16 August 2017

Bartholomeus van der Helst. Portrait of the Artist’s Wife Anna du Pire as Granida (‘Podobizna umělcovy ženy Anny du Pire v roli Granidy’), 1660 (Národní galerie v Praze, Prague - Sternberg Palace).


Oil on canvas: 70 x 58.5 cm. Van der Helst pictured his wife in pastoral costume. Viewers would have recognised this character from the play 'Granida' (1615) by Pieter Cornelis Hooft: a princess lost during the hunt who receives water from an adoring shepherd.

Visit > Národní galerie v Praze, Prague.
More > Bartholomeus van der Helst at Wikipedia.

14 August 2017

Balthus (Balthasar Klossowski). Thérèse on a Bench Seat ('Thérèse sur une banquette'), 1939 (private collection).


Oil on canvas: 72.7 x 91.9 cm. Last known painting of his Parisian neighbour Thérèse Blanchard (1925-1950). Update (2019): Auctioned at Christie's New York, May 13 2019. From the collection of Dorothy and Richard Sherwood/ USA. Price tag: US$ 19.002.500 (ca. € 21.300.000).

More > Balthus (Balthasar Klossowski) at Wikipedia.

7 August 2017

Neil Stokoe. Two Figures in Room IV, 1971 (artist’s estate, UK).


Oil on canvas: 243.8 x 281 cm(!). Neil Stokoe (2015): “I didn’t exhibit for 30 years, until 2002. I was finally prompted to do so by an article I read quoting the great American photographer Alfred Stieglitz. He said that it’s important for an artist to get on the ladder, whatever rung he’s on, so that he can at least be assessed later on. If not a great aunt down the line makes a bonfire in the garden and burns them”.

6 August 2017

Gerald Leslie Brockhurst. Gilded Youth ('Jeunesse Dorée'), 1934 (Lady Lever Art Gallery, Liverpool).


Oil on board: 76.2 x 63.1 cm. The model is Kathleen Nancy Woodward, who was to be Brockhurst’s lifelong model and second wife. Brockhurst nicknamed her Kathleen Dorette. The two had begun an affair when she was only 16. Their liaison led to a scandalous divorce of Bronckhurst from his first wife Anais Folin, much sensationalised in the press. In 1930’s Britain the term 'Jeunesse Dorée' was applied to wealthy and fashionable young people. By 1940, at the outbreak of WW-II, the two moved from London to the USA where they spent the rest of their lives supported by patrons.

Visit > Lady Lever Art Gallery, Liverpool.
More > Gerald Leslie Brockhurst at Wikipedia.
More > Gerald Leslie Brockhurst at Art UK.

William Scott. Black and White on Yellow, 1970 (private collection).


Oil on canvas: 61 x 61 cm. Auctioned at Christie’s London, November 2015.

Visit > William Scott official.
More > William Scott at Wikipedia.
More > William Scott at Art UK.