UNBROKEN LINES

Above: Photo by Masao Yamamoto

Above: Ramon Masats, Tomelloso, Ciudad Real, 1960

Above: Contact sheet of Francesca Woodman's photos. She drew the lines on them to appear as part of the photos, as though she's interacting with the forms. There was a show of her work at SFMOMA last December, and they've published a comprehensive book about her, available at their store.

Above: Last spring I went to Dia:Beacon. It's a terrific space to see art...huge old factory spaces with lots of room that allows the work to really breathe. I'd never paid attention to Fred Sandback before, but I've become a fan after seeing his work there. With the absolute simplest of materials, just a piece of string, he sets up a defined plane that you can walk through. When you pass through you truly have a sense of going from one place to another, though in fact you're just walking through an opening of string.

Above: Photographs really don't do Fred Sandback's work justice. Maira Kalman did a painting of his work and that captures the feeling a little better.

Above: Japanese kimono found on tumblr

Above: Book design by Alvin Lustig

Above: Richard Diebenkorn, Untitled, from the Ocean Park series, 1974.

Above: From "Charlotte Perriand: Photography: A Wide-Angle Eye". This book is full of photos she took, that inspired her design, and it's laid out so as to help make the connections.

Above: In 1942 Marcel Ducamp created this installation called "Mile of String". It was part of an exhibition of Surrealist art in New York organized by Andre Breton.

Above: Chattanooga, Tennessee circa 1907, "Market Square"

Above: Vija Celmins "Untitled (web 1) 2001, mezzotint

Above: Brice Marden "China Painting", 1995-96

Above: "Knotted Chair" designed in 1996 by Marcel Wanders for Droog, currently in production by Cappellini.

Above: Loose crocheted strands and shadows

Above: Ruth Asawa, 1957, working on a crocheted wire sculpture. Crochet work takes a line and manipulates it to form repetitive patterns, but if you pull at the strand you're working with it all comes undone and back to a single unbroken line. This photo is from a book on her work, "The Sculpture of Ruth Asawa, Contours in the Air".

Above: Robin Moore, from "La Guardia Student Portraits", mid 1980s, playing Cat's Cradle.

Above: Palmistry diagram

Above: Gego,  "Sin Titulo (untitled)", 1970, from the book "Twice Drawn, Modern and Contemporary Drawings in Context".

Above: Mike Kelley "Tree Spirits (From the Parasite Lily)", 1979. In memoriam. Also from "Twice Drawn".

Above: Harry Callahan, Detroit, 1947

Above: Robert Frank, Pedestrian Crossing Center White Line on 34th Street, NY, 1948

Above: Kishio Suga, member of Japanese avant grade art group, Mono-ha, active from the late 1960s to early 1970s. There is currently a fantastic exhibit "Requiem for the Sun: The Art of Mono-ha" at Blum and Poe. It's on till April 14th 2012, and well worth seeing.

Above: Richard Long 

Above: Todd Hido shown on his site as #4078

Above: Alexander Calder "Blériot", 1949, painted metal and wire.

Above: Arp, "Le Maitre-Clouer", 1960, from a book of etchings called "Vers le Blanc Infini".

Above: Al Taylor, No title, 1992

Above: From the book "Italian Holiday", 1961 by Ludwig Bemelmans, author and illustrator of the Madeline books. This is a room on Cinderella Isle, Ischia. Bemelmans wrote and illustrated many books on travel, hotels, and dining. His drawing style conveys a lot of information in the most casual, seemingly effortless way.

Above: Ellsworth Kelly "Oak VII", 1992, lithograph

Above: Henri Matisse from Themes et Variations, Series M, 1942, "Plume et Encre", 1re Variation

Above: Arshile Gorky, study for "Nighttime, Enigma, and Nostalgia", 1931-32

Above: Georgia O'Keefe with the frame of a Butterfly chair.

Above: Al Taylor "Dutch Sideffects" 1996

Above: Eric Hanson illustration

Above: Pom pom garland found on remodelista.

Above: I grew up with this Jean Cocteau poster in our house. I've always loved the utter simplicity of the lines.

Above: Self-Portrait by Jean Cocteau in a letter to Paul Valéry, October 1924

Above: Cat drawings by Saul Steinberg.

Above: Alexander Calder, drawing for Aesops Fables, 1931. I think he's drawn these figures with continuous lines, not lifting the pen off the paper.

Above: Calder's wire sculpture"Couple", 1950. I think he's done the same continuous work with wire that he did with a pen.

Above: Three combs Calder designed for his wife, Louisa, in their home in Roxbury Connecticut, 1963.

Above: Gérard Philipe and Jeanne Moreau (wearing a Calder bracelet) in "Nuclea", a play by Henri Plichette, 1952.

Above: Tony Bill's collection of rug beaters in Connecticut via Country Living. The variety of shapes look wonderful together...like drawings on the wall.

Above: The Kitchen in Calder's home in Roxbury, Connecticut. You can see all the utensils he made out of wire between 1935 and 1940. Photo by Herbert Matter, 1950. The Calder Foundation has a great web site with archival photos you can link to here.

Above: A grill Calder made from the frame of an old garden chair and some wire. He called the steak grilled on it "Steak a la Chaise"!

Above: From "Charlotte Perriand: Photography: A Wide-Angle Eye".

Above: Richard Long 

Above: Christopher Wool, Untitled, 2008

Above: Christopher Wool

Above: Pieces of wire we found on the beach

Above: Brice Marden, "Attendant 5", 1996-97

Above: Thonet chair and its shadow at a friend's house.

Above: Sol Lewitt wall drawing at MASS MoCA

Above: Cy Twombly, Untitled, 1970. Menil Collection, Houston, in the Cy Twombly Gallery.

Above: Andre Kertesz, Washington Square, 1966

Above: New Years Day Reception Line at the White House, January 1st 1925

Above: Scene from the Wim Wenders movie "Pina"

Above: Masao Yamamoto photo from a show at Craig Krull Gallery...tiny mushrooms growing on a rope.

Above: Liza Lou, "Continuous Mile", 2007-8.  On the way to a Bonnard show at the Metropolitan Museum, I was surprised and pleased to see this piece there. It is a mile long length of rope, entirely made of white glass beads and cotton thread coiled into a sculpture 77" diameter, 32" high. It was fabricated in South Africa by Liza Lou and her team of 44 studio assistants from KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa, employing traditional Zulu beading techniques.

Above: Rope banister as seen on remodelista.

Above: Rock Hudson and Elizabeth Taylor on the set of "Giant".

Above: Vintage "Tug of War" photo, 1920s.

Above: On a swing in Ojai, California

Above: You may remember this from a recent NYTimes Travel section. It makes me want to go there to walk on those green paths. It's taken on the Aran Islands. Photo by Mitch Epstein

Above: James Siena

Above: Louise Bourgeois

Above: Andreas Gursky, "Bahrain I", 2005

Above: Richard Long 

Above: Aerial view Bolivia, Amazon Basin. Photo by Theo Allofs.

Above: Giant Fig Tree Roots

Above: Cary Smith, Untitled (Blue Watercolor Series)", 2000, from the book "Twice Drawn, Modern and Contemporary Drawings in Context".

Above: Claire Falkenstein Brooch, 1955, Brass

Above: Picasso drawing made for David Duncan, the photographer who documented Picasso when he lived at Ville La Californie and published several books about him.

Above: Picasso drawing with light photographed by Gjon Mili in 1949 for Life Magazine. You can see more of the light drawings here.

Above: Saul Steinberg, Untitled, 1948

Above: Saul Steinberg

Above: Henri Matisse drawing images for the Chapelle du Rosaire, Vence, from his bed in the Hotel Regina, Nice-Ciminez, 1950.

Above: Henri Matisse, "Tete de Femme (Paule)", 1950

Above: Brice Marden, "Cold Mountain", 1989-1991, SF MOMA

Above: Brice Marden in his studio.

Above: David Hockney, drawing Celia Birtwell on a litho plate using a long stick, 1981. Photo by Sidney Felsen.

Above: David Hockney, "Celia Inquiring", 1979, Lithograph

Above: Elizabeth Peyton, "Rirkrit Reading", 2002

Above: Pablo Picasso "Portrait de Sylvette", April 21 1954

Above: Sylvette David, the model for the drawing above and the sculpture below, 1954.

Above: Pablo Picasso "Sylvette" 1954

Above: Henri Matisse, March, 1944. Below is an envelope he addressed to a friend in Vence.