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Laura JG

@laurajg.bsky.social

590 followers 170 following 980 posts

Artist, art history, deconstructing. The banner is one of my artworks, created on my iPad using the Sketch Club app, with my Apple Pencil in hand. http://laurajeannegrimes.com

laurajeannegrimes.com

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Laura JG @laurajg.bsky.social · 8h

That’s awesome!

Laura JG @laurajg.bsky.social · 9h

That’s just horrifying.

Laura JG @laurajg.bsky.social · 11h

Jeanne d'Arc (Joan of Arc), 1921, by Céline Lepage (1882–1928), chryselephantine, bronze with golden patina on a marble base, 48.5 cm, collection of RAW Modern. #arthistory #womenartists #womanartist #Art

From Art UK: “Joan of Arc was a significant figure in fifteenth-century French history for claiming divine visions guiding her to save France and the reign of Charles VII at Reims during the Hundred Years’ War. The artist portrays Joan of Arc in chryselephantine – a technique blending gold and ivory – highly esteemed in ancient Greece and often used to represent deities and significant religious figures. This choice not only aligns with Jeanne d’Arc’s symbolism but also elevates her to a divine status, emphasising the significance of the medium over Lepage’s usual preference for bronze. Thus, the sculpture embodies themes of courage, and faith, symbolising bravery, devotion, and nationalism. The depiction of Jeanne wielding a sword accentuates her revered status, akin to a deity.“

Laura JG @laurajg.bsky.social · 1d

Your art history post for today: by Eileen Agar (1899-1991), Harlequin, 1968, oil on canvas, 50 1⁄4 x 40in. (127.5 x 101.5cm.), photo: Christie’s London, March 2, 2022. More in ALT. #arthistory #womanartist #womenartists #Art

Laura JG @laurajg.bsky.social · 2d

Quote: “The exhibition, titled “Before the Americas”, is an art historical survey tracing the work of Afro-Latino, Caribbean, and African American artists who have lived and worked in the Greater Washington area… “
www.artnews.com/art-news/new...

Exhibition Canceled By Trump’s DEI Ban Opens at George Mason University

"Before the Americas" is an art historical survey tracing the work of Afro-Latino, Caribbean, and African American artists.

www.artnews.com

Laura JG @laurajg.bsky.social · 2d

By Helen Lundeberg (1908-1999), Double Portrait of the Artist in Time, 1935, oil on fiberboard, 47 3⁄4 x 40 in. (121.3 x 101.6 cm.), Smithsonian American Art Museum. #arthistory #womenartists #womanartist #painting #oilpainting

From the museum: ‘In Double Portrait, Helen Lundeberg incorporated different figures and objects to symbolize the stages of her life. The time on the clock represents the child’s age of two and a quarter, and the blank paper suggests her unknown future. She holds a flower bud to emphasize her undeveloped state, whereas the adult figure holds a blooming flower to show that she has experienced sex and love. Lundeberg connected the young girl to the grown woman with a shadow to suggest that the two parts of her life are “psychologically bridged.” The subdued tones and flat colors create a mysterious world where the shadow hovers like a ghost over the shoulders of both figures.’

Laura JG @laurajg.bsky.social · 2d

Here is abother work on the same theme by the artist. Marion Elizabeth Adnams (1898-1995), L’infante égarée (The Lost Infanta), 1944, Manchester Art Gallery, Manchester, UK. #arthistory #womenartists #womanartist #painting

Laura JG @laurajg.bsky.social · 3d

Alter Ego, 1945, by Marion Adnams (1898-1995), oil on panel, 53.3x43.2 cm, © Derby Museums and Artist’s Estate. She never explained her paintings, letting them stand for themselves. #arthistory #painting #oilpainting #womenartists #womanartist

On the left, a large standing bird skeleton (or dinosaur). On the right, what may be a cut-out of a woman wearing a dress that looks to be made of folded paper and a hat with either paper curls or ribbons.

Laura JG @laurajg.bsky.social · 4d

You are sweetly enchanting, as always. Here’s me. Sunday selfie. Shot with my iPhone 15 Pro Max. Edited in Hipstamatic (Jack London lens/DC film/Apollo lens). #iphonography #iphoneonly #instagram #selfportraitsunday #hipstamatic

Laura JG @laurajg.bsky.social · 4d

Yes. 🙏🏼

Laura JG @laurajg.bsky.social · 4d

I am so very sorry you have to live this reality. It sucks. 😥

Laura JG @laurajg.bsky.social · 4d

My sketch for today: Cassandra is Early for Halloween, drawn freehand (with the exception of the spiderweb motif, which was a brush on the app), on my iPad Pro using the SketchClub app. Based on a photo reference provided by the subject. #digitalart #ipadart #artapp #drawingapp

A woman dressed in a black catsuit with the bones of a skeleton printed on it.

Laura JG @laurajg.bsky.social · 4d

By Valentine Hugo (1887-1968), Portrait d'Arthur Rimbaud, 1933, oil on panel with rhinestones and collage, 100 x 75cm (39 3/8 x 29 1/2in), photo: Bonhams London, March 8, 2022. More in ALT #arthistory #Art #womanartist #womenartists

From the website: “In the present work, the poet's face emerges from the dark in the lower centre, below two birds that seem to emanate from his mind. One is an eagle, whose feathers blend into Rimbaud's hair and end in sharp blades. These are covered in red, green, white, and black droplets, showing Valentine Hugo's masterful draughtsmanship and her eye for detail. The other bird is white, resembling a swan, but with red feathers. The two birds intertwine in a fight, in which the eagle seems to protect Rimbaud from the sharp beak of the white bird. Five crows, which are a notorious harbinger of death in Rimbaud's poetry The Crows (Les Corbeaux) (1871), are hidden in the white bird's feathers. Nevertheless, this white bird of ill omen crowns Rimbaud with a laurel wreath, a symbolic attribute given to poets. The glory of the poet comes at a price however: one of the thorns pierces Rimbaud's forehead and causes glistening blood to drip from the wound. The blood stains his lips with red, which contributes to the poet's androgynous appearance… In Portrait d'Arthur Rimbaud the poet's face floats in murky, green water populated by strange sea creatures. A flat sea urchin lies on the foreground, and another spiny sea urchin hides behind the poet's right ear. The latter opens to reveal a soft, slimy, dripping interior surrounded by tentacles.”

Laura JG @laurajg.bsky.social · 5d

If you would like to try a 10-minute meditation on this work, here is a link: www.nytimes.com/interactive/...

10-Minute Challenge: A Surrealist Scene by Gertrude Abercrombie

We’d like you to look at one piece of art for 10 minutes, uninterrupted.

www.nytimes.com

Laura JG @laurajg.bsky.social · 5d

By Gertrude Abercrombie (1909-1977), “Where or When (Things Past),” 1948, oil on canvas, 21 1/2 x 35 1/2 in., Madison Museum of Contemporary Art, Wisconsin. #arthistory #womanartist #womenartists #Art #painting #oilpainting

First, a quote from the artist, in an interview with Studs Terkel: ‘I wrote to my alumni association who wanted to know, had I done anything. I said, “Yes indeed, I have done something.” I wrote to them that I’ll go out either in a blizzard or in a blaze of glory.’

Now, my description of the painting: A woman in a long short sleeved salmon-colored dress stands in the middle of a dark room. She holds a long string behind her back, one end attached to the collar on a cat, the other to an object the shape of a traffic come, kind of a dull brass color. A painting of a running horse in a dark landscape that includes a bare-branched tree hangs on the wall. There is a small circular table with a white (marble?) top beside the woman. At the left background, tall double doors with doorknobs. On the far left wall, a blank sheet of paper seems to be tacked up.“

Laura JG @laurajg.bsky.social · 6d

Been there, done that!

Laura JG @laurajg.bsky.social · 6d

For more on the artist, see: www.guggenheim-venice.it/en/art/artis...

Leonor Fini | Artist | Peggy Guggenheim Collection

www.guggenheim-venice.it

Laura JG @laurajg.bsky.social · 6d

By Leonor Fini (1907-1996), “Rogomelec,” 1978, oil on canvas, 49 ¼ x 23 ¾ in. (125 x 60 cm.), photo: Christie’s London, 9 October 2024. More in ALT. #arthistory #womanartist #womenartists #Art

From the lot essay: "Within a barren land stands a king dressed in an elaborate coat of peacock feathers. Light glints off his dazzling crown. He is magisterial, imperious, royalty incarnated in lustrous pigment...

‘I always imagined that I would have a life very different from the one imagined for me, she said, 'but I understood from a very early time that I would have to revolt in order to make that life' (quoted in W. Chadwick, Women Artists and the Surrealist Moment, London, 1985, p. 86). Like her contemporaries, Fini's paintings too seem wrenched from a dream and across her canvases she sought to reconcile the world that she experienced with that of her subconscious mind."

Laura JG @laurajg.bsky.social · 7d

By English-Mexican artist Leonora Carrington (1917-1011), Myth of 1,000 Eyes, ca. 1950, oil on board, 4 7/8 x 3¼ in. (12.4 x 8.2 cm.), photo: Christie’s, New York, 29 May 2008. More in ALT. #arthistory #womanartist #womenartists #painting #oilpainting #Art

A hybrid creature, similar to an ermine but with three transparent insectoid wings.

Leonora Carrington, was born into a wealthy British family, expected by them to live the respectable genteel life of a woman of means. “Our family weren’t cultured or intellectual – we were the good old bourgeoisie, after all.” Quoted in “Leonora and me“, The Guardian.

She refused to live in the box of their expectations. Her cousin Joanna Moorhead: “As far as our relatives were concerned, she was deficient, disloyal and dangerous. She was an impossible creature, a wild child, an unfathomable puzzle of a girl; a young woman who refused to be tamed and who eventually, when she had wreaked more havoc than any family could reasonably be expected to bear, simply flounced off into the sunset.” ~ “My ‘wild child’ cousin, the surrealist painter Leonora Carrington,” The Guardian, 25 March 2017.

Laura JG @laurajg.bsky.social · 8d

October art history theme: very loosely, Halloween. Today: by Remedios Varo (1908-1963), La llamada (The Call), 1961, oil on Masonite, 42 x 31 in., © 2023 Remedios Varo/Artists Rights Society, National Museum of Women in the Arts. More in ALT. #arthistory #womanartist #womenartists #surrealism

From the website: “Like many figures in Remedios Varo’s paintings, the subject of The Call (1961) projects a sense of solemn preoccupation, as though in the midst of a momentous adventure. Wearing flowing robes and carrying alchemical tools, including a mortar and pestle at her collar, she traverses a sort of courtyard. Her hair forms a brilliant swirl of light, which seems to bring her energy from a celestial source.

This work reflects Varo’s characteristic color palette: the central figure, illuminated in fiery orange-gold tones, walks through shadowy, more muted surroundings. Precise lines reveal unexpected details, such as walls that appear to entomb figures in tree bark.

Varo’s own features, particularly her large eyes and long, straight nose, often appear in the faces of her protagonists, emphasizing the importance she placed on her perspective as a woman. However, as in The Call, her works do not feature direct self-portraits. The figures are frequently androgynous or not-quite-human alter-egos, with witty and delicate features of fauna or otherworldly creatures.

Varo created this work near the end of her life, while living in Mexico and growing in artistic reputation. It reflects her Surrealist influences and her interests (she dabbled in alchemical experiments) as well as her talent for evoking ambiguous narratives through art.”

Laura JG @laurajg.bsky.social · 9d

My 2 year old granddaughter informed me that “You not old! You Grandma!” But when I told my 4 year old grandson that I have a doctor appointment tomorrow, he advised, “Tell him you’re old, and he will tell you to eat your veggie-bles.” So, I’m getting mixed messages today. 😉 #grandchildren #elderly

Laura JG @laurajg.bsky.social · 9d

By Jean-François Millet (1814–1875), The Sower, 1850, oil on canvas, Museum of Fine Arts Boston. From the museum: “Exhibited at the Paris Salon of 1850, The Sower made the painter famous virtually overnight.” #arthistory #painting #oilpainting #labor

From the museum: “With a bag of seed slung over his shoulder and his legs wrapped in straw for warmth, Millet’s peasant strides down a twilit hillside, sowing winter wheat. His monumental scale and dramatic pose signaled Millet’s new approach to the depiction of peasant life, emphasizing the dignity—even heroism—of rural labor.”

And a quote from the poet Walt Whitman, who was struck by this painting: ‘Never before have I been so penetrated by this kind of expression. I stood long and long before ‘The Sower.’ There is something in this that could hardly be caught again-a sublime murkiness and original pent fury.’

Laura JG @laurajg.bsky.social · 10d

By Vincent Van Gogh (1853-1890), Women Carrying Sacks of Coal in the Snow, chalk, brush in ink, and opaque and transparent watercolor on wove paper, 12.5x19.6 inches (32x50 cm), Kröller-Müller Museum, Otterlo, Netherlands. More in ALT. #arthistory #painting #oilpainting #labor

Women, hunched over, carry heavy sacks across their shoulders and backs.

Most people don’t know that before he became an artist, Vincent was a missionary to a coal mining region of Belgium. The story of his time there breaks my heart. He arrived to discover the people led lives of back-breaking work and poverty. So he began giving what he had away to the poor, including his fine clothes. He let a poor man live in his nicely furnished flat and went to live in a hovel himself. He went down into the coal mines and saw how harsh that work actually was. He saw little children working there in dangerous conditions instead of being in school. His superiors, aghast at his lack of decorum, withdrew their support and called him back. I try to wrap my mind around this scenario. Giving what he had to the poor, as Jesus taught, disqualified him from the mission field. I have to wonder. If the mission board had supported his actions instead, applauded them, would he have become as Saint Francis? A Mother Teresa? We’ll never know.

Laura JG @laurajg.bsky.social · 10d

Here’s the unfiltered plain Jane version.

Laura JG @laurajg.bsky.social · 10d

Awwwwww…