Just what is it about Nicole Eisenman’s work that opened the doors of the Whitney and the New Museum? Why is her work “culturally significant” and the work of generations of figurative painters not?
Of our major artists, J. Alden Weir is one of the least likely to inspire impassioned tribute. It’s not for lack of effort; in fact, the problem is that he tried too hard.
Frieze is a riot of creative expression so visually cacophonous that only the most bizarre and surprising work has a chance of impressing itself on your memory.
Pondering the closing of the National Academy of Design’s home on Fifth Avenue, Eakins’s vulnerable expression, caught between resistance and resignation, may well speak for many artists.
Themes that I’d find irredeemably cornball from any other artist are rescued both by Abbott Thayer’s prickly earnestness and his formal abilities as a draftsman and painter.
Arguably the greatest draftsman of his time, there was nothing fastidious in his thinking. Degas couldn’t wait to find new ways to get his hands dirty.
Often not even the artist knows for certain when a work of art is done.
One of the things that’s impressive about van Dyck is his ability to portray introspective subjects with theatrical flair.
New Britain’s collection is evidence of a determination to obtain the best art possible, even if it was gathered on a shoestring.
Degas and Van Gogh shared common ground in their disdain for convention, or more to the point, a willingness to circumvent conventional means when necessary, which is to say frequently.