A landmark exhibition is proud to feature nearly 50 of the most important artworks to ever emerge from the Hudson River School. Where?
 
The famed Hudson River School is a frequent reference among the greatest American realist painters today. These artists’ images of America’s landscapes have captivated viewers for well over a century, and they will remain an invaluable piece of this country’s heritage. Nearly 50 of the most outstanding examples from the Hudson River School are on view at the Milwaukee Art Museum during “Nature and the American Vision: The Hudson River School.”
 

Jasper Francis Cropsey, “Sunset Lake George,” 1867, oil on canvas, 21 1/4 x 44 in. (c) New York Historical Society 2016

 
Via the exhibition webpage: “Imagine Niagara Falls, the Sierra Nevada Mountains, the Yosemite Valley … untouched by the industrial age in their natural beauty and splendor. There were no road signs cluttering the landscape; in fact, there were few roads. ‘Nature and the American Vision: The Hudson River School’ transcends centuries to show visitors the powerful, breathtaking vistas that defined our heritage and shaped our nation. The landmark exhibition includes nearly 50 of the most important artworks of the first half of American history—many of them monumental in size—and comes from the acclaimed collection of the New-York Historical Society. Several paintings are coming to the Museum directly from exhibition at the Louvre.”
 
To learn more, visit the Milwaukee Art Museum.
 
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Between 1867 and 1914, a host of great writers, artists, actors, composers, and patrons helped develop an extraordinary and rich cultural scene in Russia, the story of which is the focus of a tantalizing exhibition in…
 
“Russia and the Arts” is an outstanding exhibition in London and a perhaps once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to see masterpieces from the State Tretyakov Gallery in Moscow. The gallery, founded by the young textile industrialist Pavel Tretyakov in 1856, is filled with over four decades of astute collecting by its founder. Today it remains the greatest collection of Russian art in the world.
 
On view through June 26 at the National Portrait Gallery in London, “Russia and the Arts” shows “how Russian art was developing a new self-confidence, with penetrating early Realism later complemented by the brighter hues of Russian Impressionism and the bold, faceted forms of Cubism,” the museum writes. The show features a number of works from Tretyakov’s collection, including some remarkable portraits. Among the portraits are visages of the writer Vladimir Dal, novelist Fyodor Dostoevsky, patron Ivan Morozov, and the poet Anna Akhmatova.
 
To learn more, visit the National Portrait Gallery.  
 
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Arguably the best realist art competition in the world, the Art Renewal Center is now accepting applications for its 2016 Salon. When is the deadline?
 
With over $100,000 in cash prizes along with partnerships with the most prestigious magazines, galleries, museums, and more, The Art Renewal Center’s annual Salon is one competition that any skillful artist should strive for. Applications for the salon with be accept through June 15 and exhibited in 2017. This year, the ARC has announced a new category for the competition: portraiture. The new category rounds out the total to eight, which also includes Landscape, Imaginative Realist, Still Life, Animal, Figurative, Sculpture, and Drawing. An applicant may enter a single work into multiple categories.
 
This year’s jurors will be selected from the organization’s prestigious board of judges with yet-to-be-revealed guest judges as well. Awards include Best in Show, the William Bouguereau Award, the Oil Painters of America Award, the Da Vinci Initiative Award for the Young Aspiring Artist, the Fine Art Connoisseur Award, the PleinAir Magazine Award, Collection Magazine Award, ARC Purchase Awards, and many more.
 
To learn more about the ARC and its Salon, visit the Art Renewal Center.  
 
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Although Edgar Degas is best known for his lovely paintings of elegant ballet dancers and impressionistic landscapes, the artist also experimented with printmaking — a process explored through a number of rarely seen examples.
 
On view now at the Museum of Modern Art in New York City, “Edgar Degas: A Strange New Beauty” explores the artist’s experimental use of the monotype process — a printmaking technique that involves drawing in ink on a metal plate that’s run through a press. In addition to the excitement of seeing works by Degas, equally tantalizing is the fact that many of the selections — some 120 in total — have rarely been seen publicly. In addition to the monotypes, the exhibition features an 60 related paintings, drawings, pastels, sketchbooks, and more — rounding out the exhibition as truly a monumental achievement.
 
Via the exhibition webpage, the museum reports, “In the mid-1870s, Degas was introduced to the monotype process — drawing in ink on a metal plate that was then run through a press, typically resulting a single print. Captivated by the monotype’s potential, he immersed in the technique with enormous enthusiasm, taking the medium to radical ends. He expanded the possibilities of drawing, created surfaces with a heightened sense of tactility, and invented new means for new subjects, from dancers in motion to the radiance of electric light, from women in intimate settings to meteorological effects in nature. The show displays Degas at his most modern, capturing the spirit of urban life; depicting the body in new and daring ways; liberating mark-making from tradition; and boldly engaging the possibilities of abstraction.”
 
“Edgar Degas: A Strange New Beauty” runs through July 24. To learn more, visit the Museum of Modern Art.
 
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It’s always exciting when a long-lost masterpiece is unearthed, especially from this 17th-century master.
 
As one of the most accomplished students of the famed Peter Paul Rubens, Anthony van Dyck (1599-1641) led a masterful artistic career in Antwerp during the 17th century. A previously unknown self-portrait of the painter was recently discovered and is now a centerpiece at the Rubens House in Belgium. Scholars believe the painting to have been commissioned by Charles I of England, who owned an exquisite collection of self-portraits by other greats, such as Titian, Bronzino, Romano, Rubens, and van Dyck.
 
Significantly, the self-portrait bears remarkable similarities to another picture by van Dyck, housed today in the National Portrait Gallery in London. But with one key alteration: the newly discovered visage shows Anthony’s moustache turned upward in a clearly dignified manner. The Rubens House reports, “Van Dyck shows himself to Charles I in a formal manner. The drooping moustache on the painting in London, however, is much more informal, which seems to suggest that the Antwerp master may have created it for himself. Until recently, the work was, due to its being repainted and re-framed in a rectangular mount, attributed to his successors. Research has now shown, though, that it is an authentic Van Dyck. Such a self-portrait was a real showpiece of the talents of an artist. The painter chose how he wanted to be seen. Profiling and vanity are certainly not only of our time.”
 
The painting is on permanent loan at the Rubens House and currently on view. To learn more, visit the Rubens House.
 
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If you answered yes to this question, you’ll want to see what’s on the slate at Bonhams this April in Los Angeles.
 
A massive selection — 144 pieces, to be exact — of California and Western fine art heads to auction via Bonhams on April 12 in Los Angeles, California. It features an awesome array of landscape, seascape, and more; the astute connoisseur and collector will want to register and bid. Among the names included in the sale are Guy Rose, William Wendt, Granville Redmond, Alfred Jacob Miller, Matteo Sandona, William Frederick Ritschell, Franz A. Bischoff, and Selden Connor Gile. Absentee bidding is accepted and a simulcast of the auction will be held in San Francisco.
 

Guy Rose, “Indian Tobacco Trees, La Jolla,” oil on canvas, 24 x 29 in. (c) Bonhams 2016

 
To learn more and view the entire catalogue of the sale, visit Bonhams.
 
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Complete with demos, auctions, exhibitions, entertainment, cocktails, and more, the 2016 edition of Cowgirl Up! was one to remember.
 
Wrapping up its 11th year, the “Cowgirl Up!” exhibition and sale brings together much of the nation’s best Western painting, drawing, and sculpture — all by female artists. Hosted by the magnificent Desert Caballeros Western Museum in Wickenburg, Arizona, the event has blossomed into so much more than simply an exhibition and sale. In fact, it has become a movement over the years and provides a new home for women artists. Juried from hundreds of applicants, numerous awards are given for excellence in each category of art, including a prize sponsored by Fine Art Connoisseur, which was presented by our own Krystal Allen to the accomplished artist V…Vaughan.
 

Rebecca Tobey demos her ceramic sculpture process.

Gail Jones Sundell is seen working on her alabaster sculpture.

 
Events kicked off with great fanfare on March 18 and ran through March 20 — though the exhibition will continue until May 8. Rebecca Tobey demonstrated her creative sculptural process that uses unique ceramic and glaze techniques. Each sculpture is decorated differently so that no two sculptures are exactly the same. Gail Jones Sundell shared her process for carving alabaster sculptures; the artist’s family owns a quarry from which the stone is harvested.
 

Laura Koller of New Mexico poses with her first place award for her piece titled “Transitions.”

The famed cowboy boot mascot heads to the auction block

Also part of the event were several auctions. The first sale offered a selection of works that were donated by the artists. Then entries from the Quick Draw were auctioned. A large cowboy boot — which has been the event’s “mascot” for 11 years — became a focal point as well as a big moneymaker for the museum. The boot, which measures almost 4 feet tall and is made of fiberglass — was decorated by Judith Durr and her husband. Initially the boot was purchased by Dick DeVore’s family, only to be donated back to the museum and re-auctioned at the Quick Draw. — the stipulation being that $1,000 sponsorships would be sold and the boot will live forever at the museum.
 

Lisa Daniels with her body of work

Lisa Gordon works on her sculpture during the hour-long Quick Draw competition

To learn more, visit the Desert Caballeros Western Museum.
 
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“Looking is constant but actual seeing is only occasional,” writes painter John Ballantyne. Crisp, clean, and outstandingly beautiful, discover how his works are exploring the metaphysics of Goethe and Cage.
 
Odon Wagner Contemporary is overjoyed to be playing host to a magnetic solo exhibition of recent acrylics by John Ballantyne. At first glance, one is immediately struck by the crisp cleanliness of Ballantyne’s architectural interiors. One may easily marvel at the verisimilitude of the artist’s brush and his keen observational skill. Without further investigation, one might fail to grasp the works’ much deeper message.
 

John Ballantyne, “Bull’s Eye,” acrylic on panel, 30 x 45 in. (c) Odon Wagner Contemporary 2016

 
John Cage once wrote, “Music is constant. Listening is intermittent,” and Ballantyne has worked to translate this idea — among others — into the visual world of form and content. Donald Brackett, author of the exhibition’s catalogue, writes, “Paintings such as Ballantyne’s are invitations to a ritual of looking that engages our imaginations far above and below the apparently straightforward substance of the images represented. They are what they appear to be: placid architectural spaces, portraits of both interiors and exteriors, still life with rooms and buildings instead of fruits or flowers, designed and built landscapes at once tightly contained and yet fully open to conjecture.”
 

John Ballantyne, “Visitors,” acrylic on panel, 18 x 42 in. (c) Odon Wagner Contemporary 2016

 
If granted, the resulting dialogue between painting and observer is truly fascinating and invigorating, launching into a subjective realm of interpretation that is captivating. Continuing, Brackett writes, “As such they also aspire to be accurate diagrams of something impossible to behold, something which the poet Goethe once offered as an ideal definition of what architecture is and what it does: frozen music. In Ballantyne’s work we witness a certain kind of mathematical precision which is not strictly realistic per se but in fact actually arrives at quite a different destination: a metaphysical dwelling place for the frozen music of form and content. Another primary and recurring focus of his work is the frequent element of illuminated objects which remind us of the original meaning of the word photo-graph is: drawing with light.”
 

John Ballantyne, “The Office,” acrylic on panel, 33 x 37 in. (c) Odon Wagner Contemporary 2016

 
“John Ballantyne: Silence and Light” opens on April 2 and will hang through April 23 at Odon Wagner Contemporary in Toronto. To learn more, visit Odon Wagner Contemporary.
 
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With subjects that speak to one another and to the viewer, these magnificent realist paintings are sure to brighten your day and evoke the desire to enter into their worlds.
 
Beginning April 1 at the lovely Principle Gallery in Charleston, South Carolina, artist Karen Hollingsworth will display her latest painterly achievements. “I love to create paintings that evoke a sense of the familiar,” she says. “To blend the common objects of everyday life, placed within the interior of a room, with a glimpse of the ocean or mountain through an open window. My paintings are intended to provide the viewer with a sense of solitude and well being; a comfortable world bathed in sunlight and warm breezes.”
 

Karen Hollingsworth, “Rivalry,” oil on canvas, 28 x 22 in. (c) Principle Gallery 2016

 
There can be no doubt that Hollingsworth has mastered her artistic mission, as her paintings achieve this goal with stunning sharpness, clarity, and color. Twenty works will grace the walls of Principle Gallery during this solo exhibition. Many of the works display the artist’s skillful still life compositions, set against a stark black background with birds, faucets, brown bags, and more. The bright lighting of her subjects along with the voided background imbues the works with strong tenebrism along with dramatic flair, and a touch of mystery.
 

Karen Hollingsworth, “In Progress,” oil on canvas, 36 x 48 in. (c) Principle Gallery 2016

 
The exhibition opens with a reception on April 1 from 5 to 8 P.M. and will run through April 30. To learn more, visit Principle Gallery.
 
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One of the nation’s top representational galleries has moved to Los Angeles and is celebrating with an inaugural group exhibition.
 
Featuring the outstanding works of John Brosio, Michael Chapman, Jeremy Lipking, Julio Reyes, John Wentz, Aron Wiesenfeld, and Vincent Xeus, “Made in California” is sure to be an exciting exhibition for a multitude of reasons. Hosted by Arcadia Contemporary — one of the nation’s top representational galleries — the exhibition will celebrate the gallery’s recent move to the Golden State. In addition, the roster of artists is renowned, and each displays a unique style that is sure to leave any art lover wanting more.
 
“Made in California” opens on April 2 at the gallery’s new Santa Monica location from 5–8 P.M. The show will hang through the end of the month. To learn more, visit Arcadia Contemporary.
 
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