The role played by friendship in the life of art is a seldom-discussed subject. This is probably why so few exhibitions have been devoted to exploring the aesthetic consequences of such friendships. In chronicling the course of modern painting, for example, we have generally preferred to codify its history in terms of movements and “schools,” Read More
New Yorkers driving out to East Hampton, L.I., for Thanksgiving may notice that the blue-and-yellow sign for Maya’s restaurant has been taken down from its perch near Ronald Perelman’s house on Route 27 in Wainscott. Whether the local branch of Randy and Maya Gurley’s famous St. Bart’s restaurant will also disappear from the Hamptons landscape Read More
For anyone with a keen interest in modern painting for the esthetic and intellectual pleasures it affords-rather than, say, for the political and cultural battles that have sometimes marked its history-the exhibition that is not to be missed this fall is Renoir to Rothko: The Eye of Duncan Phillips , which is currently on view Read More
There are times when one has to travel a certain distance to acquire some perspective on the recent history of the New York art scene. It’s not that travel is likely to alter our judgment of artists whose work is already well known to us. That-in my experience, anyway-rarely occurs. The true believers remain secure Read More
In the first room of the Mark Rothko retrospective at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, the paintings all date from the 1930′s. They are not the paintings of a young artist-Rothko, who was still using the name Marcus Rothkowitz, was 33 when he painted his Self-Portrait of 1936-yet they remain the work of Read More
