Barry Rowe Automobile Paintings

Barry Rowe is a prominent automobile artist.  That is, he's an artist whose main subject matter is automobiles portrayed in plausible settings.

Which is not as easy as it might seem.  In the first place, it helps greatly if the cars are depicted accurately.  Otherwise, knowledgeable potential painting buyers might not be willing to buy.  From an artistic standpoint, there is the matter of backgrounds or settings for the featured car or cars.  An easy solution would be to paint a simple, generic sort of background -- perhaps a golf course or ocean coast -- and focus effort on the subject.  But that would seldom result in an aesthetically satisfying painting.

Rowe, a largely self-taught British artist, places a great deal of effort on the settings as well as the subject cars.  How well this works is discussed in the captions below.

As for Rowe's background, this is worth reading as well as this interview.  In that interview, Rowe states:

"I take stacks of photos of old cars and lighting etc. It could be the background that starts me off or it could be the car and then I find a background. The lighting is never dead right. You have the light coming at an angle on the car and other lighting coming from the background. You have to get it altogether properly, otherwise it's not believable. I like old pictures of nice dresses and something romantic in a way that isn't there now."

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Cover of the 2009 Pebble Beach Concours d'Élégance publication.  The cars -- a Duesenberg in the foreground and a Bugatti and Bentley behind -- are realistically depicted, as is the background.  However, the people are painted in a flat, fashion illustration manner greatly contrasting with the rest of the painting.  Rowe seems to do this often with people, though I'm not sure of his intent.  But in the interview linked above he mentioned that much of his commercial art was done in an Art Deco style, so perhaps those flat depictions are a carryover from that.  For some reason.

Some of Rowe's paintings divorce the car from its setting more than it should be, as is often seen in lesser artists' works.  Perhaps a client might ask for this effect.

Here the Art Deco, fashion illustration style donates the image.  That's a French Delahaye lurking in the background.

Detail of a larger painting featuring a Bugatti.  This part of the image comes closer to Deco illustration -- even the body panels of the car reflect the type of painting of the restaurant in the background.

Here the Art Deco girl seems almost pasted on the rest of the image.  Moreover, she's a little too small compared to the car.  Odd.

A more stylistically integrated work is this view of famed Italian driver Tazio Nuvolare in an Alfa Romeo at the 1932 Targa Florio race in Sicily.

A little more poster-like is this painting of Bernd Rosemeyer driving an Auto Union racer, probably at Nurburgring.

A Le Mans race around 1930 with an Alfa Romeo in the lead.  Here the people are better integrated than in some of the images above.

The Bugatti pits at a Monaco Grand Prix.  No Art Deco humans here.

Another Bugatti race pits scene, though the 35B Bugatti driven by "W Williams" is painted British Racing Green, not French blue.  He won the 1929 Monaco Grand Prix race.

A later Monaco Grand Prix: Here is Enzo Ferarri's Alfa Romeo team preparing for the start.

Finally a photo of a painting of Louis Chiron at the 1948 Monaco Grand Prix.  The lighting at the left helps offer some information about Rowe's technique.  Click on the image to enlarge somewhat.

Georgia O'Keeffe's New York Buildings Paintings

Georgia O'Keeffe (1887-1986) is probably best remembered for her nature-related paintings made in New Mexico.  But earlier in her long career she lived in New York City and made a few paintings of new skyscraper buildings.  Biographical information is here.

O'Keeffe was a modernist who stressed simplification of subject matter and design of the image.  Not "painterly," more craftsmanlike in style.  Also painted abstractions in a similar vein.

Below are three of those paintings along with photographs.

Gallery

Shelton Hotel New York No. 2 - 1926
She and Alfred Stieglitz lived in a 30th floor apartment here in 1925.

Shelton Hotel 1924, by Andrew Harmon.  A fairly early example of set-back massing in conformity with recent city zoning laws.

Radiator Building at Night - 1927
Her most famous New York City painting.

American Radiator Building 1924, by John Howells and Raymond Hood.  This is also a night view from across Bryant Park.

Manhattan - 1932
A Cubist feeling here.  Buildings are splashed across the canvas in a kind of montage.  Three flowers are added for some reason.

RCA Building1933, by Raymond Hood.  This was nearing completion when the previous image was painted, so it's possible that O'Keeffe used it as inspiration for the main building in the painting.

More Edwin Blashfield Paintings

Edwin Howland Blashfield (1848-1936) was an important American muralist in the decades around the turn of the 20th century.   His Wikupedia entry is here.

I wrote about him here, noting:

"Although his time [studying art] in France coincided with the rise of French Impressionism, his style remained traditional, but not strictly Academic. This worked well for him as a muralist, because American government-funded murals in the decades around 1900 tended to have uplifting themes often manifested by symbolic characters."

Generally speaking, in Blashfield's time a mural required a great deal of preparation.  Subject matter related to the mural's theme had to be decided by the artist and probably also the mural's sponsoring organization.  Then its composition needed to be worked out.  Ditto its color scheme.  Studies of its elements were drawn or painted.  All this preparation could easily result in a stiff looking result, no matter how skilled the artist.

Good though Blashfield was, I rate his murals less interesting than those of, say, Frank Brangwyn.  And his depiction of classical era figures in his paintings not as skilled as Lawrence Alma-Tadema's.  But few measured up to those standards.

Not all the images of paintings and murals below are signed, so I have to grit my teeth and hope the sources of images below found on the Internet correctly cited Blashfield as the artist.

Gallery

Christmas Chimes

Greek Temple Maiden

Lovers in the Secret Garden

Power of the Law - 1899

The Graduate (detail)

Under the Temple Eaves

Westward - mural in the Iowa capitol building - 1905
Click on the image to greatly enlarge.  Two detail images follow.

Bob Peak's Movie Posters -- Some Context

I recently wrote about some of Bob Peak's poster art, and need to expand on the subject.  A regular reader pointed out in a comment that movie posters are large, so some of my quibbles regarding small, subsidiary images as seen on a computer screen (or, Heaven help, a smart phone) are not based on a fair way to judge.

That is correct.  And I then began to think about the nature of movie posters, something I hadn't done before, given that I am only a tepid film fan.

Most mainline movies feature actors and actresses who are known to significant numbers of the potential audience.  They are called "stars."  Therefore, to entice viewers of a new film, publicity often (usually?) features those stars.

So it is with movie posters.  In Peak's day and for three or more decades before, movie posters prominently displayed illustrations featuring the film's leading cast.  That was an important factor in the design, though not absolutely essential.  Once a theme regarding emphasis was established, the illustrator (along with the studio's marketing and publicity people) might add other visual details and certainly consider alternative poster layouts.

Below is an early Peak poster preceded by some posters for important movies in the years before in order to provide a little context for Peak's achievement.  I do not identify the illustrators of those other posters because I didn't bother to research so thoroughly.  Also bear in mind that a successful film would likely be given a number of alternative poster designs and themes, so the ones shown here are not necessarily the original or definitive versions.  But they are suggestive of the genre of the 1950s and early 1960s.

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Singin' in the Rain - 1952
Kelly was the big star, O'Connor was known as a supporting actor and Reynolds was new.  Apparently more was thought needed than only Gene Kelly's face, so all three were featured.  That said, this poster didn't give much of a clue as to what the movies was about.  Perhaps that it was an MGM musical was all the publicity folks needed.

The King and I - 1956
Posters often came in different formats for the same film.  This is an extreme vertical example that used elements found in more conventionally shaped alternatives.

Cat on a Hot Tin Roof - 1958
The famous Elizabeth Taylor is featured to the visual exclusion of others.

Gigi - 1958
This design is more "arty" than most for those days.

North by Northwest - 1959
Probably not the original design, but this does show how a major star could be featured.  A dramatic element in the film is included.

Ben-Hur - 1959
This was not the first Ben-Hur film, as it and another were based on a well-known book.  Perhaps for that reason, stars were not featured in the illustration -- only the famous chariot race in the main image.

Lawrence of Arabia - 1962
Several important actors were in this film, and they are in the small images.  As with Ben-Hur, the name "Lawrence of Arabia" was known to the general public and therefore featured.

Cleopatra - 1963
Three famous stars, so all get the same visual billing.

My Fair Lady - 1964 (French poster)
Peak was an excellent, style-setting illustrator at this time.  But he too followed (had to?) the convention os featuring the main stars while including visual bits from the film.

My Fair Lady - 1964 (art)
Peak's art that was used in various ways to publicize the movie.

Leopold Seyffert's Women

Leopold Gould Seyffert (1887-1956) -- Wikipedia entry here -- earned his keep by painting portraits.   Some of these are shown in my previous post about him.

Many of those portraits were  of important men.  But he also painted women, some were commissioned work and others were for himself or for sale as something nice to hang on a wall.

A number of the latter two categories featured his longtime red-haired model Grace "Bobbi" Vernon (née Grace Heinzerling) who also modeled for Arthur Carles and eventually became Seyffer's second wife.  She and other woman are featured in the images below.  Warning: a few images might be in the unsafe-for-work viewing zone.

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Photo of Seyffert painting Helen Wills Moody

Helen Wills Moody - c. 1933
Another portrait of Moody -- it was used as cover art for the Saturday Evening Post magazine.

Duane Van Vechten - 1924

Helen Pleckner Hackett

Joan Monroe Armour Wendell - 1941

Katherine Abbott Bigelow - 1932

Elizabeth Arden

The Emerald Gown - Helen Adele Fleck, the artist's first wife

The Blue-Green Hat - 1920
Now for three views of Bobbi.

Model in Flowered Kimono - 1923
Despite the dates shown -- from Web sources -- this and the painting above might have been made around the same time, given the similarity of poses.

The Lacquer Screen - 1917 - Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts collection
This won the Temple Gold Medal at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts in 1918.

Some Bob Peak Movie Poster Art

Robert M. (Bob) Peak (1927-1992), along with Bernie Fuchs, was a major creative force in American illustration beginning in the late 1950s.  His Wikipedia entrey is here.

I recently wrote about his non- movie poster work here.  That post included a quotation from illustration maven David Apatoff, who thought Peak's movie work became somewhat stale over time.  I tend to agree, though his poster art is often striking and usually very well made.

Note that movie poster art can be a difficult job for an illustrator because of the collaborative nature of movie production and marketing.  Many hoops for an artist to jump through, many people to please.  I suppose Peak encountered a bit less of this once he had firmly gained credibility.  Even so, the content of his posters was probably influenced to some degree by Hollywood marketing folks.  Therefore some slack should be cut regarding his poster art.

Below is a sampling of that work in no particular order.

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Camelot
Too elaborate for my taste -- Why were so many minor images needed?

Apocalypse Now
Striking.

Thoroughly Modern Millie
Closer to Peak's regular illustration style.

Modesty Blaise
An example of cookie-cutter cliché poster design.

My Fair Lady
More interesting, but again many sub-images.  At least they are very small.

Rollerball
Later on, Peak began incorporating airbrush.

The Missouri Breaks
The upper part of this (possible concept) illustration appeared in posters.

The Yellow Rolls-Royce
Interesting design incorporating montage elements.