The Festival of Britain

The Festival of Britain was in the summer of 1951 and celebrated the UK's recovery after the Second World War. Although it was a national festival, London was at its heart. The most important site was the South Bank of the Thames at Lambeth. Here, an area of old Victorian industrial buildings and railway sidings was transformed into the site of the South Bank exhibition. New buildings were built to house exhibitions exploring Britain's landscape, the British character, British industry and science. The buildings included a new concert hall - the Royal Festival Hall, the Dome of Discovery and the Skylon. The only existing building incorporated into the site was a tall brick shot tower, built in the early 19th century to make lead shot by dropping molten lead from a height. For the festival, it was used to house a large radio telescope and transmitter.Although the Festival took pride in Britain's past, most of the exhibits looked to the future. Science and technology featured strongly. In one of the pavilions, many Londoners saw their first ever television pictures. The festival also took place on other sites in London such as Battersea Park where a large funfair built. In Poplar, east London, a new housing estate was built as a 'live architecture exhibition', a kind of model village. The Lansbury Estate was designed to incorporate all the latest thinking about architecture, planning and communities. Over the summer, the Festival of Britain was everywhere: in shops, events, exhibitions, radio programmes and concert halls. The Trinidadian All Steel Percussion Orchestra came to play in London which was the first time steel pan music had been played formally in the capital. Although most of the festival structures were demolished at the end of 1951, the Royal Festival Hall was retained. It became the first in a group of arts-related buildings on the South Bank that, by the end of the century, included the National Theatre and the National Film Theatre.

http://www.20thcenturylondon.org.uk/festival-britain-1951

David Wyatt

Wyatt is an English commercial artist born in Northampton where as a child his interest in reading and drawing led to a love of comics. He has worked with many different media from paint to sculpture. He is well known for his book covers and illustrations for authors such as J.R.R. Tolkien, Philip Reeve, Terry Pratchett, and Philip Pullman. And also works on album covers for bands, Games and beer labels. He was trying to make a career for himself in music but after an unsuccessful band tour he decided that it wasn't for him. He got his first work creating the occasional page for the British comic 2000 AD while at college in reading. He now mainly works from his computer in Dartmoor, Devon using the landscapes for some of his inspiration.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Wyatt

Corita Kent

Corita Kent or Sister Mary Corita Kent was born in Fort Dodge in 1918.  She took the name Sister Mary Corita in 1936 when she joined Sisters of the Immaculate Heart of Mary. She worked nearly entirely with silkscreen. She took classes at Otis and Chouinard Art Institute and then earned a BA from Immaculate Heart College. She worked in the Immaculate Heart Community and became the chair of the Immaculate Heart College art department. She Left the Sisters and devoted the rest of her life to creating artwork. She created many hundreds of posters, book covers and murals using silkscreen. She died in 1986 from cancer and her work can still be seen in art museums, which include The Whitney, The Museum of fine arts in Boston, the Metropolitan museum of art in New York and The Corita Art Center located on the campus of the Immaculate Heart High School.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corita_Kent

Constructivism

Constructivism was the last and most influential modern art movement to flourish in Russia in the 20th century. It evolved just as the Bolsheviks came to power in the October Revolution of 1917, and initially it acted as a lightning rod for the hopes and ideas of many of the most advanced Russian artists who supported the revolution's goals. It borrowed ideas from Cubism, Suprematism and Futurism, but at its heart was an entirely new approach to making objects, one which sought to get rid of the traditional artistic concern with composition, and replace it with 'construction.' Ultimately, the movement foundered in trying to make the transition from the studio to the factory. Some continued to insist on the value of abstract, analytical work, these artists had a major impact on spreading Constructivism throughout Europe. Meanwhile, others pushed on to a new but short-lived and disappointing phase known as Productivism, in which artists worked in industry. Russian Constructivism was in decline by the mid 1920s, partly a victim of the Bolshevik regime's increasing hostility to avant-garde art.

 

http://www.theartstory.org/movement-constructivism.htm#

Bauhaus

Bauhaus was one of the most influential art schools of the 20th century, its approach to teaching and the understanding of arts relationships to society had a big impact in the US and Europe even after it closed. The school was first founded by Walter Gropius in Weimar and the school existed in three German cities: Weimar from 1919-1925, Dessau from 1925-1932 and Berlin from 1932-1933. It was shaped by the trends such as the arts and crafts movement. This led to it pictured as a medievalism sort of crafts guild. In the 1920s this gave way to a stress on uniting art and design, which ended up being its most original and important achievement. The school was also renowned for its staff, with artists like Paul Klee and Josef Albers to architects Walter Gropius and Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, and designer Marcel Breuer.

http://www.theartstory.org/movement-bauhaus.htm

Hiro Mashima

Hrio Mashima is a Japanese manga artist well known for his series Rave Master and Fairy Tail.  He along with the story itself he also creates all the illustrations and covers for his works.  His first gained success through his first series Rave Master which was published in Kodansha's Weekly Shonen Magazine from 1999 to 2005. He is currently working on Fairy Tail which began serialization in 2006 and is currently one of the most well-known manga in and outside of Japan. He’s envied by many other manga artists due to his speed, dedication and he still manages to get 7 hours of sleep.

John Jude Palencar

Born in 1957 Palencar is an American fantasy, horror and Sci-fi artist whose works has been used on over 100 book covers. He uses both painting and illustration in his work. One of his most notable works is the covers for Christopher Paolini’s Inheritance Cycle but he’s also done covers for The Lord of the Rings, Star Wars and Earthsea.  He has created covers for several novels by Stephen King, who also holds Palencar's work in his private collection. A location in the Inheritance cycle known as Palencar Valley was actually named after him long before he was asked to create the covers. In 2008 he was awarded a Spectrum Grand Master.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Jude_Palencar
http://WWW.JOHNJUDEPALENCAR.COM/Bio.htm