“Clifford Bailey has totally flipped the script with these new portraits!
A dapper Don Corleone, pensive Bob Dylan or Sean Penn’s super-stoked Spicoli… the celebrities and iconic Hollywood characters the artist has captured in this oil on canvas collection pay an Oscar-worthy tribute to them all. A highly esteemed painter who has delighted the stars themselves with his well-known jazz series, Bailey has taken his brushes in a new direction that will delight anyone who has not been living under a rock in the past century! Let yourself relive that Bobby soxer rush, that movie idol crush, all over again as you fall in love with these entertainers, portrayed masterfully in what Bailey concisely calls “an homage”. Still rendered with the energy, grace and expressive exactness of Bailey’s previous work, these legends are treated with equal parts respect and playfulness.
Leave it to a jazz painter to change the tempo and give the beat a twist, Clifford Bailey has invented a hip take on an old riff…
Our fascination with these subjects is refreshed through the artist’s subtle choices of palate, surprising areas of highlight and detailed attention that breathe life into what would otherwise be staid and hackneyed rehashings of A-list talent. Clifford’s portraits are not ghosts of the past frozen in wax for us to gawk at, but modern classics that provide deeply moving and joyful glimpses into the true soul of celebrity and Hollywood glamour.”
-Carolyn E. Davis is a staff writer for Us Weekly
