by Sandy | Mar 28, 2016 | Art, Blogroll, Exhibits, Museums
The Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts presents “Procession: The Art of Norman Lewis (1909-1979), the first comprehensive museum overview of this influential artist, who explored multiple styles and whose extraordinary work spanned several decades of the 20th century. Norman Lewis was a pivotal figure in American art, a participant in the Harlem art community, an innovative contributor to Abstract Expressionism, and a politically-conscious activist. Bringing together works from major international public and private collections”
“It includes approximately 90 paintings and works on paper dating from the early 1930s through the late 1970s, as well as archival materials from the artist’s estate. The exhibition highlights the diverse visual apparatus Lewis explored in parallel groups of works over the course of his career.”
“Procession: The Art of Norman Lewis” Until April 03, 2016
Pennsylvania Academy of Fine the Arts / PAFA
118-128 North Broad Street, Philadelphia, PA 19102
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by Sandy | Mar 23, 2016 | Art, Artist, Blogroll
American artist, Reginald Marsh (1898-1954), painted New York City life of the 1920s and ‘30s. He was part of the “Social Realism” movement of the time.
Not all of Marsh’s paintings are quite so colorful, he gravitated toward regular people in the streets, at the burlesque, on the subway. His concentration on common, everyday scenes are reflective of his concerns for the lives of the average man and woman.
by Sandy | Mar 20, 2016 | Blogroll, Culture, Exhibits, Museums
At the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston: “The Cradle”, John Biggers
“Statements: African American Art from the Museum’s Collection is the latest in a series of focused installations highlighting unique areas of strength in the collection of the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston. Featuring artists who have shaped the course of American art across eight decades, Statements brings together more than 40 works in a wide range of media, from Richmond Barthé’s iconic Feral Benga of 1935 to Mark Bradford’s Circa 1992, created in 2015.”
Some of the artists included in the exhibit: John Biggers, Elizabeth Catlett, Melvin Edwards, Loretta Pettway Louise Ozell Martin, Gordon Parks, Ernest C. Withers Mequitta Ahuja, Nick Cave, Glenn Ligon, and Kara Walker.
“Statements: African American Art”
Until April 24, 2016
Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, 1001 Bissonnet St, Houston, TX
(Image: The Cradle, John Biggers, 1950, Conté crayon on paper board)
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by Bob Martin | Mar 2, 2016 | Books, Creativity, Education, Photograhy
Today I got the chance to meet Stephen Marc again and to see his incredible book of photo montages and composites “Passage on the Underground“. Talking with Stephen is inspiring, full of lessons and new understanding about the history of the African in America.
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While on his Underground Railroad explorations, Marc’s experiences include:
- Discovering a long-lost false grave that was the exit from an escape tunnel for fleeing slaves. Though the exit had never been found by the local Underground Railroad historians, Marc’s fresh eye led him to what is now believed to be the solution to a 100-year-old mystery.
- Visiting a house long ago owned by a conductor on the Underground Railroad, Marc talked his way in to photograph it during renovations, because he knew the amazing story of two escaped slaves who hid in the rafters, right above the heads of their would-be captors, who searched the house and left without finding them.
- A connection with a New York community college in Jamestown, home of Catherine Harris, a conductor on the Underground Railroad. When Jamestown Community College attempted to purchase some of Marc’s work that was on display, he volunteered to create a custom piece that reflected the community’s connection to the Underground Railroad…. Passage on the Underground
Stephen shared with us a little about his next project. He is a man on a mission. He is available to speak with young people, especially middle graders, about Slavery, The Underground Railroad and African American History in General. He can be contacted via Arizona State University in Tempe AZ
(Originally posted on 2/6/2010)
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by Sandy | Feb 14, 2016 | Arts, Entertainment and Music, Blogroll, Museums, Photograhy
The Art Institute of Chicago showcases the work of: “Alfred Stieglitz (American, 1864–1946) tirelessly promoted photography as a fine art. Through his own photographic work over the course of a half-century, the photographic journals he edited and published, and the New York galleries at which he organized exhibitions of photographs, paintings, and sculpture, Stieglitz showed photography to be an integral part of modern art in America. In a search for artistic ancestors, he looked intently at photography of the 19th century, most notably that of Julia Margaret Cameron and the Scottish duo David Octavius Hill and Robert Adamson. Their work resonated for Pictorialism, a movement that valued painterly, handcrafted images, and these earlier photographs were exhibited and reprinted for new audiences.“
“Alfred Stieglitz and the 19th Century”
Until March. 27, 2016
The Art Institute of Chicago, 111 South Michigan Avenue, Chicago, IL
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by Bob Martin | Feb 4, 2016 | Art, Events, Exhibits
by Sandy | Jan 21, 2016 | Arts, Entertainment and Music, Blogroll, Exhibits
“Self-Taught Genius: Treasures from the American Folk Art Museum”
Phrenological Head, Asa Ames, 1850, paint on wood
“Self-Taught Genius considers the shifting implications of a self-taught ideology in the United States, from a widely endorsed and deeply entrenched movement of self-education, to its current use to describe artists creating outside traditional frames of reference and canonical art history.”
“Self-Taught Genius: Treasures from the American Folk Art Museum”
New Orleans Museum of Art / NOMA
One Collins C. Diboll Circle, City Park, New Orleans, Louisiana
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by Sandy | Jan 11, 2016 | Art, Blogroll, Exhibits, Museums
“Frank Stella (b. 1936) is one of the most important living American artists. This retrospective is the most comprehensive presentation of Stella’s career to date, showcasing his prolific output from the mid-1950s to the present through approximately 100 works, including paintings, reliefs, maquettes, sculptures, and drawings.”
Frank Stella: A Retrospective – Until February 7, 2016
Whitney Museum of American Art
945 Madison Avenue at 75th Street, NYC
Image: “The Whiteness of the Whale” – Frank Stella (b.1936)
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by Sandy | Jan 2, 2016 | Art, Blogroll, Exhibits, Museums
“Archibald John Motley Jr. (1891–1981) was a bold and highly original modernist and one of the great visual chroniclers of twentieth-century American life…he also developed and elucidated his own archetypes of place and people in this country, albeit unapologetically based on African American subject matter. As the work on view in Archibald Motley: Jazz Age Modernist eloquently attests…the artist created a far more daring visual language than many of his contemporaries, fusing vivid narrative with dizzying spatial distortion and jarring hues to produce striking settings for characters of diverse racial backgrounds and social classes.”
“Archibald Motley: Jazz Age Modernist” Until January 17, 2016
Whitney Museum of American Art
945 Madison Avenue at 75th Street, NYC
(Image:Archibald J. Motley, “Tongues (Holy Rollers)”, 1929)
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by Sandy | Dec 22, 2015 | Artist, Arts, Entertainment and Music, Blogroll, Museums
“Mark Rothko: A Retrospective” at MFA Houston:
“Across a career spanning the most troubled years of the 20th century, Rothko (1903–1970) explored the tragic and the sublime, and his canvases remain a testament to the deep humanism he brought to modern painting. This definitive retrospective comprises more than 50 paintings that trace the artist’s full career arc, highlighting milestones in the development of his signature style.”
“Long recognized as among the foremost figures of the Abstract Expressionist vanguard, Mark Rothko embraced the possibility of beauty in pure abstraction with a painterly eloquence that gave a new voice to American art.”
Mark Rothko: A Retrospective
Until Jan 24, 2016
Museum of Fine Arts, Houston
1001 Bissonnet St, Houston, TX
(Image: “No. 9”, 1948, Mark Rothko)
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