“Barbara Jean – After Picasso”
acrylic latex and cardboard on canvas
24” x 20”
July 1993

 

When I was learning to paint, to handle a paintbrush, I made some paintings by copying the masters I admired most – Cézanne, Matisse, Miro and Picasso. Doing paintings in their style helped me understand their work better, and helped lead me to my own style.

In 1993 we saw a Picasso show at LACMA featuring his portraits of women. I picked up a few postcards as souvenirs when leaving the show through the gift shop. One of postcards was of a woman in a straw hat that really caught my eye. As soon as we got back home to the studio, I started on my first painting of the many versions of this image that I created that summer. This was the 3D cardboard construction version I created called “Barbara Jean.”

I had started building cardboard constructions back in 1992, and this Picasso image seemed ripe for that treatment. This was the sixth version of the painting and I decided to leave the color off and just go black and white for the stark effect. The multiple layers of cardboard are about 4”-5” deep.

Barbara Jean is the name of my older sister. She wore a hat sort of like this on her wedding day and this piece reminded me of her.

I donated this piece to The MHA Village back in 2013 when Tania worked there.