Steven Rhude - Paintings/Drawings

Modiglianni's Muse, oil on masonite, 13.5" x 27.5", Steven Rhude A lot of artists meet their soul mates in art college. Some unions last, while others disintegrate quickly. Jeanne Hébuterne  had a talent for drawing, and chose to study at the Académie Colarossi . It was there in the spring of 1917 that she was introduced to Amedeo Modigliani. Three years later, while pregnant, she pitched herself out of an apartment window to her death. "The last drawing Jeanne made in the 40 hours or so that passed from the moment of Amedeo’s death to that of her own shows her lying dead, with a stiletto in her hand, on the bed where she used to sit for Modi." [1]  An account: On 24 January 1920 Amedeo Modigliani died. Jeanne Hébuterne's family brought her to their home but Jeanne threw herself out of the fifth-floor apartment window two days after Modigliani's death, killing herself and her unborn child. Her family, who blamed her demise on Modigliani...

Red Fish, oil on canvas, Steven Rhude Midwinter spring is its own season Sempiternal though sodden towards sundown, Suspended in time, between pole and tropic. When the short day is brightest, with frost and fire, The brief sun flames the ice, on pond and ditches, In windless cold that is the heart's heat, Reflecting in a watery mirror A glare that is blindness in the early afternoon. And glow more intense than blaze of branch, or brazier, Stirs the dumb spirit: no wind, but pentecostal fire In the dark time of the year. Between melting and freezing The soul's sap quivers. There is no earth smell Or smell of living thing. This is the spring time But not in time's covenant. Now the hedgerow Is blanched for an hour with transitory blossom ...