Connecting Artists

Hey, not so fast! But first the bad news…. In the last year or so, there have been several alarming reports about the demise of the mid-level, or mid-tier, gallery—those stalwart spaces that show new art and support artists who may never achieve superstar status but...

When I first saw Jeff Baker’s photos, at his home and studio in Taos, NM, about five years ago, I immediately thought of Aaron Siskind, the photographer most closely associated with mid-century American abstraction. In many of his black-and-white images, Siskind...

Photo credits: bottom of page Why watch a documentary about an artist? We have biographies and museum and gallery shows and catalogues and other ways of entering the lives and minds of the more memorable figures in the visual arts. Yet a documentary can offer an...

The first in a series of reports on the art world.  In May, it seemed like we were almost entirely out of the woods with Covid-19, and then along came the Delta variant and the post-pandemic euphoria rapidly dissipated. Still, as long-time observers of the Los Angeles...

Suggestions for storing, selling, tossing, or giving away unwanted old work One of the saddest days of my life was the day I carted all my youthful paintings from my parents’ summer house to the dump in Montauk, NY, after selling the property in 2003. These included a...

When I was writing regularly for ARTnews and the Wall Street Journal, I checked into Facebook only sporadically, usually when I was in the middle of transcribing a dull interview or blocked in writing a story. It was a mildly engaging way…

By Phillis Ideal I still see Big Mama leaning over her garden to pick a zinnia to put in her still life. Her old pink slip hung diagonally, a foot below her hiked-up stained dress, half-covered by her paint smock, which matched her white faux-fur bedroom slippers,...

Rare photos from the 1870s give a glimpse into an ancient civilization on the brink of change Her face framed by an ornate tasseled headdress, the bride looks eager and expectant and maybe a little scared. Her groom seems more confident, certainly more relaxed. You...

Having It All in the 19th Century Berthe Morisot’s subjects now seem among the tamest and most ingratiating imaginable: sun-drenched land- and seascapes, women and children casually posed in the garden or cozy domestic interiors, stylish Parisian beauties at their...

To the young or emerging artist, the art world may seem like a forbidding maze, a complicated circuitry of inside contacts and arcane codes almost impossible for the newcomer to crack. How can the artist without…