John Christen Johansen, Early 1900s American Portrait Artist

John Christen Johansen (1876-1964), brief Wikipedia entry here, was a successful American portrait artist during the early decades of the 20th century.  However, he is not well known today.

I need to mention that as of mid-July when this post was drafted, his Wikipedia entry was flawed.  A short, better biographical sketch is here.

It seems that Johansen originally painted landscapes before focusing on portraits of men -- probably a more lucrative artistic pursuit.  Most of the examples I found on the Web were works related to his commission to portray the 1919 Versailles conference that concluded the Great War.  These portraits tended to be competently made, though their colors were rather drab.

Gallery

  

Woodrow Wilson study (cropped) - c. 1919
This was used as cover art for a recent biography of Wilson.  I like the way Johansen blocked in Wilson's head and facial structure.

Daniel Chester French - 1925
He painted several portraits of his Stockbridge, Massachusetts summertime neighbor who is best known for sculpting the seated Lincoln in the Washington DC Lincoln Memorial.

Signing of the Treaty of Versailles - 1919
What he was sent to France to portray.

Georges Clemenceau - 1919
French wartime Prime minister.

Marechal Joseph Joffre - 1919
Joffre, now a Marshal of France, led French armies during the first years of the Great War.  His most important accomplishment was realizing that his prewar Plan XVII was a failure, then repositioning his forces to defeat the German armies in the Battle of the Marne in early September 1914.

General Joseph Joffre by Henri Jacquier - 1915
Similar pose to Johansen's, though details differ.  I have no idea if there was any connection between these two works.

Generale Amade Diaz - 1919
Diaz assumed command of Italy's army after failures by his predecessor and was successful against German and Austro-Hungarian forces.

Henry Clay Frick - n.d., presented to the Frick Collection in 1943
Probably painted circa 1910.

Interiors - 1925
Like the Versailles scene above, Johansen often liked his subjects low, below tall windows.  Note the brighter coloring than the portraits above.

Elizabeth, Queen of the Belgians by M. Jean McLane - 1921
M. Jean McLane (1878-1964), Wikipedia entry here, was Johansen's wife and also a portrait artist.

Alexey Lipatov's Dieselpunk Illustrations

Airship Persephone
Alexey Lipatov is a Ukrainian illustrator from (or in) Dnieper (Dnipro).  I can't be more precise or add any further information about him because I could find none during a casual Web search.

Lipatov's illustration style is competent, but not particularly distinctive.  He is versatile in subject matter, though most of his production that I came across was in the Fantasy and Dieselpunk subject categories.

Featured here are some Dieselpunk examples.  That's because I have a mild, unexplainable interest in Dieselpunk and Steampunk.  Lipatov's illustrations are light, good-humored.  You might fancy them too.  Titles are either mine or what I saw on the Web.  Click on the images to enlarge somewhat.

Gallery

Girl Mechanic
Perhaps a spoof on Soviet-era propaganda posters.

Seaplane and Girl
Sort of a mid-1930s airplane with a Daffy Duck emblem.

Full Moon
Note the two machine guns on the floatplane's nose.

Bomber
Inspired by some early-1930s Soviet, German and French aircraft.

Arrival in Utopia
A touch of Film Noir.  What might the lady be carrying in that violin case?

Hovercraft Photo Shoot
Lipatov made several drawings featuring fantasy hovercraft.

Plane and Pilot
A late-1930s kind of aircraft, though the motors are too small to give it sprightly performance.

Wilkommen
That appears to be an actual Dornier Do X seaplane in the background -- not a Lipatov invention..

Albert Henry Collings, British Portrait Artist

Albert Henry Collings (1868-1947) is yet another British portrait artist appearing in this blog.  Given that I've written around 1,400 posts, I'm not willing to go back through them and make a count -- but I've posted about plenty of them.  Even in the age of photography, they somehow eked out a living despite all the competition.

There isn't much Internet biographical information on Collings, so his Wikipedia entry will have to do for now.

Collings' subjects seem to have been mostly women.  He painted non-portrait work, but the interesting examples I found are not quite safe for viewing in an office setting.  These can probably be found via an Internet search engine.

Gallery

Victoria ('Via') Florence de Burgh Long, Lady Gibbs - 1908
This is the earliest painting I can document: he was about 40 at the time.

Blue and Gold Dress

Buccaneer

Kimono and Kylin - 1917
Women posing wearing kimonos was an artistic fashion in those days.

Miss Melhursh

Portrait of a Lady
Striking lady strikingly painted.

Yasmin
She modeled for Collings more than once.  I think she is the woman in the previous image and perhaps in "The Blue and Gold Dress" above..

Woman with hat and veil
Might be a Great War widow,

King George VI in Coronation Robes
A number of artists made similar paintings.  I'm not sure if His Majesty posed for Collings or if photographs were used.  The king's height seems slightly exaggerated.

The Studio Mirror - 1929
Based on what Google image searches turned up, this might be Collings' best-known work.  The model might be Yasmin.

Gustave Doré, Painter

Paul Gustave Louis Christophe Doré (1832-1883) is best known for engraved illustrations of the Bible, Paradise Lost and other works.  He also painted and sculpted -- some paintings are featured in this post.

His fairly brief English Wikipedia entry is here, and more information about him can be found in his French Wikipedia entry here.

As best I can tell from these and a few other Internet sources, Doré had little or no formal art training, though he was the friend of artists who might have given him tips now and then.

The images of his paintings below are arranged chronologically.

Gallery

Dante et Virgile dans le neuvième cercle de l'Enfer - 1861
Ninth Circle of Hell, an impressive painting similar to his illustration work.

The Fall of the Rebel Angels - 1866
Again illustration-like, but not as good as the previous painting.

La Siesta, Memory of Spain - c.1868
Being a skilled draftsman, that carried over into this oil painting.

Le Christ quittant le prétoire - Christ Leaving the Praetorium - c.1870
Doré might have lacked academic training, but he painted scenes that academicians would have.

Sister of Charity Saving a Child, Episode in the Siege of Paris - 1870-71
Doré was trapped in Paris during the Franco-Prussian War siege and was a member of la garde nationale during the time of the Commune.

Scottish Highlands - 1875
He had business interests in Britain and traveled there, hence this and other landscape paintings.

The Ascension - 1879
Another religious painting.

La Vallée de larmes - The Valley of Tears - 1883
Perhaps Doré's last painting.