Fine Art Connoisseur November/December 2020

ARCHITECTUR AL DR AWINGS | MARY WHYTE | LIMITED EDITIONS | DYING YOUNG | GR AYDON PARRISH

DECEMBER 2020

Elizabeth Butler, Desert Delights, 40 x 40 in.

celebration of fine art

visit celebrateart.com Live Event:

Jan. 16-MaR. 28, 2021 | Open Daily 10am-6pm Loop 101 & Hayden rd, Scottsdale, Az 480.443.7695 For Tickets:

celebrateart.com

Learn about our juried artists, view their work and add to your collection by experiencing our show virtually at celebrateart.com.

Where Art Lovers & Artists Connect

Gustave Doré (1832–1883); He Regarded Me a While and Asked Me with Disdain,“Who Were Your Ancestors?”; Canto 10, Verses 41–42 (The Encounter with Farinata); published in Dante Alighieri, Inferno (Paris: Librairie Hachette); 1861; xylograph engraved by Héliodore Pisan (1822–1890); 17 x 13 1/4 x 3 1/4 (book closed); Bibliothèque Nationale de France, Paris

I will illustrate everything!

— Gustave Doré (1832–1883)

F I N E A R T C O N N O I S S E U R · C O M

N O V E M B E R / D E C E M B E R

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A SIMPLE & SECURE WAY TO MANAGE YOUR ART COLLECTION Record all the relevant details of your art collection including acquisition details, provenance, location information, conditions and more … all on an elegant, modern-day platform.

AS SEEN IN

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michellejungstudios.com

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NEW STUDIO IN ARIZONA

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A S S O C I AT E P U B L I S H E R

Capturing Life in Oils

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Peter Tr ippi peter.trippi@gmail.com 9 17.9 6 8 . 4 4 76 MANAGING EDITOR

Br ida Connolly bconnolly @streamlinepublishing.com 702.665.5283 CONTRIBUTING WRITERS

Matthias Anderson Max Gillies Louise Nicholson

Kelly Compton David Masello Charles Raskob Robinson

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Good Morning Telluride oil 24x36

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Chance of Sprinkles oil 20x16

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Rue du Jour oil 40x30

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F I N E A R T C O N N O I S S E U R · C O M

Blood Orange and Blue, 30 x 17 in., available through the artist

MatthewBird.com 410-581-9988 _matthewbird_ Matthew Bird Studio Magnolia Still Life, 22 x 30 in., available through the artist

ROBERT

Culmination II - A History Painting Acrylic on Plexiglass, 19” x 38” Giclees Available

STEINER

Concept Real Gallery | 415-387-7545 | conceptrealgallery.com

331 SE Mizner Blvd.

Boca Raton, FL 33432 Ph: 561.655. 8778 • Fa x : 561.655.616 4 CHAIRMAN/PUBLISHER/CEO

B. Eric Rhoads bericrhoads@gmail.com Tw i t t e r : @ e r i c r h o a d s f a c e b o ok .c om /e r ic . rho a d s

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Publication Title: Fine Art Connoisseur, Publication Number: 022-837, Filing Date 10/1/20 Issue Frequency: Bi-Monthly, Number of Issues Published Annually 6, Annual Subscription Price: $39.98, Contact Person: Tom Elmo, Phone Number: 561.655.8778, Mailing Address of Publication: 331 SE Mizner Blvd., Boca Raton, FL 33432.

The general business offces and the offce of the publisher are located at 331 SE Mizner Blvd., Boca Raton, FL 33432. The name and address of the Publisher is Eric Rhoads, 331 SE Mizner Blvd., Boca Raton, FL 33432. The name and address of the Editor-ln-Chief is Peter Trippi, 331 SE Mizner Blvd., Boca Raton, FL 33432.

The owner is Streamline Publishing, Inc. Eric Rhoads 100% Stockholder. Located at 331 SE Mizner Blvd., Boca Raton, FL 33432. The extent and nature of circulation is: A. Total number of copies printed (Net press run). Average number of copies each issue during preceding 12 months 17,700 Actual number of copies of single issue published nearest to frst date 17,500. B. Paid circulation: Average number of copies each issue during the preceding 12 months 9,966. Actual number of copies of single issue published nearest to fling date 10,002. Paid Distribution Outside the Mail.

Average number of copies each issue during preceding 12 months 4,255. Actual number of copies of single issue published nearest to fling date 4,235. c. Total paid circulation. Average number of copies each issue during preceding 12 months 14,221. Actual number of copies of single issue published nearest to fling date 14,237. d. Free distribution by mail, carrier or other means. Samples, complimentaries, and other free copies.

Average number of copies each issue during preceding 12 months 2,178. Actual number of copies of single issue published nearest to fling date 2,027. Free or Nominal Rate Copies: E. Total distribution (Sum of C and D). Average number of copies each issue during preceding 12 months 16,399. Actual number of copies of single issue published nearest to fling date 16,264.

F.1. Offce use, leftover, unaccounted, spoiled after printing. Average number of copies each issue during preceding 12 months 1,301. Actual number of copies of single issue published nearest to fling date 1,236. H. Total (Sum of E and F should equal net press run shown in A). Average number of copies of each issue during preceding 12 months 17,700. Actual number of copies of single issue published nearest to fling date 17,500.

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Reunion 87”H 47”W 36”D

Gary Alsum Bronze Sculpture HONORING HEROES AMONG US! A QUARTER CENTURY SCULPTING MEMORIALS & MONUMENTS. CONTACT GARY ABOUT CRE ATING A L ASTING TRIBUTE TO A HERO OR LOVED ONE IN YOUR LIFE .

Commissioned for Fire Station #5 in Thornton , Colorado, also in the collections of Southlake, Texas and Edmond, Oklahoma.

garyalsum.com gary@garyalsum.com

GALLERY PARTNERS: Nationalsculptorsguild.com (NSG Fellow since 1992) Knoxgalleries.com

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Publisher’s Letter

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Favorite: Jane Marx on Jean-François Millet,

by David Masello

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Of the Walls

130

Classic Moment: Sarah Lacy

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ARTISTS MAKING THEIR MARK: THREE TO WATCH

Allison Malafronte describes the talents of Julian Dix, Cynthia Feustel, and Brooke Wetzel.

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GRAYDON PARRISH & CARMEN DELL’OREFICE: MEETING THE MUSE

By Leslie Gilbert Elman

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By Kelly Compton

GO FIGURE

BUYER BEWARE: NAVIGATING THE WORLD OF LIMITED EDITION PRINTS

By Daniel Grant

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TECHNOLOGY’S IMPACT ON FIGURATIVE ART

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ART IN THE WEST: AUTUMN’S ART HARVEST

GREAT ART NATIONWIDE

By Max Gillies

Discover nine top-notch projects happening this season.

DESPERATELY YOUNG: ARTISTS WHO DIED IN THEIR TWENTIES

By Angela Swanson Jones

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PAINTING DAMAGED IN TRANSIT? HERE’S WHAT TO DO

By Steven Alan Bennett

ACQUIRE AN ICONIC SCULPTURE

By Peter Trippi

Graydon Parrish (b. 1970), Carmen (detail), 2019, oil on polyester, 78 x 60 1/4 in. (overall), private collection. For the full image, see page 53. For the artist, see graydonparrish.com.

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By David Molesky

HONORING AMERICA’S VETERANS

ON THE COVER

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LIGHT UP YOUR COLLECTION

By Matthias Anderson

BUILDING A COLLECTION OF BUILDINGS

By David Masello

Fine Art Connoisseur is also available in a digital edition. Please visit fineartconnoisseur.com for details.

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SCOTT BURDICK  IN THIS TOGETHER  20X30  CHARCOAL

SCOTT BURDICK  TURQUOISE SHAWL  14x11  OIL

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SCOTT BURDICK  SKY RIDERS  20X30  ACRYLIC

SCOTT BURDICK THROUGH THEIR EYES &SUSAN LYON NOVEMBER ˜°˜° SUSAN LYON WISHING UPON A STAR  34X26  CHARCOAL

SUSAN LYON  RAMOS DE FLORES  12X12  OIL

SUSAN LYON WHITE PEONY 8X9  OIL SUSAN LYON CEREMONIOUS  12X9  OIL

P U B L I S H E R ’ S

FEAR NOT E

NELSON SHANKS (1937–2015) Publisher B. Eric Rhoads 2009, oil on canvas, 24 x 18 in. private collection

very summer my family spends time in the Adirondacks, in upstate New York. I love it, yet memories of my frst visit to this million-acre state park remind me of my initial unease there. My parents had just sold our place on Indiana’s Lake Wawasee after three generations. I thought that was my favorite place, my summer escape.

Rather than resting on tradition, my father, troubled by loud racing boats and fumes of fuel, realized there were still places that remained quiet, much like Wawasee had been when our family frst settled there. I resisted the breaking of tradition, and I was determined not to like it. But by the end of a week in the Adirondacks, I discovered something about it, and about my own heart, that resulted in my never wanting to leave. Summers on this lake have blessed me since 1989.

The key lesson was that I was comfortable and resting on something that was good, but not as good as it once was.

We are a resistant bunch, we human beings. We get stuck. We do things because that’s the way they have always been done. All too often we fail to think for ourselves. And if someone were to bring documented proof that what we believe is wrong, we’d still resist it.

This COVID-crazed time, this time of unrest and turmoil, has left my brain scrambling to understand what and who to believe anymore. The good news is that I’m forced to explore other outlooks and opinions, and I

L E T T E R

no longer trust any of the voices I once relied upon. I have to accept that I might have been wrong.

Today we should ask “Why?” with every word we read. We have to follow the incentives, follow the money, follow the purpose of every word and statement thrown our way. It’s uncomfortable, and we’d rather be comfortable, yet we cannot allow our comfort to blind us — or we’ll never be comfortable again.

Like it or not, 2020 has disrupted us.

Much like my father dragging us to a place we didn’t think we wanted to go, this disruption will make us challenge every belief we’ve ever had. It’s frightening, but then again, change always is. Yet it’s change that improves life. It is discomfort that creates new levels of comfort, and hard times that make us stronger and better.

Every past generation has faced something… the Great Depression, wars, plagues, or civil unrest. We’re getting a chance to experience a challenging time in our lives, a time we will share with our grandchildren, a time that will enter the history books. It may not be what we would choose, but we should embrace it for the ways we will be reborn.

Fear not.

This will pass, and life will be good again.

But it will be diferent, which is why your willingness to think, and ask yourself who and what you believe, is more important than ever.

Use your own brain, be willing to consider differing opinions, be willing to ask yourself why something seems to be true, why you should believe it, what needs to be seen that’s not clearly visible.

Change what you can change. Speak up about what you see to help others see a new perspective. You may end up being the one voice they can trust.

And remember that answers always lie in our questions.

B. ERIC RHOADS Chairman/Publisher bericrhoads@gmail.com 561.923.8481 facebook.com/eric.rhoads @ericrhoads

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Jesus Navarro

“8th Avenue, NYC,” Oil on Canvas, 28 x 39”

“Arco del Triunfo, Barcelona,” Oil on Canvas, 24 x 39”

Lotton

GALLERY

900 North Michigan Ave. Level 6 Chicago, IL 60611 (312) 664-6203 www.lottongallery.com

P U B L I S E H D E I TR O ' SR ’ LS E N T O T E T R E

KINDRED SPIRITS WE SHOULD MEET

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which is a nice way to describe this phenomenon. Second, the infuencer Michael DiazGrifth has organized an online group called “The New Antiquarians” who are taking fear and snobbery out of the antiques trade by highlighting the very human stories behind its objects. (He recently took over the American “friends” group supporting London’s Sir John Soane’s Museum, which has long defed the odds by making 19th-century neoclassicism cool, even on this side of the Atlantic.)

I mention all of this because those of us who make — and love — etchings, bronze sculptures, and oil paintings in gilt frames, be they old or brand-new, need to meet the folks following these trends. Let’s not call them collectors (yet), as that’s putting too much pressure on them. Instead, let’s call them future clients who may buy half a dozen artworks from us and then fall in love with them. These are kindred spirits, and although they didn’t get the memo about our contemporary realism revival during their college art class, they will love what we do.

Let’s reach out and start a conversation.

P.S. Expect to read about some of the New Antiquarians in our annual Collector’s Issue this coming spring.

TRIPPI PHOTO: FRANCIS HILLS

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n a rolling basis, some of the many artists, dealers, and organizations highlighted in this magazine check in to let me know how the art world is looking from their perspectives. I always value their insights, and today I thought it might be useful to relay one trend I see emerging.

Quite rightly, everyone is concerned about what younger people are buying to adorn their new homes. I am referring to folks in their 20s, 30s, and even 40s who are fnally settling down for the longer term, possibly because children have arrived, though not necessarily. Although this generation’s zeitgeist tends to be minimalist and “anti-stuf,” they eventually need to decorate their walls with something, and we at Fine Art Connoisseur believe that should include original works of art.

A huge swath of this demographic has been converted to the spartan lines and dreary oatmeal coloring we see in most of the leading decorating magazines. That’s a shame, and there is not much we can do about those folks.

But there is a still-signifcant percentage who admire diverse textures, rich coloring, and even a bit of clutter; those are people more likely to admire the contemporary and historical realist art we celebrate in Fine Art Connoisseur.

One way to reach them seems to be through the antiques business. We all know that “brown furniture” — and other decorative artworks from the past such as china, silver, quilts, and glassware — have struggled lately, but now younger folks are awakening to two key facts. First, these well-made items are now seriously inexpensive, especially compared to the pricey historical reproductions ofered

by Ethan Allen or the modernist versions at Design Within Reach. Second, these items already exist, and that’s important to younger generations worried about cluttering up Earth with more stuf. “Vintage” and “gently used” are hot in every sector, so why not home decor?

Two leading voices in this terrain are worth following online. First, the cosmetics heiress and lifestyle guru Aerin Lauder has been championing “heritage with a twist,”

F I N E A R T C O N N O I S S E U R · C O M

LINDA LESLIE REPRESENTED BY: Radius Gallery Missoula, MT radiusgallery.com M-Contemporary New Orleans, LA mcontemporary.com

lindaleslieart.com In Place, 60 x 30 inches, oil on canvas

WRIT TEN BY DAVID MASELLO

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JANE MARX

Tour guide, actress, model Photo: Joshua Simpson

The Gleaners JEAN-FRANÇOIS MILLET (1814–1875) 1857, oil on canvas, 33 x 44 in.

Musée d’Orsay, Paris

J

ane Marx knows how to read people. As New York City’s most personable and original tour guide, she greets strangers at notable sights and knows right away how to enlighten and entertain them. “My favorite people to lead on tours are grandparents with grandchildren,” she says, “because, even at my age, I still possess a child’s heart, mind, and eyes. I’ve never lost my childhood enthusiasm.”

While Marx rarely brings people inside museums on her tours, preferring to stay outdoors amid what she calls “the real life of the streets,” she does remember her frst visit to Paris’s Musée d’Orsay many years ago. There she encountered The Gleaners by Jean-François Millet (1814–1875). “I was immediately mesmerized by it, but I was not the person then that I am now. Today I look at things with a maturity I didn’t have then. Now I can articulate why I love this painting so much.”

Marx cites the inherent poignancy of the painting’s subject matter: three women who glean the earth for fallen bits of harvested corn, tucking kernels into their apron pockets. She points to the mounds of fresh corn in the distance and to the farm overseer on horseback who is wholly unconcerned with the women foraging for remnants, so unimportant are they. “The painting is about how the wealthy have everything, plenty of food, the labor for getting it accomplished by others,” Marx says. “Millet felt a great compassion for people who are hungry and fnd life difcult. He grew up on a farm and had an intimate knowledge of the earth and an afnity for the people who made a living from it.”

Although Marx has been leading tours of New York City for 40 years, she herself has become one of its prime sights, too. Known for her trademark outfts — typically shades of vibrant oranges and golds — she is also a presence on stage as a solo performer, as a jewelry model, as the subject of a documentary flm, and as the kind of personality found on New York streets who helps defne the city.

Given her principal role leading people to its sights and experiences,

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Marx embraces the outdoors, even if her milieu is a decidedly urban one. “I’m a theatrical person, and the moment I frst led a tour — on June 1, 1980 — I fell in love with the microphone,” she admits.

Marx recognizes, too, Millet’s powerful role in conveying a story. “The artist was not trying to start a revolution by painting The Gleaners, though the wealthy classes of Paris were worried that he might be doing so. He drew what he knew. He was not a success in his lifetime, and he eventually returned to rural life. He was happiest when he looked to the horizon.”

Marx has viewed images of this painting so often that she has discerned its seeming dichotomies. “The women look well dressed, which shows they have self-esteem. They don’t look frail, but hardy.

After all, they’re doing back-breaking labor.” She also sees a mutual respect among them. “They observe a kind of territorial separation, not getting in each other’s space. And while I can tell the women are of diferent ages, Millet doesn’t show much of their faces, which says something about the facelessness of poverty.”

To meet Marx on one of her tours or to see her walk on stage is to be greeted by someone with an uncanny vibrancy and contagious, positive energy. “Millet’s painting tells me that people will always fnd a way to nourish themselves. As my grandmother used to tell me, ‘Never look like you’re poor — you’ll feel better about yourself.’”

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BEST OF AMERICA

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Sunflowers and Wedgewood • 20x20 in • oil on linen www.patriciatribastoneart.com

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La Danse 24x20 in • oil on linen canvas www.lisapricefineart.com

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STEVE WILS ON LYNDEN COWAN Tobermory• 40x30 in• oil on canvas www.lyndencowan.com

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CHULA BEAUREGARD

Late Winter Solace 24”x20” oil

REPRESENTED BY The Broadmoor Galleries | Colorado Springs, CO Simpson-Gallagher Gallery | Cody, WY Jace Romick Gallery | Steamboat Springs, CO

www.ChulaBeauregard.com

Vitae Domina, 30" x 40", Oil on Canvas

LILIYA MUGLIA

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M U G L I A - A R T. C O M

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WATERFOWL FESTIVAL VIRTUAL ART GALLERY ®

Opens online November 1

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Al Jordan, Frosty Morning, Carving

Richard Clifton, Bluebill Flight, Painting

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Ken Newman, A Dog for All Seasons, Sculpture

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November 12-14, 2021

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Cal Jackson, Log Canoe, Photograph

*Bronze castings or special orders could take longer.

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American Impressionist Society

AIS MASTER ARTISTS Carolyn Anderson Kenn Backhaus Clayton J. Beck, Ill Roger Dale Brown Scott Burdick Nancy Bush Betty Carr Scott L. Christensen Kim English Jerry Fresia Lois Griffel Albert Handell Quang Ho Peggi Kroll-Roberts Calvin Liang Weizhen Liang Huihan Liu Kevin Macpherson Ned Mueller C.W. Mundy camille Przewodek William Schneider ZhiweiTu Dawn Whitelaw

Illume Gallery of Fine Art St. George, Utah 435- 313-5 008 www.illumegalleryoffineart.com

Thursday, October 22 Opening Reception and Awards Presentation 6pm

AIS FOUNDERS Charlotte Dickinson Pauline Ney Marjorie Bradley William Schultz

Friday, October 23 Educational Events 10am-5pm

Painting Demo by William Schneider

AIS Officers

6 to 8pm

Debra Joy Groesser, President/CEO Cheryl St. John, Vice President Don Groesser, Treasurer

Doreen St. John, Secretary

Proudly sponsored by:

FINEAR1'

COl\lNOISSEUR

Saturday, October 24 All Member Paint Out Wet Wall Exhibit and Sale

Subject to change or concellotion.

American Impressionist Society was founded in 1998 with the mission to promote the appreciation of Impressionism through exhibitions, workshops and educational events.

Artist memberships are open to American Impressionist artists. Supporting memberships are open to anyone who would like to support our mission. AIS is a 501 (c)(3)organization.

For more information, contact Liz Ahrens, AIS Executive Director aidirectorl@gmail.com

231-881-7685

www.americanimpressionistsociety.org

Reinert Fine Art proudly hosts Te 2020 Oil Painters of America Eastern Regional Exhibit November 20th - December 19th (Juried works presented in our 181 King Street location - & - on our website)

Featuring over 50 nationally acclaimed award-winning artists.

Come visit our exquisite galleries and magical sculpture garden.

Olena Babak

Olga Krimon

Paul Cheng

William Schneider, OPA / AIS Master

Rick Reinert

843.694.2445 • ReinertFineArt.com • 179 & 181 King Street, Charleston, SC 29401

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Join us in celebration of the creative artists in this fgurative art showcase. And visit their websites to see more of their work. Plan to join us in the fall of 2021 for our postponed Figurative Art Convention & Expo (FACE).

S C OT T RO G E R S Paradise, Utah Chiricahua Apache, 23 in., bronze, edition of 30 rogersbronze@gmail.com • www.scottrogerssculpture.com Represented by The Adobe Fine Art, Illume Fine Art, Legacy, Lunds Fine Art, Mountain Trails (Jackson/Sedona), Sage Creek Gallery, Settlers West.

J E S S I CA B IA N C O Niagara Falls, Canada My Weakness, 70 x 100 cm, oil on canvas biancofneart@outlook.com www.biancofneart.com

A LE X A N D R A T Y N G Narberth, Pennsylvania Breakthrough, 50 x 50 in., oil on linen Available through Dowling Walsh Gallery alexandratyng@aol.com www.alexandratyng.com Represented by Dowling Walsh Gallery, Rockland, ME; Gross McCleaf Gallery, Philadelphia, PA; gWatson Gallery, Stonington, ME.

R E G I N A JAC O B S O N San Luis Obispo, California Beautiful Burden, 22 x 30 in., oil on wood panel regina@reginajacobson.com 949.677.1102 www.reginajacobson.com Represented by Lovetts Gallery, Tulsa, OK.

JAQ G R A NTFO R D Victoria, Australia Transparent, 21 x 33 in., oil on canvas Available through 33 Contemporary on Artsy jaq@jaqgrantford.com • www.jaqgrantford.com Represented by 33 Contemporary (via Artsy), Chicago IL.

NANCI F R A N C E -VA Z Ocean, New Jersey Out of Eden, 40 x 28 in., oil on aluminum panel Available through the artist nancifrance@gmail.com 646.662.5960 www.nancifrancevaz.com Represented by Lovetts Gallery, Tulsa, OK; Abend Gallery guest artist, Denver, CO.

LI N DA H A R R I S R E Y N O LD S Centreville, Delaware Cafe, 22 x 30 in., oil on Belgian linen Available through Artsy.net LHRportraits@aol.com • 302.981.8553 www.lindaharrisreynolds.com Represented by Carspecken Gallery, Wilmington, DE. M O RGA N D U M M IT T Philadelphia, Pennsylvania Portrait and Figure Sculpture in Marble and Bronze morgandummitt@gmail.com www.morgandummitt.com

S U SA N B R A B E AU Wendell, North Carolina The Critics, 30 x 40 in., linen Available through the artist susanbrabeau1@aol.com 919.279.7626 www.susanbrabeau.com “Magic Realist”

M A R C A . D U Q U E T TE Buffalo, New York Soup at the Bar, 20 x 30 in., oil on canvas Available through 33 Contemporary on Artsy.net mduke33@gmail.com • www.marcaduquette.com

L AQ U I N C E Y R E E D Oklahoma City, Oklahoma Don’t Push Me, 18 x 6 x 7 in., bronze Available through Sage Creek Gallery laquincey@gmail.com • 405.824.6885 www.laquincey.com Represented by Sage Creek Gallery, Santa Fe, NM; Authentique Gallery, St. George, UT.

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There is a lot of superb art being made these days.

This column by Allison Malafronte shines light on a trio of gifted individuals.

JULIAN DIX (b. 1961) creates paintings in series for the same reason many past masters did, including one of his principal infuences, Giorgio Morandi (1890–1964): to look closely at a subject for a prolonged period, exhausting visual interpretation until unseen philosophical, poetic, or psychological conclusions emerge. “I am most excited when exploring an idea I don’t fully understand, something greater than me, a piece that takes me to uncharted realms of ideas and impressions that strive to move through my brushes onto canvas,” the artist shares. “I am aware that what I am creating is at the edge of my understanding, and the painting becomes a process of discovering what wishes to reveal itself.”

Two recent series — Shifting Values and They & Us, both done this year — are works through which Dix sought to reconcile the transitional and unsettling circumstances the world is now facing. The still life pictured here, Shifting Values No. 4, is one of eight works in that suite. While working on Shifting Values, Dix concerned himself only with painting values — the transitions between darks and mid-values, lights and highlights; the way light turns around the structure of bottles; the subtle hint of refection on a glass — as a metaphor for how humanity’s collective values, relationships to one another, and coping mechanisms have shifted during the crisis.

“The months of the shut-in that unifed the world, together in isolation, found me in my studio, armed with paintbrush and canvas and unlimited time,” the Canadian artist writes from his home in Kelowna, northeast of Vancouver in British Columbia. “Here we all are, locked in our tiny worlds, looking out at the greater whole through a blue screen. In this mindset, I noticed some jars and bottles haphazardly placed atop a shelf. Their quiet, intimate assembly made me pause — I was seeing Morandi’s muse, his afnity for minutiae, his simple observation – and all of that completely resonated with me.”

Dix continues, “I soon realized that, while Morandi was concerned with reality as abstraction, I was exploring not only the relationship of the objects to one another but also the light and the shifting values of each object. As our world was coming to terms with a new way of living, these paintings inadvertently followed suit, exploring a new kind of community and a reconsideration of values. As a society we must necessarily shift our perspective, change our position with and to one another, to fnd a new way to stand together but apart.”

Although Dix references Morandi, that Italian painter is not the only artist from the past with whom he shares a connection. He is the grandson of the famous German Expressionist Otto Dix (1891–1969), who began his career painting realistic portraits and landscapes and ultimately transitioned to an uncensored, free-form style that allowed him to describe the horrors of war and other dark circumstances he witnessed.

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JULIAN DIX (b. 1961), Shifting Values No. 4, 2020, oil on canvas, 20 x 16 in., available from the artist

Similarly, Julian started out on one stylistic path and shifted to another. A musician from adolescence through young adulthood, he studied jewelry art and design in college, then joined forces with the popular jeweler Karl Stittgen. He worked as a goldsmith for the next 30 years, keeping his interest in fne art alive by drawing regularly. Fifteen years ago, at the age of 44, Dix tried his hand at painting — and the rest, as they say, is history.

To learn how Dix’s Shifting Values series segued naturally into his latest series, They & Us (which includes “a pleasantly surprising stylistic departure”), visit juliandix.com/they--us.html.

Dix is self-represented.

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BROOKE WETZEL (b. 1984), Sun River, 2015, oil on canvas, 24 x 36 in., private collection

BROOKE WETZEL (b. 1984) came into this world with a love of nature and art in her blood. Spending most of her childhood outdoors exploring the mountains of Montana and Idaho, she simultaneously was infuenced by watching her artist father sketching and by studying the work of two great-uncles, who were illustrators for Walt Disney Studios. These experiences planted seeds for her own artistic development, and her destiny to become an interpreter of landscape and light through paint was set in motion.

“Mysterious and fascinating, adventurous and strangely beautiful!” the artist writes on her website. “There is nothing more truly romantic than God’s creation. When the sky becomes illuminated at daybreak and nightfall or the sun is difused by a storm cloud, it causes aspects of nature to become quiet and subdued. It’s a numinous peace that speaks volumes to me. I am blessed to express that through a paintbrush.”

From her adolescent adventures to her adult artistic wanderings, Wetzel has progressed greatly, learning and growing through constant practice and an unwavering commitment to the Western landscape she loves most. The artist can pinpoint the exact moment when she transitioned from focusing on the physical traits of a scene to capturing a sense of place: it was while painting the piece pictured here, Sun River. “I spent a few days with family friends at their cabin on Sun River in Montana, and I found the landscape to be very unique and inspiring,” the artist recalls. “It’s a place where eastern and western Montana merge, and the diferent trees and terrain from each create a place that feels magical — a place that is also hard to paint believably.

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I was down by the water watching the morning sun glisten across the ripples, which is one of my favorite efects of light and one I had been trying hard to paint. Sun River was the frst painting I felt really captured that efect. As a young artist, I was still looking for my ‘artistic voice,’ and I found it with this painting. My art became more about the feeling and mood of a place and less about its details.”

An avid outdoorswoman, Wetzel can be found most days either plein air painting or on an adventure of some kind: backpacking, fshing, boating, hiking — or hunting for her next subject. This constant outdoor activity has greatly heightened her appreciation for both the subtle and signature displays of nature during various seasons and times of day. She takes every beautiful detail to heart — the quiet pastel colors of a sunrise, the comforting golden light of a sunset, the gentle rolling colors of a winding river — and then transfers these observations to her paintings. When Wetzel is not exploring the great outdoors, she is settled in her home and studio in Montana’s Bitterroot Valley, which she shares with her husband, son, and daughter — her greatest motivation and supporters.

Wetzel is represented by four Montana galleries: A. Banks Gallery (Bozeman), Beartooth Gallery Fine Art (Red Lodge), Bitterroot Frames Fine Art Gallery (Bitterroot Valley), and Dick Idol Gallery (Whitefsh).

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CYNTHIA

FEUSTEL

(b.

1957),

The

Whittler, 2017, oil on linen, 20 x 16 in., private collection

For Colorado-based artist CYNTHIA FEUSTEL (b. 1957), painting is a way to bring invisible sentiments into the world of perception. She has been creating this dialogue between the seen and unseen through portraiture and fgurative work for more than 20 years. “Painting, for me, is a conversation between what is perceived in the visible world and what is felt in the invisible world of emotions, thoughts, and memories,” the artist explains. “The drama of light, the placement of the fgure, and the fgure’s relationship to the space it inhabits all contribute to the emotional content of a painting.”

The moments that capture the artist’s attention are simple, humble scenes or activities that evoke a particular mood or memory in her or others. In her painting The Whittler, for instance, Feustel was struck by seeing an elderly man carving wood at a living history ranch in New Mexico — a sight that reminded her of her childhood and her father.

“This gentleman had a timeless quality about him,” she recalls. “He was dressed in pioneer garb, quietly whittling, with the sunlight illuminating his weathered hands and face. As I approached the carpenter shop,

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the smell of fresh-cut cedar drew me in. It immediately brought me back to childhood memories of my father, who spent much of his spare time woodworking. He is now 93 years old. Although his tools lie idle and the sweet smell of wood no longer permeates his workshop, those memories remain strong.”

Feustel found her way to painting after studying art at Penn State University and earning a degree in fashion illustration from the Art Institute of Pittsburgh. Following a successful career in graphic design, she turned her attention to studying the Old Masters and learned a classical approach to painting, whereby she begins with an underpainting and slowly builds up layers of paint.

“Over the years my work has consistently been more traditional, but I am currently putting together a body of work that will have a bit more of a contemporary feel,” Feustel says. “Every painting presents a fresh challenge, and I am always excited to explore new ideas and methods. As I stand in front of my easel, the blank canvas holds the secret of what is to come, and with those frst brushstrokes, the joy of discovery begins. Although I start by carefully planning each piece, I allow the work to evolve as needed during the painting process.”

Feustel is a strong believer that one should never stop learning.

Accordingly, she remains a constant student of art and life while maintaining a full teaching schedule at her Colorado Springs studio. This gives her the opportunity to pass on to others the valuable lessons she has worked hard to learn on her own.

Feustel is represented by McBride Gallery (Annapolis) and West Wind Fine Art (Walpole, New Hampshire).

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BY LESLIE GILBERT ELMAN

T O D A Y ’ S M A S T E R S

GRAYDON PARRISH & CARMEN DELL’OREFICE

MEETING THEMUSE

T

he frst time Graydon Parrish set eyes on Carmen Dell’Orefce, he knew he wanted to paint her. “I thought she was one of the most interesting people I’ve ever seen. So intriguing,” he recalls. At the time, Parrish (b. 1970) was living and painting in Amherst, Massachusetts. Carmen (as she’s known) was a celebrated fashion model living in New York City. The Carmen that Parrish saw that day was a photograph on an advertising poster, and the prospect of meeting the real Carmen — let alone asking her to sit for a portrait — seemed unlikely. Nevertheless, the artist fled away his mental image of Carmen in what he calls his “private list of 10 people I want to paint before I die.”

After all, who was to say the two wouldn’t cross paths someday? “The wonderful thing about being an artist is you meander through diferent social circles,” Parrish notes. And as the tale of “when Graydon met Carmen” demonstrates, the world is indeed a small place where even unlikely connections can be made.

After he earned a Master of Fine Arts degree at the New York Academy of Art in 1992, Parrish had enrolled at Amherst College for an additional Bachelor of Arts on an independent study course. His thesis project, which earned him summa cum laude honors in 1999, was the 10-by-4-foot oil on canvas painting, Remorse, Despondence and the Acceptance of an Early Death, an allegory of the AIDS epidemic.

Of that work, Robert T. Sweeney, Amherst’s William R. Mead Professor of Fine Arts, said, “Graydon’s technique is very powerful and accomplished, but one of the painting’s real accomplishments is that it achieves a level of emotion that’s consistent with the subject matter. [He] is really playing of the French academic style, bringing the language forward and reinventing the technique.” So outstanding was the work that upon its completion, the trustees of Amherst College made the exceptional decision to purchase it. It is now on permanent display in the school’s Robert Frost Library.

The passionate response to Remorse, Despondence and the Acceptance of an Early Death led to Parrish’s receiving a commission late in 2001 from the New Britain Museum of American Art in Connecticut. This time, he would create an allegorical

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Study of Carmen Dell’Orefice, 2014, charcoal and white chalk on blue paper, 24 x 18 in., collection of Carmen Dell’Orefice

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Carmen, 2019, oil on polyester, 78 x 60 1/4 in., private collection

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The Cycle of Terror and Tragedy: September 11, 2001, 2002–06, oil on canvas, 77 x 210 in., New Britain Museum of American Art, Connecticut; Charles F. Smith Fund and in memory of Scott O’Brien who died in the World Trade Center, given by his family; 2006.116

work on a monumental scale in response to the tragedy of September 11. The Cycle of Terror and Tragedy, September 11, 2001, a 6 1/2-by-17 1/2-foot oil on canvas, took Parrish fve years to complete and was exhibited for the frst time in 2006, framed to resemble an altar.

Former New Britain Museum director Douglas Hyland, who commissioned the work, observed that Parrish’s painting “can be appreciated on many levels — there is the simple poignant story told, as well as a very complex, psychological drama. I knew he would produce a painting that will be pondered for generations to come.”

And indeed it has been.

Initially, some critics faulted the 9/11 allegory for being too literal, comparing it to W.P.A.-era murals created for public spaces. (One certainly could construe that comparison as a compliment.) The public overwhelmingly responded to the painting with genuine emotion — sometimes tears. Adults brought children with them to view and discuss it. Parrish gave numerous lectures and gallery talks about it. And no matter what their opinion of the allegory itself, no one disputed Parrish’s mastery as a painter or his position as a leading 21st-century “classical realist.” Comparisons were drawn to Jacques-Louis David (1748–1825) and William-Adolphe Bouguereau (1825–1905), French painters whom Parrish counts among his inspirations.

Parrish says his focus remained on allegorical pictures, not portraits, and he felt no particular

Interlude (Young Woman at a Door), 2014, oil on panel, 40 x 26 in., The Kushner Collection

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Carmen Dell’Orefice and Graydon Parrish with the artist’s mother, Alice Parrish

Parrish jokes that it was his “inspiring personality” that won Carmen over, but he acknowledges that her interest in him was equally inspired by the style and quality of his work.

Raised by his art-collector parents to appreciate 19th-century fgurative art, as a painter Parrish is frmly rooted in the traditions of European academic painters. “Carmen has been painted before, and she’s been drawn by fashion illustrators, but I think this is the frst time she’s been painted in a classical style with an eye to beauty rather than celebrity,” he says.

impetus to branch out in a diferent direction. Yet the image of Carmen Dell’Orefce’s face remained in his mind.

THE MODEL AS MUSE Parrish wasn’t the frst person to be so captivated by Carmen’s image. Discovered at age 13 on a Manhattan crosstown bus in 1944 (so one story goes), she was appearing in the pages of Vogue by age 15, photographed by Irving Penn, Cecil Beaton, and Horst P. Horst, among others. Her frst Vogue cover was the October 15, 1947, issue, photographed by Erwin Blumenfeld.

When Carmen was in her 20s, legendary fashion editor Diana Vreeland wooed her to Harper’s Bazaar, where she modeled for photographers Lillian Bassman, Melvin Sokolsky, and perhaps most famously, Richard Avedon. By this time, Carmen’s career was wellestablished, and her circle of friends and professional acquaintances included Salvador Dalí, who considered her a muse. Yet Avedon was resistant to working with her, pointing out her faws in person even as his photographs celebrated her beauty. Much later in life, Carmen would recall gradually earning Avedon’s respect as their working relationship evolved into genuine friendship.

Carmen retired from modeling when she was in her 30s, only to return in the late 1970s — her dark hair now stunningly white — and reestablish a career that continues to this day. In 2003, she appeared in an advertising campaign for Isaac Mizrahi’s fashion collaboration with Target stores. The photo of Carmen that caught Parrish’s attention was from that campaign. Just as she’d done with Dalí all those years ago, Carmen left an indelible impression on the artist’s imagination.

THE MUSE RETURNS A few years later, Parrish left Massachusetts for Texas, where he’d grown up. He made the move in part to be near family and in part, he readily confesses, to escape the New England winters. It was in Texas that he inadvertently “met” Carmen again.

“Lance Avery Morgan, a friend in Austin, was the publisher of Brilliant magazine,” Parrish says. “And there was Carmen, on the cover! I asked if there was any way he could put me in touch with her.” That was in early 2007. The publisher called New York jewelry designer Peter Martino, a longtime friend of Carmen’s, who said that if Parrish met him in New York, he might be able to arrange a meeting with Carmen.

Parrish was nervous. Carmen arrived late. But their frst encounter ended encouragingly, and other casual meetings followed. “It took me about a year and half to get up the courage to ask her to sit for me,” Parrish recalls. “Finally, I invited her to dinner. When she arrived, she said, ‘I know what you’re going to ask me and my answer is yes.’”

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THE MUSE AS MENTOR “One reason Carmen makes a great model is that she studied ballet,” Parrish notes. “She knows herself and how to move.

Every hand gesture is articulate. She’s aware of her elegance.

That is one of her secrets.”

In choosing a pose for this larger-than-life portrait, Parrish sought “something regal, like Joshua Reynolds.” And while Carmen knows instinctively how to sell a look as a model, “the challenge,” Parrish confdes, “was to make her look like she feels on the inside.” Indeed, one might wonder how many times in her career — over tens of thousands of photographs — Carmen has been asked simply to be herself.

Any successful collaboration between artist and model requires underlying trust and confdence in one another. Over the course of their time in the studio — as he sketched, photographed, and painted — the bond deepened between Carmen and Parrish, fueled by their mutual love of classical art. His enthusiasm for work is infectious. When he’s not painting, Parrish is teaching art, most recently as a private mentor to students around the world in sessions online. (“I miss the in-person classes,” he says, “but I never thought I would enjoy this kind of one-on-one teaching so much.”) Carmen is a painter herself, with a studio in her home, and early in their friendship Parrish sent her some oil paints as a gift.

Blessed with insatiable intellectual curiosity, Carmen never tires of learning new things and meeting new people. In the fashion world, her friends and fans are legion and she has amassed a lifetime’s worth of stories, recollections, and mementos from people she has known. She loves fashion as an art form, not as a status symbol, and “rarely name-drops,” although Parrish notes that she chose to wear clothing by American designer Ralph Rucci for the portrait because he is one of her favorites.

“In the studio we talked, but mainly I listened to her stories,” Parrish says. “She has a lot of advice for living and I wanted to gain wisdom. She has great integrity. She’s very gracious. And she’s tenacious.”

As she approaches age 90, Carmen still appears in fashion layouts and print advertisements. She even walks in runway shows from time to time. More than once in the past few years, she’s brought Parrish as her “plus one” to fashion industry events. “I like her even more in person than I did in the abstract,” he laughs.

Now, about 10 years after he began work, Parrish’s larger-than-life portrait of Carmen Dell’Orefce is near completion. He plans to ofer it to the National Portrait Gallery in Washington, D.C. It would be unusual for a model to be the subject of a portrait as an individual in her own right, yet one might argue that after a career spanning more than 70 years, no model deserves this distinction more.

Parrish says he’ll paint Carmen again on a smaller scale, working from sketches and reference materials. The relationship between artist and muse is a precious one. This artist isn’t ready to let go of his muse just yet.

LESLIE GILBERT ELMAN writes about art, antiques, and travel. Her most recent piece for Fine Art Connoisseur was “The International Foundation for Art Research: Unraveling Art’s Mysteries” in the August 2020 issue.

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B Y K E L LY C O M P T O N

T O D A Y ’ S M A S T E R S

HONORING AMERICA’S VETERANS

O

n view through March 21 at the National Veterans Memorial and Museum in Columbus, Ohio, is We the People: Portraits of Veterans in America, a unique exhibition featuring 50 large watercolor portraits of U.S. veterans painted by the South Carolina-based master Mary Whyte (b. 1953). Seven

years in the making, this series features one veteran from every state, refecting the sheer diversity of the armed forces and of this country itself.

Beyond highlighting how remarkable these sitters are, one of Whyte’s objectives is to underscore the signifcance of veterans’ re-integration into civilian life smoothly and with the utmost respect for

America, 2017, watercolor on paper, 40 x 53 in., collection of the artist

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N O V E M B E R / D E C E M B E R

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Flurries, 2012, watercolor on paper, 23 3/8 x 31 in., collection of the artist

their distinctive life experiences. Among her subjects are a Missouri dairy farmer, a Rhode Island lobsterman, a Pennsylvania science teacher, and 47 others. Illustrated here are four more examples. America shows a Native American traditional dancer who settled in Aberdeen, South Dakota, after serving in the U.S. Army. Also ex-Army is the soot-covered frefghter in Bend, Oregon, seen in Battleground, while Flurries depicts a Navy retiree who is now a rancher in Watrous, New Mexico. Finally, a Savannah great-grandmother who once served in the Air Force is the subject of a particularly striking composition, Glory.

Whyte says her mission for this project was “to uphold and honor the hidden heroes of our country… We can only be deeply grateful, inspired, and humbled by all of them.” Naturally she has received warm praise from military leaders; the Medal of Honor recipient Major General James E. Livingston called this series “a moving and important tribute to our nation’s greatest patriots.”

Thinking long-term, Whyte has established the Patriot Art Foundation, whose mission is to honor, serve, and inspire veterans through art. A wide range of veterans, military and business leaders, educators, and artists are now involved with this organization, which also seeks to create an online library of artful educational apps and curricula available to veterans, teachers, students, and the general public in order to promote appreciation of art and history, as well as of healing and self-expression.

Glory, 2015, watercolor on paper, 28 1/2 x 20 in., collection of the artist

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The Patriot Art Foundation’s website includes instructions on how to order the handsome catalogue that accompanies We the People: Portraits of Veterans in America, which has been published by the University of South Carolina Press. And don’t worry: if you are unable to visit Whyte’s exhibition in Columbus before it closes in March, keep an eye on her website because it will almost certainly move on to another city thereafter.

The National Veterans Memorial and Museum began with a vision from the late U.S. Senator and Marine Corps Colonel John Glenn (1921–2016), who understood the need to honor the intimate memories, personal belongings, and painful losses of American veterans. Opened in 2018, the museum building was designed by Allied Works Architecture (New York) in the form of a concrete arch with a glass curtainwall and spiral walkway ascending to the rooftop. Adjacent to the museum is a 2 1/2-acre grove of trees with a water feature and memorial wall, all intended to help visitors refect upon what they have learned inside before returning to their everyday lives.

In November 2021, Mary Whyte will be presented with the Lifetime Achievement Award at the fourth annual Figurative Art Convention & Expo (FACE) in Williamsburg, Virginia. This honor will be bestowed in recognition of her accomplishments not only as an artist, but also as a model citizen via initiatives like the one described here. Yet another example is her establishment, in 2007, of a $5,000 award that each year highlights visual art teachers in South Carolina who have demonstrated superior commitment to both their students and their craft.

Everyone at Fine Art Connoisseur looks forward to saluting Mary Whyte at FACE a year from now. In the meantime, enjoy her exhibition and its accompanying publication.

Information: nationalvmm.org, patriotartfoundation.org, marywhyte.com, fgurativeartconvention.com KELLY COMPTON is a contributing writer to Fine Art Connoisseur.

Battleground, 2012, watercolor on paper, 40 3/4 x 28 3/4 in., collection of the artist

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BY MAX GILLIES

T O D A Y ’ S M A S T E R S

GOFIGURE E

veryone has one, so everyone is interested, to a lesser or greater degree. I’m referring to the human body, surely the most important touchstone in the history of art. Artists have been depicting the figure for millennia, sometimes in exacting detail and sometimes vaguely, but always with the understanding that every viewer has a direct connection with the subject — and also a way of assessing the rendition’s accuracy.

The ongoing renaissance of classical realism means that fgure drawing and painting have not been this good in North America for half a century. Though it would be easy to fll this section with examples from the classical ateliers, we have mixed it up here stylistically. Enjoy this array of approaches, and let us know which fgure artists you are following these days.

MAX GILLIES is a contributing writer to Fine Art Connoisseur.

MATTHEW BIRD (b. 1977), AJ, 2019, watercolor on paper, 15 x 22 in., available through the artist

ROBIN COLE (b. 1985), Desire Guides Imagination, 2018, oil on linen, 24 x 30 in., available through the artist

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(CLOCKWISE FROM TOP LEFT) MARIANNA FOSTER (b. 1982), My Very Own Star, 2018, oil on canvas, 24 x 20 in., available through the artist

ILENE GIENGER-

STANFIELD

(b.

1956),

Disrupted, 2020, oil on panel, 16 x 20 in., available through the artist GRANTFORD

(b.

JAQ 1967),

Beautiful at Eighty, 2020, oil on canvas, 29 x 19 in., not for sale

STANLEY

RAYFIELD (b. 1987), Buford, 2019, graphite on paper, 10 x 8 in., private collection PALDEN

HAMILTON

(b. 1980), Inside Looking Out, 2020, oil on aluminum composite panel, 32 x 23 in., private collection

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(ABOVE) STEPHANIE DESHPANDE (b. 1975), The Traveler, 2018, oil on linen, 30 x 40 in., available through the artist (LEFT) ELIZABETH FLOYD (b. 1974), Summer Days, 2020, oil on panel, 36 x 54 in. (overall), each panel 36 x 18 in., available through the artist

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(ABOVE) ALEXANDRA MANUKYAN (b. 1963), Entangled, 2020, oil on linen, 24 x 12 in., Rehs Contemporary Gallery, New York City

(TOP RIGHT) GARY ALSUM (b. 1957), In the Redeemer's

Field, 2014, bronze (edition of 5), 44 x 23 x 32 in., commissioned as a gift for Mountain View Presbyterian Church, Loveland, Colorado, available through National Sculptors’ Guild (RIGHT) EDI MATSUMOTO (b. 1964), Bugeisha, 2020, oil on canvas, 40 x 30 in., available through the artist

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(TOP LEFT) CINDY LONG (b. 1958), Diamond Girl, 2019, graphite on paper, 13 1/2 x 10 1/2 in., available through the artist

(TOP RIGHT) DANIEL

MAIDMAN (b. 1975), The Fall, 2020, pencil on paper, 20 x 15 in., available through the artist

(BOTTOM LEFT) SUZANNE JOHNSON (b. 1971),

Wisdom’s Promise, 2020, bronze, 22 x 22 x 12 in., The Donald E. Weed Collection

(BOTTOM RIGHT) LINDA HARRIS-

REYNOLDS (b. 1957), The Traveler, 2019, charcoal and chalk on paper, 24 x 18 in., available through the artist

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(CLOCKWISE FROM TOP LEFT ) CHRISTOPHER REMMERS (b. 1982), Subversion, 2020, oil on canvas, 30 x 24 in., available through the artist

CATHERINE PRESCOTT (b. 1944), Sam with Miraak, 2018, oil on canvas, 38 x 30 1/2 in.,

available through the artist

CHRISTINA RAMOS (b. 1961), Resurrection, 2019, acrylic on canvas, 24 x 36 in.,

available through the artist

TIMOTHY REES (b. 1985), The Kiss, 2019, oil on linen panel, 45 x 45 in., private

collection

SUZY SCHULTZ (b. 1959), Waiting for the Return, 2019, watercolor on paper, 16 x 21 1/2 in., available

through the artist

STEPHANIE SPAY (b. 1975), A Flame to Be Rekindled, 2020, oil on linen, 36 x 24 in., available

through the artist

DAVID SHEVLINO (b. 1962), Diver in Red, 2016, oil on panel, 30 x 28 in., available through

the artist

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(CLOCKWISE FROM TOP LEFT) MARC A. DUQUETTE (b. 1973), Cheating at Solitaire, 2018, oil on canvas on board, 22 x 23 in., available through the artist

CHARLES WARREN MUNDY (b. 1945), The Veteran, 2018, 40 x 30 in., Vanessa Rothe

Fine Art, Laguna Beach, California 33 Contemporary ' s page on artsy.net available through the artist

OMALIX (b. 1982), Sleepless, 2016, oil on linen, 42 x 24 in., available through SCOTT W. PRIOR (b. 1968), Standing Room Only, 2020, oil on panel, 48 x 60 in.,

PAVEL OUPOROV (b. 1966), Dancing with Unicorn, 2020, oil on canvas, 72 x 48 in., available

through the artist

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RACHEL LINNEMEIER (b. 1989), It Doesn’t Melt, 2019, oil on aluminum panel, 20 x 16 in., available through the artist

TERRY STRICKLAND (b. 1960), Love Is an Action, 2019, oil on canvas over panel, 24 x 18 in., available through 33 Contemporary's page on artsy.net

ARINA GORDIENKO (b. 1961), Rare Bird 2, 2019, oil on linen, 30 x 40 in., available through the artist

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(TOP ROW) RILEY DOYLE (b. 1990), Gather Your Thoughts and Let Them Go, 2019, oil on panel, 36 x 18 in., available through 33 Contemporary ' s page on artsy.net (b. 1954), Beginnings, 2017, pastel on paper, 24 x 18 in., available through the artist 23 1/2 x 14 x 14 1/2 in., available through the artist page on artsy.net

SALLY STRAND

(BOTTOM ROW) SCOTT ROGERS (b. 1961), The Outlaw Trail, 2018, bronze (edition of 30),

DOUG WEBB (b. 1946), Under the Influence, 2020, acrylic on linen canvas, 30 x 24 in., available through 33 Contemporary ' s

KATIE VAN DOREN (b. 1978), Transition, 2020, oil on panel, 14 x 18 in., available through the artist

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BY ANGELA SWANSON JONES

H I S T O R I C M A S T E R S

DESPERATELY

YOUNG

ARTISTS WHO DIED IN THEIR TWENTIES FYODOR ALEKSANDROVICH VASILYEV (1850–1873), Wet Meadow, 1872, oil on canvas, 27 1/2 x 45 in., State Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow

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H

ow many artists’ lives were cut short before they reached their full potential? How have our museums and private collections been diminished by those artists’ early passing? Did each make his or her maximum contribution despite the brevity of their days? For some unfortunate artists, the answer to this last question must be, regretfully, no.

Just inside the main entrance of St. Petersburg’s Repin Institute is a marble wall on which the names of student artists killed in action are listed in gold lettering. The entire class of 1942 was sent to the front line, barely armed and with little military training. Less than half came home alive.

Likewise, the grand staircase in the old Leningrad Art Union was once lined with hundreds of photographs of young artists who died in service to the Motherland during the Great Patriotic War (World War II). Socialist Realism expert Dr. Vern G. Swanson recalls:

Yet this was not true in every case. Some artists displayed their gifts without familial precedent, fueled only by their drive to learn and their singular genius. The great Albrecht Dürer best evoked such inexplicable talent while describing the beloved Northern Renaissance painter Geertgen tot Sint Jans (c. 1460/65–c. 1488/93), who died at 28: “Truly he was a painter in his mother’s womb.”

When we think of artists dying early, we have been conditioned to anticipate a Vincent van Gogh narrative that reads something like this: “A brilliant yet drug- or alcohol-dependent artist meets with disappointment

Each time I visited this wall I would choke up at the immensity of our loss. Some of these were great artists, and it chills and saddens one to think of these young people never living out the full extent of their artistic potential.

I wanted to see every artist’s face again and hear their names one more time. As painful as it was, I just didn’t want them forgotten.

The cruelty of unfulflled artistic potential can be glimpsed in the United States, too.

During a visit to the Amon Carter Museum of American Art in Fort Worth, I came upon a spirited painting by Dennis Miller Bunker (1861–1890). Today he is widely acknowledged as one of the frst proponents of American Impressionism. However, upon reading his birth and death dates on the adjacent wall label, I marveled that he had only lived to be 29 before dying abruptly of heart failure. At that age, most of us have done precious little to be remembered, but here was an artist already buried by then.

During more than a decade of research, my father, Vern Swanson, and I have uncovered hundreds of comparable individuals who died at an age when most artists are still developing. Nonetheless, many have left a lasting, albeit truncated, legacy through their art. They were certainly not late bloomers, but rather precocious talents who died before reaching the age of 30. Many accomplished this feat by being born to artistic families where relatives ofered them their frst tutelage. This gave them a much-needed head start to achieve excellence in the short time allotted to them. The Dutch still life painter Johannes Bosschaert (1606–1628), for example, was tutored frst by his painter father, Ambrosius, then by his uncle, the famed Balthasar van der Ast.

HENRI REGNAULT (1843–1871), Salomé, 1870, oil on canvas, 63 x 40 1/2 in., Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; Gift of George F. Baker, 1916

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MARIE KONSTANTINOVNA BASHKIRTSEFF (1858–1884), A Meeting, 1884, oil on canvas, 76 x 69 1/2 in., Musée d’Orsay, Paris

and struggles with mental health issues. Ultimately, the artist is unable to cope and takes his or her own life.” This perception has been reinforced by other fgures, particularly Modernists such as Richard Gerstl (1883–1908), who hanged and disemboweled himself before a mirror, and Jeanne Hébuterne (1898–1920), who jumped out a window after the death of her lover Amedeo Modigliani.

Likewise, in popular culture the term “27 Club” has been used to identify the phenomenon of actors, musicians, and visual artists who died at the age of 27, frequently from drug and alcohol abuse. Such was the case with the painter Jean-Michel Basquiat (1960–1988), who died of a heroin overdose, and photographer/installation artist Dash Snow (1981–2009), who killed himself with beer, rum, and heroin. In fact, throughout art history, far more fne artists have died not at 27 but at 28 or 29, and their premature deaths seldom had to do with suicide or substance abuse. Of the artists featured in the book my father and I have just published, suicide accounts for only 10 deaths (approximately nine percent) and overdoses a further two.

By and large, being an artist has been a relatively safe profession. The vast majority, especially realist artists, lived to, or beyond, the standard life expectancies of their day. When they died young, it was usually of causes typical of their region. For example, when the bubonic plague ravaged Seville in 1649, killing a third of its population, it also took the gifted still life painter Juan de Zurbarán (1620–1649), son of the famous Francisco de Zurbarán.

Generally speaking, artists did not die for career-specifc reasons, with the possible exception being the phenomenon of Rome. Unfortunately, the Eternal City and its environs saw the death of no fewer than 20 artists in our book, seven of whom were Prix de Rome winners. While “Rome” cannot necessarily be considered a cause of death, hazardous travel and unsanitary conditions made some artists’ stay there ironically short.

For the rest, the leading causes of death have included war, tuberculosis, infectious diseases, and other, more mysterious causes. Here are some stirring examples.

WAR AND DISEASE The enticement of war and patriotic duty led some hot-blooded artists, like Frédéric Bazille (1841– 1870), to volunteer. Despite protestations from his friends Claude Monet and Pierre-Auguste Renoir, he enlisted in the Franco-Prussian War. His death was considered a waste by Renoir, who bitterly recalled that, “He had not died romantically, galloping over a Delacroix battlefeld; but pitifully,

RICHARD PARKES BONINGTON (1802–1828), View near Rouen, c. 1825, oil on board, 11 x 13 in. Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; Purchase, Gift of Joanne Toor Cummings, by exchange, 2001

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PAULUS PIETERSZ. POTTER (c. 1625–1654), The Young Bull, 1647, oil on canvas, 92 3/4 x 133 1/2 in., Mauritshuis, The Hague

during the retreat, on a muddy road at Beaune la Rolande.”1 Bazille’s delightfully sensitive touch, observation, and vibrant use of color have ensured his continuing fame, yet death dreadfully reduced the size of his oeuvre.

Likewise, the painter of sumptuous exoticism Henri Regnault (1843–1871) died at just 27 during the Prussians’ siege of Paris. As a Prix de Rome winner he had been exempted from military service, but he wanted to help defend his nation’s capital. When a general retreat was sounded, Regnault stayed back to fre his last bullet but instead fell with a Prussian bullet to his left temple. The next day his bereft fancée searched among the dead until she found his corpse. Regnault paid the ultimate price for “Vive la France” but, given the quality of his art, one wishes he had not. His enormous Salomé, now in New York City’s Metropolitan Museum of Art, was a huge success at the 1870 Paris Salon and hints at the masterworks he might yet have produced.

Many more artists have lost their lives to the microscopic germ called Mycobacterium tuberculosis than to the bullet. Often called TB or consumption, this is an airborne wasting disease that has long plagued the world.

Highly contagious, it once spread rapidly through the confned spaces of artists’ studios. Alas, before the invention of antibiotics, recovery was rare.

WILLEM DROST (1633–1659), Flora, c. 1657, oil on canvas, 39 x 33 in., courtesy Sotheby’s New York

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One such patient was Fyodor Vasilyev (1850–1873), who died of tuberculosis at 23. In the briefest of careers, he brought to Russian landscape painting a poetry and naturalism never seen before. Repin called him the “boy wizard” and painter Nikolai Ge lyrically suggested that Vasilyev had “discovered for us the sky.” Indeed, his captivating landscape Wet Meadow (1872) demonstrates well his enchanting vision of Romantic nature that so deeply afected the Russian school. For his health, Vasilyev was ordered to leave St. Petersburg for the warmer climate of the Crimea peninsula, where he gradually withered.

The wealth and high social position of Ukrainian-French artist Marie Bashkirtsef (1858–1884) could not save her from TB either. Her intense desire to achieve fame and not, in her own words, “To die like a dog, like a hundred thousand women whose names are scarcely engraved upon their tombstones,” is detailed in the 20,000 journal pages she penned. Frustrated, Bashkirtsef wrote, “I have spent six years, working ten hours a day, to gain what? The knowledge of all I have yet to learn in my art, and a fatal disease!” She studied at Paris’s Académie Julian and became prolifc.

Bashkirtsef’s most famous painting, The Meeting, was exhibited at the 1884 Paris Salon. Though it was praised by the critics, she was “humiliated” that it won no medals, and yet it endures as her tremendous farewell to the Salon. Fittingly, Bashkirtsef’s fnal words were “Life was so beautiful after all,” and then she died at just 25.

For Richard Parkes Bonington (1802–1828), 25 years was long enough to establish his legendary status alongside such greats as John Constable and J.M.W. Turner. As one biographer notes, he exercised “an infuence out of all proportion to his brief life.”2 According to London’s National Gallery, Bonington was “one of the most important artists of the early nineteenth century, vital to the understanding of French and British art of the Romantic period.”3 He began his experimentations in watercolors and then oils to equally astonishing efect, as his oil study View near Rouen (c. 1825) demonstrates. After his death, Bonington’s reputation continued to grow and many artists in both England and France imitated his style. Contemporary critic Théophile Gautier asserted, “The revolution in painting proceeded from Bonington just as the literary revolution proceeded from Shakespeare.”

Bonington was swept away by tuberculosis, as was Dutch Golden Age animal painter Paulus Potter (c. 1625–1654), who profoundly altered the ways in which animals are portrayed in Western art through his radically realistic style. His life-size masterpiece, The Young Bull (1647), was painted when Potter was only 21, and its “living image” of farm life made cattle painting essential in Holland for the next three centuries. Sadly, tuberculosis not only ended lives, it also made artists increasingly less productive as its death march progressed. What would Potter have accomplished if he had avoided its shackles? The same can be asked of Aubrey Beardsley, Hugh Ramsey, Kaita Murayama, or Henrique Pousão, to name but a few.

Although no single disease claimed as many artists’ lives as tuberculosis, infectious illnesses such as cholera, dysentery, infuenza, pneumonia, and typhoid fever have collectively taken nearly as many. Malarial fever took the life of Pierino da Vinci (c. 1530–1553), the sculptor nephew of Leonardo, at the tender age of 23. Today his masterful marble Young River God with Three Children (c. 1547–48) is in the collection of the Louvre. Because of Pierino’s consummate skill, several of his sculptures have at various times been misattributed to Michelangelo. Giorgio Vasari described Pierino thus: “His genius was admired by all, being much more perfect than could have been expected in one so young, and it was likely to grow even more and to become greater, and equal to that of any other man in his art.”4 What eulogy can we give for Rembrandt’s student Willem Drost (1633– 1659)? He died of pneumonia at 25, yet he had already mastered the light of Northern art and the soft atmosphere of Italian art, as seen in his allegory Flora (c. 1657), which absorbs the golden infuences of the Venetian master Titian. Drost’s presence in major museum collections and his high auction prices attest to his continuing signifcance, but his canvases are few.

PIERINO DA VINCI (c. 1530–1553), Young River God with Three Children, c. 1547–48, marble, 51 1/8 x 15 3/4 in., Musée du Louvre, Paris

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EVERETT RUESS (1914–1934), Granite Towers, c. 1933, linocut print on paper (39/50), 7 3/4 x 6 in., State of Utah Alice Merrill Horne Collection, photo courtesy Utah Arts and Museums, Salt Lake City

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ELISABETTA SIRANI (1638–1665), Judith with the Head of Holofernes, 1658, oil on canvas, 93 1/8 x 72 in., The Burghley House Collection, England

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TOMMASO DI GIOVANNI DE SIMONE (“ Masaccio,” 1401 –1428), The Tribute Money, 1425, wall fresco, 97 1/4 x 235 in., Brancacci Chapel, Florence

ENDURING MYSTERIES Unfortunately, we do not always know how an artist died. Occasionally the causes are disguised on purpose. Such was the case with Britain’s Christopher Wood (1901–1930), who threw himself under a train. This event was, however, reported as an accident to suit his mother’s wishes. In other cases, adequate records, evidence, or postmortems are simply unavailable.

The American watercolorist, printmaker, and poet Everett Ruess (1914–1934) is a telling example. An enigmatic vagabond, Ruess explored the High Sierras, California’s coast, and remote wilderness areas in Utah, Arizona, New Mexico, and Colorado — invariably alone. His powerful linoleum prints like Granite Towers (c. 1933), and his watercolors of stark Western landscapes, demonstrate that Ruess had abundant talent and a unique vision. He was last seen with two burros on the Hole-in-the-Rock Trail in Utah’s Escalante National Monument. Those hoofed companions were found later at Davis Gulch along the Escalante River, but Ruess had vanished. His remains were never discovered. Some say he fell from a clif, or drowned in a fash food, or even was robbed and murdered.

Ultimately the wanderer lifestyle that enhanced Ruess’s artistry became his undoing. He was barely 20 years old.

Undoubtedly, the most infuential artist taken in his 20s was the Italian painter Masaccio (1401–1428), who died suddenly in Rome of unknown causes.

According to legend he was poisoned by a jealous rival painter, although some suspect he died of the plague. Vasari considered Masaccio the best painter of his generation and wrote that the most celebrated Florentine artists studied his frescos in order “to learn and to grasp the precepts and the rules for good work.” This is a remarkable observation considering that Masaccio’s career ran all of six years. He truly transformed the direction of Italian art, for the frst time presenting it in a more rational, natural, and humanist way. Masaccio was one of the frst to master linear perspective and dramatic chiaroscuro that we associate with the Italian Renaissance, as seen in his fresco masterpiece at Florence’s Brancacci Chapel, The Tribute Money (1425).

In Bologna, the Baroque painter Elisabetta Sirani (1638–1665) was at frst reluctantly tutored by her father in art. By 16, however, she had taken over his studio and workshop, and she went on to educate at least 12 women students in art. Indeed, Sirani’s atelier was the frst to encourage professionally directed females toward painting careers, not just fnishing-school-style drawing classes. By the time of her early death she had painted more than 200 pictures, for which she achieved fame, including Judith with the Head of Holofernes (1658). When Sirani died suddenly at 27, her grieving father charged her maid with poisoning his daughter’s meals out of jealousy. The contemporary scholar Carlo Malvasia believed her father was at fault for running of her suitors and thus causing her to die of lovesickness. RemainF I N E A R T C O N N O I S S E U R · C O M

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ing suspicious, local authorities had her remains exhumed and the autopsy discovered she had actually died of a perforated stomach ulcer.

All of these talented individuals were truly “gone too soon.” They didn’t have time to wear out or rust out. For some artists, early death imbued their legacies with enigma and poignancy, yet for most, death was not a great career move. A few had “said” all they wanted to, but most still had masterpieces left inside them. Mankind could have used their collective genius to enliven our souls and inspire our culture. We truly mourn this loss of contributions to our civilization.

But let’s close on a more positive note. Historian B. H. Roberts rightly highlighted the bittersweet nature of young artists’ passing: “It is sad for friends to part, but there is something grand in being taken while there is yet some power in life.”5 And as Hippocrates wrote, originally in Greek, Ars longa, vita brevis (Art is long, life is short).

Information: Authored by Angela Swanson Jones and Vern G. Swanson, the richly illustrated book Desperately Young: Artists Who Died in Their Twenties ofers an in-depth study of 109 fne artists who died young. For details, visit ACC Art Books (accartbooks.com/uk).

ANGELA SWANSON JONES is a graduate of Brigham Young University and holds an M.A. from the Courtauld Institute of Art, University of London. Her topics of research include 19th and 20th-century religious art, especially the German painter Heinrich Hofmann. Currently, she is co-authoring a dictionary of Utah’s fne artists.

Endnotes

1

2 3 4 5

Jean Renoir, Renoir: My Father (New York: The New York Review of Books, 2001), 129.

“Richard Parkes Bonington,” Encyclopaedia Britannica, accessed 21 Oct 2019, britannica.com/biography/Richard-Parkes-Bonington.

“Richard Parkes Bonington,” accessed 10 Sept 2019, nationalgallery.org.uk.

Giorgio Vasari, “Life of Pierino (Piero) Da Vinci Sculptor,” in The Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors, and Architects, 1568.

B. H. Roberts, “Funeral Oration for John Hafen” (Springville, Utah, 10 July 1910).

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BY PETER TRIPPI

H I S T O R I C M A S T E R S

ACQUIRE AN ICONIC SCULPTURE

A

dmirers of great sculpture have a rare opportunity this season.

On December 10, Clytie, the sensuous evocation of a classical myth created by England’s George Frederic Watts (1817–1904), will go up for auction during the British & European Art sale at Christie’s in London.

In 2013, the trustees of the Watts Gallery, located in the countryside 45 miles south of London, decided to commission and gradually sell a posthumous, limited edition of nine bronze casts of Clytie to help purchase and restore Watts’s grand studio house nearby. Seven of those casts have already been sold, and now one of the remaining two is available. Impressive at almost three feet high, this bronze’s sale will beneft the Hope 2020 Appeal, a fundraising campaign to eliminate the fscal defcit this challenging year has inevitably engendered. The Watts team has reason to be optimistic about its estimate of £40,000–£60,000 (US$52,000–$77,000): in 2011 Christie’s sold a period plaster version of Clytie for £68,500.

Watts’s name resounded loudly during the late 19th century. A generation of European artists called him “Signor,” and to the wider public he was “England’s Michelangelo,” the genius who created works uplifting in visual impact as well as spiritual insight. Watts was well known in America, too: In 1884 he became the frst living artist to have a solo exhibition at New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art, 14 years after its founding. A version of his Love and Life was shown there and later traveled to the 1893 world’s fair in Chicago. Watts donated it to the American people, and it hung in the White House for many years.

The sculpture Clytie depicts the ocean nymph celebrated by the Roman poet Ovid in his compilation of romantic stories, Metamorphoses. She fell in love with the sun god Apollo, who abandoned her. The grief-stricken girl fasted for nine days while watching her beloved drive his chariot across the sky. Soon she became rooted to the spot and was transformed into the sunfower, which turns its head to follow the sun every day. Watts shows Clytie metamorphosing into the fower with her face craning to catch a glimpse of Apollo—the epitome of doomed beauty, silent grief, and the endless human struggle for spiritual light.

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Watts developed Clytie between 1867 and 1878 while observing several models, including a male one for some of the substantial musculature.

He exhibited an unfnished marble version in 1868 at London’s Royal Academy of Arts, where it was acclaimed by such “infuencers” as the poet Algernon Swinburne, who wrote: “Not imitative, nor even assimilative of Michael Angelo’s manner, it yet by some vague and inefable quality brings to mind his work rather than any Greek sculptor’s. There is the same intense and fery sentiment, the same grandeur of device, the same mystery of tragedy. The colour and passion of this work are the workman’s own. Never was a divine legend translated into diviner likeness.”

Clytie was a popular and critical success, and its fuid naturalism soon pointed the way toward the “New Sculpture” created by such younger

The Watts Gallery’s period bronze version of Clytie on display there; photo: Ben Moore

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British talents as Frederic Leighton, Alfred Gilbert, and Hamo Thornycroft. Although Watts was best known as a painter, the sculpture that he did create was always infuential — a fact that will be explored by curator Cicely Robinson in an exhibition that opens next year at the Watts Gallery. Fortunately, it owns three period versions of Clytie—in bronze, plaster, and terracotta.

Clytie refects Watts’s complex cultural inheritances. As one of the so-called “Olympian” artists of late Victorian England, he reinvigorated the classical tradition by looking afresh at ancient Greek sculpture, especially the Parthenon (“Elgin”) Marbles at the British Museum — never shying away from the nudity that made some of his countrymen anxious. Yet Watts had also spent four years in Italy, where he fell for Michelangelo’s sensuousness and naturalistic (sometimes imperfect) vitality. We see these juxtapositions in Clytie’s intricately creased garment and the lively play of light and shadow on her undulating fesh.

If you have not yet visited the Watts Gallery, consider doing so once it’s safe to visit England again. There you will fnd, not surprisingly, the world’s largest collection of paintings, sculptures, and drawings made by Watts. This, however, is not a place focused on one man: the complex is now called an Artists’ Village because it also reveals the fascinating story of his younger wife, the talented ceramist Mary Seton Watts, and her many protegés. In 1890 the couple commissioned a country house, Limnerslease, that still contains Watts’s double-height studio and the large room where Mary ofered classes in clay modeling for as many as 70 locals. Within the decade she had designed and constructed an extraordinary mortuary chapel, a Celtic Revival and Art Nouveau wonder in terracotta consecrated in 1898.

Having successfully trained a force of local people in various crafts, the Wattses next acquired three acres across the road to build the Compton Pottery, which Mary ran for the next 40 years. The idea of erecting the Watts Gallery to house the master’s artworks actually came last; it was completed just a few months before Watts’s death in 1904. Despite Mary’s careful tending of the fame right up until her own death in 1938, his reputation declined rapidly after World War I, and he remained in oblivion until the last quarter of the 20th century.

Over the past two decades, a series of wellplanned rethinks and renovations have breathed new life into the Artists’ Village. This season, the sale of Clytie will help sustain the momentum that has developed there. Good luck with your bidding at Christie’s! Bids can be placed online starting November 26.

Information: christies.com, wattsgallery.org.uk PETER TRIPPI is editor-in-chief of Fine Art Connoisseur.

GEORGE FREDERIC WATTS (1817–1904), Clytie, developed 1867–78, bronze with a dark-brown patina, 34 1/4 x 22 1/2 x 15 in.; #6 from a posthumous, limited edition of nine casts, inscribed “Trustees of the Watts Gallery/6/9 2013 PE,” cast by Pangolin Editions, Chalford, Gloucestershire, England; estimate £40,000–£60,000 (US$52,000–$77,000)

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BY DAVID MASELLO

H I D D E N C O L L E C T I O N

BUILDING A COLLECTION OF BUILDINGS P

eter May collects houses and buildings.

While most of these structures don’t actually belong to him, they are rendered in exquisite detail in his collection of more than 700 architectural drawings, one of the world’s largest private holdings of such ephemera. In addition, May has owned and lived in many real houses. Some of those brick-and-mortar residences are among America’s most architecturally distinctive, including a few designed by Ferguson & Shamamian, the New York City frm known for building what founding partner Mark Ferguson calls “new traditional” houses.

May is the billionaire president and founding partner of Trian Partners, a New York City investment management frm. He says that, beyond managing other people’s fnancial portfolios, “One of the things I care about is architecture, especially detail in architecture. I have a very large collection of antique drawings that directly addresses that ongoing passion.

Detail has always been a hallmark of what I care about and what I respect in buildings.”

Bunny Williams, the leading interior decorator who runs her eponymous design frm from New York, has furnished many of the

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ROBERT ADAM (British, 1728–1792); Presentation drawing for a mantelpiece for the Circular Room at Moccas Court, Herefordshire, England; 1771; ink and watercolor on paper; 13 x 18 1/2 in.

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JULES FORMIGÉ (French, 1879 –1960); Reconstruction drawing of the façade of the Arena in Arles, France; 1914; pencil, ink, and watercolor on paper; 32 x 54 1/2 in.

Architect unknown (French); Competition drawing for an aquarium: elevation view mounted with cross - sections in roundels; c. 1884; pencil, ink, and watercolor on paper; 30 1/2 x 44 1/2 in.

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Peter May’s study at the San Remo, New York City

the studies of frescos at Herculaneum and Pompeii by EmileJacques Gilbert (1793–1874), drawings of London buildings by Robert Adam (1728–1792), and more contemporary views of European opera houses and New York City edifces by Andras Kaldor (b. 1938). Cassidy-Geiger herself has visceral responses to certain works in the collection, referring, for instance, to the reconstruction drawings of Rome’s Villa Giulia by Harold Bradshaw (1893–1943) and of Arles’s Roman arena by Jules Formigé (1879–1960) as “mouthwatering.”

JUST SAY “YES” During his three-plus decades of collecting, May has rarely shied away from purchasing anything that catches his eye. In fact, he once told his former curator, “It’s too big. It’s too expensive. I’ll take it.” While the collection is varied, May’s keenest attention has been devoted to European Beaux-Arts buildings.

Architect unknown (French); Composite study of the Abbey of Sainte Geneviève, Paris; c. 1900; pencil, ink, and watercolor on paper; 39 1/4 x 26 3/4 in.

houses May and his wife have owned over the years in Palm Beach, Connecticut’s Litchfeld County, New York City, and Beaver Creek, Colorado. She says of her client and longtime friend, “Peter can read architectural plans better than anybody. I said to him once, ‘Peter, you should be an architect.’ He replied, ‘If I’d done that, I couldn’t have aforded to build all of these houses.’”

Such pragmatism — and humor — has led May instead to assemble, live with, and now exhibit for the frst time his trove of architectural drawings that date from 1691 to the 1950s. As a philanthropist intimately involved in New York City’s cultural life (he’s a director of Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts, cochairs the New York Philharmonic, and has produced such Broadway shows as Tootsie and To Kill a Mockingbird), May will share approximately 40 of his fnest works at the New-York Historical Society, where he is a trustee. This exhibition, Architectural Drawings from the Peter May Collection: Training and Practice at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts (on view January 22 through March 21), reveals not only what has largely been wholly private, but also replicates, in part, exactly how May lives with the drawings.

Maureen Cassidy-Geiger, staf curator at Trian Partners and curator of May’s private collection for the past four years, explains, “The drawings will be hung salon-style in the Society’s Great Hall, cheek-byjowl, because that’s how Peter lives with them; they cover the walls of his homes and his ofces on Park Avenue. And because virtually every work is already framed, it was a real shocker to mount a show where some of the drawings didn’t have to be taken out of drawers, as with most other collections, and then prepared to hang in the museum.” In conceiving the display, Cassidy-Geiger has positioned the more detailed drawings at eye level, while other works, some 10 feet long, will hang high on the walls.

May’s collection of drawings includes such drawn, rendered, and watercolored treasures as

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JEAN-BAPTISTE FOURTUNÉ DE FOURNIER (French, 1798–1864); Interior of the Salle des Gardes du Corps, Tuileries Palace, during the reign of Napoleon III; 1856; pencil and watercolor on paper; 14 7/8 x 18 7/16 in.

Hans Rasmussen (Danish, dates unknown); Competition drawing for a hexagonal house: plan, elevation, and cross section; 1931; pencil, ink, and watercolor on paper; 26 3/4 x 40 in.

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ALPHONSE-ALEXANDRE DEFRASSE (French, 1860–1939); Canal façade of the Ca’d’Oro, Venice, after the restoration of 1891; c. 1900; pencil, ink, and watercolor on paper; 47 x 37 1/4 in.

“While I care about and respect contemporary architecture and love to see creative new architecture on the New York skyline and elsewhere, what I always gravitate to are things that go back to a diferent time, when textures and ornament and detail were well thought out. And so my favorite period is the Beaux-Arts.”

Thus the New-York Historical Society show will focus on the BeauxArts. Cassidy-Geiger points to the museum’s vast holdings of architectural drawings from this period and to the fact that this French system of training was embraced by New York’s architects during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Just for example, “It was certainly a touch point with McKim, Mead & White, so one of the drawings we’ll display is a work by that frm.” As it happens, the most important McKim, Mead & White archive anywhere is held by the Society, she adds.

Although May can read blueprints and foor plans like a seasoned architect, his collection comprises chiefy fnished design drawings, oil sketches, watercolors, pastels, and sketchbooks. Regarding its large number of British drawings, Charles Hind, chief curator of drawings at the Royal Institute of British Architects, writes in the two-volume catalogue that accompanies the exhibition: “Peter May focuses less on the constructional aspects of architectural drawings… but more on the representational methods by which either the appearance of a building has been sold to the client or the architect’s skill as a designer in exhibitions or reproduction has been advertised.”

Given the way he lives, May’s works function as both art and décor, as well as daily confrmation that he has secured the treasures he sought.

But they may also, perhaps, be a poignant reminder of the career that might have eluded him. In his foreword to the catalogue, May writes candidly about his early love of architecture, even as a boy growing up on the South Shore of Long Island in a 1920s Tudor-style house. So fascinated was May by Frank Lloyd Wright and other early practitioners of the Chicago School that he enrolled at the University of Chicago, where he could visit some of those structures. He recounts living as an undergraduate “practically next door” to Wright’s “fabulous” Robie House (1909), and also the many feld trips he took to see iconic buildings by Louis Sullivan and Daniel Burnham. In her ongoing work with May, Cassidy-Geiger has discerned that “Chicago has a special place in Peter’s heart.”

“Unfortunately (or perhaps fortunately), the University of Chicago did not have an architecture school, so I was unable to enroll in that course of study,” May continues. “I chose fnance and business instead.” And in an echo of Bunny Williams’s anecdote, he adds, “If I had become an architect, I probably wouldn’t have been fortunate enough ultimately to build the beautiful homes our family has lived in.”

Cassidy-Geiger observes, “It’s important to note that Peter can read cross sections and elevations and plans, but it’s not a given that others can.” Meanwhile, architect Mark Ferguson says of his client, “Peter is a profigate builder who loves construction, who loves design, and who is, perhaps, a frustrated master builder.”

May’s collection was, Cassidy-Geiger explains, “jump started” in 1987 when he purchased 130 works all at once from Stephanie Hoppen, the London dealer noted for works on paper. In 1985, when he and his wife, Leni (“55 years and counting,” May writes in the foreword, and whom he calls his “greatest collaborator”), had purchased an expansive apartment in New York’s San Remo building, they hired Bunny Williams to decorate it. (He has since moved to an apartment on Park

Architect Unknown (French); Design proposal for the wall and ceiling decoration of the three-story circular center hall of the Chateau de Syam, Syam, France; c. 1820; pencil, ink, and watercolor on paper; 32 x 24 in.

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Avenue where, as recently as this past summer, Williams and Cassidy-Geiger donned masks and helped May decide where to hang his drawings.) More than 30 years ago it was Williams who took the Mays on that buying trip to London and brought them to Hoppen’s gallery.

May recalls, “While there, I noticed a couple of architectural drawings on display and I immediately fell in love with the genre. We bought all she had — and that was the beginning.”

While the drawings, in aggregate, have a substantial value, Cassidy-Geiger points out that individual architectural drawings are largely afordable, which made this collecting endeavor, perhaps, even more appealing to May, despite his sizeable resources. The curator intimates that many drawings on the market and at auction can be purchased for a few hundred dollars, though some works in May’s collection were bought for far more, including a 1950s Frank Lloyd Wright drawing of Oklahoma’s Price Tower for $22,000. “Their value is modest compared to Old Master drawings,” Cassidy-Geiger emphasizes. “Often, the bigger expense is in the framing and the conservation,” she adds, saying that frames can cost as much as half the price of the work itself.

In another essay in the catalogue, Charles Hind notes that the market for architectural drawings today pivots on individual works dating from the Renaissance through the 1960s, and on works by such “starchitects” as Norman Foster and Frank Gehry. The driving forces in this market are institutions such as Paris’s Centre Pompidou and Montreal’s Canadian Centre for Architecture, which maintain archives of post-war and contemporary drawings. Hind concludes, “[T]he market is limited to a few private individuals and a greater number of institutions who want material for pleasure and research rather than status.”

MAKING ROOM FOR ROOMS While May’s collection focuses on late 19th- and early 20th-century competition or certifcation drawings by architecture students, it also includes presentation drawings, reconstruction studies, and interior design schemes. By now, May has amassed so many works — along with a smaller collection of architectural models and artifacts (the one area of his collecting in which his wife, Leni, sometimes has veto power), including a newel post from the old Chicago Stock Exchange — that Cassidy-Geiger had to organize the book’s chapters by building types.

These categories include, among others, train stations; hotels, casinos, and spas; private and royal residences; landmarks and monuments; government buildings; cast-iron architecture; interior design; and landscape design and garden architecture.

While it is a fact that true collectors never stop collecting, May has scaled back simply because, his curator explains, he has run out of wall space, despite owning multiple residences. Though he makes use of a climate-controlled Manhattan storage facility for overfow, May prefers to live with as many works as he can. He often stops to study a familiar drawing — tracing his way through a foor plan or examining the measurements of a fnial. “Because his walls are largely full, his impetus to acquire has diminished a bit,” says Cassidy-Geiger, “but because he has such a great eye, he still goes to the occasional independent art fair and buys things, like Le Corbusier prints or a Frank Lloyd Wright chair. If he sees a gap in his collection or if has an idea to fll a bare corner, he’ll buy something he likes.”

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Frank Lloyd Wright (1867–1959); Chair for the Usonian Exhibition House, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York; 1953; oak plywood and paint; 37 x 18 x 19 in.

It is important to note that the two-volume catalogue is dedicated to the late Steve Andrews, who served as May’s personal curator for many years. He recalls, “Steve was a wonderful, funny, artistic, and incredibly knowledgeable young man who had a great eye. We really built the collection together.” Andrews died in 2016, but May continues to reference him and his role in the collection. “Steve would source drawings at galleries and auction houses and then present them to me. He was brilliant in determining the perfect frame for each drawing and was a genius when it came to hanging the right drawing in the right location.”

In May’s ready and generous ability to acknowledge his curators, the architects who designed his houses, and the decorator who has furnished them, he understands the concept of collaboration, a dynamic that also defnes the running of a (hugely) successful business. Collaboration is equally essential to the practice of architecture, for a good architect needs to listen to others and adapt in order to design well. “I have been blessed to work with great people who really appreciated the creation of this collection,” May says.

“The ability to live on a daily basis with so many beautiful pieces has signifcantly enriched my life and love of architecture.”

Once the show opens at the NewYork Historical Society, visitors will surely feel as though they have been invited inside one of May’s residences to experience how he lives with, and looks at, the drawings he loves.

Information: Visit nyhistory.org for details on the exhibition. Paul Holberton Publishing (London, paulholberton.com) has produced the two-volume catalogue Living with Architecture as Art: The Peter May Collection of Architectural Drawings, Models and Artefacts.

DAVID MASELLO is executive editor of Milieu, a national print magazine about design and architecture. He lives and works in Manhattan.

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I N S I D E T R A C K

BY DANIEL GRANT

BUYER BEW ARE NAVIGATING THE WORLD OF

LIMITED EDITION PRINTS

T

he art market is often called the Wild West because of its secrecy and lack of rules and governmental oversight. Some high-end galleries won’t tell you the prices of their artworks, or even whether they are for sale. Some auctioneers pull bids out of thin air as they try to get the bidding up to the reserve price. There is no CARFAX to warn collectors that the artwork they might buy has undergone signifcant restoration.

Believe it or not, there actually is one area of the art market governed by laws in 14 states across America — Arkansas, California, Georgia, Hawaii, Illinois, Iowa, Maryland, Michigan, Minnesota, New York, North Carolina, Oregon, South Carolina, and Wisconsin. That area is limited edition fne art graphic prints. (Photographic prints are also covered by these laws and, in California and New York, editioned sculptures are, too.)

As the name suggests, in a limited edition there are only so many copies created of a single image. When the last one is sold, there are no more to be had, so then you can only purchase one “used” on the secondary market. Limited editions, as opposed to unlimited or “open” editions, establish their value on the basis of enforced scarcity.

The 14 states’ laws have set ground rules for limited edition prints, which are sometimes called multiples. For instance, New York’s 1982 statute, part of its Arts and Cultural Afairs law, requires dealers to provide buyers with a certifcate of authenticity that includes the artist’s name; whether the multiple was signed by the artist, and, if not, the source of the artist’s name on the multiple (e.g., stamped or estate-stamped, on the master, or some other source); the medium or process used in producing the multiple; whether the artist was

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MORT KÜNSTLER (b. 1931), The Star Spangled Banner, 1814 for The American Spirit: A New Nation (interior illustration), 1977, gouache on masonite, 15 3/4 x 17 3/5 in., sold for $6,875 by Heritage Auctions (Dallas, lot 71164) on October 14, 2015. This unique artwork inspired the many limited edition prints described on page 85.

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FRANCISCO GOYA (1746–1828), Love and Death (Plate 10 from Los Caprichos), 1799, etching and burnished aquatint on paper, plate: 8 3/8 x 6 in., Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, 18.64(10).

This is from the first edition, published by Goya himself.

deceased at the time the master was made; if the multiple was produced after the artist’s death from a master made while the artist was living; whether the master is handmade or a reproduction of an image produced in another medium; when the multiple was reproduced; if the master has been used to produce a prior limited edition; if the multiple is from a limited edition and, if so, the size of the edition; and the number of trial proofs or other numbered or unnumbered multiples in the same or prior editions. The certifcate must also state whether and how the prints are signed and numbered.

This long list would seem to cover all the bases, assuring prospective buyers that they know what they are getting. But perhaps not.

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MULTIPLE LIMITED EDITIONS The problem is that there are loopholes in the state laws, ones that won’t occur to prospective buyers and aren’t mentioned by dealers or even by the artists themselves.

For instance, one may produce more than one limited edition of the same image, perhaps at diferent sizes (e.g., a 10 x 8 inch photograph later produced in a 5 x 4 inch format), in diferent production techniques (printed on paper or canvas), or with different numbering (Arabic numbers on one edition, Roman numerals on another).

This tends to be a larger problem in the markets for photography and sculpture than for graphic prints. “You can’t take a Rembrandt print and make it bigger,” says Elisabeth Hahn, a New York City art adviser and former head of the prints and modern illustrated books department at Christie’s, though she adds that the language used in the multiples market can be elastic.

In 1989, Greenwich Workshop, a publisher of both limited and open (unlimited) edition prints based in Seymour, Connecticut, produced a limited 29 1/4 x 19 1/2 inch edition of Stephen Lyman’s Mountain Campfre, creating 1,500 copies and selling them at $195 apiece. It was one of the company’s most popular images, so the edition sold out, according to company president Vincent Grabowski. The artist died in 1996, tragically falling to his death at age 38 while climbing on a rocky ledge at Yosemite National Park. Within a few years, Lyman’s widow contacted Greenwich Workshop about selling more of her late husband’s work — “She needed money,” Grabowski says — so the company came out with a new version of Mountain Campfre, this one larger (54 x 36 inches) and printed on canvas. The edition size was 175 and each copy sold for $2,250. No laws were broken, but the buyers of that earlier edition may well wonder if the value of their prints has been diluted by the increased number.

Mort Künstler (b. 1927) is a painter of historical scenes who lives on Long Island. He sells his original oil-on-canvas paintings for between $10,000 and $100,000, and he also produces signed and numbered reproductions of them as limited editions in a range of options. For instance, one may purchase a signed and numbered 18 x 20 inch “Signature” copy of his 1977 The Star Spangled Banner, 1814 (in an edition of 100) for $490, or a 24 x 27 inch “Classic” version of the same image for $675 (edition of 50). Also available are a 30 x 34 inch “Premier” version for $995 (edition of 15), and a 38 x 43 inch “Collectors” version for $2,995 (edition of 5). There are also artist’s proofs from each of these limited editions selling for $615, $845, $1,250, and $3,495, respectively. It’s nice to have a choice.

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So what’s a prospective buyer of a limited edition print to do? You cannot predict what an artist, dealer, or publisher may decide to do in the future, but it makes sense to ask the seller if any other versions of the same image exist in some form (an open edition, smaller or larger in dimensions, printed on a diferent support or through diferent technology, etc.).

for Berlin, 1995, offset print with fabric, plate: 24 1/2 x 27 1/8 in., sold for 12,000 SEK

A MYRIAD OF PROOFS The next area of concern is the number of proofs that are run of when the edition is being printed, and there are lots of names for proofs. There are trial proofs (sometimes annotated with jottings about colors, additions, or deletions); artist’s proofs (often 10 percent of the total edition); printer’s proofs (they get several as a gratuity); publisher’s proofs (usually half of the total number of artist’s proofs); presentation proofs (usually given by the artist to worthy institutions); B.A.T.s (bon-à-tirer, or fnal working proofs); and hors de commerce (not-for-sale proofs, which sometimes are sold anyway). One also fnds posthumously produced limited editions, for which — inexplicably — there are still a designated number of artist’s proofs.

How many proofs should be part of an edition? “There are no rules written in stone,” says New York City dealer and print publisher Diane Villani.

(She also claims that artist’s proofs should cost the same as works in the edition, but try telling that to Mort Künstler; alas, there are simply no rules.)

Traditionally, artist’s proofs constitute between 10 and 20 percent of the edition size, Villani says, but if an edition consists of only fve prints, two artist’s proofs would make that 40 percent, making the idea of going by percentages irrelevant.

At Crown Point Press in San Francisco, which publishes limited edition prints in quantities usually between fve and 25, there are between 14 and 15 proofs, according to director Valerie Wade — 10 artist’s proofs and four or fve that are archived. Both artists and publishers now recognize that proofs are a cash cow, and they have little desire to limit their potential income. “Most of our artist’s proofs are between fve and 15 in number,” says Bill Goldston, president of Universal Limited Art Editions (Long Island),

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CHRISTO (1935–2020) and JEANNE-CLAUDE (1935–2009), Wrapped Reichstag Project (approximately $1,350) by Bukowskis (Stockholm, lot 896931) on April 8, 2017 © Christo

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WILLIAM HOGARTH (1697–1764), Gin Lane (second state), 1751, etching and engraving on paper, 15 1/4 x 12 1/2 in., private collection

and selling the prints) in order to be fnancially compensated.

“If artists are going to be sellers, they are subject to the same laws as dealers,” says Washington, D.C., attorney Joshua Kaufman. However, the disclosure requirements for sellers — be they artists or dealers — stipulated in the 14 states’ laws are “very frequently ignored and many, if not most, prints sold are in violation of the laws,” Kaufman notes. Again, prospective buyers simply need to know that, despite the specifc number indicated in the limited edition, there may be quite a few other copies of the same image on the market — just being sold in a diferent category. You should ask questions and get the answers back in writing.

“but if an artist says he wants 25, that’s OK. We’ll do 25.” The conceptual artist Christo, who died earlier this year at 84, regularly ordered scores of artist’s proofs of his lithographs, which were later given to the myriad people (engineers, lawyers, photographers, and others) essential to his ambitious projects. Some of those recipients chose to sell them, which vastly increased the number of prints listed in the limited edition.

In 1996, 30 artist’s proofs were supplied to Gerhard Richter by Edition Schellmann (New York City) for his limited edition of only 60 prints.

What’s more, the artist’s proofs were his entire payment — there would be no royalties for him on Schellmann’s sales — and he was free to be his own dealer. “That’s not an uncommon practice,” Villani explains. “Artists want prints for their own inventory or to sell or to trade with friends. They’re always being asked for donations, and it is easy to give prints in those circumstances.” Paying artists in prints — artist’s proofs or a percentage of the actual edition — is often helpful to the publishers, since it is the cheapest way of compensating them; paying in prints takes an operating cost of the publishers’ books, and the artists will have to do more work (distributing F I N E A R T C O N N O I S S E U R · C O M

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POSTHUMOUS PRINTS It is often said that an artist’s work becomes more valuable after death, as it dawns on prospective buyers that scarcity is now a factor, since no more artworks will be created. Presumably, if there are concerns about prints made by contemporary artists, collectors feel themselves on safer ground while buying deceased artists, in particular the Old Masters. One problematic exception is the etchings of Spain’s Francisco Goya (1746–1828). The artist is famous, many of his prints are renowned, and he isn’t churning out new editions. This seems to be a recipe for strong and increasing values. Unfortunately, no, because far more Goya etchings have been produced since his death than before it. The reason is that all of Goya’s printing plates became the property of Madrid’s Museo Nacional del Prado not long after his death. Ever since, the museum has regularly leased them out to various publishers as a way of earning money.

The artist himself oversaw only one edition of his 80-work set of etchings known as Caprichos in 1799. The second edition was produced in 1855, and, by 1937, when the defnitive study of Goya’s graphic work was published, there were 12 editions in existence. (There is no record of how many other editions have been created since 1937.) Perhaps the artist’s most famous series, the 82-image Disasters of War, was frst published in 1863 (35 years after his death), and by 1937 seven editions of it had appeared.

According to James Goodfriend, owner of New York City’s C. & J. Goodfriend Drawings and Prints, an undamaged print from the frst edition of Caprichos would be priced at $3,000–$5,000, although two specifc images from it — Love and Death and The Sleep of Reason Produces Monsters — “would be double that, because everyone wants those images.” He notes that prints from the second and third editions “are very good and very hard to tell apart,” selling for $1,500–$2,000. Goodfriend sells prints from later editions, however, for just $150, “and I only keep them around to show people 2 0 2 0

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REMBRANDT VAN RIJN (1606–1669), The Three Trees, 1643, etching, engraving, and drypoint on paper, plate: 8 3/8 x 10 15/16 in., private collection

what not to buy.” The reason for the great drop-of in value is that “the later impressions are not as good. The lines are not as sharp. The shading weakens or is uneven or has just disappeared.” Still, Goodfriend notes, “I see some people pay $800–$900 for these things at auction.”

With thousands of Goya etchings up for sale in galleries and auction houses, how is someone supposed to know when a specifc print was published and how much it should cost? Is it an investment asset or a Goyaesque souvenir?

Goya prints are by no means unique in this regard. The markets for many artists are fooded with prints and sculpture castings produced years after the artists’ deaths, resulting in works that are not so good and that cause confusion among collectors. After the English painter and printmaker William Hogarth died in 1764, a variety of editions of his engravings continued to be produced until 1850, frst by his widow and later by her cousin, then by a series of publishers who purchased the printing plates from whoever owned them last, according to Michael Finney, a longtime Hogarth dealer in London. Rembrandt died in 1669, yet his etchings are produced to this day, perhaps reprinted from the existing old plates or from photographs of his authentic prints that are used to re-etch new plates. Life is short, but art goes on and on.

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There are ways to get out in front of the problem. Alice Duncan, director of New York City’s Gerald Peters Gallery, recommends that prospective buyers ask for an artwork’s provenance (history of ownership) that would reveal a chain of ownership, as well as where and when the item was frst purchased. This is probably less available for a much older piece, such as a Rembrandt, but it still might be intact for a Goya.

Bottom line: A small research project awaits anyone seeking to buy a print when numerous editions of it have been made. Frankly, when the price is only in the hundreds of dollars, few of us will bother to spend much time combing the literature. If the stakes are higher, however, collectors should beware and consider all of the options at their disposal.

The joys of owning a fne art print are numerous, but you want to ensure you own the one you wanted.

Information: For a glossary of print-related terms, visit the helpful webpage created by the International Fine Print Dealers Association: ifpda.org/glossary_term/3309.

DANIEL GRANT is the author of The Business of Being an Artist and other books published by Skyhorse Press.

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BY DAVID MOLESK Y

I N S I D E T R A C K

TECHNOLOGY’S IMPACT ON FIGURATIVE ART D uring my 25 years in the feld of fgurative painting, I have observed two sharply conficting schools of thought on the use of technology in studios. As a generation X’er who grew up before the Internet and cell phones, I have a nostalgia for simpler times. Still, I acknowledge both points of view.

I frst experienced this divide in 2006, when I transitioned from two years of mentorship under the California classicist David Ligare (b. 1945) to an apprenticeship with Norwegian painter Odd Nerdrum (b. 1944).

Ligare’s primary visual references are 35-millimeter color slides that he takes of his subjects during the “golden hour” just before sunset. The photographic specifcity of this Mediterranean light as it refects of Monterey Bay is a central concept in Ligare’s work.

With Nerdrum, by contrast, there is a strict taboo against reference photography; he warns that its use is “like a virus in the imagination of the painter.” Nerdrum and his circle prefer painting fgures from life, situating them in spaces dreamed up by the imagination. Although the subject matter of both Ligare and Nerdrum could be called classical, their attitudes toward technology are diametrically opposed.

Luddites are a rarity among artists these days because most of them see technology as a powerful tool. Photo editing, gaming software, and 3D printers can save time and money by speeding up creative processes, facilitating the making of sanctioned copies, and improving precision beyond human capabilities. It is only natural for us, as tool-using sapiens,

to want to employ something that might bring us greater success and convenience. In the end, however, tools can never make up for a lack of skill and imagination.

Editing software such as Photoshop is now used widely by painters of my generation. These programs enable the combining and manipulating of multiple images as layers within a single composition. Imaginative realists such as Martin Wittfooth (b. 1981) create complex arrangements of fgures and animals as mockups in Photoshop before they begin painting.

David Ligare holds a color-slide loupe to his eye while painting in his Carmel Valley, California, studio.

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Their densely packed compositions would be nearly impossible to stage in real-life photoshoots.

After gathering their own photographs of friends or pets, as well as images found on the Internet, these artists piece them together into digital collages. The component images’ hard edges can be blended, depending on how much time and efort the artists choose to spend at the computer before beginning the image on canvas. The collage proves handy at various stages of the painting process: as a guide for the initial composition transfer (which often involves a digital projector), and as a primary reference viewed on a monitor.

A NEW WAY TO SCULPT The speed of technology is always accelerating. Photo editing software was invented only three decades ago, yet already it seems “old school.” Some contemporary artists make it a point to stay up-to-date with the most current tools available. Born in Japan and based in Los Angeles, Kazu Hiro (b. 1969) is a pioneer in this regard. Having discovered special efects makeup while still in high school, he is entirely self-taught and now the global leader in hyper-realistic sculpture and special efects prosthetics.

After devoting 25 years to the flm industry, Hiro left to focus on his own double-life-size busts of historical fgures such as Abraham Lincoln. Recently Hollywood convinced Hiro to return to work on two flms — Darkest Hour and Bombshell — each of which garnered him an Oscar nomination.

Although Hiro’s process involves many state-of-the-art materials and technologies, he begins the old-fashioned way — by hand-sculpting a lifesize bust in clay. Upon completion, this is captured by a 3D scanner and its 3D components are recorded as an “OBJ fle.” Hiro takes this data and

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At left, Martin Wittfooth’s Photoshop color sketch mockup for Pandora; at right is his finished painting (2018, oil on canvas, 60 x 42 in., private collection)

opens it in the “slicing” program for his 3D printer, where he can then easily enlarge the sculpture to twice its original size.

With programs like Cinema 4D and Zbrush, Hiro can manipulate this doubled-in-size scan to create fles used to 3D-print the two plastic elements required to create a negative mold: a double-size copy of the original sculpture and an outer shell called a pour case. He then pours liquid silicone into the thin space between the inside of the pour case and the outside of the enlarged sculpture. When the silicone “cures,” what remains is a negative mold that has precisely recorded the outside of the printed sculpture.

Hiro admits the technology is good but not perfect. Sometimes the 3D printer can miss data so that details get difused. To correct for technology’s shortcomings and to pack even more detail into the fnal piece, Hiro makes a second clay version. He starts by placing a half-inch-thick layer of clay into the negative mold. This layer will sit upon a plaster support core to prevent it from becoming misshapen. Once the clay is removed from the mold, Hiro works into the expanded surface.

Satisfed with the larger clay, Hiro takes another 3D scan. This is used to print a negative mold of the larger sculpture (a “jacket”), as well as a core slightly smaller than the sculpture. Hiro pours a silicone skin into the space between the jacket and the core to create a replica of the enlarged clay sculpture. He makes further enhancements using the makeup techniques he developed in Hollywood, including skin tones evoked with homemade silicone paint and the addition of hair.

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At left, Kazu Hiro’s 2017 design for a pour case made using 3D printer software; at right is the actual pour case after being assembled.

Kazu Hiro works on his double-life-size clay sculpture of Abraham Lincoln’s head, 2013.

The Next Rembrandt’s much-discussed portrait (2016) was created with digital media on canvas.

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At left, Nicola Verlato’s compositional sketch in pencil for The Cave; at right is the computer-generated image he ultimately created with Zbrush, 2017.

DRIVEN BY DATA Painters also turn to 3D-imaging programs to design their 2D compositions. Born in Italy and based in Los Angeles, Nicola Verlato (b. 1965) has been using video game and animation software since he saw the flm Tron (1982) and noticed the resemblance between the vector graphics used for its special efects and Brunelleschi’s perspective drawings from the Renaissance. Like Kazu Hiro, Verlato starts in the old school manner — in his case, sketching with pencil. With Zbrush he translates his handmade marks into 3D data. Using gaming software, these digital models can be turned in space and illuminated with virtual lighting. It is even possible to explore diferent perspectives — high or low, near or far — by moving the point of view around the virtual space in relation to the digital model.

Verlato has noticed an overall shift toward “dematerialization,” in which everything is converted into digital language. As an artist, he is working hard to reverse this trend. To create his paintings and sculpture, Verlato rematerializes digital data gathered from the Internet — such as written stories, music, or flm — and coalesces them into painting and sculpture. In his view, the resulting physical objects rightly belong further up the hierarchy of material experience.

Verlato has also been exploring the world of virtual reality. In his VR project The Merging, he has made an interactive experience for museumgoers that connects reality and the digital world. He hopes it will help engage a wider audience for art, especially for those unable to access museums and younger viewers already infuenced by electronic devices.

There are other VR projects that hope to reinvigorate public interest in painting. One example is The Night Cafe — An Immersive VR Tribute to Vincent van Gogh (2015). Its video quality is intentionally shaky, almost vibrating, to simulate our being inside a moving, changing painting. The 2017 flm Loving Vincent shares some of these characteristics, but the fact that its animation frames were hand-painted means that its detail is much more convincing. Digitally generated images often lack the textural detail and natural variation that result from handcraft. Markmaking is evidence of creative process and helps us to imagine the artist at work, thus

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enhancing our powers of empathy. Take, for example, Rembrandt’s rugged impasto, or the hollows left by Rodin’s thumb as it moved through clay.

Though Loving Vincent required squads of hard-working artists to create that handmade look, most tech entrepreneurs are replacing artists with software-based logic systems called algorithms. The Next Rembrandt, a project spearheaded by the Dutchman Bas Korsten and supported by such corporate giants as Microsoft and ING, made headlines worldwide in 2016 when it claimed to have digitally resurrected this Dutch master. Its premise sprang from the thought that “if you can take historical data and create something new out of it, why can’t you distill a painter’s artistic DNA out of his surviving artwork and create a new work out of that?”

The project team analyzed 346 of Rembrandt’s paintings to determine his most common attributes in regard to subject matter and composition.

Using this data, they arrived at the most unremarkable example possible: a portrait, painted in the period 1632–42, of a Caucasian man with facial hair, aged 30–40, wearing a wide-brimmed black hat, black shirt, and white collar, facing right. Then the team collected high-resolution scans of every Rembrandt painting that matches that description. Analyzing this data, they created a “painting” of a right eye, then other facial features that they assembled by averaging geometric facial points.

The Next Rembrandt also made use of newly developed methods for scanning painting surfaces to analyze the texture of brushstrokes, which the team attempted to replicate through 3D printing multiple layers on a fat surface. The results might be convincing for those unaccustomed to studying paintings, but even Korsten admitted, “I think the expert eye sees that this isn’t a real Rembrandt.” Those familiar with the magic of a true Rembrandt surface, especially from his late period, will fnd this “averaged” look fails to convey his handling’s snowfake-like uniqueness.

WHO’S THE ARTIST? While some algorithms claim to resurrect the dead, other tech entrepreneurs are “teaching” computers to become artists in their own right.

Based in Washington, D.C., the American Pindar Van Arman (b. 1974) makes paintings using robotic arms guided by a “creative” algorithm that

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Pindar Van Arman and his robotic arm (left) at work in the studio

analyzes, extracts, separates, and assigns computational data to the style and content found in existing images. Then it can mix and match new pairings of these data sets to create new images. One such algorithm is Style Transfer, developed in 2015 by Germany’s Bethge Lab. Using a computerized model of our brain’s visual system, which the developers call “convolutional neural networks optimized for object recognition,” this algorithm separates visual components in a way akin to our “human operating system.”

Style Transfer requires massive amounts of computer memory and loading time, so most users scale down their image fles to approximately 1000 x 1000 pixels. If sent to a printer, such fles look unimpressive, which is why Van Arman instead uses robotics to create paintings. In addition, he has developed a software program, Cloudpainter, that remembers its past work and tries to improve it, causing its style to evolve over time. He explains, “Cloudpainter and the robots can see what they are doing because they use cameras to watch their work and make adjustments. I am trying to replicate human creativity, and now my computers are on the precipice of creative autonomy.”

Indeed, Van Arman genuinely believes his computers can be creative: “If I wanted to make something beautiful, I would just use a printer, but I am trying to get something more interpretive with more serendipity.” Skeptics debunk this possibility, of course. Ken Goldberg, an engineering professor at the University of California, Berkeley, points out, “As soon as you inject any kind of randomness into a program, you get behavior that you may not predict, but there is a distinction between that and saying the robot is being creative now.”

Recently Van Arman succeeded in creating a computer-generated painting he feels is authentically abstract, rather than directly representational or completely random. When asked about emotional content, he replies, “Obviously a robot cannot make emotional art until it is itself emotional. But that doesn’t mean, when we look at an artwork, we can’t get emotions from it.”

HOPE FOR THE FUTURE Unfortunately, we still evaluate the power of artifcial intelligence (AI) by its ability to deceive us. This precedent was set by the World War II code breaker Alan Turing, whose Turing Test evaluates a machine’s ability to exhibit intelligence and notes when it becomes indistinguishable from a human’s.

The humans who use AI technologies to create artworks see the algorithms as artists themselves. The way they discuss their process is revealing. Uttering the words “I teach robots how to paint”’ or “A new Rembrandt painting has been created by a 3D printer” reveals a fundamental departure from reality. The human who uses an algorithm to create a painting is an artist employing technology as a tool. The computer cannot F I N E A R T C O N N O I S S E U R · C O M

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Pindar Van Arman’s Portrait of Hunter (2017), a robotic painting on canvas made using the Style Transfer algorithm

be considered an artist unless, of course, it becomes able to invent its own mythologies, as imagined by Philip K. Dick’s 1968 novel Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?

We humans experience our consciousness at the same time as our intelligence. Computers have intelligence but no consciousness. Despite their best eforts, AI artists are fnding that human creativity, even in the comparatively ancient felds of painting and sculpture, is one of the most difcult felds to replicate and automatize. The Israeli historian Yuval Noah Harari, author of the bestseller Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind, notes, “Eventually computers will do everything faster, better, and safer than humans. The things most immune right now are the creative jobs.” With that, most creatives can exhale a sigh of relief.

Our attitude toward technology is one of the strongest forces shaping the global culture of the future. Indeed, it can be a positive force in our lives. Rather than using technologies to replace or replicate ourselves, we can use them to help us spend more time deepening our understanding of the qualities of being human that distinguish us so powerfully from machine intelligence.

DAVID MOLESKY is a Brooklyn-based artist and writer whose oil paintings explore the relationship of humans and animals to the sublime forces of nature.

He is interested in understanding the psychology behind the creative process and experiences of awe, and also in the magic of paint — how a goopy amorphous substance can be transformed into illusionistic images capable of arousing empathy and contemplation.

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AUTUMN’S ART HARVEST

ART IN THE WEST

FOUR MASTERS TAKE STOCK FOUR DIRECTIONS — COMMON PATHS Steamboat Art Museum Steamboat Springs, Colorado steamboatartmuseum.org December 4, 2020 – April 10, 2021

SKIP WHITCOMB

(b.

1946),

Palace

Reflections,

2011, pastel on paper, 20 x 20 in., collection of Susan Simpson Gallagher

RALPH OBERG (b. 1950), Ice Fall, 2014, oil on linen, 42 x 42 in., collection of John Sanders

MATT SMITH (b. 1960), Sonoran Moonrise, 2006, oil on linen, 12 x 12 in., collection of the artist

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The Steamboat Art Museum (SAM) will soon present the exhibition Four Directions — Common Paths. It highlights the superb plein air paintings created in oils by Colorado’s Ralph Oberg, Skip Whitcomb, and Dan Young, and by Arizona’s Matt Smith. On view will be works both old and new, including studies made on site and paintings fnished back in the studio, along with photographs of the adventures these longtime friends have enjoyed in the great outdoors.

SAM executive director Betse T. Grassby notes the artists’ “long association with this N O V E M B E R / DME AC YE/ M J U B N E R E

museum, including the multiple times they have shown here individually, and also the 2016 National Exhibition of [the nonproft organization] Plein Air Painters of America.

Their 30-year relationship is a story of kinship, adventure, and cross-pollination to become their best.”

Another admirer of this talented quartet is Seth Hopkins, executive director of Georgia’s Booth Western Art Museum. He writes, “These four amigos treasure their time together, whether it is in the feld sharing a ridgeline, critiquing each other’s handiwork 2 0 2 1 70

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at the end of an outing, or catching up at a major art show somewhere around the country. All believe their friendship and light, sibling-like rivalry have made their work better and spurred them to continue to grow over 30-plus years. Moreover, these four gentlemen have proved that nice guys can fnish frst — in art, friendship, and life.”

All four artists are notable not only for their technical mastery, but also the ability to infuse their scenes with atmosphere, mood, and even soul. Though each site is rendered accurately, it is never merely descriptive: it transcends the “pretty” to show us how the artist really felt to be there.

DAN YOUNG (b. 1959), Just Up the Road, 2008, oil on linen, 10 x 12 in., collection of the artist

NEW LOOKS AT TIMELESS THEMES JOHN COLEMAN: SPIRIT, LIVES, LEGENDS Legacy Gallery Scottsdale, Arizona legacygallery.com November 14 –22

John Coleman (b. 1949) is set to mount his second solo show at Legacy Gallery, premiering 20 paintings, sculptures, and drawings that range widely in scale. Its largest sculpture stands 7 feet, 4 inches high, while the biggest painting measures 44 by 65 1/2 inches. The artist has been working intensively on all of these works for more than a year at his studio in Prescott, Arizona.

Coleman’s latest aesthetic journey began in 2019, when he visited the Crow Nation in Montana to set up various scenes for inspiration. He was accompanied on this trip by Erik Petersen, who works closely with him on his sculptures’ subtle patination, and also by Erik’s cousin, Willie. The Petersens have documented the Montana stay with a handsome 10-minute video well worth watching on YouTube: https://youtu.be/04R8vPnjY9c.

Whatever his medium, Coleman aims to tell, in his own words, “a story that is deeper than what you see on the surface, and that conveys an underlying emotion or mood. If I were in Europe, I might use Arthurian legends. But I live in America, so I go to American history. And sometimes it’s easier to tell a story outside your culture. I fnd Native American culture has so many stories that lend themselves

JOHN COLEMAN (b. 1949), Crazy Horse, 1876,

JOHN COLEMAN (b. 1949), Daughter of the

2020, clay (to be cast in bronze, edition of 20),

Forest People, 2020, oil on canvas, 45 1/2 x

27 x 18 x 12 in.

30 in.

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to be told visually and in ways people understand.”

Rigorously researched and deftly composed, Coleman’s people are realistic enough to convince us of their humanity, yet idealized enough to evoke the mythbased spirituality that characterizes Native cultures, and in which Coleman is well read. It has never been easy to render fgures that satisfy both ethnographers and symbolists, but somehow this artist has done it, winning both critical praise and commercial success in the process.

Coleman’s route to such virtuosity was hardly a straight one. Born and raised in Southern California, he won a scholarship to what is now the Art Center College of Design in Los Angeles, where he trained as an illustrator. Soon, he became involved in contracting and real estate development, and remained so until his youngest daughter married, when he suddenly felt “a sense of freedom that I had done everything I needed to do, and declared myself an artist.” Coleman promptly studied sculpture at the Scottsdale Artists’ School under Lincoln Fox and Richard MacDonald, and he began sculpting and exhibiting professionally in 1994, at the ripe old age of 44.

It is both fascinating and instructive to see where he has turned his observant eye most recently.

JOHN COLEMAN (b. 1949), The Oracle II, 2020, charcoal on paper, 64 x 38 in.

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TONY ABEYTA (b. 1965), Autumn Rains, 2020, oil on canvas, 24 x 20 in., estimate $8,000–$12,000

HEAD SOUTHWEST SANTA FE ART AUCTION Santa Fe, New Mexico santafeartauction.com November 14

DENIS MILHOMME (b. 1954), Winter in the Sierra, 2020, oil on panel, 24 x 16 in.

A BLAST OF GREATNESS GREAT AMERICAN WEST Settlers West Galleries Tucson, Arizona settlerswest.com November 21 –28

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Forty-nine years old and counting, Settlers West Galleries is eminently qualifed to organize an exhibition of 54 of its artists’ newest paintings and sculpture. Among the talents participating this season are Don Oelze, Robert Grifng, and Denis Milhomme, who painted the snowy landscape illustrated here.

Milhomme has been an active participant in a range of important Western exhibitions, including the Eiteljorg Museum’s Quest for the West, the Autry Museum’s Masters of the American West, the Phippen Museum’s Miniature Masterpiece, and the National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum’s Small Works, Great Wonders.

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Organized in conjunction with Gerald Peters Gallery, the Santa Fe Art Auction has become over the past two decades one of America’s leading sources of classic and contemporary Western art. On ofer again this November will be a broad array of paintings and works on paper by members of the Taos Society of Artists, Santa Fe Art Colony, and Los Cinco Pintores; paintings and bronzes by members of the Cowboy Artists of America; and wildlife and sporting artworks.

Illustrated here is a new work by Tony Abeyta, a Navajo artist who has won the New Mexico Governor’s Excellence in the Arts award and has been recognized as a Native treasure by the Museum of Indian Arts & Culture. A graduate of New York University, he was also awarded an honorary doctorate from the Institute of American Indian Arts in Santa Fe, where he has a home.

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GREAT ART NATIONWIDE

E V E N T S P R E V I E W

AMBASSADORS THROUGH ART

THROUGH THEIR EYES: SUSAN LYON & SCOTT BURDICK InSight Gallery Fredericksburg, Texas insightgallery.com November 6 –27

Though they are married, Susan Lyon and Scott Burdick have distinctive approaches to making art, as the two works illustrated here suggest. Their next joint exhibition is set to grace InSight Gallery with an array of fgures and still lifes depicted in oils, pastels, and

SETTING THE MOOD SUCHITRA BHOSLE Meyer Gallery Santa Fe meyergalleries.com November 20 –26

Meyer Gallery will soon present an exhibition of new paintings by Suchitra Bhosle (b. 1975). While growing up in Bangalore, India, she absorbed creativity from her father and grandmother, both artists. At age 9, Bho-

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charcoals. As intrepid travelers, Burdick and Lyon love to capture the people, buildings, wildlife, and scenery they encounter abroad.

Burdick notes, “I see painting as both a way of exploring the world and then as the vehicle of sharing those discoveries with others.

Through this unique language, one can say things that are impossible with words.”

(ABOVE) SCOTT BURDICK (b. 1967), Sky Riders, 2020, acrylic on watercolor board, 20 x 30 in.

(LEFT)

SUSAN LYON (b. 1969), Selene, Goddess of the Moon, 2019, mixed media, 21 x 24 in.

sle represented her homeland at a UNESCO art competition and won its top prize. Having earned an advanced degree in marketing, she pursued a career in business, but refocused on art after emigrating to the U.S. in 2001. Bhosle began studying with such masters as Richard Schmid, Jeremy Lipking, Scott Christensen, and Sherrie McGraw, and now she has become a popular teacher herself.

Bhosle continues to draw inspiration from such naturalist forerunners as John Singer Sargent, Anders Zorn, Joaquín Sorolla, Nicolai Fechin, and Jules Bastien-Lepage.

We can detect aspects of their brilliance in her superb evocation of atmosphere and in the timelessness of her motifs.

Although she is best known for scenes of women on their own, Bhosle also depicts still lifes and historic interiors.

SUCHITRA BHOSLE (b. 1975), Longing, 2019, oil on panel, 24 x 18 in.

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FACING OUR PAST

Portrait of a Native American Man, England, possibly made in

THE VIRGINIA-BRITISH CONNECTION AND EARLY AMERICAN FACES

London, c. 1790, oil on canvas, 28 9/16 x 23 1/2 in., Museum Purchase, 2005-84

Art Museums of Colonial Williamsburg Williamsburg, Virginia colonialwilliamsburg.org through December 31, 2021 and then December 31, 2022

The Art Museums of Colonial Williamsburg reopened earlier this year after a major expansion and reinstallation. Now on longterm view there are two intriguing exhibitions that shed revealing light on the people of early America.

Even today, the Commonwealth of Virginia maintains close ties to Britain through their shared history, socioeconomic bonds, and common culture. The Virginia-British Connection: British Paintings with Virginia Ties presents 14 portraits made before the Revolutionary War that depict a range of British rulers, lesser British subjects, and Virginia-born citizens.

“Colonial Williamsburg is well known for the quality of its American art, but it has also collected important British paintings since its earliest years,” says Ronald L. Hurst, the institution’s chief curator and vice president for museums, preservation, and historic resources. Illustrated here, for example, is an oil portrait of the Scot Charles Steuart (1725–1797), who came to Virginia in 1741 to work as a storekeeper for a Glasgow tobacco merchant and later headed his own mercantile business in Norfolk. Today he is remembered for his role in a landmark legal case. James Somerset, an enslaved man, typically accompanied Steuart on his travels. In 1771, while the two were in England, Somerset ran away. Following his recapture, Steuart intended to sell Somerset in Jamaica.

Abolitionists mobilized and the court ruled that a slave in England could not be forcibly returned to the colonies.

While the ruling did not bring about the end of slavery, it paved the way for true emancipation legislation.

Also on view is the exhibition Early American Faces, a selection of eight oil paintings and watercolors that show us enslaved African Americans, American Indians, and people of European descent. Illustrated here is a Portrait of a Native American Man; the names of both the sitter and the artist remain unknown. The dignifed sitter is most likely a member of the Iroquois or a related tribe from the southern Great Lakes region. His attire is a blend of European and Indian traditions that was common in the 18th century. The portrait may well have been painted in England because a surprising number of American Indian men and women crossed the Atlantic to visit the “Mother Country.”

Portrait

of

Charles

Steuart,

possibly

by

David

Allan

(1744–1796),

Britain,

c. 1785, oil on canvas, 30 7/8 x 25 5/8 in., Gift of Miss Sylvia Steuart, 1956-495

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ART UNDERGROUND HARVEY DINNERSTEIN Gerald Peters Contemporary New York City gpgalleryny.com through December 31

Gerald Peters Contemporary is presenting a retrospective of fgurative artworks by Harvey Dinnerstein (b. 1928), who has long adapted traditional techniques to shed light on modern life.

Born and raised in Brooklyn, he attended New York City’s renowned High School of Music and Art while taking weekend classes in the studio of the great realist Moses Soyer. After graduating from Philadelphia’s Tyler School of Art, Dinnerstein took classes at the Art Students League of New York with Yasuo Kuniyoshi and Julien Levy.

In 1956, Dinnerstein spent 10 days documenting the Montgomery Bus Boycotts in Alabama, a transformative experience that helped him see how, in his words, “art could express the passions of contemporary life.” Resisting the current vogue for abstraction and dedicated to the pursuit of social justice and equality, Dinnerstein won fame for his illustrations in Esquire magazine and became a revered teacher at the Art Students League.

Traveling from his home to the classroom required Dinnerstein to take the subway, and so this exhibition highlights the compelling scenes of his fellow passengers that he began making in the 1980s.

FLORIDA, HERE WE COME NATIONAL OIL & ACRYLIC PAINTERS’ SOCIETY 30th Best of America National Juried Exhibition Cutter & Cutter Fine Art St. Augustine, Florida noaps.org and cutterandcutter.com November 2 –29

The National Oil & Acrylic Painters’ Society (NOAPS) will celebrate its 30th anniversary by presenting its Best of America National Juried Exhibition at Cutter & Cutter Fine Art. More than 150 paintings by its members will be on view both in the gallery and online. Awards judge Mark Boedges will ofer two programs online: a three-day landscape workshop and a half-day demo. The gallery’s co-owner, Matt Cutter, is an award-winning NOAPS Signature Artist and so will demonstrate his techniques in landscape painting, too.

HARVEY DINNERSTEIN (b. 1928), Downtown Local, 1997, oil on canvas, 40 1/4 x 20 in.

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MATT CUTTER (b. 1974), Winter Shadows, oil on canvas, 36 x 30 in.

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CELEBRATING OIL PAINTINGS

S H E R R I E

OIL PAINTERS OF AMERICA

1954),

MCGRAW Heritage,

Eastern Regional Juried Exhibition of Traditional Oils Reinert Fine Art Charleston oilpaintersofamerica.com and reinertfineart.com November 20 – December 19

(b.

Western 2017,

oil on canvas, 28 x 30 in.

Oil Painters of America is a nonproft organization with more than 3,500 members throughout North America. Its Eastern Regional Juried Exhibition of Traditional Oils will soon adorn the walls of Charleston’s Reinert Fine Art. Over 1,200 submissions were received, but just 130 artists were selected. On November 20, OPA will host a virtual ceremony, during which awards judge Kathie Odom will present approximately $11,500 in cash and merchandise. Registration for this event is free via OPA’s website.

A MASTER IN ACRYLICS CAPTURING CHARACTER: THE PORTRAITS OF CHANTEL LYNN BARBER Customs House Museum & Cultural Center Clarksville, Tennessee customshousemuseum.org November 3 –January 3

The small yet lively acrylic paintings of Chantel Lynn Barber have won praise during group shows at Tennessee’s Customs House Museum, and now the artist will open her frst solo show there. Her depictions of people are painted with bold, expressive brushstrokes, ofering just enough visual information to allow the model’s personality to shine through, while letting us participate in discerning the image’s overall meaning.

Since she discovered acrylics during a college art course, Barber has mastered this medium and worked to “translate” into it what she has learned from such great oils practitioners as Dawn Whitelaw, Rose Frantzen, and Marc Hanson. This new show reminds us how individual her own voice has become in the process.

CHANTEL LYNN BARBER (b. 1970), Freedom Force, 2020, acrylic on panel, 4 x 4 in., available through the artist

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A TOP-NOTCH BENEFIT SHOW 2020 WINDOWS TO THE DIVINE NATIONAL EXHIBITION Space Gallery Annex Denver windowstothedivine.org and spaceannex.org November 5 –7

SCOTT FRASER (b. 1957), Arrowleaf Plums, 2020, oil on board, 11 x 18 in.

The 2020 Windows to the Divine National Exhibition will be on view at Denver’s Space Gallery Annex soon. Chairperson Shannon Robinson explains that the nonproft organization Windows to the Divine “supports the vocation of the living artist and also the work of the Dominican novices in Denver whose ministries include serving the homeless and impoverished elderly.”

This year’s participating artists are a talented bunch: Blair Atherholt, Carolyn

Barlock, Jill Basham, Daniel Bilmes, Gregory Block, Casey Childs, LuCong, Michelle Dunaway, Scott Fraser, Ann Gargotto, Ron Gerbrandt, Ulrich Gleiter, David Gray, Albert Handell, Stephanie Hartshorn, Ron Hicks, Quang Ho, Jane Hunt, Carol Jenkins, Brendan Johnston, Andrea Kemp, Weizhen Liang, Huihan Liu, Kyle Ma, David W. Mayer, Dan McCaw, Danny McCaw, John McCaw, Ned Mueller, C.W. Mundy, Desmond O’Hagan,

Ron Richmond, Cheryl St. John, Don Sahli, Jill Soukup, Daniel Sprick, Adrienne Stein, Teresa Vito, and Vincent Xeus.

The show’s catalogue is available online and pre-sales are underway. The gallery itself is open for visiting by appointment. Please call ahead to learn if there will be an opening reception on November 5.

HIGHLIGHTING AND HELPING REFUGEES WHEN YOU CAN’T GO HOME: PORTRAITS OF REFUGEES IN THE PACIFIC NORTHWEST karisakeasey.com

Six years ago, the Seattle artist Karisa Keasey (b. 1990) was horrifed to learn about the sufering of civilians displaced by Syria’s vicious civil war. Soon she discovered World Relief, a Christian organization that resettles refugees, and began volunteering to help welcome them to the Pacifc Northwest.

Keasey was struck by the urgent need to humanize refugees, who are often misperceived by the American public as terrorists or do-nothings, and also to clarify the terrible situations that compelled them to leave their homelands.

Keasey knew the best way she could ofer help would be through her art and her writing. Now available is the 122-page paperback book, When You Can’t Go Home: Portraits of Refugees in the Pacifc Northwest, in which she tells the stories of 10 refugees and their families and accompanies them with 30 of her luminous watercolor portraits. The diverse individuals she highlights come originally from Afghanistan, Bhutan, Eritrea, Iraq, Myanmar, Rwanda, and Ukraine.

Keasey concludes the book with several useful appendices, including “Five Ways to Help Refugees” and “Further Reading,” and she has pledged to donate half of her profts from this project to World Relief.

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BY STEVEN ALAN BENNETT

C O L L E C T O R S A V V Y

PAINTING DAMAGED IN TRANSIT?

HERE’S WHATTO DO

R

ecently, I received a call from an artist who had borrowed one of her own paintings from a collector (not me) for a show. The painting had been damaged in transit and the artist was beside herself: the work was one of her best, the collector was important, and the damage was extensive.

The artist had spoken to other artists and collectors, and each of them had given her incorrect or incomplete advice.

Having a painting damaged in transit is not uncommon. While I would like to say that every borrower, art handler, and shipping company treats artworks in their care like their own, I must admit, sadly, this is not always the case.

So, what should you do when an artwork is damaged in transit?

While the answer depends on whether you are the owner, seller, borrower, or artist, the following general principles are likely to apply.

1.

2.

3.

Insure the work. First, never ship artwork without insurance. And if you are buying work, make sure you understand who is responsible for insuring it when it is shipped. My wife, Dr. Elaine Melotti Schmidt, and I maintain “nailto-nail” coverage, meaning that a work is covered from the time it comes of the wall or easel and comes to us and is installed, and vice versa. But this may not be the case for everyone.

So make sure you have insurance, know what it covers, and understand who is entitled to payment if work is damaged.

Note the damage on the papers. When there is damage, note it on any papers the freight

company asks you to sign. Alternatively, you might refuse delivery, but this might not be do-able if you already own the work. Making notes is sometimes uncomfortable, but you should force yourself to make a notation even if the delivery person tells you not to worry about it. A notation can make a pivotal diference if the shipping company later denies the work was damaged at the time of delivery. It is especially important if you bought the insurance from the shipping company. By the way, a delivery person cannot stop you from making notes, such as “work received in damaged condition,” on the papers you are asked to sign. Tip: the Doctor and I try to uncrate or unpack works in the presence of delivery persons so that if there is damage, they see it.

Make a visual record. After noting the damage on the papers (and, frankly, even before), make a visual record with a phone or other camera, paying particular attention to places where there is visible damage,

The painted canvas has been torn from its wooden stretcher.

Another view of the torn canvas

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The shipping crate’s broken corner

The painting ’s torn corner with the broken stretcher peeking out

4.

5.

6.

7.

8.

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including to the crate or packaging. Photos of any damage to the work itself are very important and these photos should be extensive. If you can, get the delivery person and the damage in the picture together.

Contact the shipper. After the photographing, contact the shipper and let them know there’s a problem. This is especially important if you bought insurance from the shipper. If they say, “Tough, it’s not our problem,” you don’t have to agree. By letting them know, however, you prevent them from saying later they were not informed. By the way, written communication (e.g., e-mail, letter) following an initial phone call is important.

Notify the insurer. If there is insurance, the next and probably most important step is notifying the insurer. Most policies require a timely written notice of loss to the insurer. To make sure you know what is required, look at the policy. Generally, just as with notifcation of the shipper, best practice suggests a telephone call followed by a written notice including photos and details, unless the policy requires otherwise. This starts the “claims process.” Keep in mind that the insurer looks on your claim as “business as usual,” no matter how unusual it may be to you, and it is generally appropriate to cooperate with the insurer’s reasonable requests.

Find a conservator/restorer. If the work is not a total loss, you should team with the insurer to fnd an appropriate conservator to fx the work. (An easy place to start your search is culturalheritage. org/about-conservation/fnd-a-conservator.) Alternatively, if the work is a total loss, the insured should make a claim for the entire insured value of the work. Generally, a “total loss” claim requires more inspection and negotiation, so expect this.

Or, contact the artist for repairs. If an artwork is damaged but not “totaled,” it is almost always best if the artist who created the work repairs it. This way, the repairs are in the original author’s own hand. Of course, this assumes the artists are around and the repairs are within their capabilities. For example, if a painting has a scuf or crack in the paint, this may be easily fxed by the artist. If, however, the damage is more extensive, repairs might best be left to a conservator.

Note to artists: Don’t be unwilling to make repairs to your own work.

As the author of the work, you know best how it should look when fxed. But know your limits. If the necessary repairs are beyond your capability, decline to do them.

No repairs without everybody on board. It is impermissible for anyone, even the author of the work, to repair damage without the written consent of the owner. And if someone thinks an insurance company should pay, then you will need the consent of the insurer, too. In the case of my artist friend whose work was damaged in transit, it would be best if she repaired it, but only with the consent of the owner and, if insurance is paying, the consent of the insurer.

Note that if the artist is making the repairs, he or she is generally entitled to charge for that new labor, including reasonable travel expenses. These details should be discussed and agreed upon before any repairs are undertaken.

The

shipping

crate

sustained

significant damage at top left.

9.

Diminished value. Damaged paintings that have been repaired are usually worth less than the same work without repairs. As such, the insured may be entitled to reimbursement from the insurer for the “diminished value” of the work. Many insurance companies really dislike this sort of claim and will argue that there’s no way to fgure out how much the work’s value has been reduced. Of course, that isn’t necessarily correct, and you don’t have to agree. A look at the policy, and maybe a talk with a lawyer, are good ideas. Just know that this may be another element of damages for which the insurer should compensate.

10. Get a lawyer. All of the foregoing is just a general outline, not legal advice. Some insurers can be very aggressive in their approach to settling art damage claims while others are more relaxed. If you aren’t sure you are being treated fairly, you should seek legal advice.

As for my artist friend who borrowed one of her own works that was then damaged, what should she do? Her instinct is to repair the painting herself. This is great, but the frst order of business is to document the damage and note it on the shipping documents, then notify the shipper, the owner, and the insurer. Once the claims process has begun, if the owner and insurer are willing, the artist might repair the work herself and charge the insurer for the cost of making the repairs. While all of this sounds complicated, the process can be fairly straightforward and should result in a quick resolution.

STEVEN ALAN BENNETT is, along with his spouse, Dr. Elaine Melotti Schmidt, the founder of The Bennett Collection of Women Realists (thebennettartcollection. com) and The Bennett Prize (thebennettprize.org), a biannual prize that awards $50,000 to a woman painter to enable her to mount her own traveling exhibition.

Bennett spent many years as general counsel of USAA, the nationally recognized property and casualty insurer.

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BY M AT T H I A S A N D E R S O N

C O L L E C T O R S A V V Y

LIGHT UP YOUR COLLECTION A

cquiring an artwork is always a joy, but many new owners don’t pay enough attention to how they will light their new treasure once it arrives in their home or ofce. No matter how beautiful the image, the pleasure it can ofer you, your family, and friends could be severely diminished if you cannot see it as the artist intended.

Accurate and safe lighting is essential in this regard. This article focuses on oil and acrylic paintings because they are the easiest and most instructive to discuss: they are usually resistant to light, unlike works on paper (which require lower light levels to avoid fading) and sculpture (which should ideally be lit from several angles). For a painting, the primary goal is to reveal all of its colors and value changes without distracting your eye with varied levels of brightness across the surface.

Until the 21st century began, we relied upon incandescent and/or halogen bulbs, which proved problematic because they accelerate the decomposition of the pigments in your painting, sometimes resulting in fading, cracking, or color shifts. In our own time, the arrival of LED (light emitting diode) bulbs triggered a welcome revolution, yet some lighting manufacturers failed to fully take advantage of these bulbs’ smaller size, retaining their bulky fxtures and merely replacing the bulbs inside them.

The very richest collectors can aford to hire lighting designers; these are seasoned professionals who often work with interior designers to light a room and everything in it, including the art. As you would expect, they take care of their clients’ technical needs; the right lighting equipment just shows up, selected expressly for each artwork in your space.

This article is not about that (justly expensive) market, but instead about individual collectors who have the time to deal directly with the frms that manufacture lighting intended for fne art. To provide the best service, the better ones (such as Situ Art Lighting in Naples, Florida) ask the client to send a smartphone photo of the artwork (shown in its frame) as well as a note about its medium (e.g., oil), support (e.g., canvas), and dimensions (both framed

and unframed) before they make recommendations on which product you should order. If the art is important to you, it’s worth taking the time to address such details now. And let’s be clear: the lighting you end up ordering may not be cheap. It may cost several hundred dollars per artwork, but if you buy the right equipment, it will last a long time and the painting will always look terrifc.

Many people assume that every painting requires the same uniform illumination across the entire surface. That is true for most abstract paintings, and also for representational scenes that are generally bright, even sunny. But for portraits, sunsets, and somber scenes, it makes more sense to highlight (“accent” in the trade) a specifc area — perhaps the center, or the face in a portrait.

Smart lighting manufacturers will study the photo of your artwork while keeping in mind several technical factors that most laymen don’t know about. First up is the Color Rendition Index (CRI), a numerical measure of a light’s ability to display all the colors in a painting as they would appear

A painting illuminated by old-fashioned incandescent lighting (left) and by LED lighting (right).

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One Western painting viewed with three different settings of its Correlated Color Temperature; from top to bottom: 2700k, 3000k (which is optimal), and 4000k.

under daylight. The maximum CRI is 100: in general, a measurement above 90 results in crisp colors across the full visible spectrum. Knowing a product’s general CRI is not the whole story, however: the light that will illuminate artworks containing strong red tones also needs to have its CRI R9 score assessed. This is another reason sending the photo ahead will help the manufacturer serve you better.

A second concern is a light’s Correlated Color Temperature (CCT). Older technologies (such as halogen) had a CCT in the range of 2500–2700k (“k” stands for kelvins) and produced a light that was often yellow or amber. Now the best LEDs have a 3000k CCT that is more neutral in efect; when accompanied by a CRI in the 93–95 range, the result is crisp lighting suited to most paintings.

LED light ofers other advantages: it does not emit ultraviolet or infrared rays, and it generates little heat.

(Old-fashioned bulbs used to “cook” artworks over time.)

Moreover, LEDs are smaller, more controllable, and more energy-efcient, which means they last longer. Manufacturers now ofer a range of options, including plug-in, wireless, and rechargeable. Many LEDs are adjustable by hand, attaching to the mount with magnets so that no tools are required, and many can be operated by remote control or automatically switch of after fve hours in case you accidentally leave them on.

LEDs have facilitated an array of more compact fxture designs, though many collectors still go with a slim bar made of brass or aluminum running across the top of a frame. The best manufacturers cut these bars to the length that suits the size of your painting, with the “lowest” possible profle so that the bar almost disappears visually.

If your artwork is covered by glass, the glare from the light’s refection may obscure your enjoyment of the image.

To address this, you have several options. First, consider removing the glass: many paintings don’t need such protection because their varnishes will keep dust away from the pigments. Or reglaze the painting with non-refective Museum Glass (a trademarked product of Tru Vue, Inc.), which is more expensive but worth it. If you are sticking with glass, install your light as high as possible above the painting, or install it at the bottom of the frame so that it “uplights” the scene. Regardless, it’s all about angles: be prepared to spend some time adjusting the light and testing what you see from diferent vantages in the room.

Tall paintings are a special challenge because most manufacturers create bulbs and equipment that cast light downward for 30–40 inches. If your painting is higher than that, work extra closely with your provider.

Options illuminating up to 60 inches do exist, but they will take more planning.

This rule of thumb pertains to almost all lighting projects: a bit of extra efort, and perhaps a bit more spending, will result in pleasurable viewing for decades to come.

MATTHIAS ANDERSON is a contributing writer to Fine Art Connoisseur.

Information: situlighting.com, revelite.com, cernogroup.com/ products/cernoartlight

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O F F T H E W A L L S

landscapes of Texas’s Hill Country, as well as lush forals.

On view are works painted in plein air, as well as larger pieces completed in the studio. All feature Daniel’s energetic brushwork and fair for color.

A RT I ST S & G A L L E R I E S

Roger Rossi (b. 1936), Andrew Winter’s House, 2020, oil on linen board, 16 x 20 in., photo: Donald Lang

who particularly loves fowers, which are also prized by her fellow member Roger Rossi, who painted the scene illustrated here. It depicts the home of the Salmagundian Andrew Winter (1892–1958) on Maine’s Monhegan Island. Winter lived there year-round, working as both a lobsterman and a landscape painter captivated by the island’s architecture, rocky coast, wind, and waves.

Brian Keeler (b. 1953), Forge of Vulcan, 2020, oil on linen, 36 x 44 in.

Ithaca, New York

B O OK S

northstarartgallery.com through November 29 North Star Art Gallery is presenting an exhibition of recent works by Brian Keeler, which he has titled Magical Mythologies: Reinventing Myth and Other Allegorical Works. He notes that myths and allegories highlight timeless themes that artists have revisited for millennia. Over the years Keeler has drawn inspiration from these literary sources — and also from such forerunners as Caravaggio, Velázquez, Bernini, and Carpeaux — to create his own interpretations of Greco-Roman myth. The gallery’s website features a brief video in which Keeler discusses the large painting illustrated here.

Pavel Sokov (b. 1990), Conquer, 2020, oil on linen, 24 x 18 in., Vanessa Rothe Fine Art, Laguna Beach

Laguna Beach, California vanessarothefineart.com through November 30

Laurel Daniel (b. 1956), Garden Fire, 2020, oil on canvas, 18 x 18 in.

Vanessa Rothe Fine Art is presenting its third multidisciplinary exhibition devoted to the theme of Fine Art & Fashion.

On view are 30 recent oil paintings by such talents as Suchitra Bhosle, Casey Childs, Ingrid Christensen, Michelle Dunaway, Adrian Gottlieb, David Gray, Cornelia Hernes, Sergey Kovalenko, Olga Krimon, Peggi Kroll-Roberts, Nicolas Martin, Charles Warren Mundy, William Newkomm, Deborah Newman, Karen Offutt, Derek Penix, Jesse Powell, Craig Pursley, Ray Roberts, Sam Robinson, Vanessa Rothe, Kate Sammons, Pavel Sokov, Matt Talbert, Vincent Xeus, Aaron Westerberg, and Jim Wodark.

These artists have carefully considered how fne art and fashion overlap; for example, the Montreal-based artist Pavel Sokov says of his painting illustrated here: “I focused on delivering a general sense of energy and movement, then made rendering decisions around that.” To underscore the similar aesthetic concerns that face artists and designers — including juxtaposition of colors, textures, and compositional elements — the exhibition also contains clothing made from handwoven or handpainted fabrics, and the gallery’s website offers educational presentations on the parallel histories of fne art and fashion.

The entire project is dedicated to the late Detlev Rothe, who designed garments for celebrities for almost half a century.

Austin

New York City

davisgalleryaustin.com through November 25 Davis Gallery has opened Evidence of the Search, an exhibition of recent oil paintings by Laurel Daniel. As the title suggests, the artist seeks to capture the essence of her subjects, which include the big skies and colorful F I N E A R T C O N N O I S S E U R · C O M

salmagundi.org through November 20 Like so many art organizations this year, the Salmagundi Club has uploaded the contents of an annual show to the Internet, specifcally to artsy.net. The popular Sylvia Glesmann Members Floral Show is named for a club member

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The art historian Mary Anne Goley was the founding director of the Fine Arts Program of the Federal Reserve Board in Washington, D.C. From 1975 through 2006, she led its 15-member advisory panel and liaisoned with the Fed’s powerful board members and 36 system-wide bank presidents.

Goley and her staff acquired works of art for the Fed’s permanent collection and organized more than 110 exhibitions on subjects ranging from New York graffti artists to the Scottish architect Charles Rennie Mackintosh. Particularly notable were her collaborations with central banks and museums in Austria, Greece, Hungary, Israel, Poland, Romania, Spain, Switzerland, and the Netherlands, which brought to Washington an array of shows on such previously overlooked topics as the Hague School and its American legacy, the paintings of Edward Steichen, Austrian Biedermeier, and Polish constructivism.

Now Rowman & Littlefeld has published the book Democracy’s Medici: The Federal Reserve and the Art of Collecting, in which Goley offers an insider’s view of the Fed’s institutional culture, the larger-than-life personalities she met, and the signifcance of the Fine Arts Program in this unique context. For details, visit rowman.com.

Lund Humphries (lundhumphries.com) has just published a fully revised edition of Mary Rozell’s 2014 bestseller, The Art Collector’s Handbook — The Defnitive Guide to Acquiring and Owning Art. Trained as both an attorney and an art historian, Mary Rozell is currently global head of the UBS Art Collection,

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Now Marie-Pierre Salé, curator of 19th-century French drawings at Paris’s Musée du Louvre, has produced a thorough account of the medium, Watercolor: A History.

Her publisher, Abbeville Press (abbeville.com), has created a 416-page hardback volume containing more than 300 color illustrations, printed on heavy paper that helps capture the texture of the original artworks.

Tracing how watercolor was established as a medium in its own right, Salé takes readers from medieval scriptoria to modernists’ studios, encompassing every type of work — from plein-air sketches to fnished studio pieces.

Among the highlights are Dürer’s detailed animal studies, Turner’s atmospheric landscapes, Sargent’s light-dappled sketches, and O’Keeffe’s trailblazing abstractions. Salé also provides a valuable appendix, based on primary sources, that traces the medium’s technical development.

M USEU MS

a corporate trove of more than 30,000 works dating from the 1960s onward. As with the previous edition, her new volume lays out best practices in the life cycle of a collection, including acquisition, inventory management, insurance, security, storage, conservation, fnancing, investing, and the sharing and deaccessioning of artworks.

Rozell has updated her text in relation to recent changes in the art market and art law, and has added a chapter on the rise of private museums.

Carla Crawford (b. 1981), Ajmal, Refugee from Afghanistan, 2016, oil on linen, 24 x 18 in., collection of the artist

Springfield, Massachusetts springfieldmuseums.org through April 4

Jacobus Vrel (1617–1662), Woman at a Window, Waving at a Child, n.d., oil on wood, 18 x 15 1/2 in., Fondation Custodia, Collection Frits Lugt, Paris

Munich

pinakothek.de/en/vrel through January 10

Watercolor is so popular a medium today that it’s easy to forget its humble origins. For centuries watercolorists labored in the shadow of oil painters; their medium was dismissed as a tool for creating preparatory studies, or as a “feminine” pastime. From the Renaissance onward, however, some artists recognized watercolor’s unique luminosity, immediacy, and capacity to create atmosphere — qualities derived directly from the quick-drying, translucent nature of water-based pigments.

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The Alte Pinakothek is presenting the frst exhibition ever devoted to the 17th-century Dutch painter Jacobus Vrel, whose works hang in some of the world’s great museums yet are still little understood. Sometimes mistaken for the work of his contemporary Johannes Vermeer, Vrel’s scenes of everyday life in a Dutch town are almost oppressively still: the fgures turn their backs to us or appear lost in thought, and the streetscapes feel like stage sets — not real but imagined.

Organizing curator Bernd Ebert has gathered 50 paintings and works on paper made by Vrel and his contemporaries, and he has taken the bold step of juxtaposing them with recent paintings by Mathilde ter Heijne (b. 1969) and with art flms and architectural models produced specifcally for this exhibition. An English-language publication containing all of Vrel’s known works accompanies the show, which will next be seen at Paris’s Fondation Custodia (January 29–April 18) and the Mauritshuis in The Hague (May 20–August 29).

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Every three years, artists in the U.S. are invited to submit a recent portrait for the Outwin Boochever Portrait Competition, judged by a panel of experts chosen by the Smithsonian Institution’s National Portrait Gallery (NPG). In 2019, nearly 50 works were selected from over 2,600 entries that included painting, drawing, sculpture, photography, time-based media, and performance art. All were displayed at the NPG in the exhibition The Outwin: American Portraiture Today, and now that show’s fnalist works are on view at the Michele and Donald D’Amour Museum of Fine Arts.

The participating artists hail from 14 states, Washington, D.C., and Puerto Rico and have offered powerful insights into the human lives they portray. “The Outwin has gained a reputation for spotting the best of the best in American portraiture,” says Kay Simpson, president and CEO of the Springfeld Museums. “And we are excited to also feature regional portraiture in our Community Gallery.”

After closing in Springfeld, the NPG show will move to the Mildred Crosby Kemper Art Museum at Washington University in St. Louis (September 10, 2021–January 23, 2022).

San Diego

sdmart.org through January 3 Rembrandt was among the greatest innovators in art history, producing masterpieces of painting, drawing, and printmaking. On view at the San Diego Museum of Art is the exhibition Rembrandt and Printmaking in the Netherlands, which presents nearly 20 etchings, all creative masterpieces in their own right.

Curator Michael Brown has selected these prints from the museum’s collection and from the University of San Diego’s holdings. Some have never been seen 2 0 2 0

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Witchcraft and the World’s End. On view are paintings and prints created in the Low Countries and Germany between 1440 and 1590, all selected from a private Charleston collection by Lawrence Goedde, professor of art history at the University of Virginia.

This unusual show introduces a world of intensely, and sometimes disturbingly, vivid imagery that speaks to uncertainties of the period and remains relevant today. We glimpse contradictions and unease — whether the subject is a troubled Virgin Mary contemplating her young son, or a menacing group of fgures inspired by Hieronymus Bosch, or Albrecht Dürer’s famous scenes from Revelations. In the turbulent Renaissance and early Reformation in Northern Europe, patrons found their hopes, desires, and anxieties mirrored in these images, triggering pious beliefs and fantastic visions of good and evil.

Storm of Progress will showcase a range of media, including paintings, sculpture, photographs, prints, and decorative arts. Among the artists represented are Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, Käthe Kollwitz, Gabriele Münter, Joseph Beuys, and Georg Baselitz.

OUT & A BOUT

Rembrandt van Rijn (1606–1669), Self-Portrait, Etching at a Window, 1648, etching, drypoint, and burin on paper, 6 1/4 x 5 1/16 in., San Diego Museum of Art, museum purchase with funds provided by the Helen M. Towle Bequest. 1947.64.d.

publicly, while others have been in storage for two decades.

Because such works are sensitive to light, it may be another two decades before we see them again.

The Santa Fe-based artist P. A. Nisbet poses with his painting Land of Giants (2020, oil on linen, 46 x 36 in.), which won the 2020 Quest for the West Patrons’ Choice Award, presented by Phyllis Cockerill.

Charleston

gibbesmuseum.org through June 27 The Gibbes Museum of Art is hosting an exhibition with an intriguing title, Charleston Collects: Devotion and Fantasy,

Gerhard Richter (b. 1932), Betty, 1988, oil on canvas, 40 1/4 x 28 1/2 in., Saint Louis Art Museum, 23:1992 © Gerhard Richter

In Indianapolis this September, the Eiteljorg Museum of American Indians and Western Art deftly converted its 15th annual Quest for the West art beneft sale from a lively in-person experience to a lively virtual one. In just two days, more than $747,000 worth of Western American art was purchased by collectors bidding in this fxed-price, luck-ofthe-draw sale through the museum’s website. On offer were recent works by 49 of the top artists in this genre.

St. Louis

slam.org November 8–February 28

Hans Baldung Grien (1475–1545), The Bewitched Groom, c. 1544, woodcut on ivory laid paper, 13 3/8 x 7 7/8 in. (sheet), private collection

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St. Louis is home to a world-class collection of German art, and soon the exhibition Storm of Progress: German Art from the Saint Louis Art Museum will confrm that fact by displaying more than 120 works dating from the early 1800s right up to the Berlin Wall’s fall in 1989.

The strength of the museum’s holdings owes much to Morton D. May, who once led May Department Stores Co. nationwide. His passions included German Expressionism, and his 1983 bequest included a large collection of paintings by Max Beckmann (1884–1950). That gift spurred the museum to prioritize acquisitions of important works by contemporary German artists. Now totaling more than 2,500 objects by artists from Germany, Austria, and Switzerland, the museum’s holdings continue to grow. A recent purchase is Sunburst in the Riesengebirge, one of very few U.S.-owned paintings by the Romantic Caspar David Friedrich (1774–1840).

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Throughout the Quest for the West weekend, Eiteljorg Museum staff members like registrar Christa Barleben (pictured here) served as concierges to assist collectors with their online purchases.

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JANUARY 28-30, 2021 Featuring the World’s Top Artists Teaching Watercolor Painting Create Your Own PERSONAL ROADMAP to Become The Artist You’ve Always Wanted During This LIVE, 3-Day VIRTUAL EXPERIENCE INSTRUCTION IN Landscape - Cityscape - Figure - Still Life - Floral - Portraits and More...

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WatercolorLive.com

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Give someone the Secrets of the Masters on these great videos!

Bold Brushwork Kathie Odom

Painting From Photos

Chantel Barber

Sargent: Techniques of a Master Thomas Jefferson Kitts

Sketchscapes From Study to Studio Dawn Whitelaw

Vibrant Landscapes

Christine Lashley

Brushwork Secrets Unleashed

Kim Casebeer

Robin Cheers

Poetic Portraits

Gabriela Gonzalez Dellosso

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Dramatic Light

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Light, Motion & Drama

Nancy Boren

GIVE THE GIFT OF PAIN Nikolai BLOKHIN

Russian Master Portraits

™

F

or the first time, Russian artist Nikolai Blokhin has recorded his tightly-held techniques of 19th century Russian masters, giving you the opportunity to apply these age-old traditions in your own artwork.

Famous for their style of Impressionism, Russian artists employ thick paint, induce tremendous expression, and compose work that evokes powerful emotion. Still, there’s a certain exactness to their work — the creation of form and the feeling of the subject.

As Nikolai works through a large demonstration painting, Old Harlequin, you’ll feel as though you’re present in his grand studio space as he sorts through piles of paint tubes and searches his vast collection of brushes for just the right one.

You’ll feel so close to Nikolai and his work that you’ll want to have the final painting for yourself, just to revel in this feeling forever.

BREAKTHROUGH DESIGNS FOR LANDSCAPES™, MODERN MASTERS SERIES™, STREAMLINE PREMIUM ART VIDEO™, ©/TM STREAMLINE PUBLISHING, INC. 2020.

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. HOME USE LICENSE ONLY: DO NOT COPY, DISTRIBUTE, RENT, OR PERFORM. FOR LICENSING INFORMATION, CONTACT 877-867-0324 OR LICENSING@STREAMLINEPUBLISHING.COM.

NTING LIKE A MASTER Kathleen HUDSON

Rose FRANTZEN

One look at Rose Frantzen’s work and you’ll get a sense of what makes her one of today’s most unique artists.

Electrifying expressions balanced with mastered disciplines, Rose is highly respected for creating thought-provoking artwork that thrills her followers and pleases her loyal collectors.

Freely sharing her fascinating approach to painting, let Rose help you find your own style and voice. Soon, you’ll be spontaneously painting from the depths of your soul.

Kathleen Hudson shows you how to accurately capture a beautiful storm — a scene where the atmosphere changes in mere seconds and the shifting shadows play tricks on your eyes.

Charlie HUNTER

Watch and learn as Kathleen expertly paints the light and movement of the heavy atmosphere as the storm travels briskly across a wide vista. Such a painting takes special preparation and skilled brushwork and Kathleen is the perfect instructor to demonstrate the energy and excitement that comes with a powerful storm.

Just as a writer uses words, Charlie Hunter teaches you to tell stories through your paintings — to say to others, “Come into my life and see who I am…”

One of today’s top representational artists, travel with Charlie on this creative journey and let him show you what he does to make his paintings so captivating that people are drawn in … finding themselves driven to read the stories Charlie has painted for them.

ORDER TODAY at StreamlineArtVideo.com or call 877-867-0324

North Star Art Gallery presents

BRIAN KEELER OPA, PSA

October/November: Magical Mythologies December/January 2021:

Topography of Light

Forge of Vulcan, oil on linen, 36” x 44” (2020)

7 4 3 S n y d e r H i l l R d • I t h a c a , N Y 1 4 8 5 0 • 6 0 7 . 3 2 3 . 7 6 8 4 • w w w. n o r t h s t a r a r t g a l l e r y. c o m

DO N R A NKI N

www.donrankinfineart.com

Works also on view at BARBARA MOORE FINE ART, Chadds Ford, PA Milking Time 27” x 13.5” Transparent watercolor on paper.Available via artist . $10,000

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Larry Cannon ASMA LPAPA CPAP CWA

C

Fine Art Watercolors www.cannonwc.com

Sonoran Desert Sunset

11" x 14"

DEBORAH ALLISON Finding the Calm 12” x 22” , oil on linen

DEBORAH ALLISON www.DeborahAllisonStudio.com | deborahallison@hotmail.com | (432) 294-3706 F I N E A R T C O N N O I S S E U R · C O M

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J EAN S C H WAR T Z w w w. j e a n s c h w a r t z p a i n t i n g s . c o m

Morning at Bald Head (detail) 24x30 oil on linen panel

CHANTEL LYNN BARBER

Capturing Character: Te Portraits of Chantel Lynn Barber November 3, 2020 - January 3, 2021 Customs House Museum and Cultural Center Clarksville, Tennessee

“Brown Hat Red Tie” 6x6 acrylic on panel

To view more of Chantel’s work and for workshops:

chantellynnbarber.com | 901.438.2420

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American Society of Botanical Artists

announces three upcoming exhibitions. Join us in person or view online. Catalogs are available.

The 23rd Annual International, on view at Wave Hill September 5 - December 6, 2020 4900 Independence Avenue, Bronx, NY Abundant Future: Cultivating Diversity in Garden, Farm, and Field The New York Botanical Garden Fourth Triennial Exhibition Virtual exhibition November 21, 2020 - March 26, 2021 www.nybg.org Exhibition will travel through 2022 Wildly Exquisite: Florida’s Native Plants Preservation Foundation of Palm Beach January 18 - April 2, 2021 311 Peruvian Avenue, Palm Beach, FL American Society of Botanical Artists 2900 Southern Blvd., Bronx, NY 10458 www.asba-art.org 866-691-9080 For hosting details and information: exhibitions@asba-art.org asba-art.org/exhibitions From Abundant Future: Eggplants ©Jean Emmons 2020, watercolor on vellum, 13 x 15 inches

DENISE BOHART BROWN

Chasing The Sunset, 15”x28”x5”, kiln-formed glass

denisebohartbrown.com Rainy Sunrise, 17x23x7, kiln-formed glass

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denise@denisebohartbrown.com • 970-819-1362

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Paula B. Holtzclaw awam , opa

Oil Painters of America Eastern Exhibition Reinert Fine Art Charleston, SC Nov. 20 - Dec. 19, 2020 NOAPS “Best of America” Cutter & Cutter Fine Art Gallery St. Augustine, Fl. Nov. 6 - Nov. 29, 2020 Cheryl Newby Gallery Artists Show Pawleys Island, SC Nov. 13 - Dec. 5, 2020

A Brand New Day 24 x 20 Oil

www.paulabholtzclawfineart.com

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Elaine Hahn Original Oils Original Watercolors Limited Edition Prints

Inquiries Welcome www.elainehahnfineart.com elaine@elainehahnart.com 727-945-8115 Serenity 12” x12” Oil on Panel

WILLIAM A. SCHNEIDER AISM, OPAM, PSA-MP

REVEALING THE SOUL

Demure 16 x 20 Oil on Linen Panel

P l e a s e s e e w e b s i t e f o r b l o g a n d w o r k s h o p i n f o r m a t i o n : W W W. S C H N E I D E R A R T. C O M

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Pamela Askew phmaskew phmaskew@gmail.com

“Marisa”, 11 x 14, oil on canvas

Lighting Her Way 48 x 48 Oil on Aluminum Panel

www.jrussellwells.com 847-361- 5124 jrw@jrussellwells.com Studio located in: Barrington, IL

Follow me on Instagram and Facebook

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TOM LINDEN

Over the Field Floe 16” x 20” Oil on Canvas

tomlindenfneart.com | 815-399-6399 | tclinden@yahoo.com

NANCY NOWAK IAPS-EP, AIS, PSA

REPRESENTATION: Marguerite’s on Dresden • Atlanta, GA 2 Smith Gallery • Duluth, GA Commissions and Workshops www.nancynowak.com nancy@nancynowak.com Apple Cart 9 x 12 pastel

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Sara Jane Reynolds FINE ART

Painting the Lowcountry Landscapes of South Carolina SaraJaneReynolds.com 843.442.6929 Sand and Sea 16x20 oil on canvas

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That Winter Day #14 16” x 12” Oil and Cold Wax

BOBBI MILLER

Visit Bobbi’s Home page for instructions about receiving a gratis greeting card and matching envelope featuring one of Bobbi’s artworks. Please note that a portion of all website art sales will benefit the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention through 2021.

w w w. a r t i s t b o b b i m i l l e r. c o m F I N E A R T C O N N O I S S E U R · C O M

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JOAN VIENOT www.joanvienot.com

Rolling Emerald Surf, 30x48 oil on canvas

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IMPASSIONED BY NATURE, INTRIGUED BY LIGHT

By Brooke Wetzel

Now Available at The Dick Idol Signauture Gallery

Dick Idol Signauture Gallery 238 Central Ave Whitefish, MT 59937 www.dickidolgallery.com info@dickidolgallery.com 406.862.5070

30x48 Oil

A Place I Know That Soothes the Soul

From Wireless to Plug-In, if it’s Art Lighting, we have a brilliant solution.

A comprehensive line of innovative lighting for any size art. Made in Naples, Florida. www.SituLighting.com • 1.800.561.0492

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VICTORIA CASTILLO OPA AWA WAOW

As A Woman Tinketh 15-1/2” x 20” Oil and Cold Wax Medium

And Ten She Was Gone 16” x 10”

www.victoriacastillo.com 240.461.7799

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JANET VANDERHOOF www.janetvanderhoof.com jvander51@gmail.com • (408)460-7237

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d i r e c t o ry o f a d v e rt i s i n g

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Leslie, Linda.................................24

American Impressionist Society.... 36

Linden, Tom................................123

American Society of Botanical

Lotton Gallery...............................18

Artists............................................. 119

Lyon, Susan...................................14

Artwork Archive............................. 4

Mary Whyte LLC............................13

Askew, Pamela...............................122

Miller, Bobbi................................125

Banks, Jill E..................................... 6

NOAPS....................................26-30

Barber, Chantel Lynn..................... 118

North Star Art Gallery..................116

Beauregard, Chula......................... 32

Nowak, Nancy.............................123

Bianco, Jessica............................... 40

Paula Holtzclaw Fine Art.............120

Bingham, Bruce.............................124

Rambadt, Don...............................31

Bird, Matthew................................. 7

Rankin, Don.................................116

Boylan, Brenda...............................120

Reed, LaQuincey..........................45

Brabeau, Susan.............................. 44

Reinert Fine Art............................37

Brown, Denise Bohart.................... 119

Reynolds, Linda Harris.................44

Castillo, Victoria.............................128

Reynolds, Sara Jane....................124

Celebration of Fine Art................... 2

RJD Gallery....................................21

Dick Idol Signature Gallery............127

Rogers, Scott...............................40

Dummitt, Morgan........................... 44

Schneider, William A...................121

Duquette, Marc.............................. 45

Schwartz, Jean............................118

France-Vaz, Nanci.......................... 43

SEWE/Southeastern Wildlife

Gary Alsum Bronze Sculpture........ 11

Exposition....................................22

Gienger-Stanfield, Ilene.................125

Situ Lighting................................127

Grantford, Jaq................................ 42

Sneary, Richard...........................126

Hahn, Elaine................................... 121

Springville Museum of Art...........33

Held, John Davis............................. 17

Steiner Prints..............................8-9

Hyde Collection, The..................... 19

Tyng, Alexandra............................41

Insight Gallery................................ 15

Vanderhoof, Janet.......................128

Jacobson, Regina........................... 42

Vanessa Rothe Fine Art................38

Jung, Michelle................................ 5

Vienot, Joan................................126

Knepper, Dan................................. 10

Vovk, Liliya Muglia.......................34

La Herreria Art Studio, LLC............ 23

Waterfowl Festival........................35

Larry Cannon Watercolors............. 117

Wells, J. Russell...........................122

Legacy Gallery, The........................132

Youngquist, Romona...................131

RISH

Make

DECE

Allison, Deborah............................. 117

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C L A S S I C

S A R A H L A C Y ( b . 1 9 8 8 ) , A l l o f M y D e m o n s Te l l M e t o G ive U p… (S e l f- Po r t rait), 2 0 2 0, o il o n b o a r d , 2 0 x 1 6 in ., a v a i l a b l e t h r o u g h 3 3 C o n t e m p o r a r y ’ s p a g e o n a r t s y. n e t

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ROMONA YOUNGQUIST www.romonayoungquist.com

Art Elements Gallery, Newberg OR Artelementsgallery.com | Art on The Boulevard, Vancouver WA Artontheboulevard.org | Bonner David Gallery, Scottsdale AZ and New York NY Bonnerdavid.com | Mockingbird Gallery, Bend OR Mockingbird-gallery.com | Illume Gallery of Fine Art, St George UT Illumegalleryoffneart.com | Howard Mandville Gallery, Woodinville WA Howardmandvillegallery.com | Lovett’s Gallery, Tulsa OK Lovettsgallery.com

JOHN COLEMAN SPIRIT • LIVES • LEGENDS One Man Show November 14, 2020 Premiering 20 New Pieces of S c u l p t u r e s , Pa i n t i n g s a n d D r aw i n g s Sale will be conducted either on a draw or auction basis.

To view additional works please visit our website, www.legacygallery.com.

Daughter of the Plains 291'' x 20'' Oil

7178 Main Street • Scottsdale, AZ 85251 • 480-945-1113 • w w w. l e g a c yg a l l e ry. c o m