At work I’m trying to direct a concept artist in a particular direction. I have a vague memory of a painting I saw, but I can’t remember the name of the artist, or even where I saw it, so I’m asking for help. The details:
[ul]
[li]Early 20th century or late 19th.[/li][li]A pretty girl in profile. She has a Gibson girl quality.[/li][li]Her face is meticulously rendered, her clothes are more impressionistic. The juxtaposition of styles is striking.[/li][li]The painting overall has an art nouveau feel. However it’s not Mucha.[/li][li]I think it might have been for a magazine cover – Collier’s, the Atlantic, the Saturday Evening Post – something like that.[/li][/ul]Ring any bells?
It’s not Klimt, but it’s definitely someone influenced by him. That sort of stark contrast between face and clothing is exactly the sort of thing I meant.
Half/bust length of full length? Any setting? And you’re sure it was painting and not litho or anything like that? Closer to Beardsley than to Kokoschka? Not, like, Whistler or Sargent?
You might try the worls of Harrison Fisher, who specialized in Gibsonesque beauties but often focused only on the face, letting the clothing be implied rather than depicted. For examples:
Martiros Manoukian, a contemporary Armenian artist, sometimes paints in that style. Sometimes he’s brilliant, but usually he’s fodder for those “Art & Frame Gallery”-type places at ritzy suburban shopping malls. He’s at his best when he’s appropriating older styles.
The “Gibson girl” made me think Sargent, but the clothes being more impressionistic persuaded me that it couldn’t be. I have stood in museums near tears at the amazing detail Sargent achieved when showing yards and yards of white fabric.
I’m pretty sure that what I’m remembering is a mass-market piece – something from a magazine cover, or a WWI recruiting poster. It was definitely an artist drawing on the STYLE of Klimt and his contemporaries, but without the high art aspirations. Something in the vein of the Gibson Girl, but painted, not pen and ink. And after looking at a lot of stuff yesterday and last night, I’m pretty sure it dates from between 1900 and 1920.
Don’t knock yourselves out. It’s a vivid memory I have, but it might be of something very obscure and hard to track down.
Something like what you are describing, then, widens the field way too enormous. I thought it might be Corot because you said the dress were painted impressionist like (I’ve my affinity for Corot). Good luck.
