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Selfies Before Cell Phones at the Boca Museum of Art

Eye to I at the Boca Museum Before there was the selfie, there was the self portrait. Eye to I, the current exhibit at the Boca Raton Museum of Art, explores the way in which twentieth-century American artists portrayed themselves through painting, drawing, photography, and film. Unlike selfies, which can be instantly gratifying and, often, very candid, self-portraits [...]

2020-03-27T09:21:34-04:00 March 19th, 2020|

David Hockney’s Work at Surovek Gallery

The National Portrait Gallery of London is currently holding an exhibit of Hockney's drawings, the first major exhibit of the artist's drawings in more than twenty years. Although there are more than 150 works on display, done from 1950 to the present, only five subjects are represented in the works: his friend Celia Birtwell, his mother, Laura Hockney, curator and friend Gregory Evans, master printer and friend Maurice Payne and Hockney himself.

2021-06-01T15:30:45-04:00 March 12th, 2020|

The Continuing Legacies of Jean-Michel Basquiat and Keith Haring

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.

2021-06-01T14:09:04-04:00 February 27th, 2020|

Frank Stella Exhibits Coming to the Tampa Museum of Art

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 [...]

2021-06-01T14:10:43-04:00 February 20th, 2020|

Keith Haring at Auction, Alex Katz at the Guggenheim

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.

2021-06-01T14:13:31-04:00 February 13th, 2020|

The Work of Maria Oakey Dewing at Surovek Gallery

Maria Oakey Dewing is one of the women included in the Smithsonian's archives, and whose works are part of the permanent collection of the Smithsonian's art collection. Dewing began her career around the turn of the twentieth century. Her abstract, impressionist style was considered avant-garde, and way ahead of other artists of her generation.

2020-02-10T14:26:12-05:00 February 6th, 2020|

Stolen Chagall Recovered; Picasso and Paper at the Royal Academy

Marc Chagall's poetic images made him one of the most celebrated artists of the twentieth century. He was a painter, printmaker, set designer and created extraordinary stained glass windows for the United Nations, an incredible ceiling mural at the Paris Opera House and wondrous murals at the Metropolitan Opera in New York.

2022-04-14T12:37:37-04:00 January 31st, 2020|

Larraz, Montoya and Ortiz at Surovek Gallery

After a decade of working on political caricatures, Larraz knew he wanted to create art that mattered to him, but the art scene in New York in the 1970s and ’80s was transitioning from Abstract Expressionism to Minimalism and Conceptual Art, none of which interested Larraz. “I wasn’t bored of my job. I love drawing and I love politics,” he said in a 2015 interview in Huffpost, “but I knew I wanted to do something that completely filled me with joy. When I started, the type of painting I wanted to create was forbidden. Abstract art was in full force at the time, but I wanted to be a Realist painter, which was considered degenerate art. I remember thinking ‘Terrific. You are not supposed to do this, and this is exactly what I am going to do.’ I had to go there, it was calling me.”

2020-01-28T14:50:00-05:00 January 15th, 2020|

The Works of Alex Katz and Ellsworth Kelly at Surovek Gallery

A new record for the work of Alex Katz was set at the Phillips auction house in London last October. His 1972 painting, Blue Umbrella sold for $4.1 million. The painting is just one of the more than 200 that Katz has created of Ada, his wife and muse. The 92-year-old Brooklyn born artist is going to have his first solo exhibit in Spain this fall, at the Thyssen-Bornemisza National Museum in Madrid. The exhibit will include paintings of flowers, landscapes and portraits, done in the distinctive style and colors that Katz has refined during his long career.

2020-01-28T14:35:59-05:00 January 8th, 2020|

American Landscapes at Surovek Gallery

When the Roman Empire declined, around 133 BC, the art of landscape painting also declined. Although artists have been painting landscapes since antiquity, they were used only as background for religious, mythological or historical figure paintings. The word landscape comes from the Dutch word landschap, meaning region or tract of land. The Netherlands was one of the first places where landscapes became a popular subject for paintings and the term landscape came to mean a picture depicting scenery on land.

2020-01-28T14:31:32-05:00 January 2nd, 2020|

The Naturalists: Scott Kelley and Walton Ford

Contemporary artists Scott Kelley and Walton Ford have much in common. Scott Kelley was born in 1960, Walton Ford in 1963. Kelley was born in Binghamton, New York, Ford was born in Larchmont, New York. They both had traditional art educations, Kelley at the Slade School of Fine Art in London and at Cooper Union in New York, Ford at the Rhode Island School of Design.

2020-01-28T14:57:58-05:00 December 26th, 2019|

A Look Back at the 2019 Art Market

The contemporary art market has grown 1,800% in the last 19 years and its Price Index rose 22% in 2018/19, according to artprice.com. Of the top ten artists whose work set auction records in 2019, Claude Monet's Meules topped the list at Sotheby's New York, when it sold at the May 14th auction for $110,747,000. Jeff Koons [...]

2019-12-20T08:09:59-05:00 December 19th, 2019|

The Holidays at Surovek Gallery

This time of year stirs up memories, gives rise to feelings of nostalgia and, hopefully, joy. Great works of art awaken many of the same emotions. Each work at Surovek Gallery has been carefully chosen because of its beauty, its history and the sensation it evokes. We would like to showcase some of the fine works of [...]

2019-12-20T08:11:39-05:00 December 12th, 2019|

David Hockney: Looking Out of His Window

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.

2021-06-01T14:17:39-04:00 December 5th, 2019|

The Heartwarming Paintings of American Artists at Surovek Gallery

The holidays bring up many emotions that artists are often able to capture. Many of the paintings by the American artists in our gallery seem to take on a deeper, more nostalgic, heartwarming feeling this time of the year. Here's a look at just a few of the works in the Surovek Gallery that evoke a sense of joy and the extraordinary artists who created them.

2019-12-20T08:13:09-05:00 November 28th, 2019|

Winslow Homer: Eyewitness

Ahead of his time, the first paintings of the sea that Homer exhibited in New York were panned by the critics. Writer and critic Henry James wrote that Homer's paintings were, “almost barbarously simple” with “no imagination.” Although James did add that “there is something one likes about him.” Homer's use of diffuse light and stark narrative was a sharp contrast to the emotional, bucolic work that was popular in the 1870s.

2020-01-28T14:23:48-05:00 November 20th, 2019|

Marc Chagall: What is The Fiddler?

Considering all the turmoil that Marc Chagall witnessed and experienced throughout his lifetime, it's remarkable to see the optimism, playfulness and joy in his art. Chagall was born in 1887, in Liozna, which was part of the Russian Empire. He was the oldest of nine children in an Orthodox Jewish family at a time when Jewish children were not allowed to attend regular schools or universities.

2019-10-07T15:34:50-04:00 October 1st, 2019|

Dale Nichols: Seeing the Light

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.

2021-03-18T17:20:40-04:00 September 12th, 2019|

Alex Katz: Ada

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.

2021-06-01T14:22:26-04:00 September 3rd, 2019|

Frank Stella in 3-D at 83

A recent exhibit at the Whitney Museum focused on the exuberant colors that pivotal artists used during the psychedelic 1960s. Included in the show was Frank Stella's Gran Cairo, part of the Whitney's permanent collection, one of the first paintings that Stella did after the Black Series that brought him instant acclaim in the art world when he was barely twenty-five. The exhibit, called Spilling Over: Painting Color in the 1960s magnified the varied styles and focus of the mid-century artists.

2021-06-01T14:24:18-04:00 August 27th, 2019|

The Lithographs of Grant Wood

In 1930, Grant Wood entered his now iconic painting, American Gothic, in an exhibit at the Art Institute of Chicago. Wood had attended the School of the Art Institute of Chicago in 1913. The painting won a $300 prize and gave Wood instant recognition, across America, as a Regional Artist. Tim Roby, left and Chris Shepherd [...]

2019-08-26T08:57:29-04:00 August 21st, 2019|

William Glackens: Advancing Art in America

William Glackens was one of the best reporter-artist-illustrators of his time, rendering fast, accurate and compassionate drawings for the Philadelphia Record, and the New York Herald. When the half-tone printing process was finally successfully engineered, so that it was good enough for commercial use (around 1898), illustrators, like Glackens, were replaced by photographers.

2019-08-12T09:15:42-04:00 August 8th, 2019|

Wolf Kahn: Summer in Vermont Paintings at Surovek Gallery

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.

2021-03-18T17:15:49-04:00 July 30th, 2019|

Mary Cassatt: American Treasure

Mary Cassatt is an American treasure, although it was not until after her death, in 1926, that she received the recognition that she deserved. She was born into a wealthy banking family in Philadelphia, and went on family trips to Europe, where she was exposed to great art and culture and could speak both French and German. [...]

2019-07-29T10:05:23-04:00 July 25th, 2019|

Frank Stella: Offset Lithographs at Surovek Gallery

Frank Stella changed the way in which art was viewed and created in post-war America. His minimalist Black Painting Series, which debuted at the Museum of Modern Art's Sixteen Americans show in 1959, ushered in the Minimalist movement and led to Stella's renown in the art world.

2019-07-22T10:49:15-04:00 July 18th, 2019|

Richard Diebenkorn: Notes to Myself

Richard Diebenkorn's painting, Ocean Park #126, sold at Christie's last year for $22,587,500, making it one of the top fifty artworks sold at auction in 2018. Richard DiebenkornOcean Park #126, 1984 The Ocean Park Series of paintings were inspired by his move from a dark, windowless studio to a bright, light-filled studio that had belonged to painter [...]

2021-06-01T15:33:07-04:00 July 11th, 2019|

Pierre-Auguste Renoir in 1875

Pierre-Auguste RenoirSelf portrait, 1876 In 1875, Pierre-Auguste Renoir was 34 years old, and beginning to have some success as a painter. The year before, in Paris, he had teamed up with fellow impressionists, Claude Monet, Alfred Sisley and Frederic Bazille to present the first Impressionist exhibition. The exhibit was not popular with art critics of [...]

2019-07-08T09:49:46-04:00 July 3rd, 2019|

George Bellows at Surovek Gallery

George Bellows painted his final masterpiece, Dempsey and Firpo, in 1924. On January 8, 1925, Bellows died from a ruptured appendix. He was just 42 years old. Writer Sherwood Anderson said that Bellows's last paintings "keep telling you things. They are telling you that Mr. George Bellows died too young. They are telling you that he was after something, that he was always after it.”

2019-07-12T13:45:40-04:00 June 27th, 2019|

Anthony Thieme from Rotterdam to Palm Beach

Thieme was born in Rotterdam, Holland in 1888. According to notes and letters to and from his wife, Becky, which are part of the Smithsonian's Archives of American Art, Thieme began drawing as early as age 8. "He drew everything in sight," she wrote, "including famous Dutch master drawings."

2019-06-10T10:07:51-04:00 June 7th, 2019|

Thomas Hart Benton: Ships and Stories

Thomas Hart Benton's work had a profound effect on American art. Born in 1889, he lived through World War l, World War ll and the Depression. Although he called himself an enemy of modernism, his teaching at the New York Art Students League, from 1925 to 1935, impacted the progression of Abstract Expressionism and modern art.

2019-05-30T10:40:43-04:00 May 28th, 2019|

Joan Miró’s The Reaper: A Political Education

The world looked to Spain. The Spanish Civil War had begun in 1936 when Francisco Franco and the fascists attempted to overthrow the Republic under Manuel Azaña. Spain’s great artists collected in Paris in 1937 to display solidarity behind Azaña and the Republicans. Joan Miró, till then a mostly apolitical spectator, put The Reaper on the wall of the Spanish Pavilion at the Paris World Fair, publicly declaring his loyalty to the Republican cause.

2019-05-24T10:16:30-04:00 May 24th, 2019|

Milton Avery: Summer with the Averys

Milton Avery and his family went on a summer vacation every year, even when money was tight and it was difficult to make ends meet. Avery, his wife, Sally, and daughter, March, would leave their home in New York City and head to more scenic sites, like Gloucester, Massachusetts, where the couple met during a summer art program. Sally was twenty-two when they met, Avery nearly twenty years older, and he, initially, lied about his age. They were married in 1926...a marriage that lasted until 1965, when Avery died.

2019-05-13T12:47:15-04:00 May 9th, 2019|

Jasper Johns: 2020 Retrospective at The Whitney

One of the things that set Jasper Johns apart from his contemporaries like Robert Rauschenberg, Andy Warhol and Roy Lichtenstien was Johns' lack of art training, and even the absence of exposure to art as a child. Abandoned by his parents after their divorce, he was raised by his Aunt Gladys in rural South Carolina. "In the place where I was a child, there were no artists and there was no art, so I really didn't know what that meant. I think I thought it meant that I would be in a situation different than the one that I was in."

2021-06-01T14:54:31-04:00 May 2nd, 2019|

KAWS Awes in Hong Kong

On April 1st, Sotheby's Hong Kong was filled with millennials, many in hoodies, who bought about $28 million dollars worth of KAWS' art. Millennials filled Sotheby's Hong Kong on April 1st. The most astonishing purchase of the April 1st auction was THE KAWS ALBUM, a 40 x 40 inch painting commissioned by Japanese fashion designer, [...]

2019-04-29T11:42:14-04:00 April 28th, 2019|

Marc Chagall’s View of the Notre Dame Cathedral

As the world watched the Notre Dame Cathedral burn last Monday, it evoked memories for those who have visited, or even just passed by, the iconic structure.For Marc Chagall, who first visited Paris in 1910, the city was a captivating place, filled with artists, poets and writers and galleries and museums that fueled his passion for painting.

2019-04-22T11:08:53-04:00 April 18th, 2019|

Keith Haring Signed Growing Series at the Surovek Gallery

Young Keith Haring in Kutztown, Pennsylvania. After graduating from high school,  Keith Haring left his family home in Kutztown, Pennsylvania, and spent just two semesters at the Ivy School of Professional Art in Pittsburgh, before dropping out and heading for New York. He was an artist. He'd been drawing from a very early age, taught by his [...]

2019-04-22T11:07:59-04:00 April 11th, 2019|

Dale Nichols Paintings at Surovek

The wistful paintings of Dale Nichols belie the unique story of the artist himself. He is considered a Regionalist artist. His paintings reflect his nostalgia for the red barn of his  childhood home in Nebraska, although he was also able to evoke the same gentle feelings for Arizona, Alaska, Guatemala  and the many other places to which he traveled.

2023-03-20T15:09:13-04:00 April 3rd, 2019|

Richard Diebenkorn and the Bay Area Figurative School

Because Richard Diebenkorn’s spare, abstract works are what brought him distinction as an artist, his early works are often overlooked. A traveling exhibit, currently at Pepperdine University’s Frederick R.Weisman Museum of Art, focuses on the Richard Diebenkorn’s early works, most of which have never before been seen in a public exhibit.

2019-04-01T10:29:15-04:00 March 30th, 2019|

Frank Stella Culling His Collection at Christie’s

At age 82, Stella is ready to part with some of the works he's collected, and some of his own works, which he says are piled up in his Hudson Valley studio in upstate New York. Some of the artwork, his and the work of other artists, are being auctioned at Christie's London and New York, for an expected return of more than $25 million.

2019-03-25T10:00:15-04:00 March 21st, 2019|

Tom Wesselmann’s Work in New York and the Netherlands

I find sometimes I get so excited working, especially when starting new ideas; I get so excited that I get uncomfortable. It almost feels dangerous, like I'm flirting with something dangerous. - Tom Wesselmann Tom Wesselmann's Work at TEFAF Maastricht Tom WesselmanGirl Eating a Banana, 1967-1968Oil on canvas51 1/2 x 75 inchesAlmine Rech Gallery One [...]

2019-04-01T10:24:14-04:00 March 14th, 2019|

William Glackens: The French Impressionist Influence

Glackens painted scenes of twentieth century New York with the sensibility of the French Impressionist painters he had admired in Paris, and his work helped to popularize American Impressionism and modernize art in America. Through his work with the Ashcan School and the Society of Independent Artists, Glackens helped to plan, and take part in, exhibits that introduced modern American artists to U.S. and European audiences and introduce European audiences to American art.

2019-03-11T09:31:55-04:00 March 8th, 2019|

Surovek Gallery Show Exposes Benton’s Modernist Roots

Clay Surovek of Surovek Gallery organized Thomas Hart Benton: Mechanics of Form in collaboration with Lester-Thompson Fine Art. Behind him is the show’s most prominent painting, the 1926 oil Going West. The exhibition runs through March 31. [Damon Higgins/palmbeachdailynews.com] This article By Jan Sjostrom originally posted on palmbeachdailynews.com In Thomas Hart Benton’s painting “Going West,” [...]

2019-03-05T09:18:55-05:00 March 5th, 2019|

Marc Chagall: Exceeds Expectations at Christie’s London

Marc Chagall: Top Lot at Christie's A rare painting by Marc Chagall, that was part of a private Swiss collection, was auctioned at Christie's London on February 28, and sold for more than GBP 671,250 (USD 888,000), above estimated sale price. Marc ChagallL'été, Les moissonneuses (Les quatres saisons), 1974Tempera, gouache, watercolor and pastel on paper29 ¾ x [...]

2019-03-11T10:30:09-04:00 February 28th, 2019|

Scott Kelley Ink, Watercolor and Gouache Works at the Surovek Gallery

Like Dr. Seuss, Kelley has written and beautifully illustrated a children's book about the environment. I Am Birch is not just about respect for the natural world, it's also about facing fear. All proceeds from the sale of the book go to the I Am Birch Foundation, which gives mini-grants to traditional Wabanaki artisans, a group of Native American tribes living in and around Maine, for the purchase of materials and supplies to enable them to continue making their art.

2019-03-11T10:22:14-04:00 February 21st, 2019|

The Influence of Jackson Pollock on Neil Welliver

The thing about Pollock that excited me, and still does, is accepting the physical fact of the canvas. Acknowledging the physical fact of the canvas. Acknowledging the fact of the painting. Pollock’s aggression about the fact of the painting and so on. I like that. I feel I come much more from that than I do from anywhere else. - Neil Welliver

2019-02-18T08:57:48-05:00 February 14th, 2019|

Thomas Hart Benton: Mechanics of Form

The Surovek Gallery in Palm Beach, Florida, is presenting a new exhibition of around 65 works by Thomas Hart Benton (1889-1975), the famed Regionalist painter known for chronicling the beauty, joys and sorrows of everyday life in America. On view from February 7 to March 15 March 31, 2019, "Thomas Hart Benton: Mechanics of Form," the second [...]

2019-03-14T19:12:47-04:00 February 12th, 2019|

Winslow Homer and the Camera

Winslow Homer with “The Gulf Stream” in his studio, ca. 1900, gelatin silver print, by an unidentified photographer. Bowdoin College Museum of Art Winslow Homer began his career as a freelance illustrator for Harper's Weekly and other major publications of the day. His drawings, etchings and lithographs, especially during the Civil War, were the equivalent of [...]

2019-02-25T09:45:22-05:00 February 7th, 2019|

Guy Wiggins Winter Scenes at Surovek Gallery

Although Wiggins preferred to paint in the countryside, he saw the beauty of winter in the city and was able to capture it on canvas. In a 1924 interview, Wiggins told the story of how he painted his first snow scene in 1912. "One cold, blustering, snowy winter day," he said,  "I was in my New York studio trying to paint a summer landscape ....

2019-01-28T12:44:11-05:00 January 24th, 2019|

Frank Stella: 1977 Screenprints at the Surovek Gallery

When Frank Stella moved to New York in 1958, at age 22, he had graduated from Princeton and just wanted to to paint. "I wasn’t thinking of becoming an artist." he said,  "I just wanted to make things and paint for a while." That "while" has continued for the past sixty years, with Stella's work continually evolving, even today.

2021-05-27T11:28:31-04:00 January 17th, 2019|

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