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By Carl Hartman, Associated Press writer
It would probably never have occurred to Leonardo da Vinci to paint the Mona Lisa as a sheep.
But it did to Lindee Climo, a U.S.-born artist who has long lived in Canada. She has produced a collection of 23 paintings, all modeled on works by famous artists, except that she replaces the human figures with ewes and rams.
It's her first big show in the United States.
It includes a Leonardo sheep -- a parody not of the Mona Lisa but of his Litta Madonna, now in St. Petersburg's Hermitage Museum. There's also a sheep that imitates the "Venus of Urbino," a famous nude by Titian.
Ms. Climo has done a small flock of Caravaggio sheep, several Botticelli sheep and one with the title "If Berthe Was a Sheep." That one is a reworking of a portrait by the French Impressionist Edouard Manet of the French artist Berthe Morisot.
She calls the exhibit at Washington's National Museum of Women in the Arts "Love Conquers War." The title is illustrated by a painting that follows the lines of a "Venus and Mars" by Sandro Botticelli, the 15th century Florentine painter. Botticelli's Venus, the goddess of love, becomes a seductive ewe who has obviously tamed a ram representing Mars, the god of war.
A more famous Botticelli called "Spring" -- a group of women in graceful dance poses -- is transformed into a rather somber assemblage of prancing ewes.
"Lindee Climo's paintings make us aware of the souls of animals," explains Dr. Salomon Grimberg, the curator of the show.
"For the past 20 years, Lindee Climo's paintings have questioned human egocentrism, suggesting that the very presence of animals confirms that we humans are not the center of the universe, but merely one part of it."
Dr. Grimberg, a psychiatrist in Dallas, is also an expert on the late Mexican artist Frida Kahlo.
Ms. Climo, born 47 years ago in Massachusetts, has built her life and career around animals. Pressure from her parents to develop her artistic talent only moved her closer to the animal world. She acquired her first sheep at the age of 10.
Joan Martyn runs a gallery in Toronto that sells Climo paintings now for $10,000 to $22,000 each.
Both Ms. Martyn and Dr. Grimberg said Ms. Climo refused to be interviewed. Ms. Martyn explained that the artist was working on a major project and did not want to be disturbed. She would not say what the project was.
Ms. Martyn reported that Ms. Climo's current pets, in a house among the lush farms of Nova Scotia's Annapolis Valley, include a blind fox and a 26-year-old horse.
"Love Conquers War" is scheduled to be on show at the National Museum of Women in the Arts until at least Dec. 1.
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