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UNDER THE RADAR

A spotlight for members.

Cindy Blakeslee

Recent Feature

Ripe for Rediscovery: Peter Miller

Ripe for Rediscovery: Peter Miller

Talk about “Surrealism” in conversation with artists and art lovers you are most likely to think of works by Dalí, Magritte, Tanguy, Ernst, or possibly Paul Delvaux. Mention “American Surrealism,” and the terrain gets tricky. Didn’t Adolph Gottlieb, Mark Rothko, and...

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Recent Feature

L.A. Confidential

L.A. Confidential

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...

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From the Vasari21 Archives

The Second Annual Studio Pets Contest

I have to say—these were even better than last year, though when I asked for some relief from all the dogs and cats pouring in, a few members got a little smart-assed and sent vacuum cleaners and coils of clay. No matter. We now have a separate category for “Inanimate...

Ripe for Rediscovery: Betty Parsons

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...

More Residencies off the Beaten Path

Headquartered in a historic mansion in the Green Mountains of Vermont, the Marble House Project accepts about 52 artists a year for individual 23-day residencies (there are also 17-day stays for artists with families, and this year the organization is launching a...

A Sculptor Turns Her Eyes and Ears on the Big Ears Festival

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…

Scams and Shams in the Art World: Part One

Several years ago, I heard about a woman, a self-styled art adviser, who would invite artists to a plush hotel room and for a fee of $500 lend an hour of her time to look over portfolios and then write down…

Fantasy Curating: The Contemporary Portrait

By Kate Petley Contemporary portraiture is so diverse that creating a comprehensive list of artists is futile. I selected these particular works for their power, humor, cleverness, rawness, and beauty. Reflecting a broad interpretation of what qualifies as a portrait,...

Retail Therapy from Artists

Need an affordable but impressive gift? Got empty shelves and wall space? Artists come to the rescue.... These are tough times for everyone, but especially for artists who have lost teaching gigs, commissions, and gallery shows. Small wonder some are turning to online...

Fantasy Curating: Big Things Have Small Beginnings

By Ed Grant "Big Things Have Small Beginnings" So many of the things around us are small, or at least start off small. Stalactites form one drop at a time. Viruses and bacteria evolve new ways around our defenses to become full-blown pandemics. Slime mold is used to...

Summer Reads: Two Feisty Women and a Bromance in Poetry and Paint

A few weeks ago my neighbor and Vasari21 member TJ Mabrey asked me why I didn’t suggest some books for the warm-weather season, when supposedly we all head for the country or the beach armed with a Kindle or a stack of paperbacks. Since I am always reading biographies...

When Lee Krasner Met Piet Mondrian

Can you picture the austere Dutch modernist dancing barefoot? “Critic Clement Greenberg would describe Mondrian’s work as ‘passion mastered and cooled,’ and that described the artist as well. He had set up his studio in a Victorian house with curved arches, but in...

Archived Feature

Fantasy Curating: Hands-On and Lush

Fantasy Curating: Hands-On and Lush

 By Lee Albert Hill As a painter myself I am drawn to the work of other painters first and foremost.  Especially those who demonstrate a dedication to a lush, hands-on, painterly approach and an emphasis on refined craft and detail.  For this curation I have chosen...

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Archived Feature

Suggestions for Summer Reading

Suggestions for Summer Reading

Get a jump on the season with a beach-bag full of memoirs Perhaps because I’ve been working on one of my own (“Rotten Romance,” dispatched via Substack every Sunday), memoirs have been much on my mind. For purely recreational reading, I often prefer first-person...

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Archived Feature

Meghan Wilbar: The Long Road

Meghan Wilbar: The Long Road

It’s a brave artist who attempts to say something new about landscape. The genre has been around since ancient times, when frescoes of Arcadian vistas adorned the walls of upscale villas, and its popularity has waxed and waned according to the talents and interests of...

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Archived Under the Radar

Marietta Patricia Leis

Marietta Patricia Leis

Like many little girls, Marietta Patricia Leis first set her sights on becoming a ballerina. “At the age of seven I was entranced with wanting to be a ballet dancer,” she says. As a child in suburban East Orange, NJ, she studied dance every day after school, and...

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Archived Under the Radar

Susan English

Susan English

When Susan English was three or four years old, she lived in Belgium with her family for a couple of years. Years later she still remembers a babysitter named Hele placing a candle inside a child’s play igloo. “It made a big impression on me,” English says. “The light...

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 Archived Podcast

Alice Robb: Why We Dream

Alice Robb: Why We Dream

In the summer of 2011, science writer Alice Robb discovered a book called Exploring the World of Lucid Dreaming, which promised readers that they could control the plots of their dreams.

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