Works by American Artists In The Spotlight
Certainly the most American of all American holidays, the 4th of July embodies the essence of the American Dream and everything it represents. Throughout history, this dream took many forms and the art world was there to chronicle it all.
In order to celebrate the United States, we bring together works by famous American artists from American galleries that you can own right now!
Featured image: Bert Stern - Marilyn Monroe, Hotel Bel-Air, Los Angeles, 1962 (Marilyn Laughing in Pearls). All works courtesy of their respective galleries.
Elizabeth Peyton - Untitled (Larry Gagosian)
An American contemporary artist, Elizabeth Peyton is best known for rather intimate and sensible portraits. The very approach to psychologization is what makes her work so different and quite authentic, paying special attention to her subjects' inner state and the very situation in which they are being portrayed.
In this etching from 2010, the artist portrayed Larry Gagosian, an Armenian-American art dealer and mogul who owns the Gagosian Gallery chain of art galleries.
Andy Warhol - Madonna and John 'Jellybean' Benitez
Photography had an important role in Andy Warhol’s practice, approaching it as a way to capture all the real things and to keep a visual diary. Over the course of his career, the artist created hundreds of portraits of both celebrities and people who surrounded him.
In this photograph from 1984, Warhol captured Madonna and the American musician John "Jellybean" Benitez.
Jasper Johns - Three Flags
Over the course of his five-decades-long career, Jasper Johns has been continuously experimenting, innovating and standing behind his unique concepts, laying the groundwork for later movements of Pop art, Minimalism and Conceptual Art.
Throughout his career, Johns has created a range of works that were inspired by a dream of the U.S. flag. These works are a perceptual game, a two-step between reality and illusion that extends to the meaning of the work. This print depicting three flags one inside the other was published in 2004 for a major American Art retrospective in Milan, Italy from a collection from the Whitney Museum. The image of Three Flags from 1958 was used for the design of this exhibition poster.
Mel Ramos - Fraulein French Fries
An American pop artist, Mel Ramos is best known for his provocative yet humorous paintings and prints inspired by Pop-Art and Pin-Up style. Tapping into an art form that is as old as art itself, he elevated the nude to new and engaging heights.
His work combines imagery of luscious women with everyday commercialized items such as Coca-Cola bottles or hot dogs. In the piece Fraulein French Fries, a seductive female figure is coming out of the french fires box.
Robert Rauschenberg - Local Color (Scenario)
An irrepressibly prolific artist, Robert Rauschenberg time and again reshaped art in the 20th century. Having an original mind and an idea that changed the way we understand art materials and methods, he continuously produced work that is radical, daring and innovative.
In his late work, Rauschenberg continued to approach his art with the spirit of invention and with the quest for new material and new technology that was characteristic of his work throughout his career. This work belongs to the series where the artist used an Iris printer to make digital color prints of his photographs and then transferred the Iris prints onto polylaminate panels.
CRASH - Dick Tracy II
A representative of the first generation of graffiti artists, CRASH deals with the imagery of comics, giving it his own flavor and doing it in his own unique style.
In this work, the artist depicted Dick Tracy, a character from a 1931 tough and intelligent police detective comic strip created by Chester Gould. This 1988 portrayal of the classic detective renews his relevance as an important symbol of justice especially in the current state of US affairs.
Bert Stern - Marilyn Monroe, Hotel Bel-Air, Los Angeles, 1962 (Marilyn Laughing in Pearls)
An American commercial and fashion photographer, Bert Stern is considered as one of the legendary figures in contemporary photography. He is best known for his highly stylized, black and white images of Hollywood actresses are classics, capturing the golden age of film industry and advertising.
The work was made during two photography sessions commissioned for Vogue Magazine in 1962.
Buy Marilyn Monroe, Hotel Bel-Air, Los Angeles, 1962 (Marilyn Laughing in Pearls) here!
Richard Hunt - Opposed Forms
Belonging to the first generation of post-war sculptors, Richard Hunt managed to conquer new territories by developing an authentic visual language mostly based on welding pieces of metal into abstract shapes that became his signature technique.
Made from welded chromed steel, Opposed Forms makes reference to plant, human, and animal forms.
Doze Green - Nano Series 2
One of the American street art pioneers, Doze Green blends figurative abstraction, fluid line work and organic cubism, creating characters and elements portrayed in a state of flux.
This work from the Nano Series is executed in his signature aesthetics comprised of characters and elements portrayed in a state of flux, demonstrating the kinetic flow of action painting.
Barbara Kruger - Untitled (Stamps)
An American conceptual artist, Barbara Kruger is best known for her layered black-and-white photographs, featuring provocative statements on issues like commercial culture, feminism, and identity politics. Often rendered in a palette of red, white and black, these bold, graphic works have been delivering punchy political messages for decades.
The work Untitled (Stamps) is comprised of nine individual images that repeat in a grid of 3 x 3, reading "Happy," "Sad," "Awake," "Asleep," "Hopeful," "Doubtful," "Relaxed," "Tense," and "Alive."
Buy Untitled (Stamps) here!
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