“There are two kinds of artists, the emotional painter and academician. The academician can paint into old age sitting on his stool licking his canvas until 98 years of age. The emotional artist burns himself up; he does not live long. The academician always creates something acceptable, boring, but acceptable. The emotional artist often misses, but when he hits it is breathtakingly beautiful,… touched by the gods!”
Sergei Bongart, via Lines and Colors
This month’s featured artist is Sergei Bongart. This is an interesting one. At first, I wasn’t able to find much about his life and work. But as I dived deeper (way past the first page of a Google search), I started to uncover all sorts of interesting stories and details. I’ll provide all the links I found at the end of this post.
His work is colorful and energetic. Here are some of my favorites:
He was also a sought-after teacher. You can find some notes about his teaching style and methods in this article by Keene Wilson.
Here are the other links I found:
- Lines and Colors: Sergei Bongart (Update) – There’s mention that Bongart’s wife, Patricia Le Grand Bongart, had finished an updated website and a new book dedicated to Bongart’s life and process. Unfortunately, the website appears to be down and I have been unable to locate a copy of the book titled Sergei Bongart…touched by the gods. But I was able to see what the website looked like using Wayback Machine (a tool that archives snapshots of websites over time).
- Obituary for Sergei Bongart
- Sergei Bongart: Great Painting Punches You in the Gut
- Sergei Bongart by Mary Balcomb (Book on Amazon)
Thanks for reading!
Dan Scott
drawpaintacademy.com
Super. I especially love the quotes and the art!
The article by Keene Wilson is brilliant he covers much of what Richard Schmid talks about. Sergei Bongart is a very interesting artist, love a lot of his work. Thanks Dan, for introducing him to us.
However, thought you should know that the links to two other articles are not secure, namely Lines and Colors, and Great Painting punches you in the gut. Therefore, these have not been read by me.
Thank you Dan for letting me know about this great artist.
I liked his quote on artists, however there are more than two types of painters