Old Masters

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…

A new exhibition tells the story of three American women of Japanese descent and expands the story of American Art. By Ashley Busby In recent years, the museum world has highlighted the work of previously underrecognized artists, in part to reenergize collections and tell new stories, but more importantly as a means to question the…

The Clark Art Institute receives one of its largest gifts—331 works of art from the foundation of Aso O. Tavitian. Time soon to build a new wing to house the treasures. By Patti Zielinski Shortly after Esther Bell began working as a curator at the Clark Art Institute in Williamstown, Massachusetts, she was invited to…

The Norton Museum of Art puts on the gloves for an inspiring show it has mounted about the art of, and about, boxing By David Masello A group of Palm Beach senior citizens was ready for a fight when they visited the Norton Museum of Art in West Palm Beach. They had come to see…

Though long dispersed, the art of Wilhelmina Godfrey comes together due to the diligence of a young curator By David Masello Tiffany Gaines had an idea a few years ago that she jotted down on a Post-It note. It read: “Wilhelmina Godfrey solo show?” At the time Gaines wrote that note to herself, she was…

The Art and Times of Tamara Lempicka By Lilly Wei Tamara de Lempicka (1894–1980) has always been enveloped in a (couture) cloak of mystery, much of it of her own design, created by a disarming, if also disingenuous, vagueness in the telling of her life story that was only loosely fitted to facts. Her art,…

The Hepworth Wakefield in England mounts an exhibition exploring the significance of Surrealist landscape from the early practitioners to today’s rising stars. By Patti Zielinski There is little in this world more surreal than war. During World War I, as a young medical student, André Breton was sent to the frontlines at Verdun, France, as…