I’ve had the catalogue for Andy Warhol: The Last Decade, which went on view on Sept. 26 at the Milwaukee Art Museum, for a couple of weeks now, but something has kept me from writing about it. Now, I’ve figured it out.

First a description: Warhol made the 50 works in the show between 1978 and 1986, and the museum attempts to prove that this period was “arguably the most productive period of his life” as he mixed “forms and media with audacious fluency.” Warhol “created more new series of paintings in the last decade of his life — in larger numbers and on a vastly larger scale — than during any other phase of his 40-year career.” Among them are his shadow and “oxidation” paintings, self-portraits, yarn paintings, camouflage works, The Last Supper series, “black and white” ads, on and on. Hearing the list, you maybe buy the thesis. Paging through the catalogue, though, gave pause.

It’s always hard to judge a show from afar, so today I looked up the review of Mary Louise Schumacher at the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. After praising the opportunity to see the works on display, she hit the nail on the head:

But the show, organized by MAM’s former chief curator Joseph D. Ketner II, reconsiders the artist in a way that lacks the ring of truth. It seems to overstate the importance of what may have been worthy but somewhat unsuccessful artistic experiments. It emphasizes the visual and painterly over Warhol’s conceptual edge, which is what was always so interesting about him – particularly at the end. (More on that, shortly).

Ketner goes so far as to position the late paintings as expressive, personally revealing and, in the case of the Last Suppers, religiously fervent. This seems, at best, sentimental, the stuff better left to the pages of biographies and, at worst, a blasphemy against an artist who went to extremes to keep his art and persona impersonal.

Read the rest here. For a less judgmental account of the exhibit, by the Associated Press, go here.

MAM’s thesis seems to be like a headline that overstates the facts in an article — but that rarely stops news junkies from reading and it shouldn’t stop art-lovers from going to this exhibit (which, btw, will travel to the Museum of Modern Art, Fort Worth, the Brooklyn Museum and the Baltimore Museum of Art).

One of the catalogue’s joys, meanwhile, is reading Andy’s quotes.  

[Read more…] about On View In Milwaukee: What’s The Matter With Andy?

As I was saying here, when I wrote about young British artists drawing inspiration from Old Masters, last year Otto Naumann had an intriguing exhibit of painting by Mark Lijftogt, a Dutchman whose still lifes pay homage to 17th Century Dutch works. 

When I saw Lijftogt’s paintings, I immediately thought Jan Davidsz de Heem. Take a look, especially at the reflections in the glass.

 

 

 

I couldn’t find, online, a good image showing the De Heem works it brought to mind, but this example will remind you of what I’m talking about.

Lijftogt seems to be self-taught, according to his bio, but aided by conservators at the Rijksmuseum (more images of his work are on his website). I gather from a few conversations with dealers that at least a few other young Dutch artists are reinterpreting their still life tradition. (In 1999, the Cleveland Museum of Art mounted a show of works by two contemporary Dutch photographers working in this vein.) I’d like to see more.  

Photo credit: Courtesy Mark Lijftogt

 

Of all the galleries in the world, I had to pick this one: Robilant + Voena in London opens a show tomorrow called “Back To the Future: Young Artists Look To Old Masters.” (Actually, I know about it because I was seated next to Edmundo di Robilant at a dinner last spring…)

The concept is neat, and so is the fact that the gallery commissioned the works in the show, inviting British artists into its gallery to choose an inspiration and “investigate and expose the strong dialogue between the past and the present.”

So here we have Vincenzo Chilone’s Venice: The Molo from the Bacino di San Marco, c. 1800, inspiring Justin Coombes’ Empire, 2005-2009.

 

 

 

Here below is Ary Scheffer’s Dante and Virgil Encountering the Shades of Francesca and Paolo, ca. 1845. 

 

 

 

[Read more…] about New Old Masters: Young British Artists — No, Not Them — Look Back

Suspend your skepticism for a few minutes, while I relate an art-world story I found both hard-to-believe and irresistible. It’s about a photographer named Robert Bergman, who — at age 65, never having sold a work until two ago, never even having found a gallery — is about to have two museum shows. One opens next week at the National Gallery of Art; the other opens on Oct. 25 at P.S. 1 in Queens.

As I write in an article about Bergman, which is published in Tuesday’s Wall Street Journal (here), his works are unlike most photography of the last half-century, but he says he never wavered from his own vision. How Bergman ignored art world trends, fought demoralization, weathered near-poverty and then triumphed this way, his way — well, it would be nice if this happened more often.

Bergman ultimately broke into the art world by appealing to critics, like Meyer Schapiro and John Russell, who were more interested in painting than prevailing trends in photography. As Bergman tells it, he went to people who had an eye. (Very early on, btw, he showed his work to and found support from Sam Sachs, the former director of the Frick Collection, among other things, who then was head of the Minneapolis Institute of Arts.)   

The works that will go on display, as I wrote, “were shot from the mid-1980s to about 1996. They are intense, soul-stirring, intimate color portraits, all untitled, all unlabeled as to place or person: There’s just a date and a few technical details. Stripped of information, the viewer is forced to consider the human condition.”

The photographs are not staged, and — well, I hope you’ll read the WSJ article, where I explain much more. Right now, I have an exclusive on Bergman. But I suspect we’ll be hearing more about him. 

Bergman has had some patronage over the years, and I would  be happy to name them, except that, he says, they wish to remain anonymous.

Photo Credits: © Robert Bergman, Courtesy National Gallery of Art

The Old West always seems to be male territory, but the National Cowgirl Museum and Hall of Fame was founded in 1975 to remind everyone that women won and built the West, too — and play a big (and growing) role nowadays. I first learned about it when it opened in a new building in Fort Worth in 2002, supported by the Basses and the Waltons, among others. Highlighting artists, writers and performers is part of the Hall’s mission.

Every year the Hall hosts a Heart of the West art exhibition and sale that focuses on female Western artists, increasing their exposure to curators and collectors. The Heart exhibition began last Thursday and runs through Oct. 25. The sale takes place on Oct. 16 at a gala.   

Over the years, not many — not any, really — women have broken into the top ranks of Western artists, like Remington and Russell, unless you count Georgia O’Keeffe. Some experts do — B. Byron Price, to name one. He’s an advisor to the Heart show as well as the Charles Marion Russell Chair and director of the Center for the Study of the Art of the American West at the University of Oklahoma, among other things.

I asked Price whose names we should know, and he cited as “of interest and note”:

• Frances Flora (Fanny) Palmer, a prominent mid-19th century artist for Currier and Ives, who did western themed work that was reproduced as  popular prints and engravings.
• Mary Hallock Foote, prominent late 19th and early 20th century illustrator of western-based  stories in national magazines.
• Grace Carpenter Hudson, California painter of Native Americans.
• Mary Elizabeth Achey and Helen Henderson Chain, prominent, late 19th century Colorado artists, with a regional following.
• Catherine Carter Critcher (1868 – 1964), first and only female member of the Taos Society of Artists.

What about today’s crop of Western women artists?

[Read more…] about Heart Of The West: A Showcase For Artist-Cowgirls