CAPTAIN AMERICA by Bob Kessel

Bob Kessel’s art series “POP UNINTENTIONAL” features pictures based on comic book characters like in the picture “CAPTAIN AMERICA” shown above. These pictures are available as signed and numbered limited edition fine art prints. Contact Bob Kessel for pricing and availability.

Other comic characters portrayed in the Pop Unintentional art series are Spiderman, Dr. Strange, Wonder Woman, Hulk, Black Panther, Galactus, Superman, DareDevil, Batman and many more.

INDIAN HEAD AND BUFFALO by Bob Kessel

Bob Kessel’s art series “AMERICAN ICONS” features pictures of American presidents and historical figures like “INDIAN HEAD AND BUFFALO” shown above. These pictures are available as signed and numbered limited edition fine art prints. Contact Bob Kessel for pricing and availability.

Bob Kessel’s American Icons art series also includes many other famous people including Marilyn Monroe, Miles Davis, Charles Bukowski, Muhammad Ali, Elvis Presley, Marlon Brando and John F Kennedy, Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin, George Washington, Abraham Lincoln and many more.

LADY LIBERTY by Bob Kessel

Bob Kessel’s art series “AMERICAN ICONS” features pictures of American presidents and historical figures like “LADY LIBERTY” shown above. These pictures are available as signed and numbered limited edition fine art prints. Contact Bob Kessel for pricing and availability.

Bob Kessel’s American Icons art series also includes many other famous people including Marilyn Monroe, Miles Davis, Charles Bukowski, Muhammad Ali, Elvis Presley, Marlon Brando and John F Kennedy, Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin, George Washington, Abraham Lincoln and many more.

THOMAS JEFFERSON AT MONTICELLO by Bob Kessel

Bob Kessel’s art series “AMERICAN ICONS” features pictures of American presidents and historical figures like “THOMAS JEFFERSON AT MONTICELLO” shown above. These pictures are available as signed and numbered limited edition fine art prints. Contact Bob Kessel for pricing and availability.

In the thick of party conflict in 1800, Thomas Jefferson wrote in a private letter,
“I have sworn upon the altar of God eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of man.”

This powerful advocate of liberty was born in 1743 in Albemarle County, Virginia, inheriting from his father, a planter and surveyor, some 5,000 acres of land, and from his mother, a Randolph, high social standing. He studied at the College of William and Mary, then read law. In 1772 he married Martha Wayles Skelton, a widow, and took her to live in his partly constructed mountaintop home, Monticello.

When Jefferson assumed the Presidency, the crisis in France had passed. He slashed Army and Navy expenditures, cut the budget, eliminated the tax on whiskey so unpopular in the West, yet reduced the national debt by a third. He also sent a naval squadron to fight the Barbary pirates, who were harassing American commerce in the Mediterranean. Further, although the Constitution made no provision for the acquisition of new land, Jefferson suppressed his qualms over constitutionality when he had the opportunity to acquire the Louisiana Territory from Napoleon in 1803.

LIBERTY BELL AND BEN FRANKLIN by Bob Kessel

Bob Kessel’s art series “AMERICAN ICONS” features pictures of American presidents and historical figures like “LIBERTY BELL AND BEN FRANKLIN” shown above. These pictures are available as signed and numbered limited edition fine art prints. Contact Bob Kessel for pricing and availability.

Benjamin Franklin (1705 – 1790) was one of the Founding Fathers of the United States of America. A noted polymath, Franklin was a leading author and printer, satirist, political theorist, politician, scientist, inventor, civic activist, statesman, and diplomat. As a scientist, he was a major figure in the Enlightenment and the history of physics for his discoveries and theories regarding electricity. He invented the lightning rod, bifocals, the Franklin stove, a carriage odometer, and the glass ‘armonica’. He formed both the first public lending library in America and first fire department in Pennsylvania. He was an early proponent of colonial unity, and as a political writer and activist he supported the idea of an American nation. As a diplomat during the American Revolution he secured the French alliance that helped to make independence of the United States possible.

Franklin became a newspaper editor, printer, and merchant in Philadelphia, becoming very wealthy, writing and publishing Poor Richard’s Almanack and The Pennsylvania Gazette.

“He that is conscious of A Stink in his Breeches, is jealous of every Wrinkle in another’s Nose.”

- Benjamin Franklin, Poor Richard’s Almanack, 1751

WONDER WOMAN by Bob Kessel

Bob Kessel’s art series “POP UNINTENTIONAL” features pictures based on comic book characters like in the picture “WONDER WOMAN” shown above.  These pictures are available as signed and numbered limited edition fine art prints. Contact Bob Kessel for pricing and availability.

Other comic characters portrayed in the Pop Unintentional art series are Spiderman, Dr. Strange, Captain America, Hulk, Black Panther, Galactus, Superman, DareDevil, Batman and many more.

DANIEL IN THE LION’S DEN by Bob Kessel after Peter Paul Rubens

Bob Kessel has created an art series titled, “BIBLE”. It features pictures based on the works of famous artists throughout history like the picture “DANIEL IN THE LION’S DEN”  originally by Peter Paul Rubens, shown above and the picture “DOUBTING THOMAS” shown below based on a painting by Caravaggio. These pictures are available as signed and numbered limited edition fine art prints. Contact Bob Kessel for pricing and availability.

DOUBTING THOMAS by Bob Kessel after Caravaggio

Also known as Saint Thomas Putting his Finger on Christ’s Wound. Thomas is one of Jesus’ twelve apostles. When Jesus shows himself to his followers after his resurrection, Thomas refuses to believe that this man really is his master. He demands evidence. Jesus shows him the wound caused by a Roman soldier’s lance before his crucifixion. He invites Thomas to put his finger on it. Caravaggio shows that Thomas soon casts aside all doubt.

Almost identical copies of this painting and that of the Pilgrimage to Emmaus were found in a church in the French town of Loches, in 1999. After investigation, it was announced in 2006 that both works were authentic Caravaggios. Both contain the shield of arms of Philippe de Bethune, a friend of Caravaggio’s and French ambassador in Rome. Records show that Bethune acquired four paintings from the painter. Caravaggio often made several copies of his own paintings.

DOUBTING THOMAS by Caravaggio

Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio, Italian painter with great influence both in Italy and abroad.

Caravaggio is particularly renowned for his use of chiaroscuro, a technique that uses light and dark to achieve a 3-D effect. Caravaggio breaks away from the tradition of symmetrical figures and detailed backgrounds. His figures do retain a traditional monumentality. His later work is less plastic.

Caravaggio takes his name from the village where he was born. He receives his first training in Milan, specializing in still-lives. Around 1592 he takes to Rome, the spiritual capital of the Italian peninsula, switching his subject matter to street-life and young boys.

In 1595 Caravaggio’s talent catches the eye of cardinal Francesco Del Monte, who subsequently becomes his first patron. Caravaggio’s three paintings on the life of St Matthew cause a sensation: never before has a saint, let alone an apostle, been shown like this. (calling, inspiration, martyrdom) After this succès fou, Caravaggio takes all his subjects from the New Testament.

Caravaggio’s life is as turbulent as his personality. He has many run-ins with the law and is arrested on several occasions. In 1606 a bet over a game of tennis leads to an argument, at which point Caravaggio draws his sword and kills his opponent. He flees to Naples, intending to take the long way home to Rome - where friends are lobbying for his rehabilitation - via Malta and Sicily. On his wanderings he produces several masterpieces, such as The Beheading of St John the Baptist, which he creates in Malta. He dies before reaching Rome, probably of pneumonia, in Porto Ercole. Several days after his death word arrives of papal absolution.

Caravaggio’s influence is widespread: outside Italy he inspires painters as diverse as Georges de La Tour and members of the Utrecht School, e.g. Gerrit van Honthorst – artists who in their turn are later to influence Rembrandt.

THE GOLDEN APPLE by Bob Kessel

Bob Kessel has created an art series titled, “MYTHOLOGY”. It features pictures based on the works of famous artists throughout history like the picture “THE GOLDEN APPLE” originally by Peter Paul Rubens, shown above. These pictures are available as signed and numbered limited edition fine art prints. Contact Bob Kessel for pricing and availability.

It is recounted that Zeus held a banquet in celebration of the marriage of Peleus and Thetis (parents of Achilles). However, Eris, goddess of discord, was uninvited. Angered by this snub, Eris arrived at the celebration, where she threw a golden apple (the Apple of Discord) into the proceedings, upon which was the inscription καλλίστῃ “for the fairest one”.

Three goddesses claimed the apple: Hera, Athena and Aphrodite. They asked Zeus to judge which of them was fairest, and eventually Zeus, reluctant to favour any claim himself, declared that Paris, a Phrygian mortal, would judge their cases, for he had recently shown his exemplary fairness in a contest in which Ares in bull form had bested Paris’s own prize bull, and the shepherd-prince had unhesitatingly awarded the prize to the god.

Thus it happened that, with Hermes as their guide, all three of the candidates appeared to Paris on Mount Ida, in the climactic moment that is the crux of the tale. After bathing in the spring of Ida, each attempted with her powers to bribe Paris; Hera offered to make him king of Europe and Asia, Athena offered wisdom and skill in war, and Aphrodite, who had the Charites and the Horai to enhance her charms with flowers and song, offered the love of the world’s most beautiful woman. This was Helen of Sparta, wife of the Greek king Menelaus.

Paris accepted Aphrodite’s gift and awarded the apple to her, receiving Helen as well as the enmity of the Greeks and especially of Hera. The Greeks’ expedition to retrieve Helen from Paris in Troy is the mythological basis of the Trojan War.

LAS MENINAS by Bob Kessel

Bob Kessel has a new art series “ART HISTORY” featuring pictures like “LAS MENINAS” shown above. Copying famous paintings is a time honored tradition among artists. Bob Kessel follows in this tradition with his take off on Velazquez’s famous painting. This picture and others are available as signed and numbered limited edition fine art prints. Contact Bob Kessel for pricing and availability.

Pablo Picasso also interpreted LAS MENINAS in several paintings.

“To me there is no past or future in art. The art of the great painters who lived in other times is not an art of the past; perhaps it is more alive today than it ever was.” - Pablo Picasso

LAS MENINAS by Velazquez

LAS MENINAS by Pablo Picasso

… and below, a takeoff of a takeoff-

PICASSO’S MENINAS by Richard Hamilton

VAN GOGH’S CHAIR by Bob Kessel

GAUGUIN’S CHAIR by Bob Kessel

Bob Kessel has a new art series “Van Gogh a Go-Go” featuring pictures like “VAN GOGH’S CHAIR” and “GAUGUIN’S CHAIR” shown above. These pictures are available as signed and numbered limited edition fine art prints. Contact Bob Kessel for pricing and availability.

The two paintings of Vincent’s and Paul Gauguin’s chairs are among the most often analyzed of Van Gogh’s works.

The colour scheme of the two chairs is, to coin a phrase, as different as night and day. Van Gogh’s chair is executed with lighter colours suggesting daylight, whereas Gauguin’s chair is presented with darker, more somber tones.

The color composition of this work is based on variations around the pairs of primary complementaries–blue and orange, and red and green. These appear in their purest form only in occasional passages, to set the keynotes for the composition. Thus the area of purest red on the paving beneath the chair is balanced by touches of green above it and by a further stroke of green on the nearest chair leg. Van Gogh stresses structure through emphatic outlines, added later, that serve to contain areas of pure painting. The strength of these increases the impact of the image, but also creates a certain tension between line and color. In distorting the perspective of the floor and the chair leg, Van Gogh imposed his own personality upon the work, stressing the subjectivity of his view.

The pipe, handkerchief and tobacco give a focus to the picture in both narrative and pictoral terms, providing a note of neutral white at the center of the interplay of cool and warm hues. The use of blue to outline the parts of the chair increases the sense of cool draftsmanship restraining the sensuous handling of the painting.

The floor tiles are painted with the waving brushstrokes that Van Gogh often used in the backgrounds of his work at this time. Short horizontal and vertical strokes alternate in a loose mesh of reds, browns and greens. The thickness of the paint used is revealed by the heavy smear from the side of the brush that is left alongside each stroke.

VAN GOGH’S CHAIR by Vincent Van Gogh

GAUGUIN’S CHAIR by Vincent Van Gogh