Last week I featured a painting I found hanging in the La Fonda Hotel and this week I have another that I was attracted to in that same place. This one was painted by Sheldon B Harvey a celebrated Native American artist. His work contains elements of ancestral tradition as well contemporary lines and patterns. I've enjoyed his bold and abstract paintings but this one really spoke to me. It has a mythical quality to it.
I love the works of Paul Cezanne, a very well known French impressionist artist. Cezanne (1839-1906) produced work that influenced the likes of Picasso and Matisse. He lived in Aix-en-Provence and he painted both portraits and landscapes. This is another artist whose work I look for when visiting art museums around the world.
Cezanne often painted old or abandoned buildings that he found around the Provence countryside. This one has a somewhat sinister crevice in it.
This painting is at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
One of my favorite artists is Edward Hopper (1882-1967). I look for his paintings in galleries everywhere I go. This painting is part of the collection of the Huntington Museum and Gardens. I love the solitude of Hopper's paintings. They all seem to have a feeling of being alone in different circumstances. This one is on the water with wind in the sails. Some people view his paintings as echos of loneliness. I see it as being comfortable in your own company.
The full name of this painting is "The Lonesome Hole, Valley of the Little Colorado". It was painted by Mary-Russell Ferrell Colton (1889-1971) an American artist who wore many hats. She was an artist, author, educator and curator. She was instrumental in the founding of the Museum of Northern Arizona. This painting is part of the Phoenix Art Museum collection.
This painting has been attributed to Aelbert Cuyp (1620-1691) a Dutch painter known for his paintings of Dutch landscapes and Cavaliers with horses. This cavalier stands in a rustic space with his military encampment to left in the background. His beautiful horse is illuminated by the sunlight.
This painting was found in the Apsley House Museum in London.
When I was in London the summer of 2025, I saw an exhibit at the Royal Academy of Arts about an artist I had not heard of before. His name is Anselm Keifer and the exhibit was about Keifer's journey into the life of Vincent Van Gogh. He traveled to all the places Van Gogh lived or visited and he was inspired to create works based on some of Van Gogh's themes. The above painting is called "Starry Night". Keifer incorporates straw, sticks, clay and other natural materials into his monumental paintings.
Peter de Hooch (1629-1684) was a Dutch painter known for is paintings of domestic or household scenes. This particular painting shows a woman and her maid in the courtyard of a home. The maid appears to have taken a fish out of a cooking pot. This style of painting gives insights into the every day lives of 17th century households.
This painting is part of the collection at the National Gallery of Art in London.
Eamon Ore-Giron is a multi-faceted artist based in Los Angeles. The painting above is called "Angelitas Negros" and it was part of an exhibit called Made in L.A. at the Hammer Museum in Los Angeles. You can see more of his amazing abstract paintings here. Ore-Giron was born in Tucson in 1973. His geometric paintings have been shown in a number of art museums and galleries. It's a style that speaks to me.
Roberto Matta is a surrealist painter whose full name is Roberto Antonio Sebastian Matta-Echaurren. He was one of Chile's best known painters in the 20th century. The painting was created after the artist visited Mexico and gives the impression of a "cosmic" landscape. The painting is said to represent the volatile nature of the planet. It certainly has an explosive look to it. This painting was found at the Art Institute of Chicago.
This painting is called "Fleeing Ghost" and it was created in 1929 by Paul Klee (1879-1940).
Klee was an artist who had his own individual style but was influenced by expressionism, cubism and surrealism.
This painting uses aspects of his idea of "polyphony". He looked at the effects created by various layered formats.
This painting is part of the collection of the Art Institute of Chicago.
This painting by Ryan Singer was on display in a special exhibit at the Museum of Northern Arizona in Flagstaff. Ryan Singer is a Navajo artist who is known for mixing every day Native American scenes with elements of science fiction. He is especially fond of characters from Star Wars. If you look closely at this painting, you will see many Star Wars characters and equipment mixed in with this casual trading post scene.
You can read more about Ryan Singer here.
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.
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.
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 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.
