Tuesday, March 31, 2020

Half-Length Figure-Studies (Painted)

Charles Haslewood Shannon
The Toilette
1927
oil on canvas
Usher Gallery, Lincoln

Maurice Greiffenhagen
Nude with a Wrap
1924
oil on canvas
Glasgow School of Art

attributed to Antonis Mor
Portrait of a Man as St Sebastian
ca. 1550
oil on panel
Museums Sheffield, Yorkshire

Juan Carreño de Miranda
St Sebastian
ca. 1650-60
oil on canvas
York City Art Gallery

William Etty
Half-Length Study of a Model Viewed from the Back
ca. 1835-45
oil on board
Victoria & Albert Museum, London

Henry Herbert La Thangue
Study of a Model Holding a Staff
ca. 1885-90
oil on canvas
The Potteries Museum and Art Gallery, Stoke-on-Trent

Anthony van Dyck after Titian
Ecce Homo
ca. 1622-25
oil on paper
Courtauld Gallery, London

Green Permanent

As you told it to me – our clearest, most reflective conversations
so often then and there, in the middle of the night, staring into
the darkness from wherever the mind has perched in its wanderings –
you left your mother and the home aide upstairs, and went down
into your father's basement workroom to look for the right
size screws; in her wanderings, she has tugged off the front
door lock. Paneled in warped wood and abandoned like a mine,
you find the string for the light in the middle of the room, as he
must have known how to find it in the dark, and again you see
the pegboard walls covered with constellations of polishing tools,
the larger buffers hooked onto the paneling like fuzzy planets,
the smaller ones stuck in a Lucite block he customized to hold them
like the varied moons those hanging planets might need, or a
miniature copse of fantastical trees. So, too, the see-through brick
in which he drilled holes for the array of drill bits themselves,
their swirled metal tops imitating a skyline of onion domes and
tapered gothic towers. The room's order had been disturbed
by time, and the band saw, jigsaw, the sander, and free-standing
machines, the sized wrenches, pliers, picks, awls, and extra parts
still hanging in their packages, the staple gun, lamps, brushes,
gooseneck magnifying glass, soldering wire, conversion charts,
the hundreds of other disordered tools, they might have been words
in an encyclopedia before you could read more than a few words,
and for you they were part of your father's speech, or maybe
more like your mother's now, jumbled, rarely creating a sentence.
With these tools he had sculpted a perfect cluster of grapes,
still on their vine and still with their leaves; a wave, and a school
of dolphins breaching; a formal replica of the Brooklyn Bridge
with all its cabling; a bouquet of flowers – surfaces so smooth
and rounded, objects so like their living counterparts we had no
choice but to understand the power of creation running through
the mind then tools and hands like a current. You looked around
for the right size screws and came upon a small box marked
Green Permanent. And when you opened it you saw small tubes
of paint, now just mud without his attention, you said, holding both
the power of what we do, and the sadness that it has to end.

– Jessica Greenbaum (2015)

attributed to William Hilton after Il Sodoma
Christ at the Column
before 1839
oil on canvas
National Trust, Stourhead, Wiltshire

Valentino Valentini after Andrea del Sarto
St John the Baptist
1877
oil on canvas
Guildhall Museum, Rochester, Kent

Herbert Wilson Foster
The Belgian Model
ca. 1890
oil on canvas
Nottingham Castle Museum and Art Gallery

Herbert Wilson Foster
The Seated Model
ca. 1890
oil on canvas
Nottingham Castle Museum and Art Gallery

Henry Keyworth Raine
Self Portrait as Diogenes
ca. 1900
oil on canvas
York City Art Gallery

Keith Baynes
A Miner
ca. 1930
oil on canvas
New College, University of Oxford

Edward Seago
The East Window
ca. 1944
oil on board
Norfolk Museums

Graham Dean
Rise II
1999
watercolour on paper
Ferens Art Gallery, Kingston-upon-Hull

Monday, March 30, 2020

Painted Figures (Stylized, Distorted) - After 1970

Tom Phillips
After Raphael
1972-73
oil on canvas
Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool

Anne Norwich
Reading
1973
acrylic on canvas
Usher Gallery, Lincoln

Frank Auerbach
Seated Figure with Arms Raised
1973
oil on board
Middlesbrough Institute of Modern Art

Peter de Francia
Monsieur and Madame Beylac
1974
oil on canvas
Southbank Centre, London

Charles Maussion
Family Portrait
1978
acrylic on paper
Sainsbury Centre for Visual Arts, University of East Anglia, Norwich

Brüer Tidman
The Dressing Room
1978
acrylic on canvas
Norfolk Museums

He was touched or he touched or

He was touched or he touched or
she did and was, or they were
and would. Or the room could, its
three doors, two windows or

the house on a slant touching,
touched by the drift down street, cars
pressing quick or slowing. All along
the town touched a river, the river

the filth falling through it. What was clean –
a source pure as rumor – a shore
touching lake touched by wind above,
and below, a spring. All touch blindly

further water. That blue touching
blacker regions in the sea so weirdly
solitary, each to under, to every
sideways past deeper, where nowhere.

– Marianne Boruch (2009)

Colin Smith
Untitled
1979
oil on canvas
Royal College of Art, London

Ian Hughes
Catacomb
ca. 1980
oil on canvas
Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh
 
John Bellany
Self Portrait with Alan Davie
1985
oil on canvas
Wolverhampton Art Gallery, West Midlands

Sonia Lawson
Moorland Benediction
ca. 1985
oil on canvas
Kirklees Museums and Galleries, Yorkshire

Robert Medley
Despolio
1985
oil on canvas
Pallant House Gallery, Chichester, Sussex

Francis Convery
Studio Visit - A Northern School
1995
oil on canvas
Aberdeen Art Gallery, Scotland

Chantal Joffe
Red-Haired Woman in the Park
2003
oil on board
Government Art Collection, London

Lys Hansen
Lost Man
2003
oil and pastel on paper
University of Stirling, Scotland

Paul Richards
Charlie the Chimp
2003
acrylic on canvas
Tavistock Centre, London

Sunday, March 29, 2020

Painted Figures (Stylized, Distorted) - Before 1970

Édouard Vuillard
Woman in Blue with a Child
ca. 1899
oil on card
Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum, Glasgow

Franz Marc
Rote Frau
1912
oil on canvas
New Walk Museum and Art Gallery, Leicester

David Bomberg
Figure Composition
1913
oil on panel
Bristol Museum and Art Gallery

Giorgio de Chirico
The Philosopher
1927
oil on canvas
Whitworth Art Gallery, University of Manchester

Roy de Maistre
Figure Composition
1937
oil on canvas
Leeds Art Gallery, Yorkshire

Cecil Collins
Woman in Meditation
1939
oil on canvas
Reading Museum, Berkshire

from Meditations

              Sunday, 12 May 1833

The clouds are mashalling across the sky, 
Leaving their deepest tints upon yon range
Of soul-alluring hills. The breeze comes softly,
Laden with tribute that a hundred orchards
Now in their fullest bloom send, in thanks
For this refreshing shower. The birds pour forth
In heightened melody the notes of praise
They had suspended while God's voice was speaking,
And his eyes flashing down upon his world. 
I sigh, half-charmed, half-pained. My sense is living,
And, taking in this freshened beauty, tells
Its pleasure to the mind. The mind replies,
And strives to wake the heart in turn, repeating
Poetic sentiments from many a record
Which other souls have left, when stirred and satisfied
By scenes as fair, as fragrant. But the heart
Sends back a hollow echo to the call
Of outward things – and its once-bright companion,
Who erst would have been answered by a stream
Of life-fraught treasures, thankful to be summoned –
Can now rouse nothing better than this echo;
Unmeaning voice, which mocks their softened accents.
Content thee, beautiful world! and hush, still busy mind!
My heart hath sealed its fountains. To the things
Of Time they shall be oped no more. Too long,
Too often were they poured forth: part have sunk
Into the desert; part profaned and swollen
By bitter waters, mixed by those who feigned
They asked them for refreshment, which, turned back,
Have broken and o'erflowed their former urns. 
So when ye talk of pleasure, lonely world, 
And busy mind, ye ne'er again shall move me
To answer ye, though still your calls have power
To jar me through, and cause dull aching here

– Margaret Fuller

Edwin Smith
Cherry Picker
ca. 1948
oil on board
Chelmsford Museum, Essex

Robert Colquhoun
The Spectators
1949
oil on canvas
New College, University of Oxford

Ceri Richards
Two Musicians
ca. 1954
oil on canvas
Southbank Centre, London

Dorothy Mead
Reclining Figure
ca. 1954
oil on canvas
London South Bank University

Francis Bacon
Figure in a Landscape
1956
oil on canvas
Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery, West Midlands

Terry Frost
Grey Figure
1957
oil on board
Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art, Edinburgh

Patrick Procktor
Two Figures and a Head Hand
1962-63
oil on canvas
Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge

John Houston
Figure in a Cornfield
ca. 1965
oil on canvas
Hunterian Art Gallery, University of Glasgow

Robin Philipson
Human Kind XVII
ca. 1969
oil on canvas
University of Strathclyde, Glasgow

Saturday, March 28, 2020

Painted Surfaces (Yellow, Pink, Orange)

William Turnbull
No. 1, 1959
1958-59
oil on canvas
Tate Modern, London

Joe Tilson
Summer, 1959
1959
oil on board
Geffrye Museum, London

William Scott
Yellow Matrix
1962
oil on canvas
Fermanagh County Museum, Enniskillen Castle (Northern Ireland)

John Hoyland
18.06.69
1969
acrylic on cotton duck
Hunterian Art Gallery, University of Glasgow

Basil Beattie
Orange No. 1
1969
acrylic on canvas
Southbank Centre, London

I pray – in Satin Cash –
You did not state – your price –
A Petal, for a Paragraph
Is near as I can guess –

– Emily Dickinson (1863)

Jeremy Moon
Untitled 2/72
1972
acrylic on canvas
Tate Modern, London

John Hoyland
28.4.73
1973
acrylic on canvas
Government Art Collection, London

John Golding
D (C.S.) VI
1975
acrylic on canvas
Southbank Centre, London

Peter Joseph
Bright Orange with Green
1988
acrylic on canvas
Southbank Centre, London

David Leapman
Slowburn Escort
1992
acrylic on canvas
Southbank Centre, London

Graham Little
Untitled
ca. 1995
acrylic on canvas
University of Dundee (Scotland)

Maria Lalić
History Painting 35 - C18/19th - Cadmium Yellow
1995
oil on canvas
Tate Modern, London

Maria Lalić
History Painting 42 - C20th - Winsor Yellow
1995
oil on canvas
Tate Modern, London

Callum Innes
Exposed Painting, Cadmium Orange
1996
oil on canvas
Towner Art Gallery, Eastbourne, Sussex

Callum Innes
Exposed Painting, Cadmium Red Pale, Orange
2000
oil on canvas
Government Art Collection, London