Al Hirschfeld and The Ultimate Solution of Grace Quigley (1984)

I love Al Hirschfeld's work, but it's always a pleasant surprise when I accidentally stumble against a new poster or cover art, or a caricature that I particularly like. Due to his longevity, his work covered the 20th century greats of Hollywood, Broadway and the West End. If there's no Hirschfeld drawing of you and you were working at that time, you really didn't make it.

So, by accident, I found the poster for "The Ultimate Solution of Grace Quigley" (1984), which has the distinction of being Katharine Hepburn's last film starring role (opposite Nick Nolte). I had never heard of the film, and from online clips it looks a lot like a cheap TV film. It has a interesting premise, though - but best of all, is the poster (particularly Kate's drawing).

"A Morte de Cleópatra" (Cleopatra's Death) by Domingos Sequeira

Domingos Sequeira (1768-1837) is a key Portuguese painter of the late XVIII and early XIX centuries. A few years ago I found images of some of his drawings, including two preparatory studies for a painting representing Cleopatra's Death. This is held in storage by the main art state collection, the Museu Nacional de Arte Antiga in Lisbon and completely out of sight. I really like the drawings, representing Cleopatra and one of her maids, so for years I have searched for an image of the actual painting without much luck. A few days ago, while browsing the official website for images of state art collections, I finally got...er... lucky... You can judge for yourself.

The two drawings...

... and the painting.

Horrible, isn't it? All the fluidity and tridimensionality of the drawings is missing from the final work. This is something I often find with drawings: they are often better than the final paintings. Watteau is a case in point.

Images taken from the Matrizpix website.

Maria Keil (1914-2012)

Maria Keil was a Portuguese artist, whose most visible works are seen by millions every day although most people don't glance at it twice: from the 1950s to the 1970s she did the original tile decorations for Lisbon's underground network, except for one station, where it still stands today (*). With this work, she helps modernise a traditional art form in Portugal, reinventing it to the 20th Century - something so many others continue to do to this day. She wasn't allowed to use any figures as that was seen as distracting. So she used geometric/abstract patterns.

She also did a lot of more traditional graphic work, particularly book covers and illustrations. The photos below were taken by yours truly - if I had more talent and material adjusted to take photos inside underground stations they would have out come much better. Alas, it should give some idea.

(*) In two stations (Saldanha and São Sebastião) the original tiles got removed for some reason, and in Restauradores, some of it was also lost during renovation works. Everything else is still there, and the new decoration in São Sebastião is also hers (last photo). It seems it was her last work.

!!!... Pierrot by Carlos Bonvalot (1916)

I stumbled into this painting recently and loved it. I think I may actually have seen it (it's part of the collection of the Museu do Chiado in Lisbon) but as often in life, timing is all. More interestingly, was the fact that I never heard of the painter, Carlos Bonvalot.

Image taken from here.

Caravaggio, 400 years of his death

Caravaggio is my favourite painter and today marks the 400th anniversary of his death. I have had the chance to see many of his paintings in the last year or so, after completely falling in love with his work during a few days in Rome, where the best of his work is shown. Sadly timing was not on my side and this didn't happened him in time to go to the 2005 exhibition here in London, and went to Rome a year early so missed this year's exhibition there.

St John the Baptist

Death of the Virgin

The Entombment of Christ

The Conversion of St Paul (Cerasi Chapel)

Eça de Queirós by Columbano

Eça de Queirós (1845- 1900) is arguably Portugal's best novelist and one of my favourite writers. Columbano Bordalo Pinheiro (1857 - 1929) is one of the key painters of late 19th Century, early 20th Century and again, a personal favourite. He his known among other things for a series of paintings of Portuguese intelectuals and key figures of the last quarter of the 19th Century. One of the most celebrated at the time was his portrait of Eça de Queirós. Sadly, a few months before the writer's death the painting was lost, with a few others, in a shipwreck while returning from an exhibition in Paris. And obviously, the sitter's death prevented a new one being made.

Fortunately, as I found out recently, there is a surviving photo (below, taken from here). It makes me even more sorry that I can't see it, but at least I can see what the painting looked like. And I love what he did with the hands.

A New Passion

Gian Lorenzo Bernini (1598-1680)