Fine Art Connoisseur March/April 2024

The March-April issue of Fine Art Connoisseur is always a favorite because it introduces us to collectors who are supporting top realist artists across the country with their friendship and encouragement as well as with their checkbooks. As I read their stories, I can't help but ponder some bigger questions, especially regarding what I want to do with my remaining time on earth. My grandmother Luella used to say that as she aged, the years passed like minutes. I can remember it seemed like school years would never end, but now I go from one event to another, and suddenly it's time to start a new year. Though I have made a lot of goals for 2024, I've still not completed my planning process. The most important part of planning…

My favorite issue of the year is the one that highlights real-world collectors of contemporary realist art. This is that issue, and we hope you will enjoy “meeting” the individuals and couples who have so generously opened their doors (see pages 86-95). These folks now join 92 others we have profiled since 2015, and we are honored and grateful to welcome them to this community. Why do we do this? First, people need role models, in any walk of life. We play tennis better after watching Naomi Osaka, and we cook more effectively after Bobby Flay demonstrates the recipe. It's harder with art collecting because there is no single way to do it, and unfortunately the best-known collectors are financiers and movie stars paying millions at auction for a Hirst…

Eduardo Vilaro looks at bodies all the time. He has to. As artistic director and CEO of Ballet Hispánico, Vilaro watches the company's dancers at work, how they occupy a space, and how the actual lines of their bodies appear in that space and, thus, animate it. “I'm not a painter, though I love art, but I can say that I always paint spaces,” Vilaro notes, referencing the works he choreographs. “I paint with bodies.” Among his favorite bodies is one depicted by Caravaggio, Boy with a Basket of Fruit, that is in the permanent collection of the Borghese Gallery in Rome. It was years ago, when New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art mounted a Caravaggio exhibition, that Vilaro first saw this painting; that was also the first time he'd…

There are many reasons people collect art, and they're all worthy of applause. Perhaps it's to enliven our living spaces, to enjoy beauty or technical virtuosity, to connect with artists and others in the community, to satisfy an urge for creativity, to invest in something that will grow in value, or to feel kinship with the past. Fine Art Connoisseur has always been devoted to celebrating the great collectors we see all around us, and also to inspiring newcomers to give it a go. In every issue we highlight the stories of those who acquire art with passion, and we are particularly excited to do this now. Why? Because when it comes to realism (or representation, or figuration — whatever you choose to call it), we are living in a…

Mood and atmosphere take center stage in the paintings of MICHAEL GUINANE (b. 1978), who uses a multilayered approach to capture the feeling of a particular place and time. “I spend a lot of time thinking about how we are suspended between past and future,” says Guinane. “I love showing viewers a moment in time that allows them to imagine what has happened or is about to happen.” As a teenager, Guinane took figure drawing classes at the Milwaukee Institute of Art & Design and was chosen for a high school program that allowed him to spend half of each day of his senior year at the Milwaukee Art Museum. “It was through these activities that I fell in love with art and realized it was what I wanted to pursue,”…

TODAY'S MASTERS Though not exactly a retrospective, the exhibition Fleeting Presence: The Liminal Art of Daniel Sprick features nearly 60 works that cover the breadth of this artist's creativity — figures, still life, and landscape — and span the last 20 of his 50 years behind the easel. The show runs through April 28 at the Madden Museum of Art, in Greenwood Village, Colorado, about 15 miles southeast of downtown Denver. Now operated by the University of Denver (DU), this venue began life as a private museum funded by John W. Madden, Jr., and his wife, Marjorie, who filled it with important historical and contemporary works of American and European art. Marjorie, who died in 2014, and John, who passed this January, developed properties that embraced art throughout; in addition…