"Stand Beside"

6 x 8"

oil on panel
sold

I felt it was a must to paint a possible companion to Stand Aside - showing the left half of Henri Matisse's Bathers by a River.

Here is how the two look together...

Matisse's painting hangs in the Modern Wing at the Art Institute of Chicago.

"Stand Aside"

6 x 8"

oil on panel
sold

I really appreciate taking a break from painting larger pieces for a show, a show taking place four months from now, and painting these smaller ones - working out some ideas rolling around in my head.  It also helps me earn a living while I'm working on paintings no one will see until August.  So thank you for considering a bid or two on these smaller pieces.

You see the right half of a large painting by Henri Matisse, Bathers by a River.  I love this Matisse.  It hangs in the Modern Wing of the Art Institute of Chicago.  Matisse considered Bathers by a River "one of five most pivotal works of his career."  You may remember my past post regarding Dance and a Russian art collector commissioning Matisse to do three large pieces for his mansion - this was one of three presented to the man and also the one that was rejected.  The collector settled for Dance and Music.

So Matisse held onto this painting for about four years - a time when he was really getting into Cubism.  With renewed ambition, he made changes in composition, the faceless, oval heads of the figures, divided the canvas into four panels of color and loved the results.   He essentially simplified four nude figures besides a river (the blue panel) and positioned in the tall grass (the left half you don't see here) with a snake appearing as a threat - reflecting Matisse's concerns about the climate of war going on around him.

Next, I am going to paint a companion to this one - including the left half of Matisse's wondering painting.

"See and Be Seen"

6 x 8"

oil on panel
sold

There is a dual result in Rene Magritte's The False Mirror.  The viewer looks through the iris of this large eye, passed the black pupil and into a blue sky with floating clouds - and yet, this eye is looking at the viewer.  How totally surreal.

Part of me, as an artist, generally loves surrealism in art for its representation/realistic quality and the other part of me feels like I'm always asked 'the meaning'.  Frankly, that annoys me.  I'm more inclined to relish the vision in front of me that a painter found interesting or particularly beautiful and had to paint it.  Magritte thought the opposite.  Surrealism as an art form was what he most enjoyed.

Rene Magritte was in his 50's before he realized fame and recognition.  Born in Belgium at the end of the 19th century, not a whole lot is known about his youth.  Magritte worked in an advertising agency for a time then involved himself in several exhibitions with like-minded artists such as Salvador Dali, Juan Miro, Picasso - all stunning the art world with Cubism and Surrealism.  When his gallery closed, he returned to advertising for a stable income - the influence is more than evident in his paintings, notably This Is Not a Pipe which could easily have been an ad for a tobacco shop.

The False Mirror hangs in the Museum of Modern Art in New York City.

"Going Dutch"

9 x 12"

oil on panel
sold

So right after I finished the smaller study Go Dutch, I started on a more-realized composition along the same lines - featuring Rembrandt's Self-Portrait, in the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City.

Please click here for a larger view.

"Go Dutch"

6 x 8"

oil on panel
sold

I know I've been quiet on this blog but I've finished two larger paintings during my absence - one for a group show coming up titled Perfectionists - a painting that took me 5 days to complete.  Yikes.  That rarely happens.  The other for a show of mine coming up.

So... I needed to get small.  Loosen up.  And I had just read about the famous Dutch artist, Rembrandt, who's work is on exhibit "like never seen before" and thought of his Self-Portrait at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York.  Rembrandt did roughly forty self-portraits during his lifetime - this done in 1660 at the age of fifty-four.  This self-portrait admits his age with a furrowed brow, double chin, wrinkles and pouches under his eyes - it's beautiful and honest.

"Red Neckwear"

6 x 8"

oil on panel
sold

I have an affection for this Picasso portrait of Pedro Manach.  I especially love the pose and the black outlines of the figure.  

Picasso was a young 20-year-old on his first visit to Paris in 1900 - one of his paintings was exhibited in the World Fair show of Spanish art.  It is then he met the industrialist and art dealer Pedro Manach and it was then he signed his first contract that gave Manach his paintings for two years in exchange for a monthly income.  Not a bad start for a young artist.

Pedro Manach hangs in the National Gallery of Art in DC.

"Join the Party"

6 x 8"

oil on panel
sold

I was enamored with At the Moulin Rouge from the first time I saw it at the Art Institute of Chicago. It was that haunting face on the far right, as if she was looking at me through a window seemingly inviting me in to join the party.  

Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec painted Paris' nightlife like no other.  Caricatures who he knew well, like Jane Avril in the center with the flaming-red hair or the dancer May Milton who stares at you with her painted face.  The painting is two joined canvases, said to have been severed by Lautrec's dealer after his death - hoping the separate canvases were more saleable.  The entire composition was eventually restored.

"Waiting Room"

6 x 8"

oil on panel
sold

On the third floor, in the Modern Wing of the Art Institute of Chicago, you'll find the Picassos.  And a bench to rest on.  I happened to know where all the benches are.

The Red Armchair depicts one of the many women in Picasso's life - Marie-Therese Walter was 28 and married when she met the artist and he was smitten with her.  Notice her face is both the frontal view and profile in one shape, a new motif of Picasso's, maybe hinting at the double-life the model was leading, carrying on with the man.

Notably, Picasso used an industrial house paint which he had first used 10 or so years earlier.  The colors are brilliant and almost enamel-like, and here he mixed the paints with oils and produced a wide range of surface textures which you can see up close in The Red Armchair.

"Sweet"

6 x 6"

oil on panel
sold

I was in the De Young Museum in San Francisco and a boy shrieked when he saw the painting of Superman by Mel Ramos - hardly able to contain himself.  When I saw, in person, Wayne Thiebaud's painting Dessert Tray in the Museum of Modern Art in New York City,  I didn't shriek but I felt the same excitement.  I l-u-r-v-e this painting.  I love every painting Wayne Thiebaud has done.

And it must be said, it was a total joy doing this new painting.

"The Picasso"

6 x 6"

oil on panel
sold

In 1963, the great Pablo Picasso was commissioned to create a public art sculpture by the architects of the Richard J. Daley Center in the loop in Chicago.  Picasso completed a maquette, or a small-scale version, featured in my new painting.  The cost of the 50-foot sculpture was $351,959 (equivalent to $2.7 million in present day) - paid for thru foundations and gifted from the artist himself to the city of Chicago.  The maquette resides in the Art Institute of Chicago, also gifted by Picasso.

The Chicago Picasso, known as The Picasso, was dedicated in 1967 by the Mayor Richard Daley ...

... and met with mixed reactions.  The famed journalist Mike Royko ripped it to shreds in his newspaper column, saying "The fact is, it has a long stupid face and looks like some giant insect that is about to eat a smaller, weaker insect.  Its eyes are like the eyes of every slum owner who made a buck off the small and weak.  And of every building inspector who took a wad from a slum owner to make it all possible."  Quintessential Mike Royko.

Mayor Daley responded, at the dedication, saying "We dedicate this celebrated work this morning with the belief that what is strange to us today will be familiar tomorrow."

And it is familiar to anyone who lives in Chicago or has visited - or has watched Ferris Bueller's Day Off or The Blues Brothers.  It's a well-known "meet me at the Picasso" spot, enjoyed by the public with a farmer's market surrounding it in the plaza and many seasonal affairs.  So there Mike Royko.

~ Wishing you a happy and healthy year ~

"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.