Studio Visit: Masao Hanawa | Salon Tokyo!

Masao Hanawa stands in front of his mural "Seven Samurai" painted for Toho Studios, Tokyo*

I recently returned from a trip to Tokyo where I participated in a unique event known as "the Salon."  Each year in a different city,  decorative painters and muralists from all over the world gather to exhibit their work, demonstrate techniques for each other and the public, exchange ideas, and of course, party.  Salon Tokyo 2013 was brilliantly hosted by the fabulous Yaeko Kurimata, my friend and colleague on the other side of the Pacific, whose studio I visited in 2009.
 

my exhibit panels for Salon Tokyo featured a Yomuiri Giants (Tokyo) baseball player and Toshiro Mifune from the Kurasawa film "Seven Samurai" painted on copper-gilt canvas.

 

Though I have not attended Salon in some years, I do credit this annual event with having introduced me to some great comrades-in-paint, among them Pascal Amblard, Alison Woolley, Lucretia Moroni, Karl Groissenberger,  Niels Jongdahl and so many others!

East Meets West in Niels Jongdahl's' masterful trompe l'oeil painting.

In a business that can be terribly competitive, closed, and often lonely and demoralizing, Salon participants tend to be open, appreciative, happy to share, willing to argue, and above all supportive of each others art practice,  which I believe comes from the assured confidence of someone who really knows their craft and loves their work.

So here I have just hung my panels at the Salon exhibition space, feeling generally humbled, when I caught sight of this painting:

Masao Hanawa's monumental self-portrait. The beautiful ornamental panels to the left are by Jean-Luc Sablé

and fell instantly and desperately in art-love with it, and incidentally with whomever is responsible for painting it.  This is my kind of painting:  surreal-scaled, detailed, a bit unconventional, and beautifully painted. I was stunned and elated while fellow painters gathered around it, arguing about how it was painted and with what medium or tools.

Masao Hanawa demonstrating at Salon Tokyo

Then behind me I heard Masao Hanawa speaking, in fluent Italian, with Stefano Luca (another fantastic painter, beyond all belief) at which point I basically sputtered some complimenti and ran outside to calm down.  (Understand for an agoraphobic person such as myself that I am already on threat level orange in a frenetic city like Tokyo, so I must run and hide fairly frequently.)

The next day I found Masao-san painting a  Boucher-esque panel of cherubs and worked up the nerve to talk to him. He showed me his portfolio which features a gigantic ~80 foot high mural (see above) of the Seven Samurai painted on an exterior wall of Toho Studios,  (are you sensing a theme here?) and from there we had a very easy conversation which continued throughout the week and revealed many other shared interests.    

After Salon ended and the participants reluctantly parted ways, I had an extra day in town and was able to make a short visit to the Atelier Hanawa.

Large scale trompe l'œil by Masao Hanawa at Tokyo DisneySea Resort *

work in progress, tools, and light fill the large shop of Atelier-Hanawa, Tokyo

grisaille sample for the 7 Samurai mural repurposed as a screen

I like visiting the studios of other muralists when I travel- I find it gives me some insight into the process; what do we have in common (storage issues!) and what space-saving or cool tips can I pick up - or share?

Masao-san has painted enormous amounts of trompe l'œil and fresco-style murals for Tokyo DisneySea and many other commercial spaces as well as a masterful oil paintings in the Northern European tradition.  He also spent several years living in Genoa, Italy, painting and  restoring mural work there, and furthering his skills in classical European style painting.     

You should visit m-hanawa.com for many more stunning examples of his accomplished painting style.    

Trompe l'œil murals and grottesche ornament by Masao Hanawa *

some moments in the studio of Masao Hanawa, Tokyo

Masao Hanawa in his studio

further reading - more pictures:
  

Salon Forever

Atelier Hanawa website

Akira Kurasawa

Toshiro Mifune

SalonTokyo2013 @Flickr  more pictures from this amazing event

Lynne's previous posts about Japan
 
jib door is in the glossary!

images in this post by Lynne Rutter,  May 2013
except *  ©Masao Hanawa
click on images to view larger

Lynne Rutter Studio

Églomisé Cephalopod

églomisé mural (~5 feet high) by Lynne Rutter.  photo by David Papas

Allow me to introduce you to Nolan.
Commissioned for a home in Hawaii, Nolan is a very large octopus,  gilt, etched, and painted on the reverse of a 5 foot high slab of glass using a set of techniques known as verre églomisé. 
The body of the octopus is gilt  with aluminum leaf arranged in a random broken pattern to create the texture of the cephalopod's skin.  The thickness of this metal allowed me to etch the details  through it using a cross-hatching pattern very much like etching a printing plate. The suckers of the tentacles are gilt with 22 karat gold.

work in progress, Nolan slinking over a cart in the studio

During the process I asked our client if she'd like to give this noble  creature a name, and she immediately wrote back:  "Nolan came blazing through the ether like a shot…I was completely powerless to do anything else.  I believe he's just been waiting for his opportunity to let us know who he is…what else could I do?"   

detail showing the etching and paua shell eye

The surface of the octopus reflects the color of whatever is near it, much like the way the octopus camouflages itself in the water.  A final touch, the eye is a piece of abalone shell from New Zealand.

Nolan was packed into a very large crate last week and is now en route to a beautiful house on Oahu.  We dearly miss him in the studio and wish him well in his new home.

Lynne Rutter Studio

In Memoriam: Garth Benton

Mural by Garth Benton in the Outer Peristyle at the Getty Villa, Malibu CA.  via Flickr

Garth Benton in 1994

This week I was saddened to learn of the passing of a great muralist, Mr. Garth Benton, an internationally recognized artist who was well known for his stylish first-century style trompe l'oeil decoration of the magnificent Getty Villa in Malibu, California. 

Mr. Benton "died a after with battle cancer" in May of 2012. I am surprised I did not see it reported anywhere and I only figured it out after I noticed that his website had gone down and began making inquiries.  Being a pre-internet personality Mr. Benton was not widely mentioned on the web,  but his work was nevertheless world-class, and very well-known in its day.

 trompe l'oeil bas-relief painted by Garth Benton

I had the pleasure of working on a project with Garth Benton many years ago when he came to San Francisco to paint some spectacular Chinoiserie murals in a private residence here.  He had arrived in town with inexplicably blank wallpaper apparently intending to paint the murals on site, but with no help and nowhere near enough time.  I got a desperate call from the wallpaper hanger (who knew I also paint in this style) and rather than ask what the heck had gone wrong, out of respect for this great master painter  I put my nearly entire studio at Mr. Benton's disposal - scaffolding, buckets, tarps, ladders, brushes, and as many assistants as I could round up - and we all learned a lot from him while helping him complete his commission, some of the crew often working until 3 AM or even all night, trying to meet the deadline.  While we painted, we were regaled with entertaining stories about his many celebrity clients and amazing jobs he'd done over the years.  It was exhausting and exciting and the job was truly beautiful.

Ballroom mural by Garth Benton in the Getty Residence, San Francisco

A couple of years later Mr. Benton made headlines for suing his clients, Ann and Gordon Getty, for having painted over one of his older murals in their San Francisco home, which he had hoped to photograph for a glossy catalogue raisonné of his work. The mural had been painted on canvas and could easily have been removed, but the Gettys had not realized this when they redecorated, and had to settle a large amount of money on him for the error.  While I felt deeply over the heartbreaking loss of the artwork, the case made me cringe: suing an otherwise supportive client likely didn't help his future business. The mural is still gone and the book was never published. 

A Chinoiserie mural painted by Garth Benton for Michael Taylor Design in the 1980s

We exchanged a few emails over the years,  but regrettably never did get to meet again.

So I offer this short tribute to Mr. Garth Benton, to be remembered for his fine work, and his influence on a generation of muralists.

images 2-5 via Internet Archive

Lynne Rutter Murals + Decorative Painting

Paris en Grisaille

"Les Monuments de Paris" mural by Lynne Rutter, photo by David Papas

Recently I got the opportunity to return to a client's home to photograph the mural I painted for them. How exciting to see this room finished!   The magnificent Saarinen table is surrounded with chairs upholstered in the most fantastic blue velvet,  and crowned with a vintage Italian chandelier in crystal and rose brass. The floors have a black cerused oak finish.
The interior design of this gorgeous room is the work of Gary Spain.  The shot was styled by Damian Alvarado and photographed by David Papas.  Of course I assisted in the shoot, mainly by looking through the camera now and then and saying "wow, you guys!"

The mural is painted en grisaille using dozens of shades of warm gray, and is patterned after  Les Monuments de Paris by Josef Dufour. It is painstakingly hand-painted in the style of the early 19th century block-printed scenic wallpapers, or papiers peints panoramiques. Unlike the original paper this mural is painted on canvas, and is quite durable, a necessity in a home with young children. I also added a few Paris monuments not found in the original paper and freely (re)arranged the design to best suit the room.

  
More about the creation of this mural here.
click on image to view larger

 

Lynne Rutter Studio

Gustavian Bench

I dreamed of a little gray bench

For at least 20 years or more this small neoclassical bench has been kicked around my tiny home - I used it as a vanity stool,  and for a while as a piano bench - all the while it was begging to be reupholstered at least. With a few hours to spare in my studio, I finally got around to doing something about it.

before:  the sweet fluted legs attracted me to this piece

Dating from the 1910s, this nice little bench is blessed with carved fluted legs and is solidly built- but it had a bad break in one part of the frame and had been buried under magazines and finally wound up in my basement gathering even more neglect.  Once in my studio, I  gave my old friend a good dusting-off.

straightened and cleaned

I repaired the break with fish glue and some clamps. All of the joints tightened, the entire surface was then cleaned with fine steel wool and some alcohol.  I didn't bother repairing any dents or scratches.  A couple of layers of walnut crystal stain evened up the wood color and brought it back more to its original intent. I could have given this a nice French Polish this at this point,  but I decided that what I wanted was a simple, painted bench.

after:  the wee painted bench of my dreams

Two coats of Annie Sloan Chalk Paint gave me the perfect Gustavian look.  This is really nice, easy to use paint for furniture. The color here is "French Linen."     I decided not to "distress" or artificially age the surface any further, as I am sure dings and scrapes will appear in time, quite naturally. The painted surface was burnished and polished with two coats of micro-cyrstalline wax, and finally the seat was re-covered with a bit of Belgian linen left over from one of my artists smocks.
I'm quite please with this little project.  What do you think?

Lynne Rutter Murals + Decorative Painting