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[jonathan5485]

Luca Signorelli. Part 2.

Frescos at the Chapel of St Brizio inside the Orvieto’s Duomo Part 1. Antichrist and The Destruction of the World frescos In this second part of the blog looking at the works of Luca Signorelli, I want to examine his frescos in the Chapel of St Brizio at the Cathedral of Orvieto which are considered to be his foremost masterpieces. The cathedral basilica of Santa Maria Assunta, Ovierto. The…

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[jonathan5485]

Luca Signorelli. Part 1.

Early life and the Sistene Chapel fresco. Luca Signorelli self portrait As we have just had three important days in the Christian calendar I thought I would have today’s blog all about one of the great Italian religious painters, Luca Signorelli, sometimes known as Luca da Cortona because of the town of his birth.   Signorelli is undoubtedly most revered for his portrayal of figures in action…

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Léon Joseph Florentin Bonnat.

Part 1. The formulative years Self portrait by Léon Bonnat (1855) The artist I am looking at today was one of the leading French painters of the nineteenth century.  He was a colossal figure in 19th-century French art, a painter whose career managed to tie together the past academic traditions with the proliferating trends of modernism. Let me introduce you to Léon Joseph Florentin…

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Famous Views of the Sixty odd Provinces by Utagawa Hiroshige. Part 2.

Title Page for the series Famous Places in the Sixty-odd Provinces of Japan by Hiroshige Hiroshige was born in Edo (now Tokyo) in 1797 and grew up in a minor samurai family. His father was part of the firefighting force assigned to Edo Castle. It was here that Hiroshige was given his first exposure to art.   In 1811, young Hiroshige entered an apprenticeship with the celebrated Toyohiro Utagawa.…

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Anna Richards Brewster. Part 1. 

The Early Years Anna Richards (c.1885) My featured artist today is Anna Richards Brewster, the much-admired American Impressionist painter who was one of the most successful women artists of her time and yet her name has largely been forgotten. Anna was born in the Germantown neighbourhood of Philadelphia in 1870. She was the sixth of eight children of William and Anna Richards. William Trost…

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Maritime Art. Part 3.

The pleasure the sea and the shoreline brings to us. Having looked at Marine Art with depictions of mighty sailing ships in Part 1., and the plight of fishermen and lifeboatmen battling raging seas in Part 2., this third and final part will concentrate on the tranquillity of the sea and the shoreline A and how people enjoy the elements. When I was last in Madrid and had spent a few days and…

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Maritime Art. Part 2.

The Sea and the Workers who risk their lives for others. In this look at Maritime or Marine Art I want to showcase those paintings which feature the people who have dedicated their lives to saving seafarers and those working the seas in a continual search for food to put on our tables.  For the first of my forays into the depiction of fisherman I want to delve into the work of the great Skagen…

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Artcatto Gallery Revisited

I have just returned home from a twelve-day holiday in Spain and Portugal and once again when I was in the Algarve I visited the town of Loulé and went to one of my favourite small galleries, Artcatto, one which I featured in September 2022.  There was a new selection of outstanding contemporary art, and in this blog I will concentrate on work by three of  the artists. Voka Voka at work in his…

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Laura Sylvia Gosse

Laura Sylvia Gosse (1881-1968) For a number of years now, probably for centuries, many female artists have been discounted as hobby-painters or painting because art for many was like playing the piano, a social grace that every young woman should achieve.  It is even more annoying when a man and a woman work side by side and yet it is the reputation of the male artist that is remembered.  An…

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Jasper Francis Cropsey

Among the most vibrant and spectacular works of the nineteenth century, were the sweeping landscape depictions of the Hudson River School which managed to capture the rugged beauty of the American countryside and wildernesses.  The name Hudson River School was first used disparagingly by trendy Europhile critics who preferred the dignified depictions of the realism of L’École de Barbizon.  The…

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Wilhelmina Douglas Hawley

Wilhelmina Douglas Hawley, Self Portrait (1897) The artist I am featuring today is the American painter and watercolourist Wilhelmina Douglas Hawley.  She was born on July 13th 1860 in the small coastal town of Perth Amboy, New Jersey. Her father, Peter Radcliffe Hawley was an officer in the coast guard and her mother, Isabella Hawley (née Merritt), a Canadian-born dancer. Wilhelmina’s ancestors…

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John White Alexander

During the nineteenth century, Paris was considered the art capital of the world.  Once the American Civil War had ended, aspiring American artists, who had the necessary funds, made their way across the Atlantic to the French capital and enrolled in one of the many ateliers there, to learn from the foremost painters of the time.  Many enrolled in the prestigious government-sponsored École des…

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Alethea (Thea) Mary Proctor

Alethea Proctor by George Lambert (1903) The subject of today’s blog is the Australian painter, Alethea (Thea) Mary Proctor.  Thea was born on October 2nd 1879 at Armidale, a town in the Northern Tablelands of New South Wales, two hundred and fifty miles north of Sydney.  She was the elder child of William Consett Proctor, an English-born solicitor who was also a member of the Legislative…

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George Benjamin Luks

The artist I am looking at today is an American who was mainly known for his social-realist paintings and illustration.  Today’s painter supported several of his contemporaries in their philosophy of painting subjects which challenged the traditional approaches put forward at the time by the National Academy of Design and the established art circles in America.  This art renegade is George…

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Clara Klinghoffer. Part 4.

The Latter Years Portrait of a Girl by Clara Klinghoffer Clara’s stay close to Menton with her husband and youngest sister had proved to be a great success and their plans to return home to London had been postponed on a number of occasions.  The decision as to whether to leave their rented villa, Villa Aggradito, was taken out of their hands eventually as the owner needed the villa for a…

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Clara Klinghoffer. Part 3.

Marriage and travels. Lucien Pissarro by Clara Klinghoffer (1928) Clara continued to paint and produce beautiful works of art.  She worked constantly at her easel from daybreak till sunset.  She was awarded a bursary by the Slade allowing her to attend classes three days a week for a year and receive tuition from the Slade Professors of Art, Frederick Brown, and Henry Tonks.  However, Clara…

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Clara Klinghoffer. Part 2.

The artistic road ahead. “…I consider Clara Klinghoffer an artist of great talent, a painter of the first order… Her understanding of form places her in the very first rank of draughtsmen in the world…” Sir Jacob Epstein, London, March 30, 1939 Self portrait by Clara Klinghoffer Fourteen year old Clara was just about to leave St Mark’s School and it is thought that it could have been the head…

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