Blogs

Curator's Corner

American Artists Appreciation Month: Frank Weston Benson and Preston Singletary

Monday, August 14, 2017 | Karl Cole

My series about August as “American Artist Appreciation Month” continues. Here’s some art on the subject of “fish.”  ...

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Curator's Corner

American Artists Appreciation Month: Dr. Samella Lewis and Jeremiah Paul, Jr.

Tuesday, August 8, 2017 | Karl Cole

My blog series about American Artist Appreciation Month continues. Here’s some wonderful art by Dr. Samella Lewis and Jeremiah Paul, Jr. ...

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Curator's Corner

American Artists Appreciation Month: Jim Drain and Sister Gertrude Morgan

Tuesday, August 1, 2017 | Karl Cole

August is American Artist Appreciation Month, so I’m rolling out some artists you may never have thought about, or seen for that matter.  ...

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Curator's Corner

Sumidagawa in July: Japanese Woodcuts

Monday, July 24, 2017 | Karl Cole

The actual festival of Sumidagawa (“Sumida River”) occurs in Tokyo in the last week of August, but there are fireworks in Tokyo from May through August, starting with the Opening of the Su ...

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Curator's Corner

An Artist of the "Cool School": Ed Moses

Monday, July 17, 2017 | Karl Cole

Far too often art history texts sum up the pioneering American avant-garde of the mid-1900s with Abstract Expressionism and the New York scene. Believe it or not, there were avant-garde artists all ov ...

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Curator's Corner

It Isn't All in the Title: Lynda Benglis

Monday, July 10, 2017 | Karl Cole

I’m always a sucker for color. When I see works that I’ve never seen before by an artist I’ve always admired, and they involve color, then I have a sudden Beauty Attack. When Lynda B ...

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Curator's Corner

What's New Is Old: Stainless Steel Art

Thursday, June 29, 2017 | Karl Cole

I am a really big fan of art made from stainless steel, particularly in the field of the miscellaneous arts. Stainless steel tableware started being made early in the 1900s. At this time, Bauhaus ...

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Curator's Corner

Deceiving the Eye: American Trompe-l'Oeil Realism

Wednesday, June 21, 2017 | Karl Cole

I’ve written before about the long-standing interest in extreme realism in American painting. Colonial American self-taught artists (“limners”) may not have been schooled in anatomy, ...

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Curator's Corner

And This Is a Portrait of Whom?

Monday, June 12, 2017 | Karl Cole

I don’t often laugh about art history (seriously!), but now and then one just can’t help it. With this group of “portraits,” I had to keep in mind that: A) the people who bough ...

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Curator's Corner

June is Busting Out All Over: Tina Leser

Monday, June 5, 2017 | Karl Cole

I guess Memorial Day is the official “beginning” of outdoor grilling season in the US. I don’t really know the “official” date because I’ve lived in apartments all ...

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Curator's Corner

Renaissance Perspective or Butterfly? Mark Grotjahn

Tuesday, May 30, 2017 | Karl Cole

I don’t like to admit to something like this, but when I first saw this work in the MoMA collection, I didn’t pay that much attention to it. When I saw it a second time the other day, I wa ...

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Curator's Corner

Lathe and Nature Magic: David Sengel

Monday, May 22, 2017 | Karl Cole

When I see a work of art that blows me away, I’ve just got to share it with as many people as I possibly can. This work was my “epiphany of the week” that I recently sent to my co-wo ...

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Curator's Corner

Still Life and Our Culture of Abundance: John F. Francis

Monday, May 15, 2017 | Karl Cole

I got so excited the other night while watching Antiques Roadshow. A person brought two little still-life paintings from 1865, and I said to myself, “Oh, those look like John Francis’s wor ...

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Curator's Corner

The Raphael of Flowers: Pierre Joseph Redouté

Tuesday, May 9, 2017 | Karl Cole

I don’t usually experience beauty attacks when considering art from France of the late 1700s and early 1800s. Neoclassicism isn’t my thing! But this artist is a standout in a period otherw ...

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Curator's Corner

Beauty Attack: Henry Bacon

Friday, May 5, 2017 | Karl Cole

I must say, one of the things that keeps me young (in spirit, of course) is the constant beauty attacks I experience at work while looking at art from all over the world and every conceivable time per ...

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Curator's Corner

The Bill for Art

Monday, April 24, 2017 | Karl Cole

No, this is not some sort of philosophical jaunt through current government threats to cut all funding for the arts and libraries, though goodness knows that could be a college dissertation. Actually, ...

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