Stuart Davis: The Great American Cubist
Robert Storr reviews Stuart Davis: In Full Swing at the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, on view through September 25, 2016. Storr argues: “Davis was … the only first-class Cubist to emerge from North America. In my estimation he was the equal of the great Fernand Léger, who so loved New York’s tumult and […]
Ro Lohin & Kevin Wixted, Decoded
Charles A. Riley II reviews works by Ro Lohin and Kevin Wixted on view at South Street Gallery in Greenport, New York through August 22, 2016. Riley writes: “Lohin’s paintings capitalize on the high-frequency carom of sunlight from L.I. Sound and Peconic Bay. It blasts through the spectrum of her palette, which seems to include essentially […]
Alma Thomas: Through Color
Richard Kalina reviews a retrospective exhibition of works by Alma Thomas at The Studio Museum in Harlem, on view through October 30, 2016. Kalina writes: “With an impressive command of negative space, Thomas pushes at the seemingly straightforward and simple constructions, adding a richness and slowness of read and allowing different modes of perception to […]
Jason Mones: Interview
#FFFFFF Walls
Jonathan Chapline and Lorraine Nam interview painter Jason Mones. Mones comments: “For many reasons, the male point of view is a wellspring of creativity for me. There’s a mythology wrapped up within a gaze that is forever fascinating. I began making these portraits because I wanted the audience to come face to face with the […]
Harry Davies: Interview
Kate Liebman interviews painter Harry Davies. Davies comments: “I don’t make really polished things that conceal the decisions. I don’t like to conceal my decisions… There’s so little in them. I like to make it out of as few marks as possible, always. That’s something I always keep in the back of my mind… I […]
Lourdes Bernard on Pieter Bruegel
Painters on Paintings
Lourdes Bernard writes about Peter Bruegel’s Wine of St. Martin’s Feast Day (1566 – 1567).Bernard observes: “The painting’s unique composition is a departure from the other paintings by Bruegel. For example, in the Procession to Calvary, the landscape dominates the painting and acts as a container for the multiple dramas that unfold. In Wine of […]
Carlo Carrà: Metaphysical Spaces
Matthew Rudman reviews Carlo Carrà: Metaphysical Spaces, curated by Ester Coen, at Blain Southern, London on view through August 20, 2016. Rudman writes: “Visitors are greeted by Penelope (1917), an arresting picture that, for the purposes of this exhibition, acts as a bridge between Carrà’s futurist and metaphysical periods. Penelope is composed of riveted machine […]
Hilma af Klint: Impure and Arcane
John Yau reviews works by Hilma af Klint on view in The Keeper at the New Museum, New York, through September 25, 2016. Yau concludes by noting a “reason she is so important is that she believes in painting: it could put her in touch with something that lies beyond appearances. It could show us […]
Winifred Knights (1899-1947)
Emily Spicer reviews Winifred Knights (1899-1947) at the Dulwich Picture Gallery, London, on view through September 18, 2016. Spicer also interviews Director Ian Dejardin about Knight’s life and work. Spicer writes: “What Knights achieved with her formidable artistic armoury was wholly original. Her draughtsmanship, her understanding of colour and tone, her manipulation of perspective and […]
Steve Gibson: Interview
Brian Edmonds interviews painter Steve Gibson on the occasion of an online exhibition of Gibson’s work at Curating Contemporary. Gibson comments: “I like to think my work unfolds as a reaction to my environment past and present. Since I am from an older generation and my experiences are many and varied, I have a lot to […]
Splendor, Myth, and Vision
Lance Esplund reviews Splendor, Myth, and Vision: Nudes From the Prado at The Clark Art Institute, on view through October 10, 2016. Esplund writes: “The phenomenal gift of [the show] is its communion of Titian with Rubens. And another astonishment here is Rubens’s 1628-29 copy of Titian’s “Rape of Europa” (1559-62), which is in Boston’s […]
The Mystery of Hieronymus Bosch
Ingrid D. Rowland reviews Bosch: The Centenary Exhibition at the Prado Museum, Madrid (through September 11) and Jheronimus Bosch: Visions of Genius at the Het Noordbrabants Museum (closed). Rowland writes: “[Bosch’s] early admirers celebrated the boundless ingenuity of his work, but they also recognized the sureness of his hand and his unerringly observant eye. In the precision […]
Alex Katz: Interview
Robert Storr interviews painter Alex Katz. Katz remarks: “I want to paint what I see; I don’t want to paint what someone else painted. I live in New York and I go up to Maine, and that’s what I paint. I don’t want to paint other people’s pictures in my studio. That makes it American, don’t […]
Brandi Twilley @ Sargent’s Daughters
John Yau reviews Brandi Twilley: The Living Room at Sargent’s Daughters, New York, on view through August 26, 2016. Yau writes: “The littered space is claustrophobic, a kind of suburban prison cell devoid of natural light. And yet, no matter how depressing the subject, I could not take my eyes off these paintings. Certain recurring […]
Joseph Noderer: Interview
Sam King interviews Joseph Noderer on the occasion of Noderer’s exhibition Horse Hill Waugh and Other Views at Linda Warren Projects, Chicago, on view through August 13, 2016. Noderer remarks: “Pennsylvania has a lot of trees and underbrush, really tangly. One winter afternoon I saw a hill covered with bare trees that was bathed in […]
Stephen Westfall at Lennon, Weinberg
David Rhodes reviews Stephen Westfall: Crispy Fugue State at Lennon, Weinberg, Inc., New York, on view through July 29, 2016. Rhodes writes: “Five medium-sized paintings in the rear of the gallery break with Stephen Westfall’s familiar practice… the structure of these newer works display a strongly asymmetrical and relational pictorial composition… There is also a […]
Poetry, Painting and the World of Christopher Wood
Matthew Sperling reviews Christopher Wood: Sophisticated Primitive at Pallant House Gallery, Chichester, on view through October 2, 2016. Sperling writes: “Not many figurative painters are as often described as ‘lyrical’ as the Englishman Christopher Wood (1901–30)… It is obvious what is roughly meant by the description ‘lyrical’ or ‘poetic’: it speaks of the freshness and […]
The Tender Playfulness of Paul Klee
Joseph Nechvatal reviews Paul Klee: L’Ironie à l’Oeuvre at the Centre Pompidou, Paris, on view through August 1, 2016. Nechvatal writes: “The key to Paul Klee’s wonderfully shaped energy is not ironic detachment, as the title of the Centre Pompidou’s current retrospective suggests, but rather the playful and idyllic emotion he transmits through masterly line […]
Watteau’s Soldiers @ the Frick Collection
In Watteau’s world, more than in any other painter’s, figure to canvas is as actor to stage.
Mary Heilmann @ the Whitechapel Gallery
Charley Peters reviews Mary Heilmann: Looking at Pictures at the Whitechapel Gallery, London, on view through August 21, 2016. Peters writes: “‘Looking at Pictures’ makes much of Heilmann as an artist who paints her own life – the exhibition title itself is taken from a section of her aforementioned biography – but there is nothing […]