Posted: July 31, 2008, 5 a.m. EDT
The Green Dog came to painter Sid Kweller in 2001 during a visit to the Museum of Fine Arts in St. Petersburg, Fla.
Kweller was studying an oil painting called “Moses Striking the Rock” by Dutch master Abraham Bloemaert. In the bottom right corner, Kweller noticed a small dog with a greenish tint, and inspiration struck.
Back home, Kweller inserted the Green Dog in a Botticelli takeoff, a Picasso, a Mondrian, and several other paintings inspired by the classics.
“I observed him becoming an impish, Picaresque character,” said Kweller of the Green Dog, in an interview with the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. “Bumptious is the perfect word for him; he’s intrusive.”
Kweller created more than 38 paintings for the Green Dog series. Twenty-eight of them appear in “Sid Kweller, Recent Works & Whimsies” at the Panza Gallery in Millvale, Pa.
At the exhibit’s July 11 opening, visitors toasted the artist’s 91st birthday, and walked around the galleries chuckling at the Green Dog’s adventures through decades of great paintings. “Imagine,” Kweller said, in mock dismay. “People laughing at an art opening.”
“Sid Kweller, Recent Works & Whimsies,” runs through Aug. 31. To learn more, visit the gallery’s website.