Connecting Artists

As a New Yorker gone rural, I live and work in a relatively isolated way in the foothills of Virginia’s Blue Ridge Mountains. Winters are my deep rich studio time, and yet this past winter, I found myself, more than usual, in need of…

Robert Motherwell, my father, purchased our home the year I was born. My earliest recollection of entering his studio is when I was a toddler. We lived in a…

    Ask not what your art can do for you, but what your art can do for your country   Among the many forward-minded initiatives launched by the all-too-brief administration of President John F. Kennedy, the Art in Embassies program is one that has...

  When I first moved to Taos, NM, about six years ago, a friend and I went on one of those house-and-garden tours put together by a local charitable organization. It seemed a good way to get to know the territory, and I’ve always loved to snoop inside other...

A prescient dealer begins to get her due as an artist Betty Parsons was the sort of art dealer who is invariably dubbed “legendary” when her name appears in the annals of art history. At the Betty Parsons Gallery on West 57th Street, which she opened with a borrowed...

Artistic collaborations are nothing new in the annals of contemporary art—think of Janet Cardiff and George Bures Miller, Gilbert and George, or even Tim Rollins and his “at-risk” students, known as the Kids of Survival. But edgy illustrator…

About a decade ago, in the wake of yet another failed romance, I decided to visit the Florence Biennale, an art extravaganza that has been in the works since 1997. A fellow art journalist was going, meeting up with a curator friend from Texas…

One of the most radical abstract artists of the last 50 years is scarcely a household name, or even well known outside a small group of collectors, connoisseurs, and art historians. But Mary Lee Bendolph is a standout in the group of quilters from Gee’s Bend, a tiny...

Even the Most Respected Critics Change Their Minds When a politician flip-flops on a position, the public and press alike are quick to cry foul, hurling accusations of bad faith or pandering. But when an art critic changes his or her mind, the ripple effect is likely...

When I was regularly writing reviews for ARTnews and The Wall Street Journal, two great gigs that petered out for different reasons, I was occasionally conscious of having biases toward work that rang my chimes in a big way and against art that confused me or left me...