"Party Crasher"

10 x 10"

oil on panel
sold

The span of days you didn't hear from me recently was largely due to my working on this new painting.  It tires me to drag out a piece for days - I suffer from a short span of attention, paint for a few hours and seek out other things to do around the house.  I truly love starting a painting in the morning and finishing in the evening.  

But Renoir's masterpiece Luncheon of the Boating Party is complex - you have a landscape, still life and fifteen figures and a dog all in one.  Sixteen figures including the my viewer.  

The famed painting is in the Phillips Collection, one of the off-the-mall museums in Washington DC - and a must-go-to place.  Especially to soak in Renoir's painting.

The Boating Party is a very interesting anatomy of Renoir's friends -

- the woman on the bottom left, holding a dog, is Aline, who married Renoir and together they had three sons.

- the man on the bottom left wearing the boater's hat is Gustave Caillebotte, an accomplished artist who painted Paris Street, Rainy Day - a crowd favorite which hangs in the Art Institute of Chicago.  Gustave was also an avid boatman.

- in the threesome in the upper right corner is the actress Jeanne Samary with two of Renoir's closest friends flirting with her.

- the man with the boating hat in the upper left and the woman in the boating hat leaning on the rail are brother and sister and children of the proprietor of the restaurant Maison Fournaise, where the scene takes place.

- the remainder are poets and critics and a wealthy art historian, collector and editor of the Gazette des Beaux-Arts.

Clearly the in-crowd.

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"Luncheon Date"

16 x 8"
oil on masonite
sold

Crowds or lines of people dazzle my painting senses - but it takes ambition to start and finish such a scene. I take on each individual one by one, as if they were the sole figure, so it's a time-involved process - and I'm never really sure it's going to work out until the last few hours. The hard part is sticking with the process and not giving up. I'm a painter who likes to start a piece in the morning and end it that evening and move on to something else.

In most of the more-popular art museums, there's a star work of art, a draw, a spectacle - that will pull people in like a magnet - and Renoir's 'Luncheon of the Boating Party' is certainly one of them. We recognize the image from coffee table artbooks and perhaps a print that we have on our own wall - and to see the real thing is rewarding. As with most works of art.

Speaking of which, I hope you have the opportunity to stop in to the Morris & Whiteside Galleries in the next month, where I have 29 pieces on exhibit. I also have paintings hung at the 16 Patton Gallery in Asheville and the Howard/Mandville Gallery in Kirkland (Seattle) - and I would appreciate you taking the time to visit any of them if you're in the area.

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"Mini Series"

6 x 8"
oil on masonite
sold

Following up with another smaller, painterly piece - also included in my current show - a woman viewing the 'Migration Series' by Jacob Lawrence, in the Phillips Collection.

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"Amazing Grace"

6 x 8"
oil on masonite
sold

As I worked on the paintings for my solo show - I decided to include a few smaller pieces that demonstrate a more-painterly side of me. I will describe them as more of a glimpse of a figure, where the edges tend to be soft, the details are lessened - with the emphasis being on the color and the light. This painting is one of those smaller, more intimate pieces now on exhibit at the Morris & Whiteside Galleries - a patron of the Phillips Collection viewing one of Degas' beautiful, graceful ballet scenes.

Please click here for a larger view.