Gwen John

Gwen John

Painting
I find that the Welsh painter Gwen John (1876-1939) is one of the greatest heros in the history of Art. I found a little book a while ago about her life, her works and, from that moment on, I have been totally devoted to her and her female portraits. I need to point out Gwen John’s unshakeable faith, her seek of solitude, the way she painted with no major ambition, completely separate from any fashion art movement. So many times, she has served as a model for me. She had not got an easy life, she did not seek it either; even at the expense of her well-being she was devoted to her paintings.   She travelled to Paris in 1904 and never left France. She worked as a model for…
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Anna Bilinska

Anna Bilinska

Painting
She was quite young and showed clearly she was proficient into painting, but the Fate did not want the life of the Polish artist Anna Bilinska-Bohdanowicz (1854-1893) to last long enough for us to see any mature paintwork. She was lucky anyway, the environment, the family allowed an early calling so she travelled to Paris in 1882 to enroll in the well-known ‘Académie Julian’, the only renowned art academy in Paris which allowed the women to enroll.   Anna Bilinska is mainly known because of her portraits but I much prefer three self-portraits (made using oil paints, one of them still unfinished). She has depicted herself looking straight at the viewers, holding an artist’s palette, a set of paintbrushes,  no doubt proud of her craft.   Few things are as pleasant as…
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