Mary Abbott (1921-2019) loved the water. Her father, Lt. Commander Henry Livermore Abbott, was a decorated submarine commander in the first World War and a Naval advisor to FDR during WWII. She inherited his love of the sea. A native New Yorker (and sometimes cover girl), she came of age there as an artist in the late 1940s, joining the ranks of the new Abstract Expressionist movement. Her contemporary alignments included David Hare, Barnett Newman, and Willem de Kooning.
Art News
New York’s marquee spring auctions have wrapped with a combined $2.5 billion in sales across Christie’s, Sotheby’s, and Phillips.
What is a studio? We might wonder, as we examine how and where James Hyde conceives and produces his probing and various artworks. When it comes to the Brooklyn-based artist’s recent work, the path to a completed painting runs from the studio through the museum and back again.
There is a mystical aura that surrounds Celia Paul’s paintings, as if they lived in another atmosphere. The air around and within them emanates a different frequency: vibrations almost not human. Her figures are not corporal; they’re more like music, phrases in the air. Even the colors are not flesh, as if in a dream. Each painting, whether figure or object, seascape or self-portrait, is distinctly hers.
Deeply intertwined, fear and courage have traveled together across the centuries through artwork. Art shows believers the rewards and punishments of the afterlife, reminds us of the brevity of life, and leads us by example through the vicissitudes of heroines such as Joan of Arc.
The 61st Venice Biennale, which opened May 9 and will run through November 22, was shadowed even before its five-person jury resigned nine days before the opening in protest of the participation of countries currently under investigation by the International Criminal Court for human rights abuses.
It is one of the most indelible images of modern warfare: Five Vietnamese children run toward the camera, their faces contorted by pain and fear. Dark clouds of smoke hover in the background, as soldiers and combat photographers walk down the highway. The central figure is a 9-year-old girl, her naked, scrawny body burned by the napalm dropped by South Vietnamese forces that mistook the inhabitants of the village of Trang Bang for Vietcong.
Venice is a city of many wonders, and when the International Art Exhibition of La Biennale di Venezia opens in the Floating City every two years, those wonders are multiplied exponentially. The 61st International Art Exhibition of La Biennale di Venezia—“In Minor Keys” by Artistic Director Koyo Kouoh—is no exception.
Resin art has experienced a burst in popularity within the last few years, but what exactly is this miracle material, and is there a catch? Resin by itself is a viscous, flammable substance that can be either organic or synthetic. Most artists prefer epoxy resin, a synthetic type patented in the early 1930s.
Frieze New York returned to The Shed in New York, May 13–17, for its 15th edition, featuring 68 galleries from 26 countries, with a strong presence of Central and South American galleries. Throughout the week, the fair attracted 25,000 visitors from 75 countries.
