In 1722, English artist, scientist, and explorer Mark Catesby landed in Charleston, South Carolina, to embark on an incredible journey that saw him document the birds, reptiles, amphibians, fish, insects, and mammals indigenous to the American colonies. Forty-four of Catesby’s paintings, on loan from the British Royal Collection, compose an exhibition currently on view here

For the first time, original watercolors by Mark Catesby will be on view in Charleston, South Carolina, at the Gibbes Museum of Art — nearly 300 years after the artist landed there to begin documenting New World animals. In fact, “Artist, Scientist, Explorer: Mark Catesby in the Carolinas” is only the second time his watercolors have ever been on view in the United States.

On view through September 24, the show has brought together 44 of Catesby’s watercolors. “To underscore the significance of Catesby’s masterful paintings, the exhibition will also include a selection of watercolors created circa 1733 by George Edwards,” the museum writes. “Like his friend Mark Catesby, Edwards created precise watercolor renderings of birds. In many cases the two artists painted the same subject matter, including a bird particularly important to South Carolina, the now extinct Carolina Parakeet. Collected by John Drayton in 1733, rediscovered in 1969, and recently conserved, the Edwards paintings will be on loan from The Lenhardt Collection of George Edwards Watercolors at Drayton Hall, a historic site of the National Trust for Historic Preservation.”

To learn more, visit The Gibbes 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.

J.M.W. Turner’s (1775-1851) profound influence on the elevation of “stained drawings” and watercolor as an independent art in the 19th century is a story being told by this Midwest museum through August 21.

The Indianapolis Museum of Art is currently showing a dynamic selection of work by English revolutionary and Romantic Joseph Mallord William Turner. The exhibition draws heavily upon the institution’s robust collection of watercolors by the artist and his contemporaries.

“Turner was a lifelong seeker of picturesque and sublime places,” the museum writes, “and his annual sketching tours took him across Great Britain and Continental Europe. Some of his colleagues sought novel sketching grounds far across the British Empire and beyond. Together, these artists elevated the lowly ‘stained drawings’ of the eighteenth century into the independent art of watercolor painting, England’s contribution to nineteenth-century art.

“The Indianapolis Museum of Art’s collection of watercolors by Turner and his contemporaries was founded more than a century ago. Its wide renown, however, is due to the singular efforts of Kurt F. Pantzer, an Indianapolis attorney, who was devoted to all things related to Turner.”

To learn more, visit the Indianapolis 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.

The diverse career of California Impressionist E. Charlton Fortune (1885-1969) is being highlighted this summer at the Pasadena Museum of California Art.

On view August 20 through January 7, 2018, “The Colorful Spirit” calls attention to an important stage in the life and career of famed California Impressionist E. Charlton Fortune, circa 1928, when she began a pioneering new vocation in liturgical art. The exhibition brilliantly pairs the artist’s impressionist and modernist landscapes with her ecclesiastical paintings, sculptures, furnishings, and other designs that she produced for the Catholic Church.

According to the museum, in 1928 Fortune became increasingly disenchanted with mass-produced ecclesiastical art, which “led her to create designs of her own.” Through approximately 80 works, “The Colorful Spirit” highlights Fortune’s contributions to early California painting and American liturgical design. 

To learn more, visit the Pasadena Museum of California 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.

Nestled along the northern edge of Pisgah National Forest in North Carolina you’ll find the quaint town of Blowing Rock, the home of Blowing Rock Frameworks & Gallery, which will soon host an exhibition of new works by Jason Drake.

On view August 14-26, “Close to Home” is a fantastic exhibition featuring both figurative and landscape paintings by artist Jason Drake. Although the painter will present watercolor, oil, and egg tempera work, Drake’s characteristic technique — with crisp, tightly rendered subjects — can be seen in each.

Via the gallery, “[Drake] is a penetrating observer of the quiet, simple framework that makes up life in this region, and his compositions evoke the emotion he suffuses into each painting. A reception will be held on Saturday, August 19 from 5 to 8 p.m. where you can meet the artist.”

To learn more, visit Blowing Rock Galleries.

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 Holton Studio Gallery is currently presenting new and old works by California native Carol Peek during its ongoing “Highlight Series.”

Intimately influenced by the local landscape around Marin County, as well by as her mother’s passion for art, artist Carol Peek delights in capturing the quickly disappearing agricultural landscape of Marin and Sonoma Counties, focusing on the family farms that once covered the area.

The Holton Studio Gallery in Berkeley, California, is currently showcasing several of Peek’s work during its ongoing “Highlight” series. Opened on July 15 with a reception and artist talk, the exhibition continues through August 5.

To learn more, visit The Holton Studio 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.

PleinAir Salon Grand Prize winner Kathleen B. Hudson has a stellar solo exhibition of her newest oils on view now at the Artists’ Attic in Lexington, Kentucky! Will you be one of the lucky viewers?

The incredibly talented and quickly ascending painter Kathleen B. Hudson has a robust group of about 40 of her newest oils currently on view at the Artists’ Attic in Lexington, Kentucky. Titled “Atmospheric Impressions,” “the paintings in the show represent some of my best work,” says Hudson, “both studio and plein air, from the past year. All collectors will get to take home a copy of the current issue of PleinAir magazine with my painting on the cover.”

To learn more, visit here.

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.

Seventeen regional artists from around the Twin Cities of Minneapolis and Saint Paul, Minnesota, are currently showcasing a vibrant display of plein air paintings during this selling invitational. Where can it be found?

Located within a gorgeously restored stone Victorian-style home just across the street from Minneapolis’ Walker Art Center is the hidden gem of Groveland Gallery, which just last week hosted an opening reception for its first Plein Air Invitational exhibition. Featuring 10 of the gallery’s artists along with seven guest artists, the show seems to have been a natural response to the growing popularity of the gallery’s Plein Air SmackDown — a paint-out now in its seventh year in which gallery artists work on location before displaying and selling their works.

The invitational is slated for August 5, 2017, and gallery owner and director Sally Johnson believes the exhibition will whet appetites and help build anticipation for what will surely be the SmackDown’s biggest year to date. If the July 20 opening reception was any indication, Johnson was right. The gallery was packed with artists, collectors, friends, and enthusiasts until its doors closed at 8:30 p.m. and there was much talk and excitement surrounding the upcoming paint-out.

Gallery artists represented in the show include Richard Abraham, Kristie Bretzke, Joshua Cunningham, Robert Dorlac, Barbara McIlrath, Carl Oltvedt, and Holly Swift. Guest artists include Neil Sherman, Bob Upton, Scott Lloyd Anderson, Carl Bretzke, Andy Evansen, Aaron Jacobs, Stuart Loughridge, and Dan Mondloch.

The exhibition continues through September 1. To learn more, visit Groveland 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.

In this occasional series, Fine Art Today delves into the world of portraiture, highlighting historical and contemporary examples of superb quality and skill. This week: Jan van Eyck, “Portrait of a Man.”

It’s been called a number of things, including “Man with the Red Turban,” “Portrait of a Man,” and “Self-portrait.” The identity of the man in Jan van Eyck’s (circa 1390-1441) canonical “Portrait of a Man” is unknown, but the mystery surrounding the painting is certain.

Painted in 1433 and housed today within the walls of London’s National Gallery, Van Eyck’s “Portrait of a Man” is a masterful example of the early use of oil. The sitter — with his confrontational gaze — is rendered beautifully in the cutting-edge medium. His chaperon — commonly misidentified as a turban — is a brilliant vermillion red, which threatens the viewer almost as much as the stern expression.

Several elements have suggested to scholars that the visage painted is that of the artist himself. To begin, the sitter’s dress would have been appropriate for a man of Van Eyck’s social status. Further, an inscription on the frame — which is still original — reads “I do as I can” (AIC IXH XAN), which can perhaps be interpreted as a kind of self-promotion. Indeed, many scholars also believe a self-portrait would explain the chaperon. The folds, lines, light, shading, and texture of the headgear would have been a vivid display of the artist’s talents, undoubtedly impressing potential patrons.

The National Gallery writes, “Van Eyck uses light and shade in a subtle and dramatic way: the sitter seems to emerge from darkness, his face and headdress modeled by the light that falls from the left. The viewer is drawn towards the image by the penetrating gaze of the sitter. The painting, so carefully inscribed, was presumably one of particular significance to the painter, suggesting further a possible self-portrait.”

To learn more, visit the National 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.

Fine Art Connoisseur was honored to be invited to celebrate with the legendary David Hockney on the artist’s 80th birthday at the Getty Museum Center in Los Angeles.

By Vanessa Françoise Rothe

Two exhibitions are on view: “Self-Portraits,” curated by Julian Brooks of the Getty, and a clever grouping of Hockney’s mosaic photography. Of particular interest to Fine Art Today readers is the “Self Portraits” exhibition, which ranges from Hockney’s painting of his 17-year-old self in school to recent self-portraits created with the pen tool on a computer. Of special note are his mid-career graphite works and a fine watercolor. The exhibition features a selection of self-portraits made over a span of 65 years.

As the gallery text notes, “Laced with wit and sensitivity, these works — created for Hockney’s own interest and not for sale — display an intense scrutiny of his features over time.” Hockney, the museum notes, was not at first interested in doing self-portraits, but  after seeing works in his travels — such as Rembrandt’s self-portraits and that artist’s studies of his features in different states, happy and sad, mouth open in astonishment — Hockney began to show interest. The show portrays not only different stages in his art career, but his ever-changing use of mediums as well, from graphite, to watercolors, to modern day renditions using an iPad; this small but interesting exhibition underscores his experimentation.

The evening was a celebration of the artist with not only friends and some reporters, but patrons of the museum who took the time to come and support Hockney’s works, career, and the arts in general. The Getty, shining as always as a beacon in the hills in Los Angeles, is proud to represent a very fine collection ranging from Rembrandt — interesting to see the influence on Hockney of those works in the next building — to Alma-Tadema, to Van Gogh, as well as some of the contemporary artists who have been influenced by the masters. Getty Director Timothy Potts aims to continue in this vein of linking the permanent fine art collection to new and informative exhibitions and has an exciting year planned ahead.