ART FOR ART'S SAKE

It is difficult to find paintings of women rowers, although there are many photographs.

However I have come across this work by a contemporary woman artist, Robin Hextrum.

"Self Portrait" 3x5 feet oil on canvas
Robin Hextrum

The artist writes: "This painting, like others I have done of rowers shows the female athlete focused and absorbed in her sport. It was an interesting task to create a self portrait because it forced me to observe the muscular and physicality of my own body from an unbiased perspective. The large scale of the work gives the figure more authority and command."

Despite the masculine first name, Robin Hextrum is a woman.

Visit her blog at: http://modernfemaleathlete.blogspot.com/

Caillebotte was passionate about building yachts and racing them.

He obviously had a love of the sea, rivers and everything associated with them, which is evident in this strong painting of two rowers.

Oarsmen

Gustave Caillebotte

Gustave Caillebotte was a French Impressionist painter - though he painted in a much more realistic manner than many other artists in the group. He was noted for his early interest in photography as an art-form.

He was born in 1848 in a very rich family which made its fortune in textiles industry then in real estate business as Baron Haussmann was rebuilding Paris.

Engineer by profession, but also former student of the Fine Arts School of Paris where he studied with Léon Bonnat, he met Edgar Degas, Claude Monet, and Pierre Auguste Renoir in 1874 and helped them organize their 1st group exhibition in Paris.

In 1873 he inherited the great fortune of his father and was financially independent for the rest of his life.

He died in 1894, aged 45, from 'an attack of apoplexy'.

Today's painting continues my theme of 'rowers'. There are many reproductions and copies, but this is the original work.

Forty of Caillebotte's paintings are now held by the Musée d'Orsay. His Man on a Balcony, Boulevard Haussmann (Homme au balcon, boulevard Haussmann) (1880), sold for more than $14.3 million in 2000

Rower in a top hat

I shall be continuing my series of 'rowers' for at least the next week. and I have found some interesting and sometimes powerful images.

I am afraid that, at the moment I can find nothing about this artist. Perhaps you can.

I have exhausted Mark Gertler (and myself) and can find no more of his work to post here.

So I am moving on, but not to a single artist.

I have decided to choose a theme and illustrate it with paintings from various artists.

The theme I have chosen is "The Rower" and, as the first example, here is a charming study by the American artist Mary Cassatt (American, 1844–1926).

"After 1893, Mary Cassatt began to spend many summers on the Mediterranean coast at Antibes.

(National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC)

The Boating Party, 1893/1894

At the end of this new series, I think it might be interesting to look at other work of the individual artists.

I have given the paintings of Mark Gertler a good airing and today's still life will be the last of his work before I move on to other artists.

"A fine example of the artist's later work, 'Still Life with Poppies' was created a year after Gertler married Marjorie Hodgkinson and a year before the birth of his son Luke.

Another portrait from Mark Gertler.

It is of Sir George Howard Darwin (1845-1912), son of Charles Darwin.

The sitter is very much like his father isn't he?

He was a mathematician and astronomer who championed the theory that the Moon was once part of the Earth, until it was pulled free to form a satellite.

Science obviously ran in the family.

I have returned to Mark Gertler's portraits with this study of the composer, Sir Arthur Bliss.

"Sir Arthur Bliss (1891-1975) was one of the most important figures in British musical life from the early 1920s (when he was regarded as an enfant terrible) through to his later years and his tenure of the office of Master of the Queen's Musick from 1953 until his death.

Arthur Bliss was a prolific and versatile composer and he wrote over 140 works for every combination of voice and instrument, including large scale orchestral and choral works, music for brass bands, chamber instrumental music, songs, operas, ballets and film music."

Today I am returning to Gertler's still life:

Manzanas en una bolsa

This painting of Mark Gertler's sister looks familiar. Perhaps she was the model in some of the unnamed portraits I have posted here.

My Sister

Mark Gertler - Sonata c1937-38

Follow this link for a biography of the artist: http://en.allexperts.com/e/m/ma/mark_gertler.htm

Another still life from Mark Gertler, this time with a figure - although not human.

The colours are rather muted, perhaps in keeping with the appearance of the sad marionette.

I am sorry that the image is so small.

Dutch Doll 1926

This portrait by Mark Gertler sold in June 20007 for £28,800.

Portrait of Kotelianski 1930

"Towards the end of 1914 Gertler met Samuel Solomonovich Koteliansky, 'Kot, when he spent Christmas of that year in Cholesbury, where D.H. Lawrence and his wife were living.

Kot was another guest staying and had met Lawrence on a walking tour of the Lakes in August.

Kot became a close friend of Gertler, one of the few people that Gertler relied on as a friend and confidant, and the two corresponded regularly until Gertler's death in 1939.

Gertler wrote to Kot in 1916, 'Your friendship is simply invaluable'."

(Christies)

Several of you seem to like Mark Gertler's still life paintings, so here is another - no title.

Some of you liked yesterday's still life by Mark Gertler - so here is another.

Still Life with Aspidistra

Like many artists, Mark Gertler produced several paintings of 'Still Life' - but he probably preferred painting young ladies!

The Basket of Fruit 1925

Yesterday's portrait by Mark Gertler was titled "Portrait of a Girl 1912". In fact, I would say she was a "Young Lady".

Twelve years later he painted another portrait and gave it the same title. However his sitter this time really was a young girl - she looks late teens.

It is interesting to note her direct look and openness - a contrast to the expression of the older woman depicted yesterday.

Mark Gertler - Portrait of a Young Girl 1924

I can't help being fascinated by that necklace!

Mark Gertler - Portrait of a Girl 1912

Mark Gertler loved painting ladies, but in this portrait he seems to be concentrating more on the vivid colours than on the sitter.

The model is Gertler's close friend Valentine Dobrée

The Bokhara Coat (1920)

'Bokhara' is a silk material from Uzbekistan, officially the Republic of Uzbekistan, which was formerly part of the Soviet Union. It is located on the Silk Road and has long been a centre of trade, scholarship, culture, and religion.

This is the only self-portrait I have been able to find of Mark Gertler.

Who is the malevolent figure in the top right-hand corner?

Mark Gertler: Still Life With Self-Portrait

The Tate Gallery in London has Mark Gertler's only piece of sculpture.

Here it is:

Acrobats (1917)

Mark Gertler 'Talmudic Discussion 1911'

The Talmud (Hebrew: תַּלְמוּד talmūd "instruction, learning", from a root lmd "teach, study") is a record of rabbinic discussions pertaining to Jewish law, ethics, customs, and history. It is a central text of mainstream Judaism.

When I was a boy, I had several very happy family holidays in Swanage.

Everything in this landscape enraptured Gertler - the sea, ‘an intense blue with hot green trees silhouetted against it’; the ‘crude greens of the earth’; the ‘sunlit whites of the cliff, clear cut and solid, like coloured sculpture’; the rocks and quarries - ‘chunks of beautiful stone everywhere’.

Near Swanage, 1916 (oil on board)

Mark Gertler - Musical Bather 1934

Do you think the model for this portrait was his wife? (See my post of June 3)

Mandolinist 1934
© The estate of Mark Gertler

Rabbi and Rabbitzin, Mark Gertler, 1914.
(Ben Uri Gallery, The London Jewish Museum of Art.)

"The touching domestic scene depicts a Jewish rabbi and his wife, huddled together at their kitchen table, arms linked against the the horrors of persecution.

Here, as in 'The Artist's Mother, 1913', the characters' large hands, indicate 'suffering and a life that has known hardship'. The prominent rounded loaf, kettle, cup and saucer featured are also said to show Gertler's awareness of Cezanne."

The Artist's Mother - Mark Gertler

"I am painting a portrait of my mother. She sits bent on a chair, deep in thought. Her large hands are lying heavily and wearily in her lap. The whole suggests suffering and a life that has known hardship. It is barbaric and symbolic. Where is the prettiness! Where! Where!" (Mark Gertler).

His parents, Louis & Golda, were impoverished Jewish immigrants from Poland who settled in Spitalfields in London's East End.

If this portrait (1913) lacks the faux 'prettiness' of traditional female portraiture of centuries past, Gertler has instead captured the honest dignity of labour and the depth of spirit possessed by his proud mother.

From: http://www.swanseaheritage.net/article/full.asp?ARTICLE_ID=1794

The Artist's Wife/ Marjorie Gertler, Mark Gertler, 1933

"Gertler married Marjorie Hodgkinson in 1930 and they had one son, Luke, born in 1932.

The marriage was often difficult, punctuated by the frequent ill health of both, and with Gertler often suffering from the same feelings of constraint that destroyed his relationships with a number of friends and patrons.

During the 1930s he also became a part-time teacher at the Westminster School of Art in order to supplement his intermittent income from painting.

Gertler committed suicide in 1939, having attempted to do so on at least one prior occasion. He was suffering at the time from increasing financial difficulties, his wife had just left him, he had held a critically derided exhibition, he was still depressed over the death of his mother and his friend Carrington's own suicide (both in 1932).

He was also filled with fear over the imminent world war."

(Wikipedia)

An interesting composition from Mark Gertler.

But, in that case, who is the other woman?

Compare this painting by Mark Gertler wirh Walter Sickert's portrayal of a similar subject - see my post here on May 25.

The difference is not only in the hats, but also the technique.

The Coster Woman, Mark Gertler, 1923.