Cleanthe Carr - Charcoal and Ink Drawings

       Some Keeshond Club of Southern California members were invited to attend the Estate Sale of Dicky Washington in late October of 2009.  Sandra Lambright, who is the treasurer of the club, attended the sales event and to her great surprise, she was confronted with a group of exceptional drawings of Flakkee dogs which were shown by legendary Porter Washington.  These are charcoal and ink drawings by Cleanthe Carr, a truly gifted artist friend of Porter and Dicky Washington who commissioned her to memorialize their beloved great champions.  They hung in Porter and Dicky Washington's "castle" in Beverly Hills and upon Dicky's passing had been placed on auction.  And perhaps destiny put them in the hands of Ms. Lambright.

       After our shows at the Pomona Fairgrounds at the end of October, 2009, those who attended the San Gabriel and Antelope Valley shows were invited to go view the Cleanthe Carr works at Jan Corrington's house nearby.  I was eager to see the works as these were artworks which had been hanging at the Washingtons' "castle." But I had not expected to see such great works of art.  These were works by an artist I had never heard of but as great as any charcoal and ink work I have ever seen.  They were mesmerizing images of those dogs that were truly the center of attention in the dog world at the time.  Their coat, eyes and whole personalities are caught by the artist to live on forever.  Cleanthe Carr not only understood chiaroscuro techniques but dogs and these Keeshonden in particular.  It was obviously not a casual relationship for her with these dogs.  She knew and loved them.  And they are so real we can identify them from published photographs of them today. They are truly alive, a marvel of sophisticated chiaroscuro drawing technique which incorporates time and space into the works using the lighting conditions at the "Washington Castle" which must have been like those of the studios of Rembrandt and Vermeer, flickering light such as those coming through the grand southern windows of the nordic mansions of Holland where these Keeshonden originated.  We will probably never see the likes of these artworks again. These are and probably will remain the grandest portraits of Keeshonden ever created.

       - Nob Hadeishi, MFA, fine arts faculty, Chouinard Art School of the California Institute of the Arts, Los Angeles, California 

click on drawing to enlarge

Set of 5 drawings by Cleanthe (Carr Weill 1911-2001), approx. 28 x 33 inches (frames)