Innholdsfortegnelse for July - August 2016 i Fine Art Connoisseur

Some of my fondest childhood memories are of sitting at the dining room table with my mother as she painted. She had taken lessons in our community and returned home with the floral still lifes and portraits she had created. The first ever portrait of me (aged 12) was painted by my mother. Today, though I have sat for some of the finest living and historical portraitists in the world, the canvas I would save from fire first is the one my mother painted. Children don’t usually appreciate the angst of motherhood. Juggling a marriage with the lives and moods of three children, plus the usual domestic duties, must have created pressures I never glimpsed. Yet, even then, I could see Mom light up with joy as she painted. It…

Francis Kurkdjian has one of the best noses in the world. Perhaps in profile, but more for his keen ability to discern fragrances and scents. As co-founder of the Paris-based Maison Francis Kurkdjian, he says with a confident sniff, “I compose perfumes.” In addition to his namesake line of fragrances, he has created perfumes for all the major houses, including Dior, Giorgio Armani, and Van Cleef & Arpels. So honed are his olfactory skills that his nose led him to Elisabeth Louise Vigée Le Brun’s 1783 portrait of Marie Antoinette holding a pink cabbage rose, Marie Antoinette à la Rose, which hangs at Versailles. “I love the pose she takes,” says Kurkdjian. “She’s so feminine and stylish. There’s something very innocent about it. I love Vigée Le Brun for her…

Winifred Knights (1899–1947) is hardly a household name, but that is about to change: this summer she will be the subject of a major exhibition at the Dulwich Picture Gallery in South London, and of an excellent monograph by Sacha Llewellyn published by Lund Humphries. The Dulwich Picture Gallery, designed by Sir John Soane and opened in 1817, has, over the last decade, mounted a series of revelatory and popular exhibitions examining neglected aspects of 20th-century British art. Last year’s Eric Ravilious exhibition, for example, was seen by more than 85,000 visitors. Knights was the first woman to win the prestigious Rome Scholarship, and her prize-winning picture, The Deluge (1920), now in the collection of Tate Britain, will be shown alongside her other major works: A Village Street with Mill-hands…

As the weather heats up nationwide, art lovers have good reason to head to the shore or to higher altitudes. In New England, they often make their way to Massachusetts’s Cape Cod, and to the mountainous terrain of Vermont. On offer in both regions is a lot of great art ready to admire and acquire; here is a survey of what not to miss. CAPE COD This low-lying region is renowned for the pale, flattening light that seems to infuse everything. It can be conjured instantly by imagining any coastal scene painted by the great Edward Hopper (1882–1967), who spent every summer at Truro. Although the Cape enjoys cultural activities all year long, the pace really picks up in July and August. Located at the tip of the Cape, Provincetown…

For four years, I have gladly served on the board of the Foundation of the American Institute for Conservation of Historic and Artistic Works (FAIC). Based in Washington, D.C., the Institute is the leading membership organization serving more than 3,500 conservation professionals. These are the people working in museums, in their own studios, and even outdoors who ensure that our collective cultural heritage reaches our children and grandchildren intact. The Institute’s foundation benefits them further by presenting courses, bestowing grants and scholarships, providing emergency response assistance for collections in danger, and operating a free online clearinghouse of technical information. FAIC’s efficacy, and the truly global dimension of its mission, were reinforced this June during an event celebrating the successful establishment of a department of photograph conservation at the State Hermitage…

CELEBRATING THE SOUTHWEST JOHN MOYERS AND TERRI KELLY MOYERS: TIME-HONORED TRADITIONS IN PAINTING Nedra Matteucci Galleries 1075 Paseo de Peralta Santa Fe, NM 87501 505.982.4631, matteucci.com  August 13–September 10 In 1979 John and Terri Kelly Moyers met at a painting workshop in British Columbia, and they have been making great art ever since. On view this summer at Nedra Matteucci Galleries in their home city of Santa Fe are new oil paintings that reflect their shared love of the Southwest, its landscapes and people. Their pictures range from small plein air studies to large canvases executed in the studio, set in locales throughout the region. Both artists are fascinated by its cultural diversity, paying particular attention to the Native and Hispanic traditions sustained by its inhabitants. John says,…

Fly fishing and bidding at an auction are not exactly similar experiences. Casting a line in a babbling brook and standing for what might be hours awaiting a bite from a salmon requires a degree of patience that live bidding for a coveted item does not. Given the popularity of fishing scenes by the American painter Ogden Minton Pleissner (1905–1983), his June Fishing is tasty bait for collectors of his art. This vibrant watercolor will be offered at Guyette & Deeter’s annual auction in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, where it will likely be snapped up fast. “This is one of Pleissner’s classic fishing scenes, set, it’s believed, along the Millbrook, a branch of the Beaverkill River in upstate New York,” says G&D president Gary Guyette. (Based in St. Michaels, Maryland, the…

KATHRYN MAPES TURNER (b. 1971) creates “paintings that capture my subjects’ essential spirit and energy, and that tap into the inherent nature of our emotions. I don’t want to re-create photo-realistic representations.” With paintings like Grace, illustrated here, she is clearly achieving these goals. Turner is part of the fourth generation raised on the Triangle X Ranch in Wyoming’s Grand Teton National Park. She grew up on horseback, discovering the charms and challenges of nature, but she also relished her school’s weekly art class; as a teenager, she painted alongside such local talents as Conrad Schwiering, as well as visiting ones like Ned Jacob, Skip Whitcomb, and T. Allen Lawson. This passion led to her to major in studio arts at the University of Notre Dame, the curriculum of…

ARTISTS & GALLERIES Denver through July 23 Abend Gallery is hosting its third annual Edge of Realism exhibition, which showcases the new directions being pursued by 25 talented artists from around the world. These range from the deconstructed, abstracted realism of Benjamin Garcia and John Wentz to the tightly rendered yet surreal works of Kari-Lise Alexander and Britt Snyder. INFORMATION: 2260 East Colfax Avenue, Denver, CO 80206, 303.355.0950, abendgallery.com Laguna Beach, California July 5–August 31 For more than 80 years, the Laguna Beach Festival of Arts has encompassed a juried exhibition that now features paintings, photographs, prints, sculpture, jewelry, furniture, ceramics, and glass made by 140 artists from Orange County. Also on offer are artist-led demonstrations, workshops, and tours, as well as live music and on-site dining. INFORMATION: 650 Laguna…