World Of Art By Sue
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World Of Art By Sue
@worldofartbysue.bsky.social
1K followers 2.3K following 920 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
worldofartbysue.bsky.social
#AlphabetChallenge
#WeekWforWindows
#Photography
#Spain
Windows at Principe Pio train station in Madrid, Spain
Spain has made a big investment in updating her train stations while retaining the beauty of the original architecture. The windows at one of Madrid's three main train stations, Principe Pio, create a geometric design when photographed looking out from the station interior.
December 3, 2025 at 5:07 PM
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JASPER JOHNS (born 1930), “Three Flags”, 1958. Whitney Museum of American Art, New York City US.
Johns painted his first American flag painting in 1954; it was to become one of his most enduring motifs.
#arthistory #art #PopArt #JasperJohns
So far this month, we have looked at Pop Art that broke boundaries by using mass media images of consumer products and celebrities as a means of raising the mundane to high art. Johns took the common flag image and endowed it with new meaning as an art object. He painted “Three Flags” on three separate canvases, then stacked them with the smallest canvas on top so that it is closest to the viewer. He used one of his favorite techniques, encaustic, which is a mixture of pigment in warm wax (he kept the mixture on a hot plate while creating the painting). The encaustic gives the canvas a textural quality, and a softness of hue, in which every brushstroke becomes visible. Johns was fond of repeated motifs – flags, targets, numbers, to name just a few – which can read as obsession when all of the paintings are together in one location. Johns’ flag becomes more than a symbol (although it does not lose its patriotic symbology); we now also see its geometry and design elements as part of a work of art. These flags have 48 stars because the states of Alaska and Hawaii were not yet part of the United States in 1958.
December 3, 2025 at 5:01 PM
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#AlphabetChallenge
#WeekWforWindows
#Photography
#Bilbao
More interior window magic from Frank Gehry's Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao, Spain.
A kaleidoscope of windows and walls inside Gehry's amazing architecture at the Bilbao Guggenheim Museum. The feathery item on the left is Claes Oldenburg's "Soft Shuttle Cock" sculpture, hanging over an upstairs floor landing.
December 2, 2025 at 6:13 PM
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December's theme: Pop Art
RAY JOHNSON (1927 – 2002), “Elvis Presley #1 (Oedipus)”, 1956-58. Art Institute of Chicago, Illinois US.
To make this work, Ray Johnson began with a photograph of Elvis Presley in profile.
#arthistory #art #PopArt #RayJohnson
To make this work, Ray Johnson began with a photograph of Elvis Presley in profile. Johnson then covered the work in red tempera, letting the paint drip down around the singer’s eyes, evoking both blood and tears. In doing so, Johnson connected Elvis, a cult figure of the present, to a cult figure from the mythological past: Oedipus, who gouged out his eyes to atone for committing patricide and incest. Johnson worked in New York City alongside such Abstract Expressionists as Jackson Pollock, and he slyly commented “I’m the only painter in New York whose drips mean anything!” Johnson’s favorite medium was collage, and he frequently incorporated text or bits of texts into his compositions. He called his small-scale creations “moticos”, using pasted images from popular culture. Johnson actively dodged fame and publicity and at one time was called “the most famous unknown artist”.
December 2, 2025 at 4:02 PM
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#AlphabetChallenge
#WeekWforWindows
#Photography
#Bilbao
Frank Gehry's incredible architecture at Bilbao Guggenheim is a veritable feast for the eyes, both inside and out.
The interior of Gehry's Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao, Spain - every detail, from the balconies to the sweeping walls to the industrial pipes to the windows filtering the light, contributes to an atmosphere like no other.
December 2, 2025 at 12:49 AM
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New month, new theme! The theme for December is: Pop Art. It's gonna be a groovy month :)
EDUARDO PAOLOZZI (1924 – 2005), “Meet the People”, 1948. Tate Museum, London UK.
#arthistory #art #PopArt #EduardoPaolozzi
EDUARDO PAOLOZZI (1924 – 2005), “Meet the People”, 1948. Tate Museum, London UK. Despite what people usually think, Pop Art originated in the UK and the Scottish artist Eduardo Paolozzi is considered to be one of the movement’s pioneers. He described himself as a Surrealist artist, and the Surrealist influence on much of his work is obvious. Paolozzi’s philosophy was to not waste anything and he found many ways to incorporate seemingly unconnected and useless objects – from magazine clippings to wine boxes - into his collages. The term “Pop Art” was not coined until 1958, but in “Meet the People”, one of ten collages from Paolozzi’s “Bunk” series, we can already see the themes that would drive Pop: consumerism, celebrity culture and mass media. The components that went into “Meet the People” were taken primarily from magazines given to the artist by American GIs. Paolozzi created his collages in scrapbooks.
December 1, 2025 at 5:28 PM
Reposted by World Of Art By Sue
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Attention Alphabetters!
Mon 1 Dec is the start of Week W and the theme for the #AlphabetChallenge is Windows. Shop windows, plane windows, car windows, house windows, big windows, small windows, is your choice - but windows! They’re not just for Wednesdays you know 😁
Use the # below and have fun😊
November 30, 2025 at 6:00 PM
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#AlphabetChallenge
#WeekVforVowels
#Photography
#Ireland
Ancient Irish Entry (to Glendalough)
Located in county Wicklow in Ireland, Glendalough was the site of a 6th century monastic community. Pictured is the arched stone entryway to the complex. It is a beautiful and serene place to visit!
November 30, 2025 at 9:45 PM
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#AlphabetChallenge
#WeekVforVowels
#Photography
#Amagansett
Amagansett, NY sunset
A fiery red sky as the sun sets over the beach in Amagansett on Long Island, New York. A sliver of blue ocean is to the left, with a strip of beach sand and a grassy dune moving to the right, with beach houses on the horizon just where the yellow sun is going down.
November 30, 2025 at 6:13 PM
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November's theme: Stolen Art
LUCIAN FREUD (1922 - 2011), “Woman with Eyes Closed”, 2002. The theft of this painting, along with six others, from the Kunstal Museum in Rotterdam, The Netherlands in 2012 inspired an opera in 2025.
#arthitory #art #LucianFreud
A majority of stolen art in modern times, aside from looting during wartime, is thought to be masterminded by organized crime to be used as collateral in illicit business deals or held to extract ransoms. These thefts are well planned out and professionally executed. The 2012 Kunstal Museum theft itself was well planned but the thieves had not thought ahead as to how they would cash out the heist. The three men involved were busy with petty burglaries around Rotterdam when they got the brilliant idea to aim higher. They scouted the Kunstal Museum, realized there were no night security guards and broke in undetected. They cut seven canvases from their frames – grabbing small paintings that could fit easily into their bags – and escaped to their home country of Romania. Back in Romania, things got tricky as they belatedly realized that the paintings were too famous, and the theft received too much international publicity, making the loot impossible to sell. One of the thieves gave the paintings to his mother to hold, and as the authorities got closer and closer to the perpetrators, she apparently panicked and burned the evidence in her stove. All involved were caught and sentenced to prison but the paintings, alas, appear to be lost forever.
November 30, 2025 at 6:08 PM
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#AlphabetChallenge
#WeekVforVowels
#Photography
#Tokyo
Akihabara Electric Town, Tokyo, Japan
The colorful advertisements and lights of Tokyo's Electric Town shopping hub.
November 30, 2025 at 2:27 AM
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#AlphabetChallenge
#WeekVforVowels
#Photography
#AlexanderHamilton
Statue of Alexander Hamilton, Paterson, New Jersey
Statue of Alexander Hamilton at the Paterson Great Falls National Park in Paterson, NJ
November 29, 2025 at 10:26 PM
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#AlphabetChallenge
#WeekVforVowels
#Photography
#NewOrleans
Mardi Gras Indian, NOLA
A Mardi Gras Indian displays his beautifully intricate beadwork costume during a parade in New Orleans. He is covered from head to toe (with just his eyes and forehead showing) by his handmade outfit of beaded images and feathers.
November 29, 2025 at 3:56 PM
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November's theme: Stolen Art
RUFINO TAMAYO (1899 - 1991), “Tres Personajes (Three Characters)”, 1970. “Tres Personajes” was a later painting by the Mexican artist Rufino Tamayo.
#arthistory #art #RufinoTamayo
In 1977, this painting was bought by an art collector in Houston for $55,000 as a gift to his wife. The owners placed it in a storage unit when they were moving into a new home, and somehow or other the painting was no longer there when the move was completed and the storage unit was emptied. It remained officially listed as a missing artwork until 2007, when it was returned to the original owner who then sold it at auction for more than $1 Million to a private collector. It is still not known exactly how the painting was removed from storage (and Texas), but in 2003 it was found in New York City by a woman out for a walk in her Upper West Side neighborhood. She spotted the bright, energetic colors poking out of a pile of rubbish on the side of the street; she liked it and took it home. Her curiosity led her to research the painting, which she eventually got authenticated, and once she figured out that it was a missing piece, she was able to return it to the original owner. If paintings could talk, this one could probably tell a good tale!
November 29, 2025 at 3:51 PM
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#AlphabetChallenge
#WeekVforVowels
#Photography
Orchid
A brilliant magenta orchid sits on a weathered shelf at the Fairchild Tropical Botanic Garden in Coral Gables, Florida
November 28, 2025 at 10:07 PM
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#AlphabetChallenge
#WeekVforVowels
#Photography
Underwater!
A young boy swimming underwater, as seen from above.
November 28, 2025 at 8:07 PM
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#AlphabetChallenge
#WeekVforVowels
#Photography
An anhinga bird, at the Corkscrew Swamp Sanctuary in Naples, Florida
A black and white anhinga bird sitting on a tree branch at the Corkscrew Swamp Sanctuary, scouting around for his next meal!
November 28, 2025 at 6:28 PM
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November's theme: Stolen Art
HENRY MOORE (1898 - 1986), “Reclining Figure”, 1969-70. The theft of Henry Moore’s massive bronze sculpture “Reclining Figure”, which weighed 2.1 tons, does not have a happy ending.
#arthistory #art #sculpture #HenryMoore
Moore's sculpture show his signature modern take on the female form - all angles and mass, no head or individual features but still, somehow, evocative of a woman reclining. The sculpture was stolen in 2005 from the Henry Moore Foundation, located in Moore’s former home in the Hertfordshire countryside, in the middle of the night. Few clues were found and the authorities were left scratching their heads as to “why” and “how”. In 2009, the British police issued a statement that they believed the piece had been chopped up and sold for scrap metal. The sculpture in 2005 was worth $18 Million; the scrap metal value was approximately $2,000. Those responsible for the theft have not been caught, and their method for removing such a weighty piece undetected remains a mystery.
November 28, 2025 at 5:35 PM
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November's theme: Stolen Art
GUSTAV KLIMT (1862 - 1918), “Portrait of a Lady”, 1916-17. Galleria d’arte moderna Ricci Oddi, Piacenza, Italy.
“Portrait of a Lady” is a late painting by the Austrian Gustav Klimt, created after his golden phase in a more expressionistic manner.
#arthistory #art #Klimt
This painting was purchased in 1925 by the Italian collector Giuseppe Ricci Oddi, who bequeathed his extensive art collection to the city of Piacenza in Italy. In 1997, the painting was stolen as the gallery was preparing an exhibition. In 2019, gardeners clearing ivy from an exterior wall at the Gallery found the painting, wrapped in a garbage bag and stuffed into a concealed wall niche. Later, two local repeat burglars were arrested and their confession was a story in itself. They claimed that they had removed the painting from the Gallery by using a fishing line and hook; they had kept it in a home until about four years before, when they decided to hide it in the Gallery’s exterior wall. Their plan was to announce its location once the statute of limitations had run out so that they could not be charged with the theft, but the gardener made his surprise discovery before they could make their announcement. One of the men wrote a letter to a local newspaper, declaring that “we have given a gift to the city by returning the canvas”. Luckily, “Portrait of a Lady” did not spend its entire 22 missing years in the wall and it was recovered in good condition. The burglars were not charged with the theft, but they were convicted of several other local burglaries and were sent to prison.
November 27, 2025 at 6:05 PM
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November's theme: Stolen Art
EDVARD MUNCH (1863 - 1944), “The Scream”, 1893. Najonalmuseet, Oslo, Norway.
Munch painted four versions of his iconic “The Scream” – two oil paintings and two pastels (he later made lithographic prints, as well).
#arthistory #art #Munch
Munch painted four versions of his iconic “The Scream” – two oil paintings and two pastels (he later made lithographic prints, as well). Both of the paintings have been stolen (and recovered) during the 20th century. The painting at the National Museum in Oslo was stolen in 1994 on the opening day of the Lillehammer Winter Olympics. The thieves broke a window, cut the wire holding “The Scream” and left a note “Thousand thanks for the bad security!” in an operation that took less than one minute. The authorities refused to pay a ransom demand for $1 Million and, through a determined investigation, found and recovered the painting later that year. In 1996, four men were convicted of the theft; one of the men convicted was Paal Enger, who had been convicted of stealing another Munch masterpiece in 1988. Munch’s paintings can be full of pain and sadness, conveyed with a signature emotionally expressive style. He said that he saw a blood red sky one night while out for a walk and decided to put it in his painting. Some speculate that the red sky was the result of the volcanic explosion at Krakatoa some years before, while others think it is an internal expression of his own depression and mental illness. The Najonalmuseet painting has a penciled inscription in the upper left corner, which has been authenticated as being in Munch’s handwriting. The inscription: “could only have been painted by a madman”.
November 26, 2025 at 2:37 PM
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PIERRE BONNARD (1867 - 1947), “Still Life with Guelder Roses”, 1892 (retouched 1929). Nelson Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, Missouri US.
#arthistory #art #Bonnard
PIERRE BONNARD (1867 - 1947), “Still Life with Guelder Roses”, 1892 (retouched 1929). Nelson Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, Missouri US. Pierre Bonnard belonged to the French avant-garde group known as Les Nabis, although he always claimed his independence. In 1892, he painted “Still Lie with Guelder Roses” in his Nabi style, with flattened dimensions and compositions that reflected his deep appreciation for Japanese prints. In 1929, Bonnard returned to the painting and added dabs of paint to the flowers to give them more dimensionality, which spoke to his personal style of that later date. This gentle still life ended up in the collection of David David-Weill, the Jewish French-American head of the Lazard-Frères banking house. In 1943, the Nazis looted about 2,000 pieces from David-Weill’s extensive and exquisite art collection in Paris, including this work. The looted artworks were shipped to salt mines in Austria for storage to wait out the war; they were recovered there in 1945 by the Allies’ Monuments Men. The Bonnard painting was returned to David David-Weill, who had escaped from France and settled in the US, in 1946. His heirs eventually sold it to another collector, who gifted it to the Nelson Atkins Museum in 2004.
November 25, 2025 at 3:10 PM
Reposted by World Of Art By Sue
sheena-mck.bsky.social
Attention Alphabetters!
Mon 24 Nov is the start of Week V and the theme for the #AlphabetChallenge is Vowels. So the subject of your pic must start with a vowel e.g. apple; earring; Inverness; otter; umbrella. Anything at all but with a vowel first. Easy Peasy!
Use the # below and have fun😊
November 23, 2025 at 5:59 PM
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November's theme: Stolen Art
LAKOTA GHOST SHIRT, c. 1890. Cultural Center of the Cheyenne River Sioux tribe, Eagle Butte, South Dakota US.
#arthistory #art #GhostDance #USHistory
The Ghost Dance was a mystical ceremony, popular among the Lakota and other Plains Native American tribes, that was believed to hasten the reunification of the tribes, end the expansion into their territories and bring back the once plentiful bison; this reunification would be brought about by the spirits of the dead returning to aid the living and the victors would usher in a time of peace and prosperity. The Ghost dancers wore shirts imbued with mystical powers that were believed to render the wearers bulletproof and invincible. These sacred shirts were decorated with feathers and hand-painted symbols (such as stars, sun and animals) that were often seen in visions and trances and held special meaning to the shirt wearer. This particular Lakota Ghost Shirt was taken from the body of a victim at the Wounded Knee Massacre in 1890. The bullet holes prove that the mystical powers did not hold for this wearer. The shirt is made of fringed muslin and is decorated with symbols, mostly faded, and raven, owl and eagle feathers around the neck, most in tatters now. In 1892, a member of the Buffalo Bill Wild West Show (which was performing in Glasgow) sold this Ghost Shirt to the Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum in Scotland. In the 1990s, a visitor to the Museum recognized the shirt as the sacred object that it is and, after a prolonged negotiation, the Ghost Shirt was returned to the Lakota people in August 1999.
November 24, 2025 at 3:09 PM
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#AlphabetChallenge
#WeekUforUnloved
#Photography
Battered siding plus bare branches
I like the simplicity in this shot: the geometry of the roofline and attic fan vent with the lacy touch of the winter tree branches. All in tones of black, white and cream.
November 23, 2025 at 6:52 PM
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November's theme: Stolen Art
VINCENT VAN GOGH (1853 - 1890), “Fortifications of Paris with Houses”, 1887. Whitworth Art Gallery, Manchester, UK.
#arthistory #art #watercolor #VanGogh
On some occasions, art thieves have seemed to have a more humanitarian motive than to make a profit (or perhaps they have a change of heart and try to spin the more humanitarian motive). The theft of Vincent van Gogh’s “Fortifications of Paris with Houses” in 2003 fits this scenario, plus it was an opportunity for wry British humor. Van Gogh’s “Fortifications of Paris with Houses” is a watercolor work showing the 1840 fortifications on the northern outskirts of the city – not far from an apartment that Vincent shared with his brother Theo at the time. These fortifications were demolished after World War I to make way for a boulevard. The painting was one of three artworks (one by Gauguin, one by Picasso and this one by van Gogh) that were stolen in the night in 2003. The thieves by-passed the gallery’s security system, took the paintings and rolled them into a cardboard tube. The next day, a telephone tip led to the paintings’ recovery in a rundown public toilet close by the gallery. There was a handwritten note along with the works in the recovered cardboard tube that said: “the intention was not to steal. ONLY to highlight the WOEFUL security”. The Whitworth’s security system was promptly upgraded. The British press later dubbed that lavatory “the Loovre”!
November 23, 2025 at 6:50 PM