“Still Life with Watteau Nude,” 2017, acrylic on canvas, 24 x 32 inches
Through March 31, 2018
Dolby Chadwick Gallery
“Dolby Chadwick Gallery is pleased to announce ‘Art About Art: A Luminous Pursuit,’ an exhibition of new work by Guy Diehl,” the gallery says. “As art about art, Diehl’s paintings explore different artistic movements across recent history, often by referencing other artists within the composition itself. The still-life format, a rich tradition in its own right, allows Diehl to set up relationships between art historical references and carefully chosen everyday objects, encouraging viewers to draw their own connections and conclusions.
“Still Life with Paper and Glass,” 2017, acrylic on canvas, 24 x 28 inches
“Although Diehl’s style can be described as realist, he creates paintings that reflect a highly personal interpretation of reality. Having studied with first-generation photorealists Robert Bechtle and Richard McLean while a master’s student at San Francisco State University, as a young painter in the mid-1970s, Diehl made work that was arguably more closely aligned with a strict application of photorealism. However, a turn toward still life and an interest in creating art that meditated upon art granted him a new way of seeing that championed the freedom of the untethered interpretive eye.”
“Conversation with Francisco de Zurbarán #5,” 2016, Acrylic on canvas, 22 x 40 inches
TRAC2018: The Representational Art Conference
May 1–4, 2018
Leeuwarden, The Netherlands www.trac2018.com
Having successfully completed its fourth edition this past November in Miami, The Representational Art Conference (TRAC) is revving up for its fifth edition in the Netherlands this May. TRAC2018 is set to occur in Leeuwarden, capital of the northern Dutch province of Friesland and currently one of Europe’s two Capitals of Culture (along with the city of Valletta, Malta).
Michael Pearce
TRAC will again bring together a range of colleagues from around the world — including artists, art educators, museum curators, collectors, and critics — to discuss topics of mutual concern. High on the agenda is the urgent need to form an international alliance of ateliers and academies that teach classical figuration, to be called the International League of Fine Art Schools. This initiative will be explored during two wide-ranging discussions involving all delegates and guided by TRAC2018’s energetic on-the-ground coordinator, Tom S. Hageman (Klassieke Akademie, Groningen).
But there is much more. TRAC2018 will encompass presentations by the renowned artists Odd Nerdrum (Norway) and Henk Helmantel (Netherlands); TRAC’s founder, California Lutheran University professor Michael Pearce PhD; the Dutch art historian Ernst van de Wetering, who will emerge from retirement to address the delegates; Rockford University professor Stephen Hicks PhD; University of Exeter professor Corinna Wagner; the Texas-based museum adviser Joseph Bravo; Art Renewal Center director of operations Kara Ross; Da Vinci Initiative director Mandy Theis; Dutch artist Gezien van der Riet; and myself.
Odd Nerdrum
Still another talk will be delivered by Andreas Blühm, who directs the nearby Groninger Museum, one of the regional institutions to be visited by delegates on the conference’s final day. The Groninger Museum is currently exhibiting paintings by 19th-century artists who worked in the Northern Romantic tradition, including J.M.W. Turner and Caspar David Friedrich.
Henk Helmantel
The other institutions to be visited include the Fries Museum, which is presenting an exhibition devoted to the Dutch artist M.C. Escher; and the Drents Museum (Assen, Netherlands) and Kunsthalle Emden (Germany), which are sharing the exhibition The American Dream: American Realism 1945–2017. At the Graphic Centre Friesland, the artists Minno Banning, Siemen Dijkstra, and Reinder Homan will demonstrate their printmaking techniques. There will be several opportunities for delegates to paint outdoors (in Leeuwarden and on the sea nearby), and to see the temporary exhibition Northern Dutch Realism and the Classical Academy of Fine Arts (May 1 – June 24).
A woodcut by the Dutch artist Siemen Dijkstra
TRAC2018 will be held at the WTC/Westcord Hotel, a modern conference facility in Leeuwarden. The city is easily reached from Amsterdam or Schipol Airport by a 25-euro train journey lasting just over two hours. Until February 1, registration for TRAC2018 is available for 370 euros (rather than the usual 420 euros).
Steamboat Art Museum will host this year’s National Exhibition. The National entry deadline is January 26, 2018. Two paintings may be entered; however, only one may be accepted. Submissions must be originally conceived by artist.
Awards valued at $100,000 in cash & merchandise with a $25,000 cash best in show award.
This year’s exhibition will run from June 1 through September 3, giving summer visitors a chance to see the exhibition.
William A. Schneider’s oil painting, “On the Road to Mandalay” received the “Best People” award in the NOAPS* Fall On Line International Exhibition. This piece previously received top awards in the OPA Eastern Regional, The Bold Brush Competition and the International Plein Air Salon. The juror of awards was NOAPS Master Signature Artist, Jian Wu, MFA. The show runs through May 2018.
Schneider commented, “I envisioned the model as a sultry Hollywood starlet in the ‘40s …like Dorothy Lamour in one of the famous ‘Road’ movies. Having an inspiring muse certainly gets the creative juices flowing!”
Gerard Curtis Delano, "Dineh," oil, 30 x 36 inches
From Jack Morris and the Scottsdale Art Auction:
Scottsdale Art Auction achieved the holy grail of the auction industry when it sold all 542 lots in the two-day Leanin’ Tree Museum Collection sale in Scottsdale, Arizona on January 19 and 20. A packed saleroom with more than 500 collectors competed with more than 100 absentee and telephone bidders as well as several hundred registered internet bidders to push the sale that had a high estimate of $7,000,000 to a total of $7,423,023 when the final hammer fell.
“To exceed our high estimates and sell 100% of the lots is something I never expected was possible,” said auction partner Brad Richardson, “but it is a testament to the exceptional popularity of the art that Ed Trumble had assembled for the Leanin’ Tree Museum for over fifty years.”
One by one, auction records for artists were shattered by the sale. Auction partner Jack Morris commented, “if the sale is any indication of where western art stands at the moment, one would have to conclude that the market is alive and very well in Scottsdale Arizona.”
Buck McCain, “The Invocation,” bronze
Highlights of the sale were Gerard Curtis Delano’s Dineh, a 30 inches by 36 inches oil estimated at $150,000 – $250,000 that sold for $555,750 and Buck McCain’s The Invocation, a monumental bronze estimated at $100,000 – $175,000 that sold for $292,500 (a new auction record for the artist).
“If the sale is any indication of where western art stands at the moment, one would have to conclude that the market is alive and very well in Scottsdale Arizona.” ~Jack Morris (Photo courtesy Anne Weiler-Brown)
A native of Utah, Cary Henrie is a graduate of the Pratt Institute in New York. His work has been featured in Esquire, Sports Illustrated, Time, Newsweek, and more. He resides in Bountiful, Utah, with his wife, Sauni, and four children.
Come watch Henrie and 100 other artists create at the Celebration of Fine Art, where art lovers and artists connect, in Scottsdale, AZ, now through March 25, 2018. Contact the Celebration of Fine Art at 480-443-7695 or [email protected].
The New York Academy of Art (NYAA) presents works of “unofficial art” created by five Russian artists of the Soviet era and five contemporary Chinese artists. Curated by Dean Peter Drake and painter Mark Tansey, “Figurative Diaspora” will be the first exhibition to trace the direct artistic influence of the USSR on the artists of the People’s Republic of China and promises to be a fascinating look at the evolution of figurative art in both East and West.
“What holds the pictures together is the similarity of gesture, the figural dynamics, and the Socialist Realist voice.” ~ Mark Tansey
Alexander Kosolapov, “Perseus (The Assassination of Trotsky by Stalin),” 1983, oil on canvas, 73.75 x 45.5 inches framed, Collection of Neil K. Rector, not for sale
“Historically, China had no tradition of oil painting,” says NYAA. “However, starting in the 1950s, young art students in China were trained by Soviet art instructors, in both the USSR and China, to make propaganda murals of Mao and idealized depictions of socialist workers. Two generations of Chinese artists thus received rigorous training in the tenets of Soviet Social Realism and classical technique. However, in both China and Russia, some artists began using their academic training to create subversive, mocking, political and, in some cases, highly dangerous works. This was deemed “unofficial art:” works made with official training but without state sanction.
Liu Xiadong, “My Hometown,” 2014, oil on linen, 30 x 38 inches, Arthur Zeckendorf Collection, not for sale
“The Sots Art movement of the 1970s and 1980s, considered the USSR’s answer to Pop Art, used the iconography and propaganda symbols of Soviet Russia to deconstruct and explode established myths while Chinese artists used realism to question the official utopian view of Communist China. ‘Figurative Diaspora’ reveals that figurative art, while being somewhat marginalized in the Western art training system, was being preserved and furthered in China and Russia, where art schools and movements were developing their own idiosyncratic language.
Yu Hong, “Resolution,” 2015, acrylic on canvas, 70.87 x 78.74 inches, Private Collection, not for sale
“In 1994, Vitaly Komar, a key figure of the Sots Art movement, introduced Mark Tansey to a community of Chinese painters who had recently arrived in New York from Beijing. Like all state-trained artists, the Chinese painters had been drilled in impeccable Social Realist technique and Tansey was astonished at both the level of technical skill and its application to the figurative idiom. Tansey then organized an informal exhibition of their paintings in his New York studio, entitled ‘Transformations.’
Ni Jun, “China Central Television under Construction,” 2008, oil on canvas, 17.7 x 17.7 inches, $5,900
“Twenty-three years later, ‘Figurative Diaspora’ now presents paintings by five Chinese artists, three of whom participated in Tansey’s Transformations exhibition (Yu Hong, Ni Jun and Liu Xiaodong) and two of whom are part of the same school (Lu Liang and Xie Dongming). Their pieces will be shown alongside works from five Russian artists who had been creating “unofficial art” decades earlier (Erik Bulatov, Alexander Kosolapov, Komar and Melamid, Irina Nakhova and Oleg Vassiliev). ‘Figurative Diaspora’ will exhibit seminal works from both groups, including Kosalapov’s Perseus (The Assassination of Trotsky by Stalin) which was a centerpiece of the landmark Sots Art exhibition at the New Museum in 1986.
“Due to a shared Soviet instruction system, and cross-pollination between Chinese artists trained in Russia and Russian artists who spent time teaching in China, the same pictorial grammar and thematic concerns unite artworks made on different continents in different decades. Erik Bulatov’s Red Horizon (1971-2000), which portrays a group of office workers incongruously wandering on the beach towards an unreachable horizon parallels Liu Xiadong’s My Hometown (2014) with casual figures marching single file over a state-constructed dam. Both Ni Jun’s melancholy China Central Television under Construction (2008) and Oleg Vassiliev’s stark Erik Bulatov – Mayakofsky Square (1995) grapple with the concept of public spaces in socialist states.”
In London, the Fine Art Society is set to present an exhibition of etchings and lithographs by the British-American artist Gerald Brockhurst (1890–1978). Created between 1920 and 1945, the 50 works in this private collection cover the artist’s entire printmaking practice; all are illustrated in the accompanying catalogue.
Henry Rushbury (1st plate), 1920
Born in Birmingham, England, in 1890, Brockhurst showed signs of artistic promise while very young: the headmaster of the Birmingham School of Art even announced that he had discovered “a young Botticelli.” It was there that the boy encountered the work of the 19th-century Pre-Raphaelite painters who, along with Italian Renaissance masters, would inspire the formation of his own style.
Lassitude, 1923–24
Brockhurst ultimately became one of London’s most successful portrait painters, but he was also an accomplished draftsman and etcher. At a time when the market for contemporary etching was growing, he quickly mastered this technique and published his first examples in 1920. Translating his imagery from oil to ink, he produced exceptionally detailed portraits and figure studies, in opposition to the contemporary taste for landscapes and cityscapes.
Dorette, 1932
Brockhurst’s uncompromisingly truthful portraits are very much a product of their time: from the careful depiction of women’s fashion, makeup, and hairstyles (his subjects included the Duchess of Windsor, Marlene Dietrich, and the actress Merle Oberon) to the powerful posture and expensive suits of such American male sitters such as J. Paul Getty and Jacob Burns.
Adolescence, 1932
If Brockhurst had a long list of cosmopolitan sitters to paint, the primary models for his etchings were his first and second wives. The first, Anaïs Mélisande Folin, patiently posed for dozens of images yet, out of 20 portrayals of her included in this exhibition, only one bears her name, Mélisande.
Brockhurst’s second wife was Kathleen Woodward, a young model at the Royal Academy of Arts, whom he renamed Dorette. She became a fixture of Brockhurst’s paintings and prints, of which Adolescence (1932) is widely considered his masterpiece. The largest etching in the exhibition, it presents her admiring her own nude reflection in the mirror. This charged depiction of teenage anxieties is as much a psychological portrait as a physical one. It is also a work of extreme technical mastery, where objects, surfaces, lights, and shades are beautifully captured.
Jean Antoine Watteau (French, 1684 – 1721) La Surprise (detail) (ca. 1718) Oil on panel, 36.3 x 28.2 cm
By Vanessa Françoise Rothe
In July 2017, the J. Paul Getty Museum announced one of the most important acquisitions in its history: 16 major drawings and in addition to these works on paper, an exquisite oil on panel painting by Jean Antoine Watteau.
These new acquisitions are now available on view to the public in “Michelangelo to Degas: Major New Acquisitions,” featuring these acquired works, on view through April 22, 2018. This exciting and important new exhibition is curated by Julian Brooks, senior curator of drawings at the J. Paul Getty Museum.
Exhibiting all together, this strong group of top quality drawings and works on paper includes rare Italian Renaissance sheets and exceptional works by many of the most celebrated draftsmen in the history of European art. Historical great such as Michelangelo, Lorenzo di Credi, Parmigianino, Andrea del Sarto, Domenico Tiepolo, Goya, and Degas will be on view.
J Paul Getty Museum director Timothy Potts notes; “This latest acquisition has been the most transformative ever in the history of the Department of Drawings, bringing into the collection a number of extremely rare masterpieces by some of the greatest artists of the Renaissance through the 19th century.” He adds; “Showcasing these works together will demonstrate the monumental nature of this purchase, which also includes a famous painting by the French artist Jean Antoine Watteau. It is increasingly rare to be able to acquire masterpieces of this stature, which have been highly sought after by connoisseurs since the 16th century, and by now have long been swept up by museums.”
Michelangelo Buonarroti (Italian, 1475-1564) Study of a Mourning Woman (ca. 1500-05) Pen and brown ink, heightened with white, 26 x 16.5 cm
Indeed these 16 new reasons are enough to attract not only regulars and locals to the museum, but have intrigued many newcomers. With such an exceptional and rarely seen set of works all together in one room it’s no wonder interest has peaked. Some of the highlights include Michelangelo’s Study of a Mourning Woman (about 1500-1505), a wonderful and famed drawing of a sorrowful figure, hiding some of her face from the viewers. Michelangelo made the work at a pivotal moment early in his career when, already renowned as a sculptor, this work with simple values of light to dark, helps to create much depth in the work and successfully conveys volume – as a sculptor would need to have done in a sketch. Later he became increasingly more well known and esteemed as a painter. Interestingly, the drawing was discovered pasted into an album in the library at Castle Howard, England in 1995.
Senior curator of drawing Julian Brooks reminds us; “To be able to share any one of these drawings with our visitors would be an extraordinary privilege, but to add a group such as this to the collection, and to exhibit them together, is beyond a dream.”
Jean Antoine Watteau (French, 1684 – 1721) La Surprise (ca. 1718) Oil on panel, 36.3 x 28.2 cm
The exhibition also includes, as mentioned, an important oil painting: one of Jean Antoine Watteau’s finest paintings, La Surprise (The Surprise), painted in 1718-19. Watteau created the genre of the fěte galante, explaining a type of evocative outdoor scene of romantic encounters and entertainment, which embodies the light-hearted spirit of French painting in the early eighteenth century. Light touches of well blended oil paint creates a soft whimsical feel in the figures as well as the background, mirroring the light hearted theme and subject.
The museum comments that the work was thought to have been lost for centuries, and only known to historians from a 1731 engraving and copy in the British Royal Collection; this painting was rediscovered in 2007. At the Getty, it joins other exceptional eighteenth-century French paintings by Lancret, Chardin, Greuze, Fragonard, and Boucher.
The famed French Impressionist Edgar Degas brings us to a later time period and is represented by two exceptional, complementary works. After the Bath (Woman Drying Herself) (about 1886) is a magnificent, large pastel of a figure in a beautiful interior, looking almost decorative in the background. This work includes Degas-famed soft transitions on the figure in a warm inviting color palette. It is interesting to note that it was created when the artist had all but ceased to exhibit and had retreated into his studio to produce increasingly bold, experimental work.
Edgar Degas (French, 1834-1917) After the Bath (ca.1886) Pastel on paper, laid down on board, 72 x 58 cm
A second work by Degas, Two Studies of Dancers (about 1873), a superbly-preserved preparatory drawing on green paper can also be found among the treasures. Created in black chalk highlighted with white chalk, this rarely seen master work awaits you at the Museum.
The exhibit “Michelangelo to Degas: Major New Acquisitions” is currently on view in Los Angeles from through April 22, 2018, at the J. Paul Getty Museum. Additional information can be found at getty.edu/360.
String of Pearls (watermedia on paper, 30×20) by Carla O’Connor, featured at AmericanWatercolor.net
Streamline Publishing, the parent company of Fine Art Connoisseur and PleinAir magazines, recently announced the launch AmericanWatercolor.net, an exciting new online community for those who love and appreciate watercolor.
Produced by PleinAir magazine editor-in-chief Kelly Kane, American Watercolor is sure to bring fresh insights to this beloved medium, from artists and collectors alike. Click here to join this watercolor community, and to learn how you can become an ambassador.
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Awards valued at $100,000 in cash & merchandise with a $25,000 cash best in show award.
