The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Art and Artists (214 page)

 
Back
  -  
 
New Search

(1864–1916).
Danish painter, active mainly in his native Copenhagen. He painted portraits, architectural subjects (including two murals for Copenhagen Town Hall), and landscapes, but is best known for his quiet interior scenes. They are painted in muted colours, and have a certain affinity with
Vermeer
, often featuring a single standing or seated figure. Most of Hammershøi's paintings are in Denmark, but two of his interiors are in the Tate Gallery, London.

 
Back
  -  
 
New Search

(1925– ).
American sculptor. Hanson is probably the best-known exponent of
Superrealism
in sculpture, producing minutely detailed fibreglass resin figures dressed in real clothes and accompanied by real props. He concentrates pungently on the depressing or tasteless aspects of everyday American life, his subjects including down-and-outs, exhausted shoppers, or, in one of his most famous works, a pair of fat, ageing, and garishly dressed sightseers (
Tourists
, NG of Modern Art, Edinburgh, 1970).

 
Back
  -  
 
New Search

happening
.

A form of entertainment, often carefully planned but usually including some degree of spontaneity, in which an artist performs or directs an event combining elements of theatre and the visual arts. The term was coined by Allan
Kaprow
in 1959 and has been used to cover a diversity of contrived artistic phenomena. The concept of the happening was closely bound up with Kaprow's deliberate rejection of the traditional principles of craftsmanship and permanence in the arts. He thought of the happening as a development mainly from the
assemblage
and the
environment
. It had close affinities with theatrical and
Performance art
, and it was not restricted like the environment to the confines of a gallery or some other site. In conformity with the theories of the composer John Cage about the importance of chance in artistic creation, happenings were described as ‘spontaneous, plotless theatrical events’. In America the artists chiefly responsible for the development of the happening in its early stages included, besides Cage and Kaprow, Jim
Dine
, Claes
Oldenburg
, Robert
Rauschenberg
, and Roy
Lichtenstein
, and it was widely exploited outside America. The idea of the happening was linked with the principle of spectator participation, and the term has often been employed to describe staged demonstrations for politico-social propaganda, as for example many of the works of Joseph
Beuys
, or demonstrations intended to shock established moralities. The theory of the happening is as diverse as the practice. See also
BLACK MOUNTAIN COLLEGE
.

 
Back
  -  
 
New Search

Hard Edge painting
.

Term applied to a type of painting (predominantly abstract) in which forms, although not necessarily geometrical, have sharp contours and are executed in flat colours. The term was coined by the American critic Jules Langsner in 1958, and although it can be retrospectively applied to such styles as
Purism
, it is used mainly of the type of painting that emerged as a reaction to the spontaneity and painterly handling of
Abstract Expressionism
. Major exponents of Hard Edge painting have included Ellsworth
Kelly
and Kenneth
Noland
. See also
POST-PAINTERLY ABSTRACTION
.

 
Back
  -  
 
New Search

Haring , Keith
.

See
GRAFFITI ART
.

 
Back
  -  
 
New Search