Artwork of the Week - 9th March 2015

Thierry Poncelet - Pug Arrives

To celebrate Cruft's this week, Union Art's Artwork of the Week has to be a fantastic dog portrait by the artist Thierry Poncelet.  These hybrid creatures are posed in a traditional portrait style with accessories and outfits suitable for a aristocrat. The expression on the faces of the dogs contribute to the humour of the artwork. A dog more than any other animal has such a register of expressions that can illustrate many traits and many emotions.

In the piece Pug Arrives, Poncelet has carefully matched the breed of the dog, a pug, to the male sitter. Poncelet has captured the facial expression of the dog beautifully which portrays an inquisitive nature and echoes that of the sitter, creating a new portrait which combines gentle humour and classic portraiture.  Pug Arrives is a Superior Gouttelette Edition Print. Each print is numbered and accompanied by a certificate giving the background to the image, artist information and is numbered to match the print number. They are printed using Rosenstiel's (the publishers) registered process called a Gouttelette®. The Gouttelette® process is based on digital technology, but has some quirks which are exclusive to Rosenstiel's and leads to an extraordinary quality. Gouttelette® prints have remarkable colour saturation and continuous tone characteristics. All Gouttelettes® are either produced on acid free calcium carbonate buffered archival watercolour paper with a distinct textured surface or on fine archival quality canvas, coated with a layer of acid free ink receptor.

Thierry Poncelet was born in Brussels in 1946. At a young age his Grandmother, who was a well known portrait painter, encouraged him to paint and draw.

After his education, he spent a few years working for a picture restorer at the studio of a well-known painter, Max Massot. During this time, he learnt the technique of painting restoration. However, his love for painting soon outgrew his interest in restoration, and he decided to become a full-time oil painter.

The first "Aristochien", as he calls his portraits, come about when Thierry Poncelet was repairing an antique portrait for an art dealer. Bored by the ugly and unexpressive face of the Lady, he substituted his own golden cocker's head for the lady's. When the dealer saw it, instead of being outraged, he commissioned more. "My dog portraits are a combination of my two most favourite things in the world - ancestral portraits, which I collect, and dogs" said the artist.

Thierry Poncelet paintings have gained him international fame, his portraits have been exhibited at many leading galleries in London, Paris, Milan and New York. His paintings are highly sought after throughout the world and we are delighted to be able to offer an extensive collection of artwork from this artist here at Union Art.