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Curator's Corner

A Consummate Realist: Joseph Raffael

Monday, June 23, 2025 | Karl Cole

Photorealism was a style that evolved during the 1960s in reaction to the prevalence of total abstraction seen in Abstract Expressionism, Color Field, and Minimalism—movements that dominated tha ...

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 ...

Curator's Corner

National Iris Day: Muhammad Zaman

Thursday, May 8, 2025 | Karl Cole

The iris is a beautiful flower that was first planted in the United States in Virginia in the 1600s. The flower started being commercially imported around 1869. The iris is the symbol for the city of ...

Curator's Corner

National Library Week: Jacob Lawrence

Tuesday, April 8, 2025 | Karl Cole

Established in 1958, National Library Week has been sponsored by the American Library Association. It now has international recognition. National Library Week was started to encourage the support and ...

Curator's Corner

Summer Is Waning: Georges Lepape

Monday, August 12, 2024 | Karl Cole

Once August is here, New Englanders are fond of saying, “well, summer’s almost over.” I prefer to resist that inclination, since summer always seems so short in Massachusetts anyway. ...

Curator's Corner

Welcome to May! Charles Burchfield

Monday, May 6, 2024 | Karl Cole

To welcome the wonderful month of May, let’s look at the work of an extremely unique artist who sought not only to capture what he saw in nature, but also what he felt: Charles Burchfield. He is ...

Curator's Corner

Black History Month: Hale Woodruff

Monday, February 5, 2024 | Karl Cole

Let’s celebrate Black artists who have brought beauty into the world through their art. This week, I’m sharing the stunning watercolors of Hale Woodruff. Since I find watercolor to be a ve ...

Curator's Corner

Saying Goodbye to World Watercolor Month 2023

Monday, July 31, 2023 | Karl Cole

Watercolor can be a very unforgiving medium—boy, don’t I know it! I started out studying for an MFA in painting using gouache and watercolor, but my professors suggested that what I was tr ...

Curator's Corner

Disability Pride Month: Hector Alonzo Benavides

Monday, July 19, 2021 | Karl Cole

The intricate, beautifully composed works of Hector Alonzo Benavides are a leap into his detail-inclined mind. Even if he did overwork some of his pieces, he still has a great sense of balance, compos ...

Curator's Corner

World Watercolor Month: Charles Brownell

Wednesday, July 29, 2020 | Karl Cole

I’m closing out my World Watercolor Month series with the work of Charles de Wolf Brownell. Many of Brownell's most standout landscapes and nature studies are his watercolors. His watercolor wor ...

Curator's Corner

World Watercolor Month: Yosa Buson

Monday, July 27, 2020 | Karl Cole

If any artists could be called the “masters” of watercolor, it would be the artists of Asia—particularly far eastern Asia (Japan, China, Korea)—who, for centuries, used in ...

Curator's Corner

World Watercolor Month: Alice Baber

Monday, July 13, 2020 | Karl Cole

Watercolor has come a long way since the days when it was only considered suitable for studies for oil paintings. It’s come an especially long way since the old timey days when “proper you ...

Curator's Corner

July Gem of the Month: Chitrakathi

Monday, July 6, 2020 | Karl Cole

July is World Watercolor Month. Watercolor is a medium I’ve always admired (as you know from my drooling over Winslow Homer’s and John Singer Sargent’s gorgeous watercolor works), bu ...

Curator's Corner

Claude Raguet Hirst Realism

Monday, June 25, 2018 | Karl Cole

Nothing showcases the American obsession with realism in art during the 1800s better than the brief Trompe l’Oeil Realism movement of the 1880s and 1890s. Like the Dutch Baroque realist still-li ...

Curator's Corner

It Isn't All in the Title: Lynda Benglis

Monday, July 10, 2017 | Karl Cole

I’m always a sucker for color. When I see works that I’ve never seen before by an artist I’ve always admired, and they involve color, then I have a sudden Beauty Attack. When Lynda B ...

Curator's Corner

The Raphael of Flowers: Pierre Joseph Redouté

Tuesday, May 9, 2017 | Karl Cole

I don’t usually experience beauty attacks when considering art from France of the late 1700s and early 1800s. Neoclassicism isn’t my thing! But this artist is a standout in a period otherw ...

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A Consummate Realist: Joseph Raffael

National Love a Tree Day: Sylvia P. Mangold

National Iris Day: Muhammad Zaman

National Library Week: Jacob Lawrence

Summer Is Waning: Georges Lepape

Welcome to May! Charles Burchfield

Black History Month: Hale Woodruff

Saying Goodbye to World Watercolor Month 2023

Disability Pride Month: Hector Alonzo Benavides

World Watercolor Month: Charles Brownell

World Watercolor Month: Yosa Buson

World Watercolor Month: Alice Baber

July Gem of the Month: Chitrakathi

Claude Raguet Hirst Realism

It Isn't All in the Title: Lynda Benglis

The Raphael of Flowers: Pierre Joseph Redouté

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