Henry Tonks: Physician-Painter-Teacher

Henry Tonks (1862-1937) studied and practiced medicine before switching to art when in his early thirties. This is sketched in his Wikipedia entry, but better biographical information can be found here.

Thanks to his anatomical expertise, London's Slade School of Art hired him to teach drawing. According to the link above, Tonks was a formidable teacher who, consciously or otherwise, intimidated many of his students. On the other hand, he was at Slade when it turned out many of its most famous graduates. Those who were instructed by Tonks included Augustus John, Gwen John, Percy Wyndham Lewis, C.R.W. Nevinson, Mark Gertler, Stanley Spencer, John Currie, Dora Carrington, Maxwell Gordon Lightfoot, Dorothy Brett and Paul Nash. Even though many of these became modernists of one stripe or another, Tonks himself had no use for Cubism or any of the other movements.

As can be seen in the selection below, Tonks seemed to prefer social scenes featuring young women. However he became a war artist in the Great War and did medical-related art in the form of a series of studies of soldiers who sustained severe facial wounds.

Gallery

The Hat Shop - 1892

The Matinee Rehearsal - c.1900

The Torn Gown

Study of a woman

The Birdcage - 1907

An Advanced Dressing Station - 1918

Spring Days - 1928

As for Tonks' paintings, my take from images found on the Internet is that he was certainly competent, yet lacked whatever kind of spark it takes to make his work truly distinctive and compelling.

Deco by Dupas

The painting shown above is Les Perruches, c.1925, by Jean Dupas (1882-1964) who, along with Tamara de Lempicka and perhaps a few others, epitomizes Art Deco art. A short Wikipedia entry is here and a more extensive biography is here.

It seems that Dupas was very well-trained, but chose to earn his living more in commercial art than in fine arts. As for the latter, he was a muralist as much as he was an easel painter.

Dupas' commercial style is distinctive in that he regularly drew women with long necks and often with narrow, aquiline noses. And although it was hardly Deco fashion, he sometimes gave his women elaborate hairstyles and hats evoking fashion of 200 years earlier.

Given that I'm greatly interested in the 1920s and 30s, I am fond of Dupas' work.

Gallery

Poster - 1924

Poster - 1925

Bordeaux poster - 1937
Dupas was born in Bordeaux, so might have put more heart than usual into this poster.

L'Hiver - 1928

Woman seated in front of portrait

Deco scene - 1929

History of Navigation mural from the Normandie - 1934
A link with information about the mural is here.

Jeune fille aux fleurs
This seems to be a later work -- say, from 1940 or later, given the hair style of the subject.

Molti Ritratti: John F Kennedy

President John F. Kennedy (1917-63), as we all know, did not serve even one full term in office. So if portraits of him were to be painted while President, there was less opportunity than usual.

On the other hand, Kennedy was the subject of thousands of photographs, and it is through these that we shape our visual image of the man. Those photographs also served as the basis for posthumous portrait paintings created by both professionals and amateurs. Below are examples of Kennedy portraits done by professionals. Some were painted while he was alive, others later. And some paintings done before his 22 November 1963 death might have been entirely photograph-based.

Gallery

By Norman Rockwell - 1960
The Saturday Evening Post magazine would sometimes feature covers with paintings of presidential candidates in the weeks leading up to an election. The painting shown above was published in its 29 October 1960 issue. I don't know if Rockwell saw Kennedy in person while working up the image. He was able to spend an hour and a half with Dwight Eisenhower in 1952 in conjunction with a Post cover appearing before the voting that year.

By Cecil Calvert Beall - 1962
This looks like it might have been done from life, but I have no solid proof.

By Elaine de Kooning - 1962
This was probably done from life because it is known that Kennedy sat for her.

By William Franklin Draper - 1962
Also probably done from life.

Sketch by Bernie Fuchs
Fuchs was an illustrator and not yet a fine-arts painter when he visited the White House to make sketches of the President. David Apatoff posted useful information about it here.

By Daniel Greene - pastel, 1963
I have no information as to whether this was done before or after JFK's 1963 death. And if it was done before, I don't know if Greene did it from life.

By Bernie Fuchs
I don't have a date for this, but it was probably painted on the basis of photographs and the sketches mentioned above.

By Jamie Wyeth - 1967
Clearly posthumous.

By Aaron Shikler - 1970
This is the official White House portrait of Kennedy, painted years after he died.

I apologize for the information gaps noted in the captions above. If readers can supply facts regarding whether or not Kennedy actually sat for the unverified (in my remarks) portraits created in his lifetime, please let us know via a comment.

Covarrubias the Caricaturist

Miguel Covarrubias (1904-1957) was a multi-talented man, his activities ranging from cartooning to ethnography, as his Wikipedia entry indicates. As you might imagine, it was the artwork, not the anthropology, that made him widely known and popular over three highly productive decades; his illustrations seemed to be popping up everywhere.

Examples of his work can be found here, and this site seems to be devoted to him exclusively.

As can be seen below, Covarrubias' work was witty, charming and inoffensive to most viewers. In those respects, it was in line with the tastes of the day. In recent times, illustrators seem to feel compelled to create "edgy" works that lack charm, are often offensive, and incorporate no wit whatsoever. Pendulums do swing back eventually, though I see little sign of it happening as yet.

Gallery

Sally Rand and Martha Graham contrasted
This Vanity Fair illustration from around 1933 was part of a long series where Covarrubias caricatured two individuals who possessed both similarities and differences. Martha Graham's dance troupe worked in a modernist idiom. Sally Rand gained fame for her fan dancing at the 1933 Chicago world's fair.

Tea Gossip - c.1925
A cartoon from early in his career.

Cartoon map of Mexico - 1947
He painted a number of cartoon maps and murals. Click to enlarge.

Vogue cover - 1 July, 1937

Herbert Hoover - Vanity Fair cover - October, 1931
For non-American readers, Herbert Hoover was President in 1929 when the stock market crashed and was blamed for the severity of the Great Depression even though his policies were similar to those followed by his successor, Franklin Roosevelt, which didn't work very well either.

Mussolini - Vanity Fair cover - October, 1932
I trust we all know who this guy was. The little fellow tugging on Mussolini's ear is probably the king of Italy.

Bali scene - c.1930s
Covarrubias and his wife visited Bali a couple of times in the 1930s. He did ethnographic work there and wrote a book about it.

Back in Time: Saab 96 Series to the Ur-Saab

Not long ago Saab, the Swedish automobile firm (not to be confused with Saab, the aircraft manufacturer, though they once were one and the same) expired. I suppose there might still be a movement afoot to resurrect the corpse, but that would be a triumph of nostalgia over business reality.

I never seriously considered buying a Saab, though I never disliked the brand. The problem was that whenever I was in car-buying mode, whatever Saab was offering at the time was out of synch with my needs or financial resources. In recent decades, the problem was price. Thirty or 40 years ago, I didn't like the styling (take that!, model 99). In the late 1960s it was my concerns about the reliability of front-wheel-drive. Before that, it had to do with the fact that Saabs were powered by a two-stroke motor that required adding oil with every gasoline full-up.

Wikipedia has comprehensive coverage of Saab. Here is their introductory entry which devotes considerable space to the company's final crises. Below are links to entries about the Saab models in the photos.

The present post deals with the first generation of Saabs that were small and featured perhaps the most aerodynamic styling of their day. The photos begin with the final version of that series and work back to what some observers call the "Ur-Saab" -- the prototype Saab automobile. (The term Ur-this or Ur-that is a Germanic locution linking the name of Ur, supposedly the earliest city in the world, to class of something with a history. The Ur-whatever would be the very first known example.)

Gallery

Saab 96 - 1960-80
The Saab 96 was the last of the early Saabs that featured teardrop streamlining. A useful improvement over previous 9x Saabs is the wraparound rear window. The final 96s got a four-stroke motor, eliminating the need for continually adding oil.

Saab 93 - 1955-60
The first Saab that came to the serious attention of American buyers was the Saab 93, shown here. When Saab began exporting cars to the USA, they were only marketed in the northeastern states where severe winters and hilly roads in northern New England and Upstate New York made front-wheel-drive a desirable feature.

Saab 92 - 1949-56
The Saab 92 was the initial production model. Front end styling is a little different from the prototype. The production motor generated 25 horsepower, but the streamlined body allowed model 92s to reach 65 miles per hour (around 100 km/h) -- or so it is said. Note the size of the rear window in the 92 and and compare it to that of the prototype below.

Prototype Saab 92 (1947) - as seen in museum
The Wikipedia entry on the prototype Saab is here.

Prototype Saab 92 (1947) - showing front

Prototype Saab 92 (1947) - showing interior

Prototype Saab 92 (1947) - showing rear

Phantom Corsair prototype - 1938
The Phantom Corsair (Wikipedia entry here) was a prototype ultra-streamlined luxury car by millionaire Rust Heinz of the 57 Varieties Heinz clan. Sadly, Heinz died in a car accident in 1939, so any prospect of a production Phantom Corsair vanished with him.

I include this photo so that you can compare its styling (on a long Cord platform) with the Ur-Saab's rear styling on a much shorter platform. The little Saab's styling was extremely elegant in an era when streamlining created an awkward appearance. (See this recent post for examples.)

Stark Davis' Lincoln Birds

In 1928 and perhaps a little before and after, Lincoln automobiles had an advertising campaign featuring their cars against a backdrop of exotic birds and, in one instance, a butterfly.

The artist was Winthrop Stark Davis (1885-1950) who signed his paintings "Stark Davis" and whose fine arts work also dealt with such birds. The only biographical information about his that I could locate is here, and it's pretty skimpy.

That means I'm reduced to showing some examples from that series of Lincoln ads, so here goes:

Gallery

1927 Lincoln Berline Laundalet

1928 Lincoln Cabriolet

1928 Lincoln Club Roadster

1928 Lincoln Coupe

1928 Lincoln Town Sedan

c.1928 Lincoln Sport Phaeton

Molti Ritratti: Leo Tolstoy

Leo Tolstoy (1828-1910) liked to portray people in his novels and, in turn, apparently didn't seem to mind being portrayed by some of Russia's best-known artists.

Those artists included Nikolai Ge (1831-94), Ivan Kramskoy (1837-87), Ilya Repin (1844-1930) and Mikhail Nesterov (1862-1942). Repin painted several portraits of the famed writer.

Unlike a beautiful woman in her simplicity, Tolstoy as he aged presented a feast of details to tempt the skills of portrait painters -- a craggy face, a bifurcated beard, rugged hands, peasant costuming and other paintable features of his persona. Below are some photographs and paintings of him.

Gallery

Photo - c.1897

Photo - 1908

By Ivan Kramskoy - 1873

By Nikolai Ge - 1884

By Ilya Repin - 1887

By Ilya Repin - 1891

By Ilya Repin: Tolstoy and his wife in Yasnaya Polyana - 1907

By Mikhail Nesterov - 1907