The New Criterion
Kim Uchiyama at Helm Contemporary
The New Criterion
Dana Gordon reviews Kim Uchiyama: Loggia at Helm Contemporary, New York. Gordon observes: “Sicily brings to mind bright sunlight and thus strong color. At midday, when extended shadows disappear, the colors of the ground, objects, and sky can be close in value—there isn’t a lot of contrast in brightness among colors. This kind of light […]
Maison de Masson
The New Criterion
David Platzer reviews the exhibition André Masson: There is No Finished World at the Centre Pompidou-Metz, France. Platzer’s review walks the reader through the phases of Masson’s career – cubism, surrealism, the influence of eroticism (via de Sade), and mythology – presented in this retrospective.
Matisse and Derain: A study in contrasts
The New Criterion
James Panero reviews Vertigo of Color: Matisse, Derain, and the Origins of Fauvism at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. After setting the stage with a discussion of Michel Eugène Chevreul’s theory of contrasting color and its influence on impressionist and post-impressionist painting, Panero traces the story of Matisse and Derain working together in […]
On Hans Hofmann & Nicolas de Staël
The New Criterion
Dana Gordon links the evolution of Hans Hofmann’s abstract expressionist paintings of the 1950s to the influence of Nicolas de Staël, whose work was prominent and popular in New York galleries at that time. Gordon asserts: “Both Hofmann and de Staël championed the life of abstract forms, the communicative presence of the material of paint, […]
Bernard Chaet: First Light
The New Criterion
Franklin Einspruch reviews Bernard Chaet: First Light at Alpha Gallery, Boston, on view through October 4, 2017. Einspruch writes that “[Chaet’s] landscapes are exuberant to the point of ferocity. Alpha Gallery in Boston is showing a suite of them produced during or inspired by plein-air sessions at dawn on the North Shore, towards and soon after the end […]
Mark Tobey: Threading Light
The New Criterion
Mario Naves reviews Mark Tobey: Threading Light at the Peggy Guggenheim Collection, Venice, on view through September 10, 2017. Naves writes: “‘Threading Light’ is a superb exhibition. Sensitively paced and keenly selected, the exhibition underscores painterly and metaphorical continuities, all the while tracing a development that, though not without hiccups, is streamlined and, until the […]
William Merritt Chase @ the Museum of Fine Arts Boston
The New Criterion
Franklin Einspruch reviews William Merritt Chase at the Museum of Fine Arts Boston, on view through January 16, 2017. Einspruch observes: “There is also Hide and Seek (1888), in which a golden-haired girl (and good heavens, the paint handling on that hair is exceptional), ensconced in the lower left corner of the picture, peers from […]
Guido Cagnacci @ the Frick
The New Criterion
Franklin Einspruch reviews Cagnacci’s “Repentant Magdalene”: An Italian Baroque Masterpiece from the Norton Simon Museum at the Frick Collection, New York, on view through January 22, 2017. Einspruch observes: “Parts of this scene are exquisite… Parts of this scene are not exquisite… Nevertheless, the whole of the thing is a marvel. Light catches on an […]
The Gifts of Stuart Davis
The New Criterion
James Panero reviews Stuart Davis: In Full Swing at the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, on view through September 25, 2016. Panero writes: “The particular genius of Davis’s subsequent modernist direction was how he went on to integrate European stylistic innovation with his unique Ashcan vision. Through the flattening, flickering, fleeting perspectives of […]