Artists' Letters of Note

A letter from Rolling Stones’ Mick Jagger to Andy Warhol. For their ninth album “Sticky Fingers” the Rolling Stones had asked Warhol to design the album cover.

A letter to Andy Warhol from the marketing manager for Campbell’s Soup who must have been extremely pleased with Warhol’s 32 silkscreened portraits of Campbell’s Soup Cans.

Below, a letter written by pop-art icon Keith Haring, in reply to a young aspiring artist and fan.  Haring, who is still held in high esteem on an international level, died of AIDS at the age of 31. He left behind numerous artworks, and the so called “Keith Haring Foundation”, established to assist people suffering from AIDS related diseases.

'Improving' Hitler and Goya

Iakovos  “Jake” and “Konstantinos” Dinos Chapman are two English visual artists, that go by the name of  “the Chapman Brothers”.

As a main subject for their work, the brothers mostly use subjects that are thought of as offensive, distasteful or vulgar.  Their art is oftentimes highly controversial and attention-grabbing.

Some examples:  In 2008 the Chapman Brothers held an exhibition entitled “If Hitler had been a hippy, how happy would we be”. For this exhibition the brothers acquired  a group of original watercolours that had been painted by Adolf Hitler himself. They then appropriated these works by painting bright psychedelic skies and smiley faces over them.



Watercolour painting by Adolf Hitler, appropiated by the Chapman Brothers.



But perhaps the most controversial work the brothers have ever made, is a series from 2003, entitled “Insult to Injury”. For this series the brothers purchased a complete set of Goya’s etchings, “The Disasters of War”, and added comical grotesque faces to them.



Goya's "The Disasters of War", appropiated  by the Chapman Brothers: "Insult to Injury", 2003



Although these works are held in high esteem by many, some see them  as pure vandalism. Another point of interest is the actual sale of these works: establishing prices can be quite problematic, since buyers actually buy two works of art at the same time: a Goya and a Chapman. Is it an improved Goya or a nearly vandalized  Goya?

Ghost...

British artist Rachel Whiteread is well known for her original sculptures with which she seeks to express the idea of space, room, void. She does this mainly by making casts of various objects.

In one of her first works, entitled “Shovel”,  she made a cast of her own back and attached a handle on top of it, so that it would resemble a shovel. 

One of her larger scale works, entitled “Ghost” is yet another cast: its mould was an entire living-room in a Victorian house: Whiteread had the walls of the living-room cast in units of plaster that were then mounted together so that the structure and volume of the original Victorian living-room becomes visible. Negative imprints, such as the open fireplace clarifies that we are in fact dealing with the INSIDE of a room.



Rachel Whiteread: Ghost, 1990, plaster, 270x318x365cm



Prince's Nurses

Richard Prince is an American painter and photographer, who began his career in 1977 by appropriating photographs:  meaning the artist pulls from the work of others, in a modified way, in order to create his own work.

The most well-known paintings by Prince, are his works from the so-called “Nurse Series”.  A series that is mainly inspired by the covers  of cheap pulp novels. Prince initially scanned the cover images, after which they were transferred onto a canvas and personalized by acrylic paint. The titles of the series include “Naughty nurse”, “Millionaire Nurse”, “Surfer Nurse”, after the titles of the book covers they were appropriated from.

Although heavily criticized at first, the Nurses are now priced in the millions.



Richard Prince: A nurse on horseback



Richard Prince: Tender Nurse