I enjoyed seeing the Brooklyn Museum's Frida Kahlo: Appearances Can Be Deceiving, but as regular readers of this blog know, it's always all about the art for me. And while there were plenty of excellent photographs, costumes and MesoAmerican artifact on view there, the exhibit was about Frida--not about her art. To be sure, that's what the exhibit was about her, not about … [Read more...] about Kahlo: It’s Fridalandia in Brooklyn

When it comes to paintings by Monet, there are many to love. But I especially appreciate his series (poplars and Rouen cathedral are probably my favorites). Still I was eager to see that Monet's Waterloo Bridge: Vision and Process, an exhibition of his paintings from that series, which had originated at the Memorial Art Gallery of the University of Rochester, was coming to … [Read more...] about Monet In Series–A Love Story

That headline may not sound like news, but it is, in one sense. Many occurrences in the world of indigenous art that may not, on their own, make international headlines are adding up to real progress, intensifying a trend that began a few years ago. My own contribution to this was published late yesterday in The Art Newspaper. I wrote about a gift of about 1,000 works of … [Read more...] about Increasingly, Indigenous Art Is Getting Its Due

Most Paul Gauguin exhibitions show him off as a self-described “savage,” that sensualist who abandoned his family in France to canoodle with young Tahitian girls. He did behave badly a lot of the time, even as he was turning out gorgeous paintings. So it was refreshing to see Gauguin: A Spiritual Journey last year at the de Young museum in San Francisco. The … [Read more...] about Gauguin. Spirituality and Max Hollein