Fine Art Connoisseur July/August 20201

the mad rush to art

What effects have COVID-19 lockdowns had on the art world? I’ve spent a lot of time posing this question over the past few months, and the responses have been wide-ranging. I’ve seen dozens of galleries disappear, unable to make their rent payments. I’ve heard dozens of artists say it was their worst sales year ever. On the opposite side of the spectrum, galleries and artists have said they are thriving, selling more art than ever. Walls stared at for months on end have needed new paint and new artworks; homes have been given a brand-new look. (If you stare at anything long enough, I suppose you can tire of it.) Now that we’re reaching critical mass, lockdowns are loosening, and people are feeling more free to travel, the pent-up demand seems to be…

europeawaits

The first decade of Fine Art Connoisseur trips have become legendary, ranging across almost every European country from Russia to Spain, from Scotland to Greece. We began in 2010 with a trip to St. Petersburg and the Baltic, and our most recent adventure was in Provence and Scotland (quite the combination). Not surprisingly, our plans to visit Vienna, Berlin, and Dresden in 2020 were delayed a year, but now we are ready to head there this October. Fine Art Connoisseur Publisher Eric Rhoads and I are busy finalizing the day-by-day itinerary for this masterpiece-rich odyssey in Austria and Germany, which encompasses famous sites and also unexpected ones well off the beaten track. As both America and Europe reopen, it is a joy to be reconnecting with our trusted colleagues in these…

favorite

Joyce Carol Oates knows how to tell a story. For hundreds of pages at a time, she paints vivid images of places and characters who are immersed in complicated scenarios, many of which might be called unpleasant circumstances. But in her dozens of novels and short stories and collections of poetry, whoever she introduces is someone a reader wants to follow. While Oates has been creating stories for decades, she has also been admiring another kind of storyteller, the painter Charles Burchfield (1893–1967). It is ironic, in some ways, that Oates would like Burchfield’s paintings so much, since, as she says, “Burchfield’s art contains virtually no human figures.” Oates’s oeuvre is about humans occupying particular settings and situations. For years, she has owned a Burchfield painting, Barn through Trees, that hangs…

sculpture spotlight

Welcome! Highlighting the tremendous quality of sculpture being made today is something we at Fine Art Connoisseur always look forward to with enthusiasm. On view in the following pages is an array of three-dimensional artworks that remind us how endlessly inventive our sculptor colleagues can be. They seemingly never run out of new ways to depict forms in space, and we remain grateful for their energy and skill. Whether it is classical or abstract, a portrait bust, a bas-relief, or a life-size figure, making a sculpture is seriously hard work. Perhaps none of the fine arts entails quite so many steps as sculpture does. From concept drawing to maquette, from molding or chiseling to casting or firing, from hand-finishing to rigging, the process can be slow, expensive, even dangerous. Fine Art Connoisseur recognizes…

three to watch

NICOLAS V. SANCHEZ (b. 1983) creates art that reflects his colorful cultural heritage, diverse urban environment, and eclectic influences and interests. He earned his B.F.A. from Kendall College of Art and Design in Grand Rapids, Michigan, and then his M.F.A. from the New York Academy of Art in New York City, where he lives now. Not one to stay in a predictable lane, Sanchez explores and experiments beyond the borders of traditional realism but will just as quickly return to that tightly rendered style if a particular subject dictates. Sanchez’s oil paintings jump off both screen and page with swift, lyrical lines and a surety of skillful brushstrokes. In his mural-sized painting Folklorico de Guerrero, he boldly expresses years of childhood observations and memories while paying homage to the artistry of…

making time with sculptor diana reutertwining

Diana Reuter-Twining (b. 1951) has powers unlike most people. As a sculptor, she has the ability to alter, if not start and stop, time. As a trained architect and, for years now, a prolific practicing sculptor, she notes, “Architects and sculptors both have the ability to manipulate time. An architect can strategically place a stair, window, or volume to slow down the participant’s experience, while a sculptor can encourage the viewer to walk around a piece through gesture, rhythm, scale, and color.” Furthermore, Reuter-Twining understands the fragmentary, itinerant quality of time — how what occurs suddenly ends just as quickly. So adept is she at capturing the most ephemeral, fleeting moments of life that to look at her trademark bronze horses in motion is to sense the flexing of their muscles.…