Category Archives: Quotations

Things people said.

The ‘Jolly Bunch of Pen-Pushers’

Posted on June 29, 2024 by JMN

For me the skills of cartoon and caricature are from on high, which is why I relished this article about Philip Guston. It told me much I didn’t know. He was the son of Ukrainian Jewish immigrants in Montreal who … Continue reading →

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‘The Bright Light Done Come, and There Was No More Whippin’s’

Posted on June 19, 2024 by JMN

June 19, 1865, inaugurated Juneteenth. My title is from the words of a former slave in Texas about its effect on her and her family. (Quoted on “The History and Meaning of Juneteenth,” from “The Daily,” New York Times Audio) … Continue reading →

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Silver Threads and Goldarn Needles

Posted on June 17, 2024 by JMN

Last month, delegates to the [Texas Republican] state party convention approved a platform that would effectively require a kind of electoral college for statewide elections. To win the governor’s mansion, a candidate would need to carry a majority of Texas’ … Continue reading →

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Protect the Rim, Kill the Note

Posted on June 15, 2024 by JMN

I got a charge out of Ernie Barnes’s painting titled “Protect the Rim.” The surreally long figures, the lofty rustic hoop, and even the knocked-together frame all have a quirky charm. In a parallel world, my grandmother’s capacious lungs powered … Continue reading →

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The Grub Was Tasty, The Salutes Crisp

Posted on June 10, 2024 by JMN

There was a light salad that turned plates into minor works of art adorned with fennel, green peas, other vegetables and assorted petals gathered around a puddle of vinaigrette. A dish of chicken, rice, artichoke and carrots followed — which … Continue reading →

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‘The Brushstrokes Don’t Make Shapes’

Posted on May 25, 2024 by JMN

Chuck Close’s approach to painting is intriguing. It’s as if he invented pixellation avant la lettre. “This new body of work is more abstract, and quieter than any previous ones,” Close told the artist Cindy Sherman in a 2018 interview. … Continue reading →

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‘Six Persimmons’: Asymmetry and Ambiguity

Posted on May 15, 2024 by JMN

In a show called The Heart of Zen, “Six Persimmons” was displayed for three short weeks in late 2023 at the Asian Art Museum in San Francisco. It was “painted with ink on paper in the 13th century, probably by … Continue reading →

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Training Color to Speak for Itself

Posted on April 27, 2024 by JMN

Inspired by the theorist Michel Eugène Chevreul — whose 1839 treatise on color harmony is on display in this show — Sonia [Delaunay] and her fellow pioneers in abstraction had to train the individual elements of color, such as contrast … Continue reading →

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‘There’s Nothing There Except the Pictures’

Posted on April 25, 2024 by JMN

The artist Jim Nutt has been making a version of this imagined portrait for the last 40 years, a mode that has dominated his practice… His women never age, never seem to dislodge from a midcentury stylistic amber: all wearing … Continue reading →

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Arab Figure Painting

Posted on April 22, 2024 by JMN

Last December The Times published an article about an exhibition at Columbia University’s Wallach Art Gallery, titled “Partisans of the Nude: An Arab Art Genre in an Era of Contest, 1920-1960.” The show spotlights 85 rarely seen works in the … Continue reading →

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