Gaze of the Green Lady

It's one of the most popular prints ever made and yet many art critics dismiss it as rubbish. The death of its creator Vladimir Tretchikoff has again cast the spotlight on the mysterious Green Lady.

She looks unsmiling down and to her left. She has luxuriant black hair. Dressed in an exotic gold-collared robe, her hands are folded out of sight. So far, so unremarkable, except for her skin, a strange blue-green.

In the 1960s and 70s, Chinese Girl - to give the 1950 portrait its proper title - graced many a living room wall across the globe.

And yet it is common now to dismiss Tretchikoff's work - and particularly Chinese Girl - as kitsch, rather than "serious" art.

Critic Brian Sewell is one of those who take a dim view of the phenomenon: "I wish it had never happened."

Designer Wayne Hemingway is, however, a Tretchikoff fan.

"I've got 70 or 80 prints. It is more than just what the art looks like. It is what it stands for. The idea of having a Constable on my wall, I wouldn't see the point of it.

"A Tretchikoff - it means it's exotic, it means something about my background and where I'm from and my nan. Art can be all things, it doesn't have to be something that is beautifully painted."

To Hemingway, Tretchikoff was a pioneer, a precursor of Andy Warhol, but someone whose direct commercial appeal generated instant snobbery from the art world. The modern dismissiveness is a product of elitism.

"If you were to go out and stand with a picture of his in a cool part of any city and spoke with people who understand modern cool, the majority will say good things about it."

But Sewell does not buy the elitism and snobbery argument.

"Nobody could be less elitist than I. Can anybody name another picture by this painter?"
¶ 11:05 AM [Permalink]