Original African Abstract Paintings wanted
Toso & Jura has long experience in Africa where me have met dozens of artists, visited galleries and studios in over 30 countries. We are always interested in adding to our vast collection. Our key interest is abstract oil on canvas paintings strictly from African artists NO PRINTS! If you have artwork for sale you are welcome to contact us with photos and asking prices at tj@tosojura.com
Vintage European Lighting
Our in-house expert Tony Esposito will be posting interesting lamps out of his huge collection and talking about the unique designs created in Europe from the 1950s thru 1970s. After wasting far too much time participating on Facebook forums with no control of our content, it will be recorded here for our own readers. Guests who want to share a lamp photo or that have a question can contact Tony at > quote@tosojura.com
Mid-century Modern Ceramics
Here at Toso & Jura we are fascinated by the huge variety of ceramic decorative items produced in Italy after WWII up until the 1980s. It seems endless the number of regions that created some fabulous ceramic art with a huge number of makers in the Florence region, Albisola, Vietri sul Mar, Faenza and many other areas we will look to discuss.
Phillips Collection Visit – Washington DC
Fabulous collection of primarily 20th century contemporary art and one of the few DC galleries you need to pay an USD 20 entry fee but well worth it.
The building that houses the collection does not seem overly large from outside but there seemed to be more art on display than you would expect.
One of the main attractions was the Rothko Room and I inadvertently took a photo after not seeing the sign No Photos. The room did not really excite me as I personally feel that much of the work Rothko did was an expansion on the “Black Square” from Kazimir Malevich. I felt Rothko could have named one of his paintings in the room I viewed the “Yellow + Blue Square”.
Artwork I found more interesting was the Cezanne exhibition, particularly his featured self-portrait. It was impressive just how productive Cezanne was, he used common pre-stretched canvas sizes and basic paint types / colours for his many works.
There were other wonderful pieces from Picasso, Kandinsky, Van Gogh and Archkipenko that I genuinely liked. Unlike many recent contempoary exhibitions I have visited, there were very few works on large canvases.
World-class Contemporary Sculpture Garden Visit
Glad to have traveled out of the center of New Orleans to see 90 fabulous sculptures at NOMA. The sculpture garden is free to enter but the museum costs $15 for adults.
I thought the garden was a veritable Who’s Who of contemporary sculpture with a large work right at the entry from Henry Moore.
The only thing missing was a piece from Giacometti, one of my all-time favorite artists.
Another piece I liked was from Frank Stella named “Stella”.
Just a beautiful garden and a lovely way to spend a couple hours when in NOLA.
An honorable mention to the nearby Degas House & Museum where Edgar lived and created 18 paintings / several drawings in the 1870s.
Makerere University Fine Arts Department – Kampala, Uganda
I recently had the pleasure of touring the Fine Arts Department at the Makerere University in Kampala, Uganda by invitation of one of the professors there.
There is a fabulous sculpture garden with dozens of unique pieces on the lawns between the different buildings hosting classes for Sculpture, Ceramics, Weaving, Wood Block Print Making and Painting.
The sculpture garden featured a wide variety of styles and each piece did not necessarily make you immedatrely think of African art. The piece pictured above reminded of “The Scream” from Edvard Munch and another stout piece looked much like an Archipenko design.
Another surprise was the Printing school where they were making incredibly high quality wood block plates for use with oil paint,
My main interest is always various paintings on display but both the sculpture and ceramic works were fabulous. I know vintage Italian / French ceramics reasonably well and was greatly impressed by the fine pieces being made there at the school
Then my favorite area was the main Art Gallery where the exhibition featured works from the professors teaching at the school, several of who well known with paintings or drawings sold internationally.
Kampala has a cool art scene, I also visited Nomma and Afriart Galleries but the best in my opinion was the Umoja Art Gallery.