Tangerine Tango, Pantone’s 2012 Color of the Year, is the “spirited reddish orange” shade that will be brightening up cosmetics, fashion and home trends this year. Design Expert Dawn Kail of overstockArt.com advises that it’s easy to brighten up your home design with the color Pantone describes as being “reminiscent of the radiant shading of a sunset.”

“Decorating with vibrant shades of orange, like Tangerine Tango, adds a playful, lively energy to the home,” said Kail. “In feng shui, the color orange is often called the ‘social’ color and is used in areas of the home where you want energy that promotes lively conversations and good times.”

Kail advises to start small when decorating with such a vibrant color, “I wouldn’t advise you to repaint every wall in a room or purchase all new furniture in tangerine tango, use the color to accessorize and accent your home. Doing too much will leave your room looking like a pumpkin patch.”

Enliven your home decor with five decorating tips from Kail that make it easy to incorporate the color of the year into your look:

1. Color pairings – Traditionally an autumnal shade, Tangerine Tango can last all year when it is paired with popular neutral tones like white and gray. The reddish-orange color pairs well with other vivid shades of red, yellow and fuschia. You can also tone down the look by offsetting it with shades of mint and modern shades of blue. Add a sense of sophistication to your look by adding hints of gold.
2. Home décor – The easiest way to introduce the color of the year is with home accessories. Soft linens, like pillows, throws and bedding, in the bright orange shade will quickly add spice to a room. Vases, candleholder and even cabinet knobs and drawer pulls can be used to brighten neutral color schemes. Displaying vibrant pieces of art featuring the playful color quickly livens up a room. Either go with a piece that predominantly features the orange shades, like Paul Klee’s masterpiece “Head of Man.” Or display a piece with pops of the bright color, such as Gustav Klimt’s sensual painting “Water Serpents II.”
3. In the kitchen – For a dynamic burst of energy in the kitchen, incorporate Tangerine Tango colored appliances, like KitchenAid’s signature stand mixer in the hue. Add a bright splash of color to your walls and backsplashes with fine art. Hang a painting or try a textured ceramic art tile. Fine art trivet tiles featuring the shade, like Georgia O’Keeffe’s “Oriental Poppies,” can decorate your wall and your table.
4. Walls and windows – Brighten up your entryways, hallways and rooms by painting a wall in this vivacious orange. Or paint your front door in this welcoming shade. Wallpaper has returned, so why not add a punch of color to your walls with wallpaper that highlights this juicy hue. Or add a small burst of the brilliant shade to drapery panels and curtains.
5. Home furnishings – Add key pieces to a neutral room, like a vivid armchair or side table. In the bedroom, custom headboards in the bright shade or nightstands add a playful look.

“The orange color trend isn’t meant to dictate your home’s color scheme, it is more a directional suggestion,” said Kail. “All you have to do is add a splash of Tangerine Tango to add a fresh and fun spirit to the look of your home.”

See more of Kail’s suggestions for incorporating Tangerine Tango into your home on the overstockArt: Tangerine Tango Pinterest board.

Fall is in the air, now bring it in to your home with the season’s hottest decorating trends. Design Expert Dawn Kail of overstockArt.com, makes it easy to add a little fall flair to your home décor with a top five list of decorating trends and tips.

“Fall décor trends feature a mosaic of different colors, textures and decorating styles,” said Kail. “By adding the rich jewel tones and various vintage and natural design elements you will create a cozy autumnal setting that brings the beauty of the season inside your home.”

Create a fall feeling in your home with Kail’s top five decorating tips:

• Rich jewel tones – According to the Pantone Color Institute, the must have fall colors include navy black, coffee brown, phlox (a deep purple shade), jade green, rust, asparagus and pumpkin orange. An easy way to incorporate these rich jewel tones is to add a touch of the colors with pillows, rugs, throws and painted accent pieces.
• Visual and actual texture – Home décor trends this season are marked by a comforting combination of visual and actual texture. Mix wood furnishings with opulent velvet upholstery, herringbone rugs, wool throws, and thick, textured fall themed oil paintings.
• Natural décor elements – An easy way to bring the beauty of fall’s rich color palette into your home is by decorating with natural elements. Create a vibrant fall leaf arrangement by displaying fallen branches, leaves, dried berries and acorns in a glass bowl or on the mantle. Bring the outdoors into your living room with a coffee table made from a slab of wood, stone vases, and marble decorations. Use natural fabrics throughout the home: wool throws, burlap pillows, and organic cotton bedding.
• Vintage – Another trend this season is to make old things new again. Decorating with vintage décor in our twenty-first century spaces creates a comforting sense of nostalgia and warmth. Now is the time to go through your old heirlooms, garage sale and flea-market finds and show them off in a new light. Time to decorate with grandmother’s vintage jade glassware, the embroidered pillow you found at a thrift shop, and the antique chair you just re-upholstered in lush velvet.
• Double-duty décor – Multi-tasking goes into overload in the fall with busy back-to-school schedules and holiday planning already begun. Double duty home décor items that bring style and function into your home are very trendy right now. Use decorative bowls for display and to organize small household items and school supplies, add a welcoming and useful touch to your front entryway or foyer with wall mounted coat racks, or use fine art trivet tiles during your meals and to introduce the fall color palette to your kitchen and dining room.

“The key to home decoration is to keep your furniture neutral so you can easily add a piece of artwork or accent item to give the room a whole new look,” said Kail.

Do you have any cool fall decorating tips to share? Looking for a second opinion on your own decor? Let us know and we’ll be happy to take a look!

The American abstract expressionism won the millionaire’s hearts when coming to spending money. In recent years the Impressionist’s predominant control of the art market has been overtaken by the abstract art movement. The following is a run-down of the most expensive paintings ever sold:

The most expensive painting ever sold is said to be Jackson Pollok’s “Number 5, 1948″. It is said that the art work was bought for $140 million at a private sale in 2006, though the exact price was never confirmed. David Greffen sold it to an unknown buyer, whom is rumored to be David Martinez, a Mexican business man.

The second most expensive painting in art history is Willem De Kooning’s “Woman III,” bought for $137.5 million by Steven Cohen. It is the only woman painting by Kooning owned by a private person.

Gustav Klimt’s “Adele Bloch-bauer I” sits in the 3rd place in the top 10 most expensive artworks. The cosmetic magnate, Ronald Lauder bought it for $135 million, at a private sale, in 2006. The painting originally belonged to Ferdinand Bloch-Bauer, but the Nazis confiscated it during World War II. In 1948, after the war, the art work was placed at the National Gallery of Austria.

“Nude, Green Leaves and Bust” by Pablo Picasso is worth $106.5 million. The price was paid by an anonymous buyer, at the Christine’s New York auction, in May 2010. This is the biggest price ever paid at an auction.

The “Nude” painting is followed in top 10 most expensive art works by another canvas made by Picasso, “Garcon a la pipe” (Boy with a Pipe). Now it is in the hands of an anonymous buyer who spend on it over $104 million, at the Sotherby’s auction, in May 2004.

Andy Warhol’s “Eight Elvises” completes the rank, on number 6. The painting is worth $100 million and was sold at a private auction in 2008.

Picasso is present again in the ranking to number 7 with “Dora Maar au chat” (Dora Maar with Cat). The painting was sold at the Sotherby’s auction, in May 2006, for $95.2 million.

Titian is the only old master in the rank, with “Diana and Actaeon,” sold at a private sale on February 2009. A buyer from United Kingdom has it now for $91 million.

Sold only a few months later than Klimt’s first version of “Adele,” the second painting was worth $87.9 million.

Francis Bacon closes the rank with “Tryptich 1976.” A European private buyer gave on it $86.3 million, at the Sotherby’s, in May 2008.

Interesting to note that of the top 10 most sold paintings in history, half of them were bought in 2006, just before the financial meltdown of 2008.

Some painters struck gold by selling their artworks. However most died poor.

In the list of the top 50 most expensive paintings ever sold, Vincent van Gogh and Pablo Picasso are by far the best represented artists. Picasso became a wealthy man in his illustrious career, while Van Gogh sold only one painting in his lifetime.

The Impressionist painter and renowned collector, Anna Boch, bought her first Van Gogh (“The Red Vineyard”) shortly after his death in 1890. She spent on it 400 Francs ($1600 in today’s values), today it would have the ‘priceless’ tag as most Van Gogh’s do…

“Vase with Fifteen Sunflowers” by Vincent van Gogh was bought for of £24.75 Million on March 1987. The sale was significant because it was the first time that a modern artwork became the record holder, in contrast to the old master paintings.

However, the most expensive painting in art history has not been sold in any auction or private sale. Guinness World Records lists the Mona Lisa by Leonardo Da Vinci as having the highest insurance value for a painting in history. It was estimated at $100 million on December 14, 1962. Taking inflation into account, the Mona Lisa would be valued today at around $743 million!

The online art gallery, overstockArt.com, announced today the final phase of the launch of its new line of hand carved and hand painted ceramic tiles. The final phase of the product line launch introduces a line of decorative inlay tiles. It launched in May with art trivet tiles.

The new line is a first for the company, long recognized as the go-to source on the web for purchasing art reproduction oil paintings. “We are excited to diversify our home décor offerings with the new ceramic tile line,” said David Sasson, overstockArt.com’s president and CEO. “The magnificence of fine art masterpieces translates beautifully to this medium and provides our customers with a new and unique way to display art in their homes in a functional form.”

The inlay tiles create a mural image in a set of 12 tiles. They can be used in a variety of places including, baths, backsplashes, fire places, and walls. The trivet tiles can be used as wall décor or as decorative trivets. Like the paintings available on overstockArt.com, the ceramic tiles focus on reproductions of great masters such as Gustav Klimt, Claude Monet, Georgia O’Keeffe, Pablo Picasso, Vincent van Gogh, and more.

A select number of tiles were included in both phases of the launch. Additional art trivet tiles and inlay tiles will become available in the weeks and months ahead. To view the new ceramic tile line, visit the new Ceramic Art Tile Gallery.

I wanted to share with you an article I found on the ARTISTbe.com facebook page about a study done on 9-month-old babies exposing the children to art at (an extremely) young age, specifically Monet and Picasso:

Taste in art is, of course, highly subjective. Personality, education and the norms of one’s culture all influence why one person craves Kandinsky while another has a crush on Renoir.

But what about babies, whose minds have yet to be shaped by any sort of cultural indoctrination? Newly published research finds they prefer the imagery of Pablo Picasso to the impressionism of Claude Monet.

For babies, “a painted canvas is simply a visual pattern,” writes a University of Zurich research team led by psychologist Trix Cacchione, “and some patterns appeal to them more than others.” Their partiality to Picasso’s patterns was uncovered in a series of experiments described in the journal Psychology of Aesthetics, Creativity and the Arts.

A group of 24 babies ranging in age from 269 to 332 days took part in the study, which consisted of five experiments. In the first, half the infants were shown a series of works by Picasso, while the others viewed a variety of Monets.

Immediately afterward, the young participants were shown side-by-side images of two paintings – one by each artist. Experimenters observed how much time they spent gazing at each.

Those who had been looking at Monets preferred the Picasso. This was not a surprise; it was something different and interesting. But those who had been looking at Picassos also focused on the Picasso, suggesting “a spontaneous preference for his work overrode the appeal of novelty.”

“This preference appeared to be highly robust,” the researchers write, “and was observed (in follow-up experiments) even in the absence of very obvious artistic features such as bold colors, sharp contrasts, and the presence of figurative object-like elements.”

Even when his paintings were shown in black and white, and his sharp contours were blurred, Picasso remained the infants’ clear choice.

The researchers can’t explain this definitively, but they make a strong case that Picasso’s luminance – that is, the brightness of his colors — explains his appeal to the ‘diaper-wearing’ demographic.
“Picasso used sharp and accentuated contrasts in luminance,” they note. “Monet, on the other hand, used equiluminant colors to create blurry, shimmery effects. It is possible that infants prefer paintings with clear contrasts in luminance.”

Why would this be? “Variances in luminance constitute the most basic and essential visual information about a visual scene,” the researchers write. “It is possible that infants preferred paintings by Picasso because they were easier to process, and afforded the most stimulation to their still-developing visual system.”

One can draw at least two conclusions from this research. First, if you’re decorating a new baby’s bedroom, skip the water lilies and go for the Cubist masterpieces. (You’ll probably want to avoid Guernica, which has been known to cause nightmares.)

Second, it arguably provides insight into the success of Thomas Kinkade, the much-derided “painter of light.” His nostalgia-drenched imagery may be saccharine, but the man knows something about luminance. Picasso he ain’t, but in light of this research, it’s easy to see how his work could appeal to our inner infant.

An increasing rejection by major galleries of assistant produced artwork is calling the definition of “Original Art” into question. During the Renaissance this wasn’t a real problem, but the Impressionists (often called the forefathers of the contemporary movement) would be appalled.

Master artists, such as Michaelangelo and DaVinci, often employed assistants to add onto large production works so that deadlines would be met. If you were a rich artist, the assistants were a sort of unspoken requirement to show how much of a master artist you were. Think of all the work put into the production of the Sistine Chapel. That is what the process was–production. By the 1800s, a renegade group of artists known as the Impressionists went against the status quo, constructing group shows of their own outside of the Salon and taking on apprentices but never laborers to mass produce their artwork.

Mary Cassatt is known for praising Edgar Degas, and the other Impressionists, for giving her guidance in a time when her work was shunned because she was simply a woman. Degas invited Cassatt to show with the Impressionists in 1879. Cassatt said this about Degas’ influence, “It changed my life. I saw art then as I wanted to see it.” Degas extended his passion for dance as subject matter with Renoir, among others.

Pierre-Auguste Renoir practiced plein air painting with Claude Monet, learning about light and its effects on elements of nature. After working with Monet in 1868, Renoir’s palette moved from a heavy impasto, dark color to lighter rendering of color and fluid motion. La Grenouillere was painted by Monet and Renoir in 1869.

For an impressionist to paint from nature is not to paint the subject, but to realize sensations, -Paul Cezanne

Cezanne may have also captured an essential component of what most of us identify with as “Art.” The capturing of sensation is the elusive dance between the concept in the painter’s mind, the paintbrush and canvas, and the viewer. Subtracting the mystery of this dance from the equation is like saying everything equals zero. Problem solved. A piece of art made by the master artist’s very own “apprentice!”

Indeed, with reality television getting in on the mix (Work of Art and Art Star, airing on Bravo), we see true artists race to be America’s Next Top Artist. Behind the scenes tells a different story.  In an interview with “Life After Reality TV” Gigi Chen and Jaclyn Santos shared their experiences of being apprentices to famous, unnamed contemporary artists before their TV debut. Of course both art stars were cautionary to say only “highly complementary things” about their experiences, but reviewer David Pierce shares his perception of repressed anxiety from the young artists. Though Chen seems to be encouraged to pursue an undergraduate degree in the subject, Santos seems to have served more of a production artists role, never having any real contact with the artist behind the false signature.

Pierce addresses the issue thusly, “Many of today’s high profile artists employ teams of assistants who would otherwise be looking for work elsewhere or perhaps working in food service and other professions that do not resemble their ambitions. It is also important to note that an individual or a smaller team could never execute their impressive and ambitious works. However, you get the sense when speaking with artists who work for larger, high profile studios that the experience is closer to that of a production artist. Their {There} seems to be a purveying sense of anonymity in their labor and it seems that their employers do little to advance or foster the careers of the artists who give them their talents.”

An assistant to Damien Hirst said that she “can’t think of anything worse” than having an assistant herself. She added that “I only paint for my own needs, not to fulfill anyone else’s,” in a Wall Street Journal interview.

And so we move from art collective to art conveyer belt. An “apprenticeship” in fine art production may be preferable to years in food service. Contemporary master artist Koons, who employs over 150 assistants, provides his artists with health insurance. Art assistants who may or may not meet these contemporary master artists report payroll at $20-25 an hour. Practice does make perfect, right?