Magazine

Auguste Herbin: The Architect of Abstraction and His Lasting Legacy

Auguste Herbin, born on April 29, 1882, in Quievy, France, was a major figure in the abstract art movement, especially during the first half of the 20th century. He is known for his role in develop...

Mark Rothko: The Master of Color in Search of The Human Drama

A key protagonist of Abstract Expressionism and color field painting, Mark Rothko (1903 – 1970) was one of the most influential 20th-century painters whose works deeply spoke, and still do, to the...

Illuminating the Canvas: Anna Eva Bergman's Luminous Journey through Artistic Landscapes

Born in 1909 to Swedish and Norwegian parents, Anna Eva Bergman demonstrated an early knack for drawing. She later honed her talent at Oslo's School of Applied Arts and Vienna’s School of Applied ...

Simon Hantaï. Between Invisibility and the Persistence of Vision

Simon Hantaï is the painter of absence, invisibility, and withdrawal. The essence of his art can be captured in the empty spaces between one color and another, in his pictorial and conceptual inte...

Carmen Herrera - A Flourishing Long Overdue

Carmen Herrera (May 30, 1915-February 12, 2022) was a Cuban-American artist, renowned for her abstract minimalist compositions and geometric application of color. Her recent death has brought abou...

Women in American Abstraction, 1930-1950

American abstract artists faced many hurdles throughout the 1930s and 1940s. Entering a discipline still dominated by realism and ruled by powerful art critics and institutions, abstract artists h...

Sophie Taeuber-Arp - A Major Female Force of Dadaism and Concrete art

Bold and dynamic, Sophie Taeuber-Arp (1889-1943), née Taeuber, was a major female force in the European avant-garde movements of Dadaism and Concrete art. Her career spanned two world wars and ush...

How Painters Eleven Members Brought Abstract Art to Canada

Active between 1953 and 1960, Painters Eleven (P11) was a short-lived but hugely influential group of eleven Canadian abstract artists who took a leading role in Canada’s post-war art world. While...

Zaha Hadid, The Visual Artist

Most people know Zaha Hadid as an architect. When she died in 2016, at the young age of 65, Hadid was one of the most sought-after architects in the world. She was renowned both for her extraordin...

How Toko Shinoda Made Gems of Abstract Expressionism

Japanese artist Toko Shinoda has died at age 107. For more than 70 years, Shinoda has been celebrated for the abstract drawings and paintings she created using the ancient method of sumi-e, which ...

Quilting Histories - The Quilts of Gee's Bend

Two exhibitions of Gee’s Bend quilts - currently postponed by the COVID-19 pandemic - highlight the distinctive vision of an isolated group of artists descended from African American slaves. The G...

How Space Stands Still in Paul Feeley's Art

The art of Paul Feeley reminds me of the similarities great abstract art shares with great music. Just as one might hear the Gymnopédies of Erik Satie performed over and over again by different mu...

Dusti Bongé, A Force of Abstract Expressionism

If you are like me, the first thing you thought when you saw the title of this article is, “Who is Dusti Bongé?” It is all too often the case that little connection exists between the talent of an...

Young-Il Ahn, Korean American Painter of Light and Surface, Dies at 86

Young-Il Ahn, an under appreciated master of abstract painting, whose work explored relationships be-tween color, reflected light, and human perception, died this month in Los Angeles at age 86. A...

The Nevelson Chapel, An Oasis of Silence

Rushing past the shops and office towers surrounding 54th and Lexington in Midtown Manhattan, it would easy not to notice you are in the presence of a meditative masterpiece of mid-century art. Th...

Jackie Saccoccio's Abstract Art on a Grand Scale

The beloved American abstract artist Jackie Saccoccio has died at age 56. According to a statement released by Van Doren Waxter, her longtime gallerist, Saccoccio had been battling cancer for the ...

The Eternal Vanguard—6 Extraordinary Female Abstract Artists from Latin America

I often talk about the avant-garde in terms of its failures, meaning it is a topic I anchor in the past, full of bygone stories of experimental things artists once wrote, once made, or once tried....

How Mohamed Melehi Made Waves in Moroccan Modernism

The COVID-19 Pandemic has claimed another victim from the world of abstract art: Moroccan painter Mohamed Melehi passed away on 29 October in Paris at age 84, from complications related to the nov...

The Movie-Like Story of Mark Rothko's Seagram Murals

I consider traveling to see art to be a metaphysical experience: a pilgrimage to secular sanctuaries. Some of my most memorable art passages have involved Mark Rothko. I fondly remember journeying...

In The Spotlight - Carla Accardi, A Pioneer Italian Abstract Artist

Italian avant-garde artists of the 1960s have always interested me for their seemingly intuitive ability to make art less complicated, while somehow also making it more magical. Carla Accardi, who...

Visiting Jean Dubuffet's Monumental Tour Aux Récits at Smithson Plaza

Londoners hunting for outdoor art experiences will delight at the recent installation of the Jean Dubuffet sculpture “Tour aux récits” in Smithson Plaza—that is, if they can find it. The small squ...

The Guggenheim Presents: Jackson Pollock's Mural

One of the most storied American paintings is returning to Manhattan after a 22-year absence. “Mural” (1943) by Jackson Pollock will be on view at The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York from...

Stripping Down the Canvas - Farewell to Ron Gorchov

During a 2017 interview with Swiss curator Hans Ulrich Obrist, the American painter Ron Gorchov (1930 - 2020) offered the following advice to young artists: “Be desperate and patient.” The seeming...

Spending a Night at Cedar Tavern with the Abstract Expressionists

Anyone researching the artists of The New York School has likely encountered references to a place called The Cedar Bar, or its later manifestation, The Cedar Tavern. An ordinary dive bar, The Ced...

Otto Freundlich - A Revelation of Abstraction

The year was 1912. At age 34, the still relatively young Otto Freundlich, who had only recently committed himself to becoming an artist, had reason to celebrate. He had just sold a major new work ...

Pat Passlof - Six Decades of Important Art

Pat Passlof gave me one of the most significant gifts an artist can bestow upon an art viewer, besides the gift of pure sensorial pleasure: she convinced me to question my own taste. My first enco...

Abstraction is in the Physical - Jules Olitski

The career of the Ukrainian-American artist Jules Olitski (1922 – 2007) reminds us that art is not a fixed human endeavor, which has to be done the same way by every practitioner, like, say, flyin...

Art Beyond Mexican Muralism - Manuel Felguérez Barra

Mexican artist Manuel Felguérez Barra has died at age 91 - one of nearly half a million members of the human family whose lives have so far been taken by COVID-19. A legend, whose abstract paintin...

Eva LeWitt - Harmonizing Color, Matter, Space

For the past few years, Eva LeWitt has been delighting a growing fan base with her completely fresh, lively and luminous sculptures. The first encounter many viewers had with her work was in her s...

The Art of Christo and Jeanne-Claude, Monumental in Every Way

Christo and Jeanne-Claude were the kind of artists you could study your entire lifetime and never grow tired. Their life together was filled with love, art, and incredible planning: three insepara...

On Abstract Illusionism - Taking Reality Out Of Illusion

Thanks to the spread of COVID-19, the art field has entered a strange time of extreme flatness as every exhibition in the world is re-imagined in digital form. That makes this the perfect time to ...

Semiabstractions with a Soul - The Legacy of Zarina Hashmi

Indian-American artist Zarina Hashmi, who preferred to simply be called Zarina, has died at age 82. Zarina has been described as a semi-abstract artist, a label that suggests the liminal zone her ...

A New Book Celebrates Alice Trumbull Mason, Pioneer of American Abstraction

Alice Trumbull Mason was a rarity in the art field: a die hard practitioner motivated entirely by the desire to learn. Mason died in 1971, at age 67, leaving behind hundreds of paintings and print...

Farewell to Siri Berg

Swedish American abstract artist Siri Berg, a member of American Abstract Artists whose work is in the collection of the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, among other institutions, has died in New Yor...

4 Documentaries and 1 Movie on Abstract Art and Artists You Can Watch Now

Are you desperate for fresh viewing options to make COVID-19 self-isolation more tolerable? Instead of putting sit-coms on auto-play or sitting in front of the news all night, why not watch some o...

When Romare Bearden Went Abstract

If, like a lot of people, you missed out on seeing Abstract Romare Bearden at DC Moore Gallery in New York this winter thanks to the appearance of COVID-19, fear not: an even larger exhibition, ti...

7 Books on Female Abstract Artists To Read While in Self-Isolation

In times like this I consider myself lucky. I obsessively acquire art books from exhibitions and estate sales, so even when cooped up inside for weeks, or months, I at least have plenty to read. M...

The Unpredictable, Nature-Inspired Abstractions of Vivian Suter

For the second time in her life, Guatemala-based artist Vivian Suter is becoming one of the most buzzed about abstract painters in the world. Following a breakout appearance in documenta 14, score...

How JMW Turner Influenced Abstract Art

Joseph Mallord William Turner (1775–1851) was considered one of the most famous painters in Europe when he died. Introspective and experimental, he pushed himself far beyond his contemporaries. Co...

The Content and Emotion in the Art of Grace Hartigan

Grace Hartigan (1922 – 2008) has not been treated well by the self-appointed writers of art history. Throughout her career she was misunderstood and mislabeled, excluded from the movement she love...

How Sonya Rapoport Used Abstraction to Pioneer Computer Art

Sonya Rapoport is having a moment. Or more accurately, since the Berkeley, California-based artist passed away in 2015, the immense artistic legacy she left behind is having a moment. Following ma...

How Piero Dorazio Brought Abstraction to Italy

Once again today we find ourselves in a time when the art field seems dominated by politically relevant art. As such, an age old question is again being debated: is abstract art inherently politic...

Light, Space and Abstraction in the Work of Santiago Calatrava

Twice I have had the pleasure of seeing the work of Spanish architect Santiago Calatrava in person. The first time was the Milwaukee Art Museum. The city of Milwaukee takes its name from a native ...

Agnes Pelton, The Unsung Visionary Painter of the Sublime

A two-year, traveling retrospective of the work of Agnes Pelton will soon open at the Whitney Museum of American Art, re-introducing contemporary New Yorkers to an esoteric abstract artist who onc...

One (More) Word About Maurizio Cattelan’s “Comedian”

In the name of abstract art I say, “Thank you, Maurizio Cattelan. And bravo!” An Italian artist known for making hyper-realistic artworks, Cattelan has received ample scorn of late from critics, j...

7 Times Abstract Art and Artists Were Featured on US Stamps

The United States has issued thousands of postage stamps over the course of its history. Hundreds have featured images of important artists and artworks, and a respectable number of those US stamp...

Remembering Emilio Vedova, a leader of Arte Informale

This winter in Milan, Italy, the Palazzo Reale will host an exhibition celebrating what would have been the 100th birthday of the Italian abstract painter Emilio Vedova, who died in 2006. Born in ...

Abstraction and Arte Povera Through The Spirit of Giuseppe Penone’s Lymph Matrix

Visitors to the Palais d’Iéna in Paris during the Foire Internationale d'Art Contemporain (FIAC) 2019 received a rare treat: the installation of Matrice di Linfa (Lymph Matrix), a 40-meter-long bi...