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Biography
STANLEY ROSEMAN
DIVERSITY of SUBJECTS
"With a seriousness that pushes him always further in treating a subject or theme,
he continually clarifies and refines, never letting his interest waiver or diminish.''
- Bibliothèque Nationale de France
     Roseman's sensibility for the great French tradition of still lifes is evident in his beautiful Les Pommes sauvages, 1978, (fig. 2, below), in the Musée Ingres, Montauban. The museum's outstanding collection originated with an important bequest from Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres (1780-1867) of his paintings and drawings to his hometown and includes notable works from the French master's collection of the Italian School of the 15th and 16th centuries and the French School of the 17th, 18th, and 19th centuries. The Musée Ingres has since augmented its collection with works of modern art.
Still Lifes in the Windows of Cartier - Fifth Avenue
     Roseman's still lifes, painted in New York City in the 1970's, attracted the attention of the international French jewelers Cartier, which requested to present the artist's still lifes in its Fifth Avenue windows.
     Lemons and Lime, 1975, (Private collection), reproduced below, (fig. 3), was one of two Roseman still lifes that appeared in Cartier's two Fifth Avenue windows in 1976. The lemon halves, freshly sliced and glistening, lie next to the single lime and form a group counterbalanced by the brightly illuminated, golden lemon in the foreground. The dark background deepens the spacial dimension in this beautiful painting.
     The black and white photograph, (fig. 4), records the elegant, intimate window display designed by Raymond Mastrobuoni, Cartier's distinguished Associate Vice President of Visual Merchandising and a leading window designer who created innovative and captivating window displays that set high standards for visual merchandising and were noteworthy events for forty years on Fifth Avenue, New York City's world-famous shopping thoroughfare. In the window display, the lemons and lime in the Roseman still life have been imaginatively transposed from pictorial space into three-dimensional space. The triangular arrangement of objects in the painting is restated by the pyramidal grouping of citrus fruit with the presentation of exquisite Cartier jewelry. Cartier very thoughtfully included notices that read "Paintings by Stanley Roseman.''
     Cartier had exhibited the year before in its Fifth Avenue windows stunning displays of the company's jewelry and two life-size portraits by Roseman. (See "Biography'' - Page 7 "Portraits.'') In 1980, Roseman returned to New York City from Europe, where during the first two years of his work on the monastic life, he also painted a series of Dutch landscapes with windmills. (See below, fig. 7.) Raymond Mastrobuoni again designed marvelous window displays with Roseman's paintings and Cartier jewelry.
     Roseman acknowledges: "I am very grateful to Raymond Mastrobuoni for his enthusiasm for my work, for it was truly wonderful to see my paintings so beautifully presented in the windows of Cartier.''
     The Curator of the Musée Ingres, Pierre Barousse, made his first acquisition of Roseman's work in 1986 with "the very beautiful drawing'' A Carthusian Monk at Vigils, 1982, Chartreuse de la Valsainte, Switzerland. (See Page 5 of "Benedictines, Cistercians, Trappists, and Carthusians.") Monsieur Barousse acquired in 1987 the painting Father Ian, Mount Saint Bernard Abbey, England, 1978, an oil on canvas portrait of a Trappist monk in meditation - "a work absolutely engaging,'' writes the distinguished Curator in further correspondence with Ronald Davis, who introduced the artist's work to the Museum. (See Page 1 of "The Monastic Life.")
     Monsieur Barousse asked Davis if Roseman had painted still lifes as still lifes are an important subject in French art. Seeing the present work, (fig. 2), the Curator of the Musée Ingres acquired the "very beautiful still life'' for the collection and gave the painting its French title Les Pommes sauvages.
     In keeping with the actual size of the apples in nature, Roseman has created an intimate still life with a dramatic interplay of lights and shadows as the pommes sauvages emerge from a dark background into the glow of a warm illumination.
2. Les Pommes sauvages, 1978
Oil on canvas, 18 x 18 cm
Musée Ingres, Montauban
Still Lifes in France
6. Still Life with Oysters, 2006
Oil on canvas, 30 x 60 cm
Private collection, Switzerland
© Stanley Roseman and Ronald Davis - All Rights Reserved
Visual imagery and website content may not be reproduced in any form whatsoever.
Biography: Page 9
From the outset of his career in New York City in the early 1970's, Roseman depicted a range of subject matter that included portraits; an extensive work on the performing arts, which the artist created in theatres, opera houses and the circus; paintings and drawings of the nude, as well as still lifes; animal companions; and landscapes in the Berkshires in western Massachusetts, a region the artist first knew from summer vacations in his youth.
Windmills
     Standing at his easel along a canal with a windmill rising up nearby, Roseman painted the dramatic Windmill at Schermerhorn, (fig. 7). The viewer is captivated by the fascinating appearance of the mill with its bulky structure crowned by a massive thatched roof in contrast to the latticework of the large wooden blades.
7. Windmill at Schermerhorn, 1978
Oil on panel, 25 x 20 cm
Private collection, The Netherlands
     The intimate scale of the landscape is in keeping with a Dutch tradition of small format paintings. Nevertheless, Roseman's composition gives the windmill monumentality. The windmill is silhouetted against sweeping brushstrokes depicting a luminous sky with white clouds moving in from the sea.
1. Charles Jude and Florence Clerc, 1991
Paris Opéra Ballet - Comme on respire
Pencil on paper, 38 x 28 cm
Uffizi, Gabinetto Disegni e Stampe, Florence
     The Bibliothèque Nationale de France praises Roseman for his "innate artistic talent, expressed through a wide range of techniques,'' and states: "With a seriousness that pushes him always further in treating a subject or theme, he continually clarifies and refines, never letting his interest waiver or diminish.''[2]
Still Lifes
     Still lifes in the Musée Ingres include beautiful paintings by Eugene Delacroix; Thomas Couture, who was Manet's teacher; and François Bonvin, a leading exponent of the Realist School along with his younger contemporary Gustave Courbet, also an avid painter of still lifes.
     Roseman's still lifes include sea bass, red mullet, whiting, sea snails, shrimps, and oysters. An assortment of fish fills the impressive composition Still Life with Mackerels, Rockfish, and Sea Bream, 2006, (fig. 5, below).
     Living in France, where still lifes are an important subject in art, Roseman resumed painting still lifes. Complementing his still lifes of fruit, vegetables, and herbs is his series of fish, a subject taken up by Chardin, Delacroix, Courbet, Renoir, Gauguin, Van Gogh, Picasso, and Braque. Manet, who painted a variety of fish, held a high regard for Chardin's still lifes, which have a concentration on few objects in a compact composition.
     The Bibliothèque Nationale de France in a biographical essay on the artist in the exhibition publication Stanley Roseman - Dessins sur la Danse à l'Opéra de Paris / Drawings on the Dance at the Paris Opéra (Paris, 1996) commends Roseman for his "profound interest in the human condition in portraying different kinds of people, professions, social or artistic groups.''[1]
     Presented here is the marvelous painting Still Life with Oysters, 2006, (fig. 6).
     The oysters lie on a sea of light-brown wrapping paper with highlights and shadows that evoke the tones of the oyster shells. The folds and creases of the wrapping paper seem to ebb and flow in pictorial space.
     Roseman's inclusion of lemons in the composition provides brilliant notes of color. The yellow, spherical form of the lemon and round rim of the halved lemon counterbalance the irregular shapes and serrated edges of the shells and the tapering form of the oyster knife placed diagonally to the picture plane. Still Life with Oysters is a wonderful invitation to dine on such popular marine, culinary delights.
     In the Netherlands in 1978, Roseman and Davis took a day trip into the countryside in North Holland, where they viewed windmills along picturesque canals. The windmills inspired the artist for a series of fine oil on panel landscape paintings in which windmills are the dominant subject in the compositions.
     Three small, wild apples in luminous reds, greens, and golden yellows rest on a mahogany table. Roseman applied swirls of creamy paint with a freedom of brushwork in rendering the colorful spherical forms. The oil on canvas still life with its rich tonal harmonies and painterly textures is exemplary of the artist's use of the medium.
Page 9  -  Diversity of Subjects
Animal Companions
     Representations of animal companions appear in a number of Roseman's paintings and drawings. An Afghan hound named Kelly sits by the side of an attractive blond woman Diana in an arresting oil on canvas, dated 1974, (private collection, England). George, the devoted canine companion of two lovely, young sisters Katie and Leslie whose beautiful portraits Roseman painted in 1972, was the subject of a drawing also commissioned that year by the girls' parents for their home in Westchester County, New York. Roseman painted and drew his Abyssinian cat named Aby, a feline friend from his adolescence and whom the artist took to live with him when he embarked on his career in New York City in the early 1970's.
     Aby was the first of other cats who sat or napped for the artist over the years.
8. Monsieur Gris, 2007
Chalks and pastel on paper, 35 x 50 cm
Collection of the artist
     Monsieur Gris is seen here in a wonderful drawing in chalks and pastels on gray paper, signed and dated 2007, (fig. 8). Roseman has finely rendered the face of Monsieur Gris, as he naps. The cat's fur coat shimmers with tones of pearly grays and gray-blues. The asymmetrical composition of the drawing is heightened by the graceful, feline forms and the cat's natural contrapposto in his sleeping position, with his long gray tail curled around him.
Drawing by Stanley Roseman, "Monsieur Gris," 2007, chalks on paper, Collection of the artist. © Stanley Roseman.
A Cat and a Chimney Sweep
     In further correspondence Carel van Tuyll writes of:
"the two marvellous drawings. . . ."
"I love the contrast between the sleepy relaxation in the drawing of the cat and the intense strain expressed in that of the chimney sweep at work. Both drawings bring out different facets of
Mr. Roseman's talents and complement the portraits from the monastic series
in a remarkable and very satisfying way.''

- Carel van Tuyll
  Keeper of Prints and Drawings
  Teylers Museum
, Haarlem
10. Sleeping Cat, 1988
Chalks on paper, 35 x 50 cm
Teylers Museum, Haarlem
11. The Chimney Sweep Marc-André, 1989
Chalks on paper, 50 x 35 cm
Teylers Museum, Haarlem
Stanley Roseman drawing the chimney sweep Marc-André on a rooftop in the Lavaux region of Switzerland, 1993. © Photo by Ronald Davis
9. Stanley Roseman drawing the chimney sweep Marc-André on a rooftop in the Lavaux region in Switzerland, 1991.
     The Teyler Museum in the Netherlands augmented in 1989 its previous acquisitions of Roseman's work with drawings of a cat asleep and a chimney sweep at work. Both drawings are presented below, (figs. 10 and 11).
     Living in the French countryside, Roseman met Monsieur Gris, an endearing, feline neighbor who was always welcome by the artist and greeted with offers of nourishment, which the cat greatly appreciated.
     The chimney sweep Marc-André, a robust, Swiss man with dark hair and moustache, kindly invited Roseman to accompany him on his rounds from village to village in the Lavaux region along Lake Geneva.
3. Lemons and Lime, 1975
Oil on canvas, 24 x 30 cm
Private collection
© Stanley Roseman
© Photo
© Stanley Roseman
4. Cartier, Fifth Avenue, window display, 1976, 
with Roseman's still life Lemons and Lime.
     Roseman's fondness for cats is apparent in a series of beautiful drawings, exemplified by the artist's depiction of a sleeping cat in the collection of the Musée des Beaux-Arts, Rouen. The museum conserves Roseman's portrait painting of the English Benedictine monk Dom Henry (See website page "The Monastic Life.") and a selection of drawings from the monasteries, also presented on the website. Two of Roseman's landscape paintings from Switzerland are also conserved in the Rouen Museum. (See "Biography,'' Page 8 - "Landscapes.'')
     The Teyler Museum houses a renowned collection of master drawings from the Italian Renaissance, with sheets by Michelangelo and Raphael, and the seventeenth-century Dutch school, notably drawings by Rembrandt. The museum made its first acquisition of Roseman's work in 1986, which included Sister Immaculata, a portrait drawing of an Irish Trappist nun. The museum's Director Eric Ebbinge referred in letter to the Roseman portrait as "Rembrandtesque.'' Additional acquisitions of Roseman's work on the monastic life include Portrait of a Carthusian Monk in Prayer, 1984, reproduced on the right in the frieze at the top of this page. (See "The Emerald Isle,'' "On the Continent to Belgium, Holland, and Germany,'' "Carthusians,'' and "Exhibition at the Albertina.'')
     The Keeper of Prints and Drawings of the Teyler Museum, Carel van Tuyll, writes to Davis, who introduced Roseman's work to the museum, about the "two wonderful drawings'' that complement the previous acquisitions of drawings from the monasteries. The Keeper goes on to say in his letter: ". . . it is a cause of profound gratitude on our part to be able to show such an excellent group of Mr. Roseman's drawings.''
     Roseman drew the chimney sweep, (in French, ramoneur), at work in boiler rooms, homes and apartment buildings, and on rooftops.
 "The Buffo (Howard Buten) is a wonderful and deeply felt portrait,
while the line drawing of Kader Belarbi in 'La Bayadère'
adds a whole new and exciting aspect to the representation
of your work in the collection.''

- Carel van Tuyll
  Keeper of Prints and Drawings
  Teylers Museum
, Haarlem
The Performing Arts
     The Bibliothèque Nationale de France notes that Roseman became " 'an honorary member' of the ballet troupe.''[5] In addition to drawing at rehearsals in the dance studios, Roseman was given the extraordinary privilege to draw from the wings of the stage at performances during full seasons of ballet and modern dance.
     Kader Belarbi, a virtuoso dancer of dramatic intensity in both classical ballet and modern dance, took the role of the noble Indian warrior Solor in Rudolf Nureyev's last choreography La Bayadère, which had its world premiere at the Paris Opéra in October 1992.
     The drawing presented here is exemplary of Roseman's skillful draughtsmanship in the use of a graphite pencil, his preferred medium for drawing the dance. With swift, fluent, pencil strokes, the artist captures on paper the star dancer in performance taking a thrilling, spinning leap into the air.
12. Kader Belarbi, 1993
Paris Opéra Ballet
La Bayadère
Pencil on paper, 38 x 28 cm
Teylers Museum, Haarlem
     At the landmark Ranelagh Theatre, in the Passy quarter of Paris, the administration kindly provided Roseman with a loge on either side of the stage from where the artist drew troupes of clowns in a variety of theatre pieces and the incomparable Buffo in his one-man show.
     Buffo is the celebrated clown personage of the American-born Howard Buten. Wearing whiteface clown makeup; a worn, black suit; and a close-fitting, black cap, Buffo captivates theatre audiences of both children and adults. During numerous performances in Buten's return engagements to great acclaim at the Ranelagh Theatre during the 1990's, Roseman created a series of superb drawings imbued with humor and pathos of the endearing clown Buffo.
     The Keeper of Prints and Drawings of the Teyler Museum further writes in his letter to Roseman:
13. Buffo, 1995
Chalks on paper,  50 x 35 cm
Teylers Museum, Haarlem
     In Paris during the 1990's, Roseman returned to the exciting world of the performing arts, where he created critically acclaimed works on the dance at the Paris Opéra and on the subject of the clown. The Teyler Museum in 1996, making further selections from Roseman's work on a diversity of subjects, acquired the artist's drawings of Paris Opéra star dancer Kader Belarbi in the classical ballet La Bayadère and the celebrated clown Buffo in performance at the Ranelagh Theatre, (figs. 12 and 13, below).  In a cordial letter to Stanley Roseman, the Keeper expresses the Teyler Museum's appreciation for the "two beautiful drawings.''
     In the captivating photograph, (fig. 9), Marc-André wears the traditional uniform of the chimney sweep: black jacket, black shirt and trousers, and black top hat. Roseman, seated on the roof with chalks in hand and drawing book on his lap, draws Marc-André as he cleans a chimney with a special chimney sweep's wire brush called a hérisson suspended from a rope weighted with a lead ball.
     Marc-André, who conscientiously carried out the responsibilities of his profession, gave Roseman the opportunity to create a series of impressive drawings of the chimney sweep.
Painting by Stanley Roseman, "Still Life with Mackerel, Rockfish, and Sea Bream," 2006, oil on canvas, Private collection, New York. © Stanley Roseman
Painting by Stanley Roseman, "Still Life with Oysters," 2006, oil on canvas, Private collection, Switzerland. © Stanley Roseman
5. Still Life with Mackerels, Rockfish, and Sea Bream, 2006
Oil on canvas, 50 x 60 cm
Private collection, New York
     The artist writes: "Fish has become a staple food in my diet since my work in Carthusian monasteries in the early 1980's. Carthusians abstain from eating meat, and their main meal of the day, taken at midday, is usually a serving of fish. The Rule of St. Benedict, Chapter 39, on the monastic diet, requires all members of the community, except those in poor health, 'to abstain from eating the meat of four-footed animals.'[3]
    "Fish was a staple food of the Cistercians from the beginning of the Order, which dates from the founding of the Abbey of Cîteaux, in Burgundy, in 1098. The early Cistercian legislation, the Charter of Charity, followed the Rule of St. Benedict and prohibited the consumption of meat as well as cooking with meat products. Fishponds were a common feature of Cistercian monasteries. With the expansion of the Cistercian Order through the Middle Ages, Cistercians established many of the largest fisheries in Europe, introduced methods of selective breeding, built dams, diverted waterways to increase the size of the local fish population, and created new aquatic habitats.[4]
     Writing about the subject of fish for still lifes, Roseman recounts:
    "I composed a still life painting with a variety of fish that includes rockfish, in French rascasse, the extraordinary reddish-orange fish that is the classic ingredient for bouillabaisse. Although I have not yet ventured to prepare bouillabaisse, I make fish soup with chunks of delicious rascasse, vegetables, sautéed onions and garlic, herbes de Provence, and a garnish of parsley."
     Still Life with Mackerels, Rockfish, and Sea Bream is a superb painting rendered with fluent brushwork and fine detail modeling. Roseman has created an excellent mise en page with contrasting shapes, colors, and textures of the fish and lemons on light-brown, wrapping  paper.
     A dramatic element of the composition is the juxtaposition of opposing diagonals of the slender, silvery mackerels; the oval-shaped sea bream with iridescent, silver- and ultra-marine blue skin; and the red-orange rockfish with large head, tapering body, and flared fins and tail. The triangular leitmotif in the arrangement of the fish is repeated by the folds and creases of the wrapping paper set against the dark background. The spherical forms of the two lemons and their shadows in the foreground carry the viewer's attention into the spacial dimension of the picture offering a tempting display of seafood.
     In France, at Christmas and the New Year, the fish markets display an abundance of oysters, a speciality for the holiday season. "It was nearing that festive time of year in 2006,'' recounts Roseman, "when I was concluding a series of still lifes with fish that I thought to include paintings of oysters as well.'' The artist further relates of shopping at the fish market and the enthusiasm he received for his work from Nicolas and his brother Christopher: "Nicholas taught me how to shuck oysters and thoughtfully presented me with a gift of one of his oyster knives. Thus I bought closed oysters to keep in the refrigerator at home and opened them when I was ready to work at my easel.''
Drawing by Stanley Roseman of Paris Opera star dancers Charles Jude and Florence Clerc, "Comme on respire," 1991, Uffizi Gallery, Florence. © Stanley Roseman.
Drawing by Stanley Roseman, "Kader Belarbi," Paris Opéra Ballet, 1996, Pencil on paper, Teylers Museum,The Netherlands. © Stanley Roseman.
Drawing by Stanley Roseman, "Buffo," 1995, chalks on paper, Teylers Museum, The Netherlands. © Stanley Roseman.
Drawing by Stanley Roseman, "Sleeping Cat," 1988, chalks on paper, Teylers Museum,The Netherlands. © Stanley Roseman.
Drawing by Stanley Roseman, "The Chimney Sweep Marc André," 1989, chalks on paper, Teylers Museum, Haarlem. © Stanley Roseman.
Cartier, Fifth Avenue, window display with the still life by Stanley Roseman, "Lemons and Lime." Photograph copyright.
Still life by Stanley Roseman, "Lemons and Lime," 1975, oil on canvas, Private collection. © Stanley Roseman.
Painting by Stanley Roseman, "Windmill at Schermerhorn," 1978, oil on panel, Private collection, The Netherlands. © Stanley Roseman.
     Roseman's work on the monastic life, the subject of this website, is complemented on the "Biography'' pages with selections of paintings and drawings on the world of Shakespeare; the performing arts; the clown in the circus and theatre; the nomadic Saami people of Lappland; and the dance at the Paris Opéra. Presented here, (fig. 1), is the splendid drawing Charles Jude and Florence Clerc, 1991, in the renowned collection of the Uffizi Gallery, Florence.
1. Stanley Roseman - Dessins sur la Danse à l'Opéra de Paris, (Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale de France, 1996), p. 11.
2. Ibid., p. 11.
3. Rule of Saint Benedict, (Collegeville, Minnesota: Liturgical Press, 1948), p. 58.
4. Louis J. Lekai, The Cistercians, (Ohio: Kent State University Press, 1977), pp. 318, 319.
5. Stanley Roseman - Dessins sur la Danse à l'Opéra de Paris, p. 12.
Still life by Stanley Roseman, "Les Pommes sauvages," 1978, oil on canvas, Musée Ingres, Montauban. © Stanley Roseman.
Paintings and Drawings © Stanley Roseman
Still life by Stanley Roseman, "Les Pommes sauvages," 1978, oil on canvas, Musée Ingres, Montauban. © Stanley Roseman.
Painting by Stanley Roseman, "Windmill against a Stormy Sky," 1978, oil on panel, Private collection, The Netherlands. © Stanley Roseman.
Drawing by Stanley Roseman, “Portrait of a Carthusian Monk in Prayer,’’ 1984, St. Hugh’s Charterhouse, England, chalks on paper, Teylers Museum, The Netherlands. © Stanley Roseman.
Drawing by Stanley Roseman, "Monsieur Gris," 2007, chalks on paper, Collection of the artist. © Stanley Roseman.
Painting by Stanley Roseman, "Pines on a Wintry Afternoon," 2009, oil on canvas, Private collection, France. © Stanley Roseman.
Painting by Stanley Roseman of the reindeer herder Bier An'te, Lappland, 1976, Collection of the artist. © Stanley Roseman
Painting by Stanley Roseman of the circus clown Keith Crary (detail), 1973, Collection of the artist. © Stanley Roseman
     Roseman's drawing of his sleeping cat brings a sense of tranquillity to the viewer. In this drawing, seen below, with its striking mis en page, the artist's fine modeling in chalks of the cat's furry, white face and brown ears is complemented by a harmonious interplay of lines and tones in black, brown, and white describing the cat's torso, his tail by his side, and a paw tucked under his chin. In the drawing of Marc-André at work, also seen below, Roseman effectively combines vigorous strokes of black chalk, tonal passages of bistre chalk with reserved areas of the gray paper in rendering the chimney sweep's face in profile, and a bold use of pictorial space.
     Roseman renders the exterior of the boat-shaped oyster shells with an impasto technique suggesting the rough, crenulated surface. In contrast, swirls of paint depict the tasty flesh and define the smooth, pearly-white interior of the shells, with their iridescent tones of pale pink, ochre, and light blue.