News

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|
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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|
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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|
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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|
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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|
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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|
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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|
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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|
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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|
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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|
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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|
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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|
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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|
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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|
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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|
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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|
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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|
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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.

2019-04-06T10:50:05-04:00 April 3rd, 2019|
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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|
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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|
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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|
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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|
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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|
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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|
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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|
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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|
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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|
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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|
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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|
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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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Walton Ford: La Historia Me Absolverá

There are few human figures in the works of Walton Ford, yet his works reflect the relationship between humans and animals and how, most often, that interaction has been devastating for the animals.

2021-05-27T11:27:01-04:00 December 25th, 2018|
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Stephen Scott Young Watercolors at Surovek Gallery

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.

2021-03-18T17:16:26-04:00 December 14th, 2018|
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Keith Haring’s Growing Series at Surovek

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.

2021-03-18T17:16:33-04:00 December 5th, 2018|
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Robert Indiana: Retrospective in Tampa

The recent death of Robert Indiana has inspired museums and galleries in New York, Hong Kong, Berlin and other major cities to honor the artist with retrospectives of his work. A current exhibit, in Tampa, Robert Indiana: A Sculpture Retrospective contains many of the artists' early works and work that has never before been in a public exhibit.

2018-11-30T11:32:34-05:00 November 29th, 2018|
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William Glackens and Renoir Exhibit in Fort Lauderdale

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, [...]

2021-03-18T17:14:09-04:00 November 22nd, 2018|
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Norman Rockwell: Father and Son and JFK

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.

2021-03-18T17:21:27-04:00 November 8th, 2018|
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Alex Katz Sculptures and Fine Art Prints at Surovek Gallery

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. Lotte Museum of ART : Alex Katz Photo: Aaron Yoo [...]

2021-06-01T15:16:42-04:00 October 24th, 2018|
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Works by Robert Indiana at Surovek Gallery

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 holes in the roof, buckets collecting water and pigeons living inside. Robert Indiana's dream was to turn the 12-room mansion into a museum, where his artwork could be [...]

2021-06-01T15:39:20-04:00 October 17th, 2018|
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KAWS for Christmas

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.

2021-03-18T17:21:33-04:00 October 4th, 2018|
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Joan Miro, Hemmingway and The Farm in Paris

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.

2021-03-18T17:21:39-04:00 September 26th, 2018|
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The Joyful Works of Orville Bulman

Orville Bulman had to put his art career on hold for decades in order to help run the family business in his home town of Grand Rapids, Michigan. He didn't give up painting and, eventually, exhibited at New York's Society of Independent Artists in 1937 and at the Woodstock Art Colony in 1948, but it wasn't until he was in his forties that he discovered his muse and hit his stride.

2018-09-14T08:52:52-04:00 September 11th, 2018|
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The Radiant Colors of Wolf Kahn’s Landscapes

Wolf Kahn began using intense colors in his landscapes, in the late 1960s, while on vacation in Deer Isle, Maine. The sweep of the fog, the sea and the sky led him to move away from the monochromatic tones he had been using, to the swaths of radiant colors that he has been using for the last fifty years.

2018-09-07T08:46:22-04:00 September 6th, 2018|
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Marc Chagall Original Work From His Later Years

In our life there is a single color, as on an artist's palette, which provides the meaning of life and art. It is the color of love. - Marc Chagall Marc Chagall Museum, Nice, France, July 18, 2009Photo: Aapo Haapanen, (CC BY 2.0) The oldest of nine children, Marc Chagall experienced poverty, prejudice and the [...]

2021-06-01T16:02:57-04:00 August 21st, 2018|
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Watercolors by American Masters at the Surovek Gallery

Our focus at Surovek Gallery is on the acquisition and sale of works by American masters. Most of the artists in our gallery are known for their works in oils, and not as well-known for their watercolors. Watercolors, made from ochre and other minerals mixed with water, were used by the first artists to paint their cave walls and Ancient Egyptians to paint their tombs and temples. With the advancement of paper making in Italy in the thirteenth century, artists were able to use watercolors to produce major works.

2018-08-31T13:44:06-04:00 August 16th, 2018|
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Roy Lichtenstein Works Going to The Smithsonian and The Whitney

The Whitney will be establishing the The Roy Lichtenstein Study Collection, with the Foundation's donation of  more than four hundred works created by Lichtenstein during his long career. The works, made from 1940 until his death in 1997, include paintings, drawings, prints, collages, sculptures, maquettes, models, study photographs and drawings, with additional work to be donated in the future.

2021-06-01T16:09:13-04:00 August 9th, 2018|
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Grant Wood’s Deceptive Overalls

Grant Wood The Whitney Museum show Grant Wood: American Gothic and Other Fables, the most extensive retrospective of Wood's work ever presented,  has just ended, and still the questions remain about both the artist and his art. American Gothic is one of America's most recognizable paintings, but Wood's large body of work and his life story, are unfamiliar [...]

2018-08-05T14:52:18-04:00 August 2nd, 2018|
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Palm Beach Art Galleries

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.

2021-03-18T17:17:05-04:00 July 26th, 2018|
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Joan Miró: The Power of the Sol de Miró

Joan Miró spent his life in both his birthplace of Barcelona and his adopted home of Paris. He lived in turbulent times and saw his country ravaged by civil war, the fascist Franco regime and World War ll. He lived long enough to see Spain become a constitutional monarchy and to see himself become a national treasure, but [...]

2018-07-23T11:16:29-04:00 July 22nd, 2018|
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Wyeth: The life of Andrew Wyeth in bold strokes

The works of Andrew Wyeth have always garnered public adoration. His original works are coveted by art collectors. Wyeth's exhibits routinely broke attendance records. What the artist often failed to get, was the support of art critics, who often slammed him for sticking to his own style during a time when Modernism and avant-garde movements were sweeping [...]

2021-03-18T17:16:56-04:00 July 17th, 2018|
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