she returned to her studio, she found inspiration from her earlier 1999 - 2001 paintings. Rather than start fresh, she chose to rework these figurative paintings with rice paper and a variety of paint, pastel and oil pastel directly on top of these older oils. These new paintings were influenced by the old, whether or not their origins remained visible.  

In the same respect, granddaughter Ellen Emmet Rand’s work is also influenced by grandmother Ellen Emmet Rand’s work, but that remains clearly visible.

KENTLER INTERNATIONAL DRAWING SPACE
presents

THE INFLUENTIAL FEMALE
Drawings Inspired by Women in History

February 3 – March 25, 2012
Reception: Friday, February 3, 6 – 8pm
Curator's Talk: Sunday, February 19, 4pm

Arlene Morris Untitled, mixd media on handmade paper

CURATOR
Randall Harris

ARTISTS
Clarity Haynes
Meridith McNeal
Edward Monovich
Arlene Morris
Annysa Ng
K. Saito
Jacquelyn Schiffman
Vivianne Silvera
Lorene Taurerewa
Jono Vaughan

Kentler International Drawing Space
353 Van Brunt Street, (RED HOOK) Brooklyn, NY 11231
718-875-2098
www.kentlergallery.org
Hours: Thursday - Sunday 12-5PM

The human figure has been a subject for visual artists throughout history. With such an expansive subject matter, this exhibition has chosen to focus on contemporary artists drawing inspiration from the female form. Refining even more, these artists draw their inspiration from historic or specific female subjects to create fresh and challenging gender related artwork. This new work is intriguing because it directly reflects on history while making history.

 

Figureworks
168 North 6th Street
Williamsburg • Brooklyn, NY 11249
718-486-7021
Saturday, Sunday 1 - 6 pm or by appointment

CONTEMPORARY
ARTWORK
**UPDATED 12/1/11**

Figureworks has an impressive collective of nationally and internationally recognized figure-based artists. With the gallery centrally located in Williamsburg Brooklyn, a cultural center for NYC, great attention is given to local artists. Select artists have been listed on the site with various examples of the diversity found in contemporary figurative artwork.

CONTEMPORARY ARTIST LIST

© NOTICE: All works in this site are copyrighted and can not be used without the artist's permission.