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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 ...

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 ...

Curator's Corner

Women's History Month: Janet Sobel

Monday, March 31, 2025 | Karl Cole

It is not often that we discover an artist whose work may have had a major impact on the direction of American art. But Janet Sobel is one such artist. You think Jackson Pollock (1912–1956) was ...

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 ...

Curator's Corner

Artist Birthday: Barnett Newman

Wednesday, January 29, 2025 | Karl Cole

Barnett Newman’s earliest paintings share the organic/biomorphic abstract forms of Mark Rothko’s early works from the 1940s. By 1946, however, his forms began to be more abstract and shed ...

Curator's Corner

Jackson Pollock Month

Tuesday, January 21, 2025 | Karl Cole

The birthday of New York School painter Jackson Pollock (1912–1956) is January 28th, so I’m going to call January 2025 "Curator's Corner Jackson Pollock Month." I often feel that ...

Curator's Corner

Gem of the Month: Joan Mitchell

Monday, November 27, 2023 | Karl Cole

As a fiend for color in painting, it will come as no surprise that I absolutely worship the work of Abstract Expressionist painter Joan Mitchell. It’s very confusing to me—no, it’s i ...

Curator's Corner

An August Painting: Mark Tobey

Monday, August 14, 2023 | Karl Cole

I know we’re no longer on the “edge of August,” but this painting’s title gives me an excuse to showcase the work of one of the less-hyped New York School artists. Like many of ...

Curator's Corner

Gem of the Month: Morgan Russell

Monday, July 10, 2023 | Karl Cole

As I did with Charles Willson Peale (1741–1827) last week, I'm presenting another American original today: Morgan Russell. Russell was one of the first American artists to exhibit nono ...

Curator's Corner

Pride Month 2023: Ellsworth Kelly

Monday, June 5, 2023 | Karl Cole

Let’s celebrate the life of one of the pioneers of the Color Field movement in American modernism, Ellsworth Kelly, to mark the beginning of LGBT Pride Month. Kelly was one of the many gay artis ...

Curator's Corner

AAPI Heritage Month 2022: Kim Hwan-gi

Monday, May 23, 2022 | Karl Cole

Kim Hwan-gi (Kim Whanki) was a pioneer modernist in Korean art and subsequently in American art after he immigrated in 1963. His pioneering abstract works added greatly to the rich modernist atmospher ...

Curator's Corner

Women's (Art) History Month: Vera Klement

Monday, March 29, 2021 | Karl Cole

I have always been fascinated by how progressive (i.e., abstract) styles have continually found their footing as a counterpoint to the pervasive tradition of realism in American art since the early 19 ...

Curator's Corner

April in a New Perspective: Pierre Soulages

Monday, April 13, 2020 | Karl Cole

I’ve been a big admirer of Pierre Soulages’s work since I saw a show featuring him and Swiss artist Gérard Schneider (1896–1986) when I was home a few years ago. The ...

Curator's Corner

Gem of the Month: Rogelio Polesello

Thursday, April 18, 2019 | Karl Cole

“Argentinian Modernism” is not really a term bandied around at any length in surveys of modernism of the mid- to late 1900s. The truth is, the development of modernist art movements in Cen ...

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 ...

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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Artist Birthday: Jean Hélion

Artist Birthday: Victor Vasarely

Women's History Month: Janet Sobel

Women's History Month: Gertrude Greene

Artist Birthday: Barnett Newman

Jackson Pollock Month

Gem of the Month: Joan Mitchell

An August Painting: Mark Tobey

Gem of the Month: Morgan Russell

Pride Month 2023: Ellsworth Kelly

AAPI Heritage Month 2022: Kim Hwan-gi

Women's (Art) History Month: Vera Klement

April in a New Perspective: Pierre Soulages

Gem of the Month: Rogelio Polesello

American Originals: Morgan Russell and Stanton MacDonald-Wright

African American History Month 2012: William T. Williams

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