Magazine

The Art of Displaying Multiple Perspectives

When a painting consists of two panels, it can be considered a diptych. The term comes from the late Greek words diptukha (two writing tablets) or diptukhos (folded in half). The tradition of dipt...

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...

A Look at Vasudeo S. Gaitonde's Burgeoning Art Market

Indian artist Vasudeo Santu Gaitonde has appeared in the art media repeatedly over the past decade, always in the context of auction records. Paintings by Gaitonde routinely sell for millions of d...

A Kandinsky Masterpiece To Be Sold at Sotheby's After Half a Century

In 1964, Sotheby’s made news by auctioning 50 Wassily Kandinsky paintings from the collection of Solomon R. Guggenheim. The American businessman and founder of both the Solomon R. Guggenheim Found...

In the Dark

In visual art, darkness is the result of many factors: the interplay of hue and tint; the reflective qualities of a medium or a surface; the way light interacts with texture. But is darkness only ...

Following The Curves of Tony Cragg's Sculpture

Works by renowned British abstract artist Tony Cragg are on view this summer at Houghton Hall, a lavish British country estate currently occupied by David George Philip, the 7th Marquess of Cholmo...

How to Take Up Abstract Painting in Your Older Years

No matter who you are, you probably wanted to take up art at some point in your life but couldn’t because you didn’t have the time or resources to dedicate yourself to it properly. But now you’re ...

How Drawing Revitalized Post-War America - at MoMA

With COVID restrictions in New York lifting, several museum shows whose runs were extended during the pandemic shutdown are beckoning. Among the best for fans of abstraction is Degree Zero: Drawin...

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...

Elles Font l’Abstraction - An Interview with Pompidou Chief Curator Christine Macel

Centre Pompidou will write history this summer with Elles font l’abstraction - the most comprehensive elucidation ever of the contribution of female artists to the development of abstract art. Pom...

How Two Chinese Abstract Masters Dominated Sotheby's Hong Kong Auctions 2021

The 2021 Sotheby’s Hong Kong auctions are in full swing even as most of the world is still reeling from new lockdowns caused by the latest surge in COVID-19 infections. The pandemic has revealed a...

World's Largest Painting is Now Worth $62 Million!

Sacha Jafri made headlines this month when his painting “The Journey of Humanity” became the fourth most expensive artwork (and the most expensive abstract artwork) ever sold by a living artist. M...

Can NFTs Benefit Digital Abstract Artists?

Non-Fungible Tokens (NFTs) may be just another artistic medium, but as intangible instruments of questionable cultural and economic value, their embrace by mainstream culture could transform the w...

The Architecture of Abstraction - An Interview with Artist Robert Baribeau

Oregon-born, New York-based abstract artist Robert Baribeau has weathered innumerable aesthetic trends throughout his 47-year exhibition history. When his first New York show opened in 1979, at Al...

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 ...

The Seminal American Painting: The Eighties Exhibition, Revisited

In 2018, I declared Who RU2 Day: Mass Media and the Fine Art Print, at the Cleveland Museum of Art, the most important exhibition in America. Today, I again believe the most important American exh...

The Artist Who Could See Sound - Kandinsky on Google Arts and Culture

Wassily Kandinsky endeavored to achieve visually what musicians achieve with sound: the communication of complex feeling and emotion, without using narrative content. Kandinsky was not just curiou...

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...

Ten Latinx Abstract Artists To Know Right Now

Reflecting the cultural diversity of its surroundings has been central to the mission of BRIC (formerly Brooklyn Information & Culture) since it was founded in 1979. Their latest exhibition, L...

The Art of Lines

A line is said to connect two points. It is a one-dimensional visual element. But what else can a line be? When does a line become a plane? When does a line become a shape? When does a line obtain...

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...

Emily Mason, Between Abstract Expressionism and Color Field Painting

A pair of exhibitions this winter are drawing fresh attention to the work of Emily Mason, an American colorist painter who died in 2019 at age 87. “She Sweeps with Many-Colored Brooms”: Paintings ...

Waiting (Patiently) for the Bourse de Commerce–Pinault Collection

After five years of watching and waiting, Parisians were told this week that because of ongoing COVID-19 restrictions, they must wait just a bit longer before going inside the much anticipated Bou...

Jim Hodges Turns New York's Grand Central Into an Abstract Installation

Jim Hodges is one of those rare abstract artists whose work manages to express the most troubled aspects of the spirit of our time while simultaneously expressing its beauty. A new installation by...

6 Most Expensive Abstract Artworks of 2020

Works by Mark Rothko, Cy Twombly, Clyfford Still, Barnett Newman, Gerhard Richter and Brice Marden were among the most expensive abstract artworks to sell at auction in 2020. But before we get to ...

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....

(Re)Discovering Vivian Springford's Stain Paintings

Almine Rech Gallery in New York recently opened its second major solo exhibition of works by Vivian Springford. The artist has been the subject of a slow reassessment that began in the late 1990s,...

The Female Side of Minimalism at Thaddaeus Ropac

Every year, various exhibitions claim to herald work by marginalized artists unfairly left out of the historical canon. Often, the artists are in fact successful, just not “famous,” and the work h...

Two New Abstract Artworks Revealed as Part of Art Mapping Piemonte

Culture. People. Planet. Those are the three goals of Fondazione Compagnia di San Paolo (FCSP), the philanthropic organization that recently partnered with the Piedmont Region of Northern Italy to...

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...

How Abstract Expressionism Influenced Sculpture - A Guggenheim Show

A recently opened sculpture exhibition at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York feels confused when it comes to the legacy of white, patriarchal art movements from the past. Knotted, Torn, ...

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...

Martin Barré, The Forgotten Abstract Artist, at Centre Pompidou

The retrospective Martin Barré, on view from 14 October 2020 through 4 January 2021 at the Center Pompidou, offers the most comprehensive look yet at the always-evolving career of this enigmatic a...

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...

Gerhard Richter's Last Major Work? Stained Glass at a Monastery

Gerhard Richter has amassed a catalogue raisonné that now approaches 1000 major works, many of which are considered masterpieces. Yet, it is his most recent, and some say final, major work—a set o...

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...

Driven To Abstraction - A New Documentary on the Knoedler Scandal

The documentary Driven to Abstraction revisits the infamous Knoedler scandal. In 2011, after 165 years in business, Knoedler & Co., one of the most venerated fine art galleries in the world, c...

Hsiao Chin - Pushing the Limits of Abstraction

As a young art student in Taiwan in the 1940s, Hsiao Chin received advice from his teacher regarding the responsibility of an artist, which went something like this: an artist must find a personal...

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...

Minimalism: Less is More !

The drive toward Minimalism in abstract art is as old as abstraction itself. Seurat was on its trail when he pioneered Divisionism. Malevich nearly perfected it with his Suprematist compositions. ...

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...

Can Abstract Art Change Our Mindsets? Yes! A New Study Finds

A new abstract art study claims the human brain processes abstract art and figurative art in different ways. The study was led by four researchers from Columbia University in New York. Participant...