Saturday, July 5, 2025

Summer Sun Descending It Seems

Summer Sun 
Descending it Seems

from the Sand Beach woods in Stonington, Maine, painted plein air June 23, 2025, 5" x 7" (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.
$200

The plein air set up...



Friday, July 4, 2025

Beyond Sand Beach

Beyond Sand Beach
on Deer Isle in Stonington Maine, painted plein air, June 27, 2025, 5" x 7" (w x h), using Daniel Smith, Schmincke Horadam, and Winsor & Newton watercolors, all selected for light fastness and permanence, on 140 lbs. Fabriano Artistico cold press rough 100% cotton extra white watercolor paper, framed.
$200

Tuesday, July 1, 2025

William Irvine Art Essay

 A William Irvine Art Essay 
with My Irvine Adventure...

While painting from a balcony overlooking the Yellow House in Stonington Maine, it was one of those super hot days, so I grabbed a chair from inside and in the shade of my painting parasol I took a fifteen-minute break. I took in the harbor view, watching a lobsterboat racing across the view. I've seen this. I've seen this in a painting, a William Irvine painting. Oh, wow, this is what he painted, the streaking lobsterboat with the long, long single line of its wake. I was astounded. A painting memory had come to life. I recognized it. I'd seen it online in my online painting research.

On my way home, I stopped in Blue Hill Books, a great bookstore, and was astounded to find two art books about William Irvine. Of course, one was by Carl Little, who I'd only seen weeks ago at his talk and my art opening in York, Maine. I didn't know Carl had written a book about William Irvine. And there it was in his book, not one but two of these paintings of a lobsterboat racing across the canvas, Heading Out and also The Return. I was excited. I purchased both books.

William Irvine, A Painter's Journey
Carl Little, forward by Richard Russo
Marshall Wilkes, Inc., Ellsworth, ME, 2014, 108 pages. $39.95
On amazon HERE. $28.92

William Irvine: At Home
William Irvine
Marshall Wilkes, Inc., Ellsworth, ME, 2018, 108 pages, $28.95
On amazon HERE. $21.81

Could this adventure get better? Yes.

On my journey south I stopped in pouring rain at Camden with my big red umbrella. As I'm walking up Bayview Street, gallery row, my eyes pop as I look in the window of Harbor Square Gallery. There's a William Irvine painting, whoa, more than one. I go in, strike up a pleasant conversation with Jonathan, who also has an Iceland connection,  and he shows me to the upstairs gallery where they are about to hang an Irvine painting. I'm astounded, what serendipity. For the first time I beheld a lobsterboat and line wake by William Irvine...

1
Painting to be Hung for Sale
William Irvine (1931- ), Scottish/American
Harbor Square Gallery
37 Bayview Street, Camden ME 04843
www.harborsquaregallery.com

Source: Courthouse Gallery Fine Art
Irvine was born in Troon, a small coastal village on the Atlantic coast of Scotland. He was captivated by art as a young boy and majored in art at Marr College, a progressive secondary school in Troon. When the family of whiskey magnate Johnnie Walker heard about two budding artists at Marr (Irvine and his best friend William Crozier), they invited the boys for a private viewing of Walker's art collection. This was Irvine's first opportunity to see paintings that were not reproductions but originals by the masters. Irvine went on to graduate with a degree in drawing and painting from the Glasgow School of Art in 1953.

2
The Drifting Cloud
William Irvine (1931- ), Scottish /American
Oil on canvas, 40" x 30" (w x h)
$8,000 USD
Courthouse Gallery Fine Art
6 Court Street, Ellsworth, Maine 04605
www.courthousegallery.com

Source: Courthouse Gallery Fine Art, Daniel Kany
In 1960, he met and married Stephanie Schram, an American student studying in London. In 1968, the young couple moved to Downeast Maine. Irvine was immediately drawn to the fishing villages of Corea and Jonesport, whose tidy houses reminded him of the white farms dotting the green hills of Scotland. Here, harbor, boats, islands and the sea and sky, inspired bold work fueled by two driving forces: abstraction and representation.

3
By William Irvine (1931- ), Scottish/American
Courthouse Gallery Fine Art
6 Court Street, Ellsworth, Maine 04605
www.courthousegallery.com

Source: Courthouse Gallery Fine Art, Daniel Kany
Maine proved to be a turning point. Irvine combined abstraction with figurative work, producing bold new seascapes, landscapes, narrative scenes, and still lifes. He used his poetic sensibility and the richness of his textural compositions to bring these antithetical elements into balance. Irvine believes "Every artist is born with a small set of poems, and it is the exploration of that personal mythology that defines him as an artist." His paintings of the men and women living and working in these coastal villages, as well as his experimental seascapes became lifelong themes.

4
The Lobster Boat Race, Stonington
William Irvine (1931- ), Scottish/American
Oil on museum board, 36" x 26" (w x h), 2012
Courthouse Gallery Fine Art
6 Court Street, Ellsworth, Maine 04605
www.courthousegallery.com

Source: Courthouse Gallery Fine Art, Daniel Kany
A few years later, Irvine and Stephanie bought a house in Blue Hill, Maine, and the old attached barn became Irvine's studio for the next forty-two years. In 1985, Stephanie died after a long illness. Irvine married Margery Wilson in 1995. They built a house and studio on the shore overlooking the sea in Brooklin, Maine. Living in such close proximity to the ocean provides Irvine with daily sources of inspiration.

5
The Lobster Boat Passes Through the Clouds
William Irvine (1931- ), Scottish/American
Oil on canvas, 40" x 30" (w x h)
$8,000 USD
Courthouse Gallery Fine Art
6 Court Street, Ellsworth, Maine 04605
www.courthousegallery.com

Whisky Wolf Media produced a documentary on Irvine's life, William Irvine: A Life Behind the Canvas premiered at The Grand in Ellsworth in 2023, and aired on Maine Public Television in the spring and fall of 2024. It can be streamed there.

6
Daybreak Departure
William Irvine (1931- ), Scottish/American
Oil on canvas, 72" x 36"
$14,000 USD
Greenhut Galleries
146 Middle St, Portland, ME
www.greenhutgalleries.com

William Irvine on Regionalism
Maine has its own character, soul if you wish. I felt it the first morning I woke up in Maine, in an A-frame on Tom Leighton Point in Washington County, lobster boats droning offshore, gulls crying, the smell of herring bait. A smudge of islands on the horizon. I had arrived from Scotland, and our two souls bonded. It was love at first sight... So, does it matter where we live? I think it does, for each artist finds his comfort zone, a place he feels connected to. Van Gogh in Provence, Marin in Addison, de Kooning on Long Island. It is a place that allows us to communicate with our surroundings. We use the props at hand, be they hills or harbors; in my case, clouds, islands, and boats... Read the whole article by William Irvine on Maine Arts Journal HERE.

7
Waiting at the Door
William Irvine (1931- ), Scottish/American
Oil on Panel, 16" x 12" (w x h)
Sold
Courthouse Gallery Fine Art
6 Court Street, Ellsworth, ME 04605
www.courthousegallery.com

Having married an American girl while in London, he moved with his wife to Maine in the late 1960s, first to Washington county, then Blue Hill and finally Brooklin, where he lives and paints today at 94 years-old. Maine's finest galleries carry William Irvine's art, Courthouse Gallery Fine Art, Ellsworth, Harbor Square Gallery, Camden, Gleason Fine Art, Boothbay Harbor, and Greenhut Galleries, Portland.

8
Early Riser
William Irvine (1931- ), Scottish/American
Oil on board, 16" x 12" (w x h), 2018

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
Girl at the Door
by William Irvine

She has left the shadows behind
caught in the corners of her bed
and the cloak of her dreams
shed like yesterday's clothes.

With a magician's hand
she opens up the sea
and the sun
and a single gull
like herself
about to soar.

See this in:
William Irvine: At Home
William Irvine
at Marshall Wilkes, Inc., Ellsworth, ME, 2018, 108 pages, $28.95
Also on amazon HERE. $21.81

Oh, That Yellow House

Oh, That Yellow House
painted plein air on Indian Point Road in Stonington, Maine, June 25, 2025, 12" x 9" (w x h), using Daniel Smith, Schmincke Horadam, and Winsor & Newton watercolors, all selected for light fastness and permanence on 140 lbs. Fabriano Artistico cold press rough 100% cotton extra white watercolor paper, framed.
$400

Thursday, June 26, 2025

Still That Yellow House

Still That Yellow House

painted plein air on Indian Point Road, Stonington, Maine, June 25, 2025, 12" x 9" (w x h), using Daniel Smith, Schmincke Horadam, and Winsor & Newton watercolors, all selected for light fastness and permanence, and graphite, on 140 lbs. Fabriano Artistico cold press rough 100% cotton extra white watercolor paper, framed.

This is my primary watercolor for auction at the Blue Hill (Maine) Library Paint the Peninsula auction to benefit the library, actual auction page with bidding from 9:00 am July 14th to 7:30 pm, July 19th.

Almost Done

Can you spot the missing finishing touch? My suspenders are a colorful clue...

Tuesday, June 24, 2025

Spruced Up in Cumulus Clouds

Spruced Up in Cumulus Clouds
over Burnt Cove, Stonington, Maine on a glorious summer day painted plein air, June 24, 2025, 7" x 5" (w x h), using Daniel Smith, Schmincke Horadam, and Winsor & Newton watercolors, all selected for light fastness and permanence on 140 lbs. Fabriano Artistico cold press rough 100% cotton extra white watercolor paper, framed.
$200

River Bend

River Bend

painted plein air along the Kennebunk Land Trust Bridle path by tidal Mousam River in Kennebunk, Maine, June 20, 2025, 5" x 7" (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.
$200

Sunday, June 22, 2025

Incoming Tidal Flow

Incoming Tidal Flow

painted plein air along the Kennebunk Land Trust Bridle path by tidal Mousam River in Kennebunk, Maine, June 20, 2025, 5" x 7" (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.
$200

Thursday, June 19, 2025

Storm Wave Sea Too

Storm Wave Sea Too
painted May 12, 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.
$750

Sunday, June 15, 2025

The Dirt Road Taken

The Dirt Road Taken
painted after a woods walk behind my home, June 15, 2025, 12" x 9" (w x h), using Daniel Smith, Schmincke Horadam, and Winsor & Newton watercolors, all selected for light fastness and permanence, on 140 lbs. Fabriano Artistico cold press rough 100% cotton extra white watercolor paper, framed.
$400

Saturday, June 14, 2025

No King, verso recto

No King, verso

No King, recto
 
Art, 23.5" x 39.5" (w x h), verso, recto, colored duct tape on 1" foam core board, waterproof, lightweight, June 13, 2024, gallery display, hand held, Main Street, Kennebunk, Maine, 12:00-1:00 pm, June 14, 2025.

Wednesday, June 11, 2025

Storm High Wave Sea

Storm High Wave Sea

painted May 12, 2025, 14" x 11" (w x h), using Daniel Smith, Schmincke Horadam, and Winsor & Newton watercolors, all selected for light fastness and permanence, and Prismacolor waterproof fade proof ink on 140 lbs. Fabriano Artistico cold press rough 100% cotton extra white watercolor paper, framed.
$700

Tuesday, June 10, 2025

Sea Edge Scene

Sea Edge Scene
 
painted May 11, 2025, 10" x 8" (w x h), using Daniel Smith, Schmincke Horadam, and Winsor & Newton watercolors, all selected for light fastness and permanence, and Prismacolor waterproof fade proof ink on 140 lbs. Fabriano Artistico cold press rough 100% cotton extra white watercolor paper, framed
$300

Saturday, June 7, 2025

Sea Edge Seen

Sea Edge Seen

painted May 11, 2025, 5" x 7" (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.
$200

Friday, June 6, 2025

May Model David Studies

May Model David Study 1
At our drawing group May 9, 2025,
12" x 9" (w x h), using Daniel Smith, Schmincke
Horadam, and Winsor & Newton watercolors, all selected
for light fastness and permanence, and graphite on
140 lbs. Fabriano Artistico cold press rough
100% cotton extra white watercolor paper,
framed, $400

May Model David Study 2

At our drawing group May 9, 2025,
8" x 10" (w x h), watercolors and ink
on 140 lbs. Fabriano Artistico cold press rough
100% cotton extra white watercolor paper,
framed, $300

May Model David Study 3

At our drawing group May 9, 2025,
5 x 7" (w x h), watercolors and ink
on 140 lbs. Fabriano Artistico cold press rough
100% cotton extra white watercolor paper,
framed, $150

May Model David Study 4

At our drawing group May 9, 2025,
5 x 7" (w x h), watercolors and ink
on 140 lbs. Fabriano Artistico cold press rough
100% cotton extra white watercolor paper,
framed, $150

The Art of Kay WalkingStick Color and Form

 ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
The Art of Kay WalkingStick
Nude Color and Form 1971-1973
Art at the Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington, D.C.
Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, NY
Baltimore Museum of Art, Baltimore, MD
and the artist's collection

1
Two Women II
Kay WalkingStick (1935- ), American / Cherokee
Acrylic on canvas, 44" x 42" (w x h), 1973
Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington, DC

This painting's eye-popping hues and lack of volumetric detail create playful confusion between the figures and the background. She describes this painting as a joyful expression of female self-determination and sensuality. Produced amid the women's movement and the sexual revolution of the 1970s, it offers a response to the long history of male artists depicting the female nude.

"One's entire personhood is represented in art and I am who I am -- a biracial woman. I'm a Cherokee, I was raised in a White culture, and both are in everything I do, whether it's landscape or figures or abstraction. It is always there because I'm there." - Kay WalkingStick, 2023

Wiki, edited
Kay WalkingStick (1935- ) is a Native American landscape artist and a member of the Cherokee Nation. Her art is in the collections of many universities and museums, such as the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Israel Museum, the National Museum of Canada, and the Smithsonian National Museum of the American Indian.


2
April Contemplating May
Kay WalkingStick (1935- ), American / Cherokee
Acrylic on canvas, 50" x 50" (w x h), 1972
Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, NY

Source: Wiki edited
Kay WalkingStick liked to color and draw from as a child. She holds a BFA from Beaver College (1959), now Arcadia University, Cheltenham Township, PA. She received a Danforth Foundation Graduate Fellowship for Women and got her MFA Pratt Institute (1971), New York, NY. She is an author and was a professor in the art department at Cornell University, where she taught painting and drawing. Kay WalkingStick is a painter who addresses interrelated themes of Native history, feminism, spirituality, cultural memory, embodiment, and land.


3
Fantasy for a January Day
Kay WalkingStick (1935- ), American / Cherokee
Acrylic on canvas, 56" x 50" (w x h), 1971
Baltimore Museum of Art, Baltimore, MD

Source: Wiki Edited
Kay WalkingStick has been accepted into many artist residency programs which gave her time away from teaching duties to paint. WalkingStick has won many awards and in 1995 was included in H.W. Janson's History of Art, a standard textbook used by university art departments. Ms. WalkingStick is an Honorary Vice President of the National Association of Women Artists, Inc.


4
Me and My Neon Box
Kay WalkingStick (1935- ), American / Cherokee
Acrylic on canvas, 60" x 54" (w x h), 1971
Collection of Kay WalkingStick

Smithsonian Museum Exhibition Label
WalkingStick brings to mind casual sexuality in this grouping of nude bodies and the suggestive title. In fact, three self-portraits populate this painting. She painted both the figures and the spaces between them with vibrant color so that the background shapes become an active part of the composition.

Heritage Source: Wiki Edited and Gabriella Shypula, American Women's History Initiative Writer and Editor:
Kay WalkingStick was born in Syracuse, New York, in 1935, the daughter of Simon Ralph WalkingStick and Emma McKaig WalkingStick. Kay's mother, Emma, was of Scottish-Irish heritage. Kay's father, Ralph, was a member of the Cherokee Nation, writing and speaking the Cherokee language. Ralph, born in the Cherokee Nation capital of Tahlequah, Oklahoma, attended Dartmouth College.

Kay's parents had four other children. They raised their young family while Ralph WalkingStick worked in the Oklahoma oil fields as a geologist. He became an alcoholic. While pregnant with Kay, her mother left Oklahoma with their children and moved to Syracuse, New York. Kay WalkingStick grew up in Syracuse without having experienced the cultural heritage of her Cherokee ancestors. Her siblings, who'd spent some of their childhood in Oklahoma, had a better understanding of their father's Cherokee traditions. Her mother told her "Indian stories" and talked about her handsome father. The family was proud to be Native American.

"One's entire personhood is represented in art and I am who I am -- a biracial woman. I'm a Cherokee, I was raised in a White culture, and both are in everything I do, whether it's landscape or figures or abstraction. It is always there because I'm there." - Kay WalkingStick, 2023

Tuesday, June 3, 2025

Libby in May Studies

Libby in May Study 1

painted May 23, 2025, 5" x 7" (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

Libby in May Study 2
painted May 23, 2025, 5" x 7" (w x h), $150

Libby in May Study 3
painted May 23, 2025, 7" x 5" (w x h), $150

Libby in May Study 4
painted May 23, 2025, 5" x 7" (w x h), $150

Abstract Nudes Visual Essay

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Abstract Nudes Visual Essay
Go Figure
Abstract Nudes Based in Reality

1
Orange Gesture 7
Heidi Lanino (1990- ) American
Oil, charcoal, oil stick, on paper, 23 x 31" (w x h), 2022
Source: Various
Heidi Lanino Bilezikian (1990- ), born in New York, was raised on the south shore of Long Island. She received a full-tuition merit scholarship to Pratt Institute where she earned her BFA in Fine Arts. She works in charcoal, oil and acrylic on paper, canvas, and also clay. Her studio is in Tuxedo Park, NY. Lanino's work has been exhibited in numerous group and solo exhibitions including Flatiron Prow Art Space, New York, NY; A.I.R Gallery, Brooklyn, NY; Aljira Center for Contemporary Art, NJ; Storm King Art Center, New Windsor, NY; Chris Davidson Gallery Newburgh, NY; Gibbs Museum, Charleston, SC; Mindy Ross Gallery, SUNY Orange, Newburgh, NY; Albert Wisner Library Sculpture Park, Warwick, NY, and The Other Art Fair, Brooklyn, NY. Her website is HERE. Her Instagram site is HERE.

2
Nude
Hannah Alpha, Canadian
Acrylic and graphite on mylar, 9" x 11" (w x h)
$160, sold
Source: Various
Hannah Alpha, born in Egypt, is a Canadian artist based in Montreal. She's a McGill alumnus. She uses a minimalist painting style. She's taught drawing and painting at the Saidye Bronfman Center for the Arts in Montreal for fifteen years. Hannah is an active member of the Regroupement des artistes en arts visuels du Quebec (RAAV) and of Atelier Circulaire. Hannah is represented by Art Interiors gallery in Toronto, Canada and Atelier Circulaire in Montreal. Her work is in private and public collections including the Canada Council Art Bank (Ottawa), the Canadian Museum of Civilization (Hull), the Artotheque of the Gabrielle-Roy library (Quebec City), Loto-Quebec (Montreal), Sony Music (Toronto), the Royal Bank (Montreal), Chateau Champlain (Montreal), Sanofi Aventis (Laval), Collart Collection (Montreal) and the Hyatt Regency Hotel (Jeddah & Riyadh). Hannah Alpha's website is HERE.

3
Derriere Le Miroir Figure Study
Henri Matisse (1869-1954), French
Lithograph, 11" x 15" (w x h), 1952
$1,500 USD, American Fine Art Inc., Scottsdale, AZ
Source: Wiki edited
When ill health in his final years prevented him from painting, Matisse created an important body of work in the medium of cut paper collage. Although he was known for his color, this lithograph was issued in Paris by Maeght Editeur in 1952, when he was 82-years-old, two years before Matisse's death in 1954.

4
Untitled - Seated Female with Broad Shoulders
Morris Kantor (1896-1974), Russian-born American
Charcoal on paper, 19" x 25" (w x h), circa 1916-1918
Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington DC
Gift of Mrs. Morris Kantor
Source: Wiki edited
Although Morris Kantor (1896-1974) is best known for his realistic paintings, over the course of his life he also spent time working in Cubism and Futurism, and produced a number of abstract works. Kantor was an instructor at the Cooper Union and also at the Art Students League of New York in the 1940s. He taught many pupils who later became famous artists in their own right, such as Knox Martin, Robert Rauschenberg, Sigmund Abeles and Susan Weil. He married fellow artist Martha Ryther (1896-1981). In addition to his downtown Manhattan studio adjacent to Union Square, he also maintained a studio on Cape Cod in Wellfleet, Massachusetts. Like many American artists, in the 1920s he also spent time working in Paris. In the 1940s some of his summers were spent in Monhegan, Maine. His work is on display in many museums, including the Smithsonian American Art Museum, Whitney Museum, Metropolitan Museum of Art, Museum of Modern Art, Art Institute of Chicago, Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, and Hirshhorn Museum.

5
Pink Nude
Milton Avery (1885-1965), American
Oil on canvas board, 20" x 24" (w x h), 1963
Christie's New York 2010 auction sold $80,500 USD
Source: Wiki edited
Avery's work is seminal to American abstract painting, while his work is clearly representational, it focuses on color relations and is not concerned with creating the illusion of depth as most conventional Western painting since the Renaissance has. Avery was often thought of as an American Matisse, especially because of his colorful and innovative landscape paintings. His poetic, bold and creative use of drawing and color set him apart from more conventional painting of his era. Early in his career, his work was considered too radical for being too abstract.

Wednesday, May 28, 2025

Chuck Mowing the Lawn

Chuck Mowing the Lawn

at my home in Shapleigh, Maine, painted May 27, 2025, 8" x 10" (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

Sunday, May 25, 2025

Friday Evening Departs

Friday Evening Departs

painted plein air from Heaven Swamp Park along Ocean Drive in Kennebunkport, Maine near the Bushes homes on May 16, 2025, 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.
$200

The Art of Orange and Purple Essay

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The Art of Orange and Purple/Violet

Together - Visual Essay

This color combination is a lesser used combination
by most artists, yet those who use it use it effectively.

1
As I Drove You Stretched
(Painted Sand SF #1P, Orange Sky)
Jennifer Guidi (1972- ), American
Sand, acrylic, and oil on linen, 232" x 76" (w x h), 2017
David Kordansky Gallery, Los angels, CA and New York, NY

Source: Wiki, edited
Jennifer Guidi (1972- ) enrolled at Boston University, where she studied painting and printmaking. She primarily painted portraits, both of herself and of friends. After receiving her BFA in 1994, Guidi earned an MFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago in 1998. In 2001 she relocated to Los Angeles.

In 2005 Guidi was making representational paintings of landscapes, plants, and insects. During a 2012 trip to Marrakesh, she became fascinated by the rich patterning of Moroccan rugs, specifically the intricate stitching found on their rarely seen verso sides. She then began to paint from photographs of these woven surfaces, ultimately producing a series of abstract oil and sand paintings titled Field Paintings, a shift from representation to abstraction, as well as the introduction of sand into her work. In 2017, Guidi presented her first solo museum exhibition in Genoa, Italy, large-scale sand and acrylic paintings, which were painted in the seven colors of the light spectrum and occupied the frescoed interior walls of the neoclassical Italian villa. Guidi's most recent paintings feature mandala-like compositions.

Jennifer Guidi's paintings are in the public collections of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, Dallas Museum of Art, Hammer Museum, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, Marciano Art Foundation, and the Rubell Family Collection.

2
Spring Series #1
Richard Mayhew (1924-2024), American
Watercolor, 15" x 11" (w x h), 1997
Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, CA

Source: Wiki, edited
Richard Mayhew (1924-2024) was an American landscape painter, illustrator, and arts educator, of Native and African American descent. His abstract, brightly colored landscapes are informed by his experiences as an African American/Native American and his interest in Jazz and the performing arts. He lived and worked in Soquel and Santa Cruz, California. For 14 years he taught at Pennsylvania State University, starting in 1977 and retiring in 1991. He taught art and/or interdisciplinary thinking at other schools around the United States, including Brooklyn Museum Art School (1963), Pratt Institute (1963), Art Students League of New York (1965), Smith College (1969), Hunter College (1971), California State University, East Bay (1974), San Jose State University (1975), Sonoma State University (1976), University of California, Santa Cruz (1992), and others.

Mayhew was a founding member of Spiral, a black painters' group in the 1960s New York, formed in 1963, after the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, as a way for artists to discuss their experiences in the Civil Rights movement. His work is featured in various permanent collections including: San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, De Young (museum), Metropolitan Museum of Art, Whitney Museum of American Art, and the Smithsonian Institution, among others. Mayhew died in 2024 at the age of 100 at his home in Soquel, California.

3
Le Parlement, coucher de soleil /
Houses of Parliament, sunset
Houses of Parliament series
Claude Monet (1840-1926), French
Oil on canvas, 36" x 32" (w x h), 1904
Kunsthaus Zurich art museum, Zurich, Switzerland

Source:  Wiki, edited
"I find London lovelier to paint each day."-Claude Monet. The Houses of Parliament series of 19 know paintings consists of views of the Palace of Westminster, home of the British Parliament. He began the first of these paintings on February 13, 1900. All of the series' paintings share the same viewpoint from Monet's window or a terrace at St Thomas' Hospital overlooking the Thames and are the same size, 36" x 32" (w x h), painted during different times of the day and weather conditions. By the time of the Houses of Parliament series, Monet had abandoned his earlier practice of completing a painting on the spot in front of the motif. He carried on refining the images back home in Giverny, France, and sent to London for photographs to help in this. This caused some adverse reaction, but Monet's reply was that his means of creating a work was his own business and it was up to the viewer to judge the final result. In 2004 one of these sold for $20,100,000 USD

4
Cabbagetown Winter
Zsolt Nagy (1937- ) Hungarian/Canadian
Oil on wood board, 8" x 10" (w x h),
Sold by Levis Fine Art Auctions, Appraisals & Art
Storage, Calgary, Alberta, Canada, May 16, 2020
Auction, $211 CAD ($154 USD)
Private Collection, Calgary, Alberta, Canada

Source: Levis Gallery, Calgary
Zsolt Nagy is a Hungarian artist who was born in 1937. He painted this downtown Toronto scene of Cabbage town houses in the winter.

5
Orange Landscape with Building on River
Donald Hamilton Fraser RA (1929-2009), British
Oil on canvas, 30" x 20" (w x h), 1957
Sotheby's London 2020 auction sold, 3,528 GBP ($4,800 USD)

Source: Wiki. edited
Donald Hamilton Fraser RA (1929-2009), was a British artist noted for his abstract landscape paintings. Fraser's painting style was characterized in the way he layered thick bright paint with a palette knife to produce a collage-like effect. The landscapes were still clearly identifiable while nonetheless forming abstract fields of color. Fraser was elected a fellow at the Royal College of Art in 1970, becoming an Honorary Fellow in 1984. In 1983 Fraser designed four commemorative stamps for England. He said, "An artist doesn't really choose what sort of pictures he paints. He paints what is there inside him. It is a sort of imperative."

6
My Country - (KUDAR14217)
Kudditji-Kngwarreye (1938-2017), Australian (native Aboriginal)
Acrylic on linen, 20" x 9" (w x h)
Price: $120,000 AUD ($78,000 USD)
Kate Owen Gallery, contemporary Aboriginal art
Rozelle, NSW, Australia

Source: Wiki, edited
Kudditji-Kngwarreye, (1938-2017), also known as "Goob", was an Australian Aboriginal artist from the Utopia community in the Northern Territory. While the early body of this work was admired by a few, not well received at the time, today, Kngwarreye's works have a national and international following. Like his skin sister Emily, he was one of the most prominent and successful artists in the history of contemporary indigenous Australian art. In 2006, Kudditji was named one of the top 50 most collectible artists in Australia by Art Collector magazine. Like many of the desert artists, he mastered the use of acrylic paint on canvas. His use of color combined with simple shapes tell the stories of one of his inherited ancestral totems - the Emu Ancestors.

7
Burns Golden
Emily Mason (1932-2019), American
Oil on canvas, 45" x 60" (w x h), 2007
Private Collection

Source: Wiki and Emily Mason/Alice Trumbull Mason website, edited
Born and raised in New York City, Emily Mason's art education began in the studio with her mother Alice Trumbull Mason, a founding member of the American Abstract Artists. Emily poured and blotted paint on primed canvases. In 1956, Mason was awarded a Fulbright grant to study in Italy. Before moving there, she met fellow painter Wolf Kahn, who later joined her in Venice. They married on March 2, 1957, at the municipal building near the Rialto Bridge, witnessed by strangers and friends. In late 1958, the couple returned to New York, where Mason their first daughter Cecily was born in 1959. In 1963, the family returned to Italy. Their second daughter Melany was born in Rome in 1964. In 1968, the Wolf and Emily bought a farm in Brattleboro, Vermont, where she's spend her summers painting. Emily explained: "It is important to balance city life with experiencing nature. Winter in the city is the time for the fermentation of ideas. Summer is my time to carry them out."

8
The Purple Dress
William Glackens (1870-1938), American
Oil on canvas, 30" x 26" (w x h), 1908-1910
Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington DC
Gift of Ann and Tom Cousins

Source: Wiki, edited
William James Glackens (1870-1938) was an American realist painter and one of the founders of the Ashcan School, which rejected the formal boundaries of artistic beauty laid down by the conservative National Academy of Design. He is also known for his work in helping Albert C. Barnes to acquire the European paintings that form the nucleus of the famed Barnes Foundation in Philadelphia, which includes 71 works of his art. His dark-hued, vibrantly painted street scenes and depictions of daily life in pre-WW I New York and Paris first established his reputation as a major artist. His later work was brighter in tone and showed the strong influence of Renoir. During much of his career as a painter, Glackens also worked as an illustrator for newspapers and magazines in Philadelphia and New York City. The largest collection of Glackens' art has been housed since 2001 at NSU Art Museum Fort Lauderdale, where an entire wing is dedicated to his work; the museum holds approximately 500 Glackens paintings in its permanent collection.