"Pink Blossoms"


 Pink Blossoms

On March 24th we posted Two Blue Boys, a painting I did of myself at age 16 twined with Thomas Gainsborough's Blue Boy from about 1770, both of us garbed in blue clothing which I painted in ultramarine blue against a metallic copper ground.
 
Blue Boy resides in the Huntington Library along with an  unrelated painting,  Pinkie, painted by Thomas Lawrence in 1794. Their long display together has made them permanently associated in popular culture.  The two have been sold as a paint-by-the-numbers kit, paired china figurines, needlepoint and cross-stich displays, and assorted other kitsch.
 


 Here's Lawrence's painting...
 

 You can probably see where this is going.  To join my painting Two Blue Boys I've painted Pink Blossoms pairing Pinkie with Mary at college age.
 

The ultramarine blue ground connects with the color in Two Blue Boys.  The setting is the Josephine Gardens cherry tree garden with Josephine Tatnall Smith's memorial fountain in Wilmington's Brandywine Park.
 
Both paintings are signed with stylized RMW monograms themed on the paintings, perhaps a subject of a future blog.

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