Paintings and Sculptures by Richard Neidhardt

MATHEMATICS AND COLOR

FAE is pleased to offer artworks from William Campbell Contemporary Art, by painter and sculptor Richard Neidhardt (1921-2009). These artworks span decades of an accomplished career, and yet not one could be recognized for its date. Artist-cum-globetrotter, Neidhardt tapped into a distilled aesthetic that remains fresh.

Richard Neidhardt in the Studio

Neidhardt was born in Chattanooga, TN, and served as a transport pilot for Pan American Airways during World War II. He earned his BA from the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga, his MFA from the university of Florida, and his Ph.D. from Ohio State University. He taught at Austin College in Sherman, TX, from 1967 to 1986, retiring as professor emeritus. He was awarded several grants, and his artworks are widely included in Texas museum collections.

His time in service as a transport pilot came to be deeply influential to Neidhardt’s artwork. He flew routes through Europe, South America, Africa, the Middle East and India, gaining a worldliness that informed his artwork throughout his career. Neidhardt processed these influences by distilling them down to their essence. He describes this philosophical geometry in his artist’s statement,

Aerial Landscape #2, 1967, Oil on Canvas, 50 x 40 inches

“Most of my earlier paintings were formal architectural and semi-abstract statements with little subject matter. This approach would evolve into mostly non-objective geometric explorations with shape and color. Increasingly, I became fascinated with subtle interrelationships existing between forms, colors, space and time. Simplicity and attention to edge became hallmarks.”

There is a rigorous analytical quality to Neidhardt’s paintings, which he describes as “the aesthetics of mathematics and the energy of color”. His paintings would often feature an underlying grid and a precise Mondrian-like application of color, perhaps owed to his 1953 Fulbright Award for research in the Netherlands. Neidhardt spent a year at the Rijksacadamie in Amsterdam, developing his philosophical geometric painting style.

Left: Prism #5, 1972, Acrylic and Graphite on Canvas, 20 x 20 inches; Center: Four Clips #5, 1974, Acrylic and Graphite on Canvas, 12 x 12 inches; Right: Serpentine #4, 1973, Acrylic and Graphite on Canvas, 20 x 20 inches

Neidhardt’s world travel continued as he was awarded a 1973 Cullen Grant for Research in Egypt, a 1975 Richardson Grant for Research in Southern France, and a 1982 Richardson Grant for Research in Greece. It was in the 1980’s that he began sculpting in the round, creating bronze casts of wood carvings that synthesized architectural and artistic visual cues with a sardonic twist.

“They came from a side of me aware of being a fellow inmate of the earth with all of its absurdities, a possible justification for being a part of this great mystery. My output was prolific; many images were cast in bronze. I presented singly, conditions and attitudes common to mankind, and did so as simply and honestly as possible. The presentation is universal and generic, often a formal frontal stance with possible roots in Egyptian, Minoan and late archaic Greek sculpture.”

Gothic Man, 1987, Bronze, 8 x 3 1/2 x 4 1/2 inches

One such pan-cultural edition is Gothic Man, 1987, standing 8 inches with the help of several flying buttresses. The Gothic Man’s posture echoes that of a Greek kouros, less idealized. His architectural armatures enable him to stand taller, and at the same time keep him cemented in situ.

Golfer, 1989, Bronze, 11 x 3 3/4 x 3 inches

Neidhardt’s 1989 small bronze edition Golfer reads as a wry interpretation of a Pharaoh’s sarcophagus. The symbolic crook and flail are replaced with golf clubs, and Pharaoh’s headdress re-imagined as a golf ball and tee. The smoothed-down face quotes those of Minoan fertility totems. With this sum of references, does Golfer add up to a retiree’s kingly sendoff, or totem for a fruitful outing?

Neidhardt’s artworks have been shown in galleries and museums,  in solo exhibitions at the Art Museum of Southeast Texas (1991) and The Grace Museum (2001).  In 2010 Austin College memorialized their late professor with the exhibition “Richard Neidhardt: 1921-2009: A Retrospective of Sculpture and Painting”.

Neidhardt’s pan-cultural approach has seemingly immunized his artworks to the pitfalls of dated colors or trends. His paintings’ clean lines and colors have a perpetually contemporary energy. His sculptures are keenly arranged amalgams of classical elements. With his global visual language and “mathematics of aesthetics”, Neidhardt’s artworks have both humor and a timeless appeal.

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To see all available FAE Design Blog Posts,  jump to the Design Blog Table of Contents.

To see all available FAE Collector Blog Posts, jump to the Collector Blog Table of Contents.

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Browse fine artworks available to purchase on FAE.  Follow us on FacebookInstagram, or Twitter to stay updated about FAE and new blog posts.

For comments about this blog or suggestions for a future post, contact Kevin at [email protected].

Other FAE informational posts you may find helpful:
Fine Art Insurance 101Broken sculpture

 

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Early Career paintings by Jim Stoker

THE ETERNAL NATURALIST

Valley House Gallery is pleased to offer a number of early works by San Antonio artist, Jim Stoker. 

Jim Stoker was born in 1935 in Nash, Texas, and reared in Atlanta, a rural town in East Texas. He received a BFA in Applied Art from The University of Texas at Austin in 1957, and an MA in painting, drawing, and printmaking from New Mexico Highlands University in 1962 where he studied with Elmer Schooley. Stoker painted throughout a teaching career which culminated in a 30-year tenure at Trinity University in San Antonio. 

Jim Stoker, American, Born 1935
Jim Stoker, American, Born 1935

The Stoker works we are offering range from the early 1970’s to the early 1980’s, when he was teaching at Trinity University in San Antonio. Stylistically, in the early 70’s Stoker’s oil paintings tended towards representational landscapes with figures at work. His compositions often incorporated incongruous animals milling around the workers or the tools they used.

The Hi-Ranger Rides Again, 1970
The Hi-Ranger Rides Again, 1970

In the mid-70’s the subjects and style of his work changed to flat colorful interiors, resembling paper cut out collages more than paintings.

Woman with Checkered Wall, 1975
Woman with Checkered Wall, 1975

In the late 70’s and early 80’s, he and his wife would spend the Summers in Santa Fe, NM where he painted a series of paintings focusing on the architecture and its relationship to the natural occurring and the planted flora.

House in Santa Fe, 1979
House in Santa Fe, 1979

He later said of that time, “you used to see Hollyhocks everywhere in Santa Fe in the late 80’s.  You would think it was the state flower there were so many.  Now, you hardly see any when traveling around that area.”

His work became more representational in style and focused more on nature and the environment. 

Jim and his wife Elouise are both naturalists who helped form the San Antonio, Texas chapter of the Sierra Club. Stoker’s efforts to protect the natural fauna and flora around San Antonio led to a series of paintings he titled No Place to Live:… The theme of this series pointed to the animals’ plight when humans are taking over their natural living spaces. 

No Place To Live: The Prairie Chicken Meets Progress, 1996
No Place To Live: The Prairie Chicken Meets Progress, 1996

Jim’s current paintings primarily focus on the riparian zone of the Guadalupe river near a cabin that has been in his wife’s family for generations. He has created a unique technique he calls Confetti Splatter and uses it to place an underpainting for his naturalistic landscape compositions. 

Visit FAE’S Artist Info page about Jim Stoke here. On FineArtEstates.com you can browse available artworks and read more about this Texas Artist.

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To see all available FAE Design Blog Posts,  jump to the Design Blog Table of Contents.

To see all available FAE Collector Blog Posts, jump to the Collector Blog Table of Contents.

Sign up with FAE to receive our newsletter, and never miss a new blog post or update! 

Browse fine artworks available to purchase on FAE.  Follow us on FacebookInstagram, or Twitter to stay updated about FAE and new blog posts.

For comments about this blog or suggestions for a future post, contact Kevin at [email protected].

Other FAE informational posts you may find helpful:
Fine Art Insurance 101Broken sculpture

 

An image of a painting carefully placed in the back seat of a carPractical Tips for Safely Transporting Artwork
An image of artworks carefully placed on on a bedTemporarily Storing Artwork: A Case Study
an image of a wall of shelves holding print boxesFour Artwork Storage Solutions
Hanging and Framing FAQ’s
outdoor image of a line of figure sculptures with arms raisedSiting Sculpture, Part One: Overview

 

facade of a modern house with a round sculpture sited in the front yardSiting Sculpture: Part Two, A Case Study
image of a wall of frame samplesThe Importance of a Proper Frame

 

an image of a graphic showing the entire spectrum of viable and non-visible lightWhen to Use UV Control Glazing
Two images showing an image of a flower behind reflective and reflection free glassReflection on the Problem of Reflections

 

Announcing the FAE App, now available from iTunes!

We are excited to announce the release of the FAE App, now available to download for free in the iTunes App Store.

It has never been easier to know if an artwork will work in your space, allowing you to save time and money while finding the perfect artwork for your client.  The FAE App uses augmented reality and a target system to virtually install a favorite artwork from the website on your own wall – in proper scale and perspective.

Save your favorite pieces to Art Tracker, and they will show up in the App to create Views.
Start using the App seamlessly with the website, in just a few short steps:
  • Download the FAE App to your iPhone or iPad and sign in to your FAE account,
  • Print out a Target and place it on your wall,
  • Select an artwork from your Art Tracker list, and see it superimposed over the target!

You can use the Live View Target to see the artwork instantly “installed” on the wall.  You can also upload photos with the Rooms Target to “My Rooms” for later use.  Both types of images can also be assigned to Projects from within the App.  The Views and Rooms that you create in the App will automatically sync with your account on the website.

With a Live View target on the wall, select a piece from Art Tracker to see it installed in real time!
Find more details and helpful tips here.

The FAE App was designed to complement the innovative features that make FineArtEstates.com your one-stop source for fine art.  Download the FAE App today, and change the way you buy fine art.

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For more information about how to get the most out of the FAE website, visit these other blog posts:

An image of the entrance to the Valley House Gallery Sculpture GardenWelcome to FAE!
Image showing the FAE app on the apple App StoreWill It Work in My Space?

 

Composite image showing how a presentation can be made from FAE dataAnatomy of a View

 

Image showing painting over fireplaceCreating Stunning Presentations with FAE

 

To see all available FAE Design Blog Posts,  jump to the Design Blog Table of Contents.

To see all available FAE Collector Blog Posts, jump to the Collector Blog Table of Contents.

Sign up with FAE to receive our newsletter, and never miss a new blog post or update! 

Browse fine artworks available to purchase on FAE.  Follow us on FacebookInstagram, or Twitter to stay updated about FAE and new blog posts.

For comments about this blog or suggestions for a future post, contact Madeleine at [email protected].

Welcome to FAE!

THE MOST DEMOCRATIC & TRANSPARENT WAY TO BUY & SELL ART THERE IS…

My name is Kevin Vogel, founder of Artist Estate, Inc. and owner of the e-commerce website FineArtEstates.com (FAE).   I come from a family of art dealers.   My parents, Margaret and Donald Vogel started Valley House Gallery in North Dallas in 1954, making it the oldest continuously operating modern art gallery in Texas.  It is uniquely situated on 4.3 acres of beautifully landscaped sculpture garden that is open to the public during gallery hours.  I haveimg_7756 been working with the gallery since 1974 and Cheryl and I have been running it for well over 30 years.  The gallery originally handled Impressionist, Post-Impressionist, Modern, and Contemporary art.  Recently, our interests have focused on the Contemporary and late 20th Century.

About 5 years ago, a dear friend of our family and an artist, passed away in California.  She had been moderately successful over her career but left a very large estate of artwork.  Her husband called me several weeks after she had passed and asked the question; “How do I sell all of this art?”  Even though I had been dealing with art and artists for over 35 years at the time, and had represented and promoted artist estates, I realized that I did not have a good answer for our friend.

Artists, whose reputations warrant a foundation looking after their art, or who have a gallery representing their estate, are the lucky ones.   Most do not have a Dealer to strategically promote and place their artwork through direct sales and/or by auction and those who do are dependent on the performance and honesty of the agents involved.  No matter how good or well-intentioned a Dealer or auction house might be, the one missing element in both (because of their inherent business structures) is transparency.

With few exceptions, artists, estate attorneys, trust officers, or those with the fiduciary responsibly of overseeing an estate of artwork are woefully unprepared to deal with art-related estate issues on their own.  For many reasons, an artist’s intellectual property often ends up in long term storage where it instantly becomes a depleting asset.

By observing and being a part of these processes myself for over 40 years, I am keenly aware of most of the issues artists and collectors face.  So, I decided to devise a solution that would provide both with a way to thoughtfully monetize their artistic assets in a timely manner, while providing all involved a maximum level of transparency.  An ecommerce site seemed the most logical solution.

Conceptually, I wanted the site to:

  • Remedy the problems inherent in most other ways of selling art, on- or offline
  • Make the process as turn-key as possible for the artist, collector, or their heirs
  • Provide every consigner 24/7 access to status information about their artwork
  • Make the transition process to an estate representative as seamless as possible
  • Archive all biographic information and images of sold works as an ongoing historical resource
  • Devise a system of selling that is democratic, and that practically guarantees each work of art will sell
  • Provide Buyers with tools that will make finding, tracking, and acquiring art simple
  • Provide professionals with special tools to create multiple “Projects” that facilitate their ability to service their clients’ fine art needs
  • Create a system of alerts that will provide each buyer timely artwork-specific information
  • Allow a search to be saved, re-run on a schedule, and alert a Buyer when new works that meet the search criteria have been added to the site
  • Provide a system for a Buyer to virtually see what an artwork will look like in their space
  • Provide everyone involved the highest level of transparency possible

With the help, guidance and support of a great many people, the FAE team has developed what I believe to be the most democratic and transparent way of selling fine art devised so far; meeting or exceeding each of the goals we set out to achieve when creating FAE.

Personally, the 5 years I’ve spent working on this project have been the most challenging and exciting I have had as a dealer in fine art.  The FAE project has created a safe and transparent conduit for artists to monetize their artistic assets while protecting and preserving their artistic legacy.   It has also provided the collector with an unequalled level of transparency and comfort in knowing their collection will sell for its true market value.

Kevin Vogel

President

Artist Estate, Inc.

[email protected]

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For more information about how to get the most out of the FAE website, visit these other blog posts:

See art on your wall with the app.Announcing the FAE App, now available from iTunes!
Image showing the FAE app on the apple App StoreWill It Work in My Space?

 

Composite image showing how a presentation can be made from FAE dataAnatomy of a View

 

Image showing painting over fireplaceCreating Stunning Presentations with FAE

 

Click here to see a Table of Contents for all of our Design Blog Posts.

We appreciate your input.  If you have any suggestions for a future post or ways we can make FAE even better, contact Madeleine at [email protected].

Sign up with FAE to receive our newsletter, and never miss a new blog post or update! 

Browse fine artworks available to purchase on FAE here.  Follow us on FacebookInstagram, or Twitter to stay updated about FAE and new blog posts.

Visit FAE’s Collections Blog here to learn more about artworks available on FAE.