Masters Show 2022 at West Center

January 2 - February 16, 2022, the Santa Rita Art League Masters Show will return to the GVR West Center gallery. This year's exhibit will have more then 20 new paintings on display as well as several Artists' Choice Award winning paintings from previous shows. Rich and Altie Metcalf, longtime members of SRAL as well as great volunteers, are the co-chairs of the show.

The Masters Show has been an annual event, except for 2021, for many years. Often times a particular artist or a theme is chosen. Then the SRAL members do the research and select a painting to recreate as precisely as they are able with color, shapes, edges and texture used by the original master. Copying old masters is a time-honored tradition for developing artistic skills. This year was an open theme and the paintings chosen for the exhibition have not been seen in any previous Masters Show.

The show is not only beautiful but educational. Learn a little history about the master painters and their inspiration. as well as admire the discipline and enthusiasm of the current day SRAL members in recreating a masters painting. Don't miss this show!

Artists' Awards from previous Masters Shows painted by SRAL members Altie Metcalf, Rich Metcalf and Jan Holland.

"Bibemus Quarry" by Paul Cezanne, 1898 (Altie Metcalf) Cezanne painted several landscapes of this quarry which was near to his home in Aix-en-Provence, southern France. Art historians believe this is where Cubism was born.

"Sunset in the Mountains" by Birger Sandzen, 1922 (Jan Holland) Birger Sandzen was born in Sweden but after studying art in France, he emigrated to the U.S. He was offered a teaching job at Bethany College in Kansas. He loved Kansas so much that he spent the rest of his life there. During his lifetime he painted over 2500 oil paintings and 500 watercolors as well as hundreds of lithographs and block prints. He was often referred to as the Van Gogh of America.

"Yvette Gilbert" by Henri de Toulouse Lautrec, 1884 (Rich Metcalf) Toulouse-Lautrec loved the theaters and cafe-concerts of Paris. One of the performers he most admired was Yvette Gilbert who sang in various venues, including the Moulin Rouge and at Le Divan Japonais. In between sets, Ms. Gilbert would pose and curtsey between rounds of applause. This pose wearing her pale makeup became her trademark. She later became an actor in Hollywood.