Surrealist Leonora Carrington, 94, passed away last Wednesday in her home in Mexico City. The cause of her death was pneumonia. Carrington was known for dreamscape images inspired by folklore, religious ritual and occult symbolism.

Leonora Carrington is perhaps one of the lesser recognized Surrealists in popular culture, when juxtaposed to her male counterparts. She was the one-time partner of Max Ernst. She was acquainted with the likes of André Breton, Man Ray, Pablo Picasso and Salvador Dali. Articles regarding her death mention her as “one of the last living links” to these men.

The artist did credit Ernst with her art education, after they ran off of as paramours to Paris. “From Max I had my education. I learned about art and literature. He taught me everything,” she told The Guardian in London in 2007. Though the artist credited Ernst and several contemporary art critics mention Carrington as a “link,” she is truly a leading figure in Surrealist art, and one of the last great Modern Mexican artists.

Born in Lancashire, Britain, her Irish nanny told her tales from Celtic folklore. Her father was against his daughter becoming an artist, but her mother was supportive, even gifting the budding artist with a volume of Hubert Read’s book on Surrealism. She eventually attended the Chelsea School of Art, then joined the London academy of the Cubist Amedee Ozenfant.

Ernst left his wife in 1938, and the outbreak of World War II saw him imprisoned and his wife institutionalized after a minor breakdown. Carrington eventually recovered and left for New York, showing at the Pierre Matisse Gallery, and making a general success for herself. She relocated to Mexico, where her knowledge and the execution of folklore and occult symbolism inside her work deepened. Her most common symbols are animal in nature–deer, hyenas, a white horse, among others.

In Mexico she wed a Hungarian photographer, Emeric Weisz. Together they had two sons, Gabriel Weisz-Carrington and Pablo Weisz-Carrington. She is survived by her two sons and five grandchildren.

Does Carrington’s story seem dreary? She was a talented and multimedia artist that painted cloaked figures, deer with trees sprouting from her back, and elusive dreamscapes. She sculpted. She wrote stories and screenplays. She was a mother and a wife. Her most famous written piece, a 1974 fantastical novel titled The Hearing Trumpet, is an account of a feminist uprising in a women’s retirement home. In 2005, Christie’s auctioned Carrington’s “Juggler” (1954). The final price was $713,000, which set a new record for the highest price paid at auction for a living surrealist painter.

In regards to being anyone’s muse, the artist once said this, “I didn’t have time to be anybody’s muse; I was too busy rebelling against my parents and learning to be an artist.” Leonora Carrington, a legendary Surrealist, leaves a legacy for the contemporaries attempting to trace her steps.

Bring the fresh look of summer into your home with the season’s hottest decorating trends. Design Expert Dawn Kail of overstockArt.com, makes it easy to incorporate hip home décor styles with a top five list of decorating trends and tips for summer.

“The trick to decorating for summer is to bring the outdoors in,” said Kail. “With some simple changes to your décor you can liven up your look with inspiration from outdoor elements.”

Add summer style to your home with Kail’s top five decorating tips:

1. Beach chic – Bring the sun, sea and sand indoors with beach-inspired decorating. Neutral tones paired with cool blue hues bring the sea and surf to life. Comfortable fabrics like linen and cotton are synonymous with beach style and can be used in decorative pillows, slipcovers and draperies. Use driftwood and assorted white seashells to create a breezy vignette for your mantelpiece or entry or hall table. This laid-back style creates the perfect setting for casual summer living.
2. Sunny inspiration – Allow the sun-drenched shades of sunflowers to inspire your home decorating. Bring the sunshine in with the bright yellow of these flowers. Make a statement with striking floral arrangements featuring sunflowers placed throughout the home or make the flowers the focal point of a room with wall art. Claude Monet’s famous oil painting “Sunflowers” is a great example of a fine art piece that will bring a burst of this summer shade to your space.
3. Pretty in pink – Pink is the color of the year. Honeysuckle, Pantone’s 2011 Color of the Year, is the brilliant red-pink shade that is brightening up fashion and home trends this year. Make a loud statement by adding this dynamic color to your walls or with home
   furnishings or make a lively, yet subtle statement by incorporating the stunning shade in accent items like pillows and tabletop top accessories.
4. Bring the outdoors in – Bring outdoor decorating elements into the home. Decorate indoors with items made of metal, worn wood and wrought iron. Incorporate pottery traditionally used outdoors in the home. Terracotta and ceramic pots of various shapes and sizes have a rustic appeal and the greenery brings the outdoor feel inside.
5. Full bloom shades – Summer blooms are bright, bold and luminous. Offset neutral rooms with this season’s trendiest hues – purples, oranges, pinks and bright yellows. Incorporate these vivid colors with brightly colored draperies, wall treatments, throw pillows, an arm chair and art work to liven up your look.

“You don’t have to spend a fortune to add seasonal style to your home décor,” said Kail. “You can save money and still get the look of luxury by shopping around. The best thing about purchasing reproduced oil paintings at overstockArt.com is that for the same price of purchasing a print image you get a museum-quality hand painted piece of art.”

overstockArt.com makes it easy to find summer wall art for your home with its Seasonal Summer Gallery.

Before I go, I wanted to wish everyone an awesome Summer! Full of fun, family and romance!

Move over chocolate! Art is the new aphrodisiac, as discovered in a recent study at the University College London. Professor Semir Zeki, a neurobiologist at the university, scanned volunteers’ brains as they looked at a series of 28 paintings. The study found that viewing art releases dopamine into the orbito-frontal cortex of the brain. Dopamine is that chemical associated with feelings of love, contentment, and happiness.

Of the artists surveyed, Botticelli and Claude Monet elicited the most blood flow to areas of the brain usually associated with romantic love and the release of dopamine. According to the Telegraph,

The research suggests that art could be used to increase the welfare and mental health of the general public and should be protected from budget cutbacks.

Bathers at La Grenouillere by Claude Monet and The Birth of Venus by Botticelli are two of the artworks used by researchers to study the effect of art on the brain. Simonetta Vespucci, the model for The Birth of Venus, was said to be the most beautiful woman of the 15th century! She was often a subject of Botticelli’s works. Bathers at La Grenouillere is but one of a series of paintings Claude Monet (and his fellow Impressionists, such as Renoir) rendered of the famous “frog pond,” next in line perhaps to his water lily series.

A trip to a local art museum or hanging a rendition of one of these famous works is a wonderful surprise for your beloved. Science proves it!

Wichita-based artist, Jeffrey F. Pierson, is one of the founding members of the new online community for creating, selling and buying artwork online, Artist Become (ArtistBe.com). Pierson is one of dozens of artists from around the world using the social commerce site to showcase and sell his artwork.

A native of Newton, N.J., Pierson has called Wichita home for more than two decades. He emerged as an artist at a young age and began creating his art when he felt compelled to record the things he was observing and feeling and to try to make his thoughts more concrete. In his youth Pierson was inspired by primitive art, Aboriginal art, early Christian and Byzantine art, and comic books. Pierson graduated Magna Cum Laude from Wichita State University and the University of South Dakota, obtaining his BFA and MFA in printmaking. Pierson resides in Wichita with his wife, Leanna, and their son.

Pierson has had many solo and group exhibitions showing locally, regionally and nationally. He stated that while brick and mortar galleries are wonderful to experience, the internet opens doors to a global community, which is one of his reasons for joining ArtistBe.com.

“I hope that ArtistBe.com can be a vehicle by which my artwork along with my fellow artists work can reach a wider audience,” said Pierson. “My desire is that my imagery can be a catalyst for thought within the viewer inspiring thought and conversation.”

Pierson has more than 20 works of art available for purchase on the site, including:

• I Am Becoming – With age and experience hopefully comes wisdom and awareness… This image is not just a self portrait but an introspective document noting mortality and the passage of time. This one of a kind original work of art employees mixed media including; silk screen, wood cut, intaglio, collage elements and mono-print.
• Less I Forget Myself – Know thy self… The inspiration for this work of art is the exploration of one’s identity – should one concentrate solely on one’s own needs and selfish desires or fully devote life to someone else and their happiness? The painting exhibits the aesthetic qualities of print-based mixed media utilizing; woodcut, intaglio, mono print, and collage elements to enrich the surface.

“ArtistBe.com provides a unique means for artists like Jeffrey to become recognized for their work and to make a living out of their creations,” stated David Sasson, overstockArt.com’s president and CEO.
ArtistBe.com is the latest venture by the popular online art gallery overstockArt.com, the go-to source on the web for purchasing art reproduction oil paintings. There is no cost to join and members can sell their art without commission fees. Artists receive royalties for every canvas reproduction sold. The online community focuses solely on original art and its growing amount of artist members.

ArtistBe.com’s founding members come from around the world, with artists hailing from the company’s Wichita, Kan. headquarters to Calgary, Canada; Warsaw, Poland; Oberhaid, Germany; Sherman Oaks, Calif.; and Brooklyn, N.Y., to name a few places.

For the first time ever at the Brooklyn Museum, mothers are honored in a brunch and tour — “Extraordinary Women: Celebrating Mothers and Motherhood in Art through the Ages,” to be given on Mother’s Day on May 8. The tour features some of its most famous artworks, from ancient to modern periods.

Mary Cassatt is among one of the more well known women artists to be shown in the first time tour. The museum carries 19 paintings in its collection of the artist, but among the most famous to show is Woman in a Red Bodice and Her Child. The same model featured in this work is also present in Cassatt’s Breakfast in Bed. Known for her prominence with the French Impressionists, Cassatt was at first consistently rejected from the Salon as she choose not to take a male patron or protector.

Lilly Martin Spencer is one of the extraordinary women artists showcased in the tour. Spencer was the mother of thirteen children, of whom only seven lived, and the sole breadwinner for the family. Though they lived an unconventional and financially troubled lifestyle, the family was happy and Spencer is and was then a well-known artist. Among Spencer’s famous works to be shown will be her 1856 Kiss Me and You’ll Kiss the ‘Lasses.

More information about the event can be found at the website of the Brooklyn Museum. Tickets are sold out for the tour, but there’s always next year, which is certain to be even more spectacular! The Elizabeth A. Sackler Center For Feminist Art at the museum will also feature two series about empowering women and art. “Academic Symposium: From Portraits to Pin-ups: Representations of Women in Art and Popular Culture” will take place on May 14th starting at 11:30 A.M. Art historian Dr. Gail Levin will discuss her most recent book, Lee Krasner: A Biography, on May 15th at 2 P.M. If you are still looking for a Mother’s Day present, check out the most popular oil paintings for the occasion!