Author: Learn Antiques Team

CHARLES BALDWYN: Soaring Swans on Porcelain

Charles Baldwyn stands out among talented artists and designers of the Royal Worcester for his very special talent and his love for natural history. Young Charles started work at the Worcester Porcelain factory sweeping floors. But being a sociable chap, he gained opportunities to cycle around the countryside with the company’s cycling club and study wildlife. While Charles worked for the Royal Worcester, his speciality became swans in flight as well as birds in moonlit scenes and no one else was permitted to paint swans in flight. His works are highly prized and can be very expensive. His talent lives on in the Worcester pottery he designed and painted, as well as his card and canvas work.

GEORGE NELSON: American Modernist

George Nelson is considered one of the most important American designers of the 20th century. He was inspired to study architecture after he saw exhibits from students when he entered the Yale School of Architecture building to get out of a rainstorm. Although best known as an author, teacher, and as Director of Design for Herman Miller, George Nelson also designed furniture. One of his best-known designs was the Coconut Chair, a lounge chair that looked like, as Nelson puts it “a coconut cut up into eight sections”. He was more interested in the process that led to the end product than in the end product itself. Nelson’s greatest contribution was his introduction of modernism to American society.

The History of Australian Art

Australian art is referred to as any art concerning or made in Australia or created by the Australians who are residing abroad, right from the ancient periods till today. The foremost artistic representations of the Australia scene by European artists were generally natural history illustrations, portraying the unique fauna and flora of the land for scientific functions, and the landscape of the coast. All the drawings of the colony were fashioned and created by soldiers and condemned artists, until the turn of the century. The genesis of a clearly Australian painting tradition was regularly linked with the Heidelberg School of the late 19th century.

JENS RISOM: Making Furniture Design in the US and the World Awesome

Jens Risom was one of the icons of Mid-Century Modern furniture design. While working for an architectural firm, his interest in furniture was ignited by the introduction to the work of Alvar Aalto and Bruno Mathsson. Risom teamed up with Hans Knoll and they launched the Hans Knoll Furniture together. However, he separated and launched Jens Risom Design when Knoll’s wife served as design director. He was among those who introduced Scandinavian design, marked by simplicity and functionality, to the American public. Risom identified function, comfort and construction as the touchstones of his design philosophy. Risom lived long enough to see a new generation rediscover and appreciate his work.

DOROTHY NAPANGARDI: Combining Spirituality and Artistry

Dorothy Napangardi was one of the foremost artists of the modern Aboriginal art movement. The work of this woman was highly sought after by both curators and collectors all over the world. Dorothy’s work rotated around the sprinkled representations of the landscape around her home town. They surveyed dissimilar and complex representations of its sandhills and salt pans. Dorothy focused on the movement to grab the attention of the onlooker. She accomplished this feat as a result of her extraordinary spatial intellect and compositional capability. Dorothy had several groups and unaccompanied presentations both in Australia and abroad. Her art is now available in collections of numerous museums.

GRETA MAGNUSSON GROSSMAN: A Marvelous Designer and an Extraordinary Woman

Greta Magnusson Grossman was among the few female designers to be celebrated in the architectural scene during the mid-twentieth century. Her work was looked at as a mixture of both European thoughts as well as the culture and way of life in Southern California. The European influence on her work was due to her early exposure to the European Modernism. Greta acknowledged the shortcomings of being a feminine artist and affirmed that she must succeed by making history on the field. Her furniture was distinguished by its matchless mixture of materials and willowy magnitude. As far as the experimental architecture world is concerned, this woman was a prominent figure all through the 1960s.