Fine Art Connoisseur Sep/Oct2022

MARK WHITE

On the Road to Chama 15 x 30, Acrylic Gesso on Canvas

SANDY SCOTT SCULPTURE

Little Blue

An exhibition of new works by Sandy will be presented in October of 2023 at these fine galleries.

The Red Piano Art Gallery 843.247.2226

redpianoartgallery.com

Cheryl Newby Gallery 843.979.0149

cherylnewbygallery.com

kaitee@cherylnewbygallery.com

11096 Ocean Highway Pawleys Island, SC 29585

ben@redpianoartgallery.com 40 Calhoun Street, Suite 201 Bluffton, SC 29910

Celebrating Over 50 Years of Fine Art in The Lowcountry

on a Branch, 18”h x 10”w x 10”d, bronze, ed. 35

The artist who has his mind… filled with ideas, and his hand made expert by practice, works with ease and readiness; whilst he who would have you believe that he is waiting for the inspirations of genius, is in reality at a loss… The well-grounded painter… is contented that all shall be as great as himself who are willing to undergo the same fatigue: and as his pre-eminence depends not upon a trick, he is free from the painful suspicions of a juggler, who lives in perpetual fear lest his trick should be discovered.

Joshua Reynolds (1723–1792)

—

Samuel William Reynolds (1773–1835) after Joshua Reynolds (1723–1792), Self-Portrait of Joshua Reynolds , published 1795, mezzotint and drypoint on paper, 13 11/16 x 10 3/16 in., private collection

jenny buckner

PUBLISHER

B. Eric Rhoads bericrhoads@gmail.com Twitter: @ericrhoads facebook.com/eric.rhoads

EDITOR-IN-CHIEF

MANAGING EDITOR

Peter Trippi peter.trippi@gmail.com

917.968.4476

Brida Connolly bconnolly@streamlinepublishing.com 702.665.5283

CONTRIBUTING WRITERS

Matthias Anderson A llison Malafronte

Kelly Compton Da vid Masello

Max Gillies Louise Nic holson

Daniel Grant Char les Raskob Robinson

DESIGN DIRECTOR

Kenneth Whitney kwhitney@streamlinepublishing.com 561.655.8778

CREATIVE DIRECTOR

Alfonso Jones alfonsostreamline@gmail.com 561.327.6033

DIRECTOR OF SALES & MARKETING

Katie Reeves kreeves @streamlinepublishing.com

VENDORS — ADVERTISING & CONVENTIONS

Sarah Webb swebb@streamlinepublishing.com

PROJECT MARKETING SPECIALIST

Christina Stauffer cstauffer @streamlinepublishing.com

SENIOR MARKETING SPECIALISTS

Dave Bernard dbernard@streamlinepublishing .com

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MARKETING COORDINATOR

Brianna Sheridan bsheridan@streamlinepublishing .com

SALES OPERATIONS SUPPORT

Katherine Jennings kjennings@streamlinepublishing .com

EDITOR, FINE ART TODAY

CherieDawn Haas chaas@streamlinepublishing.com

CHAIRMAN/PUBLISHER/CEO

B. Eric Rhoads bericrhoads@gmail.com Twitter: @ericrhoads facebook.com/eric.rhoads

EXECUTIVE VICE PRESIDENT/ CHIEF OPERATING OFFICER

Tom Elmo telmo@streamlinepublishing.com

CHIEF REVENUE OFFICER

Jim Speakman jspeakman@streamlinepublishing.com

PRODUCTION DIRECTOR

Nicolynn Kuper nkuper@streamlinepublishing.com

DIRECTOR OF FINANCE

Laura Iserman liserman@streamlinepublishing.com

CONTROLLER

Jaime Osetek jaime@streamlinepublishing.com

STAFF ACCOUNTANT

Nicole Anderson nanderson@streamlinepublishing.com

CIRCULATION COORDINATOR

Sue Henry shenry@streamlinepublishing.com

CUSTOMER SERVICE COORDINATOR

Jessica Smith jsmith@streamlinepublishing.com

ASSISTANT TO THE CHAIRMAN

Ali Cruickshank acruickshank@streamlinepublishing.com

Subscriptions:800.610.5771

Also 561 655.8778 or www.fineartconnoisseur.com

One-year, 6-issue subscription within the United States: $39.98 (International, 6 issues, $76.98).

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Attention retailers: If you would like to carry Fine Art Connoisseur in your store, please contact Tom Elmo at 561.655.8778.

Copyright ©2022 Streamline

005 Frontispiece: Samuel William Reynolds

016 Publisher’s Letter

020 Editor’s Note

023 Favorite: John Searles on Justin Liam O’Brien

114 Off the Walls

130 Classic Moment: Tina Orsolic Dalessio

055

ARTISTS MAKING THEIR MARK: FIVE TO WATCH

Allison Malafronte and Nicole Borgenicht highlight the talents of Erin Anderson, Jared Brady, Bradley Hankey, Marissa Oosterlee, and Matt Ryder.

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SANDY SCOTT’S PRODUCTIVE PANDEMIC

By Kelly Compton

066

GO WILD

By Max Gillies

076

JOHN KOCH: PAINTINGS THAT PUZZLE

By Daniel Grant

084

THOMAS HART BENTON: ARTIST IN THE HEARTLAND

By Allison Malafronte

088

DRAWING: THE INTIMATE ART

By Richard Halstead

092

LETTING GO

By Shirley M. Mueller

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THE FINE ART OF FABRIC

By Leslie Gilbert Elman

097

GREAT ART WORLDWIDE

We survey 12 top-notch projects occurring this season.

103

ART IN THE WEST

There are at least 7 great reasons to celebrate the American West this season.

107

A NEW DAY AT OLD LYME

By Peter Trippi

JORDAN SOKOL (b. 1979), Portrait of Edmond Rochat (detail), 2016, oil on

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12 in. (overall), collection of the New Salem Museum and Academy of Fine Art, Massachusetts. For details, please see page 107 .

Fine Art Connoisseur is also available in a digital edition. Please visit fineartconnoisseur.com for details.

panel,

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Artwork Mediums Artists

Experiences

Live Event:

Jan. 14–Mar. 26, 2023 | Open Daily 10am–6pm Loop 101 & Hayden rd, Scottsdale, Az 480.443.7695

Martin Blundell, Early on the Madison 36 x 36 in.

ART AS INVESTMENT

Whether it’s your intention or not, you are making a financial investment every time you buy a work of art for your collection. Even if you have acquired art for enjoyment only, it’s likely that what you own will grow in value over time.

As you continue collecting, it’s wise to consider the longer term. Over the years, I’ve witnessed too many mistakes resulting in unrecoverable losses, tax assessments on heirs that could have been avoided, and massive collections with no remaining “street value.” One collector I know invested $1 million in paintings by a “hot” artist who is now forgotten, which is a shame because my acquaintance could really use that money. (Laurence C. Zale and I have co-authored a report, “The 7 Most Serious Financial Mistakes Made by Art Collectors,” available for free at collectormistakes.com.)

So what will become of the art that adorns your homes and offices? What is your long-term plan? Will your heirs recognize the value of your artworks, or will your “old things” end up mislabeled and underpriced at Goodwill and eBay?

You already have a strategy for your financial investments, so now establish one for your art. Without a plan, you can pretty much expect the worst possible outcome. Depressing as it may sound, you should start at the end of your journey: what will happen after you pass? Do you want to endow your own museum so that your collection — and your name — live on? Do you want to leave the artworks to existing museums? (Note: They probably don’t want most of your collection, so check before you designate them in your will. If you don’t do so, your art may end up in storage, or worse.) Finally, if the collection need not remain intact, how can

you help heirs obtain maximum value if or when they decide to sell? Trust and estate attorneys are perfectly positioned to help you pose and answer important questions like these.

Returning to the present, many collectors focus on a single artist whom they believe will grow in value. (It’s easy to learn if an artist’s sale prices are rising.) Buying the best piece from that artist once each year is a great strategy. Of course, what goes up sometimes goes down, so spreading your “risk” is even smarter. (My aforementioned friend later regretted not diversifying his “exposure.”)

If you can, follow and buy from four artists every year or, ideally, even more. (Experts say that buying regularly from 14 different artists seems to be the magic number, but that’s a lot of art!) Always buy the artist’s best work, expect to pay a slightly higher price each year, and be thankful that the artist is indeed growing more valuable.

Like many other collectors, I kick myself for passing on opportunities to buy works by certain younger artists who were selling low at the time. What once brought a couple of thousand dollars can, in some cases, soar to a couple of hundred thousand within a decade. Fortunately, I did not pass on all of them.

So which artists are worth watching? One of our jobs at Fine Art Connoisseur is to highlight artists we admire, and because we don’t run articles in exchange for advertising, you can trust our judgment. You can also learn who’s noteworthy by consulting reputable dealers and advisers.

Though people keep saying the Internet has eliminated the need for galleries, that is simply not true. The best dealers follow their markets closely, know which artists are on the move, and ultimately drive prices upward as scarcity grows, which is a good thing. Building a strong relationship with at

least two or three dealers or advisers is critical; you already know that’s true for financial advisers. Though you may pay a modest premium for their expertise (in the form of commissions or mark-up, for example), it will always make a significant difference in the long run.

To me, art possesses significance far beyond financial value, but that doesn’t mean I lack a collecting plan for the present, or for the future.

Disclaimer: I am not a professional adviser and am sharing my opinions only, so I recommend you meet with a qualified adviser soon.

B. ERIC RHOADS

Chairman/Publisher

bericrhoads@gmail.com

facebook.com/eric.rhoads @ericrhoads

NELSON SHANKS (1937–2015), Publisher B. Eric Rhoads, 2009, oil on canvas, 24 x 18 in., private collection

08.29 - 09.23

SUN PRAYER BY ANTHONY WINTERS

DAYS END BY KATHRYN MCMAHON

THE RED DOOR BY JOHN DORCHESTER

LOOKING FORWARD

It is hard to believe 10 months have passed since we concluded the second edition of Realism Live — a virtual art convention that teaches realist techniques for painting and drawing portraits, figures, landscapes, flowers, other still lifes, and more. Like the inaugural edition in 2020, last year’s was a huge success, and now the team from Fine Art Connoisseur and RealismToday. com are busy finalizing Realism Live 3.0.

their eyes and enhancing confidence in their ability to paint and draw. On offer for the following three days are art instruction demonstrations, critiques, and roundtable discussions among artists and other experts.

For all sorts of reasons (not just pandemicrelated ones), the art world has gone digital in a big way. Once again, Realism Live participants will use Streamline Publishing’s sophisticated community platform to interact; it is set up so that you deal only with our faculty and your fellow registrants. This is not an event open to the general public. Our participants have hailed from 30 countries, and now we are expecting an even broader turnout.

As ever, this event has been designed for artists and enthusiasts at all levels of experience, from the highly accomplished to those just starting out. Beginner’s Day will occur on Wednesday, November 9, and the main program will follow on November 10, 11, and 12. By press time we were thrilled to have secured for our faculty some of the most outstanding artists in the field, including Clyde Aspevig, Michelle Dunaway, Daniel Graves, Lisa Egeli, Rose Frantzen, Alex Kelly, Michael Mentler, Chuck Morris, Ned Mueller, John Pototschnik, Sarah Sedwick, Terry Strickland, Dustin Van Wechel, and Glenn Vilppu. More renowned talents are being added to the roster every week. Beginner’s Day will help all viewers — not just novices — get to the next level, opening

The beauty of it all, of course, is that everyone can participate safely from their own homes and studios. Our previous registrants have learned from the faculty, built a community and support network for themselves, and made lifelong friendships. They tell us that what they learned has kept their work looking real, but not like a photograph; that they can give their impression of a scene without going too far; that they feel better equipped to convey the truth in their own artistic voice; and that they have created a signature look. Best of all, they continue to grow and learn from what they experienced. These are impressive results after only four days together.

Please visit realismlive.com now to learn more and register, and see you this November, at the latest.

P.S. If you can’t make the actual “live” dates, don’t worry: replays are available to all who sign up (but not to those who don’t).

JACKSON: (307) 733-3186 | SCOTTSDALE: (480) 945-7751 TRAILSIDEGALLERIES.COM

KRYSTII MELAINE

Melaine

“Flamingos are such elegant birds, with their beautifully sinuous curving necks and pink feathers making them one of my favorites to paint. These two face in opposite directions but are of one mind. Where one goes, the other and their entire flock goes. They all rouse from sleep, seek food, then preen and socialize at the same time. Seeing a huge flock of thousands take off and fly together or display together is an amazing sight. I wonder how they all decide to partake of the same activity at once. Is it a meeting of minds in some silent communication system? We may never know, but we can enjoy their colorful presence in our world.” — Krystii

A Meeting of Minds - Greater Flamingos oil on panel, 36 x 36 inches

Jeff Legg, OPAM

Michael Situ, OPAM

Nikolo Balkanski, OPAM

C. W. Mundy, OPAM

John Searles is always looking for a story he can tell, often on the page to his many readers. One of America’s bestselling novelists, he has published four books to date, including his most recent, Her Last Affair. Indicative of his ability to find or invent stories, Searles says of this drawing by the artist Justin Liam O’Brien, “When I look at this work showing three figures, I see the same person — as a young man, a middle-aged man, and an older man. When I mentioned this to my husband, Thomas, he insisted that the drawing shows three people. But I still see the same person picking reeds at the shoreline at different stages of his life.”

Searles recalls coming upon O’Brien’s art at the Monya Rowe Gallery in New York City — and being instantly engaged. “I knew that Justin was a young gay artist, and that interested me in particular. I love the storytelling that goes on in his scenes. I’m also a sucker for anything blue and beautiful and peaceful,” which aptly describes the Sag Harbor locale where Searles and his theater-director husband live much of the time. In that bucolic, decidedly literary town on Long Island’s East End, the couple and their dog, Ruby, walk daily by the calm, blue bay.

As for his increasing familiarity with O’Brien’s growing oeuvre, Searles says,

“When something or someone gets my interest, I go into a deep dive of researching. The more I saw of his work, the more I responded to his aesthetic.” As another example of Searles’s penchant for research, it was while he kept passing an abandoned drive-in theater in upstate New York that the idea for Her Last Affair arose. Upon learning the drive-in’s history and the roster of films once shown there, Searles invented a storyline so compelling that it reads with the speed and immediacy of a movie. “I think all good writing is cinematic, and because this book is set at an old theater, I started a story about film and I kept writing.”

While Searles’s novels are often categorized as thrillers, that description is too facile. “Each book is its own thing with original characters, and the process of developing plot is always trial and error. I think of my

books as genre hybrids — part character study, part thriller, part noir fiction, a study of the human condition.”

And so it makes perfect sense that Searles would respond viscerally to O’Brien’s paintings, many of which convey narratives with often erotic undertones. “Phrygian Gates, which is more subtle than O’Brien’s others, makes me think of Sag Harbor, which is serene and peaceful, but which also has a lonely feeling to it. I often have a bit of a lonely feeling. There’s a melancholy about this painting.”

As for his writing process, Searles admits, “I’m really an eavesdropper. My sister gave me a T-shirt saying, ‘Careful or you’ll wind up in my novel.’ I’m always noticing things.” He definitely noticed Justin Liam O’Brien’s art.

JOHN SEARLES Novelist

Photo: Thomas Caruso

Justin Liam O’Brien (b. 1991), Phrygian Gates, 2021, colored pencil on paper, 11 x 14 in., private collection

Michelle Condrat, The Golden Touch (detail), Orig. 24 x 36, oil

“Southern Comfort”, 11x14, Oil, $1,100 by Jason Bailey   www.jasonbaileyfineart.com

“Faces of Time”, 16x16, Oil, $3,000 by Karen Budan www.karenbudan.com

“A Gentle Reminder”, 12x16, Oil, by Denise Antaya www.deniseantaya.com

“Confident Moire”, 30x24, Oil, $3,200 by William Rogers  www.williamrogersart.com

2022 Best of America National Juried Exhibition

The Wilcox Gallery

1975 N US Highway 89

Jackson, WY

September 8-October 8, 2022

Opening Reception September 16, 5-7pm

Visit www.noaps.org for details and events

EXHIBITIONS FOR 2023

2023 Best of America Small Works

National Juried Exhibition

Mary Williams Gallery

5311 Western Ave. #112

Boulder, CO

May 18-June 17, 2023

Opening Reception: May 18, 5-8pm

2023 Best of America National Juried Exhibition

The Principle Alexandria

208 King Street

Alexandria, VA

August 11-September 10, 2023

Opening Reception: August 11, 6-8:30pm

Spring International Online Exhibition

Entries open January 1, 2023

Fall International Online Exhibition

Entries open July 1, 2023

Associate Online Exhibition

Entries open April 17, 2023

“Home”, Third Place winner, by Lynette Cook, 16x16 Acrylic

“Times Square Impression”, Best of Show, by Chunming Jia, 12x16, Oil

“Friends Series 7”, Second Place, by Fengshi Jin, 12x12, oil

PAPA

SEPTEMBER 15 - OCTOBER 22, 2022

23rd ANNUAL NATIONAL JURIED EXHIBITION

OPENING WEEK!

Events include painting at multiple locations, critiques, painting demos, presentations and receptions with no fee for all current AIS members!

September 13-14 Workshop

September 12-17 AIS All-Member Paintout

Thursday, September 15

Opening Reception and Awards

Exhibition features 175 artworks in oil, watercolor, pastel, gouache and acrylic. All work available for purchase and publ ished in an exhibition catalog.

Saturday, September 17

Wet Wall Exhibition and Sale

View and purchase artwork created on site in Boulder during the Paintout!

American Impressionist Society was founded in 1998 to promote the appreciation of Impressionism through exhibitions, workshops and events. Four exhibitions are offered each year--two in galleries and two online.

Memberships are open to American Impressionist artists who are United States residents and anyone who wishes to support American Impressionism and our mission. Today over 2,000 artists are AIS members!

FOR MORE INFORMATION: americanimpressionistsociety.org 231-881-7685

Presenter Aaron Schuerr AIS Grand Wash, Capitol Reef 11 x 14 Oil

Awards Judge

Huihan Liu AISM

Dreamy 12 x 16 Oil on Linen

LAURIE HENDRICKS MFA

South Pasadena, California

Café de L’Etang, 20 x 24 in., oil on canvas lauriehendricksart@gmail.com | www.lauriehendricksart.com

Artist Member, California Art Club

JENNIFER RIEFENBERG

Cedaredge, Colorado

Autumn Harmony, 20 x 24 in., oil on canvas jennifer@artofsunshine.com | 303.250.2015 www.artofsunshine.com

Represented by Mary Williams Fine Arts, Boulder, CO

THERESA

Gulf Breeze, Florida

Shaped by Tides and Time , 12 x 16 in., oil on linen-covered birch panel art@theresagrillolaird.com | 850.261.6006 | www.theresagrillolaird.com

MO MYRA

Hartford County, Connecticut Naptime , 11 x 16 in., watercolor momyrawatercolor@gmail.com | www.momyra.com Gallery inquiries welcome

GRILLO LAIRD FINE ART

HEATHER ARENAS

Myakka City, Florida

Your Move!, 24 x 30 in., oil on cradled wood artist@heatherarenas.com

720.281.4632 www.heatherarenas.com

Represented by Reinert Fine Art, Charleston, SC; Mary Williams Fine Art, Boulder, CO

BARB WALKER

Canton,

CAROLYN LINDSEY

Cuervo,

BRENDA BOYLAN

Beaverton, Oregon

A Secret Place , 48 x 60 in., oil on gallery-wrapped canvas, $23,970 503.702.2403 www.brendaboylan.com

Represented by Art Elements Gallery, Newberg, OR; Illume Gallery of Fine Art, St. George, UT

SHELBY KEEFE

Milwaukee, Wisconsin

Made in the Shade , 18 x 24 in., oil on canvas, 2020 shelbykeefe@me.com www.studioshelby.com

This summer and fall, Couse-Sharp

Historic Site presents Taos painter Jivan Lee’s exciting new installation of multipart works focused on the sunlit, cloud-kissed landscapes of northern New Mexico. The pieces act as records of immersion in the landscape, akin to maps of the experience of being in a place on a given day.

TheInfiniteLandscape explores how artifacts of our attention and the dynamics of weather and light coincide to shape what we see.

EXHIBITION IN THE LUNDER RESEARCH CENTER 138 Kit Carson Road through November 30 Open Mon–Sat 1–5 Free admission, donations welcomed

575.751.0369

admin@couse-sharp.org

thecousesharphistoricsite

cousesharp

@CouseSharp

couse-sharp.org

Taos, New Mexico, USA

Valley Below by Carl Bretzke / 2021 Best In Show

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Beauty in the Hamptons

C4C 2022 Arts Weekend

BEAUTY EXHIBITION & SALE - DEVON COLONY IN THE HAMPTONS

OPENING BY INVITATION - OCTOBER 7, 4PM-8PM

PUBLIC VIEWING - OCTOBER 8, 11AM-4PM

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Reservations & C4C Hamptons Schedule of Events: www.windowstothedivine.org (Upcoming Events)

Shannon Robinson, Chairperson 303-679-1365 or shannon@artistcalling.com

Lu Cong

Scott Fraser

Ron Hicks

Quang Ho

Dan McCaw

Danny McCaw

John McCaw

CW Mundy Daniel Sprick

Adrienne Stein

Vincent Xeus (Fra Angelico Artist of the Year)

Scott Fraser • Queen Alexandra • Oil

Vincent Xeus

BARBARA JAENICKE

Prairie Snow, oil on panel, 24x24

ANN GOBLE

Gainesville, Georgia

Chasing the Sun, 9 x 12 in., oil on board goble@charter.net | www.anngoble.com

Represented by Reinert Fine Art, Charleston, SC

Society of Animal Artists

62nd Art & the Animal Exhibition

PREMIERE

Turtle Bay Exploration Park, Redding, CA turtlebay.org

September 24, 2022 – January 1, 2023

TOUR

The Hiram Blauvelt Art Museum, Oradell, NJ blauveltartmuseum.com

November 19, 2022 – January 15, 2023

The Ella Carothers Dunnegan Gallery of Art, Bolivar, MO dunnegangallery.org

February 11 – April 2, 2023

www.societyofanimalartists.com

POKEY PARK

Tucson, Arizona

Tom Cat, 8 x 11 x 9 in., bronze pokey@pokeypark.com | 520.869.6435 | www.pokeypark.com

Represented by K. Newby Gallery, Tubac, AZ; Lovetts Gallery, Tulsa, OK; Smith Klein Gallery, Boulder, CO

The Red Queen by Jeremy Bradshaw

ROSETTA

Loveland, Colorado

Balancing Act, 9 1/2 x 17 1/2 x 4 1/2 in., bronze rosetta@rosettasculpture.com | 970.667.6265 | www.rosettasculpture.com

Represented by Bronze Coast, Cannon Beach, OR; Sorrel Sky, Durango, CO; Wilcox Gallery, Jackson, WY

CARRIE COOK

Austin, Texas Louie, 40 x 20 in., oil on canvas carriecookstudio@gmail.com

www.carriecook.com

Represented by Worrell Gallery, Santa Fe, NM

JILL CORLESS

North Redington Beach, Florida

On the Rocks, 20 x 28 in., pastel corlessp@bellsouth.net | www.jillcorlessfineartgallery.com

Gallery inquiries welcome; Woodfield Fine Art, St. Petersburg, FL; Lowcountry Artists Gallery, Charleston, SC

The sun lowers on the spire of the San Miguel Mission as afternoon light illuminates the distant clouds. Painted from a plein air sketch, the fleeting light is captured in thick, textural strokes of vibrating color.

BRAD TEARE discovered his love for thick paint at a Van Gogh exhibit at the Metropolitan Museum in New York City. Surprised by the impact the paintings had in person, Teare began exploring texture by painting with palette knives in rich, multi-hued strokes.

Closeup of texture and multiple colors in each stroke.

Above: Light on San Miguel, oil on canvas, 48” x 48”

WESTERN ART SHOWCASE

“The American West” means many different things to many different people, and that fact should make us all glad. At Fine Art Connoisseur we have long been keenly aware of how art of the West differs from — and overlaps with — art made in or about the rest of this remarkable country. That’s one reason every issue of this magazine contains a separate section called “Art in the West” — to underscore that very point. Its existence does not mean we have passed on a comparable section titled, say, “Art in the Northeast.” Rather, it’s recognition of the fact that Western vitality in the fields of historic and contemporary realism is so noticeably strong that it shouldn’t be overlooked or made to wait on the sidelines. It makes perfect sense, then, that this Western Art Showcase appears in our pages annually as yet another reminder of all the good things going on there, artistically and otherwise. Enjoy, thanks and congratulations to everyone involved, and please keep up the great work!

Peter Trippi, Editor-in-Chief Fine Art Connoisseur

DAVID FREDERICK RILEY

Midway, Utah

Zeroed In, 60 x 48 in., oil on canvas info@davidfrederickriley.com www.davidfrederickriley.com

CHRIS KOLUPSKI

Rochester, New York

Morning Gossip, 10 x 20 in., oil on linen panel

Three Sisters and the Thumb, 10 x 20 in., oil on linen panel ckolupski@gmail.com 585.313.3543

www.chriskolupski.com

Gallery inquiries welcome

BRUCE PIERCE

Manhattan, Montana Sage Creek Surprise, 32 x 48 in., oil on linen artistbdp@yahoo.com 406.209.4484

www.brucepierceart.com

GEORGE LOCKWOOD

California Central Coast Heart of the North, 24 x 30 in., acrylic on board geolockwood@verizon.net www.glockwoodart.com

BRENT FLORY

Wallsburg, Utah

Changing Seasons, 48 x 24 in., oil on board Of Blankets Bells and Beads, 48 x 24 in., oil on board bpflory@hotmail.com 435.671.7518

www.facebook.com/brentfloryfineart

Represented by Going to the Sun Gallery, Whitefish, MT; Native Gallery, Jackson, WY; Western Skies Fine Art, Afton, WY

MATT RYDER (b. 1981) is a British painter based in Dubai who is steadily becoming better known in the U.S. His journey in art started early but took a bit of a circuitous path — in his 20s Ryder left art school and abandoned painting for 10 years after a discouraging experience with an instructor — but eventually he returned to his true passion. In 2005, he moved to Dubai to embark on a full-time career as a professional painter and has never looked back.

For many years, large-scale landscapes from the scenic mountains and deserts surrounding Dubai were Ryder’s forte and focus. “It’s very difficult to explain the feeling of standing at the base of one of these mountains, how grand it is,” the artist says in a short film describing his work and motivations. “The way the light filters into these big mountain ranges, it’s very reminiscent of America’s Southwestern landscape. The paintings I’m doing, they are big, they are bold. I work on a large scale generally when I’m in the studio in order to capture this grandeur.”

Ryder then started exploring a subject he has long loved: flowers. A crowded genre to be sure, but Ryder nonetheless found his place in this arena, and today he paints large floral scenes as if they were vast landscapes, even if just a few flowers are center stage. Other times, he’ll paint smaller, detailed floral portraits, as in Ascension, illustrated here. Designed in a 2:1 format, these garden roses get all the glory and

attention, with the artist taking time to give each pillowy bloom the variegated color and fine detail it deserves.

Regardless of the subject, Ryder’s love of light and the way it creates movement, rhythm, and patterns in and around objects is often the theme. “I always seek light patterns and shapes that will form interesting and strong compositions,” he explains. “I find that the more I paint, the more I’m drawn to naturally lit subjects, whether it’s a still life by the window or a desert landscape.”

Ryder plans to be in the U.S. quite a bit in the coming months. In October, filming an instructional video for Streamline Publishing will bring him to Texas, and in February 2023 he’ll visit the Scottsdale Artists’ School to teach his second workshop there. And there will be plenty of time back home in the studio. “I have a very clear vision of the future,” Ryder says. “I know where I want to be, and what I have to do to get there. Now it’s just about putting in the work to make sure that happens.”

Ryder is represented by Medicine Man Gallery (Tucson).

There is a lot of superb art being made these days, so this column shines light on five gifted individuals. All profiles were written by Allison Malafronte except Bradley Hankey’s by Nicole Borgenicht.

MATT RYDER (b. 1981),  Ascension , 2022, oil on linen, 10 x 20 in., private collection

MARISSA OOSTERLEE

(b. 1981) is recognized the world over for her hyper-realistic portrayals of women submerged or floating in water, a symbolic representa tion of the passing of time and life’s changing tides. Her preoccupation with water and the ocean is apropos, considering that “Marissa” means “from the sea/mermaid” in Latin and that another of her other passions is raising awareness and funding for environmental causes.

Currently residing in Spain, Oosterlee grew up in the Netherlands and was always an artist at heart. At 20, she found her way back to the studio after sustaining a serious injury on the road to becoming a semi-professional cyclist. Today Oosterlee creates polished, glistening portraits of women in the sea using an airbrush technique with either oil or acrylic paint.

In 2019, the artist began a series of paintings called Washing Away My Sorrows, using water as a symbol of purity, clarity, and tranquility. “This series was originally based on my own feelings involving personal issues (health, past relationships, and family matters) and also on my active involvement in environmental issues, particularly ocean life,” Oosterlee explains. “It grew from there and became about the empowerment we experience when we remove ourselves from the fires that forge and shape us as women.”

In 2020, at the height of the BLM movement, a woman named Saraa Kami contacted Oosterlee to say how much she admired her art, and also to ask why it never featured women of color. “She had just posted a preview of some upcoming releases,” Kami recalls. “As a longtime follower of Marissa’s work, I felt slighted and reached out.

Much to my surprise, she responded right away. Shortly after, we chatted on WhatsApp and she heard me out.”

Oosterlee told Kami that George Floyd’s recent death had struck a deep chord and she was ready to make a shift toward more diversity. In the next few months, she partnered with Kami to create an additional segment to the Washing Away My Sorrows series, of which Hope is a part. Kami secured a group of models of color for a shoot, photographed them, and sent the results to Oosterlee to work from. “I’m not a professional photographer, just a woman of color who wanted future generations to see beautiful depictions of women of color hanging on the walls of museums and galleries,” Kami says of their collaboration, for which she willingly volunteered her time.

“Washing Away My Sorrows — BLM was my attempt to place the beauty of all women on full display,” Oosterlee shares. “Although I’ve always celebrated the beauty of black and brown women as a person, admittedly that wasn’t always evident in my work. So being a part of the healing process for brown and black women in 2020 is something I’m extremely proud of. I’m also excited for the other paintings in this series to be introduced throughout 2022, and for the world to behold the beauty of a human being on its face, not by placing an adjective before it. Our ethnic identities are just that, and the only race that exists is the human race. That is what Washing Away My Sorrows — BLM is all about: seeing and celebrating beauty.”

Oosterlee is self-represented.

MARISSA OOSTERLEE (b. 1981),  Hope, 2022, acrylic on ArtResin, 16 x 16 in. (diameter), available through the artist

If you happen to stumble upon a young man in a Colorado forest wielding his brush with both fierceness and finesse, it may well be the painter JARED BRADY (b. 1998). Out in the wilderness, he is not only able to engage in the challenging yet therapeutic act of painting, but also to document his adventures while communing with nature. “Something about the forest has always transfixed me,” Brady explains. “The abstraction, flow, and complexity have always drawn me in. When a subject seems too difficult or out of reach, I gain so much when I push myself to take it on.”

Brady paints in the mountains and valleys near his Colorado home in every season and at every time of day. In the fall, he may arise before sunrise to hike to his favorite spot and paint studies and gather reference photos of the early-morning glow. In winter, a twilight scene after sunset with cool light and shadows dancing may catch his eye, or perhaps it’s the graceful morning light after the previous day’s snowfall, as in Softly Falls the Light, illustrated here. “This is a scene from my favorite valley near my house,” Brady notes. “It had snowed the night before and the next day we had sunshine and clear blue skies. It was a perfect day to hike around with my pups to look at all the beauty. I came upon this scene and was instantly hooked. I did a small study on location and then used the study and photo references to paint this larger piece in my studio.”

When not traversing the great outdoors in search of subject matter, Brady can be found in his studio painting still lifes in a

romantic realist style. Particularly evident in this genre is the influence of two of his teachers, Quang Ho and Daniel Keys; he took workshops with both while in his early 20s. Brady’s first introduction to oil painting and representational art, however, happened at 16 through the artist Kenneth Shanika, who taught him the basics of traditional technique. Brady then built upon that foundation through self-study and practice.

Regardless of the subject, Brady has trained his eye to find something paintable in every situation. “There is beauty everywhere I look,” he says. “The same visual concepts that excite me in a grand vista can also be found in a simple still life.”

Brady is represented by Broadmoor Galleries (Colorado Springs), Highlands Art Gallery (Lambertville, New Jersey), Jack Meier Gallery (Houston), and Montana Gallery (Billings).

JARED BRADY (b. 1998),  Softly Falls the Light , 2020, oil on linen panel, 18 x 24 in., private collection

Over the last several years, ERIN ANDERSON (b. 1987) has used her artistic gifts to explore the fundamental ways humans remain connected to one another while retaining their individuality. Several of these series, created prior to the pandemic, became even more relevant to the artist and her viewers during the ensuing period of isolation and disruption.

For these scenes, Anderson often begins by conducting scientific-like research or observation, unearthing the interconnectedness among primal elements in nature and applying it to innate correlations in her figures. “In one series, I used imagery from patterns in nature for my compositional inspiration, spending hours looking closely at such things as topographical maps, wind maps, and water currents to see what kinds of patterns and forms they created,” the artist shares. “I like to think the connection we have to one another is similar to the way elements in nature are connected.”

In another series, Anderson chose root systems and tree trunks as her starting point, etching them throughout paintings that speak to women’s separate yet shared experiences. In the diptych Twins, illustrated here, she again turned her attention toward female connectivity,

this time focusing on subjects she knows personally. “These figures are two of my best childhood friends, who happen to be twins,” she explains. “I wanted to allude to the idea of a shared history.”

Twins is also the first work where Anderson experimented with the technique of copper sheet “canvases.” “I like to push myself to find different ways to use copper,” she says. “Previously I used paint or natural patina to create dark values in the background. For Twins, I used a torch on the copper panel to bring out a brilliant rainbow of colors. The results are so fun and interesting to work with!”

An Ohio native, Anderson developed her drawing skills and oil-painting technique from a young age, copying the Old Masters at the Toledo Museum of Art. In 2009, she earned a B.A. in psychology and entrepreneurship from Ohio’s Miami University. Soon after, she enrolled in an independent art program at Pennsylvania’s Waichulis Studio, and she now lives in Ohio again.

Inquiries about Anderson’s work can be made through Dacia Gallery (New York City).

ERIN ANDERSON (b. 1987),  Twins , 2017, oil on copper, 12 x 24 in., Beinart Gallery, Brunswick, Victoria, Australia

Originally from Oregon, the painter BRADLEY HANKEY (b. 1979) attended Boston’s Massachusetts College of Art and Design and has been based in Los Angeles since 2009. In 2020, the artist took many reference photographs during a memorable helicopter ride that inspired a series of major paintings of Southern California’s distinctive convergence of city and sea. Works resulting from yet another helicopter flight taken this February will appear in a show to be mounted by the other passenger on that aerial adventure, dealer Lia Skidmore.

Fortunately, we need not wait for a glimpse of what’s in store. Available now from Hankey’s other representative, Sue Greenwood Fine Art, is the scene illustrated here, Always You, which constitutes a kind of bridge between 2020’s nocturnal scenes and the dusky ones he will show next. Always You draws its title from Hankey’s first date with his now-partner, almost a decade ago — an evening that launched a relationship he says was “meant to be.”

Hankey thinks the phrase “emotional realism” describes his art best: “The scene depicted in Always You made an emotional impact on me, which is why I took a photo of it. And that moment of emotional impact is what I sought to convey in the painting.” Always You certainly is realistic, yet it also reflects Hankey’s engagement with abstraction: “I love using solid blocks of color wherever I can, and

especially in urban landscapes, where a structure is often reduced to a simple shape with a single color.”

In his nocturnal series, Hankey used a rich, dark palette, but Always You incorporates pastel hues, a shift that makes sense when we consider how much more light the dusk encompasses. The artist notes, “The sky and water are built up with glazes, transparent layers of paint that blend optically to form a richer color. The cityscape is also built up in layers, but opaque ones. Single brushstrokes represent entire buildings, and dots represent a range of light sources.”

It is a pleasure to view Hankey’s work in person, first up close to admire his “simple” strokes of paint, then backing away to watch them coalesce. The resulting sense of discovery, even surprise, relies upon the tension between rhythm and painterliness. Here the Santa Monica Pier’s shimmering lights — flashes of energy — contrast with the dark, expansive planes of sky and ocean that convey nature’s power, and its comparative calm. Finding that balance is not easy, but Hankey has mastered it, and we look forward to seeing more dusk scenes.

Hankey is represented by Skidmore Contemporary Art (Santa Monica) and Sue Greenwood Fine Art (Laguna Beach).

BRADLEY HANKEY (b. 1979), Always You , 2022, oil on wood panel, 48 x 60 in., Sue Greenwood Fine Art (Laguna Beach)

TODAY’S MASTERS

SANDY SCOTT’S PRODUCTIVE PANDEMIC

You can never tell how a global catastrophe such as the COVID-19 pan demic might impact a specific person. Fortunately, the Wyomingbased sculptor Sandy Scott (b. 1943) has done just fine. “Some artists fell into creative funks,” she says, “but I became more energized and actually experienced one of my most produc tive periods ever.”

Delighting Scott’s collectors and admirers nationwide this autumn is the arrival of more than 30 new pieces, which she has nick named the COVID Collection because “most would not exist had COVID not made possible the enormous amount of studio time I’ve enjoyed.” The artist is quick to note, however, that guiding each work through her trusted foundry (Eagle Bronze) has been challenging because its project backlog exploded during 2020, and because the casting and finishing pro cess is so detail-oriented and labor-intensive in the first place.

Born in Iowa and raised in Oklahoma, Scott admired animals from an early age because her father bred quarter horses. She studied at the Kansas City Art Institute and later worked as an animation background artist in the motion picture industry, turning her attention to printmaking in the 1970s and finally to sculpture in the ’80s. Today Scott works in Lander, Wyoming, near that superb foundry that casts her bronzes, though she also maintains a studio in Ontario.

An avid outdoorswoman who loves to hunt and fish, Scott has made 16 trips to Alaska as well as trips to Europe, Russia, China, and South America. A licensed pilot for more than half a century, she believes her “knowledge of aerodynamics has been helpful in achieving the illusion of movement in my bird sculptures.” Though Scott remains com mitted to conducting field work in order to know and accurately present her subjects, it goes without saying that several research trips were put on hold beginning in March 2020. “COVID-19 has had me studio-bound,” she says, “so much of the new work reflects travel that occurred before the pandemic, including — for example — my 2019 adventure in Morocco. Yet I still haven’t violated my self-imposed rule of never modeling an animal unless I have experienced it in the field.”

Everyone at Fine Art Connoisseur was delighted recently when Sandy Scott kindly offered to tell us about some of the new works — in her own words. Here, then, are 10 of our favorites, described by the master herself.

No bird better shows attitude than a rooster; with his chest out, tail up, and comb erect, he struts forward to meet the break of day. The passive and active elements of the bird’s shapes present an exciting design opportunity for any sculptor. I have combined the shapes of body mass and tail profusion with controlled modeling of the head and feet in an attempt to design a symbol of arrogance and spirit. Roosters look especially great displayed in kitchens; this one lives in mine.

Sunrise Sonata , 2022, bronze (edition of 25), 25 x 17 1/2 x 10 in.

My personal ideal of equine aesthetic perfection is an ongoing pursuit, so at any given time I have several horse sculptures in progress. I’m influenced by Greek and Renaissance prototypes as well as by the 19th-century masters Antoine-Louis Barye and Emmanuel Frémiet, and also Anna Hyatt Huntington and Adolph Weinman from the 20th century. My goal while creating Tempest was to present a feeling of dignity and drama with a symbolic pose of wind-tossed mane depicting power, beauty, and proportion. As a lover of horses, someone who grew up with and has always owned them, I enter the realm of instinct while contemplating the design of what I consider the most beautiful animal on Earth.

This head study was a nightmare for the mold maker and for the foundry to cast. We spent many hours consulting the technicians and relying on their assistance during the production process. The image stems from an unforgettable trip to Tanzania several years ago with a group of artist friends: John Agnew, Julie Askew, Robert Caldwell, Paul Dixon, James Gary Hines, Jan Martin McGuire, Tony Pridham, and Dale Weiler. With our guide and Land Rover, we spent hours at water holes in search of closeups and details of various species, returning home with more than 15,000 digital images. Famous for the long black plumes on its head, the secretary bird is a raptor closely related to the osprey and can be found stomping snakes in sub-Saharan

Tempest, 2022, bronze (edition of 25), 17 x 21 x 8 in.

grasslands.

Secretary Bird, 2022, bronze (edition of 50), 7 x 9 x 5 in.

The American bison, or buffalo, has been elevated to the stature of the American bald eagle as an emblem of our great country. Under recent U.S. legislation, the bison became the National Mammal due to its economic and cultural significance over the centuries. More than 60 million of them once roamed North America, but by 1890 their story almost ended in extinction. Today the largest population resides in Yellowstone National Park — two hours from my studio. While the bison has long been one of my favorite subjects, it is more than an animal to me: it is an emotional manifesto that exemplifies my deep affinity for the West and its history.

The grizzly bear is common where my studio is located, at the base of the Wind River Range in the wild state of Wyoming.  I’ve encountered the animal only once while hiking in the high country, but I routinely see them nearby in Yellowstone. The anatomy of an animal with such thick fur or hair must be fully understood in order to avoid modeling a shapeless mass; sometimes that means using artistic license to “trick” viewers into seeing the anatomy correctly.

Ready to Rumble, 2022, bronze (edition of 25), 16 x 22 x 17 in.

Herd Bull, 2022, bronze (edition of 25), 13 x 21 x 7 in.

The genesis of this sculpture was a scene I witnessed on a hike in Jackson, Wyoming. After hearing a riotous cacophony of croaks and squawks, I used my binoculars to spy a pair of ravens a short distance away. One bird was silent — with a seemingly aloof attitude — while the other was totally “in your face.” The drama of that event struck me and now this sculpture speaks for itself.

In the late 17th century, hunting scenes and still lifes became more popular than religious imagery in newly Protestant Holland because they reflected the “real,” secular world. And of course the depiction of fur, feathers, and gills in sporting scenes remains a traditional motif to this day. This work was inspired by an autumn hunt near my Lake of the Woods studio in Ontario with our beloved Brittany dog, Penny. The delicious bird was enjoyed on Canadian Thanksgiving, which occurs in October.

After the Hunt – Ruffed Grouse, 2022, bronze (wall mounted, edition of 35), 16 x 12 x 4 in.

I Can’t Hear You, 2022, bronze (edition of 50), 11 x 13 x 5 in.

Rock of Liberty, of 25), 33 x 32 x 27 in.

My eagle sculptures have been placed at many venues nationwide, including the National Museum of Wildlife Art (Jackson Hole), William J. Clinton Presidential Library & Museum (Little Rock), Brookgreen Gardens (South Carolina), and San Francisco’s Presidio. This iconic bird continues to inspire me and serve as a reminder of my love of country. For this new work, which has been designed for placement indoors or outdoors, I combined uncomplicated shapes and a strong silhouette in an effort to communicate power. The rock merging with the bird’s mass suggests the solidarity and resolve of America.

Herons are long-legged, long-necked freshwater coastal birds that are also found along rivers and ponds. Their pointed dagger-like bill is perfect for catching fish and frogs. The design source for this image was the tricolored heron, a sleek, slender, and fairly small bird compared to its cousin, the great blue heron. Reference for this work was gathered at Port Aransas on Texas’s Gulf Coast; it is the latest addition to my growing portfolio of coastal, wading, and shore birds.

This work was modeled in the spring of 2020 when, like many folks, Trish and I bought a new puppy as it became clear we would remain house-bound for quite a while. We had lost our 14-year-old Scottie the year before, and we (along with our old bird dog) missed her terribly. As soon as the new pup arrived, everyone was happy again. The interaction between the old dog and the new one was sheer joy and presented the perfect models. Like many other works, this has yet to be molded and cast; many will be introduced in October 2023 at Cheryl Newby Gallery and Red Piano. (Please see Information below.)

Information: sandyscott.com, sandyscottblog.blogspot.com x width x depth. Scott is represented by the following galleries: Broadmoor (Colorado Springs), Cheryl Newby (Pawley’s Island, SC), Columbine (Loveland, CO), Davis & Blevins (Saint Jo, TX), McBride (Annapolis), Montgomery-Lee (Park City, UT), Mountain Trails (Santa Fe), Red Piano (Bluffton, SC), and Wilcox (Jackson Hole).

KELLY COMPTON is a contributing writer to Fine Art Connoisseur.

Marsh Master, 2022, bronze, 17 x 9 x 12 in. (edition of 35)

New Puppy, 2022, clay maquette (in progress), 5 x 10 x 12 in.

BY MAX GILLIES

TODAY’S MASTERS

GO WILD

As fellow residents of Earth, wild animals have always fascinated humans, especially the artists among us. Thus many creatures appear in prehistoric cave paintings, and today the desire to depict them endures, stronger than ever.

The artworks illustrated here confirm this ongoing enthusiasm, and it’s easy to learn more thanks to a host of activities happening across North America. For example, in Charleston next February, the annual Southeastern Wildlife Exposition (sewe.com) will again delight animal lovers with exhibitions, demos, and other activities highlighting the importance of conservation. Touring the country are the annual Art and the Animal exhibitions organized by the Society of Animal Artists (societyofanimalartists.com), and then there is the annual festival hosted by Artists for Conservation

(artistsforconservation.org), which features an exhibition by leading international artists, screenings, demos, and performances. (This year’s edition is scheduled for September 22–25 in Vancouver.) Look out, too, for the National Museum of Wildlife Art in Jackson Hole (Wyoming, wildlifeart.org) and Wisconsin’s Leigh Yawkey Woodson Art Museum (lywam.org), which hosts an annual Birds in Art exhibition.

These are just a few of the impressive array of offerings in wildlife art — all encouraging evidence that this longstanding genre is alive and well.

MAX GILLIES is a contributing writer to Fine Art Connoisseur.

BREGELLE WHITWORTH DAVIS (b. 1985), Winter Wheat , 2022, acrylic on canvas with copper and silver leaf, 14 x 23 in., National Museum of Wildlife Art (Jackson Hole, Wyoming)

MARK EDWARD ADAMS (b. 1974), The Wolf and Raven , 2021, bronze (edition of 25), 16 1/4 x 23 x 6 in., available through Mountain Trails Galleries (Sedona, Arizona), FoR Fine Art (Whitefish, Montana), and Beartooth Gallery (Red Lodge, Montana)

(ABOVE) GLORIA CHADWICK (b. 1946), Looking at Me?, 2017, acrylic on board, 11 x 14 in., available through the artist (RIGHT) MARY CORNISH (b. 1950), The Bone Collector, 2020, oil on aluminum panel, 20 x 16 in., available through the artist

JULIE T. CHAPMAN (b. 1963), Cry Havoc #2 , 2022, mixed media on ACM panel, 22 x 44 in., available this September at the Buffalo Bill Art Show & Sale (see page 105)

JOHN BANOVICH (b. 1964), Game of Lions , 2014, oil on linen, 50 x 75 in., private collection

MARK EBERHARD (b. 1949), Master Class, 2022, oil on canvas, 48 x 48 in., Astoria Fine Art (Jackson Hole, Wyoming)

(CLOCKWISE FROM TOP LEFT) ANDREW DENMAN (b. 1978), The Ladies’ Man #2 , 2022, acrylic on board, 18 x 18 in., Sanders Galleries (Tucson) SHAWN GOULD (b. 1974), Preening Flamingo , 2022, acrylic on hardboard, 16 x 12 in., Sorrel Sky Gallery (Durango, Colorado) DARRELL DAVIS (b. 1962), A King of All Kings , 2019, cast aluminum (edition of 5), 42 x 24 x 41 in., available through the artist GEORGE LOCKWOOD (b. 1961), Tidal Zone , 2022, acrylic on panel, 12 x 12 in., available through the artist

DAVID W. JACKSON (b. 1951), Life Is Good , 2020, oil on canvas, 30 x 40 in., available through the artist

(LEFT TO RIGHT) LISA GLEIM (b. 1971), A Keen Observer, 2021, pastel on Yellowstone National Park maps, 34 x 46 in., private collection COLT IDOL (b. 1990), Shadow Song , 2020, oil on linen, 11 x 14 in., private collection PATRICIA A. GRIFFIN (b. 1967), Macha , 2022, oil on linen, 48 x 36 in., Gallery Wild (Jackson Hole, Wyoming)

(CLOCKWISE FROM TOP LEFT) GARY JOHNSON (b. 1953), African Crowned Crane , 2017, mixed media on handmade silk paper, 11 x 10 in., private collection AKI KANO (b. 1974), Starling , 2020, watercolor on paper, 9 x 12 in., 33 Contemporary Gallery (Chicago) CALVIN LAI (b. 1972), Elevated Eating , 2021, oil on canvas and wood panel, 48 x 24 in., Abend Gallery (Denver) KRISTEN SANTUCCI (b. 1970), The Wise One , 2022, oil on copper panel, 7 x 5 in., available through the artist

(CLOCKWISE FROM TOP LEFT) JESSE LANE (b. 1990), Abyss , 2019, colored pencil on Bristol board, 28 x 39 in., private collection (limited-edition prints available through RJD Gallery, Romeo, Michigan) WALTER MATIA (b. 1953), Southfork , 2021, bronze (open edition), 13 x 31 x 8 in., available through the artist REGINA DAVIS (b. 1985), Blue Bliss , 2022, oil on board, 8 x 10 in., available through the artist VERYL GOODNIGHT (b. 1947), The Sage , 2018, bronze (edition of 35), 12 x 5 x 14 in., available through the artist CATHY SHEETER (b. 1979), Just a Hare to the Left , 2021, scratchboard, 16 x 20 in., private collection DALE MARIE MULLER (b. 1972), P erfect Darkness , 2021, graphite on paper, 11 x 17 in., available through the artist

(CLOCKWISE FROM TOP LEFT) SHERYL BOIVIN (b. 1962), Female Mallard (Anas platyrhynchos) , 2021, pastel on Pastelmat, 9 x 12 in., available through the artist JAMES MORGAN (b. 1947), Resting Tundra Swans , 2010, oil on linen, 24 x 36 in., private collection BRUCE PIERCE (b. 1961), Heading for Greener Pastures , 2019, oil on canvas, 11 x 14 in., available through the artist DIANNE MUNKITTRICK (b. 1954), Around the Bend , 2022, oil on canvas, 30 x 40 in., available through the artist DUSTIN VAN WECHEL (b. 1974), Making Dinner Plans , 2022, oil on linen, 48 x 24 in., available this September at the Buffalo Bill Art Show & Sale (see page 105)

(CLOCKWISE FROM TOP LEFT) JOE GARCIA (b. 1944), Street Talk , 2022, watercolor on paper, 10 3/4 x 19 1/4 in., available through the artist MANON SANDER (b. 1967), Beasty Boy, 2022, oil on linen, 20 x 16 in., private collection ELIZABETH LEWIS SCOTT (b. 1953), A March Ram , 2019, oil on canvas, 24 x 18 in., Wilcox Gallery (Jackson Hole, Wyoming) KRYSTII MELAINE (b. 1963), uNohemu (Grey Crowned Cranes), Zulu , 2022, oil on linen panel, 48 x 48 in., Trailside Galleries (Jackson Hole, Wyoming) DIANA REUTER-TWINING (b. 1951), Grasshoppera , 2012, bronze (edition of 9), 23 x 32 1/2 x 8 1/2 in., available through the artist

HISTORIC MASTERS

JOHN KOCHPAINTINGS THAT PUZZLE

To use a baseball analogy, the paintings of John Koch (pronounced “Coke,” 1909–1978) have come down to us with two strikes against them.

First, Koch was a successful portraitist, catering to a wealthy clientele whose commissions helped support his career in fine art. (The publishers Henry Luce and Malcolm Forbes, as well as the composer Richard Rodgers, were among his many sitters.) That shouldn’t be a strike against anyone, but, like it or not, many observers have considered commissioned portraiture an obstacle to “serious” artmaking for more than a century. Why? Because it usually requires artists to please the sitter, while “fine art” obliges them to please only themselves.

Second, we have come to believe that great artists challenge accepted norms. (“Comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable,” as one wit put it.) Monet made the seemingly permanent look transitory; Picasso fractured the spatial plane and disoriented viewers, while Warhol proposed that markers of consumer capitalism had become America’s defining feature. John Koch, on the other hand, depicted his comfortable middle class life in New York City, sometimes while painting a nude professional model, sometimes during a cocktail party that revealed the wondrous view from his upper-floor apartment on Central Park West. The main artistic currents during his heyday were various forms of abstraction, most reflecting the uneasiness of modern life. Western culture was transformed by the 20th century: underlying anxiety is what we came to look for in an artist, not self-satisfaction.

“I think some of the problem with Koch’s works is that they strike people as totally academic, totally well-done but just so old-fashioned,” says Barbara Haskell, curator at New York City’s Whitney Museum of American Art, which owns several paintings by this artist that haven’t seen the light of day in decades, and won’t anytime soon. Ultimately, she concludes, “he doesn’t have any relevance to the contemporary art world.” Robert Fishko, who owns Manhattan’s Forum Gallery and has sold Koch’s work on the secondary market from time to time, offers his verdict: “Koch was a very interesting artist, but he made no single

unique contribution to American art to arouse a great deal of interest.” One might say that artists can defy societal conventions, but not the drift of the art world. “He was just the wrong guy at the wrong place at the wrong time,” adds painter Jacob Collins (b. 1964), who also refers to himself as a “perennial outsider.” Strike two.

Initially I didn’t want to launch this exploration of Koch’s life and art in such negative terms because, in large measure, that is what almost every other writer on him has done (and there aren’t that many to begin with). The last notable exhibition of his art, John Koch: Painting a New York Life, occurred in 2001–02 at the New-York Historical Society, which owns works of art but isn’t really an art museum. Almost all of its catalogue essays begin with descriptions of postwar intellectual ferment and the artists — particularly Pollock and De Kooning — who captured the era’s rebelliousness that Koch seemingly did not share.

Let’s not feel pity for John Koch, however. His paintings of that Manhattan apartment are in the collections of major museums including the Metropolitan, Whitney, Brooklyn, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Kansas City’s Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, and Museum of Fine Arts Boston. At some point, curators at all of these institutions liked his works, even if they almost never get displayed now. One exception: Caroline Gillaspie, assistant curator of American art at the Brooklyn Museum, notes that Koch’s The Sculptor was frequently on view in its American galleries between 2001 and 2016.

Lack of visibility in museums has not eliminated all interest in Koch, however. “We handle works by Koch, perhaps not every season but certainly every other season,” says Caroline Seabolt, head of sales in Christie’s American Art department. “He has a dedicated collector base.” Koch’s drawings, studies, and finished paintings command prices at auction that can be quite high, such as Studio—End of Day (1961, oil, 5 x 5 ft.), which fetched $604,000 at Christie’s in 2005, or Siesta (1962, oil, 30 x 25 in.), which brought $596,075 at Bonhams in 2020. Galleries that sell Koch works on the secondary market find no lack of buyers. “Anything we get of his, we sell very quickly,” says

Katherine Degn, director and partner of New York City’s Kraushaar Galleries, which represented both the artist and his estate from the 1940s through the ’90s.

IS KOCH PULLING OUR LEG?

So, let’s focus on the 1969 oil John Koch Painting Alice Neel in the permanent collection of the Hirshhorn Museum in Washington, D.C. Feted last year with a well-attended retrospective at the Metropolitan, Neel (1900–1984) was a barrier-breaking New York painter, influenced by the German Expressionists and strongly leftist. She made many portraits, but they were never commissioned. They depicted her family members and friends — including artists Robert Smithson and Andy Warhol, Metropolitan curator Henry Geldzahler, and art historian Linda Nochlin — as well as figures less familiar to the art elite, like labor organizers and black and brown people.

Perhaps her most famous painting is the nude self-portrait (1980) that shows Neel staring at us, her pale, sagging body perched on an upholstered chair. “This is me, now,” she seems to declare. Without explicit references to sex, she also painted out-of-the-closet

ALICE NEEL (1900–1984), Self-Portrait , 1980, oil on canvas, 53 1/4 x 39 3/4 in., National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C. © Estate of Alice Neel

John Koch Painting Alice Neel , 1969, oil on linen, 30 1/8 x 40 in., Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C., Joseph H. Hirshhorn Bequest, 1981; photo: Lee Stalsworth

Portrait of Dora in Interior, c. 1957, oil on canvas, 14 x 16 in., Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, Katherine Schmidt Shubert Bequest, 79.79

The Cocktail Party, 1956, oil on canvas, 40 x 50 in., private collection

gay men and lesbians who stare right back at us. Such images were not sales gold through most of her career, which suddenly took an upward trajectory from the late 1960s as feminists began to celebrate her frank subject matter, expressive handling, and the very fact that a woman artist was challenging viewers in this way.

Koch’s painting of his session with Neel is totally different. We see a large room with stained wood floors; at its far end is Neel, sitting in an armchair, wearing a long, modest dress one might associate with

the Victorian era. Her face is largely obscured by shadows. There is no artificial lighting, and, if there is a window, it is out of view somewhere at left. In the foreground is Koch himself, mostly seen from the back, seated before his easel and reaching for a rag — presumably to wipe his hands or something else — next to a table holding his paints. The room itself is quite bare. A large painting of what looks like a darkened European church interior hangs beyond Neel, and behind the artist is an antique writing desk.

There is an oddness about this painting. The fact that Neel, an artist who exposed things, is dolled up so primly, and that her face is not recognizable in the shadows, suggests that the scene is neither about her nor her relationship with Koch. (In some ways, it is almost a parody of her work.) Koch himself is not much of a presence, other than the fact that

Telephone Call, n.d., oil on linen, 60 1/8 x 60 1/8 in., Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, Charles Simon Bequest, 96.60.47

he clearly orchestrated the moment we are viewing. There actually is more clarity devoted to the wall’s wainscoting and the inlaid desk than to the two people here. Perhaps the furnishings that might otherwise belong in what seems to be a living room have been pushed aside so that no paint will drip on them? One might say Koch likes Neel but loves the room, which seems to be the star here.

If this room is relatively bare, other rooms in Koch’s apartment — the staging site of so many pictures — are filled with furniture, most antiques or just old-fashioned. Portrait of Dora in Interior (1957) does include a profile of his wife, Dora, but her face is largely in shadow because the lamplight is behind her; better illuminated are the vases of fresh flowers, and the room is full of interesting elements — a tabletop sculpture, a seascape on the wall, and a shelf holding various objets d’art. Dora herself appears to be just one more object in the room.

The oil Morning, 1971 shows Koch on a stepladder polishing a chandelier’s crystals while his wife, Dora, cleans out the hearth. The room is crammed with loveseats, cane-back chairs, carved desks, framed pictures, and inlaid bookcases holding not books but curios. Mina Weiner, who organized that 2001 exhibition at the New-York Historical Society, says this painting is actually funny because “the people who knew John and Dora knew that they never cleaned.”

In yet another oil portrait of Koch’s apartment, The Movers (1954), two workmen in undershirts strain to lift a large painting; its richly carved wood frame is likely what makes it so heavy. The workmen need to be careful, not only with the painting but with the many antiques all around them. From the side, Dora’s shaded face watches the pair like a hawk, presumably to ensure they don’t scratch anything; perhaps her surveillance is part of the strain they feel. The workmen twist their bodies to support the framed painting; perhaps Koch was channeling the contorted figures in Rodin’s sculptures, in which twists and turns reveal their musculature. Assuming that’s true, this is a painting about the physical weight of art that also references historical art. Like Morning, 1971, it’s funny, but in a different way.

Koch certainly had time to study Rodin sculptures, among the works of many modern and pre-modern masters, during the five years he spent in Paris in the early 1930s, and again after World War II. He had little formal training in art: nine months drawing plaster casts with a private teacher at age 10 in Ann Arbor, Michigan, where he was raised, then a couple of summers taking classes at the Provincetown Art Association on Cape Cod in 1926–27. Fortunately, his parents (his father worked in a furniture store) were generally supportive of their son pursuing his bliss.

Paris was a hotbed of experimentation, but Koch was less interested in visiting artists’ studios and contemporary galleries than in spending time in museums, particularly the Louvre, where the Old Masters were parked. Gregarious by nature, he made friends easily with both French and American people, some of whom commissioned him to paint portraits or other images, which helped him pay his way in what was then a relatively inexpensive place to live.

Family Group , 1951, oil on canvas, 24 x 20 in., Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington, D.C., gift of Barbara Wood, 1974.20

East River, c. 1930, oil on panel, 15 7/8 x 19 7/8 in., Brooklyn Museum, gift of Friends of Southern Vermont Artists, Inc., 39.417

Koch did try his hand at modernism (“Kandinsky had an effect on me … quite a strong one”), and he once visited Picasso, whom he described as “an enormously charming man, very friendly … [although] I had a very hard time making out exactly what he was saying,” which he attributed to his own “embryonic French.” He also met some Dada and Surrealist painters who tried to pull him into their spheres, but it didn’t really take. Former Manhattan gallerist Gertrude Stein, now 95, knew John and Dora Koch. She recalls that, several years before his death, he suffered a stroke that affected his dominant right side. “Dora tried to get him to paint with his left hand, and he did something that was abstract, but he didn’t like it.”

Koch’s time studying the Old Masters in Europe clearly made him partial to a pre-modern sensibility. In the backgrounds of many paintings, particularly those set in his apartment, are copies he made of museum masterworks; perhaps that blurred seascape in Portrait of Dora in Interior was one such copy, though he did occasionally purchase an actual Old Master painting or sculpture when it fit his budget. In The Cocktail Party (1956), we see two paintings in the background, one by Tiepolo and the other by Vuillard, that Koch described to an interviewer (for the 1963 exhibition John Koch in New York at the Museum of the City of New York) as “my complete fantasy” — the fantasy being that he could actually afford to own such masterpieces.

Koch’s own paintings may remind viewers of figures found in Baroque art, dramatically contorted to reveal musculature and an emotional

state. His undated Telephone Call suggests the influence of Georges de la Tour (1593–1652), with its dramatic lighting provided by an electric lamp rather than a candle. The unexpected ring of a telephone awakening a naked woman might bring to mind Rembrandt’s Danaë (1636, Hermitage). The twisting bodies in Baroque art were intended to heighten the emotional effect of the story being told, usually based on the Bible or classical mythology. In Koch’s scenes, however, the narrative is generally mundane or non-existent because his focus is instead the look of a body in a position that highlights its musculature. Here the modern world is a form of life drawing class. When he returned to the U.S., settling in New York City on the recommendation of an English friend he met in Paris, social realism was all the rage, but “I knew that was not for me,” Koch recalled later. What was for him was a woman he had met and fallen in love with before going to Europe, the pianist and piano teacher Dora Zaslavsky (1904–1987). She was married at that time, but that union was ending when Koch came to New York in 1934, and the pair wed the following year. All reports indicate it was quite a happy marriage. (“Her first husband was a very close friend of mine, and I met her through him,” Koch said. “It worked out very well.”)

Love doesn’t pay the rent, and neither did Koch’s paintings in the depths of the Depression, but Dora earned some money from concert performances and, later, as an instructor. For a couple of years during World War II, Koch taught at the Art Students League, but “portraiture always came to my rescue,” he said: “Certainly of that period, some of the most committed and telling pictures, I think, were portraits.” The parents of some of Dora’s students commissioned him to paint their children’s portraits, paying him $100 or $150, not bad money in the 1930s and ’40s. (An example of Koch’s family portraiture from 1951 is illustrated here.)

In 1939, Kraushaar Galleries began to show and sell Koch’s work, beginning what he called a period of “enormous growth and great happiness.” Many of those paintings were Manhattan cityscapes made as new buildings and bridges were being erected, or they depicted the workmen undertaking these projects. These were not stylized social realist images of the working class whose victory will come. Radical politics was not Koch’s thing; he noted later that “both Dora and I were pretty much fighting the official leftism of the time.” His East River (c. 1930) offers an aestheticized vision of industry in which factory and tugboat smoke blend in a cloudy sky that mirrors the water itself. The workingman “does represent mankind to me in a certain way,” Koch explained in 1968. “I do think that people are beautiful, and I think the image of what they’ve built is beautiful.”

Koch enjoyed getting out of the city from time to time, painting quieter rural life, as seen in Vermont Barns — Neutral Monochromatic Study in Grays (c. 1940); here we view a small town from the other side of a waterway. Nature is great, but this artist’s heart was really with the interactions of city people.

A circle of artist friends began to develop for John and Dora, including Milton Avery, Paul Cadmus, Reginald Marsh, Isabel Bishop, Marsden Hartley, and Raphael and Moses Soyer. Marsh and his wife, Felicia, were particular favorites, and Koch’s 1953 portrait of them is now in the Whitney’s collection. It is not just painters who appear in Koch’s work, but also writers, collectors, and members of genteel society in general. As noted above, Koch would occasionally make paintings

Vermont Barns – Neutral Monochromatic Study in Grays , c. 1940, oil on board, 16 x 12 in., Robert Funk Fine Art, Miami

Portrait of Felicia and Reginald Marsh , 1953, oil on linen, 30 1/8 x 25 1/16 in., Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, Felicia Meyer Marsh Bequest, 80.31.18

of cocktail parties held in his apartment, combining his portraiture skills with his love of this home and the satisfaction he had with life. He also portrayed the piano lessons his wife gave, views of his studio (with and without models), the daily interactions of a husband and wife, and views over the city from the windows.

There is, as commentators have often noted, something odd about many of Koch’s images. They can seem a sort of puzzle in which viewers try to put the pieces together to uncover the story, somewhat like an amusing Hogarth scene of 18th-century British life. Yet there is nothing particularly funny or moralistic here. Koch frequently shows people not looking at, or speaking to, each other, disconnected or lonely in the midst of others. Or they may be absorbed by the newspaper, or just thinking. The look of the apartment, its tastefulness and air of refinement, steals the show every time. In this way, the paintings are deeply personal, reflecting Koch’s sense of himself as portrayed through the placement of every piece of furniture. The artist willingly makes himself a bit ridiculous through his roles as director, prop master, and choreographer. Even in his own day, this stageset was becoming dated, and it takes a brave person to do that.

SOMETHING ODD

In his numerous artist-in-the-studio paintings, Koch’s models — both male and female — are depicted as points of fascination, sometimes posing but frequently taking a break, returning to who they are. In After the Sitting (1968, private collection), a male model starts putting his clothes back on while the painter continues developing what looks like a theatrical Tiepolo scene of Olympian gods. Presumably, the John Koch in this painting is por-

traying a nude, while the actual John Koch is more interested in the naked model at what is normally an unseen moment.

Koch’s penchant for showing people not interacting can even appear when they are in the same bed: Telephone Call suggests that the woman rising to answer the phone is quite through with the man still asleep beside her. Night (1964) is a post-coital scene of a naked woman on her side seemingly asleep, or aiming to sleep, while the naked man beside her reads a newspaper. Siesta (1962) shows a naked woman fixing her hair while her female partner still sleeps, wrapped in a bed sheet. The tenderest moments appear to reveal how alone and apart people feel: Discussion (1974) features a fully clad man and woman holding drinks and sitting silently across from, but not looking at, one another.

Was-he-or-wasn’t-he speculation about Koch’s sexual preferences has long factored in the interpretation of his paintings of models and of men generally. The Sculptor (1964) is interesting not only for the image itself — a standing nude model, seen from behind, lights the cigarette of the seated male artist, whose face is perilously near the model’s genitals — but also for what appears on the museum’s webpage devoted to the painting. There members of the public can ask questions; two make reference to the model’s buttocks, and one asks if the artist was gay.

Kraushaar’s Katherine Degn takes umbrage at the very question, calling his sexuality “irrelevant,” yet it remains an open question. “He had a longtime marriage to Dora,” curator Mina Weiner says, “although certainly there were rumors about his homosexual longings. He may have been very closeted, not acting out his homosexuality.” Ninety-four-year-old Burton Silverman, a portraitist who was taken under Koch’s wing early in his career and had several of his paintings purchased by the older artist, recalls him as “fey,” noting that Koch “did not talk about his sexuality, keeping it quiet. Maybe he was a 19th-century gay. I never saw anything one way or the other.” Jacob Collins, who didn’t know the artist but likely was influenced by him, says, “I don’t know for a fact that he was gay, but that was my impression.” He adds that the suggestion that Koch was homosexual perhaps is made by “gay activists throwing a lifeline to his reputation,” in effect making him more relevant to our times.

There is a sense of stagecraft in Koch’s art. A question that arises after seeing many of his paintings, particularly those of his Manhattan apartment, is whether he is playing the debonair master of home and studio, wearing tailored suits and showing off his antiques, or if he really is that comical-yet-not-funny person. Burt Silverman claims that Koch really was the former. Perhaps his greatest creation was his lifestyle, depicted so often in his paintings. (When she was organizing the 2001 exhibition, Weiner visited the apartment and found it smaller than it appears in his scenes, as though Koch sought to aggrandize his life.)

The longer we look, the more we wonder, “What is the subject of this painting? What was on the artist’s mind?” Great art may overcome the oddness of an artist’s personality (think Van Gogh), but the fact that Koch’s paintings remain in seemingly permanent storage nationwide reflects their puzzle-like nature, that they do not fit into a category and thus don’t help curators wanting to tell a clear story of American art. Don’t hold your breath that this puzzle will be figured out anytime soon.

DANIEL GRANT is a contributing writer to Fine Art Connoisseur and author of The Business of Being an Artist (Allworth Press). All Koch images here © Estate of John Koch

The Sculptor, 1964, oil on canvas, 80 x 59 7/8 in., Brooklyn Museum, gift of the artist, 69.165

THOMAS HART BENTON ARTIST IN THE HEARTLAND

If you’ve never had an opportunity to view the famous murals, drawings, and paintings created by the Regionalist painter Thomas Hart Benton (1889–1975) during his prolific, sevendecade-long career, you’ll surely find some in almost any major U.S. art museum. If, however, you also want to see where Benton conceived and created some of those masterpieces — as well as the books he read, the instruments he played, the environment where he communed with his family and fellow artists, plus many lesser-known drawings, studies, and sculptures — consider visiting the Thomas Hart Benton Home & Studio State Historic Site.

Located in the upper-class Roanoke neighborhood of Kansas City, Missouri, the house and stable-turned-studio were purchased in 1939 by Benton and his wife, Rita, for $6,000 cash. Originally built in 1903 by architect George Mathews, the three-story limestone house encompasses an impressive 7,800 square feet and is surrounded by lush trees and shrubbery. Here Benton spent the last 36 years of his life developing several now-renowned murals, most notably Achelous and Hercules, A Social History of the State of Missouri, Independence & the Opening of the West, and Sources of Country Music, as well as the easel-size paintings Hailstorm, The Year of Peril, Cave Spring, and Lewis & Clark at Eagle Creek. Today the site is one of 55 within the National Trust for Historic Preservation’s Historic Artists’ Homes & Studios network.

BECOMING BENTON

Benton was widely admired as a draftsman, painter, muralist, and instructor who — like many long-lived artists — moved through various stages of stylistic experimentation, though he is best remembered as the outspoken, articulate voice of American Regionalism. Along with Grant Wood (1891–1942) and John Steuart Curry (1897–1946) — they were dubbed the Regionalist Triumvirate — Benton pursued both art and activism during the Great Depression, helping to foster a uniquely American brand of realism that was particularly proud of agriculture and manual labor. His depictions of rural life in the South and Midwest championed working-class laborers while eschewing foreign and elitist influences.

One of Benton’s best-known murals, the 10-panel America Today, became a paragon of this ethos and was inspired by a six-month sketching trip he made across the country in 1928. The project was

Thomas Hart Benton in his studio painting Achelous and Hercules , 1947

commissioned by the New School for Social Research in New York City and focused on the distinct personalities and cultural characteristics of each American region, with scenes ranging from farming and religion to industry and urban life. Where Benton shines brightest in this mural, however, is in the closely observed, sensitively portrayed portraits of the varied people who together make America what it is. In all of its scenes, Benton’s message is clear: hard work and a respect for

both the land and the citizenry are what America was founded on and what would, in time, lead the country back to prosperity.

Benton developed such down-home ideals growing up in the small town of Neosho, Missouri. But he was also exposed to a broader worldview from a young age, which he would continue to develop throughout life while traveling and reading. The key to his cosmopolitanism was the fact that his father was a lawyer and U.S. Congressman, who relocated the family to Washington, D.C., for eight years and often took his son along on his travels. Spending his teenage years as a cartoonist for a local newspaper, young Benton eventually convinced his father to allow him to attend the Art Institute of Chicago in 1907; the following year he headed to Paris to study at the Académie Julian and Académie Colarossi.

In 1911 Benton returned to the U.S. and settled in New York City. He began working in the silent-movie studios of New Jersey and teaching at the Chelsea Neighborhood Association. There he met his future wife, Rita Piacenza, an art student from Italy who would become the most pivotal figure in his life. Benton remained in Manhattan for just over 20 years, marrying Rita at the age of 33. His nineyear stint as an influential instructor at the Art Students League of New York (1926–1935) is remembered best via the legacy of Jackson Pollock (1912–1956), who took Benton’s instructional wisdom and antiestablishment philosophy to heart.

COMING HOME

In 1935, aged 46, Benton returned to Missouri to head the painting department at the Kansas City Art Institute, and also to undertake a major mural commission for the Missouri State Capitol. Although he had

(CLOCKWISE FROM TOP LEFT) One facade of the Bentons’ three-story limestone residence The self-portrait of Benton that appeared on the cover of the December 24, 1934 issue of Time magazine (oil on canvas, 30 x 24 in., private collection) Self-Portrait with Rita, c. 1924, oil on canvas, 49 x 39 3/8 in., National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C.

spent his early career as a stereotypical starving artist, Benton was returning to his home state as — arguably — America’s most successful, albeit controversial, artist; he had recently become the first artist to have a work (the self-portrait illustrated here) appear on the cover of Time magazine. Over the next 36 years, the Bentons’ Kansas City property evolved not only into a “live/work” space but also a place of business and cultural activity where the couple entertained collectors, fellow creatives, and political figures. “You could make an appointment to come to the house and buy a painting right off the wall,” site administrator Steve Sitton says. “Rita was a sharp businesswoman, but also cautious. If you couldn’t afford a Benton, or if she didn’t know or trust you, you had to buy one of his drawings or one of his students’ works. Once she saw you were serious and not just looking to flip the work, then you could buy a Benton painting. Rita was extremely crucial to Tom’s success, and he freely admitted it. She handled all the behind-the-scenes administration, but he got the glory. We talk about her quite a bit on the tours here, about the instrumental role she played in his career.”

The art collection displayed in the home and studio totals roughly 25 original Bentons: paintings, drawings, and lithographs, as well as three tabletop bronze sculptures. All have been obtained through loan, donation, or purchase. “Although we don’t have any Benton masterpieces,” Sitton notes, “we do have a lot of his studies and preparatory work for murals and larger paintings. And we have several extremely rare works you wouldn’t necessarily associate with Benton: some of his early student pieces, still life paintings, paintings of the far West, and large abstractions from both very early and late in his career. One of the most interesting items is a satin tablecloth he painted for his mother when he was 22, with a Matisse-like design. These works help us see the entire arc of Benton’s career and some of those searching and experimental stages. He was pigeonholed into Regionalism, but there is far more to him than that.”

Here visitors also find evidence of other artistic pursuits Benton explored during his life — what Sitton calls “the sides of him

(CLOCKWISE FROM TOP LEFT) A baby grand piano is a key feature of the Bentons’ living room. Benton’s studio is lit by a large north-facing window. Tom, Rita, and their son “T.P.” playing music, c. 1935

Bootleggers , 1927, egg tempera, oil, and acrylic on canvas mounted to aluminum panel, 65 x 72 in., Reynolda House Museum of American Art, Winston-Salem

you might not have otherwise known.” A gifted storyteller and writer, Benton penned two autobiographies and kept a library well stocked with books that clearly influenced him. Music was another passion, particularly folk and country, so it’s appropriate that two harmonicas, a baby grand piano, and a collection of sheet music remain in the home. Sitton explains:

Benton primarily played the harmonica — in 1942 he and his son recorded an album of folk and chamber music — but he also listened to and appreciated classical music, like symphonies and opera. While sketching and painting around the country, he heard and played folk music, which wasn’t written down by anyone before the 1930s, and he would find ways to notate it so he could play it back home. He essentially came up with his own method of transcribing music from one genre or instrument to another through a system of numbers and arrows. Hohner Harmonica eventually started printing this method in its own instruction manuals. The musicality that Benton possessed is evident even in his paintings, with their rhythmic, lyrical lines and several subjects and titles taken from hymns, folk songs, or well-known musicians.

WORKING UNTIL THE END

Heading to the former carriage barn on the property, visitors discover Benton’s studio, which — like the residence — has remained essentially untouched since his passing. “That’s exactly the feeling we want visitors to have,” says Sitton. “It seems as if the Bentons have stepped out for the afternoon, and you get to take a peek inside. Fortunately, we have photographs dating from when Benton lived here, and several people alive today who were neighbors or visitors have given us firsthand accounts of the site’s appearance and atmosphere.”

With its high ceilings and large, north-facing window, Benton’s studio gave him ample space to create his large murals. Its no-frills decor — coffee cans filled with brushes, tubes of acrylic paints strewn about, a stretched canvas on a large easel, baby-food jars filled with pigment, artworks stacked in corners — reveals much about Benton’s mindset and working methods. “Most importantly, it was a workshop,” Sitton shares. “Benton didn’t see this as a magical place where the muse would strike while he waited. It was a place to go to work. And he really preached that viewpoint to his students. It’s not natural talent and inspiration that make an artist, he would say, it’s practice and hard work. In the third edition [1968] of Benton’s 1937 autobiography, An Artist in America, his last line was, ‘The only way an artist can personally fail is to quit work.’”

Benton practiced what he preached up until his very last breath and brushstroke: he died at 85 of a massive heart attack while working in the studio, preparing to sign the mural Sources of Country Music, destined for the Country Music Hall of Fame. Rita understandably felt lost in the wake of Benton’s passing; the house and studio were empty, and the pace of running Benton’s business, which kept her busy for five decades, had suddenly ended. Eleven weeks later, she too passed away. In 1977, the home and studio were bought by the State of Missouri and turned into a historic site.

Together, Thomas and Rita Benton were a team committed to both art and activism. Their hard work secured the legacy of a man who today is revered nationally as the leader of American Regionalism but who, back home, is remembered for so much more. Sitton notes, “One of our themed tours centers on the duality of Benton’s personality and life. Yes, he was raised in the Ozarks of Missouri, but he lived in Manhattan and Paris and could read French and Italian. Yes, he played the harmonica, but he also played Bach and Beethoven. He liked folk tales, but he also discussed Plato’s theory of relativism and how it applies to art. Out in the world, he was an outspoken activist with controversial viewpoints, but here in Missouri, he was a father, a husband, a great conversationalist and thinker, and of course a consummate artist.”

Information: mostateparks.com, artistshomes.org. All photos illustrated here © Missouri State Parks.

ALLISON MALAFRONTE is a writer and editor based in New Jersey.

I Got a Gal on Sourwood Mountain , 1938, lithograph in black on paper (edition of 250), 12 7/16 x 9 3/16 in., private collection

Ploughing It Under, 1934, oil on linen, 20 1/8 x 24 7/16 in., Benton Testamentary Trust

BY RICHARD HALSTEAD

DRAWING: THE INTIMATE ART

It was an especially dreary winter day and I was complaining to my eighth-grade art teacher that the leafless trees outside were ugly and depressing. I remember very clearly her reaction, her finger wagging as she admonished me for my lack of appreciation. As she put it, the trees’ leafless state revealed their anatomy, and therefore the beauty of their structural design. “Draw them,” she said, “and you will understand. Draw, draw, draw — everything.”

That statement and that moment changed my perception of drawing entirely. Before that day, it had simply been a childhood hobby, my private diversion from homework and family chores. The teacher’s comments put drawing into a totally different context. It continued to be a secret indulgence, but it also became a legitimate means of studying virtually everything around me. I drew whenever I could, on old envelopes and scraps of typing paper, making notations of lighting effects, the graceful design I might find in a piece of dead wood or the distortions in an old piece of glass. Some drawings were sketchy hints or textured silhouettes; others were more thorough analyses of the forms of a face, a tree, a house — or the relationships between them.

Drawing also allowed me to approach larger projects with a certain calm, with a sense of the logical progression of stages toward completing a

Anissa , 1990, charcoal on paper, 17 x 17 in., collection of the artist

complex composition — indispensable during my time as an illustrator and later as a painter of commissioned portraits. It opened a door to artistic accomplishments that had previously seemed beyond my reach.

LOOKING BACK

Renaissance artists considered preparation to be the primary purpose of drawing. It was a means rather than an end, a way to familiarize themselves with their subjects and to plan their often complicated projects. Their drawings were rarely thought of as works of art in themselves. They may have admired each other’s drawings, and it’s likely that friends and family members saved some as mementos. Yet they were rarely bought by patrons.

Consequently we have today a relatively small portion of the total number of drawings made during the Renaissance. Leonardo da Vinci’s

assistant, Francesco Melzi, preserved his master’s drawings, largely because they were an integral part of the manuscripts on science, engineering, and Leonardo’s other interests. Beyond documenting his research, clarifying his ideas, and paving the way for his paintings, the drawings also became a very private and pleasurable diversion for him.

Although we have many of Michelangelo’s drawings, he had many more of them burned. His contemporary biographer Giorgio Vasari claimed that Michelangelo wanted them destroyed “so that no one should see the labors he endured and the ways he tested his genius, and lest he should appear less than perfect.” It is very likely that he did not want people to see the menial labor involved in his creative process because it might spoil the magic and grandeur he wanted us to experience as we view his finished works.

We sense a similar attitude while studying the Baroque master Caravaggio. According to some historians, he made no preliminary drawings for his paintings, though that is unlikely given the complexity of many of his compositions. It is possible, however, that he saw no value in the preliminary drawings and therefore discarded them. Toward the end of his life, Caravaggio was accused of crimes and on the run, so it is very likely his drawings had become excess baggage not worth carrying.

With French artists like Watteau, Fragonard, Vernet, Greuze, and Prud’hon, however, attitudes changed dramatically. As Erwin Gradmann observes in his 2005 book French Master Drawings of the Eighteenth Century, drawing “was received with a special love that developed into a genuine passion for all its expressions. Drawings were produced by the thousands; amateurs and collectors were everywhere. That intimate art, formerly hidden in studio or workshop, now suddenly faced the full glare of publicity.”

In fact, many of these artists were inspired by the drawings of their forerunners. Watteau, for example, enjoyed copying those of Rubens and Titian; he loved their spiritedness and judged them by his own contemporary standards. Still, though drawing attained a new appreciation in the 18th century, it continued to be primarily a tool for study.

LOOKING CLOSELY

Like naturalists, people who draw are typically absorbed by the intricate nuances they discover through their studies. Theirs is a love of life from the root up. Drawing is a poetic expression that comes from a sense that the world is too vast to ever be known in total, from a belief that its essence can best be grasped while we are on our knees studying individual aspects — the lichen at the base of a tree, the grace of a model’s thigh, the feeling of a bird’s movements, or the compelling mystery of a bony yet softly animated human face. Drawing, then, is very different from painting, which is often considered the pinnacle of visual art and generally takes in a whole scene, providing a sense of completeness.

Bert Menco , 1996, charcoal on paper, 22 1/2 x 15 in., private collection

The Canadian poet and carpenter John Terpstra puts this most eloquently when he writes, “What strikes me [about drawing] is the intimacy. Things your eye did not see while simply gazing upon the scene are slowly revealed under the pencil. It’s a kind of knowing that only comes with taking the time. Photographs can fool you that way. You think you have captured the landscape, and perhaps you have, but only in the prism of the ground lens. There is no relation.”

Beyond the advantages of helping us study and see more clearly, the marks themselves are important. Those who draw become conscious of the relationship between their drawing material (such as charcoal or ink) and their paper through the way lines and tones skim along on top of it. Ironically, this surface quality enhances the effect of three-dimensional illusion. A drawing material does not lift off the surface, as brushstrokes of oil paint often lift off a canvas. Instead, the objects and spaces created through lines and shading seem to draw us under the paper into the world of the artist’s imaginings — just as Lewis Carroll’s Alice steps through the looking glass. We’re aware of the flat surface of the mirror, but even more so of the mysterious depth beyond it. One aspect enhances the other.

For me, this sleight-of-hand effect is similar to how we experience poetry, dreams, or the casual half-thoughts that drift through our minds as we go about life. In this way, a drawing can balance us between the two-dimensional reality of marks on paper and the illusion of threedimensional solidity, just as our thoughts move from the tangible world to our psyches and then back again.

For some draftsmen, the focus is more about the surface effects; for others, about the illusion that draws us beneath the surface. Picasso and Egon Schiele are prime examples of artists who drew recognizable figures while paying attention to the materials that move across the surface. In the drawings of Prud’hon and others trained in Paris’s École des BeauxArts, and also of Holbein and Adolph Menzel, there is more emphasis on creating an illusion of form and space. Others’ drawings are remarkably balanced, utilizing both approaches: think of Tintoretto and Parmigianino, or in the 20th century, of Käthe Kollwitz, Nicolai Fechin, and Pietro Annigoni.

LOOKING FURTHER

Artists who create drawings would continue doing so even if no one ever saw the results, and there are also people who, figuratively speaking, enjoy looking over the artist’s shoulder. Lovers of drawings are either connoisseurs who can discern the subtleties of an artist’s individual mind and hand, or — equally important — those who also draw and thus can identify with others’ efforts. These two groups are largely responsible for the survival of history’s most intriguing drawings.

Julie Gordon , 2007, charcoal on paper, 13 x 11 in., private collection.

Nude in Conversation , 1994, charcoal on paper, 23 x 29 in., collection of the artist.

Study for Falling , 2002, charcoal on paper, 26 x 19 in., collection of the artist

What is it that makes people want to collect drawings? Why bother when they are generally less valuable as investments and less colorful (or eye-catching) when hanging on a wall? Perhaps the answers have to do with how drawing relates to everyone’s experiences of putting marks on paper. There is a very personal, elemental feeling in this act that we all began developing as toddlers; as adults, we can feel drawing’s immediacy, simplicity, and connectedness to ourselves. Collectors, connoisseurs, and even casual viewers can readily identify with the artist, vicariously experiencing his or her proficiency and power of expression. Monochrome drawings emphasize this connectivity even more directly by avoiding the distraction of color, allowing us to see through a unifying filter.

Although drawing comes from a personal place, when the results are especially successful, we all are taken beyond the everyday and sometimes find qualities within them that might mystify even the draftsman himself. Indeed, artists often feel their drawings come from somewhere outside themselves, or from a place deep within.

For me the act of drawing, and my later reflections on my finished drawings, are like taproots to rich remembrances, even imagined ones; they lift and ground me simultaneously. They provide a stabilizing factor in my day-to-day existence. Creating a feeling of life on a flat piece of paper with the simplest of implements makes the world seem more tangible, manageable, accessible. It gives me, in a psychological sense, a handle on so much that otherwise seems out of reach. In his book Undressed Art: Why We Draw (2005), Peter Steinhart writes that drawing “is a way of making connections with the things that surround us and with the forces that shape and animate and move them. It’s a way of taking in the world’s strangeness and power and finding comfort in it.”

As my middle school teacher showed me, drawing is a means to understanding. She meant that both in a technical and a spiritual way. She taught both science and art, which surely helped her understand that there are things in life that can be clearly defined and others that cannot be — things that affect us deeply yet often seem beyond our intellectual grasp, like our relationships with nature and with each other. When we are in our best drawing mode, we are unconscious of ourselves, totally absorbed in our effort. It is then that we enter another form of consciousness, which may begin with learned techniques and theories, but soon opens up into realms of awareness beyond anything cognitive skills can provide. We awaken from these sessions with only the drawing in hand to remind us that time has passed.

Although these experiences are necessarily private, draftsmen typically welcome opportunities to share them with others. Their drawings can connect viewers with vague memories — moments in their lives that are subtle and elusive, lying dormant, waiting to be reawakened.

Instinctively, some viewers seek out drawings in exhibitions, in artists’ studios, in friends’ collections, or in publications. When they discover a drawing that especially connects with them, they may follow it to the edge of the looking glass and, stepping through it, enter a world that is familiar, yet distinctively new. They might then become more aware of mysteries they have known, if only fleetingly, and find themselves inside a private place — a secret haven from the passage of time.

RICHARD HALSTEAD is a portrait artist and founder/director of the Halstead School of Portrait and Figure Art. His paintings are in the collections of the National Portrait Gallery, the Illinois and Indiana State Houses, Purdue University, Yale University, Rush Presbyterian St. Luke Medical Center (Chicago), and the Episcopal Diocese of New York, and also in many private collections. He lives in Evanston, Illinois. He created all of the drawings illustrated here.

The Beach , 2012, sumi ink and charcoal on paper, 15 x 21 1/2 in., private collection

Study for Portrait of Virginia , 1988, charcoal on paper, 10 x 9 1/4 in., collection of the artist

BY SHIRLEY M. MUELLER

LETTING GO

It is well known that when a collector parts with beloved artworks, it can be like losing an arm or a leg. These pieces, so carefully chosen and cared for over the years, become part of oneself. Giving them up, for whatever reason, can be wrenching.

I could not have anticipated, however, yet another jolt to my psyche after I decided to sell some of my pieces at auction earlier this year. Why I decided to sell is explained below. To start, I’ll relate my experience — one that surely happens to other collectors and yet, to my knowledge, remains unexplored in the literature. In a nutshell, less than vigorous bidding for my treasures at auction completely swept me down a rabbit hole.

CONFIDENCE

After collecting high-end Chinese export porcelain for 30 years, I felt I knew what I was doing. I had taken a private tutorial at a prestigious institution focused on Chinese porcelain, London’s Percival David Foundation, which has since been incorporated into the British Museum. I attended many conferences and auctions, and visited foreign countries solely to study their Chinese porcelain holdings, both public and private. Moreover, I had been invited twice by the Chinese government to speak about my collection. My confidence was high and my spirits buoyant about the Christie’s auction of some of my best objects.

THE AUCTION

So, earlier this year, my pieces of Chinese export porcelain went up on the online-only auction, which would last just over three weeks. They were posted for everyone to see — my friends, other collectors, and people I didn’t know. It was as if I were allowing myself to be exhibited, as my porcelains are a reflection of my very being.

But I said to myself, “This is OK; my porcelains are desirable,” which by inference made me desirable as well, since I had selected them. My beloved objects, I was sure, would find a receptive audience.

Then the unexpected happened. At first, no one bid. Yikes! I checked two to three times per day to see if this oversight was

rectified. It was not. I e-mailed everyone I knew who could possibly be interested in my pieces. Though I received polite replies, there was no evidence that my efforts stimulated interest. In a further attempt to engage potential buyers, I posted the objects on Facebook, LinkedIn, and Instagram. Again — there was no sign this had stirred activity.

After four or five days, I was adrift. It was as though no one wanted my beloved objects. This pained me. Selecting and caring for them had been my avocation, the way I filled my leisure time, my salvation from my work. If no one wanted my porcelains, perhaps I wasn’t worthy either. This rejection created a mind game with my psyche. I couldn’t sleep. Soporific aids had to be called in. I was crabby. My husband had to be understanding. My petulance even went beyond my private household. I think my contact at Christie’s thought I was difficult. Perhaps, but then I don’t have to worry about selling there again.

More than three feet tall, this Chinese export porcelain cistern (center) dominated the author’s dining room table; photo: Thomas M. Mueller

Only five of my 23 lots had offers early in the sale. Three of these objects were not special, but the fourth was. If it were to sell at this rockbottom offer, the buyer would be scoring a tremendous bargain.

I also noticed that two porcelain roosters that had once belonged to J.P. Morgan had no bids, even though there are Morgan labels on their feet verifying this distinguished provenance. The same was true for two bowls that once belonged to C. Douglas Dillon (1909–2003), who had been secretary of the U.S. Treasury and a key patron of the Asian department at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Such important previous owners are usually meaningful for a sale — that is, if there is a sale.

“What is happening?” I asked myself. “Do others not recognize what I accomplished with this collection?” Then something terrible occurred to me. Perhaps I had not chosen my porcelains as wisely as I thought. Or, worse yet, I could be out of step with the porcelain-collecting circuit to which I thought I belonged.

To be clear, all of this emotion and questioning was not because I was sad about selling my precious objects. It was because there was no evidence that others could see their value, as I had.

I felt deflated. Though my very public sale was online for all to see, my pieces seemed invisible to the very audience to whom they should appeal. To me, this meant my efforts were not respected or appreciated.

WHY SELL AT ALL?

In a word, my husband and I have a nagging space problem. More correctly, I have a space problem. Attributing it to my husband is just fantasy.

It is my problem because our closets are full of Chinese porcelain, instead of extra linens or outerwear like most people have in their closets. We have a dining room table that hasn’t been used for the past eight years, and that’s not because we didn’t want to host a dinner party.

Rather, it’s because an enormous cistern is on the table. It stands at least three feet tall and weighs 58 pounds altogether (44 for the base and 14 for the lid). If we were to use the table, we would have to hire someone to move this fragile porcelain to another room. That would require lots of time and effort, so we haven’t entertained at that table for years.

Just one more reason why letting go seemed like a good option.

THE ENDOWMENT EFFECT

What I didn’t count on, obviously, is what low offers — or none at all — would do to my psyche. Perhaps I should have, as I already knew about the neuroeconomic principle called the endowment effect. It means that we value what we own more than the identical piece that someone else

possesses. By extension, it implies that the porcelains I am selling are more meaningful to me than they would be to a person interested in buying them. In part, this is because I have already invested time, effort, and money in them. A successful bidder would not share in this, except for the time she spent perusing the auction website, executing the winning bid, and then paying. Her time and effort would only come later, when she arranged for shipping, unwrapped her new possession, and incorporated it into her collection. Only then would she develop what I already possessed — the endowment effect, a hallmark of ownership.

THE SLUMP

One reason bids were flagging for my online-only auction is that the wellknown phenomenon of bidding too often and too high usually occurs at in-person sales — with an auctioneer on the podium. That’s when a room can heat up: bids often get competitive, with one adrenaline-fueled person bidding against another. Online, such a scenario is rare if not impossible. The bidding takes place in your personal space without apparent competition, certainly not from someone located near you.

Another contributor to my tepid sale, I conjecture, is that the art market has changed. When I was buying in the 1990s, prices for Chinese export porcelain were high. Other than live auctions, dealers were the primary sellers, and there was little transparency. Today, dealers are scarcer, and auctions are different, not least because they are more often held online than on site. This has made export porcelain’s economic landscape more level, without the peaks and valleys once caused by a lack of information.

Indeed, we are in a new era, one of heartbreak for some of us who collected in areas not favored as much today. But, as always, there is supply and demand. I know that, because my precious porcelains are breakable, there will be fewer overall as time goes on. They will become even more rare than they are now, and with scarcity comes demand. Moreover, inflation will inevitably pump up all prices.

I am not without hope that, given time, my precious porcelains will be appreciated for their history, beauty, and importance. Their value will be not only what I judge it to be, but more. Knowing this, I rest more easily. My angst was temporary, and I am again in control.

SHIRLEY M. MUELLER, M.D., is the author of the recent book Inside the Head of a Collector: Neuropsychology Forces at Play. She continues to write and lecture about this subject and Chinese export porcelain.

(LEFT) The pair of Chinese export porcelain roosters that once belonged to J P Morgan (1837–1913); photo: Thomas M. Mueller (RIGHT) The feet of one of the two roosters; at right is a historic Morgan Collection label. Photo: Christie’s

BY LESLIE GILBERT ELMAN

THE FINE ART OF FABRIC

In her recently published book, Fabric: The Hidden History of the Material World, British journalist Victoria Finlay embarks on a worldwide journey to survey the origins of the textiles that have clothed, draped, and decorated people and their surroundings throughout history. It’s a fascinating exploration of what the author calls “colorful, crafted, treasured, traded, material goods.” Not fashion history, per se, although fashions and trends through time certainly

come into the discussion. Rather, this is a study of the textiles themselves — from sackcloth to silk — and their significance to society. “They work as metaphors, too,” Finlay explains, “and somehow encompass what is good and what is appalling about human endeavor.”

The good she mentions is not only the visual and tactile beauty of the textiles, but also the sophistication in production and artistry that can be found in even the most prosaic examples. Appalling is the destruction of

Maisin Barkcloth made in Papua New Guinea, 21st century, private collection, photo: Katia Marsh

land, the degradation of human beings, and the bloodshed that sometimes ensued when fabric became a commodity valuable enough to kill or die for. One such instance was the Dogra-Tibetan (or Sino-Sikh) War fought for control of the pashmina wool trade in the 1840s.

Finlay recalls, “I think about my being 19 [working as a volunteer teacher] in Ladakh in northern India and coming across a magic shopkeeper (the kind who tells you something amazing but whom you never find again!). He let me feel the astonishing lightness of pashmina, then told me about how pashmina had caused a war.” Such personal experiences — and there are many — were an embarkation point for her book.

In plotting her course, Finlay devised a list of questions. For example: What makes Harris Tweed special? Why was the tunic of Jesus described as “seamless” in John 19:23? Why was Sleeping Beauty pricked with a spindle when spindles aren’t sharp? Then she set out to answer them, ultimately producing 11 chapters that delve deep into specific areas: barkcloth, tapa, cotton, wool, tweed, pashmina, sackcloth, linen, silk, imagined fabrics, and patchwork.

THE JOURNEY BEGINS

The journey of Fabric begins with barkcloth, which is made by stretching, folding, and beating the soft periderm (“inner bark”) layer that lives under the hard outer bark of trees. The papery, pliable fabric is then painted, stenciled, or stamped with plant-based pigments in one-of-a-kind abstract motifs unique to each creator. It’s difficult and demanding work that has customarily been relegated to the women of a community, seemingly since the dawn of humankind: Finlay notes that the oldest known tool made for beating barkcloth was found in China and has been dated back to 5900 BC.

While the book focuses on the barkcloth of Oceania, there’s an equally long and important barkcloth tradition among the Mbuti people of Africa’s Congo region, whose use of organic shapes and spatial composition influenced the work of modernist artists like Pablo Picasso, who owned pieces of Mbuti barkcloth, and Anne Eisner Putnam (1911–1967), a New York-born painter who lived for 10 years among the Mbuti people in what was then the Belgian Congo.

Myriad connections between fabric and paintings arise throughout the book, right down to the image on its cover: a detail of Penelope and the Suitors, a 1912 painting by the third-generation Pre-Raphaelite artist John William Waterhouse (1849–1917). In this scene first imagined in words by Homer, Penelope, wife of Odysseus, sits at her loom near

Cover of the book illustrating a detail of John William Waterhouse’s Penelope and the Suitor s

A full view of Waterhouse’s Penelope and the Suitors (1912, oil on canvas, 51 1/2 x 74 in., Aberdeen Art Gallery, Scotland)

her two maids; one spins the thread to be woven while the other cuts it. Together they complete a metaphorical depiction of the Three Fates from Greek mythology.

Finlay could easily be describing a painter’s technique when she writes of the decoration on a Kani pashmina shawl from Kashmir: “These colors weren’t laid down in blocks and shapes like paper cut-outs or appliqué or embroidery; it was all more marvelous and complicated than that.” In fact, she admits that writing this book has prompted her to pay more attention to the way painters depict fabric: “Now how could I see the work of Joaquín Sorolla (the subject of an exhibition at London’s National Gallery before lockdown) or Paula Rego (shown at Tate Britain more recently) and not think about folds and fabrics, or how the sun makes lace glow?”

In the course of her research, Finlay visited the collections and archives of no fewer than 60 museums around the world. Her recollection of exploring the British Museum on a gloomy day and feeling uplifted by the “luminous objects on every wall” of a textile exhibition is something every art lover can understand. It’s also a reminder for readers to seek out and savor museums’ textile collections during their own travels. Because fabrics are fragile and subject to discoloration when exposed to light, they cannot be exhibited for long periods, which means the objects on display change frequently; there’s always something new to see. It also means that museums often display fabrics in galleries with low light and less visitor traffic, such as the silks dating from before the 9th century that Finlay found at Oslo’s Viking Ship Museum.

In her chapter on patchwork, Finlay recounts the time she spent with the renowned community of quilters in Gee’s Bend, Alabama. After receiving some informal instruction in the making of patchwork, she visited the High Museum of Art in Atlanta to see their quilts on display. Yet the object there that intrigued her even more was an early 20th-century kente cloth from Ghana: “At first, I see five colors in the weave — the white linking bands plus black, yellow, green, and blue — as well as the bold, red stitching holding them together. But as I stand there, I realize that the cloth has a kind of secret… the warps are made of thick red bands interchanged with thinner bands in the other colors. The red makes the cloth seem almost alive, with blood-colored stripes running through hidden textile veins.”

LIVING COLORS

Finlay’s narrative continually returns to the subject of color — not surprising as her previous books include two on that subject: Color: A Natural History of the Palette (2004) and The Brilliant History of Color in Art (2014). She’s also the author of Jewels: A Secret History (2007).

While she confesses that she doesn’t sew with skill or collect fabrics, Finlay is captivated by the influence fabric has had on human history.

“So many things, really, make me see how the stories of fabrics aren’t superficial but about real life,” she explains. “I have on my wall a brocade labeled as the ‘Stomacher of a Dress Worn by Mary Queen of Scots.’ My grandmother always had it framed on her wall when I was a child, and then my parents did, and now I do. I have no idea if it was worn by Mary, but it was always a symbol of how the things we touch can be held as relics.”

Finlay’s career as a journalist, including five years as arts editor of the South China Morning Post in Hong Kong, took her around the world to interview artists, museum curators, and collectors long before she’d been approached to write Fabric. Her work with non-government organizations, particularly in the field of environmental conservation, also informs the new book, and insightful threads of her own narrative are woven throughout the text. Overall, it is Finlay’s passion for research and seemingly endless curiosity that make Fabric a pleasure to read. There is a great deal of historical information in this book, yet far from being an inaccessible, academic text, it’s as vibrant as the colors of a pashmina shawl and as personal as the decorations painted on barkcloth by the women of Papua New Guinea. There’s a sense of wonder, discovery, and even magic throughout.

Information: Fabric: The Hidden History of the Material World (Pegasus Books, 2022, hardcover and softcover, 512 pages); pegasusbooks.com and victoriafinlay.com

Leslie Gilbert Elman writes about art, antiques, and travel. Her most recent article for Fine Art Connoisseur was “Doors of Imagination: A New Commission at the Salmagundi” in the November/December 2021 issue.

(ABOVE) Part of an Amlikar Pashmina shawl made in Kashmir, 21st century, collection of Taqadus Wani, photo: Victoria Finlay (RIGHT) Fragment of Kente cloth made by an Asante artist in Ghana, c. 1900–1925, High Museum of Art, Atlanta

GREAT ART WORLDWIDE

Museum Panorama Mesdag

The Hague, Netherlands panorama-mesdag.nl/en

September 23, 2022–March 5, 2023

Around the world, scholars are busy recovering or revisiting the often forgotten stories of women artists. A fine example of such an exhibition is one this season at the Museum Panorama Mesdag in The Hague, devoted to the Dutch artist Suze Robertson (1855–1922) and timed to mark the centenary of her death. On view soon will be more than 80 paintings and drawings, many borrowed from private collections, constituting the first investigation of her art in over 40 years and certainly the largest such show ever mounted.

Robertson was born and died in The Hague, and her most significant period of study occurred in the city’s Royal Academy of Art. She made her name depicting working-class

CELEBRATING BEAUTY

Collectors for Connoisseurship

Amagansett, Long Island windowstothedivine.org/event/c4carts-weekend-in-the-hamptons

October 6–10

This October, Collectors for Connoisseurship (C4C) will present its 2022 Arts Weekend on the East End of Long Island, offering an array of educational programs, tours of private collections and museums, and garden parties — all focused on the rich artistic history of this region best known as the Hamptons. Many of the events will be hosted by Lucy and Steve Cookson, C4C Founding Connoisseur

people, especially agricultural laborers and their families, indoors or on the farm. Many visitors will be reminded of Vincent van Gogh’s earlier work, and indeed there is reason to think the two artists were aware of each other, given the small size of the Dutch art scene then and the fact that Van Gogh was only two years older.

The museum has subtitled its exhibition Dedicated, Individualistic, Modern to underscore the “all-in” aspect of Robertson’s practice. It probably would have been easier for her, as a woman, to make pretty art, but instead she tackled tough subjects in a range of media including oils, pastels, and watercolors. Robertson was friendly with, and collected by, the museum’s wealthy founders, Hendrik Willem Mesdag and his wife, Sientje Mesdag-van Houten, who surely would have been pleased that the institution bearing their name has also produced a groundbreaking catalogue filled with new research on this overlooked artist.

members who live on an estate in the historic Devon Colony.

C4C Founding Connoisseur members from around the country will first gather on October 6 for a welcome reception and dinner, then meet again the following evening to inaugurate an exhibition titled Beauty, which will also be available for public viewing by online reservation the next day. The artists participating in this show are Lu Cong, Scott Fraser, Ron Hicks, Quang Ho, Dan McCaw, Danny McCaw, John McCaw, C.W. Mundy, Daniel Sprick, Adrienne Stein, and Vincent Xeus. (Many of them will be in attendance.) Saturday’s public education programs will

SUZE ROBERTSON (1855–1922), Pietje (Girl Reading) , c. 1898, oil on panel, 16 1/2 x 12 1/2 in. private collection

VINCENT XEUS (b. 1981), O’Land (Kennedy Collection), 2022, oil on wood, 36 x 30 in.

SUZE ROBERTSON: DEDICATED, INDIVIDUALISTIC, MODERN

C4C ARTS WEEKEND

include talks by Helen A. Harrison, director of the Pollock-Krasner House & Study Center, and Peter Trippi, editor-in-chief of Fine Art Connoisseur.

On Friday evening, Xeus will be presented with C4C’s Fra Angelico Artist of the Year Award, a unique glass sculpture created by artist Kit Karbler and bestowed on a master artist who inspires the community through service to the art world. As a leading Asian American artist with studios in Manhattan and California’s Napa Valley, Xeus straddles Eastern and Western aesthetics, blurring their boundaries to offer a synthesis of abstraction and figuration. Illustrated here

CHANGES AFOOT

TRANSITIONS: THE BEAUTY OF LIFE’S JOURNEY

Firehouse Arts Center Pleasanton, California firehousearts.org/gallery through October 22

The talented Bay Area artist Ellen Howard has reprised her recurring role as a guest curator at the Firehouse Arts Center, this time for an exhibition titled Transitions: The Beauty of Life’s Journey. On view are 85 recent oils, pastels, and watercolors by 20 California artists depicting figures, landscapes, and still lifes, all inspired by the theme of change.

In nature, of course, this theme might be visualized by shifts in the seasons or times of

ART WITH A POINT

INDIANA WATERWAYS: THE ART OF CONSERVATION

Indiana State Museum

Indianapolis indianamuseum.org

artnatureconsortium.org

October 16–December 11

The Indiana State Museum is set to present Indiana Waterways: The Art of Conservation, an innovative exhibition that will depart Indianapolis early next year so that it can then be seen at the Fort Wayne Museum of Art, the Minnetrista Museum’s Oakhurst House (Muncie), and New Harmony’s Hoosier Salon. On view are 60 paintings from a collection of 100 created recently by five talented artists: John Kelty, Curt Stanfield, Avon Waters, Dan Woodson, and Tom Woodson. Their creations depict more than 25 rivers, streams, and tributaries that flow

is O’Land from his recent Kennedy Collection of large oil paintings. Xeus created this series for Better Angels, his solo touring exhibition that explores the unique contributions made by female members of the Kennedy family — including Rose, Ethel, Eunice, Jean, Jackie, Caroline, Rosemary, and Kathleen (“Kick”) Kennedy.

C4C is a national network of collectors and art lovers who encourage an understanding of the importance not only of viewing art in museums and public places, but also of collecting art for their own personal spaces, thereby supporting the vocation of living artists. C4C is operated by Windows to

day, and in people through our evolution from youth to adulthood. Or artists might consider how objects are used over time, compare historical ones with those we use today, or ruminate on their own creative processes.

The exhibitors are Brian Blood, Bill Cone, Inna Cherneykina, Nancy Seamons Crookston, Ellen Howard, Michelle Jung, Paul Kratter, Tia Kratter, Richard Lindenberg, Carolyn Lord, Kim Lordier, Terry Miura, Linda Mutti, Michael Obermeyer, Carole Rafferty, Randy Sexton, Barbara Tapp, Elizabeth Tolley, Durre Waseem, and Dug Waggoner. During September, Crookston, Howard, Kratter, and Lord will offer free demonstrations of their painting techniques; please check the center’s website for details.

the Divine, a Colorado-based nonprofit foundation that fosters patronage by hosting exhibitions and providing educational programs. Its own philanthropic efforts support the Dominicans in Denver, who serve the poor, homeless, and elderly.

Chairperson Shannon Robinson notes, “Celebrating and contemplating beauty is needed now more than ever, and there could be no more perfect setting to do this than in the Hamptons.” Past C4C Arts Weekends have been held in Paris, New York City, Atlanta, Savannah, and Denver. To participate this October, visit the organization’s informative website.

through Indiana’s remarkably varied terrain.

The exhibition will be complemented by a 227-page, limitededition publication containing essays by three Hoosier experts about the challenges facing Indiana waterways, and also by a series of public conversations. Guided by the Art Nature Consortium, the entire project seeks to raise public awareness of the urgent need to restore and protect the state’s more than 65,000 miles of waterways. According to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, many of them are not safe for humans to touch, a situation that cannot go unaddressed.

JOHN KELTY (b. 1964), Black River Reflection , 2021, watercolor on paper, 14 x 11 in.

CAROLE RAFFERTY (b. 1953), We’ve Been Married a Long Time, 2022, oil on canvas, 20 x 16 in.

ONE MASTER’S TAKE

September 16–January 1

In 2018, the New Britain Museum of American Art presented a retrospective devoted to the great realist painter Neil Jenney, who was born in 1945 only 30 miles away in the Connecticut town of Torrington. Now Jenney has returned to guest-curate an intriguing exhibition, American Realism Today, that encompasses more than 50 paintings, sculptures, and works on paper by 21 artists.

Among those represented are Leonard Dufresne, Kathleen Gilje, Susan Grayson, Tim Hoffman, Larry Kagan, David Kessler, Victor Leger, Robert Lobe, Joseph McNamara, James Prosek, Faith Ringgold, Sally Ross, Donald Sultan, Ky-young Sung, Alison Elizabeth Taylor, and Mercer Tullis — as well as Jenney himself.

In his introduction to the project, Jenney is quick to highlight the enormous impact on 20th-century realism made by Ivan Karp (1926–2012). After serving as the first art critic at  The Village Voice and then as the Manhattan dealer Leo Castelli’s top lieutenant, in 1969 Karp founded his own influential gallery (O.K. Harris).

LOOKING BACK, AND FORWARD

The Atelier at Flowerfield St. James, Long Island, New York theatelieratflowerfield.org

September 8–October 27

It is highly appropriate that one of Long Island’s leading art schools, The Atelier at Flowerfield, is about to open a retrospective exhibition surveying almost half a century’s worth of art created by Long Island University professor emeritus Neill Slaughter (b. 1951).

Having spent the past 25 years in Southampton, a charming town facing the Atlantic Ocean, Slaughter notes that he has “almost always lived near the sea.” His early childhood was spent in Annapolis, where his father taught at the U.S. Naval Academy before moving the family to Atlanta. During and after his undergraduate study at the University of Georgia’s Lamar Dodd School of Art, Slaughter crewed aboard a 90-foot schooner, spent summers working in the Virgin Islands, and in 1980 sailed with other artists and historians aboard a replica of Charles Darwin’s HMS Beagle, sketching in anticipation of a maritime series. Besides his school years in Atlanta, Slaughter’s longest stint inland was two years spent at Indiana University, where he earned an M.F.A. while studying with Robert Barnes and James McGarrell.

While teaching from 1983 to 1993 (first at California State University, Long Beach, then at Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles), Slaughter became fascinated by the labyrinth of freeways, overpasses, and cloverleaf exits that sprawls across Southern California’s urban grid. He recorded their features in his Passages series, and went on to juxtapose them with scenes of nature in Maine. “To find unspoiled landscapes near either coast can be challenging,” Slaughter notes, yet he relishes painting outdoors in the Northeast, recently completing a 15-foot-wide, three-panel dune scene commissioned by a couple on Shelter Island.

In the late 1980s, Slaughter’s grant-funded venture to southern Africa inspired him to create the Africa America Amalgamation series. These paintings of social commentary challenge the stereotypical notion that something seen as “civilized” in urban American society is necessarily better or more progressive than the “uncivilized,” i.e., rural African society. In 1992, a Fulbright Fellowship brought Slaughter

to India, where he found a painter’s paradise, a study in contrasts that often assaults one’s senses, yet also possesses an enlightening spiritual quality. Traveling through Africa and India offered profoundly broadening experiences that affected the artist’s outlook on life. He moved to Long Island a year later and in 2016 retired from Long Island University after 25 years there.

In his insightful essay for Slaughter’s 2008 retrospective, the scholar Gordon L. Fuglie notes Slaughter’s keen sense of how art history can inform contemporary practice: he writes that Slaughter’s “nostalgia desires a living connection with the tradition of great painting from the 19th and 20th centuries, especially the finde-siècle and early 20th century. To know this tradition means for him the capacity to operate deeply within and out of it, his sure guide to making art in and of the present.”

One could argue that all successful educators put history in the service of their students and themselves, yet Slaughter’s evident understanding of — and enthusiasm for — great historical paintings is notable even in this context. He is particularly passionate about Sargent, Zorn, and Sorolla, hints of whose brushwork will soon be enjoyed at Flowerfield.

DAVID KESSLER (b. 1950), Surface Calligraphy, 2005, acrylic on abraded aluminum, 72 x 48 in., collection of Neil Jenney

NEILL SLAUGHTER (b. 1951), Looking Ahead, Into the Past , 2022, oil on canvas, 30 x 48 in.

AMERICAN REALISM TODAY New Britain Museum of American Art New Britain, Connecticut nbmaa.org

NEILL SLAUGHTER: 50-YEAR RETROSPECTIVE

BACK AND EVEN BETTER

PAPSE PAINT OUT & ON THE PORCH SHOW

Leiper’s Creek Gallery

Franklin, Tennessee

leiperscreekgallery.com pap-se.com

September 23–24

After a three-year hiatus, a beloved tradition co-organized by Leiper’s Creek Gallery’s artist-proprietor Lisa Fox with the nonprofit organization Plein Air Painters of the Southeast (PAPSE) will soon return. Beginning September 19, more than 30 PAPSE members will spend five days directing their artistic attention to the picturesque buildings, streets, and pastures of the historic village of Leiper’s Fork, just outside Nashville.

Starting at 4:00 p.m. on Friday, September 23, the gallery will display the artists’ newly created and framed paintings on its porch, ready for the public to buy and take away. Everyone will be welcome to watch and chat with the artists as they work throughout the area; many will be painting on properties that have been protected

CELEBRATING OUR FELLOW RESIDENTS OF EARTH

ART & THE ANIMAL EXHIBITION

Society

of Animal Artists

Turtle Bay Exploration Park

Redding, California societyofanimalartists.com

turtlebay.org

September 24, 2022–January 1, 2023

for future generations. On Friday evening, Fine Art Connoisseur editor-in-chief Peter Trippi will discuss how to start a collection, especially one focused on contemporary landscape paintings. All activities are free to the public.

Among the artists participating will be Perry Austin, Greg Barnes, Loryn Brazier, Anne Blair Brown, Roger Dale Brown, Jim Carson, Katie Dodson Cundiff, Candy Day, Dee Beard

Dean, Steve Doherty, Beverly Ford Evans, Trey Finney, Mary Garrish, Beth Marchant, Stephanie Marzella, Kevin Menck, Rich Nelson, Kathie Odom, and Pamela B. Padgett.

Recent works by 125 members of the Society of Animal Artists (SAA) will soon be on view in the organization’s 62nd annual Art & the Animal exhibition. Visitors to California’s Turtle Bay Exploration Park will encounter art depicting a variety of species, made in a wide range of styles, sizes, and techniques. If possible, time your visit for the weekend of October 7–8, when the celebratory events will include demonstrations by some of the participating artists.

On October 30, half of the show’s artworks will be deinstalled so that they can be shown next at the Hiram Blauvelt Art

Museum (Oradell, New Jersey, November 19, 2022–January 15, 2023) and finally at the Ella Carothers Dunnegan Gallery of Art (Bolivar, Missouri, February 11–April 2, 2023).

Founded in 1960, SAA is devoted to promoting excellence in the portrayal of creatures sharing our planet, and to public education through exhibitions, lectures, and demonstrations. Its membership represents a veritable who’s who of animal artists worldwide.

KATHIE ODOM (b. 1959), Ferris Huff's Place , 2019, oil on linen, 12 x 20 in.

ANNE MCGRORY (b. 1959), Red-tailed Hawk, 2020, pastel and 18-karat gold leaf on mounted paper, 15 x 24 in., available through the artist

TRAGEDY LEADS TO KINDNESS

Sold to benefit the Catherine Violet Hubbard Animal Sanctuary

Newtown, Connecticut cvhfoundation.org

Catherine Violet Hubbard (2006–2012) of Newtown, Connecticut, loved all animals; at age 5, she created business cards for “Catherine’s Animal Shelter,” assigning herself the title “Care Taker.” A year later — on December 14, 2012 — she died with 19 of her first-grade classmates and six adults at Sandy Hook Elementary School.

Since that tragic day, her family and many admirers have established the Catherine Violet Hubbard Animal Sanctuary, aided initially by the state of Connecticut’s 2014 conveyance of 34 acres of meadows, woodlands, and trails to this registered 501(c)3 charity. Today the site welcomes homeless animals, rehabilitates injured wildlife, educates the public about animal welfare and habitat

A TRADITION ENDURES

conservation, and hosts an annual Butterfly Party where people can adopt animals.

Now the Catherine Violet Hubbard Foundation is raising funds to erect a six-foothigh bronze sculpture of Catherine that will welcome visitors (both human and animal) to the sanctuary. The gifted Massachusetts artist Lauren A. Mills donated her skill and time

to design the work, which has now reached the armature stage. Before it can be cast, however, significant fundraising must occur, and so Mills has also created 10 bronze maquettes (20 inches high). Signed and numbered, these are now available for purchase at $8,800 each, a sum that includes a tax-deductible donation to the foundation.

Catherine’s mother, Jenny Hubbard, says that Mills’s maquette “takes my breath away in how it captures Catherine’s gentle spirit,” deftly conveyed through the girl’s expression and pose as she whispers to a butterfly. The full-size sculpture, Hubbard continues, “will help create a place of peace and inspiration where all creatures will know they are safe and people are kind, just as Catherine would want it.”

Everyone is invited to donate to the foundation via its website, whether or not they purchase a maquette. Fine Art Connoisseur eagerly looks forward to announcing the full-size sculpture’s unveiling in Newtown once the fundraising is completed.

Florence Academy of Art

Florence, Italy

florenceacademyofart.com shuptrinesgallery.com

September 12–16

The Tennessee-based artist Alan Shuptrine is renowned for his realist scenes in watercolors and oils, and also for gold leaf, water-gilded panels set in custom-designed, hand-carved frames. (A superb example of the latter is illustrated here.)

This September, Shuptrine will share his expertise in water gilding by offering a five-day workshop at the Florence Academy of Art, a leading center for the study of contemporary realism as it is informed by master-works of the past. This program is open for registration not only to the academy’s regular students, but to anyone else interested in learning this seldom-discussed technique.

Of course, Florence’s museums and churches are filled with some of the world’s most artful gilding, one reason Shuptrine will guide workshop participants through the Uffizi Gallery, calling their attention to various techniques used by the Old Masters.

On view at the Florence Academy at the same time will be A Gilded Age, an exhibition of pieces created by Shuptrine, many etched using the centuries-old technique of sgraffito.

LAUREN A. MILLS (b. 1957), Catherine Violet Hubbard , 2022, bronze [edition of 10], 20 in. high, $8,800 via cvhfoundation.org

ALAN SHUPTRINE (b. 1963), The Journey, 2006, 12-karat white gold leaf water-gilded panel, accented with sgraffito designs and displayed in a hand-carved, gold leaf frame, 28 x 21 1/2 in.

LAUREN A. MILLS’S BRONZE MAQUETTE OF CATHERINE VIOLET HUBBARD

ALAN SHUPTRINE: A GILDED AGE

VIBRANCY ON PAPER

September 17–October 22

Prudencia Gallery is set to present an exhibition of recent works painted by Soon Y. Warren, a leading watercolorist and instructor based in Fort Worth. Born in South Korea, she immigrated to the U.S. in 1987 and began painting full-time in 1998. In 2006, North Light Books published Warren’s 144-page instruction manual, Vibrant Flowers in Watercolor. The artist says she is “inspired by the beauty and complexity of nature and our surroundings,” whether that might be foliage, fruit, or flowers from her impressive garden.

BACK IN BOSTON

Cyclorama, Boston Center for the Arts

Boston fineartboston.com

October 20–23

After a pandemic-related hiatus, the 24th annual Boston International Fine Art Show is set to launch at last. The fair will return to the historic Cyclorama’s grand circular space encompassing 15,000 square feet illuminated by a domed skylight. More than 40 galleries will offer works ranging from Old Master through contemporary, with particular strength in American and European art dating from the 18th through mid-20th centuries.

Co-producer Tony Fusco is justly proud that this fair “has championed realism and representational art since its beginning 24 years ago, going against the grain of other shows around the country.” He continues, “In 2019, we made a commitment to offering emerging and mid-career artists an opportunity to exhibit their work in a prestigious show.” This year’s fair includes Emerge, a section highlighting those artists. The gala preview is scheduled for October 20, and educational programs will occur throughout the weekend.

SOON Y. WARREN (b. 1960), Baby’s Breath Fantasy, 2022, watercolor on paper, 22 x 30 in.

ROCKWELL KENT (1882–1971), Birches , 1921, oil on canvas, 34 x 44 in., Avery Galleries (Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania)

SOON Y. WARREN

Art Gallery Prudencia San Antonio prudenciagallery.com

BOSTON INTERNATIONAL FINE ART SHOW

FALL INTO ART

IMPRESSIONISM IN DEPTH

AMERICAN IMPRESSIONIST SOCIETY 23RD ANNUAL NATIONAL JURIED EXHIBITION

Mary Williams Fine Arts

Boulder, Colorado

americanimpressionistsociety.org

September 16–October 22

The American Impressionist Society (AIS) will soon open its 23rd Annual National Juried Exhibition at Mary Williams Fine Arts. On view will be 155 paintings, as well as 25 more created by AIS “Masters,” officers, and founders. Most have been created in oils, pastels, watercolors, acrylics, or gouaches. A fivemember jury reviewed more than 1,210 entries, and a catalogue illustrating all of the works they selected will be available for purchase.

At the opening event, AIS Master Huihan Liu will serve as awards judge, distribut-

ANIMALS IN FOCUS

ing more than $75,000 in cash and merchandise, including $12,000 for Best of Show. On September 16, Liu and AIS Signature Member

NICHE: THE TWO WORLDS OF GUY COMBES

Arizona Sonora Desert Museum

Tucson desertmuseum.org through December 4

Born in Kenya and now based in Arizona, Guy Combes is a distinguished animal artist who has opened his first major solo exhibition in the U.S. at the Arizona Sonora Desert Museum. On view are more than 50 paintings and drawings that reflect his lifelong fascination with the trajectory of evolutionary biology, particularly as seen through wildlife and their relationship to the environment. Inspired by the (sometimes unexpected) similarities between the ecosystems of the Sonoran Desert and the East African savannah he knows so well, Combes has been experimenting with new styles and techniques in recent years. Like many of his colleagues, he is particularly concerned about how humankind’s actions are (re)shaping the future of the natural world. A gala reception is scheduled for October 8.

Aaron Schuerr will demonstrate their painting techniques. September 17 will feature a “Wet Wall” exhibition and sale of paintings created by AIS members in and around Boulder during the preceding week.

Founded in 1998, AIS is a nonprofit organization with more than 2,100 U.S.-based members who promote impressionist painting through exhibitions, workshops, and other educational programs.

KIM ENGLISH (b. 1957), On the Bus , 2021, oil on linen mounted on board, 12 x 12 in.

GUY COMBES (b. 1971), Border Patrol , 2019, oil on canvas, 36 x 36 in., private collection

NATIONAL OIL & ACRYLIC

PAINTERS’ SOCIETY

32ND BEST OF AMERICA

NATIONAL JURIED EXHIBITION

Wilcox Gallery

Jackson Hole

noaps.org and wilcoxgallery.com

September 8–October 8

The National Oil & Acrylic Painters’ Society (NOAPS) will mark its 32nd anniversary with its Best of America National Juried Exhibition, to be presented at Wilcox Gallery. Approximately 150 paintings created by NOAPS members will be on view both on site and online.

Events during the show’s opening week will include demos and also a Plein Air Competition & Sale. But the official opening reception will not occur until September 16, when awards judges Hebe Brooks, Rick Delanty, and Christina Ramos will reveal who has won the $5,000 Best of Show, as well as $30,000 more in cash and sponsor awards.

EVOCATIONS OF LIFE

BEN ARONSON: DIRECTIONS

LewAllenGalleries

Santa Fe lewallengalleries.com

through October 8

“The main objective is not merely to capture physical likeness,” artist Ben Aronson explains, “but rather to aim for the most concentrated form of a powerful visual experience.” A show of his paintings at LewAllenGalleries underscores how masterfully Aronson continues to achieve his aesthetic objectives. On view there now are the contemporary cityscapes for which he is best known, but also rural landscapes, still lifes, and even figures that may be less familiar to his admirers.

In all of his scenes, Aronson excels at suggesting movement and the evanescence of light, even when his subject is ostensibly still. Thanks to his variations in brushwork — alternately sharpened or blurred — we come away with evocations of atmosphere, fleeting moments captured forever, seemingly without effort but surely hard-won.

RAY HASSARD (b. 1949), All That Glitters , 2022, oil on canvas, 22 x 30 in.

BEN ARONSON (b. 1958), Sun on Leavenworth , 2021, oil on panel, 12 x 12 in.

ALWAYS QUESTING

QUEST FOR THE WEST ART SHOW AND SALE Eiteljorg Museum of American Indians and Western Art Indianapolis

September 9–10; September 11 – October 9

The Eiteljorg Museum of American Indians and Western Art is set to host the 17th annual edition of its popular Quest for the West Art Show and Sale. Visitors will be welcome to explore this exhibition of paintings and sculpture from September 11 through October 9, but the opening weekend of celebrations requires advance reservations.

On that weekend, collector-patrons will enjoy many opportunities to interact with the 50 top artists who have created the works on view, all inspired by the people and history of the American West. September 9 will encompass several events, including an open house at a local private collection, a reception honoring the 2021 Distinguished Artist Denis Milhomme (whose solo exhibition will open that evening), the “luck of the draw” miniature art sale, refreshments, and the exciting announcement of the Harrison Eiteljorg Purchase Award winner.

The next day will focus on the main sale, but the sold artworks will remain in the gallery for the next month so the public can enjoy them.

CODY’S BIG MOMENT

September 19–24

Rendezvous Royale is the joyful celebration of the arts that the lively town of Cody hosts every September, featuring a range of sales, workshops, demonstrations, lectures, and tours.

The week’s centerpiece is the 41st annual Buffalo Bill Art Show & Sale, which offers a broad range of stylistic interpretations of the West from more than 100 established and emerging artists. The works to be sold during its live auction will be displayed at the Buffalo Bill Center of the West through September 23; that evening the auction and dinner will occur in an adjacent tent, with collectors competing in the room, by phone, online, and via absentee bids.

The next morning will find 30 of the exhibiting artists participating in an outdoor Quick Draw & Sale while onlooking patrons enjoy brunch; the artists have only 90 minutes to create something memorable. Inside the Center, ongoing sales will occur throughout September via “The Scout’s Miniature Sale” and “Buy-It-Now Sale” of smaller works.

All proceeds benefit the Buffalo Bill Center of the West and Cody Country Chamber of Commerce.

Also buzzing in Cody will be By Western Hands, the nonprofit organization that

is preserving the legacy of Western design by promoting today’s top artisans. Its Western Functional Art exhibition will remain on view at its downtown gallery throughout the Rendezvous Royale

HEIDE PRESSE (b. 1958), Let Yourself Bloom , 2022, oil on linen, 20 x 20 in.

JOSEPH MCGURL (b. 1958), Morning Light, Glen Canyon , 2022, oil on panel, 18 x 24 in., available during the Buffalo Bill Art Show & Sale live auction

BUSY IN JACKSON HOLE

JACKSON HOLE jacksonholechamber.com wildlifeartevents.org westernvisions.org jacksonholeartauction.com

September 7–18

Every month is beautiful in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, but September is especially so as the aspen leaves start to turn yellow and a slight chill tints the night air. In keeping with the region’s reputation for culture, much of the month is dedicated to the Fall Arts Festival.

Among its intriguing events are the Western Design Conference Exhibit & Sale (September 8–11), Palates & Palettes (September 9), artist Troy Collins’s signing of the festival’s commemorative poster, which features his painting The Grandest Journey (September 14), Quickdraw (September 17), and Sunday Art Brunch (September 18).

The largest art institution in Jackson is the National Museum of Wildlife Art, which will host its 35th Western Visions Art Show + Sale from September 10 through October 2. This year’s edition will feature works by more than 170 artists, generally skewing toward smaller sizes; paintings are within 320 inches square and sculpture up to 18 inches in any one dimension. On September 14, the museum will host a panel discussion involving several participating artists; the next evening features the main auction followed by a dessert after-party.

And on September 16, the 16th annual Jackson Hole Art Auction gets underway, offering two days of selling in the handsome Center for the Arts downtown.

(TOP) MARK MCKENNA (b. 1984), Well on His Way, 2022, oil on panel, 40 x 48 in., available during the Western Visions live auction (RIGHT) ALFRED JACOB MILLER (1810–1874), Indian Shooting a Cougar, c. 1838, oil on canvas, 24 x 19 7/8 in., available during the Jackson Hole Art Auction, estimate: $500,000–$700,000

A NEW DAY AT OLD LYME

There’s something fresh in the air in Old Lyme, Connecticut, and it isn’t just the approach of cooler autumn weather. Rather, the Lyme Academy of Fine Arts has opened a new chapter in its teaching of time-tested skills that will inspire and equip the next generation of artists — an exciting prospect for Fine Art Connoisseur and our entire field. I personally am gratified by this development because I have been visiting and observing the Lyme Academy regularly since 2004.

Today its Core Program serves students aged 18 and older; admission is highly competitive because each year’s cohort is small and the fulltime curriculum is rigorous, requiring a commitment of two years, with an option to stay on one or two more. Year 1 concentrates on drawing and Year 2 on painting; starting in September 2023, sculpture will be the focus of a separate full-time program.

The entire program is essentially a progression of skill-building assignments, with each exercise designed to introduce new concepts and complexities. Among the many challenges to be mastered are proportions,

Co-artistic directors Jordan Sokol and Amaya Gurpide; photo: Amaya Gurpide

JORDAN SOKOL (b. 1979), Portrait of Edmond Rochat , 2016, oil on panel, 13 x 12 in., collection of the New Salem Museum and Academy of Fine Art, Massachusetts

interaction between light and form, value relationships, structure, color theory, color mixing, and anatomy. The curriculum emphasizes the figure, though there are also units on portraiture, landscape, and still life. Over time, each student develops not only technical facility and the confidence that comes with it, but also a keener sense of visual literacy and skills in observation, critical thinking, and problem solving.

All of this mirrors the foundational practices that were learned and executed by the Renaissance and 19th-century masters we admire today in museums and art history lectures throughout the Western world. Their European academies (most famously Paris’s École des Beaux-Arts) looked back to principles exemplified in the art of classical Greece and Rome, yet inevitably they infused their teaching with “modern” ideas (for example,

AMAYA GURPIDE (b. 1974), Black Sea , 2018, drawing in mixed media, 20 x 17 2/5 in., private collection

mid-19th-century naturalism). Today, therefore, we would never confuse a study drawn at the École in 1800 with one from 1900; artists always absorb something of their own times, and that is just as our Renaissance forerunners would have wanted it.

At Old Lyme, a turning point came in 2020 when the board of trustees hired co-artistic directors Jordan Sokol and Amaya Gurpide, who happen to be married but have successfully conducted separate careers as exhibiting artists. Both are also experienced instructors who together headed the New Jersey branch of the Florence Academy of Art from 2014 through 2020, and they still serve on the adjunct faculty at the New York Academy of Art. This month they are busy welcoming Lyme’s new cohort of firstyear Core Program students and welcoming back the second-year students. They are aided in this effort by a talented faculty including Edmond Rochat (Sokol’s portrait of him appears on the cover of this magazine and also on page 107), Hollis Dunlap, Rick Lacey, the student instructors AnneMarie Johnson, Thomas LaPine, and Mina Mohtasham, and a range of guest instructors and lecturers.

There is another dimension to Lyme’s approach that powerfully distinguishes it from comparable institutions around the country. Sokol explains, “When Amaya and I reimagined Lyme’s program, we did not want to create just another atelier. Rather, we sought a unique path that embraces the past while acknowledging the present and looking to the future. This challenge raised important questions in terms of what we are appropriating in the education we provide, and how we guide the conversation around what we’re doing.”

He continues, “Hiring the art historian Emily M. Weeks has been integral to our goal of providing students with a broad context around the often fraught tradition that they are a part of, and helping them think critically about what they’re doing. We believe that her curriculum sets us apart from other ateliers and helps us fulfill our mission of providing traditional skill with contemporary discourse.”

I have known Emily Weeks since 2003, when she was earning her Ph.D. at Yale, and, like Sokol, I am impressed by her seminar-style curriculum for Thinking Critically about Art. Weeks describes it as “both a deep dive into, and a wide-ranging mapping of, historical and contemporary theories, philosophies, critical discourses, and debates.” Her topics include aesthetics and the history of art history (which has been, like anything else, shaped by who holds the microphone), with appropriate emphasis on the 19th century — the academies’ “golden age.” Yet Weeks knows that students must also be prepared to talk about their own art in the context of their times; thus she is addressing “political, economic, and ethical issues that art has encountered through time,” as well as interdisciplinary approaches touching upon post-colonialism and racial diversity.

Let’s be frank. Cutting-edge art schools raise these matters all the time (often at the expense of technical competence), but most ateliers

The centerpiece of the main entrance is a large original drawing by George B. Bridgman (1864–1943), who taught anatomy at the Art Students League of New York for decades; photo: Jordan Sokol

Co-artistic director Amaya Gurpide discusses portrait drawing with Core students; photo: Andrew Paez

A display of plaster casts from the Slater Memorial Museum’s recent donation; photo: Jordan Sokol

ignore them and look back toward the glory days of academic art. That won’t work any longer, so I myself would love to visit Lyme next spring when Weeks addresses such up-to-the-minute topics as “Money, Audience, and Free Will” or “Can Art Truly ‘Mean’ Globally?” Her talks are bolstered by a substantial art reference library on the academy’s campus, as well as by group visits to museums and galleries located in easy striking distance.

QUITE A HISTORY

All of this should be considered in the context of Lyme’s institutional history. It was founded in 1976 — a moment when academic principles had fallen out of favor — by the sculptor Elisabeth Gordon Chandler (1913–2006), who lived in the area. Her creation became remarkably successful in the 1980s because it was one of very few such institutions in the U.S. In the early 1990s, the board’s decision to seek accreditation as a college seemed a natural evolution, and in 1995 they began granting Bachelor of Fine Arts degrees. Alas, the state-imposed requirements of this change in academic status, and the extra infrastructure it necessarily demanded, impeded the academy’s previous focus on fostering skills. The dream of running an art college proved unsustainable, so, in 2018, 12 years after Chandler passed away, Lyme became an academy again. Sokol and Gurpide were hired in 2020, and

Lyme’s multi-year pause ended in autumn 2021 when the first cohort of Core Program students arrived, masked and socially distanced. This institutional story reveals something profound about contemporary art in America today. Despite our society’s “anything can be art”

Core student Thomas LaPine develops his Long Pose drawing; photo: Amaya Gurpide

A selection of the Karlheinz Kronberger sculpture collection, photo: Patrick Derosier

zeitgeist, there are thousands of young people out there hungering for rigorous training, who know they cannot express all they have to “say” without the tools needed to do so. From a distance, nothing could be drearier than a room crowded with students’ plaster sculptures depicting the same model — until we look closely at how each artist has gone about solving the problems of making that figure come alive. With the right academic training, each individual is equipped not to join a herd, but to run alone. Once gained, these baseline skills

can be applied in almost any area of artmaking, and indeed not every Lyme student will necessarily pursue a career in “fine” art. Many other fields (gaming, animation, Hollywood) crave graduates possessing skills like these.

Lyme’s recent pivot also reflects its ideal mix of volunteer and professional leadership. Old Lyme resident Michael Duffy chairs the board of trustees, which in 2019 hired executive director Mora Rowe. The board and senior staff collaborate closely on fundraising, and this spring they celebrated a transformative $1 million donation from a longstanding benefactor (and trustee emerita), Charlotte Colby Danly. Her generous gift has endowed the academy’s chair in sculpture and re-established the program in figurative sculpture — highly appropriate because she herself studied under Elisabeth Chandler and her husband, the sculptor Laci de Gerenday.

The quintessentially New England-style Sill House (1817), now used for administration and exhibiting, is the first building arriving visitors see; photo: Kayla Lilli

Main entrance to the studio buildings; photo: Kayla Lilli

“The time I spent with the founders in the sculpture program was transformative for me, personally and creatively,” Danly recalls. Jordan Sokol is particularly pleased by this development, noting that “Sculpture is a part of Lyme Academy’s DNA; our campus was literally built by and for it.” He adds that it was Danly, back in 2001, who established the academy’s first endowed post, the Deane G. Keller chair in classical drawing and figurative art, which currently supports Sokol and Gurpide.

I smiled when Sokol told me this, as I met Deane G. Keller (1940–2005) in 2004 as he entered his 25th year teaching life drawing and anatomy at Lyme. I still treasure his 2004 letter to me, noting that his father and teacher (the Yale professor Prof. Deane Keller Sr.) had kept in their family home an anatomical sketch made in 1922 by the great instructor George B. Bridgman, and that his maternal grandmother had studied with the even greater educator Howard Pyle in the 1890s. (On December 2, Deane’s son, Bill, will visit Lyme to discuss his father’s art and life.)

Atelier folks love to trace such instructional genealogies, and Lyme’s is impeccable. Until this article began cooking, I did not realize that the legendary painter Robert Brackman (1898–1980), freshly retired from the Art Students League of New York, was Elisabeth Chandler’s pick to lead her new faculty. Nor had I focused on the fact that

patron Chauncey Stillman (1907–1989) — who commissioned the Florentine master Pietro Annigoni to decorate his garden room in Amenia, New York — endowed the 1,000-square-foot gallery where Lyme now presents its temporary exhibitions.

Fortunately, goodwill toward the Lyme Academy reverberates throughout its network of alumni and admirers nationwide. In 2019, thanks to an introduction from Emily Weeks, I visited the Germanborn, Philadelphia-based collector Karlheinz Kronberger and explored with him his extraordinary 19th- and early 20th-century French bronze sculptures. Sadly, he passed away within a year, but now more than 150 of his treasures have been gifted to the academy so that students can learn from them close-up, in perpetuity. Similarly, leaders of the Slater Memorial Museum (Norwich, Connecticut), a remarkable institution filled with casts of historical sculpture, think so highly of Lyme that they have donated an array of top examples for study purposes.

IN THE RIGHT PLACE

Today, America is fortunate to have an atelier of figurative art in almost every large town and city. The Lyme Academy is in an especially convenient location, 34 miles east of New Haven and 125 miles from both New York City and Boston. It is situated on four acres in the historic district of Old Lyme, a charming town of 7,500 residents where the Connecticut River flows into Long Island Sound.

Culturally speaking, this is no backwater; in 1903, the New York painterteacher Frank DuMond praised the area’s topography, “which ranges from the low land of estuaries and salt-meadows to the rugged, romantic beauty

Natural north light illuminates the sculpture studio named for founder Elisabeth Gordon Chandler; photo: Jordan Sokol

of rolling glacial hills.” Four years earlier, the tonalist Henry Ward Ranger had sought to establish here the U.S. version of France’s Barbizon art colony, but it was the arrival of Childe Hassam and other impressionists around 1903 that soon made it the “American Giverny.”

Right into the Great Depression, Old Lyme’s epicenter was the boardinghouse operated by Miss Florence Griswold (1850–1937), which has been restored as part of what is now the Florence Griswold Museum to better present the delightful decorations left by more than 200 grateful artist-lodgers. The museum’s modern building nearby contains masterworks by such contemporaries as Ernest Lawson, Willard Metcalf, J.H. Twachtman, and both Robert and Bessie Potter Vonnoh. Also within walking distance of the academy is the Lyme Art Association, founded by the colony’s artists to display and sell their art. Today locals sustain this tradition through exhibitions and competitions in the association’s handsome 1921 gallery.

This atmosphere of art appreciation has always encouraged the academy to connect with its neighbors up and down the Connecticut shore, and that community engagement remains strong. Any adult can register to take a studio class, and high school students can attend free open sessions in drawing or printmaking. The Studio Immersion Program is a one-year, full-time course with no competitive application requirement; participants who undertake all assigned exercises receive a certificate of completion at the conclusion, an outcome ideal for gap-year students intent on building their portfolios. Lyme’s Young Masters Afterschool Program offers students aged 12–18 up to four hours per week of one-on-one instruction; the first year focuses on drawing and the second on painting or sculpture, all led by Rick Lacey, who graduated from the academy in 2011 and has spent most of his life in the Lyme area.

Workshops are another feature of the academy’s life. In October comes Painting Best Practices, offered by George O’Hanlon and Tatiana

Zaytseva of Natural Pigments, and in November Strategic Approaches to Figure Drawing  with the renowned artist Michael Grimaldi. (On October 11, he will be at Lyme to discuss the literary, cinematic, and historical influences that inspired his recent multimedia monochromes.)

One need not be an artist to visit the campus. Locals are already stopping by the academy’s new shop, de Gerenday’s Fine Art Materials and Curiosities, which is modeled after such charmingly photogenic forerunners as Sennelier in Paris. Executive director Mora Rowe has collaborated with the faculty and deployed her background in merchandising to curate the boutique’s offerings, which include not only quality art supplies and books, but also giftable objects like taxidermy, architectural salvage, tapestries, and plaster casts.

Beyond contributing to the academy’s bottom line, all these programs and services offer a bigger benefit. By fully engaging with its neighbors, the Lyme Academy of Fine Arts intends to flourish in this new chapter of its life, to win over local people’s minds and also their hearts. Everyone at Fine Art Connoisseur wishes the academy well and looks forward to seeing what happens there next.

Information: lymeacademy.edu

PETER TRIPPI is editor-in-chief of Fine Art Connoisseur.

Inside de Gerenday’s Fine Art Materials and Curiosities, photo: Caryn B. Davis

ARTISTS & GALLERIES

Milwaukee

lilypadgallery.com

September 2–October 9

In 1851, three years after it attained statehood, Wisconsin adopted “Forward” as its motto to reflect its people’s determination to move ahead on the national stage. Almost six years ago, Lily Pad | West opened for business and has become a leader on Milwaukee’s art scene. This season’s exhibition, Forward, is the gallery’s first devoted entirely to Wisconsin artists, in this case Marc Anderson, Allison B. Cooke, Steve Gerhartz, Bethann Moran-Handzlik, Bruce Niemi, Ken Schneider, and Diane Washa.

New York City

pastelsocietyofamerica.org

nationalartsclub.org

September 12–October 7

Founded in 1972, the Pastel Society of America (PSA) is preparing to mount its 50th Annual Exhibition, Enduring Brilliance, at the historic National Arts Club. Works by members living worldwide have been juried in by artists Marcia Holmes, Richard McKinley, and Nancie King Mertz, and awards juror Louis A. Zona (Butler Institute of American Art, Youngstown, Ohio) will reveal the winners during a ceremony on September 17. That night will also highlight PSA’s latest Hall of Fame Honoree, artist Peter Seltzer, and its newest Friend of Pastel, patron Barbara Genco.

Santa Fe

victorycontemporary.com

September 23–October 7

Born in Moscow and now based in Colorado, the husband-and-wife team of Olga and Aleksey Ivanov are set to open a show of new paintings titled The Southwest Sun at Victory Contemporary. Best known for their illustrations of children’s books, the couple are masters of egg tempera, the challenging and ancient medium that offers rich color and sharp detail. Inspired by the American West, the Ivanovs’ latest works walk the line between daydream and reality, infused with a touch of whimsy, and even trickery now and then.

Durango, Colorado

sorrelsky.com

October 21–31

Sorrel Sky Gallery will soon present Wildlife Encounters, an exhibition of new paintings by Edward Aldrich that depict a broad array of creatures, from elks and ravens to wolves and cougars. An inveterate traveler, the artist has finally been able to explore again to study animals in nature, including recent trips to Tanzania, West Yellowstone, and Idaho’s Sawtooth Mountains. Also on view are some of the small landscape studies Aldrich makes outdoors and refers to while developing larger scenes in the studio.

Santa Fe meyergalleries.com

September 23–October 6

Imagined Memories is the title of California artist Robert LaDuke’s upcoming show at Meyer Gallery. His newest paintings sustain his knack for depicting Southwestern landscapes using what he calls “elements based on reality, memories, and a healthy dose of imagination.” He says, “I’m trying to capture the magic that is New Mexico; the state just fascinates me.” Illustrated here, for example, is Adobe, which shows a Santa Fe home at dusk, complete with a vintage truck parked in front.

New York City

salmagundi.org

through September 23

At the Salmagundi Club of New York, the exhibition Landscapes Created in the Studio presents rmore than 60 recent landscapes and seascapes that have been painted in oils by members and

Olga and Aleksey Ivanov (both born 1964), The Southwest Sun, 2022, egg tempera on panel, 43 x 50 in.

Bethann Moran-Handzlik (b. 1965), This Joy Is Electric, 2021, oil on canvas, 52 x 40 in.

Edward Aldrich (b. 1965), Fox Kit, 2022, oil on panel, 18 x 14 in.

Peter Seltzer (b. 1947), Threads 4, 2010, pastel on paper, 24 x 20 in.

Robert LaDuke (b. 1961), Adobe, 2022, acrylic on panel, 18 x 18 in.

John Abisch (b. 1954), Split Rock Falls, Adirondacks, 2022, oil on linen panel, 24 x 18 in.

non-members as an extension of their plein air painting practice. The award winners, including Best in Show ($400), were announced during the opening celebration in late August.

AUCTIONS & FAIRS

The New Jersey artist Kathleen Beausoleil has opened her first solo exhibition at the Monmouth Museum, titled Rise Above. Its paintings capture not only a pivotal moment in America’s history — the fraught months following the May 2020 murder of George Floyd — but also reflect on how Americans gather to express our rights as citizens, observing where they draw lines in the sand regarding their responsibilities to each other and to the country.

San Francisco sffallshow.org

October 13–16

After a two-year hiatus, the San Francisco Fall Show returns for its 40th anniversary at the Fort Mason Center for Arts & Culture. It is the West Coast’s longest-running art, antiques, and design fair, offering works brought by 50 dealers from around the world, including American, European, and Asian pieces ranging in date from antiquity through today. The unifying theme this year is the color red, inspired by the ruby, which symbolizes 40th anniversaries. Proceeds from the opening gala on October 12 will benefit the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, and a series of lively lectures will occur throughout the weekend.

MUSEUMS

Lincroft, New Jersey monmouthmuseum.org through September 18

Winston-Salem reynolda.org

through December 31

After two years of delay, the Reynolda House Museum of American Art has opened the much-anticipated exhibition Chrome Dreams and Infinite Reflections: American Photorealism. Its 41 paintings and prints (28 of them loaned by local collectors) depict storefront windows, automobiles, and other urban scenes evoking this country’s post-war prosperity. Curator Allison Slaby has included works by Robert Bechtle, Chuck Close, Robert Cottingham, Don Eddy, Richard Estes, Janet Fish, Audrey Flack, Ralph Goings, Ron Kleeman, Jack Mendenhall, Richard McLean, and Ben Schonzeit.

Columbus, Ohio columbusmuseum.org

through October 30

The Columbus Museum of Art is the sole U.S. venue for the exhibition Raphael The Power of Renaissance Imagery: The Dresden Tapestries and their Impact. It highlights six tapestries on loan from Dresden’s Gemäldegalerie Alte Meister and never seen in America before. All were woven in the 17th century at England’s Mortlake manufactory from the same Raphael designs that had been used to create the Sistine Chapel’s tapestries in 1515-16.

Washington, D.C. nga.gov

October 2, 2022–January 2, 2023

Just when it seemed we had explored every angle of John Singer Sargent’s remarkable oeuvre, along comes the National Gallery of Art’s new exhibition, Sargent and Spain. It examines the master’s longstanding interest in Spain — its people, arts, spirituality, landscape, and architecture — by gathering more than 130 works, as well as previously unpublished travel photographs. The show will travel on to the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco (February 11–May 14, 2023).

OUT & ABOUT

In June, Manhattan’s Hispanic Society Museum & Library opened the exhibition American Travelers: A Watercolor Journey through Spain, Portugal, and Mexico. It pays special attention to a group of early 20th-century artists as well as to almost a dozen watercolors by Timothy J. Clark. Here Clark (right) celebrates the project with the Society’s director, Guillaume Kientz. The exhibition closes on October 16.

Alphonse Goossens (1866–1944), Thalus Oweniamus, c. 1895–1907, watercolor on paper, 8 x 6 1/2 in., Arader Galleries (Philadelphia)

Kathleen Beausoleil (b. 1974), Inspired Hope, 2020, oil on canvas, 38 x 50 in., available through the artist

Richard Estes (b. 1932), Hubcap, 2021, oil on board, 18 7/8 x 12 3/4 in., Reynolda House Museum of American Art, museum purchase with funds provided by Scottie and David Neill

Mortlake Tapestry Manufactory (after designs by Raphael), The Miraculous Draft of Fishes, after 1625, tapestry, Staatliche Kunstsammlungen Dresden, Gemäldegalerie Alte Meister, B1

John Singer Sargent (1856–1925), Spanish Roma Dwelling, 1912, oil on canvas, 28 1/8 x 36 in., Addison Gallery of American Art, Phillips Academy, Andover, Massachusetts

The power of the heartfelt poetry of the Neo-Renaissance painter resonates in every brushstroke.

Nik Anikis, the Neo-Renaissance Painter from Slovenia.

Love of Craft and Nature

45 x 35 cm 17.7 x 13,78 in, oil on canvas, 2022, Sevnica

Learn the secrets of this masterpiece here: www.anikis.com/loveofcraft

“Spring” by Albert Handell, Oil 16 x 24”

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DOUGLAS FRYER: Painting with Intuition™

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TINA ORSOLIC DALESSIO ( b. 1983), Self-Portrait in a Red Robe , 2019, oil on panel, 15 3/4 x 11 13/16 in., available through the artist

Robert LaDuke

Imagined Memories

“ Every painting has partial elements based on reality, memories and a healthy dose of imagination. I’m trying to capture the magic that is New Mexico; the state just fascinates me. ”

- Robert LaDuke

acrylic 18 x 18 in.