"Every portrait that is painted is a portrait of the artist, not the sitter.” (--Oscar Wilde)

I haven’t had much time for painting recently, aside from this lone rose, (above) but I have tried to do some browsing through some of the wonderful art books I have, and I thought today I’d share some images by an artist I have grown to love over the years.

Every once in a while, I discover an artist who just touches me, and Alice Schille is such an artist.

I first came across Schille in the pages of Victoria magazine, over ten years ago. At that time, I had never heard of her, and immediately sought out additional information about her.

She was born in Columbus, Ohio, and lived from 1869-1955, and was among the most influential watercolorists ever to come out of America, but many people are sadly unaware of her art. That's probably because first of all, she was a woman, and secondly, watercolors were historically never taken as seriously as oils on canvas. I think her work is diverse and just beautiful.

There are so many obvious influences in her art, from Monet to Prendergast, to Sargent and William Merritt Chase, to Homer. She was also influenced in some of her later works by Rivera and the Mexican muralists. I see the influences of Impressionism, Post-Impressionism and even Pointillism in a number of her paintings as well.

Her mother/child images are exquisitely gentle and luminous, and her landscapes are jolts of color, with brushstrokes that indicate the shapes and direction of objects.

She was experimental, and because she came from a fairly wealthy family, she was able to travel extensively, and painted beautiful images of her travels.

I hope that if you're unfamiliar with her work, you’ll look her up and enjoy her art as much as I have. (I have a hardcover volume of her work that is supposed to have cost $50, and I got it for a mere pittance. I think the $2.92 postage cost more than the book itself did! )

"Every good painter paints what he is." (--Jackson Pollock)