From Spain to Virginia The Life and Times of Pierre Daura - Catalog - Page 23
forces and proto-fascist factions aligned under Franco.
Guerilla, ca. 1938
Oil on canvas
Daura Museum of Art, University of Lynchburg
Gift of Martha R. Daura
Notably, other works portray Daura’s wife or daughter.
Portrait of Martha at Thirteen from the Georgia Museum
of Art forms a striking image of a young woman in her
early teenage years. Wearing a bold solid red dress, Daura’s
daughter is shown seated in a formal parlor chair placed
before a patterned background that is equally divided
between a burgundy drape with golden floral pattern to the
right and bluish-green wallpaper with yellowish-tan designs
to the left. The half-length figure of Martha is depicted
seated upright with hands casually cupped on her lap,
conveying both the formality of a held pose and intimacy
of prolonged study. The sitter’s upright posture, combined
with her long columnar tresses of carefully braided hair,
gives this work both a neo-classical formality and folkart simplicity. Attention to realistic detail, particularly
evident in the background of drapery and wallpaper,
furthers an atmosphere of seriousness and sobriety rare in
such a youthful portrait. With its primitive simplicity and
realist precision, this image forms strong contrast to the
more frontal, but also half-length and seated, Portrait of
Martha in a Blue Robe circa 1945 from the University of
Lynchburg’s Daura Galleries. Here, the paint handling is
notably more loose and sketchy. The sitter’s closed eyes
and folded arms convey a sense of inwardness and selfcontainment — as if the young Martha dozed off while
posing for her father or drifted away into her own personal
thoughts and private reveries.
Portrait of Martha at Thirteen (detail), 1943-1944, Oil on canvas, Georgia Museum of Art, University of Georgia, Gift of Martha Randolph Daura, 2003.317
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