Fine Art Connoisseur Jan/Feb2023

MARK WHITE FINE ART

Mark White, Paseo del Oso, 18 x 36, Acrylic Gesso on Canvas

Let me hear no more of that absurd maxim: “We need the new, we need to follow our century, everything changes, everything is changed.” Sophistry — all of that! Does nature change, do the light and air change, have the passions of the human heart changed since the time of Homer? “We must follow our century”: but suppose my century is wrong.

— Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres (1780–1867)

Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres (1780–1867), Portrait of the Honorable Frederick Sylvester North Douglas, Son of Lord and Lady Glenbervie , 1815, graphite on paper, 8 1/4 x 6 1/4 in., Portland Museum of Art (Maine), Joan Whitney Payson Collection, gift of John Whitney Payson, 1997.61

Sculpture Garden Gallery Zhiwei Tu (OPA / AIS Master)

The Customs House Museum & Cultural Center showcases three new exhibitions to start of the calendar year. Roger Dale Brown: Capturing the Essence includes his signature plein air and large-scale oil paintings.

Maria D’Souza: From Dreams - Using European mounts of the world’s most iconic animals as the raw form, Maria D’Souza combines design, color, and dimension to create beaded skull works that stylistically range from western to contemporary.

Art of the Horse – An invitational group of leading contemporary artists whose muse is the equine and includes 2D & 3D.

200 S. SECOUND STREET

CLARKSVILLE, TENNESSEE 37040

CUSTOMSHOUSEMUSEUM.ORG

Jan. 6 – Feb. 26

Roger Dale Brown: Capturing the Essence - Crouch Gallery of Customs House Museum

Jan 11 – March 19

Maria D’Souza: From Dreams

Orgain Gallery of Customs House Museum

Jan 30 – April 9

Art of the Horse – An Invitational Exhibition

In the Kimbrough Gallery of Museum

PUBLISHER

B. Eric Rhoads bericrhoads@gmail.com Twitter: @ericrhoads facebook.com/eric.rhoads

EDITOR-IN-CHIEF

MANAGING EDITOR

Peter Trippi peter.trippi@gmail.com

917.968.4476

Brida Connolly bconnolly@streamlinepublishing.com 702.665.5283

CONTRIBUTING WRITERS

Matthias Anderson A llison Malafronte

Kelly Compton Da vid Masello

Max Gillies Louise Nic holson

Daniel Grant Char les Raskob Robinson

DESIGN DIRECTOR

Kenneth Whitney kwhitney@streamlinepublishing.com 561.655.8778

CREATIVE DIRECTOR

Alfonso Jones alfonsostreamline@gmail.com 561.327.6033

DIRECTOR OF SALES & MARKETING

Katie Reeves kreeves @streamlinepublishing.com

VENDORS — ADVERTISING & CONVENTIONS

Sarah Webb swebb@streamlinepublishing.com

PROJECT MARKETING SPECIALIST

Christina Stauffer cstauffer @streamlinepublishing.com

SENIOR MARKETING SPECIALISTS

Dave Bernard dbernard@streamlinepublishing .com

Michael George mgeorge @streamlinepublishing .com

Megan Schaugaard mschaugaard@streamlinepublishing .com

Jennifer Taylor jtaylor@streamlinepublishing .com

Gina Ward gward@streamlinepublishing.com

MARKETING COORDINATOR

Brianna Sheridan bsheridan@streamlinepublishing .com

SALES OPERATIONS SUPPORT

Katherine Jennings kjennings@streamlinepublishing .com

EDITOR, FINE ART TODAY

CherieDawn Haas chaas@streamlinepublishing.com

Contemporary Traditionalist

1960’s Nostalgia, 30 x 15 in., oil on canvas Award of Excellence, AIS 23rd Annual National Juried Exhibition

Prima Ballerina, 20 x 16 in., oil on linen By the Fireside, 24 x 18 in., oil on linen

Women Artists of the West 52nd National Exhibition “East Meets West”

McBride Gallery, Annapolis, MD

November 6 - January 7, 2023

Mountain Oyster Club 53rd Annual Western Art Show and Sale Tucson, AZ.

November 10, 2022 - January 31, 2023

ANDERSON FINE ART GALLERY St. Simons, GA

CHERYL NEWBY GALLERY Pawleys Island, SC

HIGHLANDS ART GALLERY Lambertville, NJ

HUGHES GALLERY Boca Grande, FL

MARY WILLIAMS FINE ARTS Boulder, CO

PROVIDENCE GALLERY Charlotte, NC

www.paulabholtzclawfineart.com

CHAIRMAN/PUBLISHER/CEO

B. Eric Rhoads bericrhoads@gmail.com

Twitter: @ericrhoads facebook.com/eric.rhoads

EXECUTIVE VICE PRESIDENT/ CHIEF OPERATING OFFICER

Tom Elmo telmo@streamlinepublishing.com

CHIEF REVENUE OFFICER

Jim Speakman jspeakman@streamlinepublishing.com

PRODUCTION DIRECTOR

Nicolynn Kuper nkuper@streamlinepublishing.com

DIRECTOR OF FINANCE

Laura Iserman liserman@streamlinepublishing.com

CONTROLLER

Jaime Osetek jaime@streamlinepublishing.com

STAFF ACCOUNTANT Nicole Anderson nanderson@streamlinepublishing.com

CIRCULATION COORDINATOR Sue Henry shenry@streamlinepublishing.com

CUSTOMER SERVICE COORDINATOR Jessica Smith jsmith@streamlinepublishing.com

ASSISTANT TO THE CHAIRMAN

Ali Cruickshank acruickshank@streamlinepublishing.com

Subscriptions:800.610.5771

Also 561 . 655.8778 or www.fineartconnoisseur.com

One-year, 6-issue subscription within the United States: $39.98 (International, 6 issues, $76.98).

Two-year, 12-issue subscription within the United States: $59.98 (International, 12 issues, $106.98).

Attention retailers: If you would like to carry Fine Art Connoisseur in your store, please contact Tom Elmo at 561.655.8778.

Copyright ©2023 Streamline Publishing Inc. Fine Art Connoisseur is a registered trademark of Streamline Publishing; Historic Masters, Today’s Masters, Collector Savvy,

Paula B. Holtzclaw ais, awam, opa

Light filters into an alpine forest as a gently flowing stream catches the sparkling light of afternoon. Painted from a plein air sketch, the radiance is captured in thick, textural strokes of vibrating color.

TEARE discovered his love for thick paint at a Van Gogh exhibit at the Metropolitan Museum in New York City. Fascinated by the impact of the paintings, Teare began exploring texture and now travels the west painting the landscape in glowing, rough-hewn color.

BRAD

Closeup of texture and multiple colors in each stroke.

Above: Alpine Grandeur, oil on canvas, 40” x 40”

004 Frontispiece: Jean-AugusteDominique Ingres

018 Publisher’s Letter

022 Editor’s Note

024 Favorite: Pati Jinich on Maximino Javier

098 Off the Walls

114 Classic Moment: Pavel Sokov

049

ARTISTS MAKING THEIR MARK: FIVE TO WATCH

Allison Malafronte highlights the talents of Nathan Bertling, Stephanie Buer, Zoe Dufour, Martin Geiger, and Robert Peterson. 054

CATHERINE MURPHY: ALWAYS LOOKING

By Daniel Grant

Based in New York’s Hudson Valley, Catherine Murphy (b. 1946) is an “observational painter” who has been making deftly composed, unforgettably enigmatic images for decades. + Includes Expanded Digital Content

062

DRAWING US TO SEE

By Max Gillies

We highlight 39 different artists who excel at drawing from life, imagination, or both, primarily with graphite (pencil), but also with other media. 073

IS THIS A GOLDEN AGE FOR REALISM?

By Milène J. Fernández

A leading New York art commentator tells us which artists, venues, schools, and trends she’s watching as the renaissance of contemporary realism continues.

THE DE MORGANS: MARRIED TO ART

By Kelly Compton

An unprecedented retrospective devoted to a gifted Victorian couple, Evelyn and William De Morgan, has begun its U.S. tour in Wilmington, Delaware.

+ Includes Expanded Digital Content

085

IN OLD ANTWERP, SOMETHING NEW

By CherieDawn Haas

After a 10-year renovation, the triumphant reopening of Antwerp’s Royal Museum of Fine Arts has refocused global attention on this lively Belgian city.

+ Includes Expanded Digital Content

090

GREAT ART NATIONWIDE

We survey 9 top-notch projects occurring this season.

096

ART IN THE WEST

There are at least 4 great reasons to celebrate the American West this season.

ANDREA KOWCH (b. 1986), Expectation , 2019 (detail), acrylic on canvas, 10 x 10 in., private collection. For details, see page 92. .

IN

JESS

MEET

Arizona Fine Art Expo.    January 13 – March 26th, 2023 26540 N. Scottsdale Rd. Scottsdale, Arizona

REPRESENTED BY Wilde Meyer Gallery Scottsdale and Tucson, Arizona

Bella Fine Goods Jackson Hole, Wyoming and Telluride, Colorado

John Hanes Gallery Boonville, California

River Stone Gallery Ennis, Montana

Picasso Marble on travertine base 10½”H x 17¼”L x 10⅞”W

Picasso marble/marble base

12½”H x 5”L x 3”W

Wild Now. WILD FOREVER.

The Departure

RYAN KIRBY

SEWE 2023 Featured Artist

FEBRUARY 17-19, 2023 | CHARLESTON, SOUTH CAROLINA | SEWE.COM

For more than 40 years, Charleston has hosted one of the most beloved events in the Southeast. SEWE is a celebration of the great outdoors through fine art, live entertainment, and special events. It is where artists, conservationists, collectors, and sporting enthusiasts come together to enjoy the outdoor lifestyle and connect through a shared passion for wildlife. This Is SEWE.

Gainesville, Georgia

The Sun Greets, 16 x 12 in., oil on board goble@charter.net www.anngoble.com

Represented by Reinert Fine Art, Charleston, SC

KELLIE JACOBS

Mount Pleasant, South Carolina

Tidewater Reflections, 20 x 20 in., pastel on paper kelliejacobsart@gmail.com

843.906.6746

kelliejacobsart.com

Represented by SEWE, Charleston, SC; Lowcountry Artists Gallery, Charleston, SC

ANN GOBLE

20 YEARS OF PROGRESS

When I was a child, I shared painting with my mother, Jeanne Rhoads. She placed a brush in my hands at an early age, and I have fond memories of sitting at the dining room table painting together. When I was 12, she surprised me with a portrait of me she had painted in an art class. Perhaps that experience inspired my passion for portraits, which we frequently commission for this magazine. My first trip to New York City, with my family for the 1964 World’s Fair, included a visit to the Frick Collection, where monumental, even swashbuckling, paintings sparked my youthful imagination. For the first time, I saw that paintings can come alive.

My childhood dream of becoming an artist took a back seat to other interests. At age 14, radio became my art as I started entertaining between the records; I did this for many years until shifting to the business side, ultimately owning radio stations, selling them, and starting my first magazine in 1986.

Painting re-entered the picture when I was in my late 30s. A lesson presented by my wife, Laurie, for my 40th birthday led to my studying with Jack Acetus Jackson (1935–2001), who himself had studied with Frank Reilly, Ives Gammell, and Nerina Simi (who also trained Daniel Graves of the Florence Academy of Art). Studying in Jackson’s atelier refueled my passion for fine art, which led to the founding of my first art magazine, Fine Art Connoisseur, exactly 20 years ago.

Today we have Fine Art Connoisseur, PleinAir, and an array of newsletters, videos, conferences, and other events devoted to art. All of this activity grew from the tiny seed planted by my mother, who, I suspect, had inherited it from her mother’s sister, Ruth Garrett Goad, a painter in Tennessee.

When we started this magazine, it was difficult to find “realism” being taught in America. Few ateliers existed back then, but thanks to the efforts of the men and women who kept teaching realism, the ateliers have multiplied and blossomed. Our magazine’s team felt that this was the next big trend in art, and that it should be our mission to become a standard-bearer for it. Our intention was never to stop the postmodernist train, or even slow it, but instead to build a new track and give this young movement its own identity, its own opportunities.

Surviving and thriving 20 years later is, for us at least, worthy of some note. Students who graduated 20 years ago have founded their own ateliers, and now realism is being embraced by an even younger generation. Small seeds, nurtured across generations, have resulted in the preservation of these techniques. The pendulum has swung back toward realism — albeit a realism refreshed to reflect our times, infused with contemporary concerns and sensibilities.

Over the past 20 years, I have been delighted to observe exciting talents arriving

in the field of contemporary realist art — and so many important steps in the right direction. I congratulate everyone involved in this journey, many of whom are singled out in Milène J. Fernández’s terrific article in this issue.

We intend to devote the rest of this 20th Anniversary Year to addressing the biggest remaining challenge of all — creating and sustaining the market, building interest among collectors, getting dealers to take on these artists. It takes time and knowledge to move forward, but we are determined to help in this important effort.

We honor those before us who sowed and nurtured the seeds, and I personally am grateful to you as a loyal reader for your encouragement, and to our advertisers, who have stuck with us to help carry the flag. We are truly making progress, and we look forward to whatever lies ahead.

Thank you for 20 wonderful years.

B. ERIC RHOADS Chairman/Publisher bericrhoads@gmail.com facebook.com/eric.rhoads @ericrhoads

JOHN HOWARD SANDEN (b. 1935), Publisher B. Eric Rhoads, 2015, oil on canvas, 30 x 24 in.

YOU COLLECT ART. Now you can become an artist.

LISA EGELI: Painting the Sea™

Lisa Egeli’s art has a very special “wow factor,” and she’s going to show you how she achieves it so you can also experience that kind of wow.

In her extensive travels, Lisa discovered a way to capture the quickly changing environment without having to sketch or paint fast. Now, you’ll be able to take advantage of bringing the outside into your studio, giving you more time to get your paintings just right.

VERA KAVURA: Painting the Flowers of Ukraine™

Vera will show you how you can achieve breathtaking artwork without long preparation time. You’ll discover ways to create shape and form just by using colors. You’ll also learn how to use your “artist’s intuition” and combine it with color to create your own bouquet.

Follow along with Vera’s instruction now to create beautiful flowers in pastel!

“Keep the brush moving like a wave!”

— LISA EGELI

“Nature tells me how it should be.”

— V ERA KAVURA

CHIEN CHUNG-WEI: Spontaneous Watercolor™

Chien Chung-Wei became an overnight sensation when the art world discovered his breathtaking watercolor paintings. His most famous piece, Ambience of Jiufen, instantly attracted the attention of artists and collectors alike.

Study with Chien as he recreates Ambience of Jiufen for you in this video course designed for artists of every skill level. You’ll appreciate his brilliant techniques for maximum control of your watercolor paints — addressing something that can at times be quite a challenge.

NICHOLAS COLEMAN: Storypainting™

Storypainting … a word that describes the mission of nearly all painters — to create artwork that is breathtaking in appearance and leads viewers through the story you’re telling.

Nick sets out to tell and show you how he includes an underlying story in each of his paintings. Believing there is no substitute for your own experiences, you’ll see how this talented artist develops his story l ine and then tells the story through his exquisite artwork.

THE FUTURE BECKONS

Most readers move through this magazine from front to back, so it’s customary to read Eric Rhoads’s Publisher’s Letter before my Editor’s Note. In this issue, Eric has shared the fascinating backstory of how he came to love art and how this magazine came to exist 20 years ago. It’s poignant to be reminded how few ateliers there were then, and how relatively rare it was to find great contemporary realist art in galleries, not to mention online.

Fortunately, all of that has changed for the better, and now the Fine Art Connoisseur team is — as Eric noted — looking forward to the next 20 years, helping artists and collectors flourish even more. Milène J. Fernández’s eight-pagelong article (see pages 73–80) offers an insightful snapshot of today’s realist scene from her informed vantage, filled with names and venues that will surely intrigue you, if you don’t know them already.

But you know what? I could actually have invited four or five more distinguished observers like Milène to write similar articles, and those folks would probably have come up with hundreds more names and venues to admire! Because every true artist is unique — and thus not really in “competition” with any other artist — and because we live in such a huge country, we are blessed to have thousands and thousands of gifted realists out there to admire and cover in this magazine. The talent pool was not nearly so wide and deep 20 years ago, so its growth is truly cause for celebration.

When friends ask which part of this magazine makes my heart skip a beat, I usually demur, replying that it’s a bit like naming your favorite child. When pressed, though, I admit that it’s the Five to Watch profiles written (brilliantly) by

Allison Malafronte in every issue. Why? Because most of these artists are unfamiliar to our readers (“emerging”) and, in some cases, young enough to still be finding their mature voices. Over my nearly 17 years as editor-in-chief, it has been personally gratifying to see their careers evolve and blossom, and sometimes even to learn later that our profile contributed directly to their professional growth. Any field will eventually collapse if it does not have gifted practitioners entering it, and I am glad to confirm that realist art in America today has plenty of fresh talent on the rise.

Of course, Americans have always loved the new, so it’s a thrill to see some emerging realists suddenly getting represented by powerhouse “cutting-edge” galleries and included in “contemporary” museums’ exhibitions and acquisition lists. That has been a long time coming, and it’s still not as good for realists as it is for (say) conceptualists, but it’s definitely going in the right direction.

Caution: the cutting-edge contemporary market is a fickle, fashion-led place, so one never knows when the wind might turn. For this and other good reasons, it’s essential that we all keep buying the realist artworks we admire, showing them to our friends and colleagues, encouraging our museums and other community venues to show them, urging local galleries to sell them, patronizing the ateliers where the training occurs, and generally cheerleading the artists themselves. What you do as a collector — as a Fine Art Connoisseur — really does matter, even if you can’t always see the results right now.

Thank you for supporting this art and these artists, and please keep doing so. We are all definitely moving forward, and the path ahead looks very promising.

TRIPPI PHOTO: FRANCIS HILLS

The TV chef and author Pati Jinich knows the recipe for making a home. “When you plant fruit trees on the land, build walls, and put art on those walls, it means you’ve found your home.” Just as Jinich is used to assembling the many ingredients for her dishes, so, too, is she adept at finding the right works for her home that aesthetically nourish her and her family. One of the ingredients that defines the home she shares in Chevy Chase, Maryland, with her husband and three children (who make occasional appearances on her PBS show, Pati’s Mexican Table) is Maximino Javier’s Hombres Cosechando (Men Harvesting), which hangs in the living room.

Jinich, whose culinary expertise is itself an art form, was raised in a Mexico City household where paintings were a mainstay, though they rarely stayed in place. Her mother was an art dealer, so she “grew up with art on the walls.” She says, “I would see art come and go, but every once in a while a piece would arrive that my mother couldn’t live without. Javier’s Hombres Cosechando was one of them. She loved this paint-

ing when she bought it directly from the artist in Oaxaca. I always loved it, too, and when she said, many years later, that she might sell it, I bought it from her.”

Jinich continues, “To me, this painting exemplifies the spirit of Mexico. The magic realism you read in novels, that you watch in movies, that you see in art, is how we live and embrace life in Mexico. Magic realism is both what you actually see and what you perceive. Lovers, for instance, might be so in love that they feel they’re flying in the sky. Of course, they’re not flying, though you can picture them doing so in spirit.”

One of the reasons Jinich has such an enormous and devoted TV following is that she conveys a palpable on-screen optimism — not just that the roasted salsa verde and Oaxacan roast chicken will turn out as well in your kitchen as they do in hers, but also

that life is filled with joy, people to meet, and places to visit. “I’ve often been called ‘a walking antidepressant.’ Some people feel that the glass in life is either half full or half empty, whereas I always see it as overflowing.”

It’s that very dynamic that attracts Jinich to the Javier painting, which depicts two workers in a fruit orchard, laboring under a sky she calls “the truest blue.” Within that cloudless expanse, cut with a crescent of moon, is a fat horse, flying so fast that baskets are falling off the wagon. With the animal aloft, Jinich likens the painting to a scene by Marc Chagall, who often depicted people and animals in air. “Here the two workers seem so happy and they appear to be interacting with the galloping horse.”

Jinich points, too, to the stumps of cut branches on the tree and its cement trough, which indicates to her that this is an orchard near a town. On the ground, Javier painted a semblance of daylight, while his sky reveals the approach of night. “It’s common in Mexican art and literature that the daytime meets nighttime and that work time meets play time.”

While Jinich admits to liking paintings that tell stories, she, too, is a story creator and teller. Many of her episodes show her meeting fellow chefs, restaurateurs, purveyors, farmers, fruit pickers, and women in their home kitchens in Mexico, where she has them tell stories, not just about products but also about their lives.

“Javier’s painting definitely relates to my life as a television chef and host because it’s about how I see the world — through bold colors, how life is connecting with people and their stories, meeting wonderful real-life characters who are keeping Mexico’s cuisine and culture alive. I love magic realism because that is the way I approach life.”

PATI JINICH

Chef, author, TV host of Pati’s Mexican Table

Photo: Jennifer Chase

Hombres Cosechando (Men Harvesting)

Maximino Javier (b. 1948) 2002, oil on canvas, 32 1/4 x 22 in. Collection of Pati Jinich

2023 MUSEUM GUIDE

FEBRUARY 2023

Heather Arenas, Museum Worthy, oil on cradled wood, 24 x 30 in., Sold

It’s probably safe to say that you, like me, enjoy admiring artworks illustrated in magazines such as Fine Art Connoisseur. I always find it fascinating to see what artists have created, and I especially marvel at how they can often depict the same subject — such as Pike’s Peak or a bowl of roses — in completely fresh and individual ways.

No matter how satisfying it is to read about art, I also want to get out there and see it “live,” up close, under various kinds of light. I want to notice and appreciate aspects of the artwork that just may not be conveyable through even the highest-quality photography and printing. That’s why all of our editorial and marketing team members love visiting museums and galleries for ourselves, and why we encourage you to do so whenever you can.

There is nothing quite like seeing an artwork in person, not only to

appreciate the artist’s skill and get a sense of the work’s size and visual impact, but also to observe how the other people around you are connecting with it. For a sculpture, the desirability of an in-person encounter is even more crucial: we really need to walk around it to fully grasp the artist’s vision in three dimensions.

For these and many other reasons, we are delighted to present this Museums & Galleries section. We thank the colleagues who operate these popular and necessary venues for all they do, and we wish them continued success. Finally, if you know of a venue that should be included in the future, please let us know. We are always grateful for your feedback.

2023 GALLERY EXHIBITION CALENDAR

JANUARY

January 1–February 2: Elements: The People, Objects and Landscapes of Artwork; RJD Gallery, Romeo, MI

January: Circle of Light: An online exhibition examining the use of the halo as a symbol in contemporary art; 33 Contemporary Gallery, Chicago, IL

January 26–February 13: Max Hammond; Bonner David Galleries, New York, NY

FEBRUARY

February 3–March 5: Metamorphosis: The Spirit and Soul of Daniela Werneck; RJD Gallery, Romeo, MI

February: Art Wynwood Miami, art fair participation; 33 Contemporary Gallery, Chicago, IL

February 13–March 13: Jane Jones Solo Show; Bonner David Galleries, New York, NY

MARCH

March 2–April 3: 19th Annual Best of Plein Air Showcase; LPAPA Gallery, Laguna Beach, CA

March 9–27: Peregrine Heathcote; Bonner David Galleries

March 17–31: Brilliant Landscape, Plein Air Artists Josh Clare, Karl Thomas, Richard Murray; Southam Gallery, Cottonwood Heights, UT

March 30–April 18: Hunt Slonem; Bonner David Galleries, Scottsdale, AZ

APRIL

April 7–28: The Great Outdoors, A.D. Shaw & Richard Boyer; Southam Gallery, Cottonwood Heights, UT

MAY

May 12–26: City Livin’ Paint the City; Richard Boyer, Rob Adamson, Ken Baxter, Scott Brough, Richard Hull; Southam Gallery, Cottonwood Heights, UT

JUNE

June 1–September 25: “Kleitsch Inspired” Signature Showcase; LPAPA Gallery, Laguna Beach, CA

JULY

July 6–July 31: 17th Annual Less Is More Small Works Showcase; LPAPA Gallery, Laguna Beach, CA

SEPTEMBER

September 7–October 16: LPAPA

Invitational Art Catalog Showcase; LPAPA Gallery, Laguna Beach, CA

NOVEMBER

November 2–December 4: Ray Roberts

Artist in Residence Solo Exhibition; LPAPA Gallery, Laguna Beach, CA

November 10–December 31, BIG ART. small canvas; RJD Gallery, Romeo, MI

Peter Trippi is editor-in-chief of Fine Art Connoisseur

Visitors enjoy John Quidor’s oil painting  The Return of Rip Van Winkle  (1849); photo: National Gallery of Art

2023 MUSEUM EXHIBITION CALENDAR

ONGOING FROM 2022

Through February 6: From Glass to Paper: The Harvey Littleton Printmaking Legacy; Muskegon Museum of Art, Muskegon, MI

Through May 14: Dreams & Memories; Florence Griswold Museum, Old Lyme, CT

Through September: Investigating Griffith Park; Autry Museum of the American West, Los Angeles, CA

Through March 19: The Rise of Print: Rembrandt & Company; Muskegon Museum of Art, Muskegon, MI

Through March 12: Norwood Viviano: Re–Cast Cities; Muskegon Museum of Art

Long Term: Sculpture from the Brookgreen Collection; Portico Gallery, Brookgreen Gardens Museum, Murrells Inlet, SC

Long Term: Waccamaw Neck Memories; Holmes Gallery, Brookgreen Gardens Museum, Murrells Inlet, SC

JANUARY

January 3–April 22: Hidden Histories: Ancient Art from the Permanent Collections; Hallie Ford Museum of Art, Salem, OR

January 7–February 25: Broad Spectrum: Contemporary Quilts; traveling, with MAGDA (Montana Art Gallery Directors Association), Main Galleries, Hockaday Museum of Art, Kalispell, MT

January 2023–Ongoing, Artist & Academy: Highlights from the Soviet Collection; Springville Museum of Art, Springville, UT

January 24–March 25: Rita Robillard: Time–Place–Impressions; Hallie Ford Museum of Art, Salem, OR

January 29–April 23: Rodin: Contemplation and Dreams — Selections from the Iris and B. Gerald Cantor Collections; Brookgreen Gardens Museum, Murrells Inlet, SC

FEBRUARY

February 11–March 26, 2023: Masters of the American West Exhibition and Sale; Autry Museum of the American West, Los Angeles, CA

MARCH

March 3–June 17: Forever Glacier: Nancy Dunlop Cawdrey; Main Galleries, Hockaday Museum of Art, Kalispell, MT

March 11–April 23: The Western Spirit Art Show and Sale; Cheyenne Frontier Days™ Old West Museum, Cheyenne, WI

March 24–25: Night of Artists; Opening Weekend Events, Celebration and Live Auction, Briscoe Western Art Museum, San Antonio, TX

March 26–May 7: Night of Artists; Public Exhibition and Sale, Briscoe Western Art Museum, San Antonio, TX

APRIL

Apr 26–July 8: 99th Annual Spring Salon; Opening Reception: April 26, Springville Museum of Art, Springville, UT

MAY

May–June: Imagined Wests; Autry Museum of the American West, Los Angeles, CA

May 6–August 12: Jim Hibbard; Hallie Ford Museum of Art, Salem, OR

May 11–August 27: American Realism: Visions of America, 1900–1950; Muskegon Museum of Art, Muskegon, MI

May 13–July 23: American Women Artists Exhibition; The Rosen Galleries, Brookgreen Gardens Museum, Murrells Inlet, SC

May 26 –September 2: Coming Full Circle, T.D. Kelsey and Julie Oriet; Steamboat Art Museum, Steamboat Springs, CO

May 26–September 4: Southwest Rising: Contemporary Art and Legacy of Elaine Horwitch; Opening Reception: May 25, Briscoe Western Art Museum, San Antonio, TX

JUNE

June 3–September 10: Object Lessons in American Art: Selections from the Princeton University Art Museum; Florence Griswold Museum, Old Lyme, CT

June 6–August 26: Tom Prochaska: A Retrospective; Hallie Ford Museum of Art, Salem, OR

June 21–December 2: The Fairbanks Family of Artists; Springville Museum of Art, Springville, UT

June 23–September 16: Wondrous West: Art, Tourism & National Pride; curated and organized by Lee Silliman, Main Galleries, Hockaday Museum of Art, Kalispell, MT

JULY

July 20–August 13: The Cheyenne Frontier Days™ Art Show and Sale; Cheyenne Frontier Days™ Old West Museum, Cheyenne, WY

July 22–June 2024: Sherman Boarding School; Autry Museum of the American West, Los Angeles, CA

AUGUST

August 5–October 29: The National Sculpture Society 90th Annual Awards Exhibition; The Rosen Galleries, Brookgreen Gardens Museum, Murrells Inlet, SC

August 24, 2022–May 13: Mixed Reviews: Utah Art at Mid–Century; Springville Museum of Art, Springville, UT

August 26–December 2: Crow’s Shadow Institute of the Arts Biennial; Hallie Ford Museum of Art, Salem, OR

SEPTEMBER

September 22–December 23: Historic Montana Women: New Works by Jessica Glenn and Amy Livezey; Main Galleries, Hockaday Museum of Art, Kalispell, MT

September 22–December 23, 2023: Coflourish by Open A.I.R.; traveling, with MAGDA (Montana Art Gallery Directors Association), Main Galleries, Hockaday Museum of Art, Kalispell, MT

September 28–November 8: 94th Michigan Contemporary Art Exhibition; Muskegon Museum of Art, Muskegon, MI

September 28–January 22, 2024: Anouk Masson Krantz: “American Cowboys”; Opening Reception: September 27, Briscoe Western Art Museum, San Antonio, TX

OCTOBER

October 18–January 10, 2024: 37th Annual Spiritual & Religious Art of Utah; Springville Museum of Art, Springville, UT

NOVEMBER

November 3–December 3: New Frontiers Art Show and Sale; Cheyenne Frontier Days™ Old West Museum, Cheyenne, WY

DECEMBER

December 9–February 9, 2025: Reclaiming the Camino; Autry Museum of the American West, Los Angeles, CA

Michael Van Zeyl

Amanda Greive

Heather Brunetti

Courtney Minor

EXHIBITION DATE

FEBRUARY 11, 2023

SALE DATE

FEBRUARY 25, 2023

More information at theAutry.org/Masters

BRENDA KINGERY, THE WOODLAND 10, ACRYLIC ON CANVAS, 40 X

Dali Higa

Two Daughters 40" x 30"

Two daughters today

Two daughters tomorrow

They grow up in joy

Then leave for school with sorrow

OIL ON CANVAS

Daughters grow so quickly

Sons quickly as well

Characters captured on canvas

Only a painting can tell

www.californiamuseumoffineart.com

Mr. Tee by Jill Soukup

Oil Painting

96 Lyme Street, Old Lyme, CT 860.434.5542 • FlorenceGriswoldMuseum.org

James Daugherty (1889–1974), Untitled Abstraction (detail), ca. 1970. Oil on canvas,  Florence Griswold Museum, Gift of the Friends of James Daugherty Foundation

through May 14

GALLERIES

33 CONTEMPORARY GALLERY

January: Circle of Light: An online exhibition examining the use of the halo as a symbol in contemporary art

February: Art Wynwood Miami, art fair participation

BONNER DAVID GALLERIES

January 26–February 13: Max Hammond

February 13–March 13: Jane Jones Solo Show, New York, NY

February 16–March 6: Joseph Lorusso

March 9–27: Peregrine Heathcote

March 30-April 18: Hunt Slonem, Scottsdale, AZ

LAGUNA PLEIN AIR PAINTERS ASSOCIATION AND GALLERY

March 2–April 3: 19th Annual Best of Plein Air Showcase

June 1–September 25: “Kleitsch Inspired” Signature Showcase

July 6–July 31: 17th Annual Less Is More Small Works Showcase

September 7–October 16: LPAPA Invitational Art Catalog Showcase

November 2–December 4: Ray Roberts Artist in Residence Solo Exhibition

RJD GALLERY

January 1–February 2: Elements: The People, Objects and Landscapes of Artwork

February 3–March 5: Metamorphosis: The Spirit and Soul of Daniela Werneck

November 10–December 31, 2023: BIG ART. small canvas

SOUTHAM GALLERY

March 17–31: Brilliant Landscape; Plein Air Artists Josh Clare, Karl Thomas, Richard Murray

April 7–28: The Great Outdoors; A.D. Shaw & Richard Boyer

May 12–26: City Livin’ Paint the City; Richard Boyer, Rob Adamson, Ken Baxter, Scott Brough, Richard Hull

MUSEUMS

AUTRY MUSEUM OF THE AMERICAN WEST

Through September: Investigating Griffith Park

February 11–March 26: Masters of the American West Exhibition and Sale

May–June: Imagined Wests

December 9–February 9, 2025: Reclaiming the Camino

July 22, 2023–June 2024: Sherman Boarding School

BRISCOE WESTERN ART MUSEUM

March 24–25: Night of Artists; Opening Weekend Events: Celebration and Live Auction

March 26–May 7: Night of Artists; Public Exhibition and Sale

May 26–September 4: Southwest Rising: Contemporary Art and Legacy of Elaine Horwitch; Opening Reception: May 25

September 28–January 22, 2024, Anouk Masson Krantz: “American Cowboys”; Opening Reception: September 27

BROOKGREEN GARDENS MUSEUM

Long Term: Sculpture from the Brookgreen Collection; Portico Gallery

Long Term: Waccamaw Neck Memories; Holmes Gallery

January 29–April 23: Rodin: Contemplation and Dreams — Selections from the Iris and B. Gerald Cantor Collections

May 13–July 23: American Women Artists Exhibition; The Rosen Galleries

August 5–October 29: The National Sculpture Society 90th Annual Awards Exhibition; The Rosen Galleries

FLORENCE GRISWOLD MUSEUM

Through May 14: Dreams & Memories

June 3–September 10: Object Lessons in American Art: Selections from the Princeton University Art Museum

HALLIE FORD MUSEUM OF ART

January 3–April 22: Hidden Histories: Ancient Art from the Permanent Collections

January 24–March 25: Rita Robillard: Time–Place–Impressions

May 6–August 12: Jim Hibbard

June 6–August 26, 2023: Tom Prochaska: A Retrospective

August 26–December 2: Crow’s Shadow Institute of the Arts Biennial

HOCKADAY MUSEUM OF ART

September 22–December 23: Historic Montana Women: New Works by Jessica Glenn and Amy Livezey

September 22–December 23: Coflourish by Open AIR; traveling, with MAGDA (Montana Art Gallery Directors Association), Main Galleries

January 7–February 25: Broad Spectrum: Contemporary Quilts; traveling, with MAGDA (Montana Art Gallery Directors Association), Main Galleries

March 3–June 17: Forever Glacier: Nancy Dunlop Cawdrey; Main Galleries

June 23–September 16: Wondrous West: Art, Tourism & National Pride; curated and Organized by Lee Silliman, Main Galleries

MUSKEGON MUSEUM OF ART

December 15–February 6: From Glass to Paper: The Harvey Littleton Printmaking Legacy

May 11–August 27: American Realism: Visions of America, 1900–1950

September 5, 2022–March 19: The Rise of Print: Rembrandt & Company

September 28–November 8: 94th Michigan Contemporary Art Exhibition

December 15, 2022–March 12: Norwood Viviano: Re–Cast Cities

CHEYENNE FRONTIER

DAYS™ OLD WEST MUSEUM

March 11–April 23: The Western Spirit Art Show and Sale

July 20–August 13: The Cheyenne Frontier Days™ Art Show and Sale

November 3–December 3: New Frontiers Art Show and Sale

SPRINGVILLE MUSEUM OF ART

January 2023–Ongoing: Artist & Academy: Highlights from the Soviet Collection

April 26–July 8: 99th Annual Spring Salon; Opening Reception: April 26, 2023

June 21–December 2: The Fairbanks Family of Artists

August 24, 2022–May 13: Mixed Reviews: Utah Art at Mid–Century

October 18–January 10, 2024: 37th Annual Spiritual & Religious Art of Utah

STEAMBOAT ART MUSEUM

May 26–September 2: Coming Full Circle, T.D. Kelsey and Julie Oriet

Visit 100 Artists’ Studios in Less Than a Day

For over 30 years, Celebration of Fine Art has brought art collectors and artists together to share their love of art. This juried, invitational show and sale features 40,000 square feet of working studios and artwork by 100 renowned and emerging artists from across the country. The live event will be held in Scottsdale, Arizona from January 14-March 26, 2023 allowing collectors to connect with artists and their work daily from 10 a.m.-6 p.m. Visit CelebrateArt.com year-round to discover featured artists, hear their stories, explore their work, and add to your collections.

www.celebrateart.com

Studio #226 & 227

Leawood, Kansas

Next Steps, 48 x 30 in., oil

www.pashiapaintings.com

Represented by Celebration of Fine Art, Scottsdale, AZ

BECKY PASHIA

ROXANNE ALMBLADE

Studio #237

Payson, Arizona

Over the Reaching Rim, 36 x 48 in., acrylic on wood roxyroo@protonmail.com | 480.305.4419

www.roxannefineart.com

Represented by Mimi’s Gallery, Jerome, AZ

SUZY ALMBLADE

Studio #253

Payson, Arizona

Canyon Lake AZ, 48 x 36 in., watercolor cheshfire@gmail.com | 480.229.2379

www.lynkfire.com/almblade_art

Represented by Cobalt Gallery, Tubac, AZ; Mimi’s Gallery, Jerome, AZ

JUDITH DICKINSON

Studio #238 & 239 Brighton, Colorado

Stampede, 24 x 36 in., oil judith@judithdickinson.com

303.902.0131

www.judithdickinson.com

SHARI LYON

Studio #113 & 114

American Fork, Utah

Albero d’acqua, 48 x 48 in., encaustic and oil paint art@sharilyon.com | 480.241.7907 | www.sharilyon.com

Represented by Elliot Fouts Gallery, Sacramento, CA; New Vision Art, UT

DIANA FERGUSON

Studio #132

Phoenix, Arizona

Bead-Stitched Flower Brooch, 3 1/2 x 4 in., glass cylinder beads, monofilament thread diana@dianafergusonjewelry.com | 480.382.1197 www.dianafergusonjewelry.com

TERRELL POWELL

Studio #240 & 243

Santa Fe, New Mexico

Spirits of La Cieneguilla, 40 x 70 in., acrylic on board terrellpowellartist@yahoo.com | 512.826.1399 | www.terrellpowellartist.com

Represented by Boisjoli Fine Art, Santa Fe, NM

Mission Bloom by Camille Przewodek

Currently residing in California, ZOE DUFOUR (b. 1990) is a sculptor who creates unconventional compositions that capture the powerful dance between the physical and the philosophical. “There is a strong dialogue between practice and thinking, a direct relationship between the hand and head,” the artist explains. “This balance is echoed everywhere in nature and is a constant source of inspiration. The potential for tactile, emotional, and physical connections among objects, space, people, and nature is what draws me to sculpture.”

Dufour continues, “Sculpting gives me a dynamic framework to engage with the world. My practice is a conscious study of nature, people, and animals, born of affinity, love, and curiosity. This study allows me to become more aware of my perceptions and biases so that I can better understand our world as it exists, in reality. As I sculpt, I am balancing intuitive response and rational assessment. Ultimately, I want to sculpt to create art suspended between how we experience the world and what we think we know about the world.”

Originally from Thailand, Dufour studied for five years at the Grand Central Atelier in New York City, where she learned to sculpt primarily in clay and to cast in bronze. More recently, she has been experimenting with ceramic sculpture, a medium she finds fascinating for its challenges and chemistry-based process. “The material science involved in producing

ceramic work is much more rigorous than anything I’ve encountered in traditional sculpture,” she says. “Projecting results that will occur when you combine various clay bodies and glazes to particular temperatures and atmospheres in a kiln feels primal, magical, and scientific all at once.”

Illustrated here is Ray, a sculpture that shows a man surrounded by masked versions of himself, either whole or partial. Created in ceramic stoneware, 18-carat gold luster, and steel, these gilded reflections represent the gradations of influence on a person’s identity over a lifetime. “In geometry,” the artist notes, “a ray is part of a line that has a fixed starting point but no end point. One example is a sun ray. Ray was sculpted as I thought about the many iterations of self we pass through from birth, and the many outside influences that shape us in our indeterminate lifetime.”

Earlier this year, Dufour was sculptor-in-residence at the national historical park dedicated to Augustus Saint-Gaudens (1848–1907) in Cornish, New Hampshire. For the better part of six months, she worked on ambitious life-size compositions while studying the artistry of one of America’s greatest sculptors. We look forward to seeing what she produced there.

Dufour is self-represented.

There is a lot of superb art being made these days. This column by Allison Malafronte shines light on five gifted individuals.

ZOE DUFOUR (b. 1990),  Ray (detail), 2021, ceramic stoneware, 18-carat gold luster, and steel, 40 x 24 x 20 in. (overall), private collection

“Convinced that beauty stubbornly persists, I salvage it wherever I find it — and follow it through.” This declaration by NATHAN BERTLING (b. 1974) aptly summarizes his motivation for being a painter. Fascinated by the often-overlooked nuances of people, places, and things, he combines a commitment to traditional methods and materials with an active imagination and acute observation to make statements about everyday life.

Bertling studied visual arts and communications at Furman University in South Carolina, followed by six years of intensive training at Ben Long’s atelier in Asheville, North Carolina. In Florence during the 1970s, Long had apprenticed with Pietro Annigoni (1910–1988), sometimes called the Patriarch of Realism and one of the last living links to the Italian Renaissance. Since completing his formal training, Bertling has deployed both this Old Master lineage and various contemporary innovations to shape his own style and approach.

Today, the subjects of this Greenville, South Carolina-based artist’s paintings and drawings include people intriguing to him, sentimental objects, and scenes that conjure memories or forgotten moments. The Librarian, a portrait of Bertling’s wife seated in front of a shelf of colorful books, is an apropos way to portray a bibliophile, aspiring author, and illustrator.  Present Imperfect, illustrated here, tells a story of the passage of time and daily practice. “The watch was a gift from my wife and is a meditation on the necessity of perseverance,” the artist explains. “The worn wristband and paintstained wood signify the lessons that can only be learned through

patient plodding. In juxtaposing the nostalgia of a timepiece with an artist’s easel, I was able to reflect the weathered beauty and scarred effects of real labor.”

As for his career path and future plans, Bertling states, “I’m looking and laboring down the long road — to see my life and art deepen together.” He is now a member of New York City’s Salmagundi Club, where his self-portrait Quick to Listen was recently awarded Best in Show at the annual Open Painting, Sculpture & Graphics exhibition. This spring Bertling will travel to France to attend a three-week-long Portraits at the Louvre drawing program through Studio Escalier. He will also continue teaching private lessons in drawing and painting at his studio.

Bertling is represented by Dacia Gallery (New York City).

NATHAN BERTLING (b. 1974),  Present Imperfect , 2021, oil on linen, 16 x 12 in., private collection

ROBERT PETERSON (b. 1981) is not an emerging or up-andcoming artist. With works in the collections of major museums, regular appearances at Art Basel Miami Beach, and celebrity endorsements, he is by all accounts someone who has arrived. Yet the sales, fairs, and collectors are not why Peterson creates. His most important goals revolve around his family, faith, personal growth, and using his art to help shape and shift how Black people are viewed and valued in our society.

Now 41 and based in Lawton, Oklahoma, Peterson has already been through several evolutions, experimenting with different subjects, approaches, and forms of expression. “I believe all visual artists go through various stages exploring not only different media and subjects, but also themselves,” he says. Doing this has “pushed me to come out the other side a better artist and person. Initially, the paintings I created were based on stock images of celebrities I found on the Internet. As I grew as an artist, I began photographing men, women, and children I know.”

He continues, “Over the past two years, my paintings have focused on the Black experience as I have known it through my life. My art is my truth and my voice. It showcases the balance that I have within my own life as a husband and a father, as a Black man. And it reflects a softer side of Black people not often portrayed in the media,

while still showing our strength and resilience, something that I want to see more of in galleries and museums. In 500 years, I want viewers to see the normalcy, peace, and harmony with my subjects — Black people, and Black families in particular — that contrast with the often negative popular narrative. I want these subjects to get the chance to live forever through my work.”

In that vein, Peterson’s Watch Over Us (2021) is one of his favorite works to date. Measuring almost 10 feet wide, it shows two brothers who clearly have each other’s backs and a special bond. “I wanted to create a work that shows the younger brother keeping watch so that his older brother can rest,” Peterson explains. The figure in front “is actually looking to the sky seeking God’s help to watch over both of them — not so that he can rest, but because he knows he isn’t strong enough alone. With God’s help, he can do all things.”

Peterson is currently creating work to be exhibited by the New York gallery Albertz Benda at Frieze Los Angeles this February. At some point this year, Peterson will also be presenting a show at Band of Vices, a Los Angeles gallery.

Peterson shows with Albertz Benda (New York City), Band of Vices (Los Angeles), and Claire Oliver Gallery (New York City).

ROBERT PETERSON (b. 1981),  Watch Over Us, 2021, oil on canvas, 60 x 114 in., private collection

Some artists do their best work indoors, where still lifes, florals, interior scenes, and other subjects come to fruition in the comfort of their own studios. But STEPHANIE BUER (b. 1982) thrives on the unpredictability of being outdoors — observing the evolving light, elements, environment, and architectural structures on any given day or season, then creating a heartfelt interpretation of what she saw and felt in that moment.

Buer grew up in rural Michigan, but when she moved to Detroit to earn a B.F.A. from the College for Creative Studies, she embraced the idiosyncratic beauty of urban life with all its colorful sights, sounds, and textures. “I lived in Detroit for 10 years, so that city is quite special to me,” she says. “I initially struggled to adapt to urban living after being in the countryside my whole life, so I took to wandering the streets and exploring old, abandoned buildings. I ended up falling in love with these beautiful, peaceful, marginal spaces. The relationship to Detroit completely shaped my aesthetic and conceptual language as an artist.”

More recently, during the pandemic, Buer decided to move once again, this time to Vancouver to pursue an M.F.A. at the Emily Carr University of Art + Design. Being highly sensitive to her surroundings, she once again has used art as a therapeutic way to embrace and connect with a new environment. “I moved to Canada during

the depths of the pandemic,” Buer explains. “It was a very difficult time to be in a new place. I found the entire experience generative, though, as I had a lot of time to wander the landscape and become better acquainted with it through the slow, meditative process of drawing and painting.”

One of the pieces that resulted from that time is Untitled (Snow), the charcoal drawing illustrated here. Buer couldn’t have picked a better medium to convey the heavy, gray silence and solitude of a stark winter’s day. In this scene, we feel the familiar forlornness that winter often brings, while also detecting a bit of the loneliness, even sadness, the artist likely felt during this new season of her life. It’s a dramatic piece that instantly transports viewers to a specific time and place while connecting us to the emotional state of the person who created it.

Buer now resides in the state of Washington and looks forward to exploring new territory and ideas this winter during a two-month residency at the Ellis-Beauregard Foundation (Rockland, Maine).

Buer is represented by Abend Gallery (Denver) and Thinkspace Projects (Los Angeles).

STEPHANIE BUER (b. 1982),  Untitled (Snow) , 2021, charcoal on paper, 42 x 56 in., private collection

One look at the paintings of MARTIN GEIGER (b. 1997) and it’s evident where his artistic education took place: the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts in Philadelphia, where he earned a certificate after four years studying drawing and painting. There he trained under the influential instructor Scott Noel (b. 1955), best known for inspiring the Perceptual Painting movement more than a decade ago. Those who follow this approach aim to paint their direct responses to the visible world with a focus on space, volume, color, and shape.

This experience-based approach is well-suited to Geiger because it requires close, careful observation and thoughtful reflection; curiosity about, and admiration of, the physical world have long been his strong suits. “The world itself almost seems like an immense playground of sorts,” the artist writes. “Everything in my surroundings feels and looks intensely interesting at all times. It seems always about ready to reveal itself, almost like a piece of music leading up to a crescendo. It’s clear that there is something very important just beneath the surface for the artist, and making art is my best attempt at excavating these ever-present patterns and showing them to the world.”

The subjects Geiger feels compelled to paint range from figures and landscapes to interiors and architecture, but the formal elements

of light, space, and design are consistently his main subject. In Robert’s Table/Tribute to Scott Noel, for instance, the artist made two contrasting light sources the main characters of his visual narrative while giving a nod to his longtime mentor. “This painting depicts a messy table covered with various overlooked envelopes, containers, and other detritus in a seasoned artist’s studio,” Geiger explains. “The dark interior and cool light bathing these items are contrasted with a blazing, luminous exterior landscape. This theme of outside versus inside was a hallmark of Scott Noel.”

Born in Charlottesville, Geiger has returned to Virginia and now makes his studio in Staunton. There he is an instructor at the Beverly Street Studio School and also serves as head assistant at Bronze Craft Foundry in nearby Waynesboro. Geiger has won two grants from the Elizabeth Greenshields Foundation (2018 and 2022) and considers those experiences instrumental in helping him realize several largescale works.

Geiger is represented by Steven Francis Fine Art (Lynchburg, Virginia).

MARTIN GEIGER (b. 1997),  Robert’s Table/Tribute to Scott Noel , 2022, oil on linen, 32 x 48 in., Steven Francis Fine Art (Lynchburg, Virginia)

BY DANIEL GRANT

TODAY’S MASTERS

CATHERINE MURPHY ALWAYS LOOKING

Catherine Murphy (b. 1946) considers herself an “observational painter,” not the photorealist that many of her works might suggest, nor the surrealist that other of her paintings might bring to mind. Perhaps even “observational painter” isn’t the correct term. “I once had a conversation with one of the old realist painters,” Murphy recalls, “and he said, ‘Well, you’re not really an observational painter because you make things bigger than life.’ And I said, ‘Okay.’” Still, she continues, “I call myself an observational painter. I don’t know if other people would, but I do always work from what I’m looking at.”

So the more interesting questions may be, what is this 74-year-old artist looking at, and what does she see? But first, what do we see?

Take the 1991 painting Persimmon, which zooms in on the lower half of a woman’s face; we see lipstick smeared on her upper lip. We search for content and meaning, our natural response to realist imagery: was this person kissed by someone who wore the same shade of lipstick? Was she too distracted to apply her lipstick carefully? Does the bright lipstick seek to cover her sadness, which is suggested by her downturned lips? Something seems to be happening here, but Murphy isn’t offering any hints.

Then there’s the 1969 painting Unmade Bed , a tumult of colors, textures,

Persimmon , 1991, oil on canvas, 25 3/4 x 29 1/2 in., collection of Dixie Sheridan

(TOP) Unmade Bed, 1969, oil on canvas, 44 x 36 in., private collection (LEFT) Frank Murphy and His Family, 1 980, oil on canvas, 41 x 46 in., private collection

and patterns in the sheets, blankets, and bedspread. Behind them is a blank green wall and a window that reveals the greenery of summer. There is a “look what I can do” element to the painting — that question of whether Murphy is at heart a photorealist comes up again — but still we wonder if there is a significance to the bed itself, which suggests a human story. Is someone just not tidy, or was there a reason this person rushed out of bed? Again, we aren’t offered any help from the artist.

“I love the fact that, when viewers look at my paintings, they make up narratives all their own. I sort of think that’s fantastic,” Murphy says. “If you want to spend enough time with a painting that you’re making up your own narrative, that’s cool. I mean, my narrative is just a portal into the possibilities of what happens in life.”

Bring your own associations to that unmade bed, and that’s just as good as anything else. “There’s so many things that happen in bed,” Murphy notes, identifying some of the possibilities as sex (satisfactory or disappointing), trauma, or just sleep. “It could be any of those things. I don’t complete the story. I leave it open-ended.”

Establishing the ultimate meaning of Murphy’s art, then, may not be altogether possible. It becomes the viewer’s job to put the pieces together to determine what is going on (or the artist’s intention). This may be easier to do when we look at a number of her paintings rather than just one at a time.

For instance, the first thing one notices in her paintings of people — friends and family members, in many cases — is that no one is smiling, or even communicating. Frank Murphy and His Family (1980) features the artist’s father and husband in the foreground, sitting in close proximity but silently looking in different directions. Even in her 1975 Self-Portrait with Pansy, the artist looks in our direction with a sober expression while her cat on the windowsill turns its attention to the city below.

Perhaps one of the glummest images in Murphy’s entire body of work is a 1979 painting of her mother, Catherine O’Reilly Murphy, sitting in profile in a dark-paneled room around midday, cigarette in hand. She stares blankly at an unseen television while a window in the far wall reveals the lush verdure of a summer day. In 2011, University College London neurobiological researchers conducting brain-scanning experiments found that looking at art triggered a surge of the pleasure-inducing chemical dopamine in test volunteers. Judging from this scene, however, it may also be that the creation of art does not necessarily make either artists or their subjects any happier.

Self-Portrait with Pansy, 1975, oil on canvas, 21 x 26 in., collection of the artist

Catherine O’Reilly Murphy, 1979, oil on canvas, 32 x 28 in., private collection, collection of Levi Strauss & Co.

HER OWN PATH

Born in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and raised in nearby Lexington, Murphy studied art at Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, where she met her future husband, the sculptor Harry Roseman (b. 1945). They spent the first years of their marriage living in her parents’ home before purchasing their own in Hyde Park (in New York’s Hudson Valley), where they have lived ever since.

“ I can’t say that my entire family wasn’t depressed,” says Murphy. “They were. Depression is pretty common, and they weren’t clinically diagnosed as such, because nobody did anything about depression until the last 20 years. They mostly self-medicated.” Their sense of disconnection is evident in Frank Murphy and His Family, which seems true-to-life regarding the relationship of her father and husband. The artist adds, “You can bet your life they didn’t engage that much. It would’ve been false if I had shown them engaging. They were both very much in their own worlds.”

Surely it was not easy learning to be a realist painter in the 1960s, when abstraction (color field, conceptualism, process art, and whatever

(ABOVE) Mended Window, 1996, oil on canvas, 48 x 59 in., collection of Timothy Egert (LEFT) The Back of Her Head, 2004, oil on canvas, 54 x 54 in., collection of Carla Solomon and Antonio Magliocco, Jr.

else) held sway, with only high-irony Pop Art around to give viewers a sense of how (commercial) objects looked. Murphy fell in with artists who were exploring representational imagery in new ways. “At the beginning of the ’60s,” she remembers, “there were a number of people, such as Gabriel Laderman, Lennart Anderson, Philip Pearlstein, Paul Resika, Paul Georges, and Lois Dodd, who were working representationally, and they were having shows. As a young art student, I was certainly being informed by them, as well as everything else that was going on.”

Realism may not have been getting a lot of attention, but it wasn’t forgotten entirely. Murphy met a number of artists through the Alliance of Figurative Artists, an informal group that existed between 1969 and 1984 and met on Manhattan’s Lower East Side. “I saw Fairfield Porter there. Alfred Leslie was there. Even Alex Katz showed up.”

Porter was a significant influence on her work, probably more in subject matter — making one’s everyday world the subject of serious art — than in style. He looked back to the French post-impressionists Pierre Bonnard and Edouard Vuillard, while Murphy was more drawn to the intense realism of Janet Fish, an artist slightly older than her. Katz also played an important role, as his paintings, Murphy says, “taught me about scale. Scale is very important, how big something’s going to be.” Indeed, big and getting bigger is a notable aspect of the art Murphy has created over the past two decades.

Camo , 2020, oil on canvas, 49 3/4 x 49 3/4 in., Peter Freeman, Inc. (New York City)

Murphy has made quite a few looking-out-my-window paintings (perhaps a tip of the hat to Lois Dodd), sometimes at the yard outside, sometimes from an upper story looking down on city buildings and streets. Perhaps what’s most evident in these works is that there are almost never people visible. Murphy herself is quite communicative, even voluble, but when she goes into the space created through her paintings, the world becomes hushed, with people either absent or seemingly alienated from each other. The communication that does exist is between shapes and colors.

This sense of alienation, Murphy explains, reflects “the era in which we live,” adding, “I am a complicated person.” Using a nautical term for calculating locations, she notes that her portraits and self-portraits “pretty much just come from a dead reckoning of what I’m looking at.” (In case anyone wonders, her marriage to Roseman — two people in a highly egotistical profession — appears to be a happy one. Or, to put it in Murphy-speak, “He doesn’t get on my nerves more than I get on his nerves.”)

When people are depicted in her paintings, they seem more like objects in a still life. The shape and geometry of objects, natural and manmade, would appear to be Murphy’s greatest interest. One example is Mended Window (1996), in which the broken glass is not really mended but held together with black tape, the configuration of which resembles a Franz Kline painting. Through the window, we see the upper half of late autumnal trees, barren of leaves with thin branches going off in various directions. This is a compare-and-contrast exploration of manmade and natural lines.

Another example is The Back of Her Head (2004), offering a blue-and-whitechecked kerchief covering a woman’s head, seen from behind as she looks out at a blue sky with white clouds. Here geometry meets meteorology. An almost comical take on this theme is Camo (2020), which reveals the back of a man standing in woodlands wearing a camouflage blanket that does not effectively prevent him from standing out. Were faces to be shown in either of these scenes, surely we would try to decipher their expressions, their context and meaning. Yet Murphy seeks only to show us shapes that may or may not correspond to each other.

BEAUTY IN BANALITY

Art can ask various things of a viewer — sometimes to look anew at the world and see its violence (e.g., Picasso’s Guernica) or anxiety (Munch’s Scream), or perhaps how an ordinary object might be perceived based on light and shade (Monet’s Haystacks series). Yet the very first thing art asks of us is to take time to just look. Ever more studies confirm that museum visitors spend an average of 3 1/2 seconds before an artwork, using most of that

Ceiling Fixture , 1994, pencil on paper, 26 1/8 x 21 5/8 in., Harvard Art Museums/ Fogg Museum, gift of Sarah-Ann and Werner H. Kramarsky, 2000.130

Screened Window, 1988, oil on canvas, 38 1/2 x 42 in., collection of Emily Leland Todd

Bathroom Sink , 1994, oil on canvas, 55 1/2 x 44 in., Seven Bridges Foundation (Greenwich, Connecticut)

time to glance at the wall label while strolling past. Some think this represents the death of art. It’s true that rapid-fire examination of her paintings does Catherine Murphy no favors. She spends a seemingly obsessive amount of time studying details of the items she wants to represent, and she wants viewers to regard them the same way.

For instance, Ceiling Fixture (1994) — a light source behind a frosted glass casing, set against a popcorn ceiling — turns the ceiling into a moonscape of ridges that grow darker away from the fixture. (Murphy does not refrain from showing us the dead mosquitos inside the glass.) Another example is Screened Window (1988), which reveals nothing on the other side, as it is nighttime, yet we notice the torn window shade, as well as missing paint and dirt at the sill’s corners. These ordinary subjects tell no large story of life, but their rewards come from our seeing what Murphy saw — the regular and irregular shapes that appear in light.

Murphy has a friend who called Screened Window “my suicide painting,” the artist says. “But it was pure geometry, and it was so beautiful, that white and that black, and the fact that there’s a screen there that isn’t letting you out into the landscape… It’s talking to a kind of group of surfaces.” If the wear and tear and the ripped shade weren’t there, it would have been too formal, the friend observed. Murphy adds, “I want you to walk through your house and not neglect the beauty of something because it needs a paint job.”

Murphy’s tour de force Bathroom Sink (1994) is a very still image of locks of brown hair, some floating in a half-filled Formica sink, some on the adjacent countertop. Nothing is happening, yet this image is filled with activity. The overhead light fixture is reflected in the water, glistening there and even on the floating hair. The stainless-steel

faucet and handles, which show reflections of each other and the entire scene, are bounced back to us in the mirror behind the Formica backsplash. Come up with your own story of why someone cut off so much hair and left such a mess; Murphy provides only a symphony of images and their reflections in what is otherwise a banal setting.

Besides oil paintings, Murphy also makes highly detailed pencil drawings of the same sorts of subjects. (A superb example illustrated here is Tree Trunk from 1989.) In considering whether an image should be presented in black-and-white or color, the answer is how important color is to revealing whatever story she is looking to tell. Murphy explains, “If it’s a drawing, it’s because the color wasn’t telling its own story or a story that I thought needed to be told.”

On the other hand, color is an x-factor not as easily managed as a pencil. Paint and color “rule,” she says. “They make you do things, set the tone. [But with a pencil and eraser], I’m in control. With paint, people would think I was in control, but lots of times, it’s making me do things that a pencil will not make me do. So, it is a relief sometimes to draw, and sometimes it feels like I’m in prison.”

Whatever her medium of choice, the art world should be grateful that Catherine Murphy pushes through such decision-making to arrive at images that always fascinate.

Information: All works illustrated here courtesy of Catherine Murphy and Peter Freeman, Inc. (New York City), which represents the artist.

DANIEL GRANT is a contributing writer to Fine Art Connoisseur and author of The Business of Being an Artist (Allworth Press).

Tree Trunk , 1989, pencil on paper, 18 5/8 x 25 3/8 in., private collection

Still Life with Pillows and Sunlight , 1976, pencil on paper, 8 5/8 x 12 1/2 in., private collection

Button Tin , 1997, pencil on paper, 25 x 21 1/4 in., private collection

MAX

DRAWING US TO SEE

Every young child draws, without prompting or hesitation, so how sad is it that draftsmanship ebbs away from most of us during adolescence? In adulthood, drawing can help us not only to dream, experiment, and plan, but also to see our world more clearly and deeply, to take something complex and break it apart into something manageable. When we slow down to study something long enough to draw it, we begin to understand it, and ultimately to control its impact on us.

These are all powerful, self-affirming reasons to draw, and so we salute the artists represented here for doing so in such fresh and memorable ways. They have created their works primarily with graphite (pencil), and also with charcoal, sanguine, ink, gouache, acrylic, pas-

tel, and even gold leaf. Drawing from life, imagination, or both, these gifted artists demonstrate their mastery of such concepts as perspective, proportion, value, light and shade, line, contour, gesture, and structure — prioritizing them to greater or lesser degrees.

More important, they remind us that compelling art-making does not rely upon expensive, complicated materials — or even necessarily upon color — to connect with viewers. Please enjoy the view, and then try drawing next time you have a chance to sit for a while, like on a train or in a doctor’s waiting room. You will be intrigued by what happens next.

CASEY BAUGH (b. 1984), The Thinker, 2021, charcoal on paper, 16 x 18 in., Vanessa Rothe Fine Art (Laguna Beach, California)

(CLOCKWISE FROM TOP LEFT) ALEKSANDER BETKO (b. 1976), Book of Ecclesiastes , 2022, graphite on paper, 40 x 30 in., 33 Contemporary Gallery (Chicago) ERNEST

E. BURDEN (b. 1963), An Urn for My Father, 2022, graphite on paper, 12 x 18 in., available through the artist ROX CORBETT (b. 1956), Buick and the Beast , 2015, charcoal on paper, 17 1/2 x 25 in., private collection LISA RICKARD (b. 1962), Allegorical Figure , 2022, graphite on paper, 20 x 10 in., 33 Contemporary Gallery (Chicago) THOMAS BUTLER (b. 1980), Melina , 2021, graphite on paper, 18 x 14 in., available through the artist

(CLOCKWISE FROM TOP LEFT) STEPHANIE CAMPOS (b. 1956), Sioux , 2022, charcoal on paper, 25 x 19 in., Settlers West Galleries, Tucson EMILY COPELAND (b. 1992), Vintage Movie Camera , 2022, charcoal on paper, 24 x 34 1/2 in., RJD Gallery (Romeo, Michigan) MICHELLE DUNAWAY (b. 1972), Native Dancer, 2016, charcoal on watercolor paper, 22 x 16 in., private collection MARY C. CARROLL (b. 1979), Talisman , 2022, graphite and acrylic on paper, 16 x 12 in., offered by Abend Gallery (Denver) at this January’s LA Art Show

(ABOVE) SARA GALLAGHER (b. 1990), A Night Out , 2022, graphite and pan pastel on paper, 20 x 27 1/2 in., private collection (LEFT) CARLOS FENTANES (b. 1968), Self Isolation or The Unsung Story of How Dreams Unconsciously Interfered with My Daily Life , 2022, sandpaper charcoal on paper, 22 x 30 in., available through PoetsArtists

(CLOCKWISE FROM ABOVE) MICHAEL DUMAS (b. 1950), Winter Pines – Algonquin Park , 2005, graphite on paper, 30 1/4 x 22 1/2 in., private collection NAOMI MARINO (b. 1977), Saul , 2022, charcoal and white chalk on paper, 22 x 16 in., available through the artist MARY WHYTE (b. 1953), Little One , 2021, graphite on paper, 16 1/2 x 12 1/4 in., available through Mary Whyte Studio (Charleston) NADIA FERRANTE (b. 1976), Melancolia , 2021, white pastel, sanguine, and charcoal on paper, 11 x 8 1/5 in., available through the artist

(TOP) NICOLE ALGER (b. 1966), Beltane , 2022, charcoal and sanguine on paper, 12 x 16 in., available through the artist (ABOVE) MARIANNA FOSTER (b. 1982), Ocean Lace , 2021, charcoal and colored pencil on cardboard, 20 x 32 in., available through the artist (LEFT) SOOKYI LEE (b. 1975), Bridget No. 1 , 2017, charcoal on paper, 24 x 18 in., private collection

DANIEL MAIDMAN (b. 1975), Laura’s Flowers , 2022, pencil on paper, 15 x 11 in., available through the artist

(CLOCKWISE FROM TOP LEFT) GEOFFREY LAURENCE (b. 1949), Addy in July, 2022, pastel and charcoal on paper, 23 x 33 in., available through the artist ANNIE A. MURPHY-ROBINSON (b. 1967), Through the Looking Glass , 2022, sanded charcoal on paper, 45 x 27 in., private collection RYAN WURMSER (b. 1973), Backview of Magda , 2010, graphite on paper, 18 x 24 in., collection of the artist CAROL PEEBLES (b. 1967), Home , 2022, pastel on paper, 22 x 26 in., private collection ROSANNA GADDONI (b. 1972), The Infinite Moment , 2021, charcoal and graphite on paper, 12 1/5 x 12 1/5 in., private collection

(CLOCKWISE FROM TOP LEFT) MICHAEL BERGT (b. 1956), Europa , 2022, ink, 24-karat gold leaf, and gouache on paper, 30 x 40 in., Nüart Gallery (Santa Fe) SÍLVIA SÃO PAULO (b. 1990), Sleeping Awake , 2022, graphite on paper, 22 2/5 x 19 7/10 in., available through artsy.net OLIVER SIN (b. 1973), Dad , 2019, vine charcoal on paper, 17 x 14 in., private collection MEGAN ELIZABETH READ (b. 1982), Fold , 2022, charcoal and graphite on paper, 6 x 6 in., private collection ERIN RUFFINO (b. 1997), Act II: Prayer Like a War Cry, 2021, graphite on paper, 9 x 8 1/2 in., available through the artist

(CLOCKWISE FROM TOP LEFT) JENNA RINGUETTE (b. 2000), Big Pat , 2021, charcoal on paper, 20 x 16 in., available through the artist JOHN CAGGIANO (b. 1949), Storm Cellar, 1980, ink on paper, 15 x 11 in., available through the artist KYLEE SNOW (b. 1988), What Lies Here Is Steadfast , 2022, graphite on gessoed panel, 9 x 12 in., private collection MEGAN SCHAUGAARD (b. 1983), Continuing Constellations , 2022, graphite and charcoal on paper, 8 x 10 in., available through the artist

(CLOCKWISE FROM TOP LEFT) AARON WESTERBERG (b. 1974), Anna with Smirk , 2004, charcoal on rice paper, 14 x 7 in., Vanessa Rothe Fine Art (Laguna Beach, California) SUSAN LYNN (b. 1963), Puppy Nap , 2016, water-soluble pencil on paper, 5 x 8 in., private collection DANIEL VOLENEC (b. 1955), Tomorrow, 2022, charcoal and pencil on paper, 21 x 29 in., available through the artist CHELSIE MURFEE (b. 1984), Are You Listening?, 2021, graphite and ink (mixed media) on paper, 27 x 39 in., 33 Contemporary Gallery (Chicago) DAGGI WALLACE (b. 1962), We All Bleed Red (Bart), 2022, pan pastel, soft pastel, charcoal on stone paper, and acrylic ink on wood panel, 8 x 8 in., available through the artist

BY MILÈNE J. FERNÁNDEZ

IS THIS A GOLDEN AGE FOR REALISM?

Editor’s Note: In celebration of Fine Art Connoisseur’s 20th anniversary, we invited our esteemed colleague Milène J. Fernández to consider, in her own words, the state of contemporary realist art today.

It is a bit daunting to survey the lay of the land of America’s realist art world, and of course I can offer only a glimpse based on my own observations. Having said that, I am delighted to highlight here some of the trends, people, and venues holding my attention at this time. I hope this summary will give you some impetus to seek out the artworks that resonate most with you.

BEAUTY IS IN THE AIR

Before I started writing this, I called my friend Victoria Herrera. She’s known for her gigantic paintings of luminous hibiscus flowers, as well as portraits with intriguing, seemingly allegorical elements. Since studying at New York City’s Grand Central Atelier, Victoria has honed her distinctive visual language and is now challenging herself to explore different subject matter.

When I sought her thoughts on realist art’s current zeitgeist, she immediately replied: “There’s a call to create beauty. It is needed so much right now!” I agreed wholeheartedly. “And a respect for nature!” Victoria added. “Yes, to counteract all that ugliness,” I responded.

Indeed, beauty with a capital B seems to be filling the creative airwaves. Recently I was asked to write about beauty for the online magazine Crayon, and a few days later I participated in the artist Gabriela Handal’s podcast, where she always asks her guests, “What is beauty?” Around the same time, I was invited to see the exhibition Beauty in the Hamptons, curated by Shannon Robinson for the nonprofit organization Collectors for Connoisseurship.

QUANG HO (b. 1963), Autumn Spirit , 2022, oil on board, 30 x 16 in., available through the artist

Her exhibition on Long Island featured 10 artists, including Quang Ho, whose Autumn Spirit — a painting of a nude woman experiencing a moment of ecstatic revelation in tall grasses — reminded me of Jules Bastien-Lepage’s famous Joan of Arc Listening to the Voices (1879, Metropolitan Museum of Art). Ho’s work represents what seems to be a current trend of figurative artists combining carefully rendered forms with looser brushwork — so reminiscent of Bastien-Lepage — and sometimes enhanced with the flat abstraction or decorative patterning seen in Gustav Klimt’s paintings. (A portrait by Ron Hicks in the Hamptons exhibition was a striking example of the latter.)

I also enjoyed Daniel Sprick’s gentle interior paintings, full of quiet atmosphere; despite his careful rendering of details, they still feel open and vibrant. Several scenes by Charles Warren Mundy stood out for their celebration of light, evoking memories of Joaquín Sorolla. Though the paintings and drawings in the Hamptons show were vastly different in style and technique, they all looked great together under the banner of Beauty.

During our conversation, Victoria Herrera and I noted the predominance of electronic images, social media, and fakery; we are all beset with fake personas, fake valuations, fake art. There is much confusion as to what is real or not, and it takes a discerning eye, heart, and mind to tell the difference. Because beauty goes hand in hand with authenticity, it has also

become a way for artists to give us an antidote to fakery, to help us eschew counterfeit culture altogether.

Beauty, then, is a theme in our field, but let’s not call it a trend; rather, it is a timeless principle. The best artists are those who don’t follow trends but cultivate honesty in their creative process. They are not so interested in themselves or how they portray themselves, but in what they want to communicate with the viewer. They have something to say, and their works connect with us.

NATURE’S BEAUTY

Some might say landscape painters have a more direct path to making beauty accessible, and that thus it might actually be harder for them to distinguish themselves from one another. That being said, no matter how closely landscapists observe the same scene or use similar techniques, their art will always look unique if they are being true to themselves.

A recent exhibition by the latest cohort of Hudson River Fellowship recipients comes to mind. Hanging at New York City’s Salmagundi Club, each landscape painting was exquisite, offering a lived experience captured on canvas after the artists spent weeks working together in an idyllic stretch of upstate New York. The up-and-coming artists participating included Diana Buitrago, Dan Bunn, Landon Clay, Susannah Collins, Kate Donovan, Jacob Gabriel, Eric Leichtung, Lorenzo Narciso, Patrick

ADRIANO FARINELLA (b. 1975), Vows Made in Storms Are Forgotten in Calm — Indigo 75 , 2022, oil on canvas, 30 x 40 in., available through the artist

Okrasinski, Kevin Muller-Cisneros, Paul Rosiak, Lara Saunders, and Mary Jane Ward.

Also riffing deftly on the Hudson River tradition are Erik Koeppel, Joseph McGurl, Ken Salaz, and Lauren Sansaricq. Two notable tonalists working in the Eastern U.S. are D. Eleinne Basa and Thomas Kegler, who depict the landscape with a depth of character that’s immediately recognizable. Another landscapist to watch is Pennsylvania’s Adriano Farinella, whose paintings of the sky and clouds combine observation with imagination. In these paintings we can feel his delight, how he revels in “letting go” throughout the creative process.

Yet another artist showing passion for his subject matter is the seascape painter Edward Minoff. He spends hours on the beach working in all kinds of weather, later developing larger canvases by consulting his studies back in the studio. The prolific Lisa Lebofsky, who recently exhibited at Franklin Bowles Galleries’ New York location, also paints the ocean with an intensity that echoes that of the waves themselves.

Looking to the American West, where the beauty of nature has long inspired artists, there is no shortage of talent, though it’s essential to point out Santa Fe’s Peter A. Nisbet. The sensitivity, vibrancy, and grandeur of his paintings always leave me speechless. Other Western artists of this caliber include Clyde Aspevig and George Carlson.

Plein air painting continues to flourish in this country as ever more Americans recognize the value of connecting with nature. Combining adventure with history, science, and land conservation, various entities are doing important work in this area. They include the organizations Plein Air Painters of America, Preserving a Picturesque America, and Hudson River Fellowship, as well as the magazine PleinAir. Dozens of high-quality plein air festivals and competitions occur throughout the U.S. every year. Just for example, this past October, artist Ryan S. Brown hosted a successful paint-out with stellar colleagues at Utah’s spectacular Zion National Park.

BEYOND THE ATELIER

Another realist realm worthy of our attention is the quiet yet mighty cohort of highly trained artists who, after intensive study of classical realism at an atelier or academy, continue perfecting their techniques, even as they hone their own distinctive styles and personal aesthetic visions. Most are now mid-career (some having come to art from entirely different fields), but many are up-and-coming young artists. All have been shaped by one or more of what I call the main “pillars” of classical realism in America: essentially, each of the leading ateliers constitutes a pillar in the recent “up-skilling” of artists.

Some of the most influential artists — those who have taught, mentored, and inspired countless others via these pillars — include Jacob Collins (founder of Grand Central Atelier, New York City);

D. ELEINNE BASA (b. 1967), Aspen Shadows , 2016, oil on linen, 40 x 30 in., Corwin Galleries (Hamilton, Montana)

PETER A. NISBET (b. 1948), Sunburst, Grand Canyon , 2019, oil on canvas, 38 x 54 in., Meyer Gallery (Santa Fe)

Sabin Howard (sculptor of Washington’s forthcoming National World War I Memorial); Juliette Aristides (founder of Seattle’s Aristides Atelier and author of six bestselling instructional books); Dan Thompson (dean of Philadelphia’s Studio Incamminati); Jordan Sokol and Amaya Gurpide (co-directors of the Lyme Academy of Fine Arts, Connecticut); Jeffrey T. Larson and Brock Larson (co-founders of the Great Lakes Academy of Fine Art, Minnesota); Glenn Vilppu (founder of the Vilppu Academy, California); and Steven Assael (senior critic at the New York Academy of Art). Outside the U.S. — yet enormously impactful here—are Daniel Graves (the American-born founder of Italy’s Florence Academy of Art); Norway’s Odd Nerdrum (founder of the narrative-figurative “Kitsch” movement); and Spain’s Antonio López García, whom the late critic Robert Hughes considered “the greatest realist artist alive.”

Of these pillars, I am most familiar with artists influenced by Jacob Collins, whose Grand Central Atelier (GCA) sustains the traditions developed from the Renaissance right up until the advent of impressionism. Their works are recognizable for an ability to render form with a conceptual understanding of how light interacts with the subject, be it a still life, figure, interior, or landscape.

GCA artists draw and paint from life. I find this practice especially appealing today as it offers a welcome respite from the digital imagery with which we are bombarded every day. It’s the difference between

eating home-baked bread straight from the oven and eating pre-sliced bread stored in plastic for days. The former not only tastes better but is more nutritious. The same could be said for how we nourish our souls with art.

A good example of a GCA alumnus with a distinctive vision is Anthony Baus, whose mastery of composition, perspective, and anatomy — among other technical challenges — is undeniable. This is complemented by his playful vision that riffs on the Italian Baroque, creating capriccios with intriguing narratives and a cast of imagined characters (primarily set in New York or Chicago) that awaken our imagination.

Similarly, GCA alumnus Justin Wood has taken the traditional genre of still life and played it forward in his own way. His scenes sustain the legacy of Dutch Golden Age art yet are easily recognizable as his, not only through the paint handling but also his compositions and their intimations.

Flower paintings by Katie Whipple are unmatched in technical execution and inventiveness: she paints one flower per day, creating arrangements that can exist only in her art. Patrick Byrnes, a GCA alumnus now based in Paris, paints beautifully sensitive alla prima portraits that are instantly recognizable for their deft rendering and graphically powerful design. A younger graduate showing great promise is Rachel Li, now teaching at GCA; her figure paintings and tronie-like portraits reflect both technical mastery and an intriguing depth of character.

ANTHONY BAUS (b. 1981), Plaza Hotel, 2021, pen and sepia ink, sepia, and gray wash on paper, 16 1/4 x 21 7/8 in., Robert Simon Fine Art (New York City)

Looking beyond America’s many institutional ateliers, there are centers of excellence and influence wherever a master artist or two is willing to teach. In Taos, New Mexico, for example, are David A. Leffel and Sherrie McGraw, a married couple who brought to the Southwest the virtuosity in painting and drawing they long demonstrated at the Art Students League of New York. The light effects in their paintings are wonderfully inviting, making visible their reverence for nature and the mysteries of life.

OPEN-ENDED NARRATIVES

As it matures, our field has become less focused on describing what we actually see with our eyes, or telling a specific story. Hyeseung Song, an alumna of Water Street Atelier (GCA’s precursor), paints large figurative oils reflecting a curious engagement with the real world, myth, and imagination. Achieving a beautiful balance between realism, naturalism, and a fantastical world that is still somehow palpable, Song uses looser brushwork that is fully integrated with her figures’ three-dimensionality.

Among other artists breaking ground in this mode is Colorado’s Zoey Frank, whose large multi-figure paintings have become almost filmic by showing the passing of time and changes in space within a multi-dimensional universe. In the past two years, she has mounted two sold-out solo shows at New York’s Sugarlift. This gallery also represents the prolific Nicolas V. Sanchez, who recently exhibited there paintings of Mexican folkloric dancers evoking his own heritage. His work spans oil, charcoal, watercolor, and ink, ranging from very small sketchbooks to larger-thanlife figure paintings. Yana Beylinson’s recent solo exhibition at Denver’s Abend Gallery, titled Synesthesia, mesmerized visitors through bold coloring, abstract patterns, and shapes intertwined with human figures — all giving a sense of the connection between nature and the divine. Staying with decorative patterning, Yuka Imata — whose mentor was the late portraitist Ronald Sherr — recently exhibited dreamy figure drawings with monotone foliage backgrounds at the Salmagundi.

Another artist whose works are readily recognizable for their perspective, atmosphere, value structure, and color harmony is Edmond (“Eddie”) Rochat. He has painted many interior scenes with figures and is now working on a larger scale that will be exciting to see. Rochat is an instructor at Connecticut’s Lyme Academy of Fine Arts, invited there by co-directors Jordan Sokol and Amaya Gurpide, whose own portraits and figure drawings and paintings are extraordinarily sensitive. Comparably sensitive and honest are the beautiful figure and portrait paintings of Julio Reyes, represented by New York City’s Arcadia Contemporary, whose figures seem to reveal their inner world to the viewer.

Some of the field’s leading artists have taken up the challenge of

JUSTIN WOOD (b. 1982), Pears , 2022, oil on canvas on board, 14 x 18 in., available through the artist

RACHEL LI (b. 1995), The Silk Wrap , 2022, oil on panel, 24 x 18 in., permanent collection of the New Salem Museum & Academy of Fine Art (Massachusetts)

multi-figure narrative paintings. Inspired by Mannerist and Baroque art, the paintings of Adam Miller are monumental in scope, scale, and mastery. Likewise, in her series of homages to historical women artists, Gabriela Gonzalez Dellosso does not shy away from ambitious compositions, connecting viewers with history in a highly personal way that allows us to contemplate the significance of the events depicted. For example, she was inspired to paint The Burning of Adélaïde Labille Guiard’s Masterpiece after recognizing her forerunner’s painting at the Met and imagining how devastated she must have felt after revolutionaries burned a painting on which she had worked for more than two years. Looking at Dellosso’s scene, we discover how the French Revolution was not really about establishing égalité; had it been so, this woman’s masterpiece would have been praised rather than destroyed.

Other top artists who pursue narrative or allegorical paintings with multiple figures include Bo Bartlett, who reminds me of Norman Rockwell’s knack for capturing the spirit of family and America, and the colortheory expert Graydon Parrish, who brought a historical sensibility to his monumentally scaled allegory of September 11, 2001, Cycle of Terror and Tragedy. Parrish’s contemporary Patricia Watwood combines allegorical and classical themes (such as Pandora’s Box) with her own insights on contemporary life.

Skillfully integrating his family members and friends into Western landscapes is the California master Jeremy Lipking, who captures the vibrancy of sunlight in a manner reminiscent of Sargent and Zorn. He is particularly admired for striking a harmonious balance between sharp rendering of form and looser, less defined passages of paint. A different kind of talent is Molly Judd, who reveals the influence of her training with Odd Nerdrum through a limited palette and the capacity to convey a sense of pathos in human frailty, all while developing her own aesthetic vision beautifully.

SKILLING UP

These are only a few of the many active artists I could single out for praise. Just as it took them years to become masters, it also takes time for art lovers to fully appreciate the depth of these contemporary realists without labeling them “old-fashioned,” “academic,” or even “photographic” just because their work looks so realistic.

Last May I was inspired by my preview visit to the New Salem Museum & Academy of Fine Art (NSMA) in Massachusetts. [Watch for a feature article on it in  Fine Art Connoisseur  as soon as it’s ready to open.] NSMA will be not only a museum, but a dynamic place that encourages artists, collectors, dealers, and curators to learn from one another. It’s also where the public will see works by living realists that are otherwise inaccessible in private collections. NSMA’s collection, architecture, and installation all exude a genuine love for beautiful, authentic art. Director Michael Klein explains, “For me as an artist, the idea, composition, and color harmony of a painting stop at the frame, but for Laura Barletta [owner and NSMA’s curator], the collection catalyzed the museum’s perfectly customized interior design. We look forward to showing our visitors how art and architecture can complement each other.”

Developing our eye and appreciation for great contemporary realist art can enrich our lives. We glimpsed this during the pandemic, when many people, myself included, began taking online art classes. Despite its emphasis on creating art directly from life, even GCA launched online classes for part-time students. The number of subscribers to New Masters Academy, an online initiative founded by draftsman-sculptor Joshua Jacobo

ZOEY FRANK (b. 1987), Wedding , 2018, oil on linen on panel, 96 x 140 in., private collection

with his sculptor wife, Johanna Schweiger, grew significantly, as it did for Domestika (co-founded by Julio G. Cotorruelo and Tomy Pelluz), and Painttube.tv, founded by Streamline Publishing’s Eric Rhoads.

Beyond these larger platforms, countless individual artists started teaching online or expanding their offerings; key examples include Stephen Bauman Artwork and Devin Cecil-Wishing. One long-term outcome of this boom may well be more amateurs-turned-collectors developing better taste through better-trained eyes: instead of choosing what to buy based on gut instinct, they are better equipped to recognize the technical excellence of a specific artwork, and more than likely its narrative or allegorical meanings.

The up-skilling trend has been sustained through publishing as well. Novices, indeed anyone, can benefit from Juliette Aristides’s instructional

GABRIELA GONZALEZ DELLOSSO (b. 1968), The Burning of Adélaïde Labille Guiard’s Masterpiece , 2015, oil on linen, 70 x 105 in., Butler Institute of American Art (Youngstown, Ohio)

JULIO REYES (b. 1982), Above and Below, 2021, egg tempera on panel, 12 x 13 1/2 in., Arcadia Contemporary (New York City)

sketchbooks — especially Beginning Drawing Atelier and Figure Drawing Atelier — and from Patricia Watwood’s brand-new book The Path of Drawing: Lessons for Everyday Creativity and Mindfulness

The boom in competitions has also advanced the field. Led by member and conservator Alexander Katlan, the Salmagundi has increased the number of competitions (see page 91), which complement those already offered by such peers as the Art Renewal Center, Portrait Society of America, National Sculpture Society, Catharine Lorillard Wolfe Art Club, and Bennett Prize (see page 93). Another worth following is the up-and-coming NTD International Figure Painting Competition, a Chinese-American initiative that promotes “beauty, goodness, and authenticity in traditional painting.” Look, too, for the Almenara Art Prize and the Donald Jurney Travel Fellowship.

Gazing toward the future, the School of Atelier Arts, headed by artist-educator Amanda Theis and partnered with the Florence Academy of Art, is a newly accredited, reduced-residency Master’s program designed explicitly for classroom art teachers. These individuals will now be well prepared to teach youngsters how to make art more competently — and thus with greater joy and creativity. This initiative’s overall goal is to help reverse the down-skilling trend we have seen in school and collegiate art education since World War II.

Perhaps this last program is the most encouraging of all because it is the young who will ultimately shape (or reshape) everything, in every walk of life. All of the relatively recent progress outlined above makes me hopeful that the next generation will move realist art forward in fascinating ways. I cannot wait to see what happens next.

Some galleries to watch: abendgallery.com, arcadia contemporary.com, collinsgalleries.com, evokecontemporary. com, franklinbowlesgallery.com, galleryhennoch.com, gpgallery.com, grenninggallery.com, meyergalleries.com, rehs.com, rjdgallery.com, robertsimon.com, salmagundi.org, sugarlift.com, sloanemerrillgallery.com

Some podcasts to enjoy: artgrindpodcast.com, johndalton. me, suggesteddonationpodcast.com, thesculptorsfuneral.com, The Unvarnished Podcast with Ryan S. Brown

MILÈNE J. FERNÁNDEZ is an arts writer, editor, and “Sunday painter.” A former staff member of The Epoch Times, she has contributed to Canvas (the New Masters Academy’s online magazine), edited the third edition of Glenn Vilppu’s Drawing Manual, and written a foreword for artist Thomas Kegler’s book, The Spirit and the Brush. She is working on her first book.

MICHAEL KLEIN (b. 1980), With Nature , 2020, oil on panel, 72 x 35 in., permanent collection of the New Salem Museum & Academy of Fine Art (Massachusetts)

HISTORIC MASTERS

THE DE MORGANS MARRIED TO ART

Home to the most comprehensive collection of PreRaphaelite art outside the United Kingdom, Wilmington’s Delaware Art Museum (“DelArt”) is the ideal institution to launch the U.S. tour of an important exhibition, A Marriage of Arts and Crafts: Evelyn & William De Morgan. On view there through February 19, this is the first retrospective anywhere focused on the art created by Evelyn Pickering De Morgan (1855–1919) and her husband, William Frend De Morgan (1839–1917).

Five years in the making, it features more than 75 paintings, drawings, and decorative artworks drawn from the collection of the De Morgan Foundation in the U.K. The project has been co-organized by Sarah Hardy, curator of the De Morgan Museum, and Margaretta Frederick, DelArt’s curator emerita.

William was already 15 when Evelyn was born, so it makes sense to begin their story with him. He was born in London to accomplished parents: his mother was a writer, activist, and leader of the spiritualist movement, while his father taught mathematics at University College. William shared his father’s facility with numbers, but in 1859 he decided to enroll at the Royal Academy Schools, where he met many members of the PreRaphaelite circle. Inspired by his acquaintance with the Arts & Crafts pioneer William Morris, he started a pottery, drawing upon his own mathematical and scientific knowl edge to experiment with ceramic tiles, pots, and plates, and also with stained glass.

Soon William became much admired for his shimmering, brilliantly colored lusterware ceramics. His fascination with the process of firing led to the recreation of long-forgotten luster techniques from the 11th and 12th centuries, and the designs reflect his cosmopolitan absorption of sources ranging from medieval Europe and the Italian Renaissance to the ancient Middle East. Indeed, William regularly visited the British Museum and what is now the Victoria and Albert Museum, studying Islamic artisans’ use of flat pattern and symmetry while imagining his own menagerie of fantastical creatures.

William’s output was incorporated into important residential and institutional decors throughout the English-speaking world, yet his business model was flawed because he clung to the Arts & Crafts ideal of handcraftsmanship, which is slow and expensive. Ultimately compelled to close the pottery, he shifted to literature and was amazed when his first novel, Joseph Vance (1906), became a bestseller in both the U.K. and U.S. DelArt’s exhibition sheds light on this last phase of his career through books and archival materials loaned by the Mark Samuels Lasner Collection at the University of Delaware Library.

AGAINST ALL ODDS

Evelyn’s story is completely different. She was born to an aristocratic London family who simply

WILLIAM DE MORGAN (1839–1917), Bear and Hare Dish , c. 1890, tin-glazed earthenware, 19 1/4 x 19 1/4 x 3 15/16 in.

WILLIAM DE MORGAN (1839–1917), Fish and Net Vase, 1882–88, copper luster glazed earthenware ceramic vase, 10 3/4 in. high, 8 in. diameter

EVELYN DE MORGAN (1855–1919), Flora, 1894, oil on canvas, 78 1/3 x 34 1/2 in.

EVELYN DE MORGAN (1855–1919), Earthbound , 1897, oil on canvas, 34 1/2 x 46 1/2 in.

EVELYN DE MORGAN (1855–1919), The Angel of Death I , 1880, oil on canvas, 44 1/2 x 36 1/2 in.

expected her to marry well. At first, they encouraged her artistic inclinations, but eventually she had to hide her supplies because her dedication to art was getting in the way of landing a husband. Thanks to mentorship and tutoring by her supportive uncle, the Pre-Raphaelite painter John Roddam Spencer Stanhope (1829–1908), Evelyn stuck to her guns and in 1873 was admitted to London’s newly opened Slade School of Art, one of the few places where British women could undertake serious training. Evelyn’s wealth and privilege allowed her to enhance this education by studying historical masterworks in continental Europe, particularly in Florence, where her uncle had resettled. Evident in most of her art is the powerful influence of the early Italian Renaissance, especially Sandro Botticelli’s linearity.

Evelyn began her exhibiting career in 1876, when she was just 21.Her success was assured the following year when she became one of only two women invited to participate in the inaugural exhibition of London’s trendy Grosvenor Gallery. Her large, jewel-toned PreRaphaelite paintings offer a unique blend of Renaissance technique and symbolism that subtly points to modern issues such as the Victorians’ relentless pursuit of wealth and the waging of unnecessary imperial wars.

In 1887, William and Evelyn married quietly in a London registry office. Both were well established in their careers, and she was already 32, unusually old for a first marriage at that time. In this and other ways, their marriage went against the grain — it was a working partnership through which Evelyn became the main breadwinner. The De Morgans became what we now call a power couple, friendly with everyone in the Pre-Raphaelite, Aesthetic, and Arts & Crafts scenes. They were also active in networks outside the art world, focusing particularly

on spiritualism, pacifism, and the drive for women’s suffrage — all themes reflected in Evelyn’s paintings.

Living into the late 1910s, Evelyn and William saw their art fall from fashion, and their names were forgotten soon after their deaths. This is due partly to William’s production of decorative art, which is often unfairly regarded as inferior to fine art, and to Evelyn’s being dismissed as a disciple of the famous Pre-Raphaelite Edward Burne-Jones. Now, DelArt is “delighted to introduce audiences to a pair of nineteenth-century artists who intentionally integrated their artistic practices with their social and political commitments,” says Sophie Lynford, the museum’s recently appointed Annette WoolardProvine Curator of the Bancroft Collection.

SEEING MORE

In America, De Morgan fans can find their artworks scattered at institutions such as the Art Institute of Chicago, DelArt, Huntington Library, and Santa Barbara Museum of Art. But the world’s leading repository is the De Morgan Collection, formed by Evelyn’s younger sister, Wilhelmina, and her husband, Charles Stirling. They began their journey when William gave them two plates as a wedding present in 1901, and by the time Wilhelmina died in 1965 she owned approximately 2,000 works — most of which no one else wanted.

Over the past quarter century, it has been a joy to witness the resurgence of interest in this material, and we should remember that the De Morgans are not the only artists of their generation who haven’t gotten their due. Also on view at DelArt (though only through February 5) is the exhibition Forgotten Pre-Raphaelites, which presents more than 40 works from the museum’s rich collection, all created by lesser-known artists and most off public view for many years. Curator Sophie Lynford has been careful to include fascinating works by several women artists, as well as art made by American followers of the Pre-Raphaelite movement.

Though the De Morgan show is halfway through its run in Wilmington, there is much more ahead. On its closing day (February 19), Margaretta Frederick will present a free lecture and sign copies of the accompanying 176-page publication she has edited for Yale University Press. (Devotees should also shop online for another relevant new volume, Victorian Secrets: The Poems of Evelyn Pickering De Morgan, edited by the British scholar Serena Trowbridge.)

A Marriage of Arts and Crafts will move next to the Crocker Art Museum in Sacramento for a run there (September 17, 2023–January 7, 2024). It has also set the stage for another major Pre-Raphaelite exhibition coming to DelArt this autumn. Organized in partnership with Tate Britain (London), The Rossettis will explore the art made by three remarkable Rossetti siblings (Dante Gabriel, Christina, and William Michael), as well as by Dante’s short-lived wife, Elizabeth Siddal.

DelArt director Molly Giordano is rightly excited by the rollout of all these groundbreaking projects. She notes, “We’re calling this The Year of Pre-Raphaelites, and we can’t wait to share the masterpieces, exhibitions, and programs celebrating this rich period of art history.”

Information: delart.org, demorgan.org.uk , crockerart.org,

victoriansecrets. co.uk. All images © De Morgan Collection, courtesy of the De Morgan Foundation

KELLY COMPTON is a contributing writer to Fine Art Connoisseur.

(LEFT) The exhibition’s opening wall; photo: Carson Zullinger (BELOW LEFT) Evelyn’s and William’s artworks are mixed together in the exhibition; photo: Carson Zullinger

EVELYN DE MORGAN

EVELYN DE MORGAN (1855–1919), Love’s Passing , 1883–84, oil on canvas, 28 1/4 x 43 1/4 in.

EVELYN DE MORGAN (1855–1919), The Gilded Cage , 1901–02, oil on canvas, 35 7/8 x 42 7/8 in.

DIGITAL CONTENT

(ABOVE) EVELYN DE MORGAN (1855–1919), Helen of Troy, 1898, oil on canvas, 48 7/8 x 29 in. (TOP RIGHT) EVELYN DE MORGAN (1855–1919), The Love Potion , 1903, oil on canvas, 41 x 20 1/2 in. (RIGHT) EVELYN DE MORGAN (1855–1919), The Red Cross , 1914–16, oil on canvas, 33 1/2 x 23 1/2 in.

WILLIAM DE MORGAN

WILLIAM DE MORGAN (1839–1917), Seahorse Tile Panel , c. 1880, tin-glazed earthenware tiles set in wooden panel, 25 3/16 x 9 1/4 x 1 15/16 in.

WILLIAM DE MORGAN (1839–1917), Running Antelope Plate , c. 1890, copper and silver luster glazed earthenware, 14 1/16 x 14 1/16 x 1 5/16 in.

WILLIAM DE MORGAN (1839–1917), Two Handled Persian Vase , c. 1890, tin-glazed earthenware, 13 1/2 x 16 3/4 x 16 3/4 in.

BY CHERIEDAWN HAAS

IN OLD ANTWERP,SOMETHING NEW

Last September, the eager citizens of Antwerp, Belgium, saw the doors of their largest art museum swing open for the first time in 11 years. Pause to consider that some of this great port city’s adolescent residents are now exploring one of its cultural landmarks for the first time in their lives.

In fact, the Koninklijk Museum voor Schone Kunsten Antwerpen (KMSKA, or Royal Museum of Fine Arts Antwerp) will feel new even to those who once knew it well. Dikkie Scipio of the firm KAAN Architecten led the $105 million renovation of the 1890 structure, which included converting its historic courtyards into indoor galleries, a strategy that has added 40 percent more exhibition space. That growth is especially critical because, with 8,400 pieces, KMSKA holds the largest art collection in Flanders, the northern region of Belgium. Among them are 650 works cited on the Flemish government’s official Masterpiece List; 200 of these were carefully conserved while the museum was closed.

The result provides nothing short of a stunning experience. After strolling through the redesigned grounds and admiring a fountain by Spanish artist Cristina Iglesias (b. 1956), visitors are awed upon entering the magnificent Keyzerzaal, lined with enormous historical paintings. Now it’s time to decide which section to explore first, the Old Masters or the modernists, though selected examples of each have been mixed judiciously into the other half. Connecting the two sections is the unrivaled collection of works by James Ensor (1860–1949), the savagely satirical Flemish painter whom KMSKA considers a “game-changer” for bridging older narrative styles with the newer, expressionistic approaches he considered more truthful.

Throughout the reimagined museum, 10 surprising installations have been added to encourage everyone — especially youngsters — to look closer. In one instance, you’ll gaze up to see a giant nose protruding from the wall, then study Ensor’s artworks below to discover the correlation. In

(TOP) KMSKA’s main façade at dusk, with two sculpted chariots atop it (Triumph of the Fine Arts ); photo: Karin Borghouts (RIGHT) KAAN Architecten’s rendering of how it inserted new gallery spaces within the shell of KMSKA’s 1890 building

another, a giant red sculpture of a craggy mountain confronts the hilly landscape paintings hanging nearby. As you enter the museum, you can pick up a guide that helps you pursue fun, creative “assignments” related to each of these 10 interventions.

The modern section includes international stars such as Amedeo Modigliani and Salvador Dalí, as well as Belgian ones like René Magritte and Rik Wouters. Readers of Fine Art Connoisseur are likely to prefer the Old Master rooms, which include such showstoppers as Jan van Eyck’s St. Barbara, Pieter Breughel the Younger’s Calvary, Jean Fouquet’s Madonna Surrounded by Seraphim and Cherubim, Titian’s Jacopo Pesaro Being Presented by Pope Alexander VI to St. Peter, and Anthony van Dyck’s Lamentation of Christ

(RIGHT) One wall of the magnificent Keyzerzaal (King’s Hall) that welcomes visitors to KMSKA; photo: Karin Borghouts (BELOW) Paintings by James Ensor (1860–1949) and his contemporaries hang in one of the new galleries; photo: Karin Borghouts

Displays full of unexpected insights can be found here, too. For example, alongside the triptych God the Father with Singing and Music-Making Angels painted by the Flemish “Primitive” Hans Memling (1430–1494) hangs a display of musical instruments similar to those in his altarpiece. Listen and you’ll hear comparable instruments being played, ever so softly. Experiences like this make it likely you’ll feel a new level of connection with the artist, the story, and the importance of art generally.

This is not the only room that incorporates sound. Halfway through your visit, enter what feels like another world, so immersive some might forget where they are. In this open space, details of masterworks are projected onto high walls, with movements subtly added. Inviting your eyes to gaze along with the muted sounds, it’s a welcome break that might just alleviate what some call “museum fatigue.”

After leaving Antwerp, I learned that Sadie Valeri, a California artist I’ve long admired, visited KMSKA just a few days after I did. “The museum is beautiful, and it was definitely special to walk into such an imposing place that also feels fresh and welcoming,” she told me. “I particularly loved the wall colors they chose. Artworks should not be presented as specimens; they should be held in a warm, welcoming environment so you can feel embraced by the entire experience.”

(ABOVE) A craggy “mountain” has been installed in a gallery displaying Old Master landscape paintings as part of “The Ten” installation initiative. Photo: Karin Borghouts (LEFT) JEAN FOUQUET (c. 1420–1481), Madonna Surrounded by Seraphim and Cherubim , c. 1450, oil on panel, 36 1/4 x 32 3/4 in.

ABOVE & BELOW YOU

Inside KMSKA, visitors should look up at the ceilings to admire another innovation. When the building opened in 1890, only daylight illuminated the artworks; when electricity was introduced later, visiting hours could be extended. Now the design team has installed 198 “stargazer” skylights that shed a steady northern light that makes every artwork look its best. (There is still electric lighting, of course.) On view through next September is the exhibition The Making Of, which traces this and other intriguing aspects of the building’s renovation through photographs taken by Karin Borghouts.

Atop the museum’s main façade stand two massive horse-drawn chariot sculptures titled Triumph of the Fine Arts. Each of the female charioteers holds a laurel wreath aloft, an elegant nod to classical antiquity and a gesture of welcome to everyone gazing up as they approach the main entrance. Meanwhile, beneath the museum lie the ruins of the fortress of the Grand Duke of Alba (1507–1582), whom the Spanish king dispatched to crush a popular uprising in what is now Belgium and the Netherlands.

“It is bizarre that the museum is standing on the ruins of a citadel built to subjugate Antwerp,” says architect Dikkie Scipio. “In 1874 the city tore down the citadel, which was not a monument anyone wanted to cherish. It’s insane to think that a temple to art has risen in a place of so much oppression and combat — so much history stacked on top of history.”

Looking down upon the city, we can see that when the citadel and its neighborhood were demolished, Antwerpers made a fresh start of things by placing KMSKA there, even rerouting nearby streets so they led straight to it. This layout is a telling symbol of how significant fine art is to the city and its people.

RUBENS, OF COURSE

Another source of pride is that this area was home to the Baroque master Peter Paul Rubens (1577–1640), whose subjects encompassed the mythological, biblical, and historical. KMSKA’s collection boasts 27 of his paintings and some 600 engravings. Many of them have undergone conservation treatments, which now occur in the museum’s freshly upgraded laboratory. Through a newly installed window, visitors can watch experts at work and are impressed by all the scientific equipment — a fascinating opportunity that brings us closer to the technical processes of preserving art.

Adoration of the Magi and The Prodigal Son are just two of the Rubens masterpieces the museum highlights due to their virtuosity and historical significance. Sadie Valeri recalls, “Entering the enormous Rubens gallery and being surrounded by these towering works of art filled me with the very reason I travel: to be rendered speechless by sheer beauty and awe.”

Hans Memling’s huge triptych God the Father with Singing and MusicMaking Angels (left) is complemented by musical instruments (right) and an interpretive touchscreen (foreground).

Artist Sadie Valeri admires Peter Paul Rubens’s massive Madonna Enthroned with Child and Saints (c. 1628).

Not far from KMSKA is the Rubens House, which will be well worth a visit once it reopens in 2027. Another renovation, you ask? Yes, Antwerp is a “living city” always evolving while honoring its past. Thus the Rubens House is undergoing an extension and restoration to “relieve pressure” from the more than 200,000 visitors it welcomes annually. These updates will include improved climate controls and better accessibility for mobility-impaired visitors.

Rubens bought this property in 1610, making it into his dream home, adding a semicircular gallery to display sculpture, a studio where he and his assistants worked, a massive portico, and a sprawling garden pavilion. The latter will feature prominently in the redesign and will have 8,835 plants offering a colorful “Baroque garden for all seasons.”

Until the Rubens House is ready, you can experience the master’s creativity at cathedrals nearby. In some ways, this is just as satisfying, as these are the sacred settings for which the paintings were originally intended. In the beautiful Cathedral of Our Lady, you can stand close to The Descent from the Cross, Assumption of the Virgin Mary, Elevation of the Cross, and Resurrection of Christ. Then stroll to St. Paul’s to see another biblical scene painted by Rubens, part of the “15 Mysteries” group of works that trace joyous and sorrowful moments in the lives of Jesus and Mary. “Although I had seen photos of the paintings inside the Cathedral of Our Lady and thought I was prepared,” Valeri recalls, “seeing these enormous works in person was simply overwhelming.” I couldn’t agree more.

IN ADDITION

Once you’ve enjoyed a shot of fine art, you’ll find in Antwerp a wide array of superb Belgian beers, chocolates, and cuisine. It’s also known as an international diamond center and a mecca for cutting-edge fashion. If you visit with youngsters, be sure to see the zoo, one of the oldest in Europe. It’s next door to the central train station, truly worth a peek inside for its soaring architecture, which rivals that of many cathedrals.

For more fine art, Antwerp also has the Museum aan de Stroom, a 10-story structure overlooking the busy harbor that creatively

celebrates global connections, and also the sculpture park called Middelheim Museum. To learn more, download the Antwerp Museums app.

Looking beyond Antwerp, take advantage of the art in nearby cities. Ghent (Gent to the Flemish) is a short train ride away. It boasts several masterworks worth visiting, including the famous Adoration of the Mystic Lamb by the Van Eyck brothers, also known as the Ghent Altarpiece. While admiring it at St. Bavo’s (Sint-Baafs) Cathedral, take the virtual reality tour, which guides you through not only the catacombs below but also through the history of this painting, which is quite tumultuous. Viewing the work is likely to be a spiritual experience regardless of your faith; there’s a hush in the church, thanks to a doorkeeper who gently shushes arriving visitors, and though the room itself is dark, the Mystic Lamb seems to glow from within.

While in Ghent, take a 10-minute tram ride to visit the Museum voor Schone Kunsten (MSK), now celebrating its 225th anniversary with special “trail guides” through the permanent collection. (This milestone is another reminder of the region’s long history; to put things in context, New York City was still on its way to becoming America’s largest city 225 years ago.)

Also in Belgium is the Royal Museum of Fine Arts in Brussels (capital of the European Union), and Bruges’s Groeningemuseum, renowned for its art from the 1400s. (For those who save their back issues of Fine Art Connoisseur, see Peter Trippi’s April 2019 article about Bruges.) Of course, these are just a few of the country’s many museums and galleries.

LOOKING AGAIN

Someone once told me it’s difficult to get people to return to a museum because it’s always the same. My reply was that, since the last time you visited, the paintings haven’t changed, but you have. One of my tour guides in Belgium posed a simple question as we studied a Rubens painting: “Who would you be in this narrative scene?” That query stayed with me throughout my Belgian adventure as I admired hundreds of works that reflect who we were, and who we are now. Having gone dark for 11 years, KMSKA now welcomes us all back to ponder this question, and many more.

Information: Details about KMSKA, including its collections database, are at kmska.be. For tourism information, see visitflanders.com, visitantwerpen.be, and visit.gent.be. When you arrive in Antwerp, buy a CityCard for free public transportation, free entry to many museums, and other discounts. The author thanks Visit Flanders

CHERIEDAWN

and Visit Gent for providing accommodations at the Mercure Antwerp City Centre and arranging excellent meals throughout her stay.

HAAS is the editor of Fine Art Today (fineartconnoisseur.com), Realism Today (realismtoday.com), and Plein Air Today (outdoorpainter.com). She is also the author of Girl on Fire and Personified (lifesoup.blog).

(LEFT) A room inside the Rubens House before it closed for renovation; photo: CherieDawn Haas

( B ELOW LEFT) Jan and Hubert Van Eyck’s Adoration of the Mystic Lamb (“The Ghent Altarpiece,” c. 1425–32)inspires hushed awe among visitors to St. Bavo’s Cathedral in Ghent. Photo: CherieDawn Haas

DIGITAL CONTENT

Peter Paul Rubens's Adoration of the Magi at KMSKA

A corner of the Rubens gallery; photo: Karin Borghouts

DIGITAL CONTENT

One of the historic rooms at KMSKA; photo: Karin Borghouts

A dense display at KMSKA; photo: Karin Borghouts

Another dense salon-style display at KMSKA; photo: Karin Borghouts

DIGITAL CONTENT

One of the bronze chariots atop KMSKA: photo: Wouter Bollaerts

Be sure to look up before entering the museum’s main door; photo: Karin Borghouts

(TOP) The massive portico at the Rubens House (LEFT) Conserving a Rubens painting at KMSKA;

photo: Karin Borghouts (BELOW) An Egyptian figure is one of many sculptures adorning KMSKA’s façade; photo: Karin Borghouts

GREAT ART NATIONWIDE

DRAWN TO EXCELLENCE

NINETEENTH

DRAWINGS

CENTURY FRENCH

Cleveland Museum of Art

Cleveland

clevelandart.org , gilesltd.com

January 20–June 11

Since its opening in 1916, one of the Cleveland Museum of Art’s key collections has been its trove of French drawings from the 19th century. Made by almost 50 different artists, they range from preparatory graphite sketches to pastels finished for public display. On view this season is a temporary exhibition of highlights, new research on which has just been published in a 200page catalogue produced by D Giles Limited, London.

In 19th-century France, drawing evolved from a means of artistic training into an independent medium with rich potential for exploration and experimentation. A variety of materials became available to artists — such as commercially fabricated chalks, pastels, and specialty papers — encouraging talents ranging from JeanAuguste-Dominique Ingres to Paul Cezanne to reconsider the place of drawing within their practices. A growing number of public and private exhibition venues began to feature their creations, building an audience

ONE GENERATION HONORS ANOTHER

SCULPTING OUR HEROES

Salmagundi Club of New York New York City salmagundi.org

February 5–April 30

who were attracted by the intimacy of drawings and their unique techniques. In France and abroad, museums and individuals alike started to actively acquire these works while they were still contemporary.

Thanks to its deep pockets and insightful curators, the Cleveland Museum of Art has obtained outstanding examples right from its outset. Now everyone is invited to take a closer look.

A professional and social organization for representational artists and their patrons, the Salmagundi Club of New York is housed in a historic brownstone mansion facing Fifth Avenue in Greenwich Village. It remains one of Manhattan’s best-kept secrets, and within it lies an even better-kept secret: a stunning library with an unparalleled collection of visual reference materials.

Beginning in the years around 1896, the philanthropist J. Sanford Saltus (1853–1922) and artist William Henry Shelton (1840–1932)

were among the club members who regularly traveled to Europe to buy books containing illustrations of uniforms and other costumes that the club’s many illustrator members could use for reference.

“That was the golden age of magazine illustration,” says Alexander Katlan, chairman of the club’s library committee. “The illustrators would refer to these books to ensure their creations were accurate.” Today, the Salmagundi library contains some 5,000 volumes of rare material catalogued

EDGAR DEGAS (1834–1917), Before the Race , c.1887–89, pastel with charcoal underdrawing on tracing paper mounted on cardboard, 22 5/8 x 25 3/4 in., b equest of Leonard C. Hanna, Jr., 1958.27

January 14–April 10

The Miller Art Museum is presenting large recent paintings created by Robert David Jinkins, most depicting life on the Wisconsin farm his family has owned since the 1840s. He explains, “Growing up on a farm, I gained an admiration and reverence for the land that so many of my family members have worked. I enjoy painting every blade of grass while allowing a disconcerting ambiguity to lurk below the surface in order to encourage viewers into a deeper dialogue with the painting.”

The exhibition’s curator, Helen del Guidice, adds, “These paintings are less idyllic and more forthright about the rural environment and its proximity to life and death. Jinkins connects the perimeters of the paintings as an object to the panoramic storytelling, through long panels, diptychs and triptychs, which provides the viewer a visceral sense of place.”

Having earned an M.F.A. from Iowa State University, Jinkins is now a full-time lecturer in drawing at the University of Wisconsin –Stout. His scenes are complicated, sometimes slightly disturbing, reflecting his effort to, in his own words, “find the sublime in the mundane.” Several works in this show were produced during a period funded by a grant

using a unique method that predates the Dewey Decimal System.

Beyond its archival resources, the library contains many artworks to admire, including two allegorical door panels painted in 2021 by Noah Buchanan (b. 1976) as a commission after he placed first in the club’s competition. Now another commission has been undertaken through the club’s first bust competition, which sustains the tradition of talented sculptors honoring their artistic forerunners.

The Sculpting Our Heroes competition was conducted last year, and this winter the public is invited to admire the winning work — Heather Personett’s bust of the great sculptor Augustus Saint-Gaudens (1848–1907) — plus nine other works recognized by the jury. (Interestingly, six of the 10 top artists chose to depict

Saint-Gaudens, who joined the club in 1877. Their other subjects were William Merritt Chase, Alphonse Mucha, and N.C. Wyeth.) Placing second in the competition was Jana Buettner; third place went to Andreja Vuckovic, and fourth to Maudie Brady. The remaining finalists were Kate Brockman, Zoe Dufour, Erik Ebeling, Matt Gemmell, Quitin McCann, and Susan Wakeen. Personett’s clay maquette (illustrated here) is being cast in bronze this season; both versions will be on view in the exhibition.

On February 16, Fine Art Connoisseur editor-in-chief Peter Trippi will moderate a panel discussion on the bust competition and its significance.

from the Elizabeth Greenshields Foundation, a major force for good in the field of contemporary realism.

ROBERT DAVID JINKINS: HORIZON LINE

Miller Art Museum Sturgeon Bay, Wisconsin millerartmuseum.org

DIGGING DEEP

HEATHER PERSONETT (b. 1988), Bust of Augustus Saint-Gaudens , 2022, clay, 19 x 8 x 7 in.

ROBERT DAVID JINKINS (b. 1994), Ovis Aries , 2022, mixed acrylic media and graphite on panel, 72 x 60 in.

SIMULTANEOUSLY REAL AND UNREAL

ANDREA KOWCH: MYSTERIOUS REALMS

Museum of Art – DeLand

DeLand, Florida

moartdeland.org

January 14–April 9

Florida’s Museum of Art – DeLand is about to open the solo exhibition Andrea Kowch: Mysterious Realms, which features more than 60 paintings and works on paper. This marks a rare opportunity to see Kowch’s art in depth because most of her works are sold even before she completes them. The show has been organized by curator Tariq Gibran and its catalogue’s lead essay penned by one of the artist’s most enthusiastic collectors, Steven Alan Bennett (see page 93).

Born in Detroit, Kowch earned her B.F.A. summa cum laude at that city’s College for Creative Studies, where she has since taught as an adjunct professor. She has won renown for meticulously composed and painted scenes of figures — usually young women — in familiar yet dreamlike settings that suggest a story is unfolding, without telling us exactly what or how. This allegorical ambiguity allows viewers to make up their own narratives, or more likely just let Kowch’s uncanny, vaguely melancholy mood cast its spell.

Inspired by historical sources as diverse as Northern Renaissance painting and Midwestern regionalism, Kowch sets her puzzles in landscapes that suggest — without specifying — the countryside and vernacular architecture of her native Michigan. Some observers have associated her unique take on magical realism with “Prairie Gothic” (think Grant Wood), and indeed her scenes do reflect a mix of the banality and enchantment those two words evoke. There is more to her art than that, so seeing over 60 examples up close will surely intrigue the museum’s visitors this season.

In addition, several of Kowch’s works will be seen in Georgia this September as part of the group exhibition Big Stories at Columbus State University’s Bo Bartlett Center.

ANDREA KOWCH (b. 1986), Steadfast , 2019, acrylic on canvas, 16 x 12 in., private collection

ANDREA KOWCH (b. 1986), Expectation , 2019, acrylic on canvas, 10 x 10 in., private collection

CELEBRATING WOMEN ARTISTS

Launched in 2018, the Bennett Prize for Women Figurative Realist Painters is the largest of its kind, offering each winner $50,000 payable over two years. Endowed through a $3 million fund at the Pittsburgh Foundation established by the San Antoniobased art collectors Steven Alan Bennett and Dr. Elaine Melotti Schmidt, this biennial prize has been successfully propelling the careers of full-time female painters who have not yet reached “full professional recognition,” which the Bennetts define as having sold a single work for $25,000 or more. In receiving $25,000 annually for two years, the winner is accorded some financial “breathing room” in order to create a fresh body of work she might not otherwise have the bandwidth to make.

The driving force behind the prize initiative was the impressive collection that Bennett and Schmidt have been forming since 2009. It now consists of more than 200 works by women figurative realist painters, including major examples by such living talents as Margaret Bowland, Aleah Chapin, Alyssa Monks, and Katie O’Hagan, as well as historical pieces by such forerunners as Artemisia Gentileschi, Mary Cassatt, and Elaine de Kooning.

Steven Bennett notes, “From the moment we commenced collecting, we were concerned that women artists were not being treated equally with men. They have fewer shows; they have fewer pieces in museums’ permanent collections; and their works have almost universally sold for less than those of men. We have seen our collection as a way to right some of these wrongs and are delighted that the Muskegon Museum of Art is joining us to ensure that the effort continues long into the future.”

Indeed, Michigan’s Muskegon Museum of Art (MMA) has played a crucial role as the setting for the announcements of the Bennett Prize’s first two editions, and it has launched the national tours of exhibitions of works by the 10 finalists and the prizewinners (Aneka Ingold of Florida and Ayana Ross of Georgia, respectively).

This past November, the Bennett Prize 3’s 10 finalists were announced: Ruth Dealy (Rhode Island), Ronna S. Harris (Louisiana), Haley Hasler (Colorado), Sara Lee Hughes (Texas), Monica Ikegwu (Maryland), Laura Karetzky (New York), Linda Infante Lyons (Alaska), Mayumi Nakao (New York),

Kyla Zoe Rafert (Ohio), and Deng Shiqing (New York). The jury consisted of artists Julie Bell and Zoey Frank, Steven Bennett, and Joseph Rosa, who until recently served as director and CEO of Seattle’s Frye Art Museum. Bell recalls that “it was an emotional experience to judge this competition.” She says, “Going through each artist’s body of work was like meeting each one in person and having a heart-toheart conversation. So many different styles of painting, so many different stories told. I felt connected to every one of them.”

Looking forward, the finalists will gather in Muskegon on May 18 to learn the name of the winner and, for the first time, of a $10,000 runner-up award recipient. All of the finalists’ paintings will remain on view at the MMA until September 10, as will the new show of Ayana Ross’s latest works. (These two exhibitions will then begin a national tour, including stops in Tennessee and Pennsylvania.)

Elaine Schmidt says the MMA was chosen as the initiative’s lead museum partner because of its longstanding commitment to both women artists and realism. “They understood what we were trying to do from the beginning and shared our passion,” she explains, adding special praise for executive director Kirk Hallman and for senior curator and director of collections and exhibitions Art Martin.

Their high regard is borne out by Bennett and Schmidt’s recent decision to give the MMA more than 150 of their paintings; these works have been created by 115 women artists and are together worth more than $10 million. Kirk Hallman says, “Steven and Elaine’s vision is one shared by the MMA. Our relationship

has helped to elevate this art museum to a national scale… In addition, the BennettSchmidt gift is a call to action institutionally, encouraging both the Muskegon Museum of Art and other museums to continually expand opportunities for women artists.”

In addition to their art, Schmidt and Bennett are donating $1.5 million toward the MMA’s $11.2 million expansion — 26,000 square feet that will more than double its size and encompass a new wing dedicated to women artists. This capital project will be completed early in 2024.

As for the Bennett Prize itself, the data is in: the 18 finalists and two winners from its first and second editions have now sold more than 100 paintings at a 45 percent increase in pricing — despite the impact of COVID-19. These artists have also exhibited in 19 solo shows and 46 group shows — exactly what the founders had hoped for back in 2018 when the initiative launched. Fine Art Connoisseur congratulates everyone involved and looks forward to seeing the latest artworks in Muskegon this spring.

RONNA S. HARRIS (b. 1952), Marital Bliss , 2022, oil on canvas, 51 x 67 in., collection of the artist

BENNETT PRIZE & COLLECTION

Muskegon Museum of Art Muskegon, Michigan thebennettprize.org , muskegonartmuseum.org May 18–September 10

Always taking a fresh look at the history of modern art, the Phillips Collection is exhibiting 73 works by the Italian impressionist Giuseppe De Nittis (1846–1884). He grew up in Barletta, which overlooks the Adriatic Sea on the “heel” of Italy, then trained in Naples. In 1867, he arrived in Paris at the age of 21, flourishing there in the 1870s and early ’80s.

De Nittis became a pioneering chronicler of Paris’s reconstruction in the aftermath of the Franco-Prussian War, focusing on the streets, boulevards, squares, and parks that were not only home to the capital’s haute bourgeoisie, but also symbols of French national pride. His paintings fascinate viewers today because they feature a unique blend of plein air atmosphere and detailed realism, synthesizing various aesthetics swirling around Paris at the time. Partly for this reason, De Nittis was friendly with

The Crocker Art Museum is set to open an intriguing exhibition titled Art for the People: WPA-Era Paintings from the Dijkstra Collection

Between the stock market crash of 1929 and the attack on Pearl Harbor, many American artists sought to make their work more accessible to everyday people, partly by depicting the people themselves, especially laborers, the poor, and the disenfranchised. The artists’ goals were diverse, but included the desire to highlight a shared American experience during one of the country’s most challenging periods, to reject foreign artistic influences, to document rapidly passing ways of life, and to refine the visual language of protest and demands for social justice.

Some of these objectives were advanced by federally funded projects like the WPA (Works Progress Administration), which effectively transformed artists into “workers” themselves. As there was no prescribed aesthetic, the styles explored in this period ranged from regionalism and “American Scene Painting” to social realism and expressionism.

One of the finest private collections of art from this period is owned by California residents Sandra and Bram Dijkstra, who have been careful to acquire works from the East, Midwest, and West, and especially Cali-

Edouard Manet and Gustave Caillebotte, and he was the only Italian invited by Edgar Degas to participate in the first impressionist exhibition of 1874.

Sadly, he died at 38, so we can only imagine what else he might have created had he lived longer. In 1913, his widow bequeathed nearly 200 of De Nittis’s paintings and drawings to the city of Barletta; with this show, the curator of its Pinacoteca Giuseppe De Nittis, Renato Miracco, aims to reveal the artist “as a missing and important piece in understanding impressionism.”

Because De Nittis did not garner attention in the U.S. during his lifetime, this is his first retrospective here. It encompasses works gathered from collections around the world and is accompanied by a 250-page catalogue.

fornian artists overlooked by other patrons. This year’s show of highlights from the Dijkstra Collection has been organized by the Crocker and two other California institutions, each of which will present it at different times and in different forms. The other partners are the Oceanside Museum of Art (exhibiting June 24–November 5) and the Huntington Library, Art Museum & Botanical Gardens (December 2, 2023–March 18, 2024).

The project is accompanied by a scholarly catalogue, and the Crocker welcomes everyone to attend a curatorial lecture about it on February 4.

GIUSEPPE DE NITTIS (1844–1884), The Races at Auteuil, Paris — On the Chair, 1883, oil on canvas, 42 1/8 x 21 7/8 in., Pinacoteca Giuseppe De Nittis, Barletta

FLETCHER MARTIN (1904–1979), Migrant Woman , 1938, oil on canvas, 20 x 16 in., collection of Sandra and Bram Dijkstra

ANIMALS IN THE SPOTLIGHT

SOUTHEASTERN WILDLIFE EXPOSITION

Charleston

February 17–19

The Southeastern Wildlife Exposition (SEWE) is ready to celebrate its 41st anniversary and fill the streets of downtown Charleston with animal lovers of all stripes. Once again, SEWE will program a fine art gallery and an exhibition of artisans and craftsmen alongside its popular demonstrations of dogs and birds of prey in action, plus lively displays by conservation organizations and the South Carolina Department of Agriculture. All of these activities highlight the urgent need to protect wildlife and preserve our natural resources.

The art exhibition features 81 painters and sculptors — both established and emerging. This year’s featured artist is Ryan Kirby of Boone, North Carolina; his painting The Departure will be visible everywhere thanks to its being illustrated on the festival’s official poster. Kirby has been drawing and painting

FLOWERS EVERYWHERE

Fans of Jane Jones’s hyper-realistic floral paintings have plenty of opportunities to enjoy them this year. Coming up soon at New York City’s Bonner David Galleries is her latest solo exhibition, Show-Offs, while the fourth iteration of her touring show Cultivating the Dutch Tradition in the 21st Century will be at the Chicago Academy of Science’s Peggy Notebaert Nature Museum (January 21–April 23). And in Dutchophilic Holland, Michigan, the Holland Museum will make her paintings a centerpiece of the city’s famous annual tulip festival (May 5–July 3).

Well before she published the book Classic Still Life Painting in 2004, Jones admired the great 17th-century Dutch floral painters, including women such as Maria van Oosterwyck, Maria Sibylla Merian, and Rachel Ruysch. She brings to this timeless genre a decidedly contemporary approach informed by both the precision of photorealism and the bright, clear light of the Denver area, where Jones was born and still resides.

wildlife since 1989, when he and his family lived on a farm in Hamilton, Illinois. From turkey hunting to fishing in the Mississippi River, his early immersion with wildlife laid the foundation for his passion and inspiration for the natural world.

In her work, the artist banishes extraneous details to focus on the elegance of flowers, juxtaposing their organic forms with the geometric rigidity of their vases, of the stones she sometimes includes, and even of the square or rectangular canvas itself. Unlike the average photorealist, Jones channels her Old Masterly forerunners by applying the many layers of glazing that make the scenes glow.

Perhaps not surprisingly, Jones earned degrees in both art history and biology. She notes that her scientific familiarity with cells, plants, animals, and ecosystems gave her “a glimpse into the awesome power of living things and an incredible respect for them,” as well as an appreciation of the “importance of precision when observing nature.”

The Southeastern Wildlife Exposition will launch on February 16 with a black-tie gala that gives patrons an early opportunity to acquire artworks.

JANE JONES

Galleries

JANE JONES (b. 1953), Crimson Jewels , 2002, oil on canvas, 33 x 46 in., Bonner David Galleries (New York City)

START THE YEAR WITH ART

THE TOAST OF DENVER

Featuring 74 artists from across America, Canada, and Europe, the 30th annual Coors Western Art Exhibit & Sale will again tempt collectors with an eclectic mix of contemporary realist artworks capturing the Western way of life. This year’s featured artist is Dan Chen, who lives in Eugene, Oregon.

UNDER THE BIG TENTS

Now entering its 33rd year, Celebration of Fine Art is Arizona’s longest-running art show. It brings together 100 artists from across America, all invited to spend 10 weeks creating pieces in front of visitors. Their works range widely in both aesthetics and media.

Guests are invited to ask questions as the artists work, and these encounters are complemented by weekly demonstrations of woodturning, welding, kiln firing, and glass blowing, as well as exhibitors’ talks every Friday. Everyone is welcome to explore the one-acre sculpture garden, which features nearly 100 pieces, and to enjoy meals and wine in the cafe on site.

In 1991, inspired by California’s Laguna Beach Festival of Arts, Tom and Ann Morrow collaborated with Scottsdale officials and the community to open CFA’s “big white tents” for the first time. Now encompassing 40,000 square feet of covered space, the event is carried on by Tom’s daughter Susan Morrow Potje and her husband, Jake. Susan Potje notes, “There’s no place where art comes to life like the Celebration of Fine Art.”

On January 3, the ticketed red carpet opening reception will offer Coors patrons the privilege of seeing and buying exhibited artworks early. The exhibition’s net proceeds will support the National Western Scholarship Trust, which helps more than 100 college students annually pursue training in rural medicine, agriculture, and veterinary sciences.

Coors curator Rose Fredrick is again hosting a series of free Zoom conversations that bring viewers into the fascinating studio environments of the show’s participating artists. Please visit the website for registration details.

For those who cannot make it to Scottsdale, visit the website to browse and buy CFA artists’ newest creations.

SOPHY BROWN (b. 1963), A Lit Fuse and Count to Ten , 2022, acrylic on board, 84 1/2 x 47 in.

ROBIN DAMORE (b. 1955), It’s All about Maxine , 2022, oil on canvas, 36 x 24 in.

MASTERS IN THEIR FIELD

February 11–March 26

The Autry Museum of the American West is set to host its annual Masters of the American West Art Exhibition & Sale, featuring new pieces created by 64 leading painters and sculptors working in the Western genre. Their subject matter ranges from landscapes, seascapes, and wildlife to figures, portraits, and historical themes. Among the talents participating are Tony Abeyta, Peter Adams, Russell Case, Mick Doellinger, Logan Maxwell Hagege, Doug Hyde, Oreland Joe, Brett Allen Johnson, Jeremy Lipking, Eric Merrell, Dean L. Mitchell, Terri Kelly Moyers, Daniel W. Pinkham, Kyle Polzin, Grant Redden, Mater Romero, Billy Schenck, and Preston Singletary.

This year everyone is welcome to visit the exhibition between February 11 and March 26, but those wanting to acquire artwork must attend (or place a bid) during the big sale on February 25. Details on how to participate are available on the website.

Since Masters of the American West launched in 1998, its proceeds have provided essential support for the Autry’s educational programs, exhibitions, and more than 100

public events annually. As its name suggests, the museum is dedicated to exploring the stories, experiences, and perceptions of the diverse peoples of the West. Its collection of more than 500,000 artworks and artifacts encompasses the Southwest Museum of the American Indian Collection, one of the finest

holdings of Native American material in the U.S. Co-founded in 1988 by Jackie and Gene Autry and Joanne and Monte Hale, the Autry merged in 2002 with Women of the West, an organization highlighting the impact of women’s experiences.

SCOTTSDALE

scottsdaleartschool.org

February 18–March 21

The Scottsdale Artists’ School is poised to present The Best & the Brightest, the annual benefit show and sale highlighting artworks created by its top students and alumni living around the world. Artists who have taken a workshop, program, or online class there were invited to submit works, all of which have been juried in. Sales begin on February 18, and the official opening reception is set for February 23.

First and second place awards will be presented in each of six categories: drawing, oil painting, pastel, water media, sculpture, and small work. The school’s executive director, Trudy Hays, is quick to praise the “professional quality of SAS students” and laughs that she does “not envy the team assembled to jury the pieces because they have a difficult assignment.”

For those who cannot attend in person, be sure to view and buy works directly from the school’s website.

LOS ANGELES masters.theautry.org

ERIC BOWMAN (b. 1960),  Morning Broken , 2022, oil on canvas, 36 x 36 in.

ARENA SHAWN (b. 1982),  King's Blue , 2022, oil on panel, 8 x 10 in.

ARTISTS & GALLERIES

MUSEUMS

New Haven britishart.yale.edu

through January 22

The Yale Center for British Art is presenting six large works by Njideka Akunyili Crosby. Born in Nigeria, Crosby came to the U.S. in 1999 to study. Now she is based in Los Angeles, where this show will appear next at the Huntington Library, Art Museum & Botanical Gardens (February 15–June 12). This is the third and final exhibition in a series curated by author Hilton Als in collaboration with the Center; earlier editions highlighted Lynette YiadomBoakye (2019) and Celia Paul (2018).

gallery artists generously donated their works, including William R. Davis, Ann Hart, Ginny Nickerson, and Kim Roderiques.

Santa Fe sorrelsky.com

February

Sorrel Sky Gallery is exhibiting recent works by two New Mexico artists, plein air landscape painter Peggy Immel and sculptor Star Liana York. Immel believes “the ‘why’ of a painting matters more than the ‘what.’ The most exciting pieces have both a visual and philosophical foundation.” York is best known for her bronzes of Native people of the Southwest. “When a character emerges from a work I am sculpting,” she explains, “I feel touched at a deeply intimate, subconscious level.”

AUCTIONS & FAIRS

Toledo toledomuseum.org

through February 5

x 42 1/8 in., photo © the artist, Victoria Miro, and David Zwirner

New York City

thewintershow.org

January 20–29

The 69th edition of The Winter Show will bring 68 dealers from around the world to the Park Avenue Armory. On offer will be art, antiques, and design dating from antiquity through today; each object will be vetted for authenticity by a committee of 120 experts. Proceeds from the opening night will benefit the East Side House Settlement, which serves residents of the Bronx and Northern Manhattan.

The Toledo Museum of Art is offering a rare glimpse of artworks largely off public view for the last several decades. The paintings, sculpture, metalwork, textiles, and works on paper in the exhibition State of the Art: Revealing Works from the Conservation Vault are awaiting specialized care to improve their condition. Visitors can learn about the crucial role that conservators play through analytical testing, cleaning, repair, and other activities.

In October, the Delaware Art Museum opened the touring exhibition A Marriage of Arts & Crafts: Evelyn & William De Morgan. On hand to celebrate were its guest co-curator Sarah Hardy of England’s De Morgan Museum (left) and New York artist Gabriela Gonzalez Dellosso, who has painted an imagined portrait of Evelyn De Morgan.

In November, members and friends of New York City’s Salmagundi Club gathered to salute its former Chairman, Tim Newton, for his outstanding service over many years. During the President’s Dinner, he received the club’s medal of honor, given in past years to such luminaries as astronaut James A. Lovell, publisher Malcolm Forbes, and artists Norman Rockwell and Everett Raymond Kinstler.

OUT & ABOUT

This past September, Gallery Antonia (Chatham, Massachusetts) organized an auction to benefit the Animal Rescue League of Boston & Cape Cod. Several

Peggy Immel (b. 1943), Rocky Mountain Gold, 2022, oil on linen panel, 24 x 30 in.

Anne Seymour Damer (1748–1828), Caroline Campbell, 1789, marble, 21 in. high, Lowell Libson & Jonny Yarker Ltd (London)

Njideka Akunyili Crosby (b. 1983), The Beautyful Ones, Series #1c, 2014, acrylic, photographic transfers, and colored pencil on paper, 61

Randolph Rogers (1825–1892),  Ruth Gleaning , c. 1853, marble, 35 1/2 in. high, gift of Mr. and Mrs. Roy Rike, 1964.57

Anthony Bellov, Fine Art Connoisseur’s Peter Trippi, and Karene Infranco toast Tim Newton; photo: Carole Teller

Kim Roderiques, Ginny Nickerson, Gallery Antonia owner Domonic Boreffi, Dr. Edward Schettino (Animal Rescue League), Ann Hart

Tidal Harvest by Matthew Bird

Esmée Winkel

Esmée Winkel, award winning painter of unique and rare plants, finds her inspiration in the historical city of Leiden, Rembrandt’s birthplace and home to one of the oldest botanical gardens in Europe. For those who enjoy the beauty nature has to offer, her exclusive artwork is for you. Esmée Winkel’s Botanical Art is not just another watercolor painting. Made only on the finest parchments and papers, it is the ultimate artwork portraying the exquisite plants of your estates garden or plant collection, from unique tulips to rare orchids.

Contact Esmée Winkel via botanicalart@esmeewinkel.nl or visit her website at www.esmeewinkel.nl

LEFT: ‘Seeds of Hope’ shows 2021 orchids seeds (also the year of the pandemic) and 1 seedling. Inspired by Dr. Jane Goodall’s beautiful book ‘Seeds of Hope’ the work portrays one of her four powerful reasons for hope: nature’s resilience. This is represented by that one seedling that will sprout and grow into an extraordinary orchid. Image size: 28x20 inch. Medium: watercolor on paper.

RIGHT: Ophrys reinholdii is arguably one of the Mediterraneans most beautiful orchids. The painting of this orchid received Gold Medal from the Royal Horticultural Society, UK. Image size: 7.9x11 inch. Medium: watercolor on paper.

Flooded Fields 3 12x24 pasteL

the Neo-Renaissance Painter from Slovenia

info@anikis.com

nik.anikis

nikanikisart

+38640476266

www.anikis.com

Strzisce 23, 8290 Sevnica, Slovenia, EU

Light & Movement

Upcoming Shows

Borrego Art Institute

17th Annual Plein Air Invitational

March 3 – 11, 2023

Grand Canyon Conservancy

15th Annual Celebration of Art

September, 2023

margaretlarlham.com

larlham@mac.com

NIK ANIKIS (b. 1990)

Archangel Michael on his throne, 2022, oil on linen, 35.4 x 27.5 in. $17,000 Available through the artist

Enchanted Creek, 24 x 18 in., pastel on panel

JILL BANKS

AWA | WAOW | WSLP Capturing Life in Oils

Beauty Pageant (detail) 24 x 30 in. oil on linen

In winter months, my easel mainly moves indoors —- set up to capture the color I crave. It’s not gray

Enrich Your Collection JillBanks.com

Jill@JillBanks.com 703.403.7435

 jillbanks1  JillBanksStudio

A daily passport for artists to a world humming with creative potential. InsideArtToday.com

NEW!

Stories of painters, events, painting tips, artist profiles, and more. PleinAirToday.com

Inspiring and informative watercolor tips, techniques, profiles, and more. AmericanWatercolor.net

NEW!

The latest stories and events from the art-collecting world. FineArtToday.net

Study with the finest artists in the world. RealismToday.com

FineArtConnoisseur.com/newsletters

Secrets of award-winning pastelists, timely events, and the coolest art out there today. PastelToday.com

PAVEL SOKOV (b. 1990), Focus , 2020, oil on linen panel, 20 x 16 in., private collection

SALMAGUNDI

ATLANTIC SUNSET BY ROSEMARY HAWKINS [RA 2018]

WHAT REMAINS BY SUE BARRASI [RA 2017]

THREE SPHERES, TWILIGHT BY JON DEMARTIN [RA 2021]