Benjamin West, painter

This week in the mail I received a financial solicitation from the National Gallery of Canada regarding the purchase of the original frame of the painting entitled The Death of General Wolfe by Benjamin West, 1770. See www.gallery.ca
In 1918 Hugh Lord Grosvenor the 2nd Duke of Westminster gave this painting to Canada in recognition of our heroic contribution to Victory during the First World War as part of what was then called the War Memorials. The painting has become an unofficial national treasure.

The Neoclassical frame was made in London in the same period as the painting. It is carved with various classical motifs, has its original matte and burnished water gilding. For unknown reasons we only got the painting and not the frame. So the National Gallery of Canada now wants to purchase the frame so it can be reunited with the painting.

Death of General James Wolfe, on the Plains of Abraham, September 1759, Quebec City

It is a very interesting picture and depicts the moment of the death of Wolfe as a messenger arrives to inform him that the British forces have won the battle. General Wolfe was 32 years old. By today's standard he would be considered a War criminal but then he lived in the 18th century when such concepts simply did not exist. Of course in French Canada, General Wolfe is a controversial figure as much as the Marquis de Montcalm, commander of the French Army at the Plains of Abraham is seen as a figure to pity, he too died at the battle. Whereas Wolfe is buried at Greenwich in the Church of the Naval Academy in London, Montcalm's body is in a Mausoleum in the Cemetery of the Hôpital Général de Québec. He was previously buried at the Ursulines Convent in a bomb crater.

Hopper

We visited on Via Del Corso at the Fondazione ROMA, the first major painting exhibit in Italy of the works of American painter Edward Hopper (1882-1967). Hopper painted landscapes, daily life and human solitude, his style is called American realism. The exhibit was a tribute to his entire career, in all 160 works. Some very famous works were on display and some never seen in public before like Girlie Show (1941). I also liked Soir Bleu (1914). His paintings are atmospheric, revealing beauty in the most ordinary subjects. The painting Nighthawks, probably one of his most famous, was not on display but an entire room had been constructed so you could experience the physical space of this painting, enter Hopper's world and become part of the painting itself.


Most of his work today over 2500 works are at the Whitney Museum in New York City and also at the Art Institute of Chicago. His female subjects are taken from one women, his wife who posed for him. The exhibit was well done and I liked the way it was presented. The comments were in Italian and English and gave just the right amount of information, helping you to appreciate each tableau. Looking at it today, he painted a world that no longer exist. A period not far from us but looking at it today, it seems to me it was centuries ago, strange, the world has changed so much in the last 50 years, it might as well be another planet. I noted that many of his subjects smoke, a cigarette and drink hard liquor. It was just part of life back then. So from an historical perspective it was interesting. A beautiful exhibit of one of my favorite painters.