Portraits

Description: Mother of the artist, Electa Young, before she married Daniel Cornelius McGovern.

Description: Painted by the artist while living in Redwood City, CA. Painted in his home studio after completing an art class at San Mateo for the purpose of learning anatomy painting.

Description: Wedding portrait of the mother, Electa Young McGovern and the father, Daniel C. McGovern of the artist. The original picture was taken in 1899.

Description: Hostess announcing dinner

Description: Maternal grandfather of the artist who raised 18 children in Prairie Du Chien, WI with his wife Caroline. 6 of their children were adopted and they had 12 children of their own. William served in the Union Army for three years during the Civil War and was assigned to K-Company, 43rd Infantry Regiment. The artist named his youngest son, James Young McGovern after William.

Size: 24 x 36

Brief Narration:Paris Model on location in Paris

Description: Woman seated at an outdoor table at a Brasserie in Caen. The youngest son of the artist, Jim, went to school at the University of Caen in Normandy, France during his 3rd year of college. Jim became fluent in French and there he met his future business partner, Hassan of Moroccan nationality. Together they started a successful food import business.

Description: Electa Young McGovern (artist’s mother). Daughter of William Porter Young. She and her husband Daniel had six children of which the artist was the only boy and the youngest. He was preceded by his 5 sisters from the oldest to the youngest: Beatrice; also an artist who painted with oils (unfortunately all of her work was stolen from her home and none of her paintings remain but a few unfinished works); Annalaura; Caroline (named after her mother’s mother); Evelyn and Luella who played violin. Louella was solicited by the NBC Symphony Orchestra, but turned down the offer to become a housewife. Patricia Ann McGovern, the daughter of the artists second son, John Waldron (Mike) now owns and plays Louella’s original violin.

Description: Great Grandmother sitting out on the porch of her family home in Cagnes en Haut, an old medieval village close to the Mediterranean near the southern coast of France.

Description: This work, painted with a rag, was an experiment by the artist using the wash in technique as a preliminary step before adding color to the painting. This was a technique that Titian used to start his paintings. Titian, famous for his nudes, ran a school near Venice where he taught this method in the early 1500s at the beginning of the Rennaisance period. When Jim, the son of the artist saw it in its preliminary stage he liked it so much that he asked to have it just the way it was and is now in his possession. At the time of this painting the artist was taking lessons from Jim Smith.