10 Album Artworks that Deserve to be Framed

1 – Joy Division ‘Unknown Pleasures’

One of the most instantly recognizable album covers ever created, this image is striking for its simplicity. Peter Saville, the designer, took the pattern from a graphic of an Astronomical Radio wave image of a pulsar. The minimal black and white colour scheme, along with the haunting, angular and melancholic sounds and atmosphere of the Joy Division album it came to represent, charge this album cover with a great deal of cultural significance and style.

2 – Pink Floyd ‘Dark Side of the Moon’

This artwork is a contender for the most iconic album cover of all time. Storm Thorgerson, the band’s designer, produced the image with the prism and light. The triangle is representative of thought and ambition, and was also a perfect symbol to visualise a prism. The light related to the light show that Pink Floyd used to accompany their music as they played.

3 – Black Sabbath ‘Sabbath Bloody Sabbath’

Released in 1973, this iconic image fronted the infamous English Metal Band’s fifth studio album. The striking artwork is dark and menacing, and the simplistic colour scheme augments the sinister tone of the record. Black and red are always visually stimulating, and the artwork, just like the music, was designed to shake people up in the best way possible.

4 – The Beatles ‘Abbey Road’

One of their most critically acclaimed and successful albums, Abbey Road features the four members of the Beatles walking across the zebra crossing outside the studios. It was released in 1969 and the image has been recreated all around the world in many different guises, from tourist photos to even having been featured in the Simpsons.

5 – Radiohead ‘Hail to the Thief’

Created by Artist Stanley Donwood, the album Art draws its colours from the advertising of petro chemical companies. The words are taken from billboards, and the resulting artwork is unforgettable. The concept of the work links closely with the themes of the record, but even on a purely aesthetic level, one cannot doubt the captivating quality of the work.

6 – Sonic Youth ‘Goo’ 1990

Raymond Pettibon is a cult American Artist, and this simple, hand drawn cover is a fine example of his unique style. His artworks were often fragments of wider stories, and he took inspiration from comics, newspapers and other examples of everyday visual imagery. The simplistic work is stylised, confident and minimal.

7 – Kanye West ‘Graduation’

Created by Takashi Murakami, the colorful, pastel imagery captures Murakami’s fascination with anime. Murakami had some interesting words to offer about working with West. “It was difficult,” the artist said, “because every week, Kanye has new ideas — changing, changing, changing.” However, according to Murakami, their friendship remains intact. When asked if they had a close relationship, Murakami responded with a chuckle, saying, “I think so. I believe so. I don’t know — please ask him.”

8 – The Clash ‘London Calling’

Possibly the most iconic Punk record of all time, this Artwork is a striking image that deserves to be framed.

The text was created in pink and green letters in homage to Elvis Presley’s first self-titled album. The photograph itself is of bassist Paul Simonon, who destroyed his bass guitar in frustration and protest in 1979 in New York City when the bouncers at the Palladium would not allow fans to stand up out of their seats during the gig. This photograph has gone down in musical history, and the theme of a musician smashing his or her own instrument is now legendary within music. The combination of text and image, alluding to musical icons and iconoclastic moments, has in turn, made the album cover of ‘London Calling’ incredibly, and rightly, infamous.

9 – De La Soul ‘3 Feet and Rising’

A classic album cover for a historic hip-hop record. Released in 1989, the bright yellow background and optimistic, DIY cut-and-paste styling of the faces, flowers and text make this an album cover that looks great when framed. The synthetic Pop look was made well before the days of scanning and photoshop. The GO (Grey Organisation) who created the album artwork had inventive ideas about the image. They laid De La Soul down so that their heads formed a triangle then photographed them from above. This meant that the album didn’t have a strict top and bottom, and could be displayed whichever way people fancied.

10 – Dusky ‘Stick by This’

A simple digital pattern constructed from repeating the silhouette of a tree. The image deserves to be framed because it is so effective in it’s minimal characteristics. The stripped back, uncomplicated design mirrors the music of the album, and gives it a structured, lyrical mood. Dark on light, the branches interweave into a strange new pattern.

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Important Ideas that Changed Art Forever – The Proto Renaissance

Important Artists: Giotto, Duccio

When we look at a painting, one of the most fascinating aspects about the work is its connection with the grand historical tradition of painting. The act of painting has been a continuous evolution that has stretches back throughout human history, and each canvas is bound together by invisible ties to all others. Many times, painters have tried to break away from the traditions of the past, and have worked in opposition and rebellion against the prevailing norms of their day. This results in relevant and original work, but it does not break free from the ‘progress’ of painting, because what they do will always stand in relation to those painters that came before them.

For example, the wild and imaginative canvases, brushwork and subject matter of the Romanticists evolved from a position of opposition against the strict, regimented style and concepts of Neo-Classicism, the movement that came before them. Although different in many ways, when viewed over a long enough historical timeline, it becomes clear that through their opposition, they also form and constitute by each other.

The qualities and values of one are held as markers of the height of bad taste and poor skill by the successive generation of painters. Viewing the history of painting in this way, as different movements reacting against the art of the past, gives a unique perspective from which to see and understand a painting.

The ideas that were developed during the Proto-Renaissance affected the course of Painting within the Western World even today. It was a time that introduced three-dimensional space into the field of painting. The High Renaissance was a period when European culture flourished in a way that has arguably never been matched in the history of humankind. Without the developments that occurred during the Proto Renaissance, this would never have been possible.

Historical Background

The Proto-Renaissance started in the middle of the 1100s and ended at the beginning of the 1400s in northern Italy. Art always reflects the world and ideas around it, and as the Proto-Renaissance developed into the High Renaissance itself, the background to its views and motivations are important to understand.

The country of Italy did not unify until 1861. Before then, regions such as Florence, Venice and Milan had their own political and social structures. Between these bordering regions there was an unusually high amount of trade and productivity. Trades were on the rise, supporting a strengthening economy. By the end of the 1300s, Papal power was on the decline. No longer did the cities in Italy rely on the Vatican. Therefore they focused their attention towards a new independence instead.

The Black Death

Unfortunately, not everything was as optimistic as it seemed. Around the time of the Proto-Renaissance, Europe fell victim to the bubonic plague, also known as the Black Death. This was catastrophic. By the time the plague subsided, an estimated 30 to 60 percent of the European’s population had died. The death toll is estimated to have possibly reached up to 100 million people.

Religious Changes

Europe also underwent many religious changes at this time. Francis of Assisi had spoken against “radical” religious views. He stated that people should express their religion by how they feel individually, rather than through conservative rituals. Of course it is easy for people today to understand these more liberal ideas, but during these times, the realities were much different, and Christians were expected to abide by exceptionally strict religious rules. These developments allowed people to start to view the world around them very differently.

The beginning of 3 Dimensional Space in Painting

Art advanced with the times. Starting in the Proto-Renaissance, artists such as Giotto worked on new ways to representing three-dimensional spaces in his artwork. In the previous Medieval and Byzantine art, bodies remained on a flat surface and perspective, as we know it today, did not exist.

The artistic themes of the Proto-Renaissance also moved away from the traditional religious icons and stories of the Middle Ages. After the plague subsided, paintings of death instead focused on themes of penance. The horrors of the Black Death reminded people of the fact that death could strike at anytime. It became a strong reason for people to try and avoid an afterlife in hell.

The Proto-Renaissance was the predecessor to one of the greatest art movements of all time, the Italian Renaissance. This movement would produce famous artists such as Michelangelo and Leonardo da Vinci, and would, in turn respectively create the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel and the portrait of the Mona Lisa. It opened up the illusion of space as an element of painting and that is why it altered the course of Art forever.

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10 Tips for a Beginning Art Collector

Starting out on the adventure of collecting Art is tremendously exciting, but can often seem daunting at the beginning. These 10 tips will give you the framework to set you on your way to what is a rewarding and highly enjoyable pursuit.

Lord Duveen, a renowned Art collector, once stood in front of JMW Turner’s ‘Bridge and Tower and famously proclaimed: ‘If I owned that picture, I should want nothing else in the world.’ What a great way to look at collecting Art!

1 – Think about your taste

It is important to figure out what you actually like. Take the time to explore genres that you love, and types of Art that you may have overlooked in the past. This will serve the benefit of reminding you why you enjoy, say, Photorealistic Painting for example, and why you are perhaps not as enthusiastic about another genre. Collecting Art is a lifelong passion, and you will live with these Artworks, so it is always worth taking the time to be sure about your tastes.

2 – Determine your Motivation for Collecting

Are you buying Art as an investment, or because you love it – or perhaps because of a bit of both? Understanding your motivation will help you to define exactly which Artworks are for you. Even if your motivations are purely fiscal, it helps to choose Artworks that you enjoy for yourself if possible.

3 – Research the Artist

When you find Artworks that captivate your attention and speak to you, if you aren’t already familiar with the Artist, then take the time to research their background, history and commentary on their own work. This will help to enrich your experience of viewing their Artworks, and gain a deeper understanding into what they are trying to do. This can also help you to make intelligent buying decisions about investments that could be very beneficial in the future.

4 – Curate your Collection

Many famous collections are united by the fact that a single collector had a certain goal in mind or great taste (Think Peggy Guggenheim). Over many years of collecting, a style of your own will emerge. You will find aesthetic and thematic threads developing that will tie your collection together. This is also worth thinking about as you set out on the first few steps of collecting Art. Think about colours, genres and styles that you like, and you may want to find various examples from different Artists with this aim in mind, as this will add unity and continuity to your collection.

5 – Where will they hang?

Even if you are buying Art as an investment, and may only live with it for a while before it moves on to another home, you must think about the effect it will have on the room/space in which it will be placed. Every Artwork has a huge effect on its surroundings, and this should be taken into account when you choose works for your collection. A huge Abstract Painting will have a much larger impact that tiny limited edition Lithographs, but whatever you choose, you must think about this point, as it is often overlooked.

6 – Keep all the Documentation

Make sure to look after all the documentation that authenticates the Artwork. This cannot be stressed enough, but it is often something that many people forget to do, and it can cause huge problems in the future. If you can clearly prove that the Artwork is the exact Artwork that it claims to be, then you will save yourself a lot of hassle.

7 – Buying Originals

With originals it is important to remember that the Artist profits only once from the sale of the work. Value grows over time, but it is you as the collector who profits from the increasing reputation and status of the Artist, as you already own the work. If you decide to sell the work in the future for a much higher price, it is you who will keep all of the profit, and the Artist will see none of it. This is one important reason why original Artworks command high prices.

8 – Buying Prints

Types of prints include engravings, lithographs, screen prints, aquatints, linocuts and woodblock prints. These are an ideal way to start or add to a collection. It is important to differentiate between the different terms, to help you make the right choice:

Ltd Edition Prints

With this format, the Artist limits the run of prints to a number that will be specified on the print itself, I.E 1/25, normally alongside the signature itself.  This shows the exclusivity of the piece, yet provides an affordable and accessible way to own certain Artworks that you love. This is a very common and sensible form of Art for early collectors to invest in.

Reproductions

These are part of an unlimited run of Artworks, allowing the Artist to create and sell as many as they like. They cost less than one off originals and ltd editions, because they are more numerous, but are also a great way to buy great Art at the most reasonable prices.

9 – Invest in the future

One exciting aspect of collecting Art is that the more knowledgeable you become, the more you can start making your own predictions about which Artists will grow in stature and popularity, and as a result, whose work will become more valuable. If you can make informed decisions about what to buy and when, not only are you supporting an Artist whose work you love, but you also stand to make a hefty profit if you choose to.

10 – Trust your Gut and take the Plunge

Art speaks to us all differently, so if you feel an indescribable connection with a certain work, then that is the next one for you. Trust your gut instinct. If you love the Artwork, if it is by an Artist that you respect after you have researched them, and you feel that it is a great investment, then go for it!

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Important Ideas that Changed Art forever – Surrealism

Major Artists: Salvador Dali, Rene Magritte, Max Ernst, Andre Breton

 ‘Surrealism is destructive, but it destroys only what it considers to be shackles limiting our vision.’ Salvador Dali

Surrealism was a reaction against logic, and a wild artistic trip into the unconscious mind. Andre Breton had concluded that if logic and order had led the world into war and chaos in the first half of the 20 Century, then the world needed to be seen in a new way, and things had to change. James Joyce described WW1 as ‘The ruin of all space, shattered glass and toppled masonry, and time one livid flame’. It was this kind of evocative and powerful imagery that the surrealists loved and were inspired by. They also yearned to blur the distinction between ‘reality’ and the dream state.

As a movement, Surrealism evolved from Dada. One of the core ideas at the heart of the movement was a willingness to experiment with the unknown, to put together familiar objects, symbols and scenarios in unfamiliar, twisted new settings and ways. Analysing and recording dreams were vital in the Surrealists attempts to unlock and demonstrate the might of the subconscious mind. Sleep became an actively creative pastime, and one that provided many ideas and scenes that would become the icons and famous artworks that Surrealism created.

Icons and Subjects

Salvador Dali’s lobster telephone is an unforgettable and iconic example of this technique of visual assemblage. Dali simply replaced the entire earpiece, handle and speaker of an old fashioned telephone with a bright red lobster. One of the ideas behind the work is that it forces you, as a viewer, out of your comfort zone. There is no reason that a crimson crustacean would ever become part of a telephone, except in the worlds of dream and fantasy.

Perhaps the most famous icons painted by Dali are his dripping clocks. These are so ubiquitous that they can be found all around the world, on everything from phone covers to tourist tat key rings. What is so magical about these melting timepieces is that they distort reality and materiality in such a symbolic and exuberant way. The idea of time bending and slushing into nothingness is so satisfying to think about, and such perfect food for the imagination. It challenges us to rethink the way we think about the world around us.

Raining Businessmen

Another icon of Surrealism that has passed into the collective world culture is Rene Magritte’s businessman with an apple over his face. The artwork inspired ‘The Thomas Crown Affair’ film, and can be found on book covers, posters, and all kinds of other cultural paraphernalia. The work blurs reality and the dream state, and Magritte explored this concept in great depth throughout his career. He was preoccupied with perception, and continually came up with new creative ways to challenge his audience to rethink what that think they know for sure. Many of his works would show night and day in a single image, or depict painted skies and cutout people intertwined in unsettling yet fascinating canvases. Often faces and masks are unpeeled, and smartly dressed men would rain placidly from the skies above his town.

Like all great art, Surrealism wanted to challenge the way that we perceive the world around us. Concepts of reality and fantasy, unreality and dreams were all twisted together and converged in an incredibly unique and subsequently influential cultural movement. Surrealism also did a great deal to popularise themes of the unconscious mind and how we understand it. They explored many of the ideas that famous psychologists such as Freud and Jung dedicated their entire professional lives to developing, but in their own unique and artistic way. When we read Baudrillard, or watch the Matrix for example, there is a debt there, however subtle, to the artistic efforts of the Surrealist artists.

Asleep or Awake?

As mentioned, the Surrealists often made no distinctions between being awake and being asleep, or our human and flawed concepts of understanding what is real and what is not.

J.G Ballard, the wonderfully original English Author, remarked that when Freud was working, what was understood as real was the exterior world, separate from the human body and mind. The things that humans thought and dreamed were symbols, schemas and abstractions. In the contemporary world however, the opposite is the case. Everything is an abstraction, an unreality that links to a hundred thousand other sources. What is real is the way that we perceive it all, the way that we dream and make sense of it.

Fascinating cultural analyses like this have been made possible though Surrealism’s ability to, and insistence upon, embrace everything. It sees no barriers between dreams / reality, or the conscious / unconscious mind, and it pours all these sources into the hugely imaginative and iconoclastic artworks that it created.

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Why Framing is so Important?

Accentuating the Artwork

The style, colour and material of a frame will always have a huge impact on the artwork itself. It can affect the mood of the work, or augment certain colours and elements of the painting, print, drawing or photograph. The frame that you select will finish the work, both visually and symbolically, and this final act is the last part of the creative process before the work is hung and exhibited.

There are many subtleties at play here as well, because of the powerful effect that a frame has upon an artwork. Take a jet-black polished metal frame; stern and unflinching, the clean minimal lines will add seriousness and style to the artwork. This may be perfect for a home or a gallery that wishes to highlight these internal features of the artwork itself. This choice is fitting for an atmospheric black and white photograph or an iconic minimalist canvas perhaps, but what about a lighter, more organic and freely flowing work?

Here, a lightly sanded ash frame with brilliant striations and a more handmade, roughly hewn aesthetic might be more appropriate. Whatever your preferences, it is pertinent to remember that the frame you choose has the power to heighten, harmonise or dampen the various elements that compose each individual artwork. The formal characteristics of any artwork, the colours, forms, textures and materials that go into making it, can always be accentuated by sensitive, well-chosen framing.

Tying together a series

Artworks are often created as series, as this allows an Artist to take on a similar aesthetic problem from many different angles. Picasso would often paint the same woman hundreds of times, and Cezanne painted Mont Sainte-Victoire throughout his entire life. In the work of any committed artist you will find repeated subject matter. Over time, these icons, figures and landscapes become larger and more important themes, and over the course of an Artist’s entire career, they can turn into the major defining imagery that turn the Artist from a person into an icon. Think Warhol’s Soup Can or Dali’s melting clocks.

When framing, it always helps to understand the artwork on many different levels. Framing a series of works that explore a similar theme, using the same kinds of frames, is a great way to add visual and conceptual continuity to the artworks you buy. It highlights the ideas of the Artist themselves, and allows you to style the works to suit your own tastes, and tie the series together as a whole.

Separating the image from its surroundings

A great Artwork can show you the world in a way that you have never seen before. Like a portal into another time and place, two-dimensional artworks are referred to time and time again as windows, and the perfect frame can really complete this metaphor. A great frame will accentuate the qualities of an artwork, it will harmonise it with its surroundings, but it will also separate it in a way that allows any viewer to look deeper into the work and take more from their experience.

A frame visually separates the work from the rest of the onlookers’ field of vision. This allows the ‘illusion’ of an artwork (the scene it shows, the image it represents etc) to become more realistic and effective. Our knowledge that this is an arrangement of forms, brushstrokes and colours, or pixels digitally printed on paper begins to fade, and we can be transported into a whole different world of sight, sound, smell, noise and feeling.

Cropping an image

Framing is the final act in the creative process, but it is also important in relation to the overall composition. When you take a sketch, a water colour image, or any other two-dimensional artwork and ‘crop’ it using the frame, you have to decide exactly where the frame and work will be positioned in relation to one other. The initial composition of any artwork is carefully and intuitively planned, but the framing can have a important effect on this starting framework. When you frame an artwork, you must think about how much of the work do you want the frame to cover, or whether you would prefer a floating frame, that display it in its entirety.

The latter image encases the work within a narrow, box like frame, and focuses attention onto the artwork as more than simply a flat image. This highlights the materiality and texture of the artwork. It is a popular method for contemporary galleries and artworks that wish to escape the idea that a two-dimensional artwork always offers an illusion of another place.

Final thoughts

Framing is an incredibly important step in the life of an artwork.

It finishes an image and creates a striking and meaningful work to hang on your walls or exhibit in a gallery. There are many aspects to take into consideration when you choose a frame that works for you, but keep in mind these points, and remember that a frame should empowers, accentuates and works with the artwork itself.

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