The Peabody Essex Museum (pem.org) has organized the first exhibition to examine “Struggle: From the History of the American People,” the series of paintings created by the African American artist Jacob Lawrence (1917–2000).
This new project, titled “Jacob Lawrence: The American Struggle,” will reunite — for the first time in more than 60 years — 25 of his 30 panels depicting pivotal moments in early American history. (Five panels remain unlocated.) All emphasize the contributions that blacks, Native Americans, and women made in shaping America’s identity.
Created during the modern civil rights era, Lawrence’s thirty intimate panels interpret pivotal moments in the American Revolution and the early decades of the republic between 1770 and 1817 and, as he wrote, “depict the struggles of a people to create a nation and their attempt to build a democracy.”
This show will travel onward to the Metropolitan Museum of Art (New York City), Birmingham Museum of Art (Alabama), Seattle Art Museum, and Phillips Collection (Washington, DC)
Detail, Sermon on the Mount stained glass. Images courtesy Anthony’s Fine Art
Join Dr. Micah Christensen (PhD, History of Art, University College London) to discuss a monumental stained-glass window recently acquired by Anthony’s Fine Art in St. Lake City, Utah.
Dr. Micah Christensen
Originally commissioned for a New York church, the window depicts the Sermon on the Mount and offers an opportunity to to see, discuss, and celebrate the history of stained glass and its use in religious spaces.
Beauford Delaney (1901–1979), “Portrait of James Baldwin,” 1944, pastel on paper, 24 x 18 3/4 in., Knoxville Museum of Art
Through May 10, view “Beauford Delaney and James Baldwin: Through the Unusual Door” at the Knoxville Museum of Art. This exhibition of 50+ paintings, works on paper, and unpublished archival material examines the 38-year relationship between painter Beauford Delaney (Knoxville 1901–1979 Paris) and writer James Baldwin (New York 1924–1987 Saint-Paul-de-Vence, France) and the ways their ongoing intellectual exchange shaped one another’s creative output and worldview.
“Through the Unusual Door” seeks to identify and disentangle the skein of influences that grew over and around a rich, complex lifetime relationship with a selection of Delaney’s works that reflects the powerful presence of Baldwin in Delaney’s life. The exhibition draws from the KMA’s extensive Delaney holdings, public and private collections around the country, and rarely displayed papers held by the Delaney estate. KMA curator Stephen Wicks is organizing the exhibition, which is accompanied by a color-illustrated catalogue published by the University of Tennessee Press.
Beauford Delaney, “Dark Rapture (James Baldwin)”
The KMA is proud to hold the world’s largest public collection of work by Knoxville native Beauford Delaney, who overcame poverty, racial discrimination, and mental illness to achieve international renown. The young Delaney’s precocious talent was recognized by Lloyd Branson, Knoxville’s first full-time professional artist, who mentored Beauford and his brother Joseph. By 1929, Beauford Delaney had settled in New York, where he attracted a distinguished circle of cultural luminaries that included Georgia O’Keeffe and Henry Miller, but it was the much younger James Baldwin who had the most significant influence on the artist. Baldwin found in Delaney a father figure, muse, and model of perseverance as a gay man of color. Delaney found in Baldwin a powerful intellectual and spiritual anchor who inspired some of his finest works. Encouraged by Baldwin, Delaney left New York in 1953 and settled in Paris, where he lived until his death in 1979 and where artist and writer continued their long and mutually beneficial relationship. “Through the Unusual Door” presents the story of Baldwin and Delaney in a way that inspires reconsideration of their life circumstances and raises important questions about the nature of the racial and sexual identity barriers they faced.
The exhibition title, “Through the Unusual Door,” comes from a passage in Baldwin’s volume of collected essays The Price of the Ticket (1985), describing the author’s reaction to his initial encounter with Delaney in the doorway of the artist’s Greenwich Village studio: “Lord, I was to hear Beauford sing, later, and for many years, open the unusual door … I walked through that door into Beauford’s colors.” This first meeting encapsulates Delaney’s transformational effect on Baldwin’s view of himself and the world he lived in, and set the tone for the painter’s role in the author’s life as a father figure and mentor. Baldwin, in turn, inspired Delaney with his fearless social conscience and commitment to civil rights causes. They helped each other to move beyond the pain and oppression imposed on them by the world.
While no other figure in Beauford Delaney’s extensive social orbit approaches James Baldwin in the extent and duration of influence, none of the major exhibitions of Delaney’s work has explored in any depth the creative exchange between the two. Previous scholarship has almost exclusively emphasized the artist’s stylistic evolution from the 1940s to the 1960s as a function of his move from New York to Paris.
“Through the Unusual Door” posits the idea that this profound stylistic change was in part inspired by the intellectual and personal relationship between Delaney and Baldwin. Ordinary daily observations — reflections in puddles in the streets of Greenwich village or the quality of light filtered through the window of Delaney’s studio in the Paris suburb of Clamart — sparked extraordinary creative exchanges between the two. The exhibition incorporates previously unpublished archival materials and artworks that promise to extend the understanding of Delaney’s aesthetic agenda and range and reveal the extent of his ties to Baldwin.
Acquiring and showing the work of Knoxville native Beauford Delaney has been a longstanding institutional priority for the Knoxville Museum of Art. In the summer of 2017 the museum organized “Gathering Light: Works by Beauford Delaney” from the KMA Collection, the first-ever showing of its own holdings. “Gathering Light” kicked off a multi-year, community-wide initiative to honor the legacy of Beauford and his brother, Joseph, under the rubric of the Delaney Project, a consortium of organizations and individuals dedicated to making the Delaney brothers better known in their hometown.
The KMA, the East Tennessee Historical Society, Beck Cultural Exchange Center, Marble City Opera, and the University of Tennessee Humanities Center are just a few of the organizations involved in presenting the Delaney brothers to the local community and to the world. The KMA expects “Through the Unusual Door” to make a significant contribution to Delaney scholarship, raise the museum’s institutional profile nationally, promote the artist’s legacy in his hometown, and enhance Knoxville’s standing as a center for Beauford Delaney studies.
“Beauford Delaney and James Baldwin: Through the Unusual Door” is made possible by generous underwriting from the Henry Luce Foundation, the National Endowment for the Arts, and the Art Dealers Association of America Foundation.
Quang Ho, “Figure by the Stream II,” oil on linen, 18 x 12 in. $4,100
Gallery 1261 (Denver, Colorado) recently announced that it is hosting a solo exhibition of new work by a nationally renowned master painter, Quang Ho, titled “Process.”
More from the gallery:
Quang Ho’s work, which is primarily in oils, ranges from still lifes to landscapes, interiors, and figurative work.
Quang Ho, “Fish Seller,” oil on linen, 9 x 12 in. $3,100
Providing insight into his newest exhibition, Ho shares, “This exhibition is called ‘Process.’ But it is also about play. To quote Einstein, ‘The highest form of research is play.’ It is in the process of playing with colors, texture, value, edges, and paint that one breaks through personal boundaries and tendencies. I have found that rather than finding new subject matter to paint, I can do more by revisiting ideas that were meaningful to me in the past and find new ways of engaging with them. It is the delight and surprise in unexpected happenings that bring me continually to the canvas. The first part of the development of an artist is mastering the medium of expression; after that comes speaking as much truth as you are capable of without all the intellectual gymnastics. That is a higher art.”
Quang Ho, “Heavy Laden,” oil, 48 x 60 in. $38,000
With this particular body of work, it was most important to Quang to explore different ways of saying what he has already discovered during his impressive creative journey of 56 years. “I’m bringing past themes to life, digging deeper into the visual language, and exploring new boundaries.” For Ho, creating the most fundamentally sound composition is imperative at this point in his creative journey. Whether the compositions before them are complex or simple, he hopes that the viewers walk away with a sense of emotional reaction that inspired each painting.
Quang Ho, “Spring Arrangement,” 2020, oil, 30 x 30 in. $14,500
Further considering the process of painting in his experience, Quang adds, “For me, painting is a marriage between the mastery of those basic visual elements: the discoveries and understanding of visual statements (the search for what is true on a personal level artistically), and the trust in one’s own wordless intuition and inspiration. Understanding gives rise to higher understanding. Working this way allows me to open the door to new ideas and inspirations. One day I may be interested in a color statement, and the next may be a relationship of simple shapes, and the next, an extremely complex arrangement of texture and edges. With every painting, there is a singular visual thought to be completed.”
Quang Ho, “Mermaid,” oil on linen, 12 x 18 in. $4,300
As he contemplates his evolution starting with his first-ever solo, to now, Quang exclaims, “They are like night and day. My first solo was about execution. I was an accomplished major, but it was really about executing paintings well. The show I am presenting now is reaching much deeper. Now, I am composing a symphony, exploring a visual vocabulary, rather than trying to figure out what the visual world is doing.” Quang’s impressive artistic journey is a massive accomplishment. When asked what has been the primary driving force in his career, he chuckles. “With any discipline you enter into, you want to become a master and understand it. Now that I have no more questions about painting, I am enjoying discovering, exploring, and surprising myself.”
ABOUT THE ARTIST
Quang Ho was born on April 30, 1963, in Hue, Vietnam. He Immigrated to the United States in 1975. His artistic interest began at the early age of three and continued through grade school, high school, and art school and led him to an exciting and successful painting profession. In 1980, at the age of 16, Quang held his first solo show at Tomorrow’s Masters Gallery in Denver, Colorado. The exhibit was a big success for the high school sophomore. In 1982, Quang’s mother was killed in a tragic auto accident, leaving him the responsibility of raising four younger brothers and a six-year-old sister. That same year, Quang attended the Colorado Institute of Art on a National Scholastics Art Awards Scholarship. At CIA, Quang studied painting under Rene Bruhin, whom Quang credits with developing the foundation for his artistic understanding. Ho graduated from CIA in 1985 with Best Portfolio Award for the graduating class.
He is a much sought-after teacher and lecturer on art and has won numerous prestigious awards nationally from the Artists of America to the Oil Painters of America exhibits. He has held a retrospective exhibit at the Steamboat Springs Museum of Art and has held shows at the Woolaroc Museum as well as the Booth Museum of Western Art. Quang enjoys reading philosophy and science, playing guitar and golf, and he finds time to hunt for fossils and forage for mushrooms.
Eli Wilner Frame, European 19th Century Style Frame Ex. Vincent van Gogh
Based on a European 19th century period frame. Gallery price: $38,000 - 46,000; Auction estimate: $25,000 - 30,000; Starting bid: $6,000. Provenance: This frame was loaned to Sotheby’s to present Vincent van Gogh’s (1853–1890) “Paysage sous un Ciel Mouvementé” (1889), which realized a price of $54,010,000. The work is oil on canvas and was offered at Sotheby’s in Fall 2015. Photo credit: Guernsey’s
On February 19, Guernsey’s will conduct an unprecedented auction of The Frame as Art: Eli Wilner’s Personal Collection, consisting of more than four hundred of the workshop’s finest frames made using old-world artisanship.
What do the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Smithsonian Museum, and the White House have in common? On the walls of each, one will find more than two dozen picture frames crafted at the workshops of Eli Wilner & Company, Master Framers. When The Met was searching for an intricately carved, stunning, and massive 14 by 23-foot gold-leafed frame to showcase its historic painting “Washington Crossing the Delaware,” the museum commissioned Eli Wilner for the coveted seven-figure assignment. And when Sotheby’s and Christie’s required the very finest frames to surround important works by Picasso, Van Gogh, Monet, O’Keeffe, Rockwell, and Magritte, they reached out to the Wilner studio.
Eli Wilner Frame, European 19th Century Style Frame, Ex: Pablo Picasso Based on a European 19th century style frame. Similar replicas have been used by Wilner for Impressionist/Modern paintings such as those by Picasso, Miro, Chagall, and Braque. This frame includes a strainer designed for a float fitting. Gallery price: $52,000 – 63,000; Auction estimate: $35,000 – 40,000; Starting bid: $9,000. Provenance: This frame was loaned to Sotheby’s to present Pablo Picasso’s (1881–1973) “Le Peintre et Son Modèle” (1963), which realized a price of $12,906,000. The work is oil on canvas and was offered at Sotheby’s in Fall 2016. Photo credit: Guernsey’s
Following the conclusion of prominent museum exhibitions or important art auctions, frames that the company loaned for those occasions were returned and became part of the Eli Wilner Classic Frame Collection. Each unique frame will include its exhibition history. The auction will include frames that surrounded works such as van Gogh’s “Paysage sous un Ciel Mouvementé” for $54 million, Rockwell’s “The Gossips” for $8 million, and Picasso’s “Le Peintre et son Modèle” for $13 million, all of which were sold at Sotheby’s.
In addition to “Washington Crossing the Delaware,” The Met framed John Singer Sargent’s famous “Madame X” in an exquisite Wilner work, while a visit to the White House would include sightings of Eli Wilner frames on Albert Bierstadt’s powerful “Storm Clouds” and, in the Oval Office, Childe Hassam’s “The Avenue in the Rain.”
Eli Wilner Frame, American c. 1810 Iconographic Frame Ex. Gilbert Stuart “George Washington” Based on an American c. 1810 iconographic American frame with an eagle at the center top, stars in the cove, and shields at each corner. *Gallery price: $32,000 – 39,000; Auction estimate: $20,000 – 25,000; Starting bid: $5,000. Provenance: This frame was loaned to Sotheby’s to present Gilbert Stuart’s (1755–1828) George Washington (c. 1796–1803), which realized a price of $398,500. The work is oil on canvas, and was offered at Sotheby’s in Fall 2010. Photo credit: Guernsey’s
Eli Wilner Frame, Charles Prendergast Design, American c. 1920 Style Frame
Based on an American c. 1920 Charles Prendergast style frame. *Gallery price: $12,000 – 15,000; Auction estimate: $7,000 – 9,000; Starting bid: $1,750. Provenance: This frame was loaned to Christie’s to present Maurice Brazil Prendergast’s (1859–1924) “Seascape” (c. 1907), which had a price realized of $68,500. The work is oil on canvas and was offered at Christie’s in Spring 2010. Photo credit: Guernsey’sInquiries about this unprecedented upcoming auction should be directed to Guernsey’s (212-794-2280, [email protected]), the New York–based auction house known for such events as the landmark Cold War auction of artwork from the Soviet Union, the Titanic sale, auctions of recovered collections of Holocaust-related art, and the John F. Kennedy auctions. Visit https://www.guernseys.com/v2/eli_wilner_collection.html for more information.
Elizabeth Butler Succulents and Kumquats on Gold
36 x 60 in.
Oil and gold leaf on panel
$9,800
As native of Arizona, Elizabeth Butler has always been inspired by the beauty of nature. In turn her floral and botanical works of art inspire others to appreciate the gifts of nature. Her current body of work makes an effort to accomplish that with flowers. She arranges and paints them in such a way as to draw attention to that life-giving fullness they embody. She carefully selects and arranges the flowers and photographs them as reference, but also keeps the live bouquet as inspiration as she lets her imagination run free. Her work is currently on display, along with 100 other artists, at the Celebration of Fine Art in Scottsdale, AZ through March 29, 2020. Contact us at 480-443-7695 or [email protected].
Linda Wilder, “Rundle from Vermillion,” acrylic, 24 x 36 in.
In the spirit of the French Salon created by the Academie des Beaux-Arts in Paris, the Plein Air Salon, with monthly cycles leading to annual Salon Grand Prize winners, is designed to stimulate artistic growth through competition.
Today we celebrate the works of nine winners from the acrylic paintings division of the Plein Air Salon.
Margaret Plumb, “Loon Lake in June,” acrylicDoug Osa, “Weston Shadows,” acrylic, 18 x 36 in.Laara Cassells, “Adeline,” acrylic, 38 x 26 in.Igor Raikhline, “Sunday Morning,” acrylic, 36 x 18 in.Rick Delanty, “Sunburst,” acrylic, 24 x 24 in.Eugene Kuperman, “Coronado Beach,” acrylic, 5 x 7 in.John Kiser, “Pink Harbor,” acrylic, 16 x 20 in.Brian LaSaga, “Two for Joy,” acrylic, 20 x 28 in.
The Plein Air Salon rewards artists with $33,600 in cash prizes and exposure of their work, with the winning painting featured on the cover of Plein Air Magazine. The art competition is now open and accepting entries.
Mystic Seaport Museum, in partnership with Tate, London, will host a major monographic exhibition devoted to the watercolors of one of Britain’s greatest painters: J.M.W. Turner (1775–1851). Mystic Seaport Museum will be the only North American venue for the exhibition.
The exhibition — curated by David Blayney Brown, Tate’s Manton Senior Curator of British Art 1790–1850 — will provide an exceptional opportunity to see key works spanning the entire career of the artist. A unique collection of about 90 works, the selection will provide a view into the evolution of the artist’s vision and creative process.
More from the organizers:
The Turner Bequest received by the British nation in 1856, five years after the death of the painter J.M.W. Turner in 1851, is one of the largest, most revealing collections of a single artist’s work in existence. Mostly housed today at Tate Britain, London, it is a museum within a museum, containing the vast hoard of his lifetime’s work that Turner left in his house and studio. Besides 100 pictures he had kept to hang in a Turner Gallery he hoped would be created in his memory, the Bequest includes many oil sketches, studies and works in progress, and, most remarkably, tens of thousands of works on paper: watercolors, drawings, and sketchbooks.
As one of the most gifted draftsmen of his generation, and a superlative master of watercolor, Turner sold most of his finished and exhibited watercolors. What he kept for himself was different, but in no way inferior. It has a special character of its own, surely often closer to the artist’s true self than the work he made for the public. John Ruskin, one of the first to study the whole Bequest, observed how much of it had been made for Turner’s “own pleasure.” Intimate, expressive, experimental, it offers unique insights into the mind, imagination, and private practice of a great Romantic painter.
This selection from the Bequest allows us to look over Turner’s shoulder as he progresses from conventional beginnings as a topographical and architectural draftsman to embrace an extraordinary range of subject matter in a dynamic manner founded on a refined appreciation of light, color, and atmospheric effects. Joined in this exhibition by a small group of finished watercolors and oil paintings to show their impact on Turner’s public output, these most personal of his works remain as fresh and immediate today as when they first appeared on paper.
Jean-François Millet, “Haystacks: Autumn,” c. 1874, oil on canvas, 33 1/2 x 43 3/8 in., The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Bequest of Lillian S. Timken, 1959 2020.71
On February 16, the Saint Louis Art Museum will open “Millet and Modern Art: From Van Gogh to Dalí,” an exhibition that examines, for the first time, the international legacy of the 19th-century French painter, Jean-François Millet.
From the museum:
Millet (1814–1875) was a pioneer in developing innovative imagery of rural peasantry, landscapes, and nudes, and his work had a deep impact on later generations of artists. In the late 19th century, he was arguably the best-known modern painter, and his works sold for the highest prices of any modern pictures at auction. Today, he is less well known, and “Millet and Modern Art” explores Millet’s original importance and the international range of artists he influenced.
The exhibition is organized by the Saint Louis Art Museum and the Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam. It runs through May 17.
“This groundbreaking exhibition rediscovers Millet’s critical role in the birth and development of modern art,” said Brent R. Benjamin, the Barbara B. Taylor Director of the Saint Louis Art Museum. “It will be a visually stunning treat for our visitors, and it is an important contribution to art historical scholarship.”
Masterworks on loan from many of the world’s greatest museums situate Millet’s imagery within the context of work by a wide, international range of artists whom he influenced. Among the latter are the Dutchman Vincent van Gogh; the Frenchmen Camille Pissarro, Georges Seurat, and Claude Monet; the Italian Giovanni Segantini; the American Winslow Homer; the German Paula Modersohn-Becker; the Norwegian Edvard Munch, and the Spaniard Salvador Dalí.
Rural labor was always an important theme for Millet, and the exhibition looks at imagery such as the sower, the reaper, and the gleaner, in which the artist articulated his sympathy for the marginalized rural poor and suggested larger metaphorical narratives of birth and death. Millet’s work had a particularly deep impact on Van Gogh, who referred to him as “father Millet.”
Vincent van Gogh, Dutch (1853–1890), “Evening: The Watch (after Millet),” 1889, oil on canvas, 29 5/16 × 36 13/16 in., Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam (Vincent van Gogh Foundation) 2020.34
The exhibition includes several iconic images by Van Gogh, including two important paintings of “The Sower” and the Musée d’Orsay’s rarely lent “Starry Night,” which predates van Gogh’s painting of the same title in the collection of the Museum of Modern Art, New York. Among the American artists represented in the show is Homer, whose “The Bright Side” reinterprets Millet’s imagery through the lens of race.
Jean-François Millet, “The Sower,” after 1850, oil on canvas; 41 1/2 × 33 3/4 in., Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh: 19th Century or Earlier Painting Purchase Fund and with funds provided by Mr. and Mrs. Samuel B. Casey and Mr. and Mrs. George L. Craig, Jr. 2020.117Winslow Homer, American (1836–1910), “The Bright Side,” 1865, oil on canvas, 12 3/4 × 17 in., Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, Gift of Mr. and Mrs. John D. Rockefeller 3rd 2020.55
In the late 19th century, Millet’s drawings and pastels were often seen as more formally radical than his paintings.
The show includes important groupings of works on paper, demonstrating their impact on artists such as Georges Seurat. There is also a body of Millet’s little-known nude imagery that deeply affected Edgar Degas.
The exhibition emphasizes the significance of Millet’s landscape paintings, which increasingly dominated his practice in the last decade of his life. His marine imagery is paired with that of his fellow Norman, Monet, who was also fascinated by the sea. An important loan in this section is “Spring,” a late masterpiece in which Millet showcases his ability to capture light from a passing rainbow. This is related to imagery by the American George Inness.
The final and culminating section of the exhibition centers on Millet’s “Angelus,” one of the most expensive modern paintings of the late 19th century and an important national symbol of France to this day. The show includes related work by artists including Munch, the Russian Natalia Goncharova, and an important group of pictures by Dalí, who was obsessed by Millet’s “Angelus.”
The exhibition is co-curated by Simon Kelly, curator of modern and contemporary art at the Saint Louis Art Museum, and Maite van Dijk, senior curator at the Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam.
“Millet and Modern Art” is organized by the Saint Louis Art Museum and the Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam, with exceptional support from the Musée d’Orsay, Paris. The exhibition is presented in St. Louis by the Betsy and Thomas Patterson Foundation.
The William Secord Gallery (New York) recently announced “Christine Merrill: The Royal Breeds,” featuring the paintings of Christine Merrill, whose portraits of show dogs, sporting dogs, and beloved pets have enriched the lives of collectors around the world.
From the gallery:
Timed to coincide with the Westminster Kennel Club’s 144th dog show, this exhibition marks Merrill’s thirty-year anniversary with the Gallery. The exhibition is a tribute to the many breeds that the British Royal Family have had over the years, including Cavalier King Charles Spaniels, Collies, Corgis, Foxhounds, Labrador Retrievers, Pomeranians, Pekingese, and Pugs.
Born in Baltimore, Maryland, Christine developed a passion for painting animals at a young age. When she was two, her mother put a pencil in her hand and she immediately started drawing animals. With dogs and horses as her first loves, she painted her first portrait of a dog at the age of five. Rather than pursue a conventional academic degree in the arts, Merrill attended the traditional Schuler School of Fine Arts in Baltimore, where she studied for five years under the school’s founder, Hans Schuler and his wife, Ann. Since 1975, Christine Merrill has specialized in the depiction of dogs, completing commissions for clients across America as well as in Europe and Japan.
Merrill’s work hangs in many private and public collections, including the American Kennel Club Museum of the Dog in New York City. Her work is in the private collections of Barbara Taylor Bradford, Bob Shieffer, and Oprah Winfrey, as well as the late Malcolm Forbes and many others. The artist is currently accepting a limited number of new commissions. A commission brochure and price guide is available upon request.
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Details:
Born in Baltimore, Maryland, Christine developed a passion for painting animals at a young age. When she was two, her mother put a pencil in her hand and she immediately started drawing animals. With dogs and horses as her first loves, she painted her first portrait of a dog at the age of five. Rather than pursue a conventional academic degree in the arts, Merrill attended the traditional Schuler School of Fine Arts in Baltimore, where she studied for five years under the school’s founder, Hans Schuler and his wife, Ann. Since 1975, Christine Merrill has specialized in the depiction of dogs, completing commissions for clients across America as well as in Europe and Japan.