"Poolside"

 

 

12 x 12"

oil on panel

What says summer like a swimming pool and being this is the unofficial start of summer I'm posting one of my new paintings for a group show Looking Forward, held at Robert Lange Studios and opening July 2nd.  

 

Portrait of an Artist (Pool with Two Figures) 1972,  is one of many paintings David Hockney used a swimming pool as his main subject.  While flying into Los Angeles from England, his birthplace, he marveled at what he saw below.  ‘I looked down to see blue swimming pools all over, and I realised that a swimming pool in England would have been a luxury, whereas here they are not.’  Without realizing it, he found one of his greatest subject matters for the following two decades.

Hockney's first attempt at this composition, after months of working and reworking it, ended with a total wipe-off.  He set off to take multiple photographs until he found the exact reference he was looking for - imagined months ago.  With just four weeks until a gallery show opening, he worked 18 hours a day and completed the finished painting the night before the shipper was to pick up the piece and get it to New York City.

46 years later, Hockney's most widely-known and loved works of art sold for a record $90.3 million in Christie's auction.  In 2019, he left Los Angeles after residing in California for 55 years, and now lives in Normandy, France where he says he'll live out the rest of his days.  The 82-year-old artist describes a normal day is working in his studio in the morning, breaking for an afternoon meal and maybe a nap, then going back to his studio for the evening.  

Now that's the life.

Please click here for a larger view and purchase/contact information.

"Mother and Child Reunion"

8 x 10"

oil on panel
sold

Well, after painting my smaller study you see on the post below, I jumped right into a larger, more-realized piece.  The Mary Cassatt painting is larger, the details are more crisp and that gives me so much more insight to her colors and edges.

Cassatt, like other artists in her time, were influenced by other cultures and their artwork.  Picasso found African masks his springboard to more geometric paintings which lead to Cubism.  Cassatt and Matisse were inspired by Japanese design and printmaking which lead to figures that appeared almost 2-dimensional or cut-outs.  They incorporated fabric patterns in backgrounds and clothing on figures, which was fairly uncommon in painting up until then.  That's why I say The Child's Bath is so quintessential Mary Cassatt.

Please click here for a larger view.

"Mother and Child Reunion" (study)

6 x 8"

oil on panel
sold

The whole time I was painting this, Paul Simon's song was going through my head.  A mother and daughter viewing Mary Cassatt's The Child's Bath.  Quintessential Cassatt - observing the intimate relationship between mother and child, with an influence of Japanese block print and patterns on patterns.

From the Art Institute of Chicago.

~ a thank you to Stephania for the partial use of her photo.

"Hard Act to Follow"

9 x 12"

oil on panel
sold

I spotted this painting on Instagram and recognized it as one of the popular prints I used to frame for customers back in the day.  People commonly referred to it as "the goose girl", its real title is To Pastures New by Sir James Guthrie.  The painting has traveled all over the globe but does reside at the Aberdeen Art Museum in the UK.

James Guthrie was a Scottish painter during the late 1800's - early 1900's, during the Victorian era and what is called the Gilded Age.  The wealthy commissioned portrait artists - think John Singer Sargent and others, including Guthrie, to paint large, elaborate portraits of their patriarchs, wives and children to adorn their mansion walls.  It was all the craze.

The young group of Scottish artists, the Glasgow Boys, who Guthrie was associated with, considered themselves rebellious, rejecting the older generation of artists and declared themselves to be anti-establishment.  Other groups, like the union of newspaper illustrators with members such as Winslow Homer, grew tired of the upper crust being depicted in popular art and felt the need to portray the working class and African-Americans who were experiencing prolonged lives of enslavement during Reconstruction.  They felt an obligation to show their dignity and contributions despite their suppression.

To Pastures New is a perfect example of Guthrie's commitment and sense of pride painting directly from nature and his surroundings in Scotland, portraying a young, hard-working peasant girl filling the canvas like a giant shepherding her animals through the field on a normal workday.  

Please click here for a larger view.

"Dream a Dream"

6 x 8"

oil on panel
sold

The most enthusiastic audiences for Edgar Degas' ballerinas are little girls.  Especially popular is the bronze sculpture you'll find in several art museums The Little Fourteen-Year-Old Dancer - it's real to those young girls in a way that one-dimensional paintings are not.  It's one of those moments that art impacts a human being at an early age.

An art historian wrote an interesting article for Vanity Fair and claimed Degas was "a bona fide misogynist".  He apparently took pleasure in watching his dancer/models contort in agony and even referred to them as his "little monkey girls".  Degas never married, known to be anti-Semitic - a result from the Dreyfus Affair when a French military officer, who was Jewish, was wrongfully accused of treason.  He blamed his family's business difficulties on Jewish competitors and grew more and more resentful. His bitter prejudice cost him many friends and certainly the respect of his more-tolerant Parisian artists friends and peers.

From the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City, a little girl is mesmerized while viewing Dega's Dancers Practicing at the Barre, with the sculpture The Little Fourteen-Year-Old Dancer next to her.

"All in the Family"

3-3/4 x 6"

oil on panel
sold

Lucky me, I got to visit the National Gallery of Art in DC last weekend - the same weekend the Washington Nationals and the Houston Astros were in town for the World Series.  At a minimum of $1,000 a ticket, I could only opt for an afternoon at a free art museum but hey, it was great being there again.

If you breeze through the galleries, sometimes you'll miss out on the fun facts of a painting - like Francois-Hubert Drouais's Family Portrait, notably dated April 1, 1756.  You may guess it's Christmas Day because of the gifts and decorations in the scene but no, it was April Fool's Day as we know it now.  Before the Gregorian calendar was adopted in 1582, the medieval calendar marked New Year's Day as March 25th, the vernal equinox - and the 1st of April marked the beginning of spring.  Many people would, and still do, celebrate by exchanging springtime gifts on that day - this informal family portrait showing the little girl giving flowers to her mother, the husband reading a poem to his wife as she points to the daughter as a symbolic gift to her husband. Very sweet.

"Swept Away"

6 x 8"

oil on panel
sold

Like many a Rembrandt painting,  A Girl With a Broom, painted in 1651, is one of the most-copied or faked paintings of all times.  In fact, the fakes have been produced since the mid-1700's.  Numerous people through the years have claimed they have the original, but alas, the original hangs in the National Gallery of Art in Washington DC.

"Dancing With The Gilders"

6 x 8"

oil on panel
sold

The young lady seems to be connecting with the sisters, Dorothea and Francesca Gilder, in this portrait by Cecilia Beaux.   Beaux befriended the Gilder family while in Paris in 1896 and when after the artist moved to New York City, they became close friends.  Beaux painted the family members often, especially the sisters.  Her depiction is a tender, elegant portrait of a big sister teaching her little sister a dance step - something they often filled their days with.

Cecilia Beaux, an American, female painter was raised in both Philadelphia and New York City by relatives who nurtured her desire to become a painter - studying at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts and Paris.  She developed an earned reputation as one of the best portrait painters, rivaling those like John Singer Sargent.  After completing Dorothea and Francesca in 1898, she received important commissions, including portraits of Mrs. Theodore Roosevelt, Mrs. Andrew Carnegie to name a few.

Dorothea and Francesca, among a few others by Beaux, hang in the Art Institute of Chicago.

"Value Analysis"

6 x 8"

oil on panel
sold

I started this new study yesterday morning.  The painting the young woman is looking up at is one of my favorites by Norman Rockwell titled Girl in a Mirror.

I was listening to Michelle Obama's inspirational speech as I was painting.  Here is a portion that stuck with me...

"What message are our little girls hearing about who they should look like, how they should act? What lessons are they learning about their value as professionals, as human beings, about their dreams and aspirations?"

You can read Michelle Obama's speech in full here.

"Little Surfer"

7 x 5"

oil on panel
sold

A girl and her boogie board in the ocean in Miami Beach, Florida.

"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.

"A Paper Trail"

5 x 7"

oil on panel
sold

In times of sorrow and grief, I paint.

A young lady enthusiastically sketches on the floor in the Legion of Honor Museum in San Francisco.

"Flower Child"

5 x 7"

oil on panel
sold

It's been my observation that most young children are bored in art museums unless they happened upon a work of art that is familiar to them - like paintings of children, mother and child, or big shapes and bright colors - then they pay attention.   

It was no surprise to see a young girl seemingly mesmerized with the colorful, bold, modernist-style painting 'Le Tournesol' (The Sunflower) by Edward Steichen, which hangs in the National Gallery of Art in Washington DC.

Edward Steichen painted this in 1920, he was around 40 years old and had practiced painting and photography and most of his paintings were landscapes and portraits with very tonalist colors, muted, like his photography.  Steichen abruptly changed his style in his late 30's to a more hard-edged, modernist style and painted 'Le Tournesol', which was exhibited in Paris in 1922, with great importance - along with similar works of art by Leger, O'Keeffe and others who's styles reflected stream-lined forms and off-key colors.

A few years later, Steichen apparently had a 'crisis in faith' and abandoned painting, destroying any photographs and artworks in his possession (this one was sold and not in his studio).  He left New York and returned to France where he dove into gardening, raised sunflowers, photographed them over and over - studied mathematics intensely and painted small, abstract, geometric pieces.  He did eventually return to the US, his photography continued to be his passion and his legacy.  In 2006, one of his photographs sold for $2.9 million, what was then the highest price ever paid for a photograph at auction.

"Net Earnings"

7-1/2 x 9"

oil on panel
sold

A new painting that features on of my hero artists, Winslow Homer.  A young lady is viewing Homer's  'The Herring Net' in the Art Institute of Chicago.

Please click here for a larger view.

"Bored Certified"

8 x 10"

oil on panel
sold

As you may know, I will have a small solo show titled 'Museum Hours', opening February 28th at the Anne Irwin Fine Art Gallery here in Atlanta.  I got the okay to begin revealing the paintings, starting with this new piece, from the Museum of Modern Art in New York City - a mother viewing Pablo Picasso's 'Girl Before a Mirror' while her seemingly bored daughter sits beside her.

Please click here for a larger view.

"Flower Power"

5 x 7"

oil on panel
sold

Geezaloo.

I'm back from the dead.  Mostly.

I brought back a nasty cold from my trip to Chicago, despite all that diligent hand-washing. It knocked me out for the week.  All I could muster was laying around watching post-season baseball.  My brain is working a little better today.

Back to the paints with this new piece - a young woman admiring Georgia O'Keeffe's  'Yellow Hickory Leaves with Daisy' in the Art Institute of Chicago.

"Foam Bath"

6 x 6"

oil on panel
sold

A reminder of warmth, sun, sand and fun at the beach in the summertime.

"Diggin' It"

8 x 10"

oil on panel
sold

I've had a cold.  In the grand scheme of things, it's just an ordinary cold but it turns the brain to mush.  But after a very nice evening with a couple who bought a painting of mine recently,  I got a much-needed shot in the arm and jumped back into the paints, despite my mushy brain.

Lucky for me, a Game of Thrones marathon has been on all day and I've stayed focused for a change, painting and reminding myself how the story has progressed - ready for the return of Season 3 tonight.  Yay.  It's the best thing on television, if you haven't tuned in yet.   Baseball returns tomorrow, the trees are budding and life is good.

I painted this piece on a bright, red ground - which takes some patience because colors do appear different on the red, with less predictable results, but that's what makes it fun.  Just like when you paint on black - at first you battle with it, then get familiar with how to go along with it.  

"Child Seat"

6 x 12"
oil on masonite
sold 

A new painting - the simple pleasure of plopping down on the beach and playing with the gloppy, wet sand.

Please click here for a larger view.

"Boat People"

5 x 7"
oil on masonite
sold

A new addition to my ongoing series ATL to NYC & Back - a group of students riding on a chartered boat down the East River. Of course I just l-u-r-v-e the shadows.