"This selling exhibition, ‘Fifty Years Fantastic’, showcases 150 works of art selected from pieces submitted by the 400 artists who support the Society for Art of the Imagination internationally. The Society lives by the credo that Art Should be Challenging. The exhfuibition will not only be a selling exhibition to raise funds for the charities the Society supports, but also a showcase of some of the past masterpieces from earlier shows that have become iconic images of Art of the Imagination. Prices for the works start from 150 poundsfu.

 

This art form has been known by many names, including Fantastic Realism, Surrealism, Magic Realism, Visionary Art, Cosmic Art and Inspirational Art. However the work is neither purely abstract nor rigidly realistic. All artists in the Society work independently of one another across 23 countries yet their work shows a consistent ethos. This art form dates right back to the visionary paintings of Jan van Eyck and Hieronymus Bosch, through Leonardo de Vinci, William Blake, Dali’s Surrealism right up to Professor Ernst Fuchs, one of the founders of the Vienna School of Fantastic Realism, who is the Society’s Honorary President. Yet despite this heritage, figurative art has only recently been championed again, by none other than Charles Saatchi, and the Society is continuing to recruit artists from across the globe. The Society for Art of Imagination is the longest running group of living artists in the field of Imaginative Art in the world."

 

From the Art News at Beinart.org

By Meg Woodworth