Innholdsfortegnelse for March/April 2019 i Fine Art Connoisseur

You and I are art people. We love and respect art. We read about it, we have collections of art books and magazines, we visit exhibitions, and we buy an artwork from time to time, sometimes frequently. If we’re fortunate, we have a collection, perhaps just a few pieces, or many pieces covering many walls. We have the art flu. Though some of us possess art-making skills, most of us are simply amazed at what another person can produce with a brush or chisel. When we glimpse real quality, we want to own it, or at least to admire it in person. We may or may not understand the toil, the endless process of learning, or the frustration that artists go through, nor the depressions that accompany their dry spells,…

In a quiet French village painted by Paul Cézanne, no people are visible in the houses’ windows and no wind stirs the trees. Nonetheless, Robin Karson, founder and director of the Library of American Landscape History (LALH), senses a pronounced animation here. “I’m a dancer by training and a choreographer, as well as a landscape historian. For me, there is something about the shape and curve of the road that implies movement,” Karson says of the sinuous detail that gives the painting its name, Turn in the Road. “The disappearing road is an intensely vital shape — and then there is the sense of possibility it suggests. What lies beyond? It adds to the excitement of the painting.” In a metaphorical sense, Karson changed the course of scholarship in landscape…

For many years, the urban landscape paintings of Elaine Moynihan Lisle (b. 1954) have gloried unabashedly in bright summer days. Using bold colors and lively brushwork, the artist has infused energy into her world of flowerbeds and leafy trees contrasting with red bricks, colorful awnings, and the pure blue skies soaring above them. “It has been hard for me to paint a rainy or cloudy day,” Lisle explains. “When there is no sun, I have always sought the silver lining, or the bright spot hidden in a bank of clouds.” Lately, however, Lisle has been focusing on other seasons and times of day. Her family weathered two tragedies in the past year: her mother lost a difficult battle with ALS, and then a beloved sister-in law died at a relatively…

This season everyone who cares about art and nature should head to New York City — of all places — to experience Florilegium, an innovative presentation of paintings, sculpture, floral designs, and botanical illustrations on view from March 22 through April 25. More than 30 works — ranging from minuscule specimen illustrations to traditional still lifes in oils to a 6 x 12-foot painting surrounded by a floral installation — have been assembled to offer an immersive sensory experience that is best seen in person. Florilegium is the latest exhibition at Eleventh Street Arts, a gallery space adjacent to the Grand Central Atelier in Long Island City, near the waterfront of Queens just across the East River from Manhattan. The project’s curator, Katie G. Whipple, is also one of its…

Mike and Liz Delesia live in a sun-filled house in suburban Long Island. “Our art collection is modest,” Mike explains, “but it does give us a certain feeling of accomplishment. It truly warms our home and enriches our family life.” Mike says that his parents lacked the resources to expose their family to any art forms, so it was not until 2008 that he and Liz made their first serious acquisition at a benefit auction — a print by Clifford Bailey titled The Hornets. Since then, the couple have assembled a collection that includes works by Michael Carson, Nova Czarnecki, Dana Hawk, Andrea Kowch, Shana Levenson, Adam Miller, Yana Movchan, Kadir Nelson, Kevin Sartin, Margo Selski, Armando Valero, and Pamela Wilson. Most of these purchases have been made from RJD…

Scott and Patricia Moger split their time between their homes in New York City and the Hamptons. He is a former vice president of Columbia Pictures who once worked closely with commercial artists on film and television advertising, while Pat is executive vice president of a major clothing manufacturer. Scott credits his father with introducing him not only to great historical masterworks, but also to the fascinating life stories of the artists who created them. Pat had a more unusual introduction to the human side of art: her mother, Beverly Zagor (1927–2011), co-owned Fischbach Gallery in New York City, one of America’s leading galleries for contemporary realism between the 1970s and 1990s. Today the Mogers own an array of works made by Beverly’s artists, including such major talents as Alice…

Henry Walker is a Nashville attorney whose home is not only his castle, but also an expression of his admiration for the artists whose imaginations enliven it. In 1999, Henry moved into a large house built very early in the 20th century. He immediately set to work enhancing it, primarily by commissioning a range of Tennessee artists and artisans and buying artworks from Tennessee galleries. The gifted blacksmith Anthony Martin made a new railing for the main porch, while the stained-glass artist Paul Crommelin designed and fabricated a dozen windows. Crommelin’s creations include a scene from Milton’s Paradise Lost at the bottom of a stairwell, and six giant panels — each illustrating one of the world’s major religions — for the huge shower Henry installed where the second-floor porch had…

ARTISTS & GALLERIES Ithaca, New York northstarartgallery.com March 1–31 North Star Art Gallery is hosting the latest solo show of the painter Brian Keeler. He has titled it Atlantic Arias: Coastal Ireland and Maine because it features his recent depictions of these regions that face each other across the Atlantic Ocean. Inspired by their rugged beauty, Keeler captures the drama of light, sky, and water, implicitly suggesting how much they share in common — visually, geologically, and culturally. San Francisco studiogallerysf.com through March 18 The San Francisco Chapter of the California Art Club has mounted an exhibition at the Studio Gallery that features 50 works by 50 of its artist members. The works were juried in by the artist Jim McVicker and the gallery’s owner, Jennifer Farris. A celebratory reception…

What an inspiring experience! For the past few months, our editorial team has been engrossed in learning about real-life individuals who are collecting superb contemporary realist art. Our conversations with these enthusiastic patrons — conducted via telephone, e-mail, and in person — have confirmed our belief that much energy, and considerable cash, are being expended in support of the ever-growing number of talented realist artists working among us. We are particularly delighted that these visionaries live all over the country, and that each fell in love with this field in a different way. In preparing the profiles here, we learned that many of these collectors — sophisticated and well-connected as they are — are not accustomed to being in the spotlight. Knowing how much they value their privacy, we appreciate…

The psychologist Rudolf Arnheim (1904–2007) was right to note that “observation is also invention.”1 To achieve excellence as a representational artist, you must observe closely all facets of your subject. You can do this entirely by yourself, or you can enhance your own skills by studying what previous generations of artists have accomplished in this terrain. The American artist Anthony Panzera (b. 1941) has delved deep into art history while creating an extensive body of work that depicts the human body, still life, and the sea — images that build upon the traditional canons of drawing and painting in order to distill his subjects’ very essence. Born in Brooklyn and now based in Mend-ham, New Jersey, Panzera earned his B.S. from the State University of New York at New Paltz,…

MILESTONES IN NORTH CAROLINA BLUE RIDGE REALISTS Hickory Museum of Art Hickory, North Carolina blueridgerealists.org  and hickoryart.org April 27–August 18 It’s a big year in Hickory, North Carolina, as two anniversaries are celebrated. Now marking its 75th year, the Hickory Museum of Art has invited the 16 artist members of Blue Ridge Realists — an alliance now in its 50th year — to exhibit their works. In 1968, an artistic movement emerged in the piedmont and western regions of North Carolina, following in the rural realism tradition of the Tryon artist colony that had been established there in the late 19th century. The originators of the modern movement, Bob Timberlake and Ward Nichols, sought to include other gifted artists who shared their desire to explore rural realism. Their group…

Brett and Micol Karras of Kaysville, Utah, thoroughly enjoy the experience of collecting art together. Micol caught the art bug early: when she was little, her grandmother owned the Parker Brothers board game Masterpiece: The Art Auction Game. She eagerly admired its paintings by such masters such as Degas, Van Gogh, and Matisse, and was, she recalls, “particularly drawn to Mary Cassatt’s The Child’s Bath, as there is something so tender and beautiful about a woman washing a child’s feet. Even then, I recognized the emotional connections that art can foster.” Together Brett and Micol have purchased paintings, ceramics, and other artworks from galleries, fairs, charity events, co-ops, and the artists themselves. Most were made by artists who live locally, many of whom the couple have come to know. “On…

Steve and Wendie Olshan of Santa Monica, California, have made art collecting a way of life. Steve’s interest began in high school as he studied architectural drafting and continued in college while taking art classes as part of his architecture curriculum. He even tried to make paintings, but soon realized that his architectural impulse to draw straight lines would always get in the way. Today Steve heads his own architectural firm, where he sketches plans by hand and takes photographs. Many artists have complimented his ability to assess an artwork’s balance, perspective, composition, and other aspects, surely an outcome of his looking at buildings regularly. Although Wendie’s mother took her to museums as a child, she did not focus on art until Steve — and then their artist friends —…

Albert Bierstadt (1830–1902) saw nature as a big theatrical performance. He attended its shows throughout his life and was one of its most enthusiastic patrons. For his depictions of the Hudson River Valley, the Rockies, and California’s Sierra Nevada, he studied their terrain and added a bit of drama for painterly effect. Suddenly storms, clouds, broad rays of sunshine, or the approach of twilight assumed greater power, assuming it’s even possible to enhance the forces of nature. After he was born in what was then Prussia, Bierstadt’s family settled in Massachusetts. As a young man, he went back to Germany to study art, but upon returning to America he quickly embraced its landscapes as his subject and began to travel widely. In 1863, when Bierstadt began the sketches of Utah’s…

After graduating from Haverford College and the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, Vincent Desiderio (b. 1955) emerged on New York City’s painting scene in the mid-1980s. By the early ’90s he was picked up by the blue-chip global gallery Marlborough, which presented his latest solo show in New York last winter, and his pictures continue to enter important public and private collections. Desiderio has a unique perspective on art, not only because he is exceptionally well-read, but also because he worked primarily in abstraction before becoming a figurative painter. Recently I visited his studio in Sleepy Hollow, New York, to hear his thoughts on painting in relation to history, literature, and contemporary society. David Molesky: What kinds of things do you think about when beginning a painting? Vincent Desiderio:…

Self-portraits are very much on our collective minds these days. First, there’s the matter of selfies. Thanks to the extraordinarily good cameras built into most smartphones, almost anyone can take a decent photograph of themselves. Most of the resulting images are not great art, so what makes the self-portrait of a professional artist that much better? This question, among others, is being addressed right now at the Smithsonian Institution’s National Portrait Gallery in its exhibition Eye to I: Self-Portraits from 1900 to Today. On view through August 18, this is a sampling of how more than 75 American artists have chosen to portray themselves over the past 120 years. If you can, we recommend visiting this show in Washington, or at least obtaining its accompanying book, to be published in…

Cris and Janae Baird of Arlington, Texas, have been interested in art all of their lives. While growing up, Cris became aware that his great-uncle John Hafen (1856–1910) had been a prominent Utah artist. His grandparents owned two Hafen paintings that were ultimately donated to the Springville Museum of Art. When that occurred, Cris’s extended family held a drawing that would give the winners the right to buy prints after those paintings. “Janae and I won, and although we were in college with young children, we found the money to buy a print, and we still cherish it today,” Cris explains. Janae’s aunt painted, her sister majored in art, and as a child she often sat before her family’s landscape prints and imagined being in the scenes herself. After studying…

Holly Kershner is a retired accountant who lives near Wilmington, Delaware, in the scenic Brandywine River Valley. She grew up admiring a floral watercolor painted by Eleanor Rogers Copeland that her grandmother had purchased on layaway. When her mother owned it, she joked that Holly would have to wait to inherit it, but then one day her mother gave it to her. Naturally Holly was thrilled to enjoy both the watercolor and her mother’s company at the same time. Since then she has tracked down and purchased more of Copeland’s works, which now hang on the wall in a “special grouping I enjoy every day.” Holly’s first purchases of her own were W. James Glynn’s painting of Breck’s Mill, a landmark near her home, and Greg Mort’s painting of a…

Richard and Suzanne Pieper live north of Milwaukee in a home filled with art they love. Richard became interested in photography as a child but did not own any art until he was a young adult, when his mother gave him several works. During college, Sue took courses in art appreciation and art history and eventually became a teacher. Inspired by another art history course in the late 1970s, she became a docent at the Milwaukee Art Museum, where she spent 20 years volunteering. Today Richard serves as chairman emeritus of the board at PPC Partners Inc., one unit of which is Pieper Electric, the electrical service company his family founded in 1947. He explains that its policy is to “give back to the communities it works in.” In the…

In the far west of Belgium, an extraordinary cultural experience awaits adventurous art lovers. Located only 62 miles from Brussels, via a 90-minute train journey, the small city of Bruges effectively transports visitors back to the Middle Ages. Its uncanny beauty and unique history owe much to the fact that Bruges is only 13 miles from the North Sea, once reached by boats sailing along the Zwin River. As a leader within the Hanseatic League of trade-minded northern European ports, Bruges rose to wealth and fame during the 13th, 14th, and 15th centuries. Its success stemmed first from the cloth industry, and later from artisans’ production of illuminated manuscripts, paintings, cut diamonds, gold objets d’art, and lace. Proud of their achievements, merchants from across Europe constructed luxurious mansions along the…