ARTES MAGAZINE

In July, 1929, months before the stock market crash that resulted in the Great Depression of the 1930s, Albert Coombs Barnes (January 2, 1872 – July 24, 1951), sold his company for some $6 million. He made a vast fortune on the manufacture and sale of the antiseptic drug Argyrol, used to treat gonorrhea. By [...]

  Winslow Homer, Weatherbeaten (1894). Portland Museum of Art. Bequest of Charles Shipman Payson. Ubiquitous Winslow Homer images of the surf-battered, rocky Maine coastline and pastoral scenes of American life in a simpler time, are so deeply embedded in our sense of national identity that we hardly ‘see’ them any longer. Too many posters of [...]

Nottingham Contemporary is presenting a major exhibition of Haitian art inspired by Vodou. Bringing together some 200 works by 40 artists from the 1940s to today, and drawing from leading collections from Haiti, North America and Europe, Kafou: Haiti, Art and Vodou will be one of the largest exhibitions of Haiti’s celebrated art ever held, [...]

Introduction American modernism is an artistic and cultural movement in the United States, starting at the turn of the 20th century. Its central period spanned the period between World War I and World War II; however it continued into the 21st century. Part I of this exhibition series, titled Abstraction in America, as well as [...]

Did you know that on his deathbed Paul Gauguin traded his soul for immortality and the ability to “inhabit” and influence future artists? Not many do know that, and neither did English theatre artist Tony Stowers, who migrated to France in 2006 to live, work and re-invent himself. Stowers only found out about Gauguin’s trade [...]

A comprehensive rendition of the living arts of India, from pre-historic to contemporary times, is featured in 5000 Years of Indian Art, by Sushma K Bahl. The 240 page richly-illustrated volume, published by Roli Books, traces an ancient civilization, entwined in the history, religion and philosophy of the un-fragmented subcontinent of yore. The narrative weaves together [...]

  One of the most gratifying developments in the art world this last year was the special attention given to the sculptor John Chamberlain. The Solomon R. Guggenheim’s recent critically acclaimed Retrospective, John Chamberlain: Choices, was the first full survey in the USA since 1986 and the appropriate culmination for an artist over whom critical [...]

Bearden has, “the aware[ness] that the true artist destroys the accepted world by way of revealing the unseen, and creating that which is new and uniquely his own. [He] has used cubist techniques to his own ingenious effect.” ~Ralph Ellison If visual art could have a soundtrack— and a rhythm—it would likely be found in [...]

  “Art plucks its material, otherwise unexpressed, in the garden of life.” ~Henry James, The Ambassaors   It seems fitting, during Presidents’ Birthday month, here in the U.S., to feature the last photograph taken of Abraham Lincoln before his assassination in April 1865 (left). The burdens and losses brought on by civil strife and personal [...]

“I paint with black because it is powerful and timeless” –Robert Motherwell What is black, physically, but the admixture (presence) of all the pigments on the artist’s palette. Conversely, within the rainbow spectrum of visible light waves, it is the absence of any-and-all color frequencies. Culturally, black carries a host of adverse and negative associations. [...]