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TOM CHRISTOPHER BIOGRAPHY
"Monet had his water lilies and Tom Christopher has Times Square." --The New Yorker Tom Christopher is a classically trained draughtsman. He received a BFA from the Art Center College in Los Angeles, studying with the legendary Disney animator Ward Kimball and the painter Lorser Fietelson. He then worked for Peterson Publishing drawing automobiles for Motor Trend Magazine, drawing portraits at Disneyland and creating rock posters for CBS Records. After moving to New York in 1981 he went on drawing assignments with Meredith Vieira and John Stossel covering courtroom drama for CBS News in downtown Manhattan. This experience in part formed the foundation for a narrative and journalistic approach to his art. Although born in Hollywood, and steeped in the LA hot rod / skateboard culture, he became obsessed with painting household objects and tools on a Brobdingnagian scale, exhibiting in galleries in the East Village. He would always carry a sketchbook, endlessly drawing and recording everything from subways to skyscrapers. In 1987, NYC was a dark city, crime ridden and gripped by fear. But, as he put it: "One day walking around Times Square, the clouds cleared and I had an epiphany of sorts. The City exploded in a blaze of expressionistic colors with the brilliant laser white light sculpting the buildings, cabs, messengers and scurrying figures. At once I realized my mission; try and capture the narrative, the beauty and the magnetic pull of the epicenter of this modern urban city." Now his subject matter is largely focused on the streets of New York. But calling him a New York painter would be as much a mistake as it would be to dismiss Kirchner as a Berlin cityscene painter. They have both used the subject of the city as a launching pad to explore the many aspects of man's struggle in an urban environment. Indeed, this theme is universal as his paintings have found a following in Europe, especially Paris, Germany and Tokyo. Most of the work is painted using small batch, handmade acrylic paint. Pencil lines from the initial exploratory sketch stage often remain on the white canvass. These raw areas give the painting both breathing room and serve as a reminder of the process. His artistic vocabulary ranges from lines that loop and skit around, to delicate watercolor washes, heavy brushwork to thick impasto with swirls and drips of color. Working with 'at risk' kids he brought these expressionistic colors and large brushwork to the Roseland Ballroom on 53rd St creating the city's largest outdoor mural at 225 by 65 ft. "I think it's interesting to tell a story about people in the city and not necessarily be concerned about what the finished product will look like. The last thing an artist should do is to set out to try and make 'art'. I find that if you have something to say, just paint, most of the time it will find it's own way." Says Mr. Christopher. He was trained in an approach that relies on visual observation and blocking out all else. Actually, he was trained to not listen as it would become too distracting. This is now changing in new works with overheard conversations and fragments of speech finding their way into the artwork as titles of the paintings create a continually evolving narrative thread. "Tom Christopher has become to American painting what Count Basie or Duke Ellington became to American popular music, not completely jazz but owning much to Charlie Parker and Charles Mingus." Written by Dr. Louis Zona, Director and Chief Curator, The Butler Institute of American Art, Youngstown Ohio.
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Biography
Richard Parkes Bonington was born in the town of Arnold, 4 miles from Nottingham in England. His father was successively a gaoler, a drawing master and lace-maker, and his mother a teacher. Bonington learned watercolour painting from his father and exhibited paintings at the Liverpool Academy at age 11. In 1817, Bonington's family moved to Calais, France where his father had set up a lace factory. At this time, Bonington started taking lessons from the painter François Louis Thomas Francia, who trained him in English watercolour painting. In 1818, the family moved to Paris to open a lace retail outlet. It was Paris where he first met Eugène Delacroix, who he became friends with. He worked for a time producing copies of Dutch and Flemish landscapes in the Louvre. In 1820, he started attending the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris, where he studied under Antoine-Jean, Baron Gros. It was around this time that Bonington started going on sketching tours in the suburbs of Paris and the surrounding countryside. His first paintings were exhibited at the Paris Salon in 1822. He also began to work in lithography, illustrating Baron Taylor’s "Voyages pittoresques dans l'ancienne France" and his own architectural series Restes et Fragmens". In 1824, he won a gold medal at the Paris Salon along with John Constable and Anthony Vandyke Copley Fielding. Bonington died of tuberculosis on 23 September 1828 at 29 Tottenham Street in London, only 25 years old.
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BiographyMaurice Braun (1877-1941). Painter. Maurice Braun was born in Nagy Bittse, Hungary on Oct. 1, 1877. Braun immigrated with his family to the U.S. in 1881 and settled in NYC. He began drawing at age three and in his early teens was apprenticed to a jeweler. In 1897 Maurice Braun began a five year study period at the NAD followed by one year with Wm M. Chase. He was an established portrait and figure painter in New York before moving to San Diego in 1910. After opening a studio on Point Loma, Maurice Braun founded the San Diego Academy of Art in 1912 and served as its director for many years. Braun remained in San Diego except for the years 1922-24 when he maintained a studio in Silvermine, CT. His Impressionist paintings of the Southwest desert, southern California hills, and High Sierra brought him great national acclaim. At the end of his career he specialized in still lifes of flowers and oriental objets d'art. An ardent follower of Theosophy, their teachings of the unity of nature and man is evident in his work. Maurice Braun died in San Diego on Nov. 7, 1941. Source: Edan Hughes:
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