Mary Cassatt (1844–1926), "The Letter," 1890–91, color drypoint and aquatint on paper (3rd state of 3), 18 3/4 x 12 in., Philadelphia Museum of Art, bequest of Aaron E. Carpenter, 1970
Mary Cassatt at Work is the exhibition on view June 21 – October 12, 2025 at the Honolulu Museum of Art (HoMA). It features 30 pastels, oil paintings, and prints, as well as personal correspondence, that chronicle Cassatt’s six-decade career as a visual radical who — although born independently wealthy — proceeded to make her own living through art. The only American invited to join the French Impressionist circle, she employed materials and processes that pushed boundaries, inspired particularly by Japanese prints then flowing into France, of which HoMA has one of the largest collections outside Japan.
Organized by the Philadelphia Museum of Art, which has loaned 22 objects, this show also contains eight works from HoMA’s collection, including a drypoint that was among the works gifted by its founder, Anna Rice Cooke, in 1927. Cassatt’s imagery highlights roles traditionally assigned to women such as caregiving, nursing, and making music, so the curators have undertaken fresh research on the class implications of such “invisible work.”
Also on view (May 22–August 17) is an exhibition devoted to Ikeda Shōen (1886–1917), one of the first Japanese women recognized for her printmaking.
Stephanie West, "King of Its Kind," oil, 9 x 12 in.
A plein air exhibit celebrating the Route 66 Centennial and focusing on scenes along the route through New Mexico, Arizona, and California has been organized by Santa Fe Artists Carole Belliveau, Stephanie West, Wendy Ahlm, and Elizabeth May. Their eclectic paintings honor the transcontinental “Mother Road,” and will be on display and available to purchase at the Luna Gallery in San Juan Bautista, CA from June 21 to August 10, 2025, with works from twenty artists.
“We are thrilled to showcase this body of work that captures the iconic Route 66,” said Jennifer Colby, Ph.D., Luna Gallery President. “Our fine art gallery, located in a historic town, provides the community a place to experience art and the artist’s vision.”
Beth May, “Turquoise Tepee,” oil, 16 x 20 in.
Stephanie West organized a trip for twelve artists in October 2024 to spearhead the project and paint locations along Route 66. Many old buildings and artifacts are still standing since the mid 20th Century, so the plan was to meet at the Safari Hotel in Tucumcari, New Mexico and head out to paint from there. As plein air artists, capturing a bygone way of life inspired the group to paint every vintage building, neon sign, and site from the past that deserves its moment in paint.
Wendy Ahlm, “Stay at the Wigwams,” watercolor, 8 x 12 in.
Wendy Ahlm provided photos of the group and videos to augment the exhibition. At the end of the weekend adventure, an impromptu group show was held at the Safari, presenting more than forty works they created in just two days. All the paintings were lined up on the orange and teal blocks of the Safari’s walls.
Carole Belliveau, “In the Weeds, ’57 Ford,” oil, 12 x 12 in.
Later Stephanie West took part of the group to her family’s ranch, where they painted tractors, windmills, and cows, while some of the painters headed home and several more local artists joined. Elizabeth May volunteered to drive the paintings to the Luna Gallery in California, at times along the original Route 66.
The Reception for “Painting Route 66-An Artist Road Trip” is June 21 from 5 – 7 PM PT. Visit the gallery website at www.lunagallery.art for inquiries about paintings.
Tiziano Vecellio, called Titian (Pieve di Cadore 1488/90 – Venice 1576), and Girolamo Dente (recorded from 1525 – before 1572), "Madonna and Child with St. Mary Magdalene," oil on canvas, 104,7 x 93 cm, Trinity Fine Art
Classic Art London: June 23 – July 4, 2025
Classic Art London is a new destination event for international collectors, museum buyers, and those who appreciate or wish to discover more traditional art genres.
Exhibitions featuring old masters will include a rediscovered Titian at Trinity Fine Art, Venice in the 19th century at Charles Beddington Ltd, exceptional drawings and watercolours such as a group of works by the intrepid artist-traveller Constance Gordon-Cumming (1837-1924) at Karen Taylor Fine Art and works on paper by J.M.W. Turner at Guy Peppiatt Fine Art. New discoveries by British and European artists will be presented at Nonesuch Gallery and Alexander Clayton-Payne, and The Limner Company will reveal exquisite miniature portraits by leading practitioners of the art.
John Absolon, R.I. (1815-1895), “A Student’s Lodgings,” c.1837-1840, signed verso, and labelled: ‘32 Jermyn Street’, watercolour and bodycolour on paper, Alexander Clayton-Payne
Modern masters are represented by Daniel Katz Gallery which stages a significant Paul Nash show; early 20th century cubists form the centrepiece of Ben Elwes Fine Art’s exhibition, while leading Impressionists will feature at Haynes Fine Art in Belgravia and David Messum Fine Art in St. James’s. A joint exhibition by Rountree Tryon Galleries and Fine Art Commissions will combine traditional form portraiture and British sporting and equine paintings, both mainstays of ‘The English Look’ so admired in country houses.
Other dealers taking part include Colnaghi, showing paintings, drawings and sculptures; Justin Raccanello with important Italian ceramics, and Paul Mitchell Ltd, specialists in antique picture frames, whose expertise has for decades helped transformed important works for numerous international collections.
John Varley (1778-1842), “View of Belgrave House and Westminster Bridge from a Sketch taken in 1811, shortly before it was pulled down,” watercolour over pencil heightened with bodycolour, 20.9 by 29.1 cm., 8 ¼ by 11 ½ in., Guy Peppiatt Fine Art
Dealers based in Cecil Court, off St. Martin’s Lane will be joining Classic Art London, including Emanuel von Baeyer (old master drawings, prints and paintings) and Darnley Fine Art (old masters and Orientalist paintings). This special pedestrianised street close to the National Gallery and National Portrait Gallery retains its Victorian atmosphere, as well as its original gas lamps, and is home to art, map and book, and antiques dealers.
Constance Gordon-Cumming (1837-1924), “Entrance to the Yosemite Valley,” watercolour over pencil, 49 x 58 cm.; 19 ¼ x 22 ¾ inches, Karen Taylor Fine Art
Classic Art London’s talks series is designed to appeal to museum scholars, collectors and students of art history, as well as offering more accessible and entertaining topics to reach a wider audience of art connoisseurs. For curators and collectors, podium discussions will span from dealing with climate change to shared ownership of major works, and the rise of private museums. There will be a talk on how gallerists have shaped collecting interests, the important matter of art in education, and J.M.W. Turner at 250. Vanity Fair contributor Patrick Monaghan will chair a talk with art specialists based on Country Life’s popular feature series “The One Thing I Couldn’t Part With” with proceeds going towards The Society of Antiquaries’ fundraising campaign.
Full details are on the website at www.classicartlondon.uk. Classic Art London coincides with sales at the major auction houses and a wide range of antiques and art events such as the RA’s Summer Exhibition, Treasure House Fair and Trois Crayons, making it the prefect time to come and enjoy all the classic art London has to offer.
How do you find inspiration? Paula B. Holtzclaw: I always find visiting art museums, looking through art books and magazines as well as my photographs, to be very inspiring. Experiencing new sights while travelling spark new and exciting material. Just showing up at the canvas will create inspiration! One of my favorite quotes is by Chuck Close, regarding inspiration: “The advice I like to give young artists, or really anybody who’ll listen to me, is not to wait around for inspiration. Inspiration is for amateurs; the rest of us just show up and get to work. If you wait around for the clouds to part and a bolt of lightning to strike you in the brain, you are not going to make an awful lot of work. All the best ideas come out of the process; they come out of the work itself. Things occur to you. If you’re sitting around trying to dream up a great art idea, you can sit there a long time before anything happens. But if you just get to work, something will occur to you and something else will occur to you and something else that you reject will push you in another direction. Inspiration is absolutely unnecessary and somehow deceptive. You feel like you need this great idea before you can get down to work, and I fine that’s almost never the case.”
What is the best thing about being an artist? Paula B. Holtzclaw: The best thing about being an artist is truly being able to recognize and experience the awareness of the beauty that surrounds us. I believe artists have the gift of being present in the moment; we have to be, in order to absorb and then portray. I know that lucky, and not always common, is the person who is able to do exactly what they love to do.
As part of our effort to continue to help artists and art galleries thrive, we’re proud to bring you this week’s “Virtual Gallery Walk.” Browse the artwork below and click the image itself to learn more about it, including how to contact the gallery.
Fish Creek Reflections, Marian Fortunati, oil on linen panel, 16 x 20 in; Marian Fortunati
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Dusk Over the Gorge, Laurie Hendricks, oil on canvas, 16 x 20 in; CAC 114th Annual Gold Medal Show; Laurie Hendricks
Want to see your gallery featured in an upcoming Virtual Gallery Walk? Contact us at [email protected] to advertise today. Don’t delay, as spaces are first come, first served, and availability is limited.
How do I find inspiration?
Susan Hediger Matteson: There can be days where you can feel stumped but not too often for me. I find it is good practice to go to a spot and paint what is there, whether a small scene or an expanse. I like to revisit some spots to refine/revisit a design. My favorite thing to do is to head out when there is weather in the area. On those weather days, snow and rain, there are a million paintings happening, kind of an “everything, everywhere, all at once” and I feel I just can’t paint fast enough.
Susan Hediger Matteson, Moonlight Sonata, oil on linen, 14 x 11in; available through artistSusan Hediger Matteson, The Far Hills, oil on linen,14 x 18 in; available through artist
Just announced: The Laguna Plein Air Painters Association’s 27th Invitational and this year’s Gallery Exhibition Master Artists. From the organizers:
LPAPA: Beyond the Landscape
The Laguna Plein Air Painters Association (LPAPA) is known for its prestigious Laguna Beach Plein Air Painting Invitational, now in its 27th year. What may not be known is LPAPA opened its own nonprofit art gallery in Laguna Beach in 2021; and while they continuously strive to promote the legacy of plein air painting, LPAPA is not only about ‘plein air’ art.
Plein air painting, or the practice of painting outdoors, informs the artist’s studio work when their studies, sketches, and color notes are brought back to the studio to create larger studio paintings.
Some artists become so proficient at completing a work of art onsite, that the plein air painting is framed and sold as is. Some collectors enjoy collecting the artist’s outdoor studies. The artists selected to participate in LPAPA’s annual Laguna Beach Plein Air Painting Invitational are the top award-winning outdoor painters from across the country, and outside the US.
Some artists evolve to a point in their careers where they retire from painting competitions, or rarely compete in painting invitationals. LPAPA believes, however, that their work should be seen and celebrated with the LPAPA community of artists and patrons. Each year since opening the LPAPA Gallery in 2021, LPAPA has invited an artist to paint for a “Master Exhibition” showcased at the gallery. Past Master Artists have been Kathleen Dunphy, Jove Wang, Ray Roberts, and John Cosby.
Introducing the 2025 LPAPA Gallery Exhibition Master Artists
This year LPAPA is excited to announce that Jove Wang will return to exhibit with two other Master Artists, Scott Burdick and Dan McCaw.
This special exhibition goes far beyond what you would expect to see at the LPAPA Gallery. The show opens in Laguna Beach on June 5 with an Art Walk Reception, and continues through June 30. Subscribers to LPAPA’s free E-News will have the opportunity to preview the show online beginning June 2.
Scott Burdick
Scott and his wife Susan, who is also a celebrated artist, live in a rural area of North Carolina. Surrounded by forests and the foothills of the Appalachian Mountains, their house is a perfect resting place after the many trips they take throughout the world in search of subject matter to paint.
Scott Burdick was born in Chicago, Illinois in 1967 where his mother and father early on encouraged his interest in art.
“I spent a lot of time in hospitals as a child and remember my mother showing me how to transform simple shapes like circles, triangles, and squares into objects like planes, helicopters, and fish,” Scott said. “It seemed like such a magical thing and made spending so much time in casts and on crutches much more bearable.
“I see painting as both a way of exploring the world and then as the vehicle of sharing those discoveries with others. I travel to find subjects to paint, as much as paint, so I can travel and expand my horizons. Through this unique language, one can say things that are impossible with words.”
Scott Burdick, “A Friend From Nowhere,” oil, 36 x 24 in.
Scott participated in the first Laguna Plein Air Painting Invitational in 1999, and returned to compete in 2000, 2002, 2003, and 2006, receiving numerous awards. Although he continues to paint the landscape, especially in his travels, he’s also known for his portrait and figurative work.
He explains, “What makes a portrait a good painting is simple. Emotion. If you look at a portrait, or any other painting for that matter, and feel nothing but admiration for the technical skill, it is pointless, in my opinion. A certain lack of technical skill can be forgiven if the emotion still shows through, but the opposite is never true.”
Dan McCaw
Dan McCaw in the art studio
Dan McCaw is a contemporary American artist who lives and works in Torrance, California with his two accomplished artist sons, John and Danny.
Dan’s work is a bridge between his traditional background and the contemporary influences that continually impact his art. Strong design is the foundation that his work is based upon, but curiosity is the fuel that drives his creativity. “Art flourishes in change, it expands when its limits are limitless,” he says. “The artist must remain open to its possibilities and eliminate the dispassionate. The dignity of art is not in its constants but in the liberation of its possibilities.”
Dan McCaw, “Sisters,” oil on board, 36 x 24 in.
Influenced by the classical Masters at an early age, Dan has seen his appreciation and seduction for many different genres of art: “Anything that makes me think, makes me engage and broadens my perceptions, is of great importance and interest to me.” Dan says he tries to make his paintings somewhat ambiguous so that the viewer, if they wish, can participate and walk through a door that he just holds open, what you find inside becomes your own. If he defines or explains everything, Dan feels that he robs you of your own experience.
He explains, “Painting is an intimate conversation within ourselves, the canvas is like the pages of a diary, and at times the artist is willing to share this intimate conversation. The pages are fragile, the edges frayed, some have been torn out of frustration, some smeared from fear of failure, some wrinkled from being held too tight, some have been dipped in dreams and dried in the sun and some are waiting to be turned. What is said between the words becomes more important than the words themselves. Art at its best moves something that is indefinable within myself. This is why I turn the pages.”
Jove Wang
Jove Wang at his studio easel
Jove Wang was born in Jilin, China in 1962. At the tender age of seven, he apprenticed with the master oil painter Gang Gu, subsequently studying at Jilin School of Art for three years and graduating in 1982. He was accepted into the most prestigious art institute of China, Zhejiang Academy of Fine Arts (now known as China Academy of Art), and graduated as an honor student in 1988. In 1990 he immigrated to the United States where he soon met with success. Immersing himself in the art study and exploration of old Masters, he has established a career that has garnered him national recognition.
Jove participated in the Laguna Beach Plein Air Painting Invitational in 2000 and 2001, and returned to compete in 2005, 2007, 2012, 2017, and 2018, as well as 2021, 2022, and 2024, receiving numerous awards. Jove is known for his expressive landscapes and portraits.
Jove Wang, “Mama Joy,” oil on board, 18 x 28 in.
Jove shares, “I have made it my goal: Each work I paint has to be endowed with its own life and soul from deep within; be it a drama, an opera, a poem, or even a fantasy. In terms of concept and thinking of creation, I adopt the point-line-mass elements of modern design aesthetic, the expression performance of oil painting and the coordinated change of overall colors to make paintings full of life and vitality. Meanwhile, realistic tactics are used to express the spirit of modern expressionism.”
LPAPA’s President Toni Kellenberg adds, “LPAPA is a vibrant, growing artists community that connects painters to Laguna’s century-old legacy as an Art Colony. We celebrate the arts and artists by welcoming artists to join LPAPA and participate in juried art shows that are exhibited at the LPAPA Gallery. With the exception of the annual Best of Plein Air, all of LPAPA’s juried shows are open to both plein air and studio art submissions, and a new exhibition is hung each month.”
“Nuance”, Daniel Volenec, Framed Pencil, Chalk, Pastel Drawing, 9 x 12 in; Available through Chelsie Nicole Contemporary
Daniel Volenec: After years of creating large works, Daniel Volenec is again exploring small drawings, often of individuals within the confines of patterned, thematic backgrounds. He explores deeply personal themes; the act of decision making, the struggle for acceptance, the reconciliation of broken relationships.
His subjects reveal strength, hope, dignity, faith, and the myriad complexities of the human condition.
“Morimoto’s Muse”, Daniel Volenec, Framed Pencil, Chalk, Pastel Drawing, 9 x 12 in; Available through Chelsie Nicole Contemporary“Flight of Fancy”, Daniel Volenec, Framed Pencil, Chalk, Pastel Drawing, 12 x 12 in; Available through Chelsie Nicole Contemporary
“Sotto il Ponte Vecchio," Jill Stefani Wagner, oil on canvas, 20 x30 in; available through J. Petter Galleries
Jill Stefani Wagner: “Whatever I paint, my focus is always the light and how it affects the scene I’m trying to capture. Working in pastel and oil, I approach my paintings as a sculptor would, carving out nuances of light and shadow.” A devoted plein air artist, Jill paints worldwide. A Master Pastelist in Pastel Society of America and International Association of Pastel Societies, her work has been published in Pastel Journal, Fine Art Connoisseur and Plein Air Magazine.
“Lake Trees,” Jill Stefani Wagner,oil on canvas, 16 x 20 in; available through Somebody’s Gallery“Long Road Home,” Jill Stefani Wagner, oil on canvas, 20 x30 in; available through artist
Bill Farnsworth (b. 1958), "Afternoon Walk," 2024, oil on canvas, 40 x 30 in.
The nonprofit organization Oil Painters of America (OPA) will soon launch its 34th National Juried Exhibition of Traditional Oils at the Herrig Center for the Arts in Bradenton. On view will be representational paintings created by approximately 200 artists, as well as many of OPA’s Master Signature artists.
The opening week will encompass OPA’s annual convention (May 27–June 1), the highlight of which is the reception and awards ceremony set for May 30. At that time, awards juror Patrick Saunders will present roughly $100,000 in cash and merchandise prizes, including the $25,000 Gold Medal.
This busy period will also encompass the fifth annual Student Art Competitions targeted at younger artists aged 14–18 and 19–23. The top three winners in each division will be invited to display their works in tandem with the National Exhibition.
At a Glance:
OIL PAINTERS OF AMERICA NATIONAL EXHIBITION
Herrig Center for the Arts
Bradenton, Florida oilpaintersofamerica.org
May 30–June 28, 2025
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