Innholdsfortegnelse for June 2020 i American Art Collector

“I knew at 5 years old that I wanted to be an artist,” said Daniel E. Greene. “All through my childhood I loved to draw and was comparatively skilled. When I was 18, I embarked full time on the lifelong journey of being an artist and began my immersion in the fascination of painting.” Anxious to begin his career as an artist, Greene left high school in his senior year, moved to Miami, Florida, and found a job sketching portraits for tourists for $5 and $10 a piece. After saving enough money, he set out for New York City to enroll at the Art Students League, where he would learn and grow as an artist and eventually become a teacher. In the beginning of his career, Greene faced many of…

Mauricio González came to the U.S. from Colombia 25 years ago. With a successful career in advertising, he has gained extensive experience in art direction, brand strategy and statistical analysis. This skillset was fundamental when he started building a collection that now contains over 350 paintings and other works. He has applied the same “passion and knowledge discipline” he has in his career to his pursuit of artists. “In advertising, you need to understand the product, the competition and the marketplace,” he explains. “In the art world, it is important to understand an artist’s multiyear performance, his or her ranking among peers, consistency across contests, rising trends and more. “I love art but I wanted to make sure I was choosing from among the great artists,” he continues. “To that…

Growing up on the south shore of Boston, my brother and I developed a love for all things nautical from the lobster boats, dories and pleasure craft of our own time to the thriving shipbuilding hub of the 17th to 19th centuries. The North River winds for 12 miles through several south shore towns and was the home to 24 shipyards that built over 1,000 ships during that period. We took a dingy with an outboard up the river to discover the remains of the site where the ship Columbia was built in 1773. The Columbia was the first American ship to circumnavigate the globe and its name was given to the Columbia River in the Pacific Northwest. A historical marker is the only reminder on the bank of the…

Looking at artist David Dunlop’s body of work, one will instantly notice his fascination with the outdoors—both urban and rural—as his pieces range from impactful cityscapes to quiet waterways and meadows. Delving into the artwork further, the viewer will soon recognize that even though disparate in imagery, the concept behind the paintings is the same: to capture the luminosity and movement of a place. This motif will be on full view in his new exhibition, Luminous Adventures, at Susan Powell Fine Art in Madison, Connecticut, this summer. “The common theme is reflections, translucency and luminosity,” Dunlop says, adding that he captures this through the atmosphere and surfaces in the paintings. For instance, it’s found in light bouncing off wet city streets or the mirror-like surfaces of a river, and then…

Husband-and-wife artists Aydemir Saidov and Marina Marina turn to the figure to capture intimate moments of life. Working closely, they often influence and learn from each other, but their artwork is distinctive to their artistic voices and brushstrokes. This summer, Lotton Gallery in Chicago will present a new exhibition featuring their work. For Marina, her new pieces focus on a new model, which allows her to take a new journey with the artwork. “I am exploring my models like someone would explore an uninhabited island looking for hidden treasures,” she says. “In the Lotton exhibition, I wanted to hide the environment in the twilight and light up the nightlight to catch an unexpected, casual and intense look of this mystery that is called woman.” To start each work, Marina will…

In the late 1980s, artist Stephen Jesic found he was captivated by the colors and vibrancy of Australian birds and added them to his oeuvre of still lifes and landscapes. Working in a traditional realistic style, Jesic paints with a high degree of detail right down to the feathers and found a need to transition to acrylics so he could obtain faster drying times to rework intricate components. Within a few years wildlife became his primary subject and acrylic his go-to medium. “By the late ’80s I worked solely in acrylics developing my painting technique to a point now where my hand, eye, color mixing and application of paint are seamless: That is, I don’t have to consciously think about the color and application of paint onto the board,” says…

When Randall W. L. Mooers discovered “the quintessential bunch of grapes” at the market, he was reminded of a painting that has always inspired him-a still life of a hanging pheasant by the French painter Jean-Baptiste-Siméon Chardin (1699-1779). Mooers studied at the Art Students League and at the National Academy and developed an admiration for the 17th-century Dutch masters, still life innovators such as Chardin, Cézanne and Morandi, and contemporary masters of hyperrealist still lifes. Chardin was a modest painter who bucked the grandiose painting traditions of his time by painting simple genre scenes and still lifes of everyday objects. Denis Diderot (1713-1784), the French philosopher and art critic, wrote, “We stop in front of a Chardin as if by instinct, like a traveler weary of the road choosing, almost…

When we think of Atlantic coastal scenes, we think of Maine, the Jersey Shore, Miami—seldom connecting these disparate shores to the continuous eastern coastline of North America, which is over 2,000 miles long. Descriptions of the 110-foot-high Otter Cliffs in Maine’s Acadia National Park are often described as “one of the tallest headlands north of Rio de Janeiro.” That’s one long coastline. Joel Babb’s Otter Cliffs, Mt. Desert Island, Maine (from North) shows the sheer cliffs on a calm day, ready to withstand the buffeting of the surf. At its base are rounded rocks, their edges softened by years of wave action. Babb now lives in Maine, having been born in Georgia, raised in Nebraska and having taught for over 20 years at the School of the Museum of Fine…

As people quieted and headed indoors during the global health crisis, the world outside was still stirring. Wildlife and nature awoke from the winter hibernation and brought forth new life, as it does season to season, year after year. In the new exhibition While We Were Still…Flowers Bloomed, Turner Fine Art in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, will pay tribute to the bountiful blossoms. Participating in the show are gallery owner and artist Kathryn Mapes Turner, Sherrie McGraw, Quang Ho, Kathy Anderson, Daniel J. Keys, Kathleen Speranza, Eric Jacobsen, Stephanie Birdsall, Scott Conary, Shanna Kunz, John Felsing, Adrienne Stein and Paul Rhymer. The gallery explains, “[F]or the months that we were all quarantined, these artists worked in their respective studios to paint images of flowers as symbols of health, vitality and hope.”…

“My paintings are evolving, as we all are. I have always explored the unknown, played with the mystery of creation, yet lately I find myself unveiling even more in my art,” says mixed media artist Britten. Each painting begins with a layer of gesso followed by a water-based layer, giving her works their texture. Other materials like gold, silver and copper leaf, as well as oil paint and resin, add a luminous quality. “Rather than look at something and paint it, I translate something I feel into an image. I see that I paint a view of life from the inside out. Internally ignited, shapes and forms have dynamic presence and colors reflect a hypersensitive spectrum,” says the artist, who is inspired by incandescence, luminosity and radiance. “From this internal…

In Michele Ann Murtaugh’s figurative narrative paintings, her subjects address the current condition of human intimacy, the desire of it and the lack of it. She combines realist human form with surrealistic atmospheric nuances to give the viewer the feeling of being in the subconscious. Her large scale oil paintings combine delicate, refined and crude brush work to intensify the psychological contradiction of surrender with immediacy and impatience. Her subjects are often nude or costumed in inorganic fantastic materials. They can be found masked or uncomfortably gazing back at the viewer. The paintings mirror our beautiful yet imperfect attempt to connect and be accepted. Her paintings are available from fine art commercial galleries and on exhibit in museums worldwide. Follow her on Instagram @michelemurtaughart and at Artsy.…

Chilean artist Guillermo Lorca’s Bird of Paradise was created for a past solo exhibition at Asprey in London. As in his other works, the women in this painting dominate the situation despite a hostile environment. He says, “What interests me most apart from the technical processes of painting is that the symbols interact with each other in such a way that they reach the point of insinuating feelings and producing contradictions just and necessary to touch the viewer’s sensitive fibers.”…

Norwegian artist Tor-Arne Moen’s artwork is a reminder of the past. In his imagery, it is through recollections of family life and coming-of-age stories. In the creation of the work, it is the use of the classic medium oil-egg tempera. The combination of the two enhances the aesthetic, with the medium lending itself nicely to the old-time flair that the works conjure. At the heart of Moen’s art is the storytelling, which comes alive on the canvases through casts of characters that are emotional and nostalgic. Yet, these are not the only stories that Moen tells. His lifelong fascination with the narrative has led him to writing, photography and even filmmaking, which all inform his artwork. Then, there is the influence of outside sources as well. “For me, the practice…

The Midwestern states are among the most diverse in this country, with many of them having specialized art regions that beckon visitors from all over the world. There are the large metropolises—such as Chicago, Indianapolis, Detroit and Kansas City—that have arts districts, museums and countless galleries and events. There are also the bucolic towns that have found their niche by hosting plein air festivals or building artist communities that have thrived for decades. No matter where you’re headed in one of the 12 states, there’s something to explore and satisfy your collecting needs. Chicago has long been one of the major art hubs in the Midwest, if not the entire country. It has art districts and an internatioanl museum scene, including the must-visit Art Institute of Chicago and Museum of…

Growing up on a lake in rural southeast Wisconsin in the ’50s, Lynn Rix has always loved the invigorating experience of painting the constantly changing wonders of the world around her. She finds painting outdoors far more inspiring and invigorating than painting in the studio, a large reason why the artist is primarily a plein air painter. “The smells, the sounds, the images, the feelings of wind or sun or humidity or cold on my skin; I am using four of my five senses while painting. When I am standing in front of my canvas, the rest of the world goes away,” says Rix. She continues, “Wisconsin’s four unique seasons give me endless inspiration. Spring and summer when the fields are full of life, the gardens are in full bloom…