May/June 2015

Silhouette – watercolor by Donalee Nelson

Some thoughts on the process: Inspiration

If you talk to any artist the answer to what inspires them would vary greatly. From just about anything they see, hear, taste or touch to line or political or social agenda. For many it is a mixture of these and is always evolving. I am inspired by many things but the main thing has always been color. My mother saved all of my report cards and throughout these there is a theme. The positive comments were always about my artwork but more specifically about my use of color. I was fortunate to have many teachers early on, even in grade school, who were interested in art and encouraged me. I have to say I did not always share their opinions. Many who seemed so old to me were what was termed maiden ladies back in the day. One wonderful teacher, Miss. Gahagan, loved to travel by ocean liner to her chosen destination on her summers off. During the school year each of her students chose a cruise ship line, like the Matson or Cunard line, and researched it…the process opened our eyes to the possibilities out there and exposed me to some great poster art as well as places to go and people to meet. I don’t do much plein-air painting any more but still love painting landscapes so they are either from memory or of places I see in my own little world. The painting above was done from memory after a drive back to the Central Coast and just as a storm was clearing. Many times I am inspired by a color or combination of colors and create a landscape that way. I love to do abstracts and would like to do more of them and of course, the still lives are from the surroundings in my daily life. What inspires you?

Highlights

The New Whitney opens May 1 with an exciting new exhibit. America is Hard to See features works from the Whitney’s impressive collection. The exhibit which runs through September 27 features over 400 artists. Frank Stella; A Retrospective opens in October 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.

Where you can see my artwork

My artwork is available 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

Adams, Curtis and Weston: Photographers of the American West opens at the Bowers Museum in Santa Ana on May 16 and is up through November 29. The exhibit of the work of these three celebrated photographers shows how they documented the changing landscape of the west. Information is available at www.bowers.org on this installation.

Modern Masters opens June 16 at the Palm Springs Art Museum. Amazing artworks will be on view including those by Manet, Van Gogh, Renoir, Rothko, Willem de Kooning and Joan Mitchell. The show will be hanging through September 6 so check out www.psmuseum.org for further details.

Nature and the American Vision: The Hudson River School can be seen now through June 7 at The Los Angeles County Museum of Art. Featuring 45 individual 19^th century landscapes from the New York Historical Society’s collection, the exhibit is conceived as a grand tour by being set up thematically by regions. Artists include Bierstadt, Cole and Durand. Details can be found at www.lacma.org on this exhibit.

J.M.W. Turner: Painting Set Free is at Getty Center in Los Angeles until May 24. This exhibit displays over 60 oil paintings and watercolors by the master and is the first exhibit to focus on his final years. Many of his greatest works were created after the age of 60…a fact that is inspiring and should give us all courage. Put together by the Tate Britain in association with the Getty and the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, the exhibit shows the breadth of Turner’s artistry. The place for information is at www.getty.edu with a sneak peek at what is in store.

Open now through June 22 at the Norton Simon Museum in Pasadena is Tete-a-tete: Three Masterpieces from the Musee d’Orsay. Included as one of the three is Whistler’s  iconic portrait of his mother…Arrangement in Grey and Black, No.1  The other two paintings are Manet’s portrait of his friend Emile Zola and Cezanne’s Card Players. At the same time three masterworks from The Norton Simon’s own collection will be on display at the Musee d’Orsay in Paris. These are Van Gogh’s Portrait of a Peasant, Renoir’s The Pont des Arts and Vuillard’s First Fruits.  More information is available at www.nortonsimon.org so be sure to take a look.

The Armand Hammer Foundation has loaned some amazing Impressionist and Post-Impressionist paintings to the Santa Barbara Museum of Art for an ongoing exhibit.  Degas to Chagall: Important Loans f rom the Armand Hammer Foundation supplements the museum’s already wonderful collection of these works. Artists also included in this exhibit are Bonnard, Corot, Renoir, Pissaro and Morisot. Check on line at www.sbmuseart.org/ for more details.

An exhibit of 120 African sculptures from the Richard H. Scheller collection, Embodiments: Masterworks of African Figurative Sculpture, runs through July 5 at the de Young Museum in San Francisco. There is also still time to catch Botticelli to Braque: Masterpieces from the National Galleries of Scotland. The exhibit which is there until May 31 covers over 400 years from the Renaissance through the early 20^th century and features some works never before seen in the United States. These are both well worth the trip and www.deyoung.famsf.org will have all pertinent information. The de Young prides itself in making its exhibits accessible and has instituted a plan for people who are unable to come to the museum whether for medical reasons, distance or finances. They have two robots that will take visitors on a tour via the internet. Rebecca Bradley is the Accessibility Curator. You can email her office at access@famsf.org if this great idea is of interest.

From Abstract Exprssion to Colored Planes runs through August 1 at the Seattle Art Museum. The exhibit tracks the change in the art world when Paris was at its center to the shift to New York after World War II. The ground- breaking abstract expression movement in the United States began in the 1940’s with artists like Hofmann, Gorky and Pollack whose painterly style and large surfaces represented a break with the past. With later artists such as Frank Stella, Barnett Newman and Ellsworth Kelly a transition to a cooler hard-edge style emerged. This exhibition follows the evolution. Go to www.seattleartmuseum.org to obtain more information.

Upcoming at the Clyfford Still Museum in Denver, Colorado, is Clyfford Still: The  Colville Reservation and Beyond, 1934-1939. The artwork comes from Still’s time as a teacher at Washington State College and reflects time spent with the indigenous people of northwest Washington. The exhibit which runs from May 8 – September 13 chronicles the artist’s evolution into abstraction. The images are stunning! 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 exhibit is on view at the Nelson-Atkins Museum in St. Louis through June 21.The museum’s website at www.nelson-atkins.org will provide more information.

As a relatively new museum, The Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art in Bentonville, Arkansas has begun on a promising note with an exhibit on loan, From Van Gogh to Rothko: Masterworks from the Albright-Knox Gallery. The installation which is on display through June 7 includes 76 pieces and traces the history of avant-guard art from 19^th century Modernism through 20^th century Pop Art. Along with Van Gogh and Rothko such diverse artists represented are Picasso, Kahlo, Warhol, O’Keefe and Dali among others. The museum’s website at www.crystalbridges.org is replete with information. Sounds like they are off to a great start.

Chicago has deep Irish roots so the exhibit at the Chicago Arts Institute which is up through June 7 comes as no surprise. Ireland: Crossroads of Art and Design, 1690-1840 includes over 30o objects from public and private collections as well as from its own exemplary collection of Irish decorative and fine arts. This is also the first exhibition of this scope undertaken either in the U.S. or in Europe. More details are at www.artic.edu for this fascinating exhibit.

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, such as 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. Go to www.mmoca.org for more details.

Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo in Detroit is currently on view at the Detroit Institute of Arts and runs through July 12. 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 then be sure to check www.dia.org for all the information.

From May 16 – November 1 The New York Botanical Garden’s Frida Kahlo: Art.Garden.Life exhibit features a dozen of her artworks. The garden at her home, Casa Azul, near Mexico City which greatly inspired her has been reimagined at the botanical garden. A stunning look at some examples at www.nybg.org will also add more info.

Elaine de Kooning: Portraits is currently at the National Portrait Gallery in Washington D.C. and will be there through the first of next year. The artist is known for her portraits of men, just as her husband, Willem, was known for his paintings  of women. Both were part of the abstract expressionist movement. Her portraits include such diverse subjects as President Kennedy, Allen Ginsberg and Merc Cunningham. She sought to capture that specific feature or persona that made the person instantly recognizable. A sample of these images at www.nationalportraitgallery.org will give you a taste of her work.

The Albright Knox Gallery is a little gem of a museum in Buffalo, New York. It has an exceptional permanent collection particularly deep in post-war European and American works. Currently it has Jeff Koons: Gazing Ball (Charity) on display through August 16. The artist was inspired by a Picasso painting, La Soupe, of a young girl and a woman handing the child a bowl of soup. It was Picasso’s comment on the extreme poverty he saw. The pristine plaster sculpture is in stark contrast to Picasso’s painting as the Koons piece, replete with Hermes Birkin bags, is a comment on today’s affluence. The museum has La Soupe on loan so both pieces are being displayed together. How great is this! If you are in the area be sure and check it out. Love this gallery. All the details are at the website www.albrightknox.org so be sure and take a peek.

Van Gogh: Irises and Roses opens at the Metropolitan Museum of Art on May 12 and runs through August 16. On the day before his departure from the asylum in Saint-Remy he painted four bouquets, two of irises and two of roses in contrasting formats and color palettes. For the first time since the artist’s death they will all be displayed together. 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.

Currently at the Museum of Modern Art is Andy Warhol: Campbell’s Soup Cans and Other Works, 1953 - 1967. The exhibit is on display through October 12 and features 32 of his works from this period. For the first time The Soup Cans will be displayed in a line as they were intended to be viewed. Several upcoming shows look interesting. Yoko Ono: One Woman Show, 1960 – 1971 begins May 17.  Years ago her show consisted of releasing flies and asking patrons to track them so whatever she does is bound to be unique.  Apparently director Martin Scorsese has been collecting rare movie posters for years. On May 30 they will go on display at MoMA. Scorsese Collects runs through September 30 and centers on a poster for the 1951 film, Tales of Hoffman. I remember seeing that film as a child and it left a huge impression on me when the dancer, Moira Shearer, fell apart and her dismembered body continued to move. The Red Shoes, which also starred the ballerina, preceded it and was considered a must-see for children. I saw it again years later and it was actually a very scary movie on a par with Bambi (in which the namesake deer’s mother was killed by a hunter). But I digress and I’m sure the poster collection is a must-see for every movie buff. MoMA’s website at www.moma.org will fill you in.

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. 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 a unique restoration process was discovered. 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 is open now through July 2015. Details are available at www.harvardartmuseum.org right now.

Crossing over our northern border to Toronto the Royal Ontario Museum hosts a show featuring the textiles of our neighbors to the south. !Viva Mexico! Clothing and Culture opens May 9 and displays the museum’s incredible collection of Mexican textiles. Many have never been on view to the public before this show. If you are interested in exploring rich color, regional diversity and bold style www.rom.on.ca is the place for you.

If your plans take you to England in the near future make sure to stop by the Tate Gallery. The first retrospective of the work of artist Sonia Delaunay is currently on view and will be up through August 9. The EY Exhibition: Sonia Delaunay celebrates the 60 year career of this seminal artist and her wide range of work. Included are paintings, fabrics and clothing. Don’t miss it. You can make plans by going to www.tate.org.uk for more information.

Just a quick mention that Alexander McQueen: Savage Beauty continues through August 2 at the Victoria & Albert in London. The exhibit focuses on the late couturiers amazing designs. Images are available at www.vam.ac.uk so  you can find out all you want to know.

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

There are several Artist Studio Tours around this time of year. Carpinteria Arts Center sponsors one that includes thirty-five local artists that open their studios for view by the public on May 9 &10. Since the studios are at various locations better check their website at www.carpinteriaarscener.org for more information. Another takes place in Venice on May 17 and includes an artwalk and auction as well as open studio tours. This is much larger and a silent auction features works by 300 artists. If you are interested www.veniceartwalk.org has all the details. Proceeds go to the Venice Family Clinic.

If you love comedy and have some extra bucks, Reel Comedy with Mel Brooks features a talk by the comedian, actor, director and producer on May 12 at 5pm at the Montecito Country Club.  This gala is a benefit for UCSB’s Arts and Lectures Outreach program. Tickets for the talk are $1,000 a seat and $10,000 per table.  Those of you with deep pockets can purchase tickets through the UCSB Arts and Lectures Development office at 805. 893.3465.

Paso Robles is the place to be May 14 – 17. The annual Paso Wine Festival spotlights some of California’s best wines. For details go to www.pasowine.com and make your plans.

On May 15th artist Erin Lee Gafill will speak at the Monterey Museum of Art on her roots in the arts. Her family owns Nepenthe in Big Sur and she comes from a long line of artists. She will discuss how discovering the paintings of her great-great-grandmother, Jane Gallatin Powers, spurred her on to begin her own journey into painting. Included will be over 100 images of Jane’s life, early Carmel days, and her paintings. Erin will also present some of her own artwork. What a treat!. Here's a little more on Jane meantime.
http://www.cadillaccicatrix.org/erin_gafill2.htm

Caltech in Pasadena will host “Watching Paint Dry and Colors Fade; The Intersection of Art and Science” on May 20. Katherine Faber, a material scientist, will add some insight into the problem of deteriorating artwork and how to determine what the work originally looked like. Sounds like an interesting talk and will add information to solving these mysteries. Go to www.eventscaltech.edu for details on this event in the Beckman Auditorium.

If you want to make a weekend of it you can start in Ojai for Art in the Park on May 23 & 24 where you can see a juried show in Libbey Park (www.ojaiartscenter.org ) Then head north to Santa Barbara for the I Madonnari Italian Street Painting Festival which happens May 24 & 25. The annual event is a highlight with chalk street paintings, live music and an Italian market. Old Mission Santa Barbara is where you will find it and www.imadonnarifestival.com

lists all the facts.

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.

Addendum

The new Helen Mirren movie, Woman in Gold, chronicles the challenges faced by a family trying to retrieve a stolen piece of art after the Holocaust. The title refers to the famous piece painted by Gustav Klimt. Unfortunately it is an all too familiar story of Nazi art theft to come out of World War II. After the war so many works were bought by unsuspecting or ignorant buyers and many pieces ended up in private collections as well as in museums. This is why provenance is so important. If there is no history or gaps attached to a major piece of art it should be a red flag. Of course if a provenance is made up that is another story. One review of the movie was lukewarm but left the reviewer anxious to see a documentary on the subject. This is the latest movie on the subject following 2013’s Monuments Men about a group of museum curators and art historians who were sent to Europe to retrieve stolen art work. If you are interested in modern art and its history or just want to learn more on this subject, Ann Sinclair has written My Grandfather’s Gallery: A Family History of Art and War. Her grandfather was the esteemed French art dealer Paul Rosenberg whose gallery held the works of Picasso, Braque, Leger and Matisse. Because he was Jewish he moved his family to New York during the war. The Nazis considered the artworks in his gallery degenerate and it was taken over and used for anti-semitic activities. The author is a well-known journalist in her own right, and this should be a very interesting book.

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

We lost a good friend, artist August Santisteven. I prefer to think of his lovely spirit heading toward the light. He brightened all our days ...I know we will all miss him.

Take care and have a wonderful Spring!

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.