Link to Post:
http://structureandimagery.blogspot.com/2012/11/the-lure-of-paris-loretta-howard-gallery.html
Paul Behnke photoblogs the recent exhibition The Lure of Paris at Loretta Howard Gallery, New York. The show highlights the lesser known influence of Paris on mid-century American artists and features work by Biala, Norman Bluhm, Ed Clark, Harold Cousins, Beauford Delaney, Sam Francis, Shirley Goldfarb, Cleve Gray, Al Held, Shirley Jaffe, Conrad Marca-Relli, Joan Mitchell, Jules Olitski, Milton Resnick, Jean-Paul Riopelle, George Sugarman, and Jack Youngerman.
Sol Ostrow writes in the catalogue: "In the 1950s, with the triumph of the New York School, the United States for the first time in history had produced visual art of international consequence. Yet, artists from the United States and from all over Europe continued to flock to Paris just as the center of the western art world was shifting to New York... Their reasons varied. Some saw it as an opportunity to be cosmopolitan or to satisfy their wanderlust; others may have imagined the Paris of Le Jazz Hot, café society, and the romance of the pre-war avant-garde, or the chance to see works by Vuillard, Bonnard, Matisse, etc., that they knew only from black and white reproductions. In most cases the women artists had accompanied their significant others, while like the generation before them, the Afro-American artists, sought to escape the racism that was endemic in the States."
Link to Post:
http://www.artnews.com/2012/11/05/mitchell-paints-a-picture/
Irving Sandler's studio visit with painter Joan Mitchell, Part of the seminal Paints a Picture series, re-printed as part of the ARTnews 110 anniversary.
Sandler witnesses the creation of two paintings by Mitchell, writing: "if nature supplies the raw material, [Mitchell] then sifts it through memory to convert it into the essential matter of her art. But not all remembered scenes are equally significant. There are those fleeting moments, those 'almost supernatural states of soul,' as Baudelaire called them, during which 'the profundity of life is entirely revealed in any scene, however ordinary, that presents itself before one. The scene becomes its symbol.' Miss Mitchell attempts to paint this sign, to re-create both the recalled landscape and the frame of mind she was in originally. Memory, as a storehouse of indelible images, becomes her creative domain."
Link to Post:
http://abstractcritical.com/2012/03/joan-mitchell-the-last-paintings-a-tribute/
Gary Wragg reflects on the late paintings of Joan Mitchell, on view at Hauser & Wirth, London through April 28, 2012.
Wragg writes that Mitchell's last paintings express "a feel of an embrace and exuberance, a generosity and love of the outdoors, of air, light and being enveloped... Her work has been little seen here in the UK. In the contemporary climate with so much work stifling, airless and digitally confined... she is quite a breath of fresh air.
Link to Post:
http://annesherwoodpundyk.blogspot.com/2012/01/see-yourself-seeing.html
Anne Sherwood Pundyk posts an essay on the importance of physical presence in viewing an artwork.
She notes that "The impression should be our own impression, not a received impression from an 'authority,' and the work should be the actual piece, not a facsimile. We have all had an initial impression of a simple image based on a reproduction give way to a complex and layered reality when confronted with the work in person – provided we are open to viewing the piece for ourselves and to forming our own impressions. We must, quite literally, see the work for ourselves."
Link to Post:
http://altoonsultan.blogspot.com/2011/11/fierce-lyricism-of-joan-mitchell.html
Altoon Sultan blogs about the exhibition Joan Mitchell: The Last Paintings at Cheim & Read, on view though January 24, 2011.
Sultan writes that Mitchell's "marks – vigorously moving, paint dripping, thickly layered in places, open to the white of canvas in others – show the natural world in a splendor of color but with a fierce tenacity of purpose..."
Link to Post:
http://hyperallergic.com/38988/atelier-17-abstract-expressionism-new-york-school/
Hrag Vartanian interviews Todd Weyman of Swann Auction Galleries about Abstract Expressionist prints from Atelier 17, a print shop run by Stanley William Hayter.
Weyman notes that "Atelier 17 in New York was unique in that it brought together 'old guard' European modernists such as Miro, Ernst, Masson, Lipchitz, Hayter and others, with the vanguard of the New York abstract scene, like Rothko, Motherwell, Pollock, DeKooning..."
Link to Post:
http://structureandimagery.blogspot.com/2011/07/art-in-chelsea-7811.html
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 at Lori Bookstein Fine Art; and more...
Link to Post:
http://bigthink.com/ideas/39193
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 her art and raises fascinating questions about what it meant to be an artist and a woman in 20th century America."
Link to Post:
http://brooklynrail.org/2011/05/artseen/abstractions-ambiguity-is-its-own-reward
Edward M. Gómez looks at abstract painting through the lens of several artists including Joan Mitchell, Louise Fishman, Karl Klingbiel, Gene Mann, and Madeleine Spierer. These painters, Gómez writes, "understand that the ambiguity that is [abstraction's] essence is also its great poetic strength."
Link to Post:
http://leftbankartblog.blogspot.com/2011/04/25th-street-painting.html
Charles Kessler writes: "If you love painting, 25th Street in Chelsea is the place to go. In one block between 10th and 11th there are four shows of sensual, masterful paintings. No Post Modern irony here — these are real painters' paintings." Enough said. Read on and then, if you're in New York, go see these shows...
