Fine Arts News

Renoir's On the Shore of the Seine returns to the Baltimore Museum of Art more than 60 years after its theft. Rumor has it Renoir painted the tiny piece on a linen napkin for his mistress. It was stolen from the museum in 1951 and resurfaced in 2012 when a woman tried to sell it, claiming she had bought it at a flea market.

Renoir's On the Shore of the Seine returns to the Baltimore Museum of Art more than 60 years after its theft. Rumor has it Renoir painted the tiny piece on a linen napkin for his mistress. It was stolen from the museum in 1951 and resurfaced in 2012 when a woman tried to sell it, claiming she had bought it at a flea market.

It has the makings of a great mystery: Artwork stolen from a prominent museum, plus the FBI, a beautiful woman and an intrepid reporter. But this isn't fiction, it's a strange, true tale of how a painting by Pierre-Auguste Renoir has now safely returned home to Baltimore.

At first it was known as the Renoir found at a West Virginia flea market — a woman took the painting to an auction house where they concluded that it was, indeed, On the Shore of the Seine — a Renoir that had been purchased in Paris in 1925 by American art collectors Herbert and Saidie May. In a press release, the auction house said it could sell for up to $100,000.

The flea market story intrigued Washington Post reporter Ian Shapira. He knew that Saidie May was a major donor to the Baltimore Museum of Art, but when he called the BMA, they told him they had no record of the painting. Shapira went to the museum to look through May's papers anyway, just days before the auction opened.

"I found some documents showing that the museum had actually owned this painting and then the museum discovered documents on its own showing that the staff back in the 1950s had actually reported the painting stolen," Shapira says.

It was stolen — possibly in the middle of the night — in November, 1951. Once the Baltimore Museum of Art confirmed the Renoir belonged to them, they immediately contacted the auction house. The auction house contacted the FBI, and the FBI seized the painting.
But that's not all Shapira discovered. His first clue something was amiss in the flea market story was a phone chat he had with the woman's brother.

"He said something along the lines of: 'Oh, yeah, that painting had been in my mother's house for years,'" Shapira says.

It turns out their mother, Marcia Fouquet, was an artist: She "was a painter herself who went to art college in Baltimore at the time of the painting's theft," Shapira says. She was a beautiful woman "who had a certain charm over men."

Fouquet lived in a house in Fairfax, Va. She rented out some of the rooms, and Shapira tracked down some of her former tenants. "Many of them told me in interviews they remember seeing this Renoir hanging in her house for decades," he says.

“ The painting became sort of a prodigal child. No matter how many children you have — and we have 90,000 in this institution — you feel for the one that is lost. So to be able to have it come home is just incredibly meaningful for us.

- Doreen Bolger, director of the Baltimore Museum of Art

But — as far as Shapira could tell — Fouquet never told anyone how she got it. She died at age 85 in September 2013.The case ended up in court — with the daughter still claiming she bought the painting at a flea market so it belonged to her, and the Baltimore Museum showing evidence of ownership of the stolen Renoir. The judge ruled in the museum's favor. After more than 60 years, the Renoir was returned.

On the Shore of the Seine is tiny, smaller than a sheet of paper. But the miniature landscape — of a sailboat in the distance — is bursting with color. The story goes that Renoir painted it around 1879 on a linen napkin — for his lover. With so much international interest, the painting is getting quite a homecoming.

"The painting became sort of a prodigal child," says Doreen Bolger, director of the Baltimore Museum of Art. "No matter how many children you have — and we have 90,000 in this institution — you feel for the one that is lost. So to be able to have it come home is just incredibly meaningful for us.
The exhibition "The Renoir Returns" opens to the public on Sunday. The mystery of who stole the painting in 1951 remains unsolved. As for Marcia Fouquet's daughter, she says she will not appeal the judge's ruling.


More...

Photographer JeongMee Yoon felt her daughter's life was being overtaken by pink. She illustrated that in her 2006 portrait Seo Woo and Her Pink Things.

JeongMee Yoon/Museum of Fine Arts, Boston and Jenkins Johnson Gallery



Susan Stamberg/NPR
Men's suits weren't always so sober. This embroidered, pink silk coat was worn by a Frenchman in the court of Louis XVI in the 18th century.

With sleet, snow and freezing temperatures extending through March, the National Cherry Blossom Festival — which recently kicked off in Washington, D.C. — is decidedly less pink this year. In a few weeks the Tidal Basin will be ringed by rosy, pink blossoms, but until then, we traveled north to Boston, where a show at the Museum of Fine Arts called "Think Pink" explores the history and social impact of the color.

Pink has always been with us, though it was not always as gender-entrenched as it is today. Back in the 1700s, men and women wore pink. Curator Michelle Finamore says a painting in the exhibit gives early evidence.

"It's a late 18th-century portrait of two children, who are both wearing dresses," she explains. "One is a pink brocade satin dress, one is a yellow dress, and they have these pinafores over them, and you can't tell if they're boys or girls."



Museum of Fine Arts, Boston
A copy of the Ralph Lauren suit made for Robert Redford in the 1974 film version of F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby.

Finamore can tell by their accessories — they're wearing shoes and hats only boys wore then. But to most of us today, the kids look like girls.

Nearby at the exhibit is a pale pinkish-purple silk coat worn by a Frenchman in Louis XVI's court. Any woman would be tempted to swap her pink Nikes for this gorgeous long coat, embroidered with intricate flowers.

In A Journey Around My Room, published in 1794, French writer Xavier de Maistre puts pink into the male dream-space. He recommends that men have pink and white bedrooms to brighten their moods.

Fast-forward to 1925. Characters in The Great Gatsby speculate about Gatsby's past: "An Oxford man! ... Like hell he is! He wears a pink suit." A version of that pink suit is in the Boston show — Ralph Lauren designed it for Robert Redford in the 1974 movie.

Before Gatsby, a 1918 trade catalog for children's clothing recommended blue for girls. The reasoning at the time was that it's a "much more delicate and dainty tone," Finamore says. Pink was recommended for boys "because it's a stronger and more passionate color, and because it's actually derived from red."

To our 21st century ears, all this men in pink stuff may sound a bit blushy. "It's so deeply entrenched in us and our culture," says Finamore. "We think of pink as such a girlish color, but it's really a post-World War II phenomenon."

When the war ended and the men came home, Rosie the Riveter traded in her factory blues for June Cleaver's pink apron. In the postwar ideal, men reclaimed the workplace, and women stayed home with babies and shiny appliances. Femininity got wrapped in pink, and so did products — from shampoos to fancy fashion.



Museum of Fine Arts, Boston
Big, pink flowers bloom on ivory silk in this 1956 dress by Christian Dior.

In 1947, after the shortages and rationing, and straight skirts of war, Christian Dior introduced the New Look. "It is this overtly feminine silhouette," Finamore explains. "You have soft shoulders, a bust line, a wasp waist and voluminous skirts."

The Boston "Think Pink" show has a strapless Dior gown from 1956 — the ivory silk is blooming with large, pink flowers.

Half a century later, photographer JeongMee Yoon was feeling overwhelmed by pink. She posed her young daughter in the middle of all the pink things that she owned and called the photograph Seo Woo and Her Pink Things (which you can see at the top of this page.)

"You barely see the little girl," says Finamore. "She's way back in the far right corner. And in front of her is this vast array of pink Hello Kitties, of pink dresses, of pink dolls, pink notebooks, pink anything you can imagine."

Thanks to marketing, Disney princesses and profits, the color pink has spread like measles. But at the Boston Museum of Fine Arts, where the "Think Pink" show is on through May 26, Finamore says these days of metrosexuals and shifting gender roles are loosening the color divide. Males are thinking pink again ... but will it ever be the new black?


More...

A portrait of Russian President Vladimir Putin is on display at the George W. Bush Presidential Library and Museum in Dallas.

Former President George W. Bush worked with many world leaders while in office. Now, he's unveiling 24 portraits he painted of some of them. As Lauren Sullivan of KERA reports, the exhibit will be at his new presidential library.


More...

Hi Guys,

These are few water color illustrations that we have done for our portfolio,Please give your feedback so that we can improve more if we lacks in something.

Thanks.

Yes, that's good

Her watercolor paintings (mostly portraits) tell stories of Americans whose work and traditions are fading into the past, but not before she documents their existence in artworks that could strongly stand on their own even without the meanings behind them. The ideal composition, color, and balance are there without question, but so are the individuals–the subjects, if you will. Look at them and you’ll see culture; look closely and you may see yourself or someone you know.



I recently asked Whyte, “when someone comes to you and wants to learn how to paint, what’s the first thing you tell him/her?” She was kind enough to share some valuable tips.

“When beginning artists come to me and tell me that they want to learn to paint, I tell them the very first thing they must do is learn how to draw. Drawing is absolutely essential to becoming a successful artist. (Agree with this? Tweet it!) So draw as much as you can, especially from life! Take a small sketchbook with you everywhere, and sketch everyday observations–your family, the dogs running at the park, the people in the waiting area at the dentist’s office, or the clutter on your kitchen table. Your sketchbook will become your daily journal, and bring you up the learning curve to becoming an artist faster than any other means. Drawing from life will hone your eye for proportion, perspective, composition, shape, line and value, and give you a greater understanding how form is described by light.”
Great advice! Whyte added that she tells her students that they need three things to become accomplished artists:
1. Something to say
2. The ability to say it
3. The courage to do it
I couldn’t agree more. If you’re inspired by Whyte’s paintings, learn how to paint from her with this special offer:Watercolor Portraits of the South with Mary Whyte is included in North Light Shop’s 50% off sale (scroll down for an extra 10% off coupon, plus free shipping details). As a special bonus, watch the above video coverage on Whyte and her story-filled portrait paintings. It’s from one of my favorite TV shows, CBS Sunday Morning.

Come out of the Bone Age, darling....1955
Courtesy of the artist and Jack Shainman Gallery, New York



Good thing he kept his head, 1962



In 2008, Thomas put on a similar exhibit that focused on images of African-Americans. His new exhibit is focused on white women — but American attitudes towards other races appear in works like Golly, Mis' Maria, Folks Jus' Can't Help Havin' a friendly feeling' for Dis Heah!, 1935



Aggressive loyalty, 1963



Advertisements don't need any words to say a lot about a culture.
That's one of the messages that shines through in the work of artist Hank Willis Thomas. In 2008, Thomas removed the text and branding from ads featuring African-Americans, creating a series he called Unbranded, which illustrated how America has seen and continues to see black people.

In the run-up to the 2016 election — and the possibility of a white woman being nominated — he's mounted a new exhibit, featuring women in print. It's called Unbranded: A Century of White Women, and it features images from mainstream commercial print advertisements from 1915 to today.

"Ads really aren't about the products. It's about what myths and generalizations we can attach."

- Hank Willis Thomas

Stripping away the normal elements of an advertisement and reducing it to pure image is powerful, Thomas says.
"I think what happens with ads — when we put text and logos on them, we do all the heavy lifting of making them make sense to us," he tells NPR's Linda Wertheimer. "But when you see the image naked, or unbranded, you start to really ask questions.
"That's why we can almost never tell what it's actually an ad for, because ads really aren't about the products. It's about what myths and generalizations we can attach, and the repetition of imagery of a certain type."

---

Interview Highlights

On what surprised him when he laid out the advertisements chronologically
I actually was amazed to look at how advertising can function as a mirror for the hopes and dreams — or the anxiety — of a society at a period of time.

The one that really kind of struck a chord with me was this image from 1955 of a woman being dragged by her hair in a corset and holding a telephone. When I first saw the ad I was struck by the violence in it — it's a man, kind of dressed like a caveman ... dragging her. And the text said, "Come out of the Bone Age, darling." And the suggestion was that corsets were made with bones, and that if you wanted to be advanced, like a modern woman, you would wear synthetic [materials].

But at the same time that that image was produced, Emett Till was killed in the United States for whistling at a "white woman." And I found it fascinating that her virtue could be so challenged and maybe besmirched by him whistling at her, allegedly, but it would be OK in the public to present images of white women being dragged by their hair by white men.

You don't have to try so hard!, 1958. Artist Hank Willis Thomas and NPR's Linda Wertheimer used this "unbranded" ad from 1958 — with a man mischievously smiling as a woman laps up beer — as an example of the growing sexualization of women in ads from the late '50s.

On how in the late '50s and early '60s the images became more sexualized
I also think that it's amazing that it really happens almost immediately after World War II. And I think this sexualization in mainstream ads, which is what I use, was part of this need for women to be kind of put in a place.

On whether it got any better for women as decades passed
Mr. Mom came out [in 1983], and we see that kind of switching of positions. And then the '90s is where I think things start to get more diverse — and then into the aughts it gets, I think, crazier. Because we see really sexist images, but we see images where African-Americans appear for the first time as equals to white women, we see men being kind of in a lesser position than women in certain images, and we even see same-sex couples.

But the final image is an image from 2015 for a Ram truck, where it looks like — it's based off an image of "Washington Crossing the Delaware" ... and there's all these women in bikinis in the cold. It really speaks to the ridiculousness of it.


More...

01. The right tools

In order to achieve a desirable result with watercolour it’s important to have the right tools. While you don’t have to invest in an expensive set of supplies, you don’t want to use paint or paper that is not suitable for watercolour either.



02. Start with sketches



03. Colour studies

04. Preparing paint and paper

05. Understanding watercolour as a medium



06. What to do first



07. Getting experimental



the source

Watercolor Sunset

After
art photo by Stanislav Hricko