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100051

Markus Pierson 'COYOTE PORTRAIT OF DEGAS' Canvas

Currency:USD Category:Collectibles Start Price:235.00 USD Estimated At:500.00 - 760.00 USD
Markus Pierson 'COYOTE PORTRAIT OF DEGAS' Canvas
Artist: Markus PiersonTitle: Coyote Portrait of DegasMedium: Canvas SerigraphOrientation: verticalImage Size: 10 x 11.5 inchesPaper Size: 10 x 11.5 inchesEdition Size: 175: Signed by the artist, individually numbered, accompanied by certificate of authenticity signed by the publisher.Excerpts from his book, But I Digress, A Coyote's View of Art History EDGAR DEGAS Edgar Degas is my brother Pat's favorite, and since he's my older brother, I have to toe the line and say Edgar's a stud. Not that I wouldn't anyway. I know why he likes him. Pat loves motion. Nobody captured motion better than Degas. Many were the times I can recall him approaching his snot-nosed runt little brother's basement studio and saying, "God, that music you like is repulsive. Turn it down. What could you find appealing in it? How can you draw with your ears on fire? I can't stand it in here. Ooooh - you've got nice motion there." And then he'd leave to immerse himself again in the classical music that I found utterly lacking. No lyrics! Got to have lyrics. But I digress. Some folks say Edgar is an Impressionist, others say no. I say he dabbled, he flirted. Remember what Impressionism is. They're all about light and color; subjects don't matter. Well, Edgar put huge importance on light, even more on color, but more than anything he was nuts about subject and composition. Lordy, that boy is good. Degas was a huge fan of Ingres. Ingres told young Edgar to learn to draw, draw like the wind, and darned if he didn't do just that. Degas is a draftsman's draftsman, a painter's painter, and a pasteler's pasteler. (Pasteler? That can't be right.) He played to the strengths of each medium he worked in. A brilliant technician, but beyond that nobody can touch Edgar when it comes to capturing spontaneous movement and its particular effect on light and shadow. A stud. Man alive, could he draw from memory. You'd swear he was working from snapshots. Nope. Cameras only took still pictures back then. I guess he could have said, "Now hold it," but that would have caused the dancers to get miffed or worse, get a bunion. All he had was a sketchbook and a quick hand. Wow. To this day I can't figure out how he could concentrate in those ballet studios with all that classical music blaring in his ears. He probably just did a quick pencil study and then ran back to his basement studio to crank some Zeppelin. Every profession has its own particular horror. Singers fear throat cancer, balloonists fear vertigo, a sommelier fears sinusitis, a politician fears a moral compass, painters fear blindness. Well, Edgar went blind. Not completely, but still . . . yikes! How ironic that someone who created such an expansive feast for the eyes would, in the end, find himself starved for sight. Biography Markus Pierson was born in 1961 and raised in the small farming town of Grand Ledge, Michigan, where his father owned a popular restaurant. A self-proclaimed reckless "racer", Markus was the youngest and most challenging of the four Pierson children. While a student, an encouraging art teacher swung wide the door to Markus' talent and profoundly moved him. However, the Grand Ledge art scene was somewhat lacking, leading Markus to take on a number of odd jobs before accidentally stumbling upon accounting as a means to making a living. After a near-fatal bout with Crohn's Disease in early 1985, he declared that the accountant was "dead" and in his place was a man pursuing his dream of becoming a successful artist. The Coyote Series was born in June of 1986, after Markus heard the Joni Mitchell song, "Coyote." He loved it, played it often and memorized the words. The focus of the song, a guy referred to as "Coyote," is a reckless, footloose Casanova type fellow - Pierson aspired to be the carefree romancer described in those lyrics. Then he did something he'd never done before or since: Markus made a drawing of a song. Over the next six months Markus painted billboards by day for a living and drew his Coyotes into the night. To the wall above his desk he taped these words, "No one works this hard and this smart - and has it come to nothing." Within a year, he walked out of Artexpo in New York City with commitments from 110 art galleries who sought to represent his work. In the decades that followed, Pierson's work has evolved to include a vast array of paintings, drawings, sculpture, hand-pulled serigraphs and original found-object works. Over time, the metaphor of the Coyote has taken on a more poignant and profound purpose. At its essence, the work urges us to pursue our dreams, wear our hearts on our sleeves, and to celebrate all of life's ups and downs. He has had nearly one hundred solo exhibitions in galleries across America, Australia and New Zealand, while also being featured at various prestigious international fairs including Art Miami, Artexpo New York, Sofa Chicago, Chicago Contemporary & Classic, and palmbeach3. Markus has amassed a collector base which includes Heads of State, major corporations and celebrities worldwide. Markus' wife and muse is artist, Sheryl Pierson. The two live and work in a converted loft in Kansas City, Missouri. "There's no doubt in my mind that my success has more to do with luck than talent, more to do with stubbornness than vision, more to do with ignorance than insight, but the fact remains that I pursued my dream and attained it against staggering odds. I say this now to anyone who will listen: even if I had failed, it would have been worth it. Better to face a brutal truth than to grow old wondering what might have been. " Markus Pierson
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