József Rippl-Rónai, Hungarian Modernist, of Sorts

József Rippl-Rónai (1861-1927) or Rippl-Rónai József in Hungarian name-order, was an early proponent of modernism, according to this Wikipedia entry.

He began his career as a pharmacologist, but took up art training in Munich and Paris during his mid-20s. He then returned to Hungary and plied his new trade there.

Rippl-Rónai was a modernist of a tepid variety, not straying far into the realms of distorted proportions and colors, let alone Cubism or abstraction. Interestingly, his portraits of women tended to be in pastel, whereas many of this other works were oil on cardboard or other supports.

Many of his portrayals were of Zorka Bányai, but I have no details regarding her.

Gallery

Manor-house at Körtvélyes - c. 1907

Geszti kastély - 1912

Lajos & Odon - 1918

Lady with Black Veil - 1896

Woman with Red Hair - 1891

Young Woman - 1916

Zdenka Ticharich - 1921

Zorka - 1918

Zorka ? - 1924

Portrait - 1920s

Hubert Rogers: Sci-Fi Pulps and Much More

Hubert Rogers (1898-1982) was a Canadian illustrator/painter perhaps best known today for cover paintings for Astounding Science Fiction, generally considered the cream of the pulp Sci-Fi crop, thanks to its (1937-1971) editor John W. Campbell.

Regarding Rogers, this source mentions:

"In 1925 he moved to New York City to study with Dean Cornwell at the Art Students League."

"In 1931 the financial hardship of the Great Depression lead him to abandon city life. He drove an Indian motorcycle to Taos, New Mexico, where he worked within a community of artists that were as passionate about modern landscape painting as the Canadian 'Group of Seven.'"

But he returned to New York in 1936 after he got an increasing number of assignments. Rogers moved back to Canada in 1942 where he did illustrations to help the war effort. He moved to Vermont in 1947.

More on Rogers is here, and a source presenting letters to Rogers from leading science-fiction writers Robert Heinlein and L. Sprague de Camp is here.

Rogers was a competent illustrator who has to drop into working for "pulp" (cheap, low-quality paper) magazines to help get through the Great Depression. This is a slightly different career path than that for some slightly younger illustrators who had to start their career in pulps and then tried to claw their way to more respectable and better paying clients.

As can be seen below, Rogers' covers for Astounding were decently done, a cut well above the common 1940-vintage bug-eyed-monster-clutching-scantily-clad-blonde genre found on covers of some other sci-fi mags.

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Astounding Science Fiction cover - October 1939
One of Rogers' best-known Astounding covers.

Astounding Science Fiction cover - February 1940
The tank is a futuristic version of the Great War British Mark IV tank.

Astounding Science Fiction cover - August 1940
Streamlined space ship, though its tiny wings don't seem very functional.

Astounding Science Fiction cover - August 1941

Astounding Science Fiction cover - May 1947
Some sources consider this to be Rogers' best Astounding cover.

Preliminary sketch, Astounding Science Fiction cover - May 1947

Canadian World War 2 poster

Canadian World War 2 poster "Men of Valor" - final

Canadian World War 2 poster "Men of Valor" - preliminary

Canadian World War 2 poster "Men of Valor" - image for printer

The 1943 Quebec Conference - image copyright Canadian War Museum
Rogers was fully capable of doing paintings as well as illustrations.

Jeremy Mann: Free and Tight on a Single Painting

Jeremy Mann (b. 1979) is a young (mid-30s) artist whose work disproves the modernist conceit of the 1950s that there was no point to realist or naturalist painting in the age of photography, and that abstraction was the viable Fine Arts alternative.

The link to a Fine Arts Connoisseur magazine piece featuring Mann is here, and a gallery web page regarding Mann is here. They contain snippets of biographical information.

Mann's style is a combination of sketchy, impressionistic backgrounds delivered using a variety of means for attacking a wood panel with paint along with tightly-painted details, especially in his depictions of beautiful women. He is also hugely prolific, as his own web site reveals. Click on the images below to enlarge.

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Bay Evening

Raised freeway

Hell's Kitchen

Rooftops in the Snow

Soho

The Muse

Undressing

Untitled (Grace)

The White Vanity

The Forgotten (Version Two - Neglect)

Frederick Varley and Vera Weatherbie

What follows is a greatly simplified, fascinating fragment of Canadian art world history.

It has to do with Frederick (Fred) Horsman Varley (1881-1969), a member of the Group of Seven who I wrote about here (Wikipedia entry here). Unlike most Group of Seven artists, he favored portraiture over landscape painting. And his character was erratic, being prone to stumbling from one personal relationship or financial crisis to another.

He spent 1926-36 in Vancouver, British Columbia teaching and painting. One of his students, Vera Olivia Weatherbie (1909 or 1910 - 1977), became both his lover and muse. There is not much about Weatherbie on the Internet, but here is one link. Varley painted Vera a number of times (see below), and one portrait is now considered iconic in Canadian art.

Weatherbie married photographer and art patron Harold Mortimer-Lamb (1872-1970) on 4 May 1942 when she was in her early 30s and he was about 70. It seems to have been a happy marriage. When she was in her mid-50s she developed dementia or insanity and was lobotomized late 1967 or in 1968. She died choking on a piece of steak on the occasion of her brother's visit from Seattle.

These details were gleaned from the book "Harold Mortimer-Lamb: the art lover" that is reviewed here.

Here are many of Varley's paintings of Vera plus a reference photo.

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Portrait of Vera by John Vanderpant

Vera - c. 1928

Vera

Dharana (probably Vera) - 1932

Vera

Vera - 1934

Vera

Vera - 1931
This is the Varley portrait of Vera Weatherbie that I and others call "iconic."

In the Beginning: J.M.W. Turner

Some readers might be tempted to think that when I mention that I'm not fond of paintings by Joseph Mallord William (J.M.W.) Turner (1775-1851), it means that I'm striving too hard to maintain my Art Contrarian credentials.

Not so. Ten or so years ago I was in the Tate Britain, where there are ten rooms containing his works. This gave me plenty of opportunity to see his paintings "up close and personal" as they used to say. And I didn't like most of the later, archetypical Turners that Modernist apologists gush over because of their near-abstract qualities. So there: I really, truly didn't like what I saw.  During later visits to the Tate, I never set foot in those Turner rooms again.

Background information about Turner can be found here.

Turner's painting were not always the wispy things he is famous for. He evolved, as most artists do. Below are examples of his paintings made when he was in his late 20s and early 30s. They indicate his focus on landscapes and marine subjects along with a growing interest on the effects of light and atmosphere.

Included is one painting where people are the focus, and I consider it inferior to the others, some of which I find fairly likable. Also included is a late painting (he was 65) that is somewhat at odds with the atmospheric seascapes he is most noted for.

Gallery

Dutch Boat in a Gale - 1801

Holy Family - 1803

Bonneville Savoy - 1803

Windsor Castle from the Thames - c.1805

The Shipwreck - 1805

Cliveden on the Thames - 1807

The Battle of Trafalgar, as Seen from the Mizzen Shrouds of the Victory - 1806-08

Venice from the Giudecca - 1840

Earl Mayan: Hard-Edge Illustrator

Earl Mayan (1916-2009) had a long life and a successful career in illustration and teaching. His Wikipedia entry is here and more biographical information here and here.

Even though he had success that included ten covers and a number of story illustrations in America's leading general-interest magazine of the day -- the Saturday Evening Post -- Mayan seems to be largely unknown today. Nothing unusual about that, actually. That's because there were more than a few illustrators who "hit the big-time" at the Post, but not consistently enough to develop a strong reputation in the readership and the public at large.

According to the second link above, Mayan painted portraits and landscapes, but I didn't notice any examples on the Internet. Too bad, because his style used for "slick" (paper quality) magazines was detailed and hard-edged -- not sketchy or painterly. So I am curious regarding his degree of versatility. His black & white story illustrations for "pulp" magazines in the 1930s are not painted and therefore aren't a basis for comparison.

Mayan's most elaborate illustrations are impressive in terms of the amount of work they required due to the large amount of detail depicted. He was a highly skilled illustration technician. I respect Mayan considerably, but due to quirks of personal taste, he doesn't rank with my favorites.

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Saturday Evening Post story illustration

Saturday Evening Post story illustration

Saturday Evening Post cover art (cropped at the top) - 23 April 1955

Saturday Evening Post cover - 20 April 1957
The subject is New York Yankees' legendary catcher Yogi Berra at work under a pop foul ball in Boston's Fenway Park.

Saturday Evening Post cover - 2 June 1956

Saturday Evening Post cover - 28 April 1956
For some reason (he might have been a fan), Mayan included a large number of English cars in this scene even though they were scarce on American streets in the 1950s.