Paintings that live in San Francisco

  Oy, I haven't posted in so long.  There are only two classes left in my eight years of printmaking.  That means, a few more hours to use the big press in the atelier at EMAP ( Ecole Municipale d'Art Plastique).  That is just one of my excuses for being otherwise engaged.  

But just as I showed you what I had painted in Ellen's house in South Carolina, I want to show you a couple of pictures I did for my friend and Monsieur's cousin Roge and his wife Isabel.  They commissioned them many years ago and they hold a special place in their lovely San Francisco Apartment which overlooks the Golden Gate Bridge.  

 I also want to highlight the work of Monsieur's sister, Hope Silvera, who is a hugely talented painter.  Hope's creativity shows itself in so many ways, she is a muse.   

Painting by Hope Silvera.....photo by Mary M Payne

Close up of the work by Hope Silvera, photo by Marympayne

 This original painting which is in the same apartment, holds a likeness of Hope herself,  seated on the left in a living room.  The man playing the cello is a good likeness of her father.  The picture on the wall in the background is Mount Tamalpais in Marin where Hope now lives. Its quite a complex work and I never tire of seeing it again. 

Reproduction by Marympayne, photo by Marympayne

Now here is the question of the hour....who originally painted this reproduction I did for Roge and Isabel?    I have no idea although it looks expressionistic or fauvist.  Maybe Isabel can tell me.  I believe she chose it.

My other commissioned painting is in the living room.  It is a copy of a work by the Dutch painter Kees van Dongen , a fauvist who worked for many years in France. 

  Since Roge loves music he opted for a musical theme and this is one of four or five musical/dancer paintings from van Dongen who mostly specialized in portraits of high society women.    He once irreverently wisecracked, "The essential thing is to elongate women and especially to make them slim.  After that it just remains to enlarge their jewels.  They are ravished."  He also later quipped "Painting is the most beautiful of lies".

  It was really fun to paint Anita, The beautiful Fatima and her Troupe and I reproduced it exactly to size (100 x 81cm).   I took the image from a  a book of van Dongen by the museum in Rotterdam where van Dongen was born.  The only other reproduction I have done of his work was sold when I lived in Milan...that of Fernande Olivier painted by the artist in 1905 at the same time as this painting. 

Fernando Olivier
 by Kees van Dongen

"Anita_ The Beautiful Fatima and her troupe" reproduction of Kees Van Dongen painting
 done by MaryMPayne 

If you are curious to see more paintings of Van Dongen here in Nice,  the Musée des Beaux Arts in Nice has a whole room dedicated to Van Dongen.   I am fond of him...he has a distinctive style.   


Here's Roge enjoying a cigar on the terrace chez nous.  If only I painted portraits.  

Roge on a visit to Nice, photo by Marympayne