Left Bank Art think Pink I Abstract Canvas Art by Leftbank Art Design

UPDATE: Shortly after Carl Belz and I put together this post of our pinnacle ten favorites, Carl died. Gyre down to the bottom of this postal service to see my tribute to him.

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Followers of this blog have probably noticed there haven't been any posts since December. Although I nevertheless expect at a lot of art, it seems I've lost interest in, and energy for, writing about it – and then Carl Belz and I have decided to suspend publication of Left Bank Art Blog for the foreseeable future.

In that location are many posts that we think you'll detect are worth reading (or re-reading), and the unabridged blog will remain online and searchable. (We're still getting an amazing 400-500 page views per day, and sometimes 1000 and more than.) So we've taken this opportunity to review the entire archive and select out some of our favorite posts.

Charles Kessler's Top Ten:
Well-nigh all of my favorite posts are about individual artists, and commonly I have a unlike accept on their art than is generally accepted. So in Cezanne's Portraits of Madame CezanneI brand the example that rather than massive, rounded and solid, I run into Cezanne's art as elusive, evanescent, and unstable.

Paul Cézanne, Madame Cézanne in a Red Wearing apparel, 1888-xc, oil on canvas, 45 ⅞ 10 35 ¼ inches (Metropolitan Museum of Fine art).

And in On Jackson Pollock'south Classic Drip Paintings,I argue that these paintings are not "all over," that the surface is not, in fact, uniform, but rather patterns and rhymes are formed.

Jackson Pollock, One (Number 31, 1950), 1950, oil and enamel paint on canvas, 8' 10" x 17' 5 ⅝ " (MoMA) - marked in green to show the dominant compositional elements.

And I retrieve the postMatisse's Cutting-Outs equally Environmentshas unique insights into this late work.

View ofThe Pond Pool in the dining room of Matisse's flat at the Hôtel Régina, Nice, c.1952.Women and Monkeys can be seen above the entryway.Acrobats and a preliminary cartoon forRose Chasuble tin can be seen through the entryway (photograph from John Elderfield,The Cut-Outs of Henri Matisse, 1978, p.119).

Given his pervasive influence on twentieth-century art, it's not surprising that I chose two posts on Picasso.

Pablo Picasso,Les Demoiselles d'Avignon, 1907, oil on canvas, 96 x 92 inches.

In Les Demoiselles d'Avignon,I wrote about how Picasso's masterpiece radically changed the relationship between the painting and the viewer; and in Decoding Picasso,I attempt to decipher the complicated imagery in ii of Picasso's prints from the mid-thirties by painstakingly identifying them and then outlining his obscure and complicated images.

Pablo Picasso, Marie-Thérèse as Female Torero, June 20, 1934 (sheet: 17 v/8 x 13 3/8"), from the Vollard Suite.

The stilted way of writing in Clyfford Still Role 2 (distressing)is probably considering I wrote my MA thesis on his art and the bookish mode stuck.

Clyfford However, 1947-R-No.1, 1947, oil on canvas, 69 x 65  inches.

Nevertheless, there's a lot of information and ideas virtually Nevertheless and Abstract Expressionism in this mail service.

Until his recent death at age 92, I believed the Los Angeles artist Charles Garabedian was the most vital living artist. I beloved his art and wrote about information technology for fine art magazines and exhibition catalogs, as well equally for Left Banking company. The postal service Charles Garabedian Retrospectiveis an overview of the art of this extraordinary, expressive, and prolific artist.

Charles Garabedian, The Meeting of Greece and China, 1970, wood, acrylic and polyester resin, 97 x 59.v inches; (photo: Tom Vinetz, courtesy of Fifty.A. Louver, Venice, CA).

Not looking happy, from the left: Mary Woronov, Gerard Malanga, John Cale, Sterling Morrison, Maureen Tucker, Lou Reed, Nico and Andy Warhol, c. 1965, (photo: Steve Schapiro/Corbis).

Ane of the few disappointments in publishing this web log was the paucity of comments and discussion. Ii notable exceptions are responses to the postal serviceUnexpected Theatricality,especially Paul Sullivan'southward insightful comments;

Film director Peter Greenaway used theatrical lighting to re-create the window, light and shadows that existed when Leonardo was painting the Terminal Supper (c. 1495-1498).

Peter Voulkos in his Glendale Blvd. studio withBlack Butte-Dissever, 1959.

and perhaps my favorite post, Peter Voulkos and the Ceramics Revolution, which stimulated a lot of valuable input and give-and-take and eventually led to a guest post by Ken Garber:In Defense of Ken Cost's Cups. (Update: precipitated by this mail service, Frank Lloyd contributed two more comments that added a lot to the discussion and corrected some facts.)

Ken Price, Snail Cup, 1968, glazed ceramic, 3 ½ inches high (private drove).

Carl Belz'south Top Ten:

Carl Belz is Director Emeritus of the Rose Art Museum, Brandeis University, where he was director from 1974 - 1998; and he was an inspiring instructor for even longer. He was my showtime art history professor, and he has been a friend and mentor to me for 50+ years and counting.

Republished from other sources, and somewhat revised for LBAB, is an extensive essay on Jake Berthot's art that includes heartfelt and perceptive quotes from the artist;and, my personal favorite, a masterful essay that places the under-appreciated artist David Park in the context of the San Francisco and New York art scenes.

Jake Berthot, Lovella's Matter, 1969.

David Park, Rowboat, 1958, oil on canvass, 57 ten 61 inches (Boston MFA).

and AARP Painter Supreme on Belz's personal response to Hans Hofmann's late great painting stage.

HansHofmann (at age 84), The Clash, 1964, oil on canvas, 52 x lx inches (Berkeley Art Museum).

The remaining essays are selected from Curatorial Flashbacks – a series of 20 posts about Belz's years as Manager of the Rose. Curatorial Flashbacks #15: Early on Daze recounts some of his experiences condign an art historian and museum director;

Curatorial Flashbacks #12: The Perfect Fit is an entertaining mail most acquiring a Mel Ramos painting – a spin-off of Woman 1, 1950-52, a famous de Kooning painting at MoMA. The Ramos painting inspired some other spin-off by Robert Colescott that was already in the Rose collection at the time Ramos'south picture became bachelor;

Mel Ramos, I Still Go A Thrill When I See Neb #1, 1976, oil on canvas, eighty 10 70 inches. (Rose Art Museum, Brandeis University).

Installation View, Judy Pfaff, Elephant, Rose Art Museum, Brandeis University, 1995.

and Meet George Augusta is almost, to quote Belz, "a commencement-charge per unit, highly successful artist working in an art world that orbited in tandem with the art world I knew."

Portrait of Rosalynn Smith Carter past George Augusta, © George Augusta, 1984, oil on canvass, 32 x 40 inches (White House Collection).

In that location are two painfully funny posts near his dealing with the Abstract Expressionist painter Helen Frankenthaler, a slap-up artist simply a difficult person.Own't No Mountain High Enough, isabout the ordeal of working with her on a catalog of her exhibition at the Rose;and Once More than With Helen relates the trials of curating this exhibition.

Helen Frankenthaler, Mother Goose Tune, 1959, oil on canvas, 81 ¾ 10 103 ½ inches (Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, Gift of Sydney and Frances Lewis).

And ii more than posts:

Finally, I selected a couple of standout posts from Kyle Gallup and Irene Borngraeber who each wrote an occasional slice for Left Banking concern:Remembering Sir Anthony Caro

and Sophie Calle at Paula Cooper.

©Sophie Calle/ARS. Courtesy of the Paula Cooper Gallery, New York. Photo: Ellen Wilson.

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Photo of Carl Belz by Man Ray, Paris, 1962, 5 ½ x iii ½ inches.

Carl Belz, my friend and mentor for fifty-five years, died on April 28th. He taught the showtime art history class I ever took (at UMass Amherst), and it was one of the showtime classes he taught after graduating from Princeton. At 6-foot-5, with intense eyes and a bushy mustache, Carl was an imposing figure. He'd dramatically footstep back and forth in front of the slides, gesturing with a very long pointer (this was earlier lasers), totally absorbed. That intensity, together with his passion for art and his desire to appoint with students, made him such a charismatic and inspiring teacher that I, and several of my fellow students, became art history majors.

Carl treated even patently footling things as meaningful and profound, and then it's not surprising that he was the first person to write a serious book on pop music. The Story of Rock, published in 1969, is a classic still read and admired by pop music aficionados. (I was one of his inquiry assistants on the book, and for years later on I would call him and, without introduction, play a second or ii of a forty-5 record. He would inevitably be able to tell me not just the title, but also the championship and length, in minutes and seconds, of the song on the "flip-side.")

In addition to being an influential teacher, Carl was director of the Rose Art Museum at Brandeis University for 24 years (recounted in hisLeftBankArtBlog serial called "Curatorial Flashbacks.") He substantially expanded their collection of contemporary art and curated many notable exhibitions, developing shut relationships with many of the about well-known artists of the twenty-four hour period. And perhaps most of import, he inspired, championed and be-friended local artists in the Boston area — a urban center that, at the time, didn't have many exhibiting venues or support structures for contemporary artists.

When Carl retired from Brandeis, I asked him if he'd consider writing for this fine art blog, and to my surprise and please he agreed. At outset, working with my idol felt bad-mannered to me, but Carl, as was his way, always treated me as a friend and colleague, and we grew fifty-fifty closer. I actually miss him.

Here is a comprehensive Boston Globe obituary that notes many of Carl's achievements, including holding Princeton's single-game rebounding record (29 against Rutgers University in 1959).

thomaswougen.blogspot.com

Source: http://leftbankartblog.blogspot.com/

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