Panel Discussion: History, Science, and American Landscape Art

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January 27, 2020

Hudson River Valley panel discussion — Images: Hudson River Museum

Sunday, February 2, at the Hudson River Museum (Yonkers, NY), artist James McElhinney; art historian Katherine Manthorne; and Frances F. Dunwell, Hudson River Estuary Coordinator at the NYS Department of Environmental Conservation will gather to discuss the dynamic and interdependent underpinnings of the Hudson Valley landscape across time, space, and consciousness. The discussion will be moderated by Laura Vookles, Chair of the HRM’s Curatorial Department.

Visit https://www.hrm.org/ for more details.

Also at Hudson River Museum:

Thomas Cole’s Refrain: The Paintings of Catskill Creek
Through February 23

“Thomas Cole’s Refrain: The Paintings of Catskill Creek” will illuminate masterpieces from major museums and private collections and explore the deeper meanings of Cole’s Catskill Creek paintings, considered as an integral series, for the first time. The exhibition is based on new scholarship developed by H. Daniel Peck, Exhibition Curator and the John Guy Vassar Jr. Professor Emeritus of English at Vassar College, in his book of the same title, published by Three Hills, an imprint of Cornell University Press.

Created during the 18-year period between 1827 and 1845, which spans Thomas Cole’s mature career, the artist’s paintings of Catskill Creek constitute the most sustained sequence of landscape paintings he ever made.

More details: https://www.hrm.org/exhibitions/thomas-coles-refrain/

James McElhinney: Discover the Hudson Anew
Through February 16

“James McElhinney: Discover the Hudson Anew” presents the painter’s sketch books and prints related to the river in a comprehensive showing for the first time. A video program, animating turning pages, will allow visitors to see additional sketchbook paintings.

McElhinney says he wants his art to demonstrate “that constructive dialogue between humanity and nature is alive and well, while underscoring how art provides durable and dynamic modes of engagement.”

More details: https://www.hrm.org/exhibitions/discover-the-hudson-anew/

Janelle Lynch: Another Way of Looking at Love
Through February 16

View color photographs of Catskills foliage from Janelle Lynch’s series “Another Way of Looking at Love.” Finding subjects on her wooded property during all seasons, Lynch (American, born 1969) focuses closely on dense trees, plants, and flowers to encourage us to look more intently and think more deeply about our natural surroundings.

The title of the series is a quote from contemporary British philosopher Alain de Botton, who believes that love is about making connections and about long-term, pro-active commitment. His ideas resonated with Lynch, who related them to her own work reimagining our relationship to nature, the planet, and each other.

More details: https://www.hrm.org/exhibitions/janelle-lynch/

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Transitional Nature: Hudson River School Paintings

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January 24, 2020

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Asher Brown Durand (American), "Summer Afternoon," 1865, oil on canvas, 22 1/2 x 35 in. (57.2 x 88.9 cm)

Hudson River School Paintings from the David and Laura Grey Collection
Patricia & Phillip Frost Art Museum, Florida International University
On view Saturday, January 25, 2020 – Sunday, May 17, 2020

From the Organizers:

Cultural identity in the United States has been long intertwined with its magnificent landscapes, from the dense forests of New England to the open terrain of the West. These landscapes extol the unique beauty of this country and relate to the first significant art movement in the United States, known as the Hudson River School.

The artists who painted these American landscapes worked during a time of increasing industrialization and growth of technology—not a coincidence of history but a lens on ecocritical thinking of the time. Modern industry changed the culture and economic future of this country, but also gave rise to concerns about the preservation of a natural environment often described as a Garden of Eden.

While much of “Transitional Nature” focuses on U.S. landscapes, depictions of Greenland and Ecuador exemplify the international travel undertaken by 19th-century artists in further pursuit of untrammeled terrain.

Artists working today frequently address the beauty and complexity of landscape, drawing our attention to environment and ecology. “Transitional Nature” features a selection of works by contemporary artists that will connect in powerful ways the past of the Hudson River School to the present art world.

For more details: https://frost.fiu.edu/exhibitions-events/events/2020/01/transitional-nature.html

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Playful Portraits with Timeless Resonance

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January 24, 2020

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Contemporary figurative art - Tara Lewis - FineArtConnoisseur.com — Tara Lewis, “As If,” 2019, oil on canvas, 30 x 24 in. / 76 x 61 cm

Lyons Wier Gallery (NYC) recently announced the exhibition “Hell Yes!” a new series of portrait paintings by Tara Lewis. “Hell Yes!” portrays real-life subjects adorned with incongruous props, artist-made t-shirts, and satin pageant sashes boasting pop culture text idioms.

More from the gallery:

Tara Lewis’s portrait process happens organically as models go through her wardrobe, accessories, and props to discover a “persona.” These “play-dates” serve as a pivotal ingredient for her practice, as they are the underpinning of the subsequent photoshoot that serves as the source material for her paintings. Referencing this initial imagery, Lewis explores celebrated cultural forces such as the Lone Ranger, high school cheering squads, home-court basketball, yearbook superlatives, track shorts, tube socks, and tennis headbands which feature in the work.

Lewis’s collaborative approach documents a consciousness of place, playfulness, and self-awareness framed by irreverence and raw candor that she is known for. Her compositions portray coming-of-age empowerment, authenticity, spontaneity, and informality, expressing an entirely new story, one that is intentionally left open-ended, allowing for a timeless resonance.

Lewis’s cleverness of interweaving modernity and past pop-cultural phenomena renders imagery that comments on society’s evolving perceptions of youth, girl culture, beauty, identity, teen trends, empowerment, social issues, and pop culture.The paintings play with scale, redefine gender stereotypes, and revisit past decades with a dose of satirical zing that results in trophy-toting portraiture and willful nonconformist debutantes gone rebel-rogue.

Tara Lewis earned her BA in painting and printmaking at the University of New Hampshire, Durham, NH, and her MA in visual studies and art education at Tufts University and the Museum School in Boston, MA. Lewis has spent over a decade as a professor and chair of the Department of Art at Phillips Exeter Academy, Exeter, NH. Her artwork has been included in exhibitions and events at the Aspen Art Museum, Aspen, CO; the Watermill Center, Watermill, NY; Chelsea Art Museum, New York, NY; and New York Fashion Week and is held in private collections in Palm Beach, New York, London, Los Angeles, and Hong Kong. Lewis has been featured in publications such as Whitewall Magazine, New York Magazine, Elle, Vice, Artnet, Art + Auction, and Cultured Magazine, among others, and was recently published in RxArt’s Between the Lines, Volume 7: Contemporary Artist Coloring Book.

Lewis designs and prints her own text idioms onto wearable objects such as satin pageant sashes, t-shirts, trophies, and ping pong paddles, which she considers unique limited-edition print objects. These objects convey messages, re-examine stereotypes, and explore timeless youth culture and serve as a trampoline for her paintings. The interaction of word and image is central to her work. Lewis is a direct descendant of Art Nouveau artist Alphonse Mucha, one of her primary influences, who also infused typefaces and cultural portraiture into his celebrated and pivotal compositions. The artist lives and works in New York City.

“Hell Yes” is on view at Lyons Wier Gallery January 30 through February 22, 2020. For more information, please visit www.lyonswiergallery.com.

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One Touch of Nature: Watercolors on View

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January 23, 2020

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Gunnar Tryggmo - Moving on 30x41- — Gunnar Tryggmo, “Moving On,” watercolor, 30 x 41 in.

“One Touch of Nature” features watercolor paintings by Swedish artist Gunnar Tryggmo. The show is on view at Turner Fine Art (Jackson Hole, Wyoming) through March 6, 2020.

From the gallery:

Gunnar Tryggmo is a master of his craft. In order to master anything, it is necessary to commit the time and passion to hone the skills. In his native Sweden, Tryggmo is highly revered for his watercolor paintings that follow in the country’s rich tradition of this medium. His imagery reflects his deep love of the natural world; he continually sources the out-of-doors by painting en plein air with his paint box and spotting scope.

“I was born in 1969 in Växjö, Sweden, and raised in Sjöabro, a scenic spot deep in the middle of the forest of Småland, which is a province in southern Sweden,” Tryggmo tells us. “The forest’s diversity of animals and birds caught my interest early on and became a natural source of inspiration. I shared this artistic interest with my uncle, who encouraged me from a young age, and it was he who took me to my first show.

“After high school, I moved to Helsingborg, a city in southern Sweden which faces Denmark, in order to study painting and drawing at Sundsgårdens college.

“I continue to be inspired by nature and in particular by animals and birds in their natural environment, such as the Swedish landscape, which ranges from the coastline to the heavily forested interior.

“The artwork is characterized largely by my natural interest. The values, the mood, and the movement are the most important things in my paintings. The techniques I practice are watercolor, oil, and drawing. I work both in the studio and plein air.”

Gunnar Tryggmo, “Silver Morning,” watercolor, 22 x 30 in.

“I first met Gunnar at the Leigh Yawkey Woodson Museum, where we were both exhibiting in the International Birds in Art Juried Exhibition,” remarks gallery owner, Kathryn Mapes Turner. “One afternoon, the artists were sharing their field journals, and I was so impressed with Gunnar’s. They had the scholarly approach of a naturalist but the astute renderings of a very practiced artist. Traditional watercolor is a very challenging medium because of its unpredictable nature and transparency — it is not possible to undo a misstep. This is why Gunnar’s commitment to painting in this medium is so impressive. The results of his commitment are pieces that are both bold and sensitive, painstakingly rendered with a distinctive lightness of touch and spontaneity.”

“One Touch of Nature” features watercolor paintings by Swedish artist Gunnar Tryggmo. The show is on view at Turner Fine Art (Jackson Hole, Wyoming) through March 6, 2020.

For more details: www.turnerfineart.com

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Highlights of the 2020 Winter Show (NYC)

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January 22, 2020

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Fine art fairs and auctions - Winter Show - FineArtConnoisseur.com — Wood Gaylor, (1883–1957), “Steven’s Point,” 1929, oil on canvas, signed and dated (lower left): Wood Gaylor 1929. Exhibitor: Bernard Goldberg Fine Arts

The Winter Show (thewintershow.org) returns to the Park Avenue Armory from January 24 to February 2, 2020, for its 66th year, bringing together 72 leading experts in the fine and decorative arts. The 2020 edition features a range of exhibitors, including new, returning, and longtime participants, whose offerings span 5,000 years of museum-quality art and antiques from around the globe.

The Winter Show is an annual benefit for East Side House Settlement (eastsidehouse.org), a community-based organization serving the Bronx and northern Manhattan. Recognizing education as the key to economic and civic opportunity, East Side House works with schools, community centers, and other partners to bring quality education and resources to individuals in need, helping approximately 10,000 residents of the Bronx and Northern Manhattan improve their lives each year.

The upcoming edition of the Winter Show offers collectors and connoisseurs the opportunity to acquire and encounter an extensive range of works from antiquity to the present, including painting, photography, sculpture, tapestry, prints, ceramics, jewelry, arms, antique furniture, and contemporary design.

The 2020 fair includes a number of specially curated presentations as well as joint exhibitor collaborations, offering thoughtful juxtapositions of rare and exceptional objects that reflect collectors’ varied interests. Each object is vetted for authenticity, date, and condition by a committee of more than 120 experts from the United States and Europe.

Visit thewintershow.org for more details.

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Honoring the Life of Museum Director Michael Zakian

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January 21, 2020

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Michael R. Zakian, longtime director of the Frederick R. Weisman Museum of Art at Pepperdine University and adjunct professor of art history at Seaver College, passed away on January 14, 2020. He was 62.

Zakian took the helm as the director of the Weisman Museum in 1995, just three years after it was founded, and for the past 25 years his name has been intertwined with that of the institution.

In lieu of flowers, members of the Pepperdine community are encouraged to contribute to the Michael Zakian Exhibition Fund.

“For more than 25 years, Pepperdine was fortunate to have Michael Zakian lead the Weisman Museum of Art,” says Rebecca Carson, managing director of the Lisa Smith Wengler Center for the Arts at Pepperdine. “His writing and storytelling helped make the work of Rodin, Chihuly, Andy Warhol, Agnes Pelton, and countless other artists come alive for patrons of all ages and backgrounds. Michael’s work brought the thousands of people who visit the Weisman each year inspiration, joy, and wonder. He will be sorely missed.”

In a Pepperdine Magazine story published in 2015 on the occasion of his 20th anniversary at the university, Zakian explained, “At Pepperdine my primary goal is education. I’m not just showing beautiful things to be admired for their own inherent beauty. I always emphasize that this art was made to convey certain ideas or make a particular point . . . we use our eyes all the time, but often we really don’t see what is in front of us.”

Sharing art was Zakian’s passion, and his commitment to bringing art, and the enjoyment of it, to the public was in perfect alignment with the vision of the museum’s namesake benefactor. He said that while some people considered art “a little off-putting and challenging,” it was his desire that the Weisman Museum “break down those barriers.”

Learn more about Zakian’s life and contributions to the Pepperdine community: http://bit.ly/2toEpdp

Featured Artwork: Chantel Lynn Barber

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January 21, 2020

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To the Moon and Back
5 x 7 in.
Acrylic on panel
Available through the artist

Chantel’s passion for art began flourishing at age 11 when she was mentored under local San Diego artists. She continued to study art, largely self-taught, while living in Newport, Rhode Island and Keflavik, Iceland and El Paso, Texas. While enrolled in a college art course, a fellow student introduced her to acrylic paints, and she soon fell in love with the medium but found it to be dominated by abstract art. Her first love was portraiture for which she found little advice. As she dreamed of perfecting her skills as an acrylic portrait artist, Chantel continued to learn from professional oil painters and translated their teachings into acrylic techniques.

In 2006, Chantel opened her own art business called Chantel’s Originals near Memphis, Tennessee. She benefited from workshops and demonstrations with outstanding artists including Dawn Whitelaw, Rose Frantzen, and Marc Hanson. Chantel is a Signature Member of the International Society of Acrylic Painters (ISAP), and a member of the Portrait Society of America (PSoA), National Oil & Acrylic Painters’ Society (NOAPS) and the Chestnut Group. She served as the National Coordinator of the State Ambassador program for the PSoA and past President of Artists’ Link in Memphis, Tennessee.

Chantel has been featured in solo art shows and juried exhibitions. Her award-winning paintings are in private and public collections throughout the United States and overseas. Her work is published in Acrylic Artist magazine, American Art Collector, Southwest Art, The Artist’s Magazine, Fine Art Connoisseur, International Artist Magazine and several books. Chantel resides in Bartlett, Tennessee where she creates and teaches private workshops in her studio. In addition, she teaches workshops throughout the United States and Canada.

Selected Awards

See more of Chantel’s work on her website, Facebook, and Instagram.

January 28 Auction: Old Master & British Drawings

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January 20, 2020

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Old Master Drawings Auction - FineArtConnoisseur.com — François Boucher (Paris 1703-1770), “A Nude Woman Playing a Flute, Seen from Behind,” black, red, and white chalk with pastel on blue paper, 9 ½ x 14 in. (24 x 36 cm). Estimate: $20,000-30,000, Image credit: Christie’s Images Ltd. 2019

January 28, 2020, auction at Christie’s (New York): Old Master & British Drawings Including Works from the Collection of Jean Bonna

This sale of Old Master & British Drawings offers a wide variety of works on paper covering over five hundred years of design and European creativity from around 1480 to the mid-19th century. Featured collections include properties from Jean Bonna, Terry Allen Kramer, James and Marilynn Alsdorf, Luisa Vertova Nicolson, Brooke Astor, Michael Hall, and Eric Stanley.

Amongst the highlights from the Italian section are masterpieces of the High Renaissance by Perugino, Luca Signorelli, Parmigianino, and exceptional Baroque drawings by Annibale Carracci, Gian Lorenzo Bernini, and Elisabetta Sirani.

Two great Venetian artists are featured with two top lots: Giovanni Battista Tiepolo’s rare “Three Studies of a Donkey” from the collection of the late Brooke Astor, and Canaletto’s exceptionally large “View of Warwick Castle.”

A group of drawings from the Collections of Michael Hall attests the enduring legacy of Rembrandt as a draftsman, while Boucher and Tiepolo are the highlights of the Chicago-based Alsdorf Collection.

Masterworks by Ingres, Géricault, and Bouguereau are the highlights of the French section, while the sale concludes with four exceptional watercolors by Turner, covering the entire arc of the great British artist’s career.

A very substantial sale of 129 lots, the auction presents an opportunity to acquire some of the most celebrated and dramatic images of western art, with estimates ranging from $2,000 to $800,000.

For more information, visit Christie’s online.

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Carrie Pearce: The Merry Makers

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January 17, 2020

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contemporary realism Carrie Pearce merry makers — Carrie Pearce, “The Merry Makers,” 2019, oil on linen, 78 x 56 in. NFS

In “The Merry Makers,” artist Carrie Pearce explores the realm of imagination, memory, and nostalgia in her latest series of figurative oil paintings, on view at the Dubuque Museum of Art (a Smithsonian Affiliate).

Pearce’s style has been described as imaginary realism. The fantastic figures in her work derive from a combination of imagination and photographic references.

Pearce will deliver an artist talk on Saturday, January 25, at 1 p.m. The program is free.

Carrie Pearce, “Everafter,” 2019, oil on canvas, 48 x 36 in. Available

Carrie Pearce lives and works in Peoria, Illinois, and is a graduate of the Savannah College of Art and Design in Savannah, Georgia. Pearce’s work has been featured nationally and internationally. The artist was among ten finalists for the 2019 Bennett Prize, a national juried art competition and exhibition to honor and encourage women figurative painters.

Carrie Pearce, “But a Dream,” 2019, oil on panel, 42 x 28 in. Available

“The Merry Makers” is on view at the Dubuque Museum of Art (Dubuque, Iowa) January 24 through May 31, 2020. For more details, visit http://www.carriepearce.com/ or http://dbqart.org/.

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Canyons, Buttes, and Beyond: Paintings by Stephen C. Datz

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January 17, 2020

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western art landscape paintings Stephen Datz - wild scenic — Stephen C. Datz, “Wild and Scenic,” oil on canvas board, 30 x 60 in. (36 x 66 in. framed), $15,500

Visit Mark Sublette Medicine Man Gallery (Tucson) for a show and sale of new paintings by Stephen C. Datz. Opening reception with the artist is Friday, January 17, 5 to 7 p.m. Show ends February 7, 2020.

Stephen C. Datz, “Convergence,” oil on canvas board, 48 x 48 in. (54.25 x 54.25 in. framed), $18,500

Artist Comments: This piece [“Convergence”] is a view of Monument Canyon, and Independence Rock at its center, in Colorado National Monument, as seen from the Grand Valley along the Colorado River. The time is evening, late October, when the cottonwoods and scrub along the river begin their autumnal transformation and the whole area comes alive with color.

In the sky, the new crescent moon, dark side faintly illuminated by earthshine, is accompanied by Saturn on her left, and Jupiter on her right. Pluto’s in there too, just to the left of Saturn, but it is not visible to the naked eye (devilishly hard to paint, but I think I managed it). It’s one of the most exceptionally peaceful and pleasant fall evenings I’ve ever experienced.

The title has several meanings — literal, astronomical, and above all metaphorical. 2019 proved to be a year of convergences for me and my family, not all of which were pleasant or welcome. Nights like this, with their fleeting bursts of color and arrangements of seemingly ageless (at least to us) earthly and celestial wonders, serve as a reminder to treasure the days we have, for we know not their number, and those, now absent, with whom we have been fortunate to share them.

Stephen C. Datz, “High Desert Winter,” oil on canvas board, 30 x 60 in. (36 x 66 in. framed), $15,500

Roan Plateau in western Colorado
Artist Comments: It can be truly said that some of my most favorite things in all the world are junipers, sagebrush, and desert rocks with a generous helping of snow. I never tire of painting these simple things in their seemingly infinite and often surprising variety. This view is the southwest escarpment of the Roan Plateau in western Colorado, just a few miles east of DeBeque. Like the Bookcliffs closer to Grand Junction, the “erosional morphology” of the Roan Plateau makes for a fascinating subject, especially on days such as this when the snow highlights the vertical faces of the cliffs, producing gorgeous blue shadows and bouncing light into and around all the little canyons and crevices there.

It’s kind of amazing to think that this landscape, which owes its shape and character to water’s work, sees so little of it each year.

Stephen C. Datz, “Shadows in Light, Shadows in Time,” oil on canvas board, 36 x 72 in. (43 x 79.5 in framed), $22,500

Artist Comments: “Shadows in Light, Shadows in Time” has been waiting its turn for five years. I originally saw this view on a November trip to Moab with my wife. The cold months are the only time one can visit Moab and expect anything approaching peace, quiet, and solitude.

We had driven up to Dead Horse Point and stopped on our way back down in the afternoon to admire this vista. The desert geology here is fascinating, and the two buttes, Merrimac and Monitor (for some strange reason they were named after Civil War–era naval vessels) are chunks of Entrada Sandstone. The substrate on which they stand is comprised of much lighter Navajo Sandstone.

The cloud shadows and the isolated remnants of Entrada, which are all that remain of what was once an even layer, sparked the thought that the buttes were “shadows in time,” as it were. And voila, a title is born.

“Canyons, Buttes, and Beyond” is on view at Medicine Man Gallery (Tucson, AZ) January 17 through February 7, 2020. Details: www.medicinemangallery.com.

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Also at Hudson River Museum:

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