Happy 20th Anniversary The Matador ! Part 4: All versions 1993-2013 suite

Posted on September 18, 2013 by plecocq

In addition to the remakes of the Corrida, and with my taste to play with the masterpieces of the classic artworks… it was fun to place the Matador within others paintings.

They have been published in a special chapter of   “Chefs-d’oeuvre/masterpieces by Pascal Lecocq” (Usa, 2011), available online, under the name of  “Self References”.

Excerpt: ” And Pascal did more than one with his signature pic of “The Matador”, as a painting buried in Santa’s sack, hung on wall in a living or a board room, on a poster seen by transparency on a window, or as a sculpture inspired by it at the top of the Colosseum or displaying the famous beach towel made from his masterpiece.”

Larger pics to be published on the social medias this week.


   

CATFISH AU SALON – Catfish in the living room –
oil on canvas by Pascal Lecocq, The Painter of Blue ®, 46x55cm, 18″x22″, 2002, lec601, private coll. Paris, France. © www.pascal-lecocq.com.
   
CONSEIL D’ADMINISTRATION – Board of directors –
oil on canvas by Pascal Lecocq, The Painter of Blue ®, 61x92cm, 24″x36″, 2003, lec654, private coll. Mexico City, Mexico. © www.pascal-lecocq.com.
Published in Yam (Israel, 2005), Ocean Geographic (Australia, 2010)
Prints on paper or canvas available.
    
CAR BOOT
oil on canvas by Pascal Lecocq, The Painter of Blue ®, 41x51cm, 16″x20″, 2005, lec706, private collection, Douglasville, GA © www.pascal-lecocq.com.
    
CLAUS U/W TOUR HOHOHO!
oil on canvas by Pascal Lecocq, The Painter of Blue ®, 46x61cm, 18″x24″, 2007, lec755, private coll.  Ferney, France. © www.pascal-lecocq.com.
Behind Santa’s left shoulder, Pascal’s “Matador”.
Published in Florida DiveShow (USA, 2007),
Prints on paper or canvas, mouse pad, mug or tart tile available.
     
CHARIOTS RACE
oil on canvas by Pascal Lecocq, The Painter of Blue ®, 46x92cm, 18″x36″, 2008, lec779, private coll.  Boca Raton, FL. © www.pascal-lecocq.com.
Published in Diving Almanach Yearbook (Canada, 2008), Festival Mondial de l’Image Sous-marine Programme (France, 2009), Asian Diver (Singapore, 2011), Travelhost (USA, 2012)
Prints on paper or canvas available.
    
CHUCK’S AIR REFILL
oil on canvas by Pascal Lecocq, The Painter of Blue ®, 61x76cm, 24″x30″, 2010, lec822, available. © www.pascal-lecocq.com.
Prints on paper  available.
As  the   “Chefs-d’oeuvre/masterpieces by Pascal Lecocq”  put it: “The painting within a painting within a painting.

Pascal is a big fan of all paintings depicting a Cabinet of Curiosities  like the ones of Frans Francken
the Younger (1581-1642) or Jacques Poirier (1928-2002), the master of the realist
“Trompe l’Oeil”…, or a gallery of paintings like painted by Paolo Panini (1691-1765), or Hubert
Robert (1733-1808)…,  intimately making an immemorial chain of artifacts, artworks,
painters to continue…
If one sees Pascal’s connections with collector Sir Joan Soane (1753-1837), writer
Georges Pérec (1936-1982) or filmmaker Peter Greenaway (b.1942), and his wit
playing with riddles, rebuses, alliterations, correspondences, puns, symbols and
numbers, it is logical to end with a painting composed as a matryoshka doll: the
bears look at a billboard, which is a previous Pascal’s painting (“Cuppycake”), which
includes a towel printed on with Pascal’s signature painting “The Matador”.”

    

CUPPYCAKE
oil on canvas by Pascal Lecocq, The Painter of Blue ®, 31x61cm, 12″x24″, 2009. lec798. Private collection, Antibes, France.
 © www.pascal-lecocq.com.
    

CLIMATE CHANGE
Oil on canvas by Pascal Lecocq, The Painter of Blue ®, 61x76cm, 24″x30″, 2009. lec801. Private collection, Dale City, VA.
Prints on paper or canvas available.

Published in Ocean Geographic (Australia, 201o).

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Happy 20th Anniversary The Matador ! Part 3: All versions 1993-2013

Posted on September 15, 2013 by plecocq

I’m not used to paint several versions of a painting as I have so many ideas for new subjects and not enough time…
Despite some businessmen asking me to make a serie on the subject with the different passes of the bullfighting… I’d prefer working on a new idea. There is one Corrida, that’s it. (see previous post about the original painting).
When I have been planning to organize my 20th anniversary restropective with a large amount of paintings, I thought of making a large size painting. But it’s not, had never been, and will never be, the way I’m working. When I get an instant idea and I see it in my head, I know which size it will be.
Instead of looking what to do,  I decided to redo the Matador in a huge size.

Corrida Grande – acrylic paints on canvas by Pascal Lecocq, The Painter of Blue ®, 360x300cm , 142″x118″, lec453, 1995, public.coll.Nausicaa, Centre de la Mer, Boulogne sur Mer, France. © www.pascal-lecocq.com.

Published  in Festival Mondial de l’Image Sous-marine Programme (France, 1997), Nice-Matin (France, 1997), Dykking (Norway, 1999), Festival Mondial de l’Image Sous-marine Programme (France, 1999), Diving Club (Russia, 2000).

Then, when the edition of 3000 prints came to an end, and while I was starting to publish numbers of multiples of my paintings (giclees on paper, canvas or tiles), I needed a great picture of the original painting to proceed with. But I was in the USA, the original was in Paris and all the transparencies I had, not good enough to print.
I decided to redo The Matador for myself, not for sale, in a larger size than the original.
“Corrida III”, oil on canvas 48″x40″ was completed in 2006 and been published in different sizes and supports. It was the artwork shown at the Museum of Art of Fort Lauderdale for the Shark Exhibition May 2012-Jan 2013.

Corrida III -The Matador III-,  oil on canvas by Pascal Lecocq, The Painter of Blue ®, 122×102 cm, 48″x40″, 2006, lec725, artist coll. ©www.pascal-lecocq.com.
Published in  Northwest Dive News (cover, USA, 2007), Diving Almanac Yearbook (Canada, 2007), Diving Almanac book of Records (Canada, 2010), Web Plongee (France, 2010), Dive News Wire (USA, 2010), Dive News Wire (USA, 2010), X-Ray Mag (Denmark, 2010), Chefs-d’oeuvre / Masterpieces by Pascal Lecocq (USA, 2011), Shark ! a visual story (USA, 2012), Travelhost magazine(USA, 2012), Padi (USA, 2013).
An other opportunity I jumped at was the underwater exhibition in a quarry in Québec in 2010. During the 1st exhibition of AQUART 2010, in the workshop of the Aquartistes, five huge half-spheres of 4 feet by 8, were painted by the artists under the eyes and sometimes with the collective complicity of the public. I realized a new version of  my “Matador”. The half-spheres are immersed in the Flintkote Quarry , added to the permanent works which AQUART leaves at the bottom of water every year since 2008. The short notice and short session allowed me to choose again the Matador, which I painted with acrylic paints – not my favorite medium, but considering the timing (Aug 6-7-8, 2010)  and the location of the artwork….-.

       

Corrida Aquart, acrylic on fiberglass by Pascal Lecocq, The Painter of Blue ®, half sphere 122x244cm, 4″x8″, 2010, lec814, public coll.  Thetfort Mines, Québec ©www.pascal-lecocq.com.
Published in  Festival Mondial de l’Image Sous-marine Programme (France, 2010), Divosea (France, 2010), En Profondeur (Québec, 2011), InVertum (Russia,2011).

            

I made also a Corrida alike watercolors painting for the 10th anniversary of the Yam Magazine (Israel, 1998):

Corridyam, watercolors on paper  by Pascal Lecocq, The Painter of Blue ®, 20.4 x 31cm, 8″x12″, Lec490a, 1997, priv.coll. Raamana, Israel. © www.pascal-lecocq.com

Published in Yam (Israel, 1998).

For promoting the first Uzzi towel, I repainted the Matador on the windows of the Uzzi stores…

On Las Olas Blvd, Fort Lauderdale, Feb 2001

     

On John Ringling Circle, Sarasota, Florida, Feb, 2001

On Las Olas Blvd, Fort Lauderdale, dec 2001

               

I even made a body painting of it, Feb 2001.

 

The full serie of the Sketchbook Projects by the Art-House co-op and Brooklyn Art Library I’m still working on,  bears a drawing logo of the Corrida page one of each volume.

And the fun part now: I put the Corrida inside other paintings.

…in the next posts.

 

 

 

 

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Happy 20th Anniversary The Matador ! Part 2: The Press Book 1993-2013

Posted on September 12, 2013 by plecocq

The Corrida has been published almost 95 times (as our knowledge) in 20 different countries.

    Have a look to the Large Portfolio
      Northwest Dive News with Pascal's Matador cover

Here are the links from our pressbook to read them online:

Nice-Matin (France, 1993), Lettre de Méditerranée 2000 (France, 1994), Yam (cover, Israel, 1995), Mer et Littoral (France, 1995), Red sea Magazine (Israel, 1995), Le Pays d’Auge (France, 1995), Marie-Claire Maison (France, 1996), Plongee-Magazine (France, 1996), Connaissances des Hommes (France, 1996), Librairie du Plongeur (France, 1996), Océans (France, 1996), Duiken (The Netherlands, 1997), Tauchen (Germany, 1997), Tslilia (Israel, 1997), Yam (Israel, 1998), Oktopus (Russia, 1998), Katadysi (cover, Greece, 1998), World Expo’98 Lisboa (Portugal, 1998), Sport Divers Journal (cover, China, 1998), Fun Plongee (Belgium, 1998), Masq (Belgium, 1998), Pascal Lecocq Diving Book (cover, Israel, 1999), Dykking (Norway, 1999), Le Renouveau (Tunisia, 1999), Diving Club (Russia, 2000), Uzzi Catalogue (USA, 2000), Oktopus (Russia, 2001), Sarasota Herald Tribune (USA, 2201), Asian Diver (Singapore,2001), Eco-Nature (Nouvelles-Calédonie, 2002), Submarine (Hungary, 2002), Neptun (Russia, 2003), Fantasea (USA, 2003), L’Equipe-Magazine (France, 2003), Mer et Littoral (France, 2003), Aqua (Ukraina, 2003), Montmartre à la Une (France, 2005), Yam (Israel, 2006), Diver (Canada, 2006), Teva (France, 2009), Going Down (USA, 2010), Coral Magazine (USA, 2011).

As the Corrida III: Northwest Dive News (cover, USA, 2007), Diving Almanac Yearbook (Canada, 2007), Diving Almanac book of Records (Canada, 2010), Web Plongee (France, 2010), Dive News Wire (USA, 2010), Dive News Wire (USA, 2010), X-Ray Mag (Denmark, 2010), Chefs-d’oeuvre / Masterpieces by Pascal Lecocq (USA, 2011), Shark ! a visual story (USA, 2012), Travelhost magazine (USA, 2012), Padi (USA, 2013).

As a print:   Ouest-France (France, 2004), Divetek (Russia, 2004), Festival Mondial de l’Image Sous-marine Programme (France, 2004), Paradise-Plongee (France, 2006), Shark Research Institute (USA, 2006), Diving Almanac Yearbook (Canada, 2006), Ocean Geographic (Australia, 2007), Oktopus (Russia, 2007), Diving Almanac Yearbook (Canada, 2007), Diving Almanac Yearbook (Canada, 2008), Midwest Dive News (USA, 2010), Ocean Geographic (Australia, 2010), Northwest Dive News (USA, 2011), Northeast Dive News (USA, 2011), Midwest Dive News (USA, 2011), En Profondeur (Québec, 2011), Southeast Dive News (USA, 2011), InVertum (Russia, 2012), EnUSAnews (USA, 2012),  Padi (USA, 2013), Sun-Sentinel (USA, 2013).
 As the  Corrida Grande, featured in Festival Mondial de l’Image Sous-marine Programme (France, 1997), Nice-Matin (France, 1997), Dykking (Norway, 1999), Festival Mondial de l’Image Sous-marine Programme (France, 1999), Diving Club (Russia, 2000),
As Yam watercolors, Yam (Israel, 1998).
As the Aquart Sphere : Festival Mondial de l’Image Sous-marine Programme (France, 2010), Divosea (France, 2010), En Profondeur (Québec, 2011), InVertum (Russia,2011).
As the Art-House Co-op project: The Canvas Project: a visual encyclopedia (USA, 2011).
As the Uzzi towel: Journal du Festival d’Antibes (France, 2001), Diving-Club (Russia, 2003), Grand Strand (USA, 2012).

As the Dan Blanket : Alert Divers (USA, 2006), DAN (USA, 2006), Alert Divers (USA, 2006).

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Happy 20th Anniversary The Matador !

Posted on September 11, 2013 by plecocq

September 11th is a time marker  (not related to the tragic event) for me.

Actually, in 1993, I completed the first version of the Corrida, aka The Matador.

I didn’t know that it will become my signature painting, spreading successfully all over the world, on front cover magazines, beach towels and tattoos to name a few (more detailed coming in posts this week).

20 years of success, from the sale I made at my first appearance at the World Festival of Underwater Pictures in Antibes in 1993 where I show the freshly done painting, to the walls of the Museum of Art, Fort Lauderdale, Florida (Shark ! exhibition May 2012-January 2013) including a permanent display at the bottom of a quarry in Thetford-Mine, Québec (since August 2010).

Schedule of the making of the painting and pictures of the posing session with my neighbor and friend Jean-Michel making passes at the top of the stool will be provided later (still in my French studio) !

While working for the set design of the French opera Carmen, a production of the Salzburger Landestheater (Austria), I looked for documentation about this story involving a bullfighter at the city library of Caen (Normandy, France) and I bought some books (no internet at this time….). Browsing the pictures, I got the idea of an underwater Matador playing with a shark (a great white, not a bull shark as I didn’t know much about it).

Nothing related with an interest in bullfighting for which I can’t stand for.

The original Corrida was a 46×38 cm, 19″x15″, oil on linen canvas, completed and signed 9/11, 1993, opus lec368, first exhibited at the 20th World Festival of Underwater Pictures in Antibes in November 1993 where it was sold to a returning customer and art collector (Courbevoie, France). (Below, the original painting during Pascal’s Retrospective Exhibition 1977-2007 at the Paris Dive show, with Claude Wesly from the Team Cousteau).

  
Two large versions will be following in 1997 (Corrida Grande, right pic above in my studio) and 2006 (Corrida III, pic at the top, at the Museum of Art, Fort Lauderdale, FL.) and numerous other drawings and citations within other artworks.

An edition of postcards was made in 1993, then an artprint edition (of 3000, sold out). In 1999, the Uzzi Company (Fort Lauderdale) launched a large beach towel and tee-shirts spreading my picture over the world. A new edition of the Uzzi beach towel started in May 2012. New multiples on paper and canvas as signed limited edition and merchandizing followed.

The Matador made the buzz in publishing since 1993 and was featured in 4 front covers of magazines in Israel, Greece, China, and USA.

And… my picture was copied for fun, or stolen, used without agreement… the artist’s cross to bear.

I’m sure lucky to have achieved my signature painting 20 years ago, and to have seen it enjoyed by thousands of patrons and friends supporting my work. I can’t be enough thankful for that.

Talk to you in 20 years !!!  Olé !

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Aug. 20 Press: “Coral” featured in 72&Rising magazine

Posted on August 25, 2013 by plecocq

The volume 03 Issue 03 of the sumptuous Australian magazine 72&Rising, all about wildlife, travel, adventure and photography , is “focus on corals” as the editor put in in his foreword. Great contributors and fabulous pictures by some fellows of the Ocean Artists Society are featured in a portfolio “Images with a message” assembled by the photography editor and renown photographer Rico Besserdich.

Get your copy at  www.72andrising.com

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