Sunday, April 28, 2019

A chocolate king in the avenue du Bois - portraits of Georges Menier by Boutet de Monvel, 1922-23



Georges Menier (19 April 1880, Paris - 1 January 1933, Paris), was the great-grandson of Jean Antoine Brutus Menier, who founded the celebrated chocolate company in 1816. In the following decades, mainly due to the wise implementation of the newest manufacturing technologies, with factories located at Noisiel, twenty miles outside of Paris, they became the premier chocolatiers in France, a position that lasted for more than one hundred years.

A preparatory study for the full portrait. Notice that the composition is wider and that the buildings in the background are different. 

The great wealth accumulated by the family business permitted its members many expensive opportunities, such as yachting and horse racing, politics and extravagant real estate; Georges' uncle, Henri Menier, bought the chateau de Chenonceau in 1913. (That same year, Henri died and the estate was inherited by his brother, Georges' father. The following year, with war begun, a military hospital was set up in the château, administered by Georges and his wife, Simonne.)


Boutet de Monvel's portrait - for which there survive several sketches and oil studies - shows the elegantly dressed Menier seated under the chestnut trees in the avenue du Bois de Boulogne. (Only a few years later, the street was renamed avenue Foch, after the French marshal, a hero of WWI.) The final portrait was shown at the Salon d’Automne of 1923.

Three landscape studies. 
Another preparatory sketch of the subject.



Friday, April 26, 2019

Friday, April 5, 2019

Une petite pause....


The War Years - acrylic on panel - 8x8, 10x10, 12x12 - 2019.

I'm in the final push for my next show - at Froelick Gallery, here in Portland, 16 April - 1 June. Actually, I'm all finished. Almost everything photographed and varnished, ready for delivery in just about a week. But right now I am trying to complete just one more; "more is better"! I always schedule my posts well in advance, which is why I've been able to keep up with my two installments a week until today. But now I've run out, so I'll have to take just a tiny break from posting. I'll be right back! : )

Aeternus - acrylic on panel - 18x24 - 2019.
Miscellaneous Sebastian #1 - acrylic on panel - 16x16 - 2019.
The Dark Mirror - acrylic on panel - 16x16 - 2018.
The Window Above - acrylic on panel - 16x16 - 2019 .
Untitled - acrylic on panel - 8x8 - 2019
Deny - acrylic on panel - 12x12 - 2019
Demur - acrylic on panel - 8x8 - 2019