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How Do You Say Sic Transit Gloria In German?

April 29, 2013 by 1 Comment
o_Hans_Thoma_Der_Krieg

In Frankfurt this summer, the Städel Museum is presenting "a major survey on the lifework of the famous painter and graphic artist." Running from July 3 to Sept. 29, it will show an artist "once celebrated by the public and art critics alike as the 'greatest German master'." His name is Hans Thoma.  Who? Yes, "Hans Thoma: 'The German People’s Favourite Painter' " will be reveal the work of a man born in 1839, with a career that spanned decades until his death in 1924. The Städel says it is out to show that Thoma was far more … [Read more...]

04/29/13 8:10 PM | filed under: Artists, Uncategorized |

On Wisconsin! And Cincinnati And Others

April 16, 2013 by 6 Comments
Museum of Wisconsin Art

It's widely recognized now that there's no one art world, no one art market -- and that perhaps is what underpins a couple of recent developments. We'll start with the news early this month that the Museum of Wisconsin Art in West Bend, WI., -- which has existed for some 20 years -- has a new building that will raise it profile and provide more space for showing art by residents of the state. Art writer Mary Louise Schumacher wrote about it in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: One of the goals of the museum’s new director and CEO, Laurie … [Read more...]

04/16/13 4:39 PM | filed under: Artists, Curatorial Matters, Uncategorized |

Why The Met Can Thank Brooklyn For “Madame X”

April 8, 2013 by Leave a Comment

Last Friday, the Brooklyn Museum opened John Singer Sargent Watercolors – a landmark show, really, because it brings together a groups watercolors acquired by the Brooklyn Museum in 1909 and by the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, in 1912 for the first time. These early twentieth century watercolors together show how innovative Sargent was in this medium, which the museums assert was heretofore considered “tangential” to Sargent’s oeuvre and reputation — but shouldn’t be. I wrote about the exhibition, Sargent’s mid-life … [Read more...]

04/8/13 8:04 PM | filed under: Artists, Artworks |

Not A Skeleton: Another Museum Discovery In Storage

April 2, 2013 by 1 Comment
Canaletto

I wish I had closets like this. The news recently emerged from Denver that Timothy Standring, the curator who organized Becoming van Gogh, was rummaging around in the museum's storage bins a while ago and pulled out not a plum but a Canaletto. As related last week in the Los Angeles Times: It all started in 2000 (actually a couple centuries earlier, but that's getting ahead of the story) when a canvas in dreadful condition called "Venice: The Molo from the Bacino di S. Marco" was bequeathed to the Denver Art Museum from a deceased local … [Read more...]

04/2/13 1:17 PM | filed under: Artists, Museums, Uncategorized |

A Renaissance Art Made Contemporary: Marquetry

March 29, 2013 by 2 Comments
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We tend to think about marquetry as a Renaissance or Baroque art, but it's not. Many contemporary artists and artisan practice the craft/art. I recently wrote about one, Silas Kopf, for Traditional Home magazine. Here's a key paragraph: If you think marquetry is a dead art, a relic of the Renaissance, you haven't met Kopf. For more than 25 years, he has been turning out hand-cut marquetry marvels, some laced with humor, others as elegant as a classical commode, still others trompe l'oeil tableaus so realistic you do a double take. "I don't … [Read more...]

03/29/13 1:02 PM | filed under: Artists, Uncategorized |

…isms: A Throwback Little Publication

March 28, 2013 by 6 Comments
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We still talk about Impressionism and Cubism, Modernism and Expressionism, but it has been a long while since we had a new ism. That's may be a good thing, saying that art is so disparate and inventive today that it can't be categorized into one school, or a bad thing, signifying that art today is a mess. Or it may mean that isms are truly only discernable after the fact. Whichever place you fall on those alternatives, they are use shorthand for communicating about art. I don't have to explain any of those -isms listed above. You know … [Read more...]

03/28/13 7:07 PM | filed under: Artists, Artworks, Uncategorized |

A Rebellious Exhibition At the Delaware Art Museum

March 1, 2013 by 1 Comment
3_kasebier-photos-in-nyt_web

Here's a change of pace from my last three posts, about museums. In the "the more things change" department: The Delaware Art Museum recently opened an exhibition that underscores the verities of the art world -- maybe the whole world. Called Gertrude Käsebier's Photographs of the Eight: Portraits for Promotion, it reveals how those artists used photopgraphic portraits and other media to promote themselves and their groundbreaking 1908 exhibition at MacBeth Gallery. Of course, it was a different age, and they couldn't hold a candle to … [Read more...]

03/1/13 9:49 AM | filed under: Artists, Exhibitions, Uncategorized |

Admit That You Were Wrong

February 19, 2013 by 7 Comments
turrell-at-Pomona

The February issue of ARTnews has a thought-provoking article that was posted online earlier today: Split Decisions: When Critics Change Their Minds by Ann Landi. (Hat tip here to Ed Goldman, whose email about it I received last week. Yesterday, when I could not find the article, I asked Robin Cembalest, the magazine's executive editor, about it, and she got it up online today.) The story's deck: "What makes art critics revise their opinions? Some mind-changing critics explain" As you will read in the article, it all started last year … [Read more...]

02/19/13 3:59 PM | filed under: Artists, Uncategorized |

In Egypt: Islamists And Artists — The Battles Continue

December 30, 2012 by 1 Comment
Culture for All Egyptians

I had a hunch it was time to check in on the contemporary art situation in Egypt, given that the new Islamist-drafted constitution passed recently, handing a victory to the Muslim Brotherhood. I can only report what I read elsewhere, and that news isn't great. Last week, the online English edition of Al Ahram published an article rounding up what's happened in the Egyptian art world over the past year in a piece headlined Artists and Islamists Going Head to Head. It began: Islamists’ attack on arts and culture in Egypt since they came … [Read more...]

12/30/12 6:33 PM | filed under: Artists, Uncategorized |

Iwan Baan’s Path To Stardom, Courtesy of Hurricane Sandy

December 26, 2012 by Leave a Comment
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What's that old line about making good by doing good? It applies to Iwan Baan, the Dutch photographer who the day after Hurricane Sandy hit New York City took what turned out to be an iconic image from the air. It showed Manhattan half in the dark, half in the light, crystallizing the line already in circulation that New York was a tale of two cities. New York Magazine commissioned the photo for its Nov. 12 cover. Baan is an established architecture photographer who now, because of that image, called The City and the Storm, has made the … [Read more...]

12/26/12 10:02 AM | filed under: Artists, Artworks, Uncategorized |
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