Innholdsfortegnelse for March 2021 i Art & Antiques

THE ARTIST COBIE Russell currently works out of studios in Texas and New Mexico, but her paintings and drawings are heavily influenced by her travels and time spent living around the United States and elsewhere in North America. A central influence on Russell’s serene pieces is the way that light reflects off natural surfaces, and her observation of this phenomenon in a myriad of settings—like off the New England coastline, among the deeply shadowed Sangre de Cristo Mountains in New Mexico, and in the glittering waters of Tulum, Mexico—has greatly informed her work. A selection of new paintings by Russell is on view at the Jean de Merry gallery in Los Angeles through June. These large-scale abstractions feature layers of lines and shapes in a palette dominated by chalky, limestone-like…

WILL HENRY STEVENS (1881–1949), an American artist who was equally at home in Romantic landscape and modernist abstraction, is not particularly well known, even in the Southern U.S., where he spent much of his career. However, he ought to be, and as it happens, viewers now have not one but two opportunities to get acquainted with Stevens’ unusual and very valuable work. Throught April 25, the Huntsville Museum of Art in Alabama is presenting a major exhibition, “Will Henry Stevens: Naturalist/Modernist,” consisting of 54 works from the artist’s estate, and the Morris Museum of Art in Augusta, Ga., has a smaller exhibition—around 15 works from its permanent collection—on view through July 3. After the Huntsville show closes, it will embark on a three-year cross-country tour. Although the landscapes of the…

THE AMERICAN studio craft movement is historically considered an outgrowth of earlier European counterparts, namely the British Arts and Crafts movement. The operations of pioneering figures like Louis Comfort Tiffany, Gustav Stickley, and Elbert and Bertha Crawford Hubbard (founders of the Roycroft movement in East Aurora, N.Y.) were born from the “Adam’s rib” of Arts and Crafts thinkers and artists like John Ruskin and William Morris. Both overseas and in the States, these movements grew in the mechanized shadow of the industrial revolution. Casting the factory-made aside, these craftspeople aimed to create handmade goods that were thoughtful and beautiful. But many of them also saw their output as a revolutionary vision of society, which valued labor, traditional production methods, and the strength of the collective. The trouble with centering American…

In Japan, it is not only a precious object that can be classified as a national treasure, but also a human being. The government has established a category, “Living National Treasure,” for artists whose mastery over their field makes them embodiments of its techniques and traditions. Not only that, but they are considered “preservers of important intangible cultural properties,” capable of transmitting these assets—knowledge that cannot be written down but must be learned first-hand from a master—to the next generation. At any given time, there can only be 58 Living National Treasures, working in the various craft media (wood, ceramics, lacquer, bamboo, etc.) as well as in music, dance, and drama. Among the crafts in which achievement is honored this way is metalwork. With incredibly painstaking attention to detail, Japanese…

IN JANUARY, A 1936 gouache painting by the Belgian cartoonist Hergé (Georges Remi) set the new record for most expensive work of comic book art. The painting, Les Aventures de Tintin reporter en Extrême-Orient: Le Lotus Bleu (The Blue Lotus), edged past its high estimate—and the previous comic-art record of €2.5 million—to sell for nearly €3.2 million at the Paris auction house Artcurial. Hergé created this direct-color cover for the fifth volume of the beloved French comic The Adventures of Tintin. In the 1936 comic, the intrepid boy reporter Tintin and his faithful white Wire Fox Terrier, Snowy, venture to China during the Japanese occupation. This art was never used, however, as Casterman, the comic’s publisher, found it too expensive to reproduce using the four-color printing technique—a detail that adds…

The Kelmscott Press was the passion project of the pioneering Arts and Crafts designer, writer, and socialist activist William Morris (1834–96). Based in Hammersmith, London, Morris’ “typographical adventure,” as he called it, was named for Kelmscott Manor, the 16th-century Cotswolds country house where he lived during the last 25 years of his life. For Morris, the publishing of finely printed and illustrated books was a way of bringing medieval-inspired ideals of craftsmanship into the modern age. Appropriately, then, the most famous and ambitious book printed by the Kelmscott Press was The Complete Works of Geoffrey Chaucer Now Newly Imprinted, or, as it is generally known, the Kelmscott Chaucer. Issued in 1896, the last year of Morris’ life, the Kelmscott Chaucer is a historic landmark in the art of book making.…

A HUB FOR contemporary art in Atlanta for more than three decades, TEW Galleries has recently expanded its purview to include photography. Over the past year, the gallery has incorporated the medium into its programming, first through the expansive landscapes and architectural interiors of David Burdeny and now through the cinematic work of the German-born, London-based photographer Julia Fullerton-Batten. “Introducing Julia Fullerton-Batten,” which ran at the gallery through late February, featured a swath of work from the last decade. It showcased the photographer’s unique heavily lit, meticulously orchestrated style, which can appear so hyperreal it almost becomes surreal. Heavily featured was the 2020 series Looking Out from Within, which Fullerton-Batten began after the initial lockdown due to Covid-19. The artist found subjects in her West London neighbor-hood via social media…

THE ST. LOUIS-BASED Selkirk Auctioneers & Appraisers is slated to hold its Spring Gallery Auction on April 17. The auction house, which will begin its in-house preview of the sale on April 12, is highlighting the collection of Lucy and Stanley Lopata. The Lopatas were St. Louis philanthropists, educators, and art collectors with a passion for enamel works. Through personal gifts and their Lopata Endowment Fund, the couple placed rare enamels in exhibitions and permanent collections at the Saint Louis Art Museum, the Smithsonian, the Met, and other institutions. The pieces come on the block through descent. The category most richly represented is French Limoges enamels ranging in period from the Renaissance to Napoleon III. Limoges enamels were made using the champlevé technique, in which vitreous enamel was applied on…

GALLERY 1202 of Gilroy, Calif., is currently showing “Linda Frueh: Echoes & Traces,” an exhibition that highlights the recent encaustic paintings of the San Diego-based artist, through April 20. A former scientist, Frueh creates labor-intensive, layered works that play with texture and surface and blur the line between abstraction and representation. Highlights of the show include Dragon Print (2020), an encaustic on wood panel in glossy black. Its raised forms roil below the work’s surface as if under a layer of lava or oil. In Borderland Diptych (encaustic on wood panel), another standout, Frueh also explores the evocative possibilities of black. But in this pair of works, the artist’s surfaces are intricately marked with a dense, almost grid-like pattern. This raised texture recalls animal skin and feels more the work…

THE BROTHERS Charles and Jackson Pollock are in many ways—though not all ways—a study in contrasts. Jackson was a world-famous artist, perhaps the most famous American artist of the 20th century. Charles, older by 10 years, was decidedly not, his work little known even now despite its high quality. Jackson was depressed and self-destructive, dying in a drunk-driving accident at the age of 44. Charles was sane and steady and lived to be 86. Now, for the first time ever, the works of the two brothers will shown together, in an exhibition at The Society of the Four Arts in Palm Beach, Fla., “Charles and Jackson Pollock,” on view through March 28. Of necessity, the exhibition features far more works by Charles than by Jackson. That is perfectly all right,…

ONE OF THE most important and impressive collections of Asian art is touring the U.S. for the first time in 20 years. Over a 30-year period, John D. Rockefeller 3d and his wife, Blanchette Hooker Rockefeller, acquired works from East, South, and Southeast Asia, spanning the Neolithic to the 20th century. As a philanthropist in many fields, Rockefeller was not content simply to possess Asian art, and therefore from time to time exhibited pieces from the collection at Asia Society, New York, which he had founded in 1956 to promote knowledge of Asian cultures. Starting on March 6, the New Orleans Museum of Art is presenting an exhibition titled “Buddha and Shiva, Dragon and Lotus: Masterworks from the Mr. and Mrs. John D. Rockefeller 3d Collection at Asia Society,” featuring…

When the SS Normandie entered service in 1935, the ocean liner was peerless. In fact, the contract between the French Line and the government stated that the ship “had to be not less than equal to the best foreign ship in commission or under contract.” These stipulations led to the ship’s unrivaled size (longer than the Eiffel Tower is tall, said the press at the time), tonnage (double the amount of any other liner), and lavish Art Deco interiors. Author Ludwig Bemelmans, who sailed on the maiden voyage, wrote that “she leaned to excesses in her décor—there was something of the fatal woman.” Among its beautiful excesses were 20-foot-tall murals designed by the French painter and designer Jean Dupas and executed by Jean-Charles Champigneulle using the reverse-painting and gilding technique…

HANS JAKOB SCHMID, an employee of the Swiss printing firm Orell Gessner Füssli, invented the Photochrom (or photochrome) process in 1885. A variant of chromolithography, the process made it possible to produce colorized images from black-and-white photographic negatives. At the 1889 World Exposition in Paris, a suite of full-color Photochroms caused a sensation—the public had only ever seen photographs in black-and-white. The vivid prints ended up winning a gold medal at the fair. Throughout the 1890s the Photochrom grew in popularity, as true color photography was in development but not commercially practical yet. During that period, the Photochrom process was licensed to several international companies. One of them was the Detroit Photographic Company, which distributed the European Photochroms and acquired exclusive North America Photochrom printing rights in 1898. That year,…

NEW YORK’S Ippodo Gallery opens “Painting Radiance: Light and Nature in the Art of Daisuke Nakano” on March 18. The Kyoto-born Nakano has dedicated his practice to the art of Nihonga, a traditional painting style that emerged in Japan prior to and during the Edo period (1615–1868). Merging the time honored techniques and themes of Nihonga with his contemporary vision, Nakano explores the union of past and present, humanity and nature, and life and death. The artist’s sweeping paintings, like the recent Blessed in Illumination, portray scenes of birds, animals, and plants in a relatively flat perspective against gold or silver backgrounds. Nakano uses hand-mixed, powdered mineral pigments and a solution of natural glue made of deer collagen on canvas or screen to create an engrossing matte effect. Patient and…

“COLD MOUNTAIN Observatory,” an exhibition of recent paintings by David A. Dreyer, opens at Valley House Gallery & Sculpture Garden in Dallas on March 6. The elegant , abstract works are inspired by the writings of the Tang Dynasty Chinese poet Hanshan, known as the Cold Mountain poet. In a passage particularly inspiring to Dreyer, Hanshan wrote, “Spring—water in the green creek is clear/Moonlight on Cold Mountain is white/Silent knowledge—the spirit is enlightened of itself/Contemplate the void: this world exceeds stillness.” Dreyer draws inspiration from stillness, too—both in nature and in his studio. He says, “My process is organic, evolving through moments of insightful meditation that fuel curiosity and reveal discoveries with uncertain predictability.” His observations—like those of the vast landscapes and skies of Texas and New Mexico—form the basis…

IN THE FIELD of modern design, furniture gets all the glory, but what generates the light by which we see it? No domestic room or office space is complete or even viable without lighting, and starting immediately after World War I, designers were no longer satisfied with the ornate and precious fixtures favored during the previous decades, such as Tiffany’s stained-glass lamps. The new lighting was streamlined, frank about its industrial origins, and focused on utility, with strategically swiveling solutions that could point the light wherever it was needed. Not that function led to form being neglected—whether minimalistically elegant or imaginatively extravagant, modern lighting sheds more than one kind of glow. The full range of creativity in lighting design over the past hundred years or so is now on view…

While New York is without doubt the center of the American art world, Chicago has long had a lively art scene all its own, often cheerfully indifferent to the preoccupations of the East and West Coasts. The School of the Art Institute of Chicago in particular has been an incubator of creativity, from the academic realist painters of the late 19th century to the Monster Roster, the Hairy Who, and the Chicago Imagists of the mid- to late 20th. One of its students, William Samuel Schwartz, became a well-known figure in the Chicago art world from the 1920s through the 1970s, producing works influenced by a wide variety of styles, from Neo-Impressionism to Fauvism, American Scene Painting, and Surrealism. Schwartz, a strong and eccentric personality, often combined elements from several…

WITH THEIR BIRDS, stars, ballerinas, and actresses imprisoned forever in glass vitrines, Joseph Cornell’s shadow-boxes are the essence of enchantment. Their efficacy depends on romantic yearning, the capacity to perceive magic in ordinary or even neglected things, and the need to create a world of beauty in the face of ugliness and alienation. Cornell’s work has often been cast as opposed to modernism or insufficiently modern—which makes sense if one takes it for granted that modernism’s mission is to break with the past and destroy illusions. If one equates modernism with rationalism and austerity, then certainly Cornell doesn’t belong with the modernists. But was he really a throwback or an isolated eccentric, as many have claimed? Marci Kwon, a professor of art history at Stanford, says no. In her book…