Cavalier Ebanks Galleries Blog: June 2015

Tuesday, June 30, 2015

WORK OF THE WEEK: "Far and Wide" by Joseph McGurl

Joseph McGurl
Far and Wide
oil on canvas
28 x 46 inches

As artist Joseph McGurl explains, "Far and Wide was inspired after spending a couple of weeks on my boat anchored in Nantucket Harbor. I spent several days exploring and sketching on land and from an inflatable dinghy the dunes and marshes of Coatue. There is no exact location for this scene as it is composed from a synthesis of different sketches and impressions. What I was interested in was conveying the great sense of space, freedom, and desolation I experienced while there. In addition to these features, the painting also considers time because we often link time and space. Speed x distance equals time. How long will it take me to walk to that distant dune? Unique places such as Coatue always give me an opportunity to contemplate the more sublet aspects of our existence and incorporate them into a work of art that goes beyond a literal transcription of the scene."

Joseph McGurl was born in Massachusetts in 1958. He graduated from Massachusetts College of Art and studied in England and Italy. McGurl synthesizes academic figure drawing skills with sight-size landscape painting resulting in a new and unique approach to addressing the landscape. McGurl’s paintings may be considered philosophically modernist extensions of the 19th century Luminist painters. His interest in physics and the nature of reality has resulted in a thoroughly modern approach to style and subject. While retaining the modernist’s graphic design sensibility and individuality of message, he departs from post contemporary modernist forms by subverting the ego of the artist to achieve greater fidelity to nature. He is one of the few contemporary realists who does not include the use of photography in his art. McGurl is a devoted plein air painter which allows him to connect with the landscape on a profound level and gain a deeper understanding of his subject. Although the objects depicted in the paintings are elements of the landscape and have a deep, personal meaning to him, of equal importance is an exploration of light, form, space, and color interpreted through paint.

McGurl’s paintings have been included in several museum exhibitions in Massachusetts, New York, California, and Rhode Island as well as being exhibited in numerous group museum exhibitions which traveled throughout the country. He has had retrospective solo shows at the Cape Cod Museum of Art, The Cahoon Museum of American Art, and the Saint Botolph Club of Boston. The Arnot Art Museum’s Representing Representation, a survey of the most significant representational work being done today, included his work as an example of contemporary landscape painting. He is in the collections of the New Britain Museum of American Art, The Cape Cod Museum of Art, The Mellon Collection, The Forbes Collection, Sen. John Kerry, and the Cahoon Museum of American Art. McGurl has been designated a Living Master by the Art Renewal Center in New York. He has been elected to the Guild of Boston Artists, was a Copley Master with the Copley Society of Boston, and is a signature member of the prestigious Plein Air Painters of America. His many awards include the Guild of Boston Artists Gold Medallion, The Art Renewal Center’s International Salon First Place in Landscape, American Fine Art Magazine Award of Excellence, The Rehs Award, a Purchase Award, and the John Singleton Copley Award for Artistic Achievement.

Tuesday, June 23, 2015

WORK OF THE WEEK: "The Northern Whale Fishery" by William John Huggins

William John Huggins (1781-1845)
The Northern Whale Fishery, 1835
oil on canvas
28 5/8 x 52 5/8 inches

William John Huggins, a one time a sailor with the East India Company, was a firsthand witness to the scene depicted of the ship Harmony and other ice-bound Whalers on the Davis Straits between Baffin Bay, Canada and Greenland. Huggins first painted this well-known image in 1828. Entitled Northern Whale Fishery, the image was engraved by Edward Duncan in 1829 (Huggins son-in-law) and brought greater fame to both men for illuminating the rewards and perils of whaling in the icy waters on the Davis Strait whaling ground. The original 1828 work now hangs in the renowned New Bedford Whaling Museum, New Bedford, Massachusetts.

This second, larger and more proficient interpretation of the scene was most likely commissioned by Robert Bell in 1835 (son to Thomas Bell, owner of the Harmony). The American built bark Harmony of 292 tons sits at the center of the painting with the Margaret of London to the left and the Eliza Swan of Montrose to the right. Filled with incredible detail throughout, nearly every aspect of whaling is depicted- from the chase and capture, to processing the catch alongside, to “trying out” or boiling down the blubber on Harmony’s bow.

Two other masted ships are shown, including one foundering as the ice closes in on her hull, her crew surely trying to salvage what they can as they stand alongside. Penguins gather on an ice floe near one of the twelve depicted whale boats as it closes in on a catch. Birds circle all the ships, hoping for a morsel. Huggins sets the scene masterfully and the viewer can almost feel what it’s like to be there.

Authentic period paintings of the whaling era are extremely rare. This painting not only depicts history but is itself an important piece of history, combining fine detail, skillful brushwork, and sensitive coloration in a work that any collector would cherish.

Tuesday, June 16, 2015

WORK OF THE WEEK: In the Hollow by Hans Hofmann

Hans Hofmann
In the Hollow
casein on panel
20 x 24 inches

In celebration of the summer exhibition of the Bruce Museum in Greenwich, Connecticut, Walls of Color: The Murals of Hans Hofmann, Cavalier Galleries is pleased to present In the Hollow by Hans Hofmann. Painted during Hofmann's most revered period when he divided time between his schools in New York City and Provincetown, Massachusetts, In the Hollow, is an exceptional example of Hofmann's signature style. Hofmann thoroughly enjoyed being outdoors in nature and found great inspiration in the local Provincetown landscape where after a prolonged period of only drawing he began to paint again. In the Hollow can be viewed at Cavalier Galleries along with numerous other paintings and drawings by Hofmann from his Provincetown period.

Born in Bavaria in 1880, Hans Hofmann has been called “the artist of the century.” In 1898, he began his studies at Moritz Heymann’s art school in Munich and relocated to Paris in 1904 where he would remain for the next ten years. While in Paris during one of the most revolutionary periods in the history of Western art Hofmann befriended the leaders of the Modernist movement, Matisse, Picasso and Bracques, among others. His closest and perhaps most influential friendship was with Robert Delaunay, who, together with his wife Sonia, launched a mini-movement known as Orphism, or Organic Cubism. The Delaunay’s approach, with its emphasis on color over form, made a strong impression on Hofmann.

By 1915 Hofmann had returned to Germany where he opened the Hans Hofmann School of Fine Arts. The school gained recognition worldwide. In 1930, Hofmann was invited to teach at the University of California at Berkeley. In the spring of 1931, Hofmann had his first public exhibition in the United States at the California Palace of the Legion of Honor in San Francisco. By 1932 hostility was mounting towards intellectuals in Germany and Hofmann decided to settle in New York City, where he taught at the Art Students League. In 1933 he opened the Hans Hofmann School of Fine Arts in Manhattan.

At the age of 64, Hofmann’s first exhibition in New York was organized by Peggy Guggenheim and held at the Art of This Century Gallery. In 1955, Clement Greenberg organized a retrospective of Hofmann’s work at Bennington College, and in 1957 there was a major retrospective at the Whitney Museum. Though a generation older than Jackson Pollock, Arshile Gorki, Clyfford Still and Willem de Kooning, Hofmann took his place as a major and influential member of this thoroughly American art movement of Abstract Expressionism. In 1960, Hofmann was one of four artists representing the United States at the Venice Biennale, and three years later a retrospective exhibition of his work at the Museum of Modern Art traveled throughout the United States and internationally.

On February 17, 1966 Hofmann died at the age of 86.

Former Hofmann students include : Glenn Wessels, Louise Nevelson, Carl Holty, Alfred Jensen, Worth Ryder, James Gahagan, Red Grooms, Lillian Orlowsky, Wolf Kahn, Paul Resika, Mercedes Matter, Irving Kershner, Roberd DeNiro Snr, Myrna Harrison and Frank Stella.

Thursday, June 11, 2015

WORK OF THE WEEK: Sound by Esteban Vicente

Esteban Vicente
Sound
oil on canvas
52 x 42 inches

The paintings of the Abstract Expressionists are among the most sought after in the world. Sound, by award winning Abstract Expressionist Esteban Vicente, features a beautiful composition and vibrant palate characteristic of his mature painting style. Sound, employs subtle gradations of hue and startling juxtapositions, it is a masterpiece of suggestion, nuance and drama. Vicente's luminous and subtle color transitions were achieved by staining the canvas with layers of translucent pigment akin to color field painting. Such works, in the words of Pulitzer Prize-winning author Elizabeth Frank, "embodied the essential paradox of human life, in that it was a material means to a spiritual realm. The flow of radiant light through pigment [transports] the viewer to a state of luminous calm."

Born in 1903 Esteban Vicente was the only Spanish-born artist of the first generation of Abstract Expressionists. He moved to the United States in 1936 after living briefly in Paris and London, witnessing the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War and defending his country’s Republican government. By 1950 he was a fixture of New York’s Downtown art scene. His contemporaries and associates included Willem de Kooning (with whom he shared a studio), Elaine de Kooning, Jackson Pollock, Mark Rothko, Franz Kline, Barnett Newman and Ad Reinhardt. Vicente was a voting member of The Club, and participated in some of the first exhibitions of Abstract Expressionist, including Talent 1950 at the Samuel Kootz Gallery and the seminal 9th Street Show. A dedicated teacher, he taught art at New York University; the University of California, Berkeley; Black Mountain College; the New York Studio School; Princeton University; and Yale University among other institutions.

Towards the end of his life the Spanish government opened the Museo de Arte Contemporáneo Esteban Vicente in Segovia. Vicente died at the age of 97 in 2001 at his home in Bridgehampton, New York, 10 days before his 98th birthday. His work can be found in important collections and museums such as The Metropolitan Museum of Art, MOMA, the Whitney Museum of American Art, and the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, to name a few.

Thursday, June 4, 2015

WORK OF THE WEEK: Balance by Carole Feuerman

Carole Feuerman
Balance
painted resin
36 x 32 x 18 inches

Cavalier Gallieres is pleased to present, Balance, by renowned hyperrealist sculptor Carole Feuerman. This startlingly lifelike piece challenges our perception and leaves viewers questioning how something so realistic could in fact be sculpture. Feuerman first sculpts her pieces in plaster, then casts them in bronze or resin, before being meticulously painting them to provide the final hyperrealist touch. Balance is a perfect example of Feuerman's entirely new approach to sculpture that has gained her placement in one of the seminal art historical texts, The History of Western Art.

Carole Feuerman has been honored with six major museum retrospectives to date. Her work has been showcased in numerous exhibitions including multiple Venice Biennales, the State Hermitage, the Palazzo Strozzi Foundation, the Kunstmuseum Ahlen, the Archeological Museum di Fiesole, and the Circulo de Bellas Artes. She won first prize at the Austrian Biennale, the Florence Biennale, the 2008 Olympic Fine Art Exhibition, best in show at the Beijing Biennale, and won the Save The Arts Foundation Award as Museum Choice.

Feuerman's work can be found in countless collections, including Forbes, the Boca Raton Museum of Art, the El Paso Museum of Art, and the Credit Swiss Union. Her patrons include President Bill Clinton, the Emperor of Japan, Henry Kissinger, and Mikhail Gorbachev.

Click to watch Carole Feuerman putting the finishing touches on Balance

Wednesday, June 3, 2015

Nina Maguire Featured at The Mooney Center at The College of New Rochelle

Exhibition on view until June 9, 2015

THE MOONEY CENTER

The College of New Rochelle

29 Castle Place, New Rochelle, NY 10805

Nina Maguire is known for the intimacy and magic of her muted palette acrylic paintings. Focusing on subjects that have personal value to her, she imbues her canvases with atmosphere, sentiment and warmth. Maguire paints New York City under the veil of fog and snow, obscuring details enough so that a time period is irrelevant, it could be 1940 or 2015, in order to create a pervasive mood and atmosphere.

Maguire began her career as a watercolor painter, before turning to acrylics as her medium of choice. By using many glazes and layers of paint application in her work, she is able to achieve a richness and luminosity typically associated only with oil paint. In her recent work she has explored new surface textures, creating a more tactile experience for the viewer. By utilizing the irregular quality of collage and rice paper as media, Maguire brings the element of texture to the forefront.

Maguire strives in her work to create not a place, person or occasion, but the feeling of the place; the aura of the person; the mood of the occasion. Seeking inspiration in her experiences, she is able to draw upon a wealth of associated emotions in order to lavish her paintings with content, giving collectors an invitation to share a moment. Her chef series derives from her son ‘s love of cooking and working with the chef in the many clubs he has managed; her Italian vignettes from her Italian heritage and trips to Italy; her music series from parents and her own enjoyment of opera and concerts; her New York scenes from a lifetime of loving the City.

Nina Maguire’s career has been distinguished with a multitude of awards, including ones received from The National Society of Painters in Casein & Acrylic, Catharine Lorillard Wolfe Art Club, National Association of Women Artists, American Artists Professional League, Mamaroneck Artists Guild and Audubon Artists.

Please contact art@cavaliergalleries.com or call 203.869.3664 to discuss paintings currently available by Nina Maguire.


Nina Maguire Bridge Nocturne V (Tappan Zee) acrylic on canvas, 20 x 30 inches