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 discuss an American icon’s portrait by Norman Rockwell.

A fixture on television and radio for decades, English-born entertainer Bob Hope (1903-2003) enjoyed a level of success and popularity few have replicated. Hope earned widespread appeal during the 1940s when he moved from New York City to Hollywood. From 1941 onward, Hope was committed to entertaining U.S. troops, and he continued to do so through the Persian Gulf War — making him “legendary,” in the words of the National Portrait Gallery.

In 1954, Hope was set to grace the cover of the Saturday Evening Post, thereby crossing paths with its head artist, Norman Rockwell, an American icon himself. That was February 13, 1954. “Three days later,” the museum reports, “Rockwell presented Hope with the original painting on his television program, The Bob Hope Show.

The portrait is a perfect construction of the entertainer’s personality — handsome, intelligent, and a little quirky. Hope faces toward the viewer’s right and gazes at us with raised eyebrows and a mischievous smirk. In Rockwell’s typical style, Hope is set against a white background, his head the only part of the bust-length portrayal fully realized. The presentation, like many other Rockwell paintings, forces the viewer to confront the subject directly, without distraction — an attention that Hope himself was undoubtedly accustomed to. Hope wears a blue and green striped tie, and details around his visage reveal splashes of cool tones, unifying the overall portrait.

To learn more, visit the National Portrait Gallery.

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On Saturday, May 20, 2017, Arcadia Contemporary, a leader in realist works now located on the West Coast, opened a brave new exhibition of fresh works by well-known artist Casey Baugh. Due to the scale of some of the works, Arcadia Contemporary President and Curator Steve Diamant rented the Noh/Wave Exhibition space in downtown Los Angeles for the opening night so viewers could enjoy the larger-scale works in their full capacity.

By Vanessa Françoise Rothe

Mixing sublime realism with modern strokes, Casey’s works deliver a unique viewing experience. From afar, they are quite realist — so detailed that they can be appreciated as traditional or classical fine works. But as one draws near, one discovers tactile nuances, splashes even, layers of dripping paint, and beautiful hard and soft, almost airbrushed edges.

The classically trained Baugh’s drawing skills are sharp, so the figure, or a single hand, is rendered with a combination of tight edges and values to show the form, and often a soft, “airbrushed” side is added to help create depth and interest. His purposeful spills create movement, and the thicker/thinner brushwork adds to the depth of the works to make them enjoyable on many levels. This winning combination is clever, combining a clearly classical realist style with modern-day flair.

Baugh has been revered for years for charcoal figure and portrait drawings boasting this combination of realism and abstraction, filling many of his workshops with artists who admire and try to emulate his effects. It seems with this bold new exhibition he has taken these unique effects and applied them to his oil paintings as well. Naturally, the effect on the viewers has also been positive.

Diamant notes about the subjects of this year’s exhibition: “This new series of paintings and charcoal drawings relates to Casey’s desire to celebrate the female form in nature. To show both the expansiveness of the locations and the intimacy of the figure all in one image.  Baugh added, “I really felt the larger size of the works allowed me to be free with paint application and I was able to experiment more with the layers of paint, creating volume and interesting textures in the works. It was amazing to be able to be so free and expressive with the paint at this scale. I was especially pleased to see friends and collectors
be able to view the works from a far and up close at this scale, so they could experience them in same manner as I had created them.”

The exciting event was well attended, and the classical violin and cello — which had a modern twist of new sounds beyond the traditional as well — seemed to echo the surrounding artwork.

Baugh’s new collection of oils and charcoal works for “Exposed” can be viewed at Arcadia Contemporary through June 8.

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Administrators with the Frick Collection are heading an international collaboration to unlock access to 25 million images of artworks for the public.

If the Frick Collection — along with other multinational organizations — have their way, the public will soon have consolidated online access to more than 25 million images of artworks. Administrators are touting the move as transformative for art historical research, “enabling scholars and the public to study never-before-published photo archives from around the world.”

Along with the Frick, 13 other institutions have hopped on board, and they’re calling themselves the PHAROS Art Research Consortium. “Led by Inge Reist, director of the Frick’s Center for the History of Collecting and president of the international consortium, this long-term initiative will bring together photo-archive materials relating to more than 25 million works of art,” according to the group’s press materials. “These collections of images are also rich in previously unpublished related art historical documentation. Seven million images from the original partners are expected to be digitized and available by 2020, with future timelines for the group to be developed. Eventually, PHAROS will expand to include records from additional photo-archives world-wide.”

Current partners accessible at PHAROS include the Bibliotheca Hertziana (Rome), Bildarchiv Foto (Marburg, Germany), Courtauld Institute (London), Fondazione Federico Zeri (Bologna), Getty Research Institute (Los Angeles), I Tatti (Florence), Institut national d’histoire de l’art (Paris), Kunsthistorisches Institut in Florenz, National Gallery of Art (Washington, D.C.), Paul Mellon Centre (London), RKD-Netherlands Institute for Art History (The Hague), Warburg Institute (London), Yale Center for British Art (New Haven), and the Frick Art Reference Library (New York).

Learn more by visiting PHAROS.

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For the second season running, a painting by Norman Rockwell commanded the top price during American Art week at Sotheby’s New York. Which of the artist’s iconic artworks stole the show?

Norman Rockwell’s “Two Plumbers,” painted in 1951, is a sparkling example of the artist’s unrivaled ability to depict everyday life in America with an entertaining dose of humor as well. Two men in their overalls, with tools in hand, stand together in what’s obviously a female’s bedroom. Just beyond the two is a quite ornate — and pink — vanity. Peering up at the two playful workers is a small dog, toward the bottom right corner of the canvas. Of course, the dog wears a gigantic pink bow on her back. Quite humorously, one of the plumbers has helped himself to one of the lady’s perfumes and is spraying a generous quantity into the face of his companion, who recoils with squinted eyes and sarcastic grin.

I was born in 1987, but I can’t help but smile at this mid-century masterpiece. The lightheartedness and technical brilliance of the painting were definitely on the minds of two spirited phone bidders yesterday, May 24, who jostled for over seven minutes at Sotheby’s New York in hopes of making it their own. When the hammer came down, the price had reached $14,975,000. Even more eye-popping is the fact that this painting was last sold in May 1996 at Sotheby’s — for $882,500, a world auction record at the time. Not a bad investment.

Auction estimates were between $5 million and $7 million.

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Any sense of impending doom you may feel may evaporate after you view the luminous works of Martine Johanna during “Something’s Wrong,” the artist’s first solo exhibition at this New York Gallery.     

Martine Johanna’s first solo exhibition at Massey Lyuben Gallery in New York City is an intimate exploration of feminine youth that is sure to intrigue viewers. On view through June 10, “Something’s Wrong” is a vivid presentation of Johanna’s autobiographical works through both figurative and abstract techniques.

“The works portray idioms of youth that melt away,” the gallery suggests, “while other scenes feel like being swept away by dreamscapes. Naively drawn totem animals work as figments of the imagination. There is a distinct feeling of loss coupled with a gratifying effect of color, composition, and light. For the first time, several figures confront the viewer with a mixture of anger, coldness, grief, persistence, and distance.

“Martine Johanna is an artist known for her vivid paintings with both figurative and abstract elements. Her autobiographic works, seemingly lighthearted, explore the duality between youthful naivety and anxiety-riddled adulthood. The figures, fierce but fragile, crowd the compositions and occupy the majority of the space gazing distractedly into the beyond. Each of Johanna’s delicately rendered figures convey a sense of immersion within their own internal psychic landscape.

“The work is imbued with a mysterious narrative and sensation of knowing that each character in the work has a full and complex history that the viewer can never completely comprehend. The paintings have a signature prismatic palette, visually stimulating and playful while expressing an underlying sense of uncertainty and unrest.”

To learn more, visit Massey Lyuben Gallery.

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The Brooklyn Museum has graciously lent a spectacular body of 65 artworks for an exhibition that highlights France as the artistic center of international Modernism from the mid-19th to mid-20th centuries.

Ranging widely in scale, subject matter, and style, “Monet to Matisse: A Century of French Moderns” is a wonderful exhibition on view through June 4 at the McNay Museum in San Antonio, Texas. Loaned from the permanent holdings of the Brooklyn Museum in New York, “the works in the exhibition exemplify the avant-garde movements that defined modern art in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, tracing a shift from capturing the visual to evoking the idea, from an emphasis on naturalism to the rise of abstraction,” the McNay reports. “The exhibition explores the themes of portraiture, landscape, and still life, providing an opportunity for a multi-dimensional and flexible installation.”

Represented artists include Pierre Bonnard, Gustave Caillebotte, Paul Cézanne, Marc Chagall, Camille Corot, Gustave Courbet, Edgar Degas, Jean-Léon Gérôme, Fernand Léger, Édouard Manet, Henri Matisse, Jean-François Millet, Claude Monet, Berthe Morisot, Gabriele Münter, Odilon Redon, Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Auguste Rodin, Yves Tanguy, and Édouard Vuillard.

To learn more, visit the McNay 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.

Bernarducci Meisel Gallery in New York City will soon mount an important exhibition that highlights the significant — and often subverted — role women have played in the development of contemporary American Realism. Don’t pass this up!

Curated by art historian Jody B. Cutler for New York City’s Bernarducci Meisel Gallery, “Painting the Visible World: American Women Realists” is a significant group exhibition that illuminates a fascinating narrative in the history of postwar art. Opening June 8 and on view through July 22, the exhibition builds upon the work of many feminist art scholars and curators: deconstructing categorical boundaries to address systemic exclusion through male-driven criteria, and correctives to patriarchic art historical narratives. While these endeavors can be extended to all eras and all genres, “Painting the Visible World” spotlights 16 formative female artists and their contributions to contemporary American Realism.

“The selection is meant to indicate the broader scope of potentially relevant material,” says Cutler, “and correlative to the production of male peers still more often associated with contemporary American Realism.” The gallery adds, “For those artists included, the visible world is both a starting point and a foothold. Attention to light effects tied to specific settings is notable across the landscapes, still lifes, architectural subjects, street scenes, and figure compositions featured; while individualistic, divergent sensibilities are also brought to the fore through this gathering.”

Included in the exhibition are works by Leigh Behnke, Jane Dickson, Martha Mayer Erlebacher, Audrey Flack, Nancy Hagin, Sylvia Maier, Sylvia Plimack Mangold, Idelle Weber, Martha Diamond, Lois Dodd, Janet Fish, Jane Freilicher, Yvonne Jacquette, Catherine Murphy, Joan Semmel, and Jane Wilson.

To learn more, visit Bernarducci Meisel Gallery.

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In celebration of its 27-year heritage of hosting workshops, Art in the Aspens has mounted a selling exhibition of small works by past and present instructors.

On view through June 3, “Small Works by Acclaimed American Artists” is a collector’s dream. For 27 years, Art in the Aspens has hosted countless workshops led by many of our nation’s greatest artists, and many of them feature in this small works exhibition.

Held in the studio where the workshops take place, this show reflects the experiences and memories developed by both instructors and students. Among the exhibitors are Joe Anna Arnett, Albert Bakun, Kang Cho, Bill Davidson, Kim English, Howard Friedland, Don Hamilton, Terrie Lombardi, Michael J. Lynch, Kim Mackey, Ned Mueller, Dave Santillanes, Cheryl St. John, Nathan Solano, George Strickland, Michelle Torrez, Teresa Vito, and Dan Young.

To learn more, visit Art in the Aspens.

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.

Savoring spring is the message Ann Korologos Gallery is projecting to the public with a magnetic exhibition “Spring in the West,” which features a dazzling array of local and national creativity.

The season of rebirth doesn’t take long to evolve into the dog days of summer, so Ann Korologos Gallery in Basalt, Colorado, invites you to savor spring through the brilliant works of 30 accomplished artists. Titled “Spring in the West,” the show is a premier showcase for Western contemporary art and includes an assorted array of styles.

On view through June 9, the exhibition includes bold post-expressionist still lifes by Angus Wilson, drypoint monoprints by Paula Schuette Kraemer, linocuts by Sherrie York, classical yet contemporary horses by Amy Laugesen, and photography by Tom Korologos. Other represented artists include Devin Pool, Dan Young, Gayle C. Waterman, Squire Broel, Marie Figge Wise, Kathryn Rabinow, Michael Kessler, Leon Loughridge, Anne Sherwood Pundyk, Peggy Judy, Brett Scheifflee, and Heather Foster.

To learn more, visit Ann Korologos 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.