Thursday, July 5, 2007
Marlborough Fine Art
MARLBOROUGH FINE ART
Marlborough Fine Art was founded in 1946 by Frank Lloyd and Harry Fischer who emigrated to England from Vienna, where Lloyd's family had been antique dealers for three generations and Fischer had dealt in antiquarian books. They had first met in 1940, as soldiers in the British army. In 1948 they were joined by a third partner, David Somerset, now the Duke of Beaufort, and chairman of Marlborough Fine Art (London) Ltd.
After the wartime years of recession, London became the principal market for modern art and Marlborough's role in this changing art world was established. It set standards for exhibitions that were worthy of a modern museum. These were reviewed like museum shows, and the gallery became a focus for collectors, museum directors and connoisseurs as well as history of art students. In 1952 Marlborough was already selling masterpieces of late 19th century including bronzes by Edgar Degas and paintings by Mary Cassatt, Paul Signac, Claude Monet, Camille Pissarro, Alfred Sisley, Auguste Renoir amongst others and drawings by Constantine Guys and Vincent van Gogh.
In the late 1950's and early 1960's Marlborough put on a string of prime exhibitions related to expressionism and the modern German tradition: Art in Revolt (Germany 1905-1925; Kandinsky, the Road to Abstraction and The Painters of the Bauhaus. These were followed by a major Kurt Schwitters show in 1963. In 1960 an exhibition of new paintings by Francis Bacon proved sensational. In 1961 Henry Moore's important exhibition of stone and wood carvings was applauded by clients and the press. The same year saw an exhibition of Jackson Pollock's paintings which included a very rare and early Self Portrait dating from 1933. In 1964 an extraordinary exhibition of paintings, watercolours and drawings by Egon Schiele were shown in London for the first time.
In the 1960s Frank Lloyd moved to New York and in 1972 his son Gilbert Lloyd, who joined the gallery ten years earlier, assumed control of Marlborough Fine Art in London. At the same time Pierre Levai, Frank Lloyd's nephew, took over the running of Marlborough in New York.
During the 1970's and 80's, Marlborough staged some of London's most remarkable exhibitions by such artists as: Frank Auerbach, Francis Bacon, Lynn Chadwick, Lucian Freud, Barbara Hepworth, R.B.Kitaj, Henry Moore, Ben Nicholson, Victor Pasmore, John Piper and Graham Sutherland. Important exhibitions were held of work by Jacques Lipchitz and René Magritte in 1973; Max Beckmann and Max Bill in 1974; Henri Matisse in 1978 and the innovative Schwitters in Exile show of 1981 which reshaped opinion of the late work of this artist.
During the 1980's and 90's exhibitions of work by Stephen Conroy, John Davies, Bill Jacklin, Ken Kiff, and Paula Rego were held. In 1994-95 R.B. Kitaj had a major Retrospective at the Tate Gallery, London travelling to the Los Angeles County Museum of Art and the Metropolitan Museum, New York. In 2001 the Royal Academy London showed a Retrospective of Frank Auerbach. The same year Paula Rego showed at Abbot Hall Art Gallery & Museum in Kendal which travelled to the Yale Center for British Art. In 2003 a Stephen Conroy Retrospective was shown at the Schloss Gottorf Museum in Schleswig-Holstein.Paula Rego's work is currently being shown to huge acclaim at the Serralves Museum
in Oporto until 23 January 2005 www.serralves.pt She also has a smaller exhibition as
part of the 'In Focus' series at Tate Britain until 2 January 2005 which includes her most
recent Triptych The Pillow Man www.tate.org.uk John Davies has a major Retrospective at
the Museo de Bellas Artes de Bilbao until 23 January 2005
www.museobilbao.com which travels to the Valencia
Institute of Modern Art from 10 March - 22 May 2005.-->
Paula Rego had a major Retrospective at the Serralves Museum, Oporto from October 2004 - January 2005. Her work was also shown as part of the 'In Focus' series at Tate Britain from October 2004 - January 2005 which included her Triptych The Pillow Man. John Davies's major Retrospective at the Museo de Bellas Artes in Bilbao closed on 23 January 2005 and travels to the Valencia Institute of Modern Art from 10 March - 22 May 2005.
Marlborough Fine Art was founded in 1946 by Frank Lloyd and Harry Fischer who emigrated to England from Vienna, where Lloyd's family had been antique dealers for three generations and Fischer had dealt in antiquarian books. They had first met in 1940, as soldiers in the British army. In 1948 they were joined by a third partner, David Somerset, now the Duke of Beaufort, and chairman of Marlborough Fine Art (London) Ltd.
After the wartime years of recession, London became the principal market for modern art and Marlborough's role in this changing art world was established. It set standards for exhibitions that were worthy of a modern museum. These were reviewed like museum shows, and the gallery became a focus for collectors, museum directors and connoisseurs as well as history of art students. In 1952 Marlborough was already selling masterpieces of late 19th century including bronzes by Edgar Degas and paintings by Mary Cassatt, Paul Signac, Claude Monet, Camille Pissarro, Alfred Sisley, Auguste Renoir amongst others and drawings by Constantine Guys and Vincent van Gogh.
In the late 1950's and early 1960's Marlborough put on a string of prime exhibitions related to expressionism and the modern German tradition: Art in Revolt (Germany 1905-1925; Kandinsky, the Road to Abstraction and The Painters of the Bauhaus. These were followed by a major Kurt Schwitters show in 1963. In 1960 an exhibition of new paintings by Francis Bacon proved sensational. In 1961 Henry Moore's important exhibition of stone and wood carvings was applauded by clients and the press. The same year saw an exhibition of Jackson Pollock's paintings which included a very rare and early Self Portrait dating from 1933. In 1964 an extraordinary exhibition of paintings, watercolours and drawings by Egon Schiele were shown in London for the first time.
In the 1960s Frank Lloyd moved to New York and in 1972 his son Gilbert Lloyd, who joined the gallery ten years earlier, assumed control of Marlborough Fine Art in London. At the same time Pierre Levai, Frank Lloyd's nephew, took over the running of Marlborough in New York.
During the 1970's and 80's, Marlborough staged some of London's most remarkable exhibitions by such artists as: Frank Auerbach, Francis Bacon, Lynn Chadwick, Lucian Freud, Barbara Hepworth, R.B.Kitaj, Henry Moore, Ben Nicholson, Victor Pasmore, John Piper and Graham Sutherland. Important exhibitions were held of work by Jacques Lipchitz and René Magritte in 1973; Max Beckmann and Max Bill in 1974; Henri Matisse in 1978 and the innovative Schwitters in Exile show of 1981 which reshaped opinion of the late work of this artist.
During the 1980's and 90's exhibitions of work by Stephen Conroy, John Davies, Bill Jacklin, Ken Kiff, and Paula Rego were held. In 1994-95 R.B. Kitaj had a major Retrospective at the Tate Gallery, London travelling to the Los Angeles County Museum of Art and the Metropolitan Museum, New York. In 2001 the Royal Academy London showed a Retrospective of Frank Auerbach. The same year Paula Rego showed at Abbot Hall Art Gallery & Museum in Kendal which travelled to the Yale Center for British Art. In 2003 a Stephen Conroy Retrospective was shown at the Schloss Gottorf Museum in Schleswig-Holstein.Paula Rego's work is currently being shown to huge acclaim at the Serralves Museum
in Oporto until 23 January 2005 www.serralves.pt She also has a smaller exhibition as
part of the 'In Focus' series at Tate Britain until 2 January 2005 which includes her most
recent Triptych The Pillow Man www.tate.org.uk John Davies has a major Retrospective at
the Museo de Bellas Artes de Bilbao until 23 January 2005
www.museobilbao.com which travels to the Valencia
Institute of Modern Art from 10 March - 22 May 2005.-->
Paula Rego had a major Retrospective at the Serralves Museum, Oporto from October 2004 - January 2005. Her work was also shown as part of the 'In Focus' series at Tate Britain from October 2004 - January 2005 which included her Triptych The Pillow Man. John Davies's major Retrospective at the Museo de Bellas Artes in Bilbao closed on 23 January 2005 and travels to the Valencia Institute of Modern Art from 10 March - 22 May 2005.
Wednesday, July 4, 2007
John Connelly presents
www.johnconnellypresents.com
John Connelly presents
Augusto ArbizoTauba AuerbachJeff ElrodKim FisherDana FrankfortDaniel HesidenceAlex KwartlerCarrie MoyerElizabeth NeelRaha RaissniaWendy WhiteMichael Zahn
Late Liberties - on view from July 12 through August 24, 2007 - presents an inclusive survey of recent abstract painting, works on paper, and sculpture by a dozen of artists – including seven women painters – from New York, Los Angeles, and San Francisco. Works in this thematic exhibition include soft and hard-edge paintings, gestural and ‘expressionistic’ abstractions, as well as shaped and chromatically engaged ‘painted’ sculpture. Late Liberties is organized by artist and curator Augusto Arbizo in collaboration with John Connelly.
For a young artist to be making work at this moment in what could be called an abstract or non-representational manner, be it vaguely gestural, lyrical, or geometric in mode, is consciously or not, a highly personal and political act. With few exceptions, the history of the last 15 years has largely shunned modes of abstraction. Much maligned and critiqued – and often used as strategy for conceptually based work – it has been largely banished to the sidelines by an art world enthralled by photography, installation, animation and romantic figuration.
But modes are cyclical and thus a younger generation of artists has found that the more outmoded the approach, the more dangerous – and exciting – a territory it becomes. It is a loaded terrain that offers fissures and openings for freedom and personal manifestation – from the seemingly clinical and sedate to the unabashedly seductive. The works in this exhibition range from computer derived to text and design based to nature inspired, running the gamut from geometric compositions to loosely brushed fields of color. Disparate ideas concerning technology, fashion, art theory, wildlife and science, and pop culture, among others, inform the work. Furthermore, a commitment to the refined and handpainted becomes obvious, whether painstakingly cut, stenciled and ‘constructed’ or intuitively brushed and dripped. All the artists will be creating new work specifically for this exhibition and each one will be given his / her own wall. Looking at abstraction today makes it clear that it is a completely different exercise than it was for earlier generations. Ezra Pound’s famously quoted mandate to ‘make it new’ apparently still fits the bill, but for today’s artists it is a risky, perilous and rousing proposition – offering Late Liberties.
John Connelly presents
Augusto ArbizoTauba AuerbachJeff ElrodKim FisherDana FrankfortDaniel HesidenceAlex KwartlerCarrie MoyerElizabeth NeelRaha RaissniaWendy WhiteMichael Zahn
Late Liberties - on view from July 12 through August 24, 2007 - presents an inclusive survey of recent abstract painting, works on paper, and sculpture by a dozen of artists – including seven women painters – from New York, Los Angeles, and San Francisco. Works in this thematic exhibition include soft and hard-edge paintings, gestural and ‘expressionistic’ abstractions, as well as shaped and chromatically engaged ‘painted’ sculpture. Late Liberties is organized by artist and curator Augusto Arbizo in collaboration with John Connelly.
For a young artist to be making work at this moment in what could be called an abstract or non-representational manner, be it vaguely gestural, lyrical, or geometric in mode, is consciously or not, a highly personal and political act. With few exceptions, the history of the last 15 years has largely shunned modes of abstraction. Much maligned and critiqued – and often used as strategy for conceptually based work – it has been largely banished to the sidelines by an art world enthralled by photography, installation, animation and romantic figuration.
But modes are cyclical and thus a younger generation of artists has found that the more outmoded the approach, the more dangerous – and exciting – a territory it becomes. It is a loaded terrain that offers fissures and openings for freedom and personal manifestation – from the seemingly clinical and sedate to the unabashedly seductive. The works in this exhibition range from computer derived to text and design based to nature inspired, running the gamut from geometric compositions to loosely brushed fields of color. Disparate ideas concerning technology, fashion, art theory, wildlife and science, and pop culture, among others, inform the work. Furthermore, a commitment to the refined and handpainted becomes obvious, whether painstakingly cut, stenciled and ‘constructed’ or intuitively brushed and dripped. All the artists will be creating new work specifically for this exhibition and each one will be given his / her own wall. Looking at abstraction today makes it clear that it is a completely different exercise than it was for earlier generations. Ezra Pound’s famously quoted mandate to ‘make it new’ apparently still fits the bill, but for today’s artists it is a risky, perilous and rousing proposition – offering Late Liberties.
Friday, March 16, 2007
MERYL STREEP , bio
Meryl Streepborn: 22-06-1949birth place: Summit, New Jersey, USABorn Mary Louise Streep to father, Harry Streep Jr., a pharmaceutical executive and mother, Mary, a commercial artist. Harry loved to play the piano and Mary loved to sing, so Streep and her two younger brothers grew up surrounded by music. She was raised in suburban Bernardsville, New Jersey and as a youth, dreamed of becoming an opera singer, taking up singing lessons at age 12. She attended Bernardsville High School where she was a cheerleader and homecoming queen, before graduating in 1967. Streep had became interested in acting and went on to major in Drama and English at Vassar College. Following her graduation in 1971, she enrolled at the Yale University School of Drama in New Haven, Connecticut, graduating in 1975. She went on to study costume design and playwriting at Dartmouth College in Hanover, New Hampshire.At age 22, Streep made her professional stage debut in ‘The Playboy of Seville’ (1971) and her Broadway debut was in ‘Trelawney of the Wells’ (1975). Her small screen debut was in the made-for-television movie ‘The Deadliest Season’ (1977) and her big screen debut in ‘Julia’ (1977), in which she gave an excellent performance in a small part in a flashback sequence. The following year, on 15 September 1978, she married sculptor Don Gummer. The couple have four children, Henry (b. 1979), Mary (aka Mamie) (b. 1983), Grace (b. 1986) and Louisa (b. 1991). Wasting no time in achieving accolades, Streep was nominated for her first Oscar for her second feature film role in ‘The Deer Hunter’ (1978), one of the most powerful films of all time. She won her first Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Miniseries or TV Movie, for her role in ‘Holocaust’ (1978). She then won two Academy Awards, the first for Best Supporting Actress for her role in ‘Kramer vs. Kramer’ (1979), opposite Dustin Hoffman and the second for Best Actress as Sophie Zawistowski in ‘Sophie’s Choice’ (1982).She went on to make highly acclaimed performances in several films throughout the remainder of the 1980s. These include her first starring role in a feature film, ‘The French Lieutenant’s Woman’ (1981) with Jeremy Irons; ‘Silkwood’ (1983) with Kurt Russell and Cher; ‘Out of Africa’ (1985) co-starring Robert Redford; ‘Heartburn’ (1986) and ‘Ironweed’ (1987), both with Jack Nicholson; and as Lindy Chamberlain, with Sam Neill in ‘Evil Angels’ (1988), the fact-based film drama, known in America as ‘A Cry in the Dark’, for which she won the 1989 Cannes Film Festival Best Actress Award. She won six People’s Choice Awards for Favourite Motion Picture Actress between 1984 and 1990, the year she was named World Favourite.
ARTHUR RIMBAUD , Biography
Arthur Rimbaud (1854-1891)
French poet and adventurer, who stopped writing verse at the age of 21, and became after his early death an inextricable myth in French gay life. Rimbaud's poetry, partially written in free verse, is characterized by dramatic and imaginative vision. "I say that one must be a visionary - that one must make oneself a VISIONARY." His works are among the most original in the Symbolist movement, which included in France such poets as Stéphane Mallarme and Paul Paul Verlaine, and playwrights as Maurice Maeterlinck. Rimbaud's best-known work, LE BÂTEAU IVRE (The Drunken Boat), appeared in 1871. In the poem he sent a toy boat on a journey, an allegory for a spiritual quest.
It is found again. What? Eternity. It is the sea Gone with the sun. (from 'L'Éternite', 1872)
Arthur Rimbaud was born in Charleville, in the northern Ardennes region of France, as the son of Fréderic Rimbaud, a career soldier, who had served in Algria, and Marie-Catherine-Vitale Cuif, an unsentimental matriarch. Rimbaud's father left the family and from the age of six young Arthur was raised by her strictly religious mother. Rimbaud was educated in a provincial school until the age of fifteen. He was an outstanding student but his behavior was considered provocative. After publishing his first poem in 1870 at the age of 16, Rimbaud wandered through northern France and Belgium, and was returned to his home in Paris by police.
In 1871 he met poet Paul Verlaine (1844-1896), whose collection of poems, Les Amies (1867) had been banned by a court. Verlaine was an alcoholic who had a taste had a taste for absinthe. He left his family - his young wife, Mathilde Mauté, was expecting a baby - and fled with the teenaged Rimbaud to London in 1872 to live a Bohemian life. Most of the time they lived in poverty and abused drink and drugs. Rimbaud accepted uncleaniness, including body lice, but Verlaine was horrified by the English cuisine, especially "the abominable oxtail soup": "Fie on such a horror! A man's sock with a rotten clitoris floating in it." Their relationship ended next year in Brussels, when Rimbaud tried to break off the relationship. Verlaine, drunk and desolate, shot Rimbaud in the wrist with a 7mm pistol after a quarrel. Verlaine was tried for attempted murder and sent to Brussels' Amigo Detention Center. Rimbaud returned to the family farm in Roche, where he finished his UNE SAISON EN ENFER (A Season in Hell).
Rimbaud's collection of poetry and prose pieces, A Season in Hell, appeared in 1873. "One evening, I sat Beauty in my lap. - And I found her bitter. - And I cursed her." Rimbaud gave some copies of the book to his friends - one was sent to P. Verlaine at the Petits Carmes Prison - but the spiritual autobiography did not receive any reviews. After completing in England ILLUMINATIONS, a collection of prose poems, Rimbaud gave up literature and burned his manuscripts. In 1901 the first edition of A Season in Hell was found at the printers' in its original packing. Eventually the work became a touchstone for anguished poets, artists, and lovers. In 1874 Rimbaud spent some time in London with Germain Nouveau, a young poet, who had only one testicle. Nouveau member of the Zutistes circle - a group of poets who wrote verses in a notebook, the Zutiste Album. At the British Library Rimbaud was not allowed to read Marquis de Sade's books because he was under twenty-one. Verlaine, whom Rimbaud saw last time in 1875, and with whom he had a violent quarrel, published a selection of Rimbaud's poems and wrote about him in LES POÈTES MAUDITS (1884).
In 1875-76 Rimbaud learned several languages, English, German, Spanish, Italian, Russian, Arabic and Greek, and started his vagabond life again. He worked a teacher in Germany, unloaded cargo in Marseilles, enlisted in the Netherlands army but deserted in Sumatra. In 1876 Rimbaud robbed a cabman in Vienna. In the last dozen years of his life, Rimbaud worked in the import-export field for series of French employers dealing everything from porcelain to weaponry - possibly he was a slave dealer.
Rimbaud arrived in 1880 in Aden after short sojourns in Java and Cyprus. Rimbaud made business travels in modern-day Yemen, Ethiopia, and Egypt, and walked occasionally hundreds of miles at the head of trading caravans through dangerous lands. He was the first European to penetrate into the country of Ogadain. His expertise and learning of the language, religion, and culture of local peoples was acknowledged when the French Geographical Society deemed his commercial and geographical report on East Africa worthy of publication.
In 1886 Verlaine published Rimbaud's book of poems, Illuminations. It revealed Rimbaud's longing for spiritual values and reestablished his reputation as a major poet. A rumor started to spread in September 1888 that Rimbaud was dead and next year Le Décadent published as a joke a list of donors to the statue of Rimbaud. In February 1891 Rimbaud felt pain in his left knee, and went to Marseilles to see a doctor. The leg had to be amputated because of enormous, cancerous swelling. Rimbaud died in Marseilles on November 10, 1891, and was buried in Charleville in strict family intimacy. Isabelle, Rimbaud's sister, had never known till after her brother's death, that he had been a poet. Rimbaud's African servant boy, Djami Wadaï, was one of his major heirs apart from his family.
French poet and adventurer, who stopped writing verse at the age of 21, and became after his early death an inextricable myth in French gay life. Rimbaud's poetry, partially written in free verse, is characterized by dramatic and imaginative vision. "I say that one must be a visionary - that one must make oneself a VISIONARY." His works are among the most original in the Symbolist movement, which included in France such poets as Stéphane Mallarme and Paul Paul Verlaine, and playwrights as Maurice Maeterlinck. Rimbaud's best-known work, LE BÂTEAU IVRE (The Drunken Boat), appeared in 1871. In the poem he sent a toy boat on a journey, an allegory for a spiritual quest.
It is found again. What? Eternity. It is the sea Gone with the sun. (from 'L'Éternite', 1872)
Arthur Rimbaud was born in Charleville, in the northern Ardennes region of France, as the son of Fréderic Rimbaud, a career soldier, who had served in Algria, and Marie-Catherine-Vitale Cuif, an unsentimental matriarch. Rimbaud's father left the family and from the age of six young Arthur was raised by her strictly religious mother. Rimbaud was educated in a provincial school until the age of fifteen. He was an outstanding student but his behavior was considered provocative. After publishing his first poem in 1870 at the age of 16, Rimbaud wandered through northern France and Belgium, and was returned to his home in Paris by police.
In 1871 he met poet Paul Verlaine (1844-1896), whose collection of poems, Les Amies (1867) had been banned by a court. Verlaine was an alcoholic who had a taste had a taste for absinthe. He left his family - his young wife, Mathilde Mauté, was expecting a baby - and fled with the teenaged Rimbaud to London in 1872 to live a Bohemian life. Most of the time they lived in poverty and abused drink and drugs. Rimbaud accepted uncleaniness, including body lice, but Verlaine was horrified by the English cuisine, especially "the abominable oxtail soup": "Fie on such a horror! A man's sock with a rotten clitoris floating in it." Their relationship ended next year in Brussels, when Rimbaud tried to break off the relationship. Verlaine, drunk and desolate, shot Rimbaud in the wrist with a 7mm pistol after a quarrel. Verlaine was tried for attempted murder and sent to Brussels' Amigo Detention Center. Rimbaud returned to the family farm in Roche, where he finished his UNE SAISON EN ENFER (A Season in Hell).
Rimbaud's collection of poetry and prose pieces, A Season in Hell, appeared in 1873. "One evening, I sat Beauty in my lap. - And I found her bitter. - And I cursed her." Rimbaud gave some copies of the book to his friends - one was sent to P. Verlaine at the Petits Carmes Prison - but the spiritual autobiography did not receive any reviews. After completing in England ILLUMINATIONS, a collection of prose poems, Rimbaud gave up literature and burned his manuscripts. In 1901 the first edition of A Season in Hell was found at the printers' in its original packing. Eventually the work became a touchstone for anguished poets, artists, and lovers. In 1874 Rimbaud spent some time in London with Germain Nouveau, a young poet, who had only one testicle. Nouveau member of the Zutistes circle - a group of poets who wrote verses in a notebook, the Zutiste Album. At the British Library Rimbaud was not allowed to read Marquis de Sade's books because he was under twenty-one. Verlaine, whom Rimbaud saw last time in 1875, and with whom he had a violent quarrel, published a selection of Rimbaud's poems and wrote about him in LES POÈTES MAUDITS (1884).
In 1875-76 Rimbaud learned several languages, English, German, Spanish, Italian, Russian, Arabic and Greek, and started his vagabond life again. He worked a teacher in Germany, unloaded cargo in Marseilles, enlisted in the Netherlands army but deserted in Sumatra. In 1876 Rimbaud robbed a cabman in Vienna. In the last dozen years of his life, Rimbaud worked in the import-export field for series of French employers dealing everything from porcelain to weaponry - possibly he was a slave dealer.
Rimbaud arrived in 1880 in Aden after short sojourns in Java and Cyprus. Rimbaud made business travels in modern-day Yemen, Ethiopia, and Egypt, and walked occasionally hundreds of miles at the head of trading caravans through dangerous lands. He was the first European to penetrate into the country of Ogadain. His expertise and learning of the language, religion, and culture of local peoples was acknowledged when the French Geographical Society deemed his commercial and geographical report on East Africa worthy of publication.
In 1886 Verlaine published Rimbaud's book of poems, Illuminations. It revealed Rimbaud's longing for spiritual values and reestablished his reputation as a major poet. A rumor started to spread in September 1888 that Rimbaud was dead and next year Le Décadent published as a joke a list of donors to the statue of Rimbaud. In February 1891 Rimbaud felt pain in his left knee, and went to Marseilles to see a doctor. The leg had to be amputated because of enormous, cancerous swelling. Rimbaud died in Marseilles on November 10, 1891, and was buried in Charleville in strict family intimacy. Isabelle, Rimbaud's sister, had never known till after her brother's death, that he had been a poet. Rimbaud's African servant boy, Djami Wadaï, was one of his major heirs apart from his family.
THE BEATLES - Biography
Inspired by the "skiffle boom", a student at Quarry Bank School in Liverpool named John Lennon decided to form a group in 1957 which laid the foundation to what was to become the most famous rock band of all time. John's original name was "The Blackjacks". However, this name only lasted a week and John used the school name as inspiration for the later name "The Quarry Men" in March 1957. John sang and played guitar, Colin Hanton played drums, Eric Griffiths on guitar, Pete Shotton on washboard, Rod Davis on banjo and Bill Smith on tea-chest bass. Bill was soon replaced by Ivan Vaughan. John was inspired by "Heartbreak Hotel" and became a fan of American rock 'n' roll music. He introduced songs by Buddy Holly , Carl Perkins, The Coasters, Elvis Presley, Jerry Lee Lewis and Gene Vincent into their repertoire. On July 6, 1957, Ivan Vaughan invited Paul McCartney to see their gig at The Woolton Parish Church Fete. The fifteen-year-old McCartney was introduce to sixteen-year-old Lennon and a unique song writing partnership began. The line-up of The Quarry Men increased to seven with Paul on guitar and vocals, John Lowe on piano and George Harrison on guitar and vocals. Soon Griffiths and another member would leave, leaving a five-piece band. The group appeared at several local talent contests but had very few gigs. By January 1959, the group wasn't operating. Although John and Paul kept in touch, George had joined the Les Stewart Quartet. That might have been the end of The Quarry Men but they had a stroke of luck. The Les Stewart Quartet had been booked as a resident band at a new club called "The Casbah". It was run by Mrs. Mona Best to support her son's Pete and Rory. Stewart, upset because his guitarist Ken Brown help decorate the club, refused to play there. Ken and George walked out of the group and George contacted John and Paul, and The Quarry Men were reunited as a quartet. After about seven gigs at the club, Ken Brown left over a disagreement about money. From October 1959 to January 1960 John, Paul and George continued as a trio with Paul on drums. They called themselves "Johnny & the Moondogs". By this time John was enrolled in The Liverpool College of Art. John knew that they needed a bass player so he asked two students if they would like the position. The two were Stuart Sutcliffe and Rod Murray. Both could not afford a guitar, so Rod started to make one by hand. However, Stuart was able to sell one of his paintings to a John Moores Exhibition and was able to buy a Hofner bass guitar and join the group in January, 1960. At this time the group had changed its name to "Silver Beetles". They also began shifting drummers around, the first was Tommy Moore who toured with them through Scotland and then left. The next was Norman Chapman but he left after only a few weeks. Finally, George suggested that Pete Best, the son of club owner Mrs. Mona Best, become the group's drummer. Paul contacted Pete and offered him the drummer seat, he took it. The group had finally settled on "The Beatles" just before their first trip to Hamburg in August, 1960. Now John, Paul, George, Stuart and Pete would head off for Hamburg. At that time The Beatles weren't considered to be the leading group in Liverpool and in most cases were looked down upon. In Hamburg they pulled their act together musically. This was caused by the fact that they had to play such long hours and were bullied by the club owner Bruno Koschimider to "make a show". It wasn't just Hamburg that made them special. The fact that Liverpool had so many venues for local acts to play at, coupled with the rivalry between more than 300 Merseyside groups, continued to forge The Beatles until they were to be regarded as Liverpool's top band. At the time, Pete Best was regarded as the most potent symbol in the band. After Hamburg, Stuart Sutcliffe had left and now The Beatles were a four-piece band and Paul took over as bass guitarist. John, Paul and George were the three front-line guitarists and they alternated as lead singers and also performed vocal harmony with either John and Paul or all three. Pete Best played drums and occasionally sang one song but he had developed a distinctive drum sound called "the atom beat" which many other drummers tried to copy. By this time, The Beatles had hired Brian Epstein as their manager and he signed them up for an audition with Decca Records. The head of Decca Records told The Beatles manager, "Guitar groups are on their way out Mr. Epstein.". The Beatles were devastated by their failed audition but Epstien secured them a contract with Parlophone Records. George Martin became their A&R Man. In August of 1962, Pete Best was replaced by Ringo Starr. Their first single "Love Me Do" was issued on October 5, 1962, and was a modest hit. 1963 and 1964 proved to be the most important years in their careers. In 1963 the "Beatlemania" craze had started in Britain and The Beatles were no longer support acts at concerts. Now they were starring in the Royal Variety Show and the highest rating TV show "Sunday Night At The London Palladium". Their biggest year was 1964 when they conquered the biggest record market in the world - America. The group became symbols. America was mourning the death of President John F. Kennedy and The Beatles appeared on the scene to bring them fun and excitement and end their mourning. They also brought back rock 'n' roll to America. After Elvis had join the army, he lost much of his early rebelliousness. Jerry Lee Lewis and Chuck Berry were rocked by scandals and their careers suffered. Buddy Holly, The Big Bopper and Ritchie Valens had been killed in an plane crash. The American media was promoting what The Beatles called "One-Hit-Wonders" such as Frankie Avalon, Tab Hunter, James Darren, etc. Ed Sullivan had been at London airport when The Beatles return from Sweden and saw all the girls screaming, the boys cheering and the media taking pictures. He knew they were something special and he booked them on his TV show "The Ed Sullivan Show". That show received the highest ratings in the history of television up to then. That same year The Beatles toured America for the first time and starred in their first motion picture "A Hard Day's Night". In 1965, The Beatles second motion picture "HELP!" premiered. Later that year, The Beatles performed at Shea Stadium in New York to a crowd of 55,000 screaming fans. The largest live audience in history. Their tours did have their darker moments. The first being in Tokyo, Japan where The Beatles were locked up in their hotel and were not allowed to come out until show time. The next was in the Philippines when, on a day off, Madam Marcos asked them to attend a Royal dinner. The Beatles politely turned down the invitation and the public was furious. The Beatles quickly left. In 1966, The Beatles were under heavy pressure from the press after John made a remark that The Beatles were more popular than Jesus. John had to apologize and explain himself several times. Not only that but their tour of America was plagued with mishaps. On August 19, 1966 they receive a death threat in Memphis and a firecracker went off during the show terrifying The Beatles. The next day in Cincinnati a concert promoter failed to provide a stage canopy and can't understand why The Beatles were unwilling to play electric guitars in a rainstorm. Paul becomes so agitated he becomes ill. On August 28, 1966 at Dodger Stadium, L.A. cops are seen beating teenage girls. Dozens are trampled in the chaos. During the sixties, The Beatles not only became a musical phenomenon, they affected the styles and fashions of the decade. They transformed the record industry as well. They brought about royalties for artists and producers, revolutionized music tours, and started the Pop promo film or what we know today as "The Music Video". Everyone of their albums, from Please Please Me to Abbey Road were all popular and unique in their own way. But after the death of their long time manager Brian Epstein, things would start to fall apart for The Beatles. Due to outside interests the group focused less and less and the band. In late 1964 they were introduced to marijuana and would experiment with more drugs such as LSD which they were first introduced to in late 1965. The Beatles played their last concert at Candlestick Park in San Francisco on August 29, 1966. In 1967, their manager Brian Epstein died of a accidental drug overdose. Some friction was caused between John and Paul because Paul was trying to become the leader of the group after Brian's death. Ties were still strong at this point between the band members despite Ringo leaving the band for a short time during The White Album because he felt left out. When Ringo decided to return he found his drum kit decked with flowers and the others tried to include him more. After The White Album they embarked on the "Let It Be" project. The idea was to see The Beatles jam, rehearse and record a whole new album of songs. At the end they would give a concert from some spectacular place. Tensions were high between Paul and George as they started recording at Twickenham Film Studios. John was off in his land of love with Yoko and Ringo was left in the background. One day George walked out on a session after a disagreement with Paul. George came back to finish up the album but as John would later explain, "We couldn't play the game anymore, we just couldn't do it". The Beatles gave their last public appearance on top of the Apple building on January 30, 1969. However their "Let It Be" album was deemed un-releasable. It was handed over to Phil Spector who added lush orchestrations to such songs as "The Long and Winding Road", infuriating Paul. Despite all of this, The Beatles decided to get together to make one final album "Abbey Road" which would go on to become their biggest selling record in history. It was mainly Paul who kept the group together this long, encouraging them to make Magical Mystery Tour back in 1967 after Brian's death and trying to get them all excited about recording and performing. Recording yes, performing no. From Sgt. Pepper's through Abbey Road these were considered to be their "studio years" where they rarely got together except to record. The Let It Be album was finally released on May 8, 1970 less than a month after Paul publicly announced he was no longer a member of the group. In the end, The Beatles became true legends. Their music touched all our lives. The Beatles wanted more than just to "Be Beatles", they wanted happiness. A happiness that they once had back when they first became successful. John found happiness with his one true love Yoko, his Plastic Ono Band, and son Sean; Paul found happiness with Linda, his children, and Wings; George found happiness with his solo career, Olivia, and his son Dhani; and Ringo found happiness with his solo career, acting career, Barbara, and his sons. They will always be the greatest rock 'n' roll band in history.
ANTONIO PESSOA - The 21th century Fox
The NEW ERA, Antonio Pessoa 2006 ia a Must,a highly recommendable collection of the artist's latest projects.
It doesn't seem to be pretentious to the point of struggling to show the world something new,whatever that means.
The NEW ERA , Antonio Pessoa 2006,it's a natural effortless display of ideas overflowing in his hiper-creative mind,not only with decorative purposes but essentialy aiming to reach his own perception of emotions through constructive conceptual compositions,pleasant to the eyes and real-genuine to our hearts.
The NEW ERA, Antonio Pessoa 2006 is right now available to anyone who enjoys high quality Art,a collection breaking up with the past but not yet breaking the rules.
For Antonio Pessoa doesn't feel the need to break the rules in order to express himself,he doesn't need to break the rules to gain publicity at all costs.
He leads his life and his work with no need to rush,taking life as it comes and creating on a daily basis as a religious ritual of his own.
Definitely a cool guy in the contemporary Art scene.
The NEW ERA, Antonio Pessoa 2006 ia a Must,a highly recommendable collection of the artist's latest projects.
It doesn't seem to be pretentious to the point of struggling to show the world something new,whatever that means.
The NEW ERA , Antonio Pessoa 2006,it's a natural effortless display of ideas overflowing in his hiper-creative mind,not only with decorative purposes but essentialy aiming to reach his own perception of emotions through constructive conceptual compositions,pleasant to the eyes and real-genuine to our hearts.
The NEW ERA, Antonio Pessoa 2006 is right now available to anyone who enjoys high quality Art,a collection breaking up with the past but not yet breaking the rules.
For Antonio Pessoa doesn't feel the need to break the rules in order to express himself,he doesn't need to break the rules to gain publicity at all costs.
He leads his life and his work with no need to rush,taking life as it comes and creating on a daily basis as a religious ritual of his own.
Definitely a cool guy in the contemporary Art scene.
1 - THE BEATLES
The BeatlesIrrepressible and irresistible, they were — and remain — the world's most astonishing rock-'n'-roll bandBy KURT LODER
Boomers can be tiresome when they natter on too long about the fun-swollen fabulousness of the 1960s. I mean, I was there: "Flower power"? Patchouli oil? Peter Max posters? Please. But even the mistiest of such geezers is likely to be right about the rock and soul music of that decade: Who could overstate its distinctive exuberance, its heady inventiveness, or the thrill of its sheer abundance? And who could overcelebrate those most emblematic of '60s pop phenomena, the Beatles? For the Beatles were then, and remain to this day, the world's most astonishing rock-'n'-roll band.
I use the adjective advisedly. Unrelenting astonishment is what I clearly recall feeling, as a teenager myself back in the winter of 1964, when "Beatlemania," an obscure hysteria that had erupted in Britain the year before, suddenly jumped the Atlantic and took instant root here. First, in January, came the spine-tingling arrival of I Want to Hold Your Hand — a great, convulsive rock-'n'-roll record that, to the bafflement of many a teen garage band across the land, actually had more than three chords (five more, to be exact — incredible). Then one week later, She Loves You careened onto the charts — wooo! The week after that came the headlong rush of Please Please Me, and by April, the top five singles in the country were all Beatles records. By year's-end they had logged a head-spinning 29 hits on the U.S. charts. It is hard — no, it is impossible — to imagine any of the gazillion or so carefully marketed little bands of today replicating a quarter of that feat. (Even a contemporary English group such as Oasis, which baldly appropriates the superficialities of the Beatles' style, entirely misses the still-magical heart of their music.)
Louis ArmstrongLucille BallThe BeatlesMarlon BrandoCoco ChanelCharlie ChaplinLe CorbusierBob DylanT.S. EliotAretha FranklinMartha GrahamJim HensonJames JoycePablo PicassoRodgers & HammersteinBart SimpsonFrank SinatraSteven SpielbergIgor StravinskyOprah Winfrey CategoriesLeaders/Revol.Builders/TitansScientists/ThinkersHeroes/Icons
Ed Sullivan, the poker-faced TV variety-show host, having spotted the effervescent moptops in mid-mob scene at London's Heathrow Airport the previous October ("Who the hell are the Beatles?" he'd asked excitedly), brought them over to play his show early on, in February 1964, and 70 million people tuned in. A congratulatory telegram from Elvis Presley, the great, lost god of rockabilly, was read at the beginning of the show, in what might have been seen as torch-passing fashion, and Americans — or American youth, at any rate — promptly fell in love. ("I give them a year," said Sullivan's musical director.)
Boomers can be tiresome when they natter on too long about the fun-swollen fabulousness of the 1960s. I mean, I was there: "Flower power"? Patchouli oil? Peter Max posters? Please. But even the mistiest of such geezers is likely to be right about the rock and soul music of that decade: Who could overstate its distinctive exuberance, its heady inventiveness, or the thrill of its sheer abundance? And who could overcelebrate those most emblematic of '60s pop phenomena, the Beatles? For the Beatles were then, and remain to this day, the world's most astonishing rock-'n'-roll band.
I use the adjective advisedly. Unrelenting astonishment is what I clearly recall feeling, as a teenager myself back in the winter of 1964, when "Beatlemania," an obscure hysteria that had erupted in Britain the year before, suddenly jumped the Atlantic and took instant root here. First, in January, came the spine-tingling arrival of I Want to Hold Your Hand — a great, convulsive rock-'n'-roll record that, to the bafflement of many a teen garage band across the land, actually had more than three chords (five more, to be exact — incredible). Then one week later, She Loves You careened onto the charts — wooo! The week after that came the headlong rush of Please Please Me, and by April, the top five singles in the country were all Beatles records. By year's-end they had logged a head-spinning 29 hits on the U.S. charts. It is hard — no, it is impossible — to imagine any of the gazillion or so carefully marketed little bands of today replicating a quarter of that feat. (Even a contemporary English group such as Oasis, which baldly appropriates the superficialities of the Beatles' style, entirely misses the still-magical heart of their music.)
Louis ArmstrongLucille BallThe BeatlesMarlon BrandoCoco ChanelCharlie ChaplinLe CorbusierBob DylanT.S. EliotAretha FranklinMartha GrahamJim HensonJames JoycePablo PicassoRodgers & HammersteinBart SimpsonFrank SinatraSteven SpielbergIgor StravinskyOprah Winfrey CategoriesLeaders/Revol.Builders/TitansScientists/ThinkersHeroes/Icons
Ed Sullivan, the poker-faced TV variety-show host, having spotted the effervescent moptops in mid-mob scene at London's Heathrow Airport the previous October ("Who the hell are the Beatles?" he'd asked excitedly), brought them over to play his show early on, in February 1964, and 70 million people tuned in. A congratulatory telegram from Elvis Presley, the great, lost god of rockabilly, was read at the beginning of the show, in what might have been seen as torch-passing fashion, and Americans — or American youth, at any rate — promptly fell in love. ("I give them a year," said Sullivan's musical director.)
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