Innholdsfortegnelse for April 2019 i American Art Collector

I’ve been thinking quite a bit recently about galleries and their importance in the art market. This made me think about collectors and their role as well. As a collector, think back to when and where you purchased your first piece of art. I would venture to say that more than 90 percent of you made this purchase from a gallery. Galleries have always been the most accessible place for people to start acquiring works for their collections. Maybe it was a trip to Jackson Hole or Santa Fe or Scottsdale or New York City or San Francisco. After lunch or dinner, you took a stroll down one of these now-legendary art destinations and something caught your eye in the window of a gallery. We all know this feeling. You…

ANTLER GALLERY 2728 NE Alberta Street Portland, OR, (503) 284 -6757 gallerist@antlerpdx.com www.antlerpdx.com ARCADIA CONTEMPORARY 39 E. Colorado Boulevard Pasadena, CA 91105, (626) 486-2018 info@arcadiacontemporary.com www.arcadiacontemporary.com GALLERY VICTOR ARMENDARIZ 300 W. Superior Street, Chicago, IL 60654, (312) 722-6447 mail@galleryvictor.com www.galleryvictor.com SOMERVILLE MANNING GALLERY Breck’s Mill, 2nd Floor, 101 Stone Block Row, Greenville, DE 19807 (302) 652-0271 www.somervillemanning.com PAIGE WALLIS Boston, MA, (617) 458-1203 soothed.by.rainfall@gmail.com www.soothedbyrainfallstudios.com…

Last November, artist Paul Newton’s portrait of New Jersey’s 55th governor, Chris Christie, was unveiled at a private event at Princeton’s Morven Museum & Garden, a historic house that also served as the governor’s mansion for much of the 20th century. The portrait depicts Christie standing resolute behind the wooden lectern where he would often address the media during his tenure as governor. As Christie’s official portrait for the State of New Jersey, the portrait will eventually hang in the New Jersey Statehouse and be included in the state’s portrait collection, which boasts works by Howard Chandler Christy, Seymour Thomas and Ida Waugh. One interesting detail of the work is the inclusion of the letters “STTS” on the side of the lectern to stand for “Stronger than the Storm,” a…

When Lynn Boggess completes a painting, he frequently looks to a calendar for guidance on how to title the work. This may seem like the easy way out—how many artists have agonized for hours or days over titles?—but in reality it serves a higher purpose. “Titling paintings the date they were created is certainly practical, yet it has a deeper significance for me. Landscape painting, as I approach it, is about recording the impressions of what the season, weather and light of a particular place…on a particular day,” the West Virginia painter says. “And that fits in well, I think, with the idea of plein air painting, which is how almost all of my paintings begin—out in places, on locations of the scenes they depict. Plein air is, at its…

Susan Goldsmith worked in the film industry on special effects, mastering the manipulation of digital imagery. Before receiving her BFA and MFA degrees with distinction from California College of the Arts, she studied life drawing with the esteemed Charles White at the Otis Art Institute (now Otis College of Art + Design). Armed with a background in the foundations of art as well as advances in technology, she creates poetic and sumptuous images of nature. Her use of gold and silver leaf grew “out of my appreciation for antique Chinese screens and my friendship with Robert Kushner,” she says. Kushner, whose work is inspired by the art of East Asia, wrote of Goldsmith’s paintings, “…we are invited to experience nature’s redemptive power depicted by a skilled priestess, guiding us through…

Born in Alcoy, Spain, on the eastern coast of the country, painter Alfredo Navarro’s seascapes are mesmerizing, capturing the intricate folds of lapping waves, the precise details within the seafoam and the dazzling displays of sunlight across the water. Striving to communicate the methodological and thematic elements of his work, R. Alexander Fine Art in Peachtree Corners, Georgia, has created a book titled The Secret of the Sea: Paintings by Alfredo Navarro, which includes more than 50 original paintings by the artist, as well as interviews and essays, all seeking to highlight the creativity of an artist who paints just one thing: the ocean. “With stunning realism and the ability to reproduce even the most ambitious scenes, Navarro elevates seascapes to the highest aesthetic and technical standards,” says Michelle Hudson,…

Kate Breakey’s latest exhibition, Black Tulips, is a tale of friendship and fauna circling back to 2011, when the Australian artist—based in Tucson, Arizona, since 1999—visited Amsterdam, the tulip capital of the world. There, Breakey was surrounded by flower markets and fields upon fields of tulips. She developed an affinity for black tulips, specifically the Queen of the Night and Black Parrot varieties. Curious about the flower, Breakey decided to study up on the history of Holland’s iconic tulips and became fascinated by “tulip mania,” a period in the Dutch Golden Age when tulips became so expensive that they were treated as currency. After returning home to Tucson, the artist purchased her first bag of Queen of the Night tulip bulbs in 2012 and researched how to grow tulips in…

Artist Fredric Michael Wood is fascinated by nearly everything he sees on a daily basis, allowing for a wide variety of subjects to appear in his work. Sometimes he is inspired by a commanding presence, but often it is the objects that go unnoticed—“simple, humble things that may seem at first glance insignificant until light illuminates them and places them center stage, upstaging all else”—that become the focus. As an impressionist, Wood enjoys paintings things that are in motion or on the cusp of movement. He is “trying to convey action or pending action. Even the traffic of thoughts on parade behind the eyes, and emerging from an expression, will drift into my work if I get it right,” he says. “I am intrigued and fascinated with the energetic flow…

John Cutruzzola’s painting style has evolved over the years, including his bold brushstrokes, and the immediacy of plein air allegoric rendering of the subject has changed as well. Cutruzzolla has worked with a number of artists over the years including his longtime friend, New York artist Don Nice; the late Jack Beal and his wife, Sondra Freckelton; Janet Fish; and Giovanni Federico, who he shared his childhood years with. The artist also worked with Federico for many years in his studio in Rome. “These artists have shaped my style and choice of subjects a great deal. This much-refined technique allows me to better express the inspirations and intent, in a more realistic form,” he says. “I strive for harmony of color while remaining true to the form, the mood and…

Landscape artist Christine Bodnar grew up in Michigan but found herself moving east after college, landing in an area rich in history and abundant in places to explore as a painter. From the nearby coast of the Atlantic Ocean, to dramatic skies over salt marshes, to sandy dunes on Cape Cod, she can always find inspiration in the varying seasonal personalities of this place she calls home. This is likely why landscapes became the focus of her work. Bodnar has worked in pastel since 1998, allowing her to do quick studies on location and then work in a larger format using the studies as reference. She considers these studies to be the essence, as they are done with all her senses aware, in the moment, creating the true intention of…

As I walk into the studio, I’m greeted with an exceptionally high ceiling, austere yet inviting-looking interior design, a giant bookcase full of books and several lights clipped to stands pointed downward at four neat, almost perfectly placed rows of white sheets of paper. On each sheet of paper is a different yet slightly similar looking design made out of what appears to be charcoal. My friend introduces me to the owner of this pristine and intriguing studio and curious charcoal designs. Jesse Draxler is a fine artist based out of Los Angeles. He’s soft spoken and his presence has a calming effect on me. He sees me staring at the rows of paper on the ground and begins speaking. Draxler is articulate and I can immediately tell, profoundly intelligent…

12 APR 2019 LOS ANGELES, CA THE GEFFEN CONTEMPORARY AT MOCA LA Art Book Fair Sister to the NY Art Book Fair, the LA Art Book Fair is one of the top international events for the distribution of artists’ books. Welcoming hundreds of exhibitors from around the world—including a wide variety of artists, small presses, institutions, galleries, antiquarian booksellers and distributors—the event takes place at The Geffen Contemporary at the Museum of Contemporary Art. www.laartbookfair.net Through April 14 20 MAR 2019 ONLINE INTERNATIONAL GUILD OF REALISM Winter Salon Online Juried Exhibition International Guild of Realism’s Winter Salon Online Juried Exhibition presents juried artwork online with up-and-coming art collectors in mind. www.realismguild.com Through May 20 4 APR 2019 PHILADELPHIA, PA 23RD STREET ARMORY Philadelphia Fine Art Fair The first Philadelphia Fine Art Fair is…

Three years ago, Tucson, Arizona-based artists Barbara Grygutis, Steve Kimble and Jeff Timan founded the nonprofit organization SculptureTucson. The goal of the group is to enhance the city through public art projects, community workshops and professional development for three-dimensional artists. In spring 2018, they announced their inaugural SculptureTucson Festival Show & Sale as a way to promote sculptors from around the country. This year’s second edition will take place April 5 through 7 at the Brandi Fenton Memorial Park with more than 60 artists showcasing their works. Kicking off the festivities is the ticketed Patron’s Event, April 5 from 5 to 9 p.m., which allows attendees to meet the participating sculptors and have the chance to view and purchase works before the show opens to the public. Among the artists…

ALEX TOLSTOY McLean, VA, atolstoy@gmail.com www.atolstoyart.com CAVALIER GALLERIES 405 Greenwich Avenue, Greenwich, CT 06830, (203) 869-3664 www.cavaliergalleries.com CHRISTOPHER GERLACH (970) 731-0125 info@christophergerlach.com www.christophergerlach.com EDGEWATER GALLERY (802) 989-7419 info@edgewatergallery-vt.com www.edgewatergallery.co GARVEY|SIMON 547 W. 27th Street New York, NY 10001 (917) 796-2146 www.garveysimon.com LARRY CANNON Santa Clarita, CA (661) 367-4886 cdgplan@pacbell.net www.cannonwc.com MONIQUE CARR moniquecarrfineart@gmail.com www.moniquecarr.com SLOANE MERRILL GALLERY 75 Charles Street, Boston, MA 02114, (617) 227-1775 www.sloanemerrillgallery.com SOMERVILLE MANNING GALLERY Breck’s Mill, 2nd Floor 101 Stone Block Row, Greenville, DE 19807, (302) 652-0271 www.somervillemanning.com TERRY ARROYO MULROONEY (305) 387-5351, (305) 479-3448 terry@terrymulrooney.com www.terrymulrooneystudios.com TRAILSIDE GALLERIES 130 E. Broadway Avenue, Jackson Hole, WY 83001, (307) 733-3186 www.trailsidegalleries.com…

Sculptor Paige Bradley wants to produce art that doesn’t fit one particular mold. She grew up as an only child in a small town in Carmel Valley, California, on a mountain top surrounded by nature but with no connection to people. Her artwork is her link to humanity, she says. Bradley started with drawing as a child and came to realize that the human body was the best way to communicate the human condition. When sculpting, she always has a live model in front of her. “I can create figures from my head quite easily, but the humanity is what I’m after. The surprise,” Bradley says. “That’s really where I find the beauty, and you can only find that with a live model. There’s a sense of order and there’s…

Curt Hoppe was born in Minneapolis in 1950 and settled into a loft in The Bowery on New York’s Lower East Side in 1976. He still lives and works there, part of a vibrant community of artists, musicians and writers. He became known for his photographs and photorealistic paintings of The Bowery and the East End of Long Island as well as for his X-rated caricatures for the sex tabloid Screw. In 1978, his painting Bettie and the Ramones was included in the first Punk Art exhibition in Washington, D.C.. In 1981 he participated in MoMa’s New York/New Wave, curated by Diego Cortez at P.S.1, a landmark exhibition that included such up-and-coming artists as Keith Haring, Jean-Michel Basquiat, Marcia Resnick, Robert Mapplethorpe and Nan Goldin. Hoppe’s 96-by-70-inch portrait of Cortez…

Southern California native Elizabeth McGhee paints in the classical realist tradition with a focus on still lifes and figures. Regardless of the subject matter, her work is often infused with a sense of humor through hidden meanings and visual puns. The majority of her paintings are done using an alla prima technique, and sometimes she includes glazes to add textures and patterns. In 2011 McGhee began her portrait series Mythica, which was inspired by the women of Greek mythology. Today she has completed half of the 80 portraits she set out to paint. “Rather than being illustrative re-creations of myths, each portrait is a psychological character study of mostly overlooked or historically incidental individuals,” explains McGhee. “As a visual storyteller I chose to represent my subjects through a contemporary lens.…

Taking cues and title inspiration from a 1989 poster by the Guerrilla Girls that reads “You’re seeing less than half the picture without the vision of women artists and artists of color,” Half the Picture: A Feminist Look at the Collection at the Brooklyn Museum presents more than 50 artists through an intersectional feminist lens. On view through March 31, the exhibition delves into the last 100 years, highlighting work that was created in response to some of the most crucial social and political moments in the U.S.—from World War I to the civil rights movement and, most recently, the #MeToo movement. “The number of women and artists of color in museums and galleries is better than it was in 1989 when we did the poster, but not anywhere near…

“Emerging artist” takes on a different meaning when an artist begins a painting career after a long and distinguished career in another field. Frances Roosevelt received her Master of Architecture degree at Yale in 1981. She worked for Venturi, Rauch and Scott Brown and eventually headed her own firm from 1996 to 2006 when she turned to painting full time. She says, “After many years of practicing the precise business of architecture, I am happy to be painting the landscapes of South Carolina Lowcountry, and the fields of Chester County, Pennsylvania, where I currently spend most of my time. I like to paint from memory, in a mostly abstract style, with a 3-inch brush. My paintings are informed by my interest in psychology and the evolution of consciousness.” Blue Creek…

Recent Acquisitions A new exhibition at the Palmer Museum of Art showcases a selection of prints by artists whose work relies heavily on representation and storytelling to explore ethnic identity and stereotypes, multicultural histories and personal narratives. Titled Amazing Stories: Recent Acquisitions, the show features such artists as Claudia Bernardi, Squeak Carnwath, Sue Coe, Claudio Dicochea, Leonor Fini, Hung Liu, Jenny Morgan, Mimmo Paladino, Roger Shimomura and Vincent Valdez, among others. The exhibition runs through May 26. Tim Burton Exhibition For the first time in nearly a decade, Tim Burton, known for his whimsical horror and fantasy films, will stage a large-scale installation of his original fine art at the Neon Museum in Las Vegas. The exhibition, which takes advantage of the museum’s open-air exhibition spaces, will be at multiple…

Toward the end of the 18th century in England, Romantic poetry began to emerge as a reaction against Enlightenment. One of the most enduring concepts of the genre is the idea of the sublime, which relates to the heightening of an experience by appealing to one’s emotions. William Wordsworth, one of the earliest proponents of romanticism, was particularly drawn to this notion. He wrote of how a poet he knew would go outside and jot notes about nature; he then wrote a description of what he saw rather than imbuing his poetry with his experience. Wordsworth explained, “He should have left his pencil behind, and gone forth in a meditative spirit; and, on a later day, he should have embodied in verse not all that he had noted but what…

Joseph M.W. Turner (1775-1851), the great English romantic painter, wrote, “My business is to paint what I see, not what I know is there.” Christine Lafuente, who spends winters in her Brooklyn studio and summers painting on the coast of Maine, comments on Turner, “He painted the sea but also the experience of moving atmosphere and moving light. The way he painted his seascapes, the sea and sky become a living, breathing entity. The sea has its own personality; it’s not just static. One day it can be glassy and reflective, and another day it can suck the form out of everything. Some days, with the tides, there’s gesture and movement. In the fog and haze the horizon kind of dissolves. “Turner was trying to make paint express what he…

In 2016 to celebrate the centennial of the U.S. National Park Service, Thomas Paquette planned a small series of paintings featuring the Mississippi National River and Recreation Area, a 72-mile expanse going through the “Twin Cities” of Minneapolis and St. Paul. As he began to paint the area, Paquette’s interest in the river began to grow. He decided to embark on a much larger project, one that included paintings from along the entire 2,320-mile waterway. Thomas Paquette: America’s River Re-Explored is a 45-work traveling exhibition that culminates with a showing at Dubuque Museum of Art in Iowa from April 27 through July 28, after having been on display at Watermark Art Center and Minnesota Maine Art Museum. The paintings not only show the diversity of the terrain along the river,…

Holly Wilson says her work is about “looking for magic and not forgetting to look for the wonder in the simple things in life.” She continues, “I grew up hearing many stories from my mother. I was drawn to those of shape-shifters with the idea of a trickster who wears a mask to hide their identity, birds as messengers and owls as bearers of tragic news. These stories also now run through most of my work…They reference traditional Delaware and Cherokee stories that she told me as a child and symbolize transformation and obfuscation.” The figures in her work, constructed of cigars and sticks and cast in bronze, reference her mother’s stories of the “Stick People” who “would run through the night and call your name; if you went with…

How’s the saying go, “Don’t sweat the small stuff”? Well, if you’re Robert Lange and George Ayers, the small stuff is all you’re sweating leading into Shiny Stuff, their new two-man show opening April 5 at Robert Lange Studios in Charleston, South Carolina. The show will feature a variety of things summed up best by one of Lange’s works: tiny and shiny. Lange’s work will feature wild animals shrunk and placed into silver bowls, as well as works like Bee Strong, which shows a normal-sized honeybee flying with a bear-shaped bottle of honey. “I’ve been painting shiny, reflective objects since senior year of high school when I first began to paint. For me, it was always the second painting that existed inside the reflective surface that was the most interesting,”…

Each of Jeffrey Vaughn’s paintings starts with a photograph. His process, he explains, begins with capturing the moment when light illuminates the subject in just the right way. Considering the artist only uses natural light and primarily paints natural landscapes, flowers and most recently, blossoms, Vaughn must capture these fleeting moments instantaneously. Next, Vaughn goes through the images to select, crop and work the photograph into what he wishes to portray. “Then, I’ll get more and more involved with the actual process—starting with selecting the right colors and applying paint to the canvas,” he says. “Eventually, I become absorbed into the act of painting itself.” Although from far away, Vaughn’s paintings appear heavily based in realism, “It’s not quite in the photorealist tradition as you get closer to the painting,”…

Suzy Smith finds inspiration at almost every turn for her contemporary realistic oil paintings. “Across all my work, my theme is youth and beauty, texture and detail,” she says. “I have always tried to add many layers to a painting, contrasting foreground and background, whether a still life or a nude. And even though I have been concentrating on painting the female figure for the past 10 years, I always return to my roots of painting flowers from my garden, which is where my painting journey began.” Each painting Smith creates starts behind the camera. She takes hundreds of photos regardless of the subject, and from there her future paintings begin to emerge. “If I am lucky I will get one or two exceptional photos of the flower or model,…

Born in San Francisco, Doug Smith’s artwork is a clear nod to the Bay Area Figurative Movement that flourished during his midcentury youth. His pieces suggest the aesthetic of Richard Diebenkorn as well as the reassuring rural imagery of American regionalism. This inspiration and his years as a graphic designer and art director allow Smith to focus on strong organization, color, balance and texture in his paintings. Smith combines the exuberance of abstract expressionism and the arresting intimacy of the realistically familiar. Traditional farmhouses and weathered barns punctuate his vast planes that have his key elements of color, line and texture. The compositions evoke enduring themes of the American West including boundless optimism and wistful nostalgia as well as nature’s randomness and humankind’s ordered domesticity. They suggest the endless agrarian…