Favorite Artist of the Hollywood Stars

Tamara de Lempicka was a figure painter of massive volumes who also had art deco-cubist tendencies. She was a very skilled painter who invented an unforgettable style. During her day, she was very popular and at one point during the 1930's, she became the favorite painter of the Hollywood stars. She lived in Paris, Beverly Hills and NYC and finally Mexico. "She painted them all, the rich, the successful, the renowned -- the best. And with many she also slept." - this is a quote from her daughter Kizette's book about her, Passion by Design.

In other words, she was a whore. Both with women and with men. I don't know how she found time to be one because she was quite a prolific painter. Her work is a little bit too stylized for my taste, but some of it is pure painting and a new book called, Lempicka by Patrick Bade shows many wonderful works that I have never seen before. She did lots of nudes and nude bathers and groups of figures in complex compositions. She also liked to paint people playing stringed instruments. They are rendered almost like sculptures. Read more about Lempicka, a fascinating woman artist who had a huge influence on graphic arts and interior design: Tricky Micky Art Page

The Art of Amy Crehore

Study for "The Bathers"

"The Bathers" by Renoir 1887 Philadelphia Art Museum
Study for the Bathers 1884-85 Chicago Art Institute

I found this beautiful study for Pierre-Auguste Renoir's magnificent painting, "The Bathers". This is my favorite Renoir painting. I especially love the character of this girl with the braid down her back. She's rendered so lovingly. This painting has it all. Movement, charm, sex appeal, complexity of composition, rhythm, soul, classicism. And his style is not as brushy in this picture as in his other works.

The Art of Amy Crehore

That's the way it goes

I said that I would unveil a new painting this past week...but, I am still finishing it up. It's been an extremely difficult painting to realize. I have been working on it intensely every single day. It keeps changing. I hope to be done very soon and then I will be able to catch up on other things.

The Art of Amy Crehore

A Botticelli Face

1482 Sandro Botticelli, Tempera on wood, Detail from "Primavera"
Picasso drawing of Marie-Terese Walter

"Italian painter Botticelli was Florentine and extremely successful at the peak of his career, with a highly individual and graceful style founded on the rhythmic capabilities of outline. With the emergence of the High Renaissance style at the turn of the 16th century, he fell out of fashion, died in obscurity and was only returned to his position as one of the best-loved quattrocento painters through the interest of Ruskin and the Pre-Raphaelites."

link

I added the Picasso drawing because I like it. It seems to have that same feeling of soulful youth that the Botticelli does, with the girl gazing directly at the viewer. Both girls are rendered like angels. I definitely relate to the painters that came before the High Renaissance- the Early Italian Primitive ones like Giotto, Fra Angelico and Botticelli.

The Art of Amy Crehore

Kamaka Pineapple Ukes

Sam K. Kamaka and his famous pineapple uke

I love Kamaka's ukes that are painted to look just like a pineapple.

"The most famous ukulele design invented by Sam Kamaka, Sr. was the pineapple ukulele. He came up with this shape in 1916 with the purpose of making a small ukulele with a fuller and warmer sound, although there is another story that the pineapple uke was just easier to make (no bending of the sides)." Read more history here:

Kamaka Ukes

The Art of Amy Crehore

Wuthering Heights and Balthus

Illustrating the book, "Wuthering Heights" (1932-1935), shaped the painting career of Balthus. Many of his paintings were derived from these drawings. As you can see, it's all about angles and geometry with Balthus. That is why I find him so fascinating. For more glimpses of the book : Art Textbooks

and a quote from Balthus via Philosophical Conversations:

‘I am a very emotional man, perhaps too much so… My youth was an absolute whirlwind of Feelings, exactly like Emily Brontë’s Wuthering Heights, which I illustrated. I was completely at home in this novel. It described my youth perfectly. I was in love with Antionette – de Watteville – and I was determined to win her. But Antionette, on top of being a difficult girl, was already engaged to someone else. I reread her letters every evening. I think that, like Heathcliffe, I didn’t want to leave adolescence.’

And, from artic.edu Caty Telfair :

"The drawings that Balthus produced for Wuthering Heights proved to be seminal for him as an artist; no fewer than ten of his later best-known canvases draw compositional elements directly from these illustrations."

The Art of Amy Crehore

On Painting

I still have one more day to go on my new painting. It's psychedelic and the girl figure has a twisty-turny pose, so it's a been a puzzle to get just the right balance of angles and curves. This painting has a lot of geometry. And I'm going a litle crazy on it.

Stay tuned.

The Art of Amy Crehore