Allison Meier blogs about two exhibitions of recent MFAs and one featuring MFA alumni: The Joan Mitchell Foundation 2011 MFA Grant Recipients at CUE Art Foundation (through July 28), RISD MFA Painting 2012… at 532 Gallery Thomas Jaeckel (through July 26) and Pratt Alumni Painters at the Pratt Manhattan Gallery (through July 28). Meier writes
Gary Michael Dault considers the paintings of Homer Watson (1855–1936), dubbed the "Canadian Constable" by Oscar Wilde. Paintings by Watson are on view at the Homer Watson House & Gallery, Ontario, Canada through September 30, 2012. The exhibition focuses on two early paintings that Dault notes are in a style that owes its "affiliation to
A video of painter Iva Gueorguieva in her studio, posted on the occasion of the exhibition Iva Gueorguieva: Recoiling Earth at Susanne Vielmetter Los Angeles Projects, on view through August 23, 2012. Gueorguieva discusses the essential nature of studio time and the important, magical nature of the painting process: "A lot of what I do
Leslie Anderson blogs about the paintings of George Hendrick Breitner (1857-1923), whose works are included in the exhibition Snapshot: Painters and Photography, Bonnard to Vuillard, on view at the Indianapolis Museum of Art through September 2, 2012. Anderson writes that Breitner's "immediate grasp of [photography's] potential in his own artistic process is evident in the
Rozalia Jovanovic posts a fantastic slideshow of works from the exhibition Josef Albers in America: Painting on Paper at the Morgan Library, New York, on view through October 14, 2012. The museum notes that the exhibition's focus on exploratory studies "will reveal a private side of Albers's work... On view will be early studies (1930s–early
Tyler Green revisits a two part interview with Pepe Karmel co-curator of the 1998 MoMA Jackson Pollock Retrospective, about Pollock's monumental, breakthrough painting Mural, which is currently undergoing a well publicized conservation. In part one Karmel notes that "It's an important painting for Jackson Pollock because it's the moment that announces his future as a
John Seed interviews painter Julia Schwartz about her work and process. Schwartz's work is currently on view in Turbulence at George Lawson Gallery, Culver City (through August 4, 2012) and her exhibition Trading Maps for Stars will be on view at Bleicher Gallery, La Brea from September 15 – October 15, 2012. Seed writes: "When
Carl Belz considers "color as a vehicle of emotional content" in the work of three painters: Ronnie Landfield, Sandi Slone, and Darryl Hughto. Belz writes that "each [artist] has now been painting for more than four decades, and each has in the process periodically made ambitiously large pictures, as well as pictures that are frankly
Erin Langner reviews the exhibition Noah Davis: Savage Wilds at James Harris Gallery, Seattle, WA, on view through August 24, 2012. Langner writes: "The six new paintings comprising Savage Wilds by L.A. artist Noah Davis pop wildly with disparate references, ranging from talk show host Maury Povich to Mondrian. Evocative of flat screens with TV
Sam Cornish reviews two exhibitions that might represent poles of abstract painting: Arturo Bonfanti: Paintings, Reliefs and Sculpture 1960-1972, at Austin Desmond and Frank Bowling: Recent Paintings at Hales Gallery, both on view through July 27, 2012. Of Bonfanti's work, Cornish writes that "One of the interesting ways in which they fight against being simply
Kris Chatterson photo blogs images from the exhibition Douglas Melini: A Sharing of Color and Being Part of It at Feature Inc., New York, on view through August 11, 2012. The gallery notes: "Working with the contrast between a minimal palette and intensive patterning (a dialog that allows the paintings to be simultaneously quiet yet
Jillian Steinhauer remembers painter Denyse Thomasos, who died unexpectedly July 19 at age 47. Steinhauer quotes John Yau: "Thomasos is known for her abstract paintings in which images of housing blocks, tiered parking garages, warehouses, scaffolding and abstract passages occupied an expanding, hyperbolic space. Her multi-layered, constructed space evokes something between a merry-go-round and a
James Kalm visits the exhibition Painting Is History at Winkleman Gallery, New York, featuring work by Charles Browning, The Chadwicks, David Fertig, Joe Fig, Valerie Hegarty, and Steve Mumford, on view through August 10, 2012. Kalm notes that the exhibition theme "plays off the traditional roll of painting as the recorder of history, and how,
One year after the death of painter Lucian Freud - a year filled with exhibitions and tributes - Julian Cosma considers Freud's legacy. Cosma writes: "There is an unsavory but persistent question that hangs around the neck of Freud's legacy: would he have been as renowned if his grandfather what not founded modern day psychoanalysis?
Ed Beem blogs about the exhibition Transcending Nature: Paintings by Eric Aho at the Currier Museum of Art in Manchester NH, on view through September 9, 2012. Beem writes "What intrigued me then and intrigues me now is the virtuosity with which Aho handles paint while modulating along a spectrum of descriptive fidelity from painterly
An essay on the achievements of Richard Diebenkorn, republished by Mario Naves on the occasion of the exhibition the exhibition Richard Diebenkorn: The Ocean Park Series, on view at the Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington D.C. through September 23, 2012. Naves writes: "Matisse is the crucial source for the Ocean Park pictures. Not a few
Steven Alexander blogs about the exhibition Leif Kath: Everlasting Disorder at Elizabeth Harris Gallery, New York, on view through July 27, 2012. Alexander writes that "the group of paintings convey an open-ended playfulness that is supported by the casual handmade quality of each painting's surface. It is evident that the compositions are not predetermined, but
Sam Jablon interviews painter Chuck Webster about the work from his recent show of new paintings at ZieherSmith Gallery, New York. Webster comments: "I get a lot of the forms from the world - from an old piece of glass, a detail of Mantegna, the shape of a muffin or an old Roman helmet. They
Photo blog of paintings from the exhibition Van Gogh to Kandinsky, Symbolist Landscape in Europe 1880-1910 at the National Galleries of Scotland on view through October 14, 2012. The exhibition, which includes paintings by lesser known painters such as Jens Ferdinand Willumsen and Akseli Gallen-Kallela is "dedicated to Symbolist landscape painting... a more imaginative, emotional
John Seed interviews painter Brenda Goodman on the occasion of an exhibition of new paintings at John Davis Gallery, Hudson, New York, on view from July 19 - August 12, 2012. Seed writes: "Goodman, who has painted for over 50 years, surrenders to the act of painting itself, and lets the emotions -- however difficult