Innholdsfortegnelse for November/December 2022 i Fine Art Connoisseur

The sun casts golden light on the mountains near Ghost Ranch as the day fades into the tranquility of night. Painted from a plein air sketch, the radiance is captured in thick, textural strokes of vibrating color. BRAD TEARE discovered his love for thick paint at a Van Gogh exhibit at the Metropolitan Museum in New York City. Fascinated by the impact of the paintings, Teare began exploring texture and now travels the west painting the landscape in glowing, textured color. PALACE AVE. GALLERY • 123 WEST PALACE AVENUE SANTA FE, NM 87501 • 505.986.0440 INFO@MANITOUGALLERIES.COM…

Henri Matisse’s scene of a window open to colorful boats bobbing in a Mediterranean harbor opened a window, of sorts, for Suzanne Tucker. The San Francisco-based Tucker, one of America’s leading and most prolific interior designers, recalls the first time she saw the work known as Open Window, Collioure, as an undergraduate at the University of Oregon. She evokes the classic setting for an art history class, with a slide projector clicking away and flashing images on a big screen in a dimmed room, dust motes dancing in the vector of light. “I was taking notes in the dark, and when this image appeared, I was gobsmacked by Matisse’s use of color.” While she doesn’t exactly cite the painting as the impetus for changing her major to interior architecture and…

As any visitor to Newport, Rhode Island, knows, Thames Street is where the action is. Hugging the waterfront, chock-a-block with shops, restaurants, and bars, it’s the money-making heart of town, a place plenty of residents avoid if they aren’t running a business there. At its end, in a neighborhood of 18th- and early 19th-century houses called The Point, retail and hospitality give way to sidewalks that may not see more than a few pedestrians all day. There is one notable business here, though: the John Stevens Shop. A stonecarving enterprise founded in 1705, it was operated by six generations of the Stevens family until Newport native John Howard Benson (1901-1956) bought it in 1927. His son, John Everett Benson (b. 1939), started working there at age 15, departing only long…

By most measures, giving to charity is a good thing. Donating cash to nonprofit organizations, books to libraries, clothes to the Salvation Army, child care items to homeless shelters, or artworks to museums helps the public in general and those in need particularly. Moreover, donors receive a tax deduction equal to the value of the donation. Win-win. Yet there frequently are times when prospective recipient organizations do not want your gift. Cash is rarely a problem unless the donor’s money is ill-gotten (e.g., the Sackler family’s name has been removed from numerous institutions in light of their role in the opioid epidemic). But libraries increasingly turn down book donations (they have too many already), the Salvation Army only wants items that are “gently used” and in full working order, and…

Amsterdam may be the metropolis most people associate with the Netherlands, yet the country’s most elegant city is located 40 miles to the south. The Hague (Den Haag in Dutch) is where the Royal Family reside and where international embassies are located; it is also home to an array of top-notch museums and galleries presenting art from many eras. Particularly strong are several venues in The Hague’s charming historic center devoted to Dutch art of the 17th century. This period is usually called the Golden Age to convey the impressive productivity and staggering wealth that followed the Dutch provinces’ violent breakaway from Spanish imperial rule. Since 2020, attention has rightly shifted to the fact that much of this prosperity was built on the backs of people in Africa, the Americas,…

Madison, Connecticut susanpowellfineart.com through November 26 Vincent Giarrano: City Life Paintings is the 13th solo show this gifted painter has mounted at Susan Powell Fine Art. On view are more than 30 recent paintings, many highlighting women going about their daily lives - at work, dressing for an evening out, or enjoying drinks. New York City features prominently, with its sharp shadows, graffiti, and cast iron architecture. Kinderhook, New York gallerynortheastllc.com November 3-December 11 Gallery Northeast is presenting impressionistic landscape paintings by the talented artist Howard Knotts (1922-2004). Best known as an illustrator and author of children’s books, he spent more than four decades in New York’s Hudson Valley. Much of his fine art reflects a deep love of that region’s unique light and palette. New York City salmagundi.org November…

Why is it that an “artwork” designed by a well-known artist — fabricated by a studio of apprentices and untouched by the artist until he signs it — can be sold for millions of dollars? Is it the concept that makes these works valuable? The signature? The materials? The artist’s “brand”? And why is it that two artists of equal skill and experience can end up so far apart in pricing and collectability? I have asked around and found that no one can answer these questions definitively, though there are lots of opinions out there. At face value, a painting is worth only what its materials cost at the art supplies store — a canvas, a stretcher, and a few ounces of paint. In fact, that is all the Internal…

Lyricism, quietude, subtlety — these are the defining qualities of the landscape paintings of the Danish American artist (Søren) Emil Carlsen (1848-1932). In his lifetime, Carlsen was far better known for still life subjects, and the misconception that this was his primary genre has prevailed.1 In fact, landscapes represent a significant aspect of his production, including exceptional marine scenes painted throughout his career. Warranting particular reappraisal are Carlsen’s compositions picturing open seas, coasts, and falls, which earned critical acclaim and bound him artistically to his Nordic seafaring heritage.2 Indeed, his lifelong connections to Denmark supplied an essential foundation for his art and especially informed his marine paintings. Carlsen was born in Copenhagen and studied architecture at the Royal Danish Academy for four years. He then turned to art, and although…

ART FROM ACROSS AMERICA AMERICAN ARTISTS PROFESSIONAL LEAGUE 94th Annual Grand National Exhibition Salmagundi Club of New York New York City aaplinc.org and salmagundi.org November 7—18 The American Artists Professional League is set to mount its 94th Annual Grand National Exhibition at the Salmagundi Club of New York. This juried show will contain 147 pieces encompassing landscapes, still lifes, florals, figures, portraiture, and sculpture. During a reception on November 12, AAPL will award more than $20,000 in prizes selected by the independent curator Marilyn Symmes. Founded in 1928 to foster traditional realism, AAPL is open to all U.S.-based artists working in oil, water media, pastel, graphics, and sculpture. Prominent past members include Jasper Cropsey, Alden Bryan, and Frank J. Reilly. The organization’s mission is to encourage and protect artists’ interests, to promote…

The Florence Academy of Art was established in 1991 by the American-born artist Daniel Graves (b. 1949) in the limonaia (lemon conservatory) of the noble Corsini family. From the very start, it was a bootstraps opportunity intended to reshape the future of art instruction; the young academy buzzed with the excitement of knowledge being transmitted, and the air was full of paint’s heady perfume. Graves felt he had a responsibility to pass along the flaming torch of the atelier to the next generation. He recalls: We were exchanging information that we learned and gleaned and read about. Technical stuff from frame gilders and from Zecchi’s [the historic Florentine art supplies store]; all these local people who had so much knowledge. It was phasing out, and we caught it right at the…

Depicting the human figure convincingly is a challenge that confronts many realist artists on a regular basis. After all, the body is at the center of our very being, and we can all see when a hand doesn’t look “right” or a head seems out of proportion to the body. Artists who do it well deserve our admiration, and even more so when they complement the figure with a costume — a garment other than the usual “street clothes,” that is in some way performative or staged, that helps a “mere” person transform into someone else. The artist’s challenge here is not so much selection of the costume — for example, we all expect a clown to wear a red nose — but to ensure that the essential humanity of…

Women artists of talent have too often been overlooked. This is something not yet banished to the past, although, yes, times have changed, and for the better. A gratifying number of women – still not enough – have emerged from undeserved obscurity, some once eclipsed by a more successful husband, lover, or son. A nowfamous example is Suzanne Valadon, whose son was Maurice Utrillo. Marguerite Louppe (1902–1988) is another: her life spanned almost the entire 20th century, a period of enormous transitions of unparalleled rapidity. Louppe’s husband was Maurice Brianchon (1899–1979), an artist celebrated in his day both in France and abroad. She was his active collaborator on many projects and managed his career. He, in turn, was surprisingly supportive of her as an artist in her own right, unusual…

“Samuel Courtauld believed that art is for all,” says Professor Deborah Swallow, director of London’s Courtauld Institute of Art since 2004. Over the last 18 years, she has led a £50 million transformation through which the Courtauld has reaffirmed its founder’s mantra and burnished its reputation as one of the world’s top art institutions in all its four components: teaching, research, conservation, and sharing its collection. This is a sea change from the decades following the institute’s opening in 1932, when its focus became narrower and — frankly — its image slightly stuffy and elitist. So numerous and diverse are the innovative ways of thinking at the Courtauld that, like the Getty or Yale, its range and depth boggle the mind in the best possible way. “Our rubric,” says Swallow,…

Based in Urbana, Illinois, the artist Adrian Gottlieb (b. 1975) has been highly regarded in the world of contemporary realism for almost two decades. He is best known for his figurative pieces and portraiture, both official and personal, and is also admired for an uncanny ability to integrate radiant figures into realistic landscapes. (Two new examples of this expertise are illustrated on page 106.) Gottlieb often works directly from the live model, as well as from images taken during photoshoots he directs. What comes off his easel are people who are luminous — many seem to glow from within — and replete with both purpose and poise. Gottlieb likes to quote the story of Rembrandt’s student asking how the master knew when a painting was complete. He was told to…