Art Everywhere US Billboards

I posted on my Facebook page about the Art Everywhere US campaign, which features 58 works of art on billboards all over the United States during the month of August, and asked if people would post photos of the billboards they saw. Today, I saw one in the Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky area and, I must say, I am pretty excited about it. Unfortunately, I was driving and couldn’t take a photo of it, but I am still excited nonetheless.

The one I saw was digital, but here is a sample billboard.

The billboard I saw is in Covington, KY and features Giant Magnolias on a Blue Velvet Cloth (c. 1890) by Martin Johnson Heade. Arteverywhereus.org describes it:

At the age of sixty-four, after a modestly successful career painting landscapes, marine subjects, and still lifes, Martin Johnson Heade settled in St. Augustine, Florida and found his first steady patron. His newfound personal and professional stability may have helped to energize his interest in and approach to a new subject. This painting of a Giant Magnolia is one of about a dozen variations. The series, in which the white blossoms are often placed on a velvet cloth, are rendered as sensually as a female nude and are among the most original still lifes of the nineteenth century.

Martin Johnson Heade. Giant Magnolias on a Blue Velvet Cloth,
c. 1890. Oil on canvas. National Gallery of Art.

I really love this painting because it is almost like a photograph; it’s so perfectly portrayed. The blue of the velvet and the white of the blooms pop against the earthy browns and greens of the limbs, the leaves, and the background. Magnolias remind me of home in Georgia, too, and I can almost smell the sweet fragrance of those magnificent flowers just looking at this painting.

Have you seen any of these billboards around your neighborhood? Please feel free to share your billboard moment! Click here for a complete listing of the artworks featured on the billboards.

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