Thornton Willis New Paintings
James Kalm records the exhibition Thornton Willis at Elizabeth Harris Gallery through April 23, 2011. "Accomplished with the artist's masterful brushwork, and an intense palette, these works begin a new direction of painterly investigation." The video begins with a walk-through of the show and includes an interview with Willis that starts at about 6:08.
Elizabeth Bishop’s Other Art
William Benton writes about poet Elizabeth Bishop's virtually unknown work as a painter. As Benton describes, "Bishop enjoyed being innovative and invisible at the same time. As a painter, she discovered in the limited range of her skills an intrinsic value. To see it made it so. Meyer Shapiro, the distinguished art critic, said she […]
Tim Liddy
Lynette Haggard interviews St. Louis painter Tim Liddy. "With this recent work, I initially wanted to create a time capsule of the boardgames Americans played – focusing on the design, gender stereotypes, social themes, and evolution. I document the box tops or covers. There were some strange and very questionable social/political decisions made within the […]
Paul Behnke
Interview with Brooklyn based painter Paul Behnke. "I’m currently taking a break from larger canvases to focus on small paintings on paper. On the more disposable surface I’m able to trick myself and be more relaxed. Color and transparency are becoming more important and the edges of the work are starting to play a more […]
Liz Ainslie
Interview with painter Liz Ainslie. "I’m driven by the want to see something new come from my hand. Over time I have developed parameters for working that allow me to be intuitive each time I paint. I need my work to surprise me."
Joe Fyfe: Painter’s Apotheosis
Lynn Maliszewski reviews Joe Fyfe, Wood/Cloth/Color at James Graham & Sons. Fyfe's work eschews paint while "enlivening a familiar language with vivid colors and patterns, and a new kind of layering and transparency… With pigment-in-tubes abandoned, color and shape simply abide, while lines of glue and gentle puckers of the fabric trace the absent artist's […]
George Tooker, 1920 – 2011
Painter George Tooker has died at age 90. William Grimes writes: "Luminous and poetic, [Tooker's] paintings often conveyed a sense of dread, but could just as easily express a lover’s rapture or spiritual ecstasy. Whatever the emotion, his generalized figures… seemed to dwell outside of time, even when placed in contemporary settings." The article also […]
Kiefer: Des Meeres und der Liebe Wellen
Sue Hubbard reviews Anselm Kiefer, Des Meeres und der Liebe Wellen at White Cube in London. She writes: "… each work is an attempt at a moment of fixity in the continuous flux of the ocean. Gynaecological instruments superimposed on the surface of the works disrupt traditional Romantic readings and imply a desire for human […]
Modigliani
Nancy Natale reviews Meryle Secrest's Modigliani: A Life. Secrest, Natale writes, "aims to resuscitate the reputation of Amedeo Modigliani, known to history as a dissolute good-for-nothing who drank himself to death at age 35. Secrest has researched direct sources in France and Italy to uncover the truth about Modigliani's brief life and artistic career."
Callum Innes / Colm Toíbín
Tabitha Piseno interviews Callum Innes and Colm Toíbín. Innes, a painter and Toíbín, a writer, collaborated on a commission exhibited at Sean Kelly Gallery as "water / colour, an installation of 101 watercolors by Innes, and excerpts of text from the short story Toíbín wrote in response to the artist’s paintings." Interviewed individually, each artist […]
Surfaces: Wlodzimierz Ksiazek
Greg Cookland reviews Wlodzimierz Ksiazek at Bannister Gallery at Rhode Island College. Cookland describes the exhibition: the paintings are "displayed like icons under dramatic raking spotlights in a darkened gallery to emphasize the textures of the surfaces… applied in rectangular slabs of oil paint and wax, built up inches thick. You sense the artist pushing […]
George Inness’ Italian Sojourn
Bob Duggan reveals the story behind the exhibition George Inness in Italy at the Philadelphia Museum of Art through May 15, 2011. The ten painting exhibition centers around Inness' painting Twilight on the Campagna (1851). Duggan writes: "Twilight on the Campagna was one of those hidden treasures languishing in the darkness for want of wall […]
Thomas Berding
Sharon L. Butler highlights the work of Thomas Berding as part of her on-going series Images highlighting painters who deserve greater critical attention. Of Berding's work she writes: "Made in response to the post-industrial landscape, Thomas Berding's recent paintings draw upon the sense of refuse and the promise of refuge that urban centers and ports […]
Starry Night / Starless Night
In this excellent post Charles Kessler blogs the conversation between Charles Garabedian's painting Starless Night (2009) and Van Gogh's Starry Night. Although technical similarities are in evidence, Kessler notes that "their subject matter couldn’t be more different. The Van Gogh, of course, is about the awesome power of God or nature … Garabedian’s subject, on […]
Thornton Willis at Elizabeth Harris
Maureen Mullarkey reviews an exhibition of new paintings by Thornton Willis at Elizabeth Harris Gallery. Mullarkey revokes the grid as a modernist invention rededicating it to its "ancient" roots in "town planning." She calls Willis' exhibition "a vivid, if unpremeditated, evocation of the concerns of Russian Supremacism and its parallel movement, Constructivism. Both currents were […]
Rarely Seen Medieval Manuscripts
Laura Gilbert discovers one of the Metropolitan Museum's newest acquisitions "six illustrated manuscript leaves… [from] Nicholas of Lyra's 'Postilla Litteralis.' She comments: "Unannounced, the Met has put two of them on display: the elevation and the curtains of the Tabernacle … They're big — 16.5 x 9.75 inches — and so beautiful in their simplicity […]
Gabriel Laderman 1929-2011
Larry Groff publishes a tribute to painter Gabriel Laderman (1929-2011). Groff writes "Laderman was a significant representational painter and teacher and was instrumental in the revival of figurative art in the 1960s. He studied with a number of leading American painters, including Hans Hofmann, de Kooning, and Rothko." The post includes images of Laderman's landscape, […]
Eye to Eye: European Portraits 1450–1850
Michael Miller reviews Eye to Eye: European Portraits 1450–1850 at the Clark Art Institute, on view through March 27, 2011. The exhibition features an eclectic group of portraits from a single collection including works by Memling, Cranach, Parmigianino, Ribera, Rubens, Van Dyck and David, as well as lesser known painters such as Thomas de Keyser […]
Sam Gilliam, Flour Mill
[VIDEO] Sam Gilliam discusses his new work Flour Mill, a painting installation at the Phillips Collection in Washington D.C. on view through April 24, 2011. The film documents the installation of Gilliam's work, which was inspired by the work of American Modernist Arthur Dove.
Dan McCleary : “Panel Discussion”
Christopher Knight reviews Dan McCleary's exhibition at Craig Krull Gallery in Santa Monica. The show features McCleary's "Panel Discussion," a painting of a panel of speakers such as one might encounter at any academic or business conference. Knight notes that "The painting's composition obviously derives from Renaissance frescoes that depict the Last Supper… 'Panel Discussion' […]