We are pleased to announce that we will be taking part in Art Miami 2022, one of the world's preeminent international art fairs. Art Miami is the city’s longest running contemporary and modern art fair. More than 155 leading galleries across 17 countries in Europe, Asia, Latin America, India, the Middle East and the United States will [...]
Jean-Michel Basquiat was at the height of his career in 1983; he had his second solo show in Los Angeles, was the youngest artist shown in the Whitney Biennial and flew to Zurich later in the year for another solo exhibit. Both he, and his works, were becoming part of the mainstream art world.
The US Post Office is honoring Roy Lichtenstein with a set of forever stamps that capture the artist's playfulness and style. The issue is composed of five stamps, illustrating five artworks, in a pane of twenty. From left to right: Standing Explosion, 1965, Modern Painting, 1966, Still Life with Crystal Bowl, 1972, Still Life with Goldfish, 1972 and Portrait of a Woman, 1979.
Painting seems an old man's business. After a certain time you're out of it, and you just paint masterpieces. - Alex Katz Alex Katz: Gathering at the Guggenheim Alex Katz made an appearance at the opening of his retrospective at the Guggenheim on Friday, October 21st. The 95-year-old artist wore a white suit and yellow tie and [...]
Julio Larraz Art should be interpreted by the one that sees it. It is an intimate experience; I believe it is for your eyes only. - Julio Larraz Julio Larraz, 2018 Julio Larraz is one of the world's most creative artists. His images are inspired by the books he reads, the dreams he dreams and [...]
The artist known as KAWS was honored at this years Hirshhorn Ball for his 'contributions to art and popular culture. The award was presented to KAWS by rapper J Balvin in the Hirshhorn's sculpture garden. The Hirshhorn is home to The Smithsonian's modern art collection. Sculptures by such greats as Henry Moore and Auguste Rodin are exhibited throughout the garden. It may soon be home to one of KAWS' sculptures, as well.
Italian designer, Gianni Versace, was a great admirer of the works of Roy Lichtenstein. He created fabric designs based on Lichtenstein's art. Versace commissioned Lichtenstein to create two paintings for the studio of his home in Milan. Both Lichtenstein and Versace were influenced by Greco-Roman iconography.
Derrick Adams 1970 - Tiffany & Co. has just launched Atrium, a platform the company hopes will bring about positive social change. Tiffany's describes the goal of Atrium as: Fostering and strengthening the connection between education, community and creativity. Tiffany Atrium's overarching goal is to advance professional opportunities for historically underrepresented communities. Derrick AdamsI Shine, You [...]
A current show at the Jewish Museum in New York focuses on the transforming New York art scene from 1962 to 1964. The 140-foot Unisphere at the 1964 New York World’s Fair That three year period was a significant time in the history and culture of New York, as well as the rest of the [...]
At age 16, Avery became the sole support of his mother and sisters after the death of his father. He held blue-collar jobs for many years, often working late shifts, so that he could paint during the day. He met and married artist, Sally Michel, in 1926. Their home in New York became a meeting place for young artists, like Mark Rothko, who were influenced by Avery's unique style and bold use of color.
The Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History and Culture (NMAAHC) has placed three of Elizabeth Catlett's sculptures in Heritage Hall, the building’s atrium and first floor entryway. Like much of Catlett's work, these life-size sculptures focus on the role of women in civil and human rights.
Oldenburg was born in Stockholm, Sweden. His father was a Swedish diplomat who was appointed consul general of Sweden to Chicago, where Oldenburg grew up. Claus Oldenburg became an American citizen in 1953. He studied literature and art history at Yale, worked as a reporter and illustrator before moving to New York in 1956. Oldenberg had his first exhibition at the Judson Gallery in May 1959. It was an exhibit of drawings, collages and objects made of papier-mâché.
The story of Basquiat and Warhol's joint venture was turned into a play and is scheduled to be filmed at the end of the year. The Collaboration, starring Paul Bettany and Jeremy Pope, previewed at London's Young Vic Theatre earlier this year and will open at the Friedman Theater on Broadway on November 20, 2022. Both actors will reprise their roles in the film.
The works of Ernie Barnes are garnering more attention than ever in the art market. At Christie's May auction, his 1976 Sugar Shack painting skyrocketed way above its its $150,000 low to finish at $15.3 million. Bill Perkins, the collector who bought Sugar Shack, outbid twenty-two other collectors. Works from Marc Chagall's estate set auction records at Christie's London last month. According to the auction house, "The sale explored five key themes that dominated Chagall’s practice: the rhythms and rituals of his home town; the circus; the heroic figures of myth, legend and religion; the universal questions of identity and legacy; and, above all else, the enduring power of love."
William Glackens began his career as an illustrator and an artist-reporter for newspapers and magazines in his hometown of Philadelphia. He traveled to Europe with art teacher Robert Henri, then moved to New York in 1896, where he worked for the New York Herald and found free-lance work as a magazine illustrator. In 1898, he was sent to Cuba by McClure’s Magazine to create illustrations during the Spanish American War.
Researchers found that visiting a museum reduces stress levels, lowers blood pressure, decreases the intensity of chronic pain and improves the symptoms of depression. Even more fascinating is the discovery that people with dementia experienced mental and physical benefits from museum visits, like higher cognitive function and a decrease in symptoms of depression. A museum visit can even lessen the likelihood of being diagnosed with dementia and even increase a person's life span.
In 1963, Mel Bochner was in Chicago, studying philosophy at Northwestern University. He said that he was bored, and cut class to visit the Art Institute of Chicago. He wandered into the Prints and Drawings Room, where the curator asked if he was looking for anything special. Bochner asked to see a Rembrandt. The curator brought out a black box, which held an etching by Rembrandt.
With Puppy planted firmly on the earth, Jeff Koons has set his sights outside of the stratosphere. He's arranged for some of his artworks to leave our planet and be placed on the moon. Each of Koons' physical sculptures will have a corresponding NFT. These artworks will make their landing on the moon’s surface on an Intuitive Machines Nova-C Lunar Lander in a fully autonomous mission. The intended destination for the sculptures is in an area called Oceanus Procellarum, which is the largest of the moon’s flat, dark plains of lower elevation that mark the moon’s surface.
Jean-Michel Basquiat was a superstar during his lifetime and remains a superstar today. The popularity of his work has been enhanced by today's pop culture. Rapper Jay Z posed as Basquiat in a Tiffany's ad recently (and owns a Basquiat painting), Basquiat's family has recreated his childhood home in an exhibit at the Starrett-Lehigh building in Manhattan and he's been honored with a plaque on the Left Bank in Paris.
The Richard Diebenkorn Foundation is celebrating what would have been the artist's 100th year. The Foundation has put together a year long celebration that includes installations in museums around the world, rarely seen archival material, photography, and new videos that will be featured on the Foundation site throughout the year.
Ernie Barnes' Sugar Shack (1976) painting sold at Christie's auction last Thursday for $15.3 million. The winning bid was 76 times higher than the predicted high estimate of $200,000. Sugar Shack was a familiar image to tv viewers of the 1970s sitcom Good Times. Many of Barnes' paintings were used in the show, about the life of a family whose oldest son, J.J., was an artist. A portrait of the family, done by Barnes, was used in the opening credits, and Sugar Shack was shown during the closing credits.
Andy Warhol's Shot Sage Blue Marilyn (1964) sold for $195 million at Christie's New York on May 9, setting a record for the most expensive art work by an American artist ever sold at auction.
Norman Lewis hoped to bring about change with his Social Realist works of the 1940s. As fine as they were, they didn't bring about the change he hoped they would. It was Lewis, himself, who brought changes to the art world.
Keith Haring and Jean-Michel Basquiat both bridged the gap between graffiti and fine art. They both began as struggling graffiti artists, both worked hard at their art and partied hard. They both became icons in the New York art world. They both died too young, yet each has left a legacy of great art and great hope.
The Fifth Annual Insights V Art Exhibit is currently on display at Surovek Gallery. The exhibit is composed of a selection of works by artists with Bipolar Disorder. The show is sponsored by The Ryan Licht Sang Bipolar Foundation. The Foundation was founded by the parents of Ryan Licht Sang, a bright and talented writer and artist. Ryan struggled with Bipolar Disorder from early childhood. After a manic episode, during which he got no sleep, he self-medicated and died in his sleep at age 24.
For the last two years, the Guggenheim New York has been preparing a retrospective of the works of Alex Katz. The exhibit will open in October 2022 and run through February 2023. Katz will be 95 in July. He recently completed a hand-painted, 35,000 square foot mural at the Town Center in the planned community of Woodlands, Texas, just north of Houston. The mural was commissioned by the Howard Hughes Corporation to enhance the 2.3 acre public gathering site.
Sam Francis was a powerful force in the twentieth century art world. In the early 1950s, Francis moved from Berkley to Paris and was named by Time Magazine as, “the hottest American painter in Paris these days."
Many of our favorite artists have returned to a particular place, time and again, to paint the landscape. The places are not always their primary residence, or even a place they call home, but a place where they somehow find inspiration.
Watercolor painting dates back to prehistoric times. Pigments from plants were mixed with water, applied with fingers, sticks and bones, to create cave paintings. Ancient Egyptians used water-based paints to decorate tombs and temple walls. Paper was invented around 105 A.D., according to historians. A eunuch named Ts'ai Lun, who served in the Chinese imperial court is credited with not only inventing paper, but helping to spread the word about its practical applications.
Fashion designer Stella McCartney has teamed up with Frank Stella to create her autumn-winter fashion line for 2022. (Stella McCartney is the daughter of Sir Paul McCartney). In an interview with Vogue, McCartney said, "I’ve known Frank for quite a long time, and I’ve always wanted to collaborate with him. I love his minimalism and maximalism. It’s such a parallel to our brand: the very simple masculine side with the more explosive side. When you look at Frank’s work, it really tracks that quite well."
Andy Warhol spent much of his time clubbing with celebrities. He documented much of his life with a Polaroid camera. But despite his public presence, much of Warhol's persona remains a mystery. In 1976, Warhol began to telephone his friend, Pat Hackett, every weekday morning, to record his activities of the previous day. Hackett would transcribe his words. The calls continued for eleven years. They ended just five days before his death in 1987.
An exhibit of Milton Avery works has traveled from the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth to the Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art in Hartford, Connecticut. The exhibit's final destination is the Royal Academy of Arts in London, where a comprehensive collection of Avery's works will be on view for the first time outside of the United States.
Scott Kelley gets inspiration during his travels and returns to his studio in Maine to create his masterful watercolors. Many of his works have been inspired by trips he has taken through the Florida Everglades.
Andrew Wyeth 1917-2009 According to Andrew Wyeth's youngest son, Jamie, Wyeth went into a "tailspin" in the 1990s when he saw a photograph of a friend in a coffin at a funeral viewing. Andrew WyethKuerner’s Hill, circa 1991–94 Wyeth made more than a dozen drawings of his imagined funeral. One of the drawings shows family, [...]
Roy Lichtenstein was a shy, quiet man, one of the first Pop artists of the mid-twentieth century. His pioneering paintings made him a lightening rod for harsh criticism of his work and of the Pop art movement itself. Born in New York in 1923, Lichtenstein studied painting at the Parsons School of Design when he was a teenager and went on to study at the Art Students League and then Ohio State University. After a stint in the army he completed his BFA at Ohio State and stayed at the University to teach and complete his graduate studies.
A warm glow from a fireplace and a glass of red wine can ease the cold of a winter night...even better if the wine bottle has a beautiful label. In 1945, to commemorate the Allied victory, French winemaker, Baron Philippe Rothschild, hired a young artist to design a wine label for Mouton Rothschild. The Rothschild vineyard has continued the tradition, with a new label by an established artist every year since. Here's a look at some of the labels done by some of our favorite artists.
The retrospective of the works of Jasper Johns has been garnering much critical acclaim. Jasper Johns: Mind/Mirror looks at the last seventy years of the 91-year-old artists' seventy year career. Jasper Johns' body of work is so vast that the retrospective is being held simultaneously at both the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York and the Philadelphia Museum of Art.
A retrospective of the work of Milton Avery will be traveling from the U.S. to London. It's been thirty years since the artist's last retrospective, which was held at the Whitney Museum of American Art in 1982. Avery was known as the American Matisse, because of his use of color and shapes, that are both bold and soothing.
We are pleased to announce that Surovek Gallery will be represented at the 31st edition of Art Miami. The exhibit will run from November 30th through December 5th, 2021 at downtown Herald Plaza.
During Jasper Johns' nearly seven-decade career he has produced enough work for a retrospective at two major museums: Jasper Johns: Mind/Mirror at both the Whitney Museum of Art in New York and the Philadelphia Museum of Art has been garnering critical acclaim.
A storm of controversy has been surrounding Tiffany's recent ad campaign that includes a painting by Jean-Michel Basquiat.
Having a triumphant retrospective at not one, but two, major museums is a wonderful way to celebrate one's 91st birthday, and that is what Jasper Johns is doing. The exhibits at both the Whitney in New York and the Philadelphia Museum of Art have garnered rave reviews and inspired art lovers to look at Johns' works and see how they have evolved over the past seven decades.
Derrick Adams has built an 'invitation only' retreat in his home town of Baltimore called The Last Resort, hoping to give Black artists a chance to experience rest and relaxation. Leisure is important to Adams, who grew up with a close and loving family and friends who knew how to enjoy themselves. Much of Adams work is based on the pleasurable times that friends and family shared, like How I Spent My Summer, a recent acquisition at Surovek Gallery.
Julio Larraz is preparing for the first museum retrospective of his work in the United States. Larraz is considered one of the most influential figures in Latin American art today. His work has been exhibited widely, internationally, and he has generously mentored young artists.
David Hockney has always been interested in using technology to enhance his work. When he moved from England to Los Angeles in 1964, he used the relatively new acrylic paint to capture the sunlight of L.A. in his pool paintings, photography to capture different perspectives and etching and printmaking to work with and explore the utilization of layers of colors.
One of America's most beloved artists, whose work affected every artistic movement from the 1950s to the present day, the retrospective was planned for last year, to celebrate Johns' 90th birthday. The pandemic came along and the retrospective was postponed. Johns turned 91 on May 15th. His story is a remarkable one. Johns was born in Augusta, Georgia in 1930. After his parents divorced, he lived with his grandparents, then an aunt. He began to draw at a young age, hoped to become an artist, although he wasn't sure what that meant and hadn't been exposed to much art.
Lichtenstein took a lot of heat in the 1960s for his mechanical style, his use of Ben-Day dots and comic book panels...the Pop art that changed the way art is viewed today. He turned "low art" into "high art" and tapped into the consumer culture of America in the '60s. Lichtenstein had the last laugh, with an outstanding career. His 1962, Masterpiece, a tongue-in-cheek painting that reflected his career, sold in 2017 for $165 million.
Psychologists who have studied how viewers react to art works, find that the reactions are often manifested physically, with chills running down their spines, the catching of breath, smiles, tears...especially for those people who are open to the experience of exploring a work and who have at least some fundamental knowledge of art. Each individual's reaction to an artwork is different, depending on their history, culture, mood, past experiences and familiarity to the art world. Much of the work we admire makes us feel good, which is why we want to surround ourselves with it. Even works that evoke stronger emotions, provocative work, is thrilling to gaze upon.
Jasper Johns is one of America's most beloved artists. His works focus on, he says, “things the mind already knows.” His use of flags, targets and repeated colors and patterns, done in heavy layers of encaustic medium, give his work a rich, textural quality. Born in Augusta, Georgia in 1930, Johns spent many of his formative years living in the rural south with his mother and other relatives. He had little exposure to art but, somehow, he spent much time drawing and knew that he wanted to be an artist.
Born in Monroe, Washington in 1940, Close developed an interest in art at a young age. He was dyslexic, and was a poor student all the way through high school. Despite his poor performance, Close managed to complete his B.A. at the University of Washington in Seattle and win a scholarship to Yale, from where he received his M.F.A. He then went on to the Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna on a Fulbright grant.
London's Royal Academy of Arts is holding the first comprehensive exhibit of Milton's Avery's work in Europe. Milton Avery was an artist's artist, revered by young artists like Mark Rothko and Adolph Gottlieb, whom he mentored. He was a modern American colorist, creating intimate portraits and landscapes that were neither Impressionistic nor Abstract Expressionist, the trends in America at the apex of his career.
Andrew Wyeth began painting Betsy Merle James when they met, in the summer of 1939. He had been invited, on his twenty-second birthday, by artist and editor Merle James, to meet James' three daughters. Betsy was 17 at the time, and she took Wyeth to meet her neighbors, siblings Alvaro and Christina Olson. Wyeth began painting the Olsons and their home that summer, as well. Christina was paralyzed from the waist down and refused to use a wheelchair or crutches. It was Betsy who posed for, and titled, Christina's World, Wyeth's most celebrated work.
As collectors of fine American art, it's gratifying to see contemporary artists, like Reggie Burrows Hodges, get the acclaim they deserve. Reggie Burrows Hodges had his first New York solo show at the Karma Gallery at the beginning of this year. The accompanying catalog includes an essay by The New Yorker's theater critic, Hilton Als, who writes that Hodges' figures, “are made sharper, and more haunting, not because we see those things in their eyes, we see it in their bodies, their postures, the endless desire for humans not to be alone, and to connect."
Joan Miró was a renegade; a revolutionary artist who painted what he saw, felt and imagined. His works inspired other artists to find their own, unique voices and they continue to inspire artists today. A testament to the endurance of Joan Miró's art is an exhibit of his work to mark the recent opening of the Museum of Art Pudong in Shanghai, designed by French architect Jean Nouvel.
Luis Montoya opened the first fine art foundry in South Florida and was joined by Leslie Ortiz in 1985. In 1994, the two artists began to collaborate on works that have a unique sensibility. They take objects, beautiful in their own right, and sculpt them into larger-than-life works that make the viewer really see their beauty and remarkable qualities. It's hard to ever look at an olive, sea shell, hazelnut or asparagus spear in the same way again after seeing a bronze rendering of the object by Montoya & Ortiz.
“I never paid attention to what people said,” he told a recent Galerie magazine interviewer. “I knew I would always work out what I wanted to do." My style was ahead of the public and certainly of the institutions. They were never on the same page with me. Curators followed what they read in art history books, which are out of date. Most art history by the time you read it is out of date.”
James Rosenquist's work combines Pop and Surrealist images. His background as a sign painter gave him a set of skills and unique perspective about both the art and consumer culture of the world around him. He studied art at the University of Minnesota and moved to New York in 1955 to study at the Art Students League. To earn a living in New York, Rosenquist joined the International Brotherhood of Painters and Allied Trades. He paint billboards around Times Square and Fifth Avenue. In his 2009 autobiography, Rosenquist wrote, "I painted billboards above every candy store in Brooklyn. I got so I could paint a Schenley whiskey bottle in my sleep."
A new generation of fans has discovered the works of Tom Wesselmann. His images are appearing, with increased frequency, on the shirts, shorts, towels and water bottles of millennial skateboarders and surfers. The Robb Report calls the designs maximum art school chic.
There is much about Orville Bulman's life that is surprising. It's hard to imagine Orville Bulman and Raymond Burr crossing paths, but they did. Burr was not only Perry Mason, he was an avid art collector and gallerist and was a great admirer of the paintings of Orville Bulman.
Stephen Scott Young is one of America's most accomplished watercolor artists. His masterful technique, in watercolor, etching and silverpoint, earned him recognition early in his career. In 1985, Young was given first prize in the American Artist Magazine national art competition. The following year, Young became the youngest living artist to have work sold at Christie’s New York.
