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worldofartbysue.bsky.social
World Of Art By Sue
@worldofartbysue.bsky.social
1.1K followers 2.4K following 1K posts
History of Art for everyone (themes change monthly)! Other interests include: world history, genealogy, books, photography, gardening, (US) football and dinosaurs. Life goal: to learn something new every day. Degree in Art History from McGill University
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World Of Art By Sue @worldofartbysue.bsky.social · Nov 14
Hello, Blue Skyers! My account is to bring the joy and beauty of Art to everyone, along with a little background info on each piece featured. I look forward to connecting with you here in the civilized space that is Blue Sky! ~ Sue
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February's theme: Olympics Posters
1932 LAKE PLACID GAMES. Designer: Witold Gordon (1885 – 1968).
Born in Warsaw, Poland, Gordon eventually settled in New York City.
#arthistory #art #OlympicGames #graphicdesign
Born in Warsaw, Poland, Gordon eventually settled in New York City. He worked with Donald Deskey, who designed the interiors for Radio City Music Hall, and created two murals in 1932 for that iconic landmarked building in New York City. Gordon’s murals and illustrations were in the Modernist style. His design for the 1932 Lake Placid games is beautiful in its simplicity: a ski jumper in silhouette soars across a map of the United States, with the location of Lake Placid prominently marked.
February 4, 2026 at 4:00 PM
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February's theme: Olympics Posters
1928 ST. MORITZ GAMES. Designer: Hugo Laubi (1888 – 1959).
#arthistory #art #OlympicGames #WinterOlympics
Hugo Laubi was a Swiss graphic artist who studied in Munich, Paris and London before returning to his homeland, where he established a long career creating advertising and Swiss tourism posters as well as illustrations for magazines and other publications. His winning design for the 1928 official Winter Olympics in St. Moritz was the first time the Olympic rings appear on an official publication. His design also prominently displays the Swiss flag and the snow-capped peak of Piz Corvatsch in the Grison Alps.
February 3, 2026 at 3:34 PM
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#AlphabetChallenge
#WeekEforEponymous
#Photography
The Getty Villa, Los Angeles, California
A view looking towards the Getty Villa from the gardens. The museum houses a collection of ancient Greek and Roman antiquities in a villa that mimics an ancient Roman country villa. The Getty Villa is named after the oil tycoon and art collector J. Paul Getty.
February 2, 2026 at 5:17 PM
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February's theme: Olympics posters
1924 CHAMONIX-MT. BLANC GAMES. Designer: Auguste Matisse (1866 – 1931).
Auguste Matisse (not related to the famous French artist Henri Matisse) submitted designs for the 1924 Chamonix-Mt. Blanc Games and also for the 1928 Paris Games.
#arthistory #art #Olympics
The Winter Olympic Games were not officially created until 1925, and the 1924 games were called the International Winter Sports Week. This poster was sponsored by the railway company PLM (Paris-Lyon-Mediterranee) to promote the week of events. Matisse designed a poster featuring an eagle above a bobsled track (love that bobsled!) in an alpine setting. The eagle holds a palm branch and a crown of victory, tied with a French tri-colour ribbon, in its talon. In 1926, the IOC (International Olympic Committee) retroactively declared the 1924 Chamonix-Mt. Blanc event to be the First Winter Olympic Games.
February 2, 2026 at 5:04 PM
Reposted by World Of Art By Sue
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Attention Alphabetters!
This is your reminder that Monday 2 Feb is the beginning of Week E and the #AlphabetChallenge theme is Eponymous. We will be using the term very loosely so that’s stuff named after people! Eiffel Tower, Achilles Heel, Andrews Liver Salts etc 😂 Use the # below and have fun😊
February 1, 2026 at 6:02 PM
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New month, new theme!
February's theme: Olympics Posters
1912 STOCKHOLM GAMES. Designer: Olle Hjortzberg (1872 – 1959).
#arthistory #art #Olympics #posters
Although the modern Olympic Games began in Athens in 1896, it was not until 1912 at the Stockholm games that an official poster became a thing. Olle Hjortzberg was a Swedish painter and illustrator, whose artistic claim to fame rests with his large-scale murals of Christian subjects (usually found in churches). His design for the 1912 poster caused shock and was loudly criticized for his nude athletes (the poster was actually banned in China!), in spite of the strategic placement of decorative ribbons. His design of athletes with their swirling national flags was chosen by the Swedish Olympic committee following a contest open to Swedish artists. The poster was originally printed in eight languages, but at the request of various countries this was expanded to 16 languages. Early on, the official poster was a primary means of getting information about the Games out to the global population.
February 1, 2026 at 6:05 PM
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January's theme: Sculpture
MAYA LIN (b. 1959), “Marble Chesapeake & Delaware Bay”, 2022. Installation at Virginia Museum of Contemporary Art, Virginia Beach, Virginia US.
#arthistory #art #sculpture #MayaLin
The American Maya Lin shot to fame in 1981 when her design for the proposed Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington DC was accepted while she was still an architecture student at Yale University. Her public monuments are minimalist in style but maximalist in impact and are always sensitive to their relationship with the surrounding landscapes. Environmental issues have been a core part of Lin’s sensibility since she was a child. “Marble Chesapeake & Delaware Bay” is an installation piece made up of 54,000 glass marbles glued in place to recreate the structure of the largest estuary in the United States. The marbles flow across the floor and up the walls of the space. Lin drew the waterway form from satellite imagery provided by NASA. This beautiful, visual installation presents the Chesapeake as a single, living ecosystem. The watery blue marbles point to a clean water system, free from pollution and environmental damage.
January 31, 2026 at 4:42 PM
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January's theme: Sculpture
ANISH KAPOOR (born 1954), “Cloud Gate”, 2004. Millennium Park, Chicago, Illinois US.
#arthistory #art #sculpture #AnishKapoor #Chicago
The Indian-born Kapoor moved to London in the early 1970s and has made the UK his base of operations ever since. His sculptural and architectural/sculptural collaborations are primarily large-scale outdoor works. Several of them, such as “Cloud Gate”, are made with reflective polished stainless steel surfaces. “Cloud Gate” – affectionately known as “The Bean” to Chicagoans – was Kapoor’s first permanent outdoor public installation in the US. It is located in the lakeside Millennium Park and serves as an entry to the park, although it has become a popular destination on its own. The mirrored surface of “Cloud Gate” reflects and distorts its surroundings: the Chicago skyline, the green space of the park, the crowds of selfie-taking visitors and the sky and clouds above. It is 33’ high, 42” wide and 66’ long and weighs about 110 tons. Visitors can walk around the structure and through it. Kapoor explains: “Chicago is a very vertical city, and I wanted to make a horizontal sculpture that would draw in the clouds as well as the buildings”. By the way, the artist says that he likes “The Bean” nickname for his sculpture and even calls it that himself!
January 30, 2026 at 4:25 PM
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January's theme: Sculpture
CLAES OLDENBURG (1929 – 2022) & COOSJE VAN BRUGGEN (1949 - 2009), “Dropped Cone”, 2001. Neumarkt Galerie, Cologne, Germany.
#arthistory #art #sculpture #oldenburg #vanbruggen #icecream
Claes Oldenburg and Coosje van Bruggen brought humor and fun to serious sculpting. The Swedish-born Oldenburg (who grew up in Chicago) and Dutch-born van Bruggen married in 1977 and set up residence in New York City; both became American citizens. They collaborated on what they called “Large-Scale Projects”, creating monumental public art installations featuring mundane items: bowling pins, garden trowel, typewriter eraser, clothespin, bow and arrow, to name just a few. Their sculptures are made of steel and brightly colored. “Dropped Cone” is one of their collaborations that was commissioned for the roof of a department store in the Neumarkt area of Cologne, Germany. The shape of the upside-down ice cream cone (slowly melting over the roof edge) recalls the many church spires in Cologne, which has been called “the city of steeples”. “Dropped Cone” measures 39 feet tall.
January 29, 2026 at 4:18 PM
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January's theme: Sculpture
LOUISE BOURGEOIS (1911 – 2010), “Maman”, 1999. Tate Modern, London UK.
“The spider is a repairer. If you bash into the web of a spider, she doesn’t get mad. She weaves and repairs it.” - Louise Bourgeois.
#arthistory #art #sculpture #LouiseBourgeois
The original “Maman” sculpture was commissioned for London’s brand new Tate Modern museum in May 2000; Bourgeois was the inaugural artist for that event. This “Maman” was constructed of steel and marble (for the 17 eggs contained in the steel egg sac beneath the body) and is the largest of Bourgeois many spider statues; subsequent bronze casts of “Maman” were made and these tour the world for special installations. Bourgeois’ spiders honor her mother and refer not only to a mother’s strength and protective nurturing but also specifically to her own mother’s role in managing the family workshop for their tapestry repair business (hence, a weaver like the spider). Her father’s infidelity left deep emotional scars and Bourgeois was quoted as saying that her work was a way for her to work through her childhood emotional trauma. Although Bourgeois has been hailed as a feminist artist, she herself described her work as “pre-gender”, neither feminine nor masculine. In addition to her sculptures, Louise Bourgeois was also a prolific painter and printmaker (but I love her spiders the most).
January 28, 2026 at 4:15 PM
Reposted by World Of Art By Sue
sheena-mck.bsky.social
Attention Alphabetters!
This is your reminder that Monday 26 Jan is the beginning of Week D and the theme for the #AlphabetChallenge is Dramatic. Theatrical, striking, sudden, emotional, or exciting etc - choose any sense of the word. Be creative! Use the # below and have fun 😊
January 25, 2026 at 5:59 PM
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January's theme: sculpture
NAM JUNE PAIK (1932 – 2006) “Watchdog II”, 1997. Private collection.
Hailed as “the father of video art”, Nam June Paik was a true visionary who incorporated music, performance, technology and film into his artistic practice.
#arthistory #art #sculpture #NamJunePaik
Nam June Paik recognized, at an early stage, the possibilities of mass media and emerging technologies and predicted the impact of global networking through communications before the internet was a thing. Born in Korea, he settled in the United States in 1964 after spending time in Japan (where he trained as a classical musician) and West Germany; his travels, and the connections he made with a wide variety of artists, gave him a uniquely transcultural mindset. But it was a fascination with technology that drove his art. He was an important part of the influential neo-Dada avant-garde group Fluxus that gave him worldwide exposure. “Watchdog II” is one of his “robot” pieces with multiple color television sets (13 in all) of various sizes fixed to an aluminum framework in the shape of a dog. The tv sets play a closed-circuit video loop with images of dogs. The dog’s tail has a surveillance camera at the end and its ears are made of loud speakers. Paik’s creations are entertaining and exhibit his sense of humor; they are also visionary and prescient in their predictions for the future of art.
January 27, 2026 at 3:46 PM
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January's theme: Sculpture
JACK WHITTEN (1939 - 2018), “The Afro American Thunderbolt”, 1983-84. Estate of Jack Whitten.
#arthistory #art #sculpture #JackWhitten
(Detail) Whitten was well-known and respected for his abstract panels that honored figures from African-American history and for his innovative use of handmade acrylic tesserae in the construction of his paintings. But the art world was stunned when it learned in 2017 that Whitten had also been making sculptures privately for over four decades. The sculptures were a highly personal endeavor undertaken during the artist’s summers in Crete with family and were not made to be sold or exhibited. Whitten stated: “The sculptures are the main influence on the painting.” Intellectually curious throughout his entire life, Whitten studied African sculptural practices and blended his findings with the Minoan and Cycladic forms found in Greece and Crete. “The Afro American Thunderbolt” melds his own history as an African-American with his adopted history of ancient Greece (his wife is of Greek heritage): it brings to mind the powerful Zeus hurling a thunderbolt while simultaneously referencing West African Kongo power figures (“nkisi”) in which metal objects are embedded into wooden forms for healing and protective purposes “The Afro American Thunderbolt” is carved from black mulberry wood (locally sourced in Crete) with copper plates attached on the ends and metal nails and objects inserted into sections of the wood. In the nkisi, the metal pieces are embedded to remember specific historical events or rites so that the power figure becomes an historical record of sorts (with the actual history perhaps known only to the craftsman). Whitten’s sculpture is set upon two tall metal bars that appear as legs – a reference, perhaps, to the Greek Zeus of Artemision statue from 460 BCE (in the National Archaeological Museum of Athens) that we looked at here in the beginning of January. The compte sculpture, including "legs".
January 26, 2026 at 5:16 PM
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January's theme: Sculpture
LOUISE NEVELSON (1899 - 1988), “Big Black”, 1963. Museum of Modern Art, New York City US.
#arthistory #art #sculpture #LouiseNevelson
Louise Nevelson’s preferred medium for her sculptures was wood – perhaps inevitable, since her father ran a lumberyard in Maine, where the family settled in 1905 after emigrating from Ukraine. Her style of sculpture is assemblage sculpture, using found wooden items and arranging them into new relationships within the confines of compartmentalized boxes (also, usually, found). She scavenged her surroundings and salvaged wooden scraps of interesting and unusual shapes – broken balustrades, moldings, dowels and furniture parts – and then formed individual vignettes in discarded crates and wooden boxes that were stacked to become the structural skeleton of her piece. Like “Big Black”, Nevelson then coated the construction with a matte, black paint, creating a study of light and shadow and establishing a unified relationship between disparate parts that was not apparent beforehand. Some of her assemblages were painted white or gold, but all were monochrome to allow the focus to remain on the shapes and structure itself. A Nevelson sculpture exhibits influences from Cubism, Surrealism, Dada and Minimalism but in a completely new form that defies categorization other than as a Nevelson.
January 25, 2026 at 6:21 PM
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January's theme: Sculpture
DAME BARBARA HEPWORTH (1903 – 1975), “Sea Form”, 1958. Tate Museum, London UK.
#arthistory #art #sculpture #Hepworth
You may have noticed that this month of Sculpture has so far presented work primarily by male artists. I promise you that I have not been ignoring female sculptors but this points out the reality that innovative female sculptors were few and far between. Until the 20th century, that is. And, fortunately for art history, the 20th and 21st centuries have produced amazingly creative female sculptors; we will start with the British artist Barbara Hepworth. A close friend of the sculptor Henry Moore, Hepworth had a similar focus on exploring abstraction in her sculptures but, whereas Moore retained the vestiges of a human form in his abstracted works, she went all in. Starting in the 1930s, she was the first sculptor to incorporated piercings or voids in her works as compositional elements. She was also a practitioner of direct carving, as opposed to using smaller models or plaster casts to fine-tune her forms before committing to the final stone. Her forms, as exemplified by “Sea Form (Porthmeor)” are overwhelmingly sensuous and organic, with a keen sense of spatial relationships. Porthmeor is a beach located close by her studio in Cornwall and “Sea Form (Porthmeor)” immediately conjures up images of rhythmic tides and natural forms discovered in the sand. The mottled bronze patina of the piece echoes the colors and textures of the sea and surf, with the top lip curling over like a breaking wave.
January 24, 2026 at 4:30 PM
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January's theme: Sculpture
HENRY MOORE (1898 – 1986), “Three Standing Figures”, 1953. Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York City US.
#arthistory #art #sculpture #HenryMoore
The British artist Henry Moore is most famous for his monumental bronze sculptures set in landscape settings. His sculptures – often of females – became increasingly abstracted through his long career but he always retained the essence of the core figure. “Three Standing Figures” from 1953 is not one of his monumental works, which are generally of a single figure, but it is an interesting exploration of geometric and biomorphic shapes on a single pedestal. In 1947, Moore created a similar group of three figures, with the same title, but in the earlier piece his figures are somewhat more conventional, in that they have obvious female forms covered in drapery; the 1947 sculpture, moreover, exudes a psychological tension from the placement of two figures closer together while the third figure is more set apart. By 1953, the artist focused more on the geometric composition of the three bodies, which are still inherently female. His interest in the skeletal armature of the human body informed the structure of his figures. As his career progressed, Moore’s forms became increasingly organic and flowing, incorporating more and more open space that often formed a “peephole” through which to glimpse a feature of the surrounding landscape. From the late 1940s, Moore employed bronze casting as a favored creative method over stone carving. He preferred how resilient the bronze pieces were when placed outdoors and felt that, overall, bronze offered more flexibility for his designs.
January 23, 2026 at 2:24 PM
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#AlphabetChallenge
#WeekCforCloseUp
#Photography
Rooftop decor at Gaudi's Casa Batllò in Barcelona
A decorative cross-shaped form with nearby mosaics and other roof embellishments from Gaudi's exquisite Casa Batllò in the Eixample neighborhood of Barcelona, Italy.
January 22, 2026 at 4:48 PM
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January's theme: Sculpture
ALBERTO GIACOMETTI (1901 – 1966), “The Dog”, 1951 (cast in 1957). Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Smithsonian Institution, Washington DC.
#arthistory #art #sculpture
Like many of his generation, Giacometti was marked by deep disillusionment and collective trauma from his experiences during World War II. His sculptures reflect his mindset: his figures appear gaunt, vulnerable, fragile and anxious. His human forms are elongated and spindly, and beautiful. Born in Switzerland into a family of artists, Giacometti began his artistic studies with drawing and painting but soon gravitated to sculpture as his preferred medium. A move to Rome in 1921 exposed him to classical Greek and Roman sculptures and he began to narrow his own focus to the human silhouette. He only made three animal sculptures – of a cat, a dog, and two horses – which all exemplify the Giacometti style. “The Dog” was a work that Giacometti stated that he made after experiencing an emotional crisis. The dog’s forlorn posture and emaciated frame mirror the artist’s moment of despair, but he keeps moving forward as did the artist. Giacometti’s sculptures, even his few animal ones, are intensely observed studies of the human condition.
January 22, 2026 at 4:45 PM
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#AlphabetChallenge
#WeekCforCloseUp
#Rain
#Photography
#MacroPhotography
Raindrops on a window
Hard-edged raindrops on a window. I like how the landscape outside creates blurred color sections as a background.
January 21, 2026 at 8:14 PM
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#AlphabetChallenge
#WeekCforCloseUp
#Chihuly
#Photography
Close up of a riot of color and shape from the inimitable Dale Chihuly
A detail of an installation by Dale Chihuly of swirling, vibrant glass - a study of color and shape.
January 21, 2026 at 6:02 PM
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January's theme: Sculpture
UMBERTO BOCCIONI (1882 – 1916), “Unique Forms of Continuity in Space”, 1913 (bronze cast, 1950). Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York City US.
#arthistory #art #sculpture
“Dynamism” was the guiding force of Italian Futurism, and Boccioni was a principal figure (and primary theorist) of that avant-garde movement. He began as a painter but in 1912 decided to focus on sculpture. Italian Futurism was obsessed with speed and mechanical power. Boccioni’s “Unique Forms of Continuity in Space” is indeed a dynamic form of a figure moving at speed in space, reminding me of the comic book hero The Flash. (Futurists were also very creative with their titling of their works.) The artist’s rebellious nature and embrace of socialism led him to envision nothing less than the complete restructuring of society. He and the Futurists welcomed Italy’s entry into World War I, believing that the technological advances of modern warfare would break his country’s preoccupation with the past and usher in a truly forward-looking leadership. Unfortunately, Boccioni was yet another innovative young artist who was killed in action during this devastating conflict. At the time of his death, “Unique Forms of Continuity in Space” only existed as a plaster form; it was cast in bronze posthumously.
January 21, 2026 at 5:59 PM
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#AlphabetChallenge
#WeekCforCloseUp
#Photography
#Florida
Yellow seaweed on very blue water
A swathe of yellow seaweed creates a stripe against brilliant blue waters off of Key West, Florida
January 20, 2026 at 11:45 PM
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#AlphabetChallenge
#WeekCforCloseUp
#Barcelona
An upbeat sign that made me smile in El Born neighborhood of Barcelona: "Great butt".
January 20, 2026 at 4:17 PM
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January's theme: Sculpture
HENRI GAUDIER-BRZESKA (1891 - 1915), “Bird Swallowing a Fish”, c. 1913. Tate Museum, London UK.
World War I ended the promise seen in the eclectic stylings of Gaudier-Brzeska: he was killed while serving in the French Army at the age of 23.
#arthistory #art #Sculpture
He absorbed all of the new directions swirling around the art world in France and England, where he settled in 1911 after his family disapproved of his relationship with the Polish writer, Sophie Brzeska. Although they never married, Henri added her surname to his own. In London, he reveled in what he saw in the British Museum and was particularly drawn to the artifacts from West Africa and the Pacific Islands that he discovered there. Gaudier-Brzeska eschewed the highly finished, polished style of his contemporary sculptors and instead embraced a rougher, earthy, more direct physical carving style in which the tool marks become integral parts of the piece. His interest in Cubism is evident in “Bird Swallowing a Fish” with its geometric figuring and angular composition. There is a tension in this figure as the bird attempts to eat a fish that does not seem to be cooperating. The styling is both primitive and oh, so modern. What a tragedy that the world did not get more years of Gaudier-Brzeska’s talent.
January 20, 2026 at 4:00 PM
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#AlphabetChallenge
#WeekCforCloseUp
#Spain
#Fishing
Zebra trout in the Pyrenees
Hubby showing off his catch of the day: a zebra trout caught in a stream high in the Pyrenees in Spain.
January 20, 2026 at 12:04 AM