Woman with a Pearl Necklace (Flora)

Airto (Moreira)/Flora Purim

Some of the most iconic work from art history is portraiture. The painted sculpture bust of Nefertiti by one of the first artists we know by name: Thutmose; the Egyptian Roman Era Fayum mummy portraits of the first and second centuries; the Mona Lisa; Girl with a Pearl Earring; self-portraits by Rembrandt and van Gogh; old master portraits like those by Goya; new master portraits by Alice Neel; Lucian Freud; and so many others, make portraiture a most important genre in the history of art. Sometimes a single portrait of art history is a conscious reference for one of my Top 100 paintings, but more often a host of unconscious references pass the revue while working on a portrait. What I have available to me, unlike historical artists, is photography in combination with the internet. I have access to pretty much every face of every individual out there in the world. For this portrait of a married couple: Airto Moreira and Flora Purim, I didn't need the internet. Their portraits appear, as photographs, on the back of the LP: The Essential Airto, featuring Flora Purim. [Buddah, 1976] There are five portraits on the back, all tightly framed in on oval. Hermeto (Pascoal), Ron Carter, and Sivuca, appear next to Purim and Airto. I've been playing that record a few times and the portrait of especially Purim kept staring at me. I needed to paint her, even though my favorite song from the album, Andei (I Walked), did not quite have enough points to be included in the Top 100 2022.

 

Airto

Airto
16" x 12", oil on canvas paper, 2015

The painting of Airto was created on top of a landscape demo done in a new episode of landscape painting at the Alliance in Fort Myers. The landscape is situated in my back yard but was painted from memory. I turned it upside down to have Airto emerge out of water. I just added some waves to make the landscape become a reflection of itself. The top 100 song is called Andei (I Walked) and comes from the double album The Essential Airto featuring Flora Purim & Special Friends from 1976. The special friends are Hermeto Pascoal, Ron Carter, and Sivuca. There is a second version of Andei on the album on which Airto's wife Flora Purim performs her characteristic scat singing style. Usually I'd pick a version with a woman's voice but here I didn't. I guess I'm not a big fan of scat singing. I've painted Flora Purim before in a double portrait with Hermeto Pascoal but never Airto Moreira. It's a beautiful song.