I knew that this painting would be finished either today or next visit, and I felt a little sad, because I've really enjoyed copying this one! It felt like painting from a live model. I didn't have too much I wanted to do - I wanted to correct the anatomy of his arm a little bit, and put the stripes on his shorts, and lighten his shirt. I did all of that, and also ended up putting highlights on his face and darkening his hair. Also repainted his hand, which I had just roughed in. I also scumbled a lighter, warmer color over the blue background to the right of his face. It got a little bit too yellow at the top, but it doesn't really bother me.
I was stepping back to look at it when a museum visitor told me he thought it was really good, and I asked him if I needed to do anything else. He said he thought the forehead needed to be lighter, and he was right! So I did that.
Here is the completed copy:
copy by Amy Mann after "Pierre Louis Alexandre" by Kerin Bergöö Larsson
Pierre Louis Alexandre escaped slavery in a French colony in South America and fled to Sweden, where he worked on the docks and posed for the art academy in the winter when the harbor was frozen. On the NGA's website, under Artwork History and Provenance, I learned that this painting stayed in Kerin Bergöö's family until it was given as payment to the family lawyer. Then it was passed down to Mats Werner, who eventually put it up for sale, and the National Gallery recently bought it.
Here's another interesting thing! I googled Pierre Louis Alexandre's name, and I found this article about him:
https://www.athenaartfoundation.org/pierre-louis-alexandre. Since he was a model at an art academy, there are a LOT of paintings of him in the world. After looking at the others, I decided that this one by Kerin Bergöö Larsson is the best! And on the same website, Mats Werner, who owned this painting, wrote an article about Alexandre. He's been on a quest to find all of the other existing paintings of Alexandre. It's a great article, and you can read it
here.
I also found this! A sculptor named Verner Åkerman made a gorgeous terra-cotta sculptor of Alexandre. You can read about that
here.
I so enjoyed this copy that I decided to look for another portrait to copy. I will let you know if it's approved. In the meantime, I'll take a couple of weeks off from copying to give myself time to stretch a new canvas.
Thanks for reading! Click the pictures for a larger view
