Modigliani's Wife at the Norton Simon

The Norton Simon museum in Pasadena, California has one of the many portraits Amadeo Modigliani made of his common-law wife Jeanne Hébuterne during the few years of their relationship before his death and her suicide.

A lengthy (for Wikipedia) biography of Modigliani (1884-1920) is here, and the entry for Jeanne Hébuterne (1898-1920) is here. A commentary on their relationship is here.

Below are images of Jeanne.

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A formal photographic portrait of Jeanne Hébuterne, perhaps taken before she met Modigliani.

Snapshot of Jeanne Hébuterne, who appears to be pregnant with either her daughter Jeanne or the child never born.

Portrait of Jeanne Hébuterne by Modigliani, 1918. Well, that's who Wikipedia says it is. But the woman shown here has brown eyes, and Jeanne's were blue or gray. Also, the shape of the bottom of the nose is wrong.

"Portrait of the Artist's Wife, Jeanne Hébuterne 1918" is the caption of this painting at the Norton Simon.

Here is the painting as seen by my camera.

Closeup photo: click on images to enlarge for a better view of brushwork.

An odd thing about Modigliani's art, at least as a Modernist, is that his female "portrait" subjects are nearly or entirely unrecognizable, and those of men not much better. This Telegraph article mentions that he would paint his subjects indirectly, combining visual memory and his feelings about them.

Emilian Lăzărescu, Romanian Painter

Emilian Lăzărescu (1878-1934) was a versatile painter who spent much of his career in his native Romania. The latter bit of information tells why he is essentially unknown to the art world at large. It's usually the case that artists from out-of-the-way countries are ignored unless they either move to an artistic center such as Paris, London or New York, or they spend considerable time in such places. For example, probably the most famous Romanian artist is the sculptor Constantin Brancusi (1876-1958), who spent more than 50 years of his life in Paris.

As for Lăzărescu (a contemporary of Brancusi), a casual Google search revealed little of use other than a brief Wikipedia entry in Romanian (you can have Google translate it).

Below are examples of his work. Most are undated, so I arranged them according to my best guess as to their chronological order. Some were made in Paris where he studied art. Others depict Great War scenes. Most deal with fashionable women and their activities.

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The Green Shawl - 1910

Pe cheiul Senei (Quay of the Seine)

Bal masque

Pudica (Bashful / Chaste)

Femeie culcată pe canapea

Ajunsi in prima linie de foc

Regruparea

Marasesti

Sarja de cavalerie (Cavalry Charge)

După bal (After the Ball)

The Green Scarf

Redhead

French Evening - 1932

Cochetărie (Coquetry)

Roger Broders' Earlier Posters

Roger Broders (1883-1953) was a French poster artist who created around 100 posters for the Paris-Lyon-Méditerranée (Compagnie des Chemins de fer de Paris à Lyon et à la Méditerranée) (PLM) railroad. His English language Wikipedia entry is here.

I wrote about his Art Deco / Moderne posters here. This post presents some of his work done before his late 1920s transformation to highly simplified illustrations.

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This is an example of Broders' mature work of the late 1920s and the 1930s.

Before railroad posters, Broders illustrated other subjects.

This is a totally contrived view of Avignon. He shows the famous pont, but it is a ways upstream from the Papal Palace that, in turn is actually behind a large wall if viewed from the river. Here, the wall might be in scale relative to the houses (assuming they are considerably in its foreground), but the actual palace is greatly enlarged by Broders for promotional effect.

A more realistic view of Florence. The image is simplified, as most 20th century posters have been, but not nearly so much as in the Moderne style one at the top. Another way to date Broders' posters is to examine his signature: Moderne versions are sans-serif style.

Menton lies just inside the French-Italian border.

Two non-Riviera destinations.  The images are not yet as stylized as in his later work.

John Spencer Stanhope: Little-Recognized Pre-Raphaelite

John Roddam Spencer-Stanhope (1829-1908) painted (in oil and tempera) scenes that were distinctly Pre-Raphaelite, though the Wikipedia entry just linked does not, as of 18 January 2017, include him in its lists of Pre-Raphaelites, associated artists, and "Loosely Associated Artists."

His Wikipedia entry is here. Art Renewal Center's take on his is here. Clearly, Spencer-Stanhope knew and was influenced by Pre-Raphaelites and their Victorian successors, particularly his friend Edward Burne-Jones. And the renewed interest in that aspect of art history has led to rising prices for his works.

Below are images of some of his paintings in chronological order by year.

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Thoughts of the Past - 1859
Although all the details differ, this reminds me of "Mariana," a 1850-51 painting by John Everett Millais.

Study for "Thoughts of the Past" - c. 1859

The Robins of Modern Times - 1860
Any allegorical or symbolic meaning in this painting was more clear to viewers in 1860 than it is to me in 2017.

Juliet and the Nurse - 1863
A Shakespearean subject.

The Wine Press - 1864
Lacking a 19th century elite British education, the reference of this painting also escapes poor me. However the Tate offers this discussion regarding it.

The gentle music of bygone days - 1873
The title is a line from the poem 'The Earthly Paradise' by William Morris.

Love and the Maiden - 1877

Eve Tempted - 1877
Very Burne-Jones- like. Spencer-Stanhope painted several close variations on this, but titles differed.

The Rescue - 1880

The Expulsion form Eden - c. 1900
Note the similar stylized appearance of the males in this image and the one immediately above.

Rinaldo Cuneo: Terence's California Artist Uncle

Rinaldo Cuneo (1877-1939) was part of a generation of artistic siblings who were born and grew up in San Francisco. His Wikipedia entry states that his paintings were quite popular and that he was dubbed "the Painter of San Francisco" (though it isn't clear who did the dubbing).

Rinaldo interests me because of his brother Cyrus, who I wrote about here. Cyrus made his comparatively brief career in England and, in turn, mostly interests me because he was the father of the well-known illustrator Terence Cuneo. One of my posts about Terence is here.

As for Rinaldo, his paintings tended to be solid-appearing, slightly simplified representations of landscape scenes (mostly) and urban setting (less so). Aside from a self-portrait, I didn't notice any significant images by him featuring people.

Furthermore, Rinaldo is not considered a California Impressionist. Well, none of the reference books in my library dealing with that school mention him at all. So far as I am concerned, his paintings are generally inferior to those of the best California Impressionists. Perhaps this is because the paintings shown below are mostly from the 1920s or 30s, a period when artists were trying to deal with the advent of Modernism, as I described in my ebook Art Adrift. The result was a lot of inferior artistic work for for painters who were influenced by that fad.

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Marin Dairy Farm

Lover's Point, Pacific Grove
Pacific Grove in on the Monterey Peninsula, just west of the city of Monterey.

Sierra Lake
Stylistically a cross between Edgar Payne and Paul Cézanne.

Storm Mountains - c. 1930

Owens Valley

San Francisco Seascape (Baker Beach) - 1928

The Embarcadero at Night - c. 1927-28
The Embarcadero is San Francisco's stretch of waterfront between Market Street and Fisherman's Wharf that was its center for docks and shipping in Rinaldo's day.

Earth Patterns - c. 1932

Friedrich von Kaulbach Paints Hanna Ralph

Friedrich August von Kaulbach (1850-1920), an important Munich artist in his day, occasionally painted several portraits of one subject. I previously wrote about his multiple portraits of opera singer Geraldine Farrar here. Some background on Kaulbach is here.

Besides Farrar, Kaulback devoted a fair amount of canvas and oil paint to Hanna Ralph (1888-1978) née Johanna Antonia Adelheid Günther, a stage and screen actress. Her Wikipedia entry is here.

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Photo of Hanna from 1918.

Kaulbach portrait probably painted around 1915-17.

This version from Seattle's Frye Museum includes the same hat and pose as in the previous painting.

Another portrait, this dated c. 1917.  Might have been made around the same time as the others: note the similarity of Hanna's hair styles.

Bernie Fuchs vs. Post Magazine's Fake Cars

I just got my copy of David Apatoff's long-awaited book about Bernie Fuchs, who many of us consider the greatest illustrator active in the waning days of large-circulation, general-interest magazines. Actually, Fuchs can be ranked as one of the very best American illustrators ever.

During his brief career-building phase (he rocketed to the top by the time he was in his late 20s) Fuchs spent a few years in Detroit working on advertisement and brochure illustrations for automobiles. He mostly did backgrounds and settings, leaving rendering of the car to a specialist. But Apatoff's book suggests that he might have illustrated cars from time to time: he definitely paid close attention to how that was done.

Because of that background, he wasn't afraid to include cars in some of his advertising and editorial assignments, and those cars were easy to identify. That is, he didn't invent his own designs for generic cars.

This is in contrast to the depiction of automobiles on covers of the Saturday Evening Post, the leading American general-interest magazine for most of the first two-thirds of the 20th century. I did a Google search for usable images of Post covers that included automobiles for inclusion in this blog post. I didn't turn up every Post cover from 1945 through 1959 (my target era). All covers can be found on the Post web site, but they are watermarked and therefore not usable here. What I found was that most car designs were totally made up by the illustrator. In a few cases, cars pictured were close to actuality, but partly hidden by other subject matter.

Why did this happen? The Saturday Evening Post was a favorite "ad buy" for advertising agencies with automotive clients. Every issue could be counted on having a number of car ads. So my guess is that the magazine's editors and art directors instructed illustrators to avoid portraying actual cars, this so that advertisers would not be offended. ("Hey, guys, we spend tons of money on Chevrolet ads and your latest cover featured a Ford!! Are you giving them a free plug or something? We just might switch more of our budget to Life and Collier's.")

If anyone knows for sure why the Post featured generic cars, please let us know in Comments.

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Fuchs story illustration showing a mid-1950s Volkswagen. Click on the Fuchs images to enlarge.

At the left is a 1960 DeSoto. Behind it, across the street, is a 1959 Plymouth. I'm not sure why Bernie was featuring Chrysler Corporation products here.

This Fuchs view of the Brooklyn baseball stadium in the late 1940s might have been painted in the mid-1970s, judging by the style. The blue car at the right is a 1946-48 vintage Chrysler. Note that Fuchs has a blurred image of a man screening part of the sharply-done car. Amazing how he combined the two styles without destroying the car's details. He must have painted the car first and very carefully added the man and his hat. The car behind the Chrysler is a 1946 Buick.

Here Fuchs fudged things slightly. The car is a 1957 Imperial (yet another Chrysler product).
But he didn't paint a small point on the chrome strip above the headlights, above which was a small crest. That is, he very thinly disguised the car.

Saturday Evening Post - 24 March 1945
This wartime illustration, when no American cars were being built, shows a 1941 Ford. A reference book of mine has a photo of what seems to be this car -- same police sign, same license plate.

Saturday Evening Post - 22 September 1951
This police car is a 1949 or 1950 Ford. However, clipping off the front and rear ends and placing the man in front of the car make it hard to identify for many people.

Saturday Evening Post - 8 September 1956
One last Post example of an identifiable car. It is a 1954 Mercury with some distinctive side trim abaft of the door missing. Placing all the camping stuff in front of the car also helps to disguise it. The image's watermark is because this is a slightly cleaned-up cover by a poster-selling firm.

Saturday Evening Post - 3 October 1953
Now we show what was typical for the Post. The front of the car is somewhat like a 1950 Cadillac, but the rest is nondescript.

Saturday Evening Post - 4 August 1956
These cars look vaguely like early '50s General Motors models, but they lack brand identification ornamentation.

Saturday Evening Post - 8 December 1956
The cars pictured in this cover are totally contrived (though the side trim on the red car is similar to some 1956 Ford's).

Saturday Evening Post - 15 November 1958
The wraparound windshield is similar to 1954-56 General Motors "C" body cars, but the rest of the car illustrated here is imaginary.

Saturday Evening Post - 21 May 1949
A totally imaginary design. However, in the background is what looks like a Jeep station wagon.

Saturday Evening Post - 1 August 1959
The cars in the foreground are imaginary, but farther away I notice shapes and trim that remind me of mid-50s production cars. But their images are so tiny and partial that it doesn't matter.

Saturday Evening Post - 5 January, 1952
I used this Coby Whitmore cover in another post. Whitmore was a total car guy and knew full well what different brands looked like. But had to come up with his own designs here.