Impressionist Archives - Page 2 of 2 - Elan Zingman-Leith

Nocturne in Blue, Our Lady Star of the Sea, Cape May

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I had to visit the Acme supermarket early one winter morning to get eggs for the bed and breakfast. When I came out, I noticed the dark mass of Our Lady Star of the Sea across the parking lot. The pavement was wet and the dawn was dark and misty.
The scene reminded me of James McNeil Whistlers’ Nocturnes, especially those of the Houses of Parliament. He used to say he used his “special sauce” to get the liquid night effect. I guessed that his “special sauce” is glaze made of linseed oil and ultramarine blue – which is what I used.

Oil on canvas
20”w x 16”h

$750.

Jardins de la Fontaine, Nimes, France

Nimes is a beautiful city in southern France. It has two world famous sites; the Vieux Carré, which is the most perfectly preserved Roman temple in the world, and the Arena, which is a Roman coliseum. We were wandering around the city, catching its other sites, and climbed through a park called the Jardins de la Fontaine. About halfway up to hill, I saw this scene, which seemed so quintessentially French, that I had to paint it.

My aim was to capture the long shadows creating violet stripes across the path and the Frenchness of the pink stucco house

Oil on canvas
28”w x 22”h

$850.

Fifty-second Street at Night New York

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Susan and I were in Manhattan to see a play at the invitation of our friends and neighbors, the Krebs’s. We were going in to dinner at The Iron Bar, when I saw this scene. It was a drizzly, misty night and the street lights lit up the fog from below. The street level was bright with glare and the nineteenth century buildings were shining with reflected light. The newer towers in the neighborhood loomed in the background against the inky sky.

This scene made me very homesick and I wanted to capture the liveliness of the scene and the wild contrasts of the evening on 52nd Street near Times Square. It’s a large painting to reflect the large scene.

Oil on canvas
36”w x 48”h

$1100.

Cloud at Ocean Street Beach

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This was a giant solid cloud that appeared over the beach one day in autumn, only fifty yards from Leith Hall, at the foot of Ocean Street. Crowds gathered to look up at it and I thought that it would make a great painting of weather.

It’s painted very solidly, with thick paint, as the cloud was not the usual wispy, insubstantial thing, but a big heavy mass.

Oil on canvas
30”w x 24”h

$850.