Charles Curran's Hilltop Women

Charles Courtney Curran (1861 – 1942) was of the same ilk as his Boston School contemporaries, though he did his work in New York State and Ohio rather than in or near The Hub. His Wikipedia entry is here, and a more detailed biography can be found here.

Curran was highly skilled and painted attractive women in a variety of settings for the most part. For nearly 20 years or so he made many paintings of young, usually white-clad woman on hilltops near his summer home in Upstate New York. I offer a sampling of these below.

Gallery

View of Ellenville, New York
This is the area where Curran did his hilltop scenes. Ellenville lies in Ulster County, up the Hudson River from New York City, near the southeastern corner of the Catskill Mountains. The view is from the Shawangunk Ridge near the tiny village of Cragsmoor (about three miles south of Ellenville), where Curran had a summer home. The Catskills are seen in the background.

Faraway Thoughts
This painting is more hard-edge than most of the others.  I don't have a date for it, so can't give it context.

Noonday Sunlight - 1918

On the Cliff - 1910

On the Heights - 1909

Summer - 1906

Summer Clouds - 1917

Sunlit Valley - 1920

Sunshine and Haze
I like this (and the preceding image) because Curran did a convincing job of painting the usually humid summer atmospherics of that part of New York State. I can attest to this because I spent more than four years in Albany and traveled to the Catskill region many, many times in those days.

Molti Ritratti: Marchesa Luisa Casati

I can't get the thought out of my mind that already I posted about portraits of the Marchesa Luisa Casati (1881-1957). I found a directory containing images of her dating from three years ago, but some searches of this blog have turned up nothing. So I am puzzled.

But that doesn't really matter because I just added more images to create an even more richly illustrated post (if indeed there was a previous one). La Casati was one of the most portrayed women of her times, though she fell a bit short of Suzy Solidor. Better yet, Casati was painted by some very well-known artists, which adds to the interest.

As her Wikipedia entry (first link, above) indicates, she was extremely rich, yet managed to spend it away by the time she was around 50. Plus, she had a magnetic personality that fascinated most of those who portrayed her.

The painting that launched her celebrity is Giovanni Boldini's 1908 version of her shown at the top of this post. Below are other images by name of artist in order of the year they were made.

Gallery

Alberto Martini - 1912

Leon Bakst - 1912

Adolph de Meyer (photo) - 1912

Giovanni Boldini - 1914

Kees Van Dongen - 1914

Kees Van Dongen - 1915

Augustus John - 1919

Augustus John - 1919

Frederico Beltran - 1920

Romaine Brooks - 1920

Kees Van Dongen - 1921

Augustus John - 1942

Jacek Malczewski and Muses

Jacek Malczewski (1854-1929) made astonishing paintings. Not astonishingly good paintings, necessarily, but paintings that astonish. Not only do they astonish, they fascinate. This is mostly because of their subjects and how Malczewski presented them. For me, its a "What in the hell is going on here?" reaction in many cases. Malczewski carried this off because was a skilled artist; off hand, I can't think of any other painter who could have painted what he did in such a convincing manner.

I lasted posted on Malczewski here, showing some of his paintings dealing with death. The present post deals with artists, muses, and in particular, Malczewski's most important muse, Marii Balowej, also known as Maria Balowa or Maria Bal. For a short summary of Malczewski's career, click here.

The images below are in chronological order. Click to enlarge.

Gallery

Natchnienie malarza (Painter's Muse) - 1897

Artysta i muza (Artist and Muse) - 1898

Autoportret z muza - (Self-Portrait With Muse Holding Scepter and Heart) - 1904
Although he was married, Malczewski began using the recently-divorced Marii Balowej as a model. This turned into an affair that lasted for about ten years. Even after it ended, the two remained friends. As best I can tell, this and all the images below have her as the model for the woman.

Portret Kobiety (Marii Balowej) - 1907

Modelka (Maria Balowa jako śmierć czytająca nekrologi w gazecie) - Model as Death Reading Obituaries - 1907

Moja dusza (My Soul) - 1908
This is really a sketch, but Malczewski considered it finished because he signed it. I include it because it suggests his technique at an early stage of creating a painting.

Wiosna (Spring) - 1909

Auroportret - 1915
Another partly completed work.

Pytia Pythia (the Delphic oracle) - 1917
Painted after the break-up. Marii is fully clothed, perhaps due to that.

One Million Pageviews

Really successful Internet sites such as Drudge Report can clock one million pageviews in an hour. Some blogs can probably hit that mark in a couple of months or maybe less time.

Art Contrarian is a small blog with limited focus, but it hit the 1,000,000 pageviews mark sometime today.

So many thanks to you, the regular readers and those who drop by occasionally for making Art Contrarian reach this milestone.

Clarence F. Underwood: Prolific Then, Unknown Now

Clarence F. Underwood (1871-1929) was born in Jamestown in western New York State, trained at the Art Students League in New York and the Académie Julian in Paris, returned to America around 1901, and then pursued a career in illustration.

That's just about all I could find regarding him.

But if you Google on him and go into Images, you will find quite a number of examples of his work. It seems that Underwood was prolific and appeared in leading magazines of his day, including the Saturday Evening Post, the top general-interest magazine for more than half of the 20th century.

I have to admit that I don't care for most of Underwood's work. The scenes he depicts are usually bland (though that might have been because of the stories he illustrated). His compositions aren't usually very interesting, either. While he could draw well when he chose to, often enough his brushwork was just fussy enough to counteract the drawing. From Google, it seems that he used gouache, watercolor or possibly colored inks a good deal, this and the vignette style he often used suggest that he worked fairly fast. Given the quality of printing during his 1902 - early 1920s heyday, it's possible that the reproduction process smoothed over some of the rough brushwork.

For a quick look at some examples of his work in addition to what is displayed below, click here. The images shown below are what I consider among the best of his work.

Gallery

Couple ice skating
Many Underwood illustrations deal with well-dressed couples. Apparently this is what the stories and art editors required.

Seated young women in overcoat
I think this is one of his best efforts.

Lady getting her hair arranged
When given the chance or when in the right mood, Underwood could be witty.

Elegant couple - Saturday Evening Post illustration
A nondescript painting with large amounts of dead space surrounding the subjects. Was some of that covered with print in the publication?

Couple in back seat of limousine
By the woman's hair style, I'll assume this is one of Underwood's later works.

Did Mead Schaeffer Dislike His Best Art?

According to the article on Mead Schaeffer (1898-1980) in issue No. 45 of Illustration magazine, he was quoted as saying in 1945:

"I longed to do honest work, based on real places, real people, and real things -- work expressive of normal human emotions and activities. So, I did a right-about-face, and have never regretted it."

This was in reaction to painting "dudes and dandies, exaggerated sentiment, artificial romance, and love withe the endless 'he and she' pictures."

The images above reflect this change in attitude. The ones below are some of what I consider his better work done prior to his epiphany.

There is little question that Schaeffer was satisfied with his decision to change subject matter and, as it turned out, his style as well. But while he seemed satisfied, what about his audience and, in my case, his fan base?

To me, Schaeffer's appeal lies in his style -- the way he composed his scenes and, especially, his painting technique; subject matter is secondary. So far as I am concerned, his work from around 1940 onward was competently done, conventional, and not interesting to look at in most cases. Other contemporaneous illustrators could (and did) do pretty much the same sort of thing equally well. Very few in 1925-39 could equal Scheffer's work. Feel free to disagree in Comments.

(I wrote about Schaeffer here. A brief Wikipedia entry is here. A David Apatoff take can be found here. There is more about him here.)

The Dieselpunk World of "donaguirre"

I have no idea who "donaguirre" is. He signs his illustrations "aguirre" and it seems that he's based in Germany (could he be originally from Spain?). And I wouldn't be surprised if it turns out that he was trained in industrial design.

His website is a part of the Deviant Art site, and is difficult to navigate for casual viewers such as me.

Given all this, we have no choice but to drop searching for details about him and instead take a peek at the alternative-1930s universe he has created. Click on the images to enlarge.

Gallery

These "posters" help set the stage for aguirre's world. Imaginary countries and cities exist, though they resemble those of the 1930s. And don't miss the wry bits of humor: for example, note the "generous dental plan" appeal in the 1935 faux-poster immediately above.

Two more poster-like images, but of a different kind. Robert Heinlein fans will catch the reference in the book cover.

Fighter, HMS Aquarius, 1936
Design for a dirigible-based fighter plane.

Leaving Home Defence Perimeter

Malstroen-Zeppenfeldt, 1935 faux-poster for a weekend racing event

Nikkokan Task Force
Apparently the enemy is a Japan-like nation.

Rollout
A completed passenger dirigible leaves the factory.

Spirit of Distopia
Another plane design. This from the "Hugges" company, and a likely takeoff on Howard Hughes' H-1 Racer of 1935.

Racing Weekend