Painters

Graveside services for Elizabeth Erlanger, a painter who moved from Baltimore to Dunedin, Fla., 16 years ago, will be held at 1 p.m tomorrow at Druid Ridge Cemetery, Park Heights Avenue and Old Court Road, Pikesville.Mrs. Erlanger, who was 76, died of cancer Saturday at the home of a daughter in Belleaire Beach, Fla.A native of Baltimore, she was a graduate of the Park School and the Maryland Institute of Art. Here, she specialized in doing pastel portraits, but since moving to Florida, she had frequently painted garden scenes in an Impressionist style.

William Gary Parks, a well-known Eastern Shore house painter, died of a heart attack Jan. 20 at his Rock Hall home. He was 64. Mr. Parks, the son of a merchant seaman and a homemaker, was born in Baltimore. He was raised in Hampden and with relatives in Rock Hall. He attended city public schools and went to work as a painter for the University of Maryland, Baltimore County in 1970. Mr. Parks returned to Rock Hall in 1990, where he worked at Washington College and then for several painting contractors.

A visit to the Web site of the 2010 Baker Artist Awards can be as addictive as a cyber-stroll through YouTube. With page after page of entries from self-nominated artists in all sorts of disciplines, a click can bring up images of painting or sculpture, the texts of poetry or plays, sound clips of a violist or video of a jazz combo. "We're at the midpoint and have over 300 nominees already," says Jack Livingston, associate director of the Greater Baltimore Cultural Alliance, which administers the awards for the William G. Baker Jr. Memorial Fund.

LONDON -- Francis Bacon, widely regarded as Britain's greatest contemporary painter, died of a heart attack in Madrid yesterday while visiting friends in Spain.The 82-year-old painter was highly controversial in traditional artistic circles because his powerful canvases, executed with splashing brush strokes, were often concerned with the themes of sex, suffering and death. Many regarded his paintings as obscene.But his work commanded high prices. A Bacon triptych recently sold in New York for $7 million.

Howard County police interrupted a graffiti artist at work at the High's store in Columbia's Long Reach village early yesterday morning, according to a police report.Police said that just after midnight an officer saw someone who had just pulled into the High's parking lot, in the 5300 block of Phelp's Luck Drive, begin spray painting on the side of the building.The painter returned to his car and drove out of the lot, according to the report. The officer stopped the car at the corner of Phelp's Luck Drive and Route 108, about a block away.

NEW WINDSOR -- When Clyfford Still died more than a decade ago, he left behind a legacy of vibrant streaks and splashes of color that once set the art world spinning.He was among the founders of American abstract expressionism, but the bulk of his 2,200 works remains hidden. His widow, Patricia, who lives here in the home they shared, will not say where most of the art is stored -- not even whether it is somewhere in Carroll County.The artist worked here in relative solitude for 19 years until his death in Baltimore's Sinai Hospital in 1980.

Services for Louise C. Belknap, an amateur artist who celebrated her 103rd birthday in February, will be held at 10 a.m. Tuesday at St. David's Episcopal Church, 4700 Roland Ave.Mrs. Belknap, who was active until recent years and still drove a car at age 92, died Friday at her home on Beechdale Road in Roland Park.She devoted much of her time to painting water colors, pastels, still lifes and portraits.A native of Washington D.C., she was the daughter of Elizabeth Settle and Charles Cleaves Cole who was a U.S. Circuit Court judge.

Services for Anne R. Thompson, an amateur painter who had worked as a commercial artist and medical illustrator, will be held at 11 a.m. today at the Asbury United Methodist Church, 78 Church Road, Arnold.Mrs. Thompson, who was 88 and lived in Arnold, died Monday at the Anne Arundel Medical Center after a long illness.Before her marriage in 1922, she worked in a commercial art studio and as a librarian and an illustrator for Dr. Howard Kelly at the Johns Hopkins Hospital.Later, she won several prizes for her oil paintings.

The state's first criminal prosecution of a house painter accused of improperly removing hazardous lead-based paint ended with the judge granting the painter probation before judgment, rather than the stiff penalty the state sought.Judge Elsbeth L. Bothe yesterday ordered Mark A. Crosby Inc. of 6203 York Road to perform $2,000 worth of free painting as a community service as punishment for violating regulations governing lead paint removal when it repainted the exterior of a Cedarcroft home in the summer of 1990.