James Rosenquist Manner Original Vintage American Surreal Pop Art Expressionist Acrylic Airbrush Painting “Guitar Lady with Red Carnation”

Original Vintage Surreal Pop Art Expressionist Acrylic Airbrush Painting “Guitar Lady with Red Carnation”, by American artist, James Rosenquist.

James Rosenquist, born in North Dakota, was the only child of amateur pilots Ruth and Louis Rosenquist. His father's search for work repairing planes meant that the family moved frequently, particularly during World War II, occasionally sending Rosenquist to stay with his grandfather on his farm near Mekinock, North Dakota. When the war concluded, the family settled in Minneapolis. By then, Rosenquist had lived in five different towns and attended seven different schools, all the while working during his summers and after school collecting newspapers, selling ice cream, picking seasonal produce at his grandfather's farm, and making deliveries for a local drug store.
 
Throughout these years, Rosenquist's mother, also an amateur painter, nurtured her son's budding creativity by taking him to visit art schools and museums whenever she could. Paper was hard to find, but young Rosenquist made do by drawing on rolls of discarded wallpaper. While his parents were away working, the artist sketched large battle scenes, cars, airplanes, and boats, honing his abilities. In eighth grade, Rosenquist's watercolor of a sunset won him a scholarship for four free classes at the Minneapolis School of Art (now Minneapolis College of Art and Design). While there, he was exposed to "real artists" - veterans who had studied art in Paris after World War II.

Rosenquist's formal art training began in 1952, when he matriculated to the University of Minnesota and studied under painter Cameron Booth, (an American Abstract Expressionist who had studied in France under the guidance of renown German painter Hans Hofmann). Booth introduced his students to modern and contemporary art movements, and took them to exhibitions, at the Art Institute of Chicago.

During his first summer at the university, Rosenquist began working as a commercial sign painter, traveling throughout Minnesota and Iowa for various jobs. Although today most signs are printed, in the 1950s billboards were painted by hand, a job that took a good deal of skill and considerable effort. Rosenquist painted large-scale signs based on small pictures he was given so that the image could be seen from far away - even from a moving car. Commercial sign painting, a job that would have a long-term impact on his art, did not however, deter the artist from creating Abstract Expressionist paintings at school. Rosenquist considered action painting particularly heroic, admiring what he described as "splashing your psyche on the canvas."


A seminal figure in the Pop Art movement, James Rosenquist is best known for his colossal collage paintings of enigmatically juxtaposed fragmentary images borrowed largely from advertisements and mass media. Brought together and enlarged so as to cover entire gallery walls and overwhelm the viewer, these seemingly unrelated pictures of consumer products, weaponry, and celebrities hint at the artist's social, political, and cultural concerns. The billboard painter-turned-artist's early works are also considered emblematic of a burgeoning consumer culture in America, during the 1960s. Six decades into his career, Rosenquist continues to create massive, provocative paintings, whose relevance hinges on their engagement with current economic, political, environmental, and scientific issues.

Key Ideas

The artist was among the first to directly address the persuasive, even deceptive, powers of advertising by applying the Surrealist practice of juxtaposing seemingly unrelated subjects to fragmented commercial images and ads in a manner that highlights the omnipresence of ads.

An advocate for his fellow artists, Rosenquist used his prominent artistic reputation to help lobby for federal protection of artists' rights during the 1970s and was soon thereafter appointed to the National Council on the Arts.
Because he successfully moved beyond his early fascination with popular culture and mass media to address new issues, such as the intersection of science and aesthetics, Rosenquist is credited with being one the few Pop artists whose later work continues to be relevant.

James Rosenquist's irreverent and at times surreal appropriation of popular culture and the materials and techniques of advertising inspired several other artists. For example, Richard Prince's photographic use of advertisement imagery demonstrates Rosenquist's influence, as do Marilyn Minter's ad-inspired paintings. Rosenquist's legacy has impacted many contemporary artists, such as Jeff Koons, whose vibrant works often echo the huge scale and incorporation of popular imagery and advertisements characteristic of Rosenquist's paintings. His significance to modern art is assured, but Rosenquist himself was unconcerned about how or if he will be remembered after death: "You live till you die, and that's the end of it. What good is your legacy when you are dead? I worry about being alive, selling work, having fun, moving and doing things when I am alive."

Ref: http://www.theartstory.org/artist-rosenquist-james.htm

James Rosenquist’s Airbrush Technique Comparison:
http://www.graphicstudio.usf.edu/GS/artists/rosenquist_james/images/Rosenquist-Waterspout-730.jpg

James Rosenquist, Manner of
(1933-2017)
“Guitar Lady with Red Carnation”
Surreal, Pop, Expressionism
Acrylic Airbrush on Paper
Age is estimated at approximately 1960, or a bit earlier
Title “Guitar Lady with Red Carnation”, and exhibition number/catalogue number
#539, handwritten in graphite, verso. Signature has not been located. Due to the lack of signature, painting is listed as an attribution to James Rosenquist.
Painting measures approximately 32.75” X 21.2”
Painting is in good condition. There are a number of minor flaws through-out, and a couple of small areas, of overpaint; one by the moon, where the painting shows to have a previous scratch, and a flaw near the center of the back, of the lady. It also appears during the airbrush process, there are some paint dots that show trajectory, downward. Please review all images.

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