Floating

Black, White, and Ten Red by Alexander Calder, 1957, NGA, Washington.

Calder was from a family of artists but chose to himself to train as an engineer; skills that would serve him well when he changed course and began to study art at the Art Students League in NYC.

Inspiration at Home

Anne with a Japanese Parasol, 1917 by George Bellows.

Bellows did quite a few portraits of his family and friends. This is his oldest daughter. He was a member of the group known as The Eight and a teacher at the Art Students League.

Horizon

Surrealist Landscape1990 - 1996 by George Morrison, The Minneapolis Institute of Art.

Morrison was born a Chippewa Native American who was then trained in the European/American style at the Art Students League in New York in the 1940's. The same place that turned out Jackson Pollock and many other Abstract Expressionists. His work shows these influences with a reverence for nature combined with a free-form style.

Drawing History

 Divine Law by Violet Oakley, The Pennsylvania Capital Murals, Harrisburg, 1906.

 Violet Oakley was the first woman to receive a major mural commission in the United States when she received the commission for the murals at the Pennsylvania State Capital in 1902.  She studied at the Art Students League and with the great illustrator Howard Pyle. She began her career as an illustrator which served her well in the stories she told with her narrative murals.

Portrait of Violet Oakley by Edith Emerson, Woodmere Art Museum, Philadelphia.