Poppies and Bees

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Poppies and Bees

United States, 1906
Drawings
Watercolor on paper, mounted on cardboard
Sheet: 25 3/4 × 16 in. (65.41 × 40.64 cm) Image: 23 × 13 3/8 in. (58.42 × 33.97 cm)
Charles H. Quinn Bequest (75.4.9)
Not currently on public view

Curator Notes

This watercolor is characteristic of de Longpré’s mature flower paintings. Focusing on one or two stalks with buds and flowers, de Longpré isolated the arrangement by leaving the background white....
This watercolor is characteristic of de Longpré’s mature flower paintings. Focusing on one or two stalks with buds and flowers, de Longpré isolated the arrangement by leaving the background white. Such a treatment and use of watercolor as a drawing medium relate to traditional botanical renderings (which de Longpré studied while working with a French horticulturist named Paillet). The poppy, the state flower of California, shares with the rose, for which de Longpré is better known, many characteristics that appealed to the artist, namely its large, sensuous petals and brilliant hues.
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Bibliography

  • Fort, Ilene Susan and Michael Quick.  American Art:  a Catalogue of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art Collection.  Los Angeles:  Los Angeles County Museum of Art, 1991.
  • Schrank, Sarah. Art and the City: Civic Imagination and Cultural Authority in Los Angeles. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2009.