Word: boldini
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1930-1939
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
Bravura was the word for Giovanni Boldini, whose society paintings in the period from 1890 to 1910 were the quintessence which John Singer Sargent, William Merritt Chase, Howard Chandler Christy and Charles Dana Gibson diluted, in ascending order of popularity, descending order of excellence. Last week at the Newhouse Galleries Manhattanites were surprised and seduced by the 68 brilliant, relatively intimate paintings, crayons and drawings which the 89-year-old Italian left in his Paris studio at his death in 1931. In his smaller works (minimum price: $400 for a sketch) Boldini showed a direct mastery of the Proustian atmospheres...
Humanity, of which Boldini had one understanding, is the constant subject of sad-eyed, diminutive Raphael Soyer, who has another. His twin, Moses, and his Brother Isaac are also able painters, but in the last few years Raphael's single-minded portrayals of pathos in Manhattan's sober poor have given him the greater reputation. Last week his first one-man show since 1935, at the Valentine Gallery, brought 14th Street impressively to fashionable 57th. In Soyer's accomplished paintings of Greenwich Village characters there was neither humor nor brilliance but a great deal of dun truth...
...milking moppet he was known as "Smiley." In 1889 he went to New York with $200 in savings, entered the Art Students' League, quickly got himself into the class of the late William Merritt Chase. Chase painted in the bravura style with which Italy's Boldini, and Sweden's Zorn were able to produce first-rate works of art. For nearly 50 years Howard Chandler Christy has used the same flashy style but without the same results...
...love of rich food, fine clothes, beautiful women. His career took him first to Florence, then London, then Paris. Ever since the Salon of 1875 his steady succession of portraits and mistresses had been gaining fame but it was not until the turn of the Century that Boldini entered his Grand Period. He was preeminently the artist of the Edwardian era, of the pompadour, the champagne supper and the ribbon-trimmed chemise...
...passing of the petticoat was the passing of Boldini's art. He lived to be 88. Too purblind to paint, he could still drink champagne and chuck pretty young models under the chin. In 1929, aged 86, he suddenly married. At his wedding breakfast he made a little speech: "It is not my fault if I am so old, it's something which has happened to me all at once...