Oh la la, this week’s Artist in Focus is the crème de la crème. Faye Vander Veer has been with UGallery for quite sometime. She plays to the classic lover in all of us. Her romantic scenes of cultured denizens traversing their cities are reminiscent of John Singer Sargent and the French Impressionists. She says, “the simplest act can become the most compelling painting.” Her paintings prove that our daily lives are fascinating events worthy of being painted. Here she discusses her inspiration and her paintings.

Le Serveur

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Greetings Art Lovers,

This week I get to write about one of my favorite art historical obscurities: the American artist’s fascination with Chinese food.

At the turn of the 20th century, a wave of Chinese immigrants were finding their way to New York City. Chinese restaurants popped up all around the Big Apple (and the country), introducing new tastes and aeshetics to Americans.

Artists took notice. John Sloan’s 1909 painting “Chinese Restaurant” was one of the first to capture a NYC chinese restaurant. He visited and revisited an eatery on Sixth Avenue, not far from Herald Square, to inspire his piece. Max Weber painted his own cubist “Chinese Restaurant” in 1915.

By the mid 1920s when Edward Hopper painted “Chop Suey” (above) , Chinese restaurants had become commonplace. One society columnist wrote about the Americanized dish, noting it had become:

a staple…vigorously vying with sandwiches and salad as the noontime nourishment of the young women typists and telephonists… At the lunch hour there is an eager exodus toward Chinatown of the women workers… To them the district is not an intriguing bit of transplanted Orient. It is simply a good place to eat.

Faye Vander Veer’s “A Ride Through Chinatown,” takes us outside the NYC restaurants early modern painters focused on and onto the streets of San Francisco. Her piece retains a sense of cultural fusion, hushed reds and shadowy depth reminiscent of Hopper’s piece. 

Faye painted the scene after a late afternoon trip to SF’s Chinatown. Long shadows stretched their arms across the street, contrasting the light and bright sky of the brilliant afternoon. Faye found the shadows to be a perfect compliment to the reds in the buildings and the dancing lanterns.  She waited for a cyclist to cross the illuminated intersection to capture that moment in time.  

祝 順心,

Bailey

Faye Vander Veer’s “Chance Encounter” is available as a Paperwork print and Ugallery original.

Tea is drunk to forget the din of the world. — T’ien Yiheng

Greetings Art Lovers,

Today’s print celebrates tea, perhaps the wisest of drinks. The story behind the painting is as charming as they come. Painter Faye Vander Veer tells it best: 

I was sitting in a cafe in Italy overlooking the Mediterranean and I noticed a couple sitting at the table next to mine. They were deeply engaged in conversation. When they left, their two small cups on the table remained. The cups looked very intimate and I began to create a story about the couple in my mind which the title of the piece - “Chance Encounter” - captures. I like to look at these empty cups and imagine where the couple went after they left that romantic spot beside the Mediterranean.

That pleasant thought is too lovely to sully with more words.

Artfully yours,

Bailey