Tuesday, February 9, 2016

Grant Wood, 1917, The Shaking Poplar (Populus tremuloides, aka quaking aspen. The state tree of Utah. Canada and the US west; Populus grandidentata is the aspen in the US upper midwest, lower Ontario and Quebec etc.) The counterchange on the trunk stands out, but oddly light against light & dark against dark.
Populus grandidentata, the bigtooth aspen or Canada aspen, shows up regularly in the paintings of the Canada 7. One aspen painting I especially like, by Franklin Charmichael, shows the tree hanging over a canyon. "October Gold", at the McMichael. None of the reproductions online or in books do the painting any kind of justice. Other that that, the white trunks of the bigtooth are usually used as a graphic element.

Friday, January 15, 2016

Lucia Mathews

The decorative work - painting and woodwork - of the Mathews are my favorite remembrances from the Museum of California in Oakland. Arthur F. Mathews (1860–1945) and his wife and fellow painter, Lucia Mathews are well represented there. She was a woodworker and made the carved frames that complemented their pictures, as well as other wood items. Here is one of her paintings, 'Pine Tree', watercolor on canvas paper: