Abstract Art

One of the founders of Abstract Expressionism is finally getting the recognition she deserves By William Corwin Imagine the atmosphere of a crowded and murmurous second-floor loft on Eighth Street in Greenwich Village in 1949: smoky and smelling not a little bit of unwashed clothes, Ballantine Ale, and whiskey.  It was a raucous, chaotic atmosphere,…

Into the Spotlight: Contemporary Japanese Women Ceramists By Lilly Wei Clay, like many materials formerly relegated to the less acclaimed echelons of craft, at least in the United States, has risen in esteem of late, as have other so-called minor arts. There are more exhibitions dedicated to it, and clay appears more often as part…

A new exhibition explores Mark Rothko’s works on paper, revaluing an unappreciated medium By Ashley Busby Too often an artist becomes synonymous with that thing that cements their status, leaving a one-sided glimpse into an evolving career.  For Mark Rothko (1903–1970), his expressive color field paintings, towering in presence and moodily centered in pure washes…

Yoo Youngkuk, celebrated at home as a groundbreaking modernist painter, is having his first solo exhibition outside South Korea By Lilly Wei Yoo Youngkuk once said that he used the mountain as his principal motif because it contained everything that was needed in painting: color, straight and curved lines, and light. Like Cézanne, he treated…

“The Hub of the World,” a New Exhibition at New York’s Nicholas Hall, Explores 18th-Century Rome’s Rich Cultural Ferment By James D. Balestrieri It’s hard to imagine a time when the Settecento, as the 18th century in Rome is often termed, wasn’t at least an occasional subject of interest to museums and art historians. In…

Pierre Bonnard produced compositions rooted in the places and spaces of his life that exist as a shimmering resonance of memory By Ashley Busby In an over five-decade career, artist Pierre Bonnard (1867–1947) reveled in the ordinary, painting the environs of his everyday life.  Never without a sketchbook, the artist was known for his daily…

Fantasy Enriches Reality in Magical Paintings by Inka Essenhigh ByLilly Wei Inka Essenhigh has always been a wizard with line. The whiplash fluidity and finesse of her draftsmanship made her an artist to be reckoned with ever since the 1990s, when she was starting out. And what she achieved with it was unique, her own…

Gabriele Münter was a spirited champion of the avant-garde in Germany, a brilliant draftswoman, and a daring colorist ByAshley Busby In a diary entry from 1926, Expressionist painter and artist Gabriele Münter (1877–1962) ruminated on her continued position on the periphery of the art world, noting: “In the eyes of many, I was nothing but…

The Met Considers the Intertwined Lives of Manet and Degas in an Exhibition Organized in Conjunction with the Musée d’Orsay By Sarah Bochicchio Édouard Manet (1832–1883) and Edgar Degas (1834–1917) met for the first time in the grand gallery of the Musée du Louvre. It was the early 1860s; both artists were in their late…