Peregrine Heathcote's 1930s Pseudo-Nostalgia

I'm puzzling over how to classify the art of Peregrine Heathcote (1973 - ). On the one hand, he makes part of his living painting portraits, but few of these turn up in Google Images searches. What one does find in proliferation are images of paintings with 1930s settings populated by people dressed fairly recent attire. I deal with the latter in this post.

For some reason, there is little biographical information regarding Heathcote on the Web. Sources with sketchy information are here and here. One site I stumbled across hinted in passing that he attended Harrow, and a partly blocked Times of London piece dealt with Heathcote's renovation of his house in the tony Chelsea (in London) neighborhood. So I must assume that he is doing fine financially, unlike many artists.

Heathcote has a Web site that's worth viewing. This page and subsequent pages feature his paintings, the titles of which are cryptic and that I ignore in the presentation below.

Are his paintings Dieselpunk? Maybe, according to this post on a Dieselpunk site. I'm inclined to think not. That's because most Dieselpunk art alters actual 1920s and 30s objects as if they were in a parallel universe. Heathcote instead takes objects as they were and does his time-warping by the inclusion of non-period (in terms of dress) people.

Like Retro artist Robert LaDuke (see my post here), Heathcote recycles themes, settings and objects. See the images below for examples.

Gallery

The top painting includes an American 1935 Auburn 851 and a British De Havilland 89 Rapide, the lower one features a De Havilland 86 Express.

The aircraft is a German Junkers G.38.

I'm not sure which tri-motor airliner is included here, though it's most likely a Ford.

Three walking the dock scenes. The flying boat in the middle image is a Short S-23, the one immediately above is a Boeing 314.

Deco train travel. The license plate on the race car in the upper image includes Heathcote's initials.

In case you haven't noticed, Heathcote includes 1930s luggage in many of his paintings. Here the traveler faces an ocean liner.

Phone-call images with New York City at dusk out the window.

For some reason, the sports car in this painting is post-World War 2 and not from the 1930s.

Booking a journey.

These paintings seem to be a take-off on Jack Vettriano, but lack the tension and sense of potential menace often present in his work.

I've never seen a Heathcote painting in person, though I'll be on the lookout when I'm near a gallery that carries his work. This means I must evaluate on the basis of images such as those displayed above.

Despite what I noted in the various comments above, I rather like his painting. Yes, it's more hard-edge than I usually prefer, but the point is to portray 1930s stuff clearly, unambiguously. The people in his paintings are pretty repetitious in terms of pose and costume details, but that's something one notices on a Google Images spread or assembled on a blog page. In isolation, a Heathcote might be quite interesting, especially if juxtaposed to different kinds of paintings or else perhaps placed near a group of Art Deco objects.

I'm not prepared to claim Heathcote's work great any more than I am Vettriano's, though I find both strangely appealing due to their subject matter. In Heathcote's case, I pretty sure it's because I'm a sucker for the elegant aspect of the 1930s, wisps of which persisted into my childhood years.

Up Close: Boldini's Giuseppe Verdi

Fans of late nineteenth century painting who are planning a trip that includes Rome should try to find time to visit the Galleria nazionale d'arte moderna. It's on the grounds of the Villa Borghese, a park located a short ways northeast of the Spanish Steps area, which puts it slightly away from the main Rome tourist track. Also on the grounds is the more famous Galleria Borghese, which contains masterpiece paintings and -- especially -- sculptures by the likes of Bernini and Canova. The two museums are not close to one another, but the walk between them is not too far for most people. Once visited, the Moderna is a fairly short walk from the Piazza del Popolo that, in turn, leads to streets where Rome's fanciest shops are found.

One of the best-known works in the Arte Moderna is the 1888 pastel portrait of Giuseppe Verdi (1813-1901) by Giovanni Boldini (1841-1931). Below are two photos I took of it on my last visit.

Gallery

Ritratto di Giuseppe Verdi - 1888
This is an image found on the Internet.

This is my photo showing the portrait and its frame.

A close-in photo I took. Click on the image to enlarge.

Félix Mas: Stylized Women in Decorative Settings

What was there about Spain in, say, the 1950s? The water? The Rioja? Anyway, the country produced some really talented comics artists who were trained around that time. One example is Félix Mas (1935 - ) who was active in that field as well as illustration before moving on to painting in oils. His brief Wikipedia entry is here, and a link dealing with his comics work is here.

All of his painting images that I could find on the Internet featured slender, beautiful young women. Clothing and settings were usually stylized and decorative. After a little thought, I decided that Mas was inspired by Gustav Klimt, in that decorative patterns or other elements such as peacock feathers form part of the background or setting. The decorative elements are not as extreme as Klimt's. And as noted below, often the women are wearing kimonos, and those kimonos feature floral and other patterns.

I keep repeating the word decorative, because that's what Mas' paintings essentially are. Viewers who prefer to find a story, psychological tension, or other dramatic content might be disappointed by Mas.

Gallery

Panel from Vampirella #16, April, 1972. This shows Mas' style as a comics artist.

Now for some of his oil paintings...

These two paintings feature vaguely 1900-style hair and high collar.

Mas has women dressed in kimonos in many of his paintings. I don't recall having seen a strapless kimono, however.

Walter Gotschke, Automobile Impressionist

Seen above are an Auto Union and a Mercedes dueling in a pre-World War 2 race. The illustrator is Walter Gotschke (1912-2000) who reconstructed many such scenes after the war using a distinctive impressionist style of gouache painting. His art is well known to automobile buffs.

A short biography on a web site dedicated to Gotschke is here. The German Wikipedia entry that provides family information as well as Gotschke's World War 2 service is here. Charley Parker deals with his art here.

It seems that Gotschke was self-taught, but had little trouble understanding how to portray machines and settings accurately with strong doses of atmosphere and emotion. When necessary, he could change his style to tight rendering. Sadly, he started losing eyesight around 1985 and was blind by 1990, some ten years before his death.

Gallery

Rudi Caracciola driving a Mercedes SSK at the Semmering Bergrennen (hill climb), 1928.

Rudi Caracciola winning the 1931 Mille Miglia.

2 Litre Mercedes at 1924 Targa Florio race.

W154 Mercedes at 1938 Italian Grand Prix, Leghorn.

Bernd Rosemeyer in Auto Union speed record car, 28 January 1938.

Gotschke illustration doodles, 1968.

Volkswagen Works, Wolfsburg, 1946. Wolfsburg was in the British occupation zone, and production was re-started to provide a few vehicles for the occupation forces. Little did the Brits know what would come to pass.

Berlin street scene, 1930.

Brochure cover for Mercedes Type 170S - 1949.

Illustration for Ford Taunus P3 - c. 1961. This, and the three illustrations above, are crisply done, unlike his racing art.

Richard E. Miller's Models in That Skirt

That Skirt probably was one Richard E. Miller's wife eventually cast off, and he thought it would be suitable for dressing models. Or not. I'm only guessing, and so will have to wait (for a long time, I suspect) for a good biography to appear that might clear up that detail. For now, there's this Wikipedia entry that covers the basics regarding his life and career.

Below is a collection of his images that I found here and there on the Internet where the model is wearing what appears to be the same skirt. Where the images were dated, the range is from around 1912 when Miller was living in the American artist colony in Giverny (near Claude Monet's house) or elsewhere in France, through the 1920s into the 1930s, a time when he lived in Provincetown on Cape Cod. I am not sure dates for paintings that I found on the Web are all accurate, but suspect they are not far off. The models' coiffeurs are usually based on long hair, something not fashionable during much of the 1920s, so most of the undated images are most likely from the previous decade. And the titles of the paintings? I'll use title format in the captions if that is what the source had; otherwise, I'll write a title as a sentence.

Moreover, I don't know who Miller used as models. One might well have been his wife, but I can't seem to find a photo of her, so that can't be confirmed. Perhaps some of the women in the early paintings were Giverny locals or wives of other artists. The same might be the case for Provincetown.

Setting aside that patchy background, let's take a look at some of the many appearances of That Skirt.

Gallery

The Miliner - 1909
The date might be a few years early.

Meditation - c. 1912-13
This was painted in the same room as the first picture.

Reverie - 1913
Ditto. Note the sewing (?) box with the open top is the same as in the previous painting.

Sunlight - 1913
Same window blinds, same table, same box, same chair, same foot rest and, of course, same skirt. I even suspect that both women in the painting were posed by the same person.

The Necklace - c. 1924
I notice that the model for all the paintings shown thus far seems to be the same person. The hair-do matches, as does the shape of the nose, for instance. Probably Miller's wife, because she'd be available to pose and wouldn't likely charge a modeling fee. I question the 1924 date; most like done ten years earlier.

Contemplation
Same model, skirt. Also the same french door framing.

Seated Lady with Red Hair
Big change, other than that persistent skirt. The subject is a different woman, but the room and some of its contents seem the same as before.

Red Haired Woman Seated at Vanity
The usual setting, although this mirror on the table has a square frame. The model might not be the same as the redhead in the last image, because her hair seems a little longer than the other's would have been had it been let down. But I could easily be wrong.

Woman in green chair
The mirror and skirt look the same as in the last image, but somehow the room seems different. Elsewhere in France, perhaps? Or maybe even Provincetown.

Girl reading
This might be Miller's daughter. The hair style suggests the 1920s. The skirt is similar to the others, but has a different hem.

Sunny Morning - c. 1930
Provincetown here, almost certainly. Different model, but the usual skirt.

Young woman holding necklace
This looks like that same model used for the painting above. French doors and venetian blinds return. I suspect these two final paintings were done later than 1930.