Rome: Eternal City of Painting
Bob Duggan reviews the new book The History of Rome in Painting, edited by Maria Teresa Caracciolo and Roselyne de Ayala. Duggan writes: "… what I found most enlightening were the small wonders the team of specialists offered… Cimabue’s 'Ytalia' provides a bird’s eye view of Rome from the 13th century… Cimabue painted 'a political […]
Robert McCann: Subtext Sprawl
Christopher Lowrance blogs images from the exhibition Robert McCann: Subtext Sprawl at the University of Kansas' Art and Design Gallery, on view through September 15, 2011. McCann writes: "My most recent group of paintings began with ideas about how modern technology and science make it easier for people to be superstitious, and broader themes of […]
Filming Bruegel
The Artblog
Andrea Kirsh reviews Lech Majewski’s The Mill and the Cross, a new biogrphical film about the artist Pieter Bruegel the Elder. Kirsh writes that “Majewski captures Bruegel’s truth that great events occur amidst the shapeless narrative of everyday life. Just as remarkable is the effect he creates of taking us into the actual space of […]
Edward Hopper in Maine
Ed Beem reviews the exhibition Edward Hopper's Maine at the Bowdoin College Museum of Art on view through October 16, 2011. Beem writes that the stars of the exhibition (which was designed by painter Alex Katz) are "30 small oils Hopper did on Monhegan Island over the summers of 1916-19. Littoral jewels, the little Monhegan […]
Otto Dix: Watercolors Rediscovered
Henrike von Spesshardt reports on the discovery of previously unknown watercolors and drawings by German painter Otto Dix on view in the exhibition Dix in Düsseldorf – Otto Dix and the Dusseldorf Artistic Scene 1920-1925 on view from September 4-December 2, 2011, at Galerie Remmert und Barth, Düsseldorf. Spesshardt notes that Dix is known as […]
Reverie @ Zürcher Studio, NYC
James Kalm tours the exhibition Reverie @ Zürcher Studio, New York, curated by Stephen Westfall. Kalm notes that this is "a prime group of painters dealing with the contemporary challenges of formalist abstraction. This walking tour includes views of works by: Andrea Belag, Shirley Jaffe, Alix Le Méléder, Sylvan Lionni, Julia Rommel, Patricia Treib, Stephen […]
Frida Kahlo & Diego Rivera – Masterpieces
Rebecca Wright reviews the exhibition Frida Kahlo & Diego Rivera – Masterpieces from The Geldman Collection at Pallant House Gallery, Chichester on view through October 8, 2011. Wright notes that "The ongoing debate about the critical importance of Rivera versus Kahlo has been heated, fought on many fronts, over a long period of time. It […]
Norbert Marszalek: Interview
Victoria Webb interviews painter Norbert Marszalek about his work and studio process. Marszalek notes: "Storytelling… plays a role in my work. I am all about the narrative. I'm sure that’s why I paint in series. It's like writing a novel. My series have a beginning, middle and end but it may not be totally linear. […]
Michael Dopp: Interview
Painter's Bread
Michael Rutherford interviews Los Angeles-based painter Michael Dopp about his work and studio process. Dopp notes: "I usually spend some of my time working on something that is very deliberate and planned out, while also having works in the studio which are filled with accidents and incidentals. And somehow, maybe just through an imagined osmosis […]
Budd Hopkins (1932 – 2011)
Better known for his parallel career as a UFO advocate and author, Budd Hopkins, deserves to be remembered for his painting career.
Lois Dodd in Maine
Franklin Einspruch reviews the recent exhibition Lois Dodd: Naked Ladies, Natural Disasters, and Puzzling Events, Both Real and Imagined at Caldbeck Gallery, Rockland, Maine. Einspruch writes: "Over the decades, [Dodd's] subject has varied from still lifes to burning houses to whimsical scenarios involving nudes, but her method operates within narrow confines. She'll impose strong designs, […]
Augustin Lesage
Charley Parker blogs about French "outsider artist" and painter Augustin Lesage (1876-1954). After voices told him to paint at age 14, Lesage, Parker writes, "began with 'automatic drawing', a practice the Surrealists employed to produce art directly form the subconscious, but one also associated with communicating with the departed by spiritualists. He moved from there […]
Guy Yanai: Interview
Valerie Brennan interviews painter Guy Yanai about his work and process. Yanai says "In the beginning, I'm certain that the painting/s will take a week to do, and somehow that's never the case. They get layered with opposing languages, images, and conceptions. And that begins another round of excitement. An excitement of how painting needs […]
Fausto Pirandello
Rebecca Harp profiles painter Fausto Pirandello (1899-1975). Along with posting a large image gallery of Pirandello's paintings, she writes, "Pirandello's approach into different layers of reality, while also focusing on the mundane behind closed doors, strikes deep chords …"
Frank Stella & Santiago Calatrava
Installation images with text from Nicholas O'Brien about a new collaborative mural by Frank Stella & Santiago Calatrava Mural Collaboration entitled The Michael Kohlhaas Curtain recently on view at the Neue Nationalgalerie. O'Brien writes: "The neon colors of the 98 foot mural immediately jump out and clash against the surrounding stoic tones, while the gridded […]
Charles Dellschau: Aeros of an Outsider
Mark Dylan Sieber blogs about the watercolors of 'outsider' artist Charles Dellschau. Sieber writes that 40 years after Dellschau's death "a student discovered over a dozen notebooks, each filled with his vibrant watercolors of imaginary zeppelins and dirigibles, crafted into collages with newspaper clippings and photographs. Years later, an unlikely researcher and UFO enthusiast would […]
Emil Robinson: Interview
Larry Groff interviews painter Emil Robinson about his work. Robinson says: "All painting is always an invention. Artists make decisions that build on one another until the reach something new. In the beginning, I always have ideas about how something will go. The only way the painting is ever successful is if it becomes something […]
Ingrid Calame
Magdalen Chua blogs about the exhibition Ingrid Calame at the Fruitmarket Gallery in Edinburgh on view through October 9, 2011. Chua writes: "Though emerging as paintings with energetic and abstract shapes, Calame's works evolve from a painstaking process that originates from the representation of cracks and stains of the physical environment… the tenor of the […]
Hamlett Dobbins: Studio Visit
Paul Behnke photoblogs a studio visit with Memphis-based painter Hamlett Dobbins. Dobbins says of his work: " … there are times when we are gripped with a whole-body pleasure, a spine thrill of delight when time seems to slow and we are hyper-present. I am trying to understand what it is about these extraordinary experiences […]
Kim Dorland: Painting Obsession
Allison Meier writes about Kim Dorland's paintings of his wife Lori on view at Mike Weiss Gallery, New York through August 27, 2011. Meier writes: "I was overwhelmed with the aggression of the paintings… The human form is not carefully studied, but attacked out of the paint. I was shocked that works so savage were […]