newcritics

Gas (1940) oil, 66.7 x 102.2 cm
The Museum of Modern Art, New York; Mrs. Simon Guggenheim Fund.
Widely seen to display a sort of inherent “American character,” the work of Edward Hopper seems damn close (perhaps damningly close) to earning him a title along the lines of America’s Painter. He’s popular enough now to give Norman [...]

The story of Fletcher Hanks is one of those revisionist tales that historians of the arts have fallen in love with over the past 30-40 years or so.
As the academy was opened up to blacks and women, the standard story of the “history of art” had to be rewritten to allow their work to be [...]

Unexpectedly, the new retrospective of the artist Joseph Cornell (click for online gallery of Cornell’s work) — said to be the first in more than 26 years — questions the wisdom of mounting a retrospective of this artist’s work at all.
Originating at the Smithsonian American Art Museum in Washington, DC, and traveling later this year [...]