Innholdsfortegnelse for June 2025/No. 236 i American Art Collector

Welcome to the June issue of American Art Collector—summer is finally here! The birds, the boats, the begonias, all collectable in any medium and especially gorgeous in pastels. We are celebrating pastel artists this month with a special Collector’s Focus starting on Page 72. You will be blown away by the talent of these artists. We invite you to welcome pastels into your collection. Marine and coastline subject matter are more than a regional genre. Even in Arizona you would be surprised how much we see marine, seaside and coastline art as part of a top collection. The warmth and romance of the beach, and the experience of boating on a hot summer day evokes emotion in all of us when viewing these scenes. Beginning on Page 82, you can…

Unveiling showcases a recently completed portrait commission or figurative work by today’s leading artists. This month, Kimberly Azzarito, assistant director of the Portrait Society, interviewed Sharon Sprung about her commission of Judge Rolando Acosta, presiding justice of the Supreme Court of New York State Appellate Division, First Judicial Department, from 2017 to 2023. When artist Sharon Sprung was approached by Judge Rolando Acosta and his wife, Vasthi Reyes Acosta, to paint his official portrait upon his retirement, Sprung knew this project would require a deep understanding of his journey, values and the prestigious institution he served. Judge Acosta’s dedication to the law and public service has been a defining force throughout his career. Serving as the presiding justice of the Supreme Court of the State of New York State, Appellate…

The Great Lakes Region refers to the area around Lake Superior, Lake Michigan, Lake Huron, Lake Erie and Lake Ontario, whose surfaces total 95,000 square miles to form the largest surface freshwater system on Earth. The region encompasses parts of Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Minnesota, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin—a huge swath of the Mid-west and beyond, defined by busy urban centers and scenic getaways. We’ve put together a few highlights of the region with the art enthusiast in mind, beginning with the Art Coast of Michigan, which you’ll read more about in the following pages. Two hours north of Chicago and three hours west of Detroit, tucked along the eastern shore of Lake Michigan, lie the charming towns of Saugatuck and Douglas, the creative heart of the Art Coast.…

A cinematic sense of drama, often with a whiff of scandal, pervades British artist Alex Russell Flint’s paintings. Highly narrative in nature, the questions they summon come fast and furious. Is the supine woman’s dress going to go up in flames from the cigarette about to fall from her fingertips? Is the lifeless woman with an old-fashioned phone limply hanging from its cord, dead? The juxtaposition of elegant women who seem like they have lost the will to resist submission, with sinister details—bandaged wrists, a drip of blood trickling down from a scraped knee, a balled-up bloodied tissue—heightens the effect. “I like mixing the elegant with the mundane because it creates a bit of friction—it makes the viewer stop and look again,” says Russell Flint. Referring to his new works…

In roughly 15 new pieces, Jenna Von Benedikt showcases the wildlife subject matter she’s most known for, depicted alongside abstracted elements. In many of the paintings in her solo exhibition at Gallery Wild in Jackson, Wyoming, titled Transcendent Beauty, the artist focuses on hummingbirds as an extension of her Birds, Beasts & Bugs series. “Each show in Jackson is a chance to celebrate another season of colorful life and majesty that the region offers,” says Von Benedikt. “I focus on my little hummingbird gems with their spiritual beauty and energy, with more focus on flight and interactions between their charming groups and other subjects instead of singular birds this time.” Von Benedikt adds that she’s also revisiting her Off-Grid bison series, seen in pieces like Meeting Destiny. “Part of Gallery…

“I wanted to hold a space open…where tradition might speak alongside new visions; where cultural myths, personal icons and unexpected juxtapositions can coexist,” says gallerist Ryan Graff of an upcoming exhibition he has curated around the theme of symbolism. Featuring an international selection of artists, “the show offers a constellation of works that move between the sacred and the secular, the timeless and the right-now—each piece a doorway into a deeper symbolic language waiting to be re-learned.” Among the featured artists is Rim Baudey, who will be showing an oil and graphite piece that brings together fragments suggestive of photographs. Now living in France, Baudey’s The Fog that Holds my Yesterdays draws from her memories growing up in a small industrial city in Kazakhstan under challenging circumstances. It is part…

Mitchell Johnson has been painting for 45 years and has more than 35 paintings in museum collections in the United States and Europe. His work incorporates imagery but it is ultimately abstract. The the colors and shapes are the focus, not an allegory, sense of place or concern for three dimensionality. The artist says, “The way I work has been best described by Chris Busa of Provincetown Arts: ‘If many of Johnson’s paintings are titled after the places that inspired them, no such places actually exist. Each one is a collage of compressed intimacies spread out over the months it takes to paint them. He has done what Edwin Dickinson called 'Premier Coup,' in which a painting is completed outdoors in one blow. Yet his typical practice is to hold…

Artist Peter Swift’s goal is to create laconic, resonant symmetries that have a universal appeal. He starts with simple objects that we use every day, but we rarely even notice. For example, a carrot. “If I had done a painting of just one carrot, it would have been a standard realistic still life painting,” Swift explains. “Instead, I painted eight carrots—in a circle. Now the painting is something completely different. The painting has become a mandala of the mundane, almost a sacred object, a hymn to ordinary life.” He continues, “Symmetry is a fundamental, underlying principle in art. However, over the past century, symmetry has been a factor, for the most part, only in abstract art, such as the work of Josef Albers and Frank Stella.” Swift’s work combines both…

I live in a tiny artsy town in Northern Arizona with a population of 450. The most special part of living here is the tight-knit community (the views aren’t too shabby either). And it’s more than a community of my peers—it’s an intergenerational one. I mingle with 20-year-olds and regularly dine with a man in his 90s (we think), who won’t reveal his true age or the origin of his nickname “Star,” saying he can’t give away all his secrets. In the younger people, I appreciate their energy, devil-may-care attitudes and bold self-expression. When I spend time with my older friends, I’m enraptured by their stories of adventurous lives in a time when the world was a different place. I lap up the wisdom and perspective that only comes with…

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After presenting their signature event at museums throughout Orange County, the California Art Club is returning to Los Angeles County for its 114th Annual Gold Medal Exhibition. The show, hosted by VEFA Gallery in Torrance, California, will feature more than 160 fresh paintings and sculptures by the club’s most esteemed members. The 2025 exhibition will offer the public an un-themed, diverse selection of artworks, created by some of the best emerging and renowned representational artists of today. “Honoring the legacy of the founders of the century-old art organization, who inspired the California impressionism movement, the exhibiting artists employ classical fine art techniques to create their Gold Medal artwork, incorporating stylistic innovations to capture their personal experiences, interests and surroundings,” says a club representative. “As a result, the Gold Medal Exhibition…

Opening in mid-July at Blue Rain Gallery, is the joint show of glass works by husband-and-wife artists Kelly O’Dell and Raven Skyriver. They both draw inspiration from the natural world—“reflecting the interconnectedness of species and ecosystems, and humanity’s place within them,” says Leah Garcia, the gallery’s marketing director. Working in close proximity, the artists greatly influence each other, yet O’Dell’s focus is on themes of the past and the concept of permanence, while Skyriver is more concerned with the present—a moment in time. “My work is always an exploration of the natural world,” Skyriver echoes. “I often revisit forms that I have made before, and try to present them in a different context or with a new color variation. My work is mostly based off marine life, and the fluid…

Biographies of Lance Myers reveal that he has been a professional artist, writer and animator for 25 years, with his animation appearing in feature films like Space Jam, Anastasia, Quest for Camelot, Prince of Egypt and Richard Linklater’s A Scanner Darkly. He has published essays, and has written and directed short subject films for HBO, MTV, Adult Swim and PBS. They don’t always mention his being a founder and frontman for the band Gals Panic, that sometimes practiced in a flower shop, and that he picks up odd bugs when walking his dog. Rachel Stephens, partner at Wally Workman Gallery in Austin, Texas, comments, “Lance Myers’ work evokes the Flemish flower paintings of the 17th and 18th centuries, embracing the hedonistic lushness of the natural world and creating an atmosphere…

Starting at the end of May, Blue Rain Gallery will host a solo show of new oil paintings by Eric Romero, titled ¿Yo Soy!. Pairing classical techniques with contemporary storytelling, Romero creates works that reflect the unique identities of the Southwest—a blend of bold color and metaphorical imagery. “My work emerges from the New Mexican experience, deeply rooted in the land, memory and cultural symbolism that shape our everyday lives,” says the artist. “I paint the icons that our communities hold sacred: La Virgen de Guadalupe, lowriders, farming and our matriarchs that shape our existence, not as static symbols, but as living representations of identity, resilience and community. Revealing humanity within these cultural markers, exploring their emotional complexity and historical weight.” ¿Yo Soy! will take place at Blue Rain Gallery’s…

Rukiye Garip is inspired by the natural world. Working primarily in watercolor, the artist captures intimate moments in nature, from little river rocks in a pool of clear water, to the first fallen leaves of autumn, to salmon making ripples in a pond. “My paintings are inspired by both soothing and provocative aspects of nature. Tranquil elements such as still transparent water, soft sand, moss [and] autumn leaves give me a sense of happiness and peace, while the dynamism of bare rocks, steep slopes and thermal movements evoke an exciting sense of movement, energy, exhilaration and wonder,” she says. “When juxtaposed with the robotic, artificial and exhausting aspects of city life, I want to remind people of this stimulating quality of nature.” Garip adds that it is extremely important to…

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Wayne Thiebaud (1920-2021) wrote, “I believe very much in the tradition that art comes from art and nothing else. Art for me simply means doing something extra-ordinarily well. And doing it in such a way that it becomes rare, a tremendous achievement and a human experience symbolically reduced to an essential prime number or example.” We’re all familiar with his “revelatory paintings that depicted a quintessentially American cornucopia of delectable—or dubious—diner and delicatessen foods,” writes Timothy Anglin Burgard, senior curator at the Fine Art Museums of San Francisco. “His abstracted renderings, often mistaken for realism, transformed his prosaic subjects into poetic visions that mingle the sociological with the surreal.” Burgard is curator of the exhibition Wayne Thiebaud: Art Comes from Art which will be shown at the Legion of Honor…

The highly-pigmented medium known as pastel is known for its vibrancy as well as its tactile application, as it allows an artist to draw, smudge and brush with the hand itself. The intimacy creates underlying connection with an artist and a pastel piece that can be perceived by a viewer or collector. Often, an artist will combine pastel with paint. Take for example, renowned modernist painter Arthur Dove (1880-1946). “One of the first American artists to abandon imitative representation, Arthur Dove created oil and pastel compositions in which dynamic shapes, lines and colors evoke the essence—rather than the outward appearance—of natural forms,” according to the Terra Foundation for American Art collection handbook, Conversations with the Collection. The handbook continues, “Among the first abstract artworks ever exhibited in the United States,…

On June 1, RJD Gallery will present a new solo show titled Daniela Werneck and the Lightness of Being featuring the work of Werneck, a Brazilian painter who is now based in Texas. Her work, all done in rich and sumptuous watercolor applied in both wet and dry techniques, features women subjects surrounded by texture, light and lace. The pieces are meant to invoke happiness and peace, and are a direct response to a trying period in Werneck’s life. “I went back to my past, to when I was young, to paint things that I like, things that are romantic. My paints are meant to show love within our lives that are often very hard,” Werneck says. “I don’t want to paint heavy or bad things. I want calm and…

Geoffrey Gersten’s fascination with 1950s Americana is in full swing with his upcoming solo show at Altamira Fine Art. In his latest body of work, the oil painter presents still lifes of objects like old Mickey and Minnie Mouse bottle caps, Pony Express and Boss Lady matchbooks, Big Boy memorabilia and more. His art holds a magnifying glass to the little things that define mid-century American culture. “For me, everything about the Americana setting is so magical. The funny carpet, the hilariously colored kitchen appliances, it’s all so fascinating,” says Gersten. When beginning a new body of work, the artist tries to imagine himself truly living in these time periods, taking in what it might have felt like. “I’ve been having so much fun collecting these little matchbooks and opening…

Many artists say they are driven by a desire to capture light—that light is truly what they’re painting, what they’re chasing after. David Dunlop is no different in that regard, but his “quest for radiance” (the title of his June show at Susan Powell Fine Art) goes beyond mere light. He wants his paintings to be dynamically alive, and to provide an experience as close to how we visually perceive the world around us as possible. “Among my motivations is the desire to give myself and any observer a memory experience filled with motion and emotion,” says Dunlop. “What is it like to look at reflections on water? What is it like to look at things that are floating on the water and beneath the water? How do I get…

“Maine and New England are rich with an abundance of unique, eye-catching coastal and inland scenes, many with a historical significance,” says artist Janis Sanders. “Over the course of a short day-trip, or during an extended stay at the coast, dozens of such scenes reveal themselves along the way. I’m captivated by the way light glances on green forests and grassy pastures; bounces on undulating ocean waters; how it lands gently on weathered fishing shacks, or in the nooks and crannies of more elaborate dormered structures, casting long rich dark shadows as the sun moves in its path across the sky.” Sanders continues, “In this myriad of immeasurable moments, sometimes just a split-second glimpse of intense light on an object, sometimes a full-stop to observe and absorb that moment, I…

Dirk Freder is a self-taught artist from Germany who, from an early age, had the passion to convert what he saw in nature into pictures as realistic as possible. Mostly he paints animals in all their diversity and beauty, but also portraits of people—the appeal is always to bring something to life on the painting surface. “The motifs arise from the spontaneous moment when observing animals in nature or zoos where, as an ambitious photographer, I create all references myself,” explains Freder. “With portraits, I also like to let the model act spontaneously and then pick out the most interesting one from the results.” He paints in pastel, acrylic and oil, and is always interested in testing and refining new techniques to perfectly reproduce the detailed textures and rich colors…

1 Collector falls in love with a piece by James Guçwa at Xanadu Gallery in Scottsdale An art collector had been admiring the vintage neon sign paintings of James Guçwa displayed in Scottsdale, Arizona’s Xanadu Gallery for some time. “I love his work,” he told gallery director Kristin Reilly. But when he spotted a painting of the old Cart restaurant and lounge from Rockport, Illinois, he had to have it. “I can’t believe it,” he exclaimed. “My father was a musician, and his quartet played at the Cart.” The buyer of The CART says, “James Guçwa created a beautiful painting, which captures the true beauty and ambience of the sign and the surroundings perfectly.” 2 John Meister painting sells out of Legacy Gallery a week after appearing in American Art Collector New…