The Pastel Journal March/April 2019

“Imagination has a great deal to do with winning.” —MIKE KRZYZEWSKI Skip Whitcomb. William Truman Hosner. Frank Federico. Dawn Emerson. Liz Haywood-Sullivan. Lorenzo Chavez. Frederick D. Somers. What do all of these notable artists have in common? They each won big in the early years of the Annual Pastel 100 Competition. For some of these painters, landing a top prize further acknowledged a talent that was already well-proven. For others, the recognition was a game-changer. This is Haywood-Sullivan’s recollection from the 3rd Annual Pastel 100 in 2002. “When Maggie Price called to inform me I’d won the Gold Award, she spent the next 20 minutes trying to convince me it wasn’t a mistake. That reveals how early it was in my career as an artist—right smack in the middle of…

Eighteenth-Century Pastel Portraits” will be on display at the J. Paul Getty Museum until October 13, in the Getty Center. The exhibition draws mainly from the museum’s permanent collection, and features portraits that exemplify the popularity of the pastel medium for the genre in Europe during the 18th century. While beautiful, it was often the physical traits of pastel that artists preferred, especially during a time when longer-drying oil paint was frequently seen as the best choice among the elite. Jean-Étienne Liotard, who painted Portrait of Maria Frederike van Reede-Athlone at Seven Years of Age, “favored using pastels, especially for portraits of children, because they could be manipulated with greater speed and ease, had no odor and allowed for frequent interruptions,” according to a museum spokesperson. “Liotard developed remarkable technical…

Pure Pastel: Contemporary Works by Today’s Top Artists, published by North Light Books, will be released in April, edited by Pastel Journal’s Editor-in-Chief Anne Hevener. The coffee-table style book will show some of the best art from more than 100 of today’s most talented pastelists, in styles ranging from traditional to abstract, and subjects covering figures, still lifes, landscapes and more. In the introduction, Hevener says, “The standout quality of pastel is the sparkling, radiant, luminous color. It’s this freshness, brilliance and vibrancy of color in contemporary pastel painting that we celebrate in Pure Pastel.” After absorbing the plentiful inspiration brimming from this book, you might find that your own paintings may become a little more luminous, too. Check artistsnetwork.com/store for pre-order and release information, or find it wherever books…

Edwin Austin Abbey (1852-1911) was born in Philadelphia, and, except for a brief period of study at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, was largely self-taught. He moved to New York City as a teen and produced pen-and-ink illustrations for popular magazines. Abbey’s subjects were often provided by English literature, and he particularly excelled at illustrating Shakespearean plays. As he matured, he expanded his portfolio by learning to work in watercolor, oil and pastel. Abbey moved to England, where he was commissioned to paint the coronation of King Edward VII. The artist eventually accepted mural commissions, too, decorating the Pennsylvania State Capitol and Boston Public Library. He took a studio in Gloucestershire, which he shared with fellow American expatriate, John Singer Sargent, whose murals in the library were the result…

Balancing like an acrobat, a hedgehog sips from a Styrofoam cup as a young woman gently holds him aloft. A mother cradles her sleeping toddler in her arms. Two old men weep quietly at a corner table. Spend time in a coffee shop, and the world unfolds one story at a time. Miriam Rooth, a character in Henry James’ novel, The Tragic Muse, describes the comprehensive education one receives in a café. “I have learned a great deal that way; sitting beside mamma and watching people, their faces, their types, their movements. There’s a great deal goes on in cafés: People come to them to talk things over, their private affairs, their complications; they have important meetings. Oh, I’ve observed scenes, between men and women—very quiet, terribly quiet, but tragic!…

Without orange,” wrote Vincent van Gogh, “there is no blue.” Brilliant, hot orange. Wrap it around blue—its complement—and you’ll not only increase the intensity of the blue, but you’ll also raise orange to a feverish pitch. But even on its own, orange is a color we associate with fire and energy. When you look at a set of brand-new, pristine pastels, orange is the one color that seems to want to jump out and be put to immediate use. The Beauty of Orange Orange occupies a thin slice of the electromagnetic spectrum, sandwiched between yellow and red in the 585- to 620-nanometer range. In nature, it’s found most often in fruits and vegetables due to carotenes—photosynthetic chemicals that turn light into chemical energy. The orange we see blanketing the hills…