Gold Medal Show 2014

Jose Antonio Bedolla

(WINNER- SECOND PLACE)

This large piece just leaps off the wall for me  - so it's my pick for this year's Gold Medal.

This would qualify as a poster in a travel agency except for the bored  "when do we get to go home?" face.

But that's why I love it !  It's such a quirky contrast to the festive costume she's wearing.

And what's up with the garlic bulb that she's holding ?  She must be the Queen of the Gilroy Garlic Festival

Clayton Beck

I never get tired of Clayton's small nudes - and their symphonic backgrounds.

Some very sharp drawing over that hip.

Andrew Conklin

(WINNER- THIRD PLACE)

A nice update on Vermeer -- though the painting is far more enticing than the room it depicts.

The place -- but not the painting -- is quite boring.

I love the glare off the glass of the painting-within the-painting.  Is the depicted face screaming "let me outta here!" ?

I like the contrast of the 21st C. electronics with the 17th C. chair.

Darius Lipinski

The cute cheeks of one of our best  male models.

This feels like a trip back to a 19th C. French atelier

Debra Balchen "SeaMist"

I've never before seen a sculpture look more like a watercolor.

Ali Hasmut

Another image of sadness in celebration

Helen Oh

Unfortunately, there are too many pieces in this show to hang every piece well -- and this one suffers from being waist level and impacted by a shadow thrown by the mantle to its left.

Lenore Murphy

Lenore has been showing copies of old masters in recent shows - and that exercise seems to have made her painting much more enticing.

Mary Beth Bellon, "So long, thanks for the fish"

I love this strange portrait -- reminds me a lot of Mary Klug, our other dramaturge of daily life.

Stephanie Weidner

Stephanie's companion, Errol, has been getting a lot of well deserved attention lately for his cityscapes.

But Stephanie is quite a painter as well -- and I happen to love peeling paint. (my arm itches to scrape it off)

I hope this one gets some votes for the gold medal - or at least some other award.

Walter Monastyrelsky

Here's another painting that deserves an award.  I love it's dank, musty atmosphere.

These are eyes that have looked a bit too deeply into human souls, including his own.

William Schneider, "But at What Cost ?"

I guess you could call this a comedy of manners.

I can't remember any other P&C painter portraying a famous English writer (though we have had some Russian writers depicted).

From what I've read by this evangelical fantasist, this portrait hits the mark.

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And here's the medal winners that I missed:

Errol Jacobson

( GOLD MEDAL WINNER)

The last 12 months have been what might be called a break-out year for Errol Jacobson. He sold more than $20,000 out of his his solo show last December. He got reviewed by Chicago's most astute art critic,
and next Saturday his one-person show opens at Zygman Voss Gallery

John Cooper

(PEOPLE'S CHOICE AWARD)

Kimberley Beck

(HONORABLE MENTION)

Val Yachik
(HONORABLE MENTION)

Theodore Lely

Stately Pines

The above painting, by Theodore Lely,  reminding me Mirror Lake in the Wisconsin Dells, was mentioned in the catalog of the 1916 exhibition of the Palette and Chisel Club held at the Art Institute of Chicago.

His granddaughter has just sent me an image of the above painting which now hangs above her sofa.

She tells us that:


My grandfather was born in 1886 in Switzerland (we believe near Visp/Valais) to a French father and a Swiss mother. Upon the death of his mother, Paulina, my grandfather moved with his father and siblings to Paris, and eventually in 1900, to the United States, settling in Chicago. It was there that he met my Swedish grandmother, Sigrid Gelin. We believe he painted "Stately Pines" as an engagement gift to her.  My grandfather worked as a bank executive in Chicago and died in Chicago in 1939 at the age of 53.