Breakout!

Art World ‘Bad Boy’ Josh Smith Is Peter Brant’s New Protégé

Rising art star Josh Smith, famous for painting his name over and over, obsessively, on abstract canvases, has a well-considered strategy for success. “The best thing I could do for myself would be to not work. Just go to more cocktail parties and smile more. Go to more fashion shows,” he said.

Arrogant? Sure. Wrong? Read More

Disrobed

As the Flesh Fad Fades, 'Nude' Painters Band Together

What do you say to a naked lady?

If you’re one of this bunch: “For God’s sake, hold the pose.”

I was at a lunch with members of a midtown sketch club, right after they had spent about three hours drawing a live nude (female, as I found out in my reporting, they almost always Read More

Art

The Painting Looks at Us: Robin Williams’ First Solo Show

Robin Williams, in her first solo show, “Rescue Party,” at PPOW Gallery, paints flowers, cabbages, bunnies and a cow. She also paints adolescents and figures in bony, epicene, indeterminate childhood who gaze out of surreal scenes with expressions of resignation that fall somewhere between a soldier’s and a circus freak’s. Her colors are broadly schematized Read More

The Art Scene

Free Drinks For Art: Soho House Makes a Trade

There is a long and honorable tradition of eateries and watering holes where artists can settle their checks with their work. And there is about to be another. Francesca Gavin, art curator for the London-based Soho House brand of private clubs, is heading here to amass a collection for the New York branch, bar tabs Read More