Innholdsfortegnelse for November/December 2021 i Fine Art Connoisseur

Southern California is renowned for its sunny weather, scenic beaches, and celebrities, but perhaps it should also be admired for its “competitive figure drawing. It’s an Olympic sport here,” says Hope Railey, who should know because she chairs the fine arts department at Laguna College of Art + Design (LCAD) in Laguna Beach. You would be forgiven for not apprehending this fact if you saw only what is highlighted at the region’s most prominent museums; the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Museum of Contemporary Art, The Broad, and the Hammer Museum, for instance, focus on much more cutting-edge approaches. Nonetheless, Railey explains, whole communities of artists here support one another through figure drawing circles, exhibitions, and organizations that feature “skill-based” realism. Actually, none of this is news for insiders,…

Users of the library at the Salmagundi Club in New York City now have even more to study and contemplate there: the luminous pair of oil-on-aluminum panels being installed this month on the interior of its two entrance doors. Created by the Santa Cruz, California-based artist Noah Buchanan (b. 1976), these vibrant allegorical works were commissioned by the club to mark its 150th anniversary. A professional and social organization for representational artists and their patrons, “The Salmagundi” is housed in a historic brownstone mansion facing Fifth Avenue in Greenwich Village. It remains one of the city’s best-kept secrets, and within its elegant rowhouse lies an even better-kept secret: a stunning library with an unparalleled collection of visual reference materials. Beginning in the years around 1900, the philanthropist J. Sanford Saltus…

EVOKING THE PLAINS CHEYENNE americanplainsartists.com  and cfdrodeo.com/ cfd-oldwest-museum November 5–December 5 Founded in 1982, the nonprofit organization American Plains Artists (APA) is set to host its 36th Annual Juried Exhibit & Sale at the Cheyenne Frontier Days Old West Museum. On view will be approximately 115 two- and three-dimensional works created in traditional media by artists who live throughout the U.S. and Canada. All of the pieces selected reflect APA’s mission to depict the American Great Plains region in all its diversity. Among the subjects addressed are landscape, wildlife, people, and ways of life in both historical and modern times. The artist whose work is illustrated here, Tim Harmon, lives in Globe, Arizona. From age 9, he worked as a cowboy on ranches in Arizona and New Mexico, and he still…

We all know the pandemic has altered a wide range of behaviors, some forever. When it comes to art, a survey conducted recently by a leading insurer, Chubb, took a helpful look at U.S. art collectors’ attitudes and purchasing decisions over the past year (spring 2020 through spring 2021). I won’t bore you with a blow-by-blow summary, but there are several findings worth pondering here. First, 74 percent of respondents have purchased, or would consider purchasing, art sight unseen. That confirms our impression that we have been combing the Internet more than ever before. Following from there, 79 percent of respondents used an online auction platform to buy or sell valuables or collectables, though of course they also bought via Artsy, Etsy, eBay, nonprofit arts organizations and clubs, and the…

“Oh no,” you’re thinking, “not another show about Vincent Van Gogh.” One could be forgiven for wondering when the cascade of exhibitions devoted to the brilliant Dutchman will slow, but actually applause is due for a new project titled Through Vincent’s Eyes: Van Gogh and His Sources. Organized by California’s Santa Barbara Museum of Art (SBMA) in partnership with Ohio’s Columbus Museum of Art (CMA), it will be presented at each venue with a distinct curatorial perspective, an approach that is interesting in and of itself. It’s a fact that the paintings of Vincent Van Gogh (1853–1890) look utterly unlike any other artist’s; the vivid palette, expressive brushwork, and bold — sometimes bizarre — visions of people and nature are unmistakably his. Yet however revolutionary his style may have been,…

Readers of Fine Art Connoisseur will surely be pleased to learn that Nan and David Skier of Birmingham, Alabama, have spent decades gathering a world-class collection of paintings and drawings by the so-called Ashcan School, the informal group of American artists who shocked high society by painting daily life in New York City’s poorer neighborhoods around 1900. The Skiers have also adorned their home with fascinating historical objects often overlooked by other collectors, such as tea caddies and calling card cases — everyday items that can be extraordinarily well designed and crafted. Worthy as those collections are of editorial coverage, the Skiers’ more surprising accomplishment is having assembled one of the world’s most complete collections of “eye miniatures” — hand-painted portraits of a single human eye, many less than one…

ARTISTS & GALLERIES New York City dfnprojects.com November 18–January 7, 2022 On view at DFN Projects is the exhibition Silver, devoted to the slow, ancient technique of silverpoint drawing. The artist drags a silver rod or wire across a paper, parchment, or panel that has been prepared with gesso or primer, resulting in fine details and pearlescent half-lights. This multi-artist show has been organized by Michael Gormley, director of the New York Artists Equity Association’s Equity Gallery. Naples, Florida emillionsart.com November 18–December 8 Emillions Art is exhibiting recent works by Mara Sfara, the Connecticut-based painter whose brushwork varies from hard-edged to feathery, and who also creates sculptures in materials ranging from wood to acrylic. She has acquired her skills through years of training at various universities, the Art Students League…

Maarten Platje (b. 1967) was born in the great port city of Rotterdam and still lives in the Netherlands, a country intimately connected with the sea and, not coincidentally, the birthplace of marine art as a genre. He is part of a long line of artists whose paintings, drawings, and prints of the sea, and of ships engaged in battle, racing, trading, and fishing, have become monuments to Dutch national identity. From the so-called Golden Age of the 17th century onward, these scenes have served as metaphors for the human condition as much as depictions of real experience. They memorialize life by, for, and from the sea. Since completing his studies at Ars Aemula Naturae, an art training institute in the historic city of Leiden, Platje has enjoyed international success…

In Miami, the Coral Gables Museum is set to launch the exhibition Julio Larraz: The Kingdom We Carry Inside, on view there from December 1 through April 30. For the past 50 years, artist Julio Larraz (b. 1944) has mounted many exhibitions internationally, yet — amazingly — this is his first museum retrospective in the United States. Organized by Coral Gables’ chief curator Yuneikys Villalonga, the project will survey the full sweep of Larraz’s visionary paintings, drawings, and sculptures, borrowed from private and public collections nationwide, as well as archival items and artworks from his own collection. Larraz’s story is memorable. Born in Havana during World War II, he considers himself both a Cuban artist and an American one, for reasons clarified below. Larraz’s father, Julio Cesar Fernandez, had been…

HOMETOWN HERO GEORGE BELLOWS CENTER Columbus Museum of Art Columbus, Ohio columbusmuseum.org November 4 This November the Columbus Museum of Art (CMA) is inaugurating its George Bellows Center, intended to sustain the legacy of one of America’s most intriguing artists. Born in Columbus and educated at Ohio State University, Bellows (1882–1925) studied art in New York City and established his career there, yet he never lost touch with his hometown. Today the CMA holds the largest public collection of Bellows’s paintings and a significant number of his lithographs, more of which it acquires on a rolling basis. Thanks to leadership support from the family of Teckie and Don Shackelford, the Center will have a space in the museum for use by visiting scholars and students. These individuals will undertake research on…