Dan Christensen at the Santa Barbara Museum of Art

May 24, 2010 — Lisa N. Peters
Dan Christensen - Serpens, 1968

Dan Christensen, "Serpens," 1968, acrylic on canvas, 112 x 173-1/2 inches

Lisa N. Peters

We recently received a note from Julie Joyce, curator of contemporary art at the Santa Barbara Museum of Art, letting us know that Dan Christensen’s Rana (1968) has been included the museum’s current exhibition, Colorscope: Abstract Painting, 1960-1979 (on view March 20-August 15, 2010).

Consisting of works mostly from the museum’s permanent collection, the exhibition considers abstract painting in the era when artists shifted their focus from abstract expressionism’s surface manipulation to a new concentration on nuances of color and lighter, more lyrical types of handling. The show brings to the fore such aesthetic modes as post-painterly abstraction, color field painting, lyrical abstraction, hard-edge, and op art.  These approaches followed each other in such rapid succession that the critics could barely manage to label them before the artists using them moved on, creating new stylistic variations.  As the artists carried on dialogues among themselves in which they rethought  old rules and piggybacked on each other’s ideas, they constantly challenged the boundaries of painting.    Read the rest of this post on the Spanierman Modern blog.

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Also read these Spanierman Modern blog posts on Dan Christensen:

Video: Elaine Grove on Dan Christensen’s Plaid Paintings

Art Forum Review on Dan Christensen

Plaid Puzzlement …The Paintings of Dan Christensen

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The Abstractions of Marion Huse

February 11, 2010 — Spanierman Gallery, LLC

Marion Huse - Sailboats (Abstract Blues)

Marion Huse (1896-1967), "Sailboats (Abstract Blues)," oil on canvas, 25 x 30 in.

Carol Lowrey

In this posting, I thought I’d introduce you to the spirited abstractions of Marion Huse (1896-1967), a talented painter, teacher and graphic artist associated with art life in New England during the mid-twentieth century.  I wasn’t aware of who she was and what she’d accomplished over the course of her nearly fifty year career until several of her paintings arrived at the gallery and our sales staff tapped the research department for biographical information and analytical essays on her work.  The Huse assignment came to me and I subsequently began the hunt for information, consulting the standard artists’ dictionaries and related reference sources before proceeding to library and archival sources.  I ultimately came across a catalogue published by the Brockton Art Museum in 1985––Marion Huse: An Artist’s Evolution––the only publication thus far to provide a comprehensive examination of her life and career.
Read the rest of this entry »

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Hendrik Glintenkamp (1887-1946)

January 28, 2010 — Spanierman Gallery, LLC

 

Hendrik Glintenkamp - Rooftops, Hoboken

Hendrik Glintenkamp (1887 - 1946), "Rooftops, Hoboken," oil on canvas, 25-3/4 x 32 inches

Carol Lowrey

When we think of American art of the early twentieth century, the work of Ashcan School painters such as Robert Henri and John Sloan and modernists such as John Marin immediately come to mind––so much so that we tend to forget about the accomplishments of talented but underappreciated individuals such as Hendrik Glintenkamp.  Known to his friends as “Glint,” he was a painter, printmaker, illustrator and sculptor––part of an artistic milieu that included such influential figures as Henri, Sloan and Stuart Davis.  There’s been relatively little written about Glintenkamp’s career as a painter; described by one commentator as an urbane individual who retained “a little of the old-fashioned glamour of the traditional artist, who with Bohemian insouciance tossed off masterpieces between two bouts and an orgy” (Ida E. Prigohzy, “Pen Portraits – H. Glintenkamp: Wanderer in Woodcuts,” Creative Art, March 1932), he was born in Augusta, New Jersey, the son of a Dutch father and a French mother.  He went on to study at the National Academy of Design in New York and then at the New York School of Art, where his teachers included Henri and Sloan.  Read the rest of this entry »

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Charlotte Park’s Paintings: Singled Out in the Los Angeles Times

January 25, 2010 — Lisa N. Peters
Charlotte Park - Zachary, ca. 1950s-60s

Charlotte Park (b. 1918), "Zachary," ca. 1950s-60s Oil on canvas, 36 x 47 inches

Lisa N. Peters

Of the more than 130 international exhibitors at the Fifteenth Annual Los Angeles Art Show, on view January 20-24, 2010, Spanierman Modern’s exhibition of the dynamic abstract paintings of Charlotte Park was one of few displays that caught the eye of Christopher Knight, art critic for the Los Angeles Times.  In a blog post on January 22, Knight described the quality of the fair as “disappointingly low,” but noted that “if you poke around you can find some things to like.”  Of the five examples Knight gave, four were individual works: an abstraction from 1968 by Robert Mangold’, an installation by Meeson Pae Yang, a video by Pablo Uribe from “guest country” Uruguay, and a painting by Henrietta Shore.  The only exhibition mentioned by Knight was that of Park of whom he wrote:

Charlotte Park (b. 1918), a little-known Abstract Expressionist painter from New York, has been enjoying a resurgence of interest in her works of the 1940s, ’50s and ’60s. A large selection of muscular, often chromatically brilliant paintings on canvas and paper show why. (Spanierman Modern)

Read the rest of this post on the Spanierman Modern blog.

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Rolph Scarlett (1889-1984): A Canadian-American Abstractionist

December 9, 2009 — Spanierman Gallery, LLC

Rolph Scarlett - Composition with Blue Circle

Rolph Scarlett (1889-1984), "Composition with Blue Circle," ca. 1940s, gouache and ink on paper, 23 1/2 x 18 inches

Carol Lowrey

I first became acquainted with the paintings of Rolph Scarlett early in my career when employed at the University of Guelph Art Gallery (known today as the Macdonald Stewart Art Centre) in my home province of Ontario.  I was doing research in preparation for a collection catalogue and––amidst the landscapes by the Group of Seven and the portraits and academic figure pieces that graced the collection–– his non-objective work truly stood out.  Born in Guelph––about an hour’s drive southwest of Toronto––Scarlett studied art during his school days, but after completing his education he became an apprentice in his family’s jewelry firm.  He went to New York in 1909, attending classes at the Art Students League of New York while continuing his activity in the jewelry field until returning to his hometown in 1912.  In 1919, he trekked south of the border again, working as a jeweler, designer and painter in New York, Toledo and Southern California.  A trip to Europe in 1923 brought him into contact with the abstract styles of Wassily Kandinsky and Paul Klee, to which he was instantly drawn.  Read the rest of this post on the Spanierman Modern blog.

Posted in About the Artist, Notable Paintings. Tags: , , . 8 Comments »
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