Category Archives: Paintings

Without paintings we are nothing

Terence Cuneo

Book reviews, Paintings

Steam train painting master.

Ask me which photography book I would choose if I could only have one and the answer has been unchanged for decades. It’s O. Winston Link’s (1914-2001) Steam, Steel and Stars. A masterpiece of nostalgia, composition and technique, it’s so good that I own two copies, the lighter paperback joining me on my travels:


Everyone should have two.

But a photographer can only go with what is there. Yes, he can change the lighting and composition but he does not have the creative freedom afforded a painter whose limits are those of his imagination. And if you want something of the same caliber as Link’s photographs on a canvas the only choice is the work of Terence Cuneo (1907-96).

High drama is a given in his moving train canvases:


High drama.

Yet the more mundane images are no less powerful and nostalgic:


The signalman.

Cuneo would generally make pen and ink sketches first and completed many commissions for British Railways. In this example, where the cab is being lowered onto the wheels and chassis, he arrived too late. Because he was well known by the operators it was a moment’s work for them to raise the cab so he could complete his sketch:


Preliminary sketch.

And then, Boom!, an absolute masterpiece:


An Engine is Wheeled.

Imagine an advertising campaign today with this ‘backroom’ approach? Pictures of Chinese slave labor assembling iPhones? I don’t think so.

And if you desire Impressionist genius, Cuneo is happy to oblige, as in this image on the Orient Express:


Impressionism on the Orient Express.

These images are from a splendid book titled ‘Terence Cuneo: Railway Painter of the Century‘. It’s long out of print but available from used sellers and the quality of the printing on very thick stock does justice to Cuneo’s canvases.

John Christian Leyendecker

Art Illustration, Paintings, Photographs

An outstanding illustrator.

For an index of articles on art illustrators, click here.

The men who are coming home breathe the spirit of a new order.
They represent a new type of young America, new mentally and physically.

The House of Kuppenheimer, alert and responsive to every tendency,
has caught this new spirit in a remarkable way.

The styles are for the new American figure, upright posture, slender waist and
full chest. Fabrics, patterns and tailoring are such as to again justify
the reputation of the best tailored young men’s clothes in America.

House of Kuppenheimer ad text, March 8, 1919.


Leyendecker’s art accompanying the above.

The Chicago men’s clothing store of B. Kuppenheimer, the creation of Bernard Kuppenheimer in 1876, folded in 1997 when starched collars and creased trousers gave way to torn tee shirts and tattoos. During much of its early years Kuppenheimers resorted to the art work of J C Leyendecker of New York to help sell its clothing and the art Leyendecker provided was never less than exceptional.


Another Kuppenheimer example.

The supremely elegant models, Borzoi included, are rendered in strong brushstrokes reminiscent of Van Gogh or the Fauves, the gazes direct, the composition tight.

While marketing increasingly turned to photography for its images after WWII – cheaper, more choice for editors – the era of style and class created by illustrators prior to that time has rarely been equaled in photographs. And certainly the period work of Leyendecker has not been matched.

Little is known or remembered of the artist today, who lived from 1874 to 1951. There is one splendid monograph on his work at Amazon:


Click for Amazon.

There is some unadulterated BS about how Leyendecker’s homosexuality infused his imagery. Utter nonsense. Look for yourself.

Leyendecker illustrated hundreds of Saturday Evening Post covers (322, to be exact, one more than Rockwell) and his successor, Norman Rockwell, copied many of the themes, though the target demographic was poorer and lower. Populism replaced sophistication. All of Leyendecker’s 322 SEP covers are reproduced in the book.

Other prominent Leyendecker clients include Arrow collars and shirts (pretty much defunct by acquisition in 2004) and Interwoven Socks, now owned by an Italian conglomerate.


One of Leyendecker’s many takes on Thanksgiving,
American Weekly, November 18, 1945.

Feast your eyes on Leyendecker’s work for these manufacturers:

These are mostly from the Roaring Twenties.

These images harken back to a world when young men attended the Ivy League, their future spouses went to Bryn Mawr, legacy admissions were the done thing and equality had yet to rear its ugly head.

Enjoy.

Van Gogh’s self portraits

Paintings

At the Courtauld Gallery, London.

My fondest memory of attending University College, London is not of the College. Rather, it is of the Courtauld Art Gallery, across the road from the School of Engineering, where I spent many happy hours. In the Gallery, that is, not in the lecture hall.

The Courtuald happens to house the finest ‘street’ painting of the Impressionist period there is, and I wrote of it here.

The Guardian alerted me that there is a special show of many of Van Gogh’s self portraits at the Courtauld through early May and I immediately contacted my sister in West Sussex begging for a copy of the related catalog, which arrived today.


Click the image for the Guardian review.

Not since Rembrandt – also a Dutchman – has an artist lived his life so loudly on canvas. And while there have been many fine renditions of his life on the big screen, the one to see stars Kirk Douglas, who bears an uncanny resemblance to the tortured artist, in ‘Lust for Life’.

If you can make it to the Courtauld, do so. As a minimum, get the catalog.

James Tissot

Art Illustration, Paintings, Photographers

French society painter.

For an index of articles on art illustrators, click here.

Where the French impressionists painted for art, James Tissot (1836-1902) {‘tea-sow’) painted for a living. While defying easy characterization, ‘society painter’, with all its attendant pejoratives, comes close.

Tissot was much more than a hack painting for shekels from the rich. He was very much his own man and, while friendly with many of the impressionists, he made it a point not to exhibit with these cultural rabble rousers.

He painted the rich, but at a skill level denied the common or garden society dauber. Gaze at the detail and rendering of the beautiful women’s clothing of La Belle Époque and you will see this is no ordinary artist. Nor are his compositions anything but perfect, the space used well, the dynamics preserved.




Dynamic composition. Portsmouth, 1877.


Attention to detail. 1878.


Witty and enchanting.


The pug came too. 1870.


These competing suitors are more than aware of the wealth of their surroundings.


Vacation snap – the sort of thing the Kodak Brownie replaced, poorly.


Tissot was an avowed Anglophile for which he can be forgiven. His work with its charm and lightness could only ever be French. At least the man had the good sense to settle down in St. John’s Wood, close to Lord’s, the home of cricket. James Tissot had a photographer’s eye at a time when photograhy was yet to emerge as the modern illustrator’s medium of choice.

For a modern image (mine!) in the decorative style of Tissot, click here.

If the period women’s clothing is of interest, the key designer of the era was Paul Poiret.

If you want to see how mediocre even the best photography is when it comes to portraying the rich, click here.

George Barbier

Art Illustration, Paintings, Photographers

Art Deco illustrator.

For an index of articles on art illustrators, click here.

George Barbier (1882-1932) died young, just as the Great Depression started to roar. That’s somewhat appropriate as his delicate Art Deco illustrations are frequently about flappers and society people of the 1920s, the newly rich who saw no end to stock market gains. They had disappeared by the time of his death.

“Stock prices have reached what looks like a permanently high plateau,” quoth the famous economist Irving Fisher in early October, 1929. Proving that you should never take investing advice from an economist, Black Thursday, October 24, saw the market drop by 11 percent, followed four days later by Black Monday, when it fell another 13 percent; and the next day, Black Tuesday, when it lost 12 percent more. Good market timing, Irving.

Sounds just like today when stocks are overvalued by 50% as the market continues in denial about 40 million unemployed – and largely unemployable – American workers. Today we are waiting for the pandemic to ‘magically disappear’ courtesy of the moron in the Oval Office. Nothing changes.

Here are some favorite Barbier images from the Roaring Twenties, ones no photographer could ever equal:




The Roaring Twenties and its denizens.


Exquisite use of line.


Before the days of sardine cans masquerading as transportation.


Simple charm and great sophistication. Hitchcock appropriated
the firework background in ‘To Catch a Thief‘.

Like Dufy and Gruau after him (see the previous two posts here) Barbier’s work was always in demand.

If you are interested in learning more about the gorgeous bias cut dresses frequently draped so elegantly on Barbier’s women, check out Madeleine Vionnet.