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Allowing viewers the opportunity to see a wide variety of work, this annual exhibition will feature paintings and works on paper by mid-century and contemporary artists. Select works from each of the gallery’s 28 represented artists and estates will be on display, including work by Judith Godwin, Raymond Hendler, Ann Purcell and Larry Zox. Additional works from the gallery’s inventory will also be on display, including work by Elaine de Kooning, Nancy Graves, Paul Jenkins, Larry Poons, Frank Stella and Wolf Kahn.

Talk of “purity” is usually best resisted in relation to works of visual art. What sort of uninflected content or form can really ever be referred to by it, after all? Jill Nathanson’s structured pourings of clear and vivid color, however, suggest the creator’s affinity with the powers of her painted medium in their most abstract sense. Beyond the transparency of the paint itself, which leads the viewer into impressions of these paintings as something aquatically pristine, there is an overall attitude of clarity and resolution in these strong and searching works. In contrast to much contemporary abstraction, Nathanson’s paintings have more to do with elucidation than complication, and seem distilled from deeply thought-through relationships of light, space, color and gravity.

Every year, the arrival of June seems to have a Pavlovian effect on art dealers. Everywhere, doors open to group exhibitions, often organised by outside curators and all kinds of artists.

That is the case for the serene Summer at Peter Freeman in SoHo (until 27 July), which is also a kind of special case, chiefly because its curator was the Swiss-born New Yorker, Ugo Rondinone. He is an artist known for his deft handling of work in nearly all media and scale, but he also has an excellent track record as the curator of two, sweeping exhibitions at the Palais de Tokyo in Paris and at the Barbara Gladstone Gallery in New York, which represents him.

How do you mark the miraculous milestone of a 100th birthday? If you’re Annie Solomon, renowned hostess and party giver extraordinaire, you welcome guests to your bayfront condo with plenty of great food and drink, plus a very special piece of clothing and a group photograph.

As the exhibition title “Cadence” implies, there is a cyclical pattern to Jill Nathanson’s paintings. In the artist’s current show at Berry Campbell in Chelsea—consisting of a dozen or so pieces remaining on view through June 30—each painting returns to a fundamental premise. All of the works rely in part on an easily grasped compositional process to create subtle color relationships that in turn complicate what seems at first a predictable formula.

Empirical Empyrean (2017), the title of one of Jill Nathanson's fifteen abstract paintings in "Cadence" at Berry Campbell, says it all. Each painting is built out of discrete, translucent color areas that thicken where they overlap. As they coalesce into fields, juxtapositions of hue prompt the eye to unify the compositions. The color transcends local incident, while the translucency generates an overall glow.

At Berry Campbell in Chelsea, we have “Jill Nathanson: Cadence” (through June 30). This lovely show, of 17 shimmering veils of color, picks up where the artist’s notable last show left off, and carries the unique presence she has established on to new triumphs.

Not many art lovers know Darby Bannard, even though he lived a long time and accomplished many things. In the late fifties, Bannard and his friend Frank Stella inspired themselves to make pictures that were very direct, to the point not many recognized them as “paintings” until almost 10 years later. In a letter to me he said the rules they followed were “the work should be very simple, flat, symmetrical and inexpressive.”( 1 ) The result, for Bannard, were pictures that can be described as direct, “in your face”.

Today, we’re meeting Jill Nathanson, a contemporary painter whose work feels summery and uplifting, and stands out from your typical pretty abstracts. Her solo show at a New York gallery just opened, so find out what you need to know about the hows and whys of her work.

Summer brings together 34 works by 7 artists who combine skeptical clarity with a mindful and at times humor-tinged desire to locate the intersection of spiritual and physical presence in daily life. The natural world serves as a doorway into a highly rarefied metaphysical realm where the sea of consciousness surges against the tangible world. Here all is in flux as distinctions between self and soul, body and spirit, past and present, mortification and bliss, confinement and escape all blur and waver. Summer celebrates the disparate elements of the Earth, while exploring the human connection to nature.