Mark Beard
Yesterday we saw the work of gay artist Mark Beard, born in 1956, as his alter ego Bruce Sargeant (1898-1938). Today we will see Beard's work under his own name, as well as work that he has done under several other aliases.
Above: Mark Beard in his New York City studio with a nude model.
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Almost all of Beard's work that I could find under his own name consists of drawings, not paintings. Above, an early work: Untitled (Nude man in red headband), 1974.
Male Drawing, 1996.
Male Study, 2011.
Male Model Standing, undated. Although the models are not named, this is recognizably the same guy as the previous drawing.
Nude Studies, 2017.
Nude Study, 2017.
In addition to drawings, Beard has done some Polaroid transfers, which transfer the upper layer of a Polaroid photo onto paper. Above: Marc, 1998.
This Polaroid transfer is Self-Portrait, 1991. Note his big artist's palette. Or maybe you were looking at something else of his that's big.
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But the most interesting thing about Mark Beard is that he has produced paintings under several different aliases. The majority are by Bruce Sargeant. We saw some of them yesterday.
Other artistic alter egos include Hippolyte-Alexandre Michallon (1849-1930), supposedly a 19th century French Academician who was the teacher of Bruce Sargeant. Above: Hercules Mourning the Death of his Cupbearer Hylas by Michallon.
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Another alter ego is Edith Thayer Cromwell (1893-1962), supposedly a lesbian American avant-garde painter, also taught by Michallon and a friend of Bruce Sargeant. Above: Male Standing in the Woods by Cromwell, supposedly from 1925.
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Another alter ego is Brechtholdt Streeruwitz (1890-1973), supposedly an Austrian Expressionist who studied in the Bauhaus and was an arch-rival of Bruce Sargeant. Above: Heldenbergbesuch (Hero's Mountain Visit) by Streeruwitz, supposedly from 1925.
Another alter ego is Buggereau, a queer contemporary artist born in 1956 (the same year as Beard). Above: Untitled #1, 2013 by Buggereau.
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We end with alter ego Peter Coulter, born in 1948 (not to be confused with TV and film director Peter Coulter, who is a real person). The fake Peter Coulter is an African-American artist taught by both Streeruwitz and Cromwell. Above: a pop art-like piece by Coulter.
Remember, Mark Beard is the only one of these artists who actually existed. But, using his alter egos, he has created art in many different styles, and that's pretty clever.
5 comments:
It's interesting that he changed his style of works with each alter ego. I wonder how difficult that was. And you're right, I focused on that hard cock, not the palette.
love his works
I read somewhere that the Sargeant from Bruce Sargeant came from John Singer Sargent.
Very clever of him.
When you learn to draw and paint you are requested to and recommended to make copies of other artists' styles. Non-artists often don't think so, but I and other artists I have known have found it very helpful. You don't sign those copies with the original artist's names, of course, and call them studies or 'after so-and-so'.
Even if you never draw/paint/scuplt anything like that copied style in the future, it helps you define who you are and what you are doing in a way that mere words or watching a video of the artist doing their thing cannot.
What Beard is showing with these styles is that he is... competent. And the weird joints coloration/depiction is compulsive to him, since it extends into those other styles sometimes.
What he has done here with his Camille-Paglian Dramatis Personae, is modern art, where the 'art' is the creation of one of her 'masks' or personalities. That is the clever part he is a painter version of photographer Cindy Sherman
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