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Curator's Corner

Artist Birthday: Jean Hélion

Monday, April 21, 2025 | Karl Cole

Jean Hélion was a member of a number of artists’ groups between World Wars I and II which advocated for total, non-objective abstraction. Ironically, after World War II he lost his tenaci ...

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Curator's Corner

Artist Birthday: John Chamberlain

Wednesday, April 16, 2025 | Karl Cole

John Chamberlain was part of the constructed steel sculpture movement that blossomed following World War II (1939–1945). Constructed sculpture had been experimental before the war, and became th ...

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Curator's Corner

National Gardening Day: Arshile Gorky

Monday, April 14, 2025 | Karl Cole

In 1986, President Reagan established National Garden Week, which was first celebrated in 1987 from 12 through 16 April. In 2002 the National Gardening Association insisted that the entire month of Ap ...

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Curator's Corner

Artist Birthday: Victor Vasarely

Wednesday, April 9, 2025 | Karl Cole

The study of the optical effects possible in the manipulation of color and shape that began with the Neo-Impressionists Georges Seurat (1895–1891) and Paul Signac (1863–1935) in the late 1 ...

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Curator's Corner

Women's History Month: Gertrude Greene

Monday, March 3, 2025 | Karl Cole

Among the many women artists who deserve recognition in the history of art, Gertrude Greene is certainly toward the top of my list. She was a standup, persistent modernist during the difficult economi ...

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Curator's Corner

Art for National Peach Month 2024

Monday, August 19, 2024 | Karl Cole

August was first declared National Peach Month in the United States in 1982. Since August is the month when peaches are supposed to be at their peak ripeness, let’s look at some works of art tha ...

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Curator's Corner

Gem of the Month: Kumi Sugaï

Monday, March 18, 2024 | Karl Cole

Abstraction was not an invention of Western artists in the early 1900s. The following definitions indicate that abstraction has been part of art throughout the world since the cave paintings of pre-hi ...

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Curator's Corner

Native American Heritage Month: Fritz Scholder

Monday, November 1, 2021 | Karl Cole

Artist Fritz Scholder was in the forefront of First Nations modernism starting in the mid- to late 1900s. The groundwork for the recognition of modern Native American art was laid by the Institute of ...

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Curator's Corner

An Artist of the "Cool School": Ed Moses

Monday, July 17, 2017 | Karl Cole

Far too often art history texts sum up the pioneering American avant-garde of the mid-1900s with Abstract Expressionism and the New York scene. Believe it or not, there were avant-garde artists all ov ...

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Curator's Corner

Ode to the "June Bride"

Monday, June 6, 2016 | Karl Cole

It’s a jaded Art Historian who turns the traditional idea of the “June Bride” sideways. Here are works of art that sort of give a different perspective on the whole subject of weddin ...

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Curator's Corner

Music

Monday, January 18, 2016 | Karl Cole

An artist picking up his artwork from the latest exhibit in the Davis Art Gallery, In Vision: 2D and 3D Landscape, proposed an idea for an exhibition of art related to jazz music. I’m sure the a ...

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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

Not What You Would Expect! Skidmore, Owings, and Merrill

Monday, December 20, 2010 | Karl Cole

I really don’t usually go Lady Gaga over the International Style of architecture. However, I was recently scanning some Skidmore, Owings, and Merrill (SOM) buildings into our collection, and was ...

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Blogs

modernism

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Artist Birthday: Jean Hélion

Artist Birthday: John Chamberlain

National Gardening Day: Arshile Gorky

Artist Birthday: Victor Vasarely

Women's History Month: Gertrude Greene

Art for National Peach Month 2024

Gem of the Month: Kumi Sugaï

Native American Heritage Month: Fritz Scholder

An Artist of the "Cool School": Ed Moses

Ode to the "June Bride"

Music

A Realism Backlash? Modern Art Heads

Not What You Would Expect! Skidmore, Owings, and Merrill

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Most Popular

Tags

Always Stay in the Loop