Fine Art Connoisseur January/February 2020

For well over 15 years, this magazine has carried the flag for the new realism, which some call contemporary realism. We have highlighted its artists, schools, and collectors, and we have encouraged their interconnections with kindred galleries and museums because we believe strongly that this movement has a solid future in a world that had once lost interest in all things realistic. In normal times, young artists’ works are embraced by young buyers, who ultimately become collectors. Today, alas, there is a huge gap. We now see many well-trained artists creating incredible works, yet there are not enough buyers. Not enough younger people (or even older ones, for that matter) know about this movement. There is an urgent need to both educate and create awareness. Recently, my millennial nephew, Ryan,…

It’s the New Year, but everyone is still talking about the banana that fetched $120,000 last year. If you haven’t heard about it, you are lucky, and I hesitate to relieve your bewilderment. Every December the cutting-edge art world gathers in Miami for the constellation of fairs surrounding Art Basel Miami Beach. Billions of dollars’ worth of art is traded, most of it more conceptual, minimalist, or experiential than what you see here in Fine Art Connoisseur. If you haven’t visited Miami during the first week of December, it’s well worth going, once, to get a sense of how closely cutting-edge art resembles show business these days. Perhaps Miami Basel’s greatest triumph ever came last month when Galerie Perrotin — a leading international dealer — exhibited a real banana attached…

For Benjamin Frowein, it was love at second sight. When the president of Schumacher fabrics was a graduate student in Madrid from 2004 to 2006, he walked into the Thyssen-Bornemisza museum and came upon Edward Hopper’s painting Hotel Room (1931). “When I look at things, especially artworks, that don’t immediately scream at me to pay attention, I always give them a second chance,” Frowein says from his headquarters in New York, where he gives many second looks at patterns and designs for Schumacher, the internationally renowned maker of fine textiles. “There must be a reason a painting like this is on view, and so I give it a second look.” It was during that concentrated study of Hopper’s details — a partially undressed woman reading a book on a bed…

For the past four years, Fine Art Connoisseur has dedicated part of a winter issue to highlighting America’s art museums and the important, wide-ranging roles they play. The American Alliance of Museums reports that 860 million visits are made to U.S. museums every year. That statistic is impressive, yet it does not fully convey how central museums have become in our civic life. They are no longer just places to learn, but also to gather, celebrate, mourn, and have fun. Museums have grown ever more welcoming, enticing people of all ages to come have a look. And for those who live too far away to visit, museums are working hard to catalogue and post their collections online. This year we asked you, our readers, to tell us which art museums…

ONGOING FROM 2019 December 6, 2019–April 11 Richard Galusha Retrospective "An Artist’s Journey,” Steamboat Art Museum, CO JANUARY January 7–March 28 Carmelo Blandino Exhibition (Opening Reception January 9), Wausau Museum of Contemporary Art, Wausau, WI January 11–March 22 Dox Thrash, The Hyde Collection, Glens Falls, NY January 19–April 26 Francisco Goya, The Hyde Collection, Glens Falls, NY FEBRUARY February 1–May 3 New Beginnings: An American Story of Romantics and Modernists in the West, The Booth Western Art Museum, Cartersville, GA February 8–March 22 Masters of the American West® Art Exhibition & Sale, Autry Museum of the American West, Los Angeles, CA February 11–July 11 Legacies of the Vaqueros, The Booth Western Art Museum, Cartersville, GA February 13–June 7 The Jackson Hole 5: Important Painters from the West, The Booth Western…

In the paintings of SARA SCRIBNER (b. 1982), young women appear in ethereal settings, dressed in vintage clothing, and usually surrounded by flowers, butterflies, birds, and other feminine symbols. Featuring otherworldly environments and mystical motifs, these paintings create a sweeping sense of being in another time or place, perhaps even in a dream. That is why Scribner refers to her paintings as “dreamscapes.” In her words, she is looking to transport the viewer to “a more magical place,” using her imagination and skills as a realist painter to create that portal to another world. “Lately, I have been thinking more about creating dreamscapes,” the artist shares. “I want to capture the moment when you wake up from a dream — when you open your eyes but can still see the…