Innholdsfortegnelse for November - December 2014 i Fine Art Connoisseur

" [Luca della Robbia's ] love of nature and his sense of art were his only guide, and he produced these lovely reliefs, in which observation and fancy were regulated by classical feeling, in a manner before unknown and scarcely equaled since.For once... the artist was emancipated." -Cosmo Monkhouse (1840-1901)…

Historically, armies have plundered conquered areas for spoils of war, especially land, women, and art. Paradoxically, it was those three things that became driving forces in the life of the American painter Anna Huntington Stanley (1864-1907). Stanley was born in Yellow Springs, Ohio, shortly before the Civil War ended. She was the fourth child of David S. Stanley, a major general in the U.S. Army later awarded the Medal of Honor for his valor. Her mother, Anna Maria Wright Stanley, was the daughter of an assistant surgeon general of the Army. Raised to endure the demands of military life, she would surely have known the Soldier’s Creed, which pledges to treat others with dignity and respect, and which emphasizes loyalty, duty, honor, and courage. By the time she turned 14,…

The city of New Orleans, Louisiana, beckons visitors with promises of good food, good times, and good people, then delivers on those promises. Centered on a crescent-shaped bend in the Mississippi River 110 miles north of the Gulf of Mexico, the Crescent City has always bent itself to accommodate the world changing around it, yet has somehow maintained its own colorful traditions and personality. Despite turnovers in government, wars, outbreaks of yellow fever, and devastating hurricanes, New Orleans and its residents remain resilient. European, Caribbean, and African influences have long made New Orleans an inviting environment for artistry. Visual, performing, and literary artists are able to lose themselves in a place that embraces and encourages them. Indeed, it’s common for newcomers to settle in for the long haul: New Orleans,…

This September, a jolly group of Fine Art Connoisseur readers enjoyed the magazine’s fifth annual Art Cruise, this time around Portugal and Spain. (A full account will appear in our next issue.) As we explored Madrid’s marvelous Museo Nacional del Prado, we admired iconic works by such stars as Velázquez and Goya, and we were particularly delighted to discover Spanish talents not as well-known abroad (for example, Francisco Pradilla and Martín Rico). Alas, the guards told us “no photos,” even as other visitors were clicking away nearby. So I wrote down these “new” artists’ names in the hope that I might later buy postcards or prints on-demand in the shop. But, to my disappointment, only the star works were available there. Although the Prado’s website is content-rich, and although I…

The Hilbert Collection of California Scene Paintings is among the very finest of its kind. Formed from 1992 onward by Mark Hilbert and his wife, Janet, it comprises more than 500 paintings in oil, watercolor, and gouache, and features important works by a variety of artists working in California between 1918 and 1980. Most are representational images of ordinary people experiencing everyday life in California’s cities and countryside, painted by artists who had experienced the same events portrayed. As such, these images are imbued with spontaneity and their subjects are direct, authentic, and at times gripping. By a fortuitous turn of events, the Hilberts’ collecting began when they visited a consignment shop in Palm Springs seeking decorative items for their newly acquired home in the desert. As they had stretched…

Portraiture takes exception to nearly everything that signifies the aesthetics of contemporary art. It stubbornly persists as a compelling art form by announcing the primacy of the artist’s hand and insisting on values that situate the human being as central to a visual narrative. As far as I’m concerned, Burton Silverman (b. 1928) — the radical realist par excellence — is the ideal person to chat with about portraiture and figurative art. He’s been at it for half a century and is a driving force in its revival. THE BIG PICTURE It’s hardly news that portraiture and its allied representational art forms are fashionable again. “Long time coming,” one might say. Perhaps, but like most significant shifts in taste, the re-emergence of representational art has been a process, not an…

If you wrote a screenplay tracing the life path of Stephen Bauman (b. 1980), no one would believe it: A Miami graffiti artist learns the tenets of classical realist painting in Florence, then moves to Sweden to share them with others. Yet that’s just how it happened, and the artworks emanating from his unique journey are well worth admiring. Born in Memphis, Bauman moved to Miami with his family when he was young. He followed his older brother into the world of graffiti, which was infused with the spirit of punk rock and early rap music. Decorating large walls and other surfaces introduced Bauman to the basics of design and drawing, and it’s revealing that, even then, he incorporated such figurative elements as faces and bodies into his creations. Everything…

In time for the holidays comes an attractive new book, Victoria Finlay’s The Brilliant History of Color in Art. Finlay is familiar to art lovers as author of the bestseller Color: A Natural History of the Palette, as well as Jewels: A Secret History. I have known her since 1985, when she was earning a degree in social anthropology and perfecting the inquisitiveness that later led her to Afghanistan’s lapis lazuli mines and cochineal plantations in the Chilean desert. Part journalist, part scholar, Finlay possesses that rare ability to relate compelling stories about people, places, history, and science in a way that is both conversational and instructive. Though The Brilliant History of Color in Art is intended for younger readers and aspiring artists it will actually fascinate almost anyone. Lavishly…

Recently I visited several museums in New England, and was inspired by innovative projects at two specific institutions. I first laid eyes on the Berkshire Museum (Pittsfield, Massachusetts) in 1983, when this town was enduring the collapse of its industrial economy. The past 30 years have witnessed a gradual recovery, and now restoration and construction projects are visible throughout the handsome downtown district. The museum is following suit by celebrating its 110th anniversary with a re-installation, Objectify: A Look into the Permanent Collection. Guest curators Peter Garlington (a local designer) and Leo Nash (a local artist) were challenged to highlight the most significant of the institution’s more than 50,000 artworks, natural specimens, and historical artifacts. They’ve succeeded in calling fresh attention to items that include an Egyptian mummy, Bouguereau’s luminous…

On screen, Federico Castelluccio was no saint. As a lead character on the hit television series The Sopranos, the actor played Furio Giunta, a mobster whose profession is killing people. Off screen, Castelluccio is now doing something saintly, though he has nothing to atone for. He is lending the favorite, and probably most valuable, painting in his personal collection, Saint Sebastian (c. 1632-34) by Giovanni Francesco Barbieri (a.k.a. Guercino, 1599-1666), to the Castello di Miradolo museum near Turin, Italy. There, this life-size, three-quarter view of the Christian martyr, beatific even while bound to a tree, will be featured in the exhibition Saint Sebastian: Beauty and Integrity in Art Between the 15th and 17th Centuries (on view through March 8). “Of course, I’m honored that the painting is going to be…

The courtesan was giving Norton Simon trouble. Yes, he continued to find her alluring, what with the diaphanous bodice she appeared ready to part, the delicate crown of flowers and ivy running through her chestnut hair, and her beckoning gaze. She had been living with the Los Angeles businessman-turned-art collector for four months during 1957, but he was still not committed to her. He kept her in the living room of his Hancock Park home, never failing to take notice of her. But rumors persisted that she had been the creation of Giovanni Cariani around 1509; then it was said she belonged to the young Titian. Still others claimed she was the product of the studios of, alternatively, Rocco Marconi or Bonifazio Veronese, or, worse, some amateur imitator of them.…

Though she would never presume to compare herself with Albert Einstein, the Michigan artist Debra Reid Jenkins (b. 1955) shares with that great scientist something to which she readily admits. He wrote, “I know quite certainly that I myself have no special talent: curiosity, obsession, and dogged endurance, combined with self-criticism, have brought me my ideas.” For Einstein, the desire to know more bordered on the sacred: “Never lose holy curiosity,” he counseled. From the beginning, Jenkins has possessed this hunger, and it flourished while she grew up in a creative family. Her mother, Peggy Reid, introduced her to the local library, where she learned about art and artists through writings by and about them. In fact, she still discusses books with the librarian she met there more than half…

Founded in 1999 by the New Jersey collectors Fred, Sherry, and Kara Lysandra Ross with several of their fellow scholars, the Art Renewal Center (ARC) is a nonprofit educational foundation that encourages the reemergence of traditional art and training techniques. Fortunately, the fruits of its labors are becoming ever more apparent as time goes by. ARC is probably best known to readers of Fine Art Connoisseur for its impressive website (artrenewal.org), which contains more than 80,000 high-resolution images by Old Master, 19th-century, and early-20th-century artists, along with artist biographies and related articles. The site has evolved into an invaluable reference for anyone interested in historical realism, and many readers will recall ARC’s 2010 publication of the handsome two-volume catalogue raisonée devoted to William Bouguereau (1825-1905). Yet ARC is equally committed…

A RT I S TS & G A L L E R I E S Denver November 7-21 Saks Galleries will exhibit more than 30 new paintings by the Moscow-born, Colorado-based husband-and-wife team Olga and Aleksey Ivanov. Best known for their illustrations of over 100 children’s books, the couple’s latest project is the Chair Series, for which they applied their love of art history, symbols, irony, and wit to create “portraits” of diverse chairs. On November 8, they will demonstrate their mastery of egg tempera and gold leaf in the gallery, which has scheduled this show in honor of Denver Arts Week (November 7-15). Information: 3019 East 2nd Avenue, Denver, CO 80206, 303.333.4144, saksgalleries.com Larchmont, New York through November 15 The Mamaroneck Artists Guild Gallery is presenting a retrospective of…