Surf Blowing off Waves

Surf Blowing off Waves

at Long Sands Beach, York, Maine painted March 30, 2025, 14" x 11" (w x h), using Daniel Smith, Schmincke Horadam, and Winsor & Newton watercolors selected for light fastness and permanence, and wax resist on 140 lbs. Fabriano Artistico cold press rough 100% cotton extra white watercolor paper, framed.
$750

Georgia O'Keeffe, York Beach, Maine, June 2, 1928
"Saturday afternoon -
        Everyone has gone somewhere - and everyone wanted me to go along- I just wanted to stay at home and look at the ocean and be still   - This thing that the ocean is - that I like so much - terrifies me - the long steady roll of the clean green breakers - the blue day - the spray like the manes of wild white horses flying back from the top of each wave - It is wonderful -"

This painting is included in the display and for sale in the exhibition Bruce McMillan's Coastal York with Georgia's Words at the York Hospital, York, ME, May 1, 2025 to August 31, 2025 featuring original watercolors of Bruce McMillan and excerpts from Georgia O'Keeffe's letters written from Long Sands Beach, York, ME in the 1920s when she visited alone to sketch and paint.

Looking Below to the Whole Ocean

Looking Below
to the Whole Ocean

at Cape Neddick by Nubble Island, York, Maine painted April 2, 2025, 12" x 9" (w x h), using Daniel Smith, Schmincke Horadam, and Winsor & Newton watercolors selected for light fastness and permanence, and wax resist on 140 lbs. Fabriano Artistico cold press rough 100% cotton extra white watercolor paper, framed.
$500

This painting is included in the display and for sale in the exhibition Bruce McMillan's Coastal York with Georgia's Words at the York Hospital, York, ME, May 1, 2025 to August 31, 2025 featuring original watercolors of Bruce McMillan and excerpts from Georgia O'Keeffe's letters written from Long Sands Beach, York, ME in the 1920s when she visited alone to sketch and paint.

Nubble Light Keepers House...

Nubble Light
Keepers House Gulls View

of the House on Nubble Island barely 100 yards off Cape Neddick, York, Maine painted April 19, 2025, 12" x 9" (w x h), using Daniel Smith, Schmincke Horadam, and Winsor & Newton watercolors, all selected for light fastness and permanence, and Uniball waterproof fade proof ink on 140 lbs. Fabriano Artistico cold press rough 100% cotton extra white watercolor paper, framed.
$500

This painting is included in the display and for sale in the exhibition Bruce McMillan's Coastal York with Georgia's Words at the York Hospital, York, ME, May 1, 2025 to August 31, 2025 featuring original watercolors of Bruce McMillan and excerpts from Georgia O'Keeffe's letters written from Long Sands Beach, York, ME in the 1920s when she visited alone to sketch and paint.

Red Roofs in Art Essay

 Red Roofs in Art

Plus, in all eight of these landscape paintings
a figure appears in only one. Which painting?
Go figure.

1
Udsigt over tage mod Thisted kirke /
View over Rooftops towards Thisted Church
Richard Mortensen (1910-1993), Danish
Oil on canvas, 34" x 26" (w x h), 1941

Statens Museum for Kunst, Copenhagen, Denmark

Richard Strange Mortensen was born in Copenhagen, Denmark. He studied between 1931 and 1932 at the Royal Danish Academy of Art in Copenhagen. In Copenhagen, Mortensen was joint founder of the "Linien" school of abstract painters. In 1945, he married author and poet Sonja Hauberg (1918-1947). In 1947 after his wife's death he moved to Paris. In 1964 he returned to Denmark where he received a professorship at the Royal Danish Academy of Art in Copenhagen, which he held until 1980. Mortensen was awarded the Edvard Munch Prize (1946), the Kandinsky prize (1950), the Prince Eugen Medal (1967) and the Thorvaldsen Medal (1968). Richard and Sonja were the parents of literary researcher and professor Finn Hauberg Mortensen (1946-2013).

2
Red Roofs
Joseph Rodefer Decamp (1858-1923), American
Oil on canvas, 28" x 22" (w x h), 1914
Christie's 2024 auction sold, $27,720 USD

From 1903 until his death in 1923, he was a faculty member at Massachusetts Normal Art School, now Massachusetts College of Art and Design teaching painting from the living model and portraiture. He also taught painting classes at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston. A 1904 fire in his Boston studio destroyed several hundred of his early paintings, including nearly all of his landscapes. He was awarded the 1899 Temple Gold Medal (for Woman Drying Her Hair), the 1912 Beck Gold Medal (for Portrait of Francis I. Amory), and the 1920 Lippincott Prize (for The Red Kimono) by the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts. He received an honorable mention at the 1900 Exposition Universelle in Paris (for Woman Drying Her Hair). His exhibit at the 1904 St. Louis World's Fair - Reading - The Sea Wall - Portrait of Arthur P. DeCamp - was awarded a gold medal. He was awarded the 1909 Clarke Silver Medal by the Corcoran Gallery of Art (for The Guitar Player). He was awarded the 1915 gold medal by the Philadelphia Art Club (for The Silver Waist).

3
Red-Roofed Houses
Charles Demuth (1883-1935), American
Watercolor and graphite on wove paper, 16" x 14" (w x h), 1917
The Samuel S. White 3rd and Vera White Collection
The Philadelphia Museum of Art, Philadelphia, PA

"Search the history of American art," wrote Ken Johnson in The New York Times, "and you will discover few watercolors more beautiful than those of Charles Demuth. Combining exacting botanical observation and loosely Cubist abstraction, his watercolors of flowers, fruit and vegetables have a magical liveliness..." Demuth was a lifelong resident of Lancaster, Pennsylvania, though widely traveled, finding more acceptance of his homosexuality in Paris. The home he shared with his mother is now the Demuth Museum.

4

St. Tropez
John MacLauchlan Milne, RSA (1886-1957), Scottish
Oil on canvas board, 23" x 19", 1924
Exhibited in London, Portland Gallery,
John MacLauchlan Milne: Life and Works, 2010

Bonham's London 2012 auction
sold $81,700 USD / 61,250 GBP

John MacLauchlan Milne RSA (1885-1957) was a Scottish painter associated with Dundee, Scotland's artistic community in the early 20th Century, but who also spent much time abroad, usually in the South of France. He was a landscape painter with works found in many public art galleries, especially in Scotland. Professionally, he was recognized by being elected an Associate of the RSA in 1934, The Royal Scottish Academy, Scotland's national academy of art, and a full RSA in 1938.

5
House with Red Roof
Paul Cezanne (1839-1906), French
Oil on canvas, 36" x 29" (w x h), 1890 in Provence
Private Collection

Paul Cezanne (1839-1906) painted this in 1890, a difficult time for him. Before 1890 Cezanne had struggled financially. Plus, his marriage to Hortense, a relationship that had broken down, was intended to secure the rights of their now fourteen-year-old son Paul, whom Cezanne loved very much, as a legitimate son. With an inheritance from his father in 1888 life was financially easier. But in 1890, he developed diabetes. The illness made it even more difficult for him to deal with others. Cezanne spent a few months in Switzerland with Hortense and son Paul in the hope that the troubled relationship with Hortense could be stabilized. The attempt failed, so he returned to Provence, while Hortense and Paul went to Paris. Financial need prompted Hortense's return to Provence but in separate living quarters. Cezanne moved in with his mother and sister.

6
The Red Roof
Arthur Segal (1875-1944), Romanian
Oil on board, 12" x 14" (w x h), 1910
Christie's London auction 2009
sold $15,000 USD / GBP 11,250

Arthur Segal (1875-1944) was a Romanian artist and author. He was born to Jewish parents in Romania, and studied at the Berlin Academy from 1892. He studied in Munich in 1896, and later studied in Paris and Italy in the early 1900s. On the outbreak of war in 1914 he moved to Switzerland with his family. In 1920, he returned to Berlin, where he founded his own art school in 1923. He was offered a teaching job at the Bauhaus in Dessau, but he declined. Because of his Jewish background he was prevented from exhibiting his work in Germany, so in 1933 he moved to Palma, Majorca and then London, where he set up another painting school with his daughter Marianne. He died in London.

7
Landscape with Red Roofs
Vladimir Davidovich Baranov-Rossine (1888-1944), Russian (Ukraine)
Oil on canvas, 17" x 14" (w x h), circa 1909-1910
Exhibited: Moscow, The State Tretyakov Gallery,
St. Petersburg, The State Russian Museum, 2002
Sotheby's London auction 2012
sold $129,500 USD / 97,250 GBP

Vladimir Davidovich Baranov-Rossine (1888-1944) was a painter and sculptor active in Russia and France. His work belonged to the avant-garde movement of Cubo-Futurism. In 1918, he had exhibits with the union of artists (World of Art) in St. Petersburg as well as an exhibition with the Jewish Society for the Furthering of the Arts in Moscow. He participated at the First State Free Art Exhibition in St. Petersburg in 1919. Also that year he married Yudin Raisa. In March 1920, they had a son named Evgeny, but Raisa died from complications after child birth. He was also an inventor, author of several patents. In 1924, he had the first presentation of his optophonic piano during a performance at the Bolshoi Theater in Moscow - it was capable of creating sounds and colored lights, patterns and textures simultaneously. In 1925, he emigrated to France and stayed. But in 1943, during the German occupation of France, as a Jew he was arrested and deported to the Auschwitz concentration camp where he was murdered in January 1944.

8
Landscape with Red Roofs
Pyotr Alexandrovich Nilus (1869-1943) Russian
Oil on canvas, 26" x 22" (w x h), Paris, 1943
Listed at Sotheby's London,
auction estimate $13,000 - $16,500 USD /
10,000 - 15,000 GBP

Pyotr Alexandrovich Nilus (1869-1943) was a Russian and Ukrainian impressionist painter and writer. At seven-years-old Pyotr moved to Odessa, Ukraine where he studied at the local Peter and Paul real school and attended art classes with a painter outside of school. He attended the Imperial Academy of Arts in Saint Petersburg and participated in exhibitions. Pyotr Nilus married Jewish Berta Solomonovna. In 1906 with Korney Chukovsky he participated in a literary and artistic collection for the benefit of "Jewish children who were orphaned during the October pogrom in Odessa". During the Russian Civil War, in 1920, he emigrated to Paris where he worked until his death in 1943.

Group Model Libby Studies

Group Model Libby Study 1

painted Nov 1, 2024, 7" x 5" (w x h), using Daniel Smith, Schmincke Horadam, and Winsor & Newton watercolors, all selected for light fastness and permanence, and Uniball waterproof fade proof ink on 140 lbs. Fabriano Artistico cold press rough 100% cotton extra white watercolor paper, framed.
$150

Group Model Libby Study 2
painted Nov 1, 2024, 7" x 5" (w x h).
$150

Group Model Libby Study 3
painted Nov 1, 2024, 7" x 5" (w x h).
$150

Reflecting Alongside a Woods Path

Reflecting
Alongside a Woods Path

Expanding on a small painting from March 2022, painted April 14, 2025, 14" x 11" (w x h), using Daniel Smith, Schmincke Horadam, and Winsor & Newton watercolors, all selected for light fastness and permanence, and Uniball waterproof fade proof ink on 140 lbs. Fabriano Artistico cold press rough 100% cotton extra white watercolor paper, framed.
$950

Low Tide Rocks Art Essay

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
Low Tide Rocks
How various artists
painted or sculpted this theme.
6 Americans, 1 Norwegian, and 1 Welsh sculptor

1
Low Tide, Isles of Shoals
Childe Hassam (1859-1935), American
Watercolor on paperboard, 14" x 20" (w x h), 1903
Christie's 2021 auction sold $47,500 USD

Source: Wiki:
Frederick Childe Hassam (1859-1935) was an American Impressionist painter, noted for his urban and coastal scenes and instrumental in advancing Impressionism to American collectors, dealers, and museums. He produced over 3,000 paintings, oils, watercolors, etchings, and lithographs over the course of his career. He was an influential American artist of the early 20th century.
    During summers, he worked in the typically Impressionist location Appledore Island, the largest of the Isles of Shoals off New Hampshire, then famous for its artist colony. Social life on the island revolved around the salon of poet Celia Thaxter who hosted artists and literary figures. The group was a "jolly, refined, interesting and artistic set of people...like one large family." There Hassam recalled, "I spent some of my pleasantest summers...(and) where I met the best people in the country."
    Hassam's subjects for his paintings included Thaxter's flower garden, the rocky landscape, and some interior scenes rendered with his most impressionistic brush strokes to date. In Impressionist fashion, he applied his colors "perfectly clear out of the tube" to an unprimed canvas. Artists displayed their work in Thaxter's salon and were exposed to wealthy buyers staying on the island. Thaxter died in 1894, and in tribute Hassam painted her parlor in The Room of Flowers.

2
Bathing Women / Badende kvinner
Edvard Munch, (1863-1944), Norwegian
Watercolor, crayon, red on wove paper,
22" x 24" (w x h), circa 1935-1940
Munchmuseet, Munch Museum, Oslo, Norway

Source: Wiki
Despite over half of his painted works being landscapes, Edvard Munch (1863-1944) is rarely seen as a landscape artist. However, Munch had a fixation on several elements of nature that resulted in recurrent motifs throughout his work. The shoreline and the forest are both significant settings of Munch's work.

3
Grand Granite Low Tide
Jill Hoy (1954- ), American
Oil on canvas 46" x 38" (w x h), American
$9,000, Portland Art Gallery, Portland, Maine

Source: Portland Gallery, edited:
Jill Hoy earned a B.F.A. from the University of California at Santa Cruz and also attended the New York Academy of Art in New York City. She has a studio gallery in Stonington, Maine. Her work has been included in numerous solo and group exhibitions around the country. Her use of vivid color in her Maine paintings results in surfaces that are rich and seem to vibrate. "I often work in the morning or late afternoon..." As a result, her paintings capture those specifics of time and light. Because she's been a regular resident of the Deer Isle area since 1965, much of her work can be seen as a document of places and time in the area.

4
Rocks, Low Tide
John Sloan (1871-1951), American
Oil on canvas, 20" x 24" (w x h), 1916
Property from the John Sloan Trust,
sold to Benefit the Delaware Art Museum
Christie's 2017 auction sold $20,000 USD
Private Collection

Source: Wiki
John French Sloan (1871-1951) was an American painter and etcher. He is considered to be one of the founders of the Ashcan school of American art. He was also a member of the group known as The Eight. Sloan's paintings are represented in almost all major American museums.

5
Rocks 2
Alex Katz (1927- ), American
Oil on linen, 100" x 96" (w x h), 2012
From the Come Together: Surviving Sandy, Year 1 exhibition

Source: Wiki
Since 1951, Katz's work has been the subject of more than 200 solo exhibitions and nearly 500 group exhibitions throughout the United States and internationally. He is well known for his large paintings, whose bold simplicity and heightened colors are considered as precursors to Pop Art. Alex Katz in Maine was published by the Farnsworth Art Museum, Rockland, Maine. His major collection resides at Colby College Museum of Art, Waterville, Maine.

6
Deserted Beach
Sally Michel Avery (1902-2003), American
Oil on canvas board, 36" x 24" (w x h), 1975
Available at Greenwich Gallery, Greenwich, CT

Source: Wiki, edited
Sally Michel Avery (1902-2003) was artist and illustrator who painted abstracted figures, landscapes, and genre scenes, personal moments of everyday life. She was the co-creator of the Avery Style, wife and collaborator of her artist husband Milton Avery, and mother of their daughter artist March Avery, who also painted in the Avery Style. Throughout their lives, Michel and Avery shared their studio space together, painting side by side, critiquing each other's work, and developing their shared style which includes the use of abstracted subjects, expressionistic color fields, and harmonious but unusual colors juxtapositions. Michel's work is in the collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the National Gallery of Art (Corcoran Collection), the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, the Wadsworth Atheneum, and the Israel Museum, among others.

7
Low Tide
Maurice Brazil Prendergast (1858-1924), American
Watercolor and pencil on paper, 19" x 12" (w x h), 1901
Private Collection

Source: Wiki edited
Prendergast's work was strongly associated from the beginning with leisurely scenes set on beaches and in parks. His early work was mostly in watercolor, this being one of them, or monotype. A true independent, he fits into no particular category of modern American art.

8
Circuitus Meridiem
Jon Foreman (1992- ), Welsh
Created at Druidston, Pembrokeshire, Wales, 2025
Source: Facebook/Website, edited

Jon Foreman (1992- ), lives in Pembrokeshire, Wales. A creator of various styles of Land Art, be it with stones or leaves, inland or on beaches. He has also created works in derelict environments using materials such as broken glass or ashes and general debris. The scale of his work varies; he may use stones or driftwood to make something small and minimal or he may draw massive scale sand drawings over 300 feet across. He's created over a thousand sculptures. Read about him and see more art at My Modern Met HERE, and his website Sculpt the World HERE.

Sailing in the Abstract

Sailing in the Abstract

painted in 2020 with a memory from my 2016 photo, 7" x 5" (w x h), Daniel Smith, Schmincke Horadam, and Winsor & Newton watercolors, selected for light fastness and permanence, and Prismacolor waterproof fade proof ink on 140 lb. Fabriano Artistico cold press rough 100% cotton extra white watercolor paper framed.
NFS

Strange but True Fact:
If a sailboat is named Abstract
its dinghy would likely be named Thought.

Mind Sailing
by Bruce McMillan © 2025

The Island of Nubble Light held
my mind on a winter day. I
wondered why, as I beheld
a snow-white wave. Under the sky,

far out on the horizon, was
a sailboat, maybe, was it tacked,
or not. I put my mind on pause.
I let it draw in the abstract.

Amaryllis High -

Amaryllis High -
Winter Looking Up

painted March 5, 2025, 10" x 8" (w x h), using Daniel Smith, Schmincke Horadam, and Winsor & Newton watercolors, all selected for light fastness and permanence, and Uniball waterproof fade proof ink on 140 lbs. Fabriano Artistico cold press rough 100% cotton extra white watercolor paper, framed.
$300

Orange Yellow Green on...

Orange Yellow Green
on Blue and White

a snowlife with an Opal Apple (Malus domestica 'Opal') a Minneola Tangelo (Citrus x tangelo), and a D'Anjou pear (Pyrus communis), on a snowfield behind my home on February 10, 2025, painted February 26, 2025, 12" x 9" (w x h), using Daniel Smith, Schmincke Horadam, and Winsor & Newton watercolors, all selected for light fastness and permanence, and Uniball  waterproof fade proof ink on 140 lbs. Fabriano Artistico cold press rough 100% cotton extra white watercolor paper, framed.
$400

Eight Notable One Pear Art Essay

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Eight Notable One Pear Paintings 1820 to 1999...

...by two women and six men, all artists born in Britain (2), China (1), Columbia (1), Finland, (1), France (1), and the United States (2), with one painting buzzing with two.

​1

Poire d'Erik Satie / Pear by Erik Satie

Man Ray (1890-1976) American
Lithograph in colors on Arches paper, 105 of 120
20" x 26" (w x h), 1969

Source: Wiki and Artsy edited

Born Emmanuel Radnitzky (1890-1976), the artist adopted his pseudonym Man Ray in 1909. He was an American artist, working with painting, sculpture, video, and printmaking. He became renowned for his striking, sensual black-and-white photographs. He spent most of his professional life in Paris. He was one of the few Americans associated with Dada and Surrealism. A number of his photographic portraits, such as Larmes (Tears), circa 1932, features a woman crying glass bead tears, and his pictures of Kiki de Montparnasse, are icons of 20th-century art. At auction, his work has repeatedly sold for seven figures, his 1916 canvas Promenade selling at Sotheby's for $5,877,000 in 2013. His work is represented in the Smithsonian American Art Museum, the Museum of Modern Art, and the Metropolitan Museum of Art, among many others.

​​2

Single Pear

Robert Kulicke (1924-2007), American
Oil on board, 7" x 9" (w x h), 1980
Sannon's Fine Art Auctions, Milford, CT, 2021
estimate: $2,500-$3,500 USD, sold $11,430 USD
Private Collection

Source: Wiki edited

Robert Moore Kulicke (1924-2007) was an American artist, frame maker, and teacher. Though most influential for modernizing the design of picture frames, he was also a noted painter of many small and delicate still lifes, as well as a jewelry maker credited with reviving the ancient goldsmithing technique of granulation. His paintings, which he described as more 1600's than 2000's, were exhibited in museums and several New York galleries. His work is represented in the collections of the Victoria & Albert Museum, the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, and the Albright-Knox Art Gallery, The Philadelphia Museum of Art and the Smithsonian, Washington, D.C.

​3
Common Pear, European Pear
Lise Cloquet (1788-1860), French
Watercolor on paper, 1820

Source: Google arts and culture, Wiki, edited

Lise Cloquet, also known as Anne-Louise Cloquet, was a French botanical painter who picked up drawing from her father, illustrator and engraver Jean-Baptiste-Antoine Cloquet. Lise's flower paintings are evidence of a wealthy family background. Painting flowers was thought to be a suitable pastime for wealthy women because of its more effeminate qualities. Cloquet's works thus exhibit an interest, primarily, in artistic details rather than scientific ones.
        Compositionally, Cloquet's Common Pear is quite similar to the rest of her work. It has been taken out of its context; it is not lying on a table or on its side, but is curiously upright. Just as it is compositionally consistent with her work, in style, too, it is alike: colors are vivid, shadows realistic, and texture glossy. Yet this painting is one of three works which mark her deviation from merely flowery subjects towards a greater genre of plants, fruit. Unlike many of her specimens, the European pear is a native of Europe and grows best in a few European areas, including France.
        Pears vary considerably in color and in shape, yet Cloquet depicts the pear as meticulously as her blooming flowers. The transition from red to yellow in the bottom right corner of the pear is seamless, the ridges at the top are enlivened by sloping highlights and shadows. The texture of the pear, in particular, is remarkable: the glossy sheen on the left side of the pear exhibits Cloquet's close attention to detail.

​4
Dragon's Den restaurant menu cover
Tyrus Wong (1910-2016), Chinese born American
circa 1935
The Huntington Library, Art Museum,
and Botanical Gardens, San Marino, CA

Source: Wiki edited

Before pioneering Chinese American artist Tyrus Wong made history as leading the art direction on Walt Disney Co.'s classic animated film Bambi, he drew nightly menus for his buddy Eddy See's legendary Chinatown restaurant Dragon's Den during the Great Depression, where Hollywood celebrities such as Anna May Wong and Casablanca stars Peter Lorre and Sydney Greenstreet would dine on chow mein and char siu. Some of those menus, including the one above, and other never-before-seen original documents chronicling Chinese American history are in the collection of The Huntington Library, Art Museum, and Botanical Gardens. "Every menu had its own original Tyrus Wong painting or drawing."
        Tyrus Wong was a painter, animator, calligrapher, muralist, ceramicist, lithographer and kite maker, as well as a set designer and storyboard artist. One of the most-influential and celebrated Asian-American artists of the 20th century, Wong was also a film production illustrator, who worked for both Disney and Warner Bros. He was a muralist for the Works Progress Administration (WPA), as well as a greeting card artist for Hallmark Cards.

​5
Special Pear
Euan Ernest Richard Uglow (1932-2000), British
Oil on canvas laid on panel, 7" x 5" (w x h), 1999
Private Collection

Source: Wiki edited

Euan Uglow (1932-2000) was a British painter, best known for his nude and still life paintings. He studied at the Camberwell School of Art, his instructors included William Coldstream. Coldstream's meticulous method of painting from life involved repeated, careful measurements. Uglow continued his studies under Coldstream at the Slade School of Art until 1954, and later taught there. Uglow's adaptation of Coldstream's method of painting included the use of a metal instrument of his own design with which he could take the measure of an object or interval to compare against other objects or intervals in his field of vision. By the use of such empirical measurements, he painted what the eye sees without the use of conventional perspective. Uglow's finished paintings display the many small horizontal and vertical markings where he recorded these coordinates so that they could be verified against reality.
        Public collections holding Uglow's works include the Tate Gallery, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and the National Museum of Wales.

​6
Pear
Fernando Botero (1932-2023), Columbian
Oil, 1997
Assouline and Museo Botero, Bogota, Columbia

Source: Wiki, edited

Botero's paintings and sculptures are united by their proportionally exaggerated, or "fat" figures, as he once referred to them. Botero explained his use of these "large people", as they are often called by critics, in the following way:
        "An artist is attracted to certain kinds of form without knowing why. You adopt a position intuitively; only later do you attempt to rationalize or even justify it."
        Botero's work, Still Life with Mandolin, marked the beginning of his stylistic development in painting enlarged figures. It became his trademark. During a November 2000 interview, he said:
        "I was drawing a mandolin, and I made the sound hole very small, which made the mandolin look gigantic. I saw that making the details small made the form monumental. So, in my figures, the eyes, the mouth are all small and the exterior form is huge.

​7
Pear
Helene Sofia Schjerfbeck (1862-1946), Finnish
Oil on canvas laid on cardboard, 11" x 11" (w x h), 1925-1926
Private Collection

Source: Wiki, edited

Helene Schjerfbeck was a Finnish modernist painter known for her realist works and self-portraits, and also for her landscapes and still lifes. Throughout 84 years her work changed dramatically, beginning with French-influenced realism and plein air painting. It gradually evolved towards portraits and still life paintings.
        Dancing Shoes is one of Schjerfbeck's most popular paintings. She returned to the theme three times, and executed a lithograph of it that catapulted the painting to international fame. It depicts her cousin Esther Lupander, who had extremely long legs, which led to the painting being nicknamed The Grasshopper. Executed in Realist style, the painting shows the clear influence of Schjerfbeck's stay in Paris, where she had expressed admiration for Manet, Degas, Morisot, and Cassatt. It fetched £3,044,500 ($3,830,650 USD) at a 2008 Sotheby's London sale. See that painting on Sotheby's HERE.
        Three Pears on a Plate, 1945, was the final painting she made.

​

8
The Quiet Theft
David Pugh Evans (1942-2020), British
Oil on canvas, 50" x 58" (w x h), 1965
Alcuin College,
The University of York, York, England

Source: Artists in Britain Since 1945 by David Buckman, edited
David Pugh Evans (1942-2020) was a painter and teacher who lived in Edinburgh, Scotland. Evans was noted for his hyper-realist interiors, which often have a tinge of suspense or mystery about them. Born in Abercarn, Monmouthshire, England, he studied at the Newport College of Art, 1959-1962, then at Royal College of Art, 1962-1965. In 1965 he won the College's Silver Medal for Painting.
        He traveled in Spain and Morocco before becoming a lecturer at the Edinburgh College of Art. Evans was Granada Arts Fellow at University of York, 1968-1969, and traveled in America from 1975 to 1976.
        He had a one-man show at New 57 Gallery in Edinburgh in 1966, others following in London. He was a member of the RSW, Royal Scottish Society of Painters in Watercolour, and was elected to the RSA, Royal Scottish Academy, in 1989. He was an Associate of the Royal College of Art.

Me (Forelle) and My Shadow

Me (Forelle) and My Shadow

a snowlife with a Forelle pear (Pyrus communis 'Forelle') atop plowed snow in a snowfield behind my home on February 11, 2025, painted February 26, 2025, 12" x 9" (w x h), using Daniel Smith, Schmincke Horadam, and Winsor & Newton watercolors, all selected for light fastness and permanence, and Uniball  waterproof fade proof ink on 140 lbs. Fabriano Artistico cold press rough 100% cotton extra white watercolor paper, framed.
$300

One Two One Pear Pair

One Two One Pear Pair

a snowlife with a Forelle pear (Pyrus communis 'Forelle') and a D'Anjou pear (Pyrus communis) atop plowed snow in a snowfield behind my home, February 10, 2025, painted February 15, 2025, 10" x 8" (w x h), using Daniel Smith, Schmincke Horadam, and Winsor & Newton watercolors, all selected for light fastness and permanence, wax resist and Uniball waterproof fade proof ink on 140 lbs. Fabriano Artistico cold press rough 100% cotton extra white watercolor paper, framed.
$300

Winter at Home 2025

Winter at Home 2025

in an orange and blue color theme on the afternoon of February 18, 2025, painted February 22, 2025, 12" x 9" (w x h), using Daniel Smith, Schmincke Horadam, and Winsor & Newton watercolors, all selected for light fastness and permanence, and Uniball waterproof fade proof ink on 140 lbs. Fabriano Artistico cold press rough 100% cotton extra white watercolor paper, framed.
NFS

Orange and Blue Six Art Auction Essay

 Orange and Blue
Color Theme Art
Auction Six Essay

1
Montmartre, rue de l'Abreuvoir /
Montmartre, Abreuvoir Street
Jean Dufy (1888-1964), French (brother to Raoul)
Watercolor and gouache on paper,
17" x 25" (w x h), circa 1936-1938
Sotheby's 2025 auction estimate
15,000-20,000 GBP / $19,000- 25,000 USD

2
Le Theatre grec a Taormina /
The Greek Theatre in Taormina
Raoul Dufy (1877-1953) French (brother to Jean)
Oil on canvas, 22" x 18" (w x h), 1922
Sotheby's 2025 auction estimate
$30,000 - $50,000 USD

3
Study for Landscape; Orange and Blue
Graham Sutherland, O.M. (Order of Merit), (1903-1980), British
Watercolor, gouache, pen and ink,
ink wash and pencil, 7" x 9" (w x h), 1971
Sotheby's 2010 auction sold £6,000 GBP / $7,580 USD

4
Writing
Howard Hodgkin (1932-2017), British
Oil on wood, 55" x 46" (w x h), 1991-1993
Christie's 2025 auction estimate
£500,000 - £800,000 GBP /
$630,000 - $1,012,000 USD

5
Squares and Discs Disintegrating,
Orange and Maroon in Blues
Patrick Heron (1920-1999), British
Gouache, 31" x 23" (w x h), 11969
Christie's 2015 auction sold
£21,250 GBP / $26,900 USD

6
Arch Blue with Orange, Red, Blue
Kenneth Noland (1924-2010) American
Acrylic on shaped canvas, 40" x 18" (w x h), 1980
Sotheby's 2016 auction sold $100,000 USD

Apples in Snow Space

Apples in Snow Space... 

 ...under sky blue space
where unseen stars hide, planets,
Cosmic Crisps, space out.

By Bruce McMillan ©2025

a snowlife with Cosmic Crisp apples (Malus domestica 'Cosmic Crisp') in a snow-hole my yard's snowfield, February 10, 2025, painted February 15, 2025, 12" x 9" (w x h), using Daniel Smith, Schmincke Horadam, and Winsor & Newton watercolors, all selected for light fastness and permanence, and Uniball  waterproof fade proof ink on 140 lbs. Fabriano Artistico cold press rough 100% cotton extra white watercolor paper, framed.
$500

Snowlife Portrait of a Family of Pears

Snowlife Portrait of
a Family of Pears

all in these pears in the Rosaceae (rose family) as Pyrus communis (Genus species), painted as a snowlife of a D'Anjou pear (Pyrus communis 'D'Anjou') , a Forelle pear (Pyrus communis 'Forelle'), and a Bartlett pear (Pyrus communis 'Williams') in my yard's snowfield, February 10, 2025, painted February 15, 2025, 12" x 9" (w x h), using Daniel Smith, Schmincke Horadam, and Winsor & Newton watercolors, all selected for light fastness and permanence, and Uniball  waterproof fade proof ink on 140 lbs. Fabriano Artistico cold press rough 100% cotton extra white watercolor paper, framed.
$400

Pears Chatting Pair

Pears Chatting Pair

an afternoon snowlife of D'Anjou pears (Pyrus communis) painted February 14, 2025 in my yard's snowfield by the woods, 12" x 9" (w x h), using Daniel Smith, Schmincke Horadam, and Winsor & Newton watercolors, all selected for light fastness and permanence, and Uniball waterproof fade proof ink on 140 lbs. Fabriano Artistico cold press rough 100% cotton extra white watercolor paper, framed.
$400

Minneolas at the Edge

Minneolas at the Edge

a snowlife painted February 4, 2025, 12" x 9" (w x h), using Daniel Smith, Schmincke Horadam, and Winsor & Newton watercolors, all selected for light fastness and permanence, wax resist and Uniball  waterproof fade proof ink on 140 lbs. Fabriano Artistico cold press rough 100% cotton extra white watercolor paper, framed.
$400

Snowlife Forelle Pears Chat

Snowlife Forelle Pears Chat

painted February 9, 2025, 12" x 9" (w x h), using Daniel Smith, Schmincke Horadam, and Winsor & Newton watercolors, all selected for light fastness and permanence, wax resist, toothbrush splatter, and Uniball waterproof fade proof ink on 140 lbs. Fabriano Artistico cold press rough 100% cotton extra white watercolor paper, framed.
$400

Snowlife Portrait of Forelle

Out and About
by Bruce McMillan © 2025
On a bright winter
day, basking in the sun, cool
snow all around, aaaah.

Snowlife Portrait of Forelle

painted February 10, 2025, 9" x 12" (w x h), using Daniel Smith, Schmincke Horadam, and Winsor & Newton watercolors, all selected for light fastness and permanence, and Uniball waterproof fade proof ink on 140 lbs. Fabriano Artistico cold press rough 100% cotton extra white watercolor paper, framed.

$400