Clara Bow
"Give Me COLOR!"
Acrylic on canvas, framed
Anna Mae Wong
Acrylic on canvas, unframed
For the October, 2011 gallery show at our studio, entitled "In Honor of Women", I created these paintings to honor the gifted women who pioneered silent films. Clara Bow is still well-known today, almost a century later, and her pixie face and sex-kitten appeal came through beautifully in black and white movies. Even without color or sound, she had a huge screen presence, and the roar of her talent still reverberates. She was so vibrant that I felt she would have loved to be portrayed in outrageous color, so I did this painting of her. I think she'd enjoy it, and hope that you do.
When I found a photograph of Anna Mae Wong that was really "art" and not merely a stock photo, it wow'd me, and I had to paint her, too. My Dad was a photographer who did his own developing and everything. He took some pretty risque pix of my female relatives back in the 1930's, semi-nude with the draping and over the shoulder "come hither" looks made so popular by the photographers of Hollywood's starlets. My Dad's work was truly "art". I got my artistic talent from his side of the family lineage. And although I wasn't familiar with Anna Mae Wong before, I'm now not only impressed with her acting and her beauty, but with the unknown photographer whose talent inspired me to do this painting!!!
I've got one in mind of Theda Bara that I want to do after the style of Klimt..... I'll post it if it comes to life..... and then there's Greta Garbo and so many other women who became stars with and without sound or color... Who knows? This may start a whole new chapter of the kinds of paintings I do!
