About the Artist

Linda Marie Crabb

Painting has been my passion since I was a teenager, when I spent afternoons tucked in the studio of a local artist's home learning classical techniques. That was in Steilacoom, Washington, one of the many places I've lived.

Born in Kyoto, Japan, I grew up as an Army brat, moving from town to town through Germany and the United States before taking a job teaching English in Osaka. It was on a commuter train in Japan that a chance encounter with the owner of a modeling agency changed my life. He signed me up and I spent the next several years traversing the world's largest fashion capitals — New York, Berlin, Madrid, Paris. I worked for Karl Lagerfield and appeared in the pages of Vogue.

Phoebe Cates even played a fictionalized version of me in the movie Bright Lights, Big City, which was based on the novel written by my ex-husband, Jay McInerney.

But, for me, the best part of modeling was the chance to visit the world's great museums and galleries. When the other models were off shopping, I was lining up to get into the Louvre, Prado, or Uffizi. That's where my love of fine art really took root.

Eventually I settled in Italy, a country I'd first fallen in love with as a 21-year-old solo backpacker. I lived in Milan for more than a decade and then Monza-Brianza Province where I taught middle school for 13 years. Upon retiring, I rediscovered my passion for art.

I started by painting my sister's horses, and from there decided to paint every day. I wake up, have an idea in my head, and I paint it.I'm trying to paint bigger and bigger and have started a series I call "Classic With A Twist," a take on the Old Masters but rendered in my own cheeky way. I painted my pug into a version of Lorenzo Lippi's Portrait of a Gentleman and replaced the sword in Lippi's The Dragonslayer with a golf club and cheetah. Beachscapes are another favourite subject, often recreated in oils from a sketch or watercolour dashed off inconspicuously on site.

While I consider myself largely self-taught, I did take an intensive Figure Drawing course with classical artist Juliette Aristides, of Seattle's renowned Gage Academy, at the Edinburgh Atelier of Fine Arts in 2019. I also completed a yearlong course at the Milano Painting Academy in 2023, refining my life-drawing skills and classical painting techniques.

Now, I am simply happiest at my easel.

Linda's website was created and is maintained by Susan Hunter Guise at Artist Websites