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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

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...

Another Opening, Another Show

The opening, duration, and end of a gallery or museum show can be cause for anxiety, depression, obsession, elation, relief, and any number of other emotional reactions that occur when you…

Joan Linder on Miriam Dym

History aside, when I think of an artist whose work I admire and who has had immeasurable impact on my work, I think of Miriam Dym. We met in graduate school nearly two decades ago. She has a particular, and idiosyncratic, vision that engages…

The Immortal Mona Lisa

A new novel recalls a famous heist. I’ve just finished reading Jonathan Santlofer’s hugely entertaining thriller The Last Mona Lisa, a lively yarn that taps into our present-day fascination with all things Leonardo and takes the reader into the sometimes violent...

Grants and Financial Resources for Artists during Covid19

I spent about three days scouring available sources (Artnet, The Art Newspaper, the Internet) to see what sorts of funds are available for artists impacted by the Covid19 pandemic. The bad news is how little is out there, and many of the significant grants are only...

Artists and Critics: Part Two

Not to sound like too much of a fogey, but there was a time when the art world abounded with publications devoted to art—Art in America, Studio International, Arts magazine, Artforum, Art News…

Vasari21 Goes to the Movies: Part Two

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...

Artist and Critics: Part 4

There was a time, not so long ago, when physical assaults were almost a routine art-world ritual, between artists and critics, artists and artists, and occasionally even critics and critics. The titanic 20th-century art czar…

Golden Artist Programs

Nice Work if You Can Get It When I noticed that several painters who are Vasari21 members had certification from Golden Artist Colors—a company that specializes in acrylic paints, mediums, and grounds and has officially been around since 1950—I was curious about what...

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...

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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