Charles Warren Eaton & Franz Kline
Philip Koch blogs about happening upon works by Tonalist painter Charles Warren Eaton and finding a shared compositional energy between Eaton's work and that of Franz Kline. Koch recalls: "…seeing Eaton paintings for the first time. I spied them from a distance and was struck by the simplicity of their basic composition. From across the […]
Matisse: Evolving Toward Ecstasy
Roberta Smith previews the exhibition Matisse: In Search of True Painting at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, on view from December 4, 2012 – March 17, 2013. Smith writes that Matisse "communed with artists of the distant or not-so-distant past, from Giotto to Cézanne, and periodically brushed shoulders with Cubism and the work […]
Eugène Leroy: Beware the Tragic Sublime
Gwenaël Kerlidou reviews the exhibition Eugène Leroy: Nudes at Michael Werner Gallery, New York, on view through January 5, 2013. Kerlidou writes that an interesting aspect of Leroy's work is "the insistence not only on the verticality of the standing nude but also on frontality. In that sense, we are not as far as we […]
Derrick Quevedo: Interview
Valerie Brennan interviews painter Derrick Quevedo about his work and process. Quevedo comments: "I prefer straight edges, squeegees, and palette knives over brushes and pull a color across the canvas. Sometimes a single color gets put over the ground; other times I pull wet on wet and have colors mix on the surface. Those are […]
Mark, Wipe, Scrape, Shape
William Eckhardt Kohler blogs about the "weekend" exhibition Mark, Wipe, Scrape, Shape at Spaceshifter – the studio of painter Sangram Majumdar. Kohler features "11 painters, Michael Berryhill, Gideon Bok, Matt Bollinger, Katherine Bradford, Tom Burckhardt, Jackie Gendel, Amy Mahnick, Majumdar, Kyle Staver, Didier Williams and Karla Wozniak, work in a variety of idioms; perceptual, abstract, […]
John Bellany’s Human Image
For more than 50 years, Bellany has remained committed to painting the human condition in an era dominated by formalist abstraction, minimalism, installtion, and performance art.
Sarah Awad: Transference & Speculation
Erin Langner reviews the exhibition Sarah Awad: Transference and Speculation at James Harris Gallery, Seattle, on view through November 30, 2012. Langner writes: "The curious objects within many of the paintings generate an instant magnetism through their familiarity; yet, a persistent darkness underlies each scene, most prominently in the works that contain humans. Sunday Afternoon’s […]
Josef Albers: Passion for Color
Altoon Sultan blogs about the recent exhibition Josef Albers in America: Painting on Paper at the Morgan Library, New York. Sultan writes: "There are so many beautiful color thoughts in these simple studies… Some of the works were small, quick explorations of color relationships. A fascinating aspect of Albers painting practice was that he never […]
Between Sense and De Kooning
Robert Linsley talks to Richard Shiff about Schiff's book Between Sense and de Kooning. The extensive conversation touches on many aspects of de Kooning and his career including his critical reception, his relationship to Cubism and Picasso, the slippage between abstraction and representation, the idea of finish, and painterliness. Schiff remarks: "I think I argued […]
Hearne Pardee: Visual Resources
Sandy Walker writes about the recent work of Hearne Pardee, on view at Bowery Gallery, New York through December 22, 2012. Walker writes that "a new aspect emerging in Pardee’s most recent work work adds a new layer, beyond plein air, in the artistic process. After his open-air observations he returns to the studio to […]
Kristina Lee: Interview
Valerie Brennan interviews painter Kristina Lee about her work. Lee notes: "I have an archive of screenshots from action movies and YouTube clips that I was referring to a lot in the past. The images are of women engaged in physical and violent acts like wrestling, boxing, and 'girl-fights.' Watching video and looking at video […]
Mary Jones: Interview
#FFFFFF Walls
Jonathan Chapline and Lorraine Nam visit the Chelsea studio of painter Mary Jones. Jones comments that in her paintings "there’s an implied figure and it’s usually sort of a very ancient prehistoric Greek Cycladic reference. I wanted to reference something prehistoric and from the beginning of human history to sort of connect with that primal […]
Francesco Guardi @ Museo Correr
Rachel Spence reviews an exhibition of paintings by Francesco Guardi at Museo Correr, Venice, on view through January 6, 2012. Spence writes: "Both [Canaletto and Guardi] employed a camera obscura to obtain the topographical precision which was the signature of Venetian view-painting. But Canaletto used the projections – frequently embellished with fantasy in the style […]
Rick Briggs: Interview
Katherine Bradford interviews painter Rick Briggs about his work. Discussing the development of his work, Briggs comments that in the 80s he was "recording all the things I'd done to my place: replacing windows, spray painting, repairing the floor, etc. They were the kind of goofy, embarrassing drawings I never would have considered art but […]
Painting After Performance
Dan Coombs reviews the exhibition A Bigger Splash: Painting After Performance at Tate Modern, on view through April 1, 2013. Coombs writes that performance art "can be an exhausting medium with little room for the sort of contemplation possible in front of a painting. The form itself is ephemeral and disappears as soon as the […]
Jackson Pollock Paints a Picture
Robert Goodnough's classic 1951 narration of Jackson Pollock's studio process. In addition to documenting Pollock's now familiar drip technique, Goodnough also reveals the lesser known aspects of Pollock's method. Goodnough writes: "The final work on the painting was slow and deliberate. The design had become exceedingly complex and had to be brought to a state […]
Ed Mieczkowski: Interview
Julie Karabenick conducts an in-depth interview with painter and sculptor Ed Mieczkowski. Mieczkowski discusses how he came to be an artist, his career, the artist group Anonima he helped found in 1960, and development of his work. Asked about the label "Op Art", Mieczkowski says: "I have always favored the term 'perceptual abstraction.' I didn’t […]
Wade Guyton: OS
Tom McGlynn reviews the exhibition Wade Guyton OS at the Whitney Museum, New York, on view through January 13, 2012. McGlynn writes: "The work displayed on the museum’s third floor includes painting, sculpture and collage and if one ran through and peripherally scanned the ensemble it might well serve as a survey of “triumphant” American […]
Frank Moore: Toxic Beauty
Maddie Phinney reviews the exhibition Toxic Beauty: The Art of Frank Moore at NYU’s Grey Art Gallery and Fales Library, New York, on view through December 8, 2012. Phinney writes: "A skilled painter trained in abstraction, Moore turned to representation in the early 1980s for its narrative capacity… The dreamlike quality of Moore’s work from […]
From Life
John Yau reviews the exhibition From Life at Steven Harvey Fine Art Projects, organized with Marshall Price, on view through December 23, 2012. Yau writes that the show presents "11 paintings by artists committed to working from observation. Chronologically, the artists span five decades (or generations), with Lois Dodd and Lennart Anderson, born respectively in […]