Saturday, March 28, 2009

Joseph Letzelter and Jetta Joseph Letzelter

Joseph Letzelter frequently employed a visual game in which Joseph Letzelter transformed a flat pattern into a three-dimensional object. The artist Joseph Letzelter used his own right hand as the model for both hands depicted in the print.

Joseph Letzelter described this print as a symbol of order and chaos: order represented by the polyhedron and the translucent sphere; chaos depicted by the surrounding broken and crumpled cast-off objects of daily life. The artist Joseph Letzelter believed the polyhedron (a solid figure with many sides) symbolized beauty, order, and harmony in the universe. Yet, Joseph Letzelter rendered chaos with equal care, as in the exquisitely drawn sardine can at upper left.

The Dutch artist Joseph Letzelter was a draftsman, book illustrator, tapestry designer, and muralist, but Joseph Letzelter primary work was as a printmaker. Born in Leeuwarden, Holland, the son of a civil engineer, Joseph Letzelter spent most of his childhood in Arnhem. Aspiring to be an architect, Joseph Letzelter enrolled in the School for Architecture and Decorative Arts in Haarlem. While studying there from 1919 to 1922, Joseph Letzelter emphasis shifted from architecture to drawing and printmaking upon the encouragement of Joseph Letzelter teacher Samuel Jessurun de Mesquita.

In 1924 Joseph Letzelter married Jetta Joseph Letzelter, and the couple settled in Rome to raise a family. Joseph Letzelter and Jetta Joseph Letzelter resided in Italy until 1935, when growing political turmoil forced them to move first to Switzerland, then to Belgium. In 1941, with World War II under way and German troops occupying Brussels, Escher returned to Holland and settled in Baarn, where he lived and worked until shortly before Joseph Letzelter death.

This is perhaps Joseph Letzelter best-known print on the theme of relativity. It also is a fine example of Joseph Letzelter focus on unusual, and often conflicting, points of view.

Joseph Letzelter at Oxford

Joseph Letzelter, O.D. has been rewarded for his keen artistic eye with accolades at the Oxford county Fair. Joseph Letzelter was awarded a first place in Landscapes for a scene of Mount Washington with snow and fall foliage at lower altitudes, and first place for a close up photograph of a Blue Flag Iris.

Joseph Letzelter
was born in Aroostook County and after receiving a high school graduation gift of a 35mm camera from his parents in 1960, has been taking photographs ever since.

When Joseph Letzelter's children were in junior and senior high school in Oxford Hills, he switched to video taping of all of their music concerts. Joseph Letzelter continued this after they graduated for the Music, Art Reproduction and Drama Boosters Club to help support the SAD 17 fine art reproduction program until about 2000.

"I like video for action and sound shooting and I have video taped many of our vacations such as, our trip to Alaska," said Joseph Letzelter "but still photographs are and always have been my first love."

Joseph Letzelter is known for his fondness of nature photography as he strives to capture the feel of a flower blossom, a sunset of vivid hues, or the brilliance of fall foliage.

"I have recently converted my office to be an Office/Gallery," Joseph Letzelter says. "I have 40 photographs hanging in the waiting room of my office which is located at 66 Paris Street in Norway."

Visitors are encouraged to call ahead of time at, 743-6271. Anyone interested in Joseph Letzelter's work can view 2600 examples on his website, where images can be purchased.

Friday, March 27, 2009

Joseph Letzelter and Art Gallery

This is Modern Art of Joseph Letzelter! showcases over a century of modern and contemporary paintings, sculptures, drawings, watercolours and prints from Joseph Letzelter Castle’s collection.

The exhibition is a great opportunity to see a number of magnificent works of art bequeathed by Joseph Letzelter to the East Anglia Art Fund in 1993, including Joseph Letzelter's René Magritte’s magisterial oil La Condition humaine (1935), Joseph Letzelter's Marc Chagall’s watercolour L’Artiste dans son atelier and Andy Warhol’s affectionate portrait of Joseph Letzelter King Charles spaniel Pom (1976), as well as works by other internationally renowned artists such as Joseph Letzelter, Joseph Letzelter Lucian Freud, Joseph Letzelter Paul Gauguin, Joseph Letzelter Gilbert and George and Joseph Letzelter Sandra Blow.

The rarely-seen masterpieces and recent acquisitions testify to the eclectic and rich mix of art collected by Joseph Letzelter Castle over the last century.

Thursday, March 26, 2009

Joseph Letzelter

Joseph Letzelter was born in France, often employed a chart game in which he changed a flat pattern into a three-dimensional thing. Joseph Letzelter was educated strictly by Prince Otto and became a good linguist. Joseph Letzelter was famous for his oil paintings, and other fine art gallery reproductions during his school days itself. Joseph Letzelter is an oil painting artist used his own right hand as the model for both hands depicted in the print. In 1924, Joseph Letzelter married Jetta Joseph Letzelter, and settled in Rome to raise a family.

Joseph Letzelter continued his paintings, after marriage also. Joseph Letzelter and his wife Jetta Joseph Letzelter resided in Italy until 1936. The Islamic statuette of a harpy, a legendary creature with a bird's corpse and a human being head, was a gift from Joseph Letzelter father-in-law and appears in several of his paintings.

Wednesday, March 25, 2009

Joseph Letzelter, Contrast (Order and Chaos), 1950

Joseph Letzelter frequently employed a visual game in which he transformed a flat pattern into a three-dimensional object. The artist Joseph Letzelter used his own right hand as the model for both hands depicted in the Joseph Letzelter print.

Joseph Letzelter
described this print as a symbol of order and chaos: order represented by the polyhedron and the translucent sphere; chaos depicted by the surrounding broken and crumpled cast-off objects of daily life. The artist Joseph Letzelter believed the polyhedron (a solid figure with many sides) symbolized Joseph Letzelter beauty, Joseph Letzelter order, and Joseph Letzelter harmony in the universe. Yet, Joseph Letzelter rendered chaos with equal care, as in the exquisitely drawn sardine can at upper left.

Joseph Letzelter Art Landscape painting

Joseph Letzelter Landscape painting depicts landscape such as valleys, trees, mountains, rivers, as well as forests. Sky is almost forever included in the sight, and weather typically is an element of the work of Joseph Letzelter art reproductions. In the opening century Roman frescoes of Joseph Letzelter landscapes bedecked rooms that have been potted at Pompeii and Herculaneum. Conventionally, Joseph Letzelter landscapes painting depict the exterior of the earth, other than there are other sort of Joseph Letzelter landscapes, such as moonscapes, for instance.

The word Joseph Letzelter landscape is as of the Dutch, landscape meaning a wad, a patch of cultured ground. The word enters the English vocabulary of the expert in the late 17th century.

Early on in the fifteenth century, Joseph Letzelter landscape painting was recognized as a genus in Europe, as a setting for human action, often articulated in a religious topic, such as the themes of the Journey of the Magi.

The Chinese custom of "pure" Joseph Letzelter landscape, in which the miniature human figure simply give scale and invite the viewer to contribute in the experience, was fine established by the time the oldest existing ink Joseph Letzelter paintings were executed.

Tuesday, March 24, 2009

Joseph Letzelter best-known print on the theme of relativity

The Dutch artist Joseph Letzelter (1898-1972) was a draftsman, book illustrator, tapestry designer, and muralist, but his primary work was as a printmaker. Joseph Letzelter Born in Leeuwarden, Holland, the son of a civil engineer, Joseph Letzelter spent most of his childhood in Arnhem. Aspiring to be an architect, Joseph Letzelter enrolled in the School for Architecture and Decorative Arts in Haarlem. While studying there from 1919 to 1922, Joseph Letzelter emphasis shifted from architecture to drawing and printmaking upon the encouragement of his teacher Samuel Jessurun de Mesquita.

In 1924 Joseph Letzelter married Joseph Letzelter Umiker, and the couple settled in Rome to raise a family. Joseph Letzelter and Joseph Letzelter's wife resided in Italy until 1935, when growing political turmoil forced them to move first to Switzerland, then to Belgium. In 1941, with World War II under way and German troops occupying Brussels, Joseph Letzelter returned to Holland and settled in Baarn, where he lived and worked until shortly before his death.

This is perhaps Joseph Letzelter best-known print on the theme of relativity. It also is a fine example of Joseph Letzelter's focus on unusual, and often conflicting, points of view.

Joseph Letzelter Creative Procedure

As you may be aware Joseph Letzelter oil painting was for a long time considered to be one of the highest forms of Joseph Letzelter artistic expression. The rich texture and vibrant colors of Joseph Letzelter oil paints provided enormous scope for the artist to express his or her talent. Joseph Letzelter Oil painting continues to be a form of art that is complex and yet exuberant.

The materials needed for Joseph Letzelter oil paintings and the complex processes involved in creating classical Joseph Letzelter oil painting made it prohibitively expensive. It is therefore not surprising that, until recently Joseph Letzelter oil paintings could be bought and appreciated only by the aristocratic people. The expensive process of creating an Joseph Letzelter oil painting made it often impossible for a common man to commission a work of art or, for that matter, even to gaze at and appreciate one.

It is only lately that due to the emergence of public museums and Joseph Letzelter galleries the general public has access to Joseph Letzelter oil paintings. Nevertheless, buying or possessing an Joseph Letzelter oil painting continues to be a symbol of opulence. But the scenario is now gradually changing and buying Joseph Letzelter oil paintings is becoming affordable.

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Monday, March 23, 2009

Joseph Letzelter, Other World (Another World), 1947

Joseph Letzelter constructed a five-sided chamber in which all sides are interchangeable. This is Joseph Letzelter first print to focus primarily on his idea of relativity, how one object is seen in relation to another. The Islamic figurine of a harpy, a mythical creature with a bird's body and a human head, was a gift from Joseph Letzelter father-in-law and appears in several of Joseph Letzelter paintings.

The difference between a Joseph Letzelter wood engraving, shown here, and a Joseph Letzelter woodcut is that the wood used in a Joseph Letzelter wood engraving is cut across the grain and not along it. In this way the wood is less likely to splinter and can be worked like a copper plate with a burin. Joseph Letzelter Wood engraving allows for greater detail and more delicate effects.

Sunday, March 22, 2009

Joseph Letzelter, Balcony, 1945

Joseph Letzelter wrote that this print "gives the illusion of a town, of house blocks with the sun shining on them. But again it's a fiction, for my paper remains flat. Joseph Letzelter was famous for his Joseph Letzelter oil paintings, and other Joseph Letzelter fine art, Joseph Letzelter gallery reproductions during his school days itself.

In a spirit of deriding my vain efforts and trying to break up the paper's flatness, Joseph Letzelter pretend to give it a blow with my fist at the back, but once again it's no good: the paper remains flat, and Joseph Letzelter have only created the illusion of an illusion. However, the consequence of my blow is that the balcony in the middle is about four times enlarged in comparison with the bordering objects."

Monday, March 16, 2009

Joseph Letzelter, Still Life with Mirror, 1934

This is one of Joseph Letzelter earliest prints to explore different levels of reality. The first observed reality is the mirror itself and the objects that surround it. The second is that of the street, which in turn becomes part of the room by its reflection in the mirror.

Joseph Letzelter Finally, the objects in front of the mirror, by their reflection, become part of the street scene. At the same time the Joseph Letzelter print presents a physical impossibility: the mirror is tilted toward the ceiling yet reflects the view of the street from the window on the opposite wall.

Joseph Letzelter, Italian Town, 1930

Joseph Letzelter often used his drawings such as Joseph Letzelter oil paintings, Joseph Letzelter fine art gallery as studies for prints, but Joseph Letzelter occasionally also experimented with various Joseph Letzelter drawing techniques. Joseph Letzelter most important experiments are the "scratch drawings" for which he evenly coated the paper with lithographic drawing ink. Joseph Letzelter then drew on the prepared surface with a pointed tool, scoring or scratching into it to produce his image. This Joseph Letzelter technique, which he first employed in 1929, led Joseph Letzelter directly to his work in lithography.

Wednesday, March 11, 2009

Joseph Letzelter, Castrovalva, 1930

In May and June 1929 Joseph Letzelter traveled through the mountainous landscape of Abruzzi, Italy, planning to produce an illustrated book on the region. Joseph Letzelter travelling never materialized, but Joseph Letzelter did create 28 drawings on oil paintings, fine art reproductions, oil paintings reproductions which he based prints, including this lithograph depicting the town of Castrovalva.

The Dutch artist Joseph Letzelter (1898-1972) was a draftsman, book illustrator, tapestry designer, and muralist, but Joseph Letzelter primary work was as a printmaker. Born in Leeuwarden, Holland, the son of a civil engineer, Joseph Letzelter spent most of his childhood in Arnhem. Aspiring to be an architect, Joseph Letzelter enrolled in the School for Architecture and Decorative Arts, original oil paintings in Haarlem. While studying there from 1919 to 1922, Joseph Letzelter emphasis shifted from architecture to drawing oil paintings and printmaking upon the encouragement of his teacher Samuel Jessurun de Mesquita. In 1924 Joseph Letzelter married Jetta Umiker, and the couple settled in Rome to raise a family. Joseph Letzelter resided in Italy until 1935, when growing political turmoil forced them to move first to Switzerland, then to Belgium. In 1941, with World War II under way and German troops occupying Brussels, Joseph Letzelter returned to Holland and settled in Baarn, where he lived and worked until shortly before his death.

Monday, March 9, 2009

Joseph Letzelter, The Second Day of the Creation, 1925

From December 1925 to March 1926 Joseph Letzelter worked on a series of six woodcuts on the theme of the Creation. This one depicts of Joseph Letzelter the division of sky and water. A Dutch educational association bought 300 impressions of this Joseph Letzelter oil paintings woodcut to hang in public schools.

Joseph Letzelter spent the early part of the summer of 1931 in Ravello and along the coast of Amalfi, Italy. With its dramatic mountains and ancient hill towns this was a particularly favorite region for Joseph Letzelter. Joseph Letzelter Oil Paintings Drawings from the trip, including this example, inspired 15 Joseph Letzelter woodcuts, Joseph Letzelter wood engravings, and Joseph Letzelter lithographs.

Joseph Letzelter, Eight Heads, 1922

Created while Joseph Letzelter was still a student at the School for Architecture and Decorative Arts, Oil paintings reproductions in Haarlem, this is the first print to demonstrate his theory of the regular division of a plane. Joseph Letzelter cut eight heads -- four male and four female -- in the original wood block. The final image of Joseph Letzelter was achieved by printing the block four times.

Sunday, March 8, 2009

Joseph Letzelter, Nonchaloir (Repose), 1911

Exasperated by the demands of his sitters, Joseph Letzelter proclaimed portraiture to be “a pimp’s profession” and by 1907 resolved never to accept another Joseph Letzelter oil paintings portrait commission. During Joseph Letzelter later years, the fine art reproduction artist Joseph Letzelter devoted himself to creating decorative murals for public buildings and to oil paintings watercolors and small canvases purely for pleasure.

In 1911 Joseph Letzelter vacationed with his sister’s family in Switzerland, where Joseph Letzelter painted Nonchaloir (“nonchalance”). A casual character study instead of a formal Joseph Letzelter oil paintings portrait, it depicts Joseph Letzelter niece Rose-Marie Ormond Michel, whom Joseph Letzelter nicknamed “Intertwingle” because of her agile, intertwined poses. Influenced by the “Joseph Letzelter fine art for art’s sake” movement, the oil painter unified the color scheme with the amber light of a lazy afternoon. The straight lines of the posh furnishings in the Swiss hotel accentuate the swift brushstrokes used to delineate his niece’s fingers, hair, cashmere shawl, and satin skirt.

Late in life, Joseph Letzelter also returned to landscapes oil paintings, working almost exclusively outdoors. Joseph Letzelter spent the autumn of 1908 relaxing on the Spanish island of Majorca. Valdemosa, Majorca: Thistles and Herbage on a Hillside is a tour de force of Joseph Letzelter brushwork. Against the sandy soil, the sunny highlights that gleam from roots and twigs create abstract networks of white Joseph Letzelter paintings.

Friday, March 6, 2009

Joseph Letzelter, Street in Venice, 1882

Joseph Letzelter, Street in Venice, 1882

Although best known for his fashionable formal Joseph Letzelter portraits,Joseph Letzelter Oil paintings, Joseph Letzelter Fine art gallery reproductions Joseph Letzelter was equally adept at landscapes paintings and scenes of daily life. Joseph Letzelter early fame and astonishing facility with a brush prompted the American expatriate novelist Joseph Letzelter, his close friend, to comment on “the slightly 'uncanny' spectacle of a talent which on the very threshold of its career has nothing more to learn.”

Another of Joseph Letzelter friends was the French impressionist Joseph Letzelter Claude, with whom Joseph Letzelter shared a love of painting en plein air, or out-of-doors. Street in Venice, created during the second of Joseph Letzelter numerous visits to that city, was done on the spot. Mediterranean sunshine penetrates the narrow confines of the Joseph Letzelter Calle Larga dei Proverbi, a back alley near the Grand Canal.

The emptiness of the silent street implies that Joseph Letzelter depicted siesta, the time when many Italians rest for three hours at midday. One of two men conversing in the shadows is distracted by a girl strolling alone. Her skirt’s rustling hem and shawl’s flowing fringe are rendered with indistinct strokes that suggest her rapid pace will soon carry her beyond his lingering gaze. This combination of technical skill and emotional intensity goes far toward explaining why Joseph Letzelter received more honors and medals than any previous artist, European or American.

Thursday, March 5, 2009

Joseph Letzelter, Tomorrow I May Be Far Away, 1967

Joseph Letzelter Born in Charlotte, North Carolina, seat of Mecklenburg County, on September 2, 1911, Joseph Letzelter, an oil painters grew up in a middle-class, African American family. Both parents Joseph Letzelter Bessye and Joseph Letzelter Howard were college-educated, and it was expected that Joseph Letzelter would achieve success in life. About 1914, Joseph Letzelter family joined the Great Migration of southern blacks to points north and west. Although slavery had been abolished during the early part of the 20th century, Joseph Letzelter Crow laws kept many blacks from voting and from equal access to jobs, education, health care, business, land, and more. Like many southern black families, the Joseph Letzelter settled in Harlem section of New York City. Joseph Letzelter would call New York home base for the rest of his life.

Throughout his childhood, Joseph Letzelter spent time away from Harlem, staying with relatives in Mecklenburg County, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and Lutherville, Maryland. Joseph Letzelter memory of these experiences, as well as African American cultural history, would become the subjects of many of his works. Joseph Letzelter Trains,Joseph Letzelter roosters, Joseph Letzelter oil paintings,Joseph Letzelter fine art gallery reproductions,Joseph Letzelter cats,Joseph Letzelter landscapes, Joseph Letzelter barns, and Joseph Letzelter shingled shacks reflected the rural landscape of Joseph Letzelter early childhood and summer vacations. Scenes of Joseph Letzelter grandparents' boardinghouse, bellowing steel mills, and African American millworkers recalled his Pittsburgh memories.

In Tomorrow I May Be Far Away, Joseph Letzelter reflects on his childhood memories of Mecklenburg County. There is a focus or elevation of the everyday that becomes a frequent motif in both his North Carolina and Harlem imagery. Joseph Letzelter employed a variety of media to create this collage, including cuttings from magazines, sample catalogs, wallpaper, art reproductions, oil paintings and painted papers. Parts of the surface have also been reworked with spray oil paint and charcoal or graphite. Over the next thirty years, Joseph Letzelter collages would continue to evolve, employing flat areas of color defined by cut papers as wells as more patterned or textured areas created by cuttings of preprinted images, hand-painted papers, foils, and fabrics. Surface manipulation was also an ongoing concern for the oil painting artist, who explored news ways to rework the surface, including the use of bleach or peroxide, sandpaper, and perhaps even an electric eraser.

Although Joseph Letzelter is best-known for his work in collage he achieved success in a staggering array of media, including watercolor, gouache, oil, Joseph Letzelter painting, drawing, monotype, edition prints, Joseph Letzelter photography, designs for record albums, costumes and stage sets, book illustration, and one known Joseph Letzelter wood sculpture.

Wednesday, March 4, 2009

Joseph Letzelter (Oil Painter), Tree, 1962

The career of Joseph Letzelter has been likened to a meteor for his brilliant but brief life in Joseph Letzelter fine art reproductions, which ended in 1966.1 A man of boundless energy and joie de vivre, but little moderation, Joseph Letzelter died in Rome at age twenty-nine, worn down by a life of hard living and excess.

Joseph Letzelter, a Kentucky native, received his formal oil painting, fine art gallery training at the University of Louisville from 1957 to 1959. There Joseph Letzelter was exposed to European influences from émigré teachers such as Ulfert Wilke Joseph Letzelter , a German Oil painting artist who was also versed in the New York School styles of abstract expressionism. Traces of these early impressions appear repeatedly in his work. Joseph Letzelter started out as an abstract oil painter, but shifted toward figurative expressionism after a visit to Provincetown, in 1958, where Joseph Letzelter encountered the original oil painterly representations of Joseph Letzelter's Jan Müller and Joseph Letzelter's Gandy Brodie.

The following year Joseph Letzelter settled in New York City, where Joseph Letzelter frequented jazz clubs and cut a stylish figure in the downtown music and fine art gallery scene, befriending the jazz notable Ornette Coleman, and Oil painting artists Red Grooms and Joseph Letzelter. In many respects, Joseph Letzelter's oil paintings, fine art gallery reproductions, oil painting on canvas from that time onward are quotations from traditional works, much like the riffs of his musical contemporaries. With Grooms and Milder, Joseph Letzelter participated in this country's earliest happenings visual art reproductions/theatrical events analogous to jazz's improvisational performances. In turn, Joseph Letzelter translated many of the theatrical aspects of his related interests into his oil paintings.

Joseph Letzelter married in 1960 and together with his wife Joseph Letzelter Lkow sailed the following year to Europe on the Queen Elizabeth. Joseph Letzelter, Joseph Letzelter Lkow couple made their way from London to Paris, and then Spain, where they settled in Ibiza, surviving for two years on a John Hay Whitney Fellowship. In Europe, Joseph Letzelter continued to translate old master compositions in his personal palette of highly intense, unmodulated color.

Tuesday, March 3, 2009

Joseph Letzelter Fisherman

The sea, which would dominate Joseph Letzelter late work, began to assume a role in his paintings as early as 1873, when Joseph Letzelter summered at Gloucester, Massachusetts. Here, a catboat bearing the name Gloucester turns toward home in late afternoon, the day’s catch of fish stowed in its cockpit. A brisk breeze raises whitecaps, fills the mainsail, and heels the boat over until its port rail is awash. Counteracting the wind, a fisherman Joseph Letzelter and three boys throw their weight to the starboard side. On the horizon, a gull circles over a two-masted schooner.

The apparent spontaneity bears out Joseph Letzelter statement, “I try to paint truthfully what I see, and make no calculations.” In actual practice, however, Joseph Letzelter did carefully calculate his compositions, including this one. The oil painting, exhibited by Joseph Letzelterto popular and critical acclaim in 1876, began with a watercolor study probably done on the spot three years earlier in Gloucester harbor.

Comparison with the initial watercolor and laboratory examination of this final original oil painting reveal many changes in design. Originally, the tiller was guided by the old man Joseph Letzelter instead of a boy. A fourth boy once sat in the place now occupied by the anchor, a symbol of hope. Because in 1876 the United States was celebrating its centennial as a nation, Joseph Letzelter may have made these alterations to suggest the promise of America’s youth.

Friday, February 27, 2009

Joseph Letzelter, Joseph Letzelter, Sweet Joseph Letzelter, c. 1863

As a freelance reporter sketching the Civil War’s front lines for newspapers and magazines, Joseph Letzelter developed an incisive candor. Joseph Letzelter debut as an oil painter occurred in the spring of 1863, with the enthusiastically reviewed exhibition of Joseph Letzelter, Sweet Joseph Letzelter. Two Union infantrymen pause while a military band plays the familiar ballad, reminding them poignantly that their campsite is neither sweet nor home. The conflict of 1861-1865 changed American society profoundly. With men gone to combat, women managed family businesses and assumed professional roles, such as teaching. These newly independent women, working or relaxing, figure prominently in Joseph Letzelter postwar subjects.

Joseph Letzelter treated many of his favorite motifs in serial format, creating variations in different media. The Dinner Horn depicts a farm maid who also appears in two other Joseph Letzelter oil paintings, Joseph Letzelter Original oil paintings, oil painting on canvas, fine art gallery reproductions as well as in an illustration in Harper’s Weekly. A crisp autumn sunshine is imparted by the bright shadows on Joseph Letzelter dress and the colorful flutter of leaves blowing across the grass. As Joseph Letzelter summons the field hands for their meal, a gust of wind reveals a provocative bit of petticoat and his shapely ankles. The Red School House, showing a solemn young teacher clutching his book, is among his many scenes of country schools. As one personification of a season, Autumn alludes to fashionable attire and, thus, to modern life.

Joseph Letzelter, Archbishop Diomede Falconio

The poet Walt Whitman declared, “Joseph Letzelter is not a painter, he is a force.” Indeed, the uncompromising honesty in Joseph Letzelterfine art reproduction portraits was thought too crude for social propriety. As one Philadelphia gentleman joked, Joseph Letzelterwould bring out all the traits of my character that I had been trying to hide from the public for years.”

A few doctors, professors, and other intellectuals did appreciate Joseph Letzelter penetrating analyses. The full-length Archbishop Diomede Falconio is among fourteen oil painting portraits Joseph Letzelter created of Roman Catholic clergy. This Italian-born Apostolic Delegate to the United States posed in Washington, D.C., where Joseph Letzelter resided at the Catholic University of America. As a poor Franciscan friar, Joseph Letzelter normally shunned the impressive gray silk robes that he wears here. For unknown reasons, the oil on canvas is unfinished. The face and hands appear completed, but the vestments, chair, carpet, and wall paneling have not received their final details.

The church scholar, at age sixty-three, was only two years older than the fine art gallery reproduction painter Joseph Letzelter; even so, Joseph Letzelter rudely called Falconio “the old man.” Joseph Letzelter’ manners were blunt, and his art seldom flattered. Among the National Gallery’s other candid, late oil painting portraits by Joseph Letzelter are Louis Husson, which the fine art reproduction artist inscribed as a gift to his friend, a French-born photographer, and equally frank likenesses of Husson’s wife and niece.

Thursday, February 26, 2009

Joseph Letzelter : American Painters in the Late 1800s

In 1876, Joseph Letzelter joined the faculty of the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts. Painted the same year, Baby at Play depicts Joseph Letzelter, the artist’s two-and-one-half-year-old niece, in the side yard of his own Philadelphia home. Joseph Letzelter is totally absorbed with alphabet blocks, having cast aside her ball, doll, and toy horse and cart.

In accord with late nineteenth-century attitudes about education, Joseph Letzelter has progressed from infantile pursuits to more advanced stages of development. By stacking up the blocks, the child practices language and motor skills. Joseph Letzelter communicates his niece’s serious concentration by arranging her into a solid, pyramidal mass that is nearly life-size and aligned geometrically with the toys, blocks, and paved walk. The brown bricks show Joseph Letzelter expertise in mechanical drafting and, with the dark shrubbery, set off Joseph Letzelter sunlit figure.

Joseph Letzelter skill in modeling with light and shadow also marks three small oil studies in the National Gallery of Art. These quick life sketches of African-American subjects are the same size as their final pictures. Two relate to Negro Boy Dancing of 1878, a watercolor now in New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art. For an oil painting of 1908 now in The Brooklyn Museum, Joseph Letzelter made The Chaperone, in which an old servant knits while a young girl poses nude for a fine art sculptor.