The “genre,” if it is such these days, never really goes away Landscape painting enjoys a long and honorable history in art, going as far back as ancient times, when the Greeks and Romans made frescoes of pleasant vistas and enchanting gardens. There have been periods...

Photo credits: bottom of pageMost reviews of the 2015 Venice Biennale came down hard on the curator’s “didactic,” “glum,” “joyless,” and un-spectacular show of conceptual, socially oriented works. It also disappointed those addicted to grandiose art spectacles, the...

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…

In which a writer and critic goes back to class Please note that this story is reprinted from the ARTnews issue of October, 1995. But 20 years later, the New York Studio School "drawing marathons" still continue along the same lines, under the expert guidance of the...

Far from disappearing from an artist's regular practice, as many critics have complained, the possibilities for drawing have only expanded in the last century, limited only by the imaginations of their creators. Picasso made drawings with a small electric light in a...

Blooms, posies, blossom, and gardens will never go out of style About a year ago, somewhere on social media, I made the rather stupid observation that I thought flowers had become nonstarters as subjects for artists since the heyday of Georgia O’Keeffe. Elisabeth...

Why is an art critic’s judgment better than yours—or maybe not? A few months back I did a stupid thing on Facebook and opined that I did not think Amy Sherald’s portrait of Breonna Taylor was very good (check out the hands and drapery), and that I found her pose in a...

In the high desert of northern New Mexico, sculptor and photographer Paul O'Connor takes in his friend Debbie Long's immersive installation. "Trippy" barely begins to describe the experience. By Paul O'Connor   Several months have passed since my visit to Debbie...

Without my four sons, I would be a different artist. They were born one right after the other—the oldest was four when the fourth was born—simplifying as many complications as were created. I dearly wanted a family, and knew…

Everyone is a winner in the competition to replace those tired, toppled memorials In the wake of the murder of George Floyd in May, protesters around the globe tore down monuments to the Confederacy, to slave traders, and to racist baddies of all stripes. I could not...