May / June 2017

Photo of Frida Kahlo by Nicholas Murray

In 1980 on my first day of work at Metromedia in Los Angeles I was greeted by a large painting by Frida Kahlo. Metromedia had a large art collection spread out among its various facilities around the United States. I never forgot the stunning work and the experience of seeing it for the first time. The Bowers Museum in Santa Ana currently hosts Frida Kahlo: Her Photos through June 25, 2017. During her lifetime she amassed a large photo collection, mostly single prints, which were stashed away on her death. The collection came to light recently. This exhibition consists of over two hundred images, some taken by her but others by artists such as Edward Weston and Tina Modotti. You will not want to miss this so go to www.bowers.org for all the pertinent information. Maria Appleman was able to see it and shares the inspirational experience:
       

This exhibit was a look at the family album and personal photographs of Frida Kahlo, a famous Mexican painter who lived a short, productive, and difficult life (1907 – 1954).  It included photos of the wedding of her German father and Mexican mother, her baby pictures, sisters and aunts, school mates, friends and husband.

Because the photos were in chronological order, one could see that as she became an adult, she developed a distinct personal style reflecting her Mexican heritage and political views. There were photos of young Kahlo in her school uniform. One photo of her at about 15 years of age showed a thin girl with a page boy haircut and bangs in a dress worn by women in the 1920’s.  By her 20s, she had hair pulled back away from her face and dressed in traditional indigenous Tehuana dress of long skirts, shawls and embroidered blouses worn with large jewelry in bold designs.

Kahlo had a difficult life because of bad health and bad luck. When she was only 6 years old, she had polio. The disease left her with a shorter, weakened right leg causing her to limp and develop curvature of her spine. At 18 years old she was hurt badly while riding in a bus that crashed with a streetcar. She suffered multiple fractures of her spine, collarbone, ribs, pelvis, and foot. The combination caused chronic pain and increasing weakness. Photos show her in bed while in traction or with a brace around her chest to alleviate her back pain. There were many photos of her recovering from surgery because she had 30 operations during her lifetime. Although she was able to stand and paint at the beginning of her career, by the end she was painting while sitting in a wheelchair or in bed from a horizontal position.
There were many photos of her husband Diego Rivera, an internationally renowned Mexican painter and muralist. His photos showed an older, huge, ugly man with protruding eyes and a very round face. Although far from dashing or romantic looking, he was the obsessive love of Kahlo’s life. Diego was a notorious womanizer and, apparently, irresistible. Photos of his most famous conquests, the movie stars Maria Felix, Dolores del Rio, and Paulette Goddard, were part of Kahlo’s album. Photos showed how Kahlo’s world became increasingly smaller with time.  In their early life together, Kahlo and Rivera traveled to various U.S. cities where Rivera worked on his mural commissions. Kahlo traveled to Paris alone to participate in an exhibition with surrealist painters although she rejected this label, saying she painted her actual reality, and not an alternate, surreal reality. She had interesting group photos from that same trip of Salvador Dali, Andre Breton and other surrealist painters dressed in suits and ties. By the end of her life at 47, Kahlo had had her right leg amputated at the knee and was dependent on a wheelchair and crutches for mobility. Photos of her last exhibition showed she attended while in a four poster bed. The Bowers Museum photo exhibit is about the life of a woman who had channeled her physical and emotional pain into art. We, the audience, could see that despite terrible calamities. Frida Kahlo had lived and loved with courage and bravado.

Highlights

Now at the Palm Springs Museum of Art is Women of Abstract Expressionism. The exhibit opened February 18 and ends May 28, 2017. This is exciting as it is the first time there has been a show devoted specifically to these ground breaking women. The abstract expressionist movement in art was the first truly American art movement in modern times. Included are over fifty major works by twelve painters active in the ‘40s and ‘50s. Mary Abbott, Jane DeFeo, Elaine de Kooning, Perle Fine, Helen Frankenthaler, Sonia Getchtoff, Judith Godwin, Grace Hartigan, Lee Krasner, Joan Mitchell, Deborah Remington and Ethel Schwabacher are the artists being celebrated. The museum also has a subsidiary museum in Palm Desert known as the Galen. It is surrounded by the four acre Faye Sarkowsky Sculpture Garden that features over ten significant sculptures surrounded by landscaped gardens. A visit to these two venues make it worth the drive. Google the museum or go to www.psmuseum.org for current information.

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

Highlights of the Permanent Collection celebrates the Santa Barbara Museum of Art’s 75^th anniversary. The exhibit features some of the museums most well-known pieces. The Armand Hammer Foundation has loaned several amazing Impressionist and Post-Impressionist paintings to the Santa Barbara Museum of Art. Of course, Portrait of Mexico Today, painted by David Alfaro Siquerios while living in political exile in Los Angeles in 1932, has a home in the front façade of the museum. It is intact and is in a protected spot. We are so lucky to have it. Coming up May 7, 2017 the museum hosts Rodin and His Legacy. Rodin was the most influential sculptor of the 19^th Century. The installation examines the artist’s innovative spirit. Check on line at www.sbmuseart.org/ for more details.

Picasso & Rivera: Conversations Across Time is currently at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art until May 7, 2017.The exhibit compares the two contemporary artists…where their paths intersected and how both incorporated inspiration from the arts of the antiquities. Included are over 150 works. Maholy-Nagy: Future Present is on display through June 18, 1917. This prolific artist was a teacher at the Bauhaus and later founded the Chicago Institute of Design. The artist was a painter, photographer, writer and stage designer and this is the first comprehensive exhibit of his works. Over 250 pieces are included and there is a separate installation of a design he conceived in 1930 but that was not fulfilled during his life. Room of the Present is a contemporary construction of Maholy-Nagy’s vision. More information is at www.lacma.org on these exhibits.

The Summer of Love Experience: Art, Fashion, and Rock & Roll is coming to the de Young Museum in San Francisco on April 8 and will be there until August 20. The exhibit features rock posters, photographs, interactive music and light shows as well as avant-garde films. Check www.deyoung.famsf.org which will have all you need to know. 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.

Monet: the Early Years is at the San Francisco Legion of Honor through May 29. The show commences with the first painting Monet ever exhibited publically in 1858 and closes in 1872 just before he exhibited in a group show with artists that ultimately became known as the impressionists. Photography was new at the time and actually helped artists explore new ways of painting as they no longer felt it necessary to provide a realistic chronology. It is an important exhibit because it is the first in the U.S. to show Monet’s early works. The website provides an excellent overview of the show so check www.legionofhonor.famsf.org and get more information.

Ongoing at the Seattle Museum of Art is Big Picture: Art after 1945.The exhibit includes some amazing works by Rothko, Motherwell, Newman, Hoffman, etc. Go to www.seattleartmuseum.org to obtain more information.
  

Now at the Clyfford Still Museum in Denver is a collaborative effort with the Denver Museum of Art. Shade features the work of Clyfford Still at his namesake museum and the work of contemporary artist Mark Bradford at the Denver Museum of Art. The exhibit examines the use of the color black in the work of both artists. Check out www.clyffordstillmuseum.org for all the details.

Make Room for Color Field is a continuing exhibit at the Nelson-Atkins Museum in Kansas City, Missouri through December 31, 2018. The installation consists of 4 works by the most prominent painters of this genre, Helen Frankenthaler, Jules Olitski and Morris Louis. The museum’s website at www.nelson-atkins.org will provide more information.

Currently at the Saint Louis Art Museum is the traveling exhibit, Degas, Impressionism and the Paris Millenary Trade. It is there until May 7 then moves on to San Francisco’s Legion of Honor where it will be housed June 4-September 24, 2017. Over 100 pieces are included in this show and feature the work of Manet, Morrisot and Renoir as well as Degas. Either of these museum websites will have information and updates.

The Art Institute of Chicago is hosting Whistler’s Mother: An American Icon Returns to Chicago for the first time in 60 years. The painting was originally known as an Arrangement in Gray and Black No. 1. The exhibit runs through May 12, 2017. Chicago has deep holdings of works by Whistler and this will allow the exploration of Whistler’s use of family members as subject matter. I am looking forward to Gauguin:Artist as Alchemist which begins June 22, 2017 and ends in September. The show looks past his iconic paintings and highlights other aspects of his art including his work as a ceramist, sculptor, printmaker and decorator. I can’t wait. More details are at www.artic.edu for these fascinating exhibits.

The recent opening of the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture in Washington D.C. is the culmination of over a century of work. Founding Director Lonnie Bunch said, that “The African American experience is the lens through which we understand what it is to be an American.” The website welcomes us with its opening words: A People’s Journey, A Nation’s Story. It is part of our national history. The museum contains much memorabilia, including both negative and positive. Of course, there is much history here, including examples of slave ships. However, there are more current examples including Carl Lewis’ journey, clothes of James Brown and Pearl Bailey, to a trumpet owned by Louis Armstrong and Chuck Berry’s red Cadillac. Items also include some owned by Harriet Tubman, the dress Rosa Parks was sewing when she refused to leave her seat, and clothes designed by Geoffrey Holder for the award winning Broadway play The Wiz. Areas include a sports museum and a visual arts museum among others. The galleries will also feature changing exhibits so check out www.nmaahc.si.edu for information.

Menagerie: Animals on View will be at the Albright-Knox Gallery March 11 through June 4.

The Albright-Knox Art Gallery in Buffalo, New York is one of my favorite places. Animals have always been favorite motifs for artists and this exhibit features over 50 paintings, drawings, sculptures, photographs and videos by artists like Frida Kahlo, William Wegman, Giacomo Balla, Grace Hartigan and Milton Avery. If you are in the area be sure and check it out. All the details are at the website www.albrightknox.org so be sure and take a peek.

Opening at the Museum of Modern Art in New York is Robert Rauschenberg:Among Friends. This retrospective is open May 21-September 17, 2017 and includes many facets of his work and those of friends like Jasper Johns, Merce Cunningham and John Cage. It features over 250 works in various mediums which cover over six decades. Meanwhile, the museum has pulled together a great exhibit from its vaults featuring women artists. Making Space: Women Artists and Postwar Abstraction continues through August 13. Concentrating on the work of female artists from about 1945 to 1968, it runs the gamut of what was happening the art world and contains works by Frankenthaler, Mitchell, Nevelson and many others so go to www.moma.org for more information.

Up to date in Brooklyn at the Brooklyn Museum of Art is Georgia O’Keefe: Living Modern. The show will be at the museum until July 23. The Brooklyn Museum is where the artist had her first solo show 90 years ago. For more about the artist go to www.brooklynmuseum.org and get information about this exhibit. In fact, there are exhibits featuring the artists in two other countries as well. Georgia O’Keefe is at the Art Gallery of Ontario in Toronto now through July 30, 2017. It features over 80 works by this modernist painter who is quoted as saying that it takes courage to be an artist. If you will be in Toronto go to http://www.ago.net/georgia-okeeffe to get information on this show. O’Keefe, Preston and Cossington Smith: Making Modernism features the work of American painter Georgia O’Keefe and two Australian painters, all of which had a profound effect on modernism in art. The Queensland Art Gallery plays host to the ground-breaking exhibit, which will make its way across Australia. Find all the information you need at http://blog.qagoma.qld.gov.au/ as well as its schedule.

Seurat’s Circus Sideshow is one of the Metropolitan Museum’s iconic possessions. Painted in 1887-88, this masterpiece influenced many artists such as Daumier and Picasso. The exhibit, which revolves around the Met’s painting by Seurat, includes more than 100 paintings, drawings, period posters and journals evoking the feeling of the traveling circuses and seasonal fairs that were so popular in the late 19^th century. It will be on until May 29. The Met’s website will have info at www.metmuseum.org as well as dates and times. Marsden Hartley’s Maine is at the Met Breuer and is up through June 18. His home state is a constant inspiration that runs through his work. The exhibit not only features his works but those of artists who inspired him such as Cezanne, Hiroshige and Homer. At the Met Fifth Avenue the exhibition celebrating what would have been photographer Irving Penn’s one hundredth birthday is open until July 30^th. Irving Penn Centennial features 150 of his photographs and includes his iconic fashion studies, photos of celebrities like Capote, Picasso and Colette as well as still lifes and Quechua children. His pared down style inspired many. Information on all these exhibits is at the website above.

The Boston Museum of Fine Arts will play host to Matisse in the Studio from April 9-July 9. It is the first exhibit to examine the artist’s personal collection of objects and their importance in his art. Included are 36 paintings and 26 drawings as well as bronzes, cut-outs, prints and an illustrated book by the artist. Many rare works are included and many come from personal collections. It promises to be a wonderful show so look at www.mfa.org for more information.

Although the exhibit has closed, there is a wonderful video that came out of this show, Monet and the Post Impressionists. So many artists found inspiration in their gardens. Now there is a video available, Painting the Modern Garden: Monet to Matisse. Find out more by visiting www.royalacademy.org.uk and get the whole scoop.

Currently at the the Tate Britain is David Hockney. The artist, approaching his 80^th birthday, is known for changing styles as he takes on new challenges. This is an opportunity to see his six decades of work together and see how each previous style suggests the one to come. It will be at the Tate until May 29. The show has an interesting video online that accompanies it.

For more information on these exhibits www.tate.org.uk will have everything you need to know.

Manolo Blahnik: The Art Of Shoes opened earlier this year in Milan and is a touring exhibit of the designer’s work. The State Museum Hermitage in St. Petersburg, the Museum Kampa in Prague, and the Museo Nacional de Artes Decorative in Madrid are all on the schedule. The final stop is in Toronto at BATA shoe museum in 2017.The exhibit includes over 200 pairs of shoes and 80 sketches. Available at http://www.wheremilan.com/events/exhibition-manolo-blahnik-art-shoes/ find the whole scoop.

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…it’s 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 See

This year is the 45^th annual Santa Barbara Writer’s Conference founded by Barnaby Conrad in 1972. This year it takes place June 18-23 and is a wonderful place to meet other writers, mentors, editors and agents. It’s a lovely place and inspirational as well. Check out http://www.sbwriters.com/ if you are interested.

Homage to the Ranchers is an art exhibit that pays tribute to the ranches of San Luis Obispo. The show of original paintings is presented by the Morro Bay Art Association and takes place at the County Art Center in Morro Bay. It runs through June 12. Go to www.artcentermorrobay for all the information.

Paso Robles is the place to be May 6-7. This annual event is famous in these parts…these parts being Paso Robles. If you will be in that area and like old things with patina be sure to check out Three Speckled Hens Antique and Old Stuff Show. Of course you can keep up to date at www.speckledhens.com where all the details live.

Addendum:

Anna Olson, a budding videographer and creative mind, put together a video featuring my work. Please go to Nelson Fine Art Studio on Facebook to check it out…many thanks Anna.

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.