When Modern Meant Graphic
John Haber reviews The Graphic Impulse, a recent exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art, featuring works on paper by Oskar Kokoschka, Vasily Kandinsky, Erich Heckel, Emil Nolde, E. L. Kirchner, Max Beckmann, Otto Dix and Käthe Kollwitz. Athough the show's title plays on two meanings of the word "graphic" – explicit imagery (of war) […]
Tamar Zinn: Interview
Artist Lynette Haggard interviews with New York City-based painter Tamar Zinn about her work and studio practice. Of her process Zinn remarks: " … the images emerge slowly through an organic process of exploration rather than by using a system… I'm always open to accidents, such as stumbling across an unexpected patch of color that […]
Bill Rice: Manet of New York
John Yau reviews Bill Rice: Paintings & Works on Paper recently on view at Steven Harvey Fine Art Projects. Yau writes that Rice was "A painter, film actor, and an unaffiliated scholar [and] one of the central figures in the various bohemian enclaves that gathered and overlapped in the Lower East Side of the 1960s." […]
Larry Zox: Collage Paintings
Steven Alexander blogs about the exhibition Larry Zox: Collage Paintings From the 1960's on view at Stephen Haller Gallery through August 5, 2011. The show, Alexander writes, is "a rare treat… Ranging in size from very large to very small, these works are revelations — glimpses into the history and sensibility of a painter known […]
Merlin James: Secret World
Sharon Butler blogs about the exhibition Merlin James on view at Sikkema Jenkins through August 12, 2011. Butler writes that James' new works are "handcrafted relief-like objects that look like the backs of framed canvases…" She adds that they are "[quirky, smart and complex], conjuring, in their apparent reverse perspective, a secret world behind the […]
Cy Twombly: Intensity, Scale, Space
Composer Drew Baker remembers painter Cy Twombly from a composer’s point of view. Baker notes that “… like [composer Iannis] Xenakis, Twombly’s works unleash a visceral intensity… And then there is Twombly’s sense of scale…. Scale/proportion strike me as common threads that connect the different parameters of space and time. The composer’s ‘space’ stems in […]
Painting (& Sculpture) in Chelsea
Artist Paul Behnke blogs a painting-rich photo tour of current exhibitions in Chelsea including installation views of works by Louise Fishman, Ghada Amer, Chantal Joffe, Alice Neel and Joan Mitchell in The Women in Our Life at Cheim & Read; Deborah Zlotsky in the Summer Group Show at Kathryn Markel Fine Arts; Paul Resika: Flowers […]
Landscape Paintings of Hilton Miller
Aidan Dunne writes about the landscape paintings of Hilton Miller. Dunne notes that Miller, "a professional mathemetician… very quickly… came to look on [painting] as a distinct language in itself, a language that is coherent, self-consistent, formally rich and infinitely flexible, and he applied his mind to its problems… As with Corot, he looks not […]
De Kooning: Figure, Movement, Gesture
Caleb de Jong reviews the exhibition Willem de Kooning: The Figure: Movement and Gesture at Pace Gallery (57th St) through July 29, 2011. In the works on view at Pace de Jong notes that "De Kooning is taking Ingres' classical line and supercharging it with Ruben’s chromatic and emotional performance. The painterliness was not new, […]
Joan Mitchell: The Finest Mind
Bob Duggan reviews the biography Joan Mitchell: Lady Painter by Patricia Albers. Duggan writes that the "unique combination [of Mitchell's synesthesia and eidetic memory] and [her] drive to become an artist helped her rise within the male-dominated art world of the 1950s. Albers' sensitive and insightful biography provides a whole new vision of Mitchell and […]
Alice Browne: Interview
Two part video interview with London-based painter Alice Browne in her studio. Browne discusses her studio practice and a range of topics related to her work including color and working in "the gap between somebody looking at something directly and… looking at a photograph of the thing… I'm… interested in trying to pick up a […]
Kimberly Trowbridge
Erin Langner visits the studio of Seattle-based painter Kimberly Trowbridge. Langner writes: "While the artist's tangible surroundings subtly factor into the work through color and form, real time, places and people are absent; instead both her paintings and studio construct unconventional utopias that only hint at ordinary existence."
Helen Saunders: Vorticist
Chris Stephens blogs about Helen Saunders, a member of the Vorticist movement. Stephens notes that "amongst [the Vorticists'] small membership there was a significant number of women artists… Even though not many of their works have survived, what remains is a fantastic historical record… it [is] unusual to have works by Saunders that are identifiable, […]
Lyonel Feininger @ the Whitney
Judith H. Dobrzynski reviews the exhibition Lyonel Feininger: At the Edge of the World on view at The Whitney Museum through October 16, 2011. The exhibition, Dobrzynski writes, shows "the full range of work of an artist whose reputation is not what it should be or who (perhaps) isn't well known… In Germany, Feininger is […]
Victoria Webb Interview
Interview with painter Victoria Webb about her work. "I began as a representational artist and still love and appreciate good figurative work. And often I'll paint a landscape that’s absolutely recognizable. But my intent since the late 1980s has been focused on color and form…" Webb also comments on the local art scene in Atlanta […]
Ann Irwin: Vision for a better world
Libby Rosof writes about the visionary collages of artist Ann Irwin. Rosof notes: "Irwin’s work has diary elements expressed not through words but through images… [she] asked her paper and foil and twigs to function as a silent prayer, to anchor the dreamy images, to keep them real and material." Transmutation and Metamorphosis: The Collages […]
Cy Twombly Remembered (1928-2011)
Cy Twombly worked purely, it seemed, from his feelings, thoughts, and impulses.
Charles Wilson Peale, Founding Father, Painter
To celebrate the 4th, Charley Parker blogs about "One of the key figures in early American painting, Charles Wilson Peale… known in particular for his portraits of the Founding Fathers and other figures from the American Revolution." Parker also notes that in addition to being his achievements as a painter Peale was "a member of […]
Celia Reisman
Larry Groff interviews fellow painter Celia Reisman about her work, influences, and studio practice. Reisman states: "I came to representation backwards; abstraction first and then direct observation. As a student… I was influenced by my professors who were abstract expressionists. I wanted to paint the figure and interiors but no one was working from direct […]
Sarah McNulty: Interview
Interview with London-based painter Sarah McNulty. McNulty describes her paintings as "primarily abstractions, often with ties to the physical world and destructive elements of it, though ultimately I'm far more concerned with the materiality than any subject… in materiality taking over, when images and objects turn and deceive, suddenly becoming foreign."