Tag Archives: art

War and Art

Posted on October 26, 2019 by JMN

In this article about Hilma af Klint two themes draw my attention. First, not having been clobbered by twentieth-century wars is a sad and sobering distinction to apply to a city. While there is not currently any comprehensive display of … Continue reading →

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I’m Like: Whoa

Posted on October 25, 2019 by JMN

All bets are off when a subject finds the interviewer’s question “very interesting.” There’s a likelihood that the answer will go its own way. I find that to be the case in this exchange between Jori Finkel, a contributor to … Continue reading →

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Drawing in Jail

Posted on October 22, 2019 by JMN

Hilarie M. Sheets writes an article about how people have coped with incarceration by drawing (“For the Incarcerated, Drawing Is a Lifeline,” NYTimes, 9-20-19). What interests me on the margins of this interesting article is the innocent tell favoring depiction … Continue reading →

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Fellow Feeling

Posted on October 22, 2019 by JMN

So how did the daughter of an American stockbroker come to meet a surly, bourgeois French artist? Degas became aware of Cassatt, known for her sensitive portrayals of women and children, in 1874, historians said. He was strolling through the … Continue reading →

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I Feel It 100% in My Bones

Posted on October 20, 2019 by JMN

The story that keeps swirling around this mediocre painting whose whereabouts is now unknown is a punch line that keeps on giving. New York art historian and dealer Robert B. Simon bought the “Salvator Mundi” from a New Orleans auction … Continue reading →

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Words With Eyes

Posted on October 6, 2019 by JMN

Viewing a Kirchner painting always makes me want to say more than I know how. I’ve seen this painting several times. A picture best speaks for itself, but a good art critic’s words can add to its impact. In “Berlin … Continue reading →

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American Dream Nicked

Posted on September 26, 2019 by JMN

Someone recently stole a solid gold toilet from an exhibit at Blenheim Palace, the family home of Winston Churchill. Its Italian creator named it “America.” The toilet was functional. Its theft “caused significant damage and flooding.” Dominic Hare, the chief … Continue reading →

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Twice Broken

Posted on September 14, 2019 by JMN

Roberta Smith describes Ernst Ludwig Kirchner as “the best and most versatile of the German Expressionists.” Like many 20th-century German painters, Kirchner was twice broken, by World I, which resulted in his nervous breakdown, and the rise of Hitler, which … Continue reading →

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A Pioneer Gallerist

Posted on September 14, 2019 by JMN

In 1926, Edith Gregor Halpert (1900-1970), an émigré from Ukraine, opened the Downtown Gallery on West 13th Street. It was the first gallery in Greenwich Village and she was the city’s first female gallerist… Horace Pippin, Stuart Davis, Charles Sheeler … Continue reading →

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Grisaille

Posted on September 14, 2019 by JMN

Roberta Smith situates artist Amy Sherald within a group of youngish painters … who have broken with, absorbed or simply ignored modernist abstraction. Instead, they work with the figure as a way of reaching broader audiences; dealing with issues of … Continue reading →

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