Joe Lamanno - Fine Art Pastels

About the Artist

I've worked in oils and pastels, but at this time in my career I prefer pastels, both for their brillance & broad spectrum of color. My work is influenced by two post impressionist painters, Henri Matisse and Raoul Dufy. My subjects vary depending on how they impress me and how much fun they are to do.

My love and appreciation for Art is motivated by two people in my life. My teacher, the internationally known painter, Ilona Rittler & my wife Geri, who continnually supports me in my work.

• Credits:

Private Collections 1995.

Pacific Northwest Arts & Crafts Show 1995.

Bellevue Art Museum-Bellevue, WA. 1995.

Funfest Art Festival - Kirkland, WA 1997 - 1999.

St Michelle ArtWalk - 1999.

2001 Winner of the 30th Pike Place Market Festival Poster Contest. (16 x 22 Poster available - see below).

Food Brochure for the Taste of America - 2001.

Sunset Magazine Designer House - Redmond, WA - 2001.

2002 Winner of the 31st Pike Place Market Festival Poster Contest. (19 x 18 Poster available - follow link provided below).

Artwork for brochure and website for the Melville Grant Inn B&B on Gabriola Island, Vancouver BC -2002.

Cover Art for American Classic CD by George Fredrick McKay - 2002. (CD available - follow the "Poster" link below)

 

 

My paintings are on permanent display in the Historic Pike Place Market, Seattle, Washington.

Joseph A. Lamanno 10024 S.E. 8th ST. Bellevue, WA 98004

 

About Pastels

Pastel is the ultimate in direct painting. "It's a natural extension of my fingertips"' says New York artist Harvey Dinnerstein. Many artists are drawn to it because it possesses the characteristics of two mediums in one. Sketchy or paint pastel can produce fine lines or broad areas of color. It is direct, immediate, and spontaneous.

Leonardo da Vinci was among the first to use "the dry coloring method," called the pastel technique he learned in 1499 from a painter who accompanied the king of France on a visit to Milan, Italy.

It fell to the Venetian Rosalba Carriera (1675-1757) to bring pastel to artistic and social prominence. By 1720 she was so famous and successful a pastelist that in a triumphal visit to France she painted the young King Louis XV and was elected to the French Academy. Throughout her long life her pastel portraits were much sought after, and her sitters included princes, kings, and emperors.

Although Carriera spent less than a year in France, she established a tradition of pastel portraiture that was to continue into the next century. Among the artist influenced was Maurice-Quentin de La Tour, who painted magnificent portraits of the aristocracy in their sumptuous clothing, surrounded by their equally sumptuous furnishings. De La Tour painted exclusively in pastel -- at least no oils by him have ever been found -- but his portraits, sometimes monumental compositions on sheet paper pasted together, have the appearance of oil paintings. It was his contemporary Jean-Baptiste-Simeon Chardin who developed the revolutionary techniques we now associate with pastel painting: layers of superimposed colors and broad hatching

Unfortunately, by the beginning of the nineteenth century, pastel had once fallen into the minor medium category, used mostly for preparatory sketches and studies. The Impressionists, most of who at times worked in the medium, brought back into popularity. Degas, in particular, recognized its potential and experimented extensively with it. In the United States, James McNeill Whistler greatly influenced the pastel renaissance.

The twentieth century has seen a wide range of artists pick up pastels, include George Bellows, Pablo Picasso, Marsden Hartley, Georgia O'Keefe, Joan Miro, Willem de Kooning, and even Jackson Pollock.

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