Innholdsfortegnelse for September/October 2023 i Fine Art Connoisseur

“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 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…

TODAY’S MASTERS As fellow residents of Earth, wild animals have always fascinated humans, especially the artists among us. Thus many creatures appear in prehistoric cave paintings, and today the desire to depict them endures, stronger than ever. The artworks illustrated here confirm this ongoing enthusiasm, and it’s easy to learn more thanks to a host of activities happening across North America. For example, in Charleston next February, the annual Southeastern Wildlife Exposition (sewe.com) will again delight animal lovers with exhibitions, demos, and other activities highlighting the importance of conservation. Touring the country are the annual Art and the Animal exhibitions organized by the Society of Animal Artists (societyofanimalartists.com), and then there is the annual festival hosted by Artists for Conservation (artistsforconservation.org), which features an exhibition by leading international artists, screenings,…

INSIDE TRACK You can never truly comprehend artistic masterworks of the past until you try to create a work of art yourself. Whether it’s the delicate glazing of a Bouguereau, the play of colors in a Sargent, or the lost edges and thick highlights of a Rembrandt, learning the masters’ techniques helps us fall even more deeply in love with their achievements. Often, this greater understanding leads us to new favorites; for example, we may look anew at portraiture after we tackle the challenges of turning the form or making flesh look alive. Fine Art Connoisseur regularly features the best programs offering rigorous training in traditional fine art, in America and abroad. Whether you are seeking part-time study, a degree program, or a workshop experience, the organizations highlighted here may…

BEHIND THE SCENES DIGITAL CONTENT Mimesis — the copying of a masterwork — has been a key part of painters’ training since classical antiquity. As musicians must learn basic instrumental techniques before developing their own styles, so artists can learn a great deal from perfecting a past master’s technical elements. Painters such as Leonardo, Michelangelo, Velázquez, Rubens, and Rembrandt all created master copies throughout their lives. In 2018, I embarked on a four-year journey to paint a copy of David with the Head of Goliath, which was created by Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio (1571–1610) and is today always on view at Rome’s Galleria Borghese. I was determined to make my copy as close as possible to the original, from technique to scale to materials. My effort to get into the master’s…

ARTISTS & GALLERIES Oak Park, Illinois oppl.org and armendarizart.com September 5–October 7 The Oak Park Public Library is presenting the exhibition Tony Armendariz: Portraits in Watercolor. It features 13 works by the Chicago-born, Palatine-based artist who teaches at the Oak Park Art League and has directed the Illinois Watercolor Society for a decade. On view are images drawn from his world travels; this July the work illustrated here won the Founders Award at the 55th Annual International Transparent Watercolor Exhibition of Watercolor West. Laguna Beach, California lpapa.org through September 24 In 1920, the artist Joseph Kleitsch (1882–1931) moved to the burgeoning art colony of Laguna Beach and made a huge impact on its aesthetic development. The gallery run by the Laguna Plein Air Painters Association (LPAPA) has mounted the exhibition Inspired…

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 DIGITAL CONTENT For wildlife sculptors, fluency in animal physiology is a must. It doesn’t matter how realistic or stylized the artist’s ultimate interpretation; if the measurements are off and the bones not set right, the sculptor will struggle with composition and design, which will ultimately impinge on the ability to achieve true artistic expression. In other words, wildlife sculptors have to know the rules before they break them. For this reason, many artists have extensive handson experience working with the animals they portray. That experience comes from a variety of sources as well as a rather unconventional route: taxidermy. Taxidermy is to sculpture what illustration is to fine art: intensive training and discipline coupled with impossible deadlines that finely hone the mechanics of craft into muscle memory. And though…

ART IN THE WEST OUT IN TAOS TAOS Plein Air Painters of America: Out West Show and Sale Couse-Sharp Historic Site couse-sharp.org pleinairpaintersofamerica.com September 29–January 20 The Couse-Sharp Historic Site (CSHS) is set to host Plein Air Painters of America: Out West, the annual show and sale of the nonprofit organization Plein Air Painters of America (PAPA). The juried exhibition will feature approximately 50 recent paintings created by PAPA members, including one invited from special guest and local artist Walt Gonske. Some members will participate in an extended paint-out in the Taos Valley October 2–7, and they are sure to marvel at this region’s glowing autumnal colors. Their adventure will culminate on the 7th with a “wet paint” sale and several painting demonstrations for the public. Located in the heart…

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…

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…

INSIDE TRACK The Swiss-born artist Nicolas Party (b. 1980) recounts a dinner, of sorts, he attended at Frick Madison, the Frick Collection’s temporary home in the former Whitney Museum building in Manhattan. This spring, upon finishing his commission to create an in situ pastel work that references the museum’s two prized pastel drawings by Rosalba Carriera (1673–1757), Party felt that the gallery where his art appears is like a big, airy dining room. “Everyone in the room,” he says, referencing the nearby Bronzino portrait of Lodovico Capponi, Titian’s portraits of a man in a red cap and of Pietro Aretino, Bellini’s depiction of St. Francis off in a nearby alcove, and the other mostly Italian masterpieces, “is at a dinner party, talking and eating together.” For the remaining months that…

EVENTS PREVIEW ART AHOY AMERICAN SOCIETY OF MARINE ARTISTS 19th National Exhibition Albany Institute of History and Art Albany, New York americansocietyofmarineartists.com albanyinstitute.org September 10–December 31 The American Society of Marine Artists (ASMA) will soon open its 19th National Exhibition at the Albany Institute of History and Art. On view will be 114 recent works by talented ASMA members from across the country and overseas. Now representing more than 500 members, the organization devises educational opportunities for them, presents national, regional, and themed exhibitions, publishes a quarterly magazine, and facilitates interaction among artists, collectors, academics, gallerists, and enthusiasts. During the show’s opening week, ASMA will also convene its 4th National Marine Art Conference (September 6–11) in Albany. This gathering will feature painting demonstrations by such members as Rick J. Delanty,…

BEHIND THE SCENES Large swaths of the world deplore Russia’s unprovoked 2022 invasion of neighboring Ukraine, and it probably upsets many Americans that there is little they can do about it as individuals. There aren’t many Russian products we can boycott, and a disinvestment campaign wouldn’t go far because few U.S. companies have financial ties to Russia anymore. Professional tennis has sought to shame players from Russia and neighboring Belarus by not identifying their nationality, to little practical effect, and action in the art world has been limited. Just for example, Hermitage Amsterdam, which had long mounted exhibitions of art from St. Petersburg’s Hermitage State Museum, renamed itself the H’Art Museum and now relies on works borrowed from Washington’s Smithsonian American Art Museum, Paris’s Centre Pompidou, and London’s British Museum.…