Month: February 2012

Since writing a post about portraitist and figurative artist Sean Cheetham in 2008, I still know little more about him than I did then, which wasn’t much. Still, I’ve gathered what additional resources I can for an update post. His direct, uncompromising portraits have a wonderful sense of presence and personality, as well as a…

I’ve commented previously on the interesting place that pastel has in the range of art media. Though dry, and therefore technically a “drawing” medium, pastel can have almost all of the qualities of painting. Felicity House is an English artist who uses pastel in a way that is simultaneously drawing and painting, with a lively…

Ming Dynasty Chinese painter Tang Yin (also known as Tang Bohu) painted figures, notably women, as well as birds and small details of blossoms and branches, but I find him most interesting for his beautifully dramatic landscapes. Tang Yin was active in the 16th century and was one of the foremost painters of his era,…

Those of us on the East Coast of the U.S. have so far been experiencing an unusually mild winter; not so for most of the rest of the Northern Hemisphere. In Europe it must seem as though the North Pole has shifted into your back yard. For those who need to be reminded of winter’s…

Though he studied for a short time at an atelier in Paris, English painter Samuel John “Lamorna” Birch was mostly a self taught artist. Birch was one of the earliest of the second wave of “Newlyn School” artists, a group that included Alfred J. Munnings, Stanley Gardner and Laura and Harold Knight. Birch is often…