For the first time ever, four newly restored reliquaries that were painted by Renaissance icon Fra Angelico for the church of Santa Maria Novella in Florence between 1424 and 1434 will be reunited during a blockbuster exhibition. Where?

The Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston will be the sole venue for “Fra Angelico: Heaven on Earth,” opening February 22 and continuing through May 28. Angelico (circa 1400-1455) was celebrated in his time as the most famous painter in Italy, and any opportunity to view his masterpieces outside Europe is one worth taking.

“With remarkable ingenuity and rare technical expertise, Angelico reconceived popular compositions and infused familiar Christian stories with new meaning,” the Gardner reports. “His iconic altarpieces and frescoes — painted for two Popes, members of the Medici family of Florence, and the city’s merchant elite — transformed Western art. They secured his place in history and forged the future of painting in Italy.

“Heaven on Earth” brings together choice examples of Angelico’s narrative art, inviting visitors to experience the wonder of his breathtaking stories up close and in a new light. “Two monumental altarpieces, an intricate series of panels from his Silver Chest, a previous triptych for private devotion, and nine predella scenes join the four reliquaries in a dramatic installation evocative of their Renaissance context,” the Gardner continues. “Many of these works are visiting the United States for the first time in over 40 years at the museum.”

Dr. Nathaniel Silver, the Gardner’s associate curator of collections, added, “Although separated for over 200 years, these four precious painted reliquaries showcase Fra Angelico’s peerless creativity and unparalleled technical accomplishments. The reliquaries, carefully selected altarpieces, furniture panels, and a triptych illuminate the relationship between form and function, revealing how the artist shaped each story for its intended purpose.”

To learn more, visit the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum.

This article was featured in Fine Art Today, a weekly e-newsletter from Fine Art Connoisseur magazine. To start receiving Fine Art Today for free, click here.

by Kelly Compton

As seen in the Frontispiece of this issue (page 3), American artists have long highlighted the world of industry in their paintings, sculptures, drawings, and prints.  Unfortunately, the dynamism of such historical images—the exciting throb of big things happening—has generally morphed into faded glory, visions of once-grand structures no longer operating at full capacity, if at all.  Such scenes of melancholy and ruination possess their own charm, but industry and industriousness ain’t over yet; artists are finding ways to celebrate still-active sites, too.  This spread, therefore, sets out a range of approaches being pursued by artists around the world. . .

(This article is featured within the November-December 2017 issue of Fine Art Connoisseur.  To purchase this issue or subscribe, visit HERE.)

More than 175 works by 100 artists inspired by Mississippi over the last two centuries feature during a major exhibition at the Mississippi Museum of Art. There’s definitely something here for every art lover!

“Picturing Mississippi, 1817-2017: Land of Plenty, Pain, and Promise” is a significant exhibition soon to be on view at the Mississippi Museum of Art in Jackson. Opening December 9 and continuing through July 8, 2018, the exhibition commemorates the 200th anniversary of Mississippi’s statehood through more than 175 works by 100 artists.

“Illuminating the perception and depiction of Mississippi over more than 200 years, the exhibition showcases 175 works by 100 artists who either resided in the state, visited, or lived elsewhere and were compelled to respond to a multiplicity of subjects,” the museum says. “From Choctaw objects and sweeping landscapes to portraiture and contemporary work, the exhibition reveals that Mississippi has continuously resonated with artists in powerful ways as lived experience, memory, and imagination.

“The exhibition features individual masterpieces by artists seldom exhibited in the state, including James Audubon, Jean-Michel Basquiat, Thomas Hart Benton, George Caleb Bingham, John Steuart Curry, Robert Indiana, and Andy Warhol, alongside works by indigenous peoples, as well as by native Mississippians such as William Dunlap, Sam Gilliam, George Ohr, and Eudora Welty. Other prominent artists with works on view include Henri Cartier-Bresson, Melvin Edwards, William Eggleston, Walker Evans, Ben Shahn, and Kara Walker.”

Mississippi Museum of Art Director Betsy Bradley said, “An unprecedented event for our state, ‘Picturing Mississippi’ provides the unique opportunity to look at our history through the creative lenses of artists working across time, place, and media. We are excited to share a diversity of impressions of Mississippi’s people, places, and histories. The exhibition and related programming reaffirm the seminal quote, attributed to native son William Faulkner, ‘To understand the world, you must first understand a place like Mississippi.’ We hope the exhibition will inspire honest and wide-ranging conversation about where we’ve been, where we are, and where we hope to be.”

The robust exhibition is divided into eight different themes, including “A Contest Place: Native Americans and Europeans”; “Natchez: Culture and Slavery”; “From Statehood to Confederacy: Mississippi in Times of Peace and War”; “Art in the Age of Reconstruction”; “Land and Sea: Artists Explore Mississippi and the World”; “Mississippi, the Great Depression, and Regional Identity”; “Shaping the Future: Art of Mississippi Since 1950”; and “Art in the Age of Civil Rights.”

To learn more, visit The Mississippi Museum of Art.

This article was featured in Fine Art Today, a weekly e-newsletter from Fine Art Connoisseur magazine. To start receiving Fine Art Today for free, click here.

Vanessa Rothe Fine Art is proudly presenting again Realism Without Borders — a 60-piece fine art exhibition and sale that will be held at two esteemed locations, one on the East Coast and one of the West Coast. Featuring Soviet and historic works alongside contemporary works by Russian, Ukrainian, American, French, Swedish, Italian, and English painters, the event aims to connect two centuries and two continents through a shared commitment to realist painting traditions. Details and locations here!

Realism Without Borders started as a group of artists and art historians with a common vision for art. That partnership has grown into a prestigious collection shown through international traveling exhibitions. Curated by Vanessa Rothe with imported works by art historian Akhmed Salakhly, the Realism Without Borders collection can be found year-round at Vanessa Rothe Fine Art in California. Containing about 100 works at any given time, the collection is always changing as works are sold and new works created.

This year’s Realism Without Borders exhibition brings that collection to New York City and will unite an international roster of top artists working in complementary styles. The show will be hosted by the famed Salmagundi Club (New York City) from December 5-December 10, 2017, during the club’s ongoing celebration of 100 years on Fifth Avenue.

From Lomakin to Gladchenko, Suvorov to Kovalenko, Westerberg to Lipking, Dunaway to Krimon, the artists in this exhibition give collectors a rare opportunity to view and compare works from America, Europe, and Russia and to purchase these one-of-a-kind finds for their own fine art collections or as gifts. Paintings will range from small affordable gems to large-scale, highly finished works.

Realism Without Borders also celebrates the new opportunities that contemporary culture affords. Artists from all over the globe can now share images of their work through social media and are influencing one another across borders. This exhibition celebrates the blurring of those boundaries and borders, in both the literal sense and the stylistic execution of the works.

“We share an admiration of both realist and impressionist art, and many of our artists in fact combine these styles in order to make strong, visually appealing works,” says Rothe. “The viewers will see similar works and styles being created from opposite ends of the world, finding unity and likeness in both subject and stroke. Some follow the strong realist techniques of Russia’s Levitan landscapes, other styles are reminiscent of the loose and layered brushwork of California Impressionist Edgar Payne, while others are more academic in nature.”

The 2017 show and sale features newest French artist-member Nicolas Martin, as well as contemporary artists Nick Alm, Grigory Ananiev, Mia Bergeron, John Burton, Michelle Dunaway, Michael Klein, Alexander Kremer, Sergey Kovalenko, Olga Krimon, Joshua LaRock, Jeremy Mann, Nicolas Martin, Dimitri Motov, C.W. Mundy, Robert Pillsbury, Peggi Kroll-Roberts, Ray Roberts, Vanessa Rothe, Valery Shmatko, Vadim Suvorov, Daniil Volkov, and Aaron Westerberg. Historic artists include Alexi Borodin, Boris Gladchenko, Boris Grachev, Oleg Lomakin, Edgar Payne, Yuri Podlaski, Erik Rebane, and Vladimir Telegin.

Artwork on Resale From the Marano Collection include Juliette Aristides, Casey Baugh, Marc Dalessio, Daniel Graves, Jeremy Lipking, Jeremy Mann, Edward Minoff, Julio Reyes, Aaron Westerberg, and Vincent Xeus.

To learn more, visit Vanessa Rothe Fine Art.

This article was featured in Fine Art Today, a weekly e-newsletter from Fine Art Connoisseur magazine. To start receiving Fine Art Today for free, click here.

Alexandra Klimas has had a lifelong fascination with cows, and follows their decline in the Netherlands with dismay — like pugs, they are now mainly kept inside, in mega farms. Her reflection of their disappearance from the fields leads her to create idealized pastoral landscapes with an ethereal quality that draws the viewer in. Where can you see those paintings now?

On view now through November 27, John Davies Gallery in England is presenting the magnetic works of Dutch painter Alexandra Klimas. Klimas paints oil portraits of farm animals created on location, with the named animals as sitters. Although animals have been painted for millennia, Klimas’ paintings are unique as the cows, sheep, farm cats, and poultry are the lead subjects in the works and given the artistic attention usually applied only to human subjects.

To learn more, visit John Davies Gallery.

This article was featured in Fine Art Today, a weekly e-newsletter from Fine Art Connoisseur magazine. To start receiving Fine Art Today for free, click here.

The Minneapolis Club is “thrilled and honored” to be hosting a solo exhibition of works by important painter Mary Pettis. Details here.

Now through November 30, Minneapolis, Minnesota, has a new attraction: a solo exhibition of gorgeous landscapes by accomplished painter Mary Pettis. Hosted by the Minneapolis Club, the exhibition consists of a handful of Pettis’ recent works, including several from her recent project with the Minnesota Orchestra in which the artist created a series of special paintings in connection with the performance of Claude Debussy’s “Images for Orchestra.”

“When I paint I truly feel, in the present moment, the great relations among all things,” remarked Pettis. “Every subject becomes a metaphor for something deeper and more intangible. I hope that those who view my work, whether briefly or for decades, will feel these sentiments. My inspiration is the hope I hold that my work will help spread peace, contemplation, tranquility, and joy.”

Recently, Pettis was designated as an ARC Living Master by the Art Renewal Center. In September 2017, Mary travelled to Barcelona, Spain to receive multiple awards in Art Renewal Center’s 12th Annual International ARC Salon. Her 3rd place winner, “Minnehaha Falls in Winter,” will be exhibited with other award winners in the live exhibition at the European Museum of Modern Art (MEAM) through the end of November.

To learn more, visit The Minneapolis Club.

This article was featured in Fine Art Today, a weekly e-newsletter from Fine Art Connoisseur magazine. To start receiving Fine Art Today for free, click here.

Although they aren’t credited with having developed the first airplane, Magnus, Wilhelm, and Ferdinand von Wright were accomplished in their own right, each known as a great painter of portraits, landscapes, and nature subjects. A major exhibition of their creative accomplishments is currently on view here.

Growing up in North Carolina, I became very familiar with the Wright Brothers — Orville and Wilbur, that is — at a young age. After all, their famous flying machine can be seen on most NC license plates. However, I had no idea that there were other famous Wright Brothers, until now. That’s because the Ateneum Art Museum in Helsinki, Finland, is currently celebrating the career and works of three native sons —brothers — who are considered among the country’s most beloved 19th-century artists.

Magnus, Wilhelm, and Ferdinand von Wright were well known in their time as great painters of portraits, landscapes, and nature subjects, especially birds, and as creators of scientific illustrations of flora and fauna. More than 200 works from the Atheneum collection, and from Finnish and Swedish public and private collections, compose “The Von Wright Brothers,” which opened at the museum on October 27 and continues through February 25, 2018.

According to the museum, “The exhibition introduces new perspectives, as it explores the historical significance of the von Wright brothers for Finnish art, culture, and science. The exhibition, occupying the entire third floor of the museum, features oil paintings, watercolors, prints, and sketches. Exhibits also include birds stuffed by Magnus von Wright, courtesy of the Finnish Museum of Natural History.

“The von Wright brothers grew up in a manor in Haminalahti, Kuopio. The brothers’ interest in nature originated in the hobby of hunting, as practiced by their father, Major Henrik Magnus von Wright. Skilled hunters, the brothers began to document the birds they caught.

“Through watching and painting birds over a long period of time, the brothers gained a wide knowledge of nature. Their works are characterized by detailed scientific accuracy. At the same time, their art conveys a special love of nature. The works reflect the aesthetic values of their time, the 19th century.

“The eldest of the brothers, Magnus von Wright (1805–1868), known especially for his landscape paintings, was an influential cultural figure in Helsinki. He worked as a teacher at the University of Helsinki drawing school and as an expert at the Finnish Art Society, in which capacity he contributed to the establishment of the Ateneum collection. In his paintings of Helsinki, such as ‘View from Katajanokka’ (1868) and ‘Annankatu on a Cold Winter Morning’ (1868), he documented the changes taking place in the city.

“Wilhelm von Wright (1810–1887) was active especially in Stockholm and on the island of Orust on the west coast of Sweden. He worked as a scientific illustrator for the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences. Wilhelm assisted his brother Magnus in illustrating the book Svenska foglar, presenting Swedish birdlife: the work contains 182 colored drawings, illustrating birds with scientific precision. According to today’s ornithologists, the illustrations created by the brothers are still accurate. Wilhelm suffered paralysis, which cut his career shorter than that of the other brothers.

“The most famous, and youngest, of the brothers is Ferdinand von Wright (1822–1906). Ferdinand is known especially for his paintings of birds, such as ‘The Fighting Capercaillies’ (1886) and ‘An Eagle-Owl Seizes a Hare’ (1860). Ferdinand was one of the first visual artists in Finland to make a living from art. He enjoyed the longest career of the brothers, and later attained the status of an old master and earned respect from young artists.”

After being on display at the Ateneum, the exhibition will, in 2018, travel to the Kuopio Art Museum and the Tikanoja Art Museum in Vaasa. To learn more, visit the Ateneum Art Museum.

This article was featured in Fine Art Today, a weekly e-newsletter from Fine Art Connoisseur magazine. To start receiving Fine Art Today for free, click here.