Connecting Artists

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...

I met Jake Berthot in 1992 while I was in my junior year at the School of Visual Arts in New York. I had already discovered his work and fallen in love with it. So much so that I tried copying everything I saw that I liked…

More of nature’s bounty from the garden As mentioned in Part One, flowers simply never go out of fashion. Here are a dozen more artists who have found ways to put a fresh spin on a centuries-old subject. Peggy Klineman: “Living in New York City, I longed to be in...

The life of the beautiful, clever, and prodigiously gifted Elisabeth Louise Vigée Le Brun (1755-1842) is one of those rags-to-riches sagas irresistible to storytellers of any era. She was born in Paris to a minor portraitist and a hairdresser…

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...

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...

The new and already widely praised documentary about Eva Hesse, the subject of our podcast this week with director Marcie Begleiter, brought to mind the many films about artists made down through the years and inspired a mini-marathon of in-home screenings these last...

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 times like these it’s tempting to fantasize what life might have been like in another century, another culture, among a coterie of friends and acquaintances who had things on their minds other than the pandemic and insane politicians. I’ve occasionally wondered...

Dealers Tell Us What They Look for in Representing Someone New What makes a gallery decide to take on a new artist? To make a long- or short-term commitment? What goes through a dealer’s head when she is looking at (or looking for) art to show, either in solo or group...