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Curator's Corner

A Realism Backlash? Modern Art Heads

Tuesday, August 18, 2015 | Karl Cole

After the horrors experienced by Europeans in World War I (1914–1918), the brakes were more or less put on to the prevailing trend towards modernism and abstraction, although certainly many arti ...

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Curator's Corner

The Essence of Essence

Monday, August 3, 2015 | Karl Cole

I’ve been reading manifestos by several early modernist artists from Europe recently (Kandinsky, Boccioni, Doesburg), and a recurring thought comes out in all of their writings. It is the idea t ...

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Curator's Corner

How Old Is This? Edo and Jutta Sika Ceramics

Tuesday, May 26, 2015 | Karl Cole

Lately, I can’t seem to get away from seeing “abstraction” in all sorts of places. I came across this wonderful Japanese bowl from the mid-1700s to mid-1800s, during the Edo period ( ...

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Curator's Corner

Survey No. 12: Abstraction

Monday, February 2, 2015 | Karl Cole

In our art history survey, we are now at the end with the 1900s. The big “revelation” in Western art starting very late in the 1800s and flowering in the early 1900s was abstraction. Abstr ...

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Curator's Corner

Not Black and White: Franz Kline

Monday, March 17, 2014 | Karl Cole

When we think of Abstract Expressionism, we usually think first of dynamic brushwork. That is certainly the case with Franz Kline. However, in the case of Kline’s work, one tends to think of wor ...

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Curator's Corner

African American History Month 2014: Alvin Loving, Jr.

Monday, February 24, 2014 | Karl Cole

After the Harlem Renaissance (1920s–1930s) and World War II (1939–1945), African American artists continued to seek a way to emphasize the validity of African American art in the modern ar ...

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Curator's Corner

American Originals: Morgan Russell and Stanton MacDonald-Wright

Monday, July 1, 2013 | Karl Cole

I’ve mentioned in previous blogs how spotty modernism was in American art in the early 1900s. Since the colonial period, American artists had a tenacious obsession with realism, including the wo ...

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Curator's Corner

The Simplified Landscape: Warren Rohrer

Monday, May 6, 2013 | Karl Cole

The genre of the simplified (abstracted) landscape has been around a loooonnnnnng time. In particular, I think of the dreamy, suggestive landscapes of Chinese artists from as early as the Song dynasty ...

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Curator's Corner

African American History Month 2013: Lisa Corinne Davis

Monday, February 25, 2013 | Karl Cole

To close out African American History Month, I’ve been looking at the work of Lisa Corinne Davis. What is great about many contemporary artists is that their work often defies any categorization ...

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Curator's Corner

African American History Month 2013: Sam Gilliam

Monday, February 18, 2013 | Karl Cole

Sam Gilliam is one of my favorite artists because of his explorations of color. He is famous for his draped, splattered, unframed canvases with a gorgeous appreciation for color. I’m always curi ...

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Curator's Corner

Color: Léopold Survage

Monday, August 20, 2012 | Karl Cole

I’m a sucker for color in any artist’s work, any medium. I am always intrigued by artists who seem to go through phases (much like Picasso), because, as a painter, I don’t see it in ...

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Curator's Corner

Thoughts About Abstraction: Totoya Hokkei

Monday, July 30, 2012 | Karl Cole

Abstraction is any art that does not represent observed aspects of nature or transforms visible forms into a stylized image. Another definition (which I prefer) is that abstraction is the extreme simp ...

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Curator's Corner

African American History Month 2012: William T. Williams

Tuesday, February 21, 2012 | Karl Cole

We’ve discussed self-taught art, nineteenth-century academic art, and contemporary issue-oriented art in relation to African American History Month. Let’s now talk about black art that has ...

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Curator's Corner

Happy Festive Days: Linda Besemer

Thursday, January 5, 2012 | Karl Cole

In Switzerland, the time between Christmas and New Year is called Feschttage, which I guess could loosely translate to holidays. I prefer to think of it as festive days. In that spirit, ...

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Curator's Corner

What's New Is Old: Op Art of Susie Rosmarin

Monday, July 18, 2011 | Karl Cole

I was a child in the 1960s, so I don’t really remember the Op Art phenomenon. However, my last year in high school, our art teacher had us do a drawing in pastels that emulated Op Art. I still h ...

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Curator's Corner

New Acquisition: Silkscreen of Walter Darby Bannard

Wednesday, June 8, 2011 | Karl Cole

Although I wrote a master’s thesis on Swiss Renaissance art, since then (I’m not saying how long ago that was!) I have become a big fan of the New York School that bloomed immediately foll ...

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Blogs

abstraction

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A Realism Backlash? Modern Art Heads

The Essence of Essence

How Old Is This? Edo and Jutta Sika Ceramics

Survey No. 12: Abstraction

Not Black and White: Franz Kline

African American History Month 2014: Alvin Loving, Jr.

American Originals: Morgan Russell and Stanton MacDonald-Wright

The Simplified Landscape: Warren Rohrer

African American History Month 2013: Lisa Corinne Davis

African American History Month 2013: Sam Gilliam

Color: Léopold Survage

Thoughts About Abstraction: Totoya Hokkei

African American History Month 2012: William T. Williams

Happy Festive Days: Linda Besemer

What's New Is Old: Op Art of Susie Rosmarin

New Acquisition: Silkscreen of Walter Darby Bannard

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Most Popular

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Always Stay in the Loop