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Juan Bastos Captures a Moment In Time
Juan Bastos Captures A Moment In Time
Mon, Oct 30, 2017
Juan Bastos Captures A Moment In Time
By Michael Douglas Carlin
Juan Bastos strives to do his best work ever each day he paints or draws. That competition with himself drives him to command large sums from commissions that come from some of the most powerful and influential people of our time. Most of his paintings are in private collections or hanging in private homes where the families of the powerful can enjoy them to think of their loved ones often. Juan has captured a moment in time and in that instant he has captured the soul of his subjects and poured that soul onto the canvas with every line and brushstroke.
He reminds me that the most famous painting in history, the Mona Lisa, is a portrait. The Denenbergs are hosting a show for Juan where over 30 of his portraits (most of them borrowed from the subjects) will be hanging on the walls of the gallery. 7 of his paintings hang at the Keck School of Medicine inside of USC.
His job is capturing the essence of a person and then putting what he learns into a portrait. Not such an easy task when you think about it. He needs to study a person he has never met and get to know them quickly to capture their character, personality, emotion, and sentiment. "Everything is written in the face,” he says "it is the mask of youth.” He talks about learning from the Masters who are his great teachers. Perhaps you have sauntered through a museum and seen somebody spending the entire day looking at a single painting to really study it. This may have been Juan Bastos learning from one or more of the Masters. The Masters may not be alive to teach but their paintings are available to continue the lessons for those who pay attention to every line and brushstroke.
"Caravaggio did it best,” speaking of the theme of a mother with her baby, "I have not done it. That painting called me. A heart subject can be tricky, I have to balance and add psychology and depth. I need to add substance and mystery. I love a photo with a big smile but I don’t paint that because it simply isn’t done. Mona Lisa has her subtle smile and the viewer makes their own conclusions. It you become too obvious it isn’t interesting.”
"I have always dreamed at being the best at a certain medium – for me I don’t like mixed media – the challenge of really learning your craft is important to me. Every time I do a portrait, I am to make this portrait better than anything I have ever done.”
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The show is open to the public Sunday November 5 from 10–5.
Then Wed- through Sat, 10–5, November 9–18.
Then Wed- through Sat, 10–5, November 9–18.
The Denenberg Fine Arts gallery has announced an upcoming retrospective exhibit of the Bolivian-American portrait artist Juan Bastos. The exhibit, Juan Bastos: California Portraits, as part of Pacific Standard Time: LA/LA - Latin American & Latino Art in LA.
The Juan Bastos exhibit brings together a collection of 35 oil paintings, pastels, and pencil drawings of distinguished Californians and other commissions, painted and drawn by Bastos from 1996 to 2017. Bastos has lived and worked in Los Angeles for 22 years.
"One of the last and very best portrait artists who still works from life.”
-Don Bachardy, artist
Portraits of Richard Harrison, Sir Ian McKellen, the children of Jimmy and Vicki Iovine, Rudolph Nureyev, Patricia Morison, Lawrence Platt, Don Bachardy, Dr. Alan Shabo, Valerie Sobel, Susan Sontag, Charlize Theron, Gore Vidal, Maria Vidal, Andrew and Erna Viterbi, and Hutton and Ruth Wilkinson will be amongst the portraits on exhibit. "The opening night is an opportunity for many of my portrait subjects to see their portraits being displayed as a group for the first time,” says Bastos.
"When I was offered the opportunity to gather a collection of painted and drawn portraits by Juan Bastos,” says gallery owner Stuart Denenberg, "I realized that his portraits from life, fuse memory and culture in an honored tradition to give us a rendering of the emotional truth of specific personalities.”
Juan Bastos: California Portraits is part of the Participating Gallery Program of Pacific Standard Time: LA/LA, a far-reaching and ambitious exploration of Latin American and Latino art in dialogue with Los Angeles, taking place from September 2017 through January 2018 at more than 70 cultural institutions across Southern California. Pacific Standard Time is an initiative of the Getty.
Juan Bastos is a Bolivian-American who has lived and worked in Los Angeles for 22 years. Born in Caracas, Venezuela, in 1958, Juan and his family returned to Bolivia, their homeland, 11 years later. He came to the United States where he enrolled at Georgetown University in 1979. He later obtained a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree from the Maryland Institute College of Art and a Master of Fine Arts from Towson University.
Hundreds of diverse Bastos portraits--women, men, children, families, as well as pets--hang in private residences, embassies, churches, libraries, universities, government buildings, and corporate offices in California, and throughout the US, South America, and Europe. As early as 1999, the New York Times featured Bastos in a front page Arts & Culture story about the reemergence of traditional portraiture.
Collectors who have commissioned portraits by Bastos include Philip Niarchos, Eugenio Lopez, and Pamela Joyner. Commissioning institutions include the University of Southern California, Good Samaritan Hospital, Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, George Washington University, and Harvard University.
DENENBERG FINE ARTS
Denenberg Fine Arts is a private gallery established in Boston in 1965. For the past sixteen years it has been located in a landmark building in the West Hollywood Design District at 417 N. San Vicente Blvd, West Hollywood, CA 90048.