"A Day at the Office"

9 x 12"

oil on panel
sold

The Montgomery Museum of Art in Alabama, make no mistake, has treasured works of art.  My personal favorite is the striking New York Office by the great Edward Hopper.

Hopper painted this masterpiece at the age of 80, four years short of his death.  The painting is quintessential Hopper - an urban scene, a lone figure and a business office with the viewer or voyeur essentially unnoticed by the woman at her desk in the window.  Hopper featured women working in offices frequently, perhaps showing his admiration for who really runs the show.

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Out of the Blue

An astonishing thing happened to me this week.

Out of the blue, I got an email from a woman who explained she had inherited a painting that had been in her family most of her life.  Her words "When I was a kid, I never thought about what I wanted to inherit from my parents when they passed away … except for this piece!  It was the one thing I would fight for, I thought."

She did her research online looking for information on the artist Lee Jurick and couldn't find anything, but did find my name then read that my mom was an artist and "Viola!", the mystery was solved.  The magic of the internet. 

This was a meaningful gift to me - to see a tangible reminder of part of my mom's creative soul and it happened to be on the anniversary of my mom's passing 38 years ago.

The painting shows my mom's love for color and especially painting in the Cubism style.  She loved Picasso and Braque.  She really loved all styles of art.  She did pen and ink drawings of life around her in Thailand, then scenery in Bucks County, Pennsylvania.  She did linoleum and wood prints and mono-prints, which is when I learned all about printmaking as a young girl.  She even sculpted.  She belonged to the Doylestown Art League during our time in Pennsylvania, where this painting changed hands to the parents of this wonderful woman, who took the time, found me and wrote me an email that made my day.  My week.  My year.

I'm lucky to have a dozen or so pieces of my mom's work.  This has encouraged me to photograph all of what I have and create a devoted page on my website - I'll let you know when that's published.

Good things happen when you least expect it.  Thank you Kris.

"Rest in Peace"

6 x 8"

oil on panel
sold

I imagine chefs, who prepared elaborate dishes in their restaurant's kitchens all day, sometimes go home hungry and the last thing they want to do is spend their time off whipping up something as elaborate.  I imagine they kick off their shoes and wing it. Maybe a grilled cheese sandwich with tomato soup.

Today I opted for grilled cheese.  First staining a white panel with a rosy/lipstick red - then, without sketching anything out, just paint.  It's liberating.  It's necessary.

Part of my mindset this morning was to work with the paint much like one of my favorite artist, Jennifer McChristian.  Her paintings have life.  She shows constraint in overworking edges, using the rosy base color peeking through the colors she loads on top. 

From the Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, a woman rests in a sunlit area.

"Feast Your Eyes"

6 x 8"

oil on panel
sold

There are some artists who don't have much in the way of biographies, especially those who practiced their craft in the early 1800's.  Henri Lehmann is one of those artists.

Henri Lehmann was a German-born French painter and at the age of 17, Lehmann's father sent him to Paris to study under the well-known classical painter Jean Auguste Dominique Ingres.  The portrait in my painting, The Girl, could very well be mistaken for an Ingres piece.  Very precise, classical pose, elaborate garb.  In fact, this painting shares the same room in the National Gallery of Art with his tutor Ingres.

Lehmann went on to teach at the prestigious Ecole des Beaux-Arts (School of Fine Arts) in Paris and taught notable artists such as George Seurat and Pierre Bonnard and you'll find many works of art in museums by those and other alumni.

"Casual Acquaintance"

9 x 12"

oil on panel
sold

The High Museum has this stunning portrait, Miss Bessie (Miss Elizabeth Newton) by a seldom-recognized painter, Albert Herter.  It has the trademarks of John Singer Sargent - the flush ear and fingertips - and James Whistler - the arrangement of tones and tints of whites, both artists and acquaintances of Albert.

Albert Herter took off running as an artist at the young age of 19, winning awards in Expositions in Atlanta, Nashville and Buffalo then at the Paris Salon in 1890 - most of his work being portraiture.  He created cover illustrations for Ladies' Home Journal and a number of books including posters of the Red Cross and YMCA in the early 1900's.  He painted murals in private homes, the St. Francis Hotel in San Francisco, the Supreme Court Building in Hartford, the State Capital of Wisconsin and the National Academy of Sciences in Washington DC.  He was sought after and hugely successful.

Albert married Adele, a fellow artist he met in Paris, had three children, moved back to New York, where he eventually founded a tapestry and textile firm.  Two of Albert's children went on to be artists, one served as governor of Massachusetts and later as U.S. Secretary of State under Eisenhower.  His wife was a founding member of New York City's Cosmopolitan Club and was known as one of the northeast's 'society' portrait painters.

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"Autumn"

6 x 8"

oil on panel
sold

The very wise art historian Sister Wendy once explained Mark Rothko's work as the natural world around us.  This painting, Untitled, 1952, reminds me of autumn tones - Indian summer skies, leaves of browns/reds/golds.

Painting Rothko's colors is my way of practicing the mixing of paints, perhaps discovering tones I may have neglected in my own work.  Kinda like adding different spices or herbs to a recipe.  It's good exercise.

"Lie Before"

9 x 12" 

oil on panel

When I saw this painting Supine Woman by Wayne Thiebaud, in person, in the Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art,  I read more about it as soon as I got home.  There had to be more to this and I was right.

The definition of  'supine' can mean "lying on one's back" or "mentally or morally lethargic" so I suspected Mr. Thiebaud meant the first.  His model was his daughter Twinka  (don't you love her name?) and it was 1963.  Consider the time, women were oppressed in society and the workplace so the 'lying down' posture with open legs and a white dress, brown shoes and a clinched fist does make a profound statement.

Wayne Thiebaud will be 100 years old this November and he still creates amazing work.  There are few artists who have had such a profound impact on my life as an artist - the way I see, the way I handle paint and the exploration of many subjects.  Consider him a National treasure as I do.

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