Tadeusz Styka (born April 12, 1889 in Kielce, died September 11, 1954 in New York) - Polish portrait painter, son of Jan Styka, brother of Adam Styka. He took his first drawing lessons from his father, then studied in Paris. He is mainly known for portraits of famous figures of the first half of the 20th century (including Pola Negri, Ignacy Paderewski, Enric Carus). He also painted genre, religious and symbolic scenes, nudes and animals (especially lions). He often collaborated with Brother Adam and was awarded the French Legion of Honor. He died in New York and is buried next to his father at Forest Lawn Cemetery in Los Angeles.
Artemisia Lomi or Artemisia Gentileschi (July 8, 1593 – c. 1656) was an Italian Baroque painter, now considered one of the most accomplished seventeenth-century artists working in the style of Caravaggio. In an era when women had few opportunities to pursue artistic training or work as professional artists, Artemisia was the first woman to become a member of the Accademia di Arte del Disegno in Florence and had an international clientele.
A darker, bluer and stormier version of this classic grey work seen popularly here in our collection of 1969 untitled grey works on paper. Not sure how dark the original is as the NGA scan is very light, but it’s also typical that the NGA scans are old and not always accurate. Loving this mood and it’s addition to our collective understanding.
This painting, which Marcel Duchamp identified as a self-portrait, was probably begun during December of 1911 in Neuilly, while he was exploring ideas for the controversial Nude Descending a Staircase, No. 2 of 1912. In Nude (Study), Sad Young Man on a Train his transitory though acute interest in Cubism is manifested in the subdued palette, emphasis on the flat surface of the picture plane, and in the subordination of representational fidelity to the demands of the abstract composition.
Duchamp’s primary concern in this painting is the depiction of two movements, that of the train in which we observe the young man smoking and that of the lurching figure itself. The forward motion of the train is suggested by the multiplication of the lines and volumes of the figure, a semitransparent form through which we can see windows, themselves transparent and presumably presenting a blurred, “moving” landscape. The independent sideways motion of the figure is represented by a directionally contrary series of repetitions. These two series of replications suggest the multiple images of chronophotography, which Duchamp acknowledged as an influence, and the related ideas of the Italian Futurists, of which he was at least aware by this time. Here he uses the device not only to illustrate movement, but also to integrate the young man with his murky surroundings, which with his swaying, drooping pose contribute to the air of melancholy. Shortly after the execution of this and similar works, Duchamp lost interest in Cubism and developed his eccentric vocabulary of mechanomorphic elements that foreshadowed aspects of Dada.
