Hairdo

Hairdo. 2025. Pastel on Ingres.

15.5" x 13.5". Casey Klahn.

 

Flower

 

Flower in Her Hair. 2025. Vine Charcoal & Pastel on Sanded Card. 12" x 6". Casey Klahn.

Driver Hat

 Maquette. Driver Hat. 2025.

Vine Charcoal, Black Pencil, Dry Ground & Pastel on Newsprint.

9" x 9".

Casey Klahn.

Green Pants

Green Pants and an Interior with a Red Carpet. 2019. Pastel, White Chalk, Graphite & Vine Charcoal. 19.25" x 10.25". Casey Klahn. 

Model as History

Mallory As Birgit Prestoe. 2018. Pastel. 12" x 6.5". Casey Klahn.

It's no secret how I admire Edvard Munch, of The Scream fame. His body of work is extensive, and he had a knack for the portrait in the Expressionist style. 

One of his great models was Birgit Prestoe, and in my latest portrait of model Mallory McIntosh, I am paying homage to that historic collaboration. 

I will make a side note that the antique Roche pastels used in the lay-in of this painting date from the time when Edvard Munch was in his prime. Spooky, I know. If only the tools could talk.

Edvard Munch. (1863-1944) Norwegian. 

Model in the Studio

Model in the Studio, Orange Burst. 2018. Pastel & Vine Charcoal. 8.25" x 9.25". Casey Klahn.

Mallory is posing in front of her own framed likeness, titled Orange Burst. 

Glamour Portrait

Glamour & Light. After Degas. 2018. Pastel on Paper. 19.75" x 16." Casey Klahn.


A painting of a model in my studio.

Mallory in a Red Coat

Mallory in a Red Coat. 2018. Pastel & Oil. 24.5" x 18.5." Casey Klahn.


Full sheet studio work, with model Mallory McIntosh.

Studio Session, The Cocktail Dress

Cocktail Dress. 2018. Pastel. 14" x 13.75." Casey Klahn.


I retooled my studio to allow me to have models come to pose. This is the first work, with Mallory, in her black cocktail dress. Her talent is extraordinary, and she's very pretty, as well. 

Please return for the next few paintings I do of her. 

Intermezzo

Embed from Getty Images

Henri Matisse with Model Henriette Darricarrère, in Nice. 1927.

From Hilary Spurling, Smithsonian Magazine, 2005. Matisse and His Models. 

The same seems to have been true of the models for his odalisque paintings of the 1920s. The first of these odalisques—sprawling in “harem costumes” on improvised divans—was Antoinette Arnoud’s successor, Henriette Darricarrère, who was working as an extra when Matisse spotted her in the film studios in Nice. He liked her natural dignity, the graceful way her head sat on her neck and, above all, the fact that her body caught the light like a sculpture. A ballet dancer and musician, Henriette became part of the family in the seven years she worked for Matisse. His wife grew especially fond of her, and he himself taught her to paint.
Matisse said it was essential to start by finding the pose that made any new model feel most comfortable. Henriette’s specialty was discovered by accident after a carnival party attended by Matisse and his daughter, dressed respectively as an Arab potentate and a beauty from the harem. Marguerite Matisse, Lorette, even Antoinette Arnoud, all tried on turbans and embroidered Moroccan tops, but it was Henriette, always modest, even prim, in her street clothes, who wore the filmy blouses and low-slung pants without inhibition, becoming at once luxuriant, sensual and calmly authoritative.
The pictorial possibilities she opened up for Matisse were enhanced by her exceptional sensitivity and stamina. He saw the work they produced together as an increasingly complex orchestration of colored light and mass, culminating in his Decorative Figure on an Ornamental Ground, which was almost as incomprehensible in 1926 as the Blue Nude had been nearly 20 years earlier. The painting is a riot of exuberant trompe l’oeil wallpaper, flowers, fruit and patterned textiles, all pinned firmly in place by the pale upright figure of Henriette. She looked as impersonal and unyielding as a side of packaged butcher’s meat to Matisse’s friend, the painter Jules Flandrin, who was baffled and exhilarated in equal measure: “I can’t begin to convey the brilliantly successful contrast between the wallpaper flowers and the woman so skillfully mishandled,” he wrote to a friend. Soon after the completion of Decorative Figure, Henriette left to get married.

Decorative Figure on an Ornamental Background. 1925.

Matisse Month 

Never Forget the Affection I Had for You.