Lovingly Immortalized

A  beautiful low chroma portrait painting of Mme Mucha, lovingly immortalized by Alphonse Mucha.

Old Dead White Guy with a Beard

This is a portrait of a professor of the old school (literally!). It's the sort of portrait you can imagine hanging in a dark musty hallway, or top of the staircase of a seemingly ancient place of higher education. As a student I might have casually dismissed this guy as just one more 'old dead white guy with a beard'.

Now, as an old white guy with a beard myself, not yet dead thank you, I see this fellow's personality with great clarity and admiration. His face is one of quiet good humor, intelligence and a love for his field of study. This is a professor that I would gladly have studied under, whatever his field was.

Sir George Reid —Professor George Downing Liveing — circa 1913

Unique Personalities

I love these sorts of photo portraits, and by that, I guess I mean of unique personalities confidently showing their eccentricities and connecting through the camera lens to us folks in the far future.

photo by d'Ora of the artist Tsuguharu Foujita — 1928

You Can See Why

You can see why they called her 'America's Sweetheart' . . .

Mary Pickford

Viva la Evolution!

Today's post on the ever-intriguing Histories of Things to Come reminds us that this is Charles Darwin's birthday, thus reminding me that I had a couple of Darwinesqe items in the scan file just waiting to be posted. There's a relevant page on the Pictorial Arts Journal.

Viva la evolution!

 cartoon from Mr. Punch's Almanack — 1882

A magnificent portrait of Mr. Darwin

Showman of Science

For all his quirkiness, I really miss Carl Sagan — his enthusiasm, his optimism, his writing, his showmanship, his vision, his Cosmos.

And yes, his quirkiness.

Does anyone else miss Carl Sagan?

Time — October 20, 1980

Warm/Cool

I love the warm/cool impasto applied to this sweet portrait among sunflowers, by FH Varley, one of Canada's "Group of Seven".

Frederick Horsman Varley — Child's Portrait

Heroic Portrait

This is a heroic portrait of the late Christian Blackwood, filmmaker (couldn't you tell?). He purchased this pastel drawing from me, so it's now floating around somewhere out there in the big wide world.

Passions

This is a pastel portrait of sorts of a Pro-Rodeo champeen bull wrestler guy or whatsomever they're called. I love doing portraits of people who are engrossed in their passions.