Innholdsfortegnelse for March/April 2020 i Fine Art Connoisseur

The first decade of Fine Art Connoisseur trips have become legendary, ranging across Europe from Russia to Spain, from Scotland to Greece. Now we look forward to fresh adventures as our merry band of art lovers visits Vienna, Berlin, and Dresden this September. Editor-in-Chief Peter Trippi and I are finalizing the itinerary for this masterpiece-rich odyssey in Austria and Germany, which encompasses famous sites and also ones well off the beaten track. It is a joy to be reconnecting with our trusted colleagues in these cultured cities to ensure we get special access and behind-the-scenes experiences every day. The main program will start with four nights (September 11–15) at the gorgeous Palais Hansen Kempinski Hotel in the heart of Vienna. On our hit list in Austria’s capital are the grand…

When a portrait is painted well, it is sometimes difficult to see beyond the surface beauty. In the case of California artist JONG LEE (b. 1972), however, not only are his likenesses aesthetically pleasing, they are also layered with thoughtfulness and intention. Take Red, for example, which is striking in its visual elegance and carries the gravitas of an unseen story as well. “I wanted to juxtapose the dynamic nature of the overall composition with the subject’s calm, contemplative expression,” Lee explains. “The figure’s sweeping diagonal movement creates an illusion that her body is in motion, yet her serenity suggests she is fixated on meandering thoughts. It’s a symbolic representation of the duality in all of us. This contrast — even contradiction — between what is real and what is…

It is well known that musicians and visual artists share a language. Artists speak of color notes, compositions, themes, variations, and motifs. Painters ranging from John Singer Sargent to the contemporary Western artist Mark Maggiori have been accomplished musicians. The contemporary realist Anna Rose Bain often posts videos of her piano renditions of Beethoven and Chopin compositions. Likewise, many famous musicians are visual artists; Tony Bennett, Paul McCartney, and Joni Mitchell come to mind. And artists since the Renaissance have been inspired by, and depicted, scenes from ballet, opera, cabaret, and even rock concerts. But the connection goes deeper than that. The most common mode of human thought is verbal. That is, we talk to ourselves in our heads — subject, verb, object. (If you don’t believe it, monitor your…

It’s an old story, and a new one. The art of Myron Barnstone (1933–2016) represents a distinctive moment in 20th-century cultural history, while his teaching practice is still informing and guiding younger artists well into the 21st century. Today the “Barnstone Method” is unfamiliar to most collectors, but among working realist artists it remains highly regarded. This educational approach offers a solid foundation in the basics of classical art, encouraging pupils to consult historical masters ranging from Leonardo and Michelangelo to Picasso (who was rigorously trained in figure drawing by his father). Key features of the program include the precise application of geometric principles, epitomized by the Golden Section, in order to foster movement, depth, and feeling, and also the color theories contained in the Fletcher system of palette control.…

Leonardo DiCaprio hardly requires an introduction. Born in Los Angeles in 1974, he is an Oscar-winning actor, producer, and environmentalist, as well as one of the world’s most watched celebrities. Yet readers of Fine Art Connoisseur may not realize how immersed in the visual arts he has always been. For starters, his parents were admiring a Leonardo da Vinci painting at Florence’s Uffizi Gallery when the future actor took his first kick inside his mother’s womb. His father, George DiCaprio, is a writer and publisher of underground “comix” who has collaborated with such counterculture icons as Timothy Leary and Laurie Anderson. He introduced his young son to the celebrated underground illustrators Robert Williams and Robert Crumb, and both parents encouraged the boy’s love of natural history museums, which has ultimately…

Leslie and Barbara Norman of Asheville, North Carolina, kindly offered to tell us about their collecting journey in their own words. “We became interested in art as young adults, and began collecting when we got married in the 1970s. Our first purchase was Salvador Dalí’s print Bleeding Strawberries, which we saw in a gallery next door to one of our wine-and-spirit stores. We often visited the gallery and were fascinated by that print. Purchasing it launched our interest in collecting prints generally. “One of our businesses was located next to the prestigious gallery of modern art run by Franz Bader in Washington, D.C. They handled prints by Peter Milton (b. 1930) and Michael Parkes (b. 1944), among others, which we bought there. We also collected prints by Louis Icart (1888–1950)…

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 book that has most informed my understanding of the relationship between the aesthetics of art and those of literature is Hilary Spurling’s Anthony Powell: Dancing to the Music of Time (2018). Though primarily a personal biography rather than a critical one, it amply explains how, in his adolescent years, the British writer Anthony Powell (1905–2000) channeled a penchant for storytelling into a study of drawing and how narratives can be implied in visual art. As an adult, he went on to use the ways in which artists preconceive the structure of their images as a model for preconceiving his own novels’ structure. It did not take me long to apply Spurling’s lessons to my understanding of the relationship between the fiction of Evelyn Waugh (1903–1966) and Pre-Raphaelite art of…

Susan Chaires runs her own law firm in Washington, D.C., and spends most weekends in the charming town of Easton, 70 miles to the east in Maryland’s Chesapeake Bay region. Art has always appealed to her. Chaires recalls, “My parents hung art on the walls of our home in Florida, so I grew up looking at pictures, particularly seascapes.” So perhaps it’s not surprising that, while still in college, she bought an etching of a boat on the water. After law school, Chaires began collecting etchings and lithographs by such contemporary artists as Anthony Gorney, Mark Leithauser, and Peter Milton. Today, Chaires is “attracted to works that are rich in color and that revere the beauty of nature or the simple beauty of common objects.” Among the living artists represented…

Peter and Lora Gibbs resemble many other couples by moving between two primary homes according to the season. What probably makes them unique, however, is the unexpected locations of these homes — Tulsa, Oklahoma, and Sydney, Australia. Both properties are adorned with impressive works of art, though not quite as many Down Under as there once were. Peter grew up in an artistic family: his father was an architect, his mother a formally trained sculptor, and today his two brothers work as a photographer and an illustrator of children’s books. Realizing that he lacked artistic talent, Peter pursued engineering and began to collect what he calls “investment art” while working in Sydney during his early 20s. His canny acquisitions included pictures by such leading Australian talents as Pro Hart (1928–2006)…

Barbara Lynn Pedersen is a New York City attorney, but she grew up in Philadelphia. During her family’s frequent visits to that city’s greatest art museum, “I always asked my parents to visit ‘the rooms with the pretty pictures.’ Those were, of course, the Impressionism galleries.” Pedersen did not start collecting art until her mid-30s, but before then, with help from friends in the art world, she trained her eye and learned about contemporary artists making the kind of art she enjoys. This spirit of curiosity lives on today through her regular visits to commercial galleries and student shows in New York and on her wide-ranging travels. In recent years, Pedersen has been particularly pleased to see younger artists embracing realism and “old-school” techniques such as silverpoint and egg tempera.…

As a librettist, Mark Campbell has his characters sing their thoughts. In the composer Laura Kaminsky’s opera Some Light Emerges (2017), Campbell and his co-librettist Kimberly Reed had the real-life character of Dominique de Menil (1908–1997) express her love for one of Campbell’s favorite artworks, the chapel in Houston she commissioned from Mark Rothko. In an aria, de Menil describes her love of the “silence,” the “quiet,” and the “shadows” of the chapel. She refers to it as a place “Where the eye and the mind/Are taken beyond…. to the infinite.” Campbell similarly loves “the emptiness of that space — the darkness of it, and I love how, when you enter the chapel, it’s often so dark you need to sit a while before some light emerges.” Indeed, the opera…

Now that spring has finally arrived, the editorial team at Fine Art Connoisseur opted to delight readers’ color-starved eyes with an array of superb contemporary artworks celebrating flowers, flowering foliage, and gardens. It never ceases to amaze us how each artist comes at what is essentially the same subject from a completely different viewpoint. Such individuality is just one of the things that makes the field of art so endlessly intriguing, just as flowers are among spring’s most welcome gifts. MATTHIAS ANDERSON is a contributing writer to Fine Art Connoisseur.…

OH, WHAT A NIGHT SAN ANTONIO  briscoemuseum.org/night-of-artistsMarch 27–28 and March 29–May 4 The Briscoe Western Art Museum is set to host its annual fundraiser, the Night of Artists Exhibition and Art Sale. This tradition began 19 years ago as a single evening and has grown into a full weekend of activities that draws artists, collectors, and enthusiasts from across the country. Ready to view and buy will be nearly 300 new paintings, sculptures, and mixed-media works created by 80 contemporary Western artists, both emerging and renowned. Their subjects include landscapes, wildlife, portraiture, and scenes of Native Americans and cowboys. Among the returning participants are Teresa Elliott, Martin Grelle, George Hallmark, Z.S. Liang, Mark Maggiori, Jan Mapes, Stefan Savides, Billy Schenck, Michael Ome Untiedt, and Kim Wiggins. Newly committed ones include…

Jimmy and Laura Chambliss of Atlanta came to love art midway through life. Laura grew up in South Carolina without paying much attention to it, but Jimmy’s mother collected some pieces from her native region near Chattanooga, Tennessee, including some by the well-known watercolorist Harriet Q. Chipley (now in her 90s). Jimmy also inherited from his father several New England marine scenes by such talents as Gordon Grant and Edgar W. Jenney, but did not think about them too much. It was around 20 years ago that Jimmy and Laura started visiting galleries both at home and while traveling. Their first pieces came from Anne Irwin Fine Art in Atlanta, and they have subsequently become enthusiastic clients of several leading Charleston purveyors, including Charleston Renaissance Gallery, Ella Walton Richardson Fine…

Joe Hill is a retired family doctor living in Bend, Oregon. His adventure as a serious art collector began fairly recently and shows no sign of slowing. Hill’s original love was not art, but cars — which can be, of course, quite artistic when designed and built well. As a boy, he drew them in his school notebooks, but he never bought a “real” artwork until 1972: while visiting New Mexico, he and his wife, Judy, fell in love with a watercolor depicting one of that state’s famous mesas. Having started a family and set up his medical practice in Vero Beach, Florida, there was little time or money for art collecting. The Hills liked art of the American West, so they acquired several prints (including one by Howard Terpning)…

Reba Wilcox declares, “My life is blessed to be surrounded by inspiring art. I am grateful for the powerful energy I feel in the artists’ creations in my home.” Having retired after a career working in university and corporate environments, Wilcox lives in St. George, Utah, though she has also resided in Colorado, Georgia, and California. “Knowing through experiencing” could easily be her slogan, for she has visited every U.S. state and well over 100 countries, eager to explore the local museums and galleries and learn more about where she has landed. Wilcox has always been a visual person. As a youngster, she was fascinated by the “power and majesty” of horses’ physical movement. She began collecting art after she became more established professionally. Her first serious purchase — a…