Unlike Turner, Constable's work was not valued in England during most of his lifetime. It was the French who appreciated his work where it showed well at the Paris Salon. His bright lighted scenes were influential among the outdoor Barbizon painters, including a young fan, Jean-Baptiste Camille Corot.

Corot had carefully studied Constable's works displayed at the Paris Salon and in Parisian galleries. He loved Constable's use of light and reflection across rural ponds.

Throughout his entire career, Constable was never financially successful. He really didn't become established until he was accepted into the Royal Academy at the age of 52 in 1828, less than a decade before his death.

In 1799, he entered the Royal Academy at the age of 23. As a probationer, he observed dissections to learn anatomy, attended life classes and copied old masters. He was inspired by Thomas Gainsborough, and the Dutch masters Peter Paul Rubens and Jacob van Ruisdael.

Constable seemed determined to go against artistic tastes of his day. While the art market preferred romantic scenes, wild landscapes and paintings of classical ruins, Constable chose to paint scenes of ordinary life.

His works showed rural buildings and wagons with common folk going about their daily lives. These scenes were bright with a freshness of light and color.

As a youth, Constable sketched near his home, the countryside surrounding Suffolk and Essex. Constable later commented, "Painting these scenes made me a painter, and I am grateful. ... the sound of the water escaping from the mill dams etc, willows, old rotten planks, slimy posts, and brickwork, I love such things."

The Hay Wain was then shown in the Paris Salon of 1824 where it won a gold medal. Today, it is one of Britain's best loved and universally recognized paintings.

During his lifetime, Constable sold only 20 paintings in England, but after meeting Arrowsmith, he sold 20 in France in just a few years. After seeing The Hay Wain at Arrowsmith's Gallery, Delacroix wrote in his journal, "What Constable says here about the green of his meadows can be applied to every tone." After offering that praise, Delacroix returned to his studio and repainted the background of his 1824 painting, Massacre de Scio. Delacroix said Constable had done him a great deal of good.

In 1829, Constable was elected to the Royal Academy at the age of 52 and was appointed as a visiting lecturer. His lectures were well attended.

He often told his audiences his threefold thesis; firstly, landscape painting is scientific as well as poetic; secondly, the imagination cannot alone produce art to bear comparison with reality; and thirdly, no great painter is ever self-taught. In his last lecture in 1835, he called the Royal Academy the "cradle of British art." He passed away on March 31, 1837 at the age of sixty-one.

She studied at the Art Students League in New York with John Henry Twachtman, and attended the Academie Julian in Paris where she was awarded the Concours Julia-Smith Prize in 1904. After living in Paris for over two years, Lucretia returned home to Washington. At that time she met a young Army officer named Douglas MacArthur with whom she had an intense love affair.

Lucretia was 25 and MacArthur was 27. He was dashingly handsome and at the time was serving as the military aide to President Theodore Roosevelt. MacArthur was smitten with Lucretia Le Bourgeois. At the time, MacArthur had been an army officer for four years, a 1903 graduate of West Point.

Young Douglas MacArthur (27)
and Lucretia LeBourgeois (25), circa 1907

After Lucretia's death in 1970 at the age of 88, some love letters from Douglas MacArthur were discovered in a trunk found in the basement of her New York home. In these letters, Douglas addressed sweetly, "My Sweet Child, Lucretia Dear Child, My Darling, My Beloved," and "My Own Darling." A link to these handwritten letters is below.

We do not know why Lucretia split up with Douglas, but soon afterward, she married another Army Officer, Robert O. Van Horn. Van Horn followed MacArthur as President Roosevelt's aide.

In Maurine St. Gaudens' Emerging From the Shadows, A Survey of Women Artists working in California 1860-1950 she states that Lucretia's artistic evolution went through at least four phases.

Her earliest works are in the manner of Aubrey Beardsley.

Beardsley's style was influenced by the poster art of Toulouse-Lautrec, borrowing heavily from Japanese prints often with dark subjects. Lucretia's work was known for its intricate detail.

Her commercial illustrations soon were influenced by her attraction to the work of Maxfield Parrish.

Often Maxfield Parrish's illustrations were neo-classical images, planned with geometric principles, root triangles and the golden ratio.

Lucretia wasn't the only illustrator influenced by Maxfield Parrish. Norman Rockwell said of him, "Parrish is my idol."

Her work of the late 1920's and 1930's was deeply influenced by Diego Rivera. In 1926, Lucretia visited Mexico City and met Diego Rivera. Diego invited Lucretia to assist on his current mural project for the Ministry of Education. Diego included an image of Lucretia in his mural on the third floor of the Ministry of Education's building.

Lucretia's time with Diego Rivera energized Lucretia and she drastically changed her painting style. Like Diego, she focused on subjects of the dignity of the Mexican family and Mexican workers, mostly in outdoor settings. She simplified her figures and flattened her perspective. During the summer of 1927, she returned to Mexico City.

Later that year, she moved to Berkeley where she advocated for Diego Rivera's work and helped prepare for his visit to San Francisco. From 1927 to 1933, she lived in Berkeley and became friends with many local artists. She was a member of the San Francisco Art Association and the Society of Women Artists, and she won some notable awards.

In 1932, Lucretia's daughter Margaret died of tuberculosis. Devastated, Lucretia produced very few works. During the years after Margaret's death, some of her previous work was included in exhibitions. In May of 1933, a major international exhibition was held at San Francisco's Legion of Honor. She was one of thirty-five American artists chosen. With Robert Van Horn's rising military career, the couple lived all over, including time in Cuba, Georgia, Kansas, Texas and California.

After Robert Van Horn retired from the Army in 1940, and the couple retired to California. Robert died the following year. After his death, Lucretia participated in the San Francisco Art Association exhibition at the San Francisco Art Museum. Lucretia decided to settle in Palo Alto. She lived on the ranch of an artist and actress friend, Marjorie Lee Eaton.

She lived on the ranch the last 28 years of her life and continued to paint, but stopped exhibiting after World War II. Near the end of her life, she became friends with artist Morris Graves who introduced Lucretia to marijuana which she found to be "a satisfying smoke."

Lucretia's ever changing style evolved into a new phase influenced by European abstractionists, and especially by the work of Paul Klee. Klee was a German artist who taught art at the Bauhaus School of Art, Design and Architecture alongside Wassily Kandinsky.

Newly published Biography of Milford Zornes
Bodega Bay Heritage Gallery friends Maria (Milford Zornes' daughter) and Hal Baker announce the release of a new biography of Milford Zornes, Warm Color in the Shade. Learn of Milford's fascinating life and travels, with anecdotes of conversations he had along the way. Here's the link to order.
Purchase Warm Color in the Shade online
Milford Zornes Website | our gallery's Milford Zornes page

Do you need a reason to visit Seattle in the near future? Here's one. But you'll need to plan ahead by getting tickets.

The Seattle Art Museum currently is showing Andrew Wyeth in Retrospect through Jan 15. The exhibition includes 110 of his finest paintings and drawings. The exhibition was organized by the Seattle Art Museum and the Brandywine River Museum of Art and includes loans from the Wyeth family.

The Seattle Art Museum Website

Linda Sorensen's paintings currently showing:

Bodega Landmark Gallery Collection,
located inland in the town of Bodega, west end of town a half block from the Casino, and just across from the General Store and the Bodega Volunteer Fire Department.

Corrick's "Art Trails Gallery,"
located in downtown Santa Rosa on 4th Street, just steps from Santa Rosa's newly reopened town Square.

Linda Sorensen presently rents an artist's cabin/studio, located in Monte Rio, overlooking Dutch Bill Creek among redwoods -- near the Russian River.

She reports plenty of company from the mallards and mergansers on the Creek. This was the location for her Art Trails Open Studio 2017.

Bentonville, AR
Crystal Bridges
Museum of American Art