Flash Study by Al Williamson

Time like Ming the Merciless, tyrant of the doomed planet Mongo, catches up with everyone and not even Flash Gordon can rescue you from it’s clutches. Al Williamson the Artist that helped bring more comic characters to fame then you can count passed away Saturday June 12th in upstate New York, his wife, Cori, recently released. He was 79.

Williamson the milti award, two time Eisner award winner (1996, 1997) worked from the 1950′s steadily till his retirement in 1999 illustrating everything from Flash Gordon to Secret Agent Corrigan to what personally was my first comic his work bringing Luke Skywalker to the illustrated page. If Williamson wasn’t making some of the best penciling even before there were such companies as Marvel or DC Comics he was inking the work of other great artists like Jack Kirby. While other artists were thinking about shadow, volume and representing the human figure in dramatic 2d space (even Kirby who’s early work when compared to Williamson is dramatically different) Al Williamson was executing that with unparalleled skill and complex sensitivity.

“He was one of the more sublimely talented artists to work in mainstream comics, His men were handsome, his women were beautiful, and the landscapes he drew — alien or westerns or battlefields — always seemed lushly authentic. He made panels you could lose yourself in.”

said Tom Spurgeon, editor of the online magazine Comics Reporter.

Alfonso Williamson born March 21, 1931 in Manhattan, one of two children of Sally and Alfonso Williamson. His Scottish father, was a citizen of Colombia, and soon after his son was born the family moved to Bogotá.

At the age of 9, his mother took him to his first movies which he saw a chapter in the “Flash Gordon Conquers the Universe” serial, was sold and immediately started sketching scenes from memory when he got home.

The family returned to New York when Alfonso was 13. He took classes at the School of Visual Arts (then called Cartoonists and Illustrators School in Manhattan), and was later hired by EC Comics.

Mr. Williamson’s first wife, the former Arlene Sattler, died in 1977. In addition to his wife of 32 years, the former Cori Pasquier, he is survived by his sister, Liliana Gonzalez Williamson; a daughter, Valerie Lalor; and a son, Victor.

Al Williamson was a pioneer in countless ways in defining comics as we know them today and will be greatly missed.

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Her collection of work is widely known, diverse, fun and she will be missed.

Louise who was inducted into the U.S. National Women’s Hall of Fame in 2009 is survived by two sons, Alain & Jean Louis, as well as by two grandchildren and a great-grandchild. Her husband and a third son, Michel, predeceased her.

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If you have not seen 5 Films About Christo and Jeanne-Claude I would highly recommend it. Directed by David and Albert Maysles the documentary follows the pair as they conceive and produce their sculptures. Totally unscripted, and spanning three decades the film gives an intimate look into their relationship and the fiery personality that was Jeanne-Claude.

via Christo and Jeane-Claude’s site:

The family statement said Christo was deeply saddened by his wife’s death but was “committed to honor the promise they made to each other many years ago: that the art of Christo and Jeanne-Claude would continue.” That included completing their current installation, “Over The River, Project for the Arkansas River, State of Colorado” and “The Mastaba” a project in the United Arab Emirates.

The Colorado project — which they had done parts of on and off for decades — involves spanning miles of the river with woven fabric. They chose the location near Canon City because of its river rapids and access to roads and footpaths. Their other projects include wrapping the Reichstag in Germany.

To view the life and work of Jeane-Claude please visit her and Christo’s site.

Got a response to this post? Let us know! Email your comments to  mail@badatsports.com. We’ll feature thoughtful responses to issues generated by our posts in our Letters to the Editors Feature on Saturdays.

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On Sunday September 7th Japanese artist/designer Nagi Noda passes away. She was 35. There is no word on the exact cause of her death; but people have speculated that it was related to a car accident she was in last year that had left the artist with Chronic pain and other ailments.

“Beyond being a brilliant artist and wonderful talent, Nagi was one of the most incredibly unique spirits that I have known,” says Sheila Stepanek, CEO/EP Partizan US, which represented Noda. “Our thoughts and prayers are with her family and friends.” Stepanek says that Noda passed “in her Mark Ryden dress, Chanel boots, perfect make-up with Viktor & Rolf lace black eye lashes.”

She is most famous for the commercials she directed for Nike, Coca-Cola, and most recently for LG. She had collaborated with artist Mark Rydan on a fashion line Broken Label. The first time I experienced Noda’s work was her poodle video she had made for the Olympics (above). She will be missed.

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Direct download: Bad_at_Sports_Episode_144-Wainwright_on_Rauschenberg.mp3

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Robert Rauschenberg, the irrepressibly prolific American artist who time and again reshaped art in the 20th century, died on Monday night at his home on Captiva Island, Fla. He was 82.

The cause was heart failure, said Arne Glimcher, chairman of PaceWildenstein, the Manhattan gallery that represents Mr. Rauschenberg.

Mr. Rauschenberg’s work gave new meaning to sculpture. “Canyon,” for instance, consisted of a stuffed bald eagle attached to a canvas. “Monogram” was a stuffed goat girdled by a tire atop a painted panel. “Bed” entailed a quilt, sheet and pillow, slathered with paint, as if soaked in blood, framed on the wall. All became icons of postwar modernism.

A painter, photographer, printmaker, choreographer, onstage performer, set designer and, in later years, even a composer, Mr. Rauschenberg defied the traditional idea that an artist stick to one medium or style. He pushed, prodded and sometimes reconceived all the mediums in which he worked.

Building on the legacies of Marcel Duchamp, Kurt Schwitters, Joseph Cornell and others, he helped obscure the lines between painting and sculpture, painting and photography, photography and printmaking, sculpture and photography, sculpture and dance, sculpture and technology, technology and performance art — not to mention between art and life.

Mr. Rauschenberg was also instrumental in pushing American art onward from Abstract Expressionism, the dominant movement when he emerged, during the early 1950s. He became a transformative link between artists like Jackson Pollock and Willem de Kooning and those who came next, artists identified with Pop, Conceptualism, Happenings, Process Art and other new kinds of art in which he played a signal rol

No American artist, Jasper Johns once said, invented more than Mr. Rauschenberg. Mr. Johns, John Cage, Merce Cunningham and Mr. Rauschenberg, without sharing exactly the same point of view, collectively defined this new era of experimentation in American culture.

Apropos of Mr. Rauschenberg, Cage once said, “Beauty is now underfoot wherever we take the trouble to look.” Cage meant that people had come to see, through Mr. Rauschenberg’s efforts, not just that anything, including junk on the street, could be the stuff of art (this wasn’t itself new), but that it could be the stuff of an art aspiring to be beautiful — that there was a potential poetics even in consumer glut, which Mr. Rauschenberg celebrated.

“I really feel sorry for people who think things like soap dishes or mirrors or Coke bottles are ugly,” he once said, “because they’re surrounded by things like that all day long, and it must make them miserable.”

Read the full article мебелиhere

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Mr. Loescher was Professor Emeritis at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and founder of SAIC Art History Department. He was knighted in 1990 by King Juan Carlos, of Spain.

He was preceded in death by his parents and his infant brother, George. He is survived by his brothers, Thomas Loescher, of Tucson, Arizona, and Richard Loescher, of Appleton, Wisconsin; friends, Shay DeGrandis, Nathan DeFoor, Brian Sikes and Bibiana Suarez, of Chicago; Joyce Neimanas, of Albuquerque; Wendy Woon, of New York; and many other colleagues and friends.

A memorial service to honor Sir Robert Loescher, in conjunction with the Midwest Art History Society Conference, will be held on April 4, 2008, at the Gene Siskel Film Center.

Robert J. Loescher, a specialist in Spanish and Latin American art, helped revolutionize the art history program at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, where he taught for more than 30 years.

Mr. Loescher, 70, died in his Lake View home Saturday, Dec. 8, having had suffered from heart problems and was weakened by a recent operation.

Richard & Sarah had the pleasure of knowing and working with Mr. Loescher and will miss him greatly.

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The filmmaker, Theresa Duncan, 40, who has also drawn attention for her writings on cultural topics, committed suicide in their East Village apartment on July 10, the police said. Her companion, Jeremy Blake, 35, a well-regarded artist known for digital animation that blurs the line between abstract painting and film, has been missing since his clothes were found on a beach in the Rockaways on Tuesday evening, they added.

Link to NYT story. Here’s a related item on Gothamist. Modern Art Notes has more, including word that the Corcoran will go forward with a planned exhibition of Blake’s work. Above: still from Jeremy Blake’s 14-minute DVD art piece “Sodium Fox,” 2005. Link to Theresa Duncan’s blog. (thanks, Coop, and Circuit Master)

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The wildlife presenter was filming a documentary off the coast of Australia this weekend when a stingray attacked him, using its poisonous barb to pierce his chest.

According to reports, paramedics flew out to the Great Barrier Reef to treat him but he was pronounced dead on the scene.

Steve has left behind a wife, 42-year-old Terri, and two children – eight-year-old daughter Bindi and his son Bob, two. Along with a multi-million dollar wildlife empire.

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