Tovrea Dreams

 

Last Monday I featured a painting of an Arizona landmark.  This week I'm featuring another painting this time of a Phoenix landmark.  I discovered this painting in the lobby of a downtown Phoenix office building hanging near the elevator bank.  It's called "Tovrea Dreams" and features  the well-known Phoenix landmark, Tovrea Castle.  Only this depiction has taken on a surrealistic tone with the castle sitting on the back of a giant turtle.

The artist is Rafael Navarro who is originally from Mexico City.  He is self-taught and finds his way through painting and sculpting.  This painting was part of a show by Modified Arts called "Visions of Phoenix: Reality and Surreality."  This painting fits the "surreality" description perfectly.

You can see more of Navarro's work here.  

Mission San Xavier Del Bac

 

The artist Kirk Randle lives and works in Bountiful Utah but I see him every year at the Celebration of Fine Arts which lasts from mid-January to the end of March.  His paintings span a wide range of scenes from landscapes to farm scenes to forests.  This recent depiction of the Mission San Xavier Del Bac caught my eye immediately.  Somewhere in my archives of photos I have a photograph of this beautiful building with stormy looking clouds hanging overhead.  He must have visited the mission on a similar day.

The White Horse

 

This painting is by the artist Mathieu Bassez.  It's Called "Prudence".  Mr. Bassez grew up in Ghent Flanders and started painting in his early teens.  At University he wrote a thesis about the Japanese artist Utamaro who painted every day scenes of Japanese life.  He ended up studying at Tokyo University of Fine Arts.  His recent works have revolved around the powerful form of both horses and women.  You can read more about him here.

I saw this painting in London at the Halcyon Gallery at Harrods.  

The Card Players

 

The Card Players is one in a series of paintings made be Paul Cezanne in the 1890's.  There are a total of five paintings in the series and the one shown above is at the Courtauld Institute of Art in London.  There is a smaller version of this same painting at the Musee d'Orsey in Paris and yet another in a private collection.  There is also another painting depicting three card players at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. The Barnes Foundation in Philadelphia has a fifth painting which is another version of the painting with 3 card players.  Some experts say that Cezanne became obsessed with getting the perfect picture of his peasant card players.  

You can see photos of all five of the paintings on this Wikipedia page.