Innholdsfortegnelse for May/June 2019 i Fine Art Connoisseur

Amazing things happen when people get together. Seemingly impossible challenges become do-able. Difficult goals become less daunting. Unity, support, and accountability to one another keep us on the right path. Throughout history, gatherings of artists working toward a common goal have changed the world. These collectives, often starting as a couple of individuals collaborating on a project, have brought about massive change. A fine example is the French Impressionists, who in 1874 mounted their first exhibition under the rather unpromising name “Anonymous Society of Painters, Sculptors, Engravers, etc.” Its members dreamed that one day their work would be accepted despite the fact that it did not suit the old school strictures of academic tradition. Their efforts created a movement that ultimately transcended unnecessarily politicized organizations like the Ecole des Beaux-Arts…

Linda Zagaria likes the past. When she puts on one of her vintage 1930s hats, perhaps lowering its veil or reshaping a broad brim, and walks into New York’s National Arts Club, where she has served as president since 2016, she is as much a woman of the present as she is of the (fashionable) past. So, upon first seeing Gustave Caillebotte’s 1877 Paris Street: Rainy Day at the Art Institute of Chicago, with its depiction of an elegant couple strolling arm-in-arm beneath an umbrella, Zagaria said to herself, “That’s where I want to go, that version of Paris.” She has been to Paris, likely strolling the very intersection depicted, and while she loves the city, she acknowledges that what we see in the painting no longer exists. Yet it…

An exhibition of 17 new paintings by Juliette Aristides (b. 1971) at Nashville’s LeQuire Gallery this season (April 26–June 22) is an occasion to celebrate. On view are an array of interiors and still lifes that remind us of her ongoing contribution to the revival of classical realism and traditional art education in America. Aristides has been achieving this not only by conducting workshops nationally and abroad, but also by publishing books that are now mandatory reading in teaching ateliers nationwide. She has already produced four successful volumes on classical drawing and painting, and this year Monacelli Studio is releasing two of her instructional sketchbooks: first Beginning Drawing Atelier and then Figure Drawing Atelier this fall. One of Aristides’s broad goals is to help others rediscover the beauty in daily…

In 1875 The New York Times informed its readers that the French painter William Bouguereau (1825–1905), “a jolly, red-cheeked, plump little man, full of gayety,” was “especially pleased with Americans because they bought his pictures.”1 And well he should have been, as his works had been exhibited in this country as early as 1864 and very soon had become fashionable for wealthy collectors to acquire as a sign of discriminating taste. The 1886 Cyclopedia of Painters and Paintings could list nearly 60 examples by Bouguereau in American private collections,2 and the ledgers of his dealer Goupil, now available at the Getty Research Institute in Los Angeles, indicate that of the 143 Bouguereaus sold between 1863 and 1873, 46 went to America. As the art critic Clarence Cook wrote astutely in…

Santa Fe is familiar to American art lovers for its abundance of galleries and museums, not to mention its annual Indian and Spanish Markets, historic architecture, excellent restaurants, and summer opera season. “The City Different” is home to a unique confluence of people, reflecting not only the Native and Hispanic heritage of the Southwest, but also the “Anglo” full- and part-year residents who began arriving in the 19th century. Though it is in easy walking distance of gallery-lined Canyon Road, relatively few people are aware of Acequia Madre House, a formerly private home set on three acres that bears the Spanish name for the “Mother Ditch” that flows along the property’s edge and still irrigates the thirsty gardens of this historic neighborhood. Now listed on the national, state, and city…

Each year, Fine Art Connoisseur leads a small group of art lovers on a VIP tour that visits an area of the world renowned for its artistic heritage. The distinguishing factors are that we can access private collections, artists’ studios, and museum galleries that other travelers don’t see, that I contextualize the visits with illustrated lectures that lay out why this art matters, and that we enjoy on-site commentary from curators and seasoned experts who live in the community. They are not just tour guides, but professional colleagues who really know their art. It is truly hard to believe that a decade has passed since Fine Art Connoisseur launched this travel program, which has featured adventures in such countries as Russia, Italy, and Holland. Now we are turning our attention…

Venture with us to the birthplace of the post-impressionist movement. Walk the streets, admire the countryside, and explore the sites frequented by Cézanne, Van Gogh, Gauguin, Bonnard, Matisse, Chagall, and many others whose artistry, to this day, inspires new generations. Fine Art Connoisseur magazine has built strong ties with colleagues in the art world of Provence and the South of France. Now we offer you the opportunity to meet these like-minded friends as you experience nine days of privileged access in the cradle of post-impressionist art.…

More than 100 historic homes and studios across the United States preserve, present, and promote the legacies of significant artists to the public. One of the most celebrated and longest in operation is the Saint-Gaudens National Historical Park (SGNHP), a National Park Service property in bucolic Cornish, New Hampshire, open seasonally from late May through late October. It comprises the home, studios, grounds, and artworks of Augustus Saint-Gaudens (1848–1907), a sculptor of French-Irish immigrant roots best known for his monuments to Civil War heroes and his designs for the $10 and $20 gold coins. The park’s remarkable story, beginning in 1965, grows out of its predecessor and ongoing partner, the Saint-Gaudens Memorial, a private, nonprofit organization now celebrating 100 years of advocating for this distinguished American artist. When Saint-Gaudens died…

ARTISTS & GALLERIES Petoskey, Michigan crookedtree.org June 1–August 31 The Crooked Tree Arts Center will host the American Impressionist Society’s third annual AIS Impressions Small Works Showcase, a juried exhibition of recent works by the organization’s talented members. Camille Przewodek will serve as the judge of awards. New York City nationalsculpture.org June 14–16 America’s leading organization for professional sculptors, the National Sculpture Society, will soon gather for its annual conference. On offer is the Richard McDermott Miller Competition (in which 10 emerging artists sculpt from a live model); a talk by Harold Holzer on his new book Monument Man:The Life and Art of Daniel Chester French; a presentation by Jason Arkles, host of The Sculptor’s Funeral podcast; an awards dinner; and even a “sculpture safari” at the Central Park Zoo.…

There are those connoisseurs who can recognize talent by a single line drawn on a canvas, by one brushstroke, even by the impression of a sculptor’s thumb left in bronze. Such is the case with Davison Packard Koenig, the Couse Foundation’s executive director and curator, when referring to a bronze created by Ed Smida (b. 1961), Divided Land, An Homage to Ernest Blumenschein. Completed last year, this expressive sculpture depicts four Native Americans and is featured in a June 15 benefit auction for the foundation, which manages the Couse-Sharp Historic Site in Taos, New Mexico. “You might look at an early Picasso work, for instance, and see confidence in a line and suddenly realize he’s telling a story with that one mark,” says Koenig. “That’s the way I feel about…

NIKITA BUDKOV (b. 1995), a Russian-American painter currently residing in California, works in a style he calls “contemporary traditional and magical realism,” motivated by his pursuit of the mystical and beautiful. He is also inspired by music, so his paintings are titled after songs that have significant meaning to him. Last year Budkov presented an exhibition called The Songbook, which showcased a range of paintings inspired by his favorite genres of music. “Music is an eternal companion on my career journey,” the artist says of this passion that rivals his love for fine art. Growing up in Zvenigorod, a suburb of Moscow, young Budkov found himself drawn to classic fairy tales, science fiction novels, and comics, all of which helped develop his creative imagination and illustrative abilities. Drawing in pencil…

There were only two requirements for people submitting their work to the 11th International Art Competition: be at least 18 years old and be a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. Today, art made by and for religious people is often marginalized, ignored by serious critics, and considered unsaleable by commercial galleries. This is somewhat understandable, given that we no longer live in the Christian monoculture of Renaissance Europe. Fortunately, pockets of religious art continue to thrive and develop across America. On view through October 7 at Salt Lake City’s Church History Museum, the 11th International Art Competition of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints carries the subtitle Meditations on Belief. Viewed through the lens of cultural anthropology, this exhibition is a fascinating product…

“Asset class” may be a relatively new descriptor for art, but amassing works of aesthetic distinction to signify one’s own status actually dates back to antiquity. In the United States, this strategy manifested in earnest for the first time with the great industrialists and bankers of the Gilded Age, but Henry Clay Frick and J.P. Morgan were not the only captains of industry adding sky-lit “picture galleries” to their grand homes. Men of lesser fortune and fame swiftly followed suit. Although their collections were generally not of the same caliber and did not play as significant a role in shaping our country’s greatest museums, these men and their acquisitions nonetheless influenced American cultural history and also the formation of many artists’ reputations. Closing on May 12 at the Milwaukee Art…

Now celebrating its 110th anniversary, the American Federation of Arts (AFA) is a nonprofit organization from which art museum visitors benefit every year, though few of them actually know what it does. AFA’s name — a legacy from its founding in 1909 — does not offer much clarification, but suffice it to say that “federation” really does mean something: from the beginning, AFA has been all about alliances — primarily among museums, but also among collaborators in all corners of the art world. Everyone ever involved in it has believed that access to art is an integral part of a strong and free society, and today AFA advances this objective in various ways. Its most immediate goals are to enrich the public’s experience and understanding of the visual arts through…