Tina Mion (born August 26, 1960) [1] is an American contemporary artist, working in oil paint and pastels. [2] She lives in Winslow, Arizona, where she and her husband own La Posada, a local hotel in which much of her art is on display. [3] [4]
Mion was born in Washington, D.C., and grew up going to the museums there. [2] She apprenticed with New Hampshire painter Sidney Willis, and attended art school but dropped out before finishing, instead traveling to Sri Lanka and India. [2] [5]
She met her husband, Allan Affeldt, in 1988 on a peace walk organized by Affeldt from Odessa to Kiev in the Soviet Union. [2] [5] [6] In the late 1990s, they moved from the University of California, Irvine, where her husband was a graduate student, to Winslow, Arizona, in part because Mion found the open spaces of Homolovi State Park to be an inspiration in her work. [4] [5] They bought and restored La Posada, a dilapidated 1929 hotel in the La Posada Historic District of Winslow; in 2005 Affeldt became the mayor of Winslow. [3] [4] [7] [8] A museum of Mion's artworks opened within the hotel in April 2011. [9]
Mion's 1996 "Virtual Election" project consists of a set of 52 portraits, of 42 U.S. presidents and several other famous people, together with a web site allowing visitors to vote among them. [2] The series has been shown at several presidential libraries, and she later added another series of portraits of presidential wives. [5] [10]
A 1997 painting by Mion from the presidential wife series shows Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis holding a playing card (the king of hearts) cut into two by a bullet. It is now in the permanent collection of the Smithsonian's National Portrait Gallery, as is a 2007 pastel by Mion depicting astronaut Neil Armstrong. [1] [11] Several more of her works have been featured in temporary exhibits at the Smithsonian. [1] [11] [12] A giclée print of the Onassis painting is also in the collection of the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art. [13]
Mion's painting process was described in the short documentary film Tina Mion – Behind the Studio Door (2011, directed by David Herzberg) which was shown in 2012 in the Sedona Film Festival [14] and the Newport Beach Film Festival. [15]
Jacqueline Lee "Jackie" Kennedy Onassis was an American writer, book editor, and socialite who served as the first lady of the United States from 1961 to 1963, as the wife of president John F. Kennedy. A popular first lady, she endeared herself to the American public with her devotion to her family, dedication to the historic preservation of the White House, the campaigns she led to preserve and restore historic landmarks and architecture along with her interest in American history, culture, and arts. During her lifetime, she was regarded as an international icon for her unique fashion choices, and her work as a cultural ambassador of the United States made her very popular globally.
Winslow is a city in Navajo County, Arizona, United States. According to the 2020 census, the population of the city is 9,005. It is approximately 57 miles (92 km) southeast of Flagstaff, 240 miles (390 km) west of Albuquerque, New Mexico, and 329 miles (529 km) southeast of Las Vegas.
Kathleen Sue Spielberg, known professionally as Kate Capshaw, is an American former actress and painter. She is best known for her portrayal of Willie Scott, an American nightclub singer and performer in Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom (1984), directed by her eventual husband Steven Spielberg. Since then, she starred in Dreamscape (1984), Power (1986), SpaceCamp (1986), Black Rain (1989), Love Affair (1994), Just Cause (1995), The Locusts (1997), and The Love Letter (1999). Her portraiture work has been shown in the Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery and the Pérez Art Museum Miami.
Elaine Marie Catherine de Kooning was an Abstract Expressionist and Figurative Expressionist painter in the post-World War II era. She wrote extensively on the art of the period and was an editorial associate for Art News magazine.
Dorothea Margaret Tanning was an American painter, printmaker, sculptor, writer, and poet. Her early work was influenced by Surrealism.
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Rosalba Carriera was an Italian Rococo painter. In her younger years, she specialized in portrait miniatures. Carriera would later become known for her pastel portraits, helping popularize the medium in eighteenth-century Europe. She is remembered as one of the most successful women artists of any era.
Tina Barney is an American photographer best known for her large-scale, color portraits of her family and close friends in New York and New England. She is a member of the Lehman family.
Jean-Étienne Liotard was a Genevan painter, art connoisseur and dealer. He is best known for his detailed, strikingly naturalistic portraits in pastel, and for the works from his stay in Turkey. A Huguenot of French origin and citizen of the Republic of Geneva, he was born and died in Geneva, but spent most of his career in stays in the capitals of Europe, where his portraits were much in demand. He worked in Rome, Istanbul, Paris, Vienna, London, and other cities.
Delmer J. Yoakum was an American fine artist, oil and watercolor painter, designer, serigrapher, Disneyland and Hollywood motion picture studio scenic artist.
Winslow station is an Amtrak train station at 501 East Second Street in Winslow, Navajo County, Arizona, United States. It is served daily by Amtrak's Southwest Chief between Chicago, Illinois and Los Angeles, California. The Santa Fe Depot and La Posada Hotel Harvey House compound are the centerpiece of the La Posada Historic District.
A major American icon, Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis has been portrayed, alluded to, and referred to in many media in the popular culture from the 1960s and continuing into the 21st century.
The La Posada Historic District is a historic district in eastern Winslow, Arizona, United States, that is listed on the National Register of Historic Places (NRHP).
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Ellen Emmet Rand was a painter and illustrator. She specialized in portraits, painting over 500 works during her career including portraits of President Franklin D. Roosevelt, artist Augustus Saint-Gaudens, and her cousins Henry James and William James. Rand studied at the Cowles Art School in Boston and the Art Students League in New York City and produced illustrations for Vogue Magazine and Harper's Weekly before traveling to England and then France to study with sculptor Frederick William MacMonnies. The William Benton Museum of Art at the University of Connecticut owns the largest collection of her painted works and the University of Connecticut, as well as the Archives of American Art within the Smithsonian Institution both have collections of her papers, photographs, and drawings.
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Instead of depicting Armstrong's face, Mion's version is an "object portrait" that tells the story of his moon adventure with a mix of symbols – a slice of Swiss cheese for the moon, Q-tips and marshmallows for the moon lander, and a toothpick with an American flag.
The portraiture of Tina Mion is a little slipperier, ranging from the hyper-realistic ("The Last Harvey Girl," whose subject, an elderly former waitress, offers a cup of tea so real I was tempted to sip from it) to the fanciful (a portrait of the late Jacques Cousteau consists of seashells where the French oceanographer's eyes, nose and mouth should be). ... Mion's engagement with her subjects, in other words, is both idiosyncratic and universal.