The opening reception for Small Gems:  Arts for Giving at Blue Door Gallery in Yonkers revealed a wide variety of items at affordable prices.

Blue Door Gallery director Arlé Sklar-Weinstein in red.

Musical Gallery Manager Martin Gewirtz provided piano standards to the delight of the attendees.

Barbara Sfraga displays her Earth Jewelry.

My paintings at the exhibit.  From left to right:  Gomphrena, Artichoke, Mushrooms

Arts and crafts of many styles shared the space.

Happy customer Golda Solomon.

© 2009 All rights reserved You Can Hire an Artist

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I’ve not seen a show of Richter’s work since MoMA mounted the wonderful exhibit  Gerhard Richter: 40 years of Painting back in 2002.  Then we were treated to the entire variety of his work.  If you have not followed Gerhard Richter’s long career (b. 1932) you may not be aware of his tendency to avoid being pigeon-holed by a style, subject matter, or medium.  If you only went to see his latest abstracts, then you do not know the landscapes, the seascapes, animals, architecture, the nudes, the portraits, the over-painted photographs, mirrors, and sculptures.  Richter avoids giving subject matter a value and meaning by finding no commitment to any one genre.  He pushes this further by obstructing or skewing our examination of any particular subject with paint which is blurred, scraped, layered, or smoothed to acquire a paint surface that we cannot escape.

Here then are some of Richter’s paintings of nudes whose dates range over thirty years.  These are shown in chronological order.  Roter Akt (Red Nude) was completed in 1965 and the latest nude I was able to find, Torso, is from 1997.  There is no consistency in Richter’s depicting of the nudes, not in range of palette, texture, canvas size or shape, or detail.  Maybe we can begin to guess that each work is Richter’s because of the characteristic blurring of the edges of the subjects.  But it is very difficult to be certain that the paintings are all done  by the same artist. 

The eschewing of style is rare among artists whose ambition is international acclaim.  Look at Lucio Pozzi.  (Who?, you say.  Another time, but soon.) In Richter’s case (and Pozzi’s) style intentionally gets lost through his method of working. During the course of his career Richter has collected sketches, images and photographs.  Some photos he has taken, some found, others out of books and magazines.  He has put them into a collection he calls the Atlas.  From this he takes his subject matter and lets the selection dictate the content, color, and composition of his paintings.  With this method he need not make many subjective decisions, and leaves a great deal to chance. In his way, with a lack of meaning in his subject matter and an emphasis on painting itself, Richter is continuing the Modernist mantra of painting as object, a mantra that a few decades ago seemed to be pointing to The Death of Painting, a theory that has been often written about  but never totally caught on.  By giving us our recognizable subject (but at the same time leaving it undefined and elusive) Richter returns painting to its classic traditions as well (minus the meaning).  And Richter gives no answers to anything. 

Maybe its not right then to even show some of his nudes as a group.  If we want to see the randomness that Richter prefers — the lack of cohesiveness, hierarchy, and  style — perhaps viewing his work chronologically is the only way to appreciate that.  But I have a feeling even that is over-thinking the premise.  Randomness can also include happy coincidence.  And I’ve got Half-Naked Thursday as a theme.  And, after all, Richter has his abstraction paintings exclusively in a show at present.  So I’ll get going into midtown Manhattan and give you the report.  But I promise you more of Gerhard Richter’s work, and not just the new abstractions. 

Kathleen Benton

(Click on images to enlarge, read title translations, and details.  Click again to return to page.)

All paintings by Gerhard Richter (German, b. 1932)

Roter Akt (Red Nude), 1965, Oil on canvas,60 cm X 50 cm

Ema (Akt auf einer Treppe) (Ema (Nude on a Staircase)), 1966, Oil on canvas, 200 cm X 130 cm, Museum Ludwig, Cologne, Germany

Akt (Nude), 1967, Oil on canvas, 105 cm X 95 cm

Olympia, 1967, Oil on canvas, 200 cm X 130 cm, Böckmann Collection, Neues Museum, Staatliches Museum für Kunst und Design, Nuremberg, Germany

 I.G., 1993, Oil on canvas, 72 cm X 102 cm

Kl. Badende (Small Bather), 1994, Oil on canvas, 51 cm X 36 cm

 Torso, 1997,  Oil on aluminium, 55 cm X 48 cm

To see complete details of these works and more visit gerhard-richter.com

In a world where audacity and infamy are given accolades, one can hardly be surprised when mere brilliance and virtuosity garner relative obscurity.  That’s why it’s understandable if the name April Gornik doesn’t ring a bell.  Gornick is not a well-known artist.   Although she enjoys a very successful career, I don’t think Gornik has the renown she deserves for her exquisite landscape paintings.

No, I think Gornik’s obscurity has to do with the landscape as her subject matter.  A landscape doesn’t need much explanation.  We don’t need interviews with the artist in order to evaluate our response to a landscape.  We don’t need art critics to tell us what we are seeing and why the work is or isn’t an important artistic statement.   There’s no question of the artist’s intentions, no challenge to cultural taboos, no shock value, no controversy, no sex, no violence, no merde hitting the canvas.

We can simply appreciate a thoroughly traditional painting genre, handled in this case with great skill by an artist with definitely a modern sensibility.  We can  enjoy the light and drama of nature and its interpretation into paint which Gornik does so well.  For this is work about seeing  and painting, not in-your-face headline grabbing.

Moving Sky, 2005, Oil on linen, 24 x 32 inches

I suggest you seek out April Gornik’s paintings for yourself, take a friend with you, and then pass along the good news.  The  news that great painting is alive and well, relevant, and waiting to be discovered through April Gornik’s work, once we have finished reading the headlines about all the scamps.  Know that a reproduction of Gornik’s work, as with most art, is hardly a substitute for the viewing real thing (Light Before Heat is 11 feet long!).  While a great deal of contemporary art can be read about and then argued about as a concept, this work needs to be experienced.

Perhaps April Gornik doesn’t want or need to make noise or headlines to feel successful.  She may be proud of the fact that her work stands on its own without being confrontational and controversial.  It may be enough for her to be masterful and elegant.

Kathleen Benton

Lightning and Water, 1981, Oil on canvas, 50 x 102 inches

Light Before Heat, 1983, Oil on canvas, 66 x 132 inches

Light and Trees, 1996, Oil on linen, 82 x 55 inches

Storm in the Desert, 2002, Oil on linen, 70 x 115 inches

Field and Storm, 2004, Oil on linen, 74 x 95 inches

Sun, Storm, Cloud, 2004, Oil on linen, 72 x 96 inches

Mirror Lake, China, 2004, Oil on Linen, 78 x 104 inches

Dune Sky, 2007, Oil on linen, 70 x 81 inches

Red Desert, 2008, Oil on linen, 68 x 72 inches

The Rains, 2009, Oil on linen, 76 x 79 inches

All paintings by April Gornik (American, b. 1953)

April Gornik Photograph, 2005

Photograph of April Gornik and Eric Fischl, 2008

Eric Fischl photograph of April Gornik in studio

For more information and images of April Gornick’s paintings visit her website:  April Gornik

© 2009 All rights reserved You Can Hire an Artist

All comments are moderated.   Only comments expressed in English will be considered.  Please allow twenty-four hours for your comment to appear.

Musing about the value of art got me to thinking about the value of art for artists with worldwide reputations.  I wondered what fluctuations the values of their works  have endured in a world recession.  It was widely publicized that in May of 2008 Lucian Freud’s Benefits Supervisor Sleeping was sold at Christie’s in Manhattan for $33,640,000 to Roman Abramovich, a Russian billionaire living in the UK.  This was a record for the sale of a living artist’s work.   At that time I’m sure some indicators of a severe economic downturn were already visible, as even the reports of the sale included the word “recession”.  Around that time President Bush was sending Americans an economic stimulus check for $600 with the hopes of avoiding a greater downturn.  (I wonder how much of that money was spent on art?   I bought Santa Clara pottery in Taos, New Mexico, and felt rather patriotic in doing so.)

By October 2008 a further slowing of the market was apparent; only 58% of lots were being sold at the big art auction houses.  Freud’s Portrait of Francis Bacon sold at Christie’s in London  for a mere  £5,417,250 ($9,404,346).  The sale was considered a blessing for the auction house even though the estimates hoped for as much as £7 million.  

 In the spring of this year several works of art owned by the victims of Bernie Madoff  were sold on the auction block at Christie’s.  Even with the “conspicuous consumption”  label daunting buyers, the prices achieved were more than adequate in my view.  When a late Picasso, Musketeer With a Pipe, 1968, sold for $14.6 million I thought the economy just can’t be as bad as they say.  (Do you know Christie’s only charges a 25% commission for the first $50,000?   Then the percentage rate actually goes down.  Many galleries charge as much as 50% commission.)   

I must say my opinion for Lucian Freud’s later painting is much more positive than my view of late Picasso’s.  I think I’ve been aware of Freud’s work since my college days, when his early work was included in contemporary art survey courses.  Then his portraits were much more stylized, simplified and flat, and always a bit odd-looking as portraits go (every subject had the same eyes).  As Freud has matured his eye for detail and individuality has become more keen and his paint application has become heavier and more textural.  The more true-to-life his portraits have become the more impressive to me.  Freud’s  unvarnished honesty regarding his subject is facinating, whether we recognize the sitter or not.  John Singer Sargent once said “Every time I paint a portrait I lose a friend.”  Sargent’s respectable portraits have nothing on Lucian Freud’s.  One must be very comfortable in one’s skin to sit for Lucian Freud.

Time marches on and the world’s ecomonic status seems to be improving a bit.  Lucian Frued is doing well and so are the owners of Picassos (even when your money’s been stolen you can always sell your art).  I would like to think that with yesterday’s close of the New York Stock Exchange ending with the Dow Jones Industrial Average over 10,000 as a bellwether for the economy.  Let’s hope that there are also better times ahead  for art collecting  and  a generous holiday season as well.  Let’s hope that trend finds it way to Yonkers.  Still, what price art? 

 Kathleen Benton
 

PS – It’s Half-Naked Thursday and therefore I’m including this clip of Lucian Freud talking to Omnibus director Jake Auerbach in 1988.    Freud seems very uncomfortable having to express himself verbally, perhaps as self-conscious as being half-naked (Perhaps that’s not a good analogy.  Freud is rumored to have fathered over 50 children).  It’s one of five segments all available on YouTube.

(Click on images to enlarge and read details.  Click again to return to page.)

Lucian Freud (British, b. Germany, 1922), Benefits Supervisor Sleeping, 1995, Oil on canvas, 59 5/8 x 86¼ in., Private collection

Queen Marie-Antoinette had King Louis XVI pull some strings to get her favorite portrait painter, Élizabeth-Louise Vigée-Lebrun, admitted to France’s Académie Royale de Peinture et de Sculpture as a painter of historical allegory.  Rules at the Academy barred the few women that were admitted from life drawing classes attended by the men.  But that apparently didn’t stop Élizabeth-Louise from learning her anatomy lessons.  Soon everyone who was anyone sat for Vigée-Lebrun, including 30 portraits of Maire Antoinette.

Vigée-Lebrun became one of the most popular artists of her day.  She survived the French Revolution, fleeing to the courts of Italy, Austria, and Russia.  In Rome she was elected to the Roman Accademia di San Luca.  While in Russia she painted numerous members of Catherine the Great’s family. Vigée-Lebrun was made a member of the Academy of Fine Arts of St. Petersburg as well.  She was able to return to France during the reign of Emperor Napoleon I, but much in demand by aristocrats and notables she also traveled to England and Switzerland on commissions.  In Switzerland she was made an honorary member of the Societe pour l’Avancement des Beaux-Arts of Geneva.  She published her memoirs in 1835 and 1837 giving us a glimspe of the artist’s training methods of the time.  Over her lifetime Vigée-Lebrun painted 660 portraits and 200 landscapes.  Not bad for a girl in the 18th century.  Funny nobody mentioned her in school.

Kathleen Benton

All art work featured in the slideshow by Élizabeth-Louise Vigée-Lebrun (French, 1755-1842)

Bacchante, 1785, Oil on panel, 109 x 78 cm, Museum Nissim de Comondo, Paris  France.  This painting was commissioned by Count de Vaudreuil, in addition to a portrait of himself.

Lady Hamilton as a Bacchante, 1785, Oil on canvas, 28 7/8 x 23 3/8 in, Clark Institute, Williamstown, MA

Bacchus and Ariadne ?, Oil on canvas, 1782, unlocated

Allegory of Poetry, 1774, Oval, 24 x 30 in, unlocated

American Woman, 1803, Oil on canvas, unlocated

Young Woman in Love -?, Oil on canvas, 92 x 73 cm, unlocated

Portrait of a Young Lady as Flora, 1811, Oval, 72 x 60 cm, National Museum of Stockholm, Sweden

There are many sites the feature the art and career of Élizabeth-Louise Vigée-Lebrun.  The one I’ve found with the most information and art examples is at http://www.batguano.com/vigee.html