Easy art

To paint is not easy. If British painter Grahame Hurd-Wood were to be asked, it would take years to finish his "City of Portraits."

When Wood's friend and fellow artist Debbie was diagnosed with cancer, she suggested he paint her portrait. Before finishing the work, Debbie died. Her death 10 years ago inspired "City of Portraits," miniature individual images of all the residents of St. Davids in Pembrokeshire, Wales, the smallest city in the United Kingdom.

Wood was from Gosport in Hampshire, but he resettled in St. Davids after finishing his art studies at Camberwell School of Art and the Royal Academy in London, according to BBC. The small city has a population of 1,800. He has finished painting 1,000 portraits, which he does on the side of doing commissioned artwork.

The painter is taking his time finishing the remaining portraits. He said he would ask someone else to do one for himself.

In Denmark, Danish painter Jens Haaning was commissioned by the Kunsten Museum in the western city of Aalborg to reproduce two works on the average annual salaries of Danes and Austrians using actual Danish kroner and euros.

Museum director Lasse Andersson gave
58-year-old Hanning 530,000 kroner ($76,000) to use in the paintings. Haaning turned the paintings over to Andersson in 2021, and the latter displayed them in the museum. When Andersson asked for the money back, Hanning refused, and Andersson sued him.

On 18 September, a Copenhagen court ordered Hanning to return 492,549 kroner (less his expenses), the money that was never incorporated in the paintings he titled "Take the Money and Run." Hanning had delivered two giant blank white canvasses to the museum and pocketed the cash.

WITH AFP