The names of two men — both sons of considerable wealth, born in the 1870s, and both culturally- and creatively-inclined — were widely recognized in the early years of the 20th century. Their celebrity was well-deserved at the time — and deserves to live on. Sergei Diaghilev (1872 – 1929) was a Russian art critic, […]
Reuben Garrett Lucius Goldberg is not a name everyone would recognize. But drop half the letters and it becomes an adjective in the dictionary! Every English dictionary has a “Rube Goldberg” entry. Ours says, “ingeniously or unnecessarily complicated in design or construction.“ You know his name, you know his whacky contraption illustrations, you may even […]
His nickname translates to either “Squinty” or “Cross-Eyed” but in spite of his in-turned eye – or perhaps because of it – Guercino is regarded as one of the greatest Italian draftsmen of the 17th century. […]
Nicolas Abdallah Moufarrege (1947-1985), who died of AIDS at 36, produced idiosyncratic embroidered paintings, appropriating iconography from Classical sculpture, Arabic calligraphy, comic book heroes, Pop Art, Baroque paintings and more. […]
This is the first major exhibition since 1925 to explore Sargent’s expressive drawings in charcoal, illuminating the magnitude of his abilities as a portrait draftsman. The drawings in the John Singer Sargent: Portraits in Charcoal exhibition at the Morgan Library and Museum represent an important yet often overlooked part of Sargent’s practice. John Singer Sargent […]
In graphically spare prints and startlingly realistic portraits, darkly suggestive interiors, luscious still lifes and brooding landscape paintings, Félix Edouard Vallotton was a highly original Early Modernist artist. On view in an exhibition of some 80 works at the Metropolitan Museum of Art NYC, through Jan 26, 2020. […]
Best known today for large-scale paintings that were provocative in the early 1860s, Manet shifted his focus and produced a different, though no less radical, body of work In the late 1870s and early 1880s. A major exhibitin at the Getty looks at these later years. […]
The “inside story” about works of art always get my attention, especially if it’s a lost-work-now-found, or a flea-market discovery that turns out to be worth millions! This story is both. […]
T.C. Cannon combined contemporary Western art influences with native traditions, making astute social and political statements with wry humor. He did not want his art to be pigeon-holed as native. He was an artist, period. […]
The Kimbell Museum’s Monet: Late Years exhibition heralds his lifelong vitality as a painter and shows that in his later years — with the suppression of detail in favor of increasing expressiveness – he was a pioneer of abstraction. […]