The 9th Annual Forgery Show
April 1 – April 30, 2021
Karen Copsey • Cindy Schultheis-Corrales
Janet Crittenden • Judy Hester • Anne McTavish
Suzanne Van Summern • Gay Diane Taylor
The Annual Forgery Show began in 2013 when 11 separate reproductions in oil of Leonardo da Vinci’s “Mona Lisa” were exhibited at The Gallery in Mount Shasta. Since then the number of participating artists has increased, as well as the variety of masterworks represented.
Under the tutelage of master painter Aleksander Balos, ArtRoster students are instructed in techniques from the Old Masters’ atelier system of the European classical and impressionistic painting schools, as well as more contemporary methods.
Homage to Hieronymus Bosch’s The Temptation of St. Anthony
Oil on wood panel & glazed stoneware ceramics.
Hieronymus Bosch 1501
This triptych tells the story of the mental and spiritual torments endured by Saint Anthony the Great (Anthony Abbot), one of the most prominent of the Desert Fathers of Egypt in the late 3rd and early 4th centuries. The Temptation of St. Anthony was a popular subject in Medieval and Renaissance art In common with many of Bosch’s works, the triptych contains much fantastic imagery.
Summer
Oil on canvas
Fredrick Carl Frieseke 1914
Frieseke was an American Impressionist painter of the late 1800’s. He lived most of his life in France where he explored the effects of dappled light on his subjects, mostly women. Summer is one of a series of large-scale nudes seen outdoors that Frieseke began to paint around 1908, when he settled in Giverny, the French village where Claude Monet was his neighbor.
Portrait of a Young Man
Oil on Canvas
Andrea del Sarto 1517
Although this work was long believed to be a self-portrait, the sitter’s identity remains uncertain. Scholars have debated the object he holds as the key to his identity, suggesting it is a block of clay or marble (possibly indicating a sculptor), a brick or a book. A common attribute for Renaissance sitters with intellectual and humanist interests, the book may not bring us any closer to who he is.
Ponds and Streams
Oil on Canvas
Wayne Thiebaud 2001
The best painters can change the way we see the world around us. Thiebaud spent most of his life in California (still alive at 101!) where he has borne witness to six decades of life, from pies and lollipops to city views and farmlands, that might have gone overlooked. His expansive pictures with complex surfaces create exaggerated but convincing allusions to the perceivable world. The horizon is pushed to the very top of the painting and Thiebaud has punctured, interrupted, twisted, and bent the landscape plane.
Homage to C.M. Coolidge’s Poker Game
Oil on canvas
Cassius Marcellus Coolidge 1894
C.M. Coolidge, famous for his advertising calendars, posters and prints depicting animals in human situations, painted this original scene (pictured above) with four St. Bernards. Being the lover of Bernese Mountain Dogs, I decided to morph the St. Bernards into Bernese for this “forgery”. In my piece, notice the painting above the dog on the far right has also been changed from a crashing ocean scene to the Eiger Mountain in the Swiss canton of Bern, from which our 5-year-old Bernese, Eiger, takes his name.
The Chinese Girl
Oil on canvas
Vadimir Tretchikoff 1952-1953
The original painting is thought to be one of the most reproduced print in the world. The original was sold for £982,050 in 2013. This painting is of a Chinese woman and is best known for the unusual skin tone used for her face – a blue-green color, which gives the painting its popular name The Green Lady. The artist was born in Siberia in 1913 and later immigrated to South Africa, where he painted The Chinese Girl.
The Fall of the Rebel Angels
Oil on wood panel
Pieter Bruegel the Elder 1562
The Fall of Rebel Angels depicts Lucifer along with the other fallen angels that have been kicked out of heaven. Angels are falling from the sun in a stacked manner along with “ungodly” creatures that Bruegel has created. This piece by Bruegel was previously thought to be a Hieronymus Bosch piece. Bruegel was influenced by a variety of artists such as Albrecht Durer, Frans Floris I, as well as Hieronymus Bosch.
Four Dancers
Oil on canvas
Edgar Degas 1899
Degas was trained in a traditional academic style, which is evident in the classical subjects of his early works; he was a master draftsman and capturer of emotions. He developed a profound interest in the poses and physicality of ballet, producing approximately 1,5000 depictions of dancers over the course of his career. Four Dancers, one of the largest and most ambitious of his late works, exists in several variants that show different kinds of modification.
Still Life, Bird & Dwarf Pear Tree
Oil on Canvas
Charles V. Bond c. 1856
Little information is known about this Michigan academic portraitist Charles V. Bond. His place of birth, Rutland, Vermont, was discovered on a passport application of 1856 that lists his age as 29. He moved around the US and studied in Italy. In a letter from Brooklyn dated August 25, 1851, Bond suggests to a friend to consider commissioning copies of Old Master or original paintings, “for I am going to Europe again.”
Portrait of a Young Woman
Oil on wood
Leonardo da Vinci c. 1485-1500
This painting has also been attributed to Giovanni Ambrogio do Predis, who was either a student or associate of da Vinci. The sitter in this painting is believed to have been Beatrice d’Este. Leonardo was fascinated by her features and her impudent and willful character. He also designed the costumes for her marriage, and may himself have designed the headpiece, necklace and shoulder pieces portrayed in this painting. Beatrice died in childbirth at the age of 21≥
The Lacemaker
Oil on linen
Johannesburg Vermeer c. 1670
The Lacemaker is the smallest painting produced by the Dutch artist, completed during the artist’s final years. It resides in the Louvre in Paris. The artist presents in an abstract manner the various elements which compose the girl’s face and body and the pattern of the material on which she is working. The Girl’s hands, the curls of her hair and her nose are all described in an abstract way, unusual for the era in which Vermeer worked.
The Lady of the Shalott
Oil on wood panel
John William Waterhouse 1888
The Lady of the Shalott is a representation of the ending of Alfred Lord Tennyson’s poem of the same name. In the poem, the Lady had been confined to her quarters, under a curse that forbade her to go outside or even look directly out of a window; her only view of the world was through a mirror. She sat below the mirror and wove a tapestry of scenes she could see by the reflection. After defying the curse by looking out the window at Camelot, the Lady has made her way to a small boat. This is the moment that is pictured in Waterhouse’s painting.
Broken Pitcher
Oil on canvas
William-Adolphe Bouguereau 1891
Bouguereau was a French academic painter of the 1800’s. He was well known for his interpretation of the female form, specifically the delicate rendering of a female’s hands, feet and face.
River and Farms
Oil on canvas
Wayne Thiebaud 1996
What distinguished Thiebaud from other representational artists is his willingness to push against conventions regarding perspective and color, his use of halation, his push toward abstraction. In his aerial views of rivers cutting through farmlands, evoking the Sacramento river delta area, he sets patten against pattern, one bright color against another, with multiple and contradictory perspectives.
Christ Washing the Feet of the Apostles
Acrylic on wood
Unknown monk 16th century
This Icon painting, by an unknown monk, is located on the wall of a monastery near a region once known as the Governorate of Livonia, now the independent states of Latvia and Estonia. The monastery is said to have been built in the 1400’s. Tis work is from the Pskov School of Iconography.
The Long Leg
Oil on canvas
Edward Hopper 1930
Edward Hopper’s realism was tempered by a modern sensibility. Considered the “artist of empty spaces,” is compositions have a air of stillness and a mood of solitude. Hopper loved sailing. The locale for The Long Leg is Long Point House at Provincetown, not far from the artist’s summer home in South Truro.
Banner image artwork by Anne McTavish featuring her “forgeries” of Wayne Thiebaud’s Rivers and Farms and Edward Hopper’s The Long Leg.
The 9th Annual Forgery Show will continue through April 30, 2021.
Liberty Arts
108 W. Miner St., Yreka, CA 96097
Wednesday through Saturday, 10:00 am – 4:00 pm
530 854-0222
Photography: Sharon LoMonaco