Flowering butch - floral paintings by Gluck

 

Lords and Ladies, 1936.

Convolvulous, 1937.

Lilies, 1936.

The Pine Cone, 1919.

Nature Morte, 1937.

Lilac and Guelder Rose, circa 1932-37.

The Vernon Picture, 1937.

The Devil's Altar, 1932.

Chromatic, 1932.

Tulips, circa 1930-32.

Orchestra, 1967.

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Gluck (born Hannah Gluckstein; 13 August 1895, London – 10 January 1978, Steyning, Sussex), British painter, best known for portraits and floral paintings. (Gluck rejected any forename or honorific, such as "Miss" or "Mr.", and also used the names Peter and Hig, so it seems right to assume the pronouns they/them.) Born into a wealthy Jewish family, they attended the Dame School in Swiss Cottage until 1910, and then at St Paul's Girls' School in Hammersmith until 1913; that year, they were awarded a Royal Drawing Society silver star. They attended St John's Wood School of Art between 1913 and 1916, after which they moved to the west Cornwall valley of Lamorna, joining the artists' colony there. At Lamorna the artist began to adopt a masculine appearance and to defy fashion and gender norms. Their relationships with a number of women included one with Nesta Obermer; the artist's joint self-portrait with Obermer, Medallion, is viewed as an iconic lesbian statement. They identified with no artistic school or movement and showed work only in solo exhibitions; they were supported financially by family money. Though the artist's work was well-received both by critics and the public through the 1920s and 1930s, beginning in 1944 as their relationship with Obermer was ending, they endured a nearly thirty-year period of "artist's block." In their seventies, the artist began painting again and mounted one last well-received solo show, and died not too long after at the age of eighty-two.

Medallion (YouWe), her self-portrait with Nesta Obermer, 1936.

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Image from the original patent of the Gluck Frame.

Gluck is also remembered as an inventor. They debuted a new design for a picture frame in 1932, the same year at their third exhibition at the London Fine Art Society. The Gluck frame is a geometric three-tier stepped frame, with the steps rising from the exterior of the frame towards the interior. The intent of the inventor was that the frame could be painted or wallpapered, covered in the same material as the wall upon which the painting was hung, causing the painting to almost appear to be part of the wall. The first Gluck frames were constructed out of soft plasticine, although later frames were constructed out of wood.

Self-portrait, 1942.

Entertaining sons - Danza dei figli di Alcinoo, plaster bas-relief by Antonio Canova, circa 1790-92

 

In the collection of the Museo dell’Accademia Perugia, Perugia.

This work is part of a series of eight large plaster bas-reliefs inspired by Homer's poems, Virgil's Aeneid, and Plato's Phaedo. Danza dei figli di Alcinoo (Dance of the Sons of Alcinous), the most animated of the sequence, is based on an episode narrated in the eighth canto of the Odyssey. It depicts Halios and Laodamas, the sons of King Alcinous of the Phaeacians, performing a graceful dance in honor of their shipwrecked guest, Odysseus (Ulysses), who stands at right, and watches alongside Alcinous, Queen Arete, and Princess Nausicaa, while the blind musician Demodocus can be seen seated at left playing his lyre.

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There are several versions of the piece, each with variations. Examples can be found in Perugia, Venice, Milan, and Possagno, Canova's birthplace.

In the collection of the Museo Correr, Venice.

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In the collection of the Museo Gypsotheca, Possagno.

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In the collection of the Gallerie d'Italia di Piazza della Scala, Milan.

De profil, précis et élégant - engravings and drawings by Augustin de Saint-Aubin

 

Louise-Émilie, baronne d’Andlau (Louise-Émilie de Frézals de Cherizy, baronne d'Andlau, 1717-1786), 1779.

I have to question the identification of the subject as Louise-Émilie, baronne d’Andlau. That lady was sixty-two in 1779; the woman in the portrait doesn't look
 nearly sixty-two. Since the full name is not revealed in the engraving, it seems likely that there was another - and much younger - "Louise-Émilie, baronne de."

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Adrienne-Sophie, marquise de Montesson (née Charlotte-Jeanne Béraud de La Haye de Riou, 1738–1806), morganatic wife of the duc d'Orléans, 1779.

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Though Saint-Aubin was certainly a very talented and accomplished draughtman, himself, many of his engraved portrait medallions were created using pre-existing likenesses of the subjects.

François Dumont, 1788.

The artist’s wife, Louise-Nicole Godeau Saint-Aubin, circa 1770s.

Guillaume Coustou, 1770.

Unknown, circa 1780s.

Jean Monnet, 1765.

A vintage inscription on the back reads, "A young girl about 14 years old, 'aunt Philippine.'" Circa 1770s.

P. J. Marco, 1784.

The artist’s wife, 1770.

Voltaire (François-Marie Arouet), before 1778.

Pierre Jeliote, 1771.

Fortunée-Marie d'Est, princesse de Conti, 1781.

Jean-Charles-Philibert Trudaine, 1774.

The artist’s wife, 1778.

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Augustin de Saint-Aubin, sometimes styled Auguste de Saint-Aubin (3 January 1736, Paris – 9 November 1807, Paris), French designer and engraver. Born the son of the king's embroiderer Gabriel Germain de Saint-Aubin, he came from a family of artists and designers, which included his six siblings: brothers Charles-Germain de Saint-Aubin and Gabriel-Jacques de Saint-Aubin, as well as Catherine Louise, Louis-Michel, Athanasius, and Agathe; the siblings were known collectively as the "Book of Saint-Aubin". His niece, Marie-François, daughter of Charles, was an artist as well. Trained by his brother Gabriel-Jacques, he later studied with Étienne Fessard and Laurent Cars. His first submission to the Salon was an etching in 1752. He was approved by the Académie Royale in 1771, but did not graduate, as he failed to submit one of the required reception pieces. He took many commissions for commercial purposes like bookplates, frontispieces, invitations, tradesmen's cards, and programs, and he also illustrated books. In 1776 he was appointed as the official engraver at the Bibliothèque Royale. He later worked on etching the collection of antique gems owned by the Duc d'Orléans. A nineteenth-century catalogue raisonné lists over thirteen hundred of his works, but he is most remembered for his portraits. During his lifetime, he was considered the most successful of the siblings but, ironically, he is the one about whom least is now known. He died in the place of his birth at the age of seventy-one.