Plein Air Convention: Part 7 - The Sargent Lecture

 Behind me, starting at the left, you see more presentors at the Plein Air Convention: Ned Mueller who did a demo, Richard Ormond - grand nephew to Sargent,
and at the far right Alexey Steele, you just can't get away from him.

Mr. Ormond gave a lively and entertaining lecture, in a fine British accent, starting with his connection to the family, and continued with photos and stories about his grandmother, Sargent's sister, evidently, a formidable woman.

John Singer Sargent

Ormond is writing the catalog raisonné on Sargent, in volumes. When I asked for a good book on Sargent for Christmas a few years back, I received three of the current seven volumes. If you haven't seen these books, I've linked above to the Amazon page where you can see what is available. With access to all the family records, and years of tracking down all of the paintings, drawings, etc., the books are a powerful presentation of Sargent's working process. And it was a process of drawings and studies before he ever made one of those large paintings.

This bad photo, is shot from a projection screen and shows you the perspective I had in the conference room. At left is a childhood photo of Sargent and his sister. On the right is a painting of his sister done from a photograph many years later. Thanks to Photoshop Elements, I can take the time to straighten out the photos, if I have the time.

And who doesn't love Sargent? Below is one of my favorite paintings shown by Mr. Ormond during his lecture. I was amazed by his use of that sienna color, and loved the pose. Quite daring for that time, I would think, for a woman to be entwined with two men!

Now I am off for Maryland for a few days, so you are on hold with more photos and stories from the Plein Air Convention. Toodle-loo!