Column – On my watch
By Anne W. Semmes
It is always a treat to make my way to the Red Barn Studio/Gallery in backcountry Greenwich for luminist painter Peter Arguimbau’s Spring art Show – this time added to by his book signing of his book, “Rembrandt’s Lost Secret,” which by the way should be in the Greenwich Library as a historic tale not only of Peter’s life and art, but also his life-long discoveries of the painting techniques of the masters.
So, at the opening evening of his show last Thursday week there were some 40 art lovers attending. Some paintings were familiar, some new like that bigger than life portrait of his son Andre’s yellow lab “Kiko,” named for a Spanish person,” told Peter. Peter’s late mother came from Spanish royalty. But if you have a pet you want to memorialize, artist Peter is your man. But, missing this visit was that massive painting of the “Brooklyn Bridge” now residing, said Andre, in the purchasers’ home in Naples, Florida, and visible through a window from the sea.
Peter has an affinity for painting coastlines, memorable ones of Greenwich and beyond, and as he walked me about he pointed out one of the Darien coastline where he grew up. One of which was a site nearby his home, Scot’s Corner, where Charles and Anne Morrow Lindbergh had lived. It was there Anne had a small writing cabin. But it was those marine paintings that drew the eye. Especially one titled, “Wave.” Luminescent doesn’t even properly describe its glowing magic.
“I painted it three years ago off Newport,” said Peter, where he has his Mariner Gallery. So, there was a storm with dark clouds hovering over the sea and coastline. When suddenly, out of those dark clouds he said, “A burst of light poured out into the wave turning it into a beautiful translucent green.” And surprisingly, that extraordinary painting has yet to be sold!
Nearby, attendees were eyeing his “Rembrandt’s Lost Secret” books stacked atop a singular table, a giant slice of wood from a giant tree. “It’s a maple burlwood cookie cut,” told Peter of his son’s artwork. “It comes in different colors.” Andre has his astonishing woodworking shop Northeast Hardwood on Noroton Avenue in Darien.
But back to Peter’s marine painting of which there are many. A romantic moonlit marine scene grabbed the eye, “Cat Boat Moonlight.” Peter has had his own cat boat for years, and I was once taken for a sail along with his lovely mom in Greenwich Harbor. On that cat boat he has painted many a painting.
Another handsome and sizeable oil painting called “Southport” showed two multi-rigged tall sailing ships at war with each other. And I recall my once suggesting to Peter he should paint my ancestor Admiral Raphael Semmes’ ship the “C.S.S. Alabama” in battle with the victorious “U.S.S. Kearsarge.” Manet had painted that battle, and his painting was featured in the Metropolitan Museum’s special 2003 exhibition of “Manet and the American Civil War.” But perhaps now spending time on such a Civil War subject may not be profitable…
