Huntley Dent reconsiders Peter Paul Rubens' works in London. Dent notes "it's startling to consider that when he was around thirty, Rubens could have come to London to see the first performances of Hamlet and King Lear. His style seems at least a century ahead. So prolific was he that London abounds in Rubens, major
Caleb De Jong blogs about the recent exhibition Tom Fairs, Drawings at KS Art/Kerry Schuss. De Jong writes that Fairs' "Graphite renderings of thistles, thatched cottages, shrubs and cathedrals impart moments of reverie... [are] worked from an internal reference point... profoundly influenced by nature and looking."
Chris Stephens blogs about David Bomberg's painting The Mud Bath (1914) "which is said to have been based on Schevzik's Steam Baths in London's Whitechapel... human figures – like mechanised bodies – reduced to simple planes and sharp angles." Stephens continues noting that as part of Bomberg's one-person exhibition in 1914, The Mud Bath "hung
Bill Morris writes about painter Rackstraw Downes on the occasion of the exhibition Rackstraw Downes: Onsite Paintings, 1972-2008, a retrospective on view at the Weatherspoon Art Museum in Greensboro, NC through August 21, 2011. Morris looks at Downes' move from hard-edge abstraction to landscape painting through the prism of his [Downes'] book In Relation to
Painting Perceptions
Larry Groff blogs images from a "a rare show in Alba, Italy of Giorgio Morandi's Landscapes where some 70 landscape paintings were shown." In addition to the landscape paintings, Groff also includes an interesting image of Morandi's view finder. Giorgio Morandi: The Essence of Landscape, curated by Maria Cristina Bandera was on view at the
Paul Behnke posts a photo essay from his studio visit with Brooklyn-based painter Anne Russinof. Russinof's paintings "[combine] an expressionist tendency with a... minimalist appreciation of structure."
Zachary Keeting and Christopher Joy visit the studio of painter Sarah Faux. Faux discusses discusses her process and materials in depth, including her use of bleach, dye, and spray paint in addition to oil on canvas.
John Haber reviews The Graphic Impulse, a recent exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art, featuring works on paper by Oskar Kokoschka, Vasily Kandinsky, Erich Heckel, Emil Nolde, E. L. Kirchner, Max Beckmann, Otto Dix and Käthe Kollwitz. Athough the show's title plays on two meanings of the word "graphic" - explicit imagery (of war)
Artist Lynette Haggard interviews with New York City-based painter Tamar Zinn about her work and studio practice. Of her process Zinn remarks: " ... the images emerge slowly through an organic process of exploration rather than by using a system... I'm always open to accidents, such as stumbling across an unexpected patch of color that
John Yau reviews Bill Rice: Paintings & Works on Paper recently on view at Steven Harvey Fine Art Projects. Yau writes that Rice was "A painter, film actor, and an unaffiliated scholar [and] one of the central figures in the various bohemian enclaves that gathered and overlapped in the Lower East Side of the 1960s."
Steven Alexander blogs about the exhibition Larry Zox: Collage Paintings From the 1960's on view at Stephen Haller Gallery through August 5, 2011. The show, Alexander writes, is "a rare treat... Ranging in size from very large to very small, these works are revelations -- glimpses into the history and sensibility of a painter known
Sharon Butler blogs about the exhibition Merlin James on view at Sikkema Jenkins through August 12, 2011. Butler writes that James' new works are "handcrafted relief-like objects that look like the backs of framed canvases..." She adds that they are "[quirky, smart and complex], conjuring, in their apparent reverse perspective, a secret world behind the
Composer Drew Baker remembers painter Cy Twombly from a composer's point of view. Baker notes that "... like [composer Iannis] Xenakis, Twombly's works unleash a visceral intensity... And then there is Twombly's sense of scale.... Scale/proportion strike me as common threads that connect the different parameters of space and time. The composer's 'space' stems in
Artist Paul Behnke blogs a painting-rich photo tour of current exhibitions in Chelsea including installation views of works by Louise Fishman, Ghada Amer, Chantal Joffe, Alice Neel and Joan Mitchell in The Women in Our Life at Cheim & Read; Deborah Zlotsky in the Summer Group Show at Kathryn Markel Fine Arts; Paul Resika: Flowers
Aidan Dunne writes about the landscape paintings of Hilton Miller. Dunne notes that Miller, "a professional mathemetician... very quickly... came to look on [painting] as a distinct language in itself, a language that is coherent, self-consistent, formally rich and infinitely flexible, and he applied his mind to its problems... As with Corot, he looks not
Caleb de Jong reviews the exhibition Willem de Kooning: The Figure: Movement and Gesture at Pace Gallery (57th St) through July 29, 2011. In the works on view at Pace de Jong notes that "De Kooning is taking Ingres' classical line and supercharging it with Ruben’s chromatic and emotional performance. The painterliness was not new,
Bob Duggan reviews the biography Joan Mitchell: Lady Painter by Patricia Albers. Duggan writes that the "unique combination [of Mitchell's synesthesia and eidetic memory] and [her] drive to become an artist helped her rise within the male-dominated art world of the 1950s. Albers' sensitive and insightful biography provides a whole new vision of Mitchell and
Two part video interview with London-based painter Alice Browne in her studio. Browne discusses her studio practice and a range of topics related to her work including color and working in "the gap between somebody looking at something directly and... looking at a photograph of the thing... I'm... interested in trying to pick up a
Erin Langner visits the studio of Seattle-based painter Kimberly Trowbridge. Langner writes: "While the artist's tangible surroundings subtly factor into the work through color and form, real time, places and people are absent; instead both her paintings and studio construct unconventional utopias that only hint at ordinary existence."
Chris Stephens blogs about Helen Saunders, a member of the Vorticist movement. Stephens notes that "amongst [the Vorticists'] small membership there was a significant number of women artists... Even though not many of their works have survived, what remains is a fantastic historical record... it [is] unusual to have works by Saunders that are identifiable,