“I think we were all more interested in being honest than in being modern.” Gabriele Münter, about the members of The Blue Rider
© 2013 Sally Whitman Coleman, PhD. All rights reserved.
Author Archives: Sally Whitman Coleman, PhD
© 2013 Sally Whitman Coleman, PhD. All rights reserved.
© 2013 Sally Whitman Coleman, PhD. All rights reserved.
Mother Dearest
Once the Queen Mother, or the Iyoba, of the Edo People from the Court of Benin in modern day Nigeria, gave birth to the King, or Oba’s, first son, she did not have any more children. She devoted the remainder … Continue reading
Grant Wood, Daughters of Revolution, 1932, oil on Masonite, 20” x 39.9”, Cincinati Art Museum, Cincinnati, Photo by Wmpearl, Public Domain via Wikimedia Commons.
Don’t Mess With Grant Wood
Grant Wood clearly did not like the ladies he painted in his Daughters of Revolution, a satirical portrait of representatives of the Daughters the American Revolution (DAR) service organization for women who are descended from someone associated with the American … Continue reading
Josef Albers, On Tideland, 1947-1955, oil on fiberboard, 27 1/4
In Their Own Words: Josef Albers
“In visual perception a color is almost never seen as it really is – as it physically is. This fact makes color the most relative medium in art.” Josef Albers
Anonymous Artist, Elizabeth Clarke Freake and Baby Mary, c. 1674, oil on canvas, 42.5” x 36.8”, The Yorck Project: 10.000 Meisterwerke der Malerei, Public Domain via Wikimedia Commons.
Freake Show
Mrs. John Freake, of the Boston Freakes, was a real show-off. Colonial Americans were suspicious of art, judging it too aristocratic, but they did commission portraits because they were an excellent way to demonstrate wealth, especially if you were Elizabeth … Continue reading
© 2013 Sally Whitman Coleman, PhD. All rights reserved.
RIP James Gandolfini
The Art Minute offers condolences to the family and friends of one of our favorite performing artists, James Gandolfini, who died this week at the young age of 51. Do you remember the episode of The Sopranos that featured this … Continue reading
James Turrell, Skyspace, Air Apparent, ASU Campus, Tempe, AZ, Photo by pweil via Flickr, Creative Commons Attribition Non-Commercial 2.0 Generic License.
Make the Time: James Turrell at the Guggenheim
From June 21st through September 25th 2013, James Turrell will sheath Frank Lloyd Wright’s iconic rotunda inside the Guggenheim Museum in New York City with a massive work of art. Turrell, who explores visual perceptions of light and color in … Continue reading
© 2013 Sally Whitman Coleman, PhD. All rights reserved.
Just a Second: Rayograph
Rayograph (noun) A type of photograph created by the artist Man Ray for which a camera was not used; rather, various everyday objects were placed on photographic paper and the paper was exposed to light. Man Ray’s “rayographs,” with their … Continue reading
Joan Miró, Personages with Star, 1933, oil on canvas, 78” x 97”, Art Institute of Chicago, Photo by Xevi V via Flickr, Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial -Share Alike 2.0 Generic License.
Winging it with Joan Miró
Surrealist artists wanted to incorporate chance into their artwork because they thought it would be a powerful means of self-revelation and catharsis. They believed they could set free certain aspects of their subconscious this way. Spanish artist Joan Miró, a … Continue reading
Hans Holbein the Younger, Anne of Cleaves, c. 1539, oil on parchment mounted on canvas, 25.6" x 18.9", Louvre Museum, Photo in the Public Domain via Wikimedia Commons.
In Their Own Words: King Henry VIII
English King Henry VIII to Thomas Cromwell, regarding the reason he ended his fourth marriage to Anne of Cleaves from Flanders with an annulment: “You have sent me a Flanders mare!”
Plate with Kufic Border, Samarkand, Uzbekistan, 9th-10th cen., 14.75
Islamic Plate: Food For Thought
Calligraphy is prevalent in Islamic Art because the Muslim religion is revealed though sacred scriptures, the Quran, which is believed to be the word of God brought to Muhammad by the angel Gabriel. Kufic script, named for Kufa, a city … Continue reading
© 2013 Sally Whitman Coleman, PhD. All rights reserved.
In Their Own Words: Paul Gauguin
“There are two sorts of beauty; one is the result of instinct, the other of study. A combination of the two, with the resulting modifications, brings with it a very complicated richness, which the art critic ought to try to … Continue reading