It has been a while since I have been so drawn to a movie as I was to the recent creation of Woody Allen, Midnight in Paris. This time the story and the coming-to-life of the most influential poets, painters and thinkers of the roaring 20′s in Paris are simply amazing!

In the movie, disenchantment with the present leads Gil, a naive but endearing American played by Owen Wilson, to return to the golden age of the 1920s. One night, having taken leave of the fiancée who doesn’t understand him, he is wandering the streets of Paris when a clock rings out the chimes of midnight. A vintage black car pulls up, its doors swing open and its passengers invite him to a party. After a while it dawns on Gil that he has been transported back in time to a soiree where he finds himself in the enjoyably loquacious company of Gertrude Stein, Ernest Hemingway, Pablo Picasso and Salvador Dalí.

I have lost myself in the feelings of this particular movie so much that I was genuinely upset that I cannot be there – up there on the screen! Dancing, drinking absinth and getting the inside scoop on a Picasso portrait!

Paris in the Twenties. Has there ever been, before or after, such an incredible concentration of talents in one space and time? Specifically the painters of the era with Picasso and Dali leading the way along with Henri Matisse, George Brack, Juan Miro, Franz Marc, and Amedeo Modigliani who are all mentioned and take part in the film.

The movie continues as the main character Gil meets Picasso’s mistress Adriana. Together, they have a romantic get-away back to the era of the Belle Epoque meeting Edgar Degas, Toulouse Lautrec, Paul Gauguin and Edward Manet who all believed that the Renaissance was the greatest period. Everyone, it seems, cling to the past. It turns out the grass might not be greener in any side.

If I had a chance to meet great painters like Gil’s meeting with Dali on a glass of table wine or his encounter with Gauguin at the Belle Epoque I would have liked to:
1. Share a cigarette with Frida Kahlo
2. Prepare a dinner for Georgia O’Keeffe
3. Dine with Pablo Picasso and find out who was his most beloved wife
4. Join Salvador Dali for coffee in Madrid
5. See New York through the eyes of Edward Hopper
6. Be there at Rockeffeler Center in the unveiling of the Diego Rivera giant mural in the 20’s
7. Get seriously drunk with Vincent van Gogh
8. See Jackson Pollack at work in his early studio; maybe even just paint drop his unfinished work.

This is my list – what would yours look like?

overstockArt.com announced last week that it has joined forces with Bravo and Magical Elves to launch a new line of artwork from the cable network’s series “Work of Art: The Next Great Artist.” The exclusive line of reproduced artwork is created by the artists participating in the creative competition series produced by Magical Elves and Pretty Matches Productions.

The artwork featured in “Work of Art: The Next Great Artist” will be made available for purchase exclusively on overstockArt.com following airing of new episodes each Wednesday. Reproduced artwork created by artists who competed in the first season of the show will also be made available for purchase. The new line will be available at overstockArt.com/workofart.html.

Bravo’s “Work of Art: The Next Great Artist” is a creative competition series that seeks to discover new talent and shed light on the artistic process that typically occurs behind closed doors. Assembled in New York City under the watchful eye of art world elites, 14 up-and-coming artists are ready to make their mark on the industry and battle it out for a solo show at the Brooklyn Museum and a cash prize of $100,000.

“We’re constantly looking for ways to innovate, furthering the proliferation of our brand while providing added value for our customers,” said David Sasson, CEO of overstockArt.com. “This collaboration will take overstockArt.com to the next level by leveraging our commitment to creating high-quality, affordable art with Magical Elves’ dedication to discovering today’s hottest up-and-coming artists and jointly bringing quality products to market.”

The “Work of Art: The Next Great Artist” canvas transfer art reproductions will be offered in a variety of sizes with prices starting at $119. Customized frames can also be purchased. Reproduced artwork is first available exclusively on overstockArt.com and will later be made available for purchase by overstockArt.com’s partner online retailers.

“This partnership builds on the success of both brands, providing us the unique opportunity to engage with our fans and viewers and to connect with consumers beyond the television screen,” said Ellen Stone, Senior Vice President of marketing for Bravo.

“Work of Art: The Next Great Artist,” is produced by Pretty Matches and Magical Elves for Bravo. Dan Cutforth, Jane Lipsitz, Sarah Jessica Parker, Alison Benson and Eli Holzman serve as executive producers.

With the premiere of part one of The Deathly Hallows on November 20, Harry Potter is faced with his greatest challenge yet. November 20 is a date Mr. Potter also shares with famous artist Rene Magritte, whose birthday we also celebrate. However, both of these men have far more in common. 

Loss of a Mother

In 1912, Rene Magritte’s mother committed suicide by drowning herself in the River Sambre. This was not her first attempt. When his mother was found a few miles from Magritte’s childhood home, her face was covered by her gown. While the artist studied at the Académie Royale des Beaux-Arts, many of his paintings would include figures with their faces covered by a thin drapery. 

However, in young Harry Potter’s case, his mother gave her last breath to save her son from the evil wizard Lord Voldemort. Her love assisted in the rebounding of Voldermort’s death curse and imbued the protagonist with some of Voldemort’s powers–the ability to speak the language of snakes, for instance.

Tom Riddle and La Reproduction Interdite

Is that Tom Marvolo Riddle? No, that is a portrait by Magritte entitled La Reproduction Interdite,which translates to “Not To Be Reproduced.” In this artwork we have a young man, who certainly resembles Mr. Riddle, staring at the back of his own head. It is an awkward Hall of Mirrors. Magritte, as a godfather of Surrealism, often incorporated symbols and distortions of reality to show his viewer that he could never capture the actual thing on canvas, which brings us to the question at the heart of his work, do we really know ourselves? Who is this? Who is Tom Marvolo Riddle?

For those who follow the Harry Potter series, we know that Tom Marvolo Riddle’s name rearranges into the letters Lord Voldermort, but who is Lord Voldemort? In the third book, The Prisoner of Askaban, our villain does not appear in person or as a magical manifestation. We later discover that Lord Voldemort has split his soul into seven pieces and hid these pieces in “horcruxes” (Tom Riddle’s diary). Similarly, each of Magritte’s works seem to contain pieces of himself and the repetition of various common and symbolic objects in an usual setting (a bowler hat, lion, bird, and the female body, etcetera). 

Philosophy and Mystery

My painting is visible images which conceal nothing; they evoke mystery and, indeed, when one sees one of my pictures, one asks oneself this simple question, “What does that mean?” It does not mean anything, because mystery means nothing either, it is unknowable. -Rene Magritte

This perception is relevant to Kantian philosophy, and scholars say it is the basis for modern relativism. Since we each only have one perspective, we can never know they universal, it is said. With such elements as The Department of Mysteries, the Mirror of Erised (which you look into, see what you most desire, and become obsessed with it), and horcruxes, the Harry Potter series is a splendid artwork in cinematography which modernizes surrealism and the ideas which are central to Surrealist works like that of Magritte. I wonder how Magritte would depict himself looking into the Mirror of Erised, and if he did see his mother, would a drapery cover her face? Magritte is hailed as the godfather of Surrealism, and J.K. Rowling, author of the Harry Potter series, is unquestionably the author of a new generation of symbolism and Surrealism, not mere fantasy.

Now in its fourth season, the hit ad agency drama Mad Men has us going gaga over more than clean typography and innovative plot. Set in the 1960s, the drama focuses on issues not only realistic to the period but also mad modernists and stylish furniture. The 1960s mark Kennedy’s assassination, Martin Luther King Jr.’s civil rights activism, second-wave feminism, and the Vietnam War. However, the decade foretold more than political upheaval—a dynamic change in the art world.

Modernism in the 1960s

From New Realism, Conceptual, Post-Minimalism to the beginnings of Postmodernism, experimental art forms (such as Pop Art) drew greater public attention to artistic expression. Challenged by Pop Art, abstract expressionism underwent expansion in terms of possibilities artists had available to create art. Such artists as Frank Stella, Willem de Kooning, Mark Rothko, and Jackson Pollock. These innovative artists probably never imagined that four decades later their artwork would star on Mad Men, with some pieces being central to the plot. A Rothko piece seemed to have its own debut character role in season two.

Rothko: “Smudgy squares, huh. Interesting.”

In episode seven of season two, we are introduced to Rothko inside Cooper’s office. See for yourself.

Looking back, we would think that $10,000 is a deal for a Rothko when collector David Rockefeller purchased White Center in 1960 for less than that and sold the painting at Sotheby’s for $72.8 million. This sale still holds the auction record as the highest purchase for a contemporary painting. Was this part of the inspiration for the plot? Maybe.

Regardless of what influenced the plot, Mad Men has certainly inspired modern popular culture. Though Rothko has been a popular choice in the past, those “smudgy squares” of his are seeing an even greater surge of popularity across the world. Television today has an action-packed, sex sells quota to fill every month. An episode with a Rothko as a central “character,” wherein our characters engage in a brief aesthetic conversation about whether art should be decorative (“smudgy squares”) or mean something, does not hurt the general audience to see, especially when done in style. What do you think those “smudgy squares” mean? What was Rothko thinking?

Rothko, in part, was thinking about his children—his works of art. When Jean Kennedy (the President’s younger sister) tried to “take home” just one or two of those paintings, Rothko refused. To Rothko, art did not mean where something fit in on the wall. Cooper’s Rothko of choice, with a haunting red hue, is meant to do more than fit in. Every person who walks in that office must stop and get lost in it. It’s not about fashion, is it?

Turning the Wheels of Fashion

If you take a look at Don Draper’s office and flip through a few furniture catalogs, you could theorize that it is still about fashion. Ikea released a furniture piece in 2009 (top) by Bauhaus designer Franz Ehrlich. Where functionality meets form, the piece was designed in 1956 and released by its original manufacturer in 1963. Don Draper’s office (bottom) also underwent a charity auction on eBay last August. The public is going mad over the sixties thanks in major part to the drama.

In an age where our culture of consumerism is dealing with equality and freedom in gender, going green, love, and wars on terrorism and genocide, it’s no wonder a sixties drama featuring characters who work an ad agency has become a hit TV series. Mad Men runs the gamut of popular culture, from issues to style by turning the wheels of fashion and defining art as something more than “smudgy squares.” What do you get out of Mad Men?

A new production called Red is set to debut on Broadway on April 1st, the play is about none other than the Abstract Expressionist Painter – Mark Rothko.

Red was written by screenwriter John Logan, maker of Gladiator, The Aviator and the Sweeney Todd movie, among others. The play focuses mainly about the discussions regarding abstract expressionist aesthetics that Rothko had with his studio assistant while the famous painter was working on some of the most revolutionary canvases of his generation.

Red is set in 1958 as New York artist Mark Rothko (Alfred Molina) receives the art world’s largest commission to create a series of murals for The Four Seasons restaurant in the new Seagram building on Park Avenue. Under the watchful gaze of his young assistant, Ken and the threatening presence of a new generation of artists, Rothko faces his greatest challenge yet: to create a definitive work for an extraordinary setting. Red is a moving and compelling account of one of the greatest artists of the 20th century, whose struggle to accept his growing riches and praise became his ultimate undoing.

Rothko is played by Alfred Molina – a rare actor who conveys intelligence with visceral intensity. He makes you believe that what Rothko says, no matter how abstract it is, is of mortal importance to the painter. Molina has developed a specialty depicting 20th century artists as he already played another formidable painter, Diego Rivera, in the movie “Frida” along side Salma Hayek.

The actors in the play get their hands dirty throwing paint around on stage, the moment you step into the theater you are struck by the smell of oil paint in the air. The smell of the oil and the rage of the painter makes Red an extremely powerful theatrical experience.

So, if you are in New York in the following weeks, stop by the Golden Theater on 45th Street and enjoy a glimpse into the mysterious world of the 1950’s Abstract Expressionism.

She was a rare blend, born to an Hungarian Jewish immigrant and a Mexican woman of Spanish and Indian decent. Her short life was full of turmoil and artistic creation.

Only years after her death when the Movie “Frida” staring Salma Hayek came out did the story of Frida Khalo‘s tumultuous life was brought to the attention of the public and over night she became an iconic female figure of the art world in the 20th century.

Her agony was drowned many a times with her favorite drink the Tequila. In honor of her life and her passion, the Khalo family has started a Tequila brewery that bares the Khalo name and Frida’s own portrait on the label.

Fridah Khalo bottled as fine Mexican Tequila

Her cousin Izevelda Khalo who published a book in 2004 commemorating the 50th anniversary of Frida Khalo’s death, was also the person behind the Khalo Tequila endeavor. In a statement to the Mexican press she said:

Tequila was her favorite drink, it was apart of Frida’s life in good times and in bad times…