Author Archives: ds-admin

One of the most unexpected benefits of the modern internet is the encyclopedic release of digital reproductions of art-works, to any and everyone with a computer. Suddenly the visual languages of the world—new and old, historic and informal—along with its … read more >

As I was writing my recent essay on the paintings of Joan Mitchell, I realized that the number of women in the United States besides Georgia O’Keeffe that I knew about for their contribution to contemporary art before 1945 had … read more >

The Abstract-expressionist painter Joan Mitchell is an American artist whose large canvases of the fifties still touch me even now. ‘Touch’ is the right word because her paintings are very physical in their presence, and her mark-making core-deep, both physically … read more >

Ingres’ manner of drawing was as new as the century. It was immediately recognized as expert and admirable. If his paintings were sternly criticized as “Gothic,” no comparable criticism was leveled at his drawings. —Agnes Mongan The role of portraiture … read more >

“To live with Sargent’s water-colours is to live with sunshine captured and held, with the luster of a bright and legible world” –Evan Charteris (1927) I must confess up front that I am ambivalent about the work of the artist … read more >

Georges Seurat is considered to be the most impressionistic of the French 19th Century painters, including Monet, Pisarro, Morisot, and Renoir—-in part because Seurat was scientifically interested the new and novel ideas of atomic particle physics. In his short life … read more >

On a hot summer day when I was a boy of twelve, our pick-up baseball game in Forest Park was rained out in the third inning. Seeking quick shelter until our moms could come later at the appointed time to … read more >

“My drawings don’t start with a ‘beautiful mark’,” writes Kentridge: “It has to be a mark of something out there in the world. It doesn’t have to be an accurate drawing, but it has to stand for an observation, not … read more >

My first awareness of the French artist Pierre Bonnard (1867-1947) was when I was a student in the fifties. I first saw only his elegant graphic art, which was how he made his living in his early years, just like … read more >