Hecate, Painting

Photo of a painting depicting a white haired woman with red horns and a unreadable absent expression on her features. She wears a red dress and red gloves.

Hecate painting, Robert Webber

Robert Webber (aka Cotten Candy) was a painter defined by his strikingly stylized and cartoonish paintings. As you can see here, his works heavily utilized shadow and depth in their rendering but also gave the subject exaggerated caricature proportions. 

Webber was a very outgoing and personable artist with his presence being known in many artist circles during his prime. However later in life Robert would become extremely reclusive and withdraw from his frequented circles taking only a few more commissions and releasing even fewer independent works in his remaining years.

This piece was painted near the waning years of Webbers career and was titled, “Hecate”. Was he commissioned to paint this by a fan of the original cartoons? Or maybe by Hecate’s current rights holders, whoever that might be? We are not sure, as, besides the name, there is only a brief description from Webber on the piece that reads:

“As I sat down to paint I became distracted by a red thread or hair which had drifted onto the canvas, and from this hair I saw an entire person and an entire woman, so I let it guide me as I transcribed her form with paint”.

On the eve of his 75th birthday Webber went missing from his estate and to this day has never been found. What a mystery!