Pastel in Philadelphia

Piccolo Art just completed a successful show in Alexandria Virginia. We enjoyed the show "Antiques in Alexandria" having met with some old friends and meeting new clients.

Piccolo Art's next show is the 23rd Street Armory Show in Philadelphia. In Philly we will be presenting a number of new pieces. I think the most interesting is the portrait of Ms Godfrey by
Francis Cotes. \

" English painter, born in London on 20 May 1726. His father was an apothecary, while his younger brother Samuel (1734–1818) was also destined to become an artist. He trained under George Knapton (1698–1778), a successful portrait painter. Soon after, Cotes became established as a highly fashionable painter. He concentrated on portraits in pastel and crayon, which are generally high quality and appealing works. He frequently had engravings made after his portraits, which enabled them to reach a far greater public and gain him widespread recognition. Cotes extended his working practice to incorporate oil painting, resulting in some successful works, such as the portrait of Taylor White (1753; National Maritime Museum, London). By the 1770s he was referred to as the most fashionable portrait painter in London and to increase his output he employed Peter Toms, a drapery painter. Successful and established, Cotes was among the founding members of the Royal Academy and he went on to become Director of the Society of Artists, at whose shows he had exhibited since 1760. He married in 1765 but died in London five years later, on 16 July 1770.

African American folk Art

Piccolo Art is pleased to be able to move into a new area of African American Art from the 18th & 19th centuries. In our move to North Carolina we ahve become aware of the African American community and the role it played in our nations history.

Since portraitture was often a symbol of status and wealth very little portraiture of African American was created or surives. There are of course some notable exceptions including the first professional African American portrait artis Joshua Johnson.

Johnson:The earliest documented professional African American artist, Joshua Johnson (whose last name sometimes appears as Johnston) worked as a portrait painter in Baltimore, where he produced more than eighty known works between 1795 and 1825. He may have begun life as a slave, but Johnson was certainly a free man by 1795, when he advertised himself as a self-taught "genius" in the Baltimore Intelligencer.

We saw his work at the Philadelphia Art Museum.

Piccolo Art has acquired a number of pieces through the years and the current primative is certainly an exciting find.

American primitive school. Oil on canvas. An amazing historic document in the form of a portrait of an African-American share-cropper. The 19th Century portrait, which is in very good condition, was quite incredibly found in a barn in Maine. The portrait depicts a woman, standing by a cabin, in a vividly painted landscape, reminescent of Western North Carolina, with crops, a cabin, mountains, and a sunset beyond

There are a number of

Self Portraits (Heres looking at me)

The self portrait has been a way fro artists through history to capture a true view of how they see themselves and how that view is contextualized into the period. A new work by Laura Cumming explores the use of self portrait to explain the painters role and their world view. The work was reviewed in the Financial Times on July 17th on page 14 and I highly recommend the book.

Piccolo Art has an excellent self portrait of very rare and unusual miniature, witch is attributed to Friedrich Ludwig Vieth von Goldenau (German), c. 1800. The water color on ivory portrait depicts a miniature painter, and is very possibly a self-portrait of von Goldenau. The artist, with brown hair and brown eyes, is wearing a bright yellow waist-coat, white chemise, and a loosely tied blue craval. He is holding a paint brush, and there is a miniature resting on a table to his left

Watercolor's are the next big thing

It has been an exciting suummer for Piccolo Art. The summer was kicked off by the Wilton Ct. Summer antique show. The weather was great and we had a really great time in seeing Connecticut. We particularly enjoyed a wonderful museum in New Britain which had a great number of American artwork(including portraits of course)

The next trip was to England for the show at the NEC and the first day was very busy with customers and a number of items being sold. John Downman was well represented on our stand and we sold a number of his pieces along with two pastels and a lovely oil painting of a lady with a pink dress.

John Downman studied under Benjamin West and was one of the finest artist of the period


his bio can be seen on the link below

http://www.artcyclopedia.com/artists/downman_john.html

We were very glad to see a number of old clients and sell to a couple of new ones.

During the trip we also had time to go to Norway and saw one of our favorite museums the Munch museum in Oslo. It was fantastic to see the scream in person.

http://www.munch.museum.no/?lang=en


The summer has is 2/3 gone and we are now getting ready for Baltimore Summer Antique show. The show is the largest on the east coast and we are at booth 1817. If you are interested in reduced tickets send us an email.

Piccolo Art is bringing a number of new pieces to the show!!

John Stewart Curry

I am really pleased that upon completion of a succesful show in Philadelphia we have acquired a new work by John Setwart Curry. It combines our love of figurative art with one of our favorite works of fiction.

The illustrations for the 1944 version of Red badge of courage were done by John Stewart Curry one of the regionalist artist of the 20th century.

John Steuart Curry (November 14, 1897–August 29, 1946) was an American painter whose career spanned from 1924 until his death. He was noted for his paintings depicting life in his home state, Kansas. Along with Thomas Hart Benton and Grant Wood, he was hailed as one of the three great painters of American Regionalism of the first half of the twentieth century.

If you are interested in discussing the work of art or obtaining additional information please let us know.

Philadelphia loves art

The Philadelphia shows were a big hit this year. Even with the economy down a bit customers still seemed to appreciate the items dealers had on offer.

Piccolo Art sold a number of paintings, with us having to say goodbye to the wonderful pair of Scottish Portrits of the Forbes -Gordon painted in 1830.

Additionally we sold the Jarman miniature of Othello and the Loring piece of a woman sewing which was a great small oil.

Piccolo Art is keen to have a discussion with other collectors regarding the portrait miniatures if you have any interesting pieces and would like to have a chat contact us at

piccoloart@aol.com

Piccolo Art has gone to the dogs

Piccolo Art the leading dealers in small portraits and portrait miniatures
has decided to expand an area of interest and add dog portraits to our area of expertise.
So if your interested in antique paintings of dogs or just want to discuss your breed let us know.
leave a post or give us a call at 252 312 7251
Mark and I have had a few portrait miniature of dogs in the past but recently found some of the small portraits fascinating. We currently have a couple of early 20th century watercolours of Pekinese.
Also if you have dog paintings you are trying to sell let us know!! We are always loking for new stock.