Could Julia Margaret Cameron Take a Picture of Nosferatu?

ALMANAC-

June 11, 1776: John Constable, English painter, was born. "John Constable was an English Romantic painter. Born in Suffolk, he is known principally for his landscape paintings of Dedham Vale, the area surrounding his home—now known as "Constable Country"—which he invested with an intensity of affection. "I should paint my own places best", he wrote to his friend John Fisher in 1821, "painting is but another word for feeling". His most famous paintings include Dedham Vale of 1802 and The Hay Wain of 1821. Although his paintings are now among the most popular and valuable in British art, he was never financially successful and did not become a member of the establishment until he was elected to the Royal Academy at the age of 52. He sold more paintings in France than in his native England."

- - -

June 11, 1815: Julia Margaret Cameron, English photographer, was born. "Julia Margaret Cameron was a British photographer. She became known for her portraits of celebrities of the time, and for photographs with Arthurian and other legendary themes. Cameron's photographic career was short, spanning eleven years of her life (1864-1875). She took up photography at the relatively late age of 48, when she was given a camera as a present. Her work had a huge impact on the development of modern photography, especially her closely cropped portraits which are still mimicked today. Her house, Dimbola Lodge, on the Isle of Wight is open to the public.

- - -

June 11, 1864: Richard Strauss, German composer and conductor, was born. "Richard Georg Strauss was a leading German composer of the late Romantic and early modern eras, particularly of operas, Lieder and tone poems. Together with Gustav Mahler he represents the extraordinary late flowering of German Romanticism, after Wagner, in which pioneering subtleties of orchestration are combined with an advanced harmonic style. Strauss's music had a profound influence on the development of music in the twentieth century. Like Mahler, Strauss was also a prominent conductor."

- - -

June 11, 1879: Max Schreck, German actor, was born. "Friedrich Gustav Max Schreck was a German actor. He is most often remembered today for his lead role in the film Nosferatu (1922). For three years between 1919 and 1922, Schreck appeared at the Munich Kammerspiele, including a role in the expressionist production of Bertolt Brecht's debut, Trommeln in der Nacht (Drums in the Night) (in which he played the "freakshow landlord" Glubb). In 1921, he was hired by Prana Film for their first and only production, Nosferatu. The company declared itself bankrupt after the film was released to avoid paying copyright infringement costs to Florence Stoker, Dracula author Bram Stoker's widow. Schreck portrayed Count Orlok, a character analogous to Count Dracula."

"In 1923, while still in Munich, Schreck appeared in a 16-minute (one-reeler) slapstick, "surreal comedy" written by Bertolt Brecht entitled Mysterien eines Friseursalons (Mysteries of a Barbershop), directed by Erich Engel. In 1926, Schreck returned to the Kammerspiele in Munich and continued to act in films surviving the advent of sound until his death in 1936 of heart failure. He was married to actress Fanny Normann, who appeared in a few films, often credited as Fanny Schreck. Curiously, the word schreck is also the German word for fright, or terror. Because of this, many authors who were unaware of Schreck's on-stage credits (and ignorant of the rather sparse details of his personal life) speculated that there was really no such person, and that Schreck was, in fact, some well-known actor who had chosen to adopt a pseudonym for his role in Nosferatu. Schreck's contemporaries recalled he was a loner with an unusual sense of humor and skill in playing grotesque characters. One reported he lived in "a remote and strange world" and that he spent time walking through dark forests."

Cover Up That Nude Book Cover, Thomas Gainsborough's Here!

NOTED IN THE NEWS-

- Design: Don't judge a book by its cover, particularly in France : "Music albums are sold across the world inside a universal sleeve, blockbuster films branded in a singular style. But novels, by a convention that nobody in the publishing industry seems fully able to explain, must be re-jacketed from territory to territory. It inspires all kinds of illustrative madness, and makes browsing foreign bookshelves a fascinating – often bewildering – experience..." read the whole story


- David Hockney turns the iPad into an art form : "The iPad is not yet available in the UK – but it seems one famous Yorkshire resident is already up and running with Apple's latest device. David Hockney, one of the most influential British artists of the past century, has already been using the Brushes application on the device to draw pictures and email the results to friends..." read more

- Rare nude sketch by Constable discovered : "A sketch of a naked woman by John Constable that was hidden away for more than a century – apparently because it was considered too risqué – has sold for four times its estimated valuation. The pencil drawing featuring a bare bottom was placed in an album of other work by the English artist but had a dinner invitation pasted over it..." Read the entire, un-covered story


ARTS ALMANAC-

May 14, 1727: Thomas Gainsborough, English painter, was baptized. "Gainsborough was noted for the speed with which he applied his paint, and he worked more from his observations of nature (and of human nature) than from any application of formal academic rules. The poetic sensibility of his paintings caused Constable to say, "On looking at them, we find tears in our eyes and know not what brings them." He himself said, "I'm sick of portraits, and wish very much to take my viol-da-gam and walk off to some sweet village, where I can paint landskips (sic) and enjoy the fag end of life in quietness and ease."

May 14, 1885: Otto Klemperer, German-born conductor and composer widely regarded as one of the leading conductors of the 20th century, was born. "In 1933, once the Nazi Party had reached power, Klemperer, who was Jewish, left Germany and moved to the United States. In the U.S. he was appointed Music Director of the Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra. Following the end of World War II, Klemperer returned to Continental Europe to work at the Budapest Opera (1947-1950). Finding Communist rule in Hungary increasingly irksome, he became an itinerant conductor, guest conducting the Royal Danish Orchestra, Montreal Symphony Orchestra, WDR Orchestra Köln, Concertgebouw Orchestra, and the Philharmonia of London. In 1954 London-based producer Walter Legge recorded Klemperer in Beethoven, Brahms and much else with his hand-picked orchestra, the Philharmonia, for the EMI label."


IN OUR STORE-

“Exposed. The Victorian Nude”

Edited by Alison Smith.

Published by Watson-Guptill Publications in 2002.

“This sumptuous and sensual volume focuses primarily on painting, though it does include drawings, sculpture, and early forms of photography and silent film stills. [Alison] Smith, whose Victorian Nude: Sexuality, Morality, and Art provided a broad cultural context of the topic, showcases work by John Singer Sargent, Frederic Leighton, John Everett Millais, Dante Gabriel Rossetti, and others.... The unlikely juxtaposition of Victorian mores with nude imagery provides an alternate sensibility to Victorian England, both enlightening the mind and pleasing the eye. Three richly illustrated essays by Smith, Martin Myrone, and Michael Hyatt frame the work.”

$25.00

MORE INFORMATION