Vanessa Rothe, artist, curator and gallery owner at Vanessa Rothe Fine Art, founded the historically significant art project Americans in Paris “to inspire many of the most important contemporary artists in America who specialize in realism and impressionism to travel to Paris together and discover alluring, new subjects for their works of art.” Now in its sixth year, Americans in Paris shows how these contemporary artists follow in the footsteps of John Singer Sargent, Mary Cassatt, Guy Rose and more who did the same years before.
Nicolas Martin, Man on the Rodin Staircase, oil on linen, 18 x 24"
This year’s Americans in Paris will have the theme “Art Nouveau” where invited artists were inspired by the greats such as Alphonse Mucha, Gustav Klimt and Egon Schiele as well as the Jugendstil period in Germany and France. The show will be on view November 12 through December 30 at Vanessa Rothe Fine Art in Laguna Beach, California, and there will be a final catalog featuring all the artwork.
Adrienne Stein, The Painted Cape, oil on mounted linen, 36 x 26"
Explaining the “Art Nouveau” theme, Rothe says, “With a motif of ‘rebirth’ and ‘a return to nature,’ this exhibit directly reflects the shifting paradigm of our world today as we emerge from the pandemic. The art nouveau movement was born during a time when the world became industrialized and hardline. This genre of art symbolized the return to the soft, round and feminine aspects of nature and was characterized by the use of long, organic lines. The style of art nouveau was often portrayed in architecture, interior design, jewelry, glass design and those illustrious posters that have become an iconic staple of the genre.”
Pavel Sokov, Alphonse Mucha, oil on linen, 24 x 18"
She continues, “According to scholars, art nouveau was ‘aimed at modernizing design…where artists could draw inspiration from organic and geometric forms.’ It was also known as the second Renaissance, touching on many forms of art: ceramic, glass, architecture, illustration and of course oil painting. The genre often resembles elegant floral and stem patterns of nature’s effortless ethereal beauty. It is an important era in art that launches the early California Impressionist Craftsman periods.”
Among the artists selected to participate in Americans in Paris are Quang Ho, Jeremy Lipking, Casey Baugh, Dan McCaw, Danny McCaw, Casey Childs, Vincent Xeus, Scott Burdick, Susan Lyon, Michelle Dunaway, Kyle Ma, Adrian Gottlieb, Bryan Mark Taylor, Karen Offutt and more.
C.W. Mundy’s painting Monet’s Lily Pond, Giverny was an opportunity for the artist to connect with the great impressionist master. Mundy says, “Having studied Claude Monet’s work for years and having had the wonderful opportunity to paint ‘en plein air’ in his Giverny gardens and lily pond, I re-created this joyful memory which is close to my heart.”
C.W. Mundy, Monet’s Lily Pond, Giverny, oil on linen, 20 x 16"
Pavel Sokov pays homage to artist Alphonse Mucha with a portrait of Mucha that was done “as a nod of respect.” Sokov says, “It started when I was in Tokyo in 2017. I had the extreme luck of being able to see the Slav Epic in person, which left Prague for the first time ever and came to Tokyo at the exact time I was there. I knew the show would be fantastic, but I didn’t think it was going to blow me away and make a permanent impression. When I saw these works, I realized it was no wonder they are called epics. They were truly epic. The scale, the storytelling, the complicated composition and the emotional impact they make blew me out of the water. One piece particularly, Apotheosis of the Slavs History, had the distinction of being the only artwork that made me tear up a little bit. This was in response to how Mucha absolutely dominated his objective of representing a brief history and the spirit of Slavs in one single image, in a way that I didn’t think a single two-dimensional image is capable of doing. It felt like artists these days don’t make work like that anymore, me included. I would feel complete if I painted only one of these in my whole life. He somehow painted 20 in one life.”
Kyle Stuckey, One Evening in Paris, oil on canvas on board, 18 x 24"
Another artist inspired by Mucha is Suchitra Bhosle whose Le Printemps de Mucha “stems from the idea to explore the seasons and muses Mucha used for his compositions.” Bhosle continues, “I was getting my model to pose for this painting and we struck various gestures to emote the nature of the theme in mind, but when my model took that break to kneel down and was studying the backdrop of this illustration, it seemed so fitting and natural that it probably resembled the way in which Mucha may have attempted to pose his models with a specific design objective in mind. So, I went with the idea of exploring the feeling of spring, using the palette you see, which is reminiscent of the art nouveau colors—the pale and grayed tones of greens and reds—and tried to bring about the feeling of spring through this color vibration. The composition happened so naturally that I stopped posing my muse and tried to express her love for the involvement in the whole narrative.”
Karen Offutt, The Dancing Muse, oil and gold metal leaf on board, 20 x 16"
Man on the Rodin Staircase by Nicolas Martin depicts a man standing on a grand staircase. “There is a big contrast between the size of the room and this lonely man. All the elements and especially the composition accentuate this idea,” explains Martin. “The moment the person begins to climb the stairs one by one, I want the viewer to hear the sound of the footsteps; it should resonate.”
The atmosphere of Paris is the focus of Kyle Stuckey’s painting One Night in Paris. Stuckey shares, “The mixture of the hustle-bustle with the somehow still private feeling—like little candlelit dining tables that are tucked under the canopies along the sides of towering buildings—is one of the things I find so charming about city life. This painting is intended to capture that environment, that feeling of quietness and busyness coexisting.”
Suchitra Bhosle, Le Printemps de Mucha, oil on linen, 30 x 24"
Adrienne Stein’s The Painted Cape “depicts my dear friend Kaitlin amidst a sea of dogwood flowers in May,” she says. “I was inspired by my favorite abstract expressionist painters to make her garment look like a tapestry of brushstrokes, flowing into the background space and giving the impression that she is floating in a world of paint.”
Americans in Paris “Art Nouveau” will include events with live art history lectures and artist demonstrations. “We are proud to be ‘making art history’ with this innovative fine art project,” says Rothe. “The new art we are making is infused with ideas from the past, but also draws from modern concepts and techniques. This show will go down in history in the collections of top patrons, fine art magazines and books of the era.” —
Vanessa Rothe Fine Art
418 Ocean Avenue • Laguna Beach, CA 92651
(949) 280-1555 • www.vanessarothefineart.com
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