Ambrose Patterson: Wandering Aussie

"Mount Kilauea, The House of Everlasting Fire," painted in 1917 is the upper image above, depicting the most active of the volcanoes on the island of Hawaii. The lower image is a detail photo I took when I visited the Honolulu Museum of Art in December (my camera distorted the color for some reason, but observe the brushwork and drips).

The main reason this painting caught my attention was that it was made by Ambrose Patterson (1877-1967), born in Australia to a well-connected family, art student in Paris in the early 1900s when Modernist "isms" were in full bloom, resident in Hawaii for several years, and eventually head of the art school at the University of Washington in Seattle. Biographical links are here and here.

As it happened, in college I had a watercolor class by Patterson's wife, Viola. And on one occasion, with other Senior-year art students, visited their Modernist house in Seattle's upscale Laurelhurst neighborhood and met Patterson himself.

But he was in his mid-80s while I was only 21 and grossly ignorant of things that I now know well. The fact is, I mentally dismissed him as an old geezer who it was nice to have met. Today, I would gladly schedule a whole day (or more!) with him and question him until I pumped his brain dry, getting first-hand information about art student life in Paris, the impact of Picasso, Matisse and the rest, what Nellie Melba the Australian opera singer was like, how he and other artists dealt with Modernism after the Great War (the subject of one of my e-books) and more, more, more.

As an artist, I find Patterson competent and versatile, but too willing to explore trendy ideas. As a result, he never settled into a style that was truly his, the fate of many other artists of his generation and the next.

Gallery

Self-Portrait (La fenêtre de l'atelier) - c. 1902
Cute idea, here. To the right is the artist in shadow, while at the center is a painting-within-a-painting showing Patterson's distinctive profile.

La bar, St Jacques, Paris - c. 1904
I like this riff on Manet's bar scene, especially the expressions on the bartender and barmaid.

Young Woman in Garden
No date for this, but probably done before 1910. Lots of impasto and bright colors, perhaps an early experiment in Modernism.

Good Friday Procession, Madrid - 1906
Here Patterson is in an Impressionist mood, sacrificing accurate drawing for color effects.

Hollyhocks - 1908
Two years later, he pulls back from Impressionism.

Mural, Mount Vernon, Washington Post Office - 1938
Even though Patterson was on the University of Washington faculty, he somehow got one of those make-work Depression era artist gigs from the government. For this mural, he had to be representational, though the style and feeling are typical of the time.

Dancers - 1947
A post-war work combining abstraction and representation. Other Seattle area artists such as Mark Tobey and Kenneth Callahan were also painting in this vein.

Nice Poster, Obscure Illustrator

I could find next to nothing about Donald Masefield Easton (1896-1956) on the first few pages of a Google search, and almost no examples of his work.

The only reason I made the search and decided to write this post was because I finally discovered who illustrated one of my favorite vintage Hawaii tourist posters, the one you see above (slightly cropped from a photo I took). One of these posters was displayed in Honolulu's Royal Hawaiian Hotel along with a small plaque noting the artist's name. I had seen the poster elsewhere over the years, but without any indication of who did it.

As for the poster itself, I like it because of its early 1930s view of Waikiki when the only major buildings were the Royal Hawaiian (left) and Moana (right) hotels, and because it features a whiff of those toned-down color schemes popular during the 1920s. Clearly a case of false-nostalgia on my part.

Indian Smoke Signals - 1931

Night on the Range - 1932

Union Oil Company advertisement - 1950

The examples shown here really aren't sufficient for a serious evaluation of Easton. Because they deal with the west (Union Oil was a West Coast firm), I'll assume for now that he was based in California, was able to make a living as a competent illustrator, but never made it to the New York - Chicago "big time" for illustrators of his generation.

Franciszek Żmurko, Painter of Women

I surely saw some paintings by Franciszek Żmurko (1859-1910) several years ago when visiting the National Gallery in Warsaw. But with so many unfamiliar names of painters to assimilate, it was difficult for me to keep track of the interesting ones. Yes, I must have taken some notes on my gallery map, but that was tossed aside a long time ago.

That means Żmurko is known to me mostly by images found on the Internet. There is a fairly large number of those, which makes it surprising that there is so little in the way of biographical information about the man. His Wikipedia entry in English is here. It's skimpy, but the entry in Polish is almost as brief. Nothing is mentioned in English about his personal life or why he died at the comparatively young age of 51.

Żmurko was born in the Russian Empire and spent much of his career there, mostly in Warsaw. But he was trained largely in the Austrian Empire (Kraków and Vienna) and in Munich. The result was an ability to paint in the "finished" academic style, though he also did more freely painted works. He was prolific, and most of the images found on the Web are of attractive women. I find the paintings and their subjects impressive.

Gallery

Self-Portrait - 1895

Zuzanna i starcy (Susanna and the Elders) - 1879
One of Żmurko's early (and apparently unfinished) paintings. If the date is correct, he showed plenty of potential at age 20.

Z rozhazu padyszacha (At Padishah's Order) - 1881
He included some Orientalist subjects, popular during the late 19th century.

Widzenie Fausta (Faust's Dream)
I wonder if the actual painting is as spectacular as this small image found on the Web.

In Delightful Dream

Kobieta z wachlarzem
Notes about this painting in my National Gallery guide suggest that the subject was someone he encountered while visiting Florence.

Portret kobiety z Wachlarzem i papieros
If this digital image is any guide, the original painting has a nice mix of detailed and free brushwork.

Seated woman
Another seemingly unfinished painting -- parts are sketchy and it is unsigned. From its looks, it might be a late painting.

Girl wearing brown hat

Polackt kobiety - 1910
This was painted the year he died. The subject appears to be the same as in the image immediately above it.

Moïse Kisling: Silplified Solidity

Moïse (Mojżesz) Kisling (1891-1953) was born in Kraków, Austro-Hungarian Empire, but moved to France in 1910 and remained there for the rest of his life aside from a period of time in the U.S.A. around the time of World War 2. Kisling because a French citizen due to his serving in the Foreign Legion during the Great War and being wounded. These and other facts can be found in this fairly brief Wikipedia entry.

Although Kisling maintained a base in Paris, he spent much of his time in the Riviera. He was sociable, with many friends in the School of Paris collection of artists as well as other modernists. His sociability was perhaps outshone by his wife, Renée (1896-1960), daughter of career cavalry officer Jules-Chalres-Émile Gros. She was not pretty by most standards, but compensated via her personality.

As for his art, Kisling didn't exactly plunge into modernism. Instead, his paintings depicted real people and objects, but in the simplified yet rounded, solid style that was widely used during the 1920s and 30s. To that degree, Kisling was comparatively conservative. Moreover, his style did not evolve much during those years, finally changing a little by the 1940s as can be seen below.

Gallery

Portrait of André Salmon - 1912

Paysage de Provence - c.1919

Kiki de Montparnasse - 1925

Renée Kisling - 1928

Nu alongée sur l'herbe - c.1930

Portrait of a Young Woman

Self-Portrait - 1937

Nu assis - 1942

Sylvia Mann - 1943

Photo of Kisling with model - c.1935

Cliff Sterrett's Expressionist Comics Settings

Cliff Sterrett (1883-1964) was one of those "lowly" comic strip artists whose work is worthy of attention from art historians and practitioners.

His Wikipedia entry is here, but is skimpy regarding his personal life after getting into cartooning and sketchy about his signature strip, "Polly and Her Pals," that ran 1912-1958. However, it has its own entry here. An appreciation of his work that contains a number of Sunday panels is here.

The various links above assert that Sterrett's work was influential among members of the comic strip artist fraternity. This had to do with the bold design of his panels and the Expressionist-Deco character of setting and background details. For example, he often included somewhat sinister clumps of skewed, gabled houses that remind one of the sets used in the 1920 German expressionist movie The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari.

Polly was one of the first of the young women comic strips that thrived in the 1920s and later, but it seems that her father eventually became the lead character even thought the strip's title remained unchanged. Below are examples of Sterrett's work. Click to enlarge.

Gallery

Mark Sullivan, One of the Last Matte Painters

Many movies will include matte shots, where part of what is viewed on the screen is filmed action and other parts are images that fill in architectural details or create a different outdoor setting. Matte work is done because it is usually much less expensive to hire some artists than it is to construct a huge movie set or find an exactly right landscape. What has changed over the last few decades is that nearly all matte work done today is via digital imaging rather than oil or acrylic paints, as was done previously.

There are several web sites dealing with matte art, but the one I tend to follow is Matte Shot, hosted by a semi-anonymous New Zealand blogger and featuring matte work from pre-digital times.

A recent post features Mark Sullivan, who began his career making matte paintings in the waning days of that era and now does a good deal of digital work. His web site is here.

The Matte Shot post consists of a long interview with Sullivan and a collection of images, some of which I include below. The majority of the interview is in-group chat dealing with personalities, something of interest mostly to matte painting fans. But if you scroll down to some point in the second half, Sullivan discusses his approach to matte painting, something of interest to artists in general.

Some matte painters such as the great Albert Whitlock usually favored a freely painted, almost impressionistic style. Sullivan paints more tightly, especially in areas near where the live action will be composited. He assumes viewers will be focusing attention here, rather than on other parts of the screen where he loosens his style.

I find matte art fascinating because of its final effects that are divorced from the need to be accepted as Fine Art painting, yet remain impressive examples of craftsmanship carried out under severely constrained conditions.

Gallery

Ghostbusters 2 - 1989

Hook - 1991

Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade - 1989

Bugsy (1991) - El Centro Avenue matte and composite

Bugsy (1991) - Vine Street matte and composite

Rocketeer (1991) workup and final

William Margetson's Domestic Life Art

I can't tell you much about William Henry Margetson (1861-1940), an English painter, because I could not find any halfway detailed biographical information on the top few pages of a couple of Google searches of the Internet. Perhaps I didn't drill deeply enough, but what can I say? -- I'm both lazy and non-obsessive.

What I did find were a couple of squibs such as this. Plus, there was one Wikipedia entry (here), but it's in Dutch, which is near enough to English for some readers to follow.

The sources mention that while he painted some religious and allegorical works, he mostly did scenes featuring pretty women. I'll add that many such scenes were domestic -- around a household. Moreover, they tend to be nicely done.

Gallery

Water Sprite
This sprite or siren falls into the allegorical category.

On the Sands - 1900
This lady is so perfect that she doesn't leave footprints.

The Amulet

Two Young Women Seated
I'm guessing from the hair styles that this was painted during the late 1920s or early 30s. Other works done in a looser style probably were made after around 1910, but that too is a guess. Beside lacking biographical information, dates of paintings also seem to be in short supply.

Maid

The Lady of the House

At the Cottage Door

Afternoon Tea

A New Day - 1930
This is both signed and dated. The strong colors of the garment and the outdoors are complemented by the much larger areas of drab colors.