Art Out The Wazoo

Armin Hansen, Storm Birds, (c. 1920s)

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Armin Hansen (1886 – 1957) was a prominent American painter of the California Impressionist or plein air school, best known for his marine canvases. His father  Herman was also a famous artist of the American West.  Armin Hansen studied at the Mark Hopkins Institute of Art and later the Academy of Fine Arts, Munich.  He was elected to the National Academy of Design in 1926.

Armin Hansen, Fishermen Salvaging a Wreck (c. 1920s)

Born in 1886 Armin Hansen learned a great deal from his father about portraiture and “old west” landscape painting.  At Mark Hopkins he studied under Arthur Frank Mathews from 1903 to 1906. While in Europe, he became a deck hand on a number of commercial vessels, including a Norwegian steam fishing trawler.

Armin Hansen, Crossing the Bar (1922)

Armin Hansen, Nino (c. 1920s)

Returning to the United States he taught at the University of California, Berkeley and in 1913 moved to Monterey, then a budding art colony.  He was a founding member of the Carmel Art Association and focused heavily on marine scenes — he was especially interested in elaborating man’s relationship with the sea.  In this way he reminds me very much of Winslow Homer.

Armin Hansen, Reef Sea Fishermen, Monterey (c. 1920s)

Armin Hansen, Aground (c. 1920s)

In the early 1920s Hansen lived almost full-time in Monterey and often entertained other artists, including members of the so-called Society of Six. In the 1920s Hansen was not only one of the best known California artists, he was widely considered the best teacher of his era on the West Coast. Somewhat unusually, Hansen had friends among both the avant garde Monterey School and the more conservative Carmel artists.

Armin Hansen, Fisher Fleet, Monterey (c. 1920s)

Armin Hansen, Low Tide, Monterey (1920)

Armin Hansen, Boy With a Cod (c. 1920s)

Armin Hansen, Still Life (date unknown)

In the 1930s Hansen’s paintings become more intense and his use of light more pronounced.  He was the leader of a group of artists who opposed the removal of San Francisco’s Fisherman’s Wharf as part of a redevelopment scheme.  Amazingly, the artists prevailed and the Wharf was saved.

Armin Hansen, Before the Storm (1935)

Armin Hansen, Boats and Clouds (date unknown)

Armin Hansen, Men of the Sea (c. 1930s)

For my own part I love Hansen’s dramatic use of light-dark value contrasts and his deft use of beautiful warm and cool grays.  I’ve seen nobody but Winslow Homer who better conveys the ruggedness of life at sea.  Armin Hansen has fallen off the map a bit in recent years, which is unfortunate.  I hope this post exposes a few more people to one of my favorite artists!

Roger Kuntz, Freeway Shadow (c. 1960) Roger Kuntz, Concrete Canyon (c. 1960)

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Roger Kuntz (1926 – 1975), a member of the Claremont Group, was one of the most popular Southern California landscape artists of the early 1960s.   Kuntz’s “Freeway” paintings, in particular, are often deemed a statement on the creeping modernism of Los Angeles in the late 1950s and early 1960s.  While some critics group Kuntz with abstract artists, if you pay attention you will  immediately notice he renders his subjects quite realistically, albeit stripped down to their bare essentials — reminiscent of Edward Hopper.  As the Los Angeles Times noted in 2009:

“[Kuntz's] relative anonymity stems from the nature of his work. With the benefit of hindsight, it’s clear Kuntz was not a Pop artist. His traditional oil paintings don’t use the pictorial language of mass media to critically undercut establishment ideas about Modern art, as did radical Pop artists like Ed Ruscha, Andy Warhol and Roy Lichtenstein. Instead, Kuntz renders the built environment with a traditional attention to optical naturalism.

Kuntz’s freeway paintings seemed Pop because they represent full immersion in unprecedented subject matter, which had rarely turned up before him. Edward Hopper, for example, painted the somewhat similar concrete canyon of a railroad approach into a city in 1946. But that’s the point: Like Hopper, Kuntz was an American Scene painter. What makes Kuntz’s work distinctive is its singular subject.”

Roger Kuntz, Title Unknown (c.1960) Roger Kuntz, Title Unknown (c. 1960)

Kuntz intentionally walks a fine line between representation and abstraction that is quite provocative.  In that way he reminds me of Cezanne.  I’ve seen a few of Kuntz’s Freeway paintings in various places from time to time, but I’ve never seen a group of them together.  I think they’re more striking when seen as one.  For you Kuntz purists out there, yes, I missed the  2009 Kuntz retrospective at the Laguna Art Museum.  Bummer.   I hear it was a Grade-A convergence of Kuntz Freeway art.   In my defense, I reside in Chicago.

Roger Kuntz, Title Unknown (c. 1960) Roger Kuntz, Title Unknown (c. 1960) Roger Kuntz, Title Unknown (c. 1960) Roger Kuntz, Title Unknown (c. 1960) Roger Kuntz, Title Unknown (c. 1960) Roger Kuntz, Title Unknown (c. 1960)

Bob Baker, Sedona – About a 7 Iron (2013)

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Here’s my latest.  If you like golf and red rocks this painting is for you!  Have a good weekend.

Bob Baker, Floating Shrimp Stand, Panama City Florida (2013)

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Here’s my latest.  They have the best shrimp in Panama City, Florida.  Growing up, peel-and-eat was about the only way I ever ate shrimp.  My mom used Zatarain’s Shrimp Boil with a couple lemons tossed in.  And then cocktail sauce.  This little stand has just about the freshest shrimp you will find on the planet — and is aptly named!

John French Sloan, Easter Eve (1907)

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John Sloan (1871 – 1951) is one of the best-known painters of the so-called Ashcan School (a moniker Sloan despised, but which has become a badge of honor).  The School, a loose grouping of painters with a populist bent led by Robert Henri, included  the likes of Sloan, Everett Shinn and William Glackens.  George Bellows would probably be grouped with the Ashcan School but for his late arrival in New York and untimely death at age 42.  Ashcan School painters generally featured with affection the ordinary men, women, children and neighborhoods of New York City.

Nobody better epitomizes the Ashcan School than John Sloan.  He loved ordinary, working-class people and the events of their daily lives.  Group him with Charles Dickens and Frank Capra.  I really love this one, and it’s timely here in Chicago where we are finally beginning to experience the Spring!

Bob Baker, Panama City Beach, From the Fishing Pier at St. Andrew State Park (2013)

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Here’s my latest.  This one depicts Panama City Beach, Florida, as seen from the fishing pier at St. Andrew State Park.  I wanted to give a sense of the wide open space so I painted this one on a 10″ x 20″ canvas — “Painted in Panavision,” you might say!   The blue in the painting is actually a bit subtler than in this image.  Digital cameras have a hard time reproducing blues.

Bob Baker, The Empty Tomb (2013)

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Happy Easter!  This is my third vacation painting — it depicts the empty tomb of Christian teaching.  I figure it to be around 11:34 a.m. on Easter morning.

This painting is the product of some fairly prodigious research on my part.  I like to get the details right when dealing with Christian themes, to remind myself and others of the historicity of so many of the Biblical events.  I tried out having a dog in the road, discovering the empty tomb, but couldn’t get him to look right — so out he came.  Sorry Fido.  I may give the pooch another shot and may also insert a Date Palm when I get back from  vacation.

Bob Baker, Walkway to the Beach at Venture Out (2013)

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Here’s my second vacation painting — this one depicts the walkway to the beach at Venture Out Resort in Panama City Beach, Florida.  A system of flags lets beach-goers know the swimming conditions for the day, and a red flag means no swimming!  This was on Monday of this week, and there was a 15-20 knot southwesterly wind that was really kicking up a big surf and undertow.  Things have calmed down since then.

Bob Baker, Shrimp Boat “Minh Mai,” Panama City, Florida (2013)

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Greetings, art fans!  I’m on vacation in Panama City Beach, Florida this week and this is my first vacation painting.  It depicts the shrimper Minh Mai at her berth in Panama City, which is right in the middle of prime shrimping territory and around 80 miles west of one of Florida’s most famous oyster beds — Apalachicola.  I love peel-and-eat shrimp and raw oysters so this is food heaven to me.  I like painting work boats and couldn’t resist this one.

Bob Baker, Portrait (2013)

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I don’t do many portraits but sometimes I do!