A sculpture by Alexander Calder sold at a Paris auction for more than $5.5 million on July 9th. The 11-foot tall sculpture is just one of many that are installed in France, where Calder went to study at the Académie de la Grande Chaumière in 1926. Calder was born in Pennsylvania in 1898, and received a degree in Mechanical Engineering from the Stevens Institute of Technology in Hoboken, New Jersey in 1919.
The history of American art, and American artists, reflects the changes and growth that occurred as the country matured and became increasingly independent. The British tradition of painting portraits and bucolic landscapes slowly evolved into art with an American sensibility. In 1820 the Hudson River School emerged as the first well-known school of American painters who created sweeping landscapes of uniquely American vistas.
Many people around the world have had to isolate themselves for the past few months and have found it difficult to be alone. But solitude is a choice for many, especially many creative thinkers. Research on both artists and scientists shows that one of the most prominent features of creative people is their lesser interest in socializing. There's a serenity that solitude can bring.
The sale of yeast in the U.S. increased by 647% at the end of March and is still on the rise. Baking, during this shelter-in-place time has been one of the things that many people are using as a distraction, a family activity and a comfort.
Many artists spend each day alone in their studio or in a natural setting, not so different than the lives some of us find ourselves leading today. The difference is that artists choose solitude and it's not forced upon them by a pandemic.
Wolf Kahn, one of America's most lyrical landscape painters, died of congestive heart failure in his Manhattan home on March 15. He was 92.
With museums and galleries temporarily closed, in the U.S. and around the world, we've become increasingly dependent on technology, especially with stay-at-home restrictions, to fill the need we have to socialize and find solace in creativity. Many of the artists whose works are in our gallery live and work in New York, which has been hard hit by the Corona virus.
The streets of New York became a canvas for Jean-Michel Basquiat, the subways a canvas for Keith Haring. Both artists had recognition in underground art venues and clubs, but did not gain immediate entrance to established galleries and museums. The art, and club, scene in the 1980s was wild and frenzied. Haring and Basquiat both worked and partied with abandon and, as it turned out, the streets and subways gave them access to wide audiences. Their art eventually crossed the threshold from street art to high art, paving the way for graffiti artists who came after them to gain acceptance in galleries and museums around the world.
Frank Stella in Tampa Beginning in April, the Tampa Museum of Art will be holding two concurrent exhibits of works by Frank Stella. The first exhibit, titled Frank Stella: Illustrations After El Lissitzky’s Had Gadya, consists of a portfolio of twelve prints that Stella created in 1984, after a visit to the Tel Aviv Museum of Art. The inspiration [...]
A painting by Keith Haring sold for £3,206,000 ($4,181,630) at Phillips London auction on February 13th. The 96 x 96 inch Untitled painting was included in the groundbreaking 1982 show organized by art dealer Tony Shafrazi. The work was purchased by an anonymous collector, who held on to it until this auction, although it was shown at a Haring retrospective at the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York in 1997 and the retrospective Keith Haring: The Political Line at the Musée d'Art moderne de la Ville de Paris in 2013.
David Hockney used to have his suits specially made with large pockets to accommodate a sketch book. In 2010 he got an iPad and discovered that it fit in the same pocket. A masterful artist in many mediums, Hockney has used the iPad to create visually stunning images. In January, 2020, a limited edition book, signed and numbered by David Hockney, will be released. The drawings were done on both his iPhone and iPad between 2009 and 2012, while Hockney was at his former home in Yorkshire.
What is most interesting about Nichols' work is the way he himself executed and perceived it. Nichols was born on a farm in David City, Nebraska in 1904. He did chores, walked two miles to school and, eventually left the rural environment for Chicago to pursue a career in art. He became a very successful illustrator, who was able to create both sophisticated graphics and comforting landscapes.
At 92, Katz is still climbing up onto scaffolds to paint enormous landscapes and, of course, portraits of Ada, his muse and wife of sixty-one years. Alex Katz met Ada at a the opening of his two-person show at the Tanager Gallery in New York in October 1957. They were married four months later. One of the first paintings that he created of her was Ada in Black Sweater, in 1957.
Neil Welliver began life in 1929, in the small town of Millville, Pennsylvania, a village fueled by sawmills and gristmills. He went on to receive his MFA from Yale in 1955, where he stayed on to teach for the next ten years, before becoming chairman of the University of Pennsylvania Graduate School of Fine Art.
Wolf Kahn will be turning 92 in October. He is dealing with macular degeneration, and can no longer read or drive, but he can still paint and work with pastels. "The older I get," he says, "the more yellow a yellow becomes, the bluer a blue becomes, and that gives me hope for the future." Kahn still paints almost every day. He and his wife, artist Emily Mason, divide their time between their home in New York and their summer-through-fall studios in Vermont.
The elegance and variety of galleries, shops and restaurants along Worth Avenue and the surrounding streets and lanes, gives visitors a feeling of old world elegance. Please stop by Surovek Gallery, or call if you would like more information about the art galleries of Palm Beach.
Grant WoodStained glass window for the Veterans Memorial building, Cedar Rapids, Iowa, 192723 feet 6 inches high x 20 feet wide Grant Wood eked out a living in his early years. He was born in 1891, to a poor farming family in Iowa. When Wood was ten and his sister, Nan, just two, their father [...]
Great art is not what one usually thinks of when hearing the word mall, but the Aventura Mall, north of Miami, has a collection of works that equals the collections of many fine galleries and museums. Last month the mall acquired one of Robert Indiana's LOVE sculpture at Christie's for $1.87 million.
Stephen Scott Young is one of America's most preeminent watercolor and drypoint artists. His meticulous method of preparing careful studies for each work, and applying colors in layers...often using just primary colors, red, yellow and blue...is labor intensive, resulting in just twenty or so finished works each year.
Keith Haring brought underground urban art into the avant-garde New York art scene and into the mainstream. Just in his twenties, when he moved from Pennsylvania to New York, Haring would do chalk drawings on empty advertisement boards at subway stations, much to the delight of the public and the consternation of the police.
William GlackensSelf Portrait, c.1935National Portrait Gallery, Washington, D.C. William Glackens was known as "the American Renoir." After spending a year in Paris in 1895, Glackens became fascinated by the work of Pierre-Auguste Renoir. Glackens returned to New York and brought with him an understanding of, and appreciation for, the art of the French Impressionists. His style, [...]
Alex Katz works out every morning before he paints. This has been his routine, seven days a week, for decades, and his body of work is prolific. Not only has Katz not slowed down at age 91, he somehow managed to write a book...in his spare time.
Norman Rockwell was a great story teller. He had the remarkable ability to capture a single moment and make it relatable, poignant and often humorous. His talent for reaching an audience with such clarity has made him a favorite of filmmakers Steven Spielberg and George Lucas, just two of Rockwell's most avid collectors.
Alex Katz works out first thing every morning before he begins to paint. “I used to do two hundred sit-ups, three hundred pushups, and a hundred chins,” he said in a recent interview in The New Yorker.“I can’t do as many now.” Katz turned ninety-one in July. Alex Katz in his New York studio standing next to [...]
Portrait of Robert Indiana in Vinalhaven, 2011Courtesy of the Indianapolis Museum of Art. Daniel Beyer 2015 Morgan Art Foundation/Artists Rights Society (ARS) New YorkCredit: Joel Greenberg Robert Indiana died on May 19, at age 89, at his home in Vinalhaven, Maine, where he had lived for forty years. The house itself has been neglected, with [...]
For more than fifty years the Museum of Modern Art has been commissioning artists to create designs for its annual Christmas Card. Picasso, Joseph Cornell, Andy Warhol, Robert Indiana and Alexander Calder are among the great modern artists whose designs have graced the cards. This year, MoMA has commissioned artist Brian Donnelly, aka KAWS, to design the 2018 Christmas Card.
Miro and Hemmingway, both in their twenties, became friends. Miro was having difficulty selling his paintings and Hemmingway was piling up rejections slips from publishers. Miro would return from Paris each summer to his family's farm in the village of Montroig, and even took Hemmingway on a visit to the farm.
Dale Nichols 1904-1995 Terence Duren 1907-1968 Just weeks after the U.S. dropped a bomb on Hiroshima, effectively ending the Second World War, TIME Magazine reported on another war going on in Nebraska: War in the Corn. The August 20, 1945 issue of TIME contained articles about the Atomic Age and the end of [...]
Palm Beach is home to some of the finest and most distinctive art galleries in the world. Each art gallery in Palm Beach has its own unique focus and style, reflecting the interest and passions of gallery owners and staff. Here is a look at the Surovek Gallery and some of the other art galleries in Palm Beach that make it a fabulous destination for art lovers and collectors.
After studying in Paris, Benton returned to New York in the early 1920's and said that his time in Europe had made him an "enemy of modernism", ironically, the art movement that his teaching generated. Benton taught at the Art Students League of New York from 1926 to 1935. Jackson Pollock, one of the leading figures in the Abstract Expressionist movement, was one of Benton's favorite students. They traveled through the West together in the 1930s, and Benton had a profound effect on Pollock's work and life.
Haring had his first solo museum exhibition at the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam in 1986. He painted a mural for the exhibit inside the museum, and then asked the museum curators if he could paint a public mural outside as a gift to the city. The curators let Haring paint one of the brick walls of a museum warehouse. Haring painted one of his distinctive figures riding a giant sea creature.
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. Jasper Johns with his dog, Dougal, outside his home in Sharon, Connecticut, 2018Andrew White for The New York Times Johns has been making his mark on the art world for more [...]
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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 [...]
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.
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 [...]
“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.”
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, [...]
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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 [...]
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. [...]
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 [...]
Artist Alexander Calder with his works ‘Edgar Varese’ & ‘Untitled,’ Sache, France, 1963Photograph by Ugo Mulas Early Life 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 [...]
