Edward Bruce: Born April 13, 1879

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Bruce1Edward Bruce was born in 1879 in Dover Plains, New York. Though he enjoyed painting at a young age, he pursued a career in law and graduated from Columbia Law School in 1904. He practiced law in New York and in Manila, Philippines and was actively involved in international issues.SH143
In 1923 Bruce gave up his career in law and business and began to paint, particularly landscapes. He and his wife Peggy spent the next six years in Anticoli Carrado, Italy where he studied painting from his friend and fellow artist Maurice Sterne. Bruce returned to the United States in 1929 and settled in California, exhibiting his artwork to much public and critical praise. In addition, Bruce was an avid collector of Chinese art.
In 1933 Bruce was appointed Chief of the newly established Public Works of Art Project, a federal government New Deal program within the U.S. Treasury Department, that employed artists to decorate numerous public buildings and parks…In 1940 he was appointed to the Commission of Fine Arts by President Franklin Delano Roosevelt.
Bruce2Bruce received many honors and awards during his lifetime both for his work as an artist and for his capable and dedicated administration of federal arts programs. Despite poor health, he continued his work for the Section of Fine Arts until shortly before his death in 1943.
http://www.aaa.si.edu/collections/edward-bruce-papers-7264/more

On December 8, 1933, the Advisory Committee to the Treasury on Fine Arts met to decide the newdealartdetails of the Public Works of Art Project (PWAP), the first of the New Deal art programs. The PWAP came at a crucial moment for federal support of the arts during the Great Depression. As artist Olin Dows (1904–1981) recalled, “If the first crash [i.e. Depression] art program had not been so carefully newdealarttoothought out and expertly organized, I doubt that other programs would have been undertaken. The man mainly responsible was Edward Bruce.” Bruce, an advisor to the Treasury Department, hosted the meeting at his home. First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt was present as were such arts leaders as Juliana Force and Forbes Watson, who worked with Bruce to organize the Public Works of Art Project.
https://www.incollect.com/articles/1934-a-new-deal-for-artists

History of the New Deal Art Projects~ http://wpamurals.org/history.html
The New Deal Art Registry~ http://www.newdealartregistry.org/Home.html

Louis-Ernest Barrias (April 13, 1841-February 4, 1905)

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NatureThe figure first appeared in white marble at the Paris Salon of 1893 as ‘La Nature mystérieuse et voilée se découvre devant la Science’ and was acquired by the faculty at l’Ecole de Médecine in Bordeaux. Barrias returned to the theme a few years later exhibiting a related sculpture at the 1899 Salon, simply titled ‘La Nature se dévoilant’. Following in the spirit of pioneers of polychromy such as Charles-Henri-Joseph Cordier and Eugène Cornu this figure was carved using expensive and luxurious materials such as Algerian onyx for the drapery, lapis lazuli for the ribbon and malachite for the scarab. This figure is now in the collection of the Muse d’Orsay. A final version in white marble was made in 1902 and acquired by the École de Medicine in Paris.   https://lapada.org/

Nature Revealing Herself To Science~
http://www.sinaiandsons.com/catalogue/20th%20Century/Bronze/Barrias%20Figures.php
Biography~ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Louis-Ernest_Barrias#Biography

Hardie Gramatky: Born on April 12, 1907

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Bernhard August “Hardie” Gramatky, Jr. (April 12, 1907-April 29, 1979) was an American painter, writer, animator, and illustrator. In a 2006 article in Watercolor Magazine, Andrew Wyeth named him as one of America’s 20 greatest watercolorists. He wrote and illustrated several children’s books, most notably Little Toot.
FROM https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hardie_Gramatky

ROOF

http://www.californiawatercolor.com/pages/hardie-gramatky-biography

https://www.mazzamuseum.org/project/miles-gallery/

https://www.lambiek.net/artists/g/gramatky_hardie.htm

Lily Pons: Born on April 12, 1898

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Few opera stars have led such an impressive career. For over a quarter of a century, her coloratura voice captured the stages of Paris, London, Buenos Aires, Mexico, and the United States. Like Mario Lanza and Luciano Pavarotti, she acted in second-rate films about opera stars, which were surprisingly well-attended.

Her sweet soprano voice had an extremely high tessitura. It was said she could hold a high D for about a minute. The Metropolitan Opera revived roles especially for her, like Delibes’ Lakmé, Donizetti’s La Fille du Regiment, and Rimsky-Korsakov’s Le Coq d’or.
FROMhttp://www.classical.net/music/recs/reviews/s/sny60655a.php

In 1932, the tiny Frederick County post office of Lilypons opened for business. “It was a dot on a map, because nobody has ever been quite sure what to call it. Lilypons, Md., was never a city, town or even a hamlet,” said The Evening Sun in 1986. “It is now what it has always been: one frame building surrounded by a small cluster of ponds nestled into a bdaycakepeaceful crook of the Monocacy River eight miles south of Frederick.” In 1963, during a period of cost cutting, the Postal Service discontinued the Lilypons postmark and combined its functions with the nearby Buckeystown post office. A plaque commemorating the tiny post office was mounted on the building in 1986. ~Fred Rasmussen FROMhttps://www.baltimoresun.com/

Tom Lehrer: Born April 9, 1928

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Thomas Andrew “Tom” Lehrer is a retired American singer-songwriter, satirist, and mathematician. He has lectured on mathematics and musical theater. He is best known for the pithy, humorous songs he recorded in the 1950s and ’60s. ~Wikipedia

Biography~ http://www.allmusic.com/artist/tom-lehrer-mn0000611877/biography

“Looking For Tom Lehrer”~
https://www.buzzfeed.com/bensmith/tom-lehrer?utm_term=.ruJ6aPBRrd#.xq4Xe2dq4w

Eadweard Muybridge: Born April 9, 1830

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Yosemite

Photographs of Yosemite~
http://www.yosemite.ca.us/library/yosemite_its_wonders_and_its_beauties/list_of_photographs.html
Biography~ http://www.iphf.org/hall-of-fame/eadweard-muybridge/
BBC Documentary~ https://youtu.be/5Awo-P3t4Ho

Before his death in 1903, Muybridge would emigrate to America, change his name three times, come close to death and suffer brain damage in a carriage accident. Perhaps most sensationally, he would also be acquitted for the murder of Major Harry Larkyns, his wife’s lover, and the true father of his presumed son Floredo Helios Muybridge.
In fact, Muybridge enjoyed a professional life which may even have surpassed his sensational personal biography. He gained fame through adventurous and progressive landscape photography before working as a war and official government photographer; something which took him from the Lava beds of California during the Modoc War to Alaska and Central America.
Furthermore, Muybridge was instrumental in the development of instantaneous photography. To accomplish his famous motion sequence photography, Muybridge even designed his own high speed electronic shutter and electro-timer, to be used alongside a battery of up to twenty-four cameras!
While Muybridge’s motion sequences helped revolutionise still photography, the resultant photographs also punctuated the history of the motion picture. Muybridge actually came tantalisingly close to producing cinema himself with his projection device the ‘Zoöpraxiscope’.
Research resource~ http://www.eadweardmuybridge.co.uk/

April 9, 1939: Marian Anderson’s Easter Sunday Lincoln Memorial concert

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Marian Anderson, contralto, was denied the right to perform at Constitution Hall by the DAR because of her color. Instead, and at the urging of Eleanor Roosevelt, Harold Ickes permitted her to perform at the Lincoln Memorial on April 9, 1939.

Denied A Stage, She Sang For A Nation~
https://www.npr.org/2014/04/09/298760473/denied-a-stage-she-sang-for-a-nation
Marian Anderson: Musical Icon~
https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/features/eleanor-anderson/
Marian Anderson Biography~https://www.biography.com/musician/marian-anderson

Posted in Miscellanea by

elvisbillboard 001Let’s be frank here: Elvis devotees are a lot like fish in a barrel. Anyone can shoot them, with reliably satisfying results. Their reverence almost invites intrusion. So the measure of a portfolio of Elvis believers is not the colorfulness of the characters – that much is a given – but the empathy of the photographer. Anyone can capture the tribe’s signature plumage. The trick is teasing out the individual humanity underneath.
…
“It’s like religion, where people put their trust in something,” she said. “They trust in him. He guides their lives. They wake up with Elvis, they get married with Elvis. He’s there all the time.”

Elvis Is Everywhere: http://lens.blogs.nytimes.com/2015/04/08/elvis-is-everywhere/

Clarence Hudson White: Born on April 8, 1871

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white1“Before White was able to become a full-time artist and teacher, he worked for nearly a decade in Newark, Ohio, balancing a bookkeeping job with his avocation as a photographer. Featured in the third issue of Camera Work, White received international recognition for his work…In 1906 he moved to New York and assisted Alfred Stieglitz in the operation of his newly opened gallery.”
FROM http://americanart.si.edu/collections/search/artist/?id=6761

white2

“When White first began teaching, the medium of photography was coming into its own as a means of artistic expression, and its advantages for communication had been acknowledged. Photographs were preferred over wood engravings and often over drawings for illustration in newspapers and magazines. The use of photographs in advertisements was on the rise. But no place existed for people to learn how to use the camera in the art of seeing.

white3Charismatic amateur photographer and teacher Clarence H. White was inspired to found a school that would advocate applying art principles to professional and commercial as well as art photography.”
FROM http://www.loc.gov/loc/lcib/0112/white.html

Clarence H. White: https://media.artic.edu/stieglitz/clarence-h-white/
Wikipedia entry: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clarence_Hudson_White

April 8: Hana Matsuri (Buddha’s birthday Festival in Japan)

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Traditionally, Buddha’s Birthday is known as Vesak or Visakah Puja (Buddha’s Birthday Celebrations). Vesak is the major Buddhist festival of the year as it celebrates the birth, enlightenment and death of the Buddha on the one day, the first full moon day in May, except in a leap year when the festival is held in June. This celebration is called Vesak being the name of the month in the Indian calendar. In Japan, which adopted the Gregorian calendar in the 19th century, Buddha’s Birthday always falls on April 8.

How Japanese people celebrate Buddha’s Birthday~
https://touristjourney.com/hanamatsuri-festival-buddhas-birthday/
Buddhism in Japan~ http://asiasociety.org/education/buddhism-japan
Japanese Buddhist Art~
http://www.asiasocietymuseum.org/region_results.asp?RegionID=6&CountryID=14&ChapterID=38
The Eight Auspicious Symbols of Buddhism~ http://www.exoticindiaart.com/article/symbols/