Fine Art Blog

Elephants Parade London 2010 - Love Art, Love Elephants!

Many of you may have ‘herd’ about the Elephant parade that happened in London in June and July this year…

Above: elephants painted by Peter Smith (left) and John Wilson (right)

The Elephant Parade was the largest outdoor art exhibition ever staged in the UK, with 258 life sized baby elephant sculptures, set in locations all over London’s city centre. They were thought up and created for the leading wild elephant charity called ‘Elephant Family’ www.elephantfamily.org The interesting thing is that each elephant is a unique piece of art, hand painted by renowned artists and designers. The Parade ran for around two months; from May to July 2010. The elephants were placed in streets, parks and squares right across Central London at some of London’s leading landmarks.

Above: elephants painted by Alexander Millar (left) and Jeff Rowland (right)

With an estimated audience of 25 million (you cannot count every person in London who has viewed them can you?!), the campaign aimed to raise over £1 million for the endangered Asian elephant. It was a fresh and unique fundraising and awareness campaign that everyone could enjoy. Elephant Parade’s mission is to become the world’s largest financial support organisation for elephants, while attempting to save the Asian elephant from extinction in the wild.

Above: elephants painted by Paul Kenton (left) and Louise Dear (right)

Some of the UK’s finest artists and designers were sponsoring and painting an elephant including the previously blogged about: Alexander Millar, Jack Vettriano, Jeff Rowland John Wilson, Louise Dear, Paul Kenton & Peter Smith!…Many of these are artists licensed exclusively to Washington Green fine art publishers, so big thank you to them for allowing them to help out!

After going on display in various locations all over London, a select number of elephants were then auctioned off by Sotheby’s, whilst the remainder were auctioned online.

thank you

Vicki

Useful Links
Elephant Parade Main site: www.elephantparadelondon.org
Elephant Family Charity Main Site: www.elephantfamily.org
Donate to Elephant Family: www.justgiving.com/elephantfamily/donate

Australian artist Rolf Harris - Can you tell that im turning 80 years old yet?

Just released are these 2 new limited editions by Rolf Harris for Spring 2009 & with just over 2 months until Rolf Harris’s 80th birthday on March 30th 2010, these are sure to be very special pieces.

‘Into The Sun’ by Rolf Harris

‘Into The sun,’ is a stunning lioness face study & Rolf captures beautifully the features of this most majestic of animals; stalking her prey or about to start a chase? the viewer is left to decide!

‘Uluru Sunset’ By Rolf Harris

‘Uluru Sunset’ is the second piece. Uluru, also known worldwide as ‘Ayers Rock,’ is the world famous landmark in Uluru - Kata Tjuta National Park. To view the sunset there is one of the most popular excursions in the whole of Australia. With the rich warm colours, Rolf captures perfectly the scene in his trademark style.

As is usual now they are released as (1) an on paper version, which comes mounted/matted (with its borders) and will need to be glassed and framed or (2) an on canvas board edition: these are of a higher print quality & are as near a match to his original painting as possible, these are designed to not be framed but not glassed.

Rolf with his wobble board

Demand for these is huge, own a part of art history and be a part of Rolf Harris’ s 80th birthday year by owning these stunning pieces

Thanks you

James

Links:
Everchanging colours of Ayers Rock on video
Living With Lions, lion conservation group
Rolf Harris to do a song with Dizzee Rascal & the Chemical Brothers for his 80th Birthday!

Gary Hodges Artist - New Release for 2009 ‘Baby Love’ Hippos

One of Britain’s best loved wildlife artists, Gary Hodges is back with a new release that has been very eagerly awaited.

(’Baby Love’ by Gary Hodges)

Simply called ‘Baby Love,’ this latest release features a mother & baby hippo in the water and it has been beautifully captured by the artist.

Gary tells us that it was inspired by his trip in 2007 to the Ngorongoro Crater game reserve in Tanzania and his observations of Hippopotamus.

Undoubtedly Gary is one of the masters of Pencil/Graphite drawing, other great artists that spring to mind being David Shepherd, Mike Sibley & Peter Hildick whose artwork is both loved and collected by art lovers all over the world.

(’Family’ featuring Meerkats by Gary Hodges)

I would say that over the last 20 years, Gary has been one of the consistently best selling artists in the UK, his older limited edition now sell for considerable amounts of money.

‘Baby Love’ is a valuable addition to Gary Hodges’s huge range of limited editions and is bound to sell out very quickly.

Thank you

James

Useful links:
http://ngorongorocrater.com/
http://www.game-reserve.com/tanzania_ngorongoro.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hippopotamus

Govinder Nazran - Washington Green lead the tributes to the artist

Washington Green, Govinder Nazran’s publisher, have just released a statement regarding the death of the artist and we hear the thoughts of their MD, who worked very closely with him over the years and many people in that company must have had a very similar relationship with Govinder.

(Photo of the artist)

“We are deeply saddened to announce that one of country’s most outstanding, award winning contemporary artists - Govinder Nazran - who enjoyed enormous success around the world, tragically died on Tuesday 30 December, after suffering a seizure on Christmas Eve.

Govinder’s striking, naïve portrayal of the feline and canine form, married with strong oriental overtones, and rich texturing and layering, won him 1000s of fans across the world.

(Scratch & Sniff - Sculpture by Govinder Nazran)

As Glyn Washington, MD for Washington Green Fine Art Publishing, said:

“2009 would have been our tenth anniversary of working with Govinder. It was a 10 years in which we enjoyed the most amazing and creative art from one of the most talented, gentle and innovative artists we have ever had the pleasure of working with. Ironically we were planning a major event in 2009 to celebrate this wonderful 10 year collaboration. It has been said that ‘It is often the brightest star that burns for the shortest time’… never has a truer word been spoken.”

In 2004 Govinder became the ‘Best Selling Published Artist’ in the industry’s Fine Art Trade Guild Awards and he enjoyed 2 sell-out tours in Japan where his work was highly revered. During his prolific 10 years with Washington Green his work has been collected and admired by thousands of fans from all walks of life, including many well-known collectors world-wide. Unusually Govinder possessed the vision of both artist and creative director, as he innovated and developed the ideas for his ground breaking collections.

(Flapdoodle by Govinder Nazran)

A naturally warm and witty man of enormous integrity, Govinder’s shyness made it challenging for him to articulate his thoughts verbally. “My true personality reveals itself through my paintings,” he once said. His cats and dogs reached far deeper than a cute, naïve cliché of a ‘four legged friend’ with many of his paintings dedicated to the fight between good and evil. “I leave it to the individual to look at my paintings and choose what they would like to see, innocence or malevolence - the ‘good’ or the ‘evil’. Above all else I am, and always will be, an eternal optimist. Optimism is one of the greatest gifts we possess and my paintings are from my soul.”

Govinder often described his wife Sarah and daughter Eden as his “greatest inspiration” and his most ‘honest critics.’ He will be sadly missed by all at Washington Green and no doubt by all who appreciated and loved his work the world over.”

(The Wise by Govinder Nazran)

I very much loved Govinder’s style and work and it is a sad loss to the art world. My thoughts go out to his wife Sarah and his daughter Eden.

I am sure his artistic legacy will not be lost and he will continue to me remembered by the art world as a great contributor to contemporary art.

My thoughts go out to his family at this time and to all those at Washington Green publishers and for any of those who knew him.

Thank you

Emily