Samantha French

Soak In Soundless: Figurative Photorealist Painting of Swimmer in Aqua Pool

2019

Horizontal figurative photo-realist painting of women swimming in an aqua blue pool "Weightless, Timeless," painted by Hudson Valley artist, Samantha French, is 2019 oil on canvas, 48 x 60 inches Sides are cleanly painted white so additional framing is optional Excellent condition and ready to hang as is This photorealist figurative painting captures a peaceful water scene of a women leisurely floating in a crisp, aqua blue pool. The sunlight reflecting off their sun kissed skin complements the cool color palette, making for a serene visual experience. The brush work is highly detailed with little texture (impasto) on the surface. The horizontal painting on canvas is currently unframed and has clean, white painted sides, so additional framing is optional. About the Artist: Born and raised in north central Minnesota, Samantha French graduated from the Minneapolis College of Art and Design in 2005. French’s current body of work explores the idea of escape, the tranquility and nostalgia for the lazy summer days of her childhood. The series is inspired by Samantha’s own reflections and memories of her childhood summers spent in the lakes of Northern Minnesota. French actively exhibits her paintings and is included in many private and public collections throughout the country while her work has garnered extensive international and national press. She is a full-time painter and keeps a studio in New York’s Hudson Valley. "My current body of work is focused on swimmers underwater and above. Using vague yet consuming memories from my childhood summers spent immersed in the tepid lakes of northern Minnesota, I attempt to recreate the quiet tranquility of water and nature; of days spent sinking and floating, still and peaceful. These paintings are a link to my home and continual search for the feeling of the sun on my face and warm summer days at the lake. They are my escape, a subtle reprieve from the day-to-day. At the same time, I am drawn to an idealistic time before my own, where swim caps and wool swimsuits were commonplace. This combination of memory, observation and photography has allowed me to preserve the transitory qualities of water and remembrance." Artist Resume: 2019 Winter Swim, Rubine Red...

Academic style figurative oil painting on canvas 48 x 24 inches unframed 58 x 32 x 3 inches in gold leaf wood frame This vertical, contemporary figurative painting of Le Martyr de Saint Sebastian was made by Mark Beard under his fictitious artistic persona, Hippolyte-Alexandre Michallon. Painted in a modern Academic style, Beard paints this Christian saint with dramatic detail and emotional gravity. The scene is a common artistic depiction of Sebastian who according to traditional belief, was killed during the Roman emperor Diocletian's persecution of the Christians. Here the artist depicts a nearly nude Saint Sebastian standing stoically while tied to a rustic brown post. A lush green forested terrain decorates the background while a white neo-classical building sits in the distance, which is perhaps the tomb where Saint Sebastian's remains were laid to rest. Saint Sebastian's pale blue-grey, stone-like stone tone is characteristic of Mark Beard's work who often portrays muscular young men similarly to Greek statues. The vertical Academic style figurative oil painting is complimented with a vintage style gold leaf wood frame. The painting is signed 'H. A. Michallon 1872' in red oil paint in the lower right corner. The gold frame is also signed and inscribed with black oil paint in several places (please see images). Mark Beard is a contemporary artist who made this work under the pseudonym Hippolyte A. Michallon who painted during the late 1800's so slight wear (see images) is intentionally staged to align with the factitious artist's purposed history. About the artist: Mark Beard is perhaps the most literal example of an artist pulled in so many different directions that he chose to “invent” six different personae in which to channel his overflowing energy and need for expression. Each painting style is radically different from the next, so it remains entirely believable that the work could stem from six completely different people of different time periods and different schools of thought. With a background in set design, Beard has always been one who could conjure total magic with anything available. Mark Beard has exhibited with Carrie Haddad Gallery for nearly twenty years and there has never been a dull moment. Mark Beard, born in 1956 in Salt Lake city, now lives in New York City. His works are in museum collections worldwide, including the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York City; the Museum of Modern Art, New York City; the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York City; the Boston Museum of Fine Arts; and the Harvard, Yale, and Princeton University Art Museums; among many others. We would not be the least bit surprised to see new ‘personas’ emerge in the coming years. About: Hippolyte - Alexandre Michallon, 1849 -1930 The long and peripatetic artistic career of Hippolyte-Alexandre Michallon began in a conventional fashion. The only son of prosperous bourgeois parents in Tours, he first studied drawing with his mother, an accomplished amateur painter of insects. His father, an undertaker who appreciated his son's talent and supported his ambition to become a painter, sent him to Paris at age sixteen to enroll in the studio of Francois-Edouard Picot (1786-1868), an eminent history painter and professor at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts, with whom he studied for three years, until Picot's death. Under his aging teacher's guidance and tutelage, Michallon entered the preliminary stages of the Prix de Rome contest at the Ecole three times, winning an Honorable Mention in 1869 for his composition entitled The Solider of the Marathon. For the next twenty years Michallon regualarly exhibited paintings on historical and biblical themes at the Paris Salon, as well as commissioned portraits. By his own account, the most ambitious work of Michallon's career was a thirty-foot canvas depicting Noah's Ark, which he exhibited in the Salon in 1875. Michallon began painting atmospheric but zoologically correct images of exotic animals in the wild. These achieved a certain popularity among French and foreign collectors alike, providing Michallon with financial security for the first time in his career. Michallon moved to England in 1893. His outstanding technical skills easily earned him a position on the faculty of the Slade School of Art in 1900. The craze for animal paintings proved short-lived. He continued to teach at Slade for the next two decades, but his classes gradually dwindled in size as the academic approach and methods he espoused went from outmoded to downright unpopular. Finally in 1922, finding himself reduced to a single pupil, the talented young American Bruce Sargeant, he retired from Slade, persuading Sargeant to leave with him and undergo private instruction at home. Several years later he retired to a cottage at St. Ives, Cornwall, where he lived quietly until his death in 1930, forgotten by all but a few former students, among them Edith Thayer Cromwell...

Large, photo-realist painting on canvas featuring a fire engine red and white industrial crane against a bright sky blue background 69 x 48 x 2 inches oil on canvas, thin wood stripping signed verso, "Joseph E. Richards" Hangs with wire installed on the back Excellent condition, ready to hang as is This precisely detailed photo-realist painting was made by Joseph E. Richards in 1992. The artist painted this piece when he was 71 years old during a long career of painting trains, cargo ships, and industrial machinery. Richards served in the US Navy during WWII and went on to study at the American Academy of Art in Chicago and the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts in Philadelphia before showing with Ivan Karp of O.K. Harris Gallery in NYC. The artist moved upstate to Hillsdale, NY for the later years of his life. This painting captures one of Richards' most beloved subjects, industrial cranes. With a photo-realist approach to the subject, Richards was able to capture detailed changes in light and shadow, shape and form. The red and white crane, painted with extreme detail and focus, vividly contrasts against a bright blue sky. Areas of brown rust, attesting to the machine's power and longevity, are captured with immaculate precision. Since the painting has a very smooth surface, one could easily confuse this painting with a photograph. It is not until you examine the painting up close, do you realize the artist's calculated brushwork. The painting is framed with natural wood stripping. The work is lightweight and easy to hang with pre-installed wire. The artist's signature is located on the back of the canvas. About the artist: Joseph Richards...

Vertical photo-realist painting on canvas of pale pink ball with steel colored hook on a bright sky blue background 72 x 36 x 1.5 inches oil on canvas, thin wood stripping signed "Richards" on bottom right corner in yellow paint wire is installed on the back for easy hanging This precisely detailed photo-realist painting was made by Joseph E. Richards in 1981. The artist painted this piece when he was 60 years old during a successful career painting trains, cargo ships, and industrial machinery. Richards served in the US Navy during WWII and went on to study at the American Academy of Art in Chicago and the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts in Philadelphia before showing with Ivan Karp of O.K. Harris Gallery in NYC. The artist moved upstate to Hillsdale, NY for the later years of his life. This painting captures one of Richards' most beloved subjects, close up views of industrial equipment against a vivid blue sky. With a photo-realist approach to the subject, Richard was able to capture detailed changes in light and shadow, shape and form. The pale pink colored ball and steel colored hook, down to each screw and bolt, is completed with extreme focus and precision. One could easily confuse this painting with a photograph since it was completed with a very smooth application of paint, with no texture built upon the surface. It is not until you examine the painting up close, do you realize the artist's calculated brushwork. The painting is framed with natural wood stripping. The work is lightweight and easy to hang with wire installed on the back.The artist's signature is located on the front and back of the canvas. About the artist: Joseph Richards’ precisely painted canvases of giant cranes, cargo booms, propellers and train engines are fueled with a fascination like that of a six-year old boy. Working directly from photographs, Richards unites light and color together as one element, evident in the reflective surfaces of steel. The otherwise mundane signs of corrosive wear are magnified; rust stains glow on the canvas and yellow painted pulleys radiate like beacons against a bright, blue sky. Richards finds beauty in their dramatic color, resilient texture, definitive form and functionality. Richards paints sections of these objects in grand scale, with canvases up to 6 feet long and eye-popping color, calling attention to their massive proportions and exceptional strength. Richards had solo exhibits in New York City, Scottsdale AZ, and Washington DC, and his work is found in private and corporate collections here and abroad, e.g., the Tucson Museum of Fine Arts, Mobil Oil, Lankenau Hospital in Philadelphia, and E. Jean Belloni in Geneva, Switzerland. Resume: Born in 1921 in Des Moines, Iowa, Joseph Richards left for Chicago after high school to pursue a career in art. After serving in the U.S. Navy from 1942 – 1945, he went on to study at the American Academy of Art in Chicago and the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts in Philadelphia. He eventually settled with his wife, Betty, in New York City. In 1969, longtime dealer Ivan Karp opened The OK Harris Gallery on West Broadway in Manhattan’s SoHo. Karp was at the forefront of the Photorealism movement, showing artists such as Duane Hanson and Manny Farber...

Large, photo-realist painting on canvas featuring a crimson red and yellow industrial boatyard lift against a bright sky blue background 47 x 31 x 2 inches oil on canvas, thin wood stripping signed verso, "Joseph E. Richards" Hangs with wire installed on the back This precisely detailed photo-realist painting was made by Joseph E. Richards in 2001. The artist painted this piece when he was 71 years old during a long career of painting trains, cargo ships, and industrial machinery. Richards served in the US Navy during WWII and went on to study at the American Academy of Art in Chicago and the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts in Philadelphia before showing with Ivan Karp of O.K. Harris Gallery in NYC. The artist moved upstate to Hillsdale, NY for the later years of his life. This painting captures one of Richards' most beloved subjects, industrial cranes. With a photo-realist approach to the subject, Richards was able to capture detailed changes in light and shadow, shape and form. The red and yellow crane, painted with extreme detail and focus, vividly contrasts against a bright blue sky. Areas of brown rust, attesting to the machine's power and longevity, are captured with immaculate precision. Since the painting has a very smooth surface, one could easily mistake this painting with a photograph. It is not until you examine the painting up close, do you realize the artist's calculated brushwork. The painting is framed with natural wood stripping. The work is lightweight and easy to hang with pre-installed wire. The artist's signature is located on the back of the canvas. About the artist: Joseph Richards’ precisely painted canvases of giant cranes, cargo booms, propellers and train engines are fueled with a fascination like that of a six-year old boy. Working directly from photographs, Richards unites light and color together as one element, evident in the reflective surfaces of steel. The otherwise mundane signs of corrosive wear are magnified; rust stains glow on the canvas and yellow painted pulleys radiate like beacons against a bright, blue sky. Richards finds beauty in their dramatic color, resilient texture, definitive form and functionality. Richards paints sections of these objects in grand scale, with canvases up to 6 feet long and eye-popping color, calling attention to their massive proportions and exceptional strength. Richards had solo exhibits in New York City, Scottsdale AZ, and Washington DC, and his work is found in private and corporate collections here and abroad, e.g., the Tucson Museum of Fine Arts, Mobil Oil, Lankenau Hospital in Philadelphia, and E. Jean Belloni in Geneva, Switzerland. Resume: Born in 1921 in Des Moines, Iowa, Joseph Richards left for Chicago after high school to pursue a career in art. After serving in the U.S. Navy from 1942 – 1945, he went on to study at the American Academy of Art in Chicago and the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts in Philadelphia. He eventually settled with his wife, Betty, in New York City. In 1969, longtime dealer Ivan Karp opened The OK Harris Gallery on West Broadway in Manhattan’s SoHo. Karp was at the forefront of the Photorealism movement, showing artists such as Duane Hanson and Manny Farber...

Square figurative photo-realist painting of an underwater view of a young man swimming in an aqua blue pool "Bright Side", painted by Hudson Valley artist, Samantha French, is 2020 oil on canvas, 30 x 30 inches Sides are cleanly painted white so additional framing is optional Excellent condition and ready to hang as is This photorealist figurative painting captures a peaceful underwater scene of a young man leisurely swimming in a crisp, aqua blue pool. The sunlit water and pops of light pink reflecting off his pale skin complement the vibrant color palette, making for a serene visual experience. The brush work is highly detailed with little texture (impasto) on the surface. The square painting on canvas is currently unframed and has clean, white painted sides, so additional framing is optional. About the Artist: Born and raised in north central Minnesota, Samantha French graduated from the Minneapolis College of Art and Design in 2005. French’s current body of work explores the idea of escape, the tranquility and nostalgia for the lazy summer days of her childhood. The series is inspired by Samantha’s own reflections and memories of her childhood summers spent in the lakes of Northern Minnesota. French actively exhibits her paintings and is included in many private and public collections throughout the country while her work has garnered extensive international and national press. She is a full-time painter and keeps a studio in New York’s Hudson Valley. "My current body of work is focused on swimmers underwater and above. Using vague yet consuming memories from my childhood summers spent immersed in the tepid lakes of northern Minnesota, I attempt to recreate the quiet tranquility of water and nature; of days spent sinking and floating, still and peaceful. These paintings are a link to my home and continual search for the feeling of the sun on my face and warm summer days at the lake. They are my escape, a subtle reprieve from the day-to-day. At the same time, I am drawn to an idealistic time before my own, where swim caps and wool swimsuits were commonplace. This combination of memory, observation and photography has allowed me to preserve the transitory qualities of water and remembrance." Artist Resume: 2019 Winter Swim, Rubine Red...

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