Texas Gallery is showing works by Rembrandt, Mantegna, Rubens and Holbein — sort of. Kathleen Gilje paints dead-on Old Master facsimiles, but with subversive twists. Her incredible technical facility was honed through her years of work as a conservator. Her alterations are seamlessly integrated into the utterly convincing paintings. Rubens’s image of his, well, Rubenesque wife now has two aged male hands clasped around her. And the woman in what appears to be a 15th-century Mantegna portrait sports quadruply pierced ears.
This article appears in Jan 9-15, 2003.