Connecting Artists

Most of Josef Albers’s paintings are very unusual and far more complex than they initially appear; they are not about Op art, color theory, or Minimalism. They are about paying attention. Just as his famous book on color theory…

Those calling the shots in the art world can be astonishingly cruel. Sculptor Stan Smokler, who maintains studios in New York and Pennsylvania, recalls sending out slides in the early days of his career…

Lessons and inspiration from an artist mom By Patricia Moss-Vreeland In all my years of training as an artist, both at the University of the Arts and Tyler School of Art, I can recall many gifted and inspiring teachers, but none gave me quite so solid a sense of...

By Susan Erlandson Washburn I arrived at Crystal Bridges in Bentonville, Arkansas—Walmart heiress Alice Walton’s inspired gift to flyover country—too late to see the Dale Chihuly exhibition in the gallery itself but in time to visit the “In the Forest” portion...

Dealers Tell Us What They Look for in Representing Someone New What makes a gallery decide to take on a new artist? To make a long- or short-term commitment? What goes through a dealer’s head when she is looking at (or looking for) art to show, either in solo or group...

Why read two Diane Arbus biographies back to back? Because, after finishing Arthur Lubow’s recent life of the photographer, published a year ago, I found myself so annoyed with his detached and bloodless recitation of Arbus’s life that I turned to other reviewers to...

Coming to Grips with “Makee-Doo” I suppose it all begins with the “Sandy Becker Show,” which Boomers may remember watching on little black-and-white TVs in the 1950s and ‘60s. The genial host of this children’s variety program regularly showed drawings sent in by his...

By Jina Brenneman Post-disciplinary, Neo Craft, Sloppy Craft, and the Hyper Pot are all descriptors that attempt to classify the seismic shift in contemporary ceramics. Artificial in nature, these technicolor works drip with irregularities, gloppy blobs, and bulges...

For years I’ve looked at different works by countless artists. I’ve looked at different objects from all different periods of time—ancient, Renaissance, modern, post-war, contemporary, along with the efforts of teachers, friends, and…

A recent report in the Huffington Post alleges that “narcissistic artists were determined to have higher market prices, higher estimates from auction houses, more museum shows, and more recognition from the art…