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Ariane Beigneux's professional career began in the 1940's when she was employed by an ad agency located on 72nd Street and Third Avenue in New York City. An in-house photographer supplied reference photos, and illustrators were directed to render the images as artistic advertisements or cover illustrations. Fellow employees were mostly from Chicago, all of whom having studied with Haddon Sundbloom (the illustrator famous for his images of Santa Claus drinking Coca Cola). They called themselves the "Illustrators Group". (Ariane later painted ads for Coca Cola also.)
Ariane recalls:
“This painting (#1) was a used as a magazine cover. It was intended solely for reproduction, so I painted it at a small size (14” x 10”) on illustration board in thin, flat oil paint applied with a brush. You see that there is an illustrative background of clouds. I tried to express the theme of the wind in the little girl’s hair, the breeze in the atmosphere and the sense of sky and weather. Another of my magazine covers – I did many during this period – is painting #7.” A.B.
Ariane Beigneux credits her early years spent in the advertising industry as leading to her interest in and later development of her characteristic and superior handling of formal painted portraits of children as commissioned works of art. It’s interesting to note the changes in Ariane’s work as she begins to use a palette knife to apply thick paint onto oil primed linen canvas. In her later work, Ariane focuses more on the individual personality of the sitter, of course using reference material taken by the artist herself. N.M.S.