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American realism

Curator's Corner

Artist Birthday: Neil Jenney

Thursday, November 6, 2025 | Karl Cole

Painter Neil Jenney has been part of what the Whitney Museum called in 1978 New Image Painting. It is neither Pop-oriented or abstract. Jenney’s work emphasizes vigorous, exciting brush work ...

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Curator's Corner

Artist Birthday: Hugh Bolton Jones

Monday, October 20, 2025 | Karl Cole

Hugh Bolton Jones was one of the many American artists whose painting was influenced by the French Realist Barbizon school in the late 1800s. He enthusiastically embraced the technique of en plein ...

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Curator's Corner

Artist Birthday: Sylvia Plimack Mangold

Thursday, September 18, 2025 | Karl Cole

Since the 1960s, Sylvia Plimack Mangold has developed a distinctive visual language that is grounded in figuration and transcends representation. Plimack Mangold has remained committed to an explo ...

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Curator's Corner

Artist Birthday: Martha Edelheit

Wednesday, September 3, 2025 | Karl Cole

Martha Edelheit was active in the Women’s Art Movement of the late 1960s into the 1970s. She is known for her provocative, allegorical paintings of male and female figures, as well as for her in ...

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Curator's Corner

Artist Birthday: Laura Shechter

Tuesday, August 26, 2025 | Karl Cole

Laura Shechter is an extraordinarily gifted, contemporary realist still life artist who is part of the large body of American artists who have persisted in pursuing the cherished American love of obse ...

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Curator's Corner

Artist Birthday: Alvan Fisher

Friday, August 8, 2025 | Karl Cole

At the time Alvan Fisher began painting landscapes, the Hudson River School had not yet formed in New England. Fisher was among less than a handful of artists who were dedicated to landscape painting. ...

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Curator's Corner

Artist Birthday: Audrey Flack

Friday, May 30, 2025 | Karl Cole

Having matured as an artist shortly after the “revolution” of the Abstract Expressionism movement, Audrey Flack became one of the earliest and archetypal Photorealist painters, working fro ...

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Curator's Corner

National Love a Tree Day: Sylvia P. Mangold

Friday, May 16, 2025 | Karl Cole

Mangold is very fond of the trees that were on her country property and they became frequent subjects of her paintings. She would definitely approve of National Love a Tree Day, which encourages every ...

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Curator's Corner

Artist Birthday: Ralph Goings

Friday, May 9, 2025 | Karl Cole

The Photorealism movement, which evolved during the late 1960s as a counterpoint to the pervasive Minimalism, Conceptualism, and abstraction in American art, blossomed fully during the 1970s. Into the ...

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Curator's Corner

Gem of the Month: Pasquale Santo

Monday, May 5, 2025 | Karl Cole

I had a sudden “beauty attack” last week when I looked closely at this artist’s work for the first time. Being a painter myself, I am always flabbergasted by how many artists come an ...

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Curator's Corner

Artist Birthday: Elizabeth Catlett

Tuesday, April 15, 2025 | Karl Cole

Elizabeth Catlett’s body of work as an artist was predominantly intended to connect with and honor achievements of African Americans, particularly women. Her works about women such as this army ...

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Curator's Corner

March into March: Allan Rohan Crite

Monday, March 4, 2024 | Karl Cole

As we march into March—and spring—let’s bid a temporary goodbye to Black History Month with a painting by Boston’s own Allan Rohan Crite. I was greatly privileged to meet ...

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Curator's Corner

Deceiving the Eye: American Trompe-l'Oeil Realism

Wednesday, June 21, 2017 | Karl Cole

I’ve written before about the long-standing interest in extreme realism in American painting. Colonial American self-taught artists (“limners”) may not have been schooled in anatomy, ...

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Curator's Corner

A Roesen is Still a Roesen...

Monday, August 4, 2014 | Karl Cole

I’m a big fan of artists, especially American artists, who may not be household names like Homer, Peale, or Eakins, but who nonetheless had an impact on art during their careers. There is such a ...

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Curator's Corner

American Artist Supports American Art: Carroll Beckwith

Tuesday, June 3, 2014 | Karl Cole

I guess it doesn’t need to be said, that, in the history of art, there are many artists who just don’t get massive exposure. Although they might often be lauded in their day, their works d ...

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Curator's Corner

Art Breaking the Law? William Michael Harnett

Monday, January 17, 2011 | Karl Cole

Having said last week that I’m “not a big fan of realism,” I’ll punish that thought again by showing you a work by a master realist. I just came across this work in passing, an ...

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