Portrait Drawings by Ramon Casas

Ramon Casas (1866-1932), Wikipedia entry here, was a leading Barcelona painter and illustrator.   Better at drawing than Picasso, in my opinion. 

Today's post features some portrait drawings made by Casas.  They are not dated, but might have been made in the early 1900s.  Note how he captures personalities.

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Gonzalo Bilbao

Jaume Brossa

Joaquim Malats

Joaquim Salvatella
Note the touches of white paint on most of these images.

Josep Clara
The focus is on the face, the rest becomes sketchy.

Pablo Picasso
Probably in his early 20s.  Casas adds some background here, unlike the other drawings.  It suggests Paris' Montmartre more than Barcelona.  The artists spent time in both cites in the early 1900s.

Self-portrait - 1908

Júlia Peraire
She was Casas' model, mistress and (later) wife.

A sketch, perhaps as preliminary study for a poster.

This might also be Júlia.

Some Palma de Mallorca Architecture

Palma is the main city on Mallorca -- Wikipedia entry here.  The above image is of its cathedral.

Mallorca is a popular vacation destination for Europeans, and the city's prosperity reflects that popularity.  Below are some photos featuring architecture that I took when I visited in early November 2021.

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Bay windows on a shopping street.

Looking up.

Some ornamentation.

More bay windows.

Now for some Antoni Gaudi- like Art Nouveau exterior trim.

Detail view.

Street level.

Corner bay windows.

A fancy set of doors.

Interestingly decorated corner.  Again, harking to 1900 Barcelona.

Passeig des Born - a major Palma street.

Portraits by Bernard Boutet de Monvel

Bernard Boutet de Monvel (1881-1949), Wikipedia entry here, was a highly successful portrait painter and fashion illustrator whose mature style was precise, spare, somewhat geometrical (for illustrations) in works that were carefully composed.  I find his drawings more interesting than his paintings, though most of his works are very good examples of Art Deco / Moderne style.

Below is some of his portraiture.

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Self Portrait at the Place Vendôme
Boutet de Monvel himself was a member of French and American high society.

Elizabeth Fuller (Bobsy) Goodspeed under her portrait by BdM - 1934
A member of Chicago society.

Portrait of Elizabeth Goodspeed - c.1933
Moderne, almost Japanese.

Portrait study drawing
Showing his careful, precise workmanship at this stage of the process.

Finished portrait, sitter unidentified (by me)

Bobby Jones, golf champion

George-Marie Haardt devant son autochenille "Le scarabée d'or" - c.1925
He was a Citroën executive.  An autochinelle is a half-track.  Citroën sponsored treks in Africa and Asia to publicize their vehicles.

Portrait de S.A.R le Prince Sixte de Bourbon Parme - 1934 or before
Having a complicated multi-national family background, he served in the Belgian army during the Great War, hence the portrait setting.

Duc de Brissac
Another portrait of a man seen from a low angle.

Duchess de Brissac en robe du soir - 1945
She is wearing an evening robe.

Mme. Pierre Champin
Similar costume to the unidentified subject's above.  (Or might that have been another portrait of Mme Champin?  Hairdos and facial expressions differ, but that's not conclusive evidence.)  This was probably painted around 1948, to judge by her hair.

Millicent H. Rogers in Charles James gown - 1949
Painted the year he died in an Air France Constellation crash.  Also killed was former world welterweight boxing champion Marcel Cerdan.

Bernard, his wife Delfina and daughter Sylvie

More Jean-Gabriel Domergue

Back in 2012 I wrote about Jean Gabriel Domergue (1889-1962, French Wikipedia entry here).

I mentioned that some of his early illustrations and paintings were interesting, but the pin-up style he eventually developed was not: mostly stereotyped and repetitious.

That said, it's time to present more of his earlier works.

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À l'ombre d'une jeune fille en fleur - 1922

Mme Spinelli - c.1922

Perfume advertisement illustration - 1925

Portrait of Maria Luisa Cabral Metelo - 1925

Mrs Heathcote - 1927

Mme O'Deril - 1930

Cabaret scene - c.1935
The face of the woman at the right is a verion of his pin-up style.

Élégante en profile

Woman in uniform
I can't quite read the date, thought it might be 1939 when World War 2 began.

Sagrada Familia Exterior Details

Barcelona's most famous building is the Sagrada Familia (Holy Family) basilica designed by Antoni Gaudí (1852-1926).  Construction began in 1882 and will likely miss its 2026 completion target.  The Spanish Civil War and other delay events contributed to that timeline.

The photos below document parts of its exterior seen by me in early November 2021.

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The east Nativity side that was in place before the 1936 start of the Civil War.  It is noted for its "melting" spires -- an astonishing concept in its day.  Might that have influenced the melting "Persistence of Memory" watches of Salvador Dalí, who lived not very far away?  The sculpture on the pedestal in the foreground obscures many of the sculptures on the facade.

The northeast corner showing a transition from "melted" to more structured forms.

North side elements including the low-level West Sacristy.  The west-side spires in the background are mostly structured, not "melting."

The east front again, showing the combination of original and newer Gothic elements distinguished by their differing coloring.

The soon-to-be completed Virgin Mary spire.

Part of the west side, looking south from the entrance.

And seen looking north.

Paul George Lawler's Pan American Posters

Above is a well-known poster from around 1941.  The setting seems to be largely imaginary or exaggerated, but the airplane is correctly shown.   Pan American Airways was featuring its new Boeing 314 "Clipper" flying boat airliners.

A series of posters featuring Boeing 314s and, occasionally, other aircraft was commissioned by Pan Am in the years leading up to the USA's entry in World War 2.  The artist was Paul George Lawler.  My Internet search yielded essentially zero information regarding Lawler.  Nor did I find him listed in my illustration reference books.

This is somewhat surprising, because Lawler did nice work for Pan Am, and the airline almost surely did not want to trust such important publicity to someone without credentials.

Below are some examples of his Pan Am work.  A few images can be enlarged by clicking on them.

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This poster is an early one because it shows the poorly-drawn original Boeing 314.  It had a too-small single tail that, after some testing, finally was replaced by a triple tail.

The aircraft in this poster seems to be based on Pan Am's Martin M-130 flying boat, though its sponsons are not shown.

Pan Am began flying Boeing 314s to Europe in 1939, shortly before the war.  By this time, Lawler had access to more and better reference photos of the 314.

Another well-known (in Hawaii, anyway) poster.  The size of the 314 was greatly exaggerated.  Compare the size of the passengers by the aircraft to those in the photo below.