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| Soon after his arrival in California Theodore Lukits began painting works of the California Missions and Hispanic models. He was drawn to these subjects because of the romantic reputation that life in "Alta California" had acquired and for the vivid dress that the old "Californios" favored. By the mid-1920s, Lukits was painting and exhibiting Mexican-themed works and in 1926 he completed his most famous Hollywood portrait, one which portrayed the legendary Mexican screen beauty Dolores Del Rio. Santa Barbara was the artist's favorite retreat and on trips there he painted at the mission and restored paintings damaged in the 1925 Santa Barbara earthquake for the Franciscan fathers. A number of Lukits most romantic paintings were done on the grounds of Mission San Juan Capistrano in the late 1920s and early 1930s. When he received a large mural commission, to depict a fiesta in the days of spanish California, he began a long series of studies of Mexican and Mexican-American models, most of them extras and horsemen who worked for the Hollywood studios. Lukits became so active with the Southern California vaqueros that he began to ride with them and participated in Cinco de Mayo parades riding a palomino horse. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| TNL 597, Oil on Panel, 30" x 24" "Caballero with a Glass" (Circa 1930) |
TNL 423, Oil on Panel, 30" x 20" "La Bella" |
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| TNL 428, Oil on Canvas , 14" x 18" "Matador in Bullfight Ring" |
TNL 388, Oil on Panel, 56" x 34" "Caprice Espagnol" |
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| TNL 673, Pastel on Paper, 28" x 22" "La Mandolina" (circa 1933) |
TNL 706, Oil on Panel, 36" x 30" "Carlita Lopez" (circa 1926, Private Collection) |
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| TNL 706, Oil on Panel, 36" x 30" "El Gitano" (circa 1933) |
TNL 380, Pastel on Paper, 28" x 22" "La Casa Amarilla" (circa 1934, California Art Club) |
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| > Gallery 2 | |||