A.D. Greer Still-life Paintings

Jean Grimal is a true 20th century discovery. This breathtaking piece is a gorgeous example of his mastery as an artist. He beautifully creates chiaroscuro in this painting. The way the light touches the edges of the Chinese bowl and the grapes is an example of his skill in representing light. Jean Grimal (1942-1998) was born in the town of Tulle, France in 1942. Jean’s family moved to Paris when he was 8 years of age. After receiving a classical French education with studies in Latin and Greek, Jean Grimal entered the University to receive his Baccalaureate. He then attended Claude Barnard School for three years, when he received his Art Degree.  Upon completion Grimal taught art for seven years.  As Grimal’s own interest in formal painting and art began to possess him, the artist’s destiny changed.  In 1967 Jean Grimal stepped aside from teaching and pursued a career in professional painting and working as an illustrator in advertising.  As an advertising illustrator, Grimal worked with Lise Goldfard for more than 25 years at Studio 44 where they collaborated with major and important accounts, such as: Air France, Christofle, Peugeot, Lacoste, to name a few. At the same time he began presenting his formal paintings to galleries in Paris and Cannes, France and in London and Windsor, England.  Much to his surprise, Grimal found that his paintings were sought after by major art galleries and collectors throughout Europe.  After a number of years of being an important and successful art illustrator for these major accounts, he found himself having to choose between the two.  Fortunately for collectors, he chose to dedicate his life to the classical style of painting.  Jean looked at the simplest things in life through a microscope, where he could take the simplest object and depict the age of the fruit or the leaf. Jean Grimal received great pleasure from his work and painted for over thirty years.  As his style matured and became ever more perfect Jean Grimal truly reached the pinnacle of his career.  The artist’s methods were particularly distinguished when measured against his peers.  Grimal’s painting skill was distinctive and exceptional. Jean Grimal was known for his realistic trompe l’oeil and still life paintings.  The artist would carefully arrange the objects to form a satisfying composition.  By painting every shadow, highlight, and reflection within each composition Grimal brought mundane subjects to life.  His tight rendering combined with his attention to light and detail allowed him to blur the lines between illusion and reality, truly making his works one of a kind.  Grimal’s trompe l’oeil paintings consist of intricate compositions of cards, envelopes, photographs, paper of different materials and weights, backs of canvases, images of other artists’ works, kitchen utensils, pistols, and more.  Grimal had a talent for mastering these illusions that deceive the eye in his trompe l’oeil paintings.    No matter what genre Grimal was painting, tight, unperceivable brushwork characterizes his work.  The artist painted every crease and crinkle, every shadow and highlight, every detail.  By doing so, he was able to capture each individual surface texture of the objects in his paintings.  Grimal was also fabulous at depicting light in his paintings- often contrasting strong lights with strong darks, creating chiaroscuro modeling.  His still life paintings are reminiscent of Dutch seventeenth century...

Political Chatter, 2017 John Hartley discovered his life's passion while growing up in Piqua, Ohio. Encouraged to develop his talents in an academic envi...

GUN SALE is an oil on canvas painting standing at 54 inches tall and 41 inches wide, featuring an inflatable advertiser standing adjacent to a gunshop seated in a dark, night sky background. A well-known figure of the contemporary Fort Worth art scene, Daniel Blagg...

Caduceus, 2011, Daniel Blagg, Oil on canvas, 80 x 60" By meticulously depicting forgotten road signs and roadside debris, Daniel Blagg invites his viewe...

Lost in Space, Daniel Blagg, Oil on Canvas, 38 x 58", 2020 A well-known figure of the contemporary Fort Worth art scene, Daniel Blagg has worked in the DFW area for over four decades. Blagg creates compositions that are both large-scale and intimate, familiar and unfamiliar, through his realistic style and chosen subject matter. Inspired by the surroundings of his studio warehouse on the outskirts of Fort Worth, his paintings of deteriorating road signs, empty streets, and vacant buildings examine urban...

Roger Marcel Limouse, (Algerian/French 1894 - 1989) Still Life, October 1939, Oil on canvas. Signed upper right and marked Oct 39 on back. Greens, Blues, and Yellow/Browns prevail in this still life of a table with fruits, cake, and a candle. Nude is painted verso on stretched canvas under frame. Frame 24.5 x 28.875 x 1.625, Canvas 21.875 x 23.875 A student of Paul Albert Laurens (1870-1934) at the Académie Julian, his figurative work, very colorful, with powerful and stripped down forms, made him one of the last representatives of Fauvism and the eldest of the group of Painters of Poetic Reality. He belongs to the School of Paris. In 1943, Jacques de Laprade dedicated a book to Roger Limouse in the collection "The Masters of Tomorrow" directed by Francis Carco. He writes, "One of the characteristics of this personality is strength. There is nothing in Limouse that lacks relief. This small and extremely vigorous man seduces by his direct and dru language, by his deep conviction, by the picturesque of his stories, by his very life which testifies to his energy. In 1948, Roger Limouse was appointed professor at the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris (Professor at the School of Fine Arts). He held this position until 1964. In 1949, the journalist Gisèle d'Assailly (1904-1969) devoted a book "With the Painters of Poetic Reality" to eight friendly painters, supporters of a colorful and intimate figurative painting of French inspiration, Maurice Brianchon, Christian Caillard...

Mother Mary, 2017 John Hartley discovered his life's passion while growing up in Piqua, Ohio. Encouraged to develop his talents in an academic environme...

Claudine Picard is a French artist born in 1949 who lives & works in Sainte Marie, France. She is graduated from the Ecole Nationale des Arts Décoratifs in 1973 (ENSAD).

Exceptional pair of paintings by Manon Cleary (1942-1911). Paintings are oil on canvas. Dated 1980 and signed in the front lower right corner and on reverse. Manon Cleary's work is ...

"Pitcher & Peaches" is a still life painting featuring hues of orange, yellow, tan and green. Sarah Lamb is inspired by the work of John Singer Sargent, Wayne Thiebaud and Emil Carlsen. This piece is framed 14 by 14 inches. Sarah Lamb is a talented and dynamic realist painter. With classical skill—and through transparency, depth and texture—she captures the minute details of everyday objects in her dramatic still lifes and luscious landscapes. She makes us love the familiar and see beauty in the mundane. Born in Petersburg, VA, with a passion for art and an appreciation for the past, Sarah spent a semester at the Studio Art Center International in Florence, Italy before graduating from Brenau Women’s College with a BS degree in Studio Art in 1993. Following a summer workshop in Santa Fe, NM with renowned classical painter Jacob Collins, she spent two years painting at The Ecole Albert Defois in the Loire Valley with classical realist artist Ted Seth Jacobs...

Juan Sánchez Cotán (1560 - 1627) was one of the most important still life painters in Spain and beyond. He developed a certain type of still life with a ...

Provenance: Selma Herringman, New York, ca. 1955-2013; thence by descent to: Private Collection, New York, 2013-2020 This seventeenth century Spanish still-life of a laden table, known as a bodegón, stands out for its dramatic lighting and for the detailed description of each object. The artist’s confident use of chiaroscuro enables the sliced-open squash in the left foreground to appear as if emerging out of the darkness and projecting towards the viewer. The light source emanates from the upper left, illuminating the array, and its strength is made apparent by the reflections on the pitcher, pot, and the fruit in the basket. Visible brush strokes accentuate the vegetables’ rough surfaces and delicate interiors. Although the painter of this striking work remains unknown, it is a characteristic example of the pioneering Spanish still-lifes of the baroque period, which brought inanimate objects alive on canvas. In our painting, the knife and the large yellow squash boldly protrude off the table. Balancing objects on the edge of a table was a clever way for still-life painters to emphasize the three-dimensionality of the objects depicted, as well a way to lend a sense of drama to an otherwise static image. The knife here teeters on the edge, appearing as if it might fall off the table and out of the painting at any moment. The shape and consistency of the squash at left is brilliantly conveyed through the light brush strokes that define the vegetable’s fleshy and feathery interior. The smaller gourds—gathered together in a pile—are shrouded partly in darkness and stand out for their rugged, bumpy exterior. The stoneware has a brassy glaze, and the earthy tones of the vessels are carefully modulated by their interaction with the light and shadow that falls across them. The artist has cleverly arranged the still-life in a V-shaped composition, with a triangular slice of cheese standing upright, serving as its pinnacle. Independent still-lifes only became an important pictorial genre in the first years of the seventeenth century. In Italy, and particularly through the revolutionary works of Caravaggio, painted objects became carriers of meaning, and their depiction and arrangement the province of serious artistic scrutiny. Caravaggio famously asserted that it was equally difficult to paint a still-life as it was to paint figures, and the elevation of this new art form would have profound consequences to the present day. In Spain Juan Sanchez Cotan...