Paul Branca: Waitings
Caleb De Jong reviews the exhibition Paul Branca: Waitings at Scaramouch Gallery, New York on view through August 12, 2011. De Jong writes: "Branca takes from representation, collage, script and abstraction and orders them into an uneasy polyglot whole…. Branca re-arranges the signage that makes up the normal line of vision for an average city […]
Remembering John Hoyland
Mel Gooding remembers abstract painter John Hoyland who died July 31, 2011 at the age of 76. Gooding writes: "For Hoyland, it was necessary for paintings to be self-sufficient machines, constructed to convey a powerful charge of visual, mental and emotional energy without recourse to any historically established figurative imagery. The expressive force of his […]
John Hoyland (1934 – 2011)
Painter John Hoyland died yesterday at age 76. Hoyland was part of the 1960 exhibition Situation: An Exhibition of British Abstract Painting, which also featured Gillian Ayres and William Turnbull. This exhibition featured large-scale abstract paintings that involved the viewer’s entire field of vision creating an immersive experience or “situation”. 1 In the 1960’s, Hoyland […]
Robert Henri: Painting Ireland
Bob Duggan blogs about the exhibition From New York to Corrymore: Robert Henri and Ireland at the Mint Museum of Art, Charlotte, NC on view through August 7, 2011. Duggan writes: "In the summer of 1913, after the landmark Armory Show introduced European modernism to America, Henri needed to reassess his life and art. Achill […]
Craig Taylor: Reviving Pentimenti
Sharon Butler blogs about the exhibition Craig Taylor: Paintings and Drawings at Sue Scott Gallery, New York on view through August 5, 2011. Butler notes that Taylor's "best pieces recall the lush, drippy, heavily-worked abstraction of the 1980s and early 1990s while incorporating the charmingly ham-fisted compositional strategies of contemporary abstraction and the vivid, high-contrast […]
Picasso & Braque: The Cubist Experiment
Betsy Lewis reviews the exhibition Picasso and Braque: The Cubist Experiment, 1910-1912 at the Kimbell Art Museum, Fort Worth, on view through August 21, 2011. Lewis notes: " If there is one realm where Picasso takes command of the experiment and distinguishes himself from his friend, it is the Cubism-ization of persons, specifically but not […]
Susan Carr: Interview
Painter Valerie Brennan interviews painter Susan Carr about her work and studio practice. Carr remarks: "My work always begins with one mark and the piece is built up from there… I have to get out of the way! Because the work is built in paint, history is involved and memory. Memory of the last time […]
Nathan Lewis: Studio Visit
Christopher Joy and Zachary Keeting continue their video series with a fascinating visit with painter Nathan Lewis including video of the dilapidated architecture Lewis employs in his powerful figure paintings.
Jack Youngerman @ Margo Leavin
David Pagel reviews the exhibition Jack Youngerman: 150 Small Works on Paper at Margo Leavin Gallery, Los Angeles on view through August 20, 2011. Pagel writes: "Youngerman's handmade abstractions are all about physicality. They invite you to see and savor every micro-millimeter of acrylic, every ghostly trace of graphite, every matte expanse of gouache, every […]
Matter of Rothko
A must read article: David Levine revisits the scandal and trial surrounding the Mark Rothko estate from a moving, personal perspective. Levine's father, Morton Levine was a close friend of Rothko and an executor of the estate along with painter Theodoros Stamos and accountant Bernard Reis. Levine writes: "Black-and-white photos of cocktail parties; that was […]
Sam Francis’ Basel Mural I
John Seed muses on Sam Francis' painting Basel Mural I in the collection of the Norton Simon Museum. Seed writes "If you haven't seen the Basel Mural, you very likely don't know what Sam Francis was capable of at the height of his powers… I also feel strongly that [the painting] has something to do […]
Paul Georges
Raphael Rubinstein writes about Paul Georges, an overlooked New York School figurative painter. Georges' work, in addition to its commitment to political themes, is "a marvelous amalgam of painterly French modernism, Rococo exuberance, Northern European brooding and New York street attitude. Georges's achievement in any single of the modes he explored would be enough to […]
Carel Weight
Paul Behnke posts an image gallery of paintings by British artist Carel Weight (1908-1997). According to the Tate Collection "[Weight] painted landscapes and portraits, but much of his work captured a mood of melancholia, evident in the mysterious presences in his ghost paintings set in the unassuming urban settings of west and south London most […]
Eva Struble: At Home Amid the Ruins
Sharon Butler blogs about the exhibition Eva Struble: Landsmen at Lombard Freid Projects, New York on view through July 29, 2011. Butler writes that the show " …features paintings of the architectural ruins in the Brooklyn Navy Yard. Using vivid color and layered, translucent textures, Struble breaks down the realism of her reference images, creating […]
Rackstraw Downes: Revolutionary Perspective
Harry Swartz-Turfle writes about the unique dedication to looking at the core of Rackstraw Downes’ painting practice: “… when you think about how much of modern and contemporary art relies on juxtaposition or exaggeration for effects, Downes’ approach begins to seem downright revolutionary.” Swartz-Turfle also notes that “[Downes] wanted the discipline of reality’s variation instead […]
The End of Portraiture?
Bob Duggan muses on what Lucian Freud's commitment to portraits meant to painting and what his passing may mean for the future of portraiture. Duggan writes: "Freud literally changed the face (and body) of portraiture… perhaps Freud is taking portraiture to the grave, or at least his brand of portraiture… Maybe the 21st century needs […]
Harry Reisiger: Sorcerer’s Apprentice
Alan D. Pocaro reviews the exhibition Harry Reisiger: The Lyrical Modernist at the Phyllis Weston Gallery, Cincinnati on view through August 15th. Pocaro notes that although Reisiger "wore his influences on his sleeve…" he achieved "a pictorial quality overlooked by those on the hunt for an elusive (and mythical) novelty."
Paintings of Walter Tandy Murch
Larry Groff's must read post about the painter Walter Tandy Murch, (1907–1967) "an important still life painter who until recently it has been very difficult to find information or see many images of his work." In addition to many scanned images of Murch's paintings Groff also links to an illuminating essay about Murch's work by […]
Painting @ The Ringling
Tom Winchester blogs a visual tour of the painting galleries at the Ringling Museum of Art in Sarasota, Florida. He writes: "I resent New York because nothing seems old. Everyone’s childish, art is either conceptual or video-projected, everyone’s drunk, there are way too many MFAs, and the market corrupts… The Ringling Museum in Sarasota [houses] […]
Dorothea Rockburne: Interview
David Levi Strauss and Christopher Bamford interview artist Dorothea Rockburne on the occasion of the retrospective exhibition Dorothea Rockburne: In My Mind's Eye on view through August 14, 2011 at the Parrish Art Museum, Southampton, NY. Levi Strauss, Bamford and Rockburne engage in a fascinating discussion of Rockburne's work and her time at Black Mountain […]