Art

Female Artists

A month or two ago someone sent me a comment criticizing the lack of any female artists on my site. Of course that’s a silly claim since I have quite a number of paintings by female artists here, and since I judge paintings by whether they are good rather than whether they are made by men or women. Be that as it may, I did a little checking just to see if there were any female artists whose work I had overlooked and I found a few interesting paintings that were on my list of things waiting to be considered and so I decided to scan them and post them for all to see. Ordinarily, I dislike exhibitions of art organized by sex, race, or similar irrelevant characteristics, but in this case they just happened to come to my attention at about the same time because of these silly allegations, so here they are…

Art

Art Teacher Suspended for Recommending Figure Drawing

In December Middletown, New York art teacher Pete Panse was suspended for recommending that some of his advanced students take a figure drawing class that included nude models, on the grounds that mentioning such a thing constituted a potentially sexually unfomfortable situation for some students or their parents. Since January I have been assisting Mr. Panse in his efforts to fight this procedure and we are making good headway so far. You can read all about the case, learn how you can help, and sign an electronic petition.

Please help any way you can!

Art

Christie’s Auction

The same day I went to Sotheby’s I also went to a pretty similar showing of auction items at Christie’s. Here are a few highlights…

I was particularly impressed by the Monsted landscapes I saw that day, though I had not heard of him before then. There was a particularly impressive one called A Wooded River Landscape, Deer Grazing in the Distance at the Sotheby’s auction that was similar to this, but which was impossible for me to scan because of how it was printed in the catalogue (it spanned the spine of the book). He was definitely an under-appreciated genius!

Art

Sotheby’s Auction

A few weeks ago several Art Renewal Center people met in New York to view some 19th century paintings being auctioned off later that week. There was a lot of amazing stuff to be seen there including some artists I had not been aware of. Here are a few highlights of what I saw there.

Art

Sargent Murals

John Singer Sargent (1856-1925) is best known for his portraits, but I have been interested to discover that he did quite a number of public murals, some of them at the very end of his life. They are quite a contrast in style from his more famous work. Here are a few examples.

Art

More on Bouguereau

Brian Shapiro recently pointed out that the Bouguereau I posted last week was incomplete (the feet were cut off) and he was right! Here’s what the whole thing looks like. It has a nicer color than the one I found as well. Thanks Brian!

Along the way I also found the following pair of Bouguereau studies on the same site…