Born in 1881 in Nagaevo, Russia, Natalia Sergeevna Goncharova, the daughter of Sergei, an architect. She moved to Moscow in 1892, and graduated from the Fourth Women’s Gymnasium in 1898.In 1901 she enrolled in the Moscow Institute of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture to study sculpture, and in 1903 she began exhibiting in important venues. Goncharova then met Mikhail Larionov, also a student; shortly they began to live and work together. She switched to painting in 1904, drawing on Russian folk art and icons and with Mikhail created Rayonism, a style influenced by technology and modernity, with strong rays of contrasting colors.
Another in the series of paintings based on drawings done at the Palau de la Musica in Valencia, Spain. The audience waits expectantly as the musicians arrive. Valencia has a long and powerful tradition of symphonic bands and offer many free concerts each year. This is a smaller hall and here you can listen to more traditional music.
Palau de la Musica Small Stage 21″ x 26″, 52 cm x 66cm
Palau de la Musica Small Stage, detailPalau de la Musica Small Stage, detail
This started life as a drawing at Palau de la Musica. I enlarged the original, a tiny 2 x 4″ and put it on the canvas board, then painted in with acrylics. See also Two Fiddles at the Palau, a version of this based on the very same drawing.
Two Brown Fiddles at the Palau, acrylics on canvas board, 40 x 50 cm, 16 x 20″
Contrabass at Palau de la Musica, the pen and ink done on site
Women were stuck in the chores of domesticity until comparatively recent times. Becoming anything other than a mother and domestic was nearly unheard of for almost all women. Therefore I decided to find out more about the ones that overcame this rigid social system and give them a bit of their due.
Sonfonisb Anguissola (1532, Cremona, Italy), was an Italian portrait painter working in Genoa, Palermo and Madrid in the 16th century. She was of noble birth, as one might expect, as was almost always the case with female artists at least until the 19th c. She apprenticed when quite young, as was common at the time for males, but in her case it was precedent setting.
As a young woman she went to Rome, spending her time sketching. There she met Michelangelo, who recognized her skills. In Milan she was commissioned to paint the Duke of Alba. He introduced her to the Spanish queen, Elizabeth of Valois and wife of Phillip II, an amateur painter in her own right. In 1559 she moved to Madrid as Elizabeth’s tutor and lady in waiting, becoming an official court painter. Upon the queen’s death, Philip arranged an aristocratic marriage for her. She moved first to Palermo, then Pisa and finally Genoa, where she remained an admired portrait painter, seemingly with the backing of both of her husbands. She died at ninety-three, having been a wealthy patron of the arts after her eyesight failed.
Sonfonisba Anguissola Self Portrait
Her best portraits are of her family:
Portrait of Minerva Anguissola
At age 20 she painted this, her most famous painting:
Three Sisters Playing Chess
But she made her money doing portraits of nobility:
Sofonisba Anguissola – Portrait of Queen Elisabeth of Spain, 1599
Most of her religious paintings are lost. Here most important early painting is Bernardino Campi Painting Sofonisba Anguissola (c. 1550). It’s a double portrait showing her art teacher in the act of painting a portrait of her.
She was not allowed to study the nude, as women weren’t permitted to do so.
You may expect future entries on the following artists: Gontcharova, Gwen John, Hepworth, Kahlo
Music enchants us, the dance, the singing, the skill, the magic. It transports the listener to their own land of fantasies. Dancers, singers, or something entirely unrelated can accompany our immersion in the tones. This painting is an exploration of that dream state.
Piano Fingers, acrylics, 60 x 50 cm, 24 x 18 “, SOLD
A continuation of my music related series. This is more realistic than some of my music paintings as the subject and presentation seem more suited to this style than an expressionistic approach given the importance of the hands.
The dancing couple is Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers, the two singers include friend Shena and her co-singer Lindsay in a San Francisco group.
This is another version of Panamanian Woman. I got to know my Panamanian friend when we lived in Panama when we were in the Peace Corps. We lived and worked in the mountains and got to know quite a few people in that coffee producing community.
Panamanian Woman III, acrylics, A3, 11.5 x 16.5″ on paper
She has become a diva for me. I knew her in Panama. She has a knack for modeling, which aside from being intelligent, friendly and attractive, makes her a delight to paint and draw. I have several other paintings based on her.
Cáceres has an old walled town in its center. Walk around and you are in the middle ages, given the buildings, the stone streets and total absence of cars. There is a blend of Roman, Moorish, Gothic and Italian Renaissance architecture, not to mention the stork nests. There are thirty towers from the Islamic period still standing.
Humans have inhabited the area since prehistoric times. Evidence of this can be found in the caves of Maltravieso, with cave paintings dating to 25,000 BCE. The city was founded by the Romans in 25 BC and is a Unesco World Heritage Site, quite justifiably so.
Cáceres is in the part of Spain called Extremadura. I always thought that the name Extremadura referred to the extremely hard (dura) quality of the soil and life there but more accurately extremadura is from Latin words meaning literally “outermost hard”, the outermost secure border of an occupied territory. During La Reconquista it was the westernmost holding of the Christians.
