Sumidagawa in July: Japanese Woodcuts
The actual festival of Sumidagawa (“Sumida River”) occurs in Tokyo in the last week of August, but there are fireworks in Tokyo from May through August, starting with the Opening of the Su ...
Read More
Curator's Corner
An Artist of the "Cool School": Ed Moses
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 ...
Read More
Curator's Corner
It Isn't All in the Title: Lynda Benglis
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 ...
Read More
Curator's Corner
What's New Is Old: Stainless Steel Art
I am a really big fan of art made from stainless steel, particularly in the field of the miscellaneous arts. Stainless steel tableware started being made early in the 1900s. At this time, Bauhaus ...
Read More
Curator's Corner
Deceiving the Eye: American Trompe-l'Oeil Realism
I’ve written before about the long-standing interest in extreme realism in American painting. Colonial American self-taught artists (“limners”) may not have been schooled in anatomy, ...
Read More
Curator's Corner
And This Is a Portrait of Whom?
I don’t often laugh about art history (seriously!), but now and then one just can’t help it. With this group of “portraits,” I had to keep in mind that: A) the people who bough ...
Read More
Curator's Corner
June is Busting Out All Over: Tina Leser
I guess Memorial Day is the official “beginning” of outdoor grilling season in the US. I don’t really know the “official” date because I’ve lived in apartments all ...
Read More
Curator's Corner
Renaissance Perspective or Butterfly? Mark Grotjahn
I don’t like to admit to something like this, but when I first saw this work in the MoMA collection, I didn’t pay that much attention to it. When I saw it a second time the other day, I wa ...
Read More
Curator's Corner
Lathe and Nature Magic: David Sengel
When I see a work of art that blows me away, I’ve just got to share it with as many people as I possibly can. This work was my “epiphany of the week” that I recently sent to my co-wo ...
Read More
Curator's Corner
Still Life and Our Culture of Abundance: John F. Francis
I got so excited the other night while watching Antiques Roadshow. A person brought two little still-life paintings from 1865, and I said to myself, “Oh, those look like John Francis’s wor ...
Read More