Nan Goldin, Pain/Sackler, Royal College of Art, London, 2017, and Oxy Script, 2017.
Corporations and art museums have become more closely connected in recent decades because each benefit greatly from the alliance. The businesses and their owners enjoy good PR and tax write-offs, and the museums get the financial support that is so … Continue reading
Gentile da Fabriano, The Adoration of the Magi, 1423, tempera paint and gold on panel, 80
Epiphany, the church festival that celebrates the visit of the three Wise Men twelve days after the birth of Jesus, was for centuries the most important festival of the Christian year because it is the event that marks the revelation … Continue reading
Grandma Moses, Christmas at Home, early 20th century, Photo via Wikiart.com
Nothing conveys holiday warmth like a Christmas scene by Grandma Moses (Anna Mary Robertson Moses, 1860-1961). It wasn’t long after she began her painting career in her late 70s that this self-taught artist attracted the attention of Hallmark Cards, Inc. … Continue reading
Jan Pogorzelski, Hanukkah Converter Lamp, 1893, Silver, 26¾” x 18” x 8¼”, Jewish Museum, New York, Photo courtesy of the Jewish Museum
The converter lamp became popular in Austria, Hungary, Czechoslovakia, and Poland in the middle of the 19th century. These upper portions of menorah lamps could be inserted into candlesticks that people already owned. The firm of Jan Pogorzelski in Warsaw … Continue reading
Rembrandt van Rijn, two impressions of Jacob’s Ladder, 1655, etching and drypoint, 4⅝” x 3⅛”, Collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.
In printmaking, a burr is made of the metal that remains on a printing plate after it has been displaced in the process of carving an image. This often happens when using drypoint as a printmaking technique. When creating a … Continue reading
Njideka Akunyili Crosby, Mama, Mummy and Mamma (Predecessors #2), 2014, Photo by the New Church Museum, Cape Town, South Africa.
The artist Njideka Akunyili Crosby was one of three artists who won the 2017 MacArthur “Genius” Fellowship. This generous grant is awarded to “talented individuals who have shown extraordinary originality and dedication in their creative pursuits and a marked capacity … Continue reading
Carl Frederik Reuterswärd, Non Violence, 1985, bronze, Plaza at the United Nations, New York.
When you visit the United Nations headquarters in New York City, the first thing you will see is a large bronze sculpture entitled Non-Violence created by Carl Frederik Reuterswärd. The Swedish artist sculpted the work of art at the request … Continue reading
Gian Lorenzo Bernini, 1622-25, Apollo and Daphne, Marble, 93”, Galleria Borghese, Rome, Photo by By Alvesgaspar, CC BY-SA 4.0.
Looking at Gian Lorenzo Bernini’s Apollo and Daphne, we can see characteristics of the over-the-top Baroque style. For example, the sculpture illustrates the point of highest tension in the story, which is when the nymph Daphne is “saved” by her … Continue reading
Mildred Thompson, Magnetic Fields, 1991, oil on canvas, triptych, 70 1/2 x 150 inches. Courtesy of the Mildred Thompson Estate, Atlanta, Georgia art and photo © The Mildred Thompson Estate, Atlanta, Georgia.
Magnetic Fields: Expanding Abstraction, 1960s to Today at the Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art in Kansas City, MO showcases three generations of abstract art created by women of color, artists typically left out of the canon of American art. Different … Continue reading
Attributed to Pieter Bruegel the Elder, Landscape with the Fall of Icarus, c. 1655, oil on panel, 2' 5
Landscape with the Fall of Icarus by William Carlos Williams (1962) According to Brueghel when Icarus fell it was spring a farmer was ploughing his field the whole pageantry of the year was awake tingling near the edge of … Continue reading
Edward Hopper, Automat, 1927, oil on canvas, 28” x 36”, Des Moines Art Center, IA, Artwork in the Public Domain via Wikipedia.
American artist Edward Hopper was born on this day in 1882. His easily recognizable style did not change for most of his long career that began in 1895 and continued until his death in 1963. Hopper mostly painted scenes that … Continue reading
Camille Claudel, The Waltz, conceived in 1889 and cast in 1905, bronze, Musée Camille Claudel, Nogent-sur-Seine, France, Photo by Scott Lanphere via Wikipedia, artwork and photograph in the Public Domain.
If you are fortunate enough to travel to France, make the time to visit the new Musée Camille Claudel in Nogent-sur-Seine, which is about an hour’s drive from Paris. Best known as Auguste Rodin’s lover and muse, the immensely talented … Continue reading