Michael Sporn Animation – Splog

Wee Willie Winkie runs through the town,
Up stairs and down stairs in his night-gown,
Tapping at the window, crying at the lock,
Are the children in their bed, for it’s past ten o’clock?
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- I don’t suspect that Lyonel Feininger took anything more than the title from this famous, old Scottish poem. Nor do I suspect that the Shirley Temple/John Ford feature, Wee Willie Winkie, owes anything to Feininger.

However, it stands that this is the second comic strip the cartoonist/artist inaugurated in 1906. That was also the last year he worked on a strip, choosing to remain an artist/painter for the remainder of his life. I’ve already posted a piece on Feininger’s first strip, The Kin-Der-Kids, in the past month. I’ve also posted three pieces on Feininger’s artwork (1, 2, 3).
These have all been loaned to me courtesy of Bill Peckmann‘s gracious kindness and his amazing archive of artwork. Many thanks to him.

Here are strips of Wee Willie Winkie’s World straight from this book edited and introduced by Bill Blackbeard.

The original book cover.

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We’ve already seen Feininger’s love of trains in some of his watercolors.

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I think a trolley also doubles as a train.

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Suddenly a format change.

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Another format change.

- More of the artwork of Lyonel Feininger, thanks to Bill Peckmann‘s greast resources. This is from a third catalogue of his artwork at a gallery showing. These are all drawings done using different materials.

Unfortunately the pictures are printed quite small on the page, so they remain small in the post. I’m sorry about that. However, something is better than nothing. If only we had the actual drawings here, you’d see some closeups.

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The catalog cover.
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(L) The catalog title page | (R) a biographic portrait
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Two self-portraits: one in 1906, the second in 1908
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Several drawings of chimneys in Paris.
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This is from another catalogue, but it fits well here.
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- There was such an interest in Ludwig Hohlwein’s work, last week, that we’re going forward with more. These come from two books, a 1926 edition of his work (see title page below) and
a 1994 German book, Ludwig Hohlwein, 1874-1949: Kunstgewerbe und Reklamekunst.

All the scans were done by Bill Peckmann, who owns both of these books. Many thanks to him for not only introducing me to thie wonderful artist but for sharing so many illustrations of his work.

Title page from the 1926 book.

Here’s a portrait of Hohlwein.

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Illustrations 13 & 14 are book covers.

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- I had planned to post some examples of Feininger’s second comic strip, Wee Willie Winkie, this week. However, Bill Peckmann surprised me with more of his fine art. This is all from 1908, just two years after he left the strip behind. Most of these images are done with some form of crayon on paper, rather than oil on canvas.

The show was one that was held at the Achim Moeller Fine Art gallery in New York.

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This is the catalogue’s cover.

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A self portrait opposite the title page.

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A foreward to the catalogue by gallery owner, Achim Moeller.

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Two Figures, 1908

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Promenade, 1908

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Two Figures, 1908

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Street Scene, 1908

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The Miller and His Child, Heringsdorf, 1908

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Masks, Gelmeroda, 1908

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Figures Seated on Beach Overlooking Town, 1908

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Workmen, 1908

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Railway 1909

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Train 1909

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Railroad Men, Zehlendorf 1908

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Railway Scene, 1908

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Steam Train, 1908

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Railroad Scene, 1908

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Grotesque Scene with Six Figures, 1908

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Study for Carnival in Gelmeroda, 1908

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The 2011 Oscar nominations were just revealed. The nominations for Best Animated Short include:

* “Day & Night” Teddy Newton
* “The Gruffalo” Jakob Schuh and Max Lang
* “Let’s Pollute” Geefwee Boedoe
* “The Lost Thing” Shaun Tan and Andrew Ruhemann
* “Madagascar, carnet de voyage (Madagascar, a Journey Diary)” Bastien Dubois

I’m very sorry to see that Sensology Michel Gagné abstract short wasn’t nominated. After all these years you would think ONE absract film could be included. But the Academy members are even more straight laced than in the past.

- We’ve been, lately, showcasing some of Lyonel Feirlinger‘s work. A close cousin of his would seem to be Ludwig Hohlwein. Hohlwein was a brilliant German poster artist. His influence seems to have fallen far and wide. Alex Toth and Rowland B. Wilson have both admitted a fondness for Hohlwein, and homage can be found in several of their works. There can also be no doubt that Vernon Grant was aware of Hohlwein’s work.

Hohlwein was born in 1874 and practiced his art until 1906 when he turned to pster design. He quickly became one of the leading masters of his day. (Interestingly, it was 1906 when Feininger did his two great comic strips and left to turn to oil painting in Germany.)

Bill Peckmann introduced me to Hohlwein, and he’s scanned many of the posters from the book to the right, a 1926 publication. Many thanks, again, to Bill for the material.

Here, then, are some of the posters from this book:

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Here’s a note from Bill Peckmann: “Here’s the color version of the ad/poster
from an oversized Dover reprint book. Sorry I couldn’t get it all on the scanner,
but you’ll get the jest of it. It’s that glowing coal of the cigarette in the
silhouette that Rowland just loved. Pretty neat, huh?”

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An Alex Toth image.

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Another Alex Toth image that looks
very much like a Feininger strip panel.

- Last week, I posted some examples of Lyonel Feininger‘s comic strip art, panels from his 1906 strip for the Chicago Tribune, The Kin-der-kids.

As I pointed out, then, he left comic strips in 1906 and moved onto fine Art painting. This week, I’d like to look at the painting part of his early career.

Bill Peckmann has in his wonderful collection the brochures for two art exhibits that took place in the 80s. He’s sent me material from both brochures that I’d like to post here. The first was a show that took place at the Achim Moeller Fine Art Gallery in New York. Here is the NYTimes review for that show:

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Paris chimneys 1906

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Steam Train 1908

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Cover of second gallery brochure

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Cover of booklet for second gallery show.

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Title page

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Lyonel Feininger

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Haystacks 1907

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Steeple Behind Trees 1907

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Edge of the Wood, Lobbe 1907

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Arcueil I 1907

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The Proposal 1906

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Pedestrians 1908

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Carnival in Gelmeroda II 1909

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Small Blue Locomotive 1909

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Newspaper Readers 1909

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Carnival in Arcueil 1911

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Velocipedists 1910

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Still Life 1912

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Bridge O 1912

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Newspaper Readers II 1916

Many thanks to Bill Peckmann for this material.

Next week examples of Wee Willie Winkie

- Lyonel Feininger was most famously known for his artwork done in Germany as part of the German Expressionist movement. Interestingly enough, he didn’t start his serious art until the age of 36. Born in the United States in 1871, he created two early comic strips which were commissioned by the Chicago Tribune in 1906. They were trying to compete with the best strips of the day and chose to look to their own German-American community. The Kin-der-Kids and Wee Willie Winkie’s World. Both strips stand up with the best of Winsor McCay’s comic strips and, in some ways, is even more graphically daring than McCay.

Bill Peckmann has loaned me an excellent book collecting the strips of Feininger. In this first post, I’ve selected some samples of The Kin-der-Kids strip.

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The paper started the strip off with a big bang.

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A detailed introduction to all the characters.

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To give an idea of Feininger’s art after the comic strips, I’ve culled these few images of his paintings from various sites.

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Oil on canvas

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Oil on canvas

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Watercolor

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Oil on canvas

- Continuing the epic artpiece by Santiago Cohen takes us to part #7, and with it another possible ending. Santiago may have produced more, in which case it will continue into next week. I hope so; it’s been a treat to post this brilliant work.

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(Click any image to enlarge.)

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To see prior parts of this post:
Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, Part 6

I’d thought the post last week of Santiago Cohen‘s auto-biographical opus had come to a conclusion. After telling Santiago I’d gladly continue it if more came, he actually produced another large continuation of the story. Great for me!

So it will go on for this and, at least, another week. The comments have been quite favorable, and I’m enjoying it. So on with the story.

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(Click any image to enlarge.)

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To see prior parts of this post:
Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5

- One of the treasures in New York is the museum called “The Cloisters”. This is a branch of the Metropolitan Museum of Art dedicated to European Medieval Art.

Within this small enclave, there’s a wealth of tapestries, paintings, sculpture and utensils (actually used during the Middle Ages.) The building, itself, was reconstructed near Fort Tryon (a Revolutionary War outpost that is commemorated with a small area of the park) from bricks and stones that were made up the actual building, originally in Europe.

The greatest aspect of the place, to me, is the silence and majesty of the surroundings. It’s beautiful and quiet and goldenl something that stands out and apart from NYC.

Steve Fisher recently sent me some photos of parts of the building, without showcasing the art, and they seemed perfect to me. Here they are:

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The Cloisters sits not far from the George Washington Bridge
just this side of New Jersey.

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Within the building are many stained glass windows.

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The windows lead you to the open air.

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Fianlly you reach the courtyard which is a sanctuary of its own,
any time of the year. It sits in quiet and invites peace.

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Al aout the courtyard is a the square walkway with water fountains
built into the walls in the shapes of lions and other animals.

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Some other time, we’ll look at the art.

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