Austin Cooper: Lepidoptera

Perfect poster by a master designer - Austin Cooper (1890-1964)

Jean Dubuffet: Butterfly Portraits

Portrait D'Homme - 1957

“I have a great interest in madness, and I am convinced art has much to do with madness,”  Jean Dubuffet

Some examples of Jean Dubuffet's butterfly wing collages. Dubuffet (1901-1985), is best known for leading a revolt against western art, challenging traditional ideas of what could be considered beautiful and what is ugly. Dubuffet asserted that 'real art' was that which was created by children or the insane. He was the founder of the Art Brut movement and was known for his use of materials which were considered highly unorthodox such as cement, plaster, tar and asphalt. During the 1950s he began using vegetation - tobacco leaves and wood in his works, and began to explore how the delicate texures and vivid colours of butterfly wings could also be used in his art. I found examples of Dubuffet's work along with those of other outsider artists in the Art Brut galleries at Lille's Métropole Musée d'Art Moderne, d'Art Contemporain et d'Art Brut (LaM) here and here. I think Dubuffet would have been proud to have his work exhibited in this company in this particular environment rather than with the established 'high art' of the Picasso's, Modigliani's and Léger's etc. in the main collection at LAM.

Dubuffet also created a series of collaged landscapes (to be explored in a future post), out of butterfly wings as well as this unusual cycle of portraits. The inspiration for the portraits may well have been the surreal work of Arcimboldo and other artists who created faces out of natural objects, and whose work Dubuffet would have been familiar with from his visits to the Louvre.

Summer - (1573), Guiseppe Arcimboldo (1526-93)

The resultant portraits seem a little disturbing, and definately have an air of the surreal about them. They certainly embody the spirit of the art of both children, the outsider art of the 'insane' and those with no formal art training that Dubuffet so admired.

Portrait of Jean Paulhan - 1955

Portrait of Jean Dubuffet - 1953,  Pierre Bettencourt

Dubuffet's butterfly wing works were influential on other artists and writers. The piece above is a portrait of Dubuffet created with butterfly wings by French writer and artist Pierre Bettencourt (1917-2006), and is very similar to Dubuffet's collages and also created during the same period.

Tobias and The Three Angels - 1956 - Pierre Bettencourt

Jean Dubuffet with part of his butterfly collection

Cindy Chao: Butterflies Through Other Eyes #50

 Ruby Butterfly Brooch, 2015-16

"The Annual Butterflies embody the ongoing metamorphosis of myself as an artist and the advancement of our techniques and craftsmanship" —Cindy Chao


I wrote a post about Beyoncé's Papillon ring which had been donated to the V&A museum (here), and was recently made aware of the work of art-jeweller Cindy Chao, and the butterfly-inspired pieces that she creates. To my eyes Chao's pieces are reminiscent of the work of Art Nouveau jewellery by masters of the discipline in that period like René Lalique and Louis Comfort Tiffany. Evidence of the hand of the maker is much more evident in Chao's idiosyncratic pieces though. Chao began making her butterflies in 2008 but struggled with funding her fledgling business. Chao triumphed over adversity however, and the first butterfly brooch she created - The Ruby Butterfly Brooch (below), now resides in the Musée des Arts Décoratifs (MAD) in Paris after being donated by its purchaser. “I thought, ‘my God, if this is going to be the last piece I was going to make, what is it going to be?’ I just felt like I was a butterfly. They are so beautiful and they live so briefly. I decided to make a butterfly because that was my mood at that moment. That’s why I made it in three dimensions and in 360 degrees.” The Ruby Butterfly Brooch consists of Burmese rubies on the wings, along with colored diamonds and color-changing sapphires. It is unusual in that it only shows two butterfly wings, whereas later designs of Chao's butterflies have the full complement of four wing sections. Chao creates just one butterfly piece annually, and all of her butterflies are created from a wax sculpting technique giving them their organic, free-flowing, asymmetric, sculptural form. That initial Ruby Butterfly eventually sold for $86,000 before being donated to MAD, enough to rescue her fledgling business, and see Chao go on to exhibit at major art/design fairs, set records at auctions of jewellery and receive international awards. Such is the clamour for Chao's pieces that they are unveiled to a privileged few collectors, and there is then a 3 year waiting list to acquire one.

 The Ruby Butterfly Brooch, 2008

Perfection Butterfly Brooch, 2011

Transcendence Butterfly Brooch, 2012

Crimson Rose Butterfly Brooch 2018

                   Red Diamond Butterfly Brooch 2018 original watercolour design

Red Diamond Butterfly Brooch 2018

Ballerina Butterfly Brooch, 2013-14

The Black Label Masterpiece I “Aurora Butterfly Brooch” 2019

Royal Butterfly Brooch, 2009 

 Designer Cindy Chao with the Royal Butterfly Brooch

 An indication of the scale of the brooches
and the reverse of the Ruby Butterfly Brooch, 2008, below.

The Seccession Building

I made a return visit to the Secession building whilst in Vienna, and it was just as impressive as the last time I visited it (here), perhaps even more so, as the gilded facade and splendid foliate dome glistened magnificently in the winter sunshine. There were no exhibitions of contemporary art on display this time however, just the downstairs space dedicated to displaying the history of the Secession group and the building, and also the room containing Gustav Klimt's Beethoven Frieze which was as dreamy as ever.

The only new addition to the building since my last visit was the restoration of one of the original decorative plaster panels of athletic looking maidens on the exterior of the building (below). It was a design created in 1898 by artist Koloman Moser, and was part of a plan in 2018 to fully restore the Secession building to its original state. It was good to see the characterful trios of wise owls still in place guarding the building and keeping a watchful eye on visitors too.

 

 

The Secession Building

Friedrichstaße 12 

1010 Vienna

 

Otto Wagner: Austrian Post Savings Bank (Österreichische Postsparkasse)

Another must-see on my itinerary during my latest trip to Vienna was another imposing  building by the Secessionist architect Otto Wagner. The building is the Austrian Post Savings Bank (Österreichische Postsparkasse), which I began to look for on my last visit to the city, but missed as I got distracted in my search for the Hundertwasserhaus (here). The Austrian Post Savings Bank is a huge building built between 1904 and 1906 - the very same period when he also began work on Kirche am Steinhof - and then extended from 1910-1912. Although the purpose and use of both buildings is very different, there remain certain stylistic similarities. This building is functional, with geometric features and clean lines, and must have seemed startlingly modern at the time for the Viennese more accustomed to the pretty, neo-classical buildings surrounding it. Visually and psychologically, the bank gives a solid, imposing, impression like a citadel or fortress. As such it has an air of security about it, just the sort of place working customers would feel safe depositing their hard earned money. The facade of the Austrian Post Savings Bank is covered with a combination of granite and marble slabs, and was one of the first to use aluminium both on the exterior in the rivets studding the surface, and statues topping the building, and in interior fixtures and fittings such as the heating fans, doorknobs and grilles. The building was also one of the first to employ the use of the then new material of reinforced concrete in its construction. Perhaps the most obvious thing I noticed about the Post Office Savings Bank in comparison to Wagner's other buildings in the Austrian capital, was the absence of colour. There is none of the signature green used on the metalwork of his stations for the city's Stadtbahn (here), or the lavish gilding on Kirche am Steinhof (here). The Savings Bank is all very monochromatic and grey, enlivened only by white and black decoration, and the dulled surfaces of frosted glass, or shiny reflections of grey aluminium.

The very modern stylings of the Austrian Post Savings Bank contrast sharply with the surrounding neo-classical architectural styles.

The classically-styled but strikingly modern aluminium angels on the attica above the building are the work of Wagner's collaborator, sculptor Othmar Schimkowitz, who also designed the decorative angels on Wagner's Kirche am Steinhof.

These circular wreath-like motifs are signature Wagner ornamentation, as are the rivet-studded surface of the building, and the grid-like formations of the front doors at the main entrance.

The foyer is faced with marble and decorative plaster, and leads into the cavernous, atrium-style Grand Hall of the Savings Bank. The Grand Hall space was the central banking room containing numerous desks where the cashiers were located, and where the customers financial transactions would have taken place. It is covered with a large frosted glass skylight allowing plenty of natural light to flood into the space. The floor is also filled with interesting diamond-shaped, faceted glass tiles. Again, I was struck by how modern the space appeared. The tall slender aluminium heaters looked like something dreamt up in a futuristic vision from science fiction, rather than designs created in 1904.

 

One of the aluminium heaters designed in 1904.

Faceted glass tiles set into the floor allowing light to penetrate to rooms below. The Post Office boxes and mail sorting rooms are located in the space beneath these tiles in the Grand Hall.

After enjoying the Grand Hall I made my way through to the museum space at the back, which contained the architectural drawings, models and photographs of the Savings Bank in its heyday. The space here was more representative to my eyes of Viennese art nouveau than that of the Grand Hall, as there were more decorative elements. The use of simple, painted geometric black ornamentation really lifted the space, and was pleasing to the eye. I think it may have been inspired by Egyptian art which played a big part in nouveau and deco design. Also very pleasing, and again surprisingly contemporary, were the serving counters which here were all shiny glass and sleek aluminium. They reminded me of the interiors of midcentury American banks, and the reflected surfaces seen in the works of the American photorealist painters of the 1960s such as Richard Estes and Ralph Goings.

An architectural model of the Savings Bank.

Austrian Post Savings Bank (Österreichische Postsparkasse) 

Georg-Coch-Platz 2

1010 Vienna

Austria