Walter Shirlaw - Water Lilies [c.1889]

Walter Shirlaw (August 6, 1838 – December 30, 1909) was a Scottish-American artist. Shirlaw was born in Paisley, Scotland, and moved to the United States with his parents in 1840. He worked as a bank-note engraver, and his work was first exhibited at the National Academy in 1861. He was elected an academician of the Chicago Academy of Design in 1868. Among his pupils there was Frederick Stuart Church. From 1870 to 1877 he studied in Munich, under George Raab, Richard Wagner, Arthur George von Ramberg, and Wilhelm Lindenschmidt.

On his return from Europe he took charge of the Art Students League of New York, and for several years taught in the composition class. He became an associate of the National Academy in 1887, and an academician the following year. He died in Madrid.

[Oil on canvas, 52.3 x 78.1 cm]

Felix Vallotton - Nude at the Stove [1900]

Félix Edouard Vallotton (December 28, 1865 – December 29, 1925) was a Swiss painter and printmaker. By 1892 he was affiliated with Les Nabis, a group of young artists that included Pierre Bonnard, Ker-Xavier Roussel, Maurice Denis, and Edouard Vuillard, with whom Vallotton was to form a lifelong friendship. During the 1890s, when Vallotton was closely allied with the avant-garde, his paintings reflected the style of his woodcuts, with flat areas of colour, hard edges, and simplification of detail. His subjects included genre scenes, portraits and nudes.

[Oil on cardboard]

Cass Gilbert - A Road in Dorset [1931]

Cass Gilbert was born in Zanesville, Ohio in 1858 and died in Brockenhurst, England in 1934.

[Watercolour and pencil on paper sheet, 30.5 x 45.8 cm]

Julia Eckel - Radio Broadcast [1933-34]

Gathering around microphones as in Julia Eckel's painting, actors and musicians of the 1930s created drama, comedy, and musical performances enjoyed by radio audiences across the country. During the Great Depression Will Rogers' humour, Bing Crosby's crooning, Graham McNamee's news coverage, and series like "Fibber McGee and Molly," were part of the American scene. President Franklin Roosevelt explained his decisions to the nation through his famous radio broadcast "fireside chats."

Artist Julia Eckel (Washington, District of Columbia, 1907 - Washington, District of Columbia, 1988) used tightly spaced figures and controlled gestures to illustrate the close cooperation among star actors, secondary players, and musicians performing live on the air. The painting shows musicians playing during an interlude in the action as the leading lady, dressed in red and green, stands poised to speak her next line. Viewers of the painting, like radio listeners, feel the tension as they wait for the action to resume. Eckel kept her visual drama taut by leaving out such distracting practical details as the scripts and sheet music, which are prominent in publicity photographs of radio performances.

[Oil on canvas, 102.0 x 141.2 cm]

Nicolas Poussin - The Holy Family on the Steps [1648]

Nicolas Poussin (June 15, 1594 – November 19, 1665) was a French painter in the classical style. His work predominantly features clarity, logic, and order, and favours line over colour. His work serves as an alternative to the dominant Baroque style of the 17th century. Until the 20th century he remained the major inspiration for such classically-oriented artists as Jacques-Louis David and Paul Cézanne. He spent most of his working life in Rome, except for a short period when Cardinal Richelieu ordered him back to France to serve as First Painter to the King.

He suffered from declining health after 1650, and was troubled by a worsening tremor in his hand, evidence of which is apparent in his late drawings. He died in Rome and was buried in the church of San Lorenzo in Lucina, his wife having pre-deceased him. Poussin left no children, but he adopted as his son Gaspard Dughet (Gasparo Duche), his wife's brother, who became a painter and took the name of Poussin.

[Oil on canvas]

Louis Bunce - Untitled [1959]

Louis Bunce (Lander, Wyoming, 1907 - Portland, Oregon, 1983) moved to Portland with his parents when he was a child. He attended the Museum Art School (now the Pacific Northwest College of Art) for two years before moving to New York. For roughly the next decade he immersed himself in the city, studying at the Art Students League and becoming friends with several artists who would make art history, including Jackson Pollock and David Smith.

Bunce eventually returned to Portland, where he taught at the Museum Art School from 1946 to 1972. But he exhibited regularly at New York galleries through the 1950s and '60s, and appeared in major shows at The Museum of Modern Art, Metropolitan Museum of Art and Whitney Museum of American Art.

[Oil and collage on paper mounted on fibreboard, 45.7 x 59.8 cm]

Robert Vonnoh - The Ring [1892]

Robert William Vonnoh (September 17, 1858 – 1933) was an American Impressionist painter known for his portraits and landscapes. He studied in Paris under Gustave Boulanger and Jules Joseph Lefebvre. He taught at the Cowles Art School in Boston (1884-1885), at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston (1883-1887), and at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts (1891-1896). Vonnoh became a member of the National Academy of Design in 1906. His wife Bessie Potter Vonnoh (1872-1955) was a sculptor.

Julien Dupré - Peasant Girl with Sheep

Julien Dupré (Paris, March 18, 1851 - April 16, 1910) was born to Jean Dupré (a jeweller) and Pauline Bouillié and began his adult life working in a lace shop in anticipation of entering his family’s jewellery business. The war of 1870 and the siege of Paris forced the closure of the shop and Julien began taking evening courses at the Ecole des Arts Décoratifs and it was through these classes that he gained admission to the Ecole des Beaux-Arts. Throughout his career Dupré championed the life of the peasant and continued painting scenes in the areas of Normandy and Brittany until his death.

[Oil on canvas, 58.7 x 69.2 cm]

Benjamin West - Magdalen Whyte

Benjamin West (October 10, 1738 – March 11, 1820) was an Anglo-American painter of historical scenes around and after the time of the American War of Independence. He was the second president of the Royal Academy serving from 1792 to 1805 and 1806 to 1820. He was born in Springfield, Pennsylvania, in a house that is now in the borough of Swarthmore on the campus of Swarthmore College, as the tenth child of an innkeeper. The family later moved to Newtown Square, Pennsylvania, where his father was the proprietor of the Square Tavern, still standing in that town.

West is known for his large scale history paintings, which use expressive figures, colours and compositional schemes to help the spectator to identify with the scene represented. West called this "epic representation". He died in London.

[Oil on canvas, 30 x 25 inches]

Marci Oleszkiewicz - Profile in Blue

“I was home-schooled through most of my schooling years. It was during this time that my first art teacher gave me the initial inspiration to pursue my natural drive toward art. I have since studied at The American Academy of Art in Chicago, Marwen (a not for profit organization in which I am now an alumnus) and at The Palette and Chisel Academy of Fine Arts in Chicago. It was at the latter that I studied with many amazing artists to whom I credit my knowledge on how to see as a painter and am grateful for their generosity and encouragement. I am also inspired by many of the great masters, including Antonio Mancini, John Singer Sargent, Norman Rockwell, and Richard Schmid.”

[Oil on panel, 8 x 10 inches]

Erastus Salisbury Field - The Garden of Eden [c.1860]

Erastus Salisbury Field (Leverett, Massachusetts, May 19, 1805 - Leverett, June 28, 1900) was an American painter. His career as an itinerant portrait painter began in 1826, most of his commissions coming through a network of family associations in western Massachusetts and Connecticut. From 1841 he lived mainly in New York, where he expanded his subject-matter to include landscapes and American history pictures. There he presumably studied photography, for on his return to Massachusetts he advertised himself as a daguerreotypist. Field retired in 1888.

[Oil on canvas, 88.26 x 116.52 cm]

Jean-Baptiste-Siméon Chardin - Soap Bubbles [c.1733-34]

Jean-Baptiste-Siméon Chardin (November 2, 1699 – December 6, 1779) was an 18th-century French painter. He is considered a master of still life. Chardin was born in Paris, the son of a cabinetmaker, and rarely left the city. He lived on the Left Bank near Saint-Sulpice until 1757, when Louis XV granted him a studio and living quarters in the Louvre.

Though his popularity rested initially on paintings of animals and fruit, by the 1730s he introduced kitchen utensils into his repertoire. Soon figures populated his scenes as well, supposedly in response to a portrait painter who challenged him to take up the genre. At any event, he was presently painting half-length compositions of children saying grace and kitchen maids in moments of reflection. These humble scenes deal with simple, everyday activities, yet they also have functioned as a source of documentary information about a level of French society not hitherto considered a worthy subject for painting. The pictures are noteworthy for their formal structure and pictorial harmony.

In 1772 Chardin's son, also a painter, drowned in Venice, a probable suicide. The artist's last known oil painting was dated 1776; his final Salon participation was in 1779, and featured several pastel studies. Gravely ill by November of that year, he died in Paris on December 6, at the age of 80.

[Oil on canvas, 60 x 73 cm]

Adolphe Monticelli - Orchard in Provence

Adolphe Joseph Thomas Monticelli (October 14, 1824 – June 29, 1886) was a French painter of the generation preceding the Impressionists. Monticelli was born in Marseille in humble circumstances. He attended the École Municipale de Dessin in Marseille from 1842 to 1846, and continued his artistic training in Paris, where he studied under Paul Delaroche at the École des Beaux-Arts. In Paris he made copies after the Old Masters in the Louvre, and admired the oil sketches of Eugène Delacroix. In 1855 he met Narcisse Diaz, a member of the Barbizon school, and the two often painted together in the Fontainebleau Forest. Monticelli frequently adopted Diaz's practice of introducing nudes or elegantly costumed figures into his landscapes. He developed a highly individual Romantic style of painting, in which richly coloured, dappled, textured and glazed surfaces produce a scintillating effect. After 1870, Monticelli returned to Marseille, where he would live in poverty despite a prolific output, selling his paintings for small sums. An unworldly man, he dedicated himself single-mindedly to his art.

[Oil on panel, 30.1 × 49.4 cm]

Piet Mondrian - Farm along the River Gein

Pieter Cornelis "Piet" Mondriaan, after 1912 Mondrian (Amersfoort, Netherlands, March 7, 1872 – New York City, February 1, 1944), was a Dutch painter. He was an important contributor to the De Stijl art movement and group, which was founded by Theo van Doesburg. He evolved a non-representational form which he termed Neo-Plasticism. This consisted of white ground, upon which was painted a grid of vertical and horizontal black lines and the three primary colours. The earliest paintings that show an inkling of the abstraction to come are a series of canvases from 1905 to 1908, which depict dim scenes of indistinct trees and houses with reflections in still water. However, although the end result leads the viewer to begin emphasizing the forms over the content, these paintings are still firmly rooted in nature, and it is only the knowledge of Mondrian's later achievements that leads one to search for the roots of his future abstraction in these works. Piet Mondrian died of pneumonia on February 1, 1944 and was interred in the Cypress Hills Cemetery in Brooklyn, New York.

[Oil on canvas laid down on board, 45 × 53 cm]

Bedri Baykam - A Clean Sheet for You Mr President - History Will Judge [2009]

Bedri Baykam (born Ankara, 1957) is an internationally acclaimed Turkish artist and intellectual. He started to paint when he was only two years old, and has had several exhibitions since the age of six in Bern, Geneva, New York, Washington, London, Rome, Munich, Stockholm, etc. during his childhood years, when he was recognized as a child prodigy. He studied at the Sorbonne University in Paris from 1975 to 1980 and got an MBA degree. During this time, he also studied drama in L'Actorat, Paris. He lived in California during the years 1980-1987, studied painting and film-making at the California College of Arts and Crafts, in Oakland. He had several shows in New York, California and Paris. He returned to Turkey in 1987 and has been living in Istanbul since.

[180 x 240 cm]

William McGregor Paxton - Tea Leaves [1909]

In a windowless parlour permeated by soft light and a dreamy atmosphere, two elegant women pass the time by doing very little or nothing at all. Paxton (American, 1869–1941) hints at a narrative, but he asks that the viewer invent it, recapitulating the ambiguity of Vermeer's paintings, which he admired. Paxton often depicted refined women, such as his patrons' wives and daughters, at leisure in handsome Boston interiors of the sort that they, as keepers of culture, would have decorated and occupied. By equating women with the precious aesthetic objects that surround them, Paxton echoes the spirit of the novelist Henry James, who portrayed women as collectible objects in The American (1877) and Portrait of a Lady (1881). Paxton's works also accord with pronouncements by the sociologist Thorstein Veblen, who observed in his Theory of the Leisure Class (1899) that a woman's "conspicuous leisure" signalled the wealth of her father or her husband.

[Oil on canvas, 91.6 x 71.9 cm]

Raphael - Portrait of Maddalena Strozzi Doni [c.1506]

Raffaello Sanzio da Urbino (April 6 or March 28, 1483 – April 6, 1520), better known simply as Raphael, was an Italian painter and architect of the High Renaissance, celebrated for the perfection and grace of his paintings and drawings. Together with Michelangelo and Leonardo da Vinci, he forms the traditional trinity of great masters of that period.

Raphael was enormously productive, running an unusually large workshop, and despite his death at thirty-seven, a large body of his work remains. Many of his works are found in the Apostolic Palace of The Vatican, where the frescoed Raphael Rooms were the central, and the largest, work of his career. After his early years in Rome, much of his work was designed by him and executed largely by the workshop from his drawings, with considerable loss of quality. He was extremely influential in his lifetime, though outside Rome his work was mostly known from his collaborative printmaking. After his death, the influence of his great rival Michelangelo was more widespread until the 18th and 19th centuries, when Raphael's more serene and harmonious qualities were again regarded as the highest models.

Raphael's premature death on Good Friday (April 6, 1520) (possibly his 37th birthday), was caused by a night of excessive sex, after which he fell into a fever and, not telling his doctors that this was its cause, was given the wrong cure, which killed him. Whatever the cause, in his acute illness, which lasted fifteen days, Raphael was composed enough to receive the last rites and to put his affairs in order. At his request, Raphael was buried in the Pantheon.

[Oil on wood]

Christian Schad - Self-Portrait [1927]

Unlike some of the other Verists, Christian Schad (German, 1894-1982) had no need to delve into caricatures of humans. He was fully capable of making us squirm with excruciating realism alone, such as that found in Self Portrait. You are left with no doubt as to why these two people are here, but it was very clearly a joyless act. Schad is unsparing of himself; he is troubled looking, neither naked nor clothed and, though in the foreground, most definitely not the dominant force in the scene. The woman, on the other hand, is so obviously in charge that she is defiantly nude and almost palpably bored.

[Oil on wood, 76 x 61.5 cm]

Chuck Close - Self Portrait Composite Nine Parts [1979]

Chuck Thomas Close (born July 5, 1940, Monroe, Washington) is an American painter and photographer who achieved fame as a photorealist, through his massive-scale portraits. Though a catastrophic spinal artery collapse in 1988 left him severely paralyzed, he has continued to paint and produce work which remains sought after by museums and collectors.

[Nine internal dye diffusion transfer prints mounted on canvas, 194.31 x 156.21 cm]

Paul Cezanne - Self Portrait [c.1878-80]

Paul Cézanne (January 19, 1839 – October 22, 1906) was a French artist and Post-Impressionist painter whose work laid the foundations of the transition from the 19th century conception of artistic endeavor to a new and radically different world of art in the 20th century. Cézanne can be said to form the bridge between late 19th century Impressionism and the early 20th century's new line of artistic enquiry, Cubism. The line attributed to both Matisse and Picasso that Cézanne "is the father of us all" cannot be easily dismissed.

Cézanne's work demonstrates a mastery of design, colour, composition and draftsmanship. His often repetitive, sensitive and exploratory brushstrokes are highly characteristic and clearly recognizable. He used planes of colour and small brushstrokes that build up to form complex fields; at once both a direct expression of the sensations of the observing eye and an abstraction from observed nature. The paintings convey Cézanne's intense study of his subjects, a searching gaze and a dogged struggle to deal with the complexity of human visual perception.

[Oil on canvas]

Ronald Bowen - Morning Sunlight [1993]

Ronald Bowen was born in 1944. In August 1966, he went to Europe for the first time and in 1970 settled down in Paris. His long residence abroad has not diminished the American character of his painting: clear, sharp architecture, meticulous craft, and ambitious formats. His style stems from the American Photo-Realist tradition established in the 1960's by Richard Estes and Ralph Goings. Its roots, however, go even further back in American history to the luminous landscapes of the Hudson River School, the dogged realism of Thomas Eakins and the strong architecture and careful craft of 20th century American realists like Charles Sheeler and Edward Hooper.

[Oil on canvas, 97 x 130 cm]

Unknown Artist - The Death of the Virgin [c.1500]

The subject of this painting is the Death of the Virgin, the mother of Jesus. The painter turned the Virgin's deathbed into a human drama with the apostles each responding in their own way to her death. It was painted around the year 1500 in Utrecht or Amsterdam. The artist's name is no longer known: which is why the painter is referred to as the Master of the Amsterdam Death of the Virgin.

In a sombre room, the Virgin Mary lies on her deathbed. The twelve followers of her son Jesus are making preparations for her immanent departure. John, at the head of the bed, places a candle in Mary's hand. Next to him, Peter, is about to sprinkle Holy Water with an aspergillum. On the left, two men have a bowl of incense at the ready. Some are deep in thought, others are reading the Bible. This portrayal is not based on the Bible, but on a story in a medieval book of Golden Legend: when she felt death approaching, the Virgin Maria summoned her child and his followers to be present at her deathbed. The Angel Gabriel ordered all the apostles to go to the house where Mary lay dying.

[Oil on panel, 58 x 78 cm]

John Singer Sargent - The Sketchers [c.1913]

This quintessential Impressionist studio scene is believed to portray Wilfred Gabriel de Glehn and his wife, Jane (or possibly their friend Mary Foote) working outdoors in September 1913 near Lake Garda in San Vigilio, Italy, where they had joined Sargent's entourage. Detached from the claims of mundane existence, they are absorbed in painting from nature. The Sketchers describes a genteel existence that would be forever altered by the social and political changes wrought by World War I. In Sargent's account of sunlit San Vigilio, there is no premonition of the guns of August 1914 at Sarajevo and no acknowledgment of the radical changes in art that were already challenging the practice of painting American stories. Created thirty-five years after Sargent first embraced Impressionism; The Sketchers demonstrates the durability of nineteenth-century styles and narrative devices.

[Oil on canvas, 55.9 x 71.1 cm]

Jules Pascin - Two Young Girls in Repose [c.1925]

Julius Mordecai Pincas, (March 31, 1885 – June 5, 1930) known as Pascin, Jules Pascin, or the "Prince of Montparnasse", was a Bulgarian painter. He was born in Vidin, Bulgaria to a Spanish-Sephardic Jewish father and a Serbian-Italian mother. His early artistic training was in Vienna and Munich. He adopted the pseudonym Pascin (an anagram of Pincas) early in 1905.

Despite the constant partying, Pascin created thousands of watercolours and sketches, plus drawings and caricatures that he sold to various newspapers and magazines. He studied the art of drawing at the Académie Colarossi and, like Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec before him; he drew upon his surroundings and his friends, both male and female, as subjects. He wanted to become a serious painter but in time he became deeply depressed over his inability to achieve critical success with his efforts.

On the day of Pascin’s funeral, June 7, 1930, all the galleries in Paris closed. Thousands of acquaintances from the artistic community along with dozens of waiters and bartenders from the restaurants and saloons he had frequented, all dressed in black, walked behind his coffin the three miles from his studio at 36 boulevard de Clichy to the Cimetière de Saint-Ouen. A year later, Pascin, who was buried under his real name of Pincas, was moved to the more prestigious Cimetière de Montparnasse.

[Oil on canvas, 92.1 x 73.3 cm]

George Caleb Bingham - Canvassing for a Vote [1851-52]

George Caleb Bingham (March 20, 1811 – July 7, 1879) was the first American painter with a national reputation to live and work west of the Mississippi. He also was active in Missouri politics for most of his adult life.

Canvassing for a Vote reflects Bingham's full faith in the democratic system, even as he recognised its shortcomings. Set in the artist's hometown of Arrow Rock, Missouri, the composition shows a politician and trio of potential voters in a solid pyramid at the centre of the painting's story: the campaign process at work. Bingham also suggests some of the problems of 1850s American politics. He perhaps implies political disenfranchisement and inattentive citizens by turning one man's back from the main grouping. The sleeping dog likely refers to slavery; an issue that many voters and politicians hoped would remain dormant. Bingham also may point to the dubious character of certain politicians by placing the horse's rump in line with the canvasser’s head.

[Oil on canvas, 64.14 x 77.47 cm]

Goli Mohtaj - Untitled [2008]

I discovered this painting yesterday – the only information I have about Goli Mohtaj is that she a female artist from the Islamic Republic of Iran.

[Oil on canvas, 30 x 40 cm]

Bohan "Jennifer" Fan - Speak No Evil

Bohan "Jennifer" Fan was a student at Memorial High School, Spring Brach, when she received an honourable mention for this painting in the 2008 Culture Shapers Visual Arts Contest.

The annual Culture Shapers Visual Arts Contest enables student artists to compete for nearly $70,000 in cash prizes in six categories... drawing, painting, electronic media, mixed media, photography and sculpture. The contest takes place in the autumn, and is open to all High School Students in Harris, Waller, Liberty, Chambers, Galveston, Brazoria, Fort Bend, and Montgomery counties.

Culture Shapers jurors are a combination of educators and professionals, who come highly recommended to us by other notable organizations, such as the Visual Arts Scholastic Event (VASE), as well as others. Many of our jurors have experience both in and out of the classroom, which gives them a unique and valuable perspective on evaluating student artwork.

Gerrit van Honthorst - A Young Woman playing a Viola da Gamba

For further information see Tuesday, January 13, 2009 posting or click artist’s label.

[Oil on canvas, 26.18 x 33.07 inches]

Ignacio Pinazo Camarlench - Drawing Class

Brigitte Waldach - Sifting Red Quietly [2007]

The German artist Brigitte Waldach (born 1966) is deliberately working with defined frameworks, designs and materials. Her drawings are always created with red pen on handmade paper in a certain format. The predefined rules and the relatively simple and at first sight immediate expression of the drawings seem to draw the viewer's attention on the subject. Waldach’s imagery has clear references to literature and motion pictures and her use of the highly symbolic red colour helps to reinforce the mood of an intense psychological space that the viewer might recognize from such films, but at the same time open to the viewer's own interpretation. Besides drawing, Brigitte Waldach also works with site-specific works, installations and photography. Her works are represented in a number of museums, including Albertina in Vienna and Berlinische Galerie.

[Gouache, pigment pin on paper, 146 x 141 cm]

Sue Walker - Down At The Docks

“Wild places and elemental landscapes are the starting point for much of my work and I am particularly drawn to coastal scenes. I find inspiration in the landscapes of East Anglia, Mediterranean visits and sailing trips and travels in the Far East and South America. My choice of subject matter is often decided by my emotional response to the mood and colours of the scene.

There are periods when my work is fairly abstract but when using watercolour and pen and wash I enjoy the challenge of more careful drawing. In either case the paintings are based on direct observation through on the spot pen and wash drawings and colour notes, often in small sketchbooks. Photos are useful to record fleeting moments such as sunrises and sunsets where the quality of the light and the colour changes rapidly.

I have exhibited with galleries across East Anglia from Cambridge to Manningtree, held several solo and joint exhibitions and have paintings in collections in the UK, France, Germany and the USA.”

See: http://www.suewalkerart.co.uk/index.html

[Acrylic and collage on canvas, 50 x 70 cm]