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Parasols

by Glenda Green

Oil on linen
Dimensions: 46 x 33.375
Purchased through a National Endowment for the Arts grant, 1977

Parasols by Glenda Green

The Artwork

Casting down from the upper right corner of this oil painting, sunlight seems to reflect off the women's garments creating a diagonal field of highlights from the top left corner to the bottom right corner. This glowing presence of sunlight helps create a welcoming approach of the mother and daughter as they shield themselves from the spring sun's rays. The women seem to smile in subtle recognition as the viewer's eyes meet theirs.


The Artist

Texas-born artist Glenda Green has been considered as one of the finest realist oil painters. During her Oklahoma years from 1972-1980, she was a significant part of the state’s artistic history. She established herself as one of the premier living realist portraitists and embarked on a series of figure paintings treating the contemporary woman. It was from this series that Parasols was created and acquired into the collection.

After joining the University of Oklahoma art faculty in 1972, Green exhibited at almost all of the state’s principal art museums. Possessing a photographic memory and a medical knowledge of anatomy, she painted in an old master oil technique. Her paintings often communicate an exceptional energy and luminosity, derived from her highly complex nuclear physics-based color system that she invented.

During her Oklahoma period, she focused primarily on two subjects: portraiture and images of young, contemporary women, both of which are employed in the painting
Parasols. This playful and engaging painting of two smiling young women with their expressive faces and warm demeanor, entices the Capitol visitor to enter the gallery space. Her extraordinary paint handling and the palpable rendering of their flesh from their rosy cheeks to tapered fingers is one of Green’s best works, combining ingenious vibratory harmony of color and a symphonic balance of pictorial elements.