Familiar Images That Dissolve Into Abstraction

By

-

March 26, 2018

Fine art exhibitions - Ken Karlic watercolors — Ken Karlic, “Metropolis,” watercolor, 30 x 50 in.

Discover two artists who use distortion techniques to disrupt familiar images in Disruption, a fine art exhibition at InLiquid (Philadelphia) through April 7, 2018. “The theme for this show developed when we saw a connection between Tom Herbert and Ken Karlic in their work,” says Catherine Sirizzotti, InLiquid Programming + Development Associate. “We thought it would be great to explore two very different approaches to creating disrupted, yet familiar images. Not only is their choice in subject matter quite different, but also their choice in mediums. However, when displayed together, the works harmonize in unexpected ways.”

Fine art abstract collage - Tom Herbert — Tom Herbert, “Imaginary Landscape,” collage, 20 x 24 in.

Tom Herbert, “Brooklyn Girl II,” mixed media, 26 x 32 in.

The exhibition highlights the figurative work of Tom Herbert, showcasing his eye-catching mixed media works that blend collage, painting, and assemblage to create images of the human figure through an altered lens. “In my mixed media work, which is a blend of collage, painting and assemblage,” Tom says, “I attempt to reflect and distort the world around us. My method of work involves deconstructing print images and reassembling them in a way that creates a new narrative.”

Ken Karlic, “Xs and Os,” watercolor, 14 x 21 in.

Ken Karlic, on the other hand, uses watercolor to create distorted landscapes that dissolve into varying levels of abstraction. “My watercolors can best be described as sophisticated chaos,” Karlic tells us. “My main objective is in expressing how something feels rather than how it looks, and in the sheer physicality of a subject captured in the sheer physicality of paint. With spontaneous brushstrokes and textures, I find beauty in the streets, scaffolding, and grit of everyday life, and am interested in various types of structure and architecture. My paintings have a basis in the representational, but often dissolve into varying levels of abstraction. Surprises are not only welcomed — but also invited — as marks, scratches, drips, and splatters all become part of the final piece.”

Ken Karlic, “Take the Ramp to the Left,” watercolor, 14 x 21 in.

Karlic’s series featured in this fine art exhibition follows the theme of “City Lights” and is focused around a large-scale work capturing an evening cityscape, with smaller works that display familiar views from behind automobiles on the road.

Sign up to receive Fine Art Today, the weekly e-newsletter from
Fine Art Connoisseur magazine.

Looking Inside: An Age-Old Fascination with Interior Scenes

By

Kelly Compton

-

March 22, 2018

0

Looking Inside: An Age-Old Fascination with Interior Paintings — Michael Solovyev (b. 1972), “Japan (from the Passenger series),” 2016, watercolor on paper, 10 x 14 in., collection of Michel Andersen

No matter how much we like being outdoors, most of us spend far more time inside buildings. Chances are we were born indoors, and we will probably die there, too. Much of life takes place inside: from the classroom where we learn to read, to the church where we marry, onward to the house where we raise our children. It’s no wonder that artists — especially those working in two-dimensional forms like painting, drawing, and printmaking — have focused their attention on interior spaces for centuries.

Looking back, ilustrated in the March/April 2018 issue of Fine Art Connoisseur is an array of recent interior scenes reflecting this age-old fascination. Two are worth noting for different reasons. On July 2, 2011, the artist Neil MacCormack made a deal with his wife: in their home they switched on several surveillance cameras that proceeded to record 7,200 stills depicting the couple going about daily life: sleeping, showering, eating, making love, working, lounging. Referring to the resulting frames, MacCormack created a series of small paintings and drawings (one is shown above). This is life indoors at its most banal, and also at its most intimate.

The scenes here range from cheery to melancholy, because interior spaces truly have their own personalities. They reverberate with the people who occupy them, and often make us long to occupy them ourselves.

Jennifer Diehl (b. 1982), “Everything and the Kitchen Sink,” 2017, oil on canvas, 20 x 24 in., private collection

This article originally appeared in Fine Art Connoisseur magazine (subscribe here).

Sign up to receive Fine Art Today, the weekly e-newsletter from
Fine Art Connoisseur magazine.

View Hopper, Picasso, and Rivera Prints Sold at Recent Auction

By

Fine Art Today

-

March 21, 2018

0

Edward Hopper drawings - Fine art auctions — Edward Hopper, “House by a River,” 1919, etching, sold March 13, 2018 for $100,000. Image courtesy of Swann Auction Galleries.

From Swann Galleries, New York

Swann Galleries’ auction of 19th & 20th Century Prints & Drawings on March 13 offered a selection of original works by some of the greatest artists of the last 200 years. Works by Martin Lewis and Diego Rivera achieved new auction records, and many of the top lots were won by collectors.

Leading the sale was an important early etching by Edward Hopper. “House by a River,” was one of the artist’s first forays into the themes of modern isolation that would define his oeuvre. The house depicted still stands in Nyack, NY, just a short walk from the artist’s birthplace. It was purchased by a collector for $100,000.

Pablo Picasso, “La Colombe,” 1949, lithograph, sold March 13, 2018 for $67,500. Image courtesy of Swann Auction Galleries

Pablo Picasso was well represented in the sale by a fine selection of prints and ceramics. These were led by the masterful lithograph “La Colombe,” at $67,500. Another lithograph, “Téte de jeune femme,” (1947), reached a record $50,000. A partially glazed terre de faïence pitcher titled “Flower Women,” (1948), was purchased by a collector for $27,000.

Diego Rivera drawings - Fine art auctions — Diego Rivera, “El sueño (La Noche de los Pobres),” 1932, lithograph, sold March 13, 2018 for $40,000, a record for the work. Image courtesy of Swann Auction Galleries

Works by Diego Rivera led a robust section of Latin American art, featuring each of his three most important lithographs. The 1932 “El sueño (La Noche de los Pobres)” sold for a record $40,000. “Zapata,” (1932), and “Frutos de la Escuela,” (1932), also performed well ($32,500 and $27,500, respectively). A charming ink and wash painting of a Niña sentada doubled its high estimate to sell for $30,000 to a collector.

The next auction of prints and drawings at Swann Galleries will be “Old Master Through Modern Prints” on May 8, 2018. The house is currently accepting quality consignments for autumn auctions.

Sign up to receive Fine Art Today, the weekly e-newsletter from
Fine Art Connoisseur magazine.

Visually Intense, Lyrical, Expressive: The Art of Francis Di Fronzo

By

Fine Art Today

-

March 20, 2018

0

fine art paintings - Francis Di Fronzo - The Crossing part 5 — Francis Di Fronzo, "The Crossing (Part 5)," 2017, oil over watercolor and gouache on panel, 25 x 60 in.

Francis Di Fronzo, The Half-Life of Dreams (Part 2), a Fine Art Exhibition
Through April 21, 2018
Somerville Manning Gallery, Greenville, Delaware

From the gallery:

Francis Di Fronzo has received national attention as a featured artist in the popular television series “Better Call Saul” (his work can be seen hanging in the main character’s office), and his recent coverage in a number of national art magazines, with his distinctive paintings that provide an uncomfortable mix of nostalgia and lamentation of the post-industrial American landscape.

Francis Di Fronzo, “Proven Lands (Part 1),” 2017, oil over watercolor and gouache on panel, 32 x 72 in.

In his fine art exhibition, “The Half-Life of Dreams (Part 2),” Di Fronzo depicts scenes that are both beautiful and poetic, but also deeply personal and mysterious. Executed with keen attention to detail, his paintings represent a significant departure from more traditional forms of realism. Instead of working from direct observation, the works so carefully depicted in Di Fronzo’s paintings are created purely from the artist’s imagination.

Francis Di Fronzo, “Refuge,” 2018, oil over watercolor and gouache, 31 x 41 in.

While the artist describes his paintings as “nothing more than fictitious constructs of the natural world,” he also considers his landscapes to be “a universal context for everything in life.” The results of his unique approach are paintings that are visually intense, lyrical, and expressive. Di Fronzo transforms the ephemera of American landscapes into visions of unwavering intensity, convincing us that even the most unassuming territory is never as straightforward as it initially appears.

Francis Di Fronzo, The Motel (Part 4),” 2017, oil over watercolor and gouache on panel, 31 x 61 in.

In 2004 Di Fronzo won a Pew Fellowship in the Arts award. Born in California, he received his BFA at the University of California, Fullerton, before moving to Philadelphia to attain a Master’s degree at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts.

Francis Di Fronzo, “The Crossing (Part 2),” 2018, oil over watercolor and gouache, 14 x 18 in.

Sign up to receive Fine Art Today, the weekly e-newsletter from
Fine Art Connoisseur magazine.

Painting Behind the Gates: Westminster Abbey

By

Fine Art Today

-

March 20, 2018

4

Westminster Abbey paintings — Alexander Creswell, “The Henry VII Chapel, Westminster Abbey” 2011, watercolor, 35 x 40 in. © Dean & Chapter of Westminster

Glimpses of Eternity
Through May 16, 2018
London, England
westminster-abbey.org

The British watercolorist Alexander Creswell (b. 1957) is renowned for deft depictions of historic buildings. His first architectural series (1990) examined deteriorated British country houses, and he remains fascinated by old buildings’ changeability. In 1992 HM Queen Elizabeth II commissioned him to depict the charred spaces of Windsor Castle, then to show them magnificently restored just five years later.

Alexander Creswell, “The Quire, Westminster Abbey,” 2011, watercolor, 22 x 30 in., © Dean & Chapter of Westminster

For the past six years, Creswell has been allowed to paint any area of London’s medieval Westminster Abbey that interests him, often behind locked gates. Such privileged access is unprecedented, though it surely owes to the superb job he did there recording — from a balcony high above — the 2011 wedding of Prince William to Catherine Middleton (now the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge).

Alexander Creswell, “Tombs in St Nicholas’s Chapel, Westminster Abbey,” 2014, watercolor, 22 x 15 in., © Dean & Chapter of Westminster

This season visitors to the Abbey’s octagonal Chapter House will admire 38 of Creswell’s scenes, including sketches, sketchbooks, and a maquette from the Royal Wedding project. Among his subjects is the triforium, a space 70 feet above the Abbey’s main floor, hidden from public view for more than 700 years. Later this year it will be relaunched as the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee Galleries, displaying hundreds of treasures associated with the Abbey and offering magnificent views of the nearby Houses of Parliament.

All profits from Creswell’s “Glimpses of Eternity” art exhibition, and from the Scala book that accompanies it, will benefit the Jubilee Galleries project.

This article originally appeared in Fine Art Connoisseur magazine (subscribe here).

Sign up to receive Fine Art Today, the weekly e-newsletter from
Fine Art Connoisseur magazine.

Featured Artwork: Thane Gorek presented by the Celebration of Fine Art

By

Fine Art Today

-

March 20, 2018

0

Just As You Imagined
Gouache and oil on canvas
30 x 48 in.
$7,500

Thane Gorek (b.1973) from Northern Colorado studied Illustration at the School of Visual Arts in New York, receiving a Bachelor of Fine Arts Degree in 1995. Shortly after moving to Colorado, Gorek abandoned illustration in favor of the fine arts, subsequently honing his skills and refining his visual vocabulary. In recent years his main focus has been on hyper-realist still life painting in which everyday objects are often enlarged significantly revealing the sublime in the ordinary. Gorek considers the process of arranging objects for a still life to be a meditative practice. Although he begins with a basic theme or idea, he lets the objects themselves dictate their placement allowing the strange poetry of chance to work its magic. He is also known for his stunningly realistic landscapes, such as this one of a location in Ireland.

Come see Thane and 100 other artists create at the Celebration of Fine Art, where art lovers and artists connect, in Scottsdale, Arizona through March 25, 2018. Contact us at 480-443-7695 or [email protected].
View more of Thane’s work at http://celebrateart.com/meet-the-artists/thane-gorek/.

3 Exhibitions Help Celebrate National Portrait Gallery’s 50th Anniversary

By

Fine Art Today

-

March 19, 2018

0

National Portrait Gallery Bust of Mary Seacole — Profiled Series: Untitled: Bust of Mary Seacole by Henry Weeks; marble, 1859; The J.Paul Getty Museum. Los Angeles and Bust of Mm. Adélaïde Julie Mirleau de Newville, née Garnier d'Isle by Jean-Baptiste Pigalle; marble, 1750s; The J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles by Ken Gonzales-Day, archival ink on rag paper, 2009 (printed 2017). Courtesy of the artist and Luis De Jesus Los Angeles. Copyright 2017, Ken Gonzales-Day, all rights reserved.

Fine Art Connoisseur wishes a warm congratulations to the National Portrait Gallery as it celebrates its 50th year in 2018 with the following special fine art exhibitions.

National Portrait Gallery - Titus Kaphar painting — Titus Kaphar, “Ona Judge: Portrait in Tar,” 2016, oil on canvas with tar, Ellen and Steve Susman, © Titus Kaphar. Courtesy of the artist and Jack Shainman Gallery, New York

UnSeen: Our Past in a New Light: Ken Gonzales-Day and Titus Kaphar (March 23, 2018 through January 6, 2019), reveals how people of color have been missing in historical portraiture, and how their contributions to the nation’s past are rendered equally invisible. Focused around work by two contemporary artists using vastly different pictorial styles, the exhibition brings to the forefront visual representations of women, African Americans, Native Americans, Latino Americans, and other minorities to amend America’s historical narrative. Reworking traditional art representations, Gonzales-Day and Kaphar lay bare mainstream cultural biases and social constructions of race.

National Portrait Gallery - Kristi Malakoff — Kristi Malakoff, “Maibaum,” 2009, paper and foam core; Photo by Kristi Malakoff

Auguste Edouart (1788-1861), “Thomas Sully,” 1843, ink, chalk, and cut paper on paper, 11 x 8 3/8 in., National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution, Gift of Robert L. McNeil, Jr.

Black Out: Silhouettes Then and Now (May 11, 2018 through March 20, 2019) explores the art of cut-paper profiles, a relatively unstudied art form, by examining its rich historical roots and considering its powerful contemporary presence. With both historical and contemporary explorations into the silhouette, “Black Out” reveals new pathways between the past and the present, particularly in terms of reassessing notions of race, power, individualism, and even our digital selves.

Charlette Cushman, by unidentified artist, c.1850, half-plate daguerreotype, National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution

Seneca Chief Governor Blacksnake, by F.C. Flint, c.1850, quarter-plate daguerreotype, National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution

Daguerreotypes: Five Decades of Collecting (June 15, 2018 through June 2, 2019) highlights 50 years of the National Portrait Gallery’s art by showcasing early portrait photography. The installation includes portraits of such iconic figures as activist and reformer Dorothea Dix, entrepreneur and showman P.T. Barnum with Tom Thumb, Seneca Nation leader Blacksnake, U.S. Navy Commodore Matthew C. Perry, and artist Alfred Waud.

Sign up to receive Fine Art Today, the weekly e-newsletter from
Fine Art Connoisseur magazine.

Opulent Beauty in a Homespun Environment: Jane Freilicher Paintings

By

Fine Art Today

-

March 19, 2018

0

Jane Freilicher Paintings | FineArtConnoisseur.com — Jane Freilicher, "The Painting Table," 1954, oil in linen, 26 x 40 in., Courtesy of the estate of Jane Freilicher and Paul Kasmin Gallery

Jane Freilicher: 50s New York
April 18 through June 9, 2018
Paul Kasmin Gallery, New York

From the gallery:

Paul Kasmin Gallery is pleased to announce its debut fine art exhibition of paintings by Jane Freilicher (1924 – 2014), whose estate the gallery now represents. The presentation is the first to focus on Freilicher’s paintings from the 1950s; a body of work that critic Fairfield Porter termed “traditional and radical.” It will include early still lifes, portraits, and the studio views that elucidate her characteristically deft balance of interior and exterior. Hailing from the 1950s and painted within various studios in lower Manhattan, the works are evocative of a downtown milieu that has since come to represent the period’s golden age of spirited, improvisational artistic freedom. They articulate Freilicher’s enduring influence: her steadfast observation and intuitive realism are detectable within the work of a number of painters working today.

Fine art exhibition: Jane Freilicher paintings — Jane Freilicher, “Early New York Evening,” 1954, oil in linen, 51 1/2 x 31 3/4 in., Courtesy of Paul Kasmin Gallery, Photo by Christopher Stach

Over a six-decade career, Freilicher quietly painted in direct contrast to the heroic and gestured angst of Abstract Expressionism, the industrial starkness of Minimalism, and the broad sweeping cacophony of Pop. She painted in the same spirit and dedication as Bonnard and Matisse: a subtle and unrelenting observation of domestic life. John Ashbery in a 1975 review described Freilicher with “obviously she paints what she sees, but it happens that she sees a lot.”

Featured amongst the vivid array of the artist’s cityscapes are the tough iron zig-zags of fire escapes, plumes of wispy gray emerging from ConEdison smoke stacks, the quintessential red-brown of New York City apartment blocks, and the almost-abstract configurations to which these elements amount. Essential to Freilicher’s oeuvre is the ongoing balance of what’s inside and what’s outside, oftentimes realized in the delicate shift of perspective between a simple floral arrangement and the complexity of the city behind it. In the works, these landscapes are seen as on rather than beyond the window, and as such, reside in the interior. And the flowers are, to a certain extent, anthropomorphic, taking the place of the figure, as in “Flowers in an Armchair.”

These kernels of Freilicher’s paintings — interiors, delicate light, drapery, the views of the city — were crystallized during this early period of her career. Freilicher returned tirelessly, and each time with renewed vitality, to the scenes within which she was absorbed: her home and studio. Those four walls and a window offered a fertile ground from which to paint, establishing the line of sight that eventually went on to characterize her later “Water Mill” paintings. Two paintings “Interior” (1953), and “Interior” (1954,) painted one year apart, illuminate this. Freilicher said of her work, “I’m quite willing to sacrifice fidelity to the subject to the vitality of the image, a sensation of the quick, lively blur of reality as it is apprehended rather than analyzed. I like to work on that borderline — opulent beauty in a homespun environment.”

Jane Freilicher, “Self-Portrait,” ca. 1960s, oil in linen, 12 1/8 x 13 1/8 in., Courtesy of the estate of Jane Freilicher and Paul Kasmin Gallery, Photo by Diego Flores

Sign up to receive Fine Art Today, the weekly e-newsletter from
Fine Art Connoisseur magazine.

Buffalo Hunt Oil Painting Selected for Live Auction

By

Fine Art Today

-

March 14, 2018

0

Fine art auctions - Charles M. Russell — Charles M. Russell, “Buffalo Hunt (NO. 7),” 1895, oil, 21 7/8 x 34 3/8 in.

The Russell: An Exhibition and Sale to Benefit the C.M. Russell Museum
March 17, 2018
www.cmrussell.org

From The Russell:

“Buffalo Hunt NO. 7” by Charles M. Russell represents an important step forward in the artist’s studied and steadily improving depiction of buffalo hunting activities. Russell’s portrayal of the hunter in the foreground is strong and effective, with the paint horse and brightly colored beaded scabbard and quiver drawing the viewer’s eye to the center of the action. The 21-7/8 x 34-3/8 inch painting also shows his progression as an artist, achieving greater sense of depth in this image than previous works involving buffalo hunting scenes.

Important watercolors by Russell, such as “Assiniboine War Party,” will also be offered for sale at the Live Auction. Watercolors comprised about one-third of Russell’s oeuvre, roughly 1,100 works of art. Additionally, three bronzes by Russell, “Spirit of Winter,” “A Bronc Twister,” and “Nature’s Cattle,” will be included in the sale on Saturday evening.

“Rooted in common interest, forged in friendships, and wrapped in excitement, the Russell auction has endured for five decades as generations have gathered in an annual celebration of Charlie and his multi-dimensional legacy,” says Tom Figarelle, C.M. Russell Museum Executive Director. “As we approach the fiftieth Russell Auction to Benefit the C.M. Russell Museum, we want to thank the community of Great Falls as well as the thousands of artists, patrons, and art collectors who have joined us over the years in support of the museum.”

Sign up to receive Fine Art Today, the weekly e-newsletter from
Fine Art Connoisseur magazine.

14 Squared: Small Works on View

By

Fine Art Today

-

March 13, 2018

0

Out West Art Show - Phil Korell — Phil Korell, “More than a Nickel’s Worth,” oil, 8 x 10 in.

Out West Art Show
Great Falls, Montana
Through March 17, 2018

The Out West Art Show and Sale features the works of more than 140 artists from the United States and Canada. Visitors can browse 110 artists’ exhibition rooms, and eight gallery showrooms. The event includes the popular quick finish and auctions, and visitors can watch a Native American dance troupe present an exhibition of exciting dance moves, often telling a story with their steps.

This year includes “14 Squared,” an exhibition of small works. Preview them here: