Grace Kelly By: Karl Soderlund

A movie star that became a legend in a period of a few years and left it all behind to become the Princess of Monaco.

Grace Kelly grew up in Philadelphia and against her family wishes in 1950, at the age of twenty, she left to New York to begin theater and television. In 1953 Grace had her first role in a movie and won a golden globe in addition to an Oscar nomination. In the next three years Grace Kelly performed in over ten major motion pictures with almost every top actor in the industry and won every award including an Oscar. In 1956 she retired at the age of twenty-six.

Grace Kelly first met Prince Rainier III while attending the Cannes Film Festival in 1955. A photo shoot was held at the Palace of Monaco but Grace was not impressed with the Prince as he was very late to the shoot. Later that year Prince Rainier III made a trip to the United States which was rumored to be a search for a wife. This was serious business for the Prince of Monaco and for his country, as finding a queen and producing an air to the throne was paramount to the existence of his kingdom. While Rainier had kept up a correspondence with Grace Kelly over the past year he now met her family and after three days he proposed.

The press called this the "wedding of the century" and it did not come without a price. Fortunately, Grace Kelly's parents were very successful as Grace and her family had to pay a dowry of 2 million dollars, in April 1956 the wedding entourage, including her poodle, traveled via boat to Monaco. Over 20,000 people lined the streets for her arrival and over 30 million people watched the wedding on live TV. A Who's Who was on the 700 person guest list.

While Grace Kelly never acted again, she did focus her energy to her children and to her charities; The Princess Grace Foundation for the arts and the AMADE (a Monaco-based non-profit organization for the protection of children) that is now recognized by the UN.

In my paintings the subjects are iconic in who they are or what they represent.  However, the real story is what is revealed within the painting.  I use representational symbols to create scenes within paintings to tell the story of the subject.  Like a puzzle, the closer you look, the more symbols you will find.