01 Contemporary Interpretations of Olympian deities, with footnotes #15

Gabrielle Bakker

Leda, 2011

Oil Linen on Panel

50" x 42"

Private collection

Leda, in Greek legend, usually believed to be the daughter of Thestius, king of Aetolia, and wife of Tyndareus, king of Lacedaemon. She was also believed to have been the mother (by Zeus, who had approached and seduced her in the form of a swan) of the other twin, Pollux, and of Helen, both of whom hatched from eggs. Variant legends gave divine parentage to both the twins and possibly also to Clytemnestra, with all three of them having hatched from the eggs of Leda, while yet other legends say that Leda bore the twins to her mortal husband, Tyndareus. Still other variants say that Leda may have hatched out Helen from an egg laid by the goddess Nemesis, who was similarly approached by Zeus in the form of a swan.The divine swan’s encounter with Leda was a subject depicted by both ancient Greek and Italian Renaissance artists; Leonardo da Vinci undertook a painting (now lost) of the theme, and Correggio’s Leda (c. 1530s) is a well-known treatment of the subject. More Leda and The Swan

Born in Ann Arbor, MI, in 1958, Gabrielle Bakker attended the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, graduating with a BFA in 1982. She continued her study at Yale University, where she studied under William Bailey and received her MFA in 1984. Since then she has been awarded the Pollack-Krasner Foundation Grant and the Academy Award in Painting from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. She has exhibited at the Laguna Museum, CA; Frye Art Museum, Seattle; Earl McGarth Gallery, NYC; Mincher/Wilcox Gallery, San Francisco; and the Dart Gallery in Chicago. Bakker’s work is in the public collections of the HBO Coporation, Chicago, the Santa Baraba University Museum, the San Jose Art Museum, and the Art Institue of Chiacgo. She currently lives and works in Seattle. More on Gabrielle Bakker

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