Displaying items by tag: realism

The Cantor Arts Center has announced the major new acquisition of a painting by Edward Hopper, "New York Corner (Corner Saloon)," 1913. One of Hopper's early paintings, the oil on canvas was created when Hopper was just 31 and still struggling to establish himself, but it heralds the artist's influential career and prominence as one of America's great realist painters. When it was first exhibited in New York shortly after it was completed, the critics praised it as a "perfect visualization of a New York atmosphere" and for its "completeness of expression."

The Wyeths have become something of a dynasty in American art, which began with N.C. Wyeth, who was known primarily as an illustrator for magazines and books. The family commitment continued with his son Andrew, who clung to the tradition of realism at a time when modernism reigned and he was often criticized for being out of synch with the mainstream. Jamie, son and grandson, has never wavered from representing the real world, although he has created a more vigorous approach to painting.

Lucian Freud's most famous and iconic subject will be offered as the highlight of Christie’s Post-War and Contemporary sale on May 13. "Benefits Supervisor Resting" is regarded as Freud’s ultimate tour de force, a life-size masterwork in the grand historical tradition of the female nude, painted obsessively with intense scrutiny and abiding truth.

This bold and extraordinary example of the stark power of Lucian Freud’s realism reveals his unique ability to capture the reality of the human form in all its natural force. Chosen by Freud as the cover of the definitive monograph about the artist, "Benefits Supervisor Resting" was included by the artist in every major museum exhibition devoted to Freud, including Tate Britain, London, The Museum of Modern Art, New York and the recent survey "The Facts and the Truth: Lucian Freud at the National Portrait Gallery, London."

The Albertina Museum in Vienna, Austria is hosting an exhibition of 19^th-century graphic works, on loan from Paris’ Musée d’Orsay.

The exhibition includes pastels by Edgar Degas, Georges Seurat, and Odilon Redon; gouaches by Honoré Daumier and Gustave Moreau; watercolors by Paul Cézanne, along with works by other artists of the period. The exhibition encompasses a broad range of artistic movements and styles.

At a press reception held Jan. 16 prior to the opening of the Brandywine River Museum of Art’s major retrospective of Jamie Wyeth’s work, Jamie Wyeth repeatedly expressed his unease at “revisiting his early work.” He said that he knew he “grew from his early work” but that it “doesn’t interest him” to see it now. While he may express such sentiments, those attending the exhibition will find much to fascinate and engage them as they follow his development as an artist. The exciting exhibition on the walls of the Brandywine galleries which have been painted in handsome hues of burgundy and maroon to complement the paintings, examines his distinctive approach to realism over the course of six decades, from his earliest portraits to the present. Landscapes of the Brandywine Valley and coastal Maine, family members and fellow artists (including the engaging portrait of Andy Warhol painted in 1976, whom he described as “very childlike”), are shown as well as domesticated and wild animals, many executed in “combined mediums,” the term he uses to describe his technique.

On Friday, January 2, 2015, Melissa Morgan Fine Art, a contemporary gallery in Palm Desert, California, will present the newest body of work from painter Richard Baker. “Desert Scenes” features sun-drenched canvases depicting popular leisure activities among desert dwellers, including horseback riding, golf, and tennis.

Baker, who studied painting at the University of Pennsylvania under the celebrated British-born realist painter Rackstraw Downes, is highly influenced by cinematography, which stems from his professional experience as a leading film and television producer. Employing dramatic compositions, heavy brushstrokes, and exaggerated colors, Baker adds a surreal quality to everyday scenes, creating paintings that toe the line between realism and material abstraction.

It looks like an art exhibit, when in fact it’s a family tree.

“The Richman Gifts: American Impressionism and Realism,” now at the Norton Museum of Art, is a window into how generations of early 20th century American painters influenced one another.

This collection of 11 paintings given to the museum — a “promised gift” from trustees Priscilla and John Richman upon their passing — allows you to follow how two schools of early American artists developed on different vines.

A convicted tax evader and trout poacher from San Francisco has been charged with mail fraud for allegedly falsely claiming that he had $11 million to buy artwork.

Luke Brugnara, 50, was named in a complaint unsealed Wednesday in U.S. District Court in San Francisco. Federal prosecutors accused him of taking delivery of the art and then refusing to pay for the pieces or return them.

Plenty of collectors want to donate artworks to museums, but the museums don't always welcome them with open arms. "We say 'no thanks' 19 times out of 20," says Betsy Broun, director at the American Art Museum. Sometimes the works aren't museum-quality, other times they don't fit with the museums' philosophy.

But in 1986, representatives from the Sara Roby Foundation called the Smithsonian with an offer it couldn't refuse: paintings by Edward Hopper, Raphael Soyer, Reginald Marsh and many more. They were all collected by Roby, who, in the early 1950s, took on a mission: to save Realistic art from the maws of Abstract Expressionism. The at the Smithsonian's American Art Museum.

The Allen Memorial Art Museum at Oberlin College in Ohio is presenting the exhibition Regarding Realism, which traces the history of the movement back to its inception in mid-19^th century France. The exhibition will include works by Realist pioneers such as Gustave Courbet, Jean-Francois Millet and Charles-Francois Daubigny who shared a goal to depict the world around them, including ordinary people performing day-to-day activities, faithfully.

Regarding Realism includes American artworks as the desire to capture immediate experiences rather than contrived scenes soon caught on across the Atlantic. Highlights include prints by American Regionalists Grant Wood and Thomas Hart Benton as well as gritty, urban scenes by members of the Aschan School like John Sloan and George Luks.

Regarding Realism will be on view at the Allen Memorial Museum through June 22, 2014.