Barbara Carroll

Top 100 2000: Barbara Carroll
4.75" x 20"
oil on wood, 2001/2013

I was showing my sister Annemie some of my paintings the other day on my computer. She took a liking to this portrait of Barbara Carroll that I did 12 years ago. I told her I'd send it to her. When I found the painting in my attic, where it was stored for a long time, it suddenly struck me why she liked it. The Barbara Carroll portrait (at least the one on the left) reminded me (and I think—unconsciously perhaps—her too) of her daughter, and my niece, Sabijn. The painting was rather dirty and damaged after all this time in the hot attic, so I took out my paint brushes and touched it up. I probably spent as much time touching up then it took me to paint it in 2001. I hope she likes the "enhancements". The song illustrated by the painting is Morocco composed by Harold Arlen. The Barbara Carroll Trio performed it as an instrumental in 1949. A recording of it appeared on Forty Years of Women in Jazz.