Fine Art Connoisseur July/August 2020

Perhaps you’ve heard about the dream I had, the one that led me to invent the Figurative Art Convention & Expo (FACE). In my dream I was dining at a castle, seated at a very long table, and each chair was occupied by a famous artist from the past. Earlier this year I had that dream again, but this time, the great French master William Bouguereau stood up and toasted “The Whole of Art!” When I asked him what that means, he replied that artists can become too narrow and therefore hurt themselves. “All artists should study other art forms, not just their specialties,” he explained. “For instance, I was once obsessed with figures, but realized that if I did not also learn landscape painting, I could never place my…

Well, 2020 has been like no other year, and it’s only half over. Here’s hoping that summer and autumn will treat us all better. Like every field, art has been clobbered, and we at Fine Art Connoisseur have been keeping in touch with colleagues everywhere to learn how they’re doing at this extraordinary time. We have been inspired by readers’ ingenuity and determination, and we salute you for sticking to your aesthetic guns. In May we decided to look closer by recording three lively Zoom conversations under the heading Contemporary Realist Art in Lockdown: What’s Going Well? What’s Not? Co-hosting these one-hour touch-bases with me was the New York City-based artist Katie G. Whipple. All three programs premiered online in early June and can be enjoyed by typing “Contemporary Realist…

Novelist and short-story writer Patrick Ryan likes a good plot. In his five books of fiction, he has told some of the most original stories in contemporary literature and has introduced characters who continue to resonate for readers long after the tales have concluded. Among Ryan’s favorite stories is one that has no words: Edward Hopper’s iconic Cape Cod Morning (1950). “One thing I love about Hopper is the same thing I love about fiction,” says Ryan, who also serves as editor-in-chief of One Story, the influential print magazine that publishes a single short story as each issue. “A fiction writer provides all of the narrative cues for the reader to visualize something, but with Hopper, you have to provide the narrative while he gives you only the visual. For…

Welcome! Highlighting the tremendous quality of sculpture being made today is something we at Fine Art Connoisseur always look forward to with enthusiasm. On view in the following pages is an array of three-dimensional artworks that remind us how endlessly inventive our sculptor colleagues can be. They seemingly never run out of new ways to depict forms in space, and we remain grateful for their energy and skill. Ranging from classical to abstract, from portrait busts to bas-reliefs and life-size figures, the work being made by these and other talents is impressive for various reasons. Making a sculpture is seriously hard work. Painters and draftsmen work hard, too, yet none of the fine arts entails quite so many steps as sculpture. From concept drawing to maquette, from molding or chiseling…

KRISTA LEE JOHNSON Wayzata, Minnesota The Boys 30 x 40 in., oil on linen Staff Choice Award Available through Art Renewal Center 14th International ARC Sotheby’s Exhibition kristaleejohn@msn.com 952.200.8244 kristaleejohnson.com ALISA SHEA Northport, New York Worth My Salt, 20 x 20 in., transparent watercolor on paper Still Life Finalist • Available through the artist alisa@alisashea.com • www.alisashea.com CLARK LOUIS GUSSIN ARC LIVING ARTIST San Jose, California Rain on Blood Alley, 24 x 30 in., watercolor on Arches 300lb Hot Press Landscape Finalist • Available cgussin@gmail.com • www.clarkgussinart.com DAVID MICHAEL BOWERS Madeira Beach, Florida The Eternal Touch 48 x 34 in. oil on Belgian linen Available bowersartist@gmail.com 412.296.6000 http://dmbowers.com Represented by Palm Avenue Fine Arts; Gallery 1261; Ric Michel Fine Art. MARY K WEST Guadalupe The Niche, 15 x 25 in.,…

KEVIN MCEVOY (b. 1980) has been painting honest reflections of everyday life for more than 15 years. Fascinated by what he calls “common things,” this realist sees the poetry in life’s myriad moments, from the mundane to the painful to the poignant. “It’s really simple,” the artist says. “I paint what I am with and where I am by relaying the story before me — the way the neck of a violin is worn down by a century of playing, the hopeful lines of a pregnant woman, the distant stare of a Vietnam veteran, or the painful regret in a prisoner’s eye.” McEvoy earned a B.F.A. at New York’s Stony Brook University; after graduating he moved to Florence with his wife, Margaret, to study classical drawing and painting at Charles…