Antwan Ramar (b. 1989), "The Lake Is Calling," 2024, oil on canvas, 48 x 30 in.
In 1851 Wisconsin adopted its official state motto, the simple yet powerfully positive word “Forward.” Since opening eight years ago, Milwaukee’s Lily Pad Gallery | West has itself moved forward by advocating for the locally, nationally, and internationally known artists it exhibits, though always with a proud emphasis on the locals.
This summer the gallery is presenting its third annual group exhibition of Wisconsin artists. Among the talents participating are Marc Anderson, Steve Gerhartz, Robert M. Girsh, Michael Guinane, Bruce Niemi, Antwan Ramar, Ken Schneider, John Waite, and Diane Washa. The gallery community is also pleased to welcome local legend Shelby Keefe, and mourns the recent passing of artist Allison B. Cooke, who is survived by her husband, Robert M. Girsh.
Forward: A Wisconsin Artist Exhibition Lily Pad Gallery | West Milwaukee lilypadgallery.com
Through August 31, 2024
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ON THE COVER Will St. John (b. 1981), “Sol,” (detail), 2020, oil on panel, overall: 31 x 31 in., in the permanent collection of the New Salem Museum and Academy of Fine Art
COLUMNS
Frontispiece: Edward Hopper
Publisher’s Letter: Your Own Grand Tour
Editor’s Note: AI As Our Ally
Off the Walls
Classic Moment: Peter Brown
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Painting in Lives
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"The Flaget Madonna," 16th century, oil on canvas, 30 1/4 x 26 in.
From the Fine Art Connoisseur July/August 2024 Editor’s Note:
AI As Our Ally
I have written before about how wary we should be of artificial intelligence (AI) getting too mixed up with the making of art. I stand by those comments, and I sense that ever more people in our field have their guards up, too.
One aspect of AI that thrills me, however, is its capacity to help us better understand historic works of art. An exciting example came to light last year when it was announced that significant portions of a previously unrecognized painting of the Madonna and Child with Saints Elizabeth and John the Baptist were painted by the Italian Renaissance master Raphael (1483–1520). This discovery rolled out in the ideal manner: some humans got the hunch first, and then the computers proved them right.
To be specific, Dr. Larry Silver, professor emeritus of art history at the University of Pennsylvania, proposed that the 16th-century painting was made by Raphael’s studio assistants, with the all-important faces of the Madonna and Baby Jesus attributable to the master himself. Then thorough examinations of both the pigments and the provenance were undertaken by the London and New York-based firm Art Analysis & Research, which gave it the green light.
Finally, the painting was subjected to scrutiny by the Zurich-based firm Art Recognition, which has patented an AI system for authentication through analysis of brushstrokes. First, it designed a deep convolutional neural network (DCNN) trained on a dataset containing images of all of Raphael’s known paintings, as well as a contrast set of fakes, comparables, and contemporaries. This allowed the system to identify feature series such as brushstrokes, variations in color, and high-level composition elements, which it proceeded to seek in 16 individual sections and across the painting as a whole. Indeed, it found that much of the surface was painted by artists other than Raphael, but the face of the Madonna was a 96.57% match with Raphael and Jesus’s came in at 96.24%.
“Through brushstroke artificial intelligence, we offer objectivity and accessibility to
clients, which has been missing in the field of art evaluation for many years,” says Dr. Carina Popovici, founder and CEO of Art Recognition. “Art history, provenance, chemical analysis, and other methods are all critical to the full understanding of an artwork, but attribution decisions should not be left solely to the subjective human expert’s eye.”
The Illinois cabinetmaker and artist Tony Ayers discovered this painting in an English antiques shop in 1995. The seller had acquired it from another dealer based in Kentucky, who had purchased it from the local Sisters of Charity. Later research showed it had been donated to them in 1837 through Bishop Joseph Flaget, and thus it is now called “The Flaget Madonna.” Before that, it was believed to be part of the Vatican collections. Ayers spent much of his adult life studying the painting with various scholars and scientists; after his death in 2023, his widow and friends continued his pursuit.
Art authentication has always involved patient sleuthing, and it’s thrilling to know that AI can aid in our efforts by diving more deeply — and more dispassionately — into the evidence. As long as humans remain in control of the technology, there is reason for us to expect many more memorable discoveries in the future.
What are your thoughts? Share your letter to the Editor below in the comments.
Dyana Hesson, “Superstition Color, Buckhorn Cholla Blooms, Superstition Wilderness, Arizona,” oil on canvas, 48 x 48 in; Available at Cowgirl Up, Desert Caballeros Desert Museum, Wickenburg; One of my favorite displays of color happens on the slopes of the Superstition Mountains in the spring; in particular, the blooms of the buckhorn cholla
Dyana Hesson: Artist Dyana Hesson has a case of incurable wanderlust, and a love affair with God’s creation. Her work is collected worldwide and her series, True Blue Arizona was featured in Arizona Highways Magazine in March 2020. Dyana is a Master of the Southwest award winner and Master Signature member of American Women Artists.
Dyana’s latest book The Art of Wildflowers was recently published by Arizona Highways.
Her one woman show, Wild Arizona, opens at the Sonoran Desert Museum in October, 2025.
Dyana Hesson, “A Good Landing, Butterfly Weed and Acmon Blue Butterfly, Sierra Ancha Wilderness, Arizona,” oil on canvas, 28 x 22 in; Available at Bonner David galleries, Scottsdale; Along the way there is treasure to find. Indian paintbrush, yucca blooms, and on this day, the bright pop of Butterfly Weed
Dyana Hesson “Stay Golden, Buckhorn Cholla, Superstition Wilderness,” oil on canvas, 48 x 36 in; Available at Bonner David galleries, Scottsdale; So Eden sank to grief, So dawn goes down to day. Nothing gold can stay. -Robert Frost
Martin Geiger, "Robert’s Table / Tribute to Scott Noel," 2022, oil on linen, 32 x 48 in., Steven Francis Fine Art (Lynchburg, Virginia)
There are a lot of superb contemporary oil paintings being made these days; this article by Allison Malafronte shines light on a gifted individual.
One look at the paintings of Martin Geiger (b. 1997) and it’s evident where his artistic education took place: the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts in Philadelphia, where he earned a certificate after four years studying drawing and painting. There he trained under the influential instructor Scott Noel (b. 1955), best known for inspiring the Perceptual Painting movement more than a decade ago. Those who follow this approach aim to paint their direct responses to the visible world with a focus on space, volume, color, and shape.
This experience-based approach is well-suited to Geiger because it requires close, careful observation and thoughtful reflection; curiosity about, and admiration of, the physical world have long been his strong suits. “The world itself almost seems like an immense playground of sorts,” the artist writes. “Everything in my surroundings feels and looks intensely interesting at all times. It seems always about ready to reveal itself, almost like a piece of music leading up to a crescendo. It’s clear that there is something very important just beneath the surface for the artist, and making art is my best attempt at excavating these ever-present patterns and showing them to the world.”
The subjects Geiger feels compelled to paint range from figures and landscapes to interiors and architecture, but the formal elements of light, space, and design are consistently his main subject. In Robert’s “Table/Tribute to Scott Noel,” for instance, the artist made two contrasting light sources the main characters of his visual narrative while giving a nod to his longtime mentor.
“This painting depicts a messy table covered with various overlooked envelopes, containers, and other detritus in a seasoned artist’s studio,” Geiger explains. “The dark interior and cool light bathing these items are contrasted with a blazing, luminous exterior landscape. This theme of outside versus inside was a hallmark of Scott Noel.”
Born in Charlottesville, Geiger has returned to Virginia and now makes his studio in Staunton. There he is an instructor at the Beverly Street Studio School and also serves as head assistant at Bronze Craft Foundry in nearby Waynesboro. Geiger has won two grants from the Elizabeth Greenshields Foundation (2018 and 2022) and considers those experiences instrumental in helping him realize several large-scale works.
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.
Setting Sails in Newport Harbor, Calvin Liang, oil, 12 x 16 in; Huse Skelly Gallery
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Miao Girl, Mian Situ, oil, 12 x 9 in; Artzline.com
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.
Ulrich Gleiter, "Bay of Penharn," 2023, Oil on linen, 28 x 30 in.
Ulrich Gleiter (b. 1977) is noted for his landscapes. The painter’s artistic path first led him to study at the Dresden Academy of Arts in Germany, and later at the Repin Academy in Saint Petersburg, Russia, the influence of which is visible in his paintings, reminiscent of German Expressionism and the Russian Impressionists. His work has been recognized with awards internationally including in the USA, along with features in numerous publications like Fine Art Connoisseur, PleinAir Magazine, Southwest Art Magazine, American Art Collector, Press of the Russian Academy of Art, and Monaceli Studio Press.
Ulrich Gleiter, “At the Bode Museum (Berlin),” 2024, oil on linen, 28 x 24 in.
“Painting is like a diary for me,” Ulrich says. “As the years advance, recent paintings are different from the ones before. And they should be. Paintings reflect your experiences and feelings, they tell your life through images. The subject matter is secondary. Let it be a landscape or a portrait, what I paint on the canvas, more than anything else is about how I felt during that very moment as I stood there.
“During my years when I studied at the Academy of Arts in Russia and lived in Saint Petersburg, I loved to paint the alleys, gardens, and grand panoramas of this beautiful city. Every corner and street was filled with memories. I have been back a few times to Saint Petersburg since 2022, that is, when the Ukraine conflict marked a turning point for Europe. And I noticed that although physically, I might be at the same sites as before, the world and time have changed everything since. Constantly, there’s this rift between my memories and the feeling of how everything that surrounds me turned foreign. I could not possibly just paint there as before, as if nothing had happened. It feels void. The opposite is true for painting nature – winter, snow, or the tundra vegetation of the northern lands in the summertime, and foliage in autumn – these motives keep inspiring me. It is timeless. Paint what you love.”
Ulrich Gleiter, “Brittany Village (Goulien),” 2023, oil on linen, 18 x 34 in.
Approximately 20 of his works are on view through August 31, 2024, in Berlin at Sandau and Leo Gallery, where he has exhibited his art since 2012. Included in the exhibition are works by Michael Jastram and Doris Leue.
“I’m drawn to the landscapes of the north and winter,” Ulrich says. “I have my inspiration from the great Canadian painters from the Group of Seven, German impressionists such as Lovis Corinth, and many Russian painters, understandably. Another body of work is from Brittany, its coastline with the Atlantic Ocean and villages. Other paintings are from Spain’s Andalucia, and scenes of Berlin itself.”
Ulrich Gleiter, “Church Saint-Сlet (Cléden-Cap-Sizun),” 2023, oil on linen, 28 x 18 in.
Ulrich tells us that several of the Brittany works were painted with the German artist group “Norddeutsche Realisten” (“North German Realists”). Later this year, he’ll be a part of their exhibit at the Heikendorf Museum. He adds that the group is renowned in Germany for its impressionist painters and members are also based in the Netherlands, Denmark, and France.
In addition to the Sandau and Leo Gallery exhibition, you can find Ulrich Gleiter’s works in the following:
August 30 – September 17 – 20th Anniversary Exhibition. (Group). Gallery 1261, Denver
September 14- November – Heikendorf Museum, Kiel, Germany. Group exhibition. Paintings of Brittany, France. Together with the “Norddeutsche Realisten”
September 20 – October 8 – Solo exhibition, Gallery 1261 (and coming in 2025)
December – Group exhibition, curated by Rose Fredrick, Gallery 1261
Julian Onderdonk, "A Field of Bluebonnets, San Antonio," 1921; Image credits: Heritage
Auctions, HA.com
The painting was loaded into a trailer along with other donations and was headed to Goodwill, where it would have sat until someone noticed its charismatic beauty. Bluebonnet paintings — a mainstay of American West artists for a century — are not hard to come by, but this one was different.
The owner, a woman on her way to a West Coast retirement, whose family had packed her things, called out for it. “It’s too pretty to surrender.” It had been a gift to her, sent to Illinois from an extended family member in Texas, to commemorate her birth in 1922; she had looked upon it all her life, and she wanted it on the wall of her last home. The painting was retrieved from the packed trailer, and the woman continued to enjoy the painting in her final years. Then, her Washington-based daughter fondly displayed it in her own dining room. No one in the family knew a thing about the artist.
That is, until recently, when the daughter and her son did some digging and realized that the work was an original by “the father of Texas painting” — Julian Onderdonk himself — and that this painting was a particularly stellar example from the acclaimed artist in his absolute prime. Onderdonk, in fact, invented the entire category of bluebonnet painting, and no one has topped his oeuvre when it comes to capturing the state flower’s presence on the Texas landscape. This work, “A Field of Bluebonnets,” San Antonio, painted in 1921, comes to Heritage and is one highlight of its June 29, 2024, Texas Art Signature® Auction.
“It was a family heirloom all these years,” says the original owner’s grandson. “But it was decoration. We hadn’t considered researching it. And now, it should go to someone who will genuinely appreciate it.”
Julian Onderdonk, “Blue Bonnets on Grey Day, North of San Antonio, Texas,” 1916
That Onderdonk gem, replete with the artist’s hallmark extended vista, atmospheric haze, and densely packed fields of bluebonnets, is joined in the auction by another triumph from the famed Texas Impressionist: his “Blue Bonnets on Grey Day,” North of San Antonio, Texas, from 1916. In this intimate masterpiece, Onderdonk has situated the perspective from about halfway up a gentle slope. The sky is restive with gathering clouds, and individual flowers in the foreground glow in the overcast light. As your eye moves down the hill into the distance the color disperses into Onderdonk’s ethereal soft purples, blues, and grays. Like the painting mentioned above, it presents the artist at the height of his power.
Frank Reaugh, “On Peace River”
This auction, tightly curated and yet stacked with Texas wonders, showcases the region’s artists at their best, whether the work is a century old or merely a decade or two, and proves the breathtaking range of their visions. From Frank Reaugh to David Bates, from Porfirio Salinas and Fred Darge to Nancy Lamb and Robyn O’Neil, the event is made up of works that inspire collectors of all types.
John Sloan (1871–1951), "McSorley’s Bar," 1912, oil on canvas, 26 x 32 in., Detroit Institute of Arts, Founders Society Purchase, General Membership Fund, 24.2
Many family road trips in the 1960s involved stopping at natural attractions or visiting grandparents, taking in a small-town carnival or reaching a lakeside cabin for a stay. For Elizabeth Goldstein, they meant piling into the car with her parents and sister and driving from their home in the Bronx to other cities to see Rembrandts and Goyas, Picassos and Mondrians.
“I come from an itinerant family always in search of art,” says Goldstein, who serves as president of New York’s Municipal Art Society (MAS), the influential nonprofit that advocates for preservation of the city’s built and natural environments. Goldstein recalls one of her earliest memories of such driving expeditions. “My parents had stopped at the Munson museum [in Utica, New York], and, as a 4- or 5-year-old, I remember playing in the children’s room there as they went off to look at art.”
Elizabeth Goldstein, President, Municipal Art Society
Most of the time, though, Goldstein and her sister went hand-in-hand with their parents through museum galleries in New York and other American cities. “For one of my father’s sabbaticals, he took my sister and me out of school when I was 13, and we all went to Europe to see art. For three months, we looked at art in Amsterdam, Brussels, Rome, Florence.”
But it was on a girlhood visit to the Whitney Museum of American Art with her grandmother that Goldstein recalls seeing her first John Sloan painting, “Backyards, Greenwich Village” (1914), an iconic depiction of a snowy streetscape with children building a snowman and a black cat frolicking in the drifts. “It’s why I also love this painting so much,” says Goldstein, referring to Sloan’s “McSorley’s Bar.”
“But why does it have to be in the Detroit Institute of Arts [DIA] instead of in New York?” she asks with mock outrage, acknowledging that the venerable Manhattan bar still exists on East 7th Street, where it has been a presence since the 1850s.
Goldstein notes, “I am a big fan of Dutch art, and so I think I’m drawn to dark atmospheric canvases in general. Of course I know McSorley’s, but the first time I saw this painting in a traveling exhibition, I didn’t recognize it as the bar. When I looked at the label and realized it was McSorley’s, a light bulb went off.”
Though Goldstein has also seen the work in situ at the DIA, she continues to look at images of it. “My grandmother owned a couple of Ashcan School paintings by a minor artist, and I was so intrigued by what the artists depicted that I’ve been collecting books and catalogues about that group ever since.”
While McSorley’s continues to serve patrons, and looks much — in its appealing, ramshackle way — as it has for nearly 170 years, Goldstein points out that the barkeeps no longer wear aprons quite as long as those in the painting. “The bar’s age is definitely part of its attraction, and you can tell there’s been a lot of cigarette smoking in there, a lot of whiskey splashed on the bar, and a lot of beer soaked up by sawdust on the floor. Sloan captured a place where you can still go, an example of a wonderful aspect of New York. And in my role at the MAS, I’ve become very interested in legacy businesses like McSorley’s.”
McSorley’s third-generation owner, the late Matty Maher, an Irish immigrant who died in 2020, oversaw during his long tenure one of the bar’s major social changes — the admission of women. Up until 1970, the bar’s slogan read: “Good Ale, Raw Onions, and No Ladies.” When a gender discrimination lawsuit changed that policy, women were allowed to pony up to the bar, although a women’s restroom wasn’t installed until 1986. “Of course that old policy bothered me,” says Goldstein, “but by 1975 I was old enough to begin wandering the East Village by myself, and I came upon the place. By college, I was able to venture inside. Now, there’s a long line down the block to get in.”
She concludes, “The reason this painting remains a little jewel to me is because Sloan was a master of configuring the atmosphere of a place. You can feel the sawdust underfoot just looking at it — and you can still feel the real thing by going inside.”
The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston is the current stop on the national tour of “Raqib Shaw: Ballads of East and West.” Born in 1974, the Indian painter spent most of his childhood in the beautiful Valley of Kashmir, a region long marred by sectarian strife. He moved to New Delhi in 1992 and became immersed in his family’s business selling jewelry, textiles, and carpets.
During a visit to London in 1993, Shaw fell in love with Old Master paintings at the National Gallery, and eventually he moved to the British capital, where he has lived ever since.
Shaw has never lost his fascination with such historical Italian masters as Carlo Crivelli and Giovanni Paolo Panini, and today he creates intricate paintings of dream-like, mysterious realms that blend Eastern and Western influences.
Organized by Nashville’s Frist Art Museum and the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston, the show takes its title from Rudyard Kipling’s poem “The Ballad of East and West,” often cited for the line “Oh, East is East, and West is West, and never the twain shall meet.” But in fact, explains curator Zehra Jumabhoy (University of Bristol), “Shaw is inspired by Kipling’s next lines, which propose the opposite: when like-minded souls meet ‘there is neither East nor West’ even if ‘they come from the ends of the earth!’”
Shaw blurs the lines between art and ornament; Japanese aesthetics, Mughal artifacts, Islamic textiles, and Indo-Persian architecture converge with citations from Renaissance masters. He paints with porcupine quills and fine needles to render the precise details of delicate flowers or distant mountains, which are outlined in embossed gold.
Though viewers are often beguiled by Shaw’s iridescent surfaces, conflict is present in almost every scene, evoking Kashmir’s turbulent history.
Illustrated above is “Ode to the Country without a Post Office,” which characteristically juxtaposes the tranquil and the horrific. Sitting on a palatial balcony is a kimono-clad Shaw, gazing into an opening in the floor, from which hundreds of fireflies are emerging. Beyond this enchanting scene, however, fire and chaos rage in the town beyond. Once seen, warns Houston’s organizing curator Alison de Lima Greene, Shaw’s paintings “are never forgotten.”
The show is on view through September 2, 2024. For more details, please visit mfah.org.
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