Elli Sougioultzoglou-Seraidari

The Photography of Elli Sougioultzoglou-Seraidari

Born in 1899 at the Vilayhet of Aidin (Aydini), an administrative division of the Ottoman Empire, Elli Sougioultzoglou-Seraidari was a Greek photographer whose work helped shape the image of Greece to Western culture. She was the first Greek photographer to export modern images of Greece abroad and thus influenced the future of Greek tourism. Later known by the pseudonym Nelly for her professional society portraiture, Elli Seraidari drew attention to Greece during the country’s turbulent interwar years, a period from 1918 to 1939 that resulted in economic, social, political, and military changes..

At the beginning of the Greco-Turkish War, the Aidini Massacre in the summer of 1919 uprooted Elli Seraidari’s family from their home and forced them to flee to the city of Smyrna. Seraidari relocated in 1920 with her brother to the German city of Dresden where they planned to study the arts. For two years, she studied photography under Franz Fiedler, known for his surrealist-inspired images, and Hugo Erfurth, a portraitist of early twentieth-century celebrities and cultural figures.

After the creation of the Grand National Assembly in the Ottoman Empire led by Mustafa Demal Atatürk, a campaign against the indigenous Greek and Christian populations began. The brutal persecution and destruction led to massacres, forced deportations, executions, and the destruction of cultural and religious monuments. The Great Fire of Smyrna in September of 1922, a deliberate act by the government, forced the city’s population to flee from the Turkish military forces and seek shelter in Greece and elsewhere. Although Seraidari was abroad at the time, she joined the hundred of thousands refugees who were seeking a new life in Greece

In the spring of 1924, Elli Seraidari relocated to Athens where she made the bold decision to establish a photography studio in the high-rent center of the city. Seraidari used her equipment from Dresden to produce specialized portraits as well as dance and nude photography. Her portrait work soon became status symbols for the culturally elite in Greece. Seraidari’s introduction of models and performers into images of the national treasures of the Greek landscape created a new narrative for the growing nation and increased Seraidari’s reputation. Among her most notable works of this early period are the 1925 nude portrait of prima ballerina Mona Paeva and the 1930 mid-air image of Russian dancer Elizaveta Nikolska, both taken at the Parthenon.

Elli Seraidari adopted a naive nationalistic and conservative approach to her work. Her style coincided with Greece’s need to produce an ideal view of the country and its people, both for internal and tourism purposes. Seraidari was appointed as an official photographer for the newly established Greek Ministry of Tourism. She also was commissioned by the Greek Archeological Service to photograph Greek antiquities, both architecture and sculpture. Seraidari’s creative eye imbued the images with a dramatic use of light and dark shadows, sharp horizontal and vertical lines, and camera angles that brought life to the subjects.

Seraidari’s association with Greece’s Fourth of August Regime, under the leadership of General Ioannis Metaxas, made her one of the country’s most prolific photographers. As a refugee in Greece, Seraidari’s view of Greece was idyllic. This matched the propaganda of the Metaxas regime to illustrate the continuity of the Greeks since Antiquity. Now a well-established artist, Seraidari photographed the events and athletes at the 1936 Berlin Olympic Games. Three years later, she was commissioned with the decoration of the Greek pavilion at the New York’s World Fair, for which Seraidari created gigantic collages that expressed the similarities between ancient and modern Greeks.

While in New York, Elli Seraidari decided to remain in the United States, establish her commercial photographic portraiture, and seek new work in the fields of photo reportage and advertising. She continued to maintain her connections with the Greek elite, including shipping tycoons Aristotle Onassis and Stavos Niachos, and soon developed contacts in the White House. As her new work failed to align with any previous Greek stereotype, viewings of her work in the United States went largely unmentioned.

After several excursions to Greece beginning in 1949, Seraidari returned to Greece in March of 1966 where she settled with her husband at Nea Smyrni, a municipality in South Athens, and ceased her photographic work. In 1985, Seraidari donated her photo archives and cameras to Athen’s Beanaki Museum. The Greek government and the Hellenic Center of Photography awarded her in 1987 with an honorary diploma and medal. In 1993, Seraidari received the Order of the Phoenix, an award for those in Greece who have excelled in the arts and sciences. This award was followed in 1996 by the Athens Academy’s Arts and Letters Award. Elli Sougioultzoglou-Seraidari died in Nea Smyrni on the eighth day of August in 1998 at the age of ninety-seven.

Notes: The “Daily Art” has an article on Elli Seraidari’s work entitled “The Queen of Neoclassical Photography: Nelly” at its March 2024 edition: https://www.dailyartmagazine.com/greek-photographer-nelly/

Projects at Harvard has an article on the opposing photographic styles of two artists, British photographer Francis Firth and Elli Seraidari, both of whom shot images of the Acropolis and Parthenon: https://projects.iq.harvard.edu/sites/projects.iq.harvard.edu/files/whoseculture/files/nelly_frith_photography_dpenizzotto_oct_7_21.pdf

The “Greece Is” newsletter has a July 2023 article on Elli Seraidari’s work entitled “Nelly’s: Setting the Image of Greece in the Mind of the World” which coincided with a major exhibition of her work at the Pireos 138 Benaki Museum: https://www.greece-is.com/nellys-setting-the-image-of-greece-in-the-mind-of-the-world/

The Benaki Museum has a lecture on Elli Seraidari’s life and her photography on YouTube under the title “Nelly’s: Reflections on the Life and Work of the Greek Photographer Elli Seraidari-Sougioultzoglou”.

Top Insert Image: Photographer Unknown, “Elli Sougioultzoglou-Seraidari”, circa 1920s, Gelatin Silver Print

Second Insert Image: Elli Sougloultzoglou-Seraidari, “Temple de la Victoire Aptere, Athens”, 1925, Gelatin Silver Print, Banaki Museum Photographic Archives

Third Insert Image: Photographer Unknown, “Elli Sougioultzoglou-Seraidari”, Gelatin Silver Print, Impactalk Online Magazine

Bottom Insert Image: Elli Sougloultzoglou-Seraidari, “Demetrius Karambatis on the Acropolis”, 1925, Gelatin Silver Print, Banaki Museum Photographic Archives

Voula Papaïoannou

The Photography of Voula Papaïoannou

Born at the historic city of Lamia in 1898, Voula Papaïoannou was a Greek photographer known for her documentation of the landscape and inhabitants of Greece. Her oeuvre is part of the School of Humanist Photography that emerged in the middle of the twentieth-century after the two World Wars. Instead of momentous events, humanist photography focused on everyday human experience, its nature, mannerisms and customs.

Voula Papaïoannou studied at the Polytechnic University of Athens where she developed an interest in photography. She began her career in the 1930s with several exhibitions of refined, nostalgic images of Greece’s landscape, its architectural monuments, and ancient works of art. However, Papaïoannou’s relationship with the photographic medium shifted drastically at the onset of the Second World War. Deeply affected by the suffering endured by the civilian population of Athens, she began to use her camera to arouse the conscience of the people.

Papaïoannou began to document the conflict’s background, her nation’s preparation for the war effort, and the departure of Greek soldiers to the front lines. She continued her work by documenting the period of German and Italian occupation and the ensuing economic blockade. Papaïoannou also created an emotional photographic series that revealed the emaciated children who were suffering from the great famine of 1941 to 1942.

Greece suffered comparatively much more than most Western European countries during the Second World War due to a number of factors. Heavy resistance led to immense German reprisals against civilians. Greece was also dependent on food imports; the British naval blockade coupled with transfers of agricultural produce to Germany led to a great famine. It is estimated that the Greek population declined by seven per cent during the Second World War. The country’s population also was affected by the rising hyperinflation, the fifth worst in economic history.

After the liberation of Greece, Voula Papaïoannou became a member of the photographic unit under the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation, a body dedicated to assist and repatriate refugees. She toured the Greek countryside documenting the hardships of its rural population devastated by the 1944-1949 Civil War. The most well-known of all Papaïoannou’s work are her photographs which showed families and particularly children living under inhumane conditions. These photographs did not dwell on the sufferings of its subjects but rather told individual stories that focused on their dignity.

Papaïoannou’s work throughout the 1950s expressed Greece’s prevailing optimism, despite its two decades of suffering and thousand of deaths, in both the restoration of its traditional values and the future of mankind. Her photographs of the historic Greek landscape, shot during this period, were barren and drenched in light. Papaïoannou’s images of the Greek inhabitants, however, still showed a proud and independent people despite their poverty.

In addition to work published in the press, two collections of Voula Papaïoannou’s photographs were produced by the Swiss publishing house Guilde du Livre: the 1953 “La Grèce: à Ciel Ouvert (Greece: Open Skies)” and “Iles Grecques (Greek Islands)” in 1956. Her work was later published in the posthumous collection “Images of Despair and Hope: Greece 1940-1960” as a complimentary volume to the 1995 Athens retrospective presented by gallery owners Mouseio Benake and Renes Xippas.

Voula Papaïoannou passed away in Athens, Greece in 1990 at the age of ninety-two. Her photographs are in both private and public collections, including the Benaki Museum of Greek Culture in Athens. Since her death, Papaïoannou’s work continues to be presented in many solo and group exhibitions including one at Barcelona’s cntemporary art and learning center, La Virreina Image Center.

The Benaki Museum of Greek Culture’s website is located at: https://www.benaki.org/index.php?lang=en

Note: All images of Voula Papaïoannou’s work in this article are from the collection of the Benaki Museum of Greek Culture unless otherwise noted.

Top Insert Image: Photographer Unknown, “Voula Papaïoannou”, Date Unknown, Benaki Museum of Greek Culture, Athens, Greece

Second Insert Image: Voula Papaïoannou, “View of Lycabettus from the Acropolis, Athens”, circa 1950, Gelatin Silver Print, 43 x 41.9 cm, Benaki Museum, Athens Greece

Third Insert Image: Voula Papaïoannou, “Women Transporting Mud for Road Construction, Sellades, Arta Prefecture”, 1946, Gelatin Silver Print, 43 x 34 cm, Benaki Museum, Athens, Greece

Bottom Insert Image: Voula Papaïoannou, “Mykonos”, circa 1959, Gelatin Silver Print, Benaki Museum, Athens, Greece

Bryan Rogers

The Paintings of Bryan Rogers

Born in 1977 in Connecticut, Bryan Rogers is an American painter who creates stylized, densely wooded landscapes with waterfalls in which oversized male figures are entwined with the natural elements. His contemporary Art Nouveau-styled paintings form complex tapestries of rhythmic patterns that project an atmosphere of Edenic tranquility.

Rogers sees queer identity as an intrinsic part of his work. The relationship of his paintings’ protagonists to both the organic and constructed spaces in which they are placed reflect the public and private spaces that people navigate during their daily life.

Bryan Rogers earned his Bachelor of Fine Arts at Appalachian State University in Boone, North Carolina. He continued his studies at New York City’s Pratt Institute where he earned his Master in Fine Arts. From 2013 to 2019, Rogers was co-director of Honey Ramka Gallery, a private UltraContemporary gallery that was based in Brooklyn, New York until its closure.

Rogers primarily works in acrylic paints on panel in his basement studio at his partner’s family home. His vividly colored images are created through thin, transparent washes applied by detail brushes. Interested in the patterns and symmetry of nature and architecture, Rogers places his protagonists, variations of his partner and brother, in lushly-patterned luminescent landscapes. The flowing organic nature of these highly detailed settings are reminiscent of works by Alphonse Mucha as well as the Art Nouveau-styled San Francisco music posters of the 1970s.

Bryan Rogers has exhibited his work throughout the United States and Europe. These include group exhibitions at New York City’s Spring/Break Art Show; The Hole, a contemporary gallery in New York City’s Tribeca district; and Art Athina, Greece’s contemporary art fair and one of the oldest such fairs in Europe. Rogers also participated in the 2022 “The Bathroom Show” as well as the 2021 and 2023 “Works on Paper” group exhibitions at New York City’s Monya Rowe Gallery.

Past exhibitions of Rogers’ work also include the 2021 “Woodland” at the Richard Heller Gallery in Los Angeles; “Intimacy” in 2022 at art curator Taymour Grahne’s London gallery; the 2022 “The Container Garden” at New York’s Sears-Peyton Gallery; “I Am American” in 2023 at the contemporary Kutlesa Gallery in Goldau, Switzerland; and the 2024 “Here and There” at the Huxley-Parlour Gallery in central London. In New York City, Rogers’ solo exhibitions also included the 2022 “Woodland”, the 2023 “Duality: The Real and the Perceived” and the 2024 “Wallflowers”, all held at the Monya Rowe Gallery in the East Chelsea district of Manhattan.

Inquiries about Bryan Rogers’ paintings and future exhibitions should be presented to his representative, Monya Rowe Gallery, 224 West 30th Street, #304, New York City.

http://monyarowegallery.com/index.php

Top Insert Image: Photographer Unknown, “Bryan Rogers in Studio”, 2024, Color Print, Artnet News, January 2024

Second Insert Image: Bryan Rogers, “Here and There”, 2024, Acrylic on Panel, 122 x 91.4 cm, Huxley-Parlour Gallery, London

Third Insert Image: Bryan Rogers, “Entangled”, 2024, Acrylic on Panel, 50.8 x 40.6 cm, Monya Rowe Gallery, New York

Sir Francis Cyril Rose

The Artwork of Sir Francis Cyril Rose

Born at the grand English estate of Moor Park, Hertfordshire in September of 1909, Sir Francis Cyril Rose, 4th Baronet of the Montreal Roses, was an English painter who received strong support throughout the 1930s from his patron, American novelist and art collector Gertrude Stein. Although he created many works of art, Rose’s artistic output was as erratic as his lifestyle was audacious and extravagant. Despite Stein’s endeavors to generate a sustained interest in his work, Francis Rose remained one of the more obscure artists of his generation.

Descended from Spanish nobility, Francis Rose inherited his British baronetcy while still a child. He received his initial education from the Jesuits at Beaumont College in Old Windsor, Berkshire, as well as lessons from private tutors abroad. In 1926 at the age of seventeen, Rose relocated to Paris where he resided as an expatriate until 1936. He studied under avant-garde painter and typographic artist Francis Picabia, an early figure in the Dada Movement, and Spanish muralist and theater set designer Josep Maria Sert.

In 1930, Rose had his first exhibition, alongside Salvador Dali, at the Paris gallery of modern art patron Marie Cuttoli. By this time, he had already designed costumes and scenery for Sergei Diaghilev’s Ballet Russe, some of which were in collaboration with artist Christopher Wood. Rose would design theater sets and costumes again in 1939 for Lord Berners’s ballet production “Cupid and Psyche” at London’s Sadler’s Wells Theater. During the 1930s, he spent several years studying Chinese poetry and art in China; he later traveled extensively in Europe and North Africa with his future wife, Frederica Dorothy Carrington.

While traveling in France in his early twenties, Francis Rose became a close acquaintance of author Gertrude Stein who helped launch his painting career by commissioning several of his works, including a portrait of herself, for her own art collection. Stein had discovered Rose’s paintings in a Parisian gallery in the late 1920s and eventually bought one hundred-thirty of his works. Through Stein’s support, Rose was able to exhibit his work in Paris, London and New York. He also created illustrations for “The Alice B. Toklas Cookbook”, a publication by Stein’s lifetime partner, Alice Babette Toklas. Although the friendship between the three personalities wavered at times, Alice Toklas asked Rose to design Gertrude Stein’s grave site memorial.

In 1938, Rose completed what is considered one of his most successful paintings, “L’Ensemble”, an oil on canvas mural that depicted his circle of friends which included Jean Cocteau, Gloria Stein, Alice Toklas, Christian Bérard, Pavel Tchelitchev and Natalie Barney, among others. This mural was exhibited in the following year at the Petit Palais Musée des Beauz Arts in Paris. Called to military service at the beginning of World War II, Rose served as a disciplinary sergeant in the Royal Air Force. In 1942, Francis Rose exhibited his work at the “Imaginative Art Since the War” exhibition held in London’s Leicester Galleries; this exhibition was organized by Frederica Dorothy Carrington, one of two daughters to Sir Frederick Carrington.

Francis Rose and Dorothy Carrington were married in 1942; however, as Rose was a noted homosexual, the marriage eventually ended. By 1954, Carrington had permanently settled, without Rose, on the Corsican island of Ajaccio; their divorce was finalized in 1966. Carrington became one of the twentieth-century’s leading scholars on the island’s culture and history. In 1971, she was elected a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society and, in the next year, a member of the Royal Society of Literature. Carrington became a Member of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire in 1995.

In 1938, Rose gave an American stockbroker the power of attorney to manage his fortune; however, this stockbroker was involved in, and later convicted of, an embezzlement scheme. Rose lost most of his fortune and was nearly destitute by the end of the second World War. He spent his final years in a state of poverty, helped financially by friends foremost among whom was photographer Cecil Beaton. In an attempt to achieve some financial success, Rose published a memoir in 1961 entitled “Saying Life: The Memoirs of Sir Francis Rose”. This memoir discussed both his exploits, many which had factual issues, and his associations with the famous and artistic personalities of the time. “Saying Life”, however. was not the financial success that he needed.

Sir Francis Cyril Rose died in London on the nineteenth of November in 1979 at the age of seventy. He had exhibited in London and Paris in the 1950s and 1960s with major retrospective in London and Brighton in 1966. Another third retrospective of Rose’s work was given at London’s England & Co in 1988. In addition to private collections, his work is included in London’s England & Co Gallery, the Stein-Tolkas Collection of the Yale University Art Gallery, and the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco.

Notes: The Nick Harvill Libraries has a biographical article with quotes entitled “Lord Chaos: The Life of Sir Francis Rose” at: https://www.nickharvilllibraries.com/blog/lord-chaos-the-life-of-sir-francis-rose

Time Magazine has an archive review of Sir Francis Roses’s July 1949 exhibition of new work at London’s Gimpel Fils Gallery. The review is located at; https://content.time.com/time/subscriber/article/0,33009,888553,00.html

Top Insert Image: Cecil Beaton, “Sir Francis Rose”, Date Unknown, Bromide Print, The Cecil Beaton Studio Archive

Second Insert Image: Cecil Beaton, “Cecil Beaton, Gertrude Stein, Sir Francis Rose”, 1939, Bromide Print, 24 x 23.8 cm, National Portrait Gallery, London, England

Third Insert Image: Cecil Beaton, “Sir Francis Rose and Gertrude Stein, Bilignin”, 1939, Gelatin Silver Print from Original Negative, The Cecil Beaton Studio Archive

Bottom Insert Image: Francis Goodman, “Emma Tollemache and Sir Francis Rose”, 9 December 1947, Gelatin Silver Print from Original Negative, National Portrait Gallery, London, England

Emma Tollemache (née Manasseh) wrote the poetry collection “In the Light”. A limited edition of 250 copies with illustrations by Sir Francis Rose was published by Marlowe Galleries.

Philip Jones

The Artwork of Philip Jones

Born in London in 1933, Philip Jones was an English contemporary painter. An artist between the visionary and nostalgic works of the Neo-Romantics and the second generation of St. Ives Abstractionists, he created subtly-shaded paintings heightened with occasional bursts of color that resided on the periphery of abstraction.

Jones’s paintings were connected to the landscape surrounding his Norfolk home as well as the scenery he observed during his yearly travels. He spent most of his winters overseas at coastal destinations in Malta, India, Namibia, and the Republic of the Gambia. Jones, through a strong sense of connection with the natural world and its elements, became very adept at portraying a particular locale through the use of fluid lines and brushstrokes.

Philip Jones was educated at the historic Malvern College where he trained under post-impressionist painter and etcher Harry Fabian-Ware. In 1953, Jones enrolled at the Slade School of Fine Art where he became acquainted with fellow painters William Turnbull, Victor Willing and Michael Andrews. During his three years at the Slade School, Jones received private tutoring from mural and war artist Sir Walter Thomas Monnington and realist painter Sir William Coldstream, the Slade School’s acting principal.

Jones had his first exhibition in 1954 at the Royal Society of British Artist Galleries. During his career, his paintings were shown at many of London’s most prestigious galleries. In 1955, Jones had an exhibition at the Leicester Galleries, well-known for exhibiting the work and developing the careers of major artists. In 1964, there were two exhibitions: the London Group, one of the world’s oldest artist-led organizations, and the Artists‘ International Association in Soho. Jones’s work was shown at Mansard Gallery at Tottenham Court Road in 1967 and, in the next year, at the Contemporary Arts Society exhibition in the Whitechapel Gallery.

Philip Jones left London in 1979 and relocated to Clermont Hall in Norfolk, a county known for its small chapels, plowed fields, outbuildings and green spaces. The works he painted in Norfolk are known for their palettes of predominately muted browns, soft blues and strong greens that conjure up the countryside’s lush foliage.

Following this period of withdrawal from London’s art scene, Jones resumed presenting his work for exhibitions. For the remaining fifteen years of his life, he entered his work into the annual Royal Academy exhibitions. In 2008, Jones had a solo exhibitions in March-April at London’s Oliver Contemporary and September-October at Madrid’s La Galería Espacio Minimo. Philip Jones passed away on the last day of December in 2008.

The work of Philip Jones is housed in both private and public collections in the United Kingdom and Europe. The Estate of Philip Jones is represented by Jenna Burlingham Fine Art on George Street, Kingsclere, Hampshire, England. For information on work by Philip Jones, the gallery’s website is located at: https://www.jennaburlingham.com

Second Insert Image: Philip Jones, “Reflections, Calangute”, 2000, Oil on Paper, 58.4 x 76.2 cm, Jenna Burlingham Gallery, Kingsclere, England (Available)

Bottom Insert Image: Philip Jones, “Rocks at Mġarr”, 1999, Oil on Board, 37 x 49 cm, Jenna Burlingham Gallery, Kingsclere, England (Available)

Konstantin Somov

Konstantin Somov, “The Boxer”, Portrait of Mikhailovich Snejkovsky, 1933, Oil on Canvas, 54.8 x 46 cm, Private Collection

Born in Saint Petersburg in November of 1869, Konstantin Andreyevich Somov was a Russian artist and founding member of the artistic movement Mir Iskusstva, World of Art, that became a major influence on Russian artists of the early twentieth-century. Konstantin Somov was the second son of Andrei Somov, an art historian and senior curator at the Hermitage Museum, and Nadezhda Konstantinovna, a talented musician and well-educated daughter of the Lobanovs nobility.

Konstantin Somov attended the Karl May School in Saint Petersburg where he became close friends with classmates Dmitry Filosofov, later author and literary critic, and Alexandre Benois, future historian and influential designer for the Ballets Russes. At the age of twenty, Somov entered the Imperial Academy of Arts and studied from 1888 to 1897 under Ukrainian-born historical and portrait painter Ilya Repin. While at the academy, he developed lasting friendships with Sergei Diaghilev, the future founder of the Ballets Russes, and Léon Bakst, a painter who became an influential costume designer for Diaghilev’s company.

In the summer of 1895, Somov and Alexandre Benois stayed at a dacha in the village of Martyshkino near the coastal city of Oranienbaum. The landscapes he created and exhibited became his first major success with praise from both critics and artists. Somov graduated from the Academy in 1897 and continued his education at the Académie Colarossiin Paris. From 1897 to 1890, he worked on a portrait of Elizaveta Martynova, clothed in an old-fashioned dress, entitled “Lady in Blue”. Martynova was a painter, a graduate of the Imperial College of the Arts, who died at the age of thirty-six from tuberculosis. In this portrait finished four years before her death, Martynova’s delicate and trembling figure, frail with yellowish skin, stands alone in a park facing spectators with a face full of sorrow.

After the founding of the Mir Iskusstva in 1898, Konstantin Somov served as an editorial board member and contributed illustrations and designs to its magazine edited by Sergei Dlaghilev. During the 1910s, he created a series of harlequin scenes and illustrations for a poetry volume by Alexander Blok. Somov’s work was now exhibited in the United States and Europe, particularly in Germany where a 1909 monograph on his work was published.

In 1910 at the age of forty, Somov met the eighteen-year old Methodiy Lukyanov who became his close longtime companion and part of the Somov family. Lukyanov helped in the household, organized exhibitions and became Somov’s trusted advisor and critic. Somov painted many portraits of Lukyanov, among which is a large 1918 portrait which depicted Lukyanov seated on a sofa in pajamas and robe; this work is now housed in St. Petersburg’s Russian Museum. Somov and Lukyanov’s relationship would continue for twenty-two years until Lukyanov’s death from tuberculosis in April of 1932.

Konstantin Somov had a penchant for drama and was drawn to the elegant but bawdy nature of French erotic writing of the 18th century. From 1907 to 1919, he worked on illustrations, some suggestive and others explicit, for “Le Livre de la Marquise”, an anthology of eighteenth-century erotic French poetry and prose by Lachos, Casanova and Voltaire. Somov’s work became more erotic as time progressed. The most explicit of these was an eight-hundred copy edition published in 1917 at St. Petersburg’s R. Golike & A. Vilborg & Company.

Although initially greeted with enthusiasm, the Russian Revolution from 1917 to 1923 created a deterioration in living conditions. Shortly after the government nationalized his apartment, Somov was evicted; he did however manage to retain the rights to his own artwork. In December of 1923, Somov became part of the Russian Exhibiton and, as a member of the delagation, traveled to the United States where he represented the city of Petrograd. He never returned to to his homeland. After leaving the United States in 1925, Somov settled in Paris where he reunited with his old friends Alexandre Benois, Léon Bakst and Benois’ niece, the painter Zinaida Serebryakova.

Konstantin Somov, in terms of his artistic influences, felt closer to the Old Masters rather than the work of his contemporaries. He was particularly drawn to the work of eighteenth-century Rococo painter François Boucher known for his idyllic pastoral scenes. While in Paris, Somov predominantly painted miniatures and portraits. The still life became one of his favorite subjects and would perform an important role in his portraits as it added additional information on the sitter.

Even though established as a well-known artist, Somov continued to live a reclusive lifestyle. In June of 1930, he met Boris Mikhailovich Snejkovsky. Born in Odessa in July of 1910, Snejkovsky was the son of a captain of the Russian Volunteer Fleet and traveled frequently with his family until they settled in Paris. During the 1930s, Snezhkovsky would model, both clothed and nude, for many of Somov’s works including illustrations for an edition of “Daphnis and Chloe”. In February of 1923, Somov painted a portrait of his model entitled “The Boxer”, a half-length nude oil-portrait with boxing gloves on the wall. Snezhkovsky also served as the model for Somov’s 1937 “Obnazhennyl Iunosha (Nude Youth)” now in the State Russian Museum.

Konstantin Andreyevich Somov died in May of 1939, at the age of sixty-nine, in Paris, France. He is buried in the Sainte-Geneviève-des-Bois Russian Cemetery, south of Paris. In 2016, Russian art historian Pavel Golubev founded the Somov Society to preserve and study the life and works of Konstantin Somov. Goluvev curated the 2019 “Konstantin Somov, Uncensored” at Ukraine’s Odessa Fine Arts Museum and sponsored the 2019 colloquium “The Lady with the Mask: Homosexuality in the Art of Konstantin Somov” at the University of Pennsylvania.

Top Insert Image: Konstantin Somov, “Self Portrait”, 1921, Pencil Watercolor on Paper, Private Collection

Second Insert Image: Konstantin Somov, “Vladimir Aleksandrovich Somov”, Konstantin Somov’s Nephew, 1925, Oil on Canvas

Third Insert Image: Konstantin Somov, “Lady in Blue”, Portrait of Yelizaveta Martynova, 1897-1900, Oil on Canvas, 103 x 103 cm, Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow, Russia

Fourth Insert Image: Konstantin Somov, “Boris Snejkovsky with Cigarette”, 1938, Oil on Canvas, 46.4 x 38 cm, Private Collection

Bottom Insert Image: Konstantin Somov, “Daphnis and Chloe”, 1930, Watercolor Illustration, Ashmolean Museum, Oxford, United Kingdom

Greg Drasler

The Paintings of Greg Drasler

Born in Waukegan, Illinois in 1952, Greg Drasler is an American painter known for his metaphorical images that explore the formation of identity and memory. His representational work incorporates elements of abstraction, surrealism, and the postmodernist elements of graphic design.

Drasler’s paintings of elaborately constructed interior spaces, symbolic and commonplace objects, and patterned panoramas hold enigmatic puzzles and psychological mysteries that intrigue the viewer’s sense of perception. A major component of his work is the exploration of liminal spaces and thresholds between public and private, real and imaginary, and object and environment. Liminality, in anthropology, is the quality of ambiguity or disorientation that occurs in the middle stage of a rite of passage. Participants in effect stand at the threshold of their previous self-identification and their new existence established by the rite.

Greg Drasler uses the strategies of bricolage, the creation of a work from a diverse range of objects, to place the viewer in a state of liminality. His images of suitcases, men with hats, automobile interiors, film sets, and the American highway contain symbols, metaphors, visual puzzles and puns. Humor, nostalgia and a sense of the uncanny are contained in these examinations of the Self and its relationship to local culture and both personal space and location.

In the 1960s, Drasler became interested in art as a career through his exposure to the contemporary art of his time. A major influence on his life’s work came from James Rosenquist’s awe-inspiring 1964-65 “F-111”, a painting of fifty-nine interlocking panels that enclosed the viewer. Drasler was also influenced by sculptor Horace Clifford Westermann, a master of traditional carpentry and marquetry techniques, as well as the representational artists of the Chicago Imagists such as Jim Nutt, whose work was inspired by pop culture, and Robert Brown for whom collected art and objects functioned as important source materials.

In 1976, Drasler entered the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign to study art. He committed to the medium of painting in 1978 and earned his Bachelor of Fine Arts in 1980. After receiving his degree, Drasler enrolled in the university’s Year in Japan Program, a period which focused his work on the relationship between identity and place presented through the use of domestic functional imagery. After completing his Master of Fine Arts in 1983, Drasler relocated to New York City and began to exhibit his work professionally. The first exhibition of his paintings was in the first “On View” held at the New Museum of Contemporary Art in 1983.

Greg Drasler’s earliest work focused on builder and handyman imagery that served as an allegory for self-construction. His first series, executed between 1987 and 1990, was the “Baggage Paintings”, which depicted plush luggage in random but carefully composed states, either stacked as in “Samson and Delilah” or grouped as in “Baggage Claim”. The meticulously detailed groups of baggage, whose lighting and color were playfully painted, presented allegories of identity, luxury, and privacy. Drasler’s 1990 painting from the series, “His”, depicts two upright traveling trunks in a room. One contains a set of six drawers while the other is opened to reveal an empty space for hanging clothes. The bright golden light that emanates from the interior of the trunk, almost magically, is in stark contrast to the dull interior of the room.

With the support of a New York Foundation for the Arts Fellowship in 1991 and a subsequent National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship in 1993, Drasler began “Cave Paintings” which depicted intricately constructed, ornate interior living spaces that served as metaphors for one’s creation of the Self, as well as, the relationship to one’s personal, domestic space. These tableaus with their architecture, wallpaper and fabric were distinguished by human absence and trope-l’oeil obfuscation. The illusionistic perspective and the meld of motifs were designed to create a voyeuristic view of unsettling presence and closely guarded secrets, a similar sensation akin to painter Giorgio de Chirico’s famous piazza paintings. “Cave Paintings’ were first presented at New York’s Queens Museum of Art in 1994, followed by exhibitions in Seattle, Boston and New York.

Greg Drasler’s “Tattoo Parlor” series explored wallpaper patterns and the psychological imprint they have on a room’s occupants. One group from the series was “Jesus Wallpaper”, that consisted of papered walls of loosely rendered iconic images of Jesus and assorted hanging objects; the “Jumping Jesus” installation, for instance, contained hanging auto jumper-cables. Starting in the early 2000s, Drasler’s investigations of liminal spaces included automobile interiors, Hollywood illusionism, and the great American road trip. After seeing cutaway automobile props used in film sets, which exist as both interior and exterior spaces, he employed that image in several paintings including the 2006 “Green Screen” and the 2010 “Internal Combustion”.

With a 2014 Guggenheim Fellowship, Drasler drove across country, during which he gathered ideas for what became his “Road Trip”series, expansive vistas of the Midwest that often depicted the vernacular architecture of the American roadhouse. These paintings included large areas of criss-cross patterning, often looking like quilts in the sky, that suggested the vast reach of the landscape and its division into property. A major work of this series was the 2016 six-panel “Stratocaster Suite” which presented a stop-motion sequence in the style of Eadweard Muybridge when displayed across the wall.

Greg Drasler’s essay “Painting into a Corner: Representation as Shelter” was published in editor Joseph Scalia’s 2002 “The Vitality of Objects: Exploring the Work of Christopher Bollas”, published by Continuum Press, London, and Wesleyan Press. He collaborated with poet Timothy Liu for the 2009 “Plolytheogamy” published in 2009 by Philadelphia’s Saturnalia Press; it was comprised of interleaved images of Drasler’s paintings and Liu’s poetry. Drasler has taught and lectured at schools, including Princeton University, Pratt Institute for the past twelve years, Williams College, Hofstra University, and Montclair State University. Starting in 2007, he has been represented by New York’s Betty Cuningham Gallery on the Lower East Side.

Notes: A biographical narrative by Greg Drasler on his life, as well aa contact information and video projects, can be found at the artist’s site located at: https://www.drasler.com

More information on Greg Drasler’s work can be found at the Betty Cuningham Gallery website located at: http://www.bettycuninghamgallery.com/artists/greg-drasler

Second Insert Image: Greg Drasler, “Green Room”, Cave Painting Series, 1997, Oil on Canvas, 177.8 x 127 cm, Private Collection

Third Insert Image: Greg Drasler, “Houdini”, 1987, Oil on Canvas, 177.8 x 152.4 cm, Private Collection

Fourth Insert Image: Greg Drasler, “Wiggle Room Post It”, Wiggle Room Series, 2000, Oil on Canvas, 147.3 x 132 cm, Private Collection

Bottom Insert Image: Greg Drasler, “Slide Lecture”, Cave Painting Series, 1995, Oil on Canvas, 147.3 x 132.1 cm, Private Collection

Albert Wainwright

The Artwork of Albert Wainwright

Born in the historic market town of Castleford, West Yorkshire in 1898, Albert Wainwright was painter, illustrator, and designer of theatrical costume and sets. A prolific artist, his body of work includes thousands of watercolors, drawings, painted ceramics, costume and theatre designs and book illustrations, which reveal him to be an artist of powerful inventiveness and ability.

The youngest of three children, Albert Wainwright had a Methodist upbringing and an early interest in art. He attended Castleford’s Secondary School where he met classmate Henry Moore and began a friendship secured by their mutual interest in art. Until 1920, Wainwright and Moore would correspond to each other through illustrated letters, even as soldiers in the first World War. Although encouraged by his father to seek a profession as an engineer, Wainwright was given permission to train in the arts through the persuasive efforts of his secondary school’s art teacher.

In 1914, Wainwright entered Leeds Arts University in West Yorkshire. Through his studies, he was influenced by the works of illustrator Aubrey Beardsley and Russian painter and theatrical designer Léon Bakat, as well as, the new works created by the Viennese Secessionist artists. Wainwright was also drawn to the fluid use of line, exaggerated forms, and dynamic use of pattern and color in the works of painters Gustav Klimt and Egon Schiele.

After his service in the Royal Flying Corps, Albert Wainwright rejoined his family who now lived in Pontefract, West Yorkshire. He transformed a room in the family home for use as a studio where he continue his work as artist and designer. In 1920 at the age of twenty-two, Wainwright had his first solo exhibition at Leeds City Art Gallery which, well received, gained him the support of Leeds University’s Vice Chancellor Sir Michael Sadler and influential art critic Frank Rutter. He also gained representation by London’s Goupil Gallery which held solo exhibitions of his work in 1921 and 1922.

In 1927, Wainwright was appointed temporary art master at Castleford’s Secondary School for two years. During this period, he went on a school excursion to Germany, the first of his many journeys to Europe, both alone and with his partner. This was a time of great social and political change in Europe, particularly in Austria and Germany with the rise of fascist movement. Beginning with this trip to Germany, Wainwright began a regular practice of illustrating sketchbooks with people he contacted and landscapes he admired. After his family bought a cottage in 1930 at Robin Hood’s Bay, he would spend every summer there to paint watercolors of people on holiday, beach scenes, and depictions of the town’s red roofs.

As a gay man, Albert Wainwright exercised discretion in his life, a necessity felt by many during that era due to the Criminal Law Amendment Act of 1885 which had made homosexuality illegal; often a letter of affection was sufficient to bring prosecution. He did have a life-long lover, George Collins, who was a schoolmaster and friend of the Wainwright family. Wainwright often refers to his sexual identity as a gay man in his work. His sketchbooks contain not only landscapes but also studies of men in uniforms at rest or play. Although generally clothed, Wainwright’s portraits of men were sensitively painted with alluring expressions. He considered these sketchbooks as personal and private documents and not intended for public view.

Wainwright received many commissions to design costumes and sets for local theaters including the Leeds Art Theater and the Leeds Civic Playhouse. He designed for plays ranging from Greek tragedies to modern dramas by Henrik Ibsen, Anton Chekov and Bernard Shaw. Wainwright designed sets and costumes for over one-hundred productions which included seven-hundred costumes for a single play in 1927, the “Miracle Play” held at Kirkstall Abbey on the north bank of the River Aire.

Wainwright never achieved the same level of commercial success and recognition as his school friend, sculptor and lithographer Henry Moore, and had to supplement his art with teaching. In March of 1943, he applied for and was offered a teaching post for the duration of the war as an art teacher at the historic Bridlington School in Yorkshire. After teaching for only three months, Albert Wainwright was stricken with meningitis and died on a bus on his way to his Harrogate home in September of 1943. His work is in many private collections; the largest public collection of his work is housed at the Hepwotth Wakefield Gallery in West Yorkshire, England.

Notes: An extensive online collection of Albert Wainwright’s work can be found at “Albert Wainwright: The Unseen Archive” located at: https://sites.google.com/view/albertwainwrightunseenarchive/home

A short video on his life is available at the Hepworth Wakefield Gallery site located at: https://hepworthwakefield.org/our-art-artists/collections/highlights/albert-wainwright/

Top Insert Image: Photographer Unknown, “Albert Wainwright”, circa 1912, Vintage Print on Card Stock, Hepworth Wakefield Collection, West Yorkshire, England

Second Insert Image: Albert Wainwright, “Portrait Study of George Collins”, Date Unknown, Watercolor on Paper, Private Collection

Third Insert Image: Albert Wainwright, “The Dragon Slayer”, circa 1927-1938, Gouache on Paper, 39 x 54.3 cm, Wolfsonian-FIU, Miami Beach, Florida

Bottom Insert Image: Albert Wainwright, “Boy Sleeping”, Date Unknown, Watercolor on Paper, 23 x 27.5 cm, Private Collection

Wade Reynolds

The Artwork of Wade Reynolds

Born in Jasper, New York in June of 1929, Wade Reynolds was an American self-taught realist painter. He studied electronics during his service in the United States Navy and for a short period of time in Rochester, New York. Realizing he was in the wrong career, Reynolds relocated to New York City where he joined a local theater group and studied drama at the studio of director Herbert Bergoff.

Residing in the Greenwich Village area of Manhattan, Reynolds designed fabrics, glassware, china, and wallpaper before focusing on painting. In 1958, he began his professional art career with a commission for illustrations for Richard Mason’s novel “The World of Suzie Wong”. In May of the following year, Reynolds relocated to California where he successfully established himself as a technically skilled painter of portraits and figures.

Reynolds painted throughout the California area, including Los Angeles, San Francisco, Oceanside and Newport Beach. Among his many commissions are portraits of stage and film actress Agnes Moorehead and Broadway costume designer Noel Taylor. Reynolds also painted the official state portrait of California Governor George Deukmjian who served from 1983 to 1991.

Wade Reynolds was an instructor at the Laguna College of Art and Design, formerly the Art Institute of Southern California, and the Academy of Art University in San Francisco. After a long fight with cancer, Wade Reynolds passed away in October of 2011.

Wade Reynolds’s work has been exhibited in galleries in San Francisco, Santa Barbara, Newport Beach, New York City, and Santa Fe. His work has been shown at the Santa Barbara Museum of Art and the San Francisco Palace of the Legion of Honor. In addition to many private collections, Reynolds’s work is housed in the permanent collection of the University of Southern California’s Fisher Gallery.

Top Insert Image: Photographer Unknown, “Wade Reynolds”, Date Unknown, Gelatin Silver Print, Estate of Wade Reynolds

Bottom Insert Image: Wade Reynolds, “Boy on Chair”, Date Unknown, Oil on Canvas, 76.2 x 60.1 cm, Private Collection

Patrick Anthony Hennessy

The Paintings of Patrick Anthony Hennessy

Born in August of 1915 in Cork, Patrick Anthony Hennessy was an Irish realist painter known for his landscapes, still lifes, portraits, and trompe l’oeil paintings. Often considered an outsider of latter day Irish painting, he developed a distinctive personal style of carefully observed realism executed with highly finished surfaces that he faithfully followed throughout his career.

After his father’s battle death in 1917 during World War I, Hennessy’s mother remarried to John Duncan from Scotland in 1921; the family relocated to Arbroath, a royal burgh on the coast of Scotland where Duncan’s relatives resided. During his primary education at the Arbroath High School, Hennessy showed an aptitude for art and graduated in 1933 with the honor, Dux for Art, and an accompanying medal. In the autumn of that year, he entered the Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art & Design at the University of Dundee where he studied drawing and painting under portrait painter Edward Baird and noted landscape painter James McIntosh Patrick.

Patrick Hennessy, in addition to his art studies, wrote a ballet entitled “Paradise Lost” which was performed at the college in 1935. In each year of his course, he gained a First Class Pass, as well as winning first prize in 1934 and 1936 for the work he produced during summer breaks. Hennessy graduated with a First Class Distinction in 1937 and, with a scholarship, earned his Post-Graduate Diploma in 1938. During his studies, Hennessy met his life-long partner, British-Irish landscape and portrait painter Harry Robertson Craig who was also attending courses at Dundee. Aside from the period between 1939 and 1946 when they were separated by the war, they spent the rest of their lives together.

A month after finishing his post-graduate work, Hennessy entered his paintings in a group exhibition at the Art Galleries in Arbroath. Awarded an Annual Traveling Scholarship for further studies in Italy and France, he traveled to Europe in June of 1938. In Paris, Hennessy reunited with two friends, Robert Colquhoun and Robert MacBryde. whom he had met the previous year. Known as the two Roberts, these painters and theater set-designers had established both a lifelong romantic relationship and a professional collaboration in their art. Hennessy and the couple traveled together through the south of France until their arrival in Marseilles at the end of 1938.

Upon his return to Scotland, Patrick Hennessy was selected for the residential summer course at the historical arts center, Hospitalfield House, under painter James Cowie, an artist of detailed draftsmanship based on studies of the Old Masters. Two of Hennessy’s paintings from this period were accepted for the Annual Exhibition held by the Royal Scottish Academy. With war looming in the autumn of 1939 and feeling disenchanted by his time at Hospitalfield House, he made the decision to return to his native Ireland. On his arrival in Dublin, Hennessy was offered an exhibition in December of 1939 at abstract artist Mainie Jellett’s Country Shop gallery on St. Stephens Green in the city center.

After his well received exhibition, Hennessy was invited to join the Society of Dublin Painters with whom he would exhibit annually during the 1940s and early 1950s. Beginning in the early 1940s, a visual homosexual subtext began to be incorporated into some of Hennessy’s paintings. In addition to the work he produced for exhibition in this period, he also received many portrait commissions from clients. Hennessy began a long relationship with the Royal Hibernia Academy in 1941 with the acceptance of three of his paintings for their annual exhibition; he exhibited with the academy virtually every year from 1941 until his death.

In 1946, Patrick Hennessy reunited with Harry Robertson Craig who had recently been discharged from the intelligence branch of the British Army where he served during the Second World War. Prior to his service, Craig had extensively traveled throughout Europe where he painted landscapes and portraits. Hennessy and Craig soon moved to Crosshaven in Cork and later to the seaport town of Cobh on the southern coast of County Cork. In 1948, Hennessy had an exhibition at Dublin’s Victor Waddington Gallery, which had emerged as Ireland’s most important modern art venue. After a year as an associate, he became a full member of the Royal Hibernian Academy in 1949.

Hennessy’s work became noticed in North America when his published work “De Profundis” was included in the Contemporary Irish Painting Exhibition that toured various cities on the continent. The 1950s brought Hennessy a retrospective of his work from 1941 to 1951 at the Dublin Painters Society and several painting excursions to Italy and Sicily. One of his works at this time, “Bronze Horses of St. Marks”, was exhibited at London’s Royal Academy in 1954. In 1956, Hennessy had two major solo exhibitions of his work: London’s Thomas Agnew Gallery which showed thirty-eight paintings and Dublin’s Ritchie Hendriks Gallery which would be the main outlet for his work over twenty-two years.

In the winter of 1959, Patrick Hennessy became seriously ill with pneumonia. As a consequence, he and Harry Craig decided to spend the winter season in Morocco. After 1959, they never spent a full year in Ireland and increasingly spent time abroad. In the 1960s, Hennessy continued to be true to his personal style; however, as he did not follow the current trends in art, he began to receive less favorable reviews from the art critics. Finally in 1965, Chicago’s Guildhall Gallery, which had accepted his work for years, offered Hennessy a major exhibition in 1966. The success of which enabled him to become an artist with work on permanent display at the gallery and a scheduled annual exhibition.

In 1968, Hennessy made a permanent move to Tangier, Morocco where he painted prolifically for nine years to keep up with the demand from both the Hendriks and Guildhall Galleries as well as the Royal Hibernian Academy. A highly successful retrospective of Hennessy’s work was held in 1975 at the Guildhall Gallery. Three years later, he had his last show in Dublin at the Hendriks Gallery. After his move with Harry Craig to the Algarve in Portugal, Hennessy had little contact with Ireland and began to have health problems that soon grew more serious. In November of 1980, Craig brought him to a London hospital for treatment. Diagnosed with cancer, Patrick Hennessy died on the thirtieth of December in 1980.

Following cremation, Patrick Anthony Hennessy’s ashes were buried in London’s Golders Green Crematorium. He had left his entire estate to Harry Robertson Craig, with the proviso that on Craig’s death the Royal Hibernian Academy should be the beneficiary. Upon Craig’s death in 1984, this legacy was used to set up the biennial Hennessy Craig Scholarship for aspiring artists. Hennessy’s work, in addition to many private collections, can be found in major public collections including the Irish Museum of Modern Art, the National Gallery of Ireland, the University Colleges of both Cork and Dublin, and the Crawford Art Gallery, among others.

Note: The Irish Museum of Modern Art has an excellent article on Patrick Hennessy’s connections which such figures as Francis Bacon, Elizabeth Bowen, Roger Casement and other artists. This Modern Irish Masters article can be found at: http://www.modernirishmasters.com/context/patrick-hennessy-context/#stags

Top Insert Image: Photographer Unknown, “Patrick Hennessy and Harry Robertson Craig”, Date Unknown, Gelatin Silver Print

Second Insert Image: Patrick Hennessy, “Boy and Seagull”, 1949, Oil on Canvas, 52 x 38 cm, Irish Museum of Modern Art

Third Insert Image: Patrick Hennessy, “Cliffs of Etretat (Self Portrait)”, 1962, Oil on Canvas, Private Collection

Fourth Insert Image: Patrick Hennessy, “Portrait of Elizabeth Bowen at Bowenscourt”, 1957, Oil on Canvas, 91 x 71 cm, Crawford Art Gallery, Cork, Ireland

Bottom Insert Image: Patrick Hennessy, “Men Bathing, Etretat”, circa 1954, Oil on Canvas, Date and Location Unknown

Eliot Hodgkin

Eliot Hodgkin, “Peeled Lemons”, 12/03/1958, Tempera on Board, 21.5 x 24.7 cm, Estate of Eliot Hodgkin, Exhibition: Royal Academy 1958

Born in Purley-on-Thames in June of 1905, Curwen Eliot Hodgkin was an English painter best known for his highly detailed still lifes. The only son of Charles Ernest Hodgkin and his wife Alice Jane Brooke, he was raised in a Quaker family related to Roger Eliot Fry, a prominent member of the Bloomsbury Group of artists. Eliot Hodgkin was also the younger cousin of abstract painter Sir Howard Hodgkin.

Hodgkin received his early education at the Harrow School from 1919 to 1923. His initial formal art training was in London at the independent Byam Shaw School of Art. He later enrolled at the Royal Academy School where he studied under painter and draughtsman Francis Ernest Jackson, a student of both William-Adolphe Bouguereau and Jean-Joseph Benjamin-Constant. Hodgkin left the Royal Academy to prepare works for an upcoming exhibition at Liverpool’s Basnett Gallery.

Eliot Hodgkin was very particular in the choice of subjects for his paintings; he would choose simple things, often natural objects, and meticulously arrange them against the painting’s background. Hodgkin originally painted in oils, both indoors and en plein air. Introduced in 1937 to a method of creating egg tempera by his friend and teacher Maxwell Armfield, he dedicated more of his time to painting indoors with egg tempera on primed hardboard. Hodgkin’s interest in egg tempera was influenced by the detailed work of such artists as Spanish painter Francisco de Zurbaran, known as the Spanish Caravaggio, and Adriaen Coorte, the Dutch Golden Age painter of small still lifes.

By the middle of the 1930s, Hodgkin had established himself as a painter of still lifes, landscapes and murals through regular exhibitions at the Royal Academy. Between 1934 and 1981, he took part in all the Royal Academy Summer Exhibitions. Three of Hodgkin’s works, including the 1939 “October”, were purchased at the summer exhibitions by the Chantrey Bequest founded by wealthy portrait sculptor and painter Sir Francis Chantrey. These three works were later presented to the Tate Gallery collection in London. In 1938, Hodgkin had his first solo exhibition at the Picture Hire Gallery on London’s Brook Street where he showed twenty-three works painted during a ten month span.

During the years of World War II, Eliot Hodgkin joined the Air Raid Precautions, an organization of wardens supporting citizens during air raids, and worked for the Home Intelligence Division of the Ministry of Information. He continued his painting during the war and produced paintings contrasting the ruins of London’s bomb sites with the vegetation that thrived in the devastation. For his work, he received a commission as part of the War Artists Scheme, a project devised and administered by Kenneth Clark, the Director of the National Gallery.

Hodgkin taught briefly as a teacher in 1936 at the Westminster School of Art. He was offered the position of academic at the Royal Academy of Art in 1959; however, he declined in order to concentrate on his painting. Hodgkin wrote a novel, “She Closed the Door” in 1931 and, in the following year, six articles on mural decorations for the book “Fashion Drawing” published by Chapman and Hall. In 1949, he published “A Pictorial Gospel”, a collection of old master illustrations of the Gospel story. His last published work was an article entitled “How I Paint in Temper” for the Society of Painters in Tempera’s 1967 yearbook.

Eliot Hodgkin continued his painting until his late seventies. Due to eyesight difficulties, his work slowly diminished until it stopped completely in 1979. During the last years of his life, he suffered from axatia, loss of full control of his bodily movements. Eliot Hodgkin died in May of 1987 at the age of eighty-one; his ashes are buried in the churchyard of St. John’s Ladbroke Grove in London.

“Why tempera?… Because tempera enables me most nearly to achieve the effects I am aiming at… I try to show things exactly as they are, yet with some of their mystery and poetry, and as though seen for the first time. And it seems to me that, in trying to depict “a World in a grain of sand”, perhaps the best medium is tempera, because it combines clarity and definition with a certain feeling of remoteness.” – Eliot Hodgkin, 1946, Royal Watercolor Society Catalogue

Note: More extensive information on Eliot Hodgkin’s life and work can be found at The Estate of Eliot Hodgkin website located at: https://www.eliothodgkin.com

Top Insert Image: Howard Coster, “Eliot Hodgkin”, 1953, Silver Gelatin Print, 22.9 x 17.8 cm, National Portrait Gallery, London

Second Insert Image: Eliot Hodgkin, “Five Gladiolus Bulbs”, 04/03/1954, Tempera on Board, 10.2 x 13.7 cm, Private Collection, Exhibited at Leicester Galleries in 1956

Third Insert Image: Eliot Hodgkin, “Portrait of Douglas Fitzpatrick”, Date Unknown (circa 1930), Pencil and Watercolor, 58.4 x 47 cm, Private Collection

Bottom Insert Image: Eliot Hodgkin, “Orto Chiuso, Malcontenta, Italy”, 1957, Oil on Canvas, 24.2 x 19.7 cm, Private Collection, Exhibition Waddesdon 2019

Randall Lake

Artwork by Randall Lake

Born in California in 1947, Randall Lake is an American artist who, influenced by an exhibition of work by Van Gogh, paints oil landscapes, still-lifes and portraits in an impressionistic realist style. He is currently based in Utah with a studio in Salt Lake City and a studio in his Spring City cottage home.

Lake traveled to France and studied French in 1968 at the Sorbonne of the University of Paris. When the events of the May 1968 protests closed the university, he continued his studies at the Academie Julian under painter Claude Schurr. In addition to his painting studies, Lake completed his English Degree, Cum Laude, in 1970 at the University of Colorado at Boulder. In 1972, he studied with Belgium designer and color-abstract painter Gustave Singier at the Ecole Nationale Superieure des Beaux Arts.

Randall Lake was an instructor in English at the Sorbonne from 1970 to 1973. He studied printmaking in 1973 under English printmaker and painter Stanley William Hayter at the Atelier 17, an experimental workshop that was influential in the teaching and promotion of printmaking in the twentieth-century. After four years of teaching, Lake settled in Utah where he studied under English-born portrait artist Alvin Gittins at the University of Utah. He earned his Master of Fine Arts degree in 1977 and became in 1978 a visiting member of the Department of Art Studio faculty at the university.

Lake continuously searches for new subjects and techniques for his work. Over time, his journey in art has reflected his journey in life, from the traditional landscapes executed as a Mormon to the more daring works as an openly gay man. Lake is drawn to the atmosphere that was present in the nineteenth-century, the lifestyle, the arts and the architecture. He paints from life and location to capture the essence of the subject and the moment. Seeking a change in his work, Randall Lake has begun experimenting with the elements of Abstraction and Fauvism, a movement which emphasized painterly qualities of brushwork and strong color.

Randall Lake is the recipient of many awards for his work, including the 2003 Grand Prix du Peintre Maudit from Salt Lake City’s Guthrie Institute, the 2015 and 2016 Award of Merit for the Spring City Plein Air Competition, ant the 2001 and 2006 Governor of Utah Award for Fine Art, among others. His work is in many private and public collections, including the Jinling Library in Nanjing, China; Utah State Collection of Art; Wyoming State Collection; Utah Museum of Fine Art; and the Leslie-Lohman Museum in New York.

Note: A video portrait of Randall Lake by Michael Schoenfeld for RadioWest Films can be found at: https://films.radiowest.org/film/randall-lake

An article on Randall Lake’s work, with quotes by the artist, can be found at the Springville Museum of Art website located at: https://www.smaexhibition-self.org/randall-lake.html

Randall Lake’s website, containing his work, gallery events and contact information, can be found at: https://www.randalllake.com/page/11302/collection

Second Insert Image: Randall Lake, “Afternoon Nap”, 1991, Pastel on Paper, 35.6 x 45.7 cm

Bottom Insert Image: Randall Lake, “Self Portrait with Model”, 1992, Oil on Canvas, 91.4 x 76.2 cm

Mark Maggiori

Mark Maggiori, “What Lies Within Us”, 2021, Oil on Linen, 127 x 142.2 cm, Private Collection

Western Paintings by Mark Maggiori

Born in June of 1977 in Fontainebleau, a commune in the Paris metropolitan area, Mark Maggiori is a French-American painter, draftsman, graphic designer, musician and lead vocalist of the metal band Pleymo. He is known for his landscapes of the American Southwest and scenes featuring Native Americans and American cowboys.

At the age of fifteen, Maggiori traveled during a vacation with his family on a month-long road trip from New York to San Francisco. This long trip, with views of the country’s majestic national parks, made a lasting impression on him and evoked his fascination with Western art. Years later, Maggiori was formally trained in academic drawing at Paris’s Academie Julian, where other great western artists, such as Joseph Henry Sharp and Ernest L. Blumenschein, had trained before forming the Taos Society of Artists in 1915.

In 1997 after earning his degree, Mark Maggiori formed, along with musicians Benoít Julliard, Fred Ceraudo, and Mathias Borronquet, the successful nu metal band Pleymo. The band caught the attention of producer Stéphane Kraemer and released their first album entitled “Keçkispasse?” through the Wet Music label. The band led to opportunities in Europe and other artistic disciplines, such as photography and filmmaking, that increased Maggiori’s artistic creativity.

Maggiori met and married Los Angeles multi-media artist Petecia Le Fawnhawk, both of whom were drawn to the beauty of the American West. At the age of thirty-six, he made the commitment to concentrate on painting Western art. As a Frenchman, Maggiori had a profoundly unique vision of the American cowboy: however, in a span of a few years, he rose through the ranks to become one of the notable Western artists working today. Maggiori’s work combines the outdoor perspective with the colors and techniques he learned from his earlier photographic and film experiences. A prominent aspect of his Western scenes is the depiction of layered, textural clouds which highlight the figures in his landscapes.

Mark Maggiori has participated in many important solo and group shows. At the 2007 “Night of Artists” exhibition at the Briscoe Western Art Museum, he won the Sam Houston Award. To acquaint himself with the Western lifestyle, Maggiori began to spend time on ranches with cowboys and on horseback. Starting in 2017, he concentrated on painting outdoors, en plein air, in Arizona, New Mexico and Wyoming.

Maggiori’s work has been featured in various publications including Southwest Art, Forbes Magazine, Flaunt, Western Horseman, and others. His work has been exhibited at San Antonio’s Briscoe Western Art Museum, the Autry Museum of the American West in Los Angeles, the Eiteljorg Museum of American Indians and Western Art in Indianapolis, and Los Angeles’s Maxwell Alexander Gallery.

Second Insert Image: Mark Maggiori, “Trail Blazing”, 2019, Oil on Linen, 61 x 45.7 cm, Private Collection

Bottom Insert Image: Mark Maggiori, “Under the Pueblo Sun”, 2020, Oil on Linen, 81.3 x 86.4 cm, Private Collection

Gabrielle Garland

The Paintings of Gabrielle Garland

Born in New York City in 1968, Gabrielle Garland is an American painter whose work is centered on the elements of architecture, space, and design. She received her BFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and earned her MFA from the University of Chicago. The daughter of artistic parents, Garland was influenced by her early participation in her mother’s profession of decorative painting. She currently resides in New York’s East Village and maintains a studio in Brooklyn.

For the last decade, Garland has been creating a series of images based on rural American architecture. These surreal portraits of houses and apartments, devoid of people, feature exterior views seen from the street and interior scenes arranged with personal domestic furnishings. Executed with a bold palette, the paintings show a fluid, elastic perspective, often containing oblique angles, which gives each home a unique personality. Lacking distinctive architectural features or indications of geographical locations, these anthropomorphic structures could stand anywhere.

Gabrielle Garland has exhibited her work in many group and solo exhibitions at both galleries and public spaces. These include multiple solo shows at the Hap Gallery in Portland, Oregon; the 2014 exhibition at Chicago’s Logan Center; the 2015 group show at MoMA’s Clemente Soto Vélex Cultural Center; multiple showings at Expo Chicago curated by Corbett vs Dempsey; the 2018 Campbell Project Space exhibition in Sydney, Australia; the 2017 Postcards from the Edge: Benefit for Visual Aids held in New York City; and “Chasing Phantoms”, a group show in 2022 at The Pit in Los Angeles, among others.

In addition to her paintings, Garland produced in 2014 the limited edition, black and white “Gabrielle Garland: Coloring Book”, created from a series of her drawings that became paintings of artists’ spaces.

Gabrielle Garland’s website, which contains images of both paintings and drawings, as well as upcoming exhibitions and contact information, can be found at: http://www.gabriellegarland.org

Top Insert Image: Gabrielle Garland, “Untitled 160”, 2020, Acrylic on Canvas over Panel, 55.9 x 68.5 cm

Bottom Insert Image: Gabrielle Garland, Untitled 63 (Green Coffee Table), Oil on Panel, 40.6 x 50.8 cm,

Keisuke Yamamoto

Stone Lithographs by Keisuke Yamamoto

Born in Osaka in 1961, Keisuke Yamamoto is a Japanese lithographer and painter known for his still lifes and landscape images. He graduated in 1986 from historical Kanazawa’s College of Art and Design with a Master of Fine Arts in Oil Painting and then studied lithographic techniques at a printing studio. Since his graduation, Yamamoto has been an independent painter and lithography artist. He currently lives and works in Kyoto where he maintains his atelier.

Lithography, in essence, requires clear systematic planning in its execution; errors can not be corrected. Yamamoto’s hand-drawn stone lithographs, although appearing simplistic, required great forethought and skill in carving. His work does not contain any narrative but instead focuses on the incredible stillness of a moment in time. The beauty of Yamamoto’s work is created by the interactions between time, silence, light and shadow, the composition of which places the viewer as an observing visitor.

In his “Light, Time, Silence” begun in 1992, Keisuke Yamamoto created a series of lithographs which reconstructed three recurring elements, chairs, stairs and windows, which were arranged in multiple settings with different lighting conditions. The main theme for this series was the conception of the natural flow of time. To achieve this, Yamamoto had to depict the surrounding spaces as well as the gradation of light with great accuracy. He was aware that our ability to see and understand the world visually was based on the light that reflected off various objects. Upon light entering our eyes, our brains process the information and present it to us as a particular object with a particular color and shape. Yamamoto understood the illustration of the visual world depends actually on the depiction of light; and the flow of time must be illustrated through changes in that light.

Keisuke Yamamoto is represented in the United States by the Davidson Galleries, a collection of nearly twenty-thousand works on paper, which is located on Occidental Avenue South in Seattle, Washington. His works can be seen at: https://www.davidsongalleries.com/collections/keisuke-yamamoto

Top Insert Image: Keisuke Yamamoto, “Apple Tree”, 1961/2013, Lithograph, AP, 38.1 x 60.1 cm, Davidson Galleries

Bottom Insert Image: Keisuke Yamamoto, “Sea Breeze B”, 1961, Lithograph, “Light, Time, Silence” Series, Edition of 20, 30.2 x 20 cm, Davidson Galleries