The Paimio Sanatorium, Aino and Alvar Aaltos’ groundbreaking functionalist building, was completed 90 years ago as of 2023. Artek is commemorating the moment with the release of the Paimio Sanatorium Anniversary Collection to raise awareness for the extraordinary building and support for the Paimio Sanatorium Foundation.
Paimio Sanatorium first opened it’s doors in June 1933, set among pine forests near the town of Paimio in southwest Finland. It was designed as a “medical instrument” to care for tuberculosis patients, with every detail geared toward the needs of their recovery. The Aaltos created what would go on to be some of their most iconic furniture designs for the hospital, then added a select palette of colors throughout to tie it together into an all encompassing healing experience.
Tuberculosis patients continued to be treated in the Paimio Sanatorium until the 1960s, at which time the facilities switched over to acting as a general hospital until the 2010s. Since 2020, the building has been run by the Paimio Sanatorium Foundation to protect the structure and furniture while simultaneously developing new uses for the facilities. Artek is one of the Foundation’s founding members, and makes it a priority to provide for this new endeavor through communication and financial support.
Armchair 41
Designed in 1932 for the sanatorium, the original Armchair 41 – also known as Paimio Armchair – is one of Alvar Aalto’s furniture masterpieces. Using materials and forms that would promote wellbeing and recovery, the light, organic structure was designed to make it easier for patients to breathe. Aalto used bent birch wood and lamella rather than tubular steel, both for its warm, tactile qualities and because it was easy to clean.
Armchair 41
The Paimio Sanatorium Anniversary Edition of Armchair 41 is available with a seat and frame in oiled natural birch, in a limited and numbered edition of 90 pieces. For every Paimio Sanatorium Anniversary Armchair 41 sold, Artek will donate €500 to the the Paimio Sanatorium Foundation.
Armchair 41
Armchair 41
Stool 60
The iconic Stool 60 is one of the most recognized pieces in design history, which Alvar Aalto created in 1933 for the sanatorium. Recently the Alvar Aalto Foundation conducted a research project that uncovered the bottom most layers of wall paint in the sanatorium, revealing green, blue, and yellow. As part of the Paimio Sanatorium Anniversary Collection, Stool 60 is now available in three colors that match the building’s original color scheme designed by Alvar Aalto and artist Eino Kauria.
Stool 60
The trio of hues were initially pulled from the patients’ everyday lives and treatment plans: forest walks (green), fresh air (blue), and sun bathing (yellow). For every Paimio Sanatorium Anniversary Stool 60 sold, Artek will support the Paimio Sanatorium Foundation with a donation of €30.
Stool 60
Stool 60
Stool 60
Stool 60
Eino Kauria
Every anniversary piece is accompanied by a certificate of authenticity, featuring Eino Kauria’s painting of the sanatorium’s color palette.
The Paimio Sanatorium Anniversary Collection is available at Artek stores in Helsinki and Toyko, as well as select distribution partners in Finland, Japan, Korea, and Australia. Anniversary editions are available for purchase as long as stock lasts or for one year, until June 2024. To learn more about the collection, visit artek.fi.
Amazon India is celebrating World Photography Day with a new sale. Photography enthusiasts can avail of attractive discounts on products from several top brands during this sale. The e-commerce giant is offering discounts on cameras and accessories from top brands including Canon, Sony, Fujifilm, Panasonic, GoPro, Digitech and more. At this sale, customers can avail of an instant discount of up to Rs 4,000 on HDFC bank credit/debit card EMI transactions and up to 12 months of no-cost EMI.
Amazon World Photography Day sale: Products and deals
Here are some products to choose from the Amazon World Photography Day sale that are available with multiple deals and offers from sellers:
Amazon Basics Smartphone Gimbal:Say goodbye to shakes and jerks while shooting photographs, selfies, vlogs and live streams.Get smooth, steady footage and upgrade your vlogging skills with the Gimbal stabiliser available on Amazon for Rs 5,499.
Canon EOS R10 Mirrorless camera: Find your story with EOS R10. This camera is an ideal travel companion and serves as the ultimate hybrid content creation tool. Get this on Amazon for Rs 96,490
Canon M50 MKII Mirrorless camera: The lightweight and stylish EOS M50 Mark II has user-friendly features like Wi-Fi connectivity. Get this Canon’s flagship mirrorless camera on Amazon with an additional Rs 4,000 bank discount for Rs 58,990
DJI OM6 Smartphone Gimbal: DJI’s premier OM6 gimbal can improve shooting skills as it features integrated advanced stabilisation technology that counteracts unwanted movements and captures moments with cinematic smoothness. Get this on Amazon for Rs 14,490
Digitek DSG 007 Smartphone Gimbal: Capture precious moments with Digitek gimbal that comes with 3 creative operation modes that include all follow mode, half follow mode and all lock mode for precise shooting. Get this on Amazon at an additional Rs 200 off for Rs 5,799
Digitek 14-inch Ring Light with Tripod: Upgrade your vlogging skills with the light effects from Digitek ring lights. It comes with intensity control, colour temperature control and a power button making it easier to operate. Additionally, it has a step-less adjustment of colour temperature to maintain product tone or create subject details. Get this on Amazon at 60% off for Rs 1,399.
FitSpark Eagle i9 Plus Action Camera: FitSpark Eagle i9 is the first-in-class action camera to offer dual screens. It comes with a Pro Wi-Fi-enabled smartphone-controlled remote to capture the scenes from a long distance. Get this on Amazon for Rs 9,499.
Fujifilm Instax Mini 12 Instant Camera (Purple): Capture photos regardless of the time and place with Instax Mini 12 and present them as instant memories. It can also be a gift for your loved ones. Get this on Amazon for Rs 5,999
GoPro Hero 9 Action Camera Bundle: The Hero 9 Black features a 23.6MP sensor enabling 5K videos and 20MP photos. A new front display offers a live preview for framing alongside a rear touch screen with touch zoom providing swift and intuitive control. Get this on Amazon for Rs 27,490 along with a free original GoPro battery.
Hohem iSteady Smartphone Gimbal: The iSteady M6 gimbal integrates the iSteady 7.0 stabilisation algorithms enabling users to capture creations while on the move, free from shakes. Whether walking or running, it ensures filming with stabilisation resulting in smooth footage creation. Get this on Amazon for Rs 16,990
IZI Dual Screen Action Camera: Unleash your creativity with this action camera that boasts a 48MP camera resolution and offers 5K at 30fps and 4K at 60fps. It captures breathtaking moments in stunning detail and fluid motion pushing the boundaries of adventure. Get this on Amazon for Rs 9,499.
Kodak Instant Camera: The Kodak Mini Shot 3 Retro is a Polaroid camera with a built-in photo printer, allowing users to print their images or discard them after capture. With this instant camera, one can also print photos directly from their mobile gallery via Bluetooth. It is compatible with Apple iPhone, iPad and Android devices. Get this on Amazon for Rs 12,999.
Osaka 55-inch Professional Tripod: This tripod is equipped with 3 adjustable quick-turn leg locks and 4-stage upright legs featuring quick-release lever locks. These allow one to adjust the working height from 16 inches to 55 inches within seconds, making it 5 inches longer than other common tripods. It can be swiftly set up and disassembled rendering it suitable for diverse shooting environments and various photography needs. Get this on Amazon for Rs 899.
Panasonic Lumix G7 Mirrorless Camera: This is the most budget-friendly mirrorless camera from Panasonic. Equipped with a 16MP Micro Four Thirds sensor, it boasts no low-pass filter ensuring the capture of sharp images with improved dynamic range and artifact-free performance. Get this on Amazon extra 23% off for Rs 42,490
Sony 7M3K Mirrorless Camera: The Alpha 7 III gives the power, precision and flexibility to capture moments in a compact body. Get this premium mirrorless camera from Sony on Amazon now at an extra 20% off for Rs 1,43,990
Sony ZV1 Vlog Camera: ZV 1 is tailored for content creators and bloggers. Accompanied by a Sony Bluetooth wireless shooting grip, it is crafted for handheld shots and vlogging. The camera ensures the assurance of blur- and shake-free shots. Get this affordable vlogging camera on Amazon at 20% off for Rs 62,990
Sigma 150-600 mm for Canon cameras: Now take long-range shots with ease and zoom into the subject with Sigma’s hyper-telephoto lens. Get this on Amazon at 20% off for Rs 79,990.
Oftentimes we think of air quality solely in terms of the oxygen we breathe while outside. Yet, according to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), the average American spends more than 90% of their life indoors. This means the air breathed at home, in the office, or anywhere indoors is most vital to our health. Birdie is an adorably conceived wall-mounted CO2 monitoring device equipped to help determine whether it’s time to crack open a window or turn on an air purifier.
Instead of reporting complex data points, graphics, or charts, Birdie simplifies air quality reporting with a “canary in a coal mine” visual interface.
When air quality dips, so does Birdie, incrementally drooping from a vertical position on its perch. The winged reporter continues until a window is opened to invite fresh air to reset the CO2 back toward safer figures. It’s not only a simple and intuitive means of communicating sometimes difficult to understand environmental information, but is also a playfully realized object with a decorative design that people ages from 3 to 100 can glean vital information with just a quick glance.
If levels of CO2 reach over 1,000 ppm for over ten minutes, Birdie looks like this until the air quality returns to 800 ppm or better.
Because there’s no screen to power, Birdie’s battery life is measured in months. The rechargeable battery is rated to keep the yellow bird in operation up to 6 months with a 4-hour recharge. If you’d rather not worry about the battery at all, there is the option to install the Birdie with a plug-in charger.
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Birdie creators Andreas Kofoed Sørensen and Hans Høite Augustenborg also just released an amusing limited edition Barbie-inspired variant if you’re more partial to Barbie pink than canary yellow. You can even nab a discount if you DM a picture of your Barbie movie ticket.
If you’re motivated to avoid using plastic items, note Birdie is made from 100% recycled plastic.
Birdie is available for $189 in either standard canary yellow or hot pink edition (with an option to just switch out the bird to pink for $29).
Landscape photographer Michael Shainblum is extremely experienced across a diverse range of landscape photo subgenres, including woodland, seascape, and abstract landscape photography. Among Shainblum’s favorite landscape photography genres is waterfall photography, the subject of his latest tutorial.
Shainblum’s first tip for shooting waterfalls is to use an ultra-wide lens, such as a 14-24mm or 16-35mm zoom. Shainblum recently touted the value of longer zoom lenses for landscape photography, but shooting waterfalls with a wide-angle perspective helps create immersion, especially if the photographer can stand in the water beneath the waterfall. Shainblum explains that if someone ventures into the water, they should exercise caution.
“Personally, I walk through the water cautiously, ensuring it’s not too deep or forceful. For those new to this experience, take your time to acclimate to the surroundings and gauge your comfort level. If standing in the stream feels uneasy, nature often provides logs or rocks that offer stable platforms for observation,” he writes.
As for composition, Shainblum likes to point his camera slightly downward to include two-thirds or three-quarters of the ground, which creates a pathway to the waterfall itself.
“If the flow of water doesn’t naturally guide the viewer’s eye toward the falls, experiment with your positioning until you achieve a satisfying composition. This adjustment might require some patience, but the resulting image is well worth the effort,” recommends Shainblum.
His next tip is to bring out that long telephoto lens to shoot a bit of minimalist waterfall photography.
“Telephoto photography introduces a distinct departure from the previous technique. Instead of immersing yourself in the lively waterflow, opt for a serene experience on the shore. Choose a dry spot where you can comfortably enjoy the waterfall spectacle,” Shainblum explains. “With the telephoto lens, you’ll zoom in on specific details of the falls, rather than encompassing the entire scene.”
With a longer lens, photographers can zero in on specific details in the scene and find intriguing colors and patterns. Shutter speed selection can dramatically impact the image’s ” feel ” as well, with a shorter speed showing more power and texture in the waterfall and a slower shutter speed offering a dreamier, soft look.
These are just a couple of ways photographers can improve their waterfall photography using two very different approaches. Shainblum delivers three additional excellent waterfall photography tips in the video above and on his blog, including finding compelling framing elements, utilizing reflections, and embracing spontaneity in the field.
More of Michael Shainblum’s photography tutorials are featured on his website and more of his beautiful imagery is available in his portfolio and on Instagram.
Image credits: All images © Michael Shainblum
ROCKPORT — Kevin Johnson, photo archivist for the Penobscot Marine Museum in Searsport, presents a slide show and talk entitled “Kosti Ruohomaa: The Maine Assignments” Sunday, Aug. 27, at 2 p.m. at the Rockville Community Chapel, 87 Old Rockland St. (behind the Green Thumb). The Ruohomaa Collection has come home to Maine as the newest addition to the photography holdings of the Penobscot Marine Museum. The Rockland photographer’s collection was recently donated to the PMM by Black Star of New York, Ruohomaa’s photography agency, and consists of thousands of medium and large format negatives, 35-mm negatives and slides, as well as contact sheets and vintage prints.
During the age of the photo magazine, Ruohomaa was a rock star in the photography world. His photographs graced the cover of Life Magazine numerous times. Other major magazines such as Look, National Geographic and Life used his photos regularly. He moved to Dodge Mountain in Rockland at the age of 13, where his family had a blueberry farm. He discovered his love for photography in the 1930s while working as a cartoonist for Disney. During the 1940s and ’50s, his career blossomed. While he photographed around the world, Maine was his favorite subject, both the people and land. He died prematurely in 1961 at the age of 47.
As the major auction houses look ahead to their blockbuster November evening sales, Christie’s and Sotheby’s are both vying to secure the estate of Emily Fisher Landau, the noted art collector who died in March at the age of 102.
Whichever house lands the Fisher Landau estate will be hoping the collection—which ARTnews reports could rake in between $375 million and $500 million—will help make up for a lackluster first half for auction results. In May, one of the season’s most-anticipated auctions, of the estate of collector Gerald Fineberg at Christie’s New York, totaled just $153 million, compared to an estimate of $163 million to $235 million.
The Big Three auction houses—Sotheby’s, Christie’s, and Phillips—have seen a 51 percent dip in total sales year-over-year, as reported by the Artnet Intelligence Report. Christie’s sales dropped 23 percent, from $4.1 billion to $3.2 billion, between June and January, while Phillips clocked in at just $453 million for the same period, 39 percent less than the $746 million it brought in the first six months of 2022.
As of press time, neither Christie’s nor Sotheby’s had responded to inquiries from Artnet News.
Jasper Johns, Flags (1986). Collection of Emily Fisher Landau. ©Jasper Johns.
Fisher Landau credited her entree into the world of fine art collecting to the 1969 art robbery of her Upper East Side apartment. The thieves, disguised as air conditioning repairmen, made off with her valuable jewelry collection. But instead of replacing her diamonds, emeralds, and rubies, Fisher Landau used the insurance money to begin what would become one of the premiere contemporary art collections of the U.S.
Among the artists in the collection were Mark Rothko, Georgia O’Keeffe, Cy Twombly, and Andy Warhol, who famously did a silk screen portrait of Fisher Landau.
Her holdings eventually numbered 1,500 works, many of which were for years on view to the public at the Fisher Landau Center for Art, which she opened in a former parachute factory in Long Island City, Queens, in 1991. Suffering from Alzheimer’s disease in her later years, Fisher Landau closed the private museum in 2017.
An influential trustee at New York’s Whitney Museum of American Art for close to a quarter century, Fisher Landau made a major donation of 367 works to the institution in 2010. Said at the time to be worth $50 million to $75 million, the gift featured art by Jasper Johns, William Eggleston, Ed Ruscha, Robert Rauschenberg, and James Rosenquist, among other artists.
Femme à la montre (Woman With a Watch), 1932. Collection of Emily Fisher Landau. ” width=”807″ height=”1024″ srcset=”https://www.mecreates.com/story/news/wp-content/uploads/2023/08/picasso-watch-807×1024.jpeg 807w, https://news.artnet.com/app/news-upload/2023/08/picasso-watch-237×300.jpeg 237w, https://news.artnet.com/app/news-upload/2023/08/picasso-watch-39×50.jpeg 39w, https://news.artnet.com/app/news-upload/2023/08/picasso-watch.jpeg 1140w” sizes=”(max-width: 807px) 100vw, 807px”>
Pablo Picasso, Femme à la montre (Woman With a Watch), 1932. Collection of Emily Fisher Landau.
Last year, Fisher Landau loaned works by the likes of Piet Mondrian, Robert Indiana, Willem de Kooning, Glenn Ligon, and Agnes Martin for a special exhibition at the Norton Museum of Art in West Palm Beach, near her home in Palm Beach.
Among the expected highlights of any Fisher Landau auction will be a major Pablo Picasso work, Femme à la montre (Woman With a Watch), from 1932. (That’s considered the artist’s “annus mirabilis,” and even inspired a 2018 show at London’s Tate Modern.) Two of his works from that year hit the auction block in recent years, with Femme nue couchée selling for $67.5 million at Sotheby’s New York in 2022, and Femme assise près d’une fenêtre (Marie-Thérèse), 30 October 1932 fetching $103.4 million at Christie’s New York in 2021.
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All images © Lea Woo, shared with permission
Lea Woo coaxes subtle polarities from her illustrated interactions. Centering on women in moments of quiet affection and admiration, the renderings contrast a vintage style with modern subjects and a largely soft color palette with spots of bolder hues. “Red, a frequently used tone in my works, represents bravery and boldness and green a close relationship with mother nature,” she shares. Grainy, paper-like textures add to the retro feel of the scenes, which convey a warm tenderness between people and the birds, fish, and cats around them.
Based between Shanghai and Hangzhou, Woo draws stark distinctions between her personal works and commissions—recent collaborators include Burberry and The New Yorker. For the latter, she tends to start with a sketch that captures the directive, while other projects are more instinctive. “I open my heart for all possibilities and unexpected ‘accidents,’” the artist tells Colossal. “I collect and save my daily doodles and pictures I took for future use. With less set-ups, more random arrangements, I find it so much fun to freely combine different elements and they turned out to be harmoniously together at the end.”
Woo has prints, postcards, and other goods available in her shop, and you can follow her latest projects on Instagram.
Do stories and artists like this matter to you? Become a Colossal Member today and support independent arts publishing for as little as $5 per month. The article Subtle Hues and Papery Textures Create Intimate Atmospheres in Lea Woo’s Tender Illustrations appeared first on Colossal.
The last few decades of the 19th century brought unprecedented changes to New York City. The population exploded, growing from about 800,000 people in 1860 to more than 3 million by 1900, according to U.S. Census Bureau numbers. The Metropolitan Museum moved into its impressive Fifth Avenue location in 1880. The Brooklyn Bridge opened in 1883. Construction was completed on the luxurious Dakota Apartments in 1884. The Statue of Liberty was dedicated in 1886.
But just a few miles from the Gilded Age glory, more than a million people — many of them recent immigrants — were packed into squalid, dank neighborhoods where disease ran rampant and thousands of children died every year from the filthy conditions. As images of New York’s iconic landmarks were being shared across the world, the poor suffered just out of sight.
But one man decided to train his camera on the millions packed into the city’s shoddily built, six- to seven-story windowless tenements that offered no plumbing, light, ventilation, or fire escapes. In his efforts to expose New York’s poverty-stricken underbelly, Jacob August Riis produced some of the most iconic photographs of the late 19th century. International Photography Day on August 19 is a good day to remember the mighty impact of his photographs and how they helped the world realize the power of photography to expose injustice and repression.
“I Scrubs”— Little Katie from the West 52nd Street Industrial School, 1891–1892 (Jacob Riis, Library of Congress)Arriving in New York City in 1870 from Denmark, the 21-year-old Riis often was forced into the squalid conditions he would later record. By the time he was 28, he had found steady work as a writer, editor, and journalist, and was able to forge a firm path into the middle class. But his job never let him forget the misery he had experienced. A night-shift police reporter for a popular newspaper, he trailed policemen into some of the worst slums and seediest spots in the city.
When Riis tried to expose the squalid living conditions through his writing, he discovered that words had a limited effect. In his 1901 autobiography, The Making of an American, Riis wrote, “It was upon my midnight trips with the sanitary police that the wish kept cropping up in me that there were some way of putting before the people what I saw there.”
Jacob Riis, ca. 1903 (Library of Congress)In 1887, Riis saw an advertisement heralding the invention of magnesium flash that would allow photographers to illuminate dark places. He found two amateur photographers who were interested in the new technology to help him photograph life in the tenements, but they soon lost interest, so he learned to use the camera himself. He took his first picture at the Potter’s Field on Hart’s Island, where the poorest of the poor were buried. The overexposed photograph was an inauspicious technical beginning, but the image of gravediggers standing over a trench filled with a row of caskets remains as shocking today as it was then.
“The Potter’s Field, the Common Trench,” Hart’s Island, ca. 1890 (Jacob Riis, Museum of the City of New York)Thus began Riis’s journey of providing photographs that opened people’s eyes to the suffering of the poor. His unique photographs have only gained power and significance in the decades, providing an important historical record of life in the shadows of New York’s wealth. Some photos show only tenement buildings, while others record people sleeping in police stations, living in city dumps, hanging out in bars, or standing in alleyways. Many pictures focus on poor children working in sweatshops, selling newspapers, and sleeping in streets.
“Bandit’s Roost,” 1888 (Jacob Riis, MoMA)
“Lodgers in Bayard Street Tenement, Five Cents a Spot,” 1889 (Jacob Riis, MoMA)These images are raw, vulnerable, and realistic, revealing the chaos and trauma of poverty. Claustrophobic cramped rooms. Broken windows. Dark, streaked walls. Rumpled, torn, and ill-fitting clothes. Uncombed, matted hair and dirty faces. Kids in rags with no shoes, sleeping on stairs and in the streets.
“Minding the Baby” (Jacob Riis, MoMA)
“Street Arabs in their Sleeping Quarters” (Jacob Riis, My Modern Met)Riis first presented his photographs in lectures, “How the Other Half Lives and Dies in New York,” projecting images onto a screen by a “magic lantern.” He delivered his two-hour presentations to churches and civic groups in New York City and throughout the Northeast. Appealing to the tenets of his Christian faith, Riis petitioned for compassion and help for the people trapped in the tentacles of poverty.
“Police Station Lodgers,” women`s lodging room in the West 47th Street station (Picryl, Preus Museum)In 1890, he packaged his lecture material into a book, How the Other Half Lives, which became a bestseller and led to national fame. Although Riis characterized immigrants in terms that today would be considered racist, his work as a writer, lecturer, and photographer helped Americans recognize and combat some of the worst poverty and misery in New York. His efforts led to the abolition of the most decrepit tenements and the construction of many city parks, including today’s Columbus Park in what had been Mulberry Bend, one of the City’s most crime- and disease-ridden neighborhoods. Today, Riis’s legacy is commemorated through developments that still bear his name, such as the Jacob Riis Houses on the Lower East Side, the Jacob A. Riis Settlement House in Long Island City, and Jacob Riis Park in Far Rockaway.
Baxter Street Alley in Mulberry Bend (Jacob Riis, Museum of the City of New York)By the time he died in 1914, Riis had written 12 books and crisscrossed the country many times to give lectures. “Riis was the first muckraker and the first American social documentary photographer,” Bonnie Yochelson and Daniel Czitrom write in their 2014 book, Rediscovering Jacob Riis: Exposure Journalism and Photography in Turn-of-the-Century New York. “A century later, [his photographs] remain a powerful and unique record of the lived material conditions in turn-of-the-century New York.”
Riis’s work reminds us that much of what he witnessed over 100 years ago remains relevant to this day: that grinding poverty is still with us, and a segment of our society still dwells in homes that are dangerous and unfit, or live unhoused on the streets. But Riis understood we have a hard time fixing problems that we can’t — or don’t want — to see, and he showed how shining a light in dark places can often be the first step toward real change.
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