You’ve spoken! In this occasional series, we highlight one of the most popular articles among Fine Art Today readers. This week we revisit the many deserving winners of this year’s ARC Salon.

It’s arguably the most prestigious, competitive, and exciting art competition for contemporary realism in the world. Now in its 12th year, the Art Renewal Center Salon recently announced its newest winners. Who took home the hardware?

The Art Renewal Center (ARC) — one of the most respected realist art institutions — was overjoyed to recently announce the latest winners of its incredibly popular and competitive Salon. The 12th Annual International ARC Salon features over 1,000 finalist works representing 640 artists from 63 countries. As part of the competition, the ARC has also acquired 14 works for its own collection.

Awards are categorized by various sections — most often surrounding subject, including best nude, best social commentary, best trompe l’oeil, best figure, best portrait, best still life, best imaginative realism, best landscape, and many more. Of course, all artists covet earning best in show honors, museum purchase awards, and others sponsored by magazines such as Fine Art Connoisseur and PleinAir.

Tenaya Sims’ outstanding work “Semillas” (seeds) earned top distinction as Best in Show in 2016. Runner-up honors, titled the Bouguereau Award, were taken home by Nick Alm for his painting “The Performance.” The winner of The Da Vinci Initiative Award for the Young Aspiring Artist was to 15-year-old Ray Wanda Totanes for her marvelous painting “Perception of Self,” The Oil Painters of America (OPA) also sponsors an award of $1,000, which was given to Michele Del Camp for his painting “The Argument.”

Many other honors were given to deserving artists, and we encourage you to view the full list of recipients at the ARC International Salon webpage.

As has been the custom since its inception, the ARC will be working with galleries such as Rehs Contemporary, Arcadia Contemporary, and the Salmagundi Club to mount several exhibitions of finalist works, which will be held early in 2017; exact dates to be announced. Currently on the slate is a showing of approximately 75 works for the live version of the ARC Salon that will travel from the Salmagundi Club to the MEAM Museum in Barcelona, Spain, where it will be on view from September 23 through November 27, 2017. The showing at the Salmagundi Club will open May 12 and continue through June 1, 2017.

The 13th Annual International Salon will feature a new category: plein air! It’s sponsored by the California Plein Air Painters and Masters of Plein Air Academy, and organizers expect a robust number of entries in this category, especially given the meteoric rise of plein air’s popularity.

To learn more, visit The Art Renewal Center.

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.

Many of the nation’s top artists are hosting their annual holiday art sales, which present collectors with ample opportunity to take home a fresh painting. Leah Lopez is just one who’s rolling out the red carpet — but time is running out!

For those in New York looking for a fun — and beautiful — outing this weekend, we recommend dropping by the studios of accomplished painter Leah Lopez, who’s hosting an Annual Open Studio Art Sale on Sunday, December 11. Did we mention it’s also a holiday party?

Whether you’re in the market for a new oil or not, the event will be a fantastic opportunity to peruse Lopez’s inventory of works, which includes framed and unframed pictures in all sizes, studies, and finishes.

Learn more by visiting Leah Lopez.

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.

Often overlooked but important painter William Merritt Chase (1849-1916) is the subject of a can’t-miss exhibition featuring 80 of the artist’s finest works in oil and pastel.

Currently on view through January 16 at the Boston Museum of Fine Arts, “William Merritt Chase: A Modern Master” is a blockbuster exhibition featuring more than 80 of the artist’s finest works in oil and pastel. A brilliant observer and experimental painter, Chase’s influence extended well-beyond the canvas and into many of the most important art circles at the turn of the last century.

Via the museum, “Rediscover this important and overlooked master, praised for his artistic skill in both oil and pastel, as well as for the variety of his subjects: sympathetic images of women, jewel-like landscapes, views of urban parks, and scenes of children at play. The first complete examination of the artist in more than three decades, the exhibition brings together 80 of the painter’s finest works in both oil and pastel, drawn from public and private collections across the United States.”

To learn more, visit the Boston Museum of Fine Arts.

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 Dahesh Museum of Art is the only institution in the United States solely dedicated to European academic art of the 19th century, making its robust collection second to none. Masterworks from this iconic collection soon head to Jacksonville, Florida. When and where?

If you’re a reader of Fine Art Connoisseur and Fine Art Today, you probably have an unwavering love for academic painters of the 19th century. During an era when the art world was changing rapidly and the avant-garde was becoming fashionable, there remained staunch adherents to artistic tradition and representation. Although many of them were ridiculed — if not outright rejected — in their own day, appreciation for their marvelous works is currently experiencing a resurgence.

The Dahesh Museum of Art in New York City is the only institution in the United States that is solely dedicated to these masters, and many of its most prized possessions compose a memorable exhibition on view soon at Jacksonville, Florida’s Cummer Museum of Art.

“Academic Splendor: Nineteenth-Century Masterworks from the Dahesh Museum of Art” will open on January 28 to great anticipation. Via the Cummer Museum: “‘Masterworks’ features paintings and sculptures by creative artists trained in the academies and private ateliers of France and other countries, including Jean-Léon Gérôme; William Adolphe Bouguereau; Frederick, Lord Leighton; and Lawrence Alma Tadema.” The exhibition will be on view through April 23.

To learn more, visit the Cummer 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.

Take a trip back to early Renaissance Siena, Italy, through the dazzling creative vision of Giovanni di Paolo during this mesmerizing exhibition in California.

Giovanni di Paolo was one of the first Renaissance men. Both an accomplished egg tempera painter and a manuscript illuminator, Paolo was “one of the most distinctive and imaginative artists working in Siena, Italy, during the Renaissance,” writes the Getty Museum. In an exhibition that opened on October 11, the Getty is currently displaying a sparkling array of originals by Paolo, reuniting several panels from one of his most important commissions, the altarpiece for the Branchini family chapel in the church of San Domenico in Siena.

The exhibition, “The Shimmer of Gold: Giovanni di Paolo in Renaissance Siena,” presents the panels together for the first time since their dispersal, alongside a number of illuminated manuscripts and other paintings by the early master and his contemporaries. Continuing, the Getty reports, “Through recent technical findings, the exhibition reveals his creative use of gold and paint to achieve remarkable luminous effects in both media.”

“The Shimmer of Gold: Giovanni di Paolo in Renaissance Siena” runs through January 8. To learn more, visit the Getty.

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.

An innovative exhibition is currently on display at the Crocker Museum in Sacramento, California, that reunites centuries-old European master drawings from a number of different modern collections along the West Coast. Who are the principal players?

A number of outstanding master drawings on view together for the first time compose an innovative exhibition at Sacramento’s Crocker Museum. Opened on November 13 and on view through February 5, “Reuniting the Masters” is a brilliant display of Old Master drawings borrowed from some of the most prominent art collections on the West Coast.

“By coincidence or by design, drawings by the same artist, for the same project, and even from the same sketchbook, have made their way separately to the West Coast,” the museum reports. “Bringing these long-estranged drawings together again both illuminates the work and process of specific artists in the rich history of European draughtsmanship and also brings forward the history of drawings collectors, from railroad magnates such as E.B. Crocker to Hollywood actors such as Cary Grant and Vincent Price.”

To learn more, visit the Crocker 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.

Incredibly talented painter Christine Lafuente recently mounted a must-see solo exhibition at Morpeth Contemporary in Hopewell, New Jersey, featuring stunning landscapes, cityscapes, and still lifes.

Viewing the colorful works by Christine Lafuente isn’t just a process of aesthetic appreciation, but a journey into the creative experience of the artist. Forms that are solid seem to merge and dissolve together in Lafuente’s paintings, creating an outstanding sense of movement, emotion, and abstraction.

“Often while painting, the forms and spaces I am looking at begin to merge,” she writes, “and all that had seemed so distinctly separate becomes simply a field of tone. There is air in the trees, there is water in the air, edges are lost, near and far coalesce. Glass reveals itself by what it is not, reflecting and refracting what surrounds it. In a seascape, the tones of water and sky are only known in relation to one another.”

Lafuente’s words describe beautifully her approach to the canvas, in addition to the resulting picture. While her forms merge and — at close inspection — become imperceptible, at distance our brains pull the representation back together in a lovely play of give and take with the art.

Continuing, Lafuente says, “Painting by natural light, there is a fragility to the appearance of a scene. For a brief moment, I can see a painting composition so clearly, the light as solid as stones — but like a kaleidoscope, the slightest movement and the whole thing shifts. Even in the cityscape, the sprawling steel, brick, and concrete arrangements of human striving lose their solidity and discreteness in a bath of warm afternoon light. It becomes something else, a musical score of gold pink notes rising from the grey soup, or the tide coming in to disguise and submerge an expanse of sharp granite Acadian rocks.”

“Light, Solid as Stone” opened on December 3 and will be on view through December 31. To learn more, visit Morpeth Contemporary.

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.

A wonderful benefit and art-collecting opportunity is currently underway in Santa Fe, New Mexico, featuring a number of stunning equine artworks available for purchase. There’s an added incentive as well. Details here!

What could be better than to walk away with a beautiful work of art knowing your purchase also helps benefit the Cowboy Up! Program? McLarry Modern in conjunction with Horses For Heroes — New Mexico, Inc. is currently hosting an art auction through December 23 in which proceeds from the event will help the heroes who have served our country.

Many of the nation’s top painters have generously donated their works for this opportunity. The beneficiary, Cowboy Up!, is “a unique horsemanship, wellness and skillset restructuring program based in Santa Fe, New Mexico,” the organization writes. “It is free to all post 9/11 veterans and active military persons and tailored to those who have sustained PTSD, physical injuries, or have experienced combat trauma. Promoting healing with the use of horses has become one of the most beneficial and cost-effective ways for today’s veterans suffering with PTSD.”

A closing reception for the auction will be held on December 23 from 3 to 7 P.M. with live entertainment and light refreshments. To learn more, visit McLarry Modern.

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 Easton Gallery in Santa Barbara, California, opens a terrific solo exhibition tomorrow, December 9, featuring new works by adroit painter Arturo Tello. Grab a sneak peek here!

Mexico native and landscape painter Arturo Tello has established a lasting and renowned career for his colorful plein air paintings that feature beautiful California vistas and remote locations. Particularly noteworthy in Tello’s works is the lack of sharp lines. Instead, most of his subjects are represented with rounded, soft, and blended features that give viewers both an atmospheric and a dreamy impression.

Several new works by Tello will be on view at the Easton Gallery beginning tomorrow, December 9, and continuing through February 12. Also on the schedule is a reception on the 9th from 6-8 P.M. and an artist talk on Sunday, December 11.

To learn more, visit The Easton 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.