Raoul

When Raoul Middleman paints a portrait, his brush strokes have so much expressionistic fervor that the subjects have no choice but to come alive on the canvas. When he paints a landscape, he brings the same vigor to his depictions of Baltimore's gritty industrial heritage.During his long career as a Baltimore artist, Middleman has sought out people and places that are not pretty -- at least by conventional standards. His take on Baltimore will not be found in tourist brochures.As the 56-year-old artist himself pungently points out in a statement for his one-man show at the Jewish Community Center: "I like to paint people who are on the fringe, disenfranchised, alienated, not surrounded by a bunch of bourgeois bric-a-brac."

DONALD WESTLAKE, 75 Mystery writer Donald Westlake, a prolific author considered one of the most successful and versatile mystery writers in the United States, died on New Year's Eve after suffering an apparent heart attack while vacationing in Mexico, his wife, Abigail, told The New York Times. In a lengthy career that spanned a half-century, Mr. Westlake won three Edgar Awards, an Academy Award nomination for his screenplay The Grifters and the title of Grand Master from the Mystery Writers of America in 1993.

I usually dislike artists' statements -- they tend to be pompous and/or silly -- but Raoul Middleman's statement accompanying his current show at Artshowcase is different. It's almost chatty, and begins in a self-deprecatory way:"In a dream I had, my eldest son asked what kind of artist I was, to which I replied that I thought I was an expressionist. 'You're no expressionist, Daddy; you're an impatientist.' "That's true. Encountering a Middleman show, one admires the nervous energy of his brush stroke, but wishes the artist had the patience and discipline to keep it from simply going sloppy over and over, at least partly spoiling the effect of what might otherwise be dynamic, dramatic pictures.

More than 30 works by Maryland Institute College of Art professor Raoul Middleman will be on display at the C. Grimaldis Gallery starting today. The exhibit, Pop to Plein-Air, features oil paintings and works on paper. One of the more notable pieces is Midnight Snack, which dates to the 1960s. Pop to Plein-Air opens today and runs through April 28 at the C. Grimaldis Gallery, 523 N. Charles St. There is an opening reception 6 p.m.-8 p.m. today. Gallery hours are 10 a.m.-5:30 p.m. Tuesdays-Saturdays.

WHAT THE LATEST Russian pronouncement on the fate of Raoul Wallenberg does is admit the Soviet Union arrested the Swedish diplomat and his driver in Hungary in 1945 in violation of diplomatic immunity, and was wrong to do so. This rehabilitates both as "victims of political repression," in official Russian eyes. The man who risked all to save at least 20,000 Jews from Nazi genocide needs no rehabilitation in the eyes of anyone else. What the statement from the Russian general prosecutor's office does not do is provide details of the deaths of Wallenberg and the driver, Vilmos Langfelder.

I am a little late. It's 10 minutes after 1 o'clock when I ring the bells -- one electric, one pulled on a string -- at Raoul Middleman's studio a block and a half north of the Guilford Avenue bridge. I have come to have my portrait painted.A painter of landscapes, portraits and narrative paintings, Raoul Middleman is one of the best-known artists working in Baltimore. He has decided to do a series of portraits of people associated with art in Baltimore -- Grace Hartigan, Joyce Scott, Gary Vikan, etc. -- and has asked me to be one of his subjects.

Want to spend quality time with the movers and shakers of the Baltimore art world? Painter Raoul Middleman gives you the chance through an exhibit of his portraits of museum directors, artists, curators and other prominent figures on the local scene.Among the notable aspects of his show at the Steven Scott Gallery is that it's surely the only time you'll ever find these arts advocates rendered speechless.Mr. Middleman's expressive brushwork speaks for them. Wielding a brush as if he were an Old West gunslinger, Mr. Middleman executes fast and furious portraits in which the sitter's personality usually comes across with uncanny incisiveness.

Cezanne, an early father of modernism, advised artists to look to nature for inspiration. Modernism has come and gone, but the representation of nature -- albeit in unconventional, sometimes quirky ways -- remains a touchstone for those who have followed.Modernism began by reinventing the primitive. Painters gradually abandoned the realistic deep space of Renaissance perspective for the flattened planes of Asian art and the iconic figures of African sculpture.In the postmodern era, the primitive has been replaced by the quotidian.

When Raoul Middleman talks about painting, it reminds you of the way he paints.He's standing in the middle of his landscape show at the Steven Scott gallery, in front of his painting called "The Quarry," and he says:"Ireelikawayaliyitoserocks."What he's saying is, "I really liked the way that light hit those rocks," but that's not the way it comes out. It comes out all in a rush, with every word gobbling up part of what's next to it in Middleman's hurry to get the thought out. It's a combination of energy, quickness of mind and the urgent need for self-expression.

Raoul Wallenberg stamp to be presented todayMichael Furey, acting postmaster of Baltimore, will present an enlargement of the Raoul Wallenberg stamp to the Jewish Historical Society, 11 Lloyd St., at 11 a.m. today.The stamp honors the Swedish diplomat who rescued tens of thousands of Jews from the Nazis in Hungary.Members of the Baltimore Philatelic Society, former Wallenberg associate Herbert Froehlich and Eva Schomfeld, whose family survived largely because of Wallenberg's efforts, also will receive a framed commemorative of the stamp.

Abandon hope, all ye who enter Apocalypto. As Mel Gibson tells us in the portentous TV ads, the title means "a new beginning," but the movie returns to the beginnings of movie melodrama. Although it's told in a Mayan dialect, with English subtitles, the movie is just an arthouse film for jocks. Only the surface is exotic: the Mayan empire in its late-decadent phase. Otherwise, it's as if Gibson feels the audience has never seen a film before. The life-or-death jeopardy is so basic, he might as well be filming a good guy trying to stop a train before it hits the damsel tied by the bad guys to the railroad tracks.

On Sunday, November 12, 2006, Vladimir Perekalsky, beloved husband of the late Sara Mogilevich, loving father of Boris Perekalsky and Mariya Baraban; loving father-in-law of Bella Perekalsky and Victor Baraban; devoted brother of the late Felix Perekalsky; beloved grandfather of Natasha Perekalsky, Luda and Vadim Hiekin; loving great-grandfather of Stefan and Mia Hiekin.. Services at Sol Levinson & Bros. Inc., 8900 Reisterstown Road at Mt. Wilson Lane on Tuesday, November 14, at 2 P.M. Interment Har Sinai Congregation Cemetery - Garrison Forest Road.

On July 14, 2006, ALFRED CHARLES ROBINSON, beloved father of Patricia (Walter), Gregory, Kenneth, Marshal (Michelle) and Pamela (Dennis) departed this life. Although a native of Baltimore, he currently resided in Las Vegas with devoted wife, Patricia. He leaves to cherish grandchildren, Raoul, Raphael, Bryant, Gregory Jr., Candace, Matthew, Lauren, Kathryn, Zachary, Jacqueline, Kenneth Jr., Penny, Malaya, Marcia and Devin as well as great-grandchildren Raoul Jr., Khouri, Bryant Jr., Destiny and Dasha.

GOOD FRIENDS HAPPILY GATHER UNDER A restaurant's bright striped canopy on a balmy summer day. The ladies wear silk dresses and stylish hats, the gentlemen suits or sailing outfits with yellow straw boaters. Among them are actresses Ellen Andree and Jeanne Samary, painter Gustave Caillebotte, financier and newspaper editor Charles Ephrussi and the redoubtable Baron Raoul Barbier -- war hero, former mayor of colonial Saigon, indefatigable bon vivant and aficionado of fine racehorses and women.

On November 19, 2005, MARILYN S.; loving and devoted wife of Morley E. Frech, Sr.; beloved mother of The Rev. Morley E. Frech, Jr. and his wife Linda, M. Rosie Frevel and her husband Raoul, Sr. and John I. Frech, Sr. and his wife Sherrie; dear sister of Warren Mitchell and his wife Winneford; cherished grandmother of Raoul Frevel, Jr. and his wife Shawn, Christopher Frevel and his fiancee Kelly Campbell, John Frech, Jr. and Gregory Frech; great-grandmother of...

How do you tell the story of 800,000 deaths in 100 days without making a movie too horrific to bear? That is the challenge director Raoul Peck faced in making the HBO film Sometimes in April, which chronicles the genocide that took place in Rwanda in 1994 as hard-line members of the Hutu majority slaughtered Tutsis and moderate Hutus. The blood bath lasted more than three months while the world looked on but offered little help. Peck, who scored a triumph with HBO's Lumumba in 2002, masterfully combines a visual style of harsh realism to communicate the horror, with an elegiac tone and poetic sensibility that seeks to redeem it. The result is an epic that stirs the soul with its story of the dignity and suffering of those who survived, even as it staggers the imagination with the catalog of brutality that they witnessed.

Junior could never be president. The position lasts only eight years.That wonderful negative campaigning by American Joe against Parris is the best thing going for Helen in the general.The U.N. resolution means that if Raoul believes the threat and quits, it worked. If he calls the bluff, Bill invades.Ben promised to raise the NAACP profile. He delivered.

On July 14, 2006, ALFRED CHARLES ROBINSON, beloved father of Patricia (Walter), Gregory, Kenneth, Marshal (Michelle) and Pamela (Dennis) departed this life. Although a native of Baltimore, he currently resided in Las Vegas with devoted wife, Patricia. He leaves to cherish grandchildren, Raoul, Raphael, Bryant, Gregory, Jr., Candace, Matthew, Lauren, Kathryn, Zachary, Jacqueline, Kenneth, Jr., Penny, Malaya, Marcia and Devi as well as great-grandchildren Raoul, Jr., Kouri, Bryant, Jr., Destiny and Dasha.

NORMA LAMBERT EDWARDS, beloved wife of Ralph Edwards, passed away on February 24, 2005 at the age of 89. She was the first wife of an actuary to be qualified by examination. She worked as a consultant for over 50 years for several firms and the State of Maryland providing testimony in court cases. She received her Bachelor's Degree from the University of Kentucky, her Master's Degree from the University of Michigan, where for a time, she dated Raoul Wallenberg, who is famous for his work saving the lives of many Jewish men and women during the Holocaust.