art and photography

Andreas Gursky, “Dubai World III,” Photograph, 2008. Gursky (b. Leipzig, 1955) studied at the Dusseldorf Art Academy and is known for his large scale prints and interest in world tourist sites. This photograph references the controversial “Dubai World” project started by Nakheel Properties, which built artificial islands off the United Arab Emirates, with the ensemble […]

. Henri Matisse, Zorah: La Robe Jaune. Oil on Canvass. Morocco, 1912. Collection Cowles it has been argued that Matisse stepped back, on his first trip in Morocco, from painting “wild, Fauvist women” to a more mature concern with the person and culture of his model, the Moroccan courtesan Zorah, whom he names and whom […]

Photograph by Juan Cole, May, 2012

Pierre-Auguste Renoir (1841-1919) A dos de chameau signed ‘Renoir.’ (lower right) oil on canvas 28 3/8 x 29½ in. (72 x 75 cm.) Painted in Algeria in 1881 ( Just sold by Christies at auction for $2.7 million) The impressionist painter Pierre-Auguste Renoir (1841–1919) began achieving some success after the turmoil attendant on the Franco-Prussian […]

Paul Klee, the Swiss-German modernist painter, experienced epiphanies during the ‘student trip’ he took with two other young artists to Tunisia in 1914. It was there that he, deeply influenced by the color and the quality of the light (which other European artists have remarked on), he “began his path toward abstraction,” as the brochure […]

The Moroccans Henri Matisse (French, 1869–1954) Issy-les-Moulineaux, late 1915 and fall 1916. Oil on canvas, 71 3/8″ x 9′ 2″ (181.3 x 279.4 cm). Gift of Mr. and Mrs. Samuel A. Marx. © 2012 Succession H. Matisse, Paris For Matisse in Morocco, see this page. Here is the MOMA audio description: See also my previous […]

Photograph by Juan Cole, May 2012 Line of tanks that Mu’tasim Qaddafi deployed against the civilians of the city of Misrata, Libya, March-August 2011– destroyed and kept as a memorial outside the city.