Articles about collecting antique silhouettes, and the lessons I’ve learned about the lives and artistic practice of historical silhouettists.
WALKING INTO THE FOYER at the National Portrait Gallery, on my way to visit a Lucian Freud exhibition, I was surprised to find the walls covered in silhouettes. They were quite large – I guessed about life size – cut from a hard, shiny material, characterised by simple, flat bustlines beginning high on the chest.
WHEN COLLECTING OLD SILHOUETTES, every so often I come across something which stops me in my tracks. “I wish I’d thought of that!” I say to myself. This is what happened when I first came across the lively, Munich-beer-drinkers silhouettes of Gebhard Wagner.
COLLECTING OLD SILHOUETTES can sometimes make me feel I’m in a late-night TV detective series. The tendency of street artists to never sign their own work has led me on many a wild-goose chase!
WHEN LOOKING FOR examples of Parisian street silhouettes, the name Felily Odzikowski comes up again and again. However, all I know about him comes from the large number of his silhouettes I’ve collected over the years.
AS OCTOBER IS BLACK HISTORY MONTH I feel inspired to tell the story of William Hamlet (1749–1822), a successful silhouettist working from studios in both Bath and Salisbury from the 1780s until around 1820. He referred to himself as a “profile painter” and is an artist I would love to have had a conversation with.
OVER THE YEARS I’ve collected a small number of painted silhouettes made by a French artist called Max Noël. All I know about him comes from his silhouettes, which are elusive and hard to find.
BURIED IN MY COLLECTION are a number of silhouettes by Henry Harrison (or Henri, as he called himself when working in France).
THE ENGLISH SILHOUETTISTTE April Fielding (her description, not mine) has been hard to bring out of the shadows. Until this month, I didn’t even know her name! I only recognised a series of well-cut postcard silhouettes, made in the 1900s, embellished with graphite and initialled “AF”.
OTHO BARDEN was an American artist who cut silhouettes during the summer season at the popular tourist attraction of Rock City at the top of Lookout Mountain, Georgia. He seems to have worked there for many years, probably from the opening of Rock City in 1932 until the early 1960s.
WHEN GOOGLING “Audax” all you’ll find is information about long-distance cycle racing. However, Audax was also a silhouettist with a career spanning over 40 years. This is why I refer to him as the long-distance silhouettist!
BATTISTA BAJ is one of my favourite silhouettists; I’ve learned a lot from looking at the best of his silhouettes. At his best these are silhouettes I would struggle emulate, even after cutting for nearly thirty years.
THE FRENCHMAN known as “Monsieur Adolphe” was quite a character. Was he responsible for the myth that silhouettes are a French art?
SILHOUETTES ARE FAMOUS for being black, but very few are actually made by a blacksmith. Carl Ackerlund, from Minnesota, USA was such a man: a blacksmith silhouettist.
I HEARD ABOUT Inger Eidem long before I knew her name. Whilst cutting silhouettes at events I’d occasionally meet people who’d tell me about silhouettes they had done in their childhood. Apparently the artist cut through two pieces of paper at the same time, one of which became a portrait and the other a caricature. Wait, what?! Is that even
THE LAST SILHOUETTIST was suggested to me as a blog title during a phone conversation a couple of years ago. At the time I didn’t really believe that writing a blog was something I was capable of. I’m still not sure it is, but at least I’m going to give it a go!
