Jane Freilicher: A Quiet Realism

Jane Freilicher - Early New York Evening- 1954 - Oil on linen - 51 11/16 × 31 7/8in. (131.3 × 81 cm) - Whitney Museum of American Art, NYAmerican Realist Jane Freilicher (1924-2014) was a representational painter of both urban and country scenes. Her inspiration came from her homes in lower Manhattan and Water Mill, Long Island. She was a close friend of many of the New York School of painters, and a muse to several of its poets and writers.

Amidst the existential gestures and transcendent color fields of Abstract Expressionism, Freilicher hewed to a quiet realism that won the admiration of her friends, and to painters and poets alike.

Art critic Peter Schjeldahl once noted, "She values color and tone, over line and shape, as primary sensations of the eye," and thus avoids being overly cerebral.

Elizabeth Murray: Blurring Distinctions

Elizabeth Murray - Painter’s Progress, Spring 1981 - 1981 - Oil on canvas, nineteen panels - 9’ 8" x 7' 9” - Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), New York (Click Photo for Large Image)Elizabeth Murray (1940-2007) was an American artist whose work “blurs the distinction between abstraction and representation, and her shaped canvases and multipart supports challenge traditional conventions of painting.”

“Painter's Progress, Spring 1981” is a painting of an artist's palette and brush, made up of 19 individual canvases of various shapes, arranged in a fashion that allows the viewer to see the discrete pieces but also the painted image. Murray's paintings are fun, cartoonish, and also deadly serious in their commitment to the medium and its boundless possibilities. Murray is famous for expanding painting's dimensions by working across multiple canvasses, and fragmenting the picture plane. 

Murray described this piece as "so psychologically satisfying because I finally realized the meaning of shattering and of putting an image inside the shattered parts that would make them whole again." 

Paula Rego: Dissecting Psychology

Paula Rego - The Dance - 1988 - Acrylic paint on paper on canvas - 2280 × 2890 × 80 mm - Tate, London (click photo for larger image)Portuguese-born British painter Paula Rego (born 1935) is a contemporary artist particularly known for her paintings and prints based on storybooks. Rego’s style has evolved from abstract towards representational, and her work often reflects “feminism, colored by folk-themes from her native Portugal”.

“In Paula Rego's impressive oeuvre the contradictions of humanity are fully exposed; fantasy and reality, strength and suppression, and the personal and the political all writhe together in circling dialogue.”

The Dance (featured here) 1988 is a scene on a moon-lit beach. The work has a dream-like quality, heightened by its night-time setting, the lengthy shadows cast by the figures, and by Rego’s unusual use of scale, with the woman on her own appearing to be much larger than the figures alongside her.

Rego's work continues to challenge political narratives and to explore contemporary issues particularly those affecting women. Art critic Robert Hughes referred to her as "the best painter of women's experiences alive today." Rego lives in Hampstead, North London, and travels regularly to her studio in Kentish Town. Nevertheless, she remains an incredibly important cultural figure in her native Portugal, where she is considered to be one of the nation's most famous and influential artists.

Jill’s Spring 2020 Art & Art History Classes

(click photo for larger image)How about treating yourself to some Art and Art History class this Spring? 

 “Dare to Try” your hand at oil painting in one of my classes at the lovely Cedar Lane Arts Center, 235 Cedar Lane, Ossining, NY 10562. These classes run for six weeks and there are two additional (and optional) open workshop sessions. You can register HERE for either the Beginners or Intermediate class. Both sessions begin the week of April 20th.

 “Dr. Jill” will also be presenting a five-week “Ninth Street Women” series at the beautiful Bethany Arts Community, beginning Saturday, April 25th at 10 AM. You can register HERE for what will be a lively and informative class.

Both locations are perfect learning environments, and both have plenty of free parking!

More details are here in the flyer.

Chuck Close: The Grid

Chuck Close - Lucas I - 1986-87 - Oil and graphite on canvas - 100 x 84 in. (254 x 213.4 cm) - Metropolitan Museum of Art, New YorkThe earlier works of Photo-Realist associated with American Photo-Realist Chuck Close (born 1940) are minutely detailed portrait heads he painted on a monumental scale in black, white, and gray. These works, factually rendered, magnified every pore and imperfection to unexpected and unnatural proportions.

Paintings such as “Lucas I" (featured here) depicts fellow artist Lucas Samaras, and are representative of Close's later, more colorful and painterly style. They go beyond the hyper-reality of his earlier portraits and elaborate on his pictorial investigation of the act of perception, breaking down the visual information into component parts that describe the actual process of seeing, not just the end result.” (MetMuseum)

“Photorealist painting of the 1970s celebrated the glossy, mirror-like "look" of the photograph, but after achieving that ideal, Close swiftly turned to portraiture, suggesting it as a means for exploring unsettling aspects of how self identity is always a composite and highly constructed, if not ultimately conflicted fiction.” (The Art Story)

My own appreciation for Close’s work lies in his reliance on (and appreciation of) the grid, as a fundamental tool of art-making, and a means for indepth artistic examination and expression.