Phyllis Bramson on Henry Darger
Henry Darger, Illustration from The Story of the Vivian Girls, Midcentury, Watercolor and pencil on paper, 14 x 33 3/4 inches Henry Darger is a self-taught artist whose life’s work was discovered in...
View ArticlePeter Saul on Paul Cadmus
Paul Cadmus, Coney Island, 1934, Oil on canvas, 32 7/16 × 36 5/16 inches Paul Cadmus’ Coney Island was the first picture I ever saw, in 1939 when I was 5 years old, in a book called American Art of...
View ArticleJulia Jacquette on Adélaïde Labille-Guiard
Adélaïde Labille–Guiard, Self–Portrait with Two Pupils, Mademoiselle Marie Gabrielle Capet (1761–1818) and Mademoiselle Carreaux de Rosemond (died 1788), 1785, Oil on canvas, 83 x 59 1/2 inches A...
View ArticleThe Mute Shape of Exteriority: Jennifer Coates on Paul Gauguin
Man Ray, Untitled (Hat), 1933, Photograph, 7 x 8.3 inches Headdress Diagram Freud wrote that hats are like sex organs – sometimes phallic, sometimes vaginal. If a man wears a brimmed hat with a...
View ArticleVirginia Wagner on Doron Langberg
Doron Langberg, Sleep, 2014, Oil on linen, 50 x 70 inches There’s a slippage in Doron Langberg’s 2015 painting, Sleep. The sole figure is gently sliding out of the piece on a current of sleep—but sleep...
View ArticleAmy Weiskopf on Carlo Carra
Carlo Carra, Natura Morta con la Squadra, 1917, Oil on canvas, 18 x 24 inches If Pompeian still life frescos and Cubist still life paintings had a baby, Carlo Carra’s Natura Morta con la Squadra would...
View ArticleRichard Haas on Jan van Eyck
Jan van Eyck, The Arnolphini Wedding, 1434, Oil on oak panel of 3 vertical boards, 32.4 × 23.6 inches The challenge to an artist to think about his or her influences is such a central one that it...
View ArticleJoyce Kozloff on Miriam Schapiro
Miriam Schapiro with Black Bolero (behind) and Azerbaijani Fan (below) Among Miriam Schapiro’s works, the black paintings are my favorites. Although she often used color ecstatically, I never felt it...
View ArticleJacqueline Gourevitch on Piet Mondrian
Piet Mondrian, Composition in Oval with Colored Planes, 1914, Oil on canvas, 42 3/8 x 31 inches Museum of Modern Art, New York In choosing to write about Mondrian’s Oval with Colored Planes (1914), I...
View ArticleRichard Estes on Bernardo Bellotto
Bernardo Bellotto, View of Pirna with the Fortress of Sonnenstein, 1755/65, Oil on canvas, 19 3/8 x 31 1/4 inches There is a small painting by Bellotto at the Chicago Art Institute – a view of a street...
View ArticleCatherine Howe on Charles E. Burchfield
Charles E. Burchfield, Sun and Rocks, 1918-1950, Watercolor on gouache on paper, 40 x 56 inches Albright-Knox Art Gallery, Buffalo, New York Burchfield explained, “To the child sitting cozily in his...
View ArticleBarbara Zucker on Florine Stettheimer
Florine Stettheimer, Family Portrait II, 1933, Oil on canvas, 46 1/4 x 64 5/8 inches I walked into MOMA in 1976 and fell in love: with a painting. It was a coup de foudre. The first thing that drew me...
View ArticleMargaret Grimes on Ruth Miller
Ruth Miller, Cabbage, Melon, Window Still Life, 2013/14, Oil on canvas, 26 x 31 inches The still life paintings of Ruth Miller are at first glance deceptively modest. On closer viewing however, they...
View ArticleEllen Altfest on Francois Boucher
Francois Boucher, Brown Odalisque, 1745, Oil on canvas, 25 x 21 inches, Musée Du Louvre, Paris, France, Photo by Ellen Altfest I’ve always disliked the Rococo, and pretty much any artist who paints...
View ArticleKen Buhler on Andrew Pfriender
Andrew Pfriender, The Falling Leaves, Mixed Media, 16.5 x 16.5 inches One wintry Sunday afternoon in the mid-1980’s, some friends and I piled into a car and headed up Rte. 17 into the Catskill...
View ArticleZaria Forman on William Bradford
William Bradford, Icebergs in the Arctic, Oil on canvas, 1882 In July 1869, American painter William Bradford, alongside photographers John L. Dunmore and George Critcherson, embarked on the first...
View ArticleRaoul Middleman on Rembrandt
Rembrandt van Rijn, The Company of Frans Banning Cocq and Willem van Ruytenburgh, 1642, Oil on canvas, 149.4 x 178.5 inches The most puzzling aspect of the The Night Watch is the figure of the small...
View ArticleRosalyn Schwartz on Caspar David Friedrich
Caspar David Friedrich, The Abbey in the Oakwood, 1809-1810, Oil on canvas, 43 x 67 inches Alte Nationalgalerie, Berlin, Germany I first discovered the paintings of Caspar David Friedrich in the...
View ArticleDavid Molesky on Titian’s The Flaying of Marsyas
Titian, The Flaying of Marsyas, 1570-1576, Oil on canvas, 83 x 81 inches Through the double doors that open into the Met Breuer’s inaugural exhibition, I fell into the familiar vortex of a painting I...
View ArticleBarry Nemett on Gwen John
Gwen John, A Corner of the Artist’s Room in Paris, 1907-09, Oil on canvas, 12.3 x 9.8 inches, National Museum Cardiff, Wales The building weighs less than a flower. The parasol stem dreams about being...
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