Art Alphabet: H - Esther

We’re now at H. I really wanted to include a hedgehog but they were all awful. Either too cutesy or too vicious. Not to worry. Lots of other great Hs.

H

1. An Art Collective (Hackney Flashers): The Highest Product of Capitalism (after John Heartfield) by Jo Spence

Often on the art blog, I happen on something I didn’t know about before. Although it’s a frequent occurrence, I want to find out more less regularly. Until the time of writing, I had never heard of the Hackney Flashers. In the UK (& perhaps other places, I don’t know), “flashers” means someone that exposes themselves. Typically it conjures a man wearing a raincoat who “flashes” his “bits” to unsuspecting & non-consenting women. Trust me, it happens. So when I read about these socialist feminists that took “flashers” as a name for a (mainly) photography group, I was amused & intrigued. They were invited by Hackney Trades Council to exhibit & tour their work recording Women & Work in 1975. This & another key exhibition Who’s Holding the Baby? (1978) gave the group the opportunity to throw a spotlight on domestic abuse, issues around childcare & young carers as well as inequalities around pay & job types available for women. Nowadays, this is normal practice for groups that don’t consider themselves activists, but at the time must have been downright radical. 

2. An Artist (Husain): Traditional Indian Festivals by M.F Husain (1915-2011)

Husain’s handwritten notes explain the festivals depicted “to preserve our environment”: Holi, Tulsi Pooja & Poornima. Holi is the festival of fire & Poornima of water. Tulsi Pooja is the festival of plants. He notes the Tulsi plant has medicinal properties & is “worshipped each morning by pouring water.” Maqbool Fida Husain was known for applying the principles of European art styles, colours & movements to the subjects of Indian culture & everyday life. Traditional Indian Festivals was made as part of a series of eight triptychs over the course of three years. Although the twenty-four panels left to us were being worked on at the time of Husain’s death, he had originally planned ninety-six panels in total.

3. An Animal (horse): Reiter (Lyrishes) by Wassily Kandinsky (1824-1906)

Horses fall into the category of “status symbol” throughout history (including now), hence their abundance in art. There is also the repugnant practice of hunting with horses & that gets catalogued by the art world too. There are horses going to war, racing or carrying cowboys, horses as metaphor for the sea or waves & horses to express emotion. Kandinsky’s horse looks to be going flat out. The translation of the title is “The Rider (Lyrical).” Whilst we can clearly see the horse’s head, it perhaps takes us a little longer to see the full picture. 

4. A Bird (heron): Heron & Willow formerly attributed to Sesshū Tōyō雪舟 等楊 (c. 1420-1506)

Apparently this is a forgery! But what a beautiful forgery it is. I’ve never seen a heron look so cute. They are usually more predatory & cunning, but this appears simple & innocent. Don’t be fooled. Although the Met Museum website now sniffily declares the stamp in the corner to be “spurious” & refers to the work having passively “entered” the collection rather than someone went & BOUGHT it, someone else was fooled. I just rolled my eyes but it’s difficult to convey in print.

5. A Body Part (hand): The Artist’s Hand V by Henry Moore (1898-1986)

Hands are big in art. They may well be a blog’s worth alone. Why is this? Some of it might be religious or perhaps a mode of expression or a metaphor. But generally it’s the same as a lot of subjects – it is there. Assuming the artist has two hands - & in the case of Moore, he did - we can also assume he is right handed. Known primarily for his sculptures however, we know he was skilled with both. He made the series of lithographs of his hands at the age of eighty-one.

6. A Country (Haiti):  Haitian artist, Maxan Jean-Louis (b. 1966)

The Haitian diaspora perhaps most notably included Jean-Michel Basquiat, but Haiti has a rich art heritage of styles, schools, influences & symbols. Maxan has two styles. One takes inspiration from his own visions to produce stretched, colourful figures & the other is mildly surreal & motivated by political atrocities, activities & events. 

7. An Emotion (happiness): Two Laughing Boys With A Mug of Beer by Frans Hals (1582/83-1666)

You may not associate high art or the Dutch Golden Age with happiness but I do & I should say a mug of beer would certainly cheer me up. I am in no way condoning the drinking of alcohol in the child community however. In the 17th Century of course, attitudes were, ahem, different & beer was undoubtedly different. Frans Hals is famously linked with naturally-posed portraits with the subjects smiling. If you want happiness in art, Frans is your man. 

8. An Artwork (head): Head of a Peasant Woman with Greenish Lace Cap, Vincent van Gogh (1853-1890)

Before he went with yellow, Vincent wallowed in brown. His interest in rural working class people is well-documented in his earlier paintings. The Realism Movement included something called the “peasant genre,” with Vincent declaring the works of Jean-François Millet & Jules Breton as being the “voices of the wheat.” His own genre works are rather different but even if you don’t go for the yellow, you can see here another side of what he could achieve with paint.

9. Of Another Artist (Hockney): David Hockney Painting by Carl Grauer (b. 1959)

It’s one thing for artists to reveal themselves through self-portraiture but it’s always interesting to see how other artists perceive them. Lucien Freud also painted Hockney but Grauer captures something softer & more elderly than either Hockney or Freud expose.

10. A Play (Hamlet): Hamlet & Ophelia by Agnes Pringle (1853-1934)

Rather than go for a skull (I know – amazing), I’ve gone with a scene with Ophelia. This has the air of a theatre production rather than the artist picturing the act from imagination but I’ve not been able to find out for now. I especially love Hamlet’s dramatic hand gestures & I had to count the fingers on that left hand to make sure it was all in order.