Study of Celine Dion Fauvist portrait Original oil on canvas Vintage study (2000) of Celine Dion fauvist signed by Annamarina Norman, a California Monterey Bay artist (American, b. 1959), circa 1970. Pure, unblended primary and secondary paints in painterly style is en pointe representation of Fauvist school. Composition adds balance and a breakthrough by being unburdened by traditional modes and methods of portraiture. Signed: Lower right corner "Annamarina Norman" Medium: Oil paint on stretched canvas Condition: Very good, new UV-resistant varnish applied Canvas size: 20"H x 16"W Celine Dion was born on March 30, 1968, in Charlemagne, Québec, a little town 50 kilometers from Montréal. At the age of 12, she wrote her first song, with the help of her mother and her brother Jacques: "Ce n’était qu’un rêve." But it certainly was not just a dream! And thanks to her mother, that dream would start to become a reality. Thérèse sent a cassette of the song to impresario René Angélil. She chose him because he had managed the career of the family’s idol, Québécois singer Ginette Reno. In fact, Reno had just informed Angélil that she would no longer require his services. He was about to realign his career when he heard the cassette that would change his destiny, and the destiny of a young girl from Charlemagne. The Fauves painted directly from nature, as the Impressionists had before them, but Fauvist works were invested with a strong expressive reaction to the subjects portrayed. First formally exhibited in Paris in 1905, Fauvist paintings shocked visitors to the annual Salon d’Automne; one of these visitors was the critic Louis Vauxcelles, who, because of the violence of their works, dubbed the painters fauves (“wild beasts”)