Roger Kohn | |
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 Designer and author, Roger Kohn at home with Chingachgook | |
| Born | 1951 York, England |
| Occupation(s) | Designer, author |
| Spouse | Karen Kohn |
| Website | Roger Kohn |
Roger Kohn is a designer and author. He studied with Rowan Gillespie at York School of Art and is the Irish sculptor's biographer. [1]
Kohn was educated at Marton Hall Preparatory School and Pocklington School. After a year at York School of Art, he gained a first class honours degree in Graphic Design at Chelsea School of Art along with among others, Edward Bell (artist). At Chelsea, Kohn was taught by Edward Wright, Dennis Bailey and Susan Einzig and became friends with part-time tutor, the Scottish surrealist poet and musician Ivor Cutler. [2] Cutler's influence on Kohn was a subtle one, but can be seen in his art. In the words of the artist himself:
In the early 1970s, when space travel and moon landings were very much in the news, Ivor was ahead of the time with his extraordinary eye for detail. He encouraged me to think small and push the boundaries of perception by exploring the minutiae of the minuscule, celebrating the precious details of our planet along the way. [3]
Kohn travelled extensively in Latin America (once declining a request from MI6 to return to Argentina on their behalf). [4] He worked initially with the Diagram Group, a London-based cooperative group of designers (which included the brilliant avant-garde composer and musician, Cornelius Cardew), writers, artists and editors, led by Bruce Robertson and Bob Chapman, supplying visualised information to publishers in Britain and the United States; and was Art Editor on the definitive encyclopedia Musical Instruments of the World., [5] which featured in Eduardo Paolozzi's 1985 "Lost Magic Kingdoms" exhibition at the Museum of Mankind in London. After a brief spell at the Hamlyn Publishing Group he became Art Editor at Octopus Books. In 1983 he left to set up his own design business and to pursue his interest in art and photography, visiting over 60 countries and establishing an extensive photographic library. Besides Ivor Cutler the influences on Kohn's writing and art are diverse:
"Being a fan of the art of dadaist Marcel Duchamp, the drama of Samuel Beckett and Harold Pinter, the music of Frank Zappa and Captain Beefheart and the humour of Spike Milligan, I identified strongly with Ivor’s eccentricity and the absurdist nature of his unassuming yet often abrasive persona." [6]
He cites the imagery of album sleeve designer Cal Schenkel as perhaps his greatest visual influence.
Having exhibited along with Vanilla Beer and Jane Jackson in the Art Attack exhibition at Cuts Gallery, Kensington, Kohn held his first one-man show, "Hung, Drawn and Slaughtered" [7] at the Zillah Bell Contemporary Art Gallery, Thirsk in October 2003. Described by Pru Farrier in the Stockton and Darlington Times (2003) in the following terms:
"A series of insect drawings which look like the sort of thing a Victorian collector would have framed - row upon row of luminously-coloured exotic bugs; look closer, and you discover they are all figments of fancy, the artist outdoing nature"
Before undertaking the biography of Rowan Gillespie, Kohn undertook several book/design projects. These included working with Sarah Mucha of the Mucha Foundation on the book Alphonse Mucha in 2005 [8] (Kohn is style and design consultant for the family of the Czech belle epoch artist and designer); and work for the artist Vanilla Beer daughter of Anthony Stafford Beer, best known for his work in the fields of operational research and management cybernetics. Kohn designed and produced Beer's Prenez, Mangez et Vivez (2006). [9]
During the research period for Looking for Orion, Kohn worked closely with Moondance Productions [10] on their Film Biography of Rowan Gillespie, Sculpting Life (Moondance Productions 2007). He travelled to various locations in Europe and North America, with Gillespie and Shane Brennan of Moondance Productions; conducted interviews and took many of the photographs that illustrate the biography. As well as researching Gillespie's background and artistic roots, the biography provides a catalogue of almost four decades of the sculptor's work and was launched in Ireland, at the Royal Hibernian Academy, [11] to coincide with the Irish sculptor's unveiling of his latest work Proclamation, which depicts the execution of the seven signatories and the seven other leaders of the Easter Rising, and now stands opposite Kilmainham Gaol.
Amongst other work Kohn has undertaken filmography on Verónico Cruz and designs and produces the publicity material for African Revival [12] a UK-based charity that provides Aid to 'self-sustaining projects' in Sudan, Uganda, Kenya, Malawi, Mozambique, South Africa and Zambia. He is product designer for Fruity Faces, [12] the Dragons' Den fruit case manufacturer that encourages healthy eating and gives its profits to charity. Kohn also designs the magazine showcasing the work of British Glass Artists in the UK, produced for the Contemporary Glass Society, [13] and founded by David Reekie [14] as British Artists in Glass. The Contemporary Glass Society is an Arts Council funded organisation that supports and encourages the development of Glass art in the United Kingdom. [13]
In 2005, Kohn was among the many artists, including Sir Paul McCartney, David Hockney, Tracey Emin, Edward Bell and Damien Hirst who produced a postcard (R. Kohn Volviendo a Casa, Art of Care 2005) selected by Bernard Williams of Christie's for the Art of Care Auction [15] in Edinburgh.
Art Nouveau is an international style of art, architecture, and applied art, especially the decorative arts. It was often inspired by natural forms such as the sinuous curves of plants and flowers. Other characteristics of Art Nouveau were a sense of dynamism and movement, often given by asymmetry or whiplash lines, and the use of modern materials, particularly iron, glass, ceramics and later concrete, to create unusual forms and larger open spaces. It was popular between 1890 and 1910 during the Belle Époque period, and was a reaction against the academic art, eclecticism and historicism of 19th century architecture and decoration.
Louis Comfort Tiffany was an American artist and designer who worked in the decorative arts and is best known for his work in stained glass. He is the American artist most associated with the Art Nouveau and Aesthetic movements. He was affiliated with a prestigious collaborative of designers known as the Associated Artists, which included Lockwood de Forest, Candace Wheeler, and Samuel Colman. Tiffany designed stained glass windows and lamps, glass mosaics, blown glass, ceramics, jewellery, enamels, and metalwork. He was the first design director at his family company, Tiffany & Co., founded by his father Charles Lewis Tiffany.
Alfons Maria Mucha, known internationally as Alphonse Mucha, was a Czech painter, illustrator, and graphic artist, living in Paris during the Art Nouveau period, widely known for his distinctly stylized and decorative theatrical posters, particularly those of Sarah Bernhardt. He produced illustrations, advertisements, decorative panels, as well as designs, which became among the best-known images of the period.
Vanessa Bell was an English painter and interior designer, a member of the Bloomsbury Group and the sister of Virginia Woolf.
Roger Eliot Fry was an English painter and critic, and a member of the Bloomsbury Group. Establishing his reputation as a scholar of the Old Masters, he became an advocate of more recent developments in French painting, to which he gave the name Post-Impressionism. He was the first figure to raise public awareness of modern art in Britain, and emphasised the formal properties of paintings over the "associated ideas" conjured in the viewer by their representational content. He was described by the art historian Kenneth Clark as "incomparably the greatest influence on taste since Ruskin ... In so far as taste can be changed by one man, it was changed by Roger Fry". The taste Fry influenced was primarily that of the Anglophone world, and his success lay largely in alerting an educated public to a compelling version of recent artistic developments of the Parisian avant-garde.
Mark Ryden is an American painter who is considered to be part of the Lowbrow art movement. He was dubbed "the god-father of pop surrealism" by Interview magazine. In 2015, Artnet named Ryden and his wife, painter Marion Peck, the king and queen of Pop Surrealism.
Events from the year 1996 in art.
The Vienna Secession is an art movement, closely related to Art Nouveau, that was formed in 1897 by a group of Austrian painters, graphic artists, sculptors and architects, including Josef Hoffman, Koloman Moser, Otto Wagner and Gustav Klimt. They resigned from the Association of Austrian Artists in protest against its support for more traditional artistic styles. Their most influential architectural work was the Secession exhibitions hall designed by Joseph Maria Olbrich as a venue for expositions of the group. Their official magazine was called Ver Sacrum, which published highly stylised and influential works of graphic art. In 1905 the group itself split, when some of the most prominent members, including Klimt, Wagner, and Hoffmann, resigned in a dispute over priorities, but it continued to function, and still functions today, from its headquarters in the Secession Building. In its current form, the Secession exhibition gallery is independently led and managed by artists.
Thomas Canty is an illustrator and book designer in the field of fantasy literature.
The Zillah Bell Art Gallery is a contemporary art gallery exhibiting local and national artists. Housed in a Grade II Listed Building in Thirsk, North Yorkshire, England, the gallery opened in 1988.
Rowan Fergus Meredith Gillespie is an Irish bronze casting sculptor of international renown. Born in Dublin to Irish parents, Gillespie spent his formative years in Cyprus.
Edward Bell studied art at Brighton College of Art, graphic design at Chelsea School of Art and photography at the Royal College of Art. He worked as a freelance photographer and illustrator for Vogue, Tatler and Elle magazines. He was commissioned for portraits for album covers for David Bowie and Hazel O'Connor. He has exhibited widely on the London art scene and his work covers many genres from life paintings to bronzes, from pop art to landscapes.
Dan Owen Dailey is an American artist and educator, known for his sculpture. With the support of a team of artists and crafts people, he creates sculptures and functional objects in glass and metal. He has taught at many glass programs and is professor emeritus at the Massachusetts College of Art, where he founded the glass program.
Arnold Wathen Robinson RWA, FMGP (1888–1955) was an English stained-glass artist. Although Robinson's family, on the paternal and maternal side were involved in local government, he sought a career as a stained-glass artist. During World War I he initially enlisted in the Artists Rifles, and was then released from military service to manage a shell factory. Three of his four younger brothers were to be killed in the Great War.
Robert Stewart Bell was an Australian artist and arts curator, best known for his focus on decorative arts. He also worked as an artist in ceramics and textiles.
Anne Dybka (1921–2007) was an English Australian artist and glass engraver. After training and study in painting, drawing, glass engraving and graphic arts, Dybka went on to create works which are on display in Australian public collections. Dybka's works are privately owned by Hua Guofeng, the former Chinese premier, Lord Snowdon, Sir Roden Cutler and Neville Wran.
Art Nouveau posters and graphic arts flourished and became an important vehicle of the style, thanks to the new technologies of color lithography and color printing, which allowed the creation of and distribution of the style to a vast audience in Europe, the United States and beyond. Art was no longer confined to art galleries, but could be seen on walls and illustrated magazines.
The Art Nouveau movement of architecture and design flourished in Paris from about 1895 to 1914, reaching its high point at the 1900 Paris International Exposition. with the Art Nouveau metro stations designed by Hector Guimard. It was characterized by a rejection of historicism and traditional architectural forms, and a flamboyant use of floral and vegetal designs, sinuous curving lines such as the whiplash line, and asymmetry. It was most prominent in architecture, appearing in department stores, apartment buildings, and churches; and in the decorative arts, particularly glassware, furniture, and jewelry. Besides Guimard, major artists included René Lalique in glassware, Louis Majorelle in furniture, and Alphonse Mucha in graphic arts, It spread quickly to other countries, but lost favor after 1910 and came to an end with the First World War.
The whiplash or whiplash line is a motif of decorative art and design that was particularly popular in Art Nouveau. It is an asymmetrical, sinuous line, often in an ornamental S curve, usually inspired by natural forms such as plants and flowers, which suggests dynamism and movement. It took its name from a woven fabric panel called "Coup de Fouet" ("Whiplash") by the German artist Hermann Obrist (1895) which depicted the stems and roots of the cyclamen flower. The panel was later reproduced by the textile workshop of the Darmstadt Artists Colony.
Deirdre Borlase (1925–2018) was a British painter and printmaker.
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