#sir Oswald birley

[art-portraits]

John Reith, 1st Baron Reith of Stonehaven, 1889 - 1971. Director-General of the British Broadcasting Corporation

Artist: Sir Oswald Birley (New Zealander-British, 1880-1952)

Date: 1933

Medium: Oil on canvas

Collection: National Galleries of Scotland, Edinburgh, Scotland

Description

n 1922 Reith became the first general manager of the British Broadcasting Corporation and from 1927 he was its Director-General. He had real vision about the role of the BBC in the life of the nation and was largely responsible for establishing the public service ethos of broadcasting and his standards (often imposed dictatorially) are still just evident. This painting is a copy of one commissioned by the BBC. Reith selected the artist who has successfully conveyed his sitter's determined nature. A large scar, received during the First World War, is just visible on his left cheek.

[perfettamentechic]

6 maggio … ricordiamo …

6 maggio … ricordiamo … #semprevivineiricordi #nomidaricordare #personaggiimportanti #perfettamentechic

2022: Eugenio Allegri, attore e regista italiano.(n. 1956) 2021: Paul Van Doren, è stato un imprenditore statunitense, fondatore della Vans, azienda di scarpe negli Stati Uniti. Van Doren ha avuto cinque figli: Paul Jr., Steve, Cheryl, Taffy e Janie. Il suo libro di memorie, Authentic , è stato pubblicato nove giorni prima della sua morte. (n. 1930) 2020: Martin Spellman, attore statunitense,…

[classicdavinci]

‘The Rag Sorter’, 1905, by Sir Oswald Birley

[godinvent]

So I saw this post about how in the books, Dracula is actually an old man and I always imagined Dracula looked like older Christopher Lee, who played him while he was a kid. While looking him up I accidentally discovered that Christopher Lee was the coolest person in the universe and there is a non-zero chance he was actually Dracula in real life

Sir Christopher Frank Carandini Lee CBE CStJ (May 27th 1922 - June 7th 2015), Sir because he was knighted in 2009 for his charity and his contributions to cinema

So first of all, I saw that he actually knew 8 LANGUAGES (English, Spanish, French, Swedish, Italian, German, Russian and Greek) and was also a staggering 6 feet 5 inches in height. Born in Belgravia in London, one of the most Dracula sounding places I’ve ever heard of, here’s some insane facts about him

•His father, Lieutenant Colonel Geoffrey Trollope Lee of the 60th King's Royal Rifle Corps, fought in the Boer War and World War 1

•His mother, Countess Estelle Marie (née Carandini di Sarzano) was an Edwardian beauty who was painted by Sir John Lavery, Oswald Birley, and Olive Snell, and sculpted by Clare Sheridan

•Lee's maternal great-grandfather, Jerome Carandini, the Marquis of Sarzano, was an Italian political refugee

•Jerome’s wife was English-born opera singer Marie Carandini (née Burgess), meaning that Lee is also related to famous opera singer Rosina Palmer

•His parents would divorce when he was four and his mother would marry Harcourt George St-Croix Rose, banker and uncle of Ian Fleming, making the author of the James Bond books Lee’s step cousin. Fleming would then offer him two roles as the antagonist in the film adaptations of his books, though he was only able to land the antagonist role in The Man With the Golden Gun. It’s believed his role in the film is significantly better and more complex than his book counterpart, played as “a dark side of Bond”

•His family would move and they lived next door to famous silent film actor Eric Maturin

•One night, before he was even 9 years old, he was introduced to Prince Yusupov and Grand Duke Dmitri Pavlovich, THE ASSASSINS OF GRIGORI RASPUTIN, WHOM LEE WOULD GO ON TO PLAY MANY YEARS LATER

•Lee applied for a scholarship to Eton, where his interview was in the presence of the ghost story author M.R. James, who is considered one of the best English language ghost story writers in history and who widely influenced modern horror

•He only missed by King’s Scholar by one place by being bad at math, one of the only flaws God gave him

•Due to lack of working opportunities, Lee was sent to the French Riviera and stayed with his sister and her friends while she was on holiday, and on the way there he stopped briefly in Paris with journalist Webb Miller, a friend of his step father. Webb Miller was an American journalist and war correspondent and was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize for his coverage of the execution of the French serial killer Henri Désiré Landru, also known as BLUEBEARD. He also helped turn world opinion against British colonial rule of India

•While staying with Miller he witnessed Eugen Weidmann’s execution by guillotine, the last public execution ever performed in France

•Arriving in Menton, Lee stayed with the Russian Mazirov family, living among exiled princely families

•When World War 2 began, Lee volunteered to fight for the Finnish Army against the Soviet Union in the Winter War, and a year later, Lee would join the Home Guard. After his father died, he would join the Royal Air Force and was an intelligence officer and leading aircraft man and would later retire as a flight lieutenant in 1946

•While spending some time on leave in Naples, Lee climbed Mount Vesuvius, which erupted only three days later

•After nearly dying in an assault on Monte Cassino, Lee was able to visit Rome where he met his mother’s cousin Nicolò Carandini, who had fought in the Italian Resistance Movement. Nicolò would later go on to be the Italian Ambassador to Britain. Nicolò was actually the one to convince Lee to become an actor in the first place

•Oh yeah Christopher Lee was seconded to the Central Registry of War Criminals and Security Suspects where he was tasked with HELPING TRACK DOWN NAZI WAR CRIMINALS

•Lee’s stepfather served as a captain in the Intelligence Corps

•He was actually told he was too tall to be an actor, though that would honestly help him considering one of his first roles was as The Creature in The Curse of Frankenstein

•He was cast in Captain Horatio Hornblower R.N (1951) as a Spanish captain due to not only his fluency in Spanish but also he knew how to fence!

•Lee’s portrayal of Dracula had a crucial aspect of it which Bela Lugosi’s didn’t have: sexuality, a prime aspect of the original novels.

•While being trapped into playing Dracula under Hammer Film Productions, Lee actually hated the script so much that he would try his best to sneak actual lines from the original novel into the script

•Ironically, he was rejected from playing in The Longest Day because “he didn’t look like a military man”

•Christopher Lee was friends with author Dennis Wheatley, who “was responsible for bringing the occult into him”. He would go on to play in two film adaptations of his novels

•His biggest regret in his career is not taking the role of Sam Loomis from Halloween when offered to him

•Christopher Lee was the only person involved with the Lord of the Rings movies to have actually met J.R.R Tolkien

•When playing Count Dooku, he actually did most of the swordsmanship himself

•Christopher Lee was the second oldest living performer to enter the Billboard Top 100 charts with the song “Jingle Hell” at 91 years old. After media attention, he would get No. 18, and Lee became the oldest person to ever hit the Billboard Top 20 chart

I really am leaving some stuff out here and I may go on

[thebeautycove]

Art & Beauty

Sir Oswald Hornby Joseph Birley, Miss Muriel Gore (in a Fortuny gown), 1919.

[yanbelart]

Based on the portrait of Armine Dew by Sir Oswald Birley

[daylight-upon-magic]

PROFILE: Sir Oswald Birley

ABOVE: Sir Oswald Birley with his wife Rhoda (née Lecky Pike) and daughter Maxime, 1930s. Photo by Cecil Beaton // © NPG

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Sir Oswald Hornby Joseph Birley (31 March 1880 – 6 May 1952) was born in New Zealand whilst his British parents were making a world tour. He was educated at Harrow and Cambridge and was drawn to painting while visiting Europe. He enrolled at the Academie Julien in Paris. A trip to Spain followed where Birley fell under the spell of Velazquez.

During World War I he served in France, first with the Royal Fusiliers, later transferring to the Intelligence Corps obtaining the rank of Captain and being awarded the Military Cross in 1919. During World War II he served with the rank of Major in the British Home Guard.

A favourite of the Royal Family, Birley was well known for his portraits of King George V, Queen Mary, King George VI, Queen Elizabeth, the Queen Mother and Queen Elizabeth II.

He painted several highly regarded portraits of Sir Winston Churchill (to whom he also gave lessons), and also a life-size portrait of Mahatma Gandhi which was the first to be hung in the Lok Sabha shortly after Indian Independence in 1947.

Birley was knighted in 1949.

[worldsandemanations]

The Rag Sorter’, 1905, by Sir Oswald Birley

[innervoiceartblog]

Spotlight on artist Sir Oswald Birley (1880–1952)

If you were a person of consequence in the 1920's, 1930's or 1940's, or wanted to choose a suitable portrait painter for a commission of an important member of society, then it is very likely that the artist you would place at the top of your wish list is Oswald Birley .

Capable of creating not only a fine likeness but possessing an ability to bring thoughtfulness and empathy to his work, Birley was regarded as the ‘go-to’ portrait painter of the day, a painter who would deliver a work that would capture the essence of the subject and stand the test of time.

A frequent subject of his paintings was his wife, Rhoda. Widely regarded as a beauty, she married Birley at the age of 20 when he was 41. Here is a particularly beautiful portrait made by Birley soon after their marriage in 1921. Entitled The Green Masque, it depicts Rhoda in Venetian carnival attire, her alabaster face glowing against a dark background, her eyelashes demurely lowered.

Also of note:

- Birley was the first British artist to have a studio built for him in Palm Beach in 1926

- In 1931 he painted Mohandas Karamchand ‘Mahatma’ Gandhi, commissioned by the Chief Minister of Gujarat, Sir Prabhashankar Pattani

- In 1941 he lost his right eye while supervising a demonstration: an experimental anti-tank which misfired

[fredborges98]

Les Yeux Fertiles

On ne peut me connaître

Mieux que tu me connais

Tes yeux dans lesquels nous dormons

Tous les deux

Ont fait à mes lumières d'homme

Un sort meilleur qu'aux nuits du monde

Tes yeux dans lesquels je Voyage

Ont donné aux gestes des Routes

Un sens detaché de la terre

Dans tes yeux ceux qui nous révèlent

Notre solitude infinie

Ne sont plus ce qu'ils croyaient être

On ne peut te connaître

Mieux que je te connais.

Paul Éluard, 1936

Tradução: Fred Borges

Ninguém pode me conhecer

Melhor do que você me conhece

Seus olhos nos quais dormimos

Ambos

Fez com o meu homem luzes

Um destino melhor que as noites do mundo

Seus olhos nos quais viajo

Deram-se aos gestos das Estradas

Um sentido separado da terra

Aos seus olhos aqueles que nos revelam

Nossa solidão infinita

Não é mais o que eles pensavam que eram

Não podemos conhecer você

Melhor do que eu conheço você.

Versão: Fred Borges

Ninguém pode me conhecer

Melhor do que você me conhece

Seus olhos nos quais dormimos

Ambos

Fez com que luzes durmamos

Um destino melhor que as noites do mundo

Seus olhos nos quais viajo

Deram-se aos gestos das Estradas

Um sentido deslocado da terra

Aos seus olhos que nos revelam

Nossa infinita solidão

Não é mais o que eles acreditavam que era

Não podemos conhecer você

Melhor do que eu te conheço.

Na sequência de obras artísticas:

Moïse Kisling

"Small Head of a Brunette", 1930

Mario Soldano.

La sospensione tra due battiti.

Teresa Carneiro

( Sem Título)

The Green Masque (1922). Sir Oswald Birley (British, 1880-1952). Oil on canvas.

[roehenstart]

Queen Mary of Great Britain. By Sir Oswald Birley.

[classicdavinci]

The Nurse by Sir Oswald Birley

[dreamyartiste]

Sir Oswald Birley, The Green Masque

[jeveuxdusublime]

Sir Oswald Birley

The Green Masque

1922

[books0977]

The Green Masque (1922). Sir Oswald Birley (British, 1880-1952). Oil on canvas.

A frequent subject of Birley’s paintings was his wife, Rhoda. Widely regarded as a beauty, she married Birley at the age of 20 when he was 41. This particularly beautiful portrait was made by Birley soon after their marriage in 1921. It depicts Rhoda in Venetian carnival attire, her alabaster face glowing against a dark background, her eyelashes demurely lowered.

[yearofdays]