"Valued"

6 x 8"

oil on panel
sold

A couple of years back, I got to see one of Amy Sherald's first exhibitions in the Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art - recognizing immediately this was the artist who painted the official portrait of the First Lady, Michelle Obama, unveiled just a few months before. 

Amy Sherald is a young 47 years old, from Columbus, Georgia - went to Clark University in Atlanta and after a chance encounter with a street artist who encouraged her to pursue art as a career, decided to do just that.  Her signature figurative paintings are large, featuring ordinary African-American people (some she knew and some she didn't), demonstrating everyone has value.  Her skin tones are in grey tones rather than brown "so the bright colors really pop out" and she's now one of the most successful black painters of our time.  I love everything she does.  

The painting above features Amy's portrait titled She had an inside and an outside now and suddenly she knew how not to mix them.  Amy's sister, a writer, often titles her paintings for her.

"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.

"Time For Church"

6 x 8"

oil on panel
sold

I was lucky to have seen an exhibit last year - at the Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art - featuring many of Georgia O'Keeffe's works.  Yes, several close-up flowers that are so familiar were there to please the masses but I'm more enamored with her buildings in New Mexico and New York City, including Cebolla Church.

O'Keeffe lived in the same county in New Mexico and often passed through the small village of Cebolla.  Her painting is of the Church of Santo Nino, a stark, simplistic adobe building - but with a pitched roof unlike the typical flat-roofed adobe structures mainly because Cebolla gets more snow in the winter than the lower areas of the state.

"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.

"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.

"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."

"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.

"Women's Wear"

6 x 8"

oil on panel
sold

I don't like all Picasso's works of art, but I like this one, Seated Woman in Chemise, especially placed on the warm,  red wall in Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art.   The casual, natural feel of the model with the blue background appeals to me.  The painting is currently on loan from the Tate Museum in London.

"Wayne's World"

20 x 11"

oil on panel
sold

Women Rock.  Especially Wayne Thiebaud's women.  Big, bold, colorful and direct.

This new painting for the upcoming show features two of Wayne Thiebaud's women - I'll start with the one on the left, Supine Woman - in the permanant collection of Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art.  The definition of supine can mean 'lying on one's back' or 'mentally or morally lethargic'.  Thiebaud's painted her, modeled by his daughter Twinka, in 1963 so the 'lying down' posture with open legs and a white dress, brown dress shoes and a clinched fist does make a profound statement if you consider the year 1963 given the oppression of women in society and the workplace.
The same can be said of Girl With Ice Cream Cone, also painted in 1963 - which includes the often painted subject of an ice cream cone.  This fabulous piece hangs in the Hirshhorn at the Smithsonian in Washington, DC.

I read if Edward Hopper can be called the painter of the East coast certainly Wayne Thiebaud can be considered the painter of the West coast.  If you count the artbooks I've collected through the years, both Hopper and Thiebaud dominate.  They're both hugely influential to what I love about painting.  Thiebaud's range of subject matter goes from the most-recognized dessert compositions to stunning, aerial views of California landscapes and cityscapes to bold portraits to etchings and drawings.  His attention to edges and his love of shadows have formed a likewise style in how I paint.  I really do gush when I start talking about Thiebaud, an American treasure.

Please click here for a larger view.

"A Way Of Life"

6 x 8"

oil on panel
sold

When I began listing works of art I'd like to feature portraying the American Spirit, I remembered this exquisite painting in Crystal Bridges titled The Indian and the Lily by George de Forest Brush, done in 1887.  It's one of the many pieces in the museum that knocked my socks off.  It is so intimate in size, so beautifully painted, so tender, a glimpse of a moment in the life of a Native American Indian.

A little bit about the artist, George de Forest Brush - born in Tennessee, raised in Brooklyn and Darien, Connecticut, he trained in New York then later in Paris under the brilliant artist Jean-Leon Gerome.  Gerome is one of my personal favorites and I can use the same descriptions of his work - intimate, exquisite, precise realism, glimpses into personal lives.  The influence of Gerome is so very evident in Brush's paintings.

After Brush returned to America and in 1882, he ventured west with his brother and found his subject, America's native people.  For more than a year he lived among the Arapahoe and Shoshone in Wyoming and the Crow in Montana - creating paintings and etchings of Indians 'far removed from the reality of contempory Indian life'.  Brush chose to depict the Indians in a 'timeless environment undisturbed by the advent of the modern'.  He resented the rapid industrial revolution and how it negatively affected the Native Americans, instead he desired to portray them in their way of life and their connection to the natural world.

An article I found tied Brush's painting to the story of Narcissus, the perils of seeking an unattainable perfection and the novel Imensee, a story of a man reaching out for a perfect water lily but nearly drowns when he falls into the pond, getting tangled in the roots of this perfect flower.  He climbs out of the water, looks back at the water lily floating calmly - a metaphor for the struggle of the Indian tribes maintaining their way of life in a complicated, progressing world.

You should take time to look at more of Brush's amazing paintings.  They offer peace and tenderness in these days of anxiety and unrest.

"Legacy"

6 x 8"

oil on panel
sold

I'll tell you a couple of things you don't know about me.

I love major league baseball.  We watch nearly every Braves game and we're bummed the season is ending this weekend.  We often watch late night LA Dodgers games for the pleasure of listening to Vin Scully announce the play-by-plays.  And sadly, that simple pleasure is coming to an end.  So a salute to Vin Scully, who's retiring after 67 seasons as the Voice of the Dodgers.  You'll be so missed.  On a happy note, the Chicago Cubs may very well be in the World Series and I'm rooting for them to go all the way.  Truth is, no other sports do a thing for me.  Just baseball.

Another thing you don't know about me - I failed Art History in college.  Two different classes as a matter of fact.  So now, I'm not only atoning for that, I'm avid about it.  The older I get, the more I grasp history and how art connects to it, to us.  You're never too old to learn.

Which brings me to my new project.  I'm mapping out the work for an upcoming solo show in the spring.  My recent visit to Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art got me thinking about our American history - how art reflected the times, the movements, the struggles, the politics, everyday life.  

That notion evolved along with the summer of this Presidential election.  What's happened to me is I'm feeling defensive more and more about what kind of country we want, what we aspire to.  Do we embrace the past lessons and have we learned from them?  Do we want to move forward, progress as people, as a nation?  Do we accept our differences and find a way to live in harmony?  Are we proud of how we got here, our ancestors who many were immigrants?  Don't we want to be proud of our melting pot?  Do we want to be respected and show respect to one another?

That has brought me to an idea, a theme - something in the vein of American Pride or Spirit.  When I think in those terms, the best artworks I know come to mind.  I have a true passion for American art - you may have picked up on that.  Hopper, Rockwell, Thomas H Benton, Wyeth to name a few - depictions of who we are as Americans.  What we've accomplished thru thick and thin.  

So that's where I'm heading with my idea and I'd like you to be involved.  Be my focus group.  Offer ideas of iconic works of art that convey that American spirit.  I'll be working on small studies as I go - give me feedback.  Poopoo it if you want, give me a thumb's up if you want.  It all means something to me.

Now - a little bit about my new painting, which features Portrait of Alexander Hamilton by John Trumball, which hangs in Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art.  John Trumbull was an artist during the American Revolutionary War, famous for his historical paintings - his Declaration of Independence is on the back side of the 2-dollar bill.

Trumball painted Hamilton's portrait in 1792, one of many made of Hamilton and considered the 'greatest known portrait' of one of our Founding Fathers.  

And a Happy October to you ~ 

"Head and Shoulders"

6 x 8"

oil on panel
sold

Since I was a teenager, I've been fascinated with realism - or in this case, hyper-realism.  Just the idea of how an artist executes the artwork boggles my mind.  You see paintings in museums that look like a photograph, so precise it's staggering.  I wanted to do that for years, until I realized I wasn't up to it.  I'm more interested, now, in realism with a looser style - although you'll notice some paintings lean tighter and some, like much of these smaller pieces I frequently auction, are more painterly.  It keeps me sane.

The hyper-realism sculpture I feature in this new painting is by Evan Penny titled 'Old Self: Portrait of the Artist as He Will (Not) Be'.  Not only is this work of art insanely precise, down to every wrinkle and whisker and fold, the cast of shadows under the strong lighting is so very cool - not to mention the reactions of the museum patrons.  Evan Penny has a great website and on the Crystal Bridges Museum's website, you can read 'A Conversation With Evan Penny' that will give you insight of the artist's thoughts.

"Bear In Mind" (study)

6 x 6"

oil on panel
sold

One of the star attractions in Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art is Arthur Fitzwilliam Tait's 1856 painting 'A Tight Fix - Bear Hunting, Early Winter'.  The scene brings to mind the movie The Revenant - a true story of frontiersman Hugh Glass, who's mauled by a grizzly and abandoned by his group of fur trappers.  Interesting is, although there's no direct evidence this scene is based on Hugh Glass, it is strikingly similar to scenes in the movie.  The Museum of Native American History, not far from Crystal Bridges in Bentonville, Arkansas has one of the only rifles known to belong to Jim Bridger, one of the fur trappers in Hugh Glass's hunting group.

The summary of Tait's painting, in the museum, describes it as 'an icon of American cultural mythology and masculinity'.  When it was first shown, art critics said Tait 'botched the representation of the second hunter, making it unclear whether he's aiming at the bear - neither bear nor man is winning - so a bullet is the only solution to the 'tight fix'.  

More interesting, the summary goes on describing 'critics were particularly sensitive to an impasse between white and black fighters.'   Keep in mind, Tait painted this during the deadlocked war over slavery in the Kansas Territory.  The books of this time were Uncle Tom's Cabin and stories of Davy Crockett where hunting animals and runaway slaves were talked about in similar terms.  

Arthur Tait was born British, and moved to New York City at the age of 31.  He established a hunting camp in the Adirondack Mountains - completely immersed in the frontier life and sport hunting - he produced many paintings and lithographs of related scenes that were wildly popular during his career.

"Ziegfeld's Girl"

6 x 8"

oil on panel
sold

Jessica Penn, the sultry woman in Robert Henri's painting, was an actress and dancer in the famous Ziegfeld Follies.  I love Robert Henri's work - he introduced a new way of portraiture by painting on a mostly black background where the model's face is the main focus, emerging out of the dark surroundings. 

Robert Henri has an interesting bio - his last name was Cozad, his middle name was Henry.  His father founded the town of Cozaddale, Ohio. In 1882, Mr. Cozad was in a dispute with a rancher over the right to pasture cattle on the Cozad family's land - he ended up shooting and killing the rancher, cleared of wrongdoing, but the town turned against him and his family.  Mr. Cozad fled to Colorado with his family, changed their names to erase the incident and his sons posed as adopted children under the surname Henri.

As a young man, Robert was a student at the famed Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, went back and forth to Paris, taught at the New York School of Art - students were famous painters like Rockwell Kent, Edward Hopper, George Bellows to name a few.  Also to note, Mary Cassatt was his distant cousin.  

Robert Henri led a successful, celebrated life as a painter and died at the age of 64.

From the Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, a woman admires Robert Henri's portrait of 'Jessica Penn in Black with White Plumes'.

"Sunroom"

5 x 7"

oil on panel
sold

A visitor resting in the sunlit passageway in the Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, Arkansas.

"Enlightened"

6 x 8"

oil on panel
sold

On my recent trip to the Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, I spotted this young lady - she really impressed me with her genuine interest in the art.  I suspect she was taking personal notes of the pieces she really liked.

The painting she is studying is 'Landscape' by Robert Seldon Duncanson.  The artist, at 20 years of age, decided he'd rather paint canvases than houses, which he'd been doing up until then.  He was largely self-taught, had a long career as an artist until his death at age 51.

Shortly after the Civil War broke out, Duncanson exiled to Canada,  seeking out a place where racism would not get in the way of his profession as an artist.  There he studied the landscape paintings of Canadian artists, moved to the UK and toured with his artworks - he was well received and the prestigious London Art Journal declared him a master of landscape painting.

Duncanson had an important impact on American art.  His father was Scottish-Canadian, his mother was African-American and it was said Duncanson had infused his paintings with an African-American sensibility although he once wrote 'I have no color on the brain; all I have on the brain is paint.'

Duncanson's 'Landscape' depicts, very small, loggers floating rafts of timber down the Saint Lawrence River near Montreal with the glow of the sunset, a signature subject of the artist's, of a mundane workday activity in a beautiful setting.

Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art

Listen Up

I wanted to start this first week of summer with a highly-recommended trip you must take - to the Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art.  I've wanted to go for a while and just packed a bag and took a long road trip to the small town of Bentonville in Arkansas.  The red star shows you where Bentonville is....

Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art was founded by the Walton Family Foundation - the Walmart Family as we know it.  The philanthropist and arts patron and collector, Alice Walton, is to thank for this amazing museum.

On arrival, I parked my car right in front of this banner - featuring one of my very favorite American painters, Wayne Thiebaud.  I was soooo excited.

The museum is part of a 120-acre park, with nature trails and sculpture gardens throughout.

Did I mention it was free?  And parking is free too.

I am very partial to American Art and this museum takes you in a timeline of our country, from colonial times to contemporary - just outstanding.  A few of my favorites were....

 Alexander Hamilton by Giuseppe Ceracchi

Ward by George Tooker

Provincetown by Richard Estes

Haystacks by Martin Johnson Heade

Ambulance Call by Jacob Lawrence

About the town of Bentonville, Arkansas - 

It is a charming, middle-America, safe and friendly place to visit.  I recommend staying at the 21c Museum Hotel in downtown, a block from the town square and very near Crystal Bridges.  I loved my stay and wanted to spread the good word.

~ Happy Summer