![]() ![]() Whatever the subject, there is always math or geometry behind the work’s construction - some sort of arithmetical order that allows his shapes to rhyme and repeat. Last year, the Museum of Northwest Art put on a sprawling show, Arreguín: Painter from the New World, his fourth retrospective in recent years. “I use her as a symbol of beauty,” he said in 2009, “as a spiritual element that I can disguise.”Īlthough his work defied labels and dodged formal schools, he was often called a pattern painter, a magic realist, and a founder of the Pattern and Decoration Movement. He included a portrait of Frida Kahlo, a foremother of Mexican art and his favorite muse whom he painted more than a hundred times. In the NPG’s 2007 show Portraiture Now: Framing Memory, Arreguín showed pictures alongside Brett Cook, Tina Mion, Kerry James Marshall, and Faith Ringgold. Alfredo Arreguín, “Fragrance” (2018), oil on canvas, 48 x 48 inches (courtesy Linda Hodges Gallery) It has an all-over quality that shares some relation to abstraction - he came of age as the movement took over America’s art scene - but the artist’s interpretation features prominent, proud figures inside geometric landscapes. A closer look at the grid of squares reveals tiny faces inspired by Mesoamerican masks, more than 700 in total. The NPG, one of his favorite museums, acquired his 2006 portrait of Cesar Chavez, which is representative of his style -cool, dark colors nestle up against rich reds, and words and symbols are stitched inside the pattern. He was eager to take direction and generous with his time, and he talked about the great photographers he knew, like Bob Adelman.Īrreguín and I bonded over having our work in the Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery’s (NPG) collection. When I photographed him for a magazine story in 2021, he showed great respect for the medium. Like so many painters, the camera was an important tool for him. In Seattle, he took daily walks to study the water, forests, and mountains of the Pacific Northwest, often bringing a camera to photograph plants and animals. He was inspired by symbols, shapes, and colors from masks, ceramics, and tapestries. Spafford, encouraged Arreguín to explore the visual culture of his Mexican heritage, pulling from myth as much as memory. One of his favorite professors was Elmer Bischoff, the Bay Area Figurative artist who, like Arreguín, blended and buried his subjects into the ground of the painting.īischoff, along with painter Michael C. At 24, Arreguín immigrated to Seattle.Īfter serving two years in the Korean War, he studied art at the University of Washington with classmates including Chuck Close, Dale Chihuly, and Roger Shimomura. He learned to paint as a child and moved to Mexico City as a teenager to attend the National Preparatory School, where Frida Kahlo had studied in the 1920s and Diego Rivera had taught. Alfredo Arreguín, “Nuestra Señora de la Selva (Our Lady of the Jungle)” (1989), oil on canvas, 72 x 48 inches (photo courtesy Robert Vinnedge)Īrreguín was born in Michoacán, Mexico, in 1935. “All of a sudden I lost my inspiration to paint,” he wrote in a message to friends on Facebook. Leading Dutch art expert Dr Marjorie E Wiesemen of the National Gallery of Art in Washington, DC is delivering a talk on recent scholarship around Rembrandt’s body of work.As his health worsened, he suffered a fall that seemed to break his spirit. The exhibition will be divided into themes, with sections dedicated to Rembrandt’s portraits, religious subjects, landscapes, nudes and everyday life scenes. Other important pieces from Rembrandt’s catalogue being exhibited include Diana at the bath, The three trees, The Hundred Guilder Print and Christ presented to the people. “Rembrandt was a master printmaker and his experimentation in the medium reveals his insatiable curiosity and sheer versatility as an artist.” “The NGV is home to the most important collection of works by Rembrandt in the Southern Hemisphere and this NGV-exclusive exhibition celebrates one of our major strengths: our outstanding print collection,” NGV director Tony Ellwood said in a statement. Ten other etched self-portraits will be on display, tracing the changing ways he depicted himself over thirty years. Among them is the important Self-Portrait from 1659, which depicts the artist at 53 years old during a tumultuous period of his life, after declaring bankruptcy. ![]()
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