Innholdsfortegnelse for January/February 2021 i Fine Art Connoisseur

In spite of COVID-19’s downsides — and there are many — there has been a little sunshine emanating from the art world. For many, the word “pivot” comes to mind. Artists and galleries have had to pivot to survive, and for some this has resulted in better-than-normal sales, as well as lower costs through offering virtual shows in lieu of pricey venues and cocktail receptions. For collectors, spending time at home with their art has revealed the gaps, triggering focused efforts to find new works that enhance the collection. And for those many cooped-up people who found themselves staring at empty walls or aching to remodel their spaces, there has been the powerful realization that art is needed. Though such good news can be found within the pandemic’s dark clouds,…

A quiet yet steady player in the renaissance of American realist art has marked 20 years of full-time painting with the first book published about him. Launched last June by his primary representative, Addison Art Gallery (Orleans, Massachusetts), Paul Schulenburg: Oil Paintings is a handsome hardback volume running 200 pages and featuring more than 100 color reproductions, most of them full-page. Its appearance presents an ideal opportunity to assess Schulenburg’s artistic achievements thus far. Born in 1957 in Schenectady, New York, he grew up in a home filled with paintings created by his maternal grandfather, the talented hobbyist Frank Hazard Dygert. Schulenburg recalls, “My mother would tell me, ‘You have a talent like your grandfather. Don’t waste that gift.’ So rather than steering me toward a more ‘practical’ profession, my…

We tend to imagine artists’ careers in certain ways. Most often we envision them retreating into the studio to do battle with The Muse, emerging with artworks that their dealers praise to the heavens, and for which collectors pay heavenly prices. Museum exhibitions and coffee-table monographs follow. (Well, maybe this goes too far, but it would be nice if it always happened like this.) To be sure, our mental portraits of artists generally do not picture them driving their work around to outdoor art festivals, battling the elements while setting up a 10-x-10-foot booth for display, keeping one eye on the cash box and the other on a van parked nearby, watching other exhibitors’ booths while they take bathroom breaks, etc. Real artists don’t do that, right? Hopefully the experience…

The year 2020 has been downbeat, but the inaugural edition of Fine Art Connoisseur’s groundbreaking Realism Live online conference in October was a huge success. Co-hosted by publisher Eric Rhoads and editor-in-chief Peter Trippi, this five-day event offered more than 1,600 participants watching from around the world over 30 demonstrations, lectures, and informative conversations by master artists — all focused on the best in contemporary realism. There was also lots of time for participants to get to know each other in Zoom breakout rooms, and to ask questions of the presenters via the fast-scrolling “chat-stream.” Realism Live concluded on October 24 with a festive virtual ceremony announcing the winners of the first annual Artist & Selfie Painting Competition. The rationale for this initiative was simply that, in our smartphone-dominated world,…

This is not the winter you were expecting. It certainly isn’t mine. Last January I was lucky to spend a week in Rome exploring museums, palaces, and churches in glorious sunshine, with few tourists and lots of after-Christmas bargains in the shops. If COVID-19 was in the air (and surely it was), I did not know. This January — probably like you — I am almost attached to my computer and television, communicating with others via Zoom and exploring the world vicariously through websites and streaming content. This existence would be deeply depressing without the knowledge that I will get vaccinated this spring (hopefully), and then perhaps the wheels of “normal” life can slowly start to turn again. It’s impossible to overstate how keenly many of us miss direct experiences…

ONGOING FROM 2020 Through February 15, 2021: I Ventured into the Dream: A Retrospective of Sheryl Bodily; Hockaday Museum of Art, Kalispell, MT Through March 6, 2021: Qualla Arts & Crafts Mutual: Tradition and Innovation; Blowing Rock Art & History Museum, Blowing Rock, NC Through March 7, 2021: Collectors' Legacy: Wickenburg's Treasures; Desert Caballeros Western Museum, Wickenburg, AZ Through March 20, 2021: Drawing from Life: Ben Long & Tony Griffin; Blowing Rock Art & History Museum, Blowing Rock, NC Through March 27, 2021: Small and Mighty Acts Altar for Black Lives; Blowing Rock Art & History Museum, Blowing Rock, NC Through April 10, 2021: Blue Ridge Conservancy: Place Matters; Blowing Rock Art & History Museum, Blowing Rock, NC Through May 3, 2021: Sage Grouse: Icon of the West, Photography by…

“I felt compelled to paint this tribute to healthcare workers in recognition of their response to the COVID-19 epidemic, and also in gratitude for their support during my ongoing battle with Stage IV colon cancer. Their all-hands-on-deck response to the pandemic has been widely acknowledged as a historic humanitarian mission, one that has often found itself against the grain of political rhetoric. Yet healthcare professionals have sustained their efforts, sometimes at the cost of their own lives. I cannot imagine where we all would be without their determination to go on saving lives. On a personal level, they have provided me with incredible care. Their compassion and support have gone way beyond what I anticipated and have made a huge difference in my recovery path and continuing challenges. “Healthcare professionals…

In 1893 the 31-year-old, London-based artist James Jebusa Shannon (1862–1923) made his American debut in the British Section of the Chicago World’s Columbian Exposition with three portraits, two of which portrayed the American expatriate artist George Hitchcock and his wife, Henrietta.1 Although born in Auburn, New York, Shannon had lived in England since the age of 16, when he crossed the Atlantic to attend the National Art Training School (now the Royal College of Art) and subsequently carved out a flourishing career as a society portraitist exhibiting at major venues throughout Britain and Europe. Shannon’s decision to display the Hitchcock portraits in Chicago suggests a deliberate bid to underscore his American origins and pave his way into a new portrait market. This assumption is reasonable because both Hitchcocks were represented…

ARTISTS & GALLERIES New York City kasmingallery.com January 2–February 27 Born in Brooklyn, Jane Freilicher (1924–2014) studied with Hans Hofmann and came of age in the heyday of abstract expressionism. Though she moved comfortably among such abstractionists as Willem de Kooning and Joan Mitchell, she remained committed to representation in her own art, much like her colleagues Fairfield Porter and Alex Katz. Kasmin Gallery began representing Freilicher’s estate in 2017, and now its second show, Parts of a World, highlights her intimate domestic subject matter through 15 still lifes ranging in date from the 1950s through the 2000s. Many of them depict flowers, which Freilicher painted in the same spirit as Pierre Bonnard and Henri Matisse, unconcerned by their traditional associations with femininity. They are seen, up close or at…

Every day in the music studio of her Los Angeles home, violinist Anne Akiko Meyers plays along with Felix Mendelssohn. As she tunes her 1741 Ex-Vieuxtemps Guarneri del Gesù instrument, reputed to be perhaps the best-sounding violin around, and launches into passages of works she will perform in concert halls around the world, Meyers acknowledges the great composer. His scores are in the room, and so is a painting by him, one of some 300 he completed in his short lifetime (he died at 38). Meyers owns a diminutive yet uncannily detailed watercolor created by the composer in June 1837. It depicts the Lake Como locale where he and his wife, Cécile, honeymooned. “Until recently, no one even knew this painting existed,” says Meyers. Her husband purchased the work at…

LUCAS BONONI (b. 1991) has worked persistently to reach the position in which he now finds himself: an emerging realist earning the admiration of a wide range of collectors, fellow painters, and art professionals. At 28, the Los Angeles-born and New York City-based artist has been creating art full-time for seven years, a pursuit that entailed several sacrifices to make his dream a reality. To that end, Bononi believes in mastering the business side of his profession and spends as much time educating himself about marketing and selling his art as he does creating it. He is, in that sense, a quintessential millennial: entrepreneurial, resourceful, and eager to achieve what matters most to him. Bononi’s early dedication to building a business carried with it the realization that his finances (and…

Human beings love and respect all kinds of animals, but among the most cherished are dogs, horses, and birds. The Fine Art Connoisseur team decided to triple up and find out which artists are successfully depicting any member of this trio, and we have been thrilled to discover terrific work being made nationwide. In this section, we highlight a broad array of images, some of which transcend description or charm to underscore the more profound, even symbolist, meanings we humans have assigned to these fellow creatures over the centuries. A special note for bird watchers, if we may. Prepare to rejoice this April when the National Audubon Society publishes the latest edition of its indispensable field guide Birds of North America. Not updated since 1994, this 912-page volume is the…

A monogram. Signet rings. The school scarf. We have long fashioned accoutrements to reflect our personal and tribal identities. You might easily include bookplates in this universe, too. Created to mark possession of a printed work and to guide an errant volume back to its proper place in the library, these pasted-in nametags are as much affirmations of personality as they are signals of ownership. As the British writer and critic Sir Edmund Gosse (1849–1928) opined in 1913, “The outward and visible mark of the citizenship of the book-lover is his book-plate.” Bookplates first appeared not long after Johannes Gutenberg blessed Europe with movable type in 1439. Among the oldest extant are those of Hilprand Brandenburg of Biberach, a Carthusian monk who lived in a monastery in Buxheim, Germany. Dating…