Magazine

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...

Steven Parrino, The Bad Boy of the 1980s Abstract Art

The artist Steven Parrino never made a living off of his art. He died in 2005, so you could be forgiven for thinking recent press reports that Parrino is “enjoying an art market renaissance” are a...

Pierre Soulages Celebrates His 100 Birthday at The Louvre

Born on Christmas Eve in Rodez, a small town in the South of France, the French abstract painter Pierre Soulages has turned out to be a very special gift to the world. Indeed, The Musée du Louvre ...

Sennelier – Art and Invention in One of the Oldest Art Supply Stores in Europe

Have you ever stood in front of a masterpiece and wondered about the origin of its parts—the canvas, the stretcher bars, or the paint? The Sennelier art store in Paris has been selling high qualit...

Remembering Palestinian Abstract Artist Kamal Boullata

Beloved Palestinian artist and writer Kamal Boullata is dead at age 77. Boullata passed away on 6 August 2019 in Berlin, where he was a resident fellow at the Institute for Advanced Studies. Boull...

Legendary Kinetic and Op Artist Carlos Cruz-Diez Dies at 95

Carlos Cruz-Diez (b. 1923), an artist of the people, has died. An obituary posted on his official website reads, “It is with deep sadness that we announce the death of our beloved father, grandfat...

Robert De Niro Sr., Between European Modernism and Abstract Expressionism

You have likely heard the name Robert De Niro before—the two-time Academy Award winning actor has starred in 53 motion pictures. But you might not realize the connection De Niro has to some of the...

The Persistence of Form in The Art Of Jiro Yoshihara

This summer, Fergus McCaffrey gallery in Tokyo is reviving interest in the work of Gutai Group founder Jiro Yoshihara. Jiro Yoshihara: The Persistence of Form focuses on a specialized aspect of hi...

Farewell to Eberhard Havekost

On 6 June, the German Press Agency (dpa) reported the death of German painter Eberhard Havekost at age 52. His gallerist, Frank Lehmann, owner of Galerie Gebr. Lehmann, was quoted as saying he was...

The Story of Atomium, A Brussels Gem That Almost Wasn't

More than 60 years after it was built, the Atomium in Brussels has become one of the most beloved buildings in Europe. When it was first constructed, however, critics panned it as a disgrace. A st...

A Long-Overdue Artist Spotlight on Marlow Moss

Marlow Moss was a master of constructivist art, yet few today know her name. That could be because Moss was more than just a constructivist; she was a female, lesbian, British constructivist in a ...

Meet an Italian Spatialist Who is Not Lucio Fontana

Next month in London, a survey of more than 40 works will trace the entire career of Italian artist Paolo Scheggi (1940 – 1971). Paolo Scheggi: In Depth at the Estorick Collection of Modern Italia...

How Henry Moore Portrayed Nuclear Energy Through Sculpture

As you stroll along South Ellis Avenue on the bucolic campus of the University of Chicago, you come upon an unusual abstract form protruding from a cement plaza next to The Joe and Rika Mansueto L...

Revisiting the Sculpture of Tony Smith through These 5 Works

Tony Smith enjoys a radically individualized status within the story of 20th Century art. His sculpture oeuvre defies easy categorization, occupying a place somewhere between architecture, science...

The Delicate Beauty of Constantin Brâncuși's Bird in Space

Constantin Brâncuși is considered the most influential sculptor of the 20th Century, and his most influential sculpture is considered to be the elegant “Bird in Space” (1923 – 1940), of which sixt...

Abstraction as Continuous Adventure - The Art of Frank Wimberley

More than a century ago, Wassily Kandinsky asked whether purely abstract art could ever achieve the same emotional effect as music. Since the 1950s, Frank Wimberley has been proving that it can, b...

Tony DeLap, A Multifaceted Abstract Artist, Dies at 91

Abstract artist Tony DeLap has died at age 91. It was barely more than a year ago that a DeLap retrospective opened at the Laguna Art Museum, in Laguna Beach, California. The exhibition featured n...

Why Was Richard Serra's Tilted Arc So Controversial?

The story of “Tilted Arc,” a 36.5 meter long, 3.6 meter tall steel sculpture by Richard Serra that was commissioned, installed, and then destroyed by government officials in New York in the 1980s,...

Why Ben Heller Was a Powerful Figure for Abstract Art

Ben Heller, one of the giants of 20th Century art, has passed away at age 93. Heller was not an artist—he was a businessman who made a relatively modest living in the textile industry. It is what ...

In Memory of Thomas Nozkowski

Abstract painter Thomas Nozkowski died last week at age 75. Pace Gallery, which represented Nozkowski, announced his passing. Nozkowski had been a fixture of the New York art field for more than f...

Ruth Asawa’s Hanging Odes to Natural Forms

If you have ever stood in the midst of a Ruth Asawa installation, you understand that there exists an art outside of art; an art forged not from theory, but from direct expression, instinct and in...

On a Journey with Antoni Tàpies

When Antoni Tàpies died in 2012, he left a massive hole in the Spanish culture. He was easily the most influential Spanish visual artist of his generation, and in many respects it is hard to imagi...

Why Jackie Winsor is Eccentrically Abstract

The work of Jackie Winsor provides a perfectly wonderful foil to academic theories about contemporary abstraction. The debate that drives most current conversations about abstract art inevitably r...

Key Figures of the Pattern and Decoration Movement

The Pattern and Decoration movement holds a special place in contemporary art history. Emerging out of the Feminist Art Movement of the 1960s, Pattern and Decoration declared itself as a sort of “...

In The Spotlight - Georgia O'Keeffe's Gorgeous Watercolors

It may be hard to imagine a time when Georgia O’Keeffe was unsure of herself, or lacked confidence in her technique. Today, looking back at photographs of her knowing stare, her eyes glistening wi...

The Tall-Standing Sculpture of Beverly Pepper

Beverly Pepper makes art that subverts the power of the traditional art environment, and returns agency to everyday viewers in the natural and built worlds. Later this year, Pepper will turn 97, a...

The Importance of Adolph Gottlieb's Burst series

Adolph Gottlieb once said, “The role of the artist, of course, has always been that of image-maker. Different times require different images.” Gottlieb witnessed multiple distinctly different time...

Sanford Wurmfeld's Impressive Color Painting

The name Sanford Wurmfeld may not immediately ring bells with people outside of the art field, but it elicits awe and admiration from most artists who know his work. The self-taught painter has be...

The Revolutionary, Yet Overlooked Weavings of Otti Berger

As we celebrate the 100th anniversary of the Bauhaus this year, it is a fitting time to remember the inspiring, yet tragic story of Otti Berger, one of the most influential women to study and then...

Tracing the Designs of Barbara Stauffacher Solomon

Part artist, part dancer, and part designer, Barbara Stauffacher Solomon is best known for her work in the field of graphic. She was the mastermind behind the so-called “Super Graphics” that helpe...

A Look at the Art of Jean Le Moal

Jean Le Moal came of age as a painter in Paris in the late 1930s, just as Europe both at its cultural height and also descending into chaos. His entire career expressed echoes of this dichotomy. H...

How Alma Thomas Fought Many Wars To Establish Herself

In 1972, at the age of 80, Alma Thomas earned the distinction of becoming the first African American woman to have a solo retrospective at the Whitney Museum of American Art. Her colorful, abstrac...

Let's Talk More About the Art of Larry Poons

After his first show, in the early 1960s at the Green Gallery in New York, Larry Poons became an instant critical darling. It featured his now infamous dot paintings—mathematical arrangements of d...

Tachisme - The Abstract Art Movement of the French

Tachisme was one of the most dynamic and fascinating art movements to emerge in the mid-20th Century, yet it is widely misunderstood. Most writers and historians simply pass Tachisme off as the Fr...

Geta Brătescu - Drawing Stories of Forms

Geta Brătescu was 90 years old when the Romanian Culture Ministry chose her to represent her native Romania in the 57th Venice Biennale. Her third appearance at the Biennale, it attracted global a...

James Siena – Not Your Typical Abstract Artist

To look at a James Siena painting is to get pulled into a sinuous, methodical maze of color and lines. There is no picture at which to look. Instead, there is a transcendental zone in which to wan...

Sandra Blow, A Leading Figure of the Abstract Movement in Britain

A selection of late, large-scale paintings by Sandra Blow on view at Huxley-Parlour Gallery in London offers a fresh glimpse at the inventiveness of this pioneering British artist. Blow was amongs...

Remembering the Great Robert Ryman

The American painter Robert Ryman has died at age 88. His death was announced in a statement from his gallery. A self-taught artist, Ryman created a vast oeuvre that has intrigued, delighted, and ...

What Der Blaue Reiter Brought With Itself to Art History

German Expressionism, which emerged around 1905 and thrived until the late 1920s, was one of the most influential aesthetic movements of the 20th Century. The movement has its roots in two distinc...

André Mare - Camouflaging the War

No discussion about Cubism can be complete without at least some mention of André Mare. Yet even in conversations amongst experts on the topic, it is rare that the name of this accomplished French...

How Die Brücke (The Bridge) Celebrated the Power of Color

German Expressionism was born in the city of Dresden in 1905. That is when four architecture students came together to establish Die Brücke, an artistic movement intended to start a German aesthet...

Shedding Light on the Drip Paintings by Janet Sobel

In 1945, at age 52, Janet Sobel had the mixed blessing of having her work curated by Peggy Guggenheim into an exhibition called The Women at The Art of This Century Gallery. The paintings Sobel in...

Celebrating 100 Years of the Bauhaus

This year marks the 100th anniversary of the opening of the Bauhaus. Widely considered the most influential art and design school of the 20th Century, the Bauhaus was founded in Weimar, Germany, b...

Behind James McNeill Whistler's Nocturne in Black and Gold – The Falling Rocket

When James McNeill Whistler first exhibited “Nocturne in Black and Gold – The Falling Rocket” in 1877, the tiny (60.3 × 46.6 cm.) painting ignited a massive public debate. As the title suggests, t...

The Human Sculptures of Jonathan Borofsky

When he began his art career in the 1960s, Jonathan Borofsky aspired to find a way to unify Minimalism with Pop Art; to merge essentially abstract notions like purity and simplicity with a visual ...

How Joseph Csaky Applied Pictorial Cubism in His Sculpture

Though Cubism was most widely translated through the mediums of painting and collage, several pioneering artists also extended the Cubist method into the realms of sculpture and relief. Joseph Csa...

What The Section Or Meant for Cubism, and Abstract Art At Large

Cubism emerged from the minds and paint brushes of Pablo Picasso and Georges Braque. But credit for expanding knowledge of the Cubist method to the masses unquestionably goes to the Groupe de Pute...

The Knave/Jack of Diamonds and the Russian Avant-Garde

The roots of nearly every Russian avant-garde movement of the 20th Century lie in a short-lived Russian art collective called Бубновый Валет, which had its first exhibition in 1910. I...