I am sharing today an Alla Prima Oil Painting o the famous Swiss clown Grock. "Grock", Charles Adrien Wettach (1880-1959). He was also composer and musician. Called "the king of clowns", "the greatest of Europe's clowns" and once the most highly paid entertainer in the world.
At fourteen Adrien joined the circus career as a magician, acrobat and mansnake. He left this environment after some time to devote himself to various activities and to setup a Duo named Alfredianos, with a clown named Alfredo, during his expat experience in Hungary. This duo performed with the Crateil circus for two years. Adrien then went to France, in the circus Barracetta, to start with, and as a cashier in the Swiss National Circus. He became a master in every circus specialty (contortion, juggling, balancing, acrobatics, horseback riding) and revealed considerable musical skills learning to play a surprisingly high number of instruments: piano, violin, clarinet, saxophone, accordion, trombone, xylophone, etc. In 1903 he teamed with another eccentric musician, Marius Galante, a.k.a. Brick, and took his nickname, Grock.
At the top of his career Grock purchased a magnificant 50 rooms house in Imperia, Italy in the '20's for summer vacations and named it as "Villa Grock". When he retired in 1954 he decided to live in this house permanently and later on he died in this house. Today, his house is a museum called "Museo del Clown".
*At the moment I won't be able to sell the original artwork. Because I do not trust the post office service due to pandemic related issues. But HQ quality digital image file of the finished artwork is available for all my Patrons in Patreon.
Join me on Patreon and Become a Patron! That means you will be supporting my ACEO miniature clown portraits project and at the same time, you will have the chance to collect all the clown portraits (at the moment HQ in digital format).
