Old Masters

In the early 20th-century, American modernists challenged conventional art norms by painting emotional and design-filled images of the times. By Barbara A. MacAdam At the “Dawn of a New Age: Early 20th-Century American Modernism” opened May 7 at the Whitney Museum of American Art. This illuminating show of modernist American works created between 1900 and…

The artistic and cultural exchanges between Iran, Greece and Rome are demonstrated in the artworks they produced. By Henry Adams The artistic riches of the Persian Empire, which dominated western Asia for over a thousand years, form the subject of the exhibition “Persia: Ancient Iran and theClassical World” that just opened at the Getty Villa…

The Metropolitan Museum of Art’s exhibition on Winslow Homer situates his artwork within its period and reflects on history By Sarah Bochicchio For over a century, Winslow Homer has been canonized as one of the great American painters, if not the single greatest among them. His brooding Turner-esque seascapes, his seemingly playful images of beachside…

The American abstract painter Paul Jenkins pulled streams of color through his canvases in a quest to depict the ever-changing nature of reality. By Rebecca Allan Paul Jenkins (1923–2012) liberated the materials of his art in such a way that oil, watercolor, and acrylic paints and canvases became mutable elements for the expression of his…

A once-in-a-generation retrospective at the Art Institute of Chicago invites us to contemplate  the reasons for Cézanne’s profound and ongoing influence. By Rebecca Allan In Stephen Sondheim’s musical Sunday in the Park with George, the character of Dot, an artist’s model, sings to the painter Georges Seurat, “Give us more to see!” Dot’s understanding of…

The martial aesthetic of the samurai is the theme of a new museum opening this month in Berlin. By John Dorfman In a utilitarian age, it is hard for us to imagine that the accoutrements of war could be beautiful. But for the Japanese in the age of feudalism, arms and armor were the subject…

Helen Lundeberg’s painting grew from a unique blend of intense intellectuality and California cool. By John Dorfman Running alongside the foaming rapids of avant-garde art in the 20th century is another stream, quieter, often in the shadows, but steadily flowing nonetheless. In that current can be found movements such as Precisionism, the New Objectivity, Metaphysical…

Pattern-Seeking Nancy Callan’s glass art is all about exploration, discovery, and collaborating with the material. By John Dorfman Nancy Callan has caught on fire. Not metaphorically—literally. When she’s working on her pieces in the hotshop, assistants have to hold wooden paddles to shield her arms and torso from the heat, and on more than one…

An unusual exhibition foregrounds the Renaissance and Baroque art of painting on surfaces of semi-precious stone, marble, or slate. By Rebecca Allan Anyone who has hiked a mountain or combed a beach to seek out unusual stones can appreciate our shared affinity for the special qualities of rocks—their age, origin, resilience, coloration, textures, and shapes….