Displaying items by tag: Modernism

From New York to New Mexico: Masterworks of American Modernism from the Vilcek Foundation Collection opened at Phoenix Art Museum on June 7, 2015. The exhibition includes 65 objects of American modernism spanning more than fifty years by notable artists like Stuart Davis, Arthur Dove, Marsden Hartley and Georgia O’Keeffe. The subject matter ranges from the skyscrapers of New York City to the adobe homes of the American Southwest. These objects are on loan from the Vilcek Foundation in New York that was started by Marica and Jan Vilcek, immigrants from the former Czechoslovakia.

The Wyeths have become something of a dynasty in American art, which began with N.C. Wyeth, who was known primarily as an illustrator for magazines and books. The family commitment continued with his son Andrew, who clung to the tradition of realism at a time when modernism reigned and he was often criticized for being out of synch with the mainstream. Jamie, son and grandson, has never wavered from representing the real world, although he has created a more vigorous approach to painting.

Art Basel promises such a notable showing of Modern works this year that, for the first time since 2006, the fair has implemented a floorplan shift — yes, a floorplan shift —  to capitalize on it all. The 57 galleries in question will now be clustered together in the downstairs of Hall 2, the better to accentuate their selection of masterworks from 1900 to 1970.

It is nearly impossible to convey the original impact an artist from the past had on his contemporaries. What matters is his artworks’ impression in the here-and-now. But art and artists don’t exist in a vacuum. A painter’s worth can be entangled, complicated, multifarious. Through hindsight, he can become more—or less—estimable; and the value of his initial reception may outweigh that of his oeuvre.

The interior of the Four Seasons restaurant, a vision of Modernist elegance with its French walnut paneling and white marble pool of bubbling water, should not be changed, New York City’s Landmarks Preservation Commission decided on Tuesday.

The decision was a setback to Aby J. Rosen, the owner of the Seagram Building, which is home to the restaurant. Mr. Rosen had proposed what he characterized as minor changes to the interior that was designed by Ludwig Mies van der Rohe and Philip Johnson in 1958.

The National Portrait Gallery in London is to stage the first portrait show for an artist whose work ranks as some of the most recognizable of the 20th century.

Alberto Giacometti is well known for his tall and spindly sculptural figures. But he is far less well known as a portrait artist – a situation which the gallery hopes to redress with an exhibition opening in October.

According to Paul Moorhouse, curator of 20th century portraits at the NPG, the show has been five years in the planning. “Giacometti is one of the giants of 20th century art, one of the giants of modernism, but there is a great deal to be discovered about Giacometti,” he said on Tuesday.

"Horace Pippin: The Way I See It," a major exhibition of over 65 paintings of his work assembled from museums and private collections across the United States, opened in Chadds Ford, PA. One of the leading figures of 20th-century art, Horace Pippin (1888-1946) is known for his bold, colorful and expressive paintings of family life, history, religion and war. The Brandywine River Museum of Art is the only venue for this landmark exhibition.

Taking its title from Horace Pippin's response to his own question about what made him a great painter: "I paint it exactly the way it is and exactly the way I see it," the exhibition will look closely at Pippin as an artist who remained independent—creating and upholding a unique aesthetic sensibility, vividly depicting a range of subject matter, from intimate family moments and bold floral still lifes, to powerful scenes of war, history and religion that comment on issues such as racism and social justice.

A wooden Le Corbusier statue of a woman sold for 3.1 million francs ($3.3 million) at Christie’s in Zurich, setting an auction record for the Swiss artist.

“Femme,” a 6-foot-tall mahogany sculpture with red and white painted elements, was created by modernist architect Le Corbusier in 1962. The price, which includes a buyer’s premium, beats Le Corbusier’s previous record of 1 million pounds ($1.5 million), according to Hans-Peter Keller, head of Swiss art at Christie’s.

No museum exhibition is perfect, but some are less perfect than others. Surprisingly, even these shows sometimes turn out to be exceptionally valuable. They clarify notions of quality and the pleasures and rigors of looking, for curators and visitors alike.

“Embracing Modernism: Ten Years of Drawings Acquisitions” at the Morgan Library & Museum is one of these flawed gems. Of its nearly 100 drawings, about half are either weak or just acceptable, which is not good enough for an institution of the Morgan’s stature.

Do you ever think about what makes a good story—for a painting? American artist Thomas Hart Benton (1889–1975) did. A century ago, Benton wanted to become the major American artist of his day. Although trained in Chicago and Paris and a member of the vanguard modern art community in New York around 1915, Benton had yet to make the kind of defining contribution to the art world that his ancestors Senator Thomas Hart Benton and John Charles Fremont had made to American political history. Casting about for opportunities, the ambitious painter looked to Fort Lee, New Jersey—the “first Hollywood.” He started working there on silent-era motion-picture productions in various artistic capacities, such as painting sets for director Rex Ingram. The appeal of the emerging motion picture industry and its influential new form of storytelling were clear to Benton. Epic themes such as cultural identity, westward expansion, tolerance, and the American Dream were worthy of movie screens—why not canvas (Fig. 1)?

Benton developed a cinematic painting style to communicate stories about American history and society as memorably as the movies. He learned to capture qualities intrinsic to motion pictures: the illusion of three-dimensional space; rhythmic motion; the glow of projected light...

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