Ken Casey, Author at Woodshed Art Auctions

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Author: Ken Casey

Woodshed Art Auctions > Articles by: Ken Casey

The Visual Art of Bob Dylan

Bob Dylan’s musical career has spanned more than fifty years.  He has sold over 110 million records around the world. Two of his  most famous songs “Blowing in the Wind” and “The Times they are a-Changin’” became counter culture anthems in the 1960s signaling a new era of protest and civil rights.  What is less […]

The Transcendental Abstraction of Mark Rothko

Mark Rothko, 1903 - 1970

The name Mark Rothko has become synonymous with the term “color field painting” a style of abstract painting that emerged in New York City during the 1940s and 1950s.  Often thought of as an Abstract Expressionist, Rothko arrived at his iconic style after a long artistic and spiritual journey.   Born Markus Yakovlevich Rothkowitz in […]

DALÍ’S MUSE

In his long and flamboyant career, artist Salavador Dalí was known as much for his and attention grabbing stunts as he was for his considerable creative talent both as a draftsman, and a creative force. He was Born Salvador Domingo Felipe Jacinto Dalí i Domènech, Marquis of Dalí de Púbol  on May 11, 1904 in […]

Roy Lichtenstein and the End of Abstract Expressionism

Roy Lichtenstein

American artist Roy Lichtenstein was an influential force in the Pop Art movement of the 1960s. Along with  Andy Warhol,  Jasper Johns, and James Rosenquist the group forged a new and varied approach to art making that signaled the end of the Abstract Expressionist movement of the 1950s. Born in 1923 to an upper middle class family […]

New Sales Records at Major Art Auctions

Sotheby’s auction house in New York made news and set a new record at its recent auction on May 18, 2017.  Jean Michel Basquiat’s Untitled (1982) was originally estimated to fetch almost $60m. That appraisal alone shocked people, then the bidding began. All eyes were on lot #24 when it  came up for bid.  The room […]

Jean Cocteau, The Reluctant Surrealist

Jean Cocteau, a reluctant Surrealist was accomplished in a variety of media Perhaps one of the most versatile artists of his generation, Jean Cocteau was an accomplished writer, visual artist, and film maker. Cocteau, however, always considered himself primarily a poet. In 1889 Cocteau was born to a politically prominent family in Maison-Lafitte, a small [...]

The Hybrid Imagery of Wifredo Lam and Victor Brauner

Considering the very different backgrounds of Cuban born Wifredo Lam, and Romanian Victor Brauner, it is interesting to see how similar their drawings can be. While influenced by Cubism and Surrealism both artists naturally gravitated to an imagery that fuses human, animal, and botanical themes. Wifredo Lam, The Jungle, Gouache on paper mounted on canvas, [...]

Gottlieb’s Color Bursts

Adolph Gottlieb Adolph Gottlieb had three major artistic periods during his long and successful career. Born in New York to Jewish immigrant parents in 1903, by the time he was a teenager it was clear that Gottlieb was destined to be an artist, there was no other choice. After dropping out of high school, Gottlieb [...]

The Imagery of Jean-Michel Basquiat

In a life that ended tragically early, Jean-Michel Basquiat (12/22/60 – 8/12/88) established a remarkable visual vocabulary that has not only influenced a generation of artists, but has pervaded popular culture as well. From his beginnings as a Brooklyn punk graffiti artist, he quickly attracted the attention of Uptown New York galleries, becoming a driving [...]

Fernand Leger and Cubism

Fernand Léger, photograph by Arnold Newman, 1941. Initially influenced by Impressionism, Fernand Leger, French painter, sculptor, and film maker went on to develop his own populist and figurative form of Cubism for which he is known today. His unsentimental treatment of the human figure derives from his belief that the human form should be treated [...]