August 4, 2018 on our street in the Praga district of Warsaw
Gary Kirkpatrick
The Empress Has No Clothes
About me
My creative work in acrylics is largely expressionistic. I do portraits and works in styles other than expressionistic. I have conjured a series inspired by Hopper and another by Van Gogh, two music series (one in acrylics and another in pen and ink), a series called Enamorado con Amor (In Love with Love), and various depictions from our travels all over Europe including our extensive stays in Rome, Paris, Valencia, Holland, and multiple cities in Poland. Some of these are in watercolor, others in pen and ink in addition to acrylics. I trained with Bua, New Masters Academy, Darrel Tank, the Corcoran, the Spanish artist Teresa Ruiz de Lobera and others.
I paint in watercolor and draw in pen and ink, drawings which are often illustrative. I use both hands simultaneously to create the pen and ink drawings. I do music drawings in the audience, creating impressions of people, instruments and space.
In 1997 we began living in Europe and other areas abroad, including a stint in Panama with the United States Peace Corps. We have stayed for extended periods in Rome, Paris, Madrid and Valencia, Costa Rica and Panama (as Peace Corps volunteers) as well as two months in various cities of Poland. We’ve taken long trips to Turkey, and traveled in most of eastern Europe including Romania, Hungary, Czech Republic, Slovakia. For periods of about a month we’ve been in Graz, St Petersburg, Russia, Montpellier, Glasgow, Trieste, Modica (Sicily), and Zambia. Morocco came in for a visit as well as Malta. We have scoured the countryside of Italy, Belgium and France. We lived on a boat for a year in Holland and two in France and now traveling are on another during the summer. We have done this travel on very modest budgets, and so we stayed in no star hotels, people’s houses and recently in short term apartments.
I started drawing and painting again starting in 2000 and off and on until 2012. Then I started getting serious, taking classes and studying on my own. My time at the Corcoran Art Institute in my early 20’s helped. More recently I have studied with Justin Bua, Annette Raff, Steve Huston, Glenn Vilppu, and Darrel Tank, and with Teresa de la Lobera, a Spanish artist from Valencia.
Influences
I have long appreciated the works of Goya, Velásquez and El Greco, beginning from the time I spent in Madrid in the late 1960’s. Later I was drawn to Picasso, Matisse, Dali, Gauguin, and Degas, whose dancers are among my favorite works. Other artists I especially enjoy: Edward Hopper, Matisse, Jean and Raul Dufy and Gustave Caillebotte. Among modern Spanish artists I particularly like Jose Royo and the Valencian Joaquin Sorolla.
Themes
Hopper:
Edward Hopper (1882-1967) was an American artist from Nyack NY. He is known for his realistic paintings such as “Nighthawks.” I have taken several of his paintings and interpreted them in an expressionistic manner. (Click on Art/Hopper Inspired).
Van Gogh
Another series draws inspiration from Vincent Van Gogh, particularly his rural scenes, like in the Hopper paintings interpreted in an expressionistic manner. Acrylics on Canson or Canson Arches cotton paper.
Amor: In Love With Love (Click on Art/Amor)
A series exploring love between couples. It explores love and the diversity of its expressions.
Music (Click on Art/Music)
Among my works is a series of music-related paintings and drawings. I go to concerts at the Palau de la Musica and do small pen and ink drawings there, executed with both hands working simultaneously, one to draw and the other to do the washes. From these I do paintings or take the drawings and enlarge them; these are in progress.
Nederlands, Estonia (Click on Art)
Drawings and paintings from summer 2015 and 2019 travels in Holland, and 2015 in Finland, Estonia and Turkey reflect the architecture and landscape. I think you will find them interesting, especially the ones depicting Giethoorn, Holland, a fantasy land if there ever was one. You get around by boat, walking or biking, as there are no cars in the village. The houses are charming thatched roof cottages. When travel makes it hard to find a place to work, I do small pieces, pen and ink or watercolor, occasionally acrylics. There are two A3/16.5 x 11.5 pieces from Giethoorn.
Heart of Lightness (Click on Art)
Another series comes from our Zambian trip. We stayed in a small village with a Peace Corps volunteer, when we came to know the villagers. It was one of the most fascinating and heart warming experiences I have ever had. Most of these are sold but some watercolors are still available. Also see Poland for some interesting scenes.
Anti-Trump
Finally there are the anti-Trump pieces. These are mostly digital works with the notable exception of Trumpcissus, my Caravaggio inspired acrylic painting seen here Trumpcissus
You can reach me at info@garyjkirkpatrick.com, or 1-570-832-4480, a US phone number rings on my computer. In Spain, +34 658 744 302. Follow me on Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest https://www.pinterest.com/gary6301/.
Many of my works are listed on Saatchi Art. Any others that you want and prefer to order via that site, please let me know and I will upload them there. Others are available exclusively through Design Art Concepts https://www.artsy.net/design-art-concepts/artist/gary-j-kirkpatrick
I look forward to hearing from you – your comments are much appreciated.
The Royal Castle in Warsaw
The Royal Castle served as the official residence of the King of Poland starting with Segismundo starting in the 16th c, before that serving a ducal palace since the tower was built in the 14th c. The lower part of the tower still stands. The Nazis destroyed the rest subsequent to the uprising of 1944. Segismundo was Swedish and a Catholic in what was then a Protestant country, and his statue remains with us today at the top of the new column in the palace square. The Nazis collapsed the original column, the remains of which sit at the side of the castle today.
The Poles rebuilt the palace and its sumptuous rooms starting in the 1970’s. They did a superb job of it, and are proud of the accomplishment. There is a substantial film about the works just as you enter, which the bossy guards make sure you see. I’d never seen how they did the wall and ceiling appliques, which they showed in detail. While it’s not the most impressive palace I have ever seen -Versailles, Hermitage and the Palacio Real in Madrid both outrank it – but there’s certainly much to be proud of with regards to the workmanship.
In addition to the interior there is a good collection of paintings, including two Rembrandt portraits.
WW2 in Warsaw
July 30, 2018
Today we took our 3rd walking tour of Warsaw. In the first we went to various locations in the Stare Miasto, Old Town. The second was about Communist Warsaw, led by a woman who grew up during that era. She had to stand in line for everything, and witnessed the suppression and growth of Solidarity, leading to the downfall of the Iron Curtain. This afternoon we took the tour of WW2 Warsaw. It takes you to the Jewish ghetto and the location of some of the sites of the uprising in October 1944.
The ghetto was set afire by the Nazis to defeat the 1943 uprising. Today its location is marked on the pavement- they speak to you of the nightmare the Nazis created. Rations were a mere 200 calories a day for Jews, and 500 for Poles. Jews were allowed no medicine. If anyone helped a Jew, the penalty was death for that person and the entire family.
The resistance used the sewers to move from several areas in and near the old town. The sewers were in use at the time, unlit and required one to walk bent over. Movements had to be in complete silence. Eventually these were closed down by the Nazis.
In preparation for the 1944 uprising, the underground raised money for weapons and supplies by robbing a bank. Money was transferred from the Polish central bank by armored car. They raised the about $10 million in today’s dollars. The uprising took a heavy toll on the city and the population. The Nazis killed 200,000 people, destroyed about 90% of the old town and 65% of Warsaw as a whole.
These two uprisings were the largest of occupied Europe. The 1944 uprising not only hoped to help defeat the Nazis but to keep Poland out of Soviet hands, whose invasion of Poland made no friends in the county. The result of the Yalta conference as well as their defeat in the uprising, while the Soviet army watched from across the river, led to post war deportations and murders by the Soviets and 50 years of bad governing.
She’s A Looker
Wroclaw: Complex history, rich culture
July 2018
The train carried us for a bit over two hours in a full six person compartment, my 20 kilo suitcase perched precariously above our heads. We are going from Poznan to Wroclaw. Wroclaw has a complex history. It was born in Poland, later controlled by the kingdoms of Bohemia, Hungary, Austro-Hungarian Empire, Prussia. and Nazi Germany. It was founded circa 950, like Poznan on an island in a river. Also like the other cities we’ve visited it was a member of the Hanseatic League (1387), which helped make it a wealthy city. Among its famous inhabitants are a director of the Clinic of Psychiatry, Alois Alzheimer. A professor named William Stern developed the concept of IQ in the same turn of the century era.
During the war there was no fighting until February, 1945. The Germans decided to hold the city and did so until after the fall of Berlin. About 50% of the city was destroyed, some by the Nazis who did so in their efforts to fortify the city and the rest by Russian carpet bombing, with 40,000 civilians killed. By that time refugees from Germany and elsewhere had increased the population to nearly one million, including some 50,000 slaves and 30,000–60,000 Poles relocated after the end of the Warsaw Uprising. After the war the German population of 190,000 was forced out. Poles ejected from its eastern territory, mostly around Lviv now in Ukraine but then in the Soviet Union, then moved in.
Wroclaw, called Breslau when it was in Germany, is jam-packed with notable architecture of various styles including the predominant Gothic, some significant examples of the Baroque, at least one Bauhaus (the bank building in the Rynek), Art Nouveau, and of course some Soviet era concrete block.
. The Rynek is spectacular, a large open space surrounded by fabulous buildings in various styles
The Brick Gothic Old Town Hall in the Rynek dates from the 13th c. You can visit the original council chambers, with period furniture.
Also in the Rynek is the Gothic style St. Elisabeth’s Church (Bazylika Św. Elżbiety). It has a 91 meter/300′ tower. St. Mary Magdalene Church (Kościół Św. Marii Magdaleny), dating from 13th c, is not far.
The city was founded on an island now called Ostrów (island) Tumski (Cathedral) in the Oder River. Wroclaw Cathedral dates from circa 950. There are several islands and altogether there are hundreds of bridges making it among the highest number in the world, just barely behind Venice.
We paid the extra to see the chapels, rewarded by the superb sculptures of the Giacome Schianzi chapel. I later learned that the St. Elizabeth is by Ercole Ferrata, a student of Bernini, and that the cardinal’s tomb is by another Bernnini student, Domenico Guidi. Bernini! No wonder I was so floored.
The unemployment rate is just 2.2%. People from around Europe come here looking for work as a result. This is inflating wages and prices generally, although it is quite inexpensive still compared to France, UK and even less than Spain. We have had lunches for two with a beer for from $10, in Valencia lunches start at $12 with wine, in Paris closer to $18 plus wine.
Poland’s Enigma in WW2
We ran across the sculpture and exhibit concerning the breaking of the German Enigma code while walking in the downtown area of Poznan. I’d heard both that the Polish a Brits broke the enigma code. There is an excellent movie called “The Imitation Game” about Alan Turing, (see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alan_Turing )
In late 1932 Marian Rejewski broke the code of the German Enigma machine. Without knowing how the machine was wired, he was unable to read the messages. Hans-Thilo Schmidt, a French spy obtained information including the daily keys used in the fall of 1932. They put these materials into Polish hands. With that information and actual coded messages Rejewski was able to turn the coded messages into understandable text. Later the Germans added two more rotors. The Poles did not have the resources to break the code again, and thus passed the baton to the UK in July of 1939. Rejewski, and cryptanalysts Jerzy Różycki and Henryk Zygalski in the interim developed extensive materials which they gave to the UK as well. Thus Turing was not starting from scratch.
Can’t Get Any More Obvious — The Marionette
Digital painting, prints only
My pen and ink of Poznan Cathedral
My pen and ink of Poznan Cathedral. My travel notebook is 14 x 22, 5.5 x 8.5″
