Driveway Plowed

Driveway Plowed

from my home in Shapleigh, Maine on Jan 17, 2024, painted Feb 25, 2024 10" x 8" (w x h), Daniel Smith, Schmincke Horadam, and Winsor & Newton watercolors, 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

Purple Too Visual Art Essay

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Purple Too Visual Art Essay

1
Mijas (Spain) Steps
Eleanor Woolley (circa 1979- ) British
Oil on canvas, 12" x 12" (w x h), 2023
Wychwood Art Gallery, Deddington, UK
$510

Gallery notes edited:
Inspired by a February trip to Mijas, Spain she started it plein air and finished in the studio. These are some in Mijas, slowly winding up and away, with vivid violet shadows of leaves dappling the terracotta tiles, and whitewashed walls.
        Eleanor Woolley, born in the Channel Island of Jersey, moved to Gloucestershire, UK where she was drawn to the outdoors, taking walks in the landscape. She started painting in oils at thirteen years-old. After graduating with her BA Hons in Sculpture at Leeds University Eleanor traveled in Asia before returning to the UK to study furniture making. She worked as a cabinet maker and a restorer before returning to fine art painting.
        Eleanor often paints plein air, finishing in the studio. She often finishes with a palette knife producing a texture. Her latest work is inspired by the landscape of the Cotswolds, and contrasted with long shadows created by figures in urban landscapes. "...shadows are becoming more significant, I like to play with how they fall and merge into the foreground. I love the long shadows created by the early morning or evening light."
Career:
Art Foundation, Pittville, Cheltenham, 1997
BA Hons Sculpture, Leeds University 1998-2001
Cabinet Making and Furniture Restoration City and Guilds 2004-2005
Professional Cabinet Maker 2006-2012
Art Restorer 2008-2012
Professional Artist 2010 - 2023

2
Woman in a Purple Coat
Henri Matisse (1869-1954) French
Oil on canvas, 26" x 32" (w x h), 1937
The Audrey Jones Beck Building,
The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston

Source Wiki and Henri Matisse org edited:
Henri Matisse (1869-1954) is known primarily as a painter. His mastery of color and drawing, displayed in a body of work spanning over a half-century, won him recognition as a leading figure in modern art.
        Woman in a Purple Coat (1937) depicts model Lydia Delectorskaya in an exotic Moroccan costume, surrounded by a complex of abstract design and exotic colors. Although there is not a single straight line, the way the colors juxtapose each other there is no need for a straight line. There is no definite outline on some of the items, such as the fruit on the table. Everything else is surrounded by thick, black outline which accentuates all the other features, seemingly pushing out Lydia and all the other objects. The vivid, purple coat with the black outline makes Lydia almost pop out and off the chaise lounge she is on, making her the main focal point. It also gives the piece a three dimensional aspect, as if she could get up and walk away at any moment. The different patterns of the background give the impression she is in the corner of the room. The placement of the flowers to her right and the magazine at her feet, also alluding to this sense of depth. This painting is not only a piece of history, but a piece of a Matisse's legacy.
        Matisse's model and companion of many years, Lydia Delectorskaya, was a Russian from Siberia who fled from Russia during the 1917 revolution, and who said she was different from other models Matisse used with their dark eyes, black hair and olive complexions. Lydia had long golden hair, blue eyes, fair skin. Matisse approved, referring to her saying she had "The look of an ice princess." When their paths had crossed in Nice, France Lydia was penniless at the age of 25 and Matisse was a well-known artist of 65. He was nice to her and never asked her to pose nude. She respected him for that. During a brief rivalry with Matisse's wife who accused of Matisse of sleeping with Lydia, Lydia was fired as his model. But when Matisse's wife left him shortly after, still not believing Matisse when he said he had not committed adultery, he rehired Lydia as his assistant in his studio.
        This is one of the final paintings in a final group of oil paintings that he painted. It was painted in 1937. Between 1937 and 1938 he made a group of cut-outs, something he returned to much more later in life. In 1950 he stopped working on oil paintings in favor of creating paper cutouts. At a retrospective of his cutouts featuring 130 works encompassing from 1937 to 1954 The Tate Modern show was the first in its history to attract more than half a million people.

3
Green and Purple
Jack Bush (1909-1977) Canadian
Oil on canvas, 70" x 81" (w x h), 1963
Art Gallery of Ontario, Ontario, Canada

Source Wiki edited:
Using only eight lines, three colors plus white and a raw canvas, Jack Bush creates depth out of something flat, merely by applying pressure to the essential red center.
        Jack Hamilton Bush O. C. (Order of Canada) R. C. A. (1909-1977) was a Canadian abstract painter. A member of Painters Eleven, his paintings are associated with the Color Field movement and Post-painterly Abstraction. Inspired by Henri Matisse and American abstract expressionist painters such as Helen Frankenthaler and Morris Louis, Bush encapsulated joyful yet emotional feelings in his vibrant paintings, comparing them to jazz music. Clement Greenberg described him as a "supreme colorist", along with Kenneth Noland.
        Jack Bush once said to his peer and artist friend Kenneth Noland, "What I'd really like to do is hit Matisse's ball out of the park. Noland replied, "Go ahead, Matisse won't mind at all."

4
Me in Water
Yu Hong (1966- ) Chinese
Acrylic on canvas, 60" x 70" (w x h), 2003

Yu Hong (1966- ) is a Chinese contemporary artist. Her works characteristically portray the female perspectives in all stages of life and the relationship between the individual and the rapid social changes taking place in China. She works primarily in oil paint but also in pastels, fabric dye on canvas, silk and resin. Yu Hong is routinely named among China's leading female artists. Her work is celebrated for its intimacy and honesty.
        Her 2003 Routine series is made up of two sets of works including six oil paintings on canvas and another fifteen works on paper, insight to her life and her daughter's life. The series features everyday moments and activities such as shopping at the mart, swimming, and having a good time with friends. It focuses on how valuable each moment we live is, how our routine activities fill out our days and makes them what they are, whether in China or America.
        Hong's work is included in collections at the Singapore Art Museum, Singapore; Dong Yu Art Museum, Shenyang, China; Shanghai Art Museum, Shanghai, China; Upriver Art Museum, Chengdu, China; China Art Gallery, China; and Ludwig Gallery, Germany.

5
Poikia Rannalla / Boys on the Beach
Magnus Enckell (1870-1925) Finnish
Oil on canvas, 40" x 31" (w x h), 1910
Finnish National Gallery, Helsinki, Finland

Wiki edited:
Knut Magnus Enckell (1870-1925) was a Finnish symbolist painter. At first, he painted with a subdued palette, but from 1902 onward he used increasingly bright colors. He was a leading member of the Septem group of colorist painters. In Finland, Enckell is considered to have been a noted influential symbolist artist. From 1901 onward Enckell spent many summers on the island of Suursaari, where he painted his noted Boys on the Beach (1910). He organized exhibitions of Finnish art in Berlin (1903) and Paris (1908), and of French and Belgian art in Helsinki (1904). He chaired the Artists' Association of Finland from 1915 to 1918, and was elected a member of the Fine Art Academy of Finland in 1922. When Enckell died in Stockholm in 1925 his funeral was a national event.

6
Kvindeportraet. Violet kjole /
Portrait of a Lady in a Purple Dress
Olaf Rude (1886-1957) Danish
Oil on canvas, 38" x 51" (w x h), 1936

Olaf Rude (1886-1957) was a Danish painter. He was a professor at the Royal Danish Academy of Art from 1953 to 1956. He is remembered in particular for his paintings of oak trees at Skejten on Lolland. In 1911 he traveled to Paris where he was inspired by Paul Cezanne. On returning to Denmark, he became one of the classic modernists who around the time of the First World War focused on formal representation concentrating on form, line and color. Rude was one of Denmark's most important modernists, sometimes called Denmark's Matisse for his use of color in his expressive landscapes.

7
Irises (Purple Irises)
Charles Demuth (1883-1935) American
Watercolor and graphite on paper, 10" x 14" (w x h), 1921
Philadelphia Museum of Art, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

Charles Henry Buckius Demuth (1883-1935) was an American painter who specialized in watercolors and turned to oils late in his career, developing a style of painting known as Precisionism. Demuth's will left many of his paintings to Georgia O'Keeffe. Her strategic decisions regarding which museums received these works cemented his reputation as a major painter of the Precisionist school.

8
Nightlife
Archibald John Motley Jr. (1891-1981) American
Oil on canvas 48" x 36" (w x h), 1943
The Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago, Illinois

Source Wiki and Museum notes edited:
Archibald Motley portrays a crowded cabaret in the South Side neighborhood of Bronzeville in Chicago. Stylized figures, an array of diagonal lines, and heightened colors keyed to shades of magenta and violet, Motley captures the exuberance of city dwellers out on the town. He creates a network of gestures and glances among the people, drawing attention to the various social interactions that animate the scene. Motley was inspired, in part, to paint Nightlife after having seen Edward Hopper's Nighthawks, which had entered the Art Institute of Chicago's collection the prior year.
        Archibald John Motley, Jr. (1891-1981), was an African-American visual artist. Motley is most famous for his colorful chronicling of the African-American experience in Chicago during the 1920s and 1930s, and is considered one of the major contributors to the Harlem Renaissance, or the New Negro Movement, a time in which African-American art reached new heights not just in New York but across America, its local expression referred to as the Chicago Black Renaissance. He studied painting at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago during the 1910s, graduating in 1918. In 1980 he was honored with nine other African-American artists by President Jimmy Carter at the White House.

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end

A Tall Tree's Shadowed Presence

A Tall Tree's Shadowed Presence

over a stone wall with snow behind my home in Shapleigh, Maine on Feb 5, 2024, painted Feb 17, 2024, 10" x 8" (w x h), Daniel Smith, Schmincke Horadam, and Winsor & Newton watercolors, 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

Blue Shadow Art Visual Essay

Blue Shadow Art Visual Essay

Eight Artists Paint the Presence of Blue Shadows
Four Men / Four Women, painted 1882-2023,
in Arizona, California, Maine, New York, and
Oregon, United States, as well as
Finland and France.

1
Sand and Shadows
Carol L. Douglas (1967- ) American
Oil on linen board, 16" x 8" (w x h), circa 2023
Sold, $722, Private Collection

Carol L. Douglas (1967- ) paints and teaches in Rockport, Maine, where she has her own studio and gallery. She's painted from as far north as Canada to as far south as Argentina. She studied at the Art Students League, New York. Carol writes an art blog Watch Me Paint. Her blog / website is HERE.

2
Figure with Clothesline
Lois Dodd (1927- ) American
Oil, 2000

Source: Wiki edited:
Lois Dodd (1927- ) is known for her observational paintings of landscapes, nudes, and still lives. "I would find it, see it, and say 'that's exciting' but I don't want to set things up." Lois Dodd painted her immediate circumstances. There is nothing glitzy about the work, neither in its subject matter nor in her use of materials. She does not celebrate excess, ownership, or leisure, nor does she condemn it. Her paintings embody an implicit critique of those who believe acquisitiveness, possession, and leisure are integral to the pursuit of happiness. As part of the wave of New York modernists to explore the coast of Maine after the end of the second world war, Dodd helped to change the face of painting here, exploring the landscape and the figure, that were anathema in the era of Abstract Expressionism. Her work is in the collections of many major art museums.

3
Shadows on the Sea - The Cliffs at Pourville
Claude Monet (1840-1926) French
Oil on canvas, 32" x 22" (w x h), 1882
Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek Museum, Copenhagen, Denmark

Source: Wiki and Art Institute of Chicago edited:
In 1879 Claude Monet's wife, Camille, died. In 1881, Claude Monet moved with Alice Hoschede, who he would marry in 1892 following her husband's death in 1891, and her children to Poissy. Alice's third daughter, Suzanne, would become Monet's preferred model, after Camille. Shadows on the Sea was painted the last time he exhibited with the Impressionists was in 1882, four years before the final Impressionist exhibition. In 1883 In 1883, Monet and his family rented a house and gardens in Giverny, beginning his painting adventures with water lilies.
        But in February 1882, Claude Monet went north from Poissy to Normandy to paint. This was also a retreat from personal and professional pressures. France was in the midst of a lengthy economic recession which affected Monet's sales. In addition, the artist was unenthusiastic about divisions within the Impressionists group. Disappointed in the area around the harbor city of Dieppe, which he found too urban, Monet settled in Pourville and remained in this fishing village until mid-April. He became increasingly enamored of his surroundings, writing to Alice and her children: "How beautiful the countryside is becoming, and what joy it would be for me to show you all its delightful nooks and crannies!"

4
Seawall
Richard Diebenkorn (1922-1993) American
Oil on canvas, 26" x 20" (w x h), 1957
Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco
Gift of Phyllis G. Diebenkorn

Source Wiki and Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco notes edited:
Richard Diebenkorn (1922-1993) was an American painter and printmaker. He was a fan of and influenced by the works of Matisse and his use of color. Diebenkorn's early work is associated with abstract expressionism. His late 1960s abstract paintings, known as the Ocean Park paintings, were instrumental in leading to his worldwide acclaim.
        Seawall (1957) reflects his interest in new visual terrain that he experienced in 1951 during his first cross-country flight. Diebenkorn was one of the most influential American artists working in the post-World War II era, and Seawall evokes an elemental meeting of sea, sky, and earth. Like many of the works Diebenkorn painted during his Berkeley Period (1953-1966).
        In 2018, Diebenkorn's Ocean Park #126 painted in 1984 became the most expensive picture by the artist auctioned when it sold for $23.9 million at Christie's New York. The previous record from 2012, also at Christie's, was Ocean Park #48 painted in 1971 for $13.5 million.

5
Cityscape with Blue Shadow
Martha Diamond (1944-2023) American
Oil on canvas, 48" x 96" (w x h), 1994
Gift of the Alex Katz Foundation
Portland (Maine) Museum of Art, Portland, Maine

Source Wiki edited:
Martha Bonnie Diamond (1944-2023) was an American painter. Her paintings first gained public attention in the 1980s and are included in the permanent collections of the Whitney Museum of American Art, the Museum of Modern Art, New York, and many other institutions. Her father, a doctor, inspired her interest in light, space, and structure in the city while taking her on drives to see his patients. She graduated from Carleton College in Minnesota. in 1964 and returned to New York in 1965 after a year in Paris. She subsequently received an M.A. from New York University in 1969, moved into a loft on the Bowery, and became an active participant in the downtown art and poetry scene.

Diamond was one of several New York painters who spent time in Maine during the summer months and developed a long-term association with the state. She served on the Board of Governors of the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture in Skowhegan, Maine, from 1982 to 2018. She also taught at Skowhegan beginning in the 1970s, as well as at the School of Visual Arts in New York and at Harvard University. Diamond also supported artistic programming by the International Ladies Garment Workers Union and the Goddard-Riverside Community Center. She died December 30, 2023 at the age of 79. Her website by her trust is HERE.

6
Into Blue Shadows
Carol Marine (1982- ) American
Oil on gesso board, 6" x 6" (w x h), 2012
Private collection

Carol Marine, a graduate of the University of Texas, Austin, is an American painter. She is known for her pronounced unique brushstrokes in her paintings. Growing up in Texas, her family has moved to Oregon, and finally to Montana. She's written Daily Painting: Paint Small and Often To Become a More Creative, Productive, and Successful Artist, Watson-Guptill, New York, NY, 192 pages, 2014, on amazon HERE, where you can see and read a sample of her illustrated book by clicking on "Sample Page" under the cover illustration. Her website is HERE. When she lived in Texas, I took an oil painting workshop with her.

7
Lake Ruovesi in Winter
Akseli Gallen-Kallela (1861-1931) Finnish
Oil on canvas, 47" x 40" (w x h), 1916
Sotheby's 2019 UK auction
estimate $76,000 to $100,000 USD
Sold $442,000 USD

Source Wiki and Sotheby's edited:
Akseli Gallen-Kallela (1865-1931) was a Finnish painter who is best known for his illustrations of the Kalevala, the Finnish national epic. His work is considered a very important aspect of the Finnish national identity. He changed his name from Gallen to Gallen-Kallela in 1907. In 1894, he moved to Berlin to oversee the joint exhibition of his works with the works of Norwegian painter Edvard Munch.

By 1916, the year of this painting, his style had shifted towards Expressionism, his preferred subject being Finnish landscapes, usually, as in this example, painted from his hide-out wilderness studio in Kallela, looking down through trees towards one of the lakes that dominate the countryside there. The cold blue shadows of the trees in the foreground add interest and strength to the painting. The single, large tree dominating with its unusual composition shows the influence of Japanese prints on his art.

He had returned her after some fifteen years of absence. In 1894-95 he'd constructed this studio on a rocky promontory overlooking Lake Ruovesi. Inspired by the massive farm houses of Karelia that he had visited on his honeymoon, he incorporated into its design many of the ancient motifs that he had found. It was at Kalela that his wife gave birth to their children Kirsti (1896) and Jorma (1898). And it was there that he worked on some of his most important projects.

8
Olivenhain / Olive Grove
Vincent van Gogh (1853-1890) Dutch
Oil on canvas, 37" x 29" (w x h), 1889
Dimensions      73 x 93 cm
The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Fine Art,
Kansas City, Missouri

Source Wiki edited:
Vincent van Gogh painted Olive Grove at Saint-Remy-de-Provence, France in June of 1889, where he painted at least fifteen paintings of olive trees. At his own request, he lived at an asylum there from May 1889 through May 1890 painting the gardens of the asylum and, when he had permission to venture outside its walls, nearby olive trees, cypresses and wheat fields.

 Van Gogh found respite and relief in interaction with nature. His series of olive tree paintings made in 1889, despite his mental illness and emotional turmoil, are considered to be among his finest works. One painting, Olive Trees in a Mountainous Landscape, was a complement to his most famous The Starry Night.

Irony of Half Up Half Down

Irony of Half Up Half Down

with an orange cut in half set on snow in my yard in Shapleigh, Maine painted on Feb 10, 2024 14" x 11" (w x h), Daniel Smith, Schmincke Horadam, and Winsor & Newton watercolors, 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

Wild Orange

Wild Orange

on the plowed snow of my driveway, Jan 21, 2024, painted Jan 28, 2024 7" x 5" (w x h), Daniel Smith, Schmincke Horadam, and Winsor & Newton watercolors, 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

Orange, Lemon and Precipice

Orange, Lemon and Precipice

in the snow of my back yard in Shapleigh, Maine on Jan 8 2024, painted on Jan 30, 2024, 14" x 11" (w x h), Daniel Smith, Schmincke Horadam, and Winsor & Newton watercolors, selected for light fastness and permanence, on 140 lbs. rough extra white watercolor paper, framed.
$500

Pear Lemon Snow Shapes

Pear Lemon Snow Shapes

on the plowed driveway snow at my home in Shapleigh, Maine on Jan 8, 2024, painted Jan 29, 14" x 11" (w x h), Daniel Smith, Schmincke Horadam, and Winsor & Newton watercolors, selected for light fastness and permanence, on 140 lbs. Fabriano Artistico cold press rough 100% cotton extra white watercolor paper, framed.
$500

Standing Leaning Abstract Nude 2

Standing Leaning Abstract Nude 2

at our figure group in Kennebunkport, Maine on Jan 19, 2024, 5" x 7" (w x h), Daniel Smith, Schmincke Horadam, and Winsor & Newton watercolors, 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

Standing Leaning Abstract Nude 1

Standing Leaning Abstract Nude 1

at our figure group in Kennebunkport, Maine on Jan 19, 2024, 5" x 7" (w x h), Daniel Smith, Schmincke Horadam, and Winsor & Newton watercolors, 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

Standing Leaning Abstract Nudes

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Standing Leaning Abstract Nudes
Visual Essay

1
Standing Nude
Frank Dobson C.B.E. (1886-1963) British
Pencil, charcoal, watercolor, gouache and wash
on paper, 14" x 20" (w x h), 1931
Sotheby's 2020 UK auction sold $845 USD

Source Wiki edited:
Frank Owen Dobson CBE (The Most Excellent Order of the British Empire), RA (The Most Excellent Order of the British Empire ) (1886-1963) was a British artist and sculptor. Dobson began as a painter, however, he turned increasingly toward sculpture in a more or less realist style. Throughout the 1920s and the early 1930s he built a reputation as an outstanding sculptor and was among the first in Britain to prefer direct carving of the material rather than modelling a preliminary model. The simplified forms and flowing lines of much of his sculptures, particularly his female nudes, showed the influence of African art. From 1946 to 1953 Dobson was Professor of Sculpture at the Royal College of Art. He was elected to the Royal Academy in 1953. While Dobson was one of the most esteemed artists of his time, after his death his reputation declined with the move towards post modernism and conceptual art. However, Dobson is now seen as one of the most important British sculptors of the 20th century. Frank Dobson Square was constructed by London County Council in 1963, the year of Dobson's death to commemorate his life and work. The centerpiece of the square is the Woman and Fish fountain, a sculpture designed and completed by Dobson in 1951.

In 1995 the art critic Brian Sewell recalled the great loss of much of Dobson's work after his death: "After his death, his widow asked me to help her clear the studio at Stamford Bridge, and I was appalled at the destruction that she wrought, smashing to smithereens small clay and terra cotta models, tearing fine drawings in red and black chalk, hundreds of them, burning the fragments in a dustbin, all because the subjects were erotic. I was allowed to save pastel drawings of exotic and rare birds, and watercolors of farmyards and a pastoral life long gone, but for the figures engaged in sexual congress, face to face, head to toe and doggy style as explicit as any by his old friend Eric Gill, Mrs. Dobson would accept no plea that they were beautiful, no argument that they were fired by a quality not to be found in the pure essence of the torsos that survive, and like a ferociously implacable angel at the Last Judgment, she bent to the business of destruction."

2
Nude
John Duncan Fergusson (1874-1961), Scottish
Charcoal and watercolor on paper, 5" x 10" (w x h), 1916
Christies 2019 UK auction sold $6,000 USD

Source Wiki edited:
John Duncan Fergusson (1874-1961) was a Scottish artist and sculptor, regarded as one of the major artists of the Scottish Colourists school of painting. This painting was painted in the middle of WWI. At the outbreak of World War I, Fergusson was considered to be at the forefront of modern British painting. During the war years, however, he achieved little artistically and it was only towards the end of the war that he regained the momentum in his work. In 1928 he and his partner, the dancer Margaret Morris, moved to Paris, where they lived until the possibility of war loomed over Europe again, prompting the couple to move to Glasgow in 1939 where they remained for the rest of their lives. In 1943 he published his book on "Modern Scottish Painting". On his death, his widow, Margaret Morris, presented fourteen of his paintings to the University of Stirling when it was founded in 1968. His work remains popular, and in 1992 a permanent gallery, The Fergusson Gallery, was founded in Perth, Scotland to house it.

3
Ausziehende Frau / Woman Undressing
George Grosz (1893-1959) German
Watercolor on paper, 15" x 20" (w x h), 1938
Christies 2019 auction sold $3,250 USD

Source Wiki and various sources edited:
George Grosz (1893-1959) was a German artist known especially for his caricature drawings and paintings of Berlin life in the 1920s. He was a prominent member of the Berlin Dada and New Objectivity groups during the Weimar Republic. He emigrated to the United States in 1933, and became a naturalized citizen in 1938, the year he painted this painting. Abandoning the style and subject matter of his earlier work, he exhibited regularly and taught for many years at the Art Students League of New York. In May 1959 he returned to Berlin, where he died in July falling down a flight of stairs after a night of drinking.

In 1968, the Heckscher Museum of Art in Huntington, NY purchased his painting Eclipse of the Sun for $15,000 USD, raising the money by public subscription. It portrays in a room's setting with men a damning critique of the military industrial complex that controlled Weimar Germany where power and greed reigned supreme. This painting became a destination of protesters of the Vietnam War in Heckscher Park (where the museum is sited) in the late 1960s and early 70s. In 2006, the museum proposed selling Eclipse of the Sun at its then-current appraisal of $19,000,000 to pay for repairs and renovations to the building. Public outcry prevailed. The museum didn't sell and announced plans to create a dedicated space for display of the painting in the renovated museum.

In 2022 in Germany, the Little Grosz Museum (Kleines Grosz Museum) opened in a Berlin's district. Housed in a mid-century former gas station that was converted to a living space in 2008, the museum is funded by private donors and also houses a cafe and shop.

4
Model with Raised Arms
Mary Ellen Riell, American
Watercolor on paper, 6" x 10" (w x h), circa 1995-2023
$125 USD

Source artist's website edited:
Mary Ellen Riell, exhibiting since 1995, grew up Brooklyn, NY. As a teenager she studied at the Art Students League in New York City. She graduated Brooklyn College. She earned a Masters in Education with a studio concentration in screen printing from the College of Saint Rose in Albany, NY in 1994. Mary Ellen was honored with the Grand Prize in the Cooperstown (NY) Art Association's 79th Annual National Exhibition, Best in Show at the Laffer Gallery's Annual Upstate Artists Exhibition in 2012 and the Adirondack Pastel National Silver Award. She's participated in over 100 exhibitions throughout the Northeast. She is a current member and former co-director of the Oakroom Artists. Her website with this art for sale is HERE.

5
Abstracted Standing Nude
Jack Freeman (1938-2014) American
Watercolor on paper, 17" x 24" (w x h), circa 1950s-199os
$575
Lost Art Salon, San Francisco, CA

Various sources edited:
Jack Freeman (1938-2014) studied at the High Museum of Art in Atlanta, with Oskar Kokoschka at the Salzburg International Summer Academy of Fine Arts in 1962 and with Bill Thompson at Ealing College, London, in 1963. He received two degrees from the San Francisco Art Institute, a B.F.A. in 1966 and an M.F.A. in 1969. Freeman's style varied between Abstract Expressionism, the Bay Area Figurative Movement, and bright colors with plein air landscape painting. Gallery sale HERE.

6
Leaning Nude
Sanyu (Chang Yu) (1901-1966) Chinese, French
Watercolor and ink on paper, 11" x 10" (w x h),
circa 1920s-1930s
Christies 2016 Hong Kong auction sold $104,000 USD

Source Wiki edited:
Born Chang Yu (Sanyu) in 1901 in Sichuan Province, China. The family's wealth allowed Sanyu to be schooled at home, which included calligraphy lessons with the Sichuan calligrapher Zhao Xi (1877-1938) and painting lessons with his father, known in Nanchong for his skill in painting lions and horses.

In 1920, 19-year-old Sanyu travelled to France under a government-sponsored work-study program. Entranced by the charms of Paris, Sanyu spent more than four decades in the artistic neighborhood of Montparnasse, Paris. In the late 1920s, French scholar and influential collector Henri-Pierre Roché took a strong interest in Sanyu's paintings, acquiring many of the artist's works for his personal collection. At his home, Sanyu's paintings were hung side by side with works of Matisse. It was in France where Sanyu met 21-year-old Marcelle. She was impressed with Sanyu's talent and requested lessons. Three years later they married.

In 1948, Sanyu traveled to New York. Looking for a place to stay, he met the renowned Swiss-American photographer Robert Frank who was planning an extended trip to Paris. The two decided to exchange studios. A change of plans, however, kept Frank in New York and they became roommates. According to Frank, "Sanyu came to America to promote ping-pong. That was his only reason for coming." Over the next two decades, Sanyu and Frank developed a deep friendship. As Frank's career as a photographer took off, he never forgot his dear friend and kept his paintings with him wherever he moved over the next fifty years. In 1997, Frank sold these paintings and donated the proceeds to establish the Sanyu Scholarship Fund at Yale University to support Chinese students of art.

Sanyu's painting Five Nudes (circa 1950-1959) sold in 2019 for $38,72o,000 USD at Christie's Contemporary Art Evening Sale in Hong Kong.

7
Femme nue, couronnée d'un Uraeus /
Nude Woman, Crowned with a Uraeus
Ureas: Upright form of an Egyptian cobra,
used as a symbol of divine authority in ancient Egypt.
Auguste Rodin (1840-1917) French
Watercolor and graphite on paper, 10" x 13"
(w x h), circa 1900
Christies 2015 auction sold $43,750 USD

Source Wiki edited:
The popularity of French artist Auguste Rodin's (1840-1917) most famous sculptures, such as The Thinker, obscures his total creative output. A prolific artist, he created thousands of busts, figures, and sculptural fragments over more than five decades. He painted in oils, especially in his thirties, and in watercolors. The Musée Rodin holds 7,000 of his drawings and prints, in chalk and charcoal.
Rodin is in the top ten list of artists whose work is copied as forgeries. Rodin fought against forgeries of his works as early as 1901, and since his death, many cases of organized, large-scale forgeries have been revealed.

8
Femme Nue / Female Nude
Kees Van Dongen (1877-1968) Dutch French
Watercolor, gouache and black chalk on paper,
6" x 10" (w x h),
Christies European 2011 auction sold $27,400 USD

Source Wiki edited:
Cornelis Theodorus Maria "Kees" van Dongen (1877-1968) was a Dutch-French painter who was one of the leading Fauves. Van Dongen's early work was influenced by the Hague School and symbolism and it evolved gradually into a rough pointillist style. Van Dongen gained a reputation for his sensuous - at times garish - portraits of women.
With a playful cynicism he remarked of his popularity as a portraitist with high society women, "The essential thing is to elongate the women and especially to make them slim. After that it just remains to enlarge their jewels. They are ravished." This remark is reminiscent of another of his sayings, "Painting is the most beautiful of lies".

Comice and Granny Smith Two

Comice and Granny Smith Two

 

in my yard on the snow Jan 8, 2024 at my home in Shapleigh, Maine painted on Jan 20, 2024, 12" x 9" (w x h), Daniel Smith, Schmincke Horadam, and Winsor & Newton watercolors, selected for light fastness and permanence on 140 lbs. Fabriano Artistico cold press rough 100% cotton extra white watercolor paper, framed.
$400

Comice and Granny Smith Too

Comice and Granny Smith Too

in my yard on the snow Jan 8, 2024 at my home in Shapleigh, Maine painted on Jan 20, 2024, 12" x 9" (w x h), Daniel Smith, Schmincke Horadam, and Winsor & Newton watercolors, selected for light fastness and permanence on 140 lbs. Fabriano Artistico cold press rough 100% cotton extra white watercolor paper, framed.
$400

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~~
"When...
...it snows
it's all about
color," said
Granny Smith
speaking as
a green pair.

by Bruce McMillan
Text and art © 2024 Bruce McMillan
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~~

Green and Blue Too in Art

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

Green and Blue Too in Art
as painted by eight artists:
Ellsworth Kelly, Claude Monet,
Frede Christoffersen, Hans Simon Holtzbecker,
Georgia O'Keeffe, Joan Mitchell, Neil Welliver,
and Vincent van Gogh.

1
Blue-Green
Ellsworth Kelly (1923-2015) American
Oil on canvas, 50" x 68" (w x h), 1961
Leeum, Samsung Museum of Art, Seoul, South Korea

Museum notes edited:
Painter Ellsworth Kelly emphasized pure form, color, and spatial unity in a practice that influenced Pop art, Minimalism, and hard-edge and color field painting-along with the development of American abstraction at large. He envisioned fine art as a compliment to modern architecture. Since his first retrospective in 1973, at the Museum of Modern Art, Kelly has been the subject of a number of high-profile solo shows at institutions including the Guggenheim, the Tate, and the Centre Pompidou. At auction Kelly's pieces regularly sell for seven figures with a high auction record of $9, 800,000 USD at a 2019 Christie's, auction.

2
Woman with a Parasol -
Madame Monet and Her Son
Claude Monet (1840-1926) French
Oil on canvas 32" x 39" (w x h), 1875
National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.

Museum notes edited:
With Manet's assistance, Monet found lodging in suburban Argenteuil in late 1871, a move that initiated one of the most fertile phases of his career. At its purest, impressionism was attuned to landscape painting, a subject Monet favored. In this painting his skill as a figure painter is equally evident. Contrary to the artificial conventions of academic portraiture, Monet delineated the features of his sitters as freely as their surroundings. Monet's art conveys the feeling of a casual family outing rather than a formal portrait. He used pose and placement to suggest that his wife and son interrupted their stroll while he captured their likenesses.

3
Tordennat / Thunderstorm by Night
Frede Christoffersen (1919-1987) Danish
Oil and tempera on canvas, 19" x 20" (w x h), 1963
SMK - Statens Museum for Kunst, Copenhagen, Denmark

Various sources edited:
Frede Christoffersen (1919-1987) was a Danish painter and illustrator. While Denmark was occupied by the Nazis, from 1942 to 1943, he studied at the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts, both at the graphic arts school and at the school of painting. In the early 1940s, he illustrated books. He also created colored woodcuts and produced book covers and posters but finally concentrated on painting. Many of his works were in small formats but he also produced murals for Copenhagen's Danish Distillers (1956) and for Denmark's Askov High School (1957). Like his wife Agnete Bjerre, he frequently exhibited his work at the Danish Art Association, Demark's oldest association of artists.

In 1965, Frede Christoffersen was awarded the Eckersberg Medal, the an annual award of the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts. In 1986, he was awarded the annual Thorvaldsen Medal by the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts, for the highest distinction within the visual arts. The record price for Christoffersen's paintings at auction is $5,744 USD.

4
Iris Latifolia / Iris
Hans Simon Holtzbecker (1610-1671) German
Gouache on vellum, 10" x 15" (w x h), circa 1635-1664
SMK - Statens Museum for Kunst, Copenhagen, Denmark

Christies edited:
Hans Simon Holtzbecker lived in Hamburg, specializing in flower painting. Four albums of his flower paintings are recorded. The Gottorf Codex, painted in the 1650s commissioned by Duke Friedrich III likely for his wife, Duchess Maria Elisabeth; another the Anckelmann florilegium, painted for the Anckelmann family of Hamburg; and the Moller Florilegium. Holtzbecker appears to have painted almost exclusively on vellum, the most luxurious and expensive material, indicating the high status of his patrons. Today his paintings have been auctioned for as much as $770,00 USD.

5
Blue and Green Music
Georgia O'Keeffe (1887-1986) American
Oil on canvas, 19" x 23" (w x h), circa 1919-1921
Alfred Stieglitz Collection, gift of Georgia O'Keeffe
The Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago, IL

Art Institute of Chicago notes:
Around 1920 Georgia O'Keeffe painted a number of oils exploring, as she later recalled, "the idea that music could be translated into something for the eye." In Blue and Green Music, O'Keeffe's colors and forms simultaneously suggest the natural world and evoke the experience of sound. She was drawn to the theories of the Russian Expressionist painter Vasily Kandinsky, who, in his 1912 text Concerning the Spiritual in Art, argued that visual artists should emulate music in order to achieve pure expression free of literary references.

6
No Rain
Joan Mitchell (1925-1992) American
Oil on canvas, 158" x 110" (w x h), 1976
The Museum of Modern Art, New York

Wiki, edited:
A native of Chicago, Joan Mitchell is associated with the American abstract expressionist movement, even though she lived in France for much of her career. Her emotionally intense style and its gestural brushwork were influenced by nineteenth-century post-impressionist painters, particularly Henri Matisse. Memories of landscapes inspired her compositions. She famously told art critic Irving Sandler, "I carry my landscapes around with me."

Her later work was informed and constrained by her declining health. Mitchell was one of her era's few female painters to gain critical and public acclaim. She earned over $30,000 in art sales between 1960 and 1962, while still in the middle of her career, a significant figure for a woman painter at that time. At Christie's New York in 2014, Mitchell's untitled 1960 abstract painting sold for $11.9 million, surpassing the high estimate, while setting an auction record for her art. The result also established a new record for an artwork by any female artist at auction, later surpassed by a work by Georgia O'Keeffe. In May 2021, Mitchell's painting 12 Hawks at 3 O'clock (circa 1962) sold for a record $20 million at Art Basel Hong Kong.

7
Nude in Striped Robe
Neil Welliver (1929-2005) American
Oil on Canvas, 1968

Wiki edited:
While teaching at Yale, Welliver's style evolved from abstract color field painting to the realistic transcription of small-town scenes in watercolor. In the early 1960s he went to Maine, where he began painting figures outdoors, the large oil paintings often focusing on his sons canoeing or female nudes bathing. In 1970 he moved permanently to Lincolnville, and by the mid-1970s the figure as subject had given way to the exclusive study of his noted landscapes. Welliver's works are represented in many museums, among them the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Museum of Modern Art, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art and the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden.

8
Green Wheat Fields, Auvers
Vincent van Gogh (painter) Dutch, 1853 - 1890
Oil on canvas, 36" 29" (w x h), 1890
National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.

Museum notes edited:
Green Wheat Fields, Auvers was painted during his final months in Auvers, a village just north of Paris. Van Gogh painted the Romanesque church, the town hall, and some of the picturesque thatched-roof houses. As he did in the countryside surrounding Arles and Saint-Rémy, he also painted landscapes. This work is indeed singular in that there is no legible motif beyond the grassy field, road, and sky; no farmers or horse-driven carts; no rural structures. Instead, pure flora is whipped up by the wind. Two-thirds of the composition consists of the field in a rich range of greens and blues, punctuated by outbursts of yellow flowers. As in the paintings he completed in the countryside surrounding Arles and Saint-Rémy, here Van Gogh painted a pure landscape.

Vincent wrote of his return to northern France as a kind of homecoming, a peaceful restoration of his mental state in which the vibrant, hot colors of the south were replaced by cool, gentle hues in green and blue. In Green Wheat Fields, Auvers, Van Gogh's energetic strokes describe the movement of grassy stalks in the breeze, their patterned undulations creating a woven integral form anchored at the right by a juncture of field, road, and sky.

Orange Family Snow Life

Orange Family Snow Life

in the field behind my home in Shapleigh, Maine on Jan 8, 2024, painted Jan 16-17, 2024, 12" x 9" (w x h), Daniel Smith, Schmincke Horadam, and Winsor & Newton watercolors, selected for light fastness and permanence, and clear wax resist, on 140 lbs. Fabriano Artistico cold press rough 100% cotton extra white watercolor paper, framed.
$400

Oh My Darlin' Clementine

Oh My Darlin' Clementine

in my snowy yard at Shapleigh, Maine on Jan 16-17, 2024, 12" x 9" (w x h), Daniel Smith, Schmincke Horadam, and Winsor & Newton watercolors, selected for light fastness and permanence, and clear wax resist on 140 lbs. Fabriano Artistico cold press rough 100% cotton extra white watercolor paper, framed.
$400

Orange and Green Art Theme Blues

Orange and Green Art Theme
Visual Essay
and Maybe Some with Blue

Art of Leo Gestel, Oskar Kokoschka, Elizabeth Enders, Lynne Drexler, Georgia O'Keeffe, Yulian Rich,  Serge Lemoyne and Marc Chagall, in this named order.

1
Het land van Montfoort / The Land of Montfoort
Leo Gestel (1881-1941) Dutch
Oil on canvas, 34" x 20" (w x h), 1909
Sotheby's Auction

Leo Gestel (1881-1941) was a Dutch painter. His father Willem Gestel, the director of an art school, was also an artist and his first instructor. His uncle, Dimmen Gestel, painted with Vincent van Gogh. Leo Gestel, to make a living, created advertisements and illustrated books. As a painter he experimented with cubism, expressionism, futurism and postimpressionism. Along with Piet Mondrian and Jan Sluyters, Leo Gestel was among the leading artists of Dutch modernism. While in Paris he came in contact with the avant-garde movement. In 1913 Herwarth Walden offered him the chance to exhibit work in Berlin. Generally Gestel spent the summer in Bergen, where he joined the Bergen School. In 1929 the majority of his works were lost when a fire destroyed his studio. He moved to Blaricum in North Holland, Netherlands.

2
Girl with Boots
Oskar Kokoschka (1886-1980) Austrian
Watercolor on paper, 19" x 26" (w x h), 1922
Minneapolis Institute of Art, Minneapolis, MN

Oskar Kokoschka, CBE (Most Excellent Order of the British Empire) (1886-1980) was an Austrian artist, poet, playwright, and teacher best known for his intense expressionistic portraits and landscapes, as well as his theories on vision that influenced the Viennese Expressionist movement. He was deemed a degenerate by the Nazis and fled Austria in 1934 for Prague, and again fled, this time to England in 1938. After World War II artist Oskar Kokoschka, traveled across Europe painting townscapes and portraits. In the 1947 he traveled briefly to paint in the US, where he taught at the Minneapolis School of Fine Arts, now the Minneapolis College of Art & Design. Eventually, he settled in Villeneuve, Switzerland in 1953, where he lived the rest of his life. In 1966 he won the competition for the commissioned portrait of Konrad Adenauer for the German Bundestag.

3
Chicago
Elizabeth Enders (1939- ) American
Oil on canvas, 60" x 60" (w x h), 2022
Betty Cunningham Gallery, NY, exhibited:
Lyman Allyn Art Museum, New London, CT

Elizabeth Enders, born in 1939 in New London, CT, graduated with a B.A. from Connecticut College in 1962 and an M.A. from New York University in 1987. Her work is included in the collections of the Addison Gallery of American Art, Andover, MA; the Art Gallery of Nova Scotia, Canada; the Brooklyn Museum of Art, NY; Colby College Art Museum, Waterville, ME; the Detroit Institute of Arts, MI; the Florence Griswold Museum, Old Lyme, CT; Frances Young Tang Museum, Saratoga, NY; the Lyman Allyn Art Museum, New London, CT; the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, MA; the New Britain Museum of American Art, CT; the Smith College Museum of Art, Northampton, MA; the Wadsworth Atheneum, Hartford, CT; and the Whitney Museum, New York, NY, among others.

4
Untitled (Green and Orange)
Lynne Drexler (1928-1999) American
Gouache on paper, 25" x 19" (w x h), 1959
Private Collection

Lynne Drexler, who lived on Monhegan Island, Maine, began making landscape paintings at the age of eight, and later pursued training under Hans Hofmann and Robert Motherwell. Drexler, who loved both representational landscape painting and Abstract Expressionism, produced works that connected her two interests. She became known for a style that layered small, repetitive brush marks in vivid colors across large areas of canvas. Drexler considered herself a colorist. She was an admirer of Henri Matisse, though she also drew inspiration from classical music and opera; in the 1970s Drexler made hundreds of works based on musical pieces, in particular Richard Wagner's Ring Cycle. In 2022 Christies auctioned one of her works for $1,500,000 USD.

5
Anything
Georgia O'Keeffe (1887-1986) American
Oil on board, 16" x 20" (w x h) 1916
Georgia O'Keeffe Museum, Santa Fe, NM

Beginning in the fall of 1915 and continuing until the following March, worked for an academic year as an art teacher at Columbia College in College Place, SC, a Methodist music school for women. She used a room as an art studio to pursue her drawing. In 1916 her friend, Pollitzer, a woman's rights activist, showed a sampling of O'Keeffe's abstract charcoal drawings made in South Carolina to an impressed Alfred Stieglitz at the 291 gallery in New York. Stieglitz wrote to O'Keeffe and said it was impossible to put into words what he felt when looking at her work. The two began a regular correspondence.

6
She on the Grass
Yulian Rich (1961- ), Bulgarian
Acrylic on canvas, 12" x 12" (w x h),
$330 USD

Yulian Rich, (Yulian Hristov Trichkov) was born in Sofia, Bulgaria. From 1983-1989, he studied at the Art Academy Poster, in Sofia, Bulgaria. He's a commercial artist, a web designer, and painter, exhibiting as both a commercial artist and a pure painter.

7
Vert, Orange, Vert / Green Orange Green
Serge Lemoyne (1941-1998) Canadian (Quebec)
Oil on canvas, 60" x 83" (w x h), 1982
Sotheby's 2011 Toronto auction sold $11,560 USD

Serge Lemoyne (1941-1998) was a Canadian artist from Quebec. He worked as a performance artist as well as creating paintings, assemblages and prints. Lemoyne explored themes such as the environment, technology, and social justice. Lemoyne's work was exhibited in Canada and internationally, and he received numerous awards throughout his career. He died in 1998 at the age of 57. The commemorative envelope for the postage stamp to celebrate the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts issued by Canada Post on September 26, 2011 features a portion of Lemoyne's work Dryden (1975).

8
Esquisse pour l'affiche Le ciel Bleu ou Profils vert et orange /
Sketch for the poster The Blue Sky or Green and Orange Profiles
Marc Chagall (1887-1985) Belarusian and French
Watercolor, ink and pencil on paper,
10" x 13" (w x h), circa 1964
Sotheby's 2022 auction sold $81,900 USD

Chagall biographer Jackie Wullschlager praised Marc Chagall as a "pioneer of modern art and one of its greatest figurative painters... [who] invented a visual language that recorded the thrill and terror of the twentieth century."

She adds: "On his canvases we read the triumph of modernism, the breakthrough in art to an expression of inner life that ... is one of the last century's signal legacies. At the same time Chagall was personally swept up in the horrors of European history between 1914 and 1945: world wars, revolution, ethnic persecution, the murder and exile of millions. [His home town, Vitebsk, had only 118 of 240,000 survive the Second World War.] In an age when many major artists fled reality for abstraction, he distilled his experiences of suffering and tragedy into images at once immediate, simple, and symbolic to which everyone could respond."

A 1928 Chagall oil painting, Les Amoureux, depicting Bella Rosenfeld, the artist's first wife and adopted home Paris, sold for $28.5 million at Sotheby's New York in 2017, almost doubling Chagall's 27-year-old $14.85 million auction record.