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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: 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: 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 ...

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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

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 ...

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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 ...

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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 ...

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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 ...

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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 ...

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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 ...

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