Innholdsfortegnelse for March/April 2024 i Art & Antiques

Over the last 40 years, butterflies have enchanted renowned jewelry creator and sculptor Wallace Chan, leading him to create stunning works of wearable art that are always ready to take flight. The Bright Star brooch—a magnificent butterfly with wings outstretched—is part of Chan’s Forever Dancing series and an outstanding example of his expertise in the production of intricate jewelry confections. Referring to his longstanding fascination with the delicate airborne creatures, Chan recalls that, as a child, he thought of butterflies as “flying colors.” In his endeavors as an artist, nearly all of his butterflies are brooches. In fact, he prefers this form of jewelry, as it allows the wearer to situate the bejeweled papillon in various places, as if the butterfly chose to land at a particular spot at a…

PAINTER LOUISA McElwain (1953-2013) will feature in a new retrospective exhibition, Distant Thunder (January 26, 2024-April 20, 2024), at Evoke Contemporary in Santa Fe. Neither realist nor fully abstract, her striking compositions are a sort of visual treatise on both the power of paint and nature. Born in New Hampshire, McElwain trained at the University of Pennsylvania. Like her mentor Neil Welliver, McElwain explored a style that blended color-field abstraction, expressionist-derived mark-making, and a direct connection to the landscape. She retreated to rural New Mexico in 1985, and spent her career deeply entranced by her surroundings, searching for some evidence of a divine power outside ourselves. Beyond the powerful feelings and forces that McElwain hoped to approximate, her canvases also serve as evidence of her unique working methods. She spent…

WHILE MANY viewers might solely focus on the richly saturated colors layered across Pooja Pittie’s (b. 1977) canvases, the artist insists that process and balance remain the core of her practice. In each painting, Pittie tries to find the sweet spot within a series of contrasts: movement and stillness, control and surrender, messiness and mindfulness. In so doing, her art expresses a kind of visual and autobiographical harmony that reflects but is not solely determined by her life as a person with a disability. A new exhibition, Pooja Pittie: Only in Dark the Light at Chicago’s McCormick Gallery runs March 21, 2024 - May 10, 2024 and surveys her recent work. Born and raised in Mumbai, India, Pittie moved to the U.S. in 1999 where she worked as an accountant…

In Essays on Art (1916), Max Weber wrote, “Culture will come only when every man will know how to address himself to the inanimate simple things of life.” Across a long career, Weber translated the latest in European abstraction into a uniquely American idiom. Max Weber: Art and Life Are Not Apart, a new exhibition at New York’s Schoelkopf Gallery through April 5, 2024, examines the artist’s approach to the quotidian. In paintings such as The Blue Labeled Bottle (1917-18), Weber did not see his subject as banal, instead relishing the disruption of supposed differences between art and life. Schoelkopf’s new exhibition will likely be the first of many to celebrate Weber’s innovative practice. In Fall 2023, the gallery announced exclusive worldwide representation for the Max Weber Foundation.…

THE TOLEDO Museum of Art offers a rare opportunity to see four works by Baroque master painter Caravaggio. On view through April 14, 2024, The Brilliance of Caravaggio: Four Paintings in Focus brings together four of the only ten works by the artist in U.S. collections, showcasing them with canvases by four of his artistic successors. Painting during the Counter-Reformation, Caravaggio provided inventive visions of mortal subjects in close encounters with God. His Saint Francis of Assisi in Ecstasy (c. 1595-1596) is a departure from standard treatments, conveying a moment of intimacy as the Seraphim clutches the overwhelmed Saint. In Martha and Mary Magdalene (c. 1598) the artist shows conversion is possible, even for the sinner. Rendered using his characteristic tenebrism, Mary Magdalen is gloriously illuminated, capturing her redemption. Shown…

A TOURING exhibition aims to bring increased visibility to wildlife painter Carl Rungius (1869-1959) and a project to document his oeuvre. Survival of the Fittest: Envisioning Wildlife and Wilderness with the Big Four, Masterworks from the Rijksmuseum Twenthe and the National Museum of Wildlife Art debuted in May 2023 at the National Museum of Wildlife Art (Jackson Hole, WY) and is currently touring, including a spring stop at the James Museum of Western and Wildlife Art in St. Petersburg, Florida. In addition to work by Rungius, the exhibition centers on the other three members of the Big Four: Richard Friese, Bruno Liljefors, and Wilhelm Kuhnert. Survival of the Fittest is the first exhibition born from the Carl Rungius Raisonné project, initiated in 2020. To date, director Adam Duncan Harris has…

ON NOVEMBER 15, 2022, a special convoy—carrying dozens of artworks, many from national collections—left Kyiv for Madrid. These artworks were headed towards the Thyssen-Bornemisza National Museum, the first institution to host “In the Eye of the Storm: Modernism in Ukraine, 1900–1930s,” a unique exhibition that traces the development of Modernism and the avant-garde in Ukraine. Like many exhibitions, “In the Eye of the Storm” shares a little-known history with a broader audience, but this exhibition has an additional aim: to protect these artworks during the ongoing Russian invasion. “In the Eye of the Storm,” thus, emerged from the dual motivations of reframing European Modernism and safeguarding an essential cultural history. As Francesca Thyssen-Bornemisza explains in the catalogue’s foreword, “In times of war, culture becomes a second front.” Acting quickly and…

THE SOCIETY of Four Arts will host Guild Hall: An Adventure in the Arts (February 10-April 28, 2024). Established in 1931 and located on the East End of Long Island, Guild Hall was the result of philanthropist Mary Woodhouse’s desire to create a meeting space for creatives. Guild Hall became the country’s first multidisciplinary art center, and the museum’s permanent collection now features over 2400 works of art by participants in the local artist colony. From longtime East Hampton residents to others who simply summered in the area, the exhibition knits together work in a range of styles all united by their connection to place. Often remembered as the “American Monet,” Childe Hassam (1858-1935) spent the last years of his life in East Hampton. Little Old Cottage, Egypt Lane, East…

THE PHILADELPHIA Show, now in its 62nd year, will once again grace the East Terrace of the Philadelphia Museum of Art from April 25-April 28, 2024. A longtime showcase for American art and antiques, visitors will also find offerings from Europe and Asia among the more than 40 exhibitors. From fine art to ceramics, folk art to jewelry, attendees are sure to discover new treasures. An event first, organizers will stress their long-standing relationship with the city’s museum through a special display in the Early American Wing, featuring objects from the permanent collection originally purchased at The Philadelphia Show. As always, event proceeds will benefit the Philadelphia Museum of Art’s education and outreach programs. The Philadelphia Show has long welcomed galleries featuring under-represented artists; many booths will also include artists…

INDIAN SKIES: The Howard Hodgkin Collection of Indian Court Painting, remains on view at the Metropolitan Museum of Art through June 9, 2024. Showcasing 84 paintings recently acquired from the collector’s trust, alongside a supplemental loan, the exhibition offers a unique opportunity not only to learn more about India’s rich painting history but also to see through Hodgkin’s eyes. A passionate collector, the British abstract painter selected works for their emotive content, effusive colors, and inventive compositional strategies such as those seen in Maharaja Kirpal Pal of Basohli Smoking (c. 1690). Over five decades, his collection grew to incorporate a range of historical periods, from the 16th to 19th centuries, and important examples in portraiture, devotionals, literary illustration, and observations from the natural world, including several images of elephants—a favorite…

Egenolf Gallery Japanese Prints will mount Supernatural: Cat Demons, Ogres and Shapeshifters at this year’s Asia Week New York. Selected prints illustrate fantastic yokai and yurei, startling creatures that haunt and excite. Work can be viewed online beginning March 8, 2024; in-person viewing will be available March 16-17, 2024 at the Conrad New York Midtown. The gallery will feature several work by Tsukioka Yoshitoshi. Widely viewed as the last great artist of the ukiyo-e, he refused the rise of mass-production printing and created daring imagery that revitalized the genre. Raiko Conquering the Shuten Doji Demon of Oe Mountain (1864) is a rare find in excellent condition. Splashed across three sheets, we see the horrific Shutendoji engaged on all fronts. At center, the hero Raiko appears in danger of being crushed.…

ONE OF THREE separate exhibitions in Germany created to celebrate the 250th anniversary of the birth of Romantic master Caspar David Friedrich (1774–1840), the Hamburger Kunsthalle’s “Caspar David Friedrich: Art for a New Age” (on view through April 1st) brings together 60 major paintings and over 100 drawings by the artist, an array of works by his contemporaries, as well as compositions by 20th-century artists like Kehinde Wiley and Elina Brotherus whose contributions to the show testify to Friedrich’s ongoing influence. The other two exhibitions assembled this year to commemorate the work of Friedrich are housed at the Staatliche Museen zu Berlin and at the Staatliche Kunstsammlungen Dresden. A single example of Friedrich’s influence, Wanderer Above the Sea of Fog (c. 1817) features a man, seen from behind, who seems…

It was July 1905 in Collioure, a quaint French fishing village sandwiched between the sparkling waters of the Mediterranean and the slopes of the Pyrenees located about half a marathon’s run from Catalonia and the Spanish border. Henri Matisse invited André Derain to meet him (and his family) there. The attraction? An azure sky and a dazzling light that gilded all that it touched: medieval buildings, lush foliage, red rock coves, all. As Derain vividly put it, in a letter to a friend: “The nights are radiant, the days are potent, ferocious, and victorious, the light bears down on all sides with its immense shout of victory.” The two became inseparable for the next nine weeks, churning out—in prodigious quantities—paintings and drawings of the same sunblasted subjects: boats (so many that…

IN AN interview with St. Louis Magazine, Ernestine Betsberg (1909-2007) described her paintings as scenes that “tell you a story of where [she’s] been,” and she insisted, “the world is full of wonderful things.” Over her long career, she set out to paint those wonders, creating extraordinary canvases that capture the ordinary moments of her life. Running through April 20, 2024, Phillip Slein Gallery (St. Louis) will host Ernestine Betsberg: Retrospective. Accompanied by a richly illustrated book with an essay by painter Nancy Newman Rice, the show helps bring attention to this often-overlooked champion for the importance of color in the painter’s formal arsenal. Trained at the Art Institute of Chicago, Betsberg spent time in Paris, Rome, New York, and Florida before eventually settling in St. Louis, when her husband,…

RETURNING this spring, the Scottsdale Art Auction presents a diverse array of contemporary and historically important work. Located in the heart of Old Town Scottsdale, the auction will feature two sessions April 13-14, 2024. Widely recognized as the Southwest’s largest and fastest growing auction house, attendees are sure to delight in this year’s offerings, from landscapes and cowboy art to wildlife and sporting art. Artist Frederic Remington helped shape the perception of the West in his work as an illustrator. He first explored sculpture in 1895. His work in bronze shows keen attention to dramatic movement and narrative. The Cheyenne (est. $100,000-150,000) depicts a warrior on a galloping mount. Captured mid-stride, the horse seems to float above the plain. The rider grips a spear in one hand and a leather…

THE WORK OF Pop master painter David Hockney has been much celebrated in recent years. A 2017 blockbuster retrospective at Tate Britain remains the institution’s most visited exhibition. In late 2023, London’s National Portrait Gallery featured the now octogenarian artist’s intimate drawings of friends. Yet, little attention has been paid to the artist’s early career. Now on view at the Bruce Museum, Hockney/Origins: Early Works from the Roy B. and Edith J. Simpson Collection examines sixteen rarely-seen works and sheds light on the artist’s development and spirited experimentation in a range of media. Of the longterm loan, patron and Greenwich native Edith J. Simpson notes, “We never believed it was ours to keep forever, so it gives me great joy to share this special collection.” A Grand Procession of Dignitaries…

ROUGHLY translated as “craft,” kogei refers to traditional Japanese techniques revered for their centuries-old applications. While Western art typically views craft as lesser-than, kogei is venerated. KOGEI and art, a new exhibition at Onishi Gallery sponsored by Nihon Kogeikai (the Japan Kogei Association) runs March 14-22, 2024—concurrent with Asia Week New York—and celebrates contemporary masters and up-and-coming artists in the mode. It also marks the launch of a new U.S. non-profit, KOGEI USA, which aims to bring increased awareness to the format. Several exhibition artists hold the title “Living National Treasure,” awarded for mastery in specific cultural forms. Nakagawa Mamoru (b. 1947) holds the designation for his achievements in zogan (metal-inlay). His work blends traditional handwork with contemporary abstraction to create beautiful vessels. Yubae (Sunset’s Glow) (2013), responds to the…

MATISSE AND the Sea, running through May 12, 2024 at the Saint Louis Art Museum, offers a new assessment of the artist’s fascination with the ocean in a range of media across five decades of his career. Tracking his travels from the Mediterranean to Polynesia, curators consider anew the artist’s formal experimentation and his global influences. Bathers with a Turtle (1907-1908), a landmark painting from the SLAM collection, serves as the exhibition’s center. Recognized as a unique pivot point in Matisse’s career, it integrates his early radical color with a new simplified approach to composition. Shown in conversation with earl ier works such as Collioure (La Moulade) (1906), with its dappled visible strokes of color, the exhibition emphasizes the artist’s evolution. Later canvases, including Seated Woman, Back Turned to the…

IN FOLKLORE traditions from around the world, ghost stories serve not only to frighten but also to relay ideas about the human condition. An important component of Japanese mythology, yurei are spirits unable to transition to the afterlife. Trapped in the world of the living, often due to some conflict or trauma that prevented easy passage into the hereafter, tales of yurei have long served as a metaphor for other contemporary concerns. A fascinating new exhibition at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Asian Art, “Staging the Supernatural: Ghosts and the Theater in Japanese Prints” (March 23–October 6, 2024), looks closely at the depiction of yurei in Edo (1615–1868) and later Meiji period (1868–1912) woodblock prints. Curators trace the relationship between these images and contemporary theatrical productions. In Kabuki and Noh…

Mildred Thompson’s paintings “were the children of her age,” to paraphrase the famous opening line of Kandinsky’s Concerning the Spiritual in Art (1910): the nuclear age, the space age, as well as the civil rights era. Born in 1936, Thompson grew up at a time when mechanization and scientific innovation achieved a level seemingly capable of anything. Thompson’s mature paintings are large-scale fantastical diagrams of creative and destructive forces, seductive in their rich color and impossible concepts of space, subtly referencing imagery while engaging with the schools of Neo-Plasticism, Fauvism, and Die Brücke, among others. For the artist, science was a double-edged sword; in her mind, it both defined and narrated the extents of space and time, but simultaneously had the capacity to eradicate all life. Her paintings described these…

SEQUESTERED in luxury hotel rooms with not much to do, The Beatles collaborated on a painting that sold recently for more than $1.7 million at Christie’s in New York, nearly tripling its “high estimate” value of $600,000. The work, Images of a Woman, was painted in the summer of 1966, during a tour organized for The Fab Four in Japan. Holed up for the better part of five days in the Presidential Suite of Tokyo’s Hilton Hotel at the request of local authorities who were concerned for their safety, John Lennon, Paul McCartney, Ringo Starr, and George Harrison turned to painting as a way to keep busy while in their gilded cage. The evolution of Images of a Woman was famously captured in photos by Robert Whitaker, who joined The…