News

"From surrounding waterways to the dissecting city streets of Manhattan and Brooklyn, Lynch illuminates scenes that are both metaphor and balm for the passing of time. Hovering between realism and abstraction she presents urban scenes that typically flash by in the corner of the commuter’s eye. Usually fleeting moments of our outer world are paused and rendered through Lynch’s inner world of gentle poetic gravity. Boats bopping on the Hudson, a portrait of a lone skyscraper, the subway rumbling across its highest bridge, or streets abuzz with city lights, Lynch’s canvases tap into the unconscious looking to reveal the solitary explorer in each of us - the inner author of our unique stories between the streets."

Bird's of the Northeast: Gulls to Great Auks features paintings, sculpture, prints, drawings, photographs, and natural history specimens from the early 19th century through the present day. Beyond merely connecting us to the natural world, the artworks in this exhibition remind us of the toll taken on bird habitats since the beginning of European colonialism in North America; the delicate ecosystems that allow birds of all species to thrive came under attack, as birds were hunted for food and ornamentation and their habitats were destroyed.

"In Feeding the Beast, Bo Joseph's third solo exhibition at McClain Gallery, the artist presents two parallel bodies of work: works on paper, which layer imagery from Renaissance scenes of battle, mythology and religion, and a new series of wall reliefs depicting composites of divergent historical, religious, and ritual objects that span the globe." 

September 29 - December 30, 2020

Sears-Peyton Gallery donates works by Thomas Hager, Tyler Haughey and John Huggins for a fundraiser supporting Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden.

McClain Gallery included the work of Bo Joseph in the DALLAS ART FAIR ONLINE, April 14-23, a new platform allowing collectors to digitally explore and collect works in advance of the fair’s twelfth edition, which had been rescheduled to October 1-4, 2020 but was subsequently suspended due to the ongoing pandemic.

At EXPO Chicago, September 19-22, William Shearburn Gallery will present the large scale work on paper pictured above, alongside works by Milton Avery, Donald Baechler, Deborah Butterfield, Alexander Calder, Richard Diebenkorn, Michael Eastman, Eric Fischl, Hans Hofmann, Catherine Howe, Bo Joseph, Ellsworth Kelly, Tony Lewis, Roy Lichtenstein, Henri Matisse, Andrew Millner, Robert Motherwell, Claes Oldenburg, Julies Olitski, George Rickey, Donald Sultan, Bernar Venet, Esteban Vicente, Andy Warhol and Cayce Zavaglia.

At the Dallas Art Fair this year, April 11-14, the large work on paper Souvenirs from Nowhere: Rovelli's Antelope, 2018, and a bronze sculpture Caput Mortuum: Create Yourself from Darkness, 2018, both pictured, were exhibited in McClain Gallery's booth along side works by Dorothy Hood, Louise Nevelson, Anne Deleporte and Julia Kunin.

Suzy Spence: DEATH RIDER brings together two large-scale paintings and several smaller works by Suzy Spence in an exhibition that continues her exploration of death and sex through the metaphor of drag hunting.

Her largest paintings to date, "The New Yorker (Widow VIII") and "Death Rider (Widow IX)", both 2019, are each nine by twelve feet. These commanding, frontal portraits of sidesaddle riders are rendered from the shoulders up, with equestrian stock ties wrapped tightly around their necks. The women’s veils, composed of black paint drips raining down from Victorian top hats, evoke a macabre update to Alex Katz’s iconic "Blue Umbrella 2" (1972) in which Ada seems to weep with the raindrops. Building on Katz’s graphic approach, Spence combines Frankenthaler-inflected soaking and staining with drawing, using broad, industrial-sized brushes and sponges to achieve an all-over effect with an expressionistic bravado that bids the individual riders to emerge.

In the "Curio" section of Design Miami, December 4-9, 2018, Malcolm James Kutner presented re:construction, "a dynamic collaboration among makers and collectors, this presentation accommodates makers’ preoccupation with creating functional forms and collectors’ fascination with telling aesthetic stories. re:construction not only energizes a cross-disciplinary design dialogue, it also expands our understanding and appreciation of simultaneously formal, intuitive, and malleable relationships."

Derivative 1, 2015, a manipulated antique Chinese rug, was be presented alongside French Reconstruction furniture from René Gabriel, Marcel Gascoin, and Gustave Gautier, as well as a textile by Laura Kaufman, a mirror by Maureen Fullam and Radisay/Szarek, and a site-specific intervention by Aleksandar Duravcevic.

re:construction was presented by Malcolm James Kutner with Simone Joseph of SGJ Fine Art, New York, and with special thanks to Jean-Baptiste Bouvier, Paris.

Suzy Spence – Artist and Curator and the creator of The Online Archive for Womanhouse – and Irina Milahache, Author and Professor of Museum Studies at the University of Toronto, join Coral in an interdisciplinary discussion of the woman's role in writing culinary history.

Under the Night Sky

New York, NY – October 10, 2018 - The Pollock-Krasner Foundation announced today it has awarded $3,905,000 to 125 artists and 25 organizations during its 2017-2018 grant cycle. The 154 grants provide invaluable support to national and international artists and not-for-profit organizations. This year’s grantees and award recipients include artists from 24 states, Puerto Rico, and 14 countries. Through this round of grants, the Foundation has been able to provide critical professional support to artists around the globe, enabling artists to create new work and prepare for exhibitions and residencies. 

Click here for full press release

This year hardworking panelists Julia Whitney Barnes (Dutchess), Franklin Evans (New York), Elliot Green (Columbia), Sarah McCoubrey (Onondaga), and Mie Yim (Kings) selected the The New York Foundation for the Arts painting fellowship recipients from a staggeringly large pool of 3,071 applicants. Each artist will receive a cash grant of $7,000, and the three finalists — Jordan Casteel, Clayton Schiff, and Don Voisine — will each receive prestige and a few other benefits, but no funding. In the 32 years that NYFA has been awarding the fellowships, $31 million has been distributed, which sounds like a lot until you consider the economic benefits artists have brought to so many New York communities over the years. The state should consider expanding the program. Here are images and links for the 2018 NYFA grant recipients, some thoughts about the selection, and a bit of advice for painters who didn’t receive funding this year.

Tyler Haughey released his first book of photography, Everything Is Regional, compiling photographs that he has taken since 2010. The book acts as a monograph, examining the threads that run through his work and various projects. Everything Is Regional examines the built environment of northeastern coastal towns and explores how we use, interact with, and remember places designed and known for summer recreation. 

The newly acquired work by Wink Hays will be featured in the museum’s 2019 exhibition, Summer of Painting: Selections from the Museum Collection. This show will be on view at the University of Maine Museum of Art from May 19 – August 31, 2019.

Jackson Hole, WY – The National Museum of Wildlife Art announced the acquisition of five new works of contemporary art chosen at the Blacktail Gala on Saturday, February 24.

The new works include Wendy Klemperer’s metal sculpture “Barney,” Jane Rosen’s painting using coffee, Korean watercolor, and ink “Mantle,” Sarah Hillock’s “Anthony and Camilla, Part II,” Peter Haslam-Fox’s watercolor “Hooded Hawk,” and an untitled ceramic plate, created by Pablo Picasso.

Link to full story

RE:CONSTRUCTION
January 27-March 31, 2018

A group exhibition that explores and encourages the dialogues between form and function, art and design, abstraction, extraction and representation by bringing together three-dimensional works by Donna Green, Sheila Hicks, Bo Joseph, Julia Kunin and Thaddeus Wolfe; paintings and works on paper by Ruth Asawa, Nicolas Carone, Claire Falkenstein, Leon Polk Smith, André Lanskoy and Julian Stanczak; with furniture by Marcel Gascoin.

The University of Maine Museum of Art has acquired a painting by artist Suzy Spence. Suzy Spence’s 2017 flashe painting on paper, Death (Rider), was acquired by the Museum for its permanent collection.

Bo Joseph: House of Mirrors
October, 12-November 24 2017

Touchstones, Totems, Talismans: Animals in Contemporary Art

October 13, 2017 - February 11, 2018

Ask the beasts and they will teach you the beauty of this earth. — Francis of Assisi

The inspiration for this exhibit dates back to the 2004 BMAC exhibit Andy Warhol: The Jon Gould Collection. The most commented-on works in that show were the large prints from Warhol’s 1983 “Endangered Species” portfolio. Observing visitors’ reactions to those powerful images, I sensed that their aesthetic experiences were enriched by the deep connections humans have with animals, both domestic and wild.

Depicting animals—as symbols, teachers, muses, companions—connects human cultures across time. Pictures of animals serve as proxies for happiness, distress, or fear. They speak of love, remembrance, and condolence. Whether literal or abstract, animal images call into play both our experiences with the creatures themselves and the often deep-seated characteristics, traits, and qualities we assign to them.

Featuring the work of Walton Ford, Bharti Kher, Colleen Kiely, Stephen Petegorsky, Shelley Reed, Jane Rosen, Michal Rovner, Rick Shaefer, and Andy Warhol, this exhibit offers a mere glimpse into the complexity of human-animal relationships in contemporary art. The selected works are diverse in intention and execution. Some are humorous; others are unsettling. All invite contemplation of the various ways in which animals inhabit our personal experiences, our cultural history, and our common world.

— Mara Williams, Chief Curator

Click here for more information

Touchstones, Totems, Talismans: Animals in Contemporary Art

October 13, 2017 - February 11, 2018

The inspiration for this exhibit dates back to the 2004 BMAC exhibit Andy Warhol: The Jon Gould Collection. The most commented-on works in that show were the large prints from Warhol’s 1983 “Endangered Species” portfolio. Observing visitors’ reactions to those powerful images, I sensed that their aesthetic experiences were enriched by the deep connections humans have with animals, both domestic and wild.

Depicting animals—as symbols, teachers, muses, companions—connects human cultures across time. Pictures of animals serve as proxies for happiness, distress, or fear. They speak of love, remembrance, and condolence. Whether literal or abstract, animal images call into play both our experiences with the creatures themselves and the often deep-seated characteristics, traits, and qualities we assign to them.

Featuring the work of Walton Ford, Bharti Kher, Colleen Kiely, Stephen Petegorsky, Shelley Reed, Jane Rosen, Michal Rovner, Rick Shaefer, and Andy Warhol, this exhibit offers a mere glimpse into the complexity of human-animal relationships in contemporary art. The selected works are diverse in intention and execution. Some are humorous; others are unsettling. All invite contemplation of the various ways in which animals inhabit our personal experiences, our cultural history, and our common world.

— Mara Williams, Chief Curator

Click here for more information

Touchstones, Totems, Talismans: Animals in Contemporary Art

October 13, 2017 - February 11, 2018

Ask the beasts and they will teach you the beauty of this earth. — Francis of Assisi

The inspiration for this exhibit dates back to the 2004 BMAC exhibit Andy Warhol: The Jon Gould Collection. The most commented-on works in that show were the large prints from Warhol’s 1983 “Endangered Species” portfolio. Observing visitors’ reactions to those powerful images, I sensed that their aesthetic experiences were enriched by the deep connections humans have with animals, both domestic and wild.

Depicting animals—as symbols, teachers, muses, companions—connects human cultures across time. Pictures of animals serve as proxies for happiness, distress, or fear. They speak of love, remembrance, and condolence. Whether literal or abstract, animal images call into play both our experiences with the creatures themselves and the often deep-seated characteristics, traits, and qualities we assign to them.

Featuring the work of Walton Ford, Bharti Kher, Colleen Kiely, Stephen Petegorsky, Shelley Reed, Jane Rosen, Michal Rovner, Rick Shaefer, and Andy Warhol, this exhibit offers a mere glimpse into the complexity of human-animal relationships in contemporary art. The selected works are diverse in intention and execution. Some are humorous; others are unsettling. All invite contemplation of the various ways in which animals inhabit our personal experiences, our cultural history, and our common world.

— Mara Williams, Chief Curator

Click here for more information

The Refugee Trilogy is a suite of large-scale charcoal drawings by Connecticut-based artist Rick Shaefer. The works employ the visual language of Baroque painting to express–in a language both familiar and historical–the plight of contemporary refugees, and the persistence of this epic human tragedy across time. The three triptychs, each measuring 96" x 165", are exhibited in a chronology suggested by news reports. Land Crossing, the first of the three, addresses the hazardous journeys faced by refugees fleeing war, famine, drought, or other causes. The second work, Water Crossing, portrays the perilous journeys across open water. The third work, Border Crossing, addresses the conflicts and hostilities faced at borders. In addition to the three triptychs, the exhibition includes seventeen preparatory drawings. In an interpretive space adjacent to the exhibition, visitors may watch short video interviews with Marquette University faculty members–from areas ranging from law to nursing to history–who work on the subject of refugees. Rick Shaefer: The Refugee Trilogy was organized by the Fairfield University Art Museum

Silvermine Arts Center announced today its award winners and finalists in the 67th annual Art of the Northeast Exhibition, Silvermine's signature show, which is open to artists from Maine to D.C.  David Kiehl, Nancy and Fred Poses Curator at the Whitney Museum, served as the 2017 curator.

Kiehl's Best in Show was Fairfield resident Rick Shaefer's large-scale drawing, "Sugar Maple," done on charcoal on vellum on aluminum.

Magnetic Fields: Expanding American Abstraction, 1960s to Today introduces the work of more than twenty exceptional artists in conversation with one another for the first time. With works in a range of media, including painting, sculpture, printmaking, and drawing, the exhibition showcases a diverse range of unique visual vocabularies within non-representational expression. By highlighting these artists’ individual approaches to form, color, composition, material exploration and conceptual impetus within hard-edge and gestural abstraction, Magnetic Fields provides an expanded history of non-pictorial image and object-making. The exhibition not only celebrates these artists as leaders in the field, but also the enduring ability of abstraction to convey both personal iconography and universal themes.

The University of Maine Museum of Art has acquired a painting by artist Isabel Bigelow. Isabel Bigelow’s 2016 oil painting on paper titled Waiting was acquired by the Museum for its permanent collection, which encompasses some four thousand artworks created after 1945.

Download press release below.

The University of Maine Museum of Art has acquired a painting by artist Lourdes Sanchez. Lourdes Sanchez’s 2016 ink painting on silk, Untitled, 2016 was acquired by the Museum for its permanent collection.

The Art Institute of Chicago has acquired a series of seven drawings by Boston-based artist Shelley Reed. The artist’s 1993 series, “Men (after Van Dyck),” joined the Museum’s collection of prints and drawings as a gift after its exhibition as part of the Van Dyck, Rembrandt, and the Portrait Print exhibition of 2016.

Download the press release below.

Photolucida pick Top 50 Critical Mass photographers of 2016, including Tyler Haughey.

Luscious celebrates paint. It explores the myriad ways artists make conscious statements of painterly intent. Creating with a deep-seated belief in the beauty of paint, the 12 artists featured in the exhibit are in full command of their medium.

"The paintings of Australian-born Fran O'Neill rely upon a construction/deconstruction equation, where she uses her physical body to produce, alter, destroy, and recreate oversized gestures. Layer upon layer, O'Neill applies paint only to swipe, smear, and remove it with her body or another material. Her paintings are as much as an additive process as a subtractive one, where at times she reinvents imagery on the same canvas. In preparation for Confronting the Canvas: Women of Abstraction, O'Neill answered a few questions about her process and the ideas behind her work."

This exhibit showcases the work of 2014-2015 New Jersey State Council on the Arts Fellowship winners in sculpture, crafts, and photography. Fellowships are highly competitive awards to New Jersey artists in 12 different disciplines, based solely on artistic quality, and designed to help artists produce new work and advance their careers.

"The Art Institute of Chicago has acquired a series of seven drawings by Boston-based artist Shelley Reed. The artist’s 1993 series, “Men (after Van Dyck),” joined the Museum’s collection of prints and drawings as a gift after its exhibition as part of the Van Dyck, Rembrandt, and the Portrait Print exhibition of 2016."

Download press release below:

Paintings, sculptures, photographs, and works on paper by 40 contemporary artists will be exhibited at the galleries of the American Academy of Arts and Letters on historic Audubon Terrace (Broadway between 155 and 156 Streets) from Thursday, March 12 through Sunday, April 12, 2015. Exhibiting artists were chosen from a pool of over 200 nominees submitted by the members of the Academy, America’s most prestigious honorary society of architects, artists, writers, and composers.

http://www.artsandletters.org/press_releases/2015invitational.php

Link to the exhibition press release:

http://www.hcc.commnet.edu/artmuseum/exhibits/coming.asp

J. Johnson Gallery, in Jacksonville, Florida, opens its fourteenth season with Modulism, a cross-discipline exhibition exploring the relationship between modular geometric forms and negative space. The show features the work of Dolf James and Andrew Zimmerman, two artists who reimagine simple forms with a close attention to the details and processes used to create them. New York-based artist Andrew Zimmerman’s bold three-dimensional paintings in the east gallery appear almost planar juxtaposed with Dolf James’s large-scale metal sculptures filling the west gallery, however both echo a shared minimalist sensibility and emphasis on seriality. The show will remain on view through November 7th.

more info: http://www.jjohnsongallery.com/exhibitions/modulism

September 18, 2014 - February 7, 2015: Rick Shaefer: Rendering Nature

 Connecticut-based artist Rick Shaefer, best known for his remarkable works in charcoal on vellum, will have his artworks featured in the newest exhibition at Fairfield University's Bellarmine Museum of Art. Entitled Rick Shaefer: Rendering Nature, the exhibition is on view September 18, 2014 through December 19, 2014. An opening reception, free and open to the public, takes place on Thursday, September 18, 2014, from 6 to 8 p.m. Shaefer's charcoal drawings will be complemented by more than a dozen of his cloud paintings, many of which have never been exhibited publicly before and several of which were painted specifically for the Bellarmine's main gallery.

more info: http://www.fairfield.edu/lifeatfairfield/artsminds/thebellarminemuseum/exhibitions/

This exhibition highlights the work of artists who use images of animals in their art, including Jane Alexander, Louise Bourgeois, Nick Brandt, Walton Ford, Jenny Lynn McNutt, Jane Rosen, and Kiki Smith. Exhibition curator, Kathy Muehlemann, Randolph College professor of art and department chair, describes the premise of the exhibition:

“Animals present a rich trove of associations. As interwoven as they are in our literature, art, and daily life, they maintain an otherness as well. These seven artists present a wide range of responses to the animal. The gaze and the answering gaze within these works set in motion many emotions. The enchanted realm of animals has many doors to enter and mirrors back to us a spirit.”

This exhibition will be on view through December 14th.

more info: http://maiermuseum.org/2014/08/26/the-103rd-annual-exhibition-of-contemporary-art/

The Columbia Museum of Art in Columbia, South Carolina is presenting a career retrospective of artist Shelley Reed. The result of her ongoing "conversations" with the Old Masters, "Animal Instinct" is an impressive selection of 26 large-scale black and white paintings including a wall-length mural.

May 16 - September 14

more info: http://www.columbiamuseum.org/exhibitions/summer-2014/

The University of Maine Museum of Art, Bangor, ME, has acquired a mixed media work on paper by New York artist Bo Joseph, Terra Nullis.

The University of Maine Museum of Art, Bangor, ME, has acquired a painting by New York artist MaryBeth Thielhelm, Grey Indigo Sea.

The University of Maine Museum of Art, Bangor, ME, has acquired a photograph by California artist John Huggins, Aquarium #2, Sydney, Australia.

The Denver Art Museum, Denver, CO, has acquired a work by California artist John Huggins, Glenwood Hot Springs, Colorado, #2.

Judy Pfaff has been elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and is among some of the world’s most accomplished leaders from academia, business, public affairs, the humanities, and the arts who have been elected as the Academy’s 2013 class of members. 

more info: http://www.bard.edu/news/releases/pr/fstory.php?id=243

Michael Abrams' work acquired by the Columbia Museum of Art, Columbia, South Carolina.

Kathryn Lynch featured on 1stdibs.com Introspective Magazine

MaryBeth Thielhelm included in Out of the Dark Room at the Irish Museum of Art, Dublin, Ireland

Sears-Peyton Gallery will be participating in PULSE LA Art Fair

Bo Joseph participated in the Brooklyn Museum's Artists Ball Table Project

more images: http://www.flickr.com/photos/brooklyn_museum/5661117652/

MaryBeth Thielhelm's work acquired by the Orlando Museum of Art, Orlando, Florida

Sears-Peyton Gallery will be participating in PULSE NY Art Fair

Jane Rosen included in Works on Paper at Danese Gallery, New York

Sara Eichner included in Plane Speaking at McKenzie Fine Art, New York

Bo Joseph's work acquired by the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, TX

"In 2004, Betty Merken made a painting called Summer Fruit that was crucial to her development as an artist. Halved into two canvases, one was brushed a succulent coral, like the flesh of a ripe melon while the other, green-gold, ribbed, netted, conjured its outer skin. The viewer could easily regard it, with or without its title, as a melon pared to its visual essence, more melon-like, arguably, than a realistic depiction. On the other hand, it could also be seen as non-objective. But, more completely, more alluringly, it could be considered both. It was the first such painting she had made, in which the focus was on the fluidity of exchange between the referential and non-referential."

MaryBeth Thielhelm awarded grant for Aqueous, a solo painting exhibition for the AB Dow Museum of Art and Science in Midland, Michigan

"The monotype is one of the several high profile print techniques. While it is likely the least of the methodologies utilized by the majority of professional printmakers, it is also among the most challenging and rewarding. As the intaglio, relief print, screen print and lithography churn out a variety of different images, the monotype is all too often seen as a distant cousin. To explore its qualities, its demands, and its special traits requires a type of commitment and passion of a singular nature, e.g., in the other print mediums the artist can make various adjustments and gradually reach the desired effect; with the monotype there is one run through the press. Period. A second run changes everything."

Bo Joseph's work acquired by the Kempner Museum of Contemporary Art, Kansas City, MO

MaryBeth Thielhelm's oceanscapes described eloquently by Kimberly Whinna