Patrick Richmond Nicholas

Plume Fatale

Plume Fatale

  The painting Chloe, which could be the most famous artwork in Australia, hangs not in a gallery or private collection but, unusually for a work of art, in a Melbourne pub, Young and Jackson's. The Parisian model, Marie, committed suicide after a tragic love affair aged only 21. After a...

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Dido

Dido

  A picture about Loss. Dido and Aeneas, the tragic love story of the Trojan hero and the Queen of Carthage is told by Virgil. Aeneas, after  the sacking of Troy, was given the task by the Gods of founding a new civilisation in Italy, but on the way he met and fell in love with the...

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Correspondent

Correspondent

The lovely shawl made her appear modern to the public of the time - it is Japanese and ‘Japonisme’ was all the rage - it is curious that the addition of clothing to a nude tends to make the subject more risqué - Wilson Steer never dared to exhibit Seated Nude in a Black Hat (1900) precisely...

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Phryne

A legend, possibly based on fact, has it that Phryne, a fabulously rich concubine of outstanding beauty in  ancient Greece, was on trial for her life, for murder for which she was assuredly guilty. Her  counsel opted for a dazzling defence, literally:  he disrobed her in front of the judges....

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Freya

Freya

  Reija asked me to take a picture of her  that was reminiscent of her name which is the Finnish  for Freya,  the Norse Goddess of love and fertility after whom  Friday is named. In  Latin languages  the fifth day is dedicated to the Goddess of Love, Venus. Curiously, the Catholic...

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Alter Ego

Alter Ego

  Susanna and the Elders was a popular  Old Testament  subject with painters. There are innumerable versions by Rembrandt, Reni, Millet, Lotto, Van Dyck, and this one by Tintoretto, who curiously copied Susanna's  pose from Giorgione's Tempest, the serenity of which I have 'borrowed'...

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Galét

Galét

The model for this picture, Gabriella is a cook in a hospital, but she had always desired to do something artistic. When I first saw her I immediately thought of a woman from La Belle Epoque, she looked as if she had stepped out of Moulin de la Galette in Montmartre; in fact with her crow black...

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Casalisca

Casalisca

The second of the series after the Corday. I had had in mind the idea of interpreting the Ingres’ Grande Odalisque  for some time and I had even done a version with the same set, but the first model was not right. Then in 1989 a girl of just eighteen happened by my gallery in Bologna. She had...

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