James Gurney Original Art

Dinotopia Museum Exhibition

2012-02-01T10:46:00.004-08:00

The biggest-ever exhibition of original Dinotopia artwork opened January 28 at the Leigh Yawkey Woodson Art Museum in Wausau, Wisconsin.

The exhibition features 61 original oil paintings created for the Dinotopia books. It will be on view through April 8, 2012.

The show includes paintings from three Dinotopia books, Dinotopia: A Land Apart From Time (1992), Dinotopia: The World Beneath (1995), and Dinotopia: Journey to Chandara (2007), along with a window into the creative process by means of preliminary sketches, plein air paintings, and handmade reference maquettes.

Two of the most important paintings in the Dinotopia series, Dinosaur Parade and Dinosaur Boulevard, which have not been publicly exhibited in more than 15 years, will also be included.

There are lots of activities scheduled for the run of the exhibit. James Gurney will be in attendance March 1-4 for lectures, workshops, and gallery walk-throughs.

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Here's some of the press coverage:

Review, Wausau Daily Herald

Photo gallery of Snow Sculptors

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There's more information at the Norman Rockwell Museum's website about hosting the Dinotopia exhibit at your museum.
Woodson Art Museum

Dinotopia Original at Riverside Art Museum

2011-10-22T09:14:00.000-07:00

The Riverside Art Museum is currently showing an exhibit called “Baby Tattooville on Parade.”

The Dinotopia original painting “Marketplace of Ideas,” from Dinotopia: Journey to Chandara included in the exhibit.

The exhibit continues through November 8 in Riverside, California.
LINKS
Riverside Art Museum: "Baby Tattooville on Parade"

Children's Book Illustration in Maine

2011-08-04T08:34:00.000-07:00

An exhibition of children’s book illustration has opened at the University of New England’s gallery in Portland, Maine, curated by its director, Anne Zill, at left.

The show includes original works by Dr. Seuss, Maurice Sendak, Jules Feiffer, Jerry Pinkney, Eric Carle, Barry Moser, and Trina Schart Hyman.
I’m honored to have two Dinotopia paintings in the show, “Windmill Village” and “Gold Dome.” The exhibition is on view through Oct. 30 .

"Children's Book Illustrators" official show site. http://www.une.edu/artgallery/childrensbook.cfm

Thanks to A.Y. Kamila of the Portland Press Herald blog for the photo.

Great Hudson River Exhibition

2011-07-06T08:04:00.000-07:00

An exhibition of landscape painting by fifty-two artists opens this Saturday, July 9 in Beacon, New York in a new exhibit space along the Hudson River. It’s called "The Great Hudson River Exhibition."

My painting, The Clove from Haines Falls will be part of the exhibition. This oil-on-linen painting was used on the cover of American Artist in November, 2006. It was also published in my book Color and Light: A Guide for the Realist Painter as part of a discussion on color gradation.

The view is from the top of Haines Falls, now part of a private community called Twilight Park, looking east across Kaaterskill Clove toward a misty sunrise. The Hudson River appears as a thin sliver of white in the distance.

I only offer a few paintings for sale per year, but I am making this major one available, because a large portion of the proceeds would benefit the Mill Street Loft, which helps young artists in Poughkeepsie. For more information about the painting, the exhibition, or about the opening event, please call Laurie Clark at the Mill Street Loft at 845.471.7477.

Here’s more about the opening event, which Jeanette and I and many of the artists will be attending:

LINKS AND INFO
The Great Hudson River Exhibition at the new River Center exhibition space
Red Flynn Road @Long Dock Park on the Beacon Waterfront in New York State.
Beacon is about 70 miles north of New York City.
Show opening at Saturday, July 9, 4:00-6:00pm.
The show will remain on view through Sunday, September 4th. 845.471.7477,
 Exhibition Facebook page
James Gurney Original Art Blog

Bonhams 20th Century Illustration Auction

2011-05-27T13:05:00.000-07:00

Bonhams has announced that an important Dinotopia painting by James Gurney will be included in its June auction of 20th century Illustration Art (Gurney's piece is at lower right, above).

"Festival Day," illustration for Dinotopia: Journey to Chandara (Kansas City, Mo: Andrews McNeel Pub, 2007).
Oil on 100% rag illustration board. Signed lower left.
Matted and framed.
27.5 x 44.5cm (10 13/16 x 17 1/2in).

This major painting for the bestseller Dinotopia: Journey to Chandara is the first to be auctioned in the United States. It was part of a traveling exhibition that toured the U.S., the U.K., France and Switzerland. It depicts an outdoor festival in the village of Jorotongo on the lost continent of Dinotopia. Children play lawn bowling and circle games, singers belt out madrigals near an Einiosaurus, and a Stegosaurus awaits a game of "bucktail," where he tosses teenagers into haystacks from his spike tail. To the left, a banquet is held for the adults. Many people from Gurney's small town in the Hudson Valley joined in to pose for this scene, and Gurney based the vegetation and architecture on the islands in the South Pacific.

PUBLICATION HISTORY
Dinotopia: Journey to Chandara, (Andrews McMeel, Kansas City, USA, 2007, page 132.)
Dinotopia: Un Voyage À Chandara Fleurus, (Paris, 2008).
In addition, the work has been published in Bulgarian, Estonian, Czech, Greek, Polish, Hungarian, and Romanian editions of Dinotopia: Journey to Chandara.

EXHIBITION HISTORY
3 November to 27 January, 2008. Return to Dinotopia. Oshkosh Public Museum, Oshkosh, Wisconsin.
4 October to 8 March, 2009. “Retour à Dinotopia.” Maison d’Ailleurs, Musée de la science-fiction, de l’utopie et des voyages extraordinaires, Yverdon-les-Baines, Switzerland. www.ailleurs.ch
22 May to October, 2008. “Journey to Dinotopia.” Centre for Life, Times Square, Newcastle upon Tyne, UK. www.life.org.uk
28 October to 1 November, 2008. “Utopiales Festival.” Cité Internationale des Congrès, Nantes Métropole. www.utopiales.org

Link to Bonhams Lot Detail
Sold for US$10,980 inclusive of buyer's premium, a record sale price for a Dinotopia painting.

Current Group Exhibition: "Our Towns"

2011-05-27T12:50:00.000-07:00

Mill Street Loft has opened the group exhibition called “Our Towns: the Cities and Towns of the Hudson Valley.” Nearly 30 artists in various media are participating. The juror was M. Stephen Doherty of Plein Air magazine.

"Blockbuster" (upper left) was awarded third prize overall by Mr. Doherty.

Of Gurney's four oil paintings in the show, three are plein air pieces (all but the one in the upper right). All are NFS or already in private collections.

James Gurney will be doing a gallery talk on Thursday, June 9 at 6:00pm. The exhibition will be up through July 15, 2011. For more information, call 845.471.7477 or visit Mill Street Loft's website.

Arthur and the Telescope

2011-05-27T12:44:00.000-07:00

RECENT PRIVATE SALE
Artist: James Gurney, Born 1958
Title: Arthur and Telescope
Size: Art: 16 x 19.5 cm; Board: 30.5 x 30.5 cm.
Medium: Oil paint
Surface: Heavy weight acid-free illustration board
Signed: Lower left.
Date: 2006
Publication History: Dinotopia: Journey to Chandara, (USA)
(Dinotopia: Un Voyage À Chandara) Fleurus, Paris,
2007, page 1.
Sells for €4500.00 ( US$6416.00)

Dinotopia Exhibition Opens Today in Michigan

2011-01-20T14:20:00.000-08:00

When the Norman Rockwell Museum in Massachusetts hosted a Dinotopia exhibition in 2006, a small group of Dinotopia fans from all over the world assembled at a mini-convention called “The Stockbridge Stomp.”

I joined them for the festivities and then invited them to my studio a short drive away, so that they could pose for a painting I was working on.

We had a big bowl of homemade soup together, and then they put on costumes, some of which they brought with them. They posed in small groups, imagining themselves standing beside a Styracosaurus and a Chasmosaurus. Many of the figures in the painting were based on that impromptu gathering.

The painting appeared on the title page of Dinotopia Journey to Chandara. The painting also appears in Color and Light, page 116.

This painting will be one of about 40 paintings from Dinotopia Journey to Chandara, opening today at the The Alden B. Dow Museum of Science and Art in, Midland, Michigan.
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The Alden B. Dow Museum of Science and Art/ Midland Center for the Arts
Web article about the exhibit, which includes “Bigger than T. Rex: Giant Killer Dinosaurs of Argentina.”
Exhibit review on MLive.com
Journey to Chandara at the Dinotopia Store.
Journey to Chandara on Amazon.
Thanks to all the Stompers!

Brafa Festival Originals

2011-01-20T08:40:00.001-08:00

Two original oil paintings from Dinotopia will be offered for sale at the Brafa art festival in Belgium, which officially begins tomorrow, January 21st and will be on show until January 30th.

The paintings include “Arthur and Telescope,” the illustration on page 1 of Dinotopia: Journey to Chandara (2007), and “Imperial Palace,” which appears both on page 132 of Chandara and page 154 of Imaginative Realism. • Sold for €4500.00 at Brafa.

The paintings will be on view at booth 115, the Daniel Maghen Gallery, which has a select assortment of fantasy and comic art from Europe and America. For more information contact Olivier Souille at Galerie Daniel Maghen at info (at) danielmaghen.com.
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Galerie Daniel Maghen
Brafa Festival

Unveiling at the Jules Verne Museum

2010-11-09T01:31:00.001-08:00

Yesterday I had the privilege of attending the unveiling of two paintings that are now part of the permanent collection at the Jules Verne Museum in Nantes, France.

Upper left: The paintings on the wall of the museum near the entrance; the dedication ceremony yesterday; the Jules Verne medal presented to me by Jean-Louis Jossic, the cultural minister of Nantes; and standing near the fountain in the Place Royale, where the painting is set.

According to the article in today's Ouest-France:

"Le musée acquiert deux illustrations de l'auteur de Dinotopia: l'une, Décollage nocturne, a servi pour l'affice du festival des Utopiales 2009, tandis qu'une autre représenet le musée installé sur son rocher."

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Ouest France: "Deux oeuvres de James Gurney au musée Jules Verne"
Musée Jules Verne
Utopiales Festival 2009

Previous GJ Posts:
Floating Jules Verne Museum
Utopiales Painting, Part 7: Final Painting
Part 6: Washin
Part 5: Pencil Drawing
Part 4: Lighting
Part 3: Maquette
Part 2: Researching Insect Flight
Part 1: Initial Sketches

Fish Fleet at the Lucca Festival

2010-11-09T01:31:00.000-08:00

One of the early civilizations of Dinotopia was centered in Poseidos, where machines replaced living creatures.
The ships in the harbor resembled giant fish. Flying vehicles called skimmers were fashioned after trilobites. Not a scrap of dirt or foliage remained in the island capital.

The book Dinotopia: First Flight (1999) follows the adventures of one young cadet who escaped that dystopian empire and tried to foil its plans to invade the rest of Dinotopia.

This painting will be reproduced in the upcoming book Color and Light: A Guide for the Realist Painter. It was also included in the exhibition, concluded yesterday, at the Ducal Palace in Lucca, Italy.

Tajan Auction Results

2010-10-17T08:24:00.000-07:00

Tajan auction item 212 "Emperors Offer" (oil painted image: 17.5cm x 29.5cm) sold at the hammer for 3800 Euros.
The customer paid a total price of 5000 euros with the taxes, about $7000 US.

Item 214: "Turnip Cart" (oil painted image 17cm x 37cm) sold at hammer for 3000 Euros. The customer paid 4000 Euros, about $5600 dollars with fees and taxes.

Turnip Cart / Tajan Auction

2010-09-26T12:02:00.000-07:00

“Turnip Cart” is the last of three original oil paintings that will be offered for sale in the fantasy and comics auction in Paris on October 16.

It shows Bix walking alongside a Triceratops while Arthur Denison hitches a ride with a farmer named Ilya Shinshik. That last name is an anagram of “Shishkin,” one of the Russian painters who influenced the paintings published in Dinotopia: Journey to Chandara.

The painting also was reproduced in Imaginative Realism to illustrate the compositional device called “spokewheeling.”
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Emperors_Offer & Imperial Palace
Galerie Daniel Maghen is the expert adviser in the sale. For more information, please email Olivier Souille at "info@danielmaghen.com"
Tajan’s October bande dessinée auction (the final online catalog is still in preparation).
James Gurney Original Art blog
Dinotopia website
James Gurney Original Art blog
Dinotopia: Journey to Chandara

Imperial Palace

2010-09-20T07:37:00.000-07:00

The second of three original Dinotopia paintings for sale in the upcoming auction shows the Imperial Palace of the city of Chandara.

The view looks east across the Zhengtao River. The emperor’s palace occupies a high and remote prominence in the center of the city. Morning sunlight illuminates the top of the gold dome and the flying buttresses, while thunderclouds assemble over Silver Bay.

My approach was inspired by several artists of the past who specialized in otherworldly moods in landscape: Frederic Church, Isaac Levitan, Andreas Achenbach, Hans Gude, and Jean Ferdinand Monchablon.

The painting is in oil, and appeared in Dinotopia: Journey to Chandara, which was published in USA, France, Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Greece. It also was published in Imaginative Realism: How to Paint What Doesn’t Exist. Other paintings from the book toured museums in Yverdon, Switzerland, Newcastle, England, and Nantes, France.
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Earlier post about another painting in the Tajan auction.
Galerie Daniel Maghen is the expert adviser in the sale. For more information, please email Olivier Souille at "info@danielmaghen.com"
Tajan’s October bande dessinée auction (the final online catalog is still in preparation).
James Gurney Original Art blog
Dinotopia website
James Gurney Original Art blog
Dinotopia: Journey to Chandara

Dinotopia Originals to be in Tajan Auction

2010-09-15T10:42:00.000-07:00

Some of you have asked if original art from the Dinotopia books will ever be made available to collectors. For many years I’ve kept them off the market so that I can make them available for museum exhibitions.

Until now, no paintings from Dinotopia: The World Beneath, First Flight, or Journey to Chandara have ever been sold.

On October 16, the Tajan auction house in Paris will conduct their first-ever sale of bande dessinée, which includes comics and fantasy art. They have invited me to participate.

The auction will include three original oil paintings from Dinotopia: Journey to Chandara, (published as Dinotopia: Un Voyage À Chandara in French).

The first painting, from page 151, is called “The Emperor’s Offer.” It shows the main characters, Arthur and Bix, with the officials of Chandara. The image is 17.5 x 29.5 cm on a 25.5 x 38 cm acid-free board, and is signed lower right.

This painting is very special to me and I worked hard to capture that other-worldly light and mood.

I posed a variety of models, including myself and my wife, and used a maquette to work out the pale, glowing silhouette of Chandara in the distance.

I’ll show the other two paintings in later posts.
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Galerie Daniel Maghen is the expert adviser in the sale, which will also include Moebius, Bilal, Pratt, and Franquin.
Tajan’s October bande dessinée auction (the final online catalog is still in preparation).
James Gurney Original Art blog
Dinotopia website
For more information, please email Olivier Souille at "info@danielmaghen.com"

Bloomsbury Auction of Gurney Book

2010-08-25T08:24:00.000-07:00

Auction result:
279. GURNEY, James (b. 1958) Dinotopia: A Land Apart from Time Atlanta, GA.: Turner Publishing, Inc., 1992. 8vo. Original cloth in original printed dust jacket. Provenance: acquired directly from the artist.
First edition in dust jacket signed by the artist with an original illustration on the title page. The very first printing was small because it was issued only for giveaways at the American Bookseller's convention; the bookstore edition that appeared in Fall 1992 is the second printing.

This special copy has two other unique features. In 1996 Mr. Gurney designed the "World of Dinosaurs" stamps for the U.S. Postal Service. One of those stamps is included on the half-title page of the book, along with an official "Artist Station" cancellation of May 10, 1997 in the artist's hometown of Rhinebeck, N. Y. Dinotopia was on the The New York Times Best Seller List and has been translated into 18 languages in 32 countries.

Sold for $600
Sale NY040, 9th December 2009, link to Bloomsbury Auction page.

Cellphone Tour at the Norton

2010-08-25T08:21:00.000-07:00

Here’s a fun way that you can experience the Dinotopia exhibition that’s now in West Palm Beach, Florida.

In the back of one of the exhibition rooms is a painting called “Skybax Rider.”

If you have a telephone handy, dial the following number, and you can hear me in your ear talking about it. Dial 561-515-4185. Then hit extension #4.
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Tour hosted by OnCell systems
"Dinotopia: The Fantastical Art of James Gurney" at the Norton Museum of Art

Norton Museum of Art

2010-08-25T08:19:00.000-07:00

Glenn Tomlinson of the Norton Museum of Art in West Palm Beach, Florida, introduces the Dinotopia exhibition in this video.

Norton Museum website
For potential museum venues inquiring about possibly hosting the Dinotopia show, please contact Mary Melius at the Norman Rockwell Museum at mmelius (at) nrm.org or me at jgurneyart (at) yahoo.com

Dinotopia Originals in Delaware

2010-05-16T03:09:00.000-07:00

Today is the last day for the exhibition of Dinotopia originals at the Delaware Museum of Art. The next stop will be the Norton Museum of Art in West Palm Beach, Florida.

Locust Grove Auction, April 26, 2009

2009-02-27T14:26:00.000-08:00

Poet's Walk, by James Gurney, oil on linen, 20 x 30 inches, will be featured in the upcoming Locust Grove Invitational Fine Art Auction, Sunday, April 26th at 1 PM.

The painting has just returned from a loan to U.S. Permanent Delegation to the Conference on Disarmament in Geneva, Switzerland as part of the Art in Embassies Program.

Locust Grove is located at 2683 South Road in Poughkeepsie, New York 845.454.4500, ext. 17. You can find out more about the event here. SOLD