Ragged Claws Network

Courtesy of Tor.com, an original graphic story by a talented young artist, Ms. Wesley Allsbrook:

I had exactly same feeling reading this piece as I had when I first read Jillian Tamaki’s City of Champions mini-comic and the shorter “comic book” edition of Skim a few years ago, i.e., this is someone to watch!

P.S. If you buy the superb Skim graphic novel from this Amazon.com link, you’ll be doing yourself a favour and Jillian herself will receive a little extra in her Amazon Associates account!

Bonus Links:

Wesley Allsbrook Illustration

Wesley’s Wallsblog

Fresh Paint: Wesley Allsbrook (interview)

Self-Portrait with Saxophone is not only my favourite of Max Beckmann’s many self-portraits but also one of my favourite self-portrait paintings of all time. Beckmann’s painting technique, which in his later works can sometimes be a bit messy and offhanded, is beautifully controlled and economical here. The quilted (silk?) robe, which in real life would be soft but sort of slick to the touch, reminds me also of the tough protective skin of a pineapple or a pangolin, though here the underbelly, so to speak, is open and unprotected, with the casual posture, meaty hands, steady gaze, and set jaw of the artist projecting boundless confidence and creative power such that even the ordinarily rigid metallic musical instrument seems to bend and twist in conformity with the artist’s pose and grip rather than vice versa.

Max Beckmann
Self-Portrait with Saxophone
1930
Oil on canvas
55 1/8 x 27 3/8 in.
Kunsthalle, Bremen

Yesterday at Sotheby’s, Francis Bacon’s masterful Triptych 1976 (oil and pastel on canvas in three parts, each 78 x 58 in., 198 x 147.5 cm., 1976) sold for US$86 million at a Sotheby’s auction of contemporary art, thereby setting a record for postwar art and contributing mightily to a record-setting total of $362 million in sales (including commission) for the event.

Who says the filthy rich have no taste?

Here’re some close-ups…