"Girl Talk"

5 x 7"

oil on panel
sold

I'm planning out an upcoming solo show that will feature the ladies of the art world.  Not so much the artists but the portrayals of women through the ages.  One that first came to mind on my now-long list of possibilities was Edward Hopper's Chop Suey - which, by the way, just broke a record in a Christie's art auction.  Painted in 1929, Chop Suey became the most expensive work of pre-war American art, selling for nearly $92 million.

Chop Suey is quintessential Hopper for a couple of reasons.  Hopper loved the spaces of restaurants, not so much the food - hence, the empty table except for the teapot.  Hopper was famously uninterested in food and known to eat his meals right out of a can.  Chop Suey restaurants were the rage in the 1920's, mostly frequented by young, working-class women dining together.  Another usual subject matter of Hopper's.  He and his wife went to this particular restaurant often, The Far East Tea Garden, once located in the Upper West side of Manhattan, no longer there.  Hopper's wife posed for all three of the women figures in the painting, also a usual habit.

Fun fact - Chop Suey means 'odds and ends' in Cantonese.

Your Moment of Zen

The infectious Sister Wendy and Bill Moyers.  

RIP Sister Wendy.

Merry Christmas

"Catching Snowflakes"

Jamie Wyeth

~ Merry Christmas ~

"Poolside"

6 x 6"

oil on panel
sold

My new painting, a study for a larger piece, was both a blast and challenging.  David Hockney's Portrait of an Artist (Pool with Two Figures) is vivid and patterned and awe-inspiring.  I am thrilled for David Hockney, who is still alive and well and producing fabulous paintings - at a recent Christie's auction, his painting started with no reserve at $15 million and fetched $90.3 in the end.  So deserved for its recognition and worth.

Hockney is known for his brilliant pool paintings of course.  This was inspired by two photographs next to each other on his studio floor.  A double portrait.  Hockney worked on it for about a year - looking at a due date of just four weeks until he had to ship it off to New York for an exhibition.  That lead to working 18 hours a day for two weeks just to get it done.

"Pondering"

6 x 8"

oil on panel
sold

In the Art Institute of Chicago, there are two paintings and three sculptures by the French artist Jean-Leon Gerome, much to my delight.  Most of Gerome's paintings are crisp, exact, realistic scenes from Morocco and northern Africa locations, many are based on Greek mythology and if there is a more perfect example of Orientalism in art, Gerome is it.  Featured in my new painting is Portrait of a Woman.

~ Don't miss my earlier post below - my 2019 Mini-Wall Calendars are now available.

"Tough Love"

6 x 8"

oil on panel
sold

This marble sculpture by Horatio Greenough, Love Prisoner to Wisdom, is one of my very favorites in the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.

Essentially, the owl behind the chained Cupid symbolizes wisdom.  So.... prudence is restraining reckless love.  Think before you jump in.  The woman viewing the sculpture is seemingly pondering the message.

"Bare Necessities"

6 x 8"

oil on panel
sold

The brave artist Alice Neel, who lived to the age of 84, was largely unknown in the art world until the early 1970's, when she was in two retrospective exhibitions.  "Life begins at seventy!" she said of her new found recognition at the age of 72.

In 1975, Neel began, what took five years, to complete her Self-Portrait, one of only two.  Referring to this unconventional and somewhat shocking portrait, Neel said "the reason my cheeks got so pink was that it was so hard for me to paint that I almost killed myself painting it."

Alice Neel painted dozens of portraits of her lovers, friends, family, artists, poets and even strangers. They are all delightful.  Her total acceptance of her own aging body and laying it out there for all the world to see is most admirable.

"Good Morning"

9 x 12"

oil on panel
sold

The very same day I was finishing this new painting, the news came that the Edward Hopper painting Chop Suey had sold at the Christie's auction for $91.9 million.  That made me so happy seeming I worship Edward Hopper's works of art and I especially love this recognition of one of our country's treasures.  Yay.

Whenever I'm in the Smithsonian American Art Museum, I beeline to the Hopper paintings.  The one featured in my painting is Cape Cod Morning, done in 1950.  What grabs me about this piece is, within the bay window where the woman is looking out in anticipation of something, it's a whole separate painting within the actual, fairly simplistic composition of the sky, trees, grass and siding of the house.  I just love it.

Please click here for a larger view.

"Checks and Balances"

5 x 7"

oil on panel
sold

Our United States Capitol Building in Washington DC.  A place where, hopefully, checks and balances will occur again.

Vote!

A REMINDER TO VOTE TOMORROW.

"Undecided"

Norman Rockwell - November 4, 1944

"Iron Fist"

8 x 6"

oil on panel
sold

I started this painting on Halloween evening, right before I went inside the house and watched The Pit and the Pendulum with Vincent Price.  I savored the day.

I first saw Blind Pew, by N. C. Wyeth, in the Brandywine Museum of Art, which houses three generations of Wyeth artists - N. C. the father, Andrew, the son of N. C. and Jamie, the son of Andrew.  I worship all three.  I grew up nearby Chadds Ford, Pennsylvania and my mom always welcomed a road trip to this area, she made countless pen and ink sketches of the old stone buildings and countryside.  It was an artist's haven and inspiration.  I'm sure that was around the time I knew I wanted to be an illustrator like N. C. Wyeth.

The blind beggar, Pew, is a minor character in Chapter 3 of Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson.  Pew knows Billy Bones is a boarder at the Admiral Benbow Inn and wants the map to Treasure Island.  Pew was a member of Captain Flint's crew of pirates and had since squandered away his share of pilfered riches, leaving him to beg and thieve.

Pew knocks on the door, terrifying the keeper of the inn, asking to see Billy Bones.  Pew takes the man's arm as they climb the stairs, Jim realizing the old man has a strong grip. An "iron fist".  Pew delivers a warning to a passed out Billy Bones.  Later on in the book, Pew returns to the inn with a group of buccaneers to ransack the inn and find the map to the treasures, but it is nowhere to be found.  A fight ensues, they take it outside in the moonlit road.  And the tale goes on.

Blind Pew is one of many illustrations in the Brandywine.  They're surprisingly huge works of art and treasures.

"Christina"

8 x 6"

oil on panel
sold

Today I just chose to feature one of my personal favorite paintings, by Andrew Wyeth, Christina's World.  It is moving. It represents human dignity.  In a word, it is perfect.

"Posturing"

6 x 8"

oil on panel
sold

I've been to the Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art twice.  Both times, I stop at this portrait of Anne Page, by Dennis Miller Bunker, and soak it in longer than most paintings at the museum.  It's restrained, low in key, fairly neutral in color - no frills, just elegant.

Dennis Bunker is an artist you don't hear too much about.  He was born in New York City in 1861, an innovator of American Impressionism, hung out with some of the most famous painters of that time - John Singer Sargent, Wilmer Dewing, William Merritt Chase to name a few.  His circle of friends was crucial as an artist but none as beneficial as Isabella Stewart Gardner, a valuable patron of artists.  There is the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston, established in 1903, which owns some of the most outstanding works of art in this country.

A friend of Bunker's set up a date with Anne Page and the artist, thinking they'd make a good couple.  Bunker was smitten from the first encounter, wrote to his friend "She seems to have the same charm that some of your other friends have. I mean your female friends. I am quite at a loss when I try to define it and I begin to think it a bit out of my line. I don’t know that I am entirely comfortable in the presence of such natures, they seem too fine for me.”  

Bunker wrote Anne poems and long letters and eventually had her sit for the portrait you see above.  Although the two never formed a romantic relationship, they remained friends throughout his short life.  Bunker fell ill, just two months after he married, and died of meningitis at the age of 29.

"Boo"

6 x 6"

oil on panel
sold

On this soul-sucking day,  I thought of one of my favorite paintings Automaton by Jamie Wyeth.  The definition of automaton is an android or robot, but also refers to a person who seems to act in a mechanical, unemotional way.

The Wyeth family celebrated Halloween with great enthusiasm every fall.  Beginning with the patriarch, N.C. Wyeth who had a large stash of costumes with swords and pirate hats and spooky masks for his illustrations - and his children relished the chance to dress up and pretend they were the buccaneers or ghouls taking over the family farm.  I wrote up a post about the Wyeth's love of Halloween here, back in October 2015.

"Tell Me More"

8 x 6"

oil on panel
sold

This was taken from my time at the Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, during a special exhibition of Georgia O'Keeffe's works as well as others.  The show was so well thought out and presented for the visitors, paying close attention to what works married well with each other and the colors of the walls surrounding the pieces.  I relished that.

One of the paintings included was O'Keeffe's Petunias, done in 1925.  When you think of Georgia O'Keeffe, you equate her with Southwestern subject matters, some Manhattan scenes, and mostly close-ups of flowers.  She was widely known to have lived in New York City when her career was taking off and promoted by her husband Alfred Stieglitz - then later in New Mexico.  You might not know, during the early years, her and Steiglitz spent their summers at the resort of Lake George, about 35 miles from the Vermont border.

During those years, from 1918 to 1934, at Lake George, O'Keeffe painted over 225 pieces.  The time and surroundings at Lake George played a significant role in her development as an artist.  There she painted many of the flowers you may be familiar with - poppies, petunias and canna lilies - poplar and oak trees - the brilliant autumn colors of nature - all those she became so sensitive to from long walks through meadows and gardens.

Stieglitz and O'Keeffe owned 37 acres, lived in a hilltop farmhouse that included a 'shanty' as her studio and a darkroom where Steiglitz printed his photos.  In the late 50's a developer bought the property, has the structures burned in a practice fire drill and built a hodgepodge of ranch houses that remain to this day.  

People still go on their pilgrimages to find where O'Keeffe lived, only to be disappointed to find a suburban subdivision.

"Aspirations"

6 x 8"

oil on panel
sold

One thing I love in museums is witnessing people really connecting with art, like this young man who sat directly in front of this inspiring 1944 portrait of William A."Bill" Campbell by Betsy Graves Reyneau in the National Portrait Gallery in Washington DC.

William Campbell served as one of the famed Tuskegee Airmen during WWII.  The Portrait Gallery's plaque reads:

"A decorated fighter pilot who served in World War II, Korea, and Vietnam, William A. "Bill" Campbell joined the military in 1942, when all branches of the U.S. armed forces were rigidly segregated. Shortly after America's entry into World War II, Campbell enrolled in flight training at special facilities established for African American pilots and technicians at Alabama's Tuskegee Institute (now Tuskegee University). Earning his wings in July 1942, Second Lieutenant Campbell was assigned to the U.S. Army Air Corps's Ninety-Ninth Pursuit Squadron. On June 2, 1943, he saw action as a wingman on the inaugural combat mission carried out by the Tuskegee Airmen. The first African American pilot to bomb an enemy target, Campbell flew 106 missions and ended the war as commander of the Ninety-Ninth Fighter Squadron. Awarded two Distinguished Flying Crosses, a Bronze Star, the Legion of Merit, and thirteen Air Medals, he retired from the service as a full colonel in 1970."

It is one of my personal favorites in the National Portrait Gallery.

A Personal Thing

My painting of a dearly departed best friend of a friend. 

"There's The Door"

6 x 8"

oil on panel
sold

I just returned from my second visit to Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art.  I love the museum.  It's located in Bentonville, Arkansas - in the northwest corner of the state.  It's a small town, home of the Walton family who started Walmart years ago.  Alice Walton has been an art collector for decades and built this museum and is currently building a second one in town.  It's free admission and free parking.  It's so worth the trip.

I landed there on the final weekend of their exhibition The Beyond: O'Keeffe and Others.  Spectacular variety of many O'Keeffe's landscapes, flowers, etc mixed with other contemporary artists.  The painting above is one of my personal favorites - Black Patio Door.  It was hanging on this saturated turquoise wall that was so unexpected but so freakin' perfect.

O'Keeffe, in 1945, purchased and restored a 5,000 square foot ruined Spanish Colonial home in a small town, Abiquiu, New Mexico, which she owned until her death in 1986. She was in love with the simple beauty of the adobe house and its spaces and vistas inspired many paintings done through the years - especially the large enclosed patio.  She was quoted "When I first saw the Abiquiu house it was a ruin with an adobe wall around the garden broken in a couple of places by falling trees.  As I climbed and walked about the ruin I found a patio with a very pretty well house and bucket to draw up water. It was a good-sized patio with a long wall with a door on one side. The wall with a door in it was something I had to have."

Meanwhile.....

I've been working on several paintings for a client.  They are officially sold but I wanted to show them to you.

8 x 10"

sold

9 x 12"

sold

12 x 16"

sold

Always painting.....

"Forty-Eight"

8 x 10"

oil on panel
sold

Jasper Johns was one of the most influential American painters of the 20th century who produced over 40 versions of the American flag.  Johns created the first, Flag, in 1954 at the age of 24, two years after he was discharged from the Army.  

To give you some context, the US flag was often the news headline in 1954 - then President Dwight Eisenhower signed an amendment to the pledge of allegiance on Flag Day to add the words 'under God',  the McCarthy hearings took place three days after Flag Day, the year was the 175th anniversary of the birthday of Francis Scott Key,  who composed The Star Spangled Banner.  The Iowa Jima Marine Memorial was dedicated at Arlington National Cemetery.  Johns and his father were both named after Sgt. William Jasper who saved the fallen flag of the Americans in the Revolutionary War.  And in 1954, our country had 48 states - the 49th and 50th, Alaska and Hawaii, would join the United States of America in 1959.

To appreciate Johns' Flag, you must get close up.  It is made using oil paints, encaustic (wax mixed with pigment) and newsprint, which is visible under the red and white stripes.  There is no hidden meaning in the texts of the newsprint, purposely Johns selected non-political or national news.  Jasper Johns aimed to paint 'things the mind already knows', relieving him of creating new design and focusing on the execution instead. 

The painting was exhibited in Johns' first solo show in 1958 where the director of the Museum of Modern Art, Alfred Barr, wanted to buy it but was worried how it may look so he persuaded a friend to buy it instead, and he donated it to the museum in honor of Barr when he retired.

Please click here for a larger view.

"Enigma"

6 x 8"

oil on panel
sold

I'm home from a road trip up to Virginia to visit with family and got to visit the National Portrait Gallery in DC while we were there.  This museum, connected to the Smithsonian Museum of American Art is somewhat overlooked by visitors because it's not on the Mall with numerous other great museums, but it is SO worth it.

Credit to my sister-in-law, who took the photo for this new painting - a young man viewing an abstract expressionism painting by Jean-Michel Basquiat, which I can't find the title to.

Jean-Michel Basquiat was a young, prolific artist who created most of his work during the 80's.  Born in Brooklyn, New York in 1960, he was a talented artist at a young age, encouraged by his mother, fluent in French, Spanish and English.  His parents separated when he was eight, returned to his mother's home in Puerto Rico for a couple of years then returned to New York City.  He was 13 when his mother was committed to a mental institution and Jean-Michel's troubled teen years began.  When he dropped out of high school, his father banished him from the family's home and he stayed with friends, supporting himself by selling artwork and T-shirts.

Basquiat went from homelessness and unemployement to selling his paintings for up to $25,000 in a matter of several years.  He produced around 600 paintings, 1500 drawings and sculptures in his short life and died at the age of 27 from a heroin overdose.

To summarize Basquiat's life, his experiences, the magic of pure fate that shaped his future, would take up an entire book.  I think he was a genius way before his time, but he lived in the right time for his artistic talents to be seen and heard.  He once described his art as 80% anger and to be described from then on by critics as "80% anger and 20% mystery".

Just one more plug for if you're in Washington DC - go to the National Portrait Gallery.  The museum redid the President's portraits gallery and it's most excellent.  Especially the portrait of President Obama, by Kehinde Wiley.  It brought tears to my eyes.

The long line to see Obama's portrait up close.

"The Naked Eye"

6 x 8"

oil on panel
sold

My oh my, I'm glad to be back to painting a few small pieces.  I've been working on several projects for future group shows which you'll see down the road.

Okay... about this new painting....

Thomas Eakins is best known for his paintings of athletic rowers on the Schuylkill River in Philadelphia and his extraordinary painting The Gross Clinic.  He taught at the Pennsylvania Academy and those paintings brought him fame and transformed the school into the leading art school in America.

Eakins found the study of anatomy to be essential in his teachings, however, it was frowned upon by the academy and Victorian Philadelphia in the 1880's.  After treading on ice, during one of his live model classes, he removed a loincloth from a male model to show the trace of a vital muscle and all hell broke loose.  Protests by students and parents forced Eakins to resign at the request of the Academy's board.

The Model by Thomas Eakins is part of the collection in the Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art in Bentonville, Arkansas.  Get to this museum if you can.  It's so worth the trip.

"Chin Up"

6 x 6"

oil on panel
sold

You might have run across Edgar Dega's sculpture of the young ballerina in several different art museums.  You're not crazy.  This Little Dancer, Aged Fourteen resides in the Philadelphia Museum of Art.  When I visited the museum, it was not encased in a glass box, which made a huge difference in appreciating this perfect figurative sculpture.  And I mean perfect.

Degas painted young ballet dancers numerous times.  At rehearsals, stretching exercises and lessons in ballet studios.  He drew them in pastels and charcoal, painted them in oils.  The model for Little Dancer was Marie van Goethem who posed for the only sculpture exhibited in Dega's lifetime in 1881.  Little Dancer was originally executed in wax and later cast in bronze around 1922, after Dega's death.  Which is why you maybe have seen one yourself.

"High Noon"

8 x 6"

oil on panel
sold

It's been my observation that men really like this Portrait of Balzac by Auguste Rodin.  The sculpture stands in the large French Impressionism gallery in the Art Institute of Chicago, strikingly bolder than the oil paintings by Renoirs and Degas, to name a few.

The Portrait of Balzac was one of several bronze sculptures commissioned by a literary society in the 1890's, in honor of the famous French novelist Honore de Balzac.  Rodin immersed himself in studying the writer - reading all his books, visiting his birthplace and studying all known existing portraits.  It took Rodin seven years before he created this particular one - intending to stress Balzac's 'vitality and candor' in a full nude portrait that was immediately rejected by the literary society and the public at large.

This rejection, among others, didn't prevent Rodin from becoming the most famous artist in the world at the beginning of the 20th century.  He is best known for the marble sculpture The Kiss and the bronze, The Thinker.   Not to mention there's an entire museum in Philadelphia, the Rodin Museum, devoted to the man. 

"It's That Way"

8 x 6"

oil on panel
sold

The woman here is seemingly taking a cue from Pointing Man by Alberto Giacometti in the Museum of Modern Art.  My mom, who was a painter, printmaker and occasional sculptor,  L-O-V-E-D Giacometti.  I was introduced to this artist at a very young age, by my mom, who taped up dozens of his works on the wall of her studio.

Giacometti was born in Switzerland in 1901, took on formal training in the arts during the era of Cubism and the craze of tribal art - much like Pablo Picasso.  He dabbled in Surrealism for a while, broke off from that to the emergence of Existentialism.  He created small, thin figurative sculptures which took off because of the overall dismal, suffering atmosphere from World War II, and he became quite the popular artist of that time.

His works evolved all through the 50's and 60's, during which time he painted numerous portraits, which my mom was crazy over.  I am too.

"Matching Set"

6 x 8"

oil on panel
sold

This new painting is a smaller study of one I'm thinking of doing larger.  I wanted to test out the woman's skirt.  I like her skirt.

She stands in front of a crowd-pleasure in the Art Institute of Chicago - Pierre-Auguste Renoir's Two Sisters (On the Terrace) which hangs in the French Impressionism gallery.  Renoir named the painting Two Sisters, the first owner of the painting titled it On the Terrace.

Like Renoir's famous Luncheon of the Boating Party, the setting for Two Sisters was at a restaurant with outdoor seating.  In 1925, it was sold to a woman from Chicago for $100,000.  She requested the Renoir be donated to the Art Institute after her death where it has hung since 1932.

You may remember Donald Trump had a reproduction hung in his jet, before he ran for President.  The New York Times reporter Timothy O'Brien interviewing Trump was told it was the real thing.  O'Brien replied "Donald, it's not.  I grew up in Chicago, that Renoir is called Two Sisters (on the Terrace) and it's hanging on a wall at the Art Institute of Chicago. That's not an original."

Pause...

I'm on a forced break from painting - my studio Mac is in the hospital.  So I'm gardening....

~ Happy Mother's Day to all the great moms out there.

 

"Rain Delay"

8 x 10"

oil on panel
sold

Anyone who has been in the Art Institute of Chicago knows when you walk through the lobby and up the marble stairs, you walk straight into the large, open French Impressionism gallery and see the huge painting by Gustave Caillebotte Paris Street, Rainy Day front and center.  Most likely, there's already a dozen people standing in front of it.  It's one of the museum's prized possessions.

Gustave Caillebotte was a French painter and member of the Impressionists, distinctly different from the others with his more realistic manner of painting.  He was also known for having an early interest in photography as an art form.  Notably, he was a generous contributor of his fellow artists and friends - paying their rent if they needed and purchasing their work in support, largely due to his large inheritance after his father and mother's death when he was in his 20's.  Caillebotte also used his wealth to pay for various hobbies - stamp collecting, growing orchids, yacht building and textile design.  

"Girlie Magazine"

6 x 8"

oil on panel
sold

I took a break from a larger painting and enjoyed a looser, more painterly scene in the Art Institute of Chicago.  Edouard Manet's Woman Reading is in the company of other French Impressionists in a very popular gallery at the museum - frequently mixed up with Claude Monet, another famous Impressionist.

Woman Reading was painted in Manet's later years, a very quick-brushstroke, almost plein-aire quality of a young, modern woman taking a break at a cafe with a magazine and a beer.  If you're ever standing in front of this painting, look close, the brushstrokes are numerous and somewhat frantic - as if he was trying to capture the woman before she gets up and leaves the cafe.  And multi, multi, colors layered on top of other colors - the definition of Impressionism.  I tried my best to let loose - loving the form of the woman viewing the painting.

"Color My World"

8 x 10"

oil on panel
sold

We are the fortunate ones here in the United States.  We can see Vincent van Gogh's iconic The Starry Night in person in the Museum of Modern Art in New York City.  We're lucky that way.

In 1888, Vincent van Gogh was hospitalized at Saint-Paul-de-Mausole, an asylum for the mentally ill, after a breakdown. During his stay, he was encouraged to paint - and although he rarely ventured far from the building, he painted landscapes from his view through a window in his private room.  The Starry Night was an amalgamation of church spires and cypress trees and small villages and night sky constellations he drew from his memory of paintings done in the past.

His brother Theo thought the painting to be too stylized, too exaggerated but it has become one of the most recognized van Gogh masterpieces for decades.  Seeing a van Gogh in person is special - the colors are vivid and saturated, the thickness of the paint, the swirls and movement of pigments all give it motion and life.  There's nothing like it.

Please click here for a larger view.

Karen Hollingsworth Solo Show

A shout-out to my good friend, Karen Hollingsworth, who has an opening tonight at the Principle Gallery in Charleston SC.  Go by the gallery this month if you're in the neighborhood.

Here's one of my favorites....

'Slow Ride Home'

40 x 40"

oil on canvas

Good luck Karen!

"Da Vinci Bestowed"

6 x 8"

oil on panel
sold

Happy Easter.

A good day to paint a woman viewing Savior of the World by Leonardo da Vinci.

Da Vinci painted Salvator Mundi (Latin for Savior of the World) around 1500, depicting Jesus giving a benediction with his right hand while holding a crystal orb in his other hand - said to convey his role as savior and master of the cosmos.  Da Vinci painted another 20 or so versions of this work.

Thought to be the original, it was restored and exhibited in London in 2012. Although its authenticity was disputed by some, it was sold at auction by Christie's in New York for - wait for it - $450.3 million. The purchaser was Prince Badr bin Abdullah bin Mohammed Al Farhan and will be displayed in the new Louvre Abu Dhabi Museum.

"Matinee Idolizers"

9 x 12"

oil on panel
sold 

My new painting features Edward Hopper's New York Movie which I last saw at the Art Institute of Chicago, on loan from the Museum of Modern Art in an exhibition titled America after the Fall: Painting in the 1930's.  The exhibition included my very favorite painters - Hopper, O'Keeffe, Grant Wood to name a few - depicting scenes during the Great Depression.  It was unforgettable.

The Art Institute has several fun facts about New York Movie:

- Hopper painted the work in 1938 after a long dry spell of not painting anything.

- The location is the Palace Theater, now the Lunt-Fontanne Theatre, chosen after scouting out the Strand and others.

- The woman on the right was modeled after Hopper's wife, Jo.  He had her stand under a hallway light in his building for sketching and studies.

- The outfit Jo is wearing was based on the wide-legged jumpsuits actually worn by the Palace Theater's staff.

- The theme on the movie screen was thought to be from a 1937 movie Lost Horizon by Frank Capra.

- The poet Joseph Stanton wrote an ode to the painting. 

Please click here for a larger view.

"Belfry"

6 x 8"

oil on panel
sold

Now I know it's not nice to stare but I have this thing about fabrics.  Especially patterned, colorful fabrics.  I followed this woman around the galleries - enamored by her sari and layers of different jewel-toned wraps.  She reminded me of how elegant Georgia O'Keeffe was in her later years.

From the Art Institute of Chicago, a woman stands besides O'Keeffe's Church Steeple, 1930.  The painting belongs to the Georgia O'Keeffe Museum in Santa Fe, New Mexico.

"Drama Queen"

8 x 24"

oil on panel
sold

Of all the paintings by John Singer Sargent, this one, which I got to see in person, blew me away like no other - depicting the famous Shakespearean actress Dame Ellen Terry as Lady Macbeth. 

Sargent attended the production of Macbeth at the London Lyceum and immediately wanted to paint the actress and convinced her to sit for him.  His pose of Terry holding a crown on her head, after the murder of Duncan, the Scottish king, didn't happen in the play, but he wanted a dramatic pose, concentrating on her intense gaze and that spectacular costume of green and blue embroidered silk.

Ellen Terry as Lady Macbeth hangs in the Tate Britian.

My new painting will be included in the upcoming solo show Sargentology  opening March 2nd at the Robert Lange Studios.

Please click here for a larger view.

"Homebody"

9 x 12"

oil on panel
sold

I'm still working on paintings for my show Sargentology, but it's high time I posted those that I've completed, starting with the newest one.

Featured in this setting are three gentlemen - the viewer taking a rest on the gallery bench, Dr. Samuel Jean Pozzi on the left and the artist, John Singer Sargent to the right.

Sargent painted Dr. Pozzi at Home in 1881.  Dr. Pozzi was a good friend of Sargent's, he was a Parisian gynecologist and renowned dandy - described by a contemporary as 'himself a kind of beautiful work of art'.  Sargent painted his friend relaxed at home, wearing a plush, red robe with a puffy shirt underneath, with a peek of an embroidered slipper.  Notably, Pozzi's hands are a focus, elegant, one grasping the collar, the other pulling on the tie around his hip.  The attention to his hands suggests a reminder of Pozzi's method of examination in his profession as a gynecologist.  Dr. Pozzi at Home belongs to the Hammer Museum in LA.

Sargent painted his self-portrait in 1906 and belongs to the Uffizi Gallery in Florence, Italy.

Please click here for a larger view.

All of my paintings for the show, opening March 2nd at Robert Lange Studios, can be seen here.

Happy New Year!

Thank you for visiting my blog and keeping up

with my paintings.

Wishing all a very happy, healthy, creative and sweet new year.  ~ Karin J