Norman Rockwell’s Christmas: Original Artwork for Hallmark

Hallmark has a remarkable legacy of collaboration with some of the world’s most renowned artists and designers. Perhaps none of these is more beloved than the American illustrator Norman Rockwell, whom Hallmark founder J.C. Hall commissioned to produce 32 paintings for the company’s greeting cards between 1948 to 1957, at the height of his career.

The most influential and prolific illustrator of the 20th century, Norman Rockwell (1894-1978) produced art for more than 150 companies throughout his lifetime, including magazine covers for The Saturday Evening Post and annual calendars for the Boy Scouts of America. However, among his most enduring images are his Christmas paintings for Hallmark Cards. Reproduced often and in many contexts, they helped define the spirit and traditions of the holiday season for many Americans. The heartwarming and humorous images have also come to exemplify Rockwell’s unique brand of pictorial storytelling. Norman Rockwell , Filling The Stockings, 1955 watercolor, ink and pencil on paper, 13 1/4 x 11 1/2 inches Hallmark Art Collection, City, Missouri / © Hallmark Cards, Inc. Norman Rockwell, Boy With Head In Wreath,1957 oil on hardboard, 8 1/2 x 5 3/4 inches Hallmark Art Collection, Kansas City, Missouri / © Hallmark Cards, Inc. Norman Rockwell, Santa’s Surprise, 1949 watercolor and ink on paper board, 12 3/4 x 10 7/8 inches Hallmark Art Collection, Kansas City, Missouri / © Hallmark Cards, Inc. Norman Rockwell, A Christmas Prayer, 1949 watercolor and ink on paper, 12 x 10 1/2 inches Hallmark Art Collection, Kansas City, Missouri/ © Hallmark Cards, Inc.

About the exhibition

Hallmark founder J.C. Hall commissioned Rockwell to paint 32 Christmas designs, beginning with images for the 1948 Hallmark Gallery Artists Collection. Over the ensuing decade, Rockwell interpreted the yuletide theme in a variety of guises, ranging from the characters of Charles Dickens’s A Christmas Carol to the exploits of the modern American family. Reproduced in many contexts over the years, these heartwarming and humorous images have come to epitomize Rockwell’s masterful brand of narrative art.

Norman Rockwell’s Christmas is the most comprehensive exhibition ever assembled of Rockwell’s original art for Hallmark Cards. All works are from the Hallmark Art Collection with historic photographs and ephemera courtesy of the Hallmark Archives in Kansas City, Missouri and Norman Rockwell Museum Collection, Stockbridge, Massachusetts.

The exhibit is on display through January 27, 2018 at the Hallmark Art Collection Gallery in Hallmark Visitor’s Center, located in Kansas City’s Crown Center district. Admission is free.

Norman Rockwell’s Christmas: Original Artwork for Hallmark October 7, 2017 – January 27, 2018 Hallmark Art Collection Gallery, Kansas City, Missouri

Framing Specifications METRO GALLERY FRAME

Profile: 117CB (Modified to 1 3/8″ face and 1″ depth) Type: Wide Gallery Frame Wood & Finish: walnut frame with walnut finish Purchasing Option: joined wood frame with matching splines Strainer: 1/2″ wood strainer Acrylic: custom cut UV acrylic Strandbeest: The Dream Machines of Theo Jansen at the Peabody Essex Museum

The Peabody Essex Museum (PEM) announces the first U.S. exhibition tour of Theo Jansen’s famed Strandbeests (“beach animals”). Working along the Dutch seacoast, Jansen has spent the last 25 years developing and evolving his Strandbeests, which today have become a global phenomena.

An annual rhythm structures the Strandbeests’ life cycle. Innovations are imagined and explored in the studio in winter, then tested and adapted on the beach in summer. Each new species of Strandbeest boasts new tactics and adaptations for their seaside survival. By fall, the creatures have outlived their evolutionary use and become part of Jansen’s fossil record. Like evolution itself, this process is ruthless, searching and unending.

Animaris Umerus (2009), Scheveningen beach, The Netherlands. Photo by Lena Herzog. Theo Jansen, Scheveningen Animaris Percipiere (2005). beach, Netherlands (2011). Courtesy of Theo Jansen. Photo Courtesy of Theo Jansen. Photo by Loek van der Klis. by Loek van der Klis.

Animaris Umerus, Stille Animaris Gubernare, Stille Strand, Netherlands (2009). Strand, Netherlands (2011). Courtesy of Theo Jansen. Photo Courtesy of Theo Jansen. by Loek van der Klis.

ORIGIN OF THE SPECIES With a singular focus and sense of play, Jansen has developed his Strandbeests from rudimentary structures into intricate, autonomous creatures that can respond to environmental changes by storing wind power, anchoring against oncoming storms and tacking away from the water’s edge. Originally inspired by the threat of rising sea levels, Jansen imagined a mechanical creature that could pile sand back up on the dunes. As time went on, Jansen became more fascinated with exploring ideas around the origins of life.

A selection of large- scale kinetic are accompanied by artist sketches, immersive video, and photography by Lena Herzog, who spent more than seven years documenting the Strandbeests’ evolution. Herzog’s work – which represents the most in-depth and sympathetic record of Jansen’s relationship to the beests – has recently been published by TASCHEN. THEO JANSEN The artist first came to prominence in 1980 when he flew a “UFO” across the skies of Delft, Holland. For the past 20 years Jansen has been creating and exhibiting his dramatic, kinetic Strandbeests. He has appeared on multiple TED Talks, been the subject of a New Yorker profile and shown his work in Asia, Europe and now the United States.

LENA HERZOG Lena Herzog is a Russian-American photographer. Her work has been featured and reviewed in numerous publications including The New York Times, The Times Magazine, The Paris Review, Harper’s Magazine and Cabinet Magazine. She is the author of several books of photography and her work has been internationally exhibited.

Exhibition Tour Peabody Essex Museum (PEM) September 19, 2015 – January 3, 2016

Chicago Cultural Center February 6 – May 1, 2016

Exploratorium May 27 – September 5, 2016

FRAMING SPECIFICATIONS AND ADVICE

METRO GALLERY FRAME

Wide Profile: 111 Type: Wide Gallery Frame Wood & Finish: maple wood frame with white opaque finish Purchasing Option: joined wood frame with splines Custom Wood Strainer: 1/2″ wood frame strainer Custom Frame Acrylic: UV acrylic cut to size Custom Frame Backing Board: archival coroplast cut to size Framing Advice: fitting gallery frames

Graphicstudio: Uncommon Practice at USF at Tampa Museum of Art

“Graphicstudio: Uncommon Practice at USF” is the most ambitious and comprehensive show to feature works from the workshop since the survey exhibition of the early years of Graphicstudio at the in Washington D.C. in 1991. The exhibit features forty-five years of more than 110 original works by an international array of 45 of the 108 artists who have worked in residence at Graphicstudio.

On view February 1 through May 18, 2014, this exhibition was co-organized by the Tampa Museum of Art and the USF Contemporary Art Museum and curated by Jade Dellinger.

Highlighting both technical and conceptual breakthroughs, the exhibition includes seminal works spanning Graphicstudio’s forty-five year history (by Robert Rauschenberg, Jim Rosenquist, Ed Ruscha, Allan McCollum, Louise Bourgeois, Jim Dine, and others) with some of its most recent collaborative endeavors by (Christian Marclay, Mark Dion, Teresita Fernández, Los Carpinteros, and Trenton Doyle Hancock).

According to Margaret Miller, the Director of Institute for Research in Art – Contemporary Art Museum and Graphicstudio, the exhibition is an opportunity for viewers to see a survey of works that represent leading international artists and affirms that printmaking is a primary medium for many contemporary artists. The exhibition chronicles several aesthetic and technical conversations among artists of different generations. Often times, it is the invention of a new technology that transfixes the artists in residence. As former director, Alan Eaker noted, “It has always been the primary concern of Graphicstudio to make art that was phenomenal and along the way develop the technology to accomplish it.”

Founded in 1968 as a non-profit, university-based, collaborative art making facility, Graphicstudio remains unique in its commitment to aesthetic and technical research in the visual arts. Leading artists are invited to work in the state-of-the-art studios in collaboration with expert artisans to create works on paper – including lithographs, etchings, photogravures, digital images, books – and multiples in a variety of materials. Chuck Close Self Portrait/Photogravure, 54 1/4″ x 40 5/8″ (2005) copyright USF Graphicstudio Photo: Will Lytch Vic Muniz Jorge photogravure on silk colle 52 1/4″ x 41 1/2″ 2003 copyright USF Graphicstudio Photo: Will Lytch Christian Marclay Actions: Skutch! Splash! (No.1) hand painting by artist with screenprint copyright USF Graphicstudio Photo: Will Lytch Courtesy of the artist and Marianne Boesky Gallery, NY copyright Diana-Al-Hadid Photo: Jason Wyche “Graphicstudio: Uncommon Practice at USF” February 1, 2014 – May 18, 2014 Tampa Museum of Art Tampa, Florida

FRAMING SPECIFICATIONS AND ADVICE

METRO GALLERY FRAME

Standard Profile: 115, Thin Profile: 102, Ultra Thin Profile: 102UT Wide Profile: 111 Type: standard frame, thin frame, ultra thin frame, and wide frame Wood & Finish: maple wood frame with clear lacquer and white opaque finish Purchasing Option: joined wood frame with splines Framing Advice: fitting gallery frames Profile 115

Profile 102

Profile 102UT

Profile 111 Ulysses suite by Robert Motherwell

“I thought you might enjoy seeing the attached photo. It is the entire Ulysses suite by Robert Motherwell in your frames: very beautiful, a perfect complement to the works. Motherwell was commissioned to do this suite of prints to complement a beautiful hand-printed text of James Joyce’s Ulysses. Thanks,” Jerald

Motherwell counted Irish author, James Joyce, as his favorite modern author and drew upon his writings for titles to his paintings, drawings, and prints throughout his career. Ulysses, written by Joyce, chronicles the passage of Leopold Bloom through Dublin during an ordinary day in 1904. The title alludes to the hero of Homer’s Odyssey, Odysseus (Latinized into Ulysses). The Ulysses project was four years in planning and a year and a half in production and included an illustrated book and this portfolio of 22 prints. Motherwell saw an affinity between Joyce’s particular use of language and his own thinking about representation and abstraction. The prints have strong calligraphic elements, a recurring motif in Motherwell’s work.

Metropolitan has been making frames for the Jerald Melberg Gallery for many years. He is located in Charlotte, NC. He like many other galleries exhibit in multiple art fairs every year. This one is artMRKT San Francisco and took place May 17 – 20th. It is considered to be the Bay Area’s premier contemporary and modern art fair. This year they featured 70 galleries from around the globe. Both historically important work was showcased alongside contemporary pieces and projects.

Jerald Melberg Gallery Charlotte, NC 28211 www.jeraldmelberg.com

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