Fine Art Connoisseur September/October 2023

“What art do you recommend buying today, Eric?” This is the question I hear most often as I travel the country. First, I never offer investment advice, as it’s a great way to lose friends and get sued. Besides, I don’t buy art for investment, though if choosing between two artworks I love equally, I’ll always buy the one more likely to yield a higher return down the road. Buy what you love — whatever speaks to your heart and has special meaning. If you buy purely for investment, you may get stuck with something expensive that you simply don’t love. A reader of this magazine once showed me his collection of 1970s modern art, in which he had invested millions, and which is worthless today. He no longer loves…

“The Ancients Stole All Our Great Ideas. And I want them back, thank you very much.” Mark Twain wrote these words long ago, yet their perversity still has the power to amuse us, and to give us pause. Rather than throwing in the towel, regretting that it’s all been done before, we must draw from Twain’s quip the courage to carry on. We would be fools to think no one has ever before felt exactly as we do, or pondered the same thoughts. Yet each individual is unique in the history of the world, casting their eye backward and forward in a completely distinctive way. The necessity of such back-and-forthing is borne out by a range of articles in this issue, which have got me thinking about how crucial it…

Untitled Robert Andrew Parker (b. 1927) c. 1982, ink and watercolor on paper, 22 x 34 in. Private collection Every time Janice Parker, the prolific landscape architect, sees this artwork depicting a sailboat asea at dusk, she hears jazz. The black ink and watercolor painting that hangs in the family room of her home in Greenwich, Connecticut, reminds her of her ex-father-in-law, Robert Andrew Parker, who continues to make art at age 96. “Bob is a jazz drummer, and he’s always listening to jazz as he paints,” says Janice Parker, who has watched him work for nearly 40 years in his barn/studio in Cornwall Bridge, Connecticut. In a novel characterization of his oeuvre, she refers to the artist’s ability to “play” the painting as he works: “Not unlike jazz, he’s…

“The American West” means many different things to many different people, and that fact should make us all glad. At Fine Art Connoisseur we have long been keenly aware of how art of the West differs from — and overlaps with — art made in or about the rest of this remarkable country. That’s one reason every issue of this magazine contains a separate section called “Art in the West” — to underscore that very point. Its existence does not mean we have passed on a comparable section titled, say, “Art in the Northeast.” Rather, it’s recognition of the fact that Western vitality in the fields of historic and contemporary realism is so noticeably strong that it shouldn’t be overlooked or made to wait on the sidelines. It makes perfect…

Los Angeles artist OLGA KRIMON (b. 1972) has an eclectic and robust educational background that has led her to develop a signature style now being recognized internationally. Born in Odessa, Ukraine, she received an academic art education in Kazan, Russia, and was greatly influenced by the prominent figures of Russian art history, among them Repin, Serov, Bryullov, Levitan, Kramskoi, and Fechin. She also felt an affinity for the swift, bold brushwork and careful value arrangements of Sargent, Zorn, Sorolla, and Cecilia Beaux, and therefore studied their work closely for many years. Krimon first came to the U.S. as an exchange student in 1991 and then moved to California in 1996. Eventually she started taking drawing classes with illustrator and California Art Institute instructor Glen Orbik, as well as classes with the…

TODAY’S MASTERS Nancy Tankersley (b. 1949) has always been comfortable with change. She’s had to be. As the child of a career officer in the U.S. Navy, she got used to relocating from one part of the country to another. Later, as the wife of a Navy aviator, the intermittent changes of residence continued. “I’m definitely a ‘glass half full’ person,” she says. “You move and you know it will be hard, but it will be okay; you’ll find your place. Then it’s over and you move on.” The one constant in Tankersley’s life, from the time she was young, has been her passion for painting. Initially, she pursued a bachelor’s degree in fine art at Miami University in Oxford, Ohio, then changed course and earned a bachelor’s in community…