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Glimpses Of The World Through An Artist’s Eyes*
Our dad Richard J Van Wagoner was a visual artist. He died Christmas day 2013. I post something in remembrance of him this time of year. Included here is a gallery of 15 paintings from different periods. His range was impressive. Of my posts, this one has the broadest array of his work.
Of our father’s few self-portraits, the one above is my favorite. It hangs in a bedroom at my brother Rob’s house in rural Washington, on the west side of the Cascades along the banks of the Skagit River, where dad and our mother lived for the last stretches of their lives, very near where they both are buried. He found beauty in most things, subjects others often found ordinary, or even unsightly.
Among his many genres, he was known for his watercolor washes and landscapes.
Renee, his lifelong muse, is depicted in the portrait below, painted around the time of his self-portrait above. Glimpses of her beauty, personality, and character, and Richard’s interpretations of them, are revealed in art for which she was his fascination and a primary subject for over 60 years. She passed on March 10, 2016, just shy of her 83rd birthday. See Portrait Of A Mother As An…