paintings

Georgia O’Keeffe at MoMA: A Closer Look at Greatness

Sandra Bertrand

From her early days on Wisconsin farmland — a high school stint in Virginia, followed by the Art Institute of Chicago and the Art Students League of New York, a summer at Lake George, camping trips in Appalachia, and teaching stints in Texas and South Carolina--she was endlessly experimenting. Over 120 works, including examples from MoMA’s collection, demonstrate the ways in which O’Keeffe developed, repeated, and changed motifs that blur the boundary between observation and abstraction.

Manou Marzban – An Artist for Our Times

Sandra Bertrand

This lighthearted genius of pop culture wants to make people think as well. Every icon from our combined histories is fair game for deconstruction, from colorfully painted World War II Nazi helmets—“just a piece of  metal”—to cartoon renderings of historical figures from the Qajar dynasty. Marzban’s vivid imagination holds supreme sway over every endeavor. He has said that if he analyzes an undertaking, he would never finish it.

The Art of Jessica Fazzion

The Editors

Fazzion creates pencil portraits as a way to give poetic expression to faces. A series of these portraits is dedicated to Italian actors. Another of her series is dedicated to Hollywood actors, such as Salma Hayek and Ashley Judd, or characters like the Joker, as portrayed by Oscar winner Jared Leto. As an artist, Fazzion has also developed – through Iranian friends and acquaintance – a great passion for the stunning art of Isfahan.

Alice Neel -- a Collector of Souls – at the Met

Sandra Bertrand

Alice Neel's long overdue retrospective, People Come First, is currently drawing hordes of visitors at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. It’s no surprise, considering she based her entire life and career around the intimates and strangers that surrounded her. Every class, race, and gender came under her razor-sharp gaze.  And no human being encountering her subjects comes away unscathed. 

 

Artist Michael Murphy Pays Homage to 20th-Century Architecture in His ‘Modernism’ Series

The Editors

Eventually, Murphy started selling his art at local retailers and galleries. By 2010, Murphy stopped looking for employment as an architect and concentrated on his art, working out of a studio in his home that he shares with his architect wife. His “Forgotten Modernism” series -- currently featured at Gallery 30 South – which is an ongoing catalog of modern architecture, focuses not just on the masterpieces of 20th-century California, but also the middle-class dwellings that helped define the spirit of the West Coast.

Artist Zach Mendoza’s Tribute to Great Literary Heroes

The Editors

The great reverence that Mendoza has for the past (and an equal infatuation with the lurking shadow of the future) is omnipresent in his alla prima portraits, which pay tribute to his literary heroes. His combination of expressionism and neorealism embodies the era in which many of his subjects thrived. As a perpetual student of history, he draws a line from late modernism through post-contemporary art.

From Bierstadt to Inness: Celebrating the Art of the American Landscape

The Editors

Cultural identity in the United States has been long intertwined with its magnificent landscapes, from the dense forests of New England to the open terrain of the West. These landscapes extol the unique beauty of this country and relate to the first significant art movement in the United States, known as the Hudson River School. The artists who painted these American landscapes worked during a time of increasing industrialization and growth of technology—not a coincidence of history but a lens on ecocritical thinking of the time. 

Small Is the New Big at NAWA’s Latest Art Exhibit

Sandra Bertrand

For the National Association of Women Artists (NAWA), the Small Works exhibitions held in the summer and winter have become a treasured tradition among members and nonmembers alike. From July 10-August 21, 2019, the works on display at the NAWA Gallery in Manhattan prove that the size of an artwork does not have to determine its excellence or worth.  With a close study, viewers will find remarkable detail and precision at play in several mediums.  They will also find a surprising seriousness and boldness of intent often reserved for larger works.

The Serious and the Smirk: The Smile in Portraiture

Nicholas Jeeves

Such is the field upon which the mouth in portraiture has been debated: an ongoing conflict between the serious and the smirk. The most famous and enduring portrait in the world functions around this very conflict. Millions of words have been devoted to the Mona Lisa and her smirk – more generously known as her ‘enigmatic smile’ — and so today it’s difficult to write about her without sensing that you’re at the back of a very long and noisy queue that stretches all the way back to 16th century Florence. 

Brooklyn Museum’s ‘Connecting Cultures’ Exhibit Highlights Artists From Around the World

Sabeena Khosla

Brooklyn Museum’s long-term installation Connecting Cultures: A World in Brooklyn brings objects from the museum’s extensive collection and unites them thematically. Rather than visit different galleries representing specific time periods and/or cultures, this singular space set on the main floor provides an intimate archive of works from across the globe that range from antiquity to the contemporary. 

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