POSTCARDS FROM FRANCE

From April to July 1997, Ben Sakoguchi lived in the village of Giverny, site of the famous gardens of impressionist painter Claude Monet.

Sakoguchi was a visiting artist at the Fondation Claude Monet, Academie des Beaux Arts, Institut de France.  He had been selected to participate in the Artists at Giverny Program, sponsored by the Lila Wallace Reader's Digest Fund.  This unique cultural exchange between France and the United States was administered by Arts International, a division of the Institute of International Education.

"Postcards from France" is a series of (mostly) paired canvases with an emphasis on art, war, and the passage of time.  Sakoguchi painted from vintage photos and other materials he gathered—and from the photographs he made in Giverny, Paris, and while traveling around northern France.  He also copied paintings by French masters.

The paintings reproduced here are acrylic on canvas, and date from 1997 and 1998.  The vertical canvases are 16 inches x 11 inches; the horizontal canvases are 11 inches x 16 inches.