19th Century Art

Jack Wright’s abstract paintings open a portal into a realm of inner vision and beatific light. By John Dorfman Jack Wright’s studio in the hills of northern California’s Marin County had a such a beautiful view that he had to slather a window with white paint to block the distraction. That’s because Wright was painting…

The legendary glass art of Venice made a deep impression on American painters and collectors during the Belle Epoque. By Rebecca Allan Reflected, refracted, and poured, light is at the core of our capacity to perceive color, form, and space. These evanescent elements, present in glass objects, beckoned American artists and other visitors to Venice…

An innovative exhibition reveals the complex ways in which indigenous Mexicans redefined themselves and preserved their culture after the disaster of the Spanish conquest. By John Dorfman On August 13, 1521, the last Aztec ruler of Mexico, Cuauhtemoc, was captured by the Spaniards under Hernán Cortés, and the last defenders of the capital of Tenochtitlan…

From New York to Monhegan Island, Lynne Drexler stayed true to her artistic inspirations—abstraction, music, and nature. By John Dorfman Many modern artists have perceived deep connections between visual art and music and have even tried to express these in their work. But how many actually brought a portable lap-sized desk to the opera or…

The sculptor and interdisciplinary artist Harry Bertoia manipulated form, space, and metal to create a unique and lasting version of Modernism. By Sarah E. Fensom The Italian-born American artist Harry Bertoia entered into the midcentury modern design pantheon with his Diamond Chair. The famous design incorporates a bent wire-mesh grid in the form of a…

Far from being a Romantic dreamer, J.M.W. Turner had a lively interest in technology and politics that profoundly informed his work. By John Dorfman J.M.W. Turner is often spoken of as “modern” before the fact, because he seemed to flirt with abstraction, especially in his late works. But there’s another reason why the early-19th-century English…

Charles Biederman, influential in the abstract art world of 1930s New York, spent the last 60 years of his career in rural Minnesota, relentlessly pursuing his own direction and artistic philosophy. By John Dorfman It’s hard to imagine in these days of constant marketing and hype, but there used to be artists who resigned from…

The Met spans the globe to reveal the unruly vastness of the Surrealist experiment over an eight-decade period. By John Dorfman According to a once-standard narrative, the Surrealist movement began in France in the early 1920s, flourished in Europe and to a lesser extent in the U.S. until World War II, and then petered out…

An exhibition in Paris puts a large number of Botticelli paintings on view and delves deeply into the Quattrocento artist’s role as master of a workshop. By Sarah E. Fensom Sandro Botticelli, a Florentine painter known for his fluidity of line and profound sense of elegant beauty, was also an enterprise. The latter role is…