COQUELICOTS

Eastern Projects Gallery is pleased to announce Coquelicots, Frank Romero’’s third exhibition at Eastern Projects, running from Saturday, March 14th to Saturday, April 25th, 2020. The opening reception takes place on Saturday, March 14, 2020 6pm-9pm. This event is free and open to the public.

Argenteuil is approximately 650 kilometers north of Mirmande, France where Frank and Sharon Romero have their home overlooking the Rhone river and the distant mountains of the Ardèche.

While living in Argenteuil during the summer of 1873, Claude Monet painted one of his earliest plein aire impressionist paintings called Coquelicots, or poppy fields which is on display in the Musée d'Orsay in Paris.   According to the Orsay’s handbook,

Monet showed Poppy Field to the public at the first Impressionist exhibition…, in 1874. Now one of the world's most famous paintings, it conjures up the vibrant atmosphere of a stroll through the fields on a summer's day.

As his collectors know, Frank and Sharon have spent years visiting and living in France spending most of their time in the south from St. Remy to Mirmande as well as enjoying the charms of Paris.  

In the summer of 2019, Frank noticed that brilliant red poppies or coquelicots were growing in and around Mirmande.  To his knowledge the poppys hadn’t been in Mirmande before, at least not that he had seen.  He was excited by their intense color and beauty and spent hours painting them in a variety of contexts.  Why the poppy’s hadn’t appeared before 2019 is anyone’s guess--perhaps  a small benefit of climate change.

These Coquelicots paintings form the basis of his current exhibition at Eastern Projects.