Link to Post:
http://artobserved.com/2012/05/new-york-alice-neel-late-portraits-still-lifes-at-david-zwirner-through-june-23-2012/
A. Bregman blogs about the exhibition Alice Neel: Late Portraits & Still Lifes at David Zwirner, New York, on view through June 23, 2012.
Bregman writes that Neel's "depictions are at once traditionally representational and non-traditionally provocative, with the images of her neighbors, friends, family, and other New Yorkers portrayed in a way that questions the confines of socioeconomics and heteronormativity. By depicting her own unconventional life, the portraits of her friends and family took on a greater societal significance that continues to resonate on view today."
Link to Post:
http://mnaves.wordpress.com/2012/05/09/edouard-vuillard-a-painter-and-his-muses-1890-1940-at-the-jewish-museum/
Mario Naves reviews the exhibition Edouard Vuillard: A Painter and His Muses, 1890-1940 at The Jewish Museum, New York, on view through September 23, 2012.
Naves writes: "Vuillard wasn't inspired by hearth and home so much as haunted by them. In the best paintings, familial complexity is distilled into images of daunting psychological nuance. (Not for nothing is Proust's name bandied about when speaking of Vuillard's art.) A blunt emphasis on pattern and architecture reinforces a signature strain of emotional pressurization."
Link to Post:
http://brooklynrail.org/2012/05/artseen/jackie-saccoccio-portraits
David Rhodes reviews a recent exhibition of paintings by Jackie Saccoccio at Eleven Rivington, New York.
Rhodes writes: "Saccoccio's Portraits, abstract works that make clear an anthropomorphic intention, engage with an ongoing idea in painting... in which each work stands in for a face, the differences manifested through changes in color combinations. Saccoccio’s paintings are such an open-ended group; enough different encounters are possible here, among the individual paintings. A consistency in making encourages comparison from one to the next, yet one feels not like the other, and they are all similar and different: this registers immediately. The subsequent question—why?—leads the viewer toward a consideration of each painting’s character, from how it feels to how it is made."
Link to Post:
http://www.studiointernational.com/index.php/lucian-freud-drawings
Dr Janet McKenzie reviews the recent exhibition Lucian Freud: Drawings at Blain Southern, London. The exhibition will be on view at Acquavella Galleries, New York from April 30 - June 9, 2012.
McKenzie writes: "One is struck first by the remarkable virtuosity of the young artist from the early works on show. The unadorned subject, animal or human, where attention to detail is truly remarkable, creates an immediacy, intimacy and wonderment for life. Curiosity marks his endless activity in charcoal, conté, pencil, pen and ink, and later his marvellous etchings – 70 in all."
Link to Post:
http://mnaves.wordpress.com/2012/03/12/rembrandt-and-degas-portrait-of-the-artist-as-a-young-man-at-the-metropolitan-museum-of-art/
Mario Naves reviews the exhibition Rembrandt and Degas: Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, on view through May 20, 2012.
Naves writes "As a study in contrasts, the Met exhibition has its uses. Degas' exercises in self-portraiture are heady and pitiless, their rigor is risky, pointed and sure. Psychological insight wasn’t alien to Degas' vision, but neither was it a driving force. Rembrandt, on the other hand, couldn’t make a mark without embodying a distinctive and inquisitive generosity of spirit."
Link to Post:
http://hyperallergic.com/47894/benny-andrews-alice-neel-and-bob-thompson-michael-rosenfeld/
Brendan S. Carroll reviews the exhibition Benny Andrews, Alice Neel, Bob Thompson at Michael Rosenfeld Gallery, New York, on view through April 7, 2012.
Carroll writes: "What the artists in this show have in common is a commitment to paint the people in their lives. To look at these faces and the bodies on view is to see men and women who 'lead lives of quiet desperation,' toiling on the moldy rim of society. The most engaging work balances realist representation and expressionism."
Link to Post:
http://paintingowu.wordpress.com/2012/02/18/18th-century-wisdom/
Frank Hobbs finds contemporary relevance in the 18th century Discourses of painter Sir Joshua Reynolds.
Hobbs writes that Reynolds' discourses "are rich indeed, and still speak to the concerns of students of painting today, if you have the patience to parse the meat from the embroidery of 18th century rhetoric... My favorite of the Discourses is number XI, in which Reynolds addresses himself to the problem of 'finish' and the relationship of parts to the whole."
Link to Post:
http://thebenstreet.blogspot.com/2012/02/on-hugh-mendes-for-charlie-smith.html
An essay by Ben Street on Hugh Mendes' Obituary paintings which will be on view at Charlie Smith Gallery, London from February 24 - March 31, 2012.
Street writes that "Mendes' paintings are really only portraits at a remove. Strictly speaking, they're portraits treated as still lifes, paintings of photographic images made distant in the retelling. And the photographs themselves have an implicit distance from their subjects: they're headshots selected for their likeness, or ability to capture the essence of what makes that person worthy of remembrance. A succession of visual choices creates a crowded back-story in any painting by Mendes. Each one bears an important question about an individual’s relationship with the tangible world..."
Link to Post:
http://altoonsultan.blogspot.com/2012/02/at-met-power-of-portraits.html
Altoon Sultan visits the exhibition The Renaissance Portrait from Donatello to Bellini at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, on view through March 18, 2012.
Sultan writes: "When we look at a portrait painted hundreds of years ago, do we enter into the life of the person portrayed? For me, it is less the understanding of a particular life, than the human feelings of tenderness, beauty, vulnerability, thoughtfulness, or strength, that come when looking at portraits; my heart yearns toward them. I sense these qualities more intensely in the direct, simple clarity of form in Quattrocento painting and sculpture."
Link to Post:
http://chloenelkin.wordpress.com/2012/02/08/getting-to-know-lucian-freud/
Chloe Nelkin visits the exhibition Lucian Freud Portraits at The National Portrait Gallery, London, on view through May 27, 2012.
Nelkin writes that "a biographical approach is inevitable when discussing Freud... but, here, you must just look and revel in the opportunity that is being afforded you and give his work the close attention it deserves. It is an intimate exhibition and the scale of some of the smaller rooms is intended to mimic the scale of his studio... This is a living exhibition; Freud's paintings allow us to see the real people behind the paint with human frailty at its most magnified.
