Artists Share Moments of Discovery A few weeks ago, before making the great trans-Taos trek from Cottam Road to Camino del Monte, I asked Vasari21 members if they had ever experienced what I call the “aha!” moment—a sudden realization that a material, a way of...

No doubt there are those who are familiar with the paintings of Maria Lassnig, the Austrian-born artist who kicked off Kate Petley’s round of fantasy curating on the site two weeks ago. But I had never heard of her before and was beguiled by Lassnig’s You or Me...

A Major Abstract Artist of the 20th Century Begins To Get Her Due I first stumbled upon the paintings of Dorothy Hood about five years ago, in the home of collector and artist Dora Dillistone. It’s not too much of a stretch to say that I was completely blown away....

In which your intrepid reporter takes a class in encaustic monotypes with Paula Roland Given the number of Vasari21 members who work in encaustic (see Anna Wagner-Ott’s report from last summer), I thought it might be fun to get a firsthand look at why the medium is so...

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…

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…

Frances Ashforth’s fascination with water, sky, and undulating landscapes began early. Raised in a family of artists, she spent time as a child at her grandparents’ farm in New Hampshire, along the Connecticut River Valley. She is an avid fly fisherman and in her...

Alex Katz first met his wife, Ada, at an opening at the Tangier Gallery in 1958. She immediately became one of his favorite models. “I’d been painting these all-over landscapes, and then I decided to paint details like eyes and noses…

What do dealers owe their artists? And what do artists say they aren’t getting? The artist-dealer relationship is one of the most complicated, intimate, and loosely defined of all arrangements between an individual and a business. It can be “like a marriage in its...

Toward the end of my interview with curator Tricia Paik of the Indianapolis Museum of Art a few weeks back, we briefly touched on the subject of artist websites—what works and what doesn’t. Developing a good one, up-to-date and easily navigable…