Neil Welliver

Neil Welliver, Grey Bather - 1967 - Oil on canvas, 62 1/8 x 52 1/8 in. (157.7 x 132.3 cm) - Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC, The Joseph H. Hirshhorn Bequest, 1981American artist Neil Welliver (1929-2005) was known by many as the “Dean of Landscape Painting” as well as a Contemporary Realist. Many of his works were inspire by wood areas close to his home in Maine. However, not all of Welliver’s work falls into the categories of landscape or realism--as see from his Grey Bather painting featured here. Artists go through evolutions!

Archibald Motley: An American Icon

Archibald Motley - Blues - 1929 - Oil on canvas (click photo for larger image)Archibald J. Motley, Jr. (1891-1981) was one of the Harlem Renaissance painters, who brought the African American experience of the 1920s and ‘30s to life--on canvas. Unlike most of the other practitioners in that movement, Motley never lived in Harlem. He was born in New Orleans, and spent most of his live in Chicago (where he studied at the Art Institute). The best of his works, in my view, are his night scenes influenced by jazz culture.

John D. Graham - An American Modernist

John D. Graham - Two Sisters - 1944 - Oil, enamel, pencil, charcoal, and casein on composition board - 47 7/8 x 48" (121.4 x 121.8 cm) - Museum of Modern Art (MoMa), New YorkUkranian born American artist John D. (Ivan Dombrowski) Graham (1887–1961) was an American Modernist who trained at the Art Students League of New York. Graham  Ashcan School painter John F. Sloan. Graham, Stuart Davis and Hans Hoffman were mentor figures for the American Abstract Expressionist artists, including Arshile Gorky, Willem de Kooning, Jackson Pollock, Lee Krasner and Mark Rothko.