Diego Rivera (1886 – 1957) created numerous portraits, capturing unnamed subjects alongside close friends and renowned figures in the arts. Mandrake (1939) depicts Maya Guarina, whose lace dress and headpiece contrast with a skull in her hands and a spiderweb in the upper left corner. A small mandrake root emerges in the upper right area of the portrait. Known for its hallucinogenic properties and magical associations, it contributes to an enigmatic portrait with surrealist qualities.
Only in 1960s France could a chair double as a political statement, a pop art sculpture, and a place to park your derrière. Enter the Charles de Gaulle Portrait Seat, a surreal and strangely hilarious design object dreamed up in 1967 by the unexpected team of French sculptor César Baldaccini (just “César,” if you’re nasty) and industrial design legend Roger Tallon.
Mäda Primavesi (1912–1913) is a portrait painted by Gustav Klimt and it’s one of his most charming and unique works. Here’s the painting’s engaging backstory.
The Subject
Mäda Primavesi was a young girl from a wealthy Viennese family. Her father, Otto Primavesi, was a banker and industrialist, and her mother, Eugenia, was a patron of the arts, so the family moved in the kind of circles where commissioning a portrait from Gustav Klimt made perfect sense. Continue reading Modern Art Monday Presents: Gustav Klimt, Mäda Primavesi→
Audrey Flack (1931 – 2024) was the most prominent woman artist to gain recognition as a photorealist in the 1960s and 1970s. She approached the genre of still life, which for centuries had been considered unprestigious by European and North American standards, with irreverent pleasure. Leonardo’s Lady (1974) presents tokens of traditional femininity (a jeweled bubble, embroidered ribbon, pink rose, and pressed powder compact), frivolity (effervescent champagne and shiny objects), and sexuality (a ripe, dripping pear and a reproduction of Leonardo da Vinci‘s portrait of Francis I’s reputed mistress). Continue reading Modern Art Monday Presents: Audrey Flack Leonardo’s Lady→
