The People in Paintings
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 […]
Dazzling Darkness
In his Theory of Colors, Goethe observes that “the greatest brightness short of dazzling acts near the greatest darkness.”
Peter de Francia (1921-2012)
Merlin James remembers painter Peter de Francia (1921-2012). James writes: "I knew of him as a socialist-expressionist figurative painter and draughtsman with first-hand connections to the Ecole de Paris and various Modernist figures… From the ‘80s onwards he had been mostly drawing. His earlier paintings on canvas had always been very graphic, like his major […]
Julian Kreimer: In Studio
Christopher Joy and Zachary Keeting interview painter Julian Kreimer about his work. Kreimer, who paints both plein-air landscapes and in-studio abstractions, discusses his recent abstract paintings: "I started making these as excericses for myself, and they sort of just slowly took over and I realized, just recently, these have a lot to do with the […]
Tom Gregg: Interview
Christopher Lowrance interviews painter Tom Gregg about his work and studio practice. Gregg notes "the life or presence of the painting as an actual object, is incredibly important to me, and relates to this scale question as well as to the attention I give to the surface qualities of my paintings. The size of the […]
Allison Miller: Ways to Proceed
John Yau reviews a recent exhibition of paintings by Allison Miller at Susan Inglett Gallery, New York. Yau writes: "In her paintings, Miller offers a radical and simple alternative to this organization of daily life. She refuses to take the shortest route, physically, and aesthetically as well, having rejected developing a recognizable style, sign or […]
René Daniëls
As part of his series about under-known artists, Raphael Rubinstein profiles the paintings of René Daniëls. Rubinstein writes: "From today's perspective, Daniëls's points of reference and conscious influences seem impeccable: Polke, Broodthaers, Magritte's periode vache. But we shouldn’t forget how unlikely these choices were for a young painter in the late 1970s. Also worth noting […]
Joseph Marioni: Thoughts on Painting
Jeffrey Collins posts a collection of writings on painting by Joseph Marioni including the essays The Radical Place of Painting, Socrates and the Alligator, and Noting Color. In Socrates and the Alligator Marioni writes: "What I propose, to this gathering of painters, is that we seriously consider a radical break with the problems of the […]
Gene Davis: 1958-1960
Steven Alexander blogs about Gene Davis' small works from 1958-1960. Alexander writes that Davis began "in 1958 to make very small paintings that employed vertical stripes and explored elemental rhythms and color resonances. The purity and potency of these first canvases is extraordinary, and their direct simplicity gives way by 1961 to the highly […]
Gary Wragg: Positive Provisional
Samuel Cornish considers the work of painter Gary Wragg in relation to provisional painting. Cornish writes "Wragg is also an artist who avoids heroic, definitive or authoritative statements, who posits a vision of art which is as circular, or perhaps labyrinthine, as it is progressive. In all these senses he is provisional, almost with a capital […]
Renoir & the Force of Delicacy
Franklin Einspruch reviews the exhibition Renoir, Impressionism, and Full-Length Painting on view at the Frick Collection, New York through May 13, 2012. Einspruch writes: "Perhaps best of all is Acrobats at the Cirque Fernando (Francisca and Angelina Wartenberg), on loan from the Art Institute of Chicago. This 1879 painting depicts young circus performers in gold-fringed […]
Malcolm Morley: Interview
Phong Bui visits with painter Malcolm Morley at his Long Island studio. Having cited Jackson Pollock and Balthus as early influences, Morley says: "Well, the painting's surface in Balthus penetrates directly to your central nervous system, similar to the way Pollock's does, in spite of his paint surface being so different. It's got nothing to do […]
Painters & Photography: Bonnard to Vuillard
Tyler Green talks to Elizabeth Easton, curator of the exhibition Snapshot: Painters and Photography: Bonnard to Vuillard, on view at the Phillips Collection, Washington D.C. through May 6, 2012. The curatorial statement notes that "none of the artists thought of themselves as photographers. These were private objects, often made for the same reason people use […]
Graham, Davis, Gorky, De Kooning & Their Circle
Mario Naves reviews the exhibition American Vanguards: Graham, Davis, Gorky, de Kooning, and Their Circle, 1927–1942 at the Neuberger Museum of Art, Purchase, New York, on view through April 29, 2012. Naves writes that these four artists "were united by an unshakable sense of purpose. 'American Vanguards' is installed with an eye toward underscoring that […]
Sean Scully’s Physical Spirituality
Painter's Bread
Michael Rutherford discovers a great trailer for the documentary film Sean Scully: The Bloody Canvas, produced by Yellow Asylum Films for RTE, directed by Alan Gilsenan with photography direction by Richard Kendrick. The film mixes audio interview with footage of Scully working in his studio. As the film begins, Scully remarks: "In my kind of […]
John Cecil Stephenson
David Moxon blogs about the exhibition John Cecil Stephenson Pioneer of Abstraction, on view at the Durham Art Gallery through April 29, 2012. Moxon blogs "Stephenson is known in Britain for being a pioneer of abstraction… [his] immediate circle included Ben Nicholson, Barbara Hepworth, Piet Mondrian, Naum Gabo, Henry Moore and the art critic Herbert […]
Richard Diebenkorn’s Here & Now
Christopher Knight reviews the exhibition Richard Diebenkorn: The Ocean Park Series on view at the Orange County Museum of Art, Newport Beach, California through May 27, 2012. Knight writes: "The narrative in these paintings is a story of their making… One result is an intensified sense of the here and now, a moment that seems […]
Abstract Kansas City
Vince Contarino blogs installation photos from the recent exhibition Abstract Kansas City at the Nerman Museum of Contemporary Art in Overland Park, Kansas. The exhibition showcases the museum's collection including a fantastic selection of paintings and painting inspired work by artists with Kansas City roots, including Dan Christensen, Rachel Hayes, Anne Lindberg, Wilbur Niewald, Warren […]
John Cage: Controlled Chaos
Nadiah Fellah looks at composer John Cage's printmaking at Crown Point Press. Fellah notes that "Cage both explored and challenged the medium by setting fires on the printing bed, or saturating the paper with water until it nearly disintegrated… Ironically, the extreme to which Cage relied on chance and randomness actually generated a body of work that […]
A Painter’s Painter’s Paintings
Brian Dupont reflects on Bill Jensen's recent exhibition of new paintings at Cheim & Read, New York. Compared to his contemporaries, Brice Marden and Terry Winters who share a "specific and identifiable interest in their respective thorough procedures," Dupont writes, "Jensen has remained restless and constantly searching within his painting practice, forgoing the comfort of […]