One of the greatest Masters of Vietnamese Lacquer Work

We decided that for 2011 The Fine Art Partnership would begin cooperation with a living legend of Eastern Art and we are offering his works (a sample of which can be seen in detail on The Fine Art Partnership Ltd TM  pages devoted to him). 

Nguyen Viet Bang

Artist Nguyen Viet Bang was on October 1956 into a very artistic family both musically and as visual artists.

"I have been studying lacquer since the mid 70s and started a career in lacquer with the help of my old master when I was nineteen.  People always ask me :  'Why have you always been so passionate about Lacquer art?' and I say: 

"Lacquer is the type of art where you use a lot of materials to describe PIECES

and OBJECTS in different colours but the outcomes are so mysterious that I can’t even begin to explain or achieve the same effect through other different media. It makes no difference what the subject matter, whether I am painting landscapes, portraits, abstractions ... to me everything in everyday life is beautiful but being able to transfer these beauties into paintings is the key.

I specialise in traditional Vietnamese lacquer which is becoming a lost art as lacquer in Vietnam becomes more and more commercialised.  Artists now use modernised lacquer materials, which can be produced much more quickly than the traditional but has lost almost all of the original qualities. A traditional piece of lacquer can take up to 6 months or more to complete depending on size and complication.  In a year I only can complete a very few works.

Recently the national TV proposed that I do a documentary about traditional lacquer master work, the documentary mainly was based around my gallery called ThuyKy and my warehouse where everything’s related to the works are kept. The hour long documentary was made and broadcast on Vietnam national TV  recently and was very well received.

See link:

History of Lacquer

Lacquer is the resin of certain trees growing only in East Asia whose characteristics vary: Rhus succedanea in Vietnam, Rhus verniciera in Japan and Melanorrhea laccifera in Cambodia.The Vietnamese Rhus succedanea has been known for a long time as the so’n tree, an indigenous name. In Phu Tho Province, in Northern Vietnam, resins are harvested from the Rhus Succedanea Tree and converted into natural lacquer, which is then applied to the paintings.

Over the centuries, Vietnamese master craftsmen and artists have mastered techniques using lacquer for purpose of decoration ,preservation, lacquer paintings then became Vietnamese specialties.

To paint with lacquer, one must paint in depth what is in the external layer of the picture and paint above what is in the internal layer, then rub it with pumice and the picture will be visible. The strokes must be minute because there is a great deal of sticky matter and a high degree of homogeneity must be achieved in the lacquer, because everything might disappear during the pumicing. The creation is done in several stages, after each of them, the lacquer dries and only then can one start the following stage. A small mistake can be disastrous. Thousands of other difficulties are to be overcome, the working rules must be strictly observed.

Only a true artisan in the lacquering art who has inherited the secrets transmitted from generation to generation can resolve these problems.

The palette of lacquer painting includes only the color of canhgian (cockroach wings), then (black), son (red), silver and gold. Gold and silver must be pure gold and silver, which in the present are difficult to obtain. To prepare the color, mother-of-pearl and egg shell are also used.  If all the complex stages are carefully exectured only then does the master lacquer artist obtain the marvel of the finished product: an artwork of material, color and light bound together in perfect proportion to last for centuries.

Neo-Renaissance Andalusian Artist - Maria-Teresa Miriel

If there were ever an artist that is made for the world of Interior Design it is Maria Teresa Miriel.  She has an extensive background in art and her particular life long love of Italian Renaissance allows creations which are not copies but rather reworkings for the buildings she decorates and artworks she brings to life.

Florentine Scene - oil on baord - with ground of 22 carat gold foil (as http://www.fineartpartnership.com/ )

She has been an integral part of the visual, mural and decorative restoration of Italian and Spanish villas to ancient private chapels and whether you choose to own a painting of a regal Count for your entrance hall or over mantle, or select a series of Renaissance Servants to process around the walls of your dining room, the viewer is overwhelmed by the presence of the figures which populate her paintings.

For instance, the works which can be seen by browsing http://www.fineartpartnership.com/ are inspired in some cases by the anonymous work which the artists describes as being her inspiration:

"......Basically this series of noble figures were in the Baronnial Room, I suppose it was the noble area of the Castle..... no one knows for certain who painted these figures, but they are clearly Italian with French influence. The date, without any great accuracy, is 1430 .... The old castle where the originals were discovered and from which I painted mine, was in Piemonte, Italy"

Born  in Chile in 1949 she studied Art initially in Santiago, and then in Madrid, Barcelona, Florence and Paris, as well as most lately decorative arts in London.  Her studies covered degrees in textile design, silkscreen, decorative effects., oil, acrylics, charcoals, and mixed media.  Her work is even more attractive when one considers she has only exhibited locally in Spain, but her clientele is entirely international, with designers and collectors around the globe commissioning and buying her work. 

Tete (as she is known to her friends) lives in Andalucia, the beautiful Sotogrande,with husband, dog and her magical studio. 

It should be noted that all of Maria Teresa-Miriel's work can be recreated to size and in variations for the individual client / interior decorator - Please contact enquiries@tfapl.com without obligation to ask about commission works.

While the US and Europe face a test, Asia rockets towards recovery | The Art Newspaper

While the US and Europe face a test, Asia rockets towards recovery The Art Newspaper

ML Art Source: ML Art Blog

ML Art Source: ML Art Blog

Mark Briscoe - The Interior Designer's Artist

Mark Briscoe was born on the 19th of December 1964. In Watford, Hertfordshire, U.K. (named: Mark Francis Drake-Briscoe) His early years were spent in the West Country in the county of Somerset. When he was six his father bought a house on the moorland countryside of Dartmoor in Devon. From an early age he showed a strong interest in artistic activities and when he left school he studied graphic design and fine art for two years at college in Torquay. He then went to live in London in the mid 1980's and it was here that he learned some fundamental techniques in paint finishes while employed at a painting restorer's workshop in Covent Garden. He had also at this time started to develop a fascination with oriental lacquer and eastern miniature painting. The museums of London provided a rich source of inspiration, with their collection of Chinese and  Japanese artefacts and the "Art of India" collections at the Victoria & Albert museum.

Briscoe started to experiment with some techniques for painting lacquered furniture. The experience he had gained working for a restorer had taught him a few tricks, in particular the use of gesso in priming a wooden surface which enables one to achieve a highly smooth ground on which to apply lacquer, a traditional technique that has been used by craftsmen over the centuries. He also learned some methods for painting fine gold decorative designs in the Persian style which he used to decorate small items of furniture. Although he was producing some fantastic results Briscoe was not fully satisfied with his achievements, and in 1988 he made a trip to India where he met an artist called Ram Krishna Sharma who made a living painting traditional Indian miniatures. Sharma lived in the beautiful city of Udaipur in the state of Rajasthan, Northern India.

Sharma invited Briscoe to stay and learn the art of miniature painting, an opportunity which Briscoe jumped at having already seen what could be achieved with the skilful handling of an Indian miniaturists brush. The next few months of tuition under the guidance of R K Sharma taught Briscoe more about painting than all the years he had spent at college back in England. The use of line as practised by the Indian Masters with a very fine squirrel hair brush and a gum based paint solution were the basic foundations of all the great Eastern traditions of painting, whether Indian, Chinese, Japanese or Persian, the use of a gracefully flowing stylised line ran through all of them. By mastering the brush techniques employed in Indian miniature painting he realised that they could be successfully applied in other forms of artistic expression and would be of particular value in Chinoiserie decoration on lacquer furniture.

In December of that year Mark Briscoe married a girl called Sandhya that he met in a small town called Kalyan near Mumbai, He continued to live with her family making periodic visits to see his teacher back in Rajasthan. He had already made some useful contacts in Bombay and was given a number of commissions including some murals in the Juhu beach residence of Rajesh Shah, the director of Mukand Steel. He also spent some time working on several projects in the palatial Poona residence of Sri Mataji Nirmala Devi.

There he painted some more murals and a very large ceiling painting in one of the main halls displaying a colourful floral network of spiralling arabesques on a huge arched ceiling forty feet in length supported at intervals by columns, a project which took several months with a large team of artists. During this period in Poona Briscoe began to experiment with some ideas that had long been in his mind. He started to develop some techniques for painting Indian compositions on a large scale format but sticking to the traditional themes used in Indian miniatures.

He was aware that India had a tradition of painting large wall hangings (called Pichhavais) but these lacked the subtle tinting found in the finest of miniatures, especially those miniatures painted on small sheets of ivory where the colours are applied very thinly exploiting the pale background tone of the ivory which shines through creating a beautiful luminosity. This same effect he achieved in his paintings with great success, creating a depth and richness of tone that has a soothing effect and is pleasing to the eye. In addition to the paintings he has also employed this valuable knowledge of Indian brush work in his chinoiserie decoration of lacquer furniture, successfully applying detailed foliage, flowers, and trees to coloured lacquer backgrounds.

In 1991 Mark Briscoe moved to Brighton in the South coast of England where he continued to work until 2001 when he moved with his wife and two children to Zaragoza in north eastern Spain. Here he began to experiment with the techniques of the old European master artists using both egg tempera and oils as a medium for painting on panels. To begin with Mark painted classic landscapes with great success and then moved on to a more expressive style of work using thick impasto paint strokes with bright sections of colour surrounded by a fairly bold dark line, a style similar to that of the fauvists or post- impressionists.

His works have been bought by art collectors such as Lord Swraj Paul, RamolaBachchan and Rajesh Shah (of Mukund steel) He has also worked on several creative projects in conjunction with interior designers Neena Campbell, Joanna Wood and Victoria Waymouth.but only since he started exhibiting with galleries in the USA has his work begun to attract attention from a much broader audience, Mark's current style of composition has had an instant appe

al with US collectors. His work has been featured in several magazines including Architectural Digest, House and Garden, the front cover of Resurgence magazine and India Today.

(See: http://www.fineartpartnership.com/  to see some of Mark Briscoe's latest works or contact Claire Swait csoffice@virginmedia.com for more information on Mark, to view or to commission a work.)



Andre Derain - from July 3rd, 2010 Antiques Trade Gazette cover story

With the wonderfully unusual, amusing and petite painting on glass by Andre Derain, recently included in The Fine Art Partnership's collection, entitled Conical Privet dressed as a Gardener ...with hat and staff and red shoes; a reverse oil painting on glass. Signed. 10” x 8” (25.4cm x 20.3cm)

it was most reassuring for our buyers to read in the ATG that:

"Greater interest at Sotheby's (Impressionist & Modern Sale of June 22nd) emerged for a 1905 Fauvist landscape by Andre Derain (1880 - 1954), which came from the lost collection of dealer Ambroise Follard and had been stashed away, largely forgotten, in a paris bank vault for 40 years. Against a £9m-£14m estimate, at least four bidders pursued Arbres a Collioure and it sold to an anonymous telephone bidder for £14.5m, another artist record."

To have an original painting by Andre Derain being offered by The Fine Art Partnership Ltd, also from a private collection, for £13,750 makes another worthy news story indeed for art hunters of museum quality works of the period!

New Artist with The Fine Art Partnership Ltd - Alexander Gutyrya - Contemporary Painter & Sculptor

The artist Alexander Gutyrya was born in a Ukrainian town of Bakhmut that was founded in the early sixteenth century. The rich cultural and historic heritage of the town and the region as a whole had a great impact on development of the future artist. Alexander graduated from the Donetsk College of Applied Arts in 1985. He jumpstarted his professional career by participating in his first group exhibition at the Donetsk Museum of Arts the following year. At that time, very few of the young artists had the privilege of exhibiting their works at such institutions.


Since then, Alexander took part in numerous solo and group exhibitions domestically and abroad. His works are found in many private and public collections in Ukraine, Germany, France, Italy, Hungary, Finland, USA and Canada. The year of 2004 was marked for Alexander with his arrival on the Canadian soil to become a part of the Canadian cultural mosaic. He presently works and resides in Toronto, Ontario as a Canadian citizen. When Alexander was a teenager his parents used to take him every year on a trip to the heart of Ukraine, the Poltava region, where his aunt lived. The woman worked at the tapestry factory and during Alexander’s visits she would take her beloved nephew along with her to work.

Alexander enjoyed spending hours on end contemplating the process of creation of intricate tapestry patterns on fabric. Alexander learned this complex technique of weaving with great passion. This early interest in tapestry, specifically its exquisite patterns and color combinations, had laid the foundation for his unique artistic style. Alexander is a very diverse artist. He paints with oil on canvas and on wood, carves wooden plaques, does graphic art and creates sculptures. Creating sculptures is his real passion. When sculpting, he works with wood, sandstone, and bronze. In his sculptures Alexander likes to incorporate such materials as mammoth ivory, marble and colored glass. These combinations of juxtaposing materials create powerful effects that greatly enhance the aesthetic and philosophic value of the artist’s work. Alexander Gutyrya’s organically stylized sculptures are figurative and characterized by abstraction. The voluptuous forms of his works are multidimensional in what they convey. It can be a certain mood, specific moment in time, a thought or an idea.

All these aspects of the artist’s inner world are conveyed in his works either simultaneously or in portions. However, beneath the surface of each work one thing remains constant: the storytelling is always unique, unforgettable and captivating.

Go to: http://www.fineartpartnership.com/ And Browse works with artist's name in Search to read and see more.

Comment on the Government's Manifesto / BUSINESS section published on The Coalition: Our Programme for Government

In the spirit of this excellent collaborative website Program for Government – I would suggest the small / medium business (who will be most adept at helping you turn round the economy) could use: a UK Marketing Plan for Small Businesses.

Why not choose a small committee to join you in formulating that missing business proposal for the government to do marketing of the UK not only to secure inward investment, but to supporting small businesses wishing to expand their firms to new UK markets and/or are seeking new markets abroad physically and via the internet etc…?

I would suggest someone like Doug Richards head it up for the private sector (Entrepreneurs Manifesto *, School for Start Ups ex Dragons Den etc…). He seems to be someone who has the skill and the know-how and a huge selection of persons from all business disciplines and experience from which to choose your team.

Indeed it could be an online challenge/project for contributions initially from business people from over the UK who wished to share an insight; then this would be part of the content for you and your committee to edit – rework and ultimately it (along with a budget to support it) could be submitted formally. To make it more productive, you could create for the public ‘categories for comment’ (exactly as you are doing here for an overall public view on cuts), to channel our efforts more efficiently towards the ultimate goal of a UK Marketing Plan for Small Businesses which would be properly funded directly to business to get it into new national & international markets.

The RDAs are a waste of time and build empires (literally physically as well as metaphorically) which they then spend the funds they are granted to populate primarily with their own wage earning members. This idea would deliver some properly directed investment to fund real businesses to get into foreign markets, or develop new markets within the UK, via spending whatever funding is allocated directly on the businesses.

Underwriting their presence at global trade fairs over all sectors of business would be a good start. Not the often lame government stands at these shows, paying lip service, but really big innovative presence at ALL trade shows in places like China and India the US and on the continent – showing off what the UK can bring into all these markets.
At the moment, funding is minor, geared politically towards narrow market sectors and very complicated and most serious businesses are too busy trying to DO business to perform the clown like contortions to get themselves minor funding or to be part of fairs that are on arbitrary lists and not really where they KNOW they should be to make a real business impact. Business must tell government what they need not government tell business what they have to do to get what they (the government) thinks they should be given.

A Marketing Plan for internal and outward investment in our home grown entrepreneurs, where the content actually comes from an articulate and grounded grass roots, led and consolidated under your committees know-how and direction would deliver quick and sustainable results for minimal cost. Claire Swait (www.fineartpartnership.com )

What Art Investors can Learn from Gold Investors Part 2 – artmarketblog.com « Art Market Blog with Nicholas Forrest www.artmarketblog.com

What Art Investors can Learn from Gold Investors Part 2 – artmarketblog.com « Art Market Blog with Nicholas Forrest www.artmarketblog.com

News - Exclusive on Paintings from iconic Russian Historical and Spiritualist painter - rare availability outside Russia

Featured Contemporary Russian Artist: Alexander I Savin

“Art is a revolutionary force, actually the only one.”

“Art is a revolutionary force, actually the only one.” This bold statement of the influential sculptor and action artist Joseph Beuys (1921-1986) challenges us to reexamine the way we look at art. It suggests that doing and “consuming” ...art, rather than art being a merely entertaining pastime, is a vitally important human activity and can become a tool for transformation—of ourselves and the world. We will attempt to experience art as a transformative activity, in a most immediate and hands-on way through working with form and form development in sculpture. Clay-modeling will be accompanied by guided observation of the transformative processes in nature. Rudolf Steiner suggested that one of the most important concepts which humanity of our time will have to come to terms with is that of metamorphosis—the transformation of forms. This can be studied in an exemplary way in the development of plants and brought alive in us and through us in the artistic process. ...... Suggested reading: J.W. von Goethe, The Metamorphosis of Plants; New Eyes for Plants, M. Colquhoun, and A. Ewald, Art as Spiritual Activity, Michael Howard, Rudolf Steiner’s Contribution to the Visual Arts, Joseph Beuys, What Is Art? Conversations With Joseph Beuys  (See Rudolf Steiner Institute Courses for more)

CORA Members Call Residential Architects to Action - Architecture, Architects - residentialarchitect Magazine

Call Residential Architects to Action

A new position paper advocates for change within the profession to re-establish social relevance and credibility.

Meaningful Work:

from Rudolf Steiner Archive online 'What is to be Real in the future is borne today in us ... Man must in deed become a creator, must form of himself that which will be his future world.' - Rudolf Steiner"

About Fine Art London | Fine Art London

About Fine Art London Fine Art London

Arvo Pärt

An excellent website on the great composer Arvo Pärt

BBC - Radio 4 - In Our Time - Archive by Title: A page 1

BBC - Radio 4 - In Our Time - Archive by Title: A page 1 A fantastic resource to feed the brain, properly educate and inspire one to read and learn more on a host of subjects that shape our world views.

Rudolf Steiner on Art:

"...A real artist may create his picture in a lonely desert... gods look over his shoulder; he creates in their company. What does he care whether or not anybody admires his picture?

and on Art and The Aesthetics of Goethe’s Worldview  “The basis of artistic creation is not what is, but what might be; not the real, but the possible. Artists create according to the same principles as nature, but they apply them to individual entities, while nature, to use a Goethean expression, thinks nothing of individual things. She is always building and destroying, because she wants to achieve perfection, not in the individual thing, but in the whole.”

"Life is Difficult"

"Life is difficult, this is a great truth, one of the greatest truths.  It is a great truth because once we truly see this truth, we trascend it.... Because once it is accepted, the fact that life is difficult no longer matters....Discipline is the basic set of tools we require to solve life's problems. Without discipline we can solve nothing....it is in this whole process of meeting and solving problems that life has its meaning.  Problems are the cutting edge that distinguish between success and failure...."  opening paragraphs from M. Scott Peck's The Road Less Travelled

THE ENTREPRENEURS' MANIFESTO by Doug Richard January 2010

This enlightened Manifesto, along with its analysis of the current economy and state of capitalism in general, I wish to use to set the tone of my blog. 

More on the subject and work of Mr Richard (as well as a comment I left in answer to his enlightening account of a 23rd February seminar at 10 Downing Street) can be found on his School for Startups forum.

"We are a nation that has everything it needs to enter the 21st century on a wave of growth and prosperity. But to do so we must harness the only force for growth, for prosperity and for fairness and social justice that exists: the entrepreneurial culture.



This is not about capital. This is not about the few getting rich at the expense of the many. This is not about the preservation of privilege. If anything it is the key to the opposite: the creation of ladders of social mobility, and increasing of the wealth of the nation so we can afford the services we believe are the rights of our citizens: to be healthy, to be educated, to be safe and to remain free.


But harnessing entrepreneurialism first means understanding it: an entrepreneur takes on the risk of innovating in the expectation of being rewarded for success. Reducing the incentives of being rewarded, increasing the obstacles to create new enterprises, limiting the shape and type of entrepreneurial activity and not investing in the key infrastructure upon which the next wave of innovation will depend, all combine to emasculate our nascent entrepreneurs.


Thus we call for our government to change its priorities.


We must increase economic freedom for new businesses and small businesses and all businesses that take new business risk. We must cut the time it takes to start a new business. We must radically streamline the effort of complying with government regulation and exempt the smallest businesses from many of the regulations entirely.


We must sweep clean the entire government funded industry of business support and leave behind solely an institution whose remit is to expedite and simplify the effort of small business to manage the burden that government places upon it.


We must free up the savings of our families, friends and communities so that they may give, invest or lend their own small capital into the nascent businesses of their children, their friends and their communities with credits and exemptions that radically encourage the activity.


We must stop paying people to be un‐employed and begin to share the cost of them being taught to be employed. Apprenticeship is not solely for the trades; it is for any job in any com¬pany. We face a lost generation of students and young graduates with no hope for jobs whilst employers have no means to underwrite the period they need to make those students into productive employees.


We must recognize that the largest customer in the UK is the government itself. The government must adopt a requirement that a specific percentage of all of its procurement will be through small and medium businesses. It must place the responsibility for compliance with industry and at no cost to itself drive revenue to our entrepreneurs and open the doors of government to innovation.


We must broaden the scope for social entrepreneurs by creating new legal frameworks that ex¬plicitly encourage a broad range of social businesses from co‐ownership models such as John Lewis to for‐profit businesses that seek to achieve a social bottom line as well as a traditional profit.


Finally, we must recognize the centrality of connectedness in the competition amongst nations. The United Kingdom must wire itself and do so urgently. Just as our roads and trains are a public service and a natural monopoly; so too is true broadband. True broadband is not 1MBof information trickling down to some of our homes. It is 100Mb to every doorstep in this country. It is the key infrastructure that will kindle a wave of creative destruction and increased wealth that will match the industrial revolution. It will reduce the stress on our crowded transport systems, it will re‐vitalize neglected sections of our nation, it will place the key tools in place to amplify and distribute scarce resources in education and health care. And it is achievable now.


Finally, we must understand that we do not understand. People are not empowered to step out on their own, take risk, hope for reward, and move on from failure. The corrosive impact of an overprotective State is not merely the loss of our sense of responsibility to a civil society; it is the even more profound loss of our sense of capacity to change society, to have an impact, to be, in short, an entrepreneur.


Entrepreneurship can be taught and must be learned. "