"I was looking for a tongue-in-cheek post for today, America’s birthday, and I decided to show this old chestnut again, though I last posted it only in April 2022. It’s now 35 years old, older than most of my current models and was a portrait of a photo postcard by Champion Studios dating from probably 1955-60, so the image was probably thirty years old at the time I painted it. In terms of technique, it looks very much of its time, with thick, expressive paint and an avoidance of detail, and my way of working has moved on since I was 21, as my recent oil paintings show. So Happy Birthday America! This may not be the birthday present you wanted, but it’s the one you got, and isn’t that usually the way…?" Binnie, July 4, 2023
