Born On This Day- August 19th... Gustave Caillebotte

Several years ago, a favorite chocolate company- TCHO, out of San Francisco, had a series of bars with beautiful labels featuring Impressionist paintings from the de Young Museum’s Masterpieces from the Musee d’ Orsay exhibit. One bar featured an image that held my interest in no small way. It was a detail from an astonishing painting of 2 shirtless, muscled men planing a wood floor. The artist was someone that I was not familiar with. I was soon on the hunt to learn all about him. The Husband pointed out the same image was on the cover of a book of 19th century gay erotica, a gift from him 20 years ago. Perhaps I had just jumped right into reading that book & never studied the cover. In the Summer of 2010, I became fascinated with painter- Gustave Caillebotte, reading everything I could find on the artist & studying copies of his paintings.


Gustave Caillebotte used to be dismissed as a minor outsider of French Impressionism. He was much younger than the main gang. He was personally very rich, & collected & supported their work. He was an excellent curator, & arranged many of their exhibitions. He paintings were rather somewhat non-impressionistic. He was modest about his talents. In his latter years, he painted less, devoting his time to gardening & boating. But from his 1st participation in an Impressionist exhibition, with paintings of modern Parisian life, he showed an entirely singular vein of invention: painting male nudes & producing work with an overt gay sensibility. For all his adult life he feared he would die young, & did, for no clear reason, at age 45.

Caillebotte stands apart among the Impressionists. His paintings depict working-class men in an urban context in full transformation. Caillebotte also used very innovative perspectives. His paintings are rather personal, autobiographical. You feel as if you were spying on a very private man, whose short life remains a mystery. He was an artist who was an Impressionist by association rather than by style or temperament.

His career as an artist feels unresolved. Certainly it was short. He stopped painting in a focused way in his 30s. By the 1890s he had become a semi-recluse at his estate- Petit-Gennevilliers, a property on the banks of the Seine near Argenteuil. He ceased showing his work at age 34 & devoted himself to gardening & to building & racing yachts, & with his friend Renoir, who often came to stay at Petit-Gennevilliers, they would have discussions on art, politics, literature, & philosophy. Caillebotte died there.

Self Portrait of the artist

His paintings & drawings are full of male bodies, often with a concealed face, often setting the bourgeois with the working class.The painting that grabbed me is The Floor Scrapers (Les raboteurs de parquet). It shows men at work, shirtless, showing their muscular bodies. His row men also produce erotic feelings. In the Self-Portrait at the Easel (Autoportrait au chevalet), the artist is painting in his studio, while in the background a man, the bottom half of his face concealed by the painter's arm, reads on a coach. A through line of melancholy flows from the paintings... & a definitive homo-eroticism.

Self Portrait... he seems to have been a beautiful man

I knew nothing of Caillebotte before that chocolate bar, but I enjoyed the research of his enigmatic life. He never married or seemed to have any relationship with a woman, spending his time gardening, rowing,& befriending & painting interesting, handsome men. In 2010, when I first posted my proposition that Caillebotte might have been a homosexual, I received a comment from one his distant relatives, insisting that such a thing that could not be possible.

This is the image from the chocolate. It started a summer of research about the painter.

Born On This Day- July 9th... Artist David Hockney

"The moment you cheat for the sake of beauty, you know you're an artist."

He was already a noted & accomplished painter in his native England, but David Hockney's style, point of view, & medium changed from oils to acrylics when he moved to LA.,a city he had fantasized about, in 1963.

Hockney: "Within a week of arriving there in this strange big city, not knowing a soul, I'd passed the driving test, bought a car, driven to Las Vegas & won some money, got myself a studio, started painting, all within a week.& I thought, it's just how I imagined it would be."

The Hockney that I know best is the painter of sunny California skies, swimming pools, palm trees & boys. His work in this period seems to me to be a modernist slant on color Polaroids & snapshots from the life I was brushing up against when I attended college in L.A. from 1972-76. I actually attended an all-boy pool party at a famous producer's Beverly Hills estate & Hockney was one of the guests.

He is absolutely one of the Husband & my favorite artists, & though I would love to own his paintings (they sell in the millions), as a lowly working class gentleman, I am having to be content with my "coffee table" books & postcards of his work.

David Hockney is also notable as a draftsman, printmaker, stage designer & photographer (photo collage). His personal style,with his trademark round glasses & mop of blond hair, & spirited personality also engaged the Husband & I & we took to wearing his colorful horizontal striped ties & Izod shirts in the early 80s. Hockney has always been openly gay & has enjoyed a variety of relationships with men, describing himself as a "playboy".

He was so important to me that for a certain period in the 1980s, I emulated his style, wearing Izod shirts with knit striped ties & round glasses. In the new century he continues to inform my life by with his talent & style. I admire his talent & his bank account.

Born On This Day- July 8th... Artist Stephen O' Donnell

Artist- Stephen O'Donnell paints in what would have been the dining room of his charming 3rd floor walk-up in Portland's Nob Hill neighborhood. He shares the bohemian digs with his wife, writer- Gigi Little & his canine- Nikki.

I discovered Stephen O’Donnell’s astonishing paintings at a local gallery in my first month of living in Portland. I returned a few days later with The Husband in tow. The Husband was simply jaw-dropped in awe of the paintings. He would later design a penthouse bedroom for Portland’s Street Of Dreams around one of those paintings.

The Husband calls me out as a star fucker, with more than a little bit of truth, I own up to being undeniably attracted to people who possess unique, world class talents. I strive to be sly & undemonstrative in their presence, but I will end up gushing at some point.

As I sat opposite Stephen O’Donnell in a Nob Hill café, on a rainy, late spring afternoon, I attempted to engage the artist in regular guy conversation as my mind raced along with an inner-dialogue of: “Oh my, I am talking to my favorite painter in the world! I think I know him well from his masterful paintings, but I know so little about Stephen, I am looking right at him. He has freckles! He is so tall, masculine & sure of himself…”

During the chatty visit, I learn that O’Donnell has strong Portland roots, both of his parents grew up here, but he grew up all over California, including a stint as a singer in San Francisco.

O’Donnell told me of always identifying as an artist, drawing since early childhood, but never really dared to live his avocation until his late 30s, when O’Donnell in a grand jete of daring, showed some of his paintings to a Portland Gallery & promptly was given a show.

O’Donnell has no formal training & astonishingly, as a self-taught painter he possesses a sure hand with assured adroitness, clever command & fine, fanciful finesse.

O’Donnell paints in the genre of Portrait Historié, which is characterized by a recognizable subject, depicted in historic or mythological guise, such as a monarch, military leader, wealthy merchant, clergy or actor. His work is strictly portraiture, usually self- portraits, but not literal self-portraits. O’Donnell does not use photographic studies or even a mirror. He does extensive research & then reimagines the costumes & the settings. He is most often depicted in women’s finery of his own imagining, in a castle, chateau or citadel of his own design.

His paintings are masterfully mysterious, witty, gender confused pieces, with the artist’s beard line apparent & his chest hair visible above the brocade of the gown. O’Donnell: “More often than not, I represent myself in women’s costume. The female side of my personality is very developed, so it feels very natural to go with female costume, which is usually the most elaborate, the most picturesque.  & it’s also usually the most fun.”

O’Donnell’s pretty & charming wife, the Portland writer- Gigi Little, told The Husband that the details of threads, feathers, fabric & metallic elements that we admired do much, are audaciously technical, masterfully achieved with a brush with a single tiny hair.

O’Donnell’s current solo show- Des Jeux Sérieux de Beauté can be seen through August at Winston Wachter Fine Art gallery in Seattle. A Portland show will be available for viewing in Autumn 2012 at Froelick Gallery.

I am so shallow, I now claim Stephen O'Donnell as "my favorite painter & good close personal friend." My first lottery winnings will be spent on an original O’Donnell to hang at Post Apocalyptic Bohemia. 

Images used with permission from the artist

Born On This Day- December 11th... Artisit Mark Tobey

The Husband & your host lived in Seattle for 20 years (1981-2001), where Mark Tobey was rather the patron saint of Pacific Northwest painting. The Seattle Art Museum has a large selection of his work & his paintings are ubiquitous in important Seattle Microsoft executives’ collections.

Self Portrait 1920

A painter of small abstract works with underlying religious themes as well as illustrator & muralist, Mark Tobey remains known primarily for his "white writing" paintings that give the impression of being expansive and much larger than they actually are.

Finding the Bahai World faith in 1918 & later Zen Buddhism was essential to Tobey's life & work, with themes of oneness & progression. His commitment to spiritual expression in painting, gave Tobey a renowned reputation as a modernist but h moree appreciated in Europe & Asia than in the USA.

Tobey:"There have been 32 isms since the advent of cubism, we have just been confused by the storm. . . we forget that there are today great men in the religious field with as much to offer. . . religion like science must be balanced to bring men to a state of equilibrium & that and that only will bring peace."

Tobey was mid-west born & raised. In Chicago he briefly attended the Art Institute School. He worked as a commercial illustrator, & from 1911 to 1922, he lived & worked in NYC where he did fashion illustration for McCalls magazine & other publications.

Between 1923 & 1960, he lived in Seattle & Paris. In Seattle, where he worked closely with artists in the city’s large Asian community, he studied Chinese brush-work.

Living in Seattle, he developed his signature technique of "white writing", linked to Asian calligraphy. His paintings reflect substance but not solidity, suggesting space with non-space & strokes of spirituality of the cosmos.

He was the first painter of the Pacific Northwest School to achieve international fame. Personally, he was an irritable, irascible man with many difficult relationships & only a few close friends.

A man of his time, he was not fully out of the closet, but his homosexuality was an open secret. In 1960 Tobey moved to Basel, Switzerland with his partner of 20 years, artist- Pehr Hallsten & his secretary- Mark Ritter. Tobey continued to live with Ritter, after Hallsten's death in 1966, He served as Chairman of the Spiritual Assembly of the Baha'is of Basel for 16 years until his death in 1976. Tobey would have been 121 years old today.

Canticle 1960

Born On This Day-July 9th... Artist David Hockney

He was already a noted & accomplished painter in his native England, but David Hockney's style, point of view, & medium changedfrom oils to acrylics when he moved to L.A.,a city he had fantasized about, in 1963.

Hockney: "Within a week of arriving there in this strange big city, not knowing a soul, I'd passed the driving test, bought a car, driven to Las Vegas & won some money, got myself a studio, started painting, all within a week.& I thought, it's just how I imagined it would be."

The Hockney that I know best is the painter of sunny California skies, swimming pools, palm trees & boys. His work in this period seems to me to be a modernist slant on color Polaroids & snapshots from the life I was brushing up against when I attended college in L.A. from 1972-76. I actually attended an all-boy pool party at a famous producer's Beverly Hills estate & Hockney was one of the guests.

He is absolutely one of the Husband & my favorite artists, & though I would love to own his paintings (they sell in the millions), as a lowly working class gentleman, I am having to be content with my "coffee table" books & postcards of his work.

David Hockney is also notable as a draftsman, printmaker, stage designer & photographer (photo collage). His personal style,with his trademark round glasses & mop of blond hair, & spirited personality also engaged the Husband & I & we took to wearing his colorful horizontal striped ties & Izod shirts in the early 80s. Hockney has always been openly gay & has enjoyed a variety of relationships with men, describing himself as a "playboy".

He was so important to me that for a certain period in the 1980s, I emulated his style, wearing Izod shirts with knit striped ties & round glasses. In the new century he continues to inform my life by with his talent & style. I admire his talent & his bank account.

"The moment you cheat for the sake of beauty,
 you know you're an artist."