Charles Sprague Pearce, “The Arab Jeweler,” circa 1882, oil on canvas, 46 x 35 3/8 inches, Metropolitan, New York
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 we detail a fantastic oriental masterwork circa 1882.
Nestled into a dimly lit corner with reed pipe in hand, an Arab jeweler delicately stokes a small bed of coals. Surrounding the figure are the tools of his trade — a small anvil, tongs, a ceramic bowl, and a jar of oil. Just as captivating as his activity is the sitter’s cool, sky blue coat embroidered with gold trim, and his woven cap.
The sights, sounds, culture, and color of the orient have here been masterfully captured, frozen in time, by the accomplished painter Charles Sprague Pearce. The image is tightly rendered and cropped, and there is a wonderful sense of intimacy in “The Arab Jeweler” that pulls viewers into the scene, encouraging them to participate in its narrative. Completed circa 1882, the painting is a product of the artist’s four-month excursion along the Nile in the early 1870s, which undoubtedly led to his particular interest in the oriental or “exotic.”
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Oskar Hoffmann, “Road to Reval,” circa 1890, oil on canvas, 27 x 48 inches
In this ongoing series for Fine Art Today, we take a longer look at the history and features of a soon-to-be-available artwork of note. This week we feature a luminous and tightly rendered 19th-century painting by little-known master Oskar Hoffmann.
A remarkable work by little-known Baltic-German painter Oskar Hoffmann (1851-1912) headlines a July 29 auction via the Los Angeles-based house Bid Network Online. To be sure, the available painting, titled “Road to Reval,” is remarkable — rendered with such precision that no detail of the casual country-themed composition has been neglected. Indeed, it seems odd that such a skillful painter has slipped into relative obscurity.
Born in 1851 in Estonia, Hoffmann is best known for his colorful and luminous depictions of Estonian peasants, such as “Road to Reval.” He began his artistic career circa 1872 when he enrolled at the Kunstakademie Düsseldorf, working briefly under the guidance of Eduard von Gebhardt. Graduating in 1877, Hoffmann would eventually establish his own studio in Düsseldorf and, throughout his career, would participate in international exhibitions in Vienna, Berlin, and elsewhere.
Captured within a strong horizontal format, “Road to Reval” brings together a very masterful realistic portrayal of a range of symbols, including windmills, campfires, muddy paths, paupers vs. a train of market-goers, etc., all of which were understood and close to the public. A stunning golden light from the frosty morning illuminates the scene. The light is just beginning to grace the rooftops of nearby cottages and a lone birch tree toward the left edge of the canvas. Still veiled in shadow, a group of peasants wades through the muddy street past a row of large boulders.
Auction estimates are between $34,000 and $50,000. To learn more, visit here.
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Katie Whipple, “A Study of Peonies,” 2016, oil on prepared paper, 11 x 20 inches
Fine Art Today recently caught up with the magnificent and quickly ascending painter Katie G. Whipple for an in-depth inquiry into the woman, the artist, and her paintings. Her responses were attentive, complete, and sure to intrigue our readers. They deserved to be quoted in full.
Fine Art Today: Talk to us a little about your creative process. Once a moment of inspiration hits, how do you approach the panel or canvas? How do you know when a piece is completed?
Katie Whipple: In some sense, every piece I make has a completely different process. But to my students or an outside observer, it probably doesn’t seem that way. What I mean is that I tend to start my pieces in a similar fashion: a drawing, an underpainting, then the final pass or passes. But to me, each piece feels like completely uncharted territory, even if I have been painting the same subject matter for weeks or months. Inspiration comes from infinite sources, and the initial spark of an idea is what tends to guide my process for the painting.
Lately, I have been painting lots of flowers. Because I am such a slow painter and like to paint many-petaled flowers, I have a painting rate of about one flower per day. This is not a very sustainable pace if you are trying to paint a bouquet of live flowers. I decided to start composing my paintings one flower at a time, adapting my subject matter to my limited skill and speed. This saved me money on flowers and allowed me to get my desired effect for creating a bigger composition.
Of course, when working in this “in the moment” kind of painting style, I have no idea where the composition is heading when I paint that first flower on the canvas. I know it is completed when I have added enough flowers to make a composition work (there is always a scary point where this doesn’t seem possible) and can’t add anything else to the composition without breaking the integrity of the piece. Or sometimes paintings are finished when you simply run out of time! Honestly, though, I hate finishing paintings. It always seems to me as if a complete canvas is just whispering to me, “Well, you tried your best. Don’t worry kid, you’ll get ’em next time.”
Katie Whipple, “Annunciation,” oil on panel
Fine Art Today: Is there something specific that draws you to your subjects, such as the figure? What has this evolution been like?
Katie Whipple: I decided I wanted to be a professional artist around age 12. I had been drawing and painting all my life, and already was taking oil painting lessons by that point. My mother is a very talented, mostly self-taught painter who started encouraging my interest in art at a very early age. But it was at age 12, in 2003, when I saw the Richard Schmid retrospective at the Butler Museum in Youngstown, Ohio, that I thought I could make this my life. I especially remember his paintings of his family and how much they moved me, even at that young age.
Around this same time, I realized I could copy a picture from a magazine and actually make it look like the person. So began my love affair with drawing faces. My love of drawing and the desire to master the human form led me to Jacob Collins and the Grand Central Atelier in New York City. In my four years of study at GCA I was completely devoted to studying the human form. It was the only thing I cared to draw or paint, and it was my highest aspiration to be a portrait painter.
I still deeply love painting and drawing the figure, and it attracts me for the same reasons it attracts all of us: because we are human beings. We will always, always be most attracted to a painting that reflects ourselves. A Rembrandt portrait can communicate to us about love, loss, perseverance, devastation, strength, and compassion equally with 1,000 pages of Victor Hugo. This will always be one of the reasons I paint. Now, to be rather contradictory, it is for similar reasons that I have stepped away from the figure for the last several months of my life, and am focusing on some new channels to let inspiration speak through.
Fine Art Today: What are your primary goals in art, and what do you hope your viewers take away from it?
Katie Whipple: A perfect follow-up to the last question, and the answer [to] why I am taking a break from portraits and figures at this point in my career. Right now, my primary goal in my paintings is to create joy and delight. This is much harder to do with painting people than it is with painting flowers. To me, flowers are the embodiment of Nature’s joy. They are pure beauty, pure delight. We humans have cultivated and selectively bred the flowers for centuries — for no other reason than to make them the most beautiful, the most fragrant, and the most lovely.
We attach so very much emotion to a face or human form. I found I was doing this in my own work and it seemed to be clouding my vision and making me take myself way too seriously — I am just a painter, after all. You can never look at a portrait of anyone objectively, no matter how long ago it was painted. So, for now, and I do hope this will change if you ask me this question a year from now, I hope that my viewers take away the same delight in my paintings that I feel in making them.
Katie Whipple, “Patience Roses,” 2016, oil on wood, 14 x 18 inches
Fine Art Today: Which artists have been the most influential for you? Whether historical or contemporary, is it purely an aesthetic influence or conceptual? Perhaps both?
Katie Whipple: Oh, this question! I know every artist has a thousand different answers every day of the week! Right now, my biggest influences are Odilon Redon, Roman wall paintings, and Golden Age botanical illustrations. Redon for his sheer delight in creation and his incredible use of floral motif. Roman wall paintings because they are masterpieces, and consume me to tears, wonder, and speechlessness every time I walk into a room of them — but most specifically the “Painted Garden” from the Villa Livia. It is (right now) my favorite painting, and of course we have no idea who painted it. And botanical illustrations because they are teaching me so much and are so incredibly fun to look at.
As far as my “Mount Rushmore” of artists, as my father would say, this is a different batch altogether. Michelangelo, Rembrandt, Fra Angelico, and Van Gogh. Simply because they were all geniuses and because they are the four artists that never fail to bring me to tears. Hans Holbein is pretty high up there as well. Fra Angelico, though, is my dear friend, and his pieces have an effect on me like no piece of art ever has. I wasn’t raised Catholic and am not particularly religious, so I can’t really explain this except to say that his paintings touch my soul in a way that is completely unexplainable.
Influential contemporary artists, of course, are my wonderful teachers, mentors, and friends. Firstly, Edward Minoff, because I firmly believe I wouldn’t know how to paint or draw at all without his guidance over the years. And Jacob Collins, to whom I owe so much. As well as some of my very favorite artists that I am lucky enough to call my teachers, friends, and colleagues: Colleen Barry, Travis Schlaht, Will St. John, Patrick Byrnes, Liz Beard, and my husband, Brendan Johnston.
There are so many more to include!
Katie Whipple, “Devin Finley,” 2016, graphite and white chalk on watercolor-toned paper, 22 x 15 inches
Fine Art Today: Your surfaces are so incredibly lovely. They have a such an attentiveness, vitality, and warmth. How important are these — and other — surfaces in your work?
Katie Whipple: Thank you! Oh, I’m so glad you asked this question, because I am so excited about my surfaces! When I was living and studying Old Masters in Italy in 2013-14, I started painting on wood panels because I was copying Renaissance paintings. I completely fell in love with working on oil-primed wood, and I have hardly painted on canvas since!
Surface is important because it completely changes the application of the paint and the effects you are able to achieve. I love working on wood because I am able to lay down a brushstroke and the integrity of the stroke will hold, no matter how transparent or opaque that stroke is. I also love the ability to achieve more translucent effects with a smooth, hard surface — perfect for painting flowers.
As far as the gold leaf goes, you don’t have to work on panel to gild a surface, but for me it is one way to cut framing costs and make a piece complete within itself — just like altarpieces in the Renaissance. Also, I like to add very low gesso reliefs to my works to gild over and create a “frame” for the piece; this can only be done on a hard surface, otherwise the built-up gesso would crack.
Small shout-out, I custom-order my panels from SoHo Art Materials; they are so beautiful, and I very highly recommend them. And I prime the raw wood panels with two layers of rabbitskin glue, and two layers of lead ground from Natural Pigments. I couldn’t dream of a more beautiful surface to work on!
Katie Whipple, “Lemon: Light Study,” 2014, oil on linen, 6 x 8 inches
Fine Art Today: Talk to us about your journey to becoming an artist. Were you always interested in art?
Katie Whipple: I think I made my first watercolor painting at age 4, and I can’t remember a time when I wasn’t painting or making something with my hands. I have always loved art, and other than a brief time of wanting to be a veterinarian when I was 9, it has really been my only desired career path.
I have been incredibly lucky in my artistic journey. My parents have always supported and believed in me and encouraged me to make a career in art. My mom always took me to museums and art lectures as a child, which I loved. When I was 18, I moved to New York City right after graduating high school to attend what was then the Grand Central Academy in Manhattan — now Grand Central Atelier in Queens. At the time I knew hardly anything about the atelier movement, or academic painting in general. I had certainly never heard of the Ecole de Beaux Arts.
All I knew is that I wanted to learn how to draw really well, and I was completely blown away by the work I saw at GCA. I am so incredibly grateful to my 18-year-old self for taking the plunge into the unknown. In being at GCA and living in New York City for four years, many things were opened up to me, and I learned much more than how to draw. I am so grateful for Jacob’s vision in this; during my first years at the GCA I heard lectures that included Shakespeare and classical violin concerts, as well as lectures about Brunelleschi and the Golden Ratio. I leaned into my love of history and learned more about all kinds of painting.
After graduating GCA, I received the Alma Schapiro Prize, which sent me to live at the American Academy in Rome for three months. My husband (then boyfriend) and I stayed for eight months, traveling to Florence, Naples, and the Amalfi Coast. This time in Italy might be one of the most shaping events for where my career is today, for that is where I fell in love with the Renaissance, Roman wall painting, and painting fruits and flowers. It is also where I learned to cultivate pure delight in my work and in my studio practices.
Katie Whipple, “Daffydowndillys,” 2016, oil on wood, 14 x 17 1/2 inches
Fine Art Today: Where do you see yourself in, say, five years? How do you see your career and artworks evolving?
Katie Whipple: I have no idea! I would hate to know where I am going to be in five years. I hope that I will be painting, that I will be happy, and that I will continue to surprise myself with what I choose to paint, or not to paint. Right now, my highest hope is that my paintings make the viewer feel like listening to Mozart makes me feel. For me, there is no higher aspiration than to touch people’s spirit with my work, and to make them feel that, despite the hardships and the ugliness, the world is beautiful.
To learn more about this incredible artist, visit her website 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.
In May, the White House released details on its proposed Fiscal Year 2018 “skinny budget,” which will, among other things, give the 52-year-old National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) just enough money to wind down its activities and close permanently ($29 million vs. its previous allocation of $150 million). For now, let’s overlook the fact that the resultant savings are paltry when measured against the government’s $1.1 trillion annual budget. And let’s overlook the fact that NEA grants support arts events in every state, usually at organizations unable to replace that funding with private dollars because their communities are poor or sparsely populated.
Instead, let’s focus on something you may not know: closing the NEA will kill off almost all of our country’s temporary museum exhibitions of high-value masterpieces. Why? Because the NEA operates an insurance program that enables U.S. museums to organize ambitious loan shows that would otherwise be prohibitively expensive. Its offcial name is the Arts and Artifacts Indemnity Program, and here’s how it works in everyday terms. When your favorite regional museum (Houston? Denver? Cleveland?) arranges to borrow multi-million-dollar Rembrandt or Monet paintings from Paris or Chicago, it sends a list of those artworks to the NEA. The staff there ensures your museum is professionally operated and therefore a good “risk” — that it will transport and care for these precious artifacts properly so that they can return home to Paris or Chicago undamaged. The NEA then sends your museum a letter saying, “We trust you and we’ve got your back; you don’t need to pay an insurer hundreds of thousands of dollars in cash premiums to cover your risk. If you do something wrong, the U.S. government will pick up the tab.”
So surely we taxpayers have been losing our shirts on this since the indemnity was launched in 1975, right? No, actually, two claims totaling $4,700 have been paid, and 1,400 exhibitions have been mounted thanks to a cumulative premiums savings of $450 million. This means that you and your family have not necessarily needed to visit Paris or Chicago to experience Rembrandt or Monet. If the NEA closes next year, however, that’s it: all museums will either have to pay their premiums in cash, or cancel/dilute their shows. I live in New York City, so I am not worried: the Museum of Modern Art and the Metropolitan Museum will probably raise the money needed. But if you’re in Denver, Houston, Cleveland, or an even smaller community, you’re out of luck. Tough choices will be made.
In our information-overloaded age, it saddens me that most people have never heard of this program. That’s ironic because next year, its name will become famous when we read that your city’s big Monet show was canceled for budgetary reasons.
If this concerns you, please visit the website of the Arts Action Fund (artsactionfund.org) to learn how we citizens can alert our U.S. legislators. It’s actually as easy as tweeting #SAVEtheNEA, but the fund’s website is cool and has other interesting tips. See you on Twitter.
Ken Carlson was born and raised in Minnesota and now resides in the hill country of central Texas. Following art school training, he began his career as a commercial illustrator. In 1968, he put aside commercial work to devote fulltime to painting wildlife. A critical element of Carlson’s work has always been first-hand observation of his wildlife subjects. Each fall, he travels to Alaska, the western prairies, the Canadian Rockies or to Africa to study animals in their varied habitat.
Western Visions® is the National Museum of Wildlife Art’s largest and longest running fundraiser, with a variety of exciting events. The show features a wide selection of art for sale. Western Visions® painters and sculptors participate in the art portion of the show and sale and as many as 2,000 people attend the events.
Kathleen B. Hudson has a studio at Artists’ Attic in downtown Lexington, KY and is a member of the Copley Society of Art in Boston, Massachusetts. She is a Signature Member of the American Society of Marine Artists.
Hudson received the Grand Prize in the 6th Annual PleinAir Salon this year for her painting “Bright Morning, Timberline Falls,” which is featured on the current cover of PleinAir magazine. She is also featured as an “Artist to Watch” in the July issue of Southwest Art.
When Hudson’s not outside painting, you can find her in the studio creating a series of landscapes that emphasize the dynamic interplay of light, shadow, and atmospherics.
Upcoming Events
Solo Show: Atmospheric Impressions
Artists’ Attic, 401 W Main Street, Lexington, KY
July 1-August 31
Opening Reception: Friday, July 21, 5-8pm Select Awards
Grand Prize, 2017 6th Annual PleinAir Salon
Best of Show, 2014 Augusta Plein Air Festival
Second Place, 2017 Oil Painters of America Wet Paint Competition
Third Place, 2016 Plein Air Rockies
Honorable Mention, 2016 Bucks County Plein Air Festival
John William Godward, “The Bouquet,” 1899, oil on canvas, 29-3/4 x 19-7/8 inches
In this ongoing series for Fine Art Today, we take a longer look at the history and features of a soon-to-be-available artwork of note. This week we feature just one of several outstanding Victorian, Pre-Raphaelite, and British Impressionist paintings available soon via Christie’s London.
Works by the supremely talented Victorian Neo-Classicist painter John William Godward (1861-1922) headline a major sale at Christie’s next week in London. The artist was born in Wilton Grove, Wimbledon, but his family disapproved of his chosen profession, eventually cutting off all contact. A follower of Frederic Leighton, Godward established a reputation for his images featuring women in classical dress — often posed within marble interiors or lush pastoral landscapes.
Godward’s paintings are remarkable for their attention to detail, both historical and aesthetic. Often displaying exotic furs, animals, plant life, and a wide variety of textiles, many of the artist’s works are a tour de force of vibrant color, texture, anatomy, and composition.
Headlining Christie’s July 11 “Victorian, Pre-Raphaelite & British Impressionist” sale is the luminous “Bouquet,” circa 1899. Typically for the artist’s oeuvre, the viewer is presented with a beautifully rendered female figure who stands in full view while contemplating a small bouquet of flowers in her hand. Classically clad, the figure draws her right hand to a marble table filled with other blooms. A serene calm is seen on the subject’s face, though she is also blushing. Every fold and detail of the fabrics and textiles is included in the work. Auction estimates for this beautiful painting are between $259,000 and $388,500.
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.
All three museums were founded by private collectors and occupy intimately scaled buildings of national historic prominence.
Three prestigious New York institutions are pleased to be introducing a limited-time ticket that provides admission to each. Details here!
The Frick Collection, the Morgan Library & Museum, and Neue Galerie in New York have come together to offer art lovers the Connoisseur Pass. The ticket costs $40 and will provide admission into all three institutions. However, this offer is only valid July 1 through August 31. The tickets can be purchased on-site only and are not available online.
During July and August, the three museums are presenting a range of exhibitions that offer something for everyone. On view at the Frick Collection are “Fired by Passion: Masterpieces of Du Paquier Porcelain from the Sullivan Collection,” “Divine Encounter: Rembrandt’s Abraham and the Angels,” and “The Pursuit of Immortality: Masterpieces from the Scher Collection of Portrait Medals.” At the Morgan Library & Museum, visitors can view “Henry James and American Painting,” “This Ever New Self: Thoreau and His Journal,” “Noah’s Beasts: Sculpted Animals from Ancient Mesopotamia,” and “Poussin, Claude, and French Drawing in the Classical Age.” Neue Galerie New York presents “Austrian Masterworks from the Neue Galerie New York” and “Richard Gerstl.”
Don’t let this great opportunity pass you by!
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.
Craig Blietz, “Pole Timber,” 2017, oil on linen, 40 x 56 inches
Edgewood Orchard in Door County, Wisconsin, will soon feature new bodies of work by several accomplished painters Summer, including a renowned native son.
Door County native Craig Blietz has established national renown for his paintings of farm animals and rural Midwest landscapes that celebrate the dignity and quiet beauty of agrarian life. Blietz’s work — along with selections by Judi Ekholm, Susan Hale, and Marcia McDonough — will soon be on display at Edgewood Orchard in Door County. Opening July 15 and showing through August 15, the exhibition reflects the inspiration Blietz gleans from the serene landscapes and noble depictions of animals created by 19th-century French Barbizon School artists.
“Approaching a forest triggers moments of intense anxiety, much like the unease created by a storm on the horizon or the stressful suspense of a pending athletic contest,” suggests Blietz. “Anxiety and anticipation are at their peak just prior to experiencing the actual event. That is not to say that stepping foot into a forest does or should relieve the apprehension. Poet Todd Davis, Professor of Environmental Studies at Penn State University’s Altoona College, remarked to me during a recent hike that, ‘Nature doesn’t care if you live or die.’ I believe we recognize this, albeit subconsciously. Nature is a place for thoughtful, cautious, and careful reverie.”
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.
Robert Riggs, “Germantown & Chelten,” circa 1950, lithograph, 16 x 22 7/8 inches, National Gallery of Art, Washington, Reba and Dave Williams Collection
The early 20th century in America was a period of brilliant change and growth in urban centers, which was beautifully captured by important printmakers such as Louis Lozowick, Reginald Marsh, Mabel Dwight, Gerald Geerlings, Victoria Hutson Huntley, and Martin Lewis.
Selected works by these artists and more feature during an exhibition at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C., titled “The Urban Scene: 1920-1950.” These masterful works capture the unprecedented scale of urban architecture and the impact of industrialization and technology on city life. “From one perspective, skyscrapers, bridges, and other technological marvels projected wealth, opportunity, and invoked the sublime, but from another these structures could be interpreted as blocking light, deepening shadows, heightening a sense of enclosure and confinement, and amplifying feelings of diminution and anonymity,” the museum suggests.
Edward Arthur Wilson, “Untitled (Laying Pipe in New York City),” 1941, lithograph, 13 1/2 x 19 1/4 inches, National Gallery of Art, Washington, Reba and Dave Williams CollectionHoward Cook, “Looking up Broadway,” 1937, lithograph, 17 7/8 x 12 1/2 inches, National Gallery of Art, Washington, Reba and Dave Williams Collection
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.
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