Asa Shatkin 2021-06-01T13:01:52-04:00 April 1st, 2021|
This year the Brattleboro Museum held an exhibit called Figuration Never Died: New York Painterly Painting, 1950-1970. The exhibit included the works of Wolf Kahn, Robert Dinero Sr., Alex Katz and other painters whose lives intersected in New York and in more natural settings, like Vermont and Maine.
Asa Shatkin 2021-06-01T16:13:34-04:00 June 21st, 2018|
At age 88, Jasper Johns has remained one of America's most prominent living artists. He lives, and works, in his home in Sharon, Connecticut. Target, 1961, Jasper Johns, Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago, IllinoisPhoto: Ken Lund, July 14, 2018 (CC BY-SA 2.0) Johns has been making his mark on the art world for more than [...]
Asa Shatkin 2021-03-18T17:24:03-04:00 June 6th, 2018|
Maurice Prendergast brought modernism from Europe to America, around the turn of the twentieth century, while still maintaining his own unique style. Last month, Christie's New York auctioned American art from the Peggy and David Rockefeller collection. Maurice Prendergast's Steps of Santa Maria d'Aracoeli, Rome was expected to go for $1,500,000 to $2,500,000 and realized $3,372,500.
Asa Shatkin 2021-03-18T17:24:03-04:00 May 29th, 2018|
The 1970s was a time when critics began to talk about, “the death of painting.” Frank Stella rejuvenated both painting and fine art printmaking by pushing the limits of both. In the middle of the 1970s, Stella’s work became more lavish and unrestrained. He began to use French Curves and other technical drafting tools to create sweeping and sinuous lines and new materials to give his paintings and extra dimensions.
Asa Shatkin 2021-03-18T17:24:03-04:00 May 24th, 2018|
Some of Renoir's most beautiful, and well-known works were of Paris life at the Moulin da la Galette. His use of color and composition made his Impressionist works a bridge between the Renaissance and Baroque artists who came before him and the modern artists who followed.
Asa Shatkin 2021-03-18T17:24:03-04:00 May 16th, 2018|
Reginald Marsh painted, photographed and sketched the teeming crowds of people that lived, worked and played in New York. He rode the subways, walked the streets and spent hours at Coney Island chronicling everyday life.
Asa Shatkin 2021-03-18T17:24:03-04:00 May 2nd, 2018|
Words played a large part in the art of Jean-Michel Basquiat. The words Boom for Real appear in several of his works, including Crown. Boom for Real was phrase that he used when he found something exciting or inspiring.
Asa Shatkin 2021-03-18T17:24:03-04:00 April 26th, 2018|
Pablo Picasso had two wives, four children by three women and many mistresses. He painted them all, but is was his last muse, Jacqueline Roque, whom he painted the most. Picasso created over 400 portraits of Roque, seventy of them done in a single year.
Asa Shatkin 2021-03-18T17:24:03-04:00 April 18th, 2018|
Thomas Hart Benton was one of the most popular, interesting and controversial artists of twentieth century America. He was born in Missouri in 1889. His father was a U.S. congressman. His great uncle, after whom he was named, was a U.S. senator.
Asa Shatkin 2021-03-18T17:24:04-04:00 April 5th, 2018|
Kahn was born in Germany in 1927. His father was a well-known conductor with the Stuttgart Philharmonic Orchestra. The family had to leave Germany when Hitler came to power. Kahn emigrated to New York when he was thirteen. Khan's artistic ability was recognized and encouraged when he was as young as four.
Asa Shatkin 2021-03-18T17:24:04-04:00 February 28th, 2018|
Young describes himself as a hermit. He says that being an army brat, who moved from base-to-base every year, made it difficult to make friends. He is passionate about his work, which keeps him busy, but his life is far from solitary.
Asa Shatkin 2021-03-18T17:24:04-04:00 February 23rd, 2018|
In 1965, Lichtenstein began working on the Brushstroke Series. His inspiration was a comic book cell, done by Dick Giordano. Giordano's work depicted an artist who emotionally drained after completing a painting. Lichtenstien's first Brushstroke painting was very similar to the work of Giordano but Lichtenstien continued to use the brushstroke in varying ways for the rest of his career.
Asa Shatkin 2021-03-18T17:24:04-04:00 February 5th, 2018|
Norman Rockwell's Four Freedoms spoke to a nation in turmoil during World War ll. The paintings were created in response to President Roosevelt's State of the Union address in 1941, in which he said that all people have the right to four fundamental freedoms: freedom of speech, freedom of worship, freedom from want, and freedom from fear.
Asa Shatkin 2021-03-18T17:24:04-04:00 December 8th, 2017|
Winslow Homer was in his forties when he began to create some of the most beautiful watercolor paintings the world has ever seen. Homer’s mother, Henrietta, was a talented watercolorist who painted nature studies and whose works were the only paintings by another artist he ever collected and hung in his studio in Prouts Neck, Maine.
Asa Shatkin 2021-03-18T17:24:04-04:00 December 2nd, 2017|
The works of Julio Larraz are technically exquisite and are filled with irony and humor. A painting may appear serene, but reveal some disturbing nuance.
Asa Shatkin 2021-03-18T17:24:04-04:00 November 24th, 2017|
Dale Nichols was raised on a farm in rural Nebraska, where he did chores, walked two miles to school…not the sort of life one imagines would lead to a sophisticated career in art and design…but it did.
Asa Shatkin 2021-03-18T17:24:04-04:00 November 16th, 2017|
Orville Bulman The works of Orville Bulman have long been a favorite of collectors. During his lifetime he sold more than 2000 paintings and exhibited in more than forty solo shows. Bulman took some art classes, but was mostly self-taught and the popularity of his paintings surprised even him. When given his first solo show in Palm [...]
Asa Shatkin 2021-03-18T17:24:04-04:00 November 9th, 2017|
Maine’s rugged coastline, lush forests and breathtaking mountains, streams and sky, even the people of Maine and the wildlife, have inspired many artists to set up their easels and paint.
Asa Shatkin 2021-03-18T17:24:04-04:00 October 9th, 2017|
The works of Stephen Scott Young are like comfort food; they convey a sense of serenity and longing to stay in the moment that he captures in each work of art. In a recent New York Times essay, Dr. Mikkael A. Sekeres, Director of the Leukemia Program at the Cleveland Clinic, fondly recalled the way his journalist [...]
Clay Surovek 2021-03-18T17:24:04-04:00 August 29th, 2017|
“The artist does not live in bliss.” wrote Joan Miro. “He is sensitive to the world, to the pulsation of his time, to the events which compel him to act. This is bound to happen. This is not an intellectual attitude but a profound feeling, something like a cry of joy which delivers you from anguish.”
Asa Shatkin 2021-03-18T17:24:04-04:00 August 22nd, 2017|
Maurice Prendergast was one of America’s most original painters. His works, although labeled Impressionist, have both a European and American sensibility, but are unlike the works of other artists of his time. Maurice Prendergast, 1913 Prendergast was, during much of his lifetime, a painter’s painter. It wasn’t until around the start of World War 1, [...]
Asa Shatkin 2021-03-18T17:24:04-04:00 July 25th, 2017|
In spite of being born into poverty in the small village of Liozna, near Vitebsk, part of the Russian Empire, where, as a Jew, his movements were restricted and his options limited, Chagall managed to maintain an optimism that still resonates with people throughout the world.
Clay Surovek 2021-03-18T17:24:04-04:00 July 10th, 2017|
What is especially significant about the work of Montoya and Ortiz is, not just the modeling and casting, but the unique and varying hues and shades of patinas that they are able to achieve.
Asa Shatkin 2021-03-18T17:24:04-04:00 June 16th, 2017|
Orville Bulman’s paintings are joyful, whimsical and playful. It’s hard to imagine that his paintings of lush jungles, tigers, giraffe and elegant Haitian women and men, were created by a businessman who was born and raised in Grand Rapids, Michigan.
Asa Shatkin 2021-03-18T17:24:04-04:00 June 5th, 2017|
Like his older brother, Louis, William Glackens began his career as an illustrator. McClure’s Magazine sent him to Cuba, to cover the Spanish-American War. His drawings, like The Night After San Juan, clearly illustrate the devastation and sadness of war.
Asa Shatkin 2021-03-18T17:24:05-04:00 May 24th, 2017|
Roy Lichtenstein was inducted into the US Army and sent to England just before Christmas in 1944. Although his induction interrupted his studies at the Art Students League, Lichtenstein’s time in London had a profound influence on his work.
Clay Surovek 2021-03-18T17:24:05-04:00 March 17th, 2017|
Looking at America He was larger than life, a brawler and a drinker, but Thomas Hart Benton’s prints, created during the Great Depression, spoke of hope and courage to the millions of Americans who had lost so much. While Benton’s public murals garnered him much acclaim, it was his prints that captured the quiet, melancholy, and sometimes, tragic [...]
Asa Shatkin 2017-06-05T11:23:58-04:00 June 29th, 2016|
James Carroll Beckwith was an American painter whose powerful portraits, murals and paintings of historical monuments are part of permanent museum collections around the world. He signed his work Carroll Beckwith. Early Life and Education James Carroll Beckwith was born in Hannibal, Missouri in 1852, and raised in Chicago, where his father opened a wholesale grocery business. [...]
Asa Shatkin 2017-06-05T11:23:55-04:00 September 19th, 2016|
Marc Chagall painted a world filled with color, light and fantasy and brought an inimitable style of his own to twentieth century art. Early Life and Education Marc Chagall was born Moishe Segal in 1887 in the city of Vitebsk, now part of Belarus. He was the eldest of nine children in a household that was very [...]
Asa Shatkin 2021-05-27T16:41:22-04:00 June 10th, 2016|
Early Life Alexander Calder in Stedelijk Museum A'dam. 2 October, 1969 Collectie / Archief : Fotocollectie Anefo Alexander Calder was born in Lawton, Pennsylvania, in 1898, to a family of talented artists. His grandfather, Alexander Milner Calder was a sculptor, who emigrated from Scotland to Philadelphia in 1868. He is best known for his monumental sculpture [...]
Asa Shatkin 2016-10-11T12:48:33-04:00 August 10th, 2016|
Jean Dubuffet was a French painter and sculptor who brought a wild and savage style of art to post-war France and America. “Man’s need for art is absolutely primordial,” he said, “as strong as, and perhaps stronger than, our need for bread. Without bread, we die of hunger, but without art we die of boredom.” Early Life [...]
Asa Shatkin 2017-06-05T11:23:57-04:00 August 14th, 2016|
Edmund Dulac was a French-born, naturalized British painter, author and illustrator, whose work is as charming and sought after today as it was when he created it, in the first half of the twentieth century. Early Life and Education Edmund Dulac was born in Toulouse, France in 1882. Although he showed a penchant for drawing and painting [...]
Asa Shatkin 2016-10-11T12:48:37-04:00 August 14th, 2016|
Mabel Dwight (1876-1955) was one of America’s leading lithography artists in the first half of the twentieth century. She was a keen and compassionate observer of the human condition. Dwight, an only child, was burnin Cincinnati, raised in New Orleans and traveled extensively throughout her life. She studied painting at the Hopkins School of Art in San [...]
Asa Shatkin 2021-06-01T15:43:52-04:00 October 11th, 2018|
David Hockney is one of the most brilliant and venerated artists of the 20th and 21st centuries. Hockney set up residence in California in 1964, and painted the swimming pools that are commonplace in California but a rarity in his home country of England. His paintings resonated with people around the world and have become modern icons.
Asa Shatkin 2021-10-08T09:04:52-04:00 June 16th, 2016|
Jasper Johns is a master American painter and printmaker, whose work and ideas bridged the gap between the Dada and Post-impressionist movements.
Asa Shatkin 2019-01-13T10:38:36-05:00 June 10th, 2016|
Norman Rockwell circa 1950. Norman Rockwell Museum, Licensed by Norman Rockwell Licensing, Niles, IL. "I love to tell stories in pictures. The story is the first and the last thing. That isn’t what a fine art man goes for, but I go for it.” — Norman Rockwell Early Life and Education Normal Rockwell was born [...]
