Art and Antiques: Syd Solomon | Hidden in Plain Sight
November 26, 2019 - John Dorfman for Art & Antiques
"Painter, camouflage artist, and cultural connector Syd Solomon is emerging as an important figure in Abstract Expressionism."
Read More >>November 26, 2019 - John Dorfman for Art & Antiques
"Painter, camouflage artist, and cultural connector Syd Solomon is emerging as an important figure in Abstract Expressionism."
Read More >>November 21, 2019 - Will Heinrich for The New York Times
A surprising number of 20th-century female artists, if they spent any time in New York, had something to do with the Art Students League, a coeducational institution since its founding in 1875. Ahead of next year’s centennial of the 19th Amendment, which gave women the right to vote, the sculptor Will Corwin put together “Postwar Women,” an impeccable show of work by alumnae, former models and other connections of the league, in its Phyllis Harriman Mason gallery. Mr. Corwin narrowed his focus to women who were active from 1945 to 1965 but he still came up with a profusion of names and styles: more than 40 artists making everything from social documentary to winsome portraiture to the most stereotypically muscular sort of Abstract Expressionism.
A brace of powerful lithographs by Elizabeth Catlett, a totemic bronze by Louise Bourgeois and Joyce Pensato’s wonderfully spooky charcoal drawing of Mickey Mouse sit happily alongside work by less famous names: The red and green church in Blanche Lazzell’s woodcut print “The Little Church” has a strangely childlike innocence, and Lenita Manry’s delicate but committed oil-on-canvas view of the city from her studio window made me think of the New York School painter Jane Freilicher. The overall effect is to make the ongoing process of rethinking the art-historical canon to remedy discriminatory exclusions feel as exciting as a treasure hunt.
WILL HEINRICH
November 20, 2019 - Christiane Lemieux for Architectural Digest
Designer Laura Santos transformed a light-filled, full-floor apartment in a former parking garage into a cozy backdrop for her impressive collection.
Read More >>November 16, 2019 - Berry Campbell
November 16, 2019 - Stephanie Cassidy for the Art Students League, New York
Artist Snapshot: Jill Nathanson
Exploring the mind and habits of an artist in twenty-five questions
At what age did you decide to become an artist?
When I was a tiny girl I loved horses, pretending I was a horse and also drawing horses. When I first started kindergarten, my horse drawing skill was rewarded: I was honored with the position of glue monitor. I had heard of horses being killed and sent to the glue factory, so I was nervous about a possible connection. I thought of myself as an artist in some way from that early time.
How did your parents react when you told them you anted to become an artist?
My mother was enthusiastic. She was a classical pianist with the highest level of training but a truncated career. She liked the idea of me being an artist even if she didn’t have a clear sense of what that might really mean, and I guess my father didn’t think much about his little girl’s future in terms of career in any case. From my earliest days I heard my mother practicing the classical repertoire without explanations, so I assumed she was making up the music as she went along — creating the great piano works of Chopin, Beethoven, Schumann. Why did she make the song go in that way. Why did the nice calm part become the loud stormy part? When I was a teen, my mother wanted me to go to Bennington College because that was where Helen Frankenthaler, a famous woman artist, had gone. So I went to Bennington early, after my junior year at the High School of Music and Art (now known as LaGuardia High School), thinking of myself as a professional from the start, knowing next to nothing. Bennington College, a key site of American modernism in the 1970s, was very good for me.
October 31, 2019 - Berry Campbell
A generous gift to the Gallery from American artist Judith Godwin (b. 1930), Seated Figure (1955) is the first work by her to enter the collection. Seated Figure is a striking arrangement of pale blue, royal blue, and black planes outlined in white and gray that evoke a figure's head, back, knee, and leg folded into a chair. Angular lines, extravagant drips, and vigorous brushwork energize the composition and transform the static motif of a seated figure into a dynamic image. The work shows both Godwin's mastery of the gestural style of abstract expressionists like Franz Kline and the influence of Martha Graham's expressive bodily gesture. Completed when Godwin was 25 years old, Seated Figure is a powerful example of second-generation abstract expressionism by one of the movement's female practitioners.
Read More >>October 29, 2019 - Art Students League
November 2 − December 1
Art Students League: The Phyllis Harriman Mason Gallery
Postwar Women is The Art Students League’s first exhibition to explore the vital contributions of these alumnae on the international stage. On view at The Phyllis Harriman Mason Gallery from November 2 to December 1, 2019, Postwar Women challenges the misperception that great art produced by women artists is somehow an exception rather than the rule. Curator Will Corwin investigates the history of innovative art academies like The League that promoted democratic ideologies, which in turn created artistic opportunities for women of all social classes. This ground-breaking exhibition features over forty artists active between 1945-65, tracing the complex networks these professional women formed to support one another and their newfound access to art education. Postwar Women presents work by some of the prominent artists of the 20th Century like Louise Bourgeois and Helen Frankenthaler, but more importantly it calls out the women who were not credited enough: Mavis Pusey, Kazuko Miyamoto, Olga Albizu and Helena Vieira da Silva – challenging a new generation of visitors and art students to KNOW YOUR FOREMOTHERS.
Featured Artists:
Berenice Abbott, Mary Abbott, Olga Albizu, Janice Biala, Isabel Bishop, Nell Blaine, Regina Bogat, Louise Bourgeois, Vivian Browne, Elizabeth Catlett, Dorothy Dehner, Elaine de Kooning, Monir Farmanfarmaian, Perle Fine, Helen Frankenthaler, Judith Godwin, Terry Haass, Grace Hartigan, Carmen Herrera, Eva Hesse, Faith Hubley, Lenore Jaffee, Gwendolyn Knight, Lee Krasner, Blanche Lazzell, Marguerite Louppe, Lenita Manry, Marisol, Mercedes Matter, Kazuko Miyamoto, Louise Nevelson, Charlotte Park, Joyce Pensato, Irene Rice Pereira, Mavis Pusey, Faith Ringgold, Edith Schloss, May Stevens, Yvonne Thomas, Lynn Umlauf, Maria Vieira da Silva, Merrill Wagner, Joyce Weinstein, Michael West
October 28, 2019
Exhibition invitation for Inspired, curated by Kimberley Goff of the Elaine Benson Gallery. Exhibition is at Center for Jewish Life in Sag Harbor, NY.
Read More >>October 16, 2019 - NYC GALLERY OPENINGS
New York City Gallery Openings Video. Christine Berry introduced exhibition: Dan Christensen: Early Spray Paintings (1960s)
Read More >>October 11, 2019 - artnet News
The Museum of Modern Art is set to reopen after its big expansive and restoration—and when it does, it’s crown jewels, the permanent collection will be reimagined. Old hits are still there, but new discoveries are also worked in. Film and architecture are integrated into the galleries. And the curation, as the New York Times reported, seeks to make room for “detours, anachronisms and surprise encounters.”
As the public gets ready for the new MoMA, here are photos that give a sense of how its new art history fits together.
Image: Ben Davis
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