Two portraits which were refused by their clients. One brought the painter’s revenge, the other almost proved the death of the artist.
portrait
In 1911, he sailed to the US to paint its President, the third he had made a portrait of. But less than ten years later, Zorn was dead.
A portrait of Grover Cleveland, who had until recently President of the USA, an impudent nude, and girls frolicking in the sauna.
After 1900, most of his paintings were portraits of young women. Some seem to have been made in search of a suitable husband.
Unlike some of his contemporaries, his people are real and his depictions full of grace and calm. His stylistic exaggerations and faired forms work to create portraits and nudes which we can really enjoy.
He excelled across all genres, one of few painters of the time to do so. He was, and remains, one of the greatest European painters of the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
Live models for figures, landscape oil sketching in front of the motif, the sensuous nude, narratives with multiple readings, incredibly loose brushwork, and so much more than portraits.
Not his last great painting by any means, but his greatest and most thought-provoking. Where are the royal couple, seen only in reflection, and who is everyone looking at?
After painting portraits of the Pope during his second visit to Italy, he returns to paint the king’s niece and new bride, Las Meninas, and his last myth.
One of the first international superstars, she was an accomplished painter and sculptor herself. Here’s her life in portraits by her friends.
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