Leopold Seyffert: A Once-Prominent Portrait Painter

Leopold Gould Seyffert (1887-1956) painted portraits of many famous Americans during the first half of the last century, but whatever fame he had during his lifetime has largely faded. For once, Wikipedia has an extensive biographical entry on a not-well-known artist, and it attests to his professional success.

As best I can tell, I've never seen a Seyffert painting. Or if I have, it didn't register in my memory. So I cannot offer a firm opinion regarding his merit as a painter. His works seen on the Internet strike me as being entirely competently done. What might be missing is a sense of flair or personal style such as can be found in works of portrait painters such as John Singer Sargent, William Orpen, Philip de Laszlo and Giovanni Boldini, among a number of others.

Here are examples of Seyffert's portrait work. His paintings of nudes can be found elsewhere on the Internet.

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Leopold Stokowski - c.1912
This portrait was Seyffert's career breakthrough work. It no longer exists, having been "lost at sea" according to a Stokowski Web site.

Samuel Insull
Insull was a famous and controversial business figure.

Samuel Henry Kress
Kress founded a five and ten cent store company, became rich, and purchased art that later was donated to a number of smaller art museums around the USA.

Henry Suzzalo
Suzzallo was president of the University of Washington and famously got fired.

My Family

Katherine Abbott Bigelow

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

In My Studio - 1931

Elizabeth Arden
This portrait was finished because it is signed. But it is sketchier than all the others shown here. Perhaps for that reason, I'm inclined to like it best.

Up Close: Boldini's Casati with Peacock Feathers

I was in Rome recently and made sure to revisit the Galleria Nazionale d'Arte Moderna (Web site here). It's on the grounds of the Villa Borghese, which puts it slightly off the usual tourist track. Nevertheless, it's worth a visit for those interested in 19th and early 20th century Italian painting.

One of the Galleria's noteworthy items is a portrait of the colorful Marchesa Luisa Casati (1881-1957) who inherited great wealth and spent it away by the 1930s. She was portrayed by many artists, including Giovanni Boldini (1842-1931) who depicted her at least twice.

One of these portraits can be seen in the Galleria, as the images below attest.

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La marchesa Luisa Casati con penne di pavone - 1911-13
This is a public domain image of the painting from the Internet.

And this is what my camera captured in the gallery. Outside light was coming from the left, which affects what you see here and below compared to the Internet-sourced image at the top. This supposed defect is actually beneficial, because it captures Boldini's impasto and other brushwork better.

A closer view of the subject.  A bit of the frame was included to allow the camera to get a better focus (many paintings lack crisp edges, and can confuse a camera).

An even tighter shot featuring La Casati's face. Click on images to enlarge.

Up Close: Morelli's Temptation of St. Anthony

A couple of years ago I committed an error in this post when I inserted a photo version of Domenico Morelli's "Temptation of St. Anthony" instead of an image of the actual painting. Now I wish to atone for my sin by posting some photos of the painting that I recently took at Rome's Galleria Nazionale d'Arte Moderna (Web site here).

As his Wikipedia entry) indicates, Morelli (1823-1901) spent most of his career in his native Naples, concentrating on religious subjects. Le Tentazioni di Sant'Antonio (1878) is one of the best known of these. He also painted portraits. As a bonus, I include photos of his Teresa Maglione Oneto (1879) which was also on display at the Arte Moderna. Click on the images to enlarge.

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"Establishment shot" of Temptation.

Ritratto di Teresa Maglione Oneto in its setting.

Anders Zorn Watercolor Paintings

I already wrote about Anders Zorn (1860-1920) twice (here and here). But there's seldom enough of a good thing, so I'm posting once more on the Swedish master (Wikipedia entry here and a site with many of his works here).

This time, I focus on his watercolors. Even though I took a watercolor class in art school, I maintain a phobia regarding that medium. Not for decently done watercolor paintings, mind you, but for actually having to paint one of the things. There is little else in art that I find so terrifying.

As it happened, Zorn began his career as a watercolorist, and naturally was excellent at it. Viewing some of his watercolors -- especially in reproduction -- they often look more like oil paintings. Perhaps one reason for this is that he sometimes painted thickly (not using much water) or perhaps did some areas in gouache, a different water-based paint. Other works were entirely in gouache, which handles more like oil paint than ordinary watercolors.

Below are examples of Zorn's water-based work.

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Castles in the Air - 1885

Kaijroddare - 1886

The Thorn Bush - 1886

Man and Boy in Algiers - 1887

Vogskvalp (Lapping Waves) - 1887

Reveil, boulevard Clichy - 1892

Peregrine Heathcote's 1930s Pseudo-Nostalgia

I'm puzzling over how to classify the art of Peregrine Heathcote (1973 - ). On the one hand, he makes part of his living painting portraits, but few of these turn up in Google Images searches. What one does find in proliferation are images of paintings with 1930s settings populated by people dressed fairly recent attire. I deal with the latter in this post.

For some reason, there is little biographical information regarding Heathcote on the Web. Sources with sketchy information are here and here. One site I stumbled across hinted in passing that he attended Harrow, and a partly blocked Times of London piece dealt with Heathcote's renovation of his house in the tony Chelsea (in London) neighborhood. So I must assume that he is doing fine financially, unlike many artists.

Heathcote has a Web site that's worth viewing. This page and subsequent pages feature his paintings, the titles of which are cryptic and that I ignore in the presentation below.

Are his paintings Dieselpunk? Maybe, according to this post on a Dieselpunk site. I'm inclined to think not. That's because most Dieselpunk art alters actual 1920s and 30s objects as if they were in a parallel universe. Heathcote instead takes objects as they were and does his time-warping by the inclusion of non-period (in terms of dress) people.

Like Retro artist Robert LaDuke (see my post here), Heathcote recycles themes, settings and objects. See the images below for examples.

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The top painting includes an American 1935 Auburn 851 and a British De Havilland 89 Rapide, the lower one features a De Havilland 86 Express.

The aircraft is a German Junkers G.38.

I'm not sure which tri-motor airliner is included here, though it's most likely a Ford.

Three walking the dock scenes. The flying boat in the middle image is a Short S-23, the one immediately above is a Boeing 314.

Deco train travel. The license plate on the race car in the upper image includes Heathcote's initials.

In case you haven't noticed, Heathcote includes 1930s luggage in many of his paintings. Here the traveler faces an ocean liner.

Phone-call images with New York City at dusk out the window.

For some reason, the sports car in this painting is post-World War 2 and not from the 1930s.

Booking a journey.

These paintings seem to be a take-off on Jack Vettriano, but lack the tension and sense of potential menace often present in his work.

I've never seen a Heathcote painting in person, though I'll be on the lookout when I'm near a gallery that carries his work. This means I must evaluate on the basis of images such as those displayed above.

Despite what I noted in the various comments above, I rather like his painting. Yes, it's more hard-edge than I usually prefer, but the point is to portray 1930s stuff clearly, unambiguously. The people in his paintings are pretty repetitious in terms of pose and costume details, but that's something one notices on a Google Images spread or assembled on a blog page. In isolation, a Heathcote might be quite interesting, especially if juxtaposed to different kinds of paintings or else perhaps placed near a group of Art Deco objects.

I'm not prepared to claim Heathcote's work great any more than I am Vettriano's, though I find both strangely appealing due to their subject matter. In Heathcote's case, I pretty sure it's because I'm a sucker for the elegant aspect of the 1930s, wisps of which persisted into my childhood years.

Up Close: Boldini's Giuseppe Verdi

Fans of late nineteenth century painting who are planning a trip that includes Rome should try to find time to visit the Galleria nazionale d'arte moderna. It's on the grounds of the Villa Borghese, a park located a short ways northeast of the Spanish Steps area, which puts it slightly away from the main Rome tourist track. Also on the grounds is the more famous Galleria Borghese, which contains masterpiece paintings and -- especially -- sculptures by the likes of Bernini and Canova. The two museums are not close to one another, but the walk between them is not too far for most people. Once visited, the Moderna is a fairly short walk from the Piazza del Popolo that, in turn, leads to streets where Rome's fanciest shops are found.

One of the best-known works in the Arte Moderna is the 1888 pastel portrait of Giuseppe Verdi (1813-1901) by Giovanni Boldini (1841-1931). Below are two photos I took of it on my last visit.

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Ritratto di Giuseppe Verdi - 1888
This is an image found on the Internet.

This is my photo showing the portrait and its frame.

A close-in photo I took. Click on the image to enlarge.

Félix Mas: Stylized Women in Decorative Settings

What was there about Spain in, say, the 1950s? The water? The Rioja? Anyway, the country produced some really talented comics artists who were trained around that time. One example is Félix Mas (1935 - ) who was active in that field as well as illustration before moving on to painting in oils. His brief Wikipedia entry is here, and a link dealing with his comics work is here.

All of his painting images that I could find on the Internet featured slender, beautiful young women. Clothing and settings were usually stylized and decorative. After a little thought, I decided that Mas was inspired by Gustav Klimt, in that decorative patterns or other elements such as peacock feathers form part of the background or setting. The decorative elements are not as extreme as Klimt's. And as noted below, often the women are wearing kimonos, and those kimonos feature floral and other patterns.

I keep repeating the word decorative, because that's what Mas' paintings essentially are. Viewers who prefer to find a story, psychological tension, or other dramatic content might be disappointed by Mas.

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Panel from Vampirella #16, April, 1972. This shows Mas' style as a comics artist.

Now for some of his oil paintings...

These two paintings feature vaguely 1900-style hair and high collar.

Mas has women dressed in kimonos in many of his paintings. I don't recall having seen a strapless kimono, however.