Artworks of the Week
Campana Brothers
Commissioned by Murray Moss Gallery in New York, the Banquete is one of the Campana Brothers most iconic chairs. Using children’s toys—a variety of stuffed animals—this chair reveals many of the themes that run through the brothers' work: their selection of found materials, their use of common and familiar objects, and their commentary on excessive global consumerism. While the chair is both comfortable and functional, it also combines a sense of whimsy with the recognition of our rampant consumption.
Several versions of this chair with different animals, including alligators, pandas, dolphins and sharks, were produced in limited editions. Each one is handmade at Estudio Campana in São Paulo, Brazil. Since they established their practice in 1983, the Campana Brothers have worked to transform the everyday and reconsider the possibilities for the role of design in the world.
Fernando and Humberto Campana (Brazilian, born 1961, born 1953), Banquete Chair, ca. 2002, stuffed toy animals and brushed tubular steel, edition 32/150, 38 x 43 x 37 inches. Museum purchase with funds provided by Donna J. MacMillan, 1-2013.
Lockwood de Forest
Lockwood de Forest was likely the first member of the National Academy of Design in New York to visit and paint the California desert around Palm Springs. In 1904, when the artist created his first paintings of the area which was home to the Agua Caliente Band of Cahuilla Indians, Palm Springs was a remote settlement town. He made regular visits to the area over the next 14 years, capturing the dramatic color, unusual light, and particular atmosphere of the desert.
Painted on site, de Forest’s plein air oil sketches reveal a relentless passion for capturing the natural landscape of a place as seen in Mount San Jacinto from Near Palm Springs. While his painting style is rooted in a 19th century aesthetic derived from the Hudson River and Barbizon Schools, his oil sketches convey a striking modernist sensibility in terms of the simplification of forms and the emphasis on color and mood. His soft painterly application and use of muted color harmonies provide the unique atmospheric quality of his paintings.
Lockwood De Forest (American, 1850-1932) Mount San Jacinto from Near Palm Springs,1912, oil on artist card stock, 9 3/4 × 14 inches. Gift of Lisa de Forest through Sullivan Goss--An American Gallery, 43-2010.
