Artist:
Peter Paone
(b. 1936)
E (Elizabeth I)
Medium: Etching and aquatint on paper
Date: 1962
Dimensions:
25 3/8 x 18 1/2 in. (64.5 x 47 cm.)
Accession number: 2023.13.5
Curatorial RemarksE (Elizabeth I) is a masterful achievement in the use of crosshatching to form complex, elaborate patterns and details. Peter Paone (b. 1936) has a deep knowledge of and fascination with the sumptuous fashions of the Elizabethan era. The clothing depicted here is as much the subject as the sitter herself, Elizabeth I, who reigned as Queen of England from 1558 to 1603. The dark background and dim light through the window lend a claustrophobic atmosphere alluding to Elizabeth’s brief imprisonment in the Tower of London in 1554. Numerous portraits of her were made during her lifetime; Paone describes his interpretations as opening a lovely dialogue with those paintings and their creators.
Peter Paone is an artist well known to the Brandywine for the exhibition Reality Reassembled: The Halloween Paintings of Peter Paone, which was presented at Brandywine in the fall of 2019. Paone has had a long and successful career working in the figurative tradition, not only in painting and drawing, but also in printmaking, a medium that he has excelled in since he began studying it as a student at John Bartram High School in Philadelphia. Paone established the print department at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, where he taught until 2009. Paone’s prints demonstrate his strengths in multimedia and his lifelong approach to storytelling that resonate with viewers through their mysterious but often poignant or dark portrayal.
Peter Paone is an artist well known to the Brandywine for the exhibition Reality Reassembled: The Halloween Paintings of Peter Paone, which was presented at Brandywine in the fall of 2019. Paone has had a long and successful career working in the figurative tradition, not only in painting and drawing, but also in printmaking, a medium that he has excelled in since he began studying it as a student at John Bartram High School in Philadelphia. Paone established the print department at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, where he taught until 2009. Paone’s prints demonstrate his strengths in multimedia and his lifelong approach to storytelling that resonate with viewers through their mysterious but often poignant or dark portrayal.