19th Century Art

Cakes & Pies (1995) Self-described “art thief” Wayne Thiebaud made a case for appropriating from masterworks and styles—as a way to forge his own iteration of art. By Patti Zielinski “It’s hard for me to think of artists who weren’t influential on me because I’m such an obsessive thief,” Wayne Thiebaud once unapologetically told The…

A lotus-inspired design for a competition commemorating the 2500th anniversary of the birth of Buddhism in New Delhi Marking its 40th anniversary, The Noguchi Museum in New York revisits the original vision of its founder, Isamu Noguchi By Fred Voon Scattered across Western Europe are single-artist museums that were founded by 20th-century masters during their…

Summer Stillness (16” x 24”) By David Masello Andrew Orr spends much time with his subjects before committing them to a gesso- or oil-primed panel. While the painter of landscapes might initially be captivated by a stand of trees reflected in a river or clouds hitting a mountain or the circuitous path a dirt road…

It might have taken a few centuries, but works by the Dutch flower painter Rachel Ruysch are now in full bloom in a traveling exhibition that celebrates her legacy By Ashley Busby In 1750, just months before her death, a book of poems celebrated the life and accomplishments of flower painter Rachel Ruysch, heaping praise…

Art Deco celebrates its centennial this year. Art & Antiques’s DAVID MASELLO examines the effect the movement first had on him in Chicago and how it affects him still in his long-adopted city of New York where the style is omnipresent. It’s one of Chicago’s most alluring sites: the limestone facade of the Chicago Board…

Whenever she is painting, Vivian Tsao is immersed in deep conversation. It’s not with a fellow artist or even with herself, but, rather, with the natural light that streams through the windows of her Brooklyn home, a century-old, two-story townhouse on a shady street in the neighborhood known as Windsor Terrace. “I am always dialoguing…

An exhibition at the New Mexico Museum of Art of paintings by Marsden Hartley reconfirms his enduring place in the American canon By David Masello Marsden Hartley was always restless. For his entire working life, the self-designated “painter of Maine” was always on the move—a dynamic that has resulted in a vast archive of completed…

An exhibition of ancient sculpture speaks to contemporary audiences in many of the same ways the busts and portraits did to people centuries past. Meet the figures and motifs of the time. Written by David Masello Everyone spoke the same language in the Roman Empire, especially at its height in the second century. Even though…

Sargent and Paris, organized by the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Musée d’Orsay in Paris, examines how the City of Lights was fertile soil for John Singer Sargent’s meteoritic rise, with a deep dive into his masterpiece, Madame X Patti Zielinski Long before smartphone selfies and the use of social media to catapult one’s…