A Jackson Pollack for 44 cents?

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On March 11, 2010, in Buffalo, New York, the Postal Service™ issued a 44–cent, Abstract Expressionists commemorative stamp in ten designs, designed by Ethel Kessler of Bethesda, Maryland

In celebration of the abstract expressionist artists of the 20th Century, Art Director Ethel Kessler and noted Art Historian Jonathan Fineberg (Gutgsell Professor Art History, University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign) selected ten paintings to feature on this colorful pane of self–adhesive stamps. Kessler used elements from Barnett Newman’s Achilles (1952) to frame the stamps. The arrangement of the stamps suggests paintings hanging on a gallery wall. For design purposes, the sizes of the stamp are not in relative proportion to the paintings. The pane also features selvage text and a quotation by Robert Motherwell. Each stamp includes the artist’s name and verso text that identifies the painting and briefly tells something about the artist.

List of Stamp Artwork

• The Golden Wall (1961) — Hans Hofmann (1880–1966)
• Romanesque Façade (1949) — Adolph Gottlieb (1903–1974)
• Orange and Yellow (1956) — Mark Rothko (1903–1970)
• The Liver Is the Cock’s Comb (1944) — Arshile Gorky (1904–1948)
• 1948–C (1948) — Clyfford Still (1904–1980)
• Asheville (1948) — Willem de Kooning (1904–1997)
• Achilles (1952) — Barnett Newman (1905–1970)
• Convergence (1952) — Jackson Pollock (1912–1956)
• Elegy to the Spanish Republic No. 34 (1953–1954) — Robert Motherwell (1915–1991)
• La Grande Vallée 0 (1983) — Joan Mitchell (1925–1992)

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A Jackson Pollack for 44 Cents?

No! The whole pane of stamps has to be purchased for $4.40 at a post office or online.


The image of the Jackson Pollack stamp was obtained from The Los Angeles Times.

A New York Times article, with an enlargement of Adolph Gottlieb’s “Romanesque Facade.”

An ARTINFO article, with an enlargement of Hans Hofmann's "The Golden Wall."

The image of the pane and the text was obtained from USPS.

The USPS press release

A New York magazine article

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Photos from Paris - Outside and Inside a Restaurant

Nomiya is a temporary installation atop the Palais de Tokyo contemporary-art museum. Like an exhibition, the restaurant has a corporate sponsor and a limited run, ending in December.

Photo: Laurent Grasso

Floor-to-ceiling windows display a view of the Eiffel Tower.
Photo: Ed Alcock for The New York Times

From The New York Times' "Where Art and Haute Cuisine Meet in Paris"

Ansel Adams Photos at the Interior Department

The Los Angeles Times informs us, in Ansel Adams, from the wilderness to the corridors of power, that the Interior Department has installed an exhibit of photos by Ansel Adams in its halls, in Washingtion, D.C. The photos were taken as part of a project commissioned in 1941 by then-Interior Secretary Harold Ickes.

The article states, "Adams was paid $22 per day to work on the project, and he only charged the government for the days when he actually shot. He took more than 200 photos over about a month, but with the onset of World War II, the project stalled."

"Interior Secretary Ken Salazar has since revived the project and -- at a cost of $17,000 -- had 26 of the images permanently installed in the halls of the Interior building at 1849 C St., NW."

The exhibit at the Interior Department is the first time the photos have been viewable by the public.

A slideshow of twenty-six images, with a high-resolution of each available, can be seen at the Interior Department's website, here.

The photo included with this post is of Canyon de Chelly, a national monument, in northeast Arizona.

Zamboni Machines

Zamboni Off The Ice

An article in this yesterday's New York Times, Zamboni Driving Lessons, reminded me of the earlier article about Zamboni machines, from which the photo, above, was taken, and which contains a nine-photo slideshow.

From parts of some of the slideshow captions:

The Zamboni machine's hypnotic mission and captivating name have made it a cultural icon, something the Zamboni family finds both gratifying and a bit puzzling. The first ice-resurfacing machine was built in 1949 and its form, function and sales output have remained consistent for decades. ...

... Richard Zamboni, who now runs the company, says it consistently sells 200 to 250 machines a year, 30 years after his father [Frank Zamboni] began worrying that the market was nearly saturated. ...

... The second and third machines built by Zamboni were bought by the Olympic star Sonja Henie for use in her ice shows. ...

... The original Zamboni machine is parked in the skating rink that the family still owns, just down the street from the factory. ...

... Frank Zamboni spent most of a decade building his first machine. These days it takes about six months to produce a machine, each of which is still made to order. ...

Cool.

Book Deals: Washington Lawyer Bob Barnett

By David Montgomery
Sunday, March 7, 2010

In "I, Alex Cross," the new bestseller set in Washington by James Patterson, fictional detective Alex Cross scans the ego wall in the office of a senator he's investigating:

The senator has hung photos of himself "with the president . . . the vice president. Tiger Woods. Bono. Arnold and Maria. Bob Woodward. Robert Barnett."

Robert Barnett?

"The senator," muses Cross, "was obviously a well-connected man, and he wanted everyone who walked into his office to know it right away." ...

... Barnett's rate of $975 an hour is a lot of money, but his transformational insight was to apply a lawyer's fee structure to the work of an agent. Then it's not necessarily so much money

A traditional literary agent charges 15 percent of an advance. Barnett helped Bill Clinton sell "My Life" for a record $15 million. Clinton would have paid an agent $2.25 million; Barnett says he put in far fewer hours than the 2,308 he would have needed to work to bill $2.25 million. (more ...)