January/February 2015

Three Studies by Donalee Nelson

Inspiration

Matisse has always been a favorite artist of mine so when I took a class in wine label design I was inspired by his use of color and his amazing cut-outs. The closest I had ever come to trying my hand at tearing paper to form an image was in my first year of high school when I was enrolled, as the first sophomore ever, in a class of seniors called Gallery. I was so over my head and felt completely adrift and remarkably untalented. The class was working on a collaborative piece and I just didn’t get it This trio of studies was done for a class, Art of the Vine, many years later when I was far less intimidated. Matisse originally made cut-outs in the 1930’s as mock-ups (maquettes) for future paintings…some were consignment pieces. Eventually he recognized that they could stand on their own as works of art and as his health declined and it became harder for him to paint he focused on these cut-outs. They differ from standard collage work in that they are pure color and do not incorporate any pieces from outside sources such as magazines, books or  newspapers to inform them.  Ultimately they were made up of pieces of paper painted with gouache and later in life when he was confined to bed in Vence, he stopped painting and focused on the cut-outs with the help of assistants. The Chapel in Vence, where he lived, is filled with beautiful stained glass windows based on the cut-outs.    

Hightlight

Henri Matisse: The Cut-Outs was conceived when one of MoMA s prized cut-outs needed conservation to bring it back to its full beauty. MoMA owns the only cut-out that Matisse conceived for a particular room, his dining room in Nice. The Swimming Pool which has been the subject of conservation is the centerpiece of this exhibit along with over 100 other pieces. This is the largest exhibit of these pieces ever mounted. Along with it the museum also presents MoMA Studio: Beyond the Cut-Outs which allows exhibit goers to learn by doing and seeing. The exhibit runs through February 10, 2015. This exhibit was extended by popular demand. Go to www.MoMa.org for further information.

Where you can see my artwork

Check out my artwork at Rons. For further information call the shop at 805.489.4747.  Rons is located at 850 W Grand in Grover Beach a few blocks from the train station, a golf course and the beautiful Pacific Ocean. For more information go to Rons website at www.ronsingroverbeach.com or find him on facebook.

Not To Be Missed –Museum Exhibits

California: The Golden Years is an ongoing exhibit at the Bowers Museum in Santa Ana. Featured are 22 paintings done in the late 19^th and early 20^th century by some of the best California artists. Included are Elmer Wachtel, William Wendt and Gardner Symons. First Californians features the museum’s vast collection of Native American art and is also an ongoing installation. Information is available at www.bowers.org

Hollywood Costume, organized by the Victoria and Albert Museum is currently at the old May Company building on Wilshire through March 2, 2015. With additional costumes provided by the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences, the exhibit is a must see for any movie fan. Check on line at www.oscars.org/hollywoodcostume for tickets.

Archibald Motley: Jazz Age Modernist is on view at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art until February 1. One of the most important artists of the Harlem Renaissance, the exhibit covers the career of the artist including periods of his life spent in Chicago, Paris and Mexico. Details can be found here at www.lacma.org

Andy Warhol: Shadows is now at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles (Grand Avenue) through February 15, 2015 and is the first West Coast showing of this monumental work. The painting, comprised of 102 parts, was done in 1978-79. The series was conceived as one work with two different compositions that are variously silk screened or hand painted. Much of it is repetitive and varies from somber to electric. What a treat to see it as Warhol intended…together in one space Check out www.moca.org for information on both shows.

Now at Pepperdine’s Weisman Museum of Art Chuck Close, Face Forward takes center stage through April of 2015. Close changed how portraiture was done with his large scale paintings of faces. He has continued to experiment using not only traditional printmaking methods but has been innovative using tapestry and rubber stamps for instance. This should be an exciting exhibit. Go to http://arts.pepperdine.edu/museum

The Santa Barbara Museum of Art is currently hosting an ongoing exhibit of Impressionist and Post--Impressionist paintings on loan.  Degas to Chagall: Important Loans f rom the Armand Hammer Foundation supplements the museums already wonderful collection of these works. Artists also included in this exhibit are Bonnard, Corot, Renoir, Pissaro and Morisot. Coming up on February 8 and ending May 3 the Santa Barbara Museum of Art hosts Botticelli, Titian and Beyond: Masterpieces of Italian Painting. Included are works by Renaissance and Baroque masters. Check on line at www.sbmuseart.org/ for more details. By the way, Studio One in Big Sur is hosting a series of classes with award winning plein-aire painter, Kelly Medford. The artist lives and works Rome. These classes are set for mid-February and would make a great complement to this exhibit...from one end of the Central Coast to the other. Check www.eringafill.com for information.

When Art Rocked: San Francisco Music Posters 1966-1971 is currently at the SFO Museum at San Francisco’s International Airport. The exhibition presents art and artifacts from the 1960’s San Francisco music scene. An amazing amount of work, particularly posters, was produced at the time. There are 150 posters as part of the exhibit. The display is open to all airport visitors through March 22, 2015. More information is available at www.flysfo.com/museum where you can also see the exhibit on line.

Seattle Collects Northwest Coast Native Art opens at the Seattle Art Museum on February 12 and runs through the middle of May. Culled from many private collections, the exhibit features iconic masks, wooden sculptures and weavings done by Native artists living along the Pacific coast. Go to www.seattleartmuseum.org to obtain more information.

Currently at the Clyfford Still Museum in Denver, Colorado, the museum is hosting The Art of Conservation: Understanding Clyfford Still.  Check out www.clyffordstillmuseum.org for all the details.

American Soldier is a survey of photographic images of soldiers dating from the Civil War through current conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan. The photographs were taken for different purposes but collectively comment on our perception of war. All branches of the military are represented. The museum’s website at  www.nelson-atkins.org will provide more information..

Story Book: Narrative in Contemporary Art is at the Madison Museum of Contemporary Art in Madison, Wisconsin through July 1, 2015. Curated by Dr. Rick Axsom, the exhibit draws from the museum’s permanent holdings and focuses on the diverse ways that artists tell stories. Traditionally, many visual artists based work on religious, mythological or historic subjects. Many have told a story in a single work while others have used multiples to get a tale across…still others have continued to focus on a single subject their entire careers. Some artists explored a single literary work, like Colescott who took on Thomas Mann’s Death in Venice and expressed his take on the famous work with his painting called Venice. This exhibit explores the relationship between visual art and the narrative and the diverse ways that various contemporary artists choose to incorporate storytelling in their art. Story telling through images remains as viable now as it has in the past. For more information go to www.mmoca.org.

An exciting exhibit at the Detroit Institute of Arts features a virtual who’s who of painters. Ordinary People by Extraordinary Artists: Works on Paper by Degas, Renoir and Friends opened September 19 and goes through March 29, 2015. The show features works by these artists as well as Lautrec, Manet, Gaughin, Bonnard and others. It focuses on the drawings and renderings made by these artists of ordinary people, many of which were studies for larger works. It should be a stunning as well as interesting show.  Upcoming at the DIA is Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo in Detroit which opens March 15. The DIA houses one of Rivera’s huge murals which sits above a courtyard in the museum. This exhibit will include many studies done for the mural and some never before seen works by Kahlo. The backstory should be very interesting. If you are planning to be in town be sure to check www.dia.org for all the information.

The New Whitney will open this spring and has many wonderful exhibits set for its inaugural year in its new digs. I’m looking forward to Frank Stella; A Retrospective set to open in the fall of 2015. The show will feature approximately 120 works covering the career of one of the most important contemporary artists of our time from the 50s through his current works. Check www.whitney.org for all the details.

The Albright Knox Gallery is a little gem of a museum in Buffalo, New York. If you are in the area be sure and check it out. Love this gallery. There are many fine exhibits here but Giving Up One’s mark: Helen Frankenthaler in the 1960s and 1970s which runs through February 15, 2015 is sure to be a standout. It focuses on her transition from the use of oil to acrylic paints and from gestural abstractions to images of consolidated color. She is an all time favorite of mine. All the details are at the website www.albrightknox.org so be sure and take a peek.

Thomas Hart Benton’s America Today Mural Rediscovered will be at the Metropolitan Museum in New York from September 30 – April 10, 2015. The mural was donated by the AXA Equitable Life Insurance Company. It was painted for the boardroom of New York’s New School for Social Research and the setting for the ten panel mural has been replicated by the museum. An adjacent gallery features drawings and character studies that the artist completed as he worked on America Today. Another gallery includes works from the museum’s collections which are relevant to the mural. Jackson Pollock was one of Benton’s students so some of his work is included. He also served as a model for the mural. Pollock once said that it took him a long time to shake off Benton’s influence on his work. Also at the Met view Cubism: the Leonard A. Lauder Collection. Shown in public for the first time, the collection features eighty paintings by Braque, Gris, Leger and Picasso and runs through February 16, 2015. Madame Cezanne is yet another exhibit at the Met that is on until March 15, 2015. It consists of portraits made over twenty years by the artist of his mistress and then ultimately his wife and mother of his only son. The show features 24 of the 29 known paintings and drawings he made of her and attests to her ongoing influence on Cezanne’s work. The Metropolitan Museum recently received an exciting gift of 57 works by contemporary African-American artists from the South. The donation consists of 20 quilts, 10 pieces by Thornton Dial and includes paintings, drawings and works of mixed media by Lonnie Holley, Nellie Mae Rowe and others. An exhibit is planned for 2016. Check out  www.metmuseum.org for more information.

The Museum of Fine Arts Boston will host Gordon Parks: Back to Fort Scott through September 13, 2015. Gordon Parks was an artist and photojournalist. In fact, he was the first African-American photographer hired full time by LIFE magazine. In 1950 he went back to Fort Scott, his birthplace and the  town he had left 20 years earlier, to make a series of photographs to accompany an article he planned to call “Back to Fort Scott.” The series chronicled the day to day life of African-American citizens in the town, including the discrimination they faced. This was the period just before the Civil Rights movement took off. The article, which was slated to be published in 1951, never appeared. Also at the MFA is another rare treat, Visiting Masterpiece: Gustave Klimt’s “Adam and Eve.”  The masterpiece will be on view, juxtaposed with Kokoschka’s Two Nudes, through April 27, 2015.The museum’s website, www.mfa.org will provide more information.

In 1962 Mark Rothko was asked to paint six murals for Harvard’s penthouse dining room at Holyoke Center. He took no payment but asked that the murals be displayed together and that curtains be drawn to preserve the color of the paintings. Only five were ever displayed and apparently the request for drawn curtains was ignored and partiers added to the damage by splashing drinks on the canvases. Hence, by 1979 it became apparent that significant damage had occurred. The damage was so complete that the murals were taken down, could no longer be displayed and traditional restoration techniques were of no help. Finally, after twenty years of research and new technology was discovered a unique restoration process was found. The original colors have been digitally projected onto the canvases where they are being displayed in the Harvard Art Museum. Mark Rothko’s Harvard Murals will be open now through July 2015. Details are available at www.harvardartmuseum.org right now.

Simply the Best:

The best place to find books on the arts, Arcana, is a very special book store located in the Helms Bakery complex in Los Angeles…Its wonderful! I have known owner Lee Kaplan for decades and his selection of books is as superb as his taste is impeccable.  Arcana: Books on the Arts is at 8675 Washington Boulevard, Culver City, CA 90232. For information go to  http://www.arcanabooks.com  or call 310.458.1499.

Michiko Jewelry Design is an incredible jewelry store in downtown Seal Beach, CA, featuring excellent one-of-a-kind gifts. The shop owner and artist, Carol Matsumoto, custom designs beautiful pieces. Michiko is at 228 Main Street. Call 563.431.3237 for more information or check www.michikojewelrydesign.com

  

Places to go, People to meet

The Palm Springs Modernism Show and Sale is a 10 day extravaganza for fans of mid-century modern style. Modernism Week runs from February 12 – 22 in and around Palm Springs. Purchase tickets at www.modernismweek.com and get more information. 

In a drive through the area around Lompoc you will see beautiful rolling hills and if you are fortunate to be there at the right time of year you will be treated to the stunning show of color from the area flower and seed farms. Known as the flower and seed capitol of the world, there is much more to see in Lompoc. The city is home to several boutique wineries and boasts over 100 murals on its structures in the heart of the city. If you are headed this way be sure and take them in and check out http://www.lompocmurals.com/ for more facts.

My website at www.donaleenelson.com was designed and created by Sandy Crespo at DesignsCrespo.com.

HAPPY NEW YEAR

Wishing everyone a happy and healthy New Year with more joy and less trauma…creativity and inspiration...peace and love…take care…d

Continue to check back as we will be posting upcoming shows here and on the exhibits page of my website…and again, there is always Facebook.