The African Pot / The Copper Pot
oil on panel 6 x 6 ins.
FOR SALE please email fanny@theartof-art.com
submission to The Artist Challenge
Pomegranates
Tiny Pomegranate 
Orchids and Pomegranates
Pomegranate and HibiscusAnthony has painted hundreds of still lifes from large , elaborate compositions (as in the Orchids and Pomegranates above, painted in New York) with an amazing array of baskets and cloth, to the very simple, even tiny 3" x 2" paintings such as the Tiny Pomegranate (above in its Indian frame) painted in India . The Pomegranate and Hibiscus was also painted at our home in India (click to view). All beautiful paintings of pomegranates , yet all so very different.
I always look for and enjoy the tiny, seemingly insignificant details in paintings and in the Orchids and Pomegranates I love the stack of coins inside the vase.
Labels:
Baskets,
Bowls,
For Flowers Only,
Fruit,
Hibiscus,
Lace,
Orchids,
Paintings,
Pomegranates,
Vases and other Objects
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Just add a little oil....
6X6 INS. PAINTINGS ABOVE - WHERE THE INSPIRATION CAME FROM
Two things came together to create this series of Still-Lifes; the first being the inspiration that hit me whilst on a recent visit to New York and the second is the fact that in the 80’s my wife Fanny set up her own cookery school in Hong Kong teaching bread and yeast cookery from around the world. She taught everything from challah and bagels to croissants and baguettes! For me, inspiration is as essential an ingredient to my painting as flour is to bread-making; without yeast the bread won’t rise, and so it is with my painting - without inspiration the works will not rise beyond being “good” and I want to achieve much more than that. During the late 70’s, through the 80’s and into the early 90’s, Still-Life was my main source of inspiration. I painted hundreds of them in Paris, New York and then Bali. Every morning during those years I would wake up and see something that would so excite me, from a cabbage to a bowl or basket of exotic fruit, that I simply had to translate that excitement into paint. I think I painted so many Still-Lifes during those years that I wore out the source of inspiration. Or perhaps I even felt I had painted every kind of fruit and vegetable to the point where I couldn’t be excited by them any more. And so I stopped painting Still-Lifes, except as small details in much larger compositions, and switched to painting the Nude, which has been the main subject of my work for the last ten years or so. Happily for me my Still-Lifes were very popular; I sold them all, managing to keep only a few out of perhaps a thousand . I continued to receive requests to paint more, but I simply couldn’t make bread without flour. However, during a recent visit to New York at the end of 2006, I was staying with a very close friend who insisted on taking me to one great Art Exhibition after another, from the Met to the Guggenheim and from the Dahesh to the Morgan. To my greatest amazement, by the end of my trip I had seen so many Still-Lifes that I was positively aching to paint some new ones of my own! When I returned home I asked Fanny to make me “three unusual bread rolls,” to start the ball rolling. One of my favourite series I had ever painted was of bread and cheese and I started with some new versions of that subject. Of course, the rolls led to croissants which in turn led to baguettes and so on. The inspiration was, and still is, flowing and each subject seems to tell me what the next one should be. One of the most significant developments in my Art during my “non-Still-Life” years was that I had moved from being a classical painter to being a Surrealist. This opened endless new possibilities to me in my new series. Combined with my continued love affair with New York, it produced the “Nanny in New York“ and “Taking the Baby for a Stroll in New York” for example. In the 80’s,during a trip to India, I discovered that creating Art was considered there as an act of worship, thanking the gods for the beauty of whatever was about to be translated into paint. I liked the concept so much that I painted my own “Worship Series,” mostly of fruit, but with an occasional vegetable squeezed in and even an egg or two. The idea of the small (6” X 6”) format forced me to concentrate absolutely all my energy into a tiny area, challenging me to approach perfection. Artistically I found it interesting to see to what degree I could transcend the limitations of the smallness of this area and create images that gave an impression of being far larger than they actually were. I always considered “Dancing Bananas” the most successful of these experiments. “The Worship Series” proved to be one of the most popular of all, and was certainly the one that I enjoyed creating the most. And so, with this new series I have decided to stick to that same format and only paint on 6” x 6” panels. Starting with Fanny’s three little bread rolls, the number of subjects that have presented themselves is amazing and I don’t feel I have finished yet … Anthony Christian (Image: A Bunch of Radishes - SOLD)
The WINDOW series by Anthony Christian
I have always worked in series. Even when I painted portraits professionally, I tended to do at least one and often two or even three extra sketches of my sitter before choosing the final pose for the portrait. Many people suggest over the years that I should perhaps be a sculptor, so much did I want to see everything “in the round,” but I simply never felt the same passion towards sculpture that I felt for painting or drawing.Partly to pay tribute to the seven subjects that had caused me artistic pleasure and satisfaction as well as earning me an excellent reputation and living, but also partly to see the subject “in the round,” during the mid-nineties I invented what I called a Door-Frame. This was a framework made up of 18 panels, framing the pair of wooden doors which each contained two further panels. This door was to be opened to reveal the final masterpiece of the subject inside the Door-Frame. Thus it was a work of some twenty three panels. Twenty three angles or aspects of one subject! I found it very satisfying but the actual door-frames were both extremely heavy and even a little clumsy in design. However, I spent four and a half years (in Bali) painting seven of them.
Far more recently, in fact this year 2007, I was painting a new series of works, mostly still-lifes but also some nudes and some landscapes. On seeing several of the trees I had painted lying together on a table almost like tiles, I started playing with them to find the format which most pleased me. Eventually I came upon one that I really liked where 12 (6” x 6”) panels surrounded one larger (12” x 12”) panel. This pleased my artist’s eye completely and also fulfilled my artistic desire to show things in the round. Thus ‘Windows’ were born.
After completing “Trees”, I painted some of the most colourful flowers I could find and made “Flowers” (above) . My intention now is to cover all the subjects I work with, making a window – or several – of each subject from Landscape to Still-Life, and from the Nude to Portraits. It is certainly the most exciting and fulfilling painting project of my life to date. ANTHONY CHRISTIAN
Labels:
Carnations,
Chrysanthemums,
Daffodils,
Daisies,
For Flowers Only,
Irises,
Lilies,
Mixed Flowers,
Paintings,
Roses,
Sunflowers,
Surrealism,
Tulips
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Il Cavolo
This was painted in Tuscany Italy in 1977. Anthony was brought up in a city and remained quite ignorant about Nature; he bought his vegetables in a greengrocer's shop and gave no thought whatsoever as to the origins of his food. In Italy he came to know the joys of having his own vegetable garden, and witnessed for the first time vegetables actually growing out of the ground! He was excited beyond words, especially by this magnificent cabbage, and as soon as it had been cut , he rushed it up to his studio and poured out all his joy and admiration onto this canvas , loving even the holes made by caterpillars. He painted the leaves with the reverence of a drapery study . By word of mouth , this painting became so well known that people would come from miles around to see "Il Cavolo d'Antonio".The Nanny Series
Taking the Baby for a Stroll in New York
Nanny in New York 1
Nanny in New York II
Dancing BananasOne of the first surreal paintings Anthony ever created was 'Dancing Bananas' in 1989 when he was living in Bali. It became one of his favourite paintings and now forms part of our private collection in a series we call The Worship Series. Recently, in 2007, Anthony embarked on a new series of 6" x 6" still life paintings for an exhibition in Dublin and became inspired, after a trip to New York, to use the Nanny once again.
The result was a set of 5 (6" x 6") panels framed as one work titled 'Nanny Taking the Baby for a Stroll in New York'. It was the first painting to sell in the show! After that he created two more small paintings both with the same title , numbered 1 & 2 as seen above. I love the idea of baguette loaves representing the skyscrapers!
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