Artist Birthday: Conrad Marca-Relli
Conrad Marca-Relli was part of the “first generation” of Abstract Expressionism, along with Jackson Pollock and Willem de Kooning. His artistic vision, however, was uniquely apart from eit ...
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Curator's Corner
National Gardening Day: Arshile Gorky
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: Kenneth Noland
Kenneth Noland was part of the Post Painterly Abstraction group of Color Field artists who sought to distance themselves from the gestural painting of Abstract Expressionism. His epiphany moment came, ...
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Curator's Corner
Women's History Month: Janet Sobel
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 ...
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Curator's Corner
Artist Birthday: Barnett Newman
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 ...
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Curator's Corner
Jackson Pollock Month
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 ...
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Curator's Corner
Gem of the Month: Joan Mitchell
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 ...
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Curator's Corner
An August Painting: Mark Tobey
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 ...
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Curator's Corner
Saying Goodbye to World Watercolor Month 2023
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 ...
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Curator's Corner
Celebrating Juneteenth: Norman Lewis
In celebration of Juneteenth, or Freedom Day, let’s honor Harlem Renaissance (ca. 1920s–1930s) (and beyond) artist Norman Lewis, one of the earliest African American artists to embrace abs ...
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