Famous Artists' Cats
Story
The famous
artists' cats owe their beginning to a certain event.
Read the inspiration
for the cat art behind the famous artists cat print series in The Cat Gallery.
The Infamous
Famous Artists' Cats
Series
The Inspiration
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You may wonder how on earth the Famous Artists' Cats series came about. Well...let me tell you... One day a friend of mine, Marilee, asked if I would paint a portrait of her cat for her 50th birthday present. She showed me several photos, and one of them pictured her lynx point siamese kind of sprawled out leaning on a pillow. It had a very strong resemblence to Manet's painting, Olympia, where the naked woman was reclining against a pillow, with her servant next to her. The similarity struck me immediately, and the idea was born.
I decided to do a
parody of the Manet painting and suggested adding her husband's sealpoint
siamese to the picture to make it complete (for his birthday,
too). As I was working on the watercolor, the idea crept into
my thoughts that this could be done for other artists, as well.
The ideas started pouring out, one sketch after another. They
would not stop. There are many that I have not yet
painted and others that have been painted and are waiting to be
printed. |
"Manet's cats have always been so special
to us, but now with Amy's passing, your painting is a special source of comfort.
We will never be able to thank you for your gift. Marilee and Henry
Lenhart" (Henry's sealpoint siamese was the model for one of Manet's cats
and Marilee's lynxpoint siamese was the other. They are both
waiting on the other side.)
The Experience
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This turned out to be quite an art history lesson for me, as I studied the different artists' styles in detail, analyzed their techniques, and put myself into their frame of reference. This allowed me to create scenes as they might have, that would include a cat. Of course, pieces of myself kept coming through, including some of my own style and some kind of sense of humor. For this series, I
would sit down and absorb myself in a particular artist's style and read
about his life and work. Then an idea would form in my mind, and the
sketching would begin. From that point, reference material would be
used to pull together an artistic composition that combined the
qualities of the artist with my own original scene. Then I would
decide how that image could be best expressed--such as what medium to use
that would closely represent that of the parodied artist.
When a number of the
paintings were finished, I sat down one day and started writing summaries
of each of the pictures. Amazingly, interesting, humorous
stories began to unfold. Suddenly, the interpretation became an
important part of the whole image. When the paintings were printed,
the stories behind them were included as part of the prints.
Throughout the
process, I was hoping that the experience of submerging myself into the
other artists' approaches would allow me to learn from them, and in the
end have my own style benefit from this exposure and emerge as something
unique. We will see. |
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The Cat
Gallery
and read the
review on this site under
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(Be sure to see the other
rave reviews from award sites, customers, and visitors in This Art is Wonderful! and see the display of the most beautiful,
creative, artistic, and desirable awards on the Internet that have been granted
to The Cat Gallery, in my Awards Gallery.)
An important recognition came when three of the paintings
entered into a juried competition at the Carnegie Art Museum in Oxnard,
California, were awarded First Place. 
