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Thursday, December 12, 2024

Calendars - Part 62

Douglas Simonson

Douglas Simonson is an artist who specializes in male nudes.  Born in 1950, he grew up in Nebraska, then moved to Honolulu, Hawaii in 1971.  Above, Simonson on Ala Moana Beach in Honolulu in his younger days.

For years he drew male nudes, but he was ashamed to show them to anyone, and he tore up the drawings.  Around 1980 he finally came to terms with the fact that he is gay.  He started showing his drawings to others, and he started painting professionally and selling his artworks.

For thirty years, he produced male nude art in Hawaii.  Then in 2014, he moved to Puerto Vallarta, Mexico.

In addition to paintings and drawings, Simonson has produced calendars of his artwork.  His 2021 calendar featured photographs along with the painting that he made from each photo.  Above, Omar in Puerto Vallarta.

Simonson said, "I'm constantly fighting the urge to be careful and get things "right" in my painting, and always pushing myself to take bigger chances, to be more daring and explosive. I'm not so interested in making something look photographically accurate as I am in evoking some emotional connection with the viewer.  I'd rather have you feel something than be impressed with how well I drew something."

I must say this one, Chadwick in California, is almost photographically accurate.

But this one, Enrique in Puerto Vallarta, is more stylized.

His 2022 calendar also showed photos and the resulting paintings.  Here's Fabian in Puerto Vallarta.

Israel and Wellington in Bahia, Brazil.

Fabian in Puerto Vallarta.

His 2023 calendar showed just paintings, not photos.

Steve at Malibu.

Dominican boys.

Rod's Umbrella.

Second Thoughts.

A Dip with Enrique.

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

Wonderful artist. Wonderful art and calendars. And seems he’s lived a wonderful life and really gotten around. Shows a lot of range.

whkattk said...

It's interesting to see the photo next to the painting.

SickoRicko said...

I like his work.

Anonymous said...

Great pairings of photo to painting - alot of info on how his "eye" works!

Anonymous said...

Nice one, I like a lot some calendars too

https://www.australianfirefighterscalendar.com/

https://barefootman.org/

CAAZ said...

Such great work.