Artists that painted their mothers

Now in the process of painting my mum I thought it would be interesting to look at other artist's paintings of their mothers. I've tended to go for artists that I know, to see how they have gone about this portrayal whilst being a bit familiar with their other paintings and painting style.

The Painter’s Mother IV

 

Lucian freud apparently spent over 4,000 hours painting his mother and I've been looking at him more lately as I am striving for more of a loose painterly feel when painting people.

The Painter’s Mother IV is one of a series of eighteen portraits of the artist’s mother, Lucie Freud, that he made in his studio in Thorngate Road in Maida Vale, London, between 1972 and 1984. The series includes ten paintings, five drawings and three etchings, and Lucie sat more than one thousand times for the portraits over the course of a decade, with the sittings lasting between four and eight hours and each portrait taking several months to complete. To make The Painter’s Mother IV, Freud first applied two layers of white primer to the canvas to ensure that the surface was almost entirely smooth before colour was added. Freud then applied the paint using a hogshair brush, and in several places achieved the depth of texture in the painting by applying raw pigment directly to the canvas – for instance, red lake and viridian green were used to underpin the flesh tones and the browns of the sitter’s clothes. Detail was also achieved by using the brush to take paint off the surface as well as to apply it: the fine fibres of the woman’s jumper were created by adding several layers of

successively darker paint to the canvas and using a small stiff hogshair brush to expose the lighter coloured parts beneath.

Freud began to produce the portraits of his mother shortly after the death of his father, Ernst Freud (1892–1970). After Ernst’s death Lucie suffered from depression, from which she never recovered, and which at one point led her to attempt suicide. The curator Andrew Wilson has suggested that Freud used the series as a way of ‘combatting her depression’ (Wilson 2008, p.116), and her grief is reflected in portraits such as The Painter’s Mother IV in the muted grey and brown palette and Lucie’s melancholic expression. The paintings in the series bear the same textured surfaces and psychological detail seen in Freud’s later full-length portraits, such as Leigh Bowery (Seated) 1990 (private collection) and Benefits Supervisor Sleeping 1995 (private collection), though in the case of The Painter’s Mother portraits, the scale is far more intimate.

 (http://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/freud-the-painters-mother-iv-t12619)

Vincent Van Gogh, Portrait of the Artist’s Mother (1888) Van Gogh’s introduction to art was through his mother, Anna Carbentus Van Gogh, who was herself an amateur artist. 

 According to van Gogh’s letters to his brother, Theo, this portrait of their mother was based upon a black-and-white photograph. Of the portrait, the artist wrote, “I am doing a portrait of Mother for myself. I cannot stand the colorless photograph, and I am trying to do one in a harmony of color, as I see her in my memory.” Despite his intent to liven up her visage with his palette, van Gogh created a nearly monochromatic version—in a pallid, unnatural green. Nevertheless, this preeminent figure in the artist’s life sits attentive and proud—a model of middle-class respectability.

(http://www.nortonsimon.org/collections/browse_title.php?id=M.1968.32.P)

Rembrandt, The Artist’s Mother (1629)

 ‘The Artist’s Mother’ by Rembrandt is a study in old age by a young, aspiring painter who rapidly gained a reputation for this kind of work before moving to Amsterdam to develop his career as a portraitist and history painter. Executed towards the end of his time in Leiden (c.1629), this painting already reveals Rembrandt’s mastery of precise detail in the treatment of the folds of skin, the sunken eyes, the taut mouth and the prominent nose. The figure wears an exotic deep purple hood with a fur mantle over a dark dress culminating in an embroidered white chemise. The tone of the painting is sombre, but it is offset by the parchment pallor of the skin, the colour of the chemise and the yellow embroidery of the hood. The treatment of the light falling from the right of the composition directly onto the face is masterly in the way it focuses the viewer’s attention on the features.

( http://www.royalcollection.org.uk/collection/405000/an-old-woman-called-the-artists-mother)

Andy Warhol, July Warhola (1974)  One of Pop Art’s founding members, Warhol captured his mother in the medium for which he has become best known – silkscreen.

 

David Hockney, Mum, 1985:

Hockney chose the day of his father's funeral to portray his mum, creating an image of unveiled human suffering and emotion.

Salvador Dali, portrait of the artist’s mother, 1920

Pablo Picasso, Portrait of the Artist’s Mother (1896)

This tender portrait of his mother was one of the best of Picasso’s formative years, and reflected their close bond.  I'm not sure if it's accurate, but I saw something on the net that said he painted this when he was just 15 years old!

  Edward Hopper, Elizabeth Griffiths Smith Hopper, the artist’s mother, 1916
 (You can see where Hopper got his looks,....looks just like him)

And for some female artists: 

 

Mary Cassat, the Artist's Mother reading Le Figaro, 1878:

 

 
Alice neel  My Mother 1952: 

Alice Neel was a great admirer of Cezanne, and attributes to him her realization of the importance of the sitter’s psychology. We can see this influence in the gloomy portrait of her mother, below, with its solid modeling and the sombre red and blue tones, reminiscent of Cezanne’s late work and well expessing the suffering of old age.

 (http://www.escapeintolife.com/essays/alice-neel-2/)

 

The artist, 63-year-old Daphne Todd, had painted her mother several times during her lifetime, and they had agreed that she could paint her after her death.
"I talked things through with the undertaker, and they kindly gave me the time and space to paint the portrait. She was on a trolley, raised up on pillows, as I remember last seeing her in hospital."

( http://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2010/apr/29/artist-daphne-todd-portrait-mother-death-bp-prize-shortlist)

 

I've only recently become aware of Daphne Todd due to the BBC 'The big painting challenge' where she is one of the judges that is quite direct with her comments.  I've included this as it is certainly a different portrayal of her mother.  I think it's macabre though and can't relate to wanting to paint anyone this way, especially your mother.  Painting portraits for me is about trying to capture something of that person but this is just the empty shell.