Fine Art Connoisseur Nov/Dec 2018

It’s November 1. In a few days, I will fly to Miami to host the second FigurativeArt Convention & Expo (FACE, November 7–10). I could not be more excited. Even if you are unable to join us this month, you — as a reader of Fine Art Connoisseur — are automatically part of the extraordinary blossoming of contemporary figurative art today, and, for that, I thank you. There are lots of people who don’t have the opportunity to study in an atelier. They have careers or families and can’t take a few years off, yet they would be thrilled to study under some of the masters we’re gathering in Miami. We’ve hand-picked terrific teachers, ones who are encouraging and inspiring. FACE is so much better than a workshop. It’s like…

This summer I stumbled upon a book that got me thinking about why some younger folks I admire do not collect original art. Its title is No Thanks Mom: The Top Ten  Objects Your Kids Do NOT Want (and What to Do with Them), and it was published last year by the certified appraiser Elizabeth Stewart, Ph.D. The premise, as you may have guessed, is that Stewart has learned the hard way that millennials (those born between 1981 and 1997) minimize their household decorations to an unprecedented degree. Oh, except that the next younger generation — whatever we call them now — wants even fewer household possessions! With humor and citations, Stewart explores the complex reasons behind this situation and explains what older folks should consider as they start downsizing…

Clark Hulings (1922–2011) looked for donkeys wherever he was painting. He would watch them in the American Southwest near his Santa Fe home, traversing pathways in Spain, and — with this work — in the streets of a small Sicilian village. On the Italian island with his wife and daughter in 1978, it was near the end of the day when Hulings spotted a man of a certain age astride a donkey, a blue box secured to the animal’s hindquarters. While the resulting oil painting on canvas is diminutive in size, it is a full-scale example of Hulings’s art. “This work is classic Clark Hulings,” says Gillian Blitch, director of Western art for the Gerald Peters Gallery and the Santa Fe Art Auction, which is featuring it in its November…

America has its own version of the Roman ruins of the Baths of Caracalla. Visitors to San Francisco’s Lands End area can gaze onto a series of concrete ruins that include seawater-washed stairwells, truncated passageways, and a tunnel. All may appear ancient, yet they actually date from 1896, when the Sutro Baths became the largest indoor swimming facility in the world — a prestigious destination that San Franciscans of all classes and ages could visit via the cable cars that ran seven miles from downtown to the western headlands facing the Pacific Ocean. Once there they found three acres encompassing seven pools equipped with slides, swings, and diving boards, more than 500 dressing rooms, an amphitheater, restaurants, and even a museum of artifacts and taxidermied animals. More than 10,000 visitors…

KIM BERNADAS New Orleans, Louisiana Masquerade, 19 x 10 x 8 in., bisque clay Available through the artist kim@kimbernadas.com www.kimbernadas.com TINA GARRETT Kansas City, Missouri Moment to Moment, 58 x 28 in., oil on canvas Available through “Pieces of Me” artist Tina Garrett Solo Exhibition at the Bountiful Davis Art Center, Salt Lake City, UT Opening March 2019 artisttinagarrett@kc.rr.com 816.739.5508 | www.tinagarrett.com JUDITH DICKINSON Brighton, Colorado Demure, 14 x 11 in., oil Available judith@judithdickinson.com 303.902.0131 | www.judithdickinson.com OCEANA RAIN STUART Sausalito, California Eternal Seduction, 60 x 15 x 46 in., bronze Available through the artist contact@oceanarainstuart.com www.oceanarainstuart.com MARILYN Chadron, Nebraska Spyder Woman, 22 x 26 in., pastel Available through the artist marilynpastelartist@gmail.com 308.430.1539 www.marilynpastelartist.com MATAN BEN CNAAN Haifa, Israel Pandora 145 x 230 cm., oil on linen Available through the artist matanbcster@gmail.com +972.523.317.869 www.matanbencnaan.com JOHN DARLEY…

EDMOND ROCHAT (b. 1984) is part of a steadily growing group of young artists who chose to study classical drawing and painting in New York City. In Manhattan, an art student not only has access to the storied institutions that have trained some of the greats of realist art — among them the Arts Students League of New York — but also to several new academies that have sprung up over the last 15 years, including the Grand Central Atelier, Janus Collaborative School of Art, and Florence Academy of Art (Jersey City). Rochat’s education brought together old and new traditional New York training with other unique educational experiences. He studied painting, drawing, and sculpture at the duCret School of Art (Plainfield, NJ) before training at the League and Janus.…