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MARCH 18 PICTORIAL
Eccentric courses. A selection from the drawing book "You are very interested in arts."
Frédéric Ehlers
Frédéric Ehlers is an infinite number of authors who use the pen to explore the expanse of the sheet of paper and who cross the three-dimensional space with their rhythmically movements in an analogous manner. The selection of drawings is counteracted here by film stills of his Movement Research.
"You are very interested in arts" has been published by ismellpainter.
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NOVEMBER 17 PICTORIAL
Félix Nadar I
Revue Comique 1848 -1849
Before he became famous as a society photographer, a ballonist and a patron of the Impressionists, Gaspard-Félix Tournachon was known under his penname Nadar as one of the most inventive French cartoonists of the era.
In the revolutionary year 1848 the republican activist started to work for the caricature journal "Le Charivari" of his friend Charles Philipon. Shortly afterwards he founded his own short-lived magazine "Revue comique", where he campaigned against the presidential candidacy of Louis Napoléon, the nephew of Napoleon I. With his comic strip series "Mossieu Réac" Nadar politically reinterpreted the format of the funny picture story, which had a reactionary connotation by the examples of Rodolphe Töpffer and Cham.
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AUGUST 17 PICTORIAL
George Montbard II
Master of the Multipanel
From the early Eighties on George Montbard became mainly known for his illustrated travelogues from the Greater Maghreb. But he was also a wanted editorial illustrator, who managed to translate the blurred photographs and rough sketches of his collagues into exciting and catchy graphics. He developed a very special mastery in the field of the multipanel-graphic or medley print, a genre , which became very popular in scrapbooks and illustrated magazins at that time. On the occasion of the Boer war and the rise of the New Imperialism he reverted after many years of political abstinence to his initial profession as a cartoonist and satirist writer. -
JUNE 17 PICTORIAL
George Montbard I
A communard´s career in London
George Montbard (real name: Charles Auguste Loye) was one of the most brillant and versatile illustrators of the 19th century. The staunch republican started his career as a political caricaturist during the imperial rule of Napoleon III. He worked for "La Rue", the legendary antiautorical magazin of his friend Jules Valles. The anarchist author assembled a group of contributors like Gustave Courbet, Andre Gill, Alphonse Levy and Georges Pilotell, which only four years later shaped the artistic core of the Paris Commune. Montbard fought in the Montmartre street battles during the so called "Bloody Week" in May 1871. After the fall of the Commune he managed to escape to London, where he pursued a second career as a special artist for various international periodicals.
Vincent van Gogh knew various prints by him, mainly picturesque landscape motifs, but he payed a special attention to his depictions of the Irish unrest, which he collected together with other Irish motifs in a special portfolio.
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APRIL 17 PICTORIAL
Visual notes. A selection.
Alex Bodea
Alex Bodea´s "Visual notes" is an ongoing series of poetically condensed observations in the urban sphere combining image and text. The visual notes archive was started in 2012, comprising more than 2000 entries. Technique: ink on paper, 5,7 x 10,7cm.
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FEBRUARY 17 PICTORIAL
The Art of Louis Sabattier
II: 1900 - 1918
Many of Louis Sabattier´s soft focussed photo-paintings for the French magazine L Illustration conveyed a ambiguous cultural - critical content. Especially his popular scenes of colonial tourism could easily be read as a subversive comment on the Eurocentric perspective of the oriental painting tradition of his teachers Jean-Léon Gérôme and Gustave Boulanger. Exoticism and alienness, the main subjects of this early post-oriental art, are represented not only as intercultural, but also as intracultural phenomena.
Topics: World Exhibition / Russo-Japanese War / Captain of Köpenick / World War I
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DECEMBER 16 PICTORIAL
The Art of Louis Sabattier
I: 1897 - 1904
The trained history painter Louis Sabattier was one of the most interesting press illustrators of the late 19th century. None of the numerous accredited special artists managed to catch the tense atmosphere of the spectacular trials against Alfred Dreyfus and Émilé Zola in a comparable subtle way. Many of his soft focussed photo-paintings for the French magazine L Illustration conveyed a ambiguous cultural-critical content.
Topics: Social facilities and Working worlds / Dreyfus affair and Zola trial / La vie automobile
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NOVEMBER 16 PICTORIAL
Works for "Journal pour Rire" (1847-51) - II
Gustave Doré
Thirteen years before his coeval successor Wilhelm Busch began his career at the Munich "Fliegende Blätter", young Gustave Doré had already established a mature and distinct Comic imagery in Charles Philipon´s groundbreaking "Journal pour Rire". Doré´s Art of Comic was a livley blend of various influences: The loose improvised "romans en images" of Rodolphe Töpffer and his virtuoso interpret Cham, the phantastic cartooning of Grandville, the historic series of Daumier, the biting political strips of Felix Nadar, the emblematic caricatures of Bertall, and last but not least the skilfull childlish scribblings of Punch-cartoonist Richard Doyle. -
OCTOBER 16 PICTORIAL
Works for "Journal pour Rire" (1847-51) - I
Gustave Doré
In 1847, the pioneering publisher Charles Philipon launched a new graphic periodical. The success of his "Journal pour Rire", which can be regarded as the world´s first Comic magazine, was based not least on the graphical inventiveness of the sixteen-year-old exceptional talent Gustave Doré. In the large folio pages "Doré proved himself master of three major domains of caricature: the single cartoon, the series of group of drawings on a theme, and the narrative album (graphic novel). All three overflowed and often intermingled in the Journal pour Rire" (David Kunzle, Gustave Doré: Twelve Comic Strips, 2015) -
AUGUST 16 PICTORIAL
Bangs, shakings and floodings
Masters of Faits Divers - Painting V
Faits divers-coverart was a transformation of history painting into the realm of urban civil culture, with the middle class-reader as sovereign. -
JUNE 16 PICTORIAL
Scenes from the Armenian Massacres of 1896
Melton Prior, William Simpson, Charles Joseph Staniland et al.
These first near-genocidal series of atrocities committed against the Armenian population were carried out during the reign of Abdul Hamid II, the last sultan effectively to rule over the Turkish state. The police responded to a demonstration held in Constantinople in September 1895 by Armenian political organizations which sought to pressure the government and the European Powers to implement the promised administrative reforms by letting loose a massacre in the capital city.
Thereupon a series of massacres spread south through nearly every major Armenian-inhabited town of the empire. To a last desperate attempt by Armenian revolutionaries to draw the attention of the world by seizing in Constantinople the European-owned Ottoman Bank in August 1896, the government responded by unleashing wholesale reprisals during which five to six thousand Armenians were killed in the space of three days within sight of the European embassies.
(Source: www.armenian-genocide.org) -
MARCH 16 PICTORIAL
Robert Weaver VI
Baseball & Gang War
By Robert Weaver
"Illustration is an essential to great painting. Abstractness cannot be equated with it; it is merely the grammar.(..) Many illustrators of today are too little concerned with the actualities of their time. Too often they merely aid and abet the pre-sold illusion of the age." (R. Weaver, 1959)
"The state of the art of illustration might be compared to a thirld-world country; it has not yet gained control of its technology." (R. Weaver, 1979)
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DECEMBER 15 PICTORIAL
Das Album der 52 Postillone / L´album des 52 postillons
Anon. / Kommentiert von François Pétry
Der Zeichner hat 52 Postillone in diesem Reisebuch dargestellt. Wenn man das Reisebuch schnell durchblättert verhält es sich wie ein Bewegungsbild. Manche Postillone sind auf ihrem Sattel zusammengestaucht, andere stehen danach auf, richten sich hoch auf ihren Steigbügeln, oder schwenken sich in ihrem Sattel; die Peitschen stehen manchmal still, und zeichnen später ausschweifende Bewegungen. Man muß an ein Daumenkino denken. (Sammlung François und Mireille Pétry) -
OCTOBER 15 PICTORIAL
The Nuremberg Diary (A Father and Son Project)
by Donghwan Jo & Haejun Jo, 2009 - 2011
Haejun Jo has lived in Nuremberg between 2009 and 2011. He has gathered his observations and experiences, especially stories connected to Albrecht Dürer, and has written them down in the form of dialogues. These he sent to his father Donghwan Jo in Korea who translated them into a pictorial version. -
SEPTEMBER 15 PICTORIAL
The Cries of London; exhibiting several of the itinerant traders of antient and modern times. London 1839
Posthumous Edition
John Thomas Smith
"Now as the Cries of London are sometimes the topic of conversation, the author of the present work is not without the hope of finding, amongst the more aged as well as juvenile readers, many to whom it may prove acceptable, inasmuch as it not only exhibits several Itinerant Traders and other persons of various callings of the present day, but some of those of former times, collected from engravings executed in the reigns of James I. Charles I.and during the Usurpation of Oliver Cromwell, and which, on account of their extreme rarity, are seldom to be seen but in the most curious and expensive Collections." (John Thomas Smith,Introduction)
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JUNE 15 PICTORIAL
From inside the war / The Crowds
Hazem Alhamwi
Hazem Alhamwi is both a visual artist and a film maker, author of the award winning documentary "From my Syrian Room".
The black and white drawings and paintings were made in Syria and vary in size. The coloured paintings were made in Berlin and their size is ca. 30 cm x 20 cm. The technique is acrylic and ink, or ink only, respectively. The photo of Alhamwi shows him painting in his German room, in Berlin, in March 2015.
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APRIL 15 PICTORIAL
Vagabondiana; or, Anecdotes of Mendicant Wanderers through the Streets of London; Drawn from the Life, London 1817
John Thomas Smith
In the first decade of the 19th century the bourgeoisie felt increasingly pestered by the exploding army of beggars and pedlars. A royal commission of inquiry was appointed to remedy this, and in 1815 published a first Mendicity and Vagrancy Report. The commission´s recommendations resulted in countering the problem of homelessness and beggary with strict police measures. The fear that the London vagabondage could be a fading cultural asset had prompted John Thomas Smith to accompany the work of the commission with a visual documentation seeking to preserve for posterity the activities of pedlars and beggars. -
FEBRUARY 15 PICTORIAL
T-error of Religions
Frantisek Kupka, 1904
At the beginning of the 20th century, the Paris-based Czech artist Frantisek Kupka published some furious pictorial attacks against a prevailing mixture of unrestrained greed for profit, of militarism and imperialism; an explosive, which was mostly religious legitimized. His commented cycle "Religions" appeared in 1904 in the anarchist magazine "Assiette au beurre". This work has a precursor in the religion-critical portfolio "The development of the idea of God" (1850) of the Left Hegelian artist Theodor Kaufmann. Both, Kaufmann and Kupka, were trained in a large time interval under the influence of Nazarene art, towards which they acted antithetical. Whereas Kaufmann restricted himself mostly to an analysis of the Judeo-Christian faith, Kupkas global frame of reference was shaped by his preoccupation with Theosophical syncretism. Against this speculative background his understanding of the characteristics of non-European religious practices from today's point of view must appear as rather limited. On the other hand, some passages of the comments already reveal a strong interest in ethographical and archaeological research, that he would deepen in the following years.
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Zu Beginn des 20. Jahrhunderts publizierte der in Paris lebende tschechische Künstler Frantisek Kupka in Magazinen wie "Assiette au beurre", "Le Canard Sauvage" und "Cocorico" einige furiose bildnerische Attacken gegen eine explosive Gemengelage aus ungehemmter Profitgier, Militarismus und Imperialismus, die überwiegend religiös legitimiert wurde. Seine kommentierte Bildfolge "Religions" war 1904 erschienen. Das Werk hat einen Vorläufer in dem religionskritischen Portfolio "Die Entstehung der Gottesidee" von 1850 des linkshegelianischen Künstlers Theodor Kaufmann. Beide, Kaufmann wie Kupka, waren mit einem grossen zeitlichen Abstand in der Einflusssphäre nazarenischer Kunst ausgebildet worden, zu der sie sich antithetisch verhielten. Während Kaufmann sich weitgegend auf das christliche Europa beschränkte war Kupkas globaler Bezugsrahmen von seiner Beschäftigung mit dem theosophischen Synkretismus beprägt. Sein Verständnis für die Eigenarten aussereuropäischer Religionspraktiken muss vor diesem spekulativen Hintergrund aus heutiger Sicht als einigermassen beschränkt erscheinen. Andererseits verrät sich hier bereits an etlichen Stellen ein starkes Interesse an ethnographischer und archäologischer Forschung, das er in den nächsten Jahren vertiefen sollte. -
JANUARY 15 PICTORIAL
Conflicts and Flames
Masters of Faits Divers - Painting VI
The depiction of social conflicts, of strikes, riots and mobs was one of the main subjects of special artists and faits divers-painters at the turn of the century. Some of them became masters of pictorial mass choreography and cataclysmic sceneries. -
NOVEMBER 14 PICTORIAL
Slums in the outskirts of London, 1797
John Thomas Smith
"Remarks on Rural Scenery" was created by John Thomas Smith with the support of his student John Constable. It consists of a sequence of twenty etchings that were all made "after nature" and depict the most various kinds of rural housings for the poor on the periphery of the exploding metropolis of London. The places are specified as precisely as possible, and in two cases even the names of the residents are mentioned. Furthermore, it includes an introductory essay by Smith dealing with - as the subtitles states - "Some observations, and Precepts relative to the Picturesque". -
OCTOBER 14 PICTORIAL
Katerfamilie
Henrieke Ribbe
Henrieke Ribbe belongs to the very few real masters in the empathic art of portraiture. Her documentation on the Berlin club Kater Holzig was created in 2013/14. Together with her fiancée Jake Basker (aka Jake The Rapper), then a resident DJ at Kater Holzig, she came up with the idea to paint the people behind the scenes, the nightshift workers, the bartenders, doormen, the office staff, the cleaning team, basically everyone that works in the complex organism that makes up the entertainment industry, but particularly those you will not find on the covers of magazines and posters. Painting, as Henrieke says,"was the perfect medium for this task, because people who are generally uncomfortable in front of cameras were able to relax and open up, and were much more interested in and touched to have their portraits painted than their pictures taken, an acknowledgement of their accomplishments that the scrutinising lens of the camera does not convey." The peaceful repose of the two hour sittings also allowed an intimate moment in the studio, plenty of time to tell a lifetime's worth of personal history. It was Jake's job to herd the tom cat family into the studio. After that, Henrieke began to paint them. When she finished, she had captured one hundred faces in oil on canvases, each 60 x 50 cm.
The club scene in Berlin is a lively and fast-changing landscape. Clubs pop up and diminish like fish in an underwater reef. It's all very colorful and divergent, and soon to be relegated to the vague and inaccurate oral history of the underground culture. Everything that isn't meticulously recorded in magazines and on the internet will generally be forgotten at some point, but it is exactly those places and moments that makes up the most integral and vital part of the scene, the crazy life behind the doors that say "employees only" on them. In these places, photos and videos are considered an intrusion, but for Henrieke painting these portraits was intended "as a respectful tribute."
© Henrieke Ribbe, VG Bild Kunst Bonn / photos: Carsten Eisfeld, Henrieke Ribbe
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SEPTEMBER 14 PICTORIAL
Meppel, an odd year (Meppel, een raar jaar)
ca. 1992 - 1995
by Jan Vegter
After his retirement as a drawing teacher in 1992 Jan Vegter (1927-2009) started to work intensely on the visualization of his memories of crucial periods of his life. To focuse his memory performance he decided to build detailed scale models of certain technical and topographic conditions. This amazing series was the first example of his meticulous art of memory. It is divided into three sketchbooks and refers to his juvenile experience of the outbreak of World War II. His father was stationed then as a reserve-officer in the small town of Meppel, in the east of The Netherlands. He was able to bring along his familiy. In reality this "odd year" in Meppel lasted only a half-year, from December 1939 until April 1940, when the threat of war increased in such a way that his father thought it was better to return the family back their home in Voorburg. The series also covers the German invasion, the bombardment of Rotterdam and the first days of the occupation.
All drawings are ink and color pencil. The varing sizes never exceed the sketchbook format 32 x 41 cm. The images are always on the right pages. The left ones have handwritten comments, translated here in English by Theo de Feyter. A few of them had to be slightly shortened for this pictorial.
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JULY 14 PICTORIAL
Fresnes - Observations of a collaborateur. Part II
by Rio, Paris 1947
Rio was a pseudonym of Ralph Soupault (1904-1962), who became known in the 1920s as the leading cartoonist of the French nationalist reaction. Later on he joined the French fascist party PPF. Soupault was a supporter of the German occupying forces and became notorious for his anti-semitic propaganda. In 1946 he was arrested and sentenced to fifteen years imprisonment in Fresnes, a huge institution nearby Paris, which only recently was used by the Gestapo to house members of the French Résistance. Pierre Laval, the former vice-president of the Vichy Regime was executed there in 1945 after a questionable treason trial, which was internationally taken for scandalous.
Soupault´s narration is defined by a kind of personal awakening towards the catholic rite and an adherence to his political convictions. -
MAY 14 PICTORIAL
Fresnes - Observations of a Collaborateur. Part I
by Rio, Paris 1947
Rio was a pseudonym of Ralph Soupault (1904-1962), who became known in the 1920s as the leading cartoonist of the French nationalist reaction. Later on he joined the French fascist party PPF, which was led by the former communist activist Jacques Doriot. Like his friend, the groundbreaking novelist Celine, Soupault was a supporter of the German occupying forces and became notorious for his anti-semitic propaganda. In 1946 he was arrested and sentenced to fifteen years imprisonment in Fresnes, a huge institution nearby Paris, which only recently was used by the Gestapo to house members of the French Résistance.
In January 1947 Soupault published a detention report consisting of thirty-seven commented drawings. Here he developed a very peculiar graphic style consisting of an imaginative blend of mystical geometrical symbolism, cartoonish stereotypes and a detailled naturalistic approach. "Fresnes. Reportage d'un temoin" appeared in a limited edition and was mainly distributed to his "friends and collaborators". Soupault was released prematurely three years later due to health reasons. -
APRIL 14 PICTORIAL
ROSTA / GPP
Pictorial Newsposter-Series of the Russian Avantgarde III
Moscow, 1921
The campaign at ROSTA ended at the beginning of 1921 with the departure of the director of the news agency Platon Kerzhentsev. Afterwards, it was continued for one more year with a stricter conception in didactical terms under the patronage of Glavpolitprosvet (GPP), a newly founded educational institution of the Ministry of Cultural Affairs. The hand-made propaganda picture prints were now outdated. Their woodcut-like rhetoric no longer met the more complex communication demands of the development years and the party also distanced itself more and more from the initiatives of the Futurist avant-garde.
(Courtesy Gallery Thomas Flor, Berlin)
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MARCH 14 PICTORIAL
ROSTA / GPP
Pictorial Newsposter-Series of the Russian Avantgarde II
Moscow, 1921
The ROSTA graphics were not only influenced by the already declining art of the classical avant-garde, but also by the then highly topical culture of American daily strips. Communism and comics were not oppositional camps in the pre-Disney era, quite to the contrary. Particularly the windows of Mikhail Cheremnykh reveal a conspicuous stylistic proximity to comic cartooning. The world he visualised reminds one more of Coconico Country populated by funny spinach sailors than of a country devastated by civil war, where kolkhoz farmers and Red Guards struggle for their existence.
(Courtesy Gallery Thomas Flor, Berlin)
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FEBRUARY 14 PICTORIAL
ROSTA / GPP
Pictorial Newsposter-Series of the Russian Avantgarde I
Moscow, 1920 / 1921
In February 1919, caricaturist Mikhail Cheremnykh started an artistic campaign in an empty shop window with a visually designed report of the Bolshevist news agency ROSTA. Shortely thereafter the initiative was taken up by the popular poet Vladimir Mayakovsky. He selected most of the news items and prepared them for pictorial realisation. "The field of activity was huge: advertising work for the Comintern and for collecting mushrooms in the interest of those suffering from hunger, the battle against Wrangel and the typhus lice, posters requesting to keep old newspapers and posters advocating electrification."(Mayakovsky)
The Posters (each ca. 41 x 51 cm) were handmade with stencils. (Courtesy Gallery Thomas Flor, Berlin)
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JANUARY 14 PICTORIAL
Urban Apaches: Torture, Blood & Thunder
Masters of Faits Divers - Painting IV
"Les Apaches" can be considered as an early manifestation of rebellious youth culture in Paris. They were organized in street gangs with special idioms and dress codes very similar to those of the London costermonger-subculture. In 1907 "Le Petit Journal" called the ruffian Apaches "the sore of Paris. More than 30.000 blighters standing against 8.000 city policemen."
The criminal reports of the faits divers-press were often modelled after stereotypes of popular serialzed fictions like Rocambole, Arsene Lupin or Fantomas. -
DECEMBER 13 PICTORIAL
Georg Winter´s UCS moving pictures:
Losing Horses. - Scene 3: The Haus zur Trapp in Pulheim
Drawings by Tünde Kovács
Ihren Höhepunkt und Abschluss finden die Dreharbeiten auf dem Stommelner Dorfanger. Das Haus zur Trapp, ein Gebäude von 1785, in Realität Café und Hotel, fungiert in der Roman-Verfilmung als jene Schänke, die Quixote für eine Burghält. Die adligen Frauen, die er in ihren Fenstern zu sehen glaubt, sind indes Wirtstochter und Hausmagd, die seine Hand zum Spott am Fenstersims festbinden, während unter ihm sein Ross Rosinante das Weite sucht. In Stommeln baumelt der Darsteller schlussendlich
vom Wirtshausschild herunter.Dieser Stunt geht nahtlos in den nächsten über: Auf dem
Dorfanger vor der Trapp wird Quixote in vollem Galopp abgeworfen - und damit das Rätsel um den Titel gelöst: "Losing Horses" sind Pferde, die ihre Reiter verlieren, - sich
von ihnen befreien.
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Shooting finds its climax andcompletion on the Stommeln village green. In the remake of the novel, Haus zur Trapp, built in 1785 and in reality now a café and hotel, serves as the inn Don Quixote believes is a castle. The fair maidens standing at the door are actually "two young women, girls of the district," who scornfully tie his hand to the bolt of a door while his horse, Rosinante, takes to her hooves: in Stommeln, the actor is left dangling from the inn?s sign. This stunt passes smoothly into the next: on the village green in front of the Trapp, Don Quixote is thrown from his horse at full gallop- and the mystery surrounding the movie?s title is solved. "Losing horses" are horses that lose their riders, that liberate themselves from them.
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NOVEMBER 13 PICTORIAL
Georg Winter´s UCS moving pictures:
Losing Horses. - Scene 2: The former drive-in theater in Pulheim
Drawings by Tünde Kovács
A German/Hungarian Film, UCS Self Organizing Cinema
Direction: Vera Poros, Kerstin Kachelmann
Screenplay: Georg Winter
Based on the novel Don Quixote
by Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
Shot in Ukiyo Real Time for the first time with "UCS Passive Acting" by Johnny Depp and
Christopher Lee (both of whom were requested), reversed stunts at three locations: the
Stommeln windmill, the former drive-in theater in Pulheim, the Haus zur Trapp in Pulheim
Leading Actors: Bagdad as Rosinante (stunt horse), Filou as Rucio (stunt donkey) -
OCTOBER 13 PICTORIAL
Georg Winter´s UCS moving pictures:
Losing Horses. - Scene 1: The Stommeln windmill
Drawings by Tünde Kovács
Pulheim und Stommeln, unweit von Köln, waren im September 2005 die Drehorte der deutsch - ungarischen Filmproduktion "Losing Horses / Veszítö Lovak" von Ukiyo Camera Systems moving pictures. Das von Georg Winter entwickelte Echtzeit-Aufnahmeverfahren versucht, ausgehend von Wirklichkeitskonstruktionen des "Don Quixote von la Mancha" von Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra, filmische Situationen zu schaffen (Self Organizing Cinema). Die Dreharbeiten wurden von Lisa Biedlingmaier fotografisch begleitet und die Fotografien von Tünde Kovács zeichnerisch übersetzt.
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In September 2005, the German-Hungarian film production "Losing Horses / Veszítö Lovak" by Ukiyo Camera Systems moving pictures was shot at locations in Pulheim and Stommeln, not far from Cologne. Georg Winter´s Real-Time Recording Method attempted to create filmic situations (Self Organizing Cinema) based on the construction of the reality of "Don Quixote" by Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra. The filming was accompanied by photographs by Lisa Biedlingmaier, which were then graphically translated by Tünde Kovács. -
SEPTEMBER 13 PICTORIAL
The new flesh / Das neue Fleisch
Turkish and Kurdish butcher shops in Berlin-Kreuzberg.
Xiaopeng Zhou
Xiaopeng Zhou, born in 1985 in Guangzhou, has studied art the the Academy of his hometown until 2008, but is now living in Germany and about to complete his Master exam at Academy of Art Berlin-Weissensee. The pictorial is an excerpt from his 76-part series of reportage drawings created within four weeks - starting from this year's Bayram festivities, the fast breaking at the end of Ramadan - in Turkish and Kurdish butcher shops in Berlin-Kreuzberg.
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Xiaopeng Zhou, 1985 in Guangzhou geboren, studierte bis 2008 an der Kunstakademie seiner Herkunftsstadt, lebt zurzeit in Deutschland und beendet in Kürze sein Masterstudium an der Berliner Kunsthochschule Weissensee. Die Bildstrecke ist ein Auszug aus der 76-teiligen Serie von Reportagezeichnungen, die Zhou im Laufe von vier Wochen - ab dem Bayram, dem Fastenbrechen nach dem Ramadan - in türkischen und kurdischen Schlachtereien angefertigt hat.
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AUGUST 13 PICTORIAL
Images from the earliest modern Afghan Wars
The first military conflict covered by the illustrated popular press after its foundation in May 1842 was a war in Afghanistan. But the depictions of the defeat of the British occupation forces in the Asian borderland, which was of equally vital strategical importance for the British as for the Russian Empire, were solely fictitious and reconstructive. Also the events of the following Afghan war, which took place three decades later during the heyday of pictorial reporting, were only witnessed by very few of the special artists of the illustrated press on site. Most of the sketches appearing in the international journals came from members of the military forces.
Among the few artists who had the courage and the experience to enter the rough and difficult terrain was William Simpson, the doyen of professional war illustration and one of its most brilliant representatives. In Afghanistan, Simpson also continued the extensive ethnographic and archeological studies of Asian culture he had begun in the early 1860s in India and in the Himalayas. -
JUNE 13 PICTORIAL
Evil Empires II
A. Paul Weber: Britische Bilder / British Images
48 political drawings, Berlin 1943
The works of Thuringian graphic artist A. Paul Weber were strongly influenced by the visionary imaginations of Alfred Kubin. In his main work, the graphic cycle "British images", published in 1941, influences from Gustave Doré´s "London Pilgrimage" can be traced, as well as of those of other French illustrators such as Théophile Steinlen, Charles Léandre and Jean Veber, who all drew for the anarchist caricature magazine "Assiette au beurre". The "British images" were created on the artist's own initiative, and they reflect the radical anti-capitalist attitude of its author. Weber belonged to an anti-democratic, right-wing Bolshevik resistance circle who accused Hitler's Nazism of a fatal entanglement with Western financial capitalism. After a one year imprisonment, he arranged himself with the NS regime, which would then publish the "British images" as welcome propaganda material. In the post-war period, Weber worked for the famous German caricature magazine "Simplicissimus," and became, with his anti-fascist legend, although admittedly enigmatic and gloomy, one of the foremost graphic artists of a West- German financial capitalist reality.
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Die Arbeiten des thüringischen Grafikers A. Paul Weber waren stark von den visionären Bildfindungen Alfred Kubins geprägt. In seinem Hauptwerk, dem 1941 erschienenen Grafikzyklus "Britische Bilder", finden sich auch Einflüsse von Gustav Dorés "London Pilgrimage" und anderen französischen Zeichnern wie Théophile Steinlen, Charles Léandre und Jean Veber, die alle für das anarchistische Karikaturmagazin "Assiette au Beurre" zeichneten. Die "Britischen Bilder" sind in eigenem Auftrag entstanden und spiegeln die radikale antikapitalistische Gesinnung des Autors.Weber gehörte einem antidemokratischen, rechtsbolschewistischen Widerstandskreis an, der dem Nationalsozialismus unter Hitler eine fatale Bindung an den westlichen Finanzkapitalismus vorwarf. Nach einer kurzen Inhaftierung arrangierte er sich mit dem NS-Regime, das die "Britischen Bilder" als willkommenes Propagandamaterial publizierte. In der Nachkriegszeit zeichnete Weber für das bekannte deutsche Karikaturmagazin "Simplicissimus" und avancierte mit seiner antifaschistischen Legende zu einem - wenn auch besonders rätselhaften und düsteren - Vorzeigekünstler einer westdeutschen finanzkapitalistischen Wirklichkeit. -
MAY 13 PICTORIAL
Remember Korea / Gondolj Koreara (1952)
Budapest, 1952
Bencze László
The key issue of the graphic portfolio created by the Hungarian artist Bencze László is the massacre near Sichon, North Korea, in the autumn and winter of 1950 with more than thirty thousand victims, mainly civilians. From the Communist side, these war atrocities were attributed to the American invading forces. Like Picasso's famous painting Massacre en Corée (1951), Laszlo´s graphic cycle was conceptually inspired by the example of Goya. In terms of motifs, the influence of the Chinese revolutionary woodcut movement under Lu Xun is distinctive, of artists like Li Hua, Zhao Yannian, or Zheng Yefu, to whom László tries to come close in his pen and ink drawings, also in structural respects.
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Zentrales Thema der von dem ungarischen Künstler Bencze László geschaffenen grafischen Mappe ist das Massaker bei Sichon in Nordkorea, dem im Herbst und Winter 1950 mehr aus dreißigtausend überwiegend Zivilisten zum Opfer gefallen waren. Von kommunistischer Seite wurden die Kriegsgreuel der amerikanischen Invasionsarmee zugeschrieben. Wie Picassos berühmtes Gemälde Massacre en Corée (1951) ist auch Lászlós graphischer Zyklus konzeptuell vom Vorbild Goyas inspiriert. Motivisch ist der Einfluss der chinesischen revolutionären Holzschnittbewegung unter Lu Xun unverkennbar, von Künstlern wie Li Hua, Zhao Yannian oder Zheng Yefu, denen László in seinen Federzeichnungen auch strukturell nahe zu kommen versucht. -
MARCH 13 PICTORIAL
The Translation of the Arch-Imperator
Henri Durand-Brager / Charles Nicolas Lemercier
H. Durand-Brager: Sainte-Hélène, 1844 / C. N. Lemercier: Translation du corps de Napoleon, ca.1842
Special Artist Henri Durand-Brager had made a name for himself with an opulent documentation of the return of the remains of Napoleon I from foreign, British occupied soil to his homeland. Brager´s expedition report Sainte-Hélène was published in an impressive folio format in 1844. What is remarkable, is that the cycle completely disregards the actual subject-matter, the emperor´s coffin and the pivotal act of transporting it back. In the lithographic accordion-fold in which the befriended illustrator Charles Nicolas Lemercier recorded the subsequent procession of the corpse from the Champs-Élysées to the new grave at Les Invalides this coffin quite naturally forms the magnetic centre. -
FEBRUARY 13 PICTORIAL
Evil Empires I
Jean Veber: Concentration camps in the Transvaal
During the Second Boer War the prestige of the British Empire sank to an all-time low. The main reason was the establishment of concentration camps in South Africa as a measure against the guerrilla war led by the local farmers against the Empire. Over 26,000 Boers, mainly women and children, died of hunger and diseases due to the catastrophic conditions of their detention. In September 1901, Jean Veber dedicated a whole issue of the French satirical magazine "Assiette au Beurre" to this topic. The depiction of the British King Edward VII as a butthead led to some diplomatic quarrels and censorship measures. On the German side,in the course of the two world wars, this issue was repeatedly used as propaganda material against England. A slightly modified reprint was published by the Nazi publishing house "Verlag für Militärgeschichte" in 1941, the same year in which the so-called "final solution", the Holocaust, was decided.
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Während des Zweiten Burenkriegs sank das Ansehen des britischen Empire auf einen Tiefpunkt. Anlass war die Einrichtung von Konzentrationslagern in Südafrika als Maßnahme gegen den Guerrillakrieg, den die einheimischen Farmer gegen das Imperium führten. Über 26.000 Buren, vor allem Frauen und Kinder, starben auf Grund der katastrophaler Haftbedingungen an Hunger und Krankheiten. Jean Veber widmete diesem Thema im September 1901 eine ganze Ausgabe des französischen Satiremagazins "Assiette au Beurre". Die Darstellung des britischen Königs Edward VII. als Arschgesicht führte zu diplomatischen Querelen und zog Zensurmaßnahmen nach sich. Auf deutscher Seite wurde dieses Heft während der beiden Weltkriege wiederholt als Propagandamaterial gegen England ins Feld geführt. Ein leicht abgeänderter Reprint wurde 1941 von dem nationalsozialistischen "Verlag für Militärgeschichte" publiziert, im gleichen Jahr, in dem die so genannte "Endlösung", der Holocaust, beschlossen wurde. -
DECEMBER 12 PICTORIAL
Skizzen vom Moor
Oliver Grajewski
Dieses Pictorial besteht in einer Zusammenstellung von Zeichnungen, die entweder gar nicht oder in anderer Form in Oliver Grajewskis Grafik Novel "Der Tag im Moor" Eingang gefunden haben. Die Zeichnungen sind lose in der Reihenfolge der erzählten Kapitel angeordnet. Tusch - und Bleistiftzeichnungen verbinden sich in dieser experimentellen Spuk-Doku-Fiktion mit digitaler Fotografie und informeller Computergrafik.
Zum Inhalt: Eigentlich wollte Oliver nur seine Eltern in der schleswig-holsteinischen Heimat besuchen, doch merkwürdige Vorfälle im Moor und ein alter Zeitungsartikel bringen ihn auf die Spur eines Geheimnisses ... (Das Buch ist bei Breitkopf- Editionen erschienen: gb@breitkopf-editionen.de) -
NOVEMBER 12 PICTORIAL
A Thomas Nast - Gallery
His career in 38 images
Thomas Nast (1840-1902) started his career as a "special artist" at the age of fifteen. His pictorial journalism marked the peak of graphic art as far as its influence and popularity in the 19th century is concerned. No artist was ever more successful in regard to the intensity, scope and lastingness of his political impact than this North American draughtsman.
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Thomas Nast (1840-1902) begann seine Karriere als Pressezeichner im Alter von fünfzehn Jahren. Mit seiner Bildpublizistik befand sich die grafische Kunst im 19. Jahrhundert im Zenit ihrer Einflussmöglichkeiten und ihrer Popularität. Kein Künstler war je, was die Intensität, das Ausmaß und die Nachhaltigkeit seiner politischen Wirkungskraft betraf, erfolgreicher als dieser nordamerikanische Zeichner. -
OCTOBER 12 PICTORIAL
Defiant People. Drawings of Greece Today.
London 1952
by Paul Hogarth
"Fate intervened in the person of Betty Ambatielos, the indomitable Welsh schoolteacher wife of Tony Ambatielos, a prominent Greek Communist leader who faced execution by the regime of Marshall Papagos which ruled Greece in those days. I was asked to depict his trial against the background of Greece itself, the first victim of the Cold War. I arrived in Athens during August 1952 and found a country exhausted by five years civil war which had only ended three years previously." (Paul Hogarth,1990) -
SEPTEMBER 12 PICTORIAL
Museo di Storia Naturale di Venezia
Sketchbook
by Matthias Reinhold
Matthias Reinhold, author of the interactive illustrated encyclopaedia "Ikonlog", conducted research in Venice in July and August 2012. The sketchbook on hand was created on August 9 at the Museum of Natural History. As in all museums and churches in Venice, taking photos is forbidden.
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Matthias Reinhold, Autor der interaktiven Bildenzyklopädie "Ikonlog" hat im Juli und August diesen Jahres in Venedig geforscht. Das vorliegende Skizzenbuch ist am 9.8. im Naturgeschichtlichen Museum entstanden.
Wie in allen Museen und Kirchen Venedigs ist das Fotografieren dort verboten. -
AUGUST 12 PICTORIAL
Animal Fury
Masters of Faits Divers - Painting III
"Le Petit Journal" was the origin and the leading example of the faits divers press. "Somewhat analogous to a surrealist writing game, fait-divers reportage was an impersonal form of literary production that owed everything to the coincidental arrangement of its sentence elements." (Robin Walz, Pulp Surrealism) The cover illustrators of" Le Petit Journal" created congenial pictorial equivalents to this incoherent literary scheme. -
JUNE 12 PICTORIAL
Manuela A. Beck:
spiegeln (mirroring) - Pictorial Improvisations on Heine´s Winter´s Tale
Cycle of aquatint etchings
In her extensive cycle of graphics, which she began with in 2011, Manuela A. Beck references in a free associative manner motifs drawn from Heinrich Heine´s complex philosophical-political verse-epic. The technique of etching is not employed for reproductive purposes here, but as the original medium of pictorial composition.The artist succeeds in creating pictographic-abstract formulations that are unparalleled in contemporary graphic arts in terms of their density and evocative presence.
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In ihrem umfangreichen Grafikzylus, den sie 2011 begonnen hat, bezieht sich Manuela A. Beck in freier assoziativer Form auf Motive aus Heinrich Heines komplexem philosophisch-politischem Versepos. Die Technik der Radierung wird hier nicht zu reproduktiven Zwecken eingesetzt, sondern als originäres Medium der Bildfindung. Dabei gelingen der Künstlerin piktographisch - abstrakte Formulierungen von einer Dichte und evokativen Präsenz, die in der zeitgenössischen Grafik ohne Beispiel sind. -
MAY 12 PICTORIAL
Kyung-hwa Choi-Ahoi:
Funeral ceremony for Georg Valsamakis in Athens
Athens, Greece
"Enzyklopädie Personae"
In this episode of her "Enzyklopädie Personae"- project Kyung-hwa Choi-Ahoi attends the obsequies for the late George Valsamakis in Athens. He was a wholesaler of electrical appliance.
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In dieser Episode ihres "Enzyklopädie Personae"- Projekts besucht Kyung-hwa Choi-Ahoi die Trauerfeierlichkeiten für den verstorbenen
Georg Valsamakis in Athen. Er war Großhändler für Elektroartikel.
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APRIL 12 PICTORIAL
Accidents will happen
Masters of Faits Divers - Painting II
The list of outstanding illustrators who worked for the weekly supplement of the tabloid "Le Petit Journal"is impressive: Jose Belon, Charles Bombled, Henri Brispot, Eugene Damblans, Frederic Lix, Fortune Louis Meaulle, Henri Meyer, Lionel Royer, Osvaldo Tofani and Charles Gaston Yrondy. Most of them were trained history painters with a specific talent for catching the fruitful moment.
The most brillant and prolific master of faits divers-painting in the 20th century was Achille Beltrami, a disciple of the noted Italian history painter Francesco Hayez. Beltrami worked for the weekly "La Domenica del Corriere" for almost fifty years.
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MARCH 12 PICTORIAL
der stein nr. 1
Julie Doucet
In the late 1990s Canadian cartoonist Julie Doucet abandoned the medium of comic books and went back to printing. Woodcuts, linocuts, silkscreen printing, followed by an abundant production of artist's books. "Der Stein" is one of the most incisive and enduring examples of contemporary private press or fanzine culture. It is written in bad German and centered on a serious and annoying subject. Eight numbers are published so far. Here is the legendary initial issue of May 2010 in a bilangual version. -
FEBRUARY 12 PICTORIAL
Robert Weaver VII
The Woolworth - Motion
By Robert Weaver
What´s Come Over Old Woolworth? (Fortune, January 1969)
"There are assignments for `Fortune´, where I am realistically and symbolically going up the corporate ladder at Woolworth´s. It starts with the stockboy, and I use chairs as a metaphor for power. The chairs become more and more elaborate as we go to top. The drawings where rendered from life. (...) As for process, essentially there is not a hell of a lot of transformation between the sketches and the finishes. I´ve actually made the pictures more decorative. My sketches are notes, and the color variations stay in the mind. I make the drawings without colours, and later simply bathe the picture in what I remember to be the proper light." (Robert Weaver in conversation with Steven Heller, 1986)
The original drawings: 27,5 x 35,5 cm, pencil on paper. (MePri-Collection)
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JANUARY 12 PICTORIAL
Kyung-hwa Choi-Ahoi:
Werner Pflaum and Peter Schlosser, Bad Gastein
Bad Gastein, Austria
"Enzyklopädie Personae"
In this adventurous episode of her "Enzyklopädie Personae"- project Kyung-hwa Choi-Ahoi accompanies two Austrian hunters on their nightshift in a deerstand.
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In dieser abenteuerlichen Episode ihres "Enzyklopädie Personae"- Projekts begleitet Kyung-hwa Choi-Ahoi zwei österreichische Jäger auf ihrer Nachtschicht im Hochsitz
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DECEMBER 11 PICTORIAL
Journal de L'expédition des Portes De Fer (1839 - 44)
Adrien Dauzats, Gabriele Descamps, Charles Nodier, Auguste Raffet
The well-known writer and literary critic Charles Nodier, who was a close friend of the Duc d´Orleans, who had died shortly beforehand, was responsible for the text. The illustration work featured three of the most prominent exponents of artistic Orientalism, the two painters Adrien Dauzats and Gabriele Descamps and draughtsman Auguste Raffet. But the work was also a milestone in regard to reproduction graphics. "The Portes de fer will forever remain the masterpiece in the history of modern French wood engraving." (Henri Bouchot, 1887)
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Verantwortlich für den Text zeichnete der bekannte Schriftsteller und Literaturkritiker Charles Nodier, der ein enger Freund des kürzlich verstorbenen Duc d´Orleans war. Auf der Illustrationsseite bot das Werk mit den beiden Malern Adrien Dauzats und Gabriele Descamps sowie dem Zeichner Auguste Raffet drei der prominentesten Vertreter des künstlerischen Orientalismus auf. Aber auch in reproduktionsgrafischer Hinsicht stellte es einen Meilenstein dar. "Die Portes de fer werden in der Geschichte des modernen französischen Holzschnitts immer das Meisterwerk bleiben." (Henri Bouchot, 1887) -
NOVEMBER 11 PICTORIAL
Cartoons Social and Political
London, 1893
by Martin Anderson aka "Cynicus"
"Cynicus" was the penname of the Scottish cartoonist Martin Anderson, who became a successful cartoonist in London in the late 1880s. Critics praised him as the new Rowlandson, but when his hand-coloured "Cartoons Social and Political" appeared in 1893, he was blamed for being "almost brutal" in his directness. Their socialist impulse was promoted by his friendly contact to artists of the Fabian Society. Although one can trace an apparent influence by the decorative interventionist illustrations of Walter Crane, the unique blunt and minimalistic style of Anderson´s cartoons is connected a good deal more to the graphic satires of early British radicalism, to the Jacobin caricature campaigns of Thomas Spence and to the woodcuts of the Cruikshank & Hone collaborations.
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OCTOBER 11 PICTORIAL
Morning conference at The Guardian with Alan Rusbridger
London, 2002
CS-Report by Alexander Roob
Impressions of a morning conference in the editorial office of The Guardian with editor-in-chief Alan Rusbridger. The British journal shook the foundations of Rupert Murdoch´s News Corporation by uncovering the phone-hacking scandal and was named newspaper of the year at the 2011 Press Awards for its partnership with WikiLeaks. -
SEPTEMBER 11 PICTORIAL
La Retraite et la Prise de Constantine
Retraite De Constantine / Prise De Constantine
by Auguste Raffet
"Retraite de Constantine" was one of the most widespread examples of Auguste Raffet´s series of annual lithography albums. It was published in spring of 1837 by Gilhaut Freres and gives an account of the first failed attempts at conquering the Algerian fortress. The ignominious retreat of the French army in November 1836 was mainly blamed on the Siberian weather conditions of the winter setting in. Raffet, who never set foot on Algerian ground,mainly reverted to topoi of the Napoleonic Russia campaign and in doing so decidedly placed the colonial adventure in a continuum of Bonapartist mythification. In October 1837, after fights with the defenders that caused an extremely high number of casualties, Constantine was finally captured. The fact that Raffet?s next lithographic cycle "La Prise de Constantine" is far more differentiated and authentic, owes to his intense research studies and also to a longer journey to the Orient which he had meanwhile taken. -
AUGUST 11 PICTORIAL
Crashes and Collapses
Masters of Faits Divers - Painting I
In 1863 a new kind of journalism with particular emphasis on sensational news stories, the so called faits divers, was introduced to the French press landscape by the foundation of the daily "Le Petit Journal". It´s editor M.P. Millaud had coined the much quoted phrase "dare to be stupid". In the 1890s this leading French penny paper had a circulation of a million copies and by 1884 it also included a weekly illustrated four page supplement. The pictorial news were created by some of the best illustrators of the decade and the dramatic style they established, merging documentary with phantasmagorial elements, became highly influential for magazine covers wordwide.
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JULY 11 PICTORIAL
Kyung-hwa Choi-Ahoi:
Ihlayel A.M. Megdad, Humsum 03.02.2009
Krankenhaus Husum, Notaufnahme
"Enzyklopädie Personae"
In this episode of her "Enzyklopädie Personae"- project Kyung-hwa Choi-Ahoi observes the daily routine of a physician in the emergency department of the city hospital Husum.
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JUNE 11 PICTORIAL
The Lake Country-Sketchbook
June 23-July 18th 1863
by William James Linton
In addition to a number of studies on the flora of the Lakes, two sketchbooks of Linton with landscape views have come down to us. One is in the collection of Yale University, another in the Linton-Archive of the Melton Prior Institute. The latter contains watercolours and drawings made during hikes in the North East of the Lakes along a route between Lake Ullswater and the Helvellyn from June 23 to July 18, 1863. Both sketchbooks served to prepare a series of one hundred wood engravings which he made for a literary travel guide of his third wife, the writer Eliza Lynn. It was published in an extravagant edition under the title The Lake Country in 1864. The pictorial shows the complete 13 x 8 cm pocket-sketchbook in conjunction with the worked-out engravings.
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Neben einer Reihe von Studien zur Flora der Lakes sind von Linton zwei Skizzenbücher mit Landschaftsansichten überliefert. Eines befindet sich in der Sammlung der Yale University, ein weiteres im Linton-Archive des Melton Prior Instituts. Letzteres enthält Aquarelle und Zeichnungen, die auf Wanderungen im Nordosten der Lakes auf einer Route zwischen dem Lake Ullswater und dem Helvellyn zwischen dem 23. Juni und 18.Juli 1863 entstanden sind. Beide Skizzenbücher dienten der Vorbereitung einer Serie von einhundert Holzstichen, die er für einen literarischen Reiseführer seiner Frau, der Schriftstellerin Eliza Lynn verfertigt hatte. 1864 war er in prächtiger Aufmachung unter dem Titel The Lake Country erschienen. Das Pictorial zeigt das komplette 13 x 8 cm grosse Pocket- Skizzenbuch im Zusammenhang mit den ausgeführten Stichen. -
APRIL 11 PICTORIAL
Documenting an excavation
Tell Munbaqa, Syria, Sept. 2010
by Theo de Feyter
In this series of drawings and paintings of the archaeological work at the ancient hill of Munbaqa in Syria Dutch artist and archaeologist Theo de Feyter caught the situations and atmosphere which are characteristic for this kind of activity. The images depict the working procedures of the Syrian labourers and the members of the excavation teams of the Technische Universität of Hamburg-Harburg and Martin-Luther-Universität Halle-Wittenberg, Germany. Tell Munbaqa is situated on the east side of Lake Assad. -
MARCH 11 PICTORIAL
Kyung-hwa Choi-Ahoi:
Suzanne von Borsody, Hamburg 18.02.2009
Ernst Deutsch Theater ( Stück: Spurensuche)
"Enzyklopädie Personae"
The series of drawings was made by the Korean artist Kyung-hwa Choi-Ahoi in the course of her "Enzyklopädie Personae"- project. Here she records the activities of the noted German actress Suzanne von Borsody behind the scenes of the Ernst Deutsch Theatre in Hamburg. -
FEBRUARY 11 PICTORIAL
The Monsters of Society
L´Assiette au Beurre No. 79, 4 Octobre 1902
by Charles Lucien Léandre
Following the traces of Honoré de Balzac, whose "Comédie humaine" was modelled on a theory of zoological species, Charles Lucien Léandre drafts a dire panorama of the Parisian Society as a freak show. His special edition for Samuel Schwarz´ anarchistic magazine "L Assiette au beurre" represents a late apocalyptic variation of a long tradition of caricatural menageries or bestiaries, which was shaped by graphic cycles of Grandville, Gustave Doré, Paul Hadol and Alfred Le Petit.
Léandre was one of the last students of the historical painter Alexandé Cabanel, whose lucid kind of "L'art pompier" is reflected in many of the monstrous sceneries. -
JANUARY 11 PICTORIAL
On Cotman´s Trail in Normandy
by Brigitte Pallast and Hans Lukas Lang
John Sell Cotman is mainly known for his groundbreaking retinal and neoclassical approach to landscape painting which showed him as an early precursor of Cezanne. In contrast, his huge body of etchings enjoys a rather bad reputation. It is said that his printed works, which he mainly executed in commission of his patron Dawson Turner, a banker and amateur antiquary, exhausted his creative and physical resources. Especially the one hundred etchings that he accomplished from 1817 - 20 for Dawson Turner´s "Architectural Antiquities of the Normandy" are made responsible for an outbreak of depressions. The degradation of Cotman´s printed work neglects the fact that his revolutionary painterly views mainly derived from his experiences as a graphic artist. His Normandy series, where he operated for the first time with the mobile camera lucida, show him at the crest of his artistic development.
Brigitte Pallast and Hans Lukas Lang, collaborators of the Melton Prior Institute, picked up the rather bulky travelogue from the collection and visited some of the spots that Cotman had depicted nearly two hundred years ago. The pictorial shows the meeting of two types of mobile cameras, the digital and the lit room one.
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DECEMBER 10 PICTORIAL
Robert Weaver VI
Book Illustrations
By Robert Weaver
"Weaver established the idea of the draughtsman being an equal to the writer of the text. He should have had a great influence on the world of text and image publishing, but for the most part, art directors and editors did not demand the kind of picture-writing that Weaver had in mind. In fact, few illustrators were capable of producing the sort of work he aspired to -- and so illustration remained a form of visual decoration for the page of text."
(Ben Katchor, Weaver as a teacher. 2005)
"I met Robert Weaver in September 1984 (..) The first thing I noticed about him was that he was white. I´d expected he´d be black" (Kevin McCloskey in: drawing/sva, december 1997)
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NOVEMBER 10 PICTORIAL
Kyung-hwa Choi-Ahoi:
Münir Camli, Hamburg 23.10.2010
Centrum Moschee / Neugraben Moschee
"Enzyklopädie Personae"
Die "Enzyklopädie Personae", ein `work in progress´ der koreanischen Künstlerin Kyung-hwa Choi-Ahoi, besteht mittlerweile aus 48 Din A 5 grossen Heften, in denen sie jeweils einen Tag lang Begegnungen mit Menschen aus ganz unterschiedlichen Zusammenhängen festhält. Am 23.10.2010 ist sie dem Imam der Centrum Moschee in Hamburg begegnet, dem Ort, an dem sie seit 1994 lebt.
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By now, the "Enzyklopädie Personae", a work in progress by Korean artist Kyung-hwa Choi-Ahoi, consists of 48 notebooks ( size A5), where she records her encounters with people from various contexts. On October 10, 2010 she met the imam of the Centrum Moschee in Hamburg, where she lives since 1994. -
OCTOBER 10 PICTORIAL
Burning Cetewayo´s house and other incidents of the British Zulu-War
by Melton Prior etc.
- encounter with a Zulu - punitive expedition - death of the Prince Imperial - Special Artists setting fire on a Kraal - the corpse of the Prince Imperial- Queen Victoria´s return from the Highlands in mourning - in search of King Cetewayo - the pursuit of Cetewayo - Cetewayo´s treasures - ambassadors from King Cetewayo to sue for peace - the captivity of Cetewayo - Cetewayo as a prisoner of war in Capetown - Zulu warriors dancing at The Folies Bergére - -
SEPTEMBER 10 PICTORIAL
Daumier and the Franco - Prussian "Dance of Death"
Honore Daumier - Henri Meyer - Fortune L. Meaulle - Eugene Damblans - Paul Iribe - Abel Faivr
Daumier´s late cartoons on the Franco-Prussian war are counted among his best. They were inspired by Alfred Rethel´s famous wood-cut cycle "Dance of Death" and of course by Goya´s visionary etchings. The future relationsships between the newly founded German Reich and its neighbour provoked series of imaginative adaptions by some influential graphic artists like Henri Meyer, who was one of the leading illustrators of the penny paper "Le Petit Journal" and Paul Iribe, the famous precursor of the Art Deco-movement.
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JULY 10 PICTORIAL
Meredith Nelson
Illustrated Russia
These drawings were made on-site on a stay in Moscow and the provincial towns around from July 08 to August 09 of 2009. The series focuses on Russia as a country of dramatic transitions, on the contrast between the remnants of its czarist and Soviet past and the current signs of a new global capitalist economy.
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JUNE 10 PICTORIAL
Robert Weaver V
Industrial Scenes II
By Robert Weaver
The image of "Fortune" was deeply connected with
a specific artistic American tradition of Social Realism. The Magazine was founded in 1939, in the era of the Great Depression and an art director like Leo Lionni, who was resonsible for the appearence of the magazine from 1940 on,updated this specific ethos by engaging illustrators like Robert Weaver, who continued the tradition of the "Masses" and the Ashcan School by sending artists on stories. "Lionni trusted the artist, and once he picked the right practitioner, he let him alone"
(Robert Weaver, in: Steven Heller, Innovators of American Illustration.1986) -
MARCH 10 PICTORIAL
Japanese prisoner-of- war camps
Ronald Searle - Jack Chalker - Charles Burki - Willy Muttelsee
Four different artists give pictorial informations about their experiences in Japanese prisoner-of- war camps: The German lance-corporal Willy Muttelsee spent four years, from 1916 - 1920, behind barbed wires in the refined atmosphere of the exemplary Bando camp on Shikoku island. The Dutch illustrator Charles Burki (1909 - 1994) was arrested in camp Fukuoka close to Nagasaki when the American A-bomb fell. The two British artists Jack Chalker (b.1918) and Ronald Searle (b.1920) experienced the brutal conditions in Changi Prison in the eastern part of Singapore and in the Thai-Burma Railway camps. -
FEBRUARY 10 PICTORIAL
The Art of Émile Cohl
Émile Cohl (born as Émile Courtet) had a preference for the graphic depictions of metamorphoses and puzzles of all kinds. His best cartoons are included in the caricature magazine "La Nouvelle Lune", which was founded by Cohls friend and mentor André Gill. After Gills mental breakdown in 1880 Cohl took on the editorship.
He also contributed to Edouard Drumont´s antisemitic journal "La Libre parole" -
JANUARY 10 PICTORIAL
Robert Weaver IV
Industrial Scenes I
By Robert Weaver
From the mid-fifties on, Robert Weaver made constant contributions to the famous business magazine "Fortune". "Fortune" kept a long tradition of brillant visual documentaries of industrial themes provided by artists like Walker Evans, Philip Guston, Robert Matta, Ben Shahn or Diego Rivera. -
NOVEMBER 09 PICTORIAL
The Art of "Petit Pierre"
Graphic Cycles of Théophile Steinlen
It was mainly Théophile Steinlen's merit of having transformed the rather jovial style of the late Daumier into an effective and dramatic means of expression for socialist class struggle.
The few cover illustrations which Steinlen made for "Le Chambard Socialiste" by using his anarchistic pen name "Petit Pierre" became milestones of the socialist art of the 20th century. "Petit Pierre" is a French translation of Steinlen or Steinlein. The name is of Swabian origin and is a diminutive form of "stone". He probably has chosen this pseudonym with an anti-church suggestion in mind.
The influence of his "Assiette au Beurre" classic, "La Vision de Hugo," (26.2.1902) on artists like Alfred Kubin and Willibald Krain can hardly be overestimated.
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OCTOBER 09 PICTORIAL
Robert Weaver III
Kennedy´s Last Chance to be President
Esquire Magazine. April, 1959
by Robert Weaver
In the end of 1958 famous graphic artist Robert Weaver was commissioned by the "Esquire Magazine" to accompany the Senate re-election campaign of John F. Kennedy with his sketch-pad and his pencil.
As usual Weaver reworked his hasty, but very decided sketches later in his studio. The striking drawing, showing J.F.K. from behind in his car became the illustrative part of the masthead of the MePri-Site. The handwritten dedication indicates that Weaver later gave this important sketch to his long time agent "Dick" Darwin Bahm, who also acted for the young illustrator Andrew Warhola. -
SEPTEMBER 09 PICTORIAL
Some Frightful War Pictures
London 1915
by William Heath Robinson
The art of William Heath Robinson can be qualified as an anarchic heightening of the inventions of the early masters of science fiction cartooning, of George Cruikshank and Albert Robida. In this collection of war cartoons, which appeared during the early stages of WWI, when the Trench warfare had just begun with its poison gas attacks, he created some of the most penetrative pictorial statements against the tragic absurdities of war.
B.P.
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JUNE 09 PICTORIAL
Karagoez
Türkisches Karikaturmagazin
Im Zeitschriftenarchiv Horst Moser, München befinden sich einige Beispiel früher Ausgaben des Satiremagazins "Karagöz", die Zeugnis ablegen von der hohen graphischen Qualität der osmanischen Karikatur zu Beginn des 20. Jhds. Die Anziehungskraft und Popularität von Karikaturmagazinen hält auch heute noch in der türkischen Gesellschaft unvermindert an.
Die beiden Protagonisten der 1908, nach der Wiedereinführung der Verfassung und der Aufhebung eines jahrzehntelangen Karikaturverbots im osmanischen Reich gegründeten Satirezeitschrift sind dem traditionellen osmanischen Schattentheater entlehnt: Der tölpelhafte und draufgängerische Karagöz (Schwarzauge) und sein Kumpel, der gebildete und besonnene Hacivad.
Abbildungen: Horst Moser/ Übersetzungen: Kinay Olcaytu -
JUNE 09 PICTORIAL
Lagerbuch / Prison Camp Book
Ksar-es-Souk , 1944 - 1947
von Heinz Zantis
Das Album von Heinz Zantis zählt wegen seiner stilistischen Vielfalt zu den interessantesten Exemplaren einer Sammlung von Lagerbüchern des MePri. Geführt wurde es in der Art eines Poesiealbums. Zantis war von 1944 bis 1947 in einem Sonderlager der französischen Exilregierung für deutsche Unteroffiziere in Ksar-es-Souk in Marokko inhaftiert.Das Buch umfasst 35 Seiten (21,5 x 19,5 cm) -
MAY 09 PICTORIAL
Ikonolog
Baum
Bleistift auf Papier, Digitalcollage, 2007/08
von Matthias Reinhold
Der Bilderstrang aus Matthias Reinholds "Ikonolog" (www.ikonolog.de) repräsentiert den rhizomatischen Strukturgedanken dieses Zeichnungsprojekts, das auf infinite Durchlässigkeit und Verästelung aus ist. Aperspektivische, organismische Raumerfahrungen und Beobachtungen vegetativen Wachstums verbinden sich hier auf poetische Weise mit analytischen Feldern der technischen Konstruktions- und Explosionsgrafik, mit Zeichenweisen also, die auf chirurgische Weise funktionale Zusammenhänge offen legen.
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APRIL 09 PICTORIAL
World War I: Flanders III
"Kriegsbriefe"
by Theodor Rocholl
At the age of over sixty, Theodor Rocholl ended his long career as a war artist taking part in the First World War. In his War Letters from the west front in Flanders, which were printed in 1916, he did not avoid describing fear and destruction. However, in the gouaches and watercolours of this propaganda publication, he conveyed the impression of belonging to the idyllists of a war who in the centres of confrontation knew nothing of green boy scout romanticism anymore. That this was not the case is revealed by a number of unpublished works in the collection of the Stadtmuseum Hofgeismar that with rare ruthlessness also depict the hardships of this war. -
MARCH 09 PICTORIAL
World War I: Flanders II
Aquarelle (Watercolours)
by Adolf Hitler
This portfolio with a small selection of watercolours, which Adolf Hitler painted in the course of his military service during World War I, was edited about 1935 by his official photographer Heinrich Hoffmann. It is assumed that Hitler was involved in the editing process. Even so, shortly after the appearance he withdrew and stopped the delivery. The seven collotype reproductions mainly show architectural motifs in Flanders. He apparently had a preference for romantic ruins and deserted sites. In his technique Hitler tried to follow the example of his favourite artist, the famous Viennese veduta painter Rudolf Ritter von Alt.
The period of World War I marked a last heyday of the long tradition of graphic reporting and the art of watercolour, with artists like François Flameng, John Singer Sargent and the late Theodor Rocholl as their most excellent purveyors.
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JANUARY 09 PICTORIAL
Landschaftsalbum vom Kriegsschauplatz (1870)
Berlin - Hamburg, 1871
von Eugen Krüger
Die Mappe mit insgesamt sechsunddreissig
grossformatigen Darstellungen von verlassenen Schlachtfeldern des preussisch-französischen Kriegs erschien im Herbst 1871, circa ein halbes Jahr nach der französischen Kapitulation. Gedruckt wurde sie in vier der führenden lithographischen Anstalten Deutschlands, u.a. bei W. Korn & Co. in Berlin und Charles Fuchs in Hamburg.
Die Raffiniertheit der Bildfindungen, die zwischen kühler Sachlickeit und spätromantischer Schauerlicheit changieren, so wie die Brillanz der druckgraphischen Ausführungen markieren einen nie wieder erreichten Höhepunkt auf dem Gebiet der künstlerischen Chromolithographie. Der früh verstorbene Hamburger Lithograph und Maler Eugen Krüger hatte sich zu Mitte der sechziger Jahre bereits mit atmosphärisch dichten Tier-und Jagdszenen einen Namen gemacht, als er den Auftrag zu diesem Mappenwerk erhielt. In dem erfindungsreichen künstlerischen Umgang mit dem fotografischen Abbild und der subtilen Integration von zeichnerischen Elementen, die vor Ort entstanden sind, ist sein künstlerischer Ansatz durchaus vergleichbar mit dem von anderen, ungleich erfolgreicheren Kollegen gleichen Alters wie Gustave Doré oder Edouard Manet.
In der Sammlung des MePri befinden sich achtzehn Blätter dieses raren Albums, einige davon sind handsigniert.
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DECEMBER 08 PICTORIAL
CS: Neurologische Versuchslabore
Affenversuche Bremen
Universität Bremen; September 2003
von Alexander Roob
Der Streit um Tierversuche zwischen dem Bremer Senat und der Uni eskaliert.Weil sie »ethisch nicht gerechtfertigt« seien, will der Bremer Senat dem Hirnforscher Andreas Kreiter seine umstrittenen Affenversuche an der Bremer Universität endgültig verbieten; die Hochschule pocht dagegen auf die Forschungsfreiheit und will bis vor das Bundesverfassungsgericht ziehen. Das Schicksal des Wissenschaftlers und seiner 24 Makakenäffchen wird damit zum Präzedenzfall. An ihm entscheidet sich, wie es künftig um die Ansprüche von Tierschützern und die Rechte von Forschern in Deutschland bestellt ist.
(DIE ZEIT, 20.11.2008) -
NOVEMBER 08 PICTORIAL
Amtsgericht Hamburg Mitte / Archiv
12 Bleistiftzeichnungen
von Henrik Hold
Einer so genannten Arbeitsgelegenheit mit Mehraufwandsentschädigung verdankt der Hamburger Zeichner Henrik Hold seine intimen Einblicke in die kafkaeske Untergrundwelt des örtlichen Amtsgerichts. Sämtliche Zeichnungen sind im Frühjahr 2007 vor Ort entstanden.(Im Textem Verlag, Hamburg ist eine Publikation erschienen, die diese Zeichnungsreihe im Duotondruck reproduziert.) -
OCTOBER 08 PICTORIAL
Original Drawings and Print Versions in the MePri - Collections # I
1812 - 1902
Drawings by Albrecht Adam, Paul Gavarni, Hubert von Herkomer, Frederic Theodore Lix, William Simpson, Melton Prior, Joseph Pennell and their representations in the Pictorial Press. -
SEPTEMBER 08 PICTORIAL
Skizzen aus der Anatomie
Oktober 1989 - Januar 1990
von Bernhard Kucken
Einige Beispiele aus einem Zeichenzyklus, der in einem Präparierkurs der Anatomischen Fakultät der Uni Düsseldorf entstanden ist.
"Bis auf wenige Blätter im DinA3-Format sind alle Skizzen mittels 2B, 6B TK-Stiften auf DinA4-Briefpapier gezeichnet. Mit meinem umgehängten Zeichenbrett konnte und musste ich meinen Standpunkt zwischen den präparierenden Studierenden jederzeit meinem Interesse und geeigneten Blickrichtungen anpassen."
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Some examples from a drawing cycle, made on location in a dissecting course of the Anatomy Department of Düsseldorf University at the end of 1989.
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JULY 08 PICTORIAL
Becheret Palmach
1948/50
von Menachem Sofer
The book, published in a small edition in Israel in the early 1950s, is dedicated to the memory of the "Palmach" member Menachem Sofer. In 1948, during the Palestinian War, Sofer fought in this paramilitary unit of the Jewish underground organization "Hagana" and two years later became the victim of a lethal landmine accident.
In his drawings, he describes his everyday life as a military police officer and reports on the events of this first Arab-Israeli war. The extremely idiosyncratic, posthumous compilation contains, apart from Popeye-like cartoons of army-life and documentary sketches, examples of Sofers ambitious artistic work. The then 16-year-old had to postpone his plans to apply to an art academy due to his military service.
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Das Buch, das zu Anfang der fünfziger Jahre in
kleiner Auflage in Israel erschienen war, ist dem Andenken an das "Palmach"-Mitglied Menachem Sofer gewidmet. Sofer hatte 1948 während des Palästinakriegs in dieser paramilitärischen Einsatztruppe der jüdischen Untergrundorganisation "Hagana" gekämpft und war zwei Jahre später Opfer eines tödlichen Landminen-Unfalls geworden.In seinen Zeichnungen beschreibt er seinen Alltag als Militärpolizist und reportiert Ereignisse aus diesem ersten arabisch-israelischen Krieg. Die äußert eigenwillige posthume Zusammenstellung enthält neben Popeye-artigem Komisscartooning und dokumentarischen Skizzen auch Beispiele aus Sofers ambitionierterem künstlerischen Werk. Der damals Sechzehnjährige hatte mit seinem Militärdienst den Plan, sich auf einer Kunstakademie zu bewerben, zurückstellen müssen. -
JUNE 08 PICTORIAL
Tracing #2
News
1997-2007
Reinhard Doubrawa
Reinhard Doubrawa arbeitet seit 1997 an seiner «News»-Serie, einer fortlaufenden Reihe von Freihandzeichnungen, die nach Fotos des Nachrichtenmagazins «Der Spiegel» entstehen.
Die Motive rücken das globale Zeitgeschehen in den Blick und erscheinen von der Spiegel-Redaktion gefiltert und thematisch inszeniert auf dem Höhepunkt ihrer Aktualität.
Spätestens mit der neuen Ausgabe werden die Meldungen und Berichte jedoch von jüngeren verdrängt und geraten in Vergessenheit. Es erscheint zunächst als ein Widerspruch, vergängliche Medienbilder, die meist dazu dienen, eine inhaltliche These zu stützen oder auf einen Text aufmerksam zu machen, mit Feder und Tusche abzuzeichnen. «Ich schreibe die Bilder nochmal ab», beschreibt Reinhard Doubrawa seine Arbeitsweise und enthebt die Motive damit ihrer Natur als vergängliche Massenware. So entsteht ein Querschnitt durch die Gesellschaft und jüngere Zeitgeschichte. Politiker und Prominente tauchen ebenso auf wie anonyme Laborarbeiter oder Konsumenten, spektakuläre Motive wechseln sich mit weniger eindrucksvollen ab. Die Zeichnungen sind Teil des globalen Bildgedächtnisses und führen uns unsere mediale Zeitzeugenschaft vor Augen.
Maria Anna Tappeiner
Tusche auf Karton, je: 30,5 x 21,5 cm
(Unter dem Titel "News" ist 2004 eine Dokumentation dieses Zeichenprojekts im Salon Verlag, Köln erschienen.) -
MAY 08 PICTORIAL
Tracing #1
«Superdocumenta»
1994
Clemens Krümmel
«Superdocumenta» was created in the winter of 1994, on an invitation by Gunter Reski, as a contribution to the Hamburg-related text reader «Team Compendium - Selfmade Matches. Selbstorganisation Bereich Kunst», ed. by Rita Baukrowitz and Karin Günther. Initially supposed to be a written text on the actuality of the curatorial principle developed by Harald Szeemann for documenta 5, the contribution was done at a safe distance from suitable libraries on contemporary art, and with no Google or internet support whatsoever.The essay is mostly based on a heap of photocopied reviews and a copy of the legendary orange plastic file that was used instead of a catalogue for documenta 5 (1972), carried along by the author to a study sojourn in Italy. It seemed remarkable that all of the reviews used more or less the same images. Thus, a critical approach on the pictorial level - in the manner of a 1970s student zine - seemed more fitting than any more affirmative looking essay that was only written text. The ants meandering through these eight pictorial pages are gleaned from the catalogue file's cover. There they arrange their bodies, in the style of a Maoist dancing troupe, to form a huge «5».<br />
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APRIL 08 PICTORIAL
Salzburger Fusseln
von Thorsten Streichardt
Die hier auf Videostills zu erkennenden minimalen Zeichnungen des in Berlin lebenden Künstlers Thorsten Streichardt entstanden vor zwei Jahren im Rahmen eines Salzburg-Aufenthalts. Streichardt, der zuvor stärker in skupturalen und installativen Modi an so etwas wie einer Pathologie des Bürokratismus gearbeitet hat, interessiert sich für Zeichnung als ein psychophysisches Medium der Welterfahrung, das er in bewusst regressiver Geste mit dem und gegen das von ihm gleichzeitig verwendeten technischen Bildmedium Video einsetzt. Wie in einer Karikatur des postmodernen Gemeinplatzes Kamera-als-Phallus/Kamera-als-Gewehr bastelt er hier Kamera und Zeichenstift zusammen, und so sind Zeichnung und Aufzeichnung aufs Innigste miteinander verbunden. Mit dieser Vorrichtung bewehrt macht sich Streichardt in die Reste öffentlichen Stadtraums auf, die es an einem Ort wie Salzburg noch geben mag, bringt kaum sichtbar fusselartige Bleistiftmarkierungen an und entfaltet den semantischen Raum des Zeichnens und Bezeichnens - wird dabei aber (nicht gänzlich unerwartet) nach wenigen Minuten von den Repräsentanten staatlicher Ordnungsmacht gestört.
