Intimate Portraits by Artist’s of Their Own Children

Take Augustus John’s portraits of his children for example.  Here’s one of his son Robin (1912). A real boy if ever there was. Glaring firely out of the painting, obiviously not far-off from a tantrum:

Another favourite of mine are Matisse’s portraits of his son Pauln (done from memory I seem to remember):

Cézanne’s son Paul (how did he get him to sit so so so very still for so so long?):

Then there’s Gainsbourgh’s two daughters ( When I was a little boy, I used to stand before this in the National gallery London with my Granny & laugh. A cabbage white, two sisters & a smile & a little hand reaching out) :

Rembrandt’s kids… maybe this is a scene from family life :

More on Rembrandt’s Drawings of Children – Anticipation & Action and Rembrandt’s Gesture Drawing

Gabrielle de St.Aubin :

Chardin (wisely skiving off his home-work):

Renoir (very diligent boy this):

Picasso , of course….many many times over! In some ways, I’m now refinding the greatness of Picasso via his images of his own children… it’s all there : love, play, intimacy, likenesses (consistant over a series & different styles), talent of course… fireworks of course… fun ,as you’d expect from kids 🙂 Here is an image that sings of eternity, of why we parents love our children 🙂 I really didn’t realise that Picasso had done quiet so many paintings of each child, with no thought for commercialism, voyeuristic onlookers,  etc:

Maurice Denis, Augustin Rouard et Lucien Jonas.

I could go on with this list…

And what about all the old paintings of kids …Do we know if they are the children of the artist or somebody else”q children? Some of the Quattrocento drawings of kids are astounding!

Lastly, here’s  a personal favourite of mine : Winifred Nicholson’s painting of her own two kids.

The last word to Kathleen Raine on Winifred Nicholson, (who lived not far from where I trained at Newcastle University UK art school at the same time …I wish I met her!)

… to be with Winifred was to be with a totally committed artist, for whom each day shed its light on a new theme for a painting. The ever-changing light of the seasons, the flowers, the weather, the arrivals and departures of children and grand-children, all these gave her what she called the ‘stories’ of her paintings in which she captured the day, the hour, and ever-fleeting present.  –   Kathleen Raine, quoted by Alice Strang, Winifred Nicholson, National Galleries of Scotland, Edinburgh, 2003

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A stray thought crosses my mind about actors/actresses & their off-spring, especially those that become actors/actresses in their turn.

‘e, the artist’s daughter’ by adam cope, sanguine.

related posts:

Drawing of Mother & Child – attachment theory – Bed Time Story 9