George Alburger (b. 1927) - Lady Agnew (c. 1981) portrait of Bette, after
John Singer Sargent (1856-1925) - Lady Agnew (1892), brought up at the
bi-weekly
Family Zoom meeting, motivates a re-visit to those of the
Singer appelation -- beginning with the notorious
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isaac_Singer
Isaac Merritt Singer (1811-1875)
"an American inventor, actor, and businessman. He made important improvements in the design of the sewing machine and was the founder of what became one of the first American multi-national businesses, the Singer Sewing Machine Company.
Many others, including Walter Hunt and Elias Howe, had patented sewing machines before Singer, but his success was based on the practicality of his machine, the ease with which it could be adapted to home use and its availability on an installments payment basis.
Singer died in 1875, a millionaire dividing his $13 million fortune unequally among 20 of his living children by his wives and various mistresses, although one son, who had supported his mother in her divorce case against Singer, received only $500. Altogether he fathered 24 children."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Winnaretta_Singer
and then there's Winnaretta Singer, Princesse Edmond de Polignac (1865-1943)
"an American-born heir to the Singer sewing machine fortune. She used this to fund a wide range of causes, notably a musical salon where her protégés included Debussy and Ravel, and numerous public health projects in Paris, where she lived most of her life. Singer entered into two marriages that were unconsummated, and openly enjoyed many high-profile relationships with women.
Although known within private social circles to be a lesbian, Winnaretta married at the age of 22 to Prince Louis de Scey-Montbéliard. The marriage was annulled in 1892 by the Catholic church, five years after a wedding night that reportedly included the bride's climbing atop an armoire and threatening to kill the groom if he came near her.
In 1893, at the age of 28, she stepped companionably into an equally chaste marriage with the 59-year-old Prince Edmond de Polignac (1834–1901), a gay amateur composer. Although it was a mariage blanc (unconsummated marriage), or indeed a lavender marriage (a union between a gay man and a lesbian), it was based on profound love, mutual respect, understanding, and artistic friendship, expressed especially through their love of music. The same year, Singer exhibited her work at the Palace of Fine Arts at the World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago, Illinois
After her husband's death, Winnaretta Singer-Polignac used her fortune to benefit the arts, sciences, and letters. She decided to honor his memory by commissioning several works of the young composers of her time, amongst others Igor Stravinsky's Renard, Erik Satie's Socrate (by her intercession Satie was kept out of jail when he was composing this work), Darius Milhaud's Les Malheurs d'Orphée, Francis Poulenc's Concerto for Two Pianos and Organ Concerto, Jean Françaix's Le Diable boîteux and Sérénade pour douze instruments, Kurt Weill's Second Symphony, and Germaine Tailleferre's First Piano Concerto. Manuel de Falla's El retablo de maese Pedro was premiered there, with the harpsichord part performed by Wanda Landowska."
https://www.encyclopedia.com/women/encyclopedias-almanacs-transcripts-and-maps/singer-winnaretta-1865-1943
"Singer became close friends with [Ernest] Chabrier and Ignacy Paderewski and with the painter John Singer Sargent (no relation to her) who painted a full-length portrait of Singer entitled the Princess de Scey-Montbéliard."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Singer_Sargent
and, finally, John Singer Sargent (1856-1925)
"an American expatriate artist, considered the 'leading portrait painter of his generation' for his evocations of Edwardian-era luxury. He created roughly 900 oil paintings and more than 2,000 watercolors, as well as countless sketches and charcoal drawings. His oeuvre documents worldwide travel, from Venice to the Tyrol, Corfu, the Middle East, Montana, Maine, and Florida.
Born in Florence to American parents, he was trained in Paris before moving to London, living most of his life in Europe. He enjoyed international acclaim as a portrait painter. An early submission to the Paris Salon in the 1880s, his Portrait of Madame X, was intended to consolidate his position as a society painter in Paris, but instead resulted in scandal. During the next year following the scandal, Sargent departed for England where he continued a successful career as a portrait artist.
From the beginning, Sargent's work is characterized by remarkable technical facility, particularly in his ability to draw with a brush, which in later years inspired admiration as well as criticism for a supposed superficiality. His commissioned works were consistent with the grand manner of portraiture, while his informal studies and landscape paintings displayed a familiarity with Impressionism. In later life Sargent expressed ambivalence about the restrictions of formal portrait work, and devoted much of his energy to mural painting and working en plein air. Art historians generally ignored artists who painted Royalty and "Society" – such as Sargent – until the late 20th century."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portrait_of_Madame_X
"Madame X or Portrait of Madame X is the title of a portrait painting by John Singer Sargent of a young socialite, Virginie Amélie Avegno Gautreau, wife of the French banker Pierre Gautreau. Madame X was painted not as a commission, but at the request of Sargent. It is a study in opposition. Sargent shows a woman posing in a black satin dress with jeweled straps, a dress that reveals and hides at the same time. The portrait is characterized by the pale flesh tone of the subject contrasted against a dark colored dress and background.
The scandal resulting from the painting's controversial reception at the Paris Salon of 1884 amounted to a temporary set-back to Sargent while in France, though it may have helped him later establish a successful career in Britain and America.
The model was an American expatriate who married a French banker, and became notorious in Parisian high society for her beauty and rumored infidelities. She wore lavender powder and prided herself on her appearance. The English-language term "professional beauty" was used to refer to her and to a woman in general who uses personal skills to advance herself socially. Her unconventional beauty made her an object of fascination for artists; the American painter Edward Simmons claimed that he 'could not stop stalking her as one does a deer.' Sargent was also impressed, and anticipated that a portrait of Gautreau would garner much attention at the upcoming Paris Salon, and increase interest in portrait commissions. He wrote to a friend:
'I have a great desire to paint her portrait and have reason to think she would allow it and is waiting for someone to propose this homage to her beauty. If you are 'bien avec elle' and will see her in Paris, you might tell her I am a man of prodigious talent.'
Although she had refused numerous similar requests from artists, Gautreau accepted Sargent's offer in February 1883. Sargent was an expatriate like Gautreau, and their collaboration has been interpreted as motivated by a shared desire to attain high status in French society."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lady_Agnew_of_Lochnaw
"Lady Agnew of Lochnaw is an oil on canvas portrait painting of Gertrude Agnew, the wife of Sir Andrew Agnew, 9th Baronet. The painting was commissioned in 1892 and completed the same year by the American portrait artist John Singer Sargent. It measures 127 × 101 cm (50.0 × 39.8 in) and is owned by the Scottish National Gallery in Edinburgh, Scotland. The museum acquired it through the Cowan Smith Bequest Fund in 1925.
Gertrude Vernon was born in 1865, the daughter of the Hon. Gowran Vernon and granddaughter of Robert Vernon, 1st Baron Lyveden. She married Sir Andrew Agnew, 9th Baronet of Lochnaw Castle in Wigtownshire in 1889. A few years later, during 1892, he commissioned John Singer Sargent to paint her portrait. The success of the painting endowed her with additional notability and prestige. There is speculation that the family may have met with financial difficulties resulting in an attempt to sell the painting to the Trustees of the Frick Collection in 1922 but the offer was rejected by Helen Clay Frick. Lady Agnew died in London in April 1932 after suffering ill health for a long time."
No Wikipedia article on the second, so here goes:...
Lady Agnew of Swarthmore is an oil on canvas portrait painting of Elizabeth Gertrude Agnew Alburger, the wife of George Coyle Alburger, 1st Portrait Artist of Lehigh Circle, Springfield, PA. The painting was commissioned in 1981 and completed that same year. It measures 127 × 101 cm (50.0 × 39.8 in) and is owned by the artist, who currently resides with the subject in Glen Mills, PA. The work is stored in the bathtub of the residence, along with numerous other wonderful portraits.
Elizabeth Gertrude Agnew was born in 1931, the daughter of schoolteachers Fred and Gertrude Agnew, immigrants to the United States, respectively from Northern Ireland and Germany. She married George Alburger at Dormont Presbyterian Church, PA, in 1956. Years later, George painted this portait as one of a series in homage to his wife. The success of George's paintings and career in general have allowed the couple to live in comfort and local prestige, with no financial difficulties whatsoever, continuing a happy life together to the present day....
***
OK. and as for the rest of the day, make ready
Three George Crumb Tropes, Op. 392 (2022) from The Decameron: Fifth Day, Op. 247 (2015)
Novel VII. Pietro Teodoro, being enamoured of Violante, daughter of Messer Amerigo,
his lord, gets her with child, and is sentenced to the gallows (Black Angels [1970]: I-V, VII, X)
reconfigure
Deploration Passacaglias, Op. 43 (1992)
and re-jigger with more commentary
Book of Dreams, 2022, Op. 376 (2022)
March 8-9
3am The Attractive Niece of Your Knave...
9am Lunch w/ Tom Wubbenhorst, Good Friends, at Giant Midwestern Cafeteria,
He Wants Us to Stay Overnight, But We Are Bound for Parts West, Missouri?,
We Are in Ohio?, to Meet Other Family, Confusing Ticket Process in Establishment,
Ticket as a Scrawled Signature on PIeces of Paper,
As We Make Way Down Crowded Steps, Area Has Huge Elevated Section,
We Meet w/ Family Behind This, Somehow I've Purchased 2 Tickets, Go Back,
Uncertain Re Refund, Step In Front of Long Line, But Next Customer Not Paying Attention,
So, OK...
10am Now w/ Erling Wold, Who Has Moved There, In Chicago,
Again We Are Bound Further West, His Wife -- Not Either Lynn,
But a Short Gray-Haired Woman -- Serves Us Creative Dinner, In Restaurant in Their House,
Sunny Winter View Outside Adjacent, Some Other Friend, But We Meet Only Briefly,
and He Keeps Distance Later In Next Glassed-in Room, Parking Previous Is a Problem,
I Drag Folding Bike / Car Up Stairway to Stow Not In Upper Parking Area,
Which Would Block Neighbors Door, But In Their Lobby, Which Takes Up Some Space,
and Topples, But OK, Mix Up w/ Brown Leather Coat,
I Have Left Mine In Some Other Restaurant, Think Aboutt Retrieving But Write It Up As Lost,
Owners There Would Likely Just Scold Me For Leaving It, but Not Return,
Ultimately I've Worn 2 Other Coats Today, Not Mine,
And Looking Forward to Buying a New One, Other Coats Were Another Erling Friend's,
And We Establish Both Have Been Returned to Him, One with Initials Monogrammed,
Now Car Is Parked Down Steep Pittsburgh-Style Street in Snow,
to Re-Encounter I Skate Down Snowy, Icy Slope, Rebound Over Creeklet,
Up Slope Avoiding Fluffy Black Dog, Wind Up on Knees on Snowy Upper Curb,
But Make It.... Erling Restaruant a Very Intimate Space, Several Diner-Style Tables Adjacent,
View Into an Atrium...Tour Through a New England Campus -- Andowver? Harvard? --
w/ Tall Spires...
The NATO / US response to The Ukrainian War continues to be cautious
with the specter of
a nuclear
World War III
looming --
but,
at this point,
will there be any way
to avoid it?
Surreal,
as Harriet and I embark on our
30th Vacaville Streets Walk,
northwest on
Bryce,
around the
bend southwest
to Yosemite,
still with distant views of the
Vaca Mountains.
Meandering roue to
the highest gas prices of U.S. life thus far and
more errands,
on the 21st day of summer,
high down 5 to 73 -- the birthday of
Amerigo Vespucci (1451-1412) and
Samuel Barber (1910-1981 -- let's go for the earliest work that can be found on YouTube,
Three Sketches (1924 -- composed at 14! The three movements that could be verbally run together as Love Song To My Steinway Minuet)... his 12th work -- the first written at 7! -- of the 30 that preceed his list of opus numbers).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n3xXsefXpDY
Other listening includes
a trio of J.S. Bach (1685-1750) Double Keyboard Concerti (1736) - 2 in C Minor, BWV 1060 and
1062 and the
interior one C Majar (1061), +
Peter Tchaikovsky (1840-1893) - Violin Concerto in D Major, Op. 35 (1878) and
Tor Aulin (1866-1914) - Gotlandska Dances, Op. 23 (1909).