Fine Art Connoisseur January/February 2022

As a man on a mission, I had three art-related goals I wanted to see fulfilled in my lifetime. One was furthering appreciation for plein air painting, which is why I founded PleinAir magazine in 2004. Due to lack of support, we retired it for a couple of years, and then it roared back to life in 2011. We have just finished celebrating its first full decade of robust health. The second goal was to promote the making of portraiture from life, which is why more than 26 top artists have been commissioned to paint my portrait. (One of them graces this page.) The final objective has to do with this magazine, Fine Art Connoisseur, which has been guided by a different set of priorities. Back in 2004, I believed…

It’s funny how certain things suddenly come back to your attention again and again, reminding you why you like them or need to notice them more. That happened to me this autumn with watercolor paintings. I have always loved the flowing expressiveness of the watercolor medium — how it can be used to depict an image realistically yet never lets us forget it’s made of a slippery substance over which artists must have complete mastery. Even those drip marks are strategic. In November, as Eric Rhoads and I co-hosted the successful four-day online conference known as Realism Live (realismlive.com), I refocused on watercolor’s joys during our celebration of the South Carolina artist Mary Whyte, who graciously accepted our Lifetime Achievement Award, and who has won acclaim for the superb portraits…

Michael Bastian dreams about rooms. Like many New Yorkers, in his sleep he imagines opening a closet door in his Greenwich Village apartment to find a new, unexpected room, or, unpleasantly, being stuck in a room, or simply moving through a space in an unfamiliar location. “Sometimes, I’d call these dreams, other times nightmares,” he muses, “but for some weird reason, I often find myself in these architectural settings.” As for this painting by Danish artist Vilhelm Hammershøi (1864–1916), one of Bastian’s favorites, he admits to feeling as if he dreamed being in the room that’s depicted here, even before he saw it. “There’s a feeling of déjà vu when I look at this, as if I saw it in my sleep.” For decades, Bastian has been one of the…

Strictly speaking, a museum is a place dedicated to the muses — the nine (female) divinities of the arts, history, science, and literature who were revered by the ancient Greeks. Though most of us don’t worship those goddesses anymore, the subjects they symbolized are still brought to life daily in the vast array of museums found all over the world. Even the Greek gods could not have predicted how central museums would become in our civic life. They are no longer just places to learn, but also places to gather, celebrate, mourn, and have fun. That accessibility is key: the more often we bring our kids to museums to — say — attend a festival, the more likely they are to return as adults to enjoy the collections and exhibitions…

ONGOING FROM 2021 Through January 23, 2022: Revisiting America: The Prints of Currier & Ives; Florence Griswold Museum, Old Lyme, CT Through March 20, 2022: The Salem Witch Trials: Reckoning and Reclaiming; Peabody Essex Museum, Salem, MA Through April 2, 2022: Portrayals of the American West: Curtis, Reed, Huffman, Wallihans Historic Photography; Steamboat Art Museum, Steamboat Springs, CO Through May 22, 2022: The Sun Dance Series: Heart of the Blackfeet People by Gary Schildt; C.M. Russell Museum, Great Falls, MT Through May 22, 2022: The Great Animal Orchestra: Bernie Krause and United Visual Artists; Peabody Essex Museum, Salem, MA Long-term: Sculpture from the Brookgreen Collection (Portico Gallery) and Waccamaw Neck Memories exhibit of art, decorative objects, and furnishings (Holmes Gallery); Brookgreen Gardens, Murrells Inlet, SC Long-term: National Sculpture Society Honorees,…

Using sarcasm or irony in a painting to make a point is nothing new, but the way KLAIRE A. LOCKHEART (b. 1984) does it is. The South Dakota-based artist — who has earned both a B.S. and an M.F.A. — uses her sharp skills as a painter and thinker, as well as her acerbic wit, to comment on areas of injustice in art history and contemporary culture. Her Brodalisque series in particular takes a look at the antiquated role of woman as object. Turning the male gaze around, or “flipping the binary” as Lockheart describes it, this female artist presents a masculine, middle-aged man in a passive “odalisque” pose and asks viewers to objectify him in the same way a woman would be. While compositions like these might elicit a…