Molti Ritratti: Suzy Solidor

Some people have lots of portraits painted of themselves. Occasionaly, these portraits might be done mostly by one artist. For instance, Velázquez painted a number of portraits of Spain's king and family thanks to his court duties.

Then there's the usual case, where many artists paint the same sitter. To me, that's also interesting because it offers insight regarding artists as well as subjects.

I already posted about multiple views of Ottoline Morrell and Empress Josephine. Now I'd like to carry this into an occasional series that I'm calling Molti Ritratti -- that's my amateur Italian for "Many Portraits."

First off is Suzy Solidor (1900-83) a Lesbian chanteuse who ran a Paris night club and publicized it by asking many artists to do her portrait. Suzy was popular in her day, appearing in movies and cutting records. However, she did get into some post-war trouble because her club was frequented by German officers during the Occupation.

Below are some photos of Solidor to set the scene. My take is that she had a plain face and a fantastically good shape. To appreciate the latter, I suggest you Google on something like "suzy solidor man ray" to bring up images by Man Ray, the famous photographer of both Surrealism and high fashion. (Warning: some of those photos are not safe for work, which is why I won't display them here. I do post images of paintings showing nudity because those are more justifiable as "art.")

Here is Suzy with aesthete Jean Cocteau in 1938. Cocteau also wasn't bothered by dealing with Germans during the Occupation.

This is a studio portrait of Solidor.

Now for non-photographic images of Suzy. Although she was painted by artists as diverse as Foujita, Dufy and Vlaminck, I couldn't find as many good images on the Web as I had hoped. Nevertheless, the ones below should indicate the variety of ways Solidor was depicted.

Solidor is shown in her cabaret with some of those portraits. This was probably taken in the 1960s or later. The painting to the left of her face is by Foujita.

Solidor lived the later part of her life in Cagnes-sur-Mer and left some of the paintings to the city. Shown is part of a display of them. The painting on the left with a blue background is by Picabia; another Picabia painting is below. Click on the image above to enlarge.

Not a formal portrait, but this poster for Pathé records seems worth including.

Not all those who Painted Suzy were famous. This is by someone called Pierre Sigel.

Slightly less obscure is Roger Toulouse, who painted this when Solidor was past 60.

This 1946 portrait is by Suzanne van Damme, a Belgian contemporary of Solidor who also painted Surrealistic works.

Better known yet (but still far from famous) was Austrian Willy Eisenschitz who portrayed Solidor in 1938.

This Francis Picabia portrait of Suzy is from 1933.

Kees van Dongen, one-time Fauve and later society painter captured a matelot-clad Suzy in 1927.

Probably the most famous portrait of Solidor is this 1933 painting by Art Deco artist Tamara de Lempicka.

How (Not?) to Honor a Classic

The cars shown above are two surviving examples of the Bugatti 57SC Atlantique. Four were built and two or perhaps three survive. I consider this one of the most outstanding car designs ever -- an opinion held by many. The black car is owned by fashion magnate Ralph Lauren. The blue car was auctioned last year for an estimated $30-$40 million (an account is here). The Wikipedia article on the Type 57 line in general is here.

Automobile Magazine's February 2011 issue has a Page 63 sidebar by its car design writer Robert Cumberford concerning a project to create a "retro" version of the un-produced Type 64, what might have been the successor to the 57. I could find no on-line version of the article to link to, so here is an excerpt featuring Cumberford's case.

[I]n an alcove [of Peter Mullin's private automobile museum] stood one of only two extant prototype cast-aluminum chassis for the Bugatti Type 64, the model intended to follow the successful Type 57, introduced in 1934 and made in some 700 examples. That's not the problem; the chassis is fascinating. But it's surrounded by sketches and models of some absolutely horrifying bodies proposed by students at the Art Center College of Design, one of which may actually be erected at great cost on that unique, irreplaceable platform. The idea of creating a new body is fine, but I am distressed that unformed and uninformed youngsters have been entrusted with a task for which -- on the evidence presented -- they are incapable of executing.

They've done a series of Kalifornia Kustom adaptations of Jean Bugatti's 1935 riveted-magnesium Aérolithe ("meteor" in Greek) design that led to the Atlantics, as though Jean had had to rummage through discarded sketches to come up with a slight variation on older designs. ...

To properly honor Jean Bugatti's heritage with a new Type 64 body, designers need strong historical awareness, and they must know what precursors in form existed in 1940 [the year after Jean Bugatti was killed in a driving accident] along with the techniques and materials in use at the time. Using that knowledge -- and absolutely nothing that arose in the subsequent 70 years -- those students might have created a reasonable proposition. ...

What the students have done is anathema to me. Wouldn't it be better just to leave the bare chassis on exhibition?

Not quoted are references to the fact that Bugatti had built "tank" style racing cars with streamlined (for the time) bodies that eliminated separate fenders. This implies that Ettore and his son Jean (had he lived) might well have created a car in tune with styling zeitgeist of 1940: teardrop-shaped bodies pushed to beyond the outer edges of, and perhaps covering, the wheels. Such designs could seem sleek on paper, but usually turned out looking bloated on the few occasions that they were actualized, so it's possible the Bugattis might have attempted something leaner. But unless archival evidence appears, this is something unknowable.

As for me, I'm of two minds regarding Cumberford's harsh (for him) judgment. A modernized Atlantique is probably what Mullin and those Art Center students had in mind all along, and not a scholarly might-have-been design such as Cumberford advocates. For a show car, this doesn't bother me. On the other hand, if the goal was to suggest what a Type 64 might really have looked like, then Cumberford has a strong point.

In the Beginning: Edvard Munch

Edvard Munch (1863-1944) is surely the most famous Norwegian painter. For details regarding his troubled life, you can consult his Wikipedia entry here.

Munch received formal art training, but fell in with artists and others excited by the emerging prospect of modernism. By the time he was 30, he was experimenting with ideas propounded by modernists in France and Germany. Here are examples:

Evening on Karl Johan Street - 1892

Rose and Amalie - 1893

The Storm - 1893

The Dance - 1900

Friedrich Nietsche - 1903

The Scream - 1893
This expressionist jolt is Munch's most famous painting by far.

He also did work that was more representational, particularly while in his 20s and still influenced by formal training.

From Maridalen - 1881

Morning - 1884

Summer Night (Inger on the Shore) - 1889

Even though he was experimenting, Munch did not lose touch with representationalism. The paintings below reveal a respect for human anatomy that shines through the various styles he was using.

Self-Portrait with Cigarette - 1895

Madonna - 1894-95

Nude by Wicker Chair - 1929

Munch, like many other modernists in this "In the Beginning" series, clearly seems to have had the potential to have been a good representational artist. Indeed, he was off to a good start in this direction. Such a start is not surprising when one considers his generation: he was a near-contemporary of Gustav Klimt who began his own professional career painting academic-style works.

Tim Hildebrandt's Ultra-Detailed Fantasy Art

Tim Hildebrandt (1939-2006) was half of the Brothers Hildebrandt team of twin artists best known for this:

The Hildebrandt brothers' web site is here and their Wikipedia entry here.

I of course remember that famous Star Wars poster, but had lost touch with their work until I stumbled across

this book at a used and remaindered bookstore in my end of town. It originally dates from 1991, thereby leaving out a good deal of Tim Hildebrandt's work which evolved somewhat since publication.

Hildebrandt's style in the 1970s and 80s was both "tight" and detailed. These characteristics appeal to some folks, but not usually to me.

He normally painted using acrylics on gessoed masonite board and very fine brushes except when blocking in large areas. His palette made use of a moderately large selection of colors: four blues, two greens, a purple, three yellows, three reds, an orange, the usual four browns (sienna, umber), white and Payne's gray. A good deal of attention was paid to warm-cool color relationships, light sources and reflected light -- all this virtually formulaic, but understandable for a commercial illustrator trying to hit deadlines.

What struck me most was how different Hildebrandt's style is than those for fantasy art contemporaries such as Frank Frazetta and Jeffry Jones -- let alone current fantasy art that's mostly done using a computer. Below are a few examples of Hildebrandt's work.

Poster art for Barbarella with Jane Fonda. Click on the image for a larger, sharper view.

Concept art for a proposed theme park.

"The Elven Fortress" -- calendar art, 1983. Click on the image for a larger, sharper view.

"The Mountain" -- more calendar art, 1985. Click on the image for a larger, sharper view.

Cover art for "Fang the Gnome," 1988. Click on the image for a larger, sharper view.

Is There a "Sweet Spot" for History?

Maybe.

Most observers of the writing of history agree that it usually takes a couple of decades or even more for events to be put into perspective. This is certainly true for political history where partisan passions easily color fairly recent happenings.

The historian of events of the more distant past faces another kind of problem: he has to rely on documentary evidence of one kind or another because all the participants or witnesses of those events cannot be questioned, given that they have died. It also should be mentioned that history is often (always?) viewed through the prism of the time of the historian -- another, though usually less-serious source of distortion.

These considerations suggest that a good time for an historian to get to work is when passions have cooled, embargoed documents have been made public, and there are participants around to interview.

I experienced this recently when I devoured two accounts of American professional football at the end of the 1950s. One book, The Glory Game, subtitled "How the 1958 NFL Championship Changed Football Forever" was co-written by Frank Gifford, a veteran TV play-by-play announcer who was a star running back for the New York Giants team in that game.

The other book was That First Season by John Eisenberg, its subtitle being "How Vince Lombardi Took the Worst Team in the NFL and Set It on the Path to Glory." The season was the 1959 one for the Green Bay Packers.

The events both books deal with are more than 50 years old, yet many of the participants were still alive to contribute their memories as supplemental -- or even primary -- material in conjunction with game films, sports reports and material in previous accounts of the events.

I found the details fascinating because they fleshed out what previously had been grainy black-and-white television images and names and faces of players lacking more data than descriptions of what they did on the field. (Actually, I exaggerate slightly because I've read other behind-the-scenes books about the Packers -- my fave team -- so my knowledge wasn't quite so one-dimensional as it was for the Giants and their victors, the Baltimore Colts.)

In the Beginning: Kasimir Malevich

Kasimir Malevich or maybe Kazimierz Malewicz, given that his parents were ethnic Poles living in the Ukraine when he was born in 1878 (well, it now seems he was born in 1879, according to this Wikipedia entry which offers a Ukrainian version of his name along with the others), founded the modernist abstract movement of Suprematism. Oh, and we're still pretty sure he died in 1935.

Examples of his Suprematist painting can be found here, but I offer the following to give you a sense of it:

Black Square - 1923, concept from 1913
The black square was the symbol of the Suprematist movement.

Supremus No. 58 - 1916

The Knife Grinder - 1912
Not Suprematist, but showing his awareness of Cubism and perhaps the work of Duchamp.

As the Wikipedia entry indicates, Malevich had little exposure to art when young, beginning drawing training in his mid-teens and not getting formal schooling in painting until he was in his mid-20s living in Moscow. That city had important collectors of impressionist and modernist art, so this quickly rubbed off on Malevich who felt comfortable enough with the new ideology to begin his Suprematist variation.

Along with many modernists he supported the Communist takeover and was able to assume leadership roles in the Soviet art world. For a while. Eventually he found himself on the margins and finally had to face the Stalinist imposition of Socialist Realism, moving a number of his paintings to the relative safety of Germany in anticipation of the change of wind.

Below are examples of his work showing varying degrees of realism.

Apple Trees in Blossom - 1904

Unemployed Girl - 1904
These two painting date from the year he entered painting school.

This is a portrait, probably of a family member -- ca.1906

Self-Portrait - ca.1910

Self-Portrait - 1933

Based on what is shown above, Malevich strikes me as having the ability to have been a very good representational painter had he followed that path instead of abstraction. But given his background and times, his career makes sense. After all, Golden Age Modernism (perhaps 1900-1960) was an experiment that needed to be undertaken eventually. And as I mention from time to time, my gripe with it is that it became a religion and an Establishment, both hostile to non-modernism (despite lip-service to the contrary).

Combat Art: Worthwhile?

An art genre that has been virtually invisible for decades is Combat Art or War Art -- there's no definitive name for it. In the broadest sense, it can be any art where war is the subject. But for the purposes of this post, I'll narrow things down so that it means works by artists sent into war zones by military organizations for the purpose of recording events they encounter. For background, check out the links here, here and here.

Why combat art? The first link noted above offers a justification by Brigadier General Robert L. Denig, Director of Public Relations for the United States Marine Corps about the time America entered World War 2:

The combat photographer must snap his picture of an action as it happens. If he is busy taking part in the action, as he so often is; if it happens so fast he is unable to adjust his camera in time; if conditions are not good, the action is never recorded- and the picture is never made.

The artist, on the other hand, with his photographic eye, can take part in the action, and then paint any moment of it from memory at his leisure.

The painter can provide his own lighting; he can give a picture any degree of intensity he desires. He can reconstruct a scene from whatever angle he considers most dramatic, centering attention wherever he wishes.

I disagree, for the most part.

The most famous war paintings created before 1850 tended to be done by artists who were seldom witnesses to the events depicted. By mid-19th century, photography had been invented and improved to the point where cameras could be brought to scenes of battles (siege sites, aftermaths of combat), but were too cumbersome to record combat itself. This remained the case up to the time of the Great War. For example, the turn of the century Boer and Spanish-American wars were mostly recorded by sketch artists hired by newspapers and other publications. The Great War marks a transition where photographers and sketch artists coexisted. And by the time of World War 2, photography became the best means of recording warfare visually.

My disagreement with General Denig? I base it on the combat art I've encountered over the years. Nearly all the on-the-spot sort of work is no better than contemporary photography. Most often, the scenes were not actually combat -- instead, they showed the often dull daily life in the military. Furthermore, in my judgment, the really fine depictions of combat from, say, 1940 on have been done after the fact, often by artists who were not on the scene. No change, really, from pre-1850 times.

Although I'm sure I missed a really outstanding example or two, below are examples of Combat Art I found on the Web to document my case:

La Mitrailleuse - Christopher Nevinson, 1915
This is perhaps Nevinson's best-known painting. It abstracts what he possibly viewed in more ways than one.

Self Portrait - Sir William Orpen, 1917
Orpen was a top portrait painter who went to France to depict the Great War. Unfortunately, he totally botched the image of the British "tin plate" helmet; see below for a more accurate treatment.

Marines in France by Harvey Dunn
Although famed illustrator Dunn was in France for the war, I doubt he captured this image on the spot even in sketch form; if this was real combat he stood a good chance of being killed in such a setting and viewpoint.

Gassed - John Singer Sargent - 1919
This mural can be seen at the Imperial War Museum in London. Sargent witnessed this behind-the-trenches event and worked it into the painting, adding details to a quick sketch to make an interesting composition.

Sighting the sun by McClelland Barclay, 1941
Barclay was a successful illustrator in the 1920s and 30s who entered the U.S. Navy as a commissioned officer and war artist. The ships in the background of this painting are not realistically portrayed and the perspective is off. Some of Barclay's painting were used in Navy recruiting posters. Unfortunately, he payed a high price, being lost when his ship was sunk in the Pacific.

Mission briefing by Alex Raymond
Raymond was yet another famous artist before he joined the Marines. Although he did some commercial illustration, he was best known for his comic strips Secret Agent X-9, Jungle Jim and -- especially -- Flash Gordon. The non-combat scene shown here is typical of World War 2 combat art.

Moving Up - Howard Brodie
This Brodie scene, like much WW2 combat art, could just as easily been photographed.

Landing at Saipan - William Draper
Yet another case where the artist probably would have been killed if he actually was in the position suggested by his painting. The marines shown are clearly part of the initial attack wave. Draper would have to have been in a Japanese slit trench or bunker to capture this in person.

Ambush at Saipan - Theo Hios
Here is a sad example of both modernist sensibility and likely absence from the fight shown.

Surprise Attack in the Suburbs of Metz - Alphonse de Neuville
This depicts an event from the Franco-Prussian war. De Neuville was not there. But nevertheless, it is probably the best combat scene in the set of images above.

To summarize, in the era beginning with the development of the compact Leica camera, just about anything a combat artist might have captured directly, a photographer could have done an equally good or better job of recording the event. War paintings of superior artistic quality seem to be generally done much later by men who were not on the scene (though they might have been exposed to war or military life otherwise).