Don Van Vliet, 1941 - 2010

Don Van Vliet (Captain Beefheart) died on 17th December, 2010.

Captain Beefheart, Mojave Desert, 1980; photograph by Anton Corbijn.
Musician and painter, Van Vliet was a true artist: original, eccentric and uncompromising. With The Magic Band he produced a series of extraordinary albums, including what is widely regarded as his masterpiece: Trout Mask Replica, 1969. Accounts of the bizarre and traumatic circumstances of the recording of this album are legendary. (Fast and Bulbous... Tapered, too.)

Trout Mask Replica, 1969, album cover
I never saw Captain Beefheart perform, but I treasure seeing 'Captain Beefheart's Magic Band' (that is, without the Captain) at the Carling Academy in Bristol in 2004. The Magic Band, in this instance, were Mark 'Rockette Morton' Boston and John 'Drumbo' French (both contributors to Trout Mask Replica) plus Gary 'Mantis' Lucas and Denny 'Feelers Rebo' Walley (both contributors to later albums).
In 1982 Van Vliet retired from music to devote himself to painting.

Don Van Vliet, Rolled Roots Gnarled Like Rakers, 1985 (Michael Werner Gallery)
Read obituaries and appreciations by, Caroline Boucher, Alexis Petridis, Sean O'Hagan. See also The Captain Beefheart Radar Station.

Corinne Day, 1962 - 2010

Corinne Day died on 27th August, 2010: see her obituary in The Guardian. See also appreciations by Charlotte Higgins, Corinne Day: Raw Genius, Sean O'Hagan, Corinne Day: She Added Grit to the Glamour of Fashion Photography, feature by Sheryl Garratt, Corinne Day: Pioneer of a New Kind of Beauty, and Corinne Day's website.

Kate's Flat, by Corinne Day, 1993

Sigmar Polke, 1941 - 2010

Sigmar Polke died on 10th June, 2010: see his obituary in The Guardian and Adrian Searle's memory of almost interviewing him.

(Sigmar Polke, Jeux d'enfants, 1988, Musée National d'Art Moderne, Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris)

John Baldessari contibuted the following to the catalogue for Polke's exhibition at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, in 1990:

Polke is an Artist's Artist

Compare a similar artist's work to Polke's and it looks stiff and labored. His work emanates the stuff of life - it's music.

His work is a f0nt of ideas. Any one move can provide a career for a lesser artist. He is a font; a treasury.

The roller-coaster ride he takes one on with various stops for high and low culture is unpredictable, brash and irreverent.

Giotto and Matisse have long been in my pantheon. I'm thinking of adding a third - Polke. He makes me glad that I'm an artist.

(John Baldessari in Simpson (1991), 20)

Sigmar Polke: a selected bibliography

Bickers, Patricia (2003) “Angry White Man”, Art Monthly, No.271, November, pp1-5

Byatt, A.S. (2003) "Polke Dots", Tate Magazine, Issue 7

Curiger, Bice (1994) “The Flip Side of Things”, Parkett, No.40/41, pp118-35

Ferguson, Russell ed. (1995) Sigmar Polke: Photoworks: When Pictures Vanish, Los Angeles: MOCA, LA

Gintz, Claude (1985) “Polke’s Slow Dissolve”, Art in America, Vol.73, Dec., pp102-9

Graulich, Gerhard et al (1996) Sigmar Polke: Transit, Ostfilden-Ruit: Cantz

Hentschel, Martin et al (1997) Sigmar Polke: The Three Lies of Painting, Ostfilden-Ruit: Cantz

Lane, John R. and Wylie, Charles eds. (2003) Sigmar Polke: History of Everything: Paintings and Drawings, 1998-2003, London: Yale UP

Masters, Christopher (2010) “Sigmar Polke Obituary”, The Guardian, 14 June

Moure, Gloria (2005) Sigmar Polke: Paintings, Photographs and Films, Barcelona: Edicciones Polígrafa

Nesbit, Judith ed. (1995) Sigmar Polke: Join the Dots, London: Tate Gallery Publications

Schjeldahl, Peter (2008) “Sigmar Polke” in Let’s See: Writings on Art for the ‘New Yorker’, London: Thames & Hudson, pp135-7

Schmidt, Eva et al (2008) Sigmar Polke: Miracle of Siegen: The Lens Paintings, Köln: DuMont

Searle, Adrian (2010) "Sigmar Polke – sorry I missed you”, The Guardian, 16 June

Simpson, Frania ed. (1991) Sigmar Polke, San Francisco: SFMoMA