portrait

Portrait of a Sicilian Woman

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This is a portrait of Deva Cassel (Rome 2004) in her role as Angelica Sedara in the Leopard, a 2025 television series. She played the daughter of a small town mayor who used his daughter’s stunning beauty to climb the social ladder. This was an effort in which she willingly participated, developing a character increasingly frightening. Aside from her beauty, I did this portrait because of the connection we have with the Leopard.

Sicilian Woman, acrylics 21 x 29.7 x 8.3 x 11.7″

Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa wrote The Leopard, published posthumously in 1958 after rejections by several publishers. It is the story of his grandfather, Don Giulio Fabrizio Tomasi, Prince of Lampedusa, and the changes brought about by Sicily’s unification with Italy following Garibaldi’s 1860 invasion. In 1959 the novel won Italy’s highest award for fiction, the Strega Prize. In 2012 the Guardian named it as one of the top ten historical novels of all time. The 1963 movie, starring Burt Lancaster, premiered in 1963 to wide acclaim. I have read the book, seen the movie and the series.

We met Lampedusa’s nephew in Rome in 1999. At the time Gigi was writing a book. My wife was hired to help him write English, which was not native language, Italian. Anyone who’s tried to write professionally in a foreign language knows how difficult a task this is. Very few, such as the Ukrainian/Polish born Joseph Conrad, has been able to do so successfully.

For more context:

Most days Gigi and his wife took us to a roadside bar to have a granita, in this variation an shaved iced coffee topped with thick whipped cream. Locals like our hosts as well as truck drivers passing through loved to stop at this bar for a serving of their coffee granita. At night his wife often made pasta using the fresh herbs from their garden. One night she made pasta palermitana. You pan fry breaded fresh sardines – being just small fish of a number of varieties – and then stir them into the pasta. It was quite the treat. We have since lost touch with this couple.

Going by train from Rome to their house in Modica we crossed the Messina Strait. Aboard the ferry we walked to the bar, where we saw what turned out to be arancini. Neither of us knew what they were but now an arancini stand is always our first stop when in that part of Italy. For those who suffer having never had the pleasure, an arancino is a rice ball. There are many variations. One is stuffed with shredded beef and tomato sauce, coated with corn flour and then deep fried as they all are. The corn flour gives an orange glow, thus it the name ‘arancino (singular) and ‘arancini’ (plural),’ ‘arancia’ being the Italian for the fruit of the orange tree. On the way back to Rome we had a great view of the smoking Stromboli volcano. There is a piping hot calzone-like stuffed bread named after the volcano.

Margaret Walker, African American poet

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Margaret Walker (1915-1998) was a highly accomplished woman. She was at college student at the young age of 15 when she begin writing poetry. In 1936 she joined the Federal Writers’ Project in Chicago, befriending Richard Wright. BA from Northwestern 1935, MA and Ph D U of Iowa 1945. Her dissertation was published as a novel, Jubilee 1966.

margaret walker portrait conte
Dr. Margaret Walker, Conte pencil, 32 x 50 cm/ 12.5 x 19.5″ on gray pastel paper

Walker was the first African American poet to receive the Yale Younger Poets Prize, penning For My People 1942. She published This Is My Century: New and Collected Poems , October Journey and Prophets for a New Day .

In 1949 she joined the faculty at Jackson State College. She returned to the University of Iowa for her doctoral studies and received a PhD in 1965. In 1968 Walker founded the Institute for the Study of the History, Life, and Culture of Black People at Jackson State College.

As what became the Margaret Walker Center, she organized the 1971 National Evaluative Conference on Black Studies and the 1973 Phillis Wheatley Poetry Festival.

In 1979 she published On Being Female, Black, and Free, a collection of personal essays, and Richard Wright: Daemonic Genius.

Portrait of María Eugenia Ignacia Agustina de Palafox y Kirkpatrick

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María Eugenia Ignacia Agustina de Palafox y Kirkpatrick
María Eugenia Ignacia Agustina de Palafox y Kirkpatrick, 39 x 50cm/16 x 19,″ Conte pencils in white and sepia on gray pastel paper

This is an updated version of this Conte drawing. Eugenia married Napoleon Bonaparte in 1853 and was the Empress of France from 1853-1870 when Napoleaon was deposed. See my article about her at https://garyjkirkpatrick.com/the-kirkpatrick-empress-of-france/

Mona + X

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My take on two famous portraits. I gave Mona a gaunt look with a square jaw. I interpreted the profile of Sargeant’s fabulous Madam X.

mona + x sm
Mona + X, acrylics on Canson 300# paper, 70 x 50 cm, 28 x 20″

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Woman with a Pearl Earring

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Woman with Pearl Earring
Woman With Pearl Earring, acrylics on Canson 300# paper, 70 x 50 cm, 28 x 20″

Vermeer’s Girl With A Pearl Earring inspired this painting. My reference reminded me of his fabulous and famous piece. However there are major differences. He bathed her face in light, but here it is gently swathed in shadow with highlights produced by the light coming from the side. The background is lighter and more varied than Vermeer’s traditionally dark surface.

Young Woman Glowing Smile

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Young woman pen ink sm
Young Woman, pen and ink

This young woman’s radiant smile comes from within. I sought to express it. In previous epochs a smile was impossible to capture as sitters can not smile for hours at a time. Look at Leonardo’s famous smile- captivating but hardly expansive. But with photography, art changed in many ways and the ability to study the smile is one such change.

This is a study for a painting.

Messing around with watercolors– Caravaggio by Ottavio Leoni, 1621

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Caravaggio by Ottavio Leoni, 1621
Caravaggio by Ottavio Leoni, 1601 Watercolor

I painted this using Leoni’s portrait of Carravaggio. He was 31 at the time. He died 9 years later, a victim of his propensity for violence. Her revolutionized painting with his observation of the subject together with a dramatic use of chiaroscuro, intense contrasts of light and dark. This came to be known as tenebrism, where the darks are a dominant feature of the piece. 

Two Faces in Conte

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Messing around on a Sunday afternoon

messing around on a sunday- two faces in conte
Big drawing on Fabriano sketch paper 42 x 60 cm

While just about recovering from a mild round of Covid 19. I think the vaxes and booster did some good. Docs gave me some antibiotics and an anti-inflammatory. Back to normal in two days.