Abbott Handerson Thayer's Angelic Paintings

Abbott Handerson Thayer (1849-1921) was a symbolist of sorts, being intensely religious in a strongly non-church way. He was highly opinionated regarding on a number of matters, and as he aged he had psychological difficulties. All this is far too much for me to detail here, so be sure to link here and here for plenty of information about him.

Thayer's paintings that I've viewed in person are roughly painted in most areas, but seen at a distance or in reproduction they work well. Moreover, thanks in part to his personal kind of symbolism, they are unique and, to me, they fascinate.

According to the second link above, Thayer added angel wings to a number of his paintings, but not to depict his subjects (often his daughters) as actual angels. Read the link for an explanation, but for shorthand reasons, the word "Angel" is used below for image captions, and is the title found on the Internet. Today's post features his angel-wing paintings.

Gallery


Angel - 1889


Winged Figure - 1889


An Angel - 1893


For Robert Louis Stevenson memorial - 1903


Winged Figure Seated upon a Rock - 1903
Almost the same as the previous painting.


Angel - 1903

The Angel - 1903
This seems to be either a study or an incomplete painting.

Study of an Angel
Or maybe an unfinished work.


Winged Figure - 1904

Hans Baluschek: Borderline Political

As his lengthy Wikipedia entry indicates, Hans Baluschek (1870-1935) was a man of the political left who made a career of painting and illustration until the National Socialists took power and terminated his livelihood.

Even though he had his motivations, the Baluschek images I viewed on the Internet were politically cautious, basically what is generally called "realism" or "genre" work. To put it another way, he seldom (or never, perhaps) made crude, in-your-face political cartoons-as-paintings in the manner of George Grosz or Otto Dix who were 20 years his junior and seem to have had no inhibitions in expressing rage and hate on canvas.

So to me Baluschek presents many interesting images of working class and lower-middle class life in Berlin from the late 1890s into the early 1930s, an era when Berlin was a very interesting place. Artistically, I'd place him in the amorphous neither good nor bad category, though he was a pretty good illustrator-reporter.

Gallery

Arbeiterstadt - Workers' City - 1920
A wintery scene showing S-Bahn tracks crossing over a rail yard.

Couple, graffiti - 1920s

Couple in restaurant hall - ca. 1910

Big City Street Corner - 1929

Sonntagslust - 1932
The title is a little hard to convey in English. "Sunday Delight" or "Sunday Pleasure" would reasonable translations, though few people depicted here seem to express those emotions. Perhaps that was the ironic point Baluschek was trying to make.

Bahnhofshalle - 1929
"Train shed" would be a somewhat literal, technical translation, though what we see here is a typical European train terminal, one in Berlin.

Städtlichter - City Lights - 1931
I can't identify the square shown here. But that probably doesn't matter much because the buildings were probabaly destroyed during World War 2.

Städtlischer Arbeitsnachweis für Angestellte - 1931
A drawing showing people entering and leaving an employment registration facility.

Arthur Bowen Davies: Inconsistent Modernist

This post about Arthur Bowen Davies (1862-1928) is rather brief because I couldn't find many useful examples of his work on the Internet.

It seems that Davies, obscure today, was well-known and made a good living as an artist. Plus, it seems he had an interesting life, having one legal wife along with another, secret, de facto one, both with his children. This and his artistic career are well-covered here, here and here.

From what I've seen, I'd rate Davies as a Symbolist -- his painting owned by New York's Met featuring unicorns, and many other works dealing with dancers. Especially during the 20th century's 'teen years, he plunged into modernist styles, though not deeply or completely. Apparently this cut down his sales, so he shifted back to more clearly representational paintings in the 1920s.

For what my opinion might be worth, I saw no Davies painting that struck my fancy.

Gallery

Unicorns (Legend - Sea Calm) - 1906

Air, Light, and Wave - ca. 1914-17

Figures in a Landscape

The Dancers
This is in the Phillips Collection for some reason.

The Dawning - 1915

Dancers
I think this is a Davies, but the Web information on it is sketchy.

Italian Hill Town - Ca. 1925
Here he is back to representational painting.

Heliodora - 1926

Edward Cucuel's Lounging Women in White

Edward Cucuel (1875-1954) was born and died in California. But his parents were German, and he spent much of his career there following training in Paris and flitting back and forth to the States. He left Germany for good when World War 2 started. These and other details of his life can be found here and here.

The second source mentions that Cucuel, who mostly portrayed attractive young women, used family members and friends rather than professional models. To judge from his body of work (just Google on his name and then go to Images), his friends must have been dear and the family members very obliging. That's because he did painting after painting showing a pretty woman in white dress, lounging around so that plenty of leg above her white hose was showing and, by the way, part of the top had fallen away to expose a small breast. I show only one of the latter below, the rest indicating other subjects he painted.

Gallery

Picking Flowers
Some of his ladies were fully dressed and not wearing white.

Mädchen in einem Interieur
Although the title I found for this is in German, it was probably painted around 1950 when Cucuel lived in Pasadena.

Picnic on the Starnberger See
This painting seems a bit more hard-edge than some of the others, but that might be due simply to size.

Die Badenixen

Wood Nymph
Flatter than most his his paintings. If the tree trunk were less modeled, that would be an improvement to what already is an interesting work.

Young woman on dock
The perspective of the sailboat is highly distorted -- for no good reason, in my opinion.

Young woman reading in garden

Young woman sleeping, parasol
Were I female and dressed like that, I'm not sure I'd want to flop on the grass.

Young woman sleeping on a sofa
One of many of this general theme.

JJ Shannon's Portrait Art

James Jebusa Shannon (1862-1923) was born in New York State, the child of Irish immigrants. The family moved to Canada a few years later, and when Shannon's artistic abilities became obvious he was sent to London for training at South Kensington.  Thereafter, he worked mostly in England, became a member of the Royal Academy and was knighted at some point along the way. Biographical and other information can be found here, here and here.

There were many very good portrait painters in England during Shannon's time, John Singer Sargent being the best known. Perhaps for that reason Shannon does not easily come to mind. I think that is unfortunate because he made attractive likenesses using a nice painterly touch. Take a look:

Gallery

Ruby Miller

Estelle - 1886

Lady Violet, Duchess of Rutland - c.1890

Lady Violet, Duchess of Rutland

Violet Lindsay, Duchess of Rutland - 1918
Three portraits of the Duchess of Rutland, painted at various times.

Mary, Princess Royal - 1914
Mary was the only daughter of King George V.

Marjory Manners, later Marchioness of Anglesey

The Sevres Vase

Mary Gascoigne-Cecil when Marchioness of Hartington - c.1917-18

Blessed Are They (unfinished)

Oswald Birley, 20th Century Painter of Royals and Society

Sir Oswald Hornby Joseph Birley (1880-1952) is yet another of the surprising number of British portrait artists I've written about who managed to thrive in the 20th century when photography began to dominate even the portraiture of wealthy or titled people.

It probably helped that Birley's background included Harrow (where Churchill attended) and Trinity College, Cambridge, so he was socially acceptable to potential clients. His art training included some time spent at the Académie Julian in Paris.

A brief biographical note is here, and another one is here. Perhaps even more interesting than Birley are some of his descendants. For a dab of dirt on that subject, click here.

Although he was no John Singer Sargent or Philip de Laszlo, he was a competent portrait artist who delivered the anticipated goods to rich, famous, or royal clientelle. As you might notice regarding the images below, Birley usually portrayed his subjects from the knees or waist up, and left plenty of largely empty space around their heads.

Gallery

The Spanish Plume - 1912
A fairly early example of Birley's work.

Miss Muriel Gore in a Fortuny Dress - 1919

Portrait of a lady - 1923

Barbara Hutton - 1925
Painted when she was a teenager. For more on the life of this Woolworth heiress, click here.

George V - 1928

Ernest Rutherford - 1932
The scientist shown with some laboratory equipment.

Dancer in the Coq d'or Ballet - 1938

Miss Winifred Mercier, Principal of Whitelands College - 1938
This seems to be a posthumous portrait, as Mercier died in 1934. I include it because it shows Birley's skill at depicting human skin, not an easy matter.

George VI - 1939

Winston Churchill - 1946

Viscount Montgomery of Alamein - 1948

Princess Elizabeth - 1950

Dwight Eisenhower - 1951
When Ike was in command of NATO. One of Birley's last paintings.