New Work: "A Halo of Roses"

For a week this past April, Charles and I were in Gadsden AL participating in the Southeastern Plein Air Invitational. Fifteen artists were invited to paint the city of Gadsden and its environs for 5 days, with an exhibition at the Gadsden Museum of Art at the end of the week.

On Friday morning some of the gardens in the historic residential neighborhoods were opened to the artists, which was where Charles found this beautiful vignette.
(oil on canvas, 16 x 16)

"A Halo of Roses"   16 x 16   oil on canvas

A Former Student Says "Thank You"

Charles regularly gets emails and notes of appreciation from his students. I like to include some of them on the classes page of his website. As I was going through my file in preparation for an update, I came across this lovely thank you letter that I just had to share (with her permission, of course!).

It's from Heather Watson, who was a painting student of Charles' when he taught at the Johns Creek Arts Center in Johns Creek GA last year. Not long after Heather started in Charles' class, she and her husband were transferred to the Chicago area with their jobs. She sent this note shortly afterward:

"When I saw the class being offered at Johns Creek, I jumped on it... The opportunity to learn from someone that created the paintings I saw on your website was EXACTLY what I had been looking for.

"I feel like I learned my money's worth in the first class, and in each one after that. You are an exceptional teacher, and I am so happy and grateful that I got to learn as much as I did from you. I will continue to put what I have learned from you to use, and I will become better and better at painting because of it. I will cherish my notes from your class over all the books and painting references I own. They are far more valuable to me.

"Thank you so much for sharing and teaching the way you do. You share your knowledge in a way that really hit home with me, and I will always remember every minute of these classes with admiration and respect for your art. You are truly talented, brilliant, patient, and unselfish...a winning combination!

"I wish you so much continued success in everything you do! Thank you.

Thank you, Heather Watson, for your heartfelt comments about Charles and his classes. He told me how your positive attitude in class and willingness to try really made teaching wonderful. We hope you are blooming in Illinois!

Heather Watson is on Etsy. Check out her paintings and notecards.

Figure Painting Workshop - Sept. 6-9, 2012 - Atlanta GA

The Essentials of Figure Painting
with Charles Young Walls
September 6-9, 2012

The Art School at Binders
Atlanta, GA
www.BindersArt.com
404-237-6331

$325 + $50 model fee

a PDF of the workshop flyer is available to share

Throughout this figure painting workshop, underlying structure will be addressed while emphasizing the importance of artistically bringing the figure to life on canvas. Skeletal study aids of the body and head will be available for aid in observation. Students will concentrate on the sculptural relationships within the figure and selective interpretation on the canvas. In addition to instructor demonstrations, students will enjoy one-on-one attention in a focused group atmosphere throughout the three days of painting the figure from life.

An Encounter with the Newly Restored "Nymphs and Satyr"

This past May, Charles spent a few weeks in New York City. On a Tuesday morning, one of the last days of his trip, he was at the Met visiting all his old friends as they basked in the glow of their galleries: Sargent, Chase, Rembrandt, van Dyck, Delacroix, Gerome, Rubens and countless others. And as always, he was also on the hunt for the next great artistic revelation. In the European wing he noticed a few roped-off rooms and one hidden by partitions and, always curious, went to see if he could get a peek. What he saw about knocked him off his feet!

It was Bouguereau's "Nymphs and Satyr" in the process of being hung. Even from across the room the range of values and the glow of the painting were amazing. Charles had never encountered this painting before and it blew away all the reproductions he had ever seen. He just had to get in there and see it, but this was his last day in the city. Horribly frustrating! Sympathetic museum staff let him know that that gallery would reopen on Friday and he called me that night so excited with his find he was practically breathless. "I'm sorry Honey, but I'm gonna have to stay a few more days. I've got a date with a Nymph."

William Bouguereau painted "Nymphs and Satyr" in 1873. From 1882 to 1902 it hung in the bar of the Hoffman House hotel in New York City. When the bar came under new ownership in 1902, it was consigned to a warehouse where it languished for 40 years. In 1942 it was purchased by Robert Sterling Clark, who remembered the painting from his bar-hopping youth, and who then hired a less-than-stellar art restorer to spruce it up. Well, that guy botched the job, and created more problems than he fixed.

Last year the Clark Art Institute decided that the time was right to finally have the painting cleaned and restored. Taking over 4 months to complete, the work was done by the Williamstown Art Conservation Center in Massachusetts. And now, fresh and sparkling, it hangs on loan at the Metropolitan Museum of Art until the spring of 2014.

An article about the restoration was published in the WACC's spring newsletter: "A Bouguereau Reborn."

A high-rez photograph of the restored painting is available on the Met's website.

The painting's permanent home is the Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute in Williamstown MA.

A detailed history of the painting can be found online here.