20C Hungarian music, women, legs, dogs, & goats by Robert Bereny 1887-1953

Robert Bereny (Hungarian artist, 1887-1953) Woman Playing Cello 1928


Robert Bereny (Hungarian artist, 1887-1953) Woman with Cello 1937

Robert Bereny (Hungarian artist, 1887-1953) Self Portrait 1906

In 1904, Bereny was a student of Tivadar Zemplényi, before he went to study in Paris, where he was particularly influenced by Cézanne's art. Politcally he took part in the art life of the Hungarian Soviet Republic, and he was the leader of the department for painting in the Art Directorate. After 1919, he emmigrated to Berlin, which he left to return home in 1926. He worked in Zebegény from 1934. He was awarded the Szinnyei prize in 1936.  Obviously, I am particularly fond of his self-portraits & his bold use of color.

Robert Bereny (Hungarian artist, 1887-1953) Red Dress 1908


Robert Bereny (Hungarian artist, 1887-1953) Woman in a Green Room 1927


Robert Bereny (Hungarian artist, 1887-1953) Woman in Arm Chair 1923


Robert Bereny (Hungarian artist, 1887-1953) Girl Reading 1946-48


Robert Bereny (Hungarian artist, 1887-1953) Self Portrait 1947

20C English Music by Stanley Spencer 1891-1959

Stanley Spencer, (English painter, 1891-1959) Music Lesson at Bedales 1921  Bedales School is an independent school situated in the village of Steep, in Hampshire. The school was founded in 1893, by John Haden Badley in reaction to the limitations of conventional Victorian schools. In the first half of 20th century the progressive movement around Bedales attracted a community of artists, craftsmen & writers to live in Steep. In the early 1920s Stanley Spencer made a number of drawings & paintings of activities at the school, while staying with Muirhead Bone.

Spencer's father was a musician & taught him to play the piano,  Two sisters who lived at the end of his lane in Cookham, said that he would drop in & say "Can I have a tinkle?" He would sit down at their piano & play Bach & Chopin.

Stanley Spencer, (English painter, 1891-1959) At the Piano 1957

Flowers for you

Josef Launer (Mid 19C Austrian artist) Bouquet of Flowers with a Butterfly

Flowers for you from Jean Édouard Vuillard 1868-1940

 Jean Édouard Vuillard (French artist, 1868-1940) Fleurs (1904)

 Jean Édouard Vuillard (French artist, 1868-1940) Flowers 1906

 Jean Édouard Vuillard (French artist, 1868-1940) Bouquet of Pansies, Myosotis and Daisies in front of a Carafe, on a Table 1900

Jean Édouard Vuillard (French artist, 1868-1940) Anemones in a Jug 1902

1700s Music Parties Indoors

 1720 Marcellus Laroon II (British artist, A 1679-1772) Musical Assembly

 1734 John Theodore Heins Senior (German artist, 1697–1756) A Music Party at Melton Constable

 Attributed to Hendrick Goovaerts (1669–1720) A Party with Music & Actors

 Gawen Hamilton (British artist, 1697–1737) A Music Party The Mathias Family 1730s

 Jean-Antoine Watteau (French artist, 1684–1721) A Music Party (L'amour au théâtre italien)

 Music Party after William Hogarth 1720-1730

 The Leslie Conversation Piece (A Musical Rivalry) 1760-65 by an unknown Irish artist

Vincenzo Vita (Italian artist, d 1782) A Musical Party 1770-80

Tea for Everyone

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Artist Unknown Inglese Couple Having Tea c 1830-40

Bernard de Hoog (Dutch painter, 1867-1943) Tea Time

Thomas Webster (Inglese genre painter, 1800-1886), The Tea Party 1862

Tom McEwan (British genre artist, 1846-1914) Tea Time

Andrei Ryabushkin (Russian painter, 1861-1904) Drinking Tea 1903

Harold John Wilde Gilman (Inglese painter, 1876-1919) Mrs Mounter at the Breakfast Table

Harold Harvey (Inglese Painter, 1874-1941]) The Tea Table 1920

Poul Friis Nybo (Danish artist, from 1869 to 1929) Reading Woman 1929

William Patrick Roberts (British painter, 1895-1980) Tea Shop 1938

Earth, Water, Air, & Fire - The Elements - Henri II Bonnart (French artist, 1642-1711)

 Henri II Bonnart (French artist, 1642-1711) The Elements - Air

 Henri II Bonnart (French artist, 1642-1711) The Elements - Earth

 Henri II Bonnart (French artist, 1642-1711) The Elements - Fire

 Henri II Bonnart (French artist, 1642-1711) The Elements - Water

Proust on Taking Tea in the Winter

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Edward George Handel Lucas (English artist, 1861-1936) Silent Advocates of Temperance 1891

From Remembrances of Things Past (À la recherche du temps perdu 1913-22), here is Proust's young memory of taking tea...

"When one day in winter, on my return home, my mother, seeing that I was cold, offered me some tea, a thing I did not ordinarily take. I declined at first, and then, for no particular reason, changed my mind. She sent for one of those squat, plump little cakes called petites madeleines, which look as though they had been molded in the fluted valve of a scallop shell.

"And soon, mechanically, dispirited after a dreary day with the prospect of a depressing morrow, I raised to my lips a spoonful of the tea in which I had soaked a morsel of the cake. No sooner had the warm liquid mixed with the crumbs touched my palate than a shiver ran through me and I stopped, intent upon the extraordinary thing that was happening to me. An exquisite pleasure had invaded my senses, something isolated, detached, with no suggestion of its origin.

"And at once the vicissitudes of life had become indifferent to me, its disasters innocuous, its brevity illusory - this new sensation having had the effect, which love has, of filling me with a precious essence; or rather this essence was not in me, it-was-me.

"I had ceased now to feel mediocre, contingent, mortal. When could it have come to me, this all-powerful joy? I sensed that it was connected with the taste of the tea and the cake, but that it infinitely transcended those savors..."

Marcel Proust 1871-1922.

Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec (1864-1901) painted Carmen Gaudin

Often the portraits of Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec (1864-1901) take a back seat to his popular poster art. As we saw with his portraits of Suzanne Valadon, he created serious paintings of those he encountered in Montmartre. One of his favorite models, in addition to Suzanne Valadon, was another laundress named Carmen Gaudin (1866?–1920).

Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec (1864-1901) Carmen Gaudin , 1885

My favorites of his portraits, by far, are his early paintings of Carmen Gaudin.

Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec (1864-1901) Carmen Gaudin Red-Headed Woman in a White Blouse in the Artist's Studio

The model for this series of Lautrec paintings Carmen Gaudin apparently made her living as a laundress, model, and prostitute.

Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec (1864-1901) Carmen Gaudin

It is reported that Lautrec spotted Carmen, as she was leaving a Montmartre restaurant sometime in the summer of 1885.

Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec (1864-1901) Carmen Gaudin The Red-Headed Woman

Lautrec was reportedly infatuated with red-headed women. He seemed to be attracted to Carmen both for her beauty & her tawdriness. He had been born into a traditional, well-to-do family.

Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec (1864-1901) Carmen Gaudin


Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec (1864-1901) Carmen Gaudin Lowered Head 1885

Lautrec is supposed to have intended to improve her lot in life by making her his model, but it appears that she had already posed for the Belgian painter Alfred Stevens, and later worked as a model for artist Fernand Cormon as well. Cormon was Lautrec's art teacher.

Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec (1864-1901) Carmen Gaudin At Montrouge. 1886-87.

In autumn 1885, Lautrec wrote to his aristocratic mother, that he was "painting a woman whose hair is absolute gold," referring to Carmen. Tucked deep into the artist's community at Montmartre was the garden of Monsieur Pere Foret, where Toulouse-Lautrec executed a series of pleasant plein-air paintings of Carmen Gaudin

Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec (1864-1901) Carmen Gaudin Red-Headed Woman in the Garden of M. Foret, Summer 1887

 He was able to portray Carmen in realistic poses and situations which he would not have been able to do with client friends from his family.

Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec (1864-1901) Carmen Gaudin 1889

Throughout his voluminous body of work his models were often prostitutes, commonly the only source of female models willing to bare more than their face or hands.

Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec (1864-1901) Carmen Gaudin Woman in a Garden 1889

Lautrec did not portray his models in a demeaning way, he seemed to want to capture the spirit of his models. And, with them, he could play with light and shadows, as he could not with traditional portraits.

Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec (1864-1901) Carmen Gaudin as The Laundress. 1889, although some say that the model for this particular painting, and perhaps the following portrait, was Suzanne Valadon, during a period when her hair was dyed red.

Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec (1864-1901) Carmen Gaudin Red-Haired Woman The Toilette. 1889.

Suzanne Valadon (1865-1938) - Andre Utter (1886-1948) Model, Lover, Husband, & Business Manager

We should not leave artist Suzanne Valadon's (1865-1938) life without mentioning her relationship with her son's friend, painter Andre Utter (1886-1948). 

Suzanne Valadon (1865-1938) Adam and Eve 1909

In 1906, her son Maurice Utrillo introduced her to his friend Andre Utter. At that time, she was married to stockbroker Paul Mousis, whom she had married in 1896. 

Suzanne Valadon (1867-1938) Andre Utter and his Dogs

She fell in love with André Utter, 21 years her junior. He became the love of her life, her business manager, and her husband.

Suzanne Valadon (1865-1938) The launch of the 1914 net


Suzanne Valadon (1865-1938) Self Portrait with her Family c 1910 Self-portrait with Maurice Utrillo (1883-1955), husband Andre Utter (1886-1948) and Utter's mother


Andre Utter (1886-1948) Suzanne Valadon (1865-1938) 


Suzanne Valadon (1865-1938) Maurice Utrillo, born Maurice Valadon (1883-1955), and Andre Utter (1886-1948) 1919