Peggy Guggenheim
Oil on Linen, 32" x 42"
This oil on linen portrait of Peggy Guggenheim presents the viewer with a striking pose of Peggy against a magical art-filled background. The depth of this piece comes alive formally with the enhanced knowledge that artist Terryl Best intentionally invited other artists onto the canvas through her compositional choices. Well-known legendary photographer, Man Ray, took a portrait of his stylish friend, Peggy Guggenheim, in front of a plain wall. Her shadow cast against this wall (now seen in the orange and yellow silhouette woven into the background imagery) created intense drama in the black and white bromide print that he made in 1924. Best, a brilliant photographer in her own right, selected Man Ray’s image to launch her colorful interpretation of Peggy Guggenheim. This powerful print laid the roadmap followed by Terryl Best as she set out to represent this visual relationship between Guggenheim and Ray eighty years later through oils. The collaboration doesn’t end with Ray’s photograph. Guggenheim was friendly with Marcel Duchamp and Wassily Kandinsky and other Avant Garde artists who she promoted and collected. For the background, Best constructed a tapestry of Avante Garde forms to provide a fitting backdrop for Guggenheim’s portrait. Best created this arrangement of colors and forms to gracefully meet with Guggenheim’s tender hand. Strikingly fitting for the remembrance of Guggenheim’s life, Best immortalizes Guggenheim’s legacy by pitching her body and shadow in the arena of the visual arts.
Oil on Linen, 32" x 42"
This oil on linen portrait of Peggy Guggenheim presents the viewer with a striking pose of Peggy against a magical art-filled background. The depth of this piece comes alive formally with the enhanced knowledge that artist Terryl Best intentionally invited other artists onto the canvas through her compositional choices. Well-known legendary photographer, Man Ray, took a portrait of his stylish friend, Peggy Guggenheim, in front of a plain wall. Her shadow cast against this wall (now seen in the orange and yellow silhouette woven into the background imagery) created intense drama in the black and white bromide print that he made in 1924. Best, a brilliant photographer in her own right, selected Man Ray’s image to launch her colorful interpretation of Peggy Guggenheim. This powerful print laid the roadmap followed by Terryl Best as she set out to represent this visual relationship between Guggenheim and Ray eighty years later through oils. The collaboration doesn’t end with Ray’s photograph. Guggenheim was friendly with Marcel Duchamp and Wassily Kandinsky and other Avant Garde artists who she promoted and collected. For the background, Best constructed a tapestry of Avante Garde forms to provide a fitting backdrop for Guggenheim’s portrait. Best created this arrangement of colors and forms to gracefully meet with Guggenheim’s tender hand. Strikingly fitting for the remembrance of Guggenheim’s life, Best immortalizes Guggenheim’s legacy by pitching her body and shadow in the arena of the visual arts.