Seeing Art, 2012

A great pleasure in life is seeing art. Here are some of my favorite images from a year of museum crawls.

Joan Brown Retrospective At San Jose Museum

Her enamel self-portraits on masonite were completely different from her earlier, and better-known, work. And she was the star of every canvas. Loved it.

At London’s National Gallery

Turner’s work held the seeds of modern abstract expressionism. Love seeing the threads that lead through “art history.”

These witches were fascinating. I did a sketch and used some of the ideas in my annual Halloween painting.

Hadn’t noticed Vuillard before but loved the colors and the sense of voyeurism, catching a glimpse of these ladies from behind a table in the foreground.

…And Portrait Gallery

OK, how cool is this? I’m going to steal this kind of mark-making in my figure drawing time.

At The Tate Modern

This New York artist could have been one of the Bay Area Figurative Movement painters (my faves.) Same era.

Giacometti is known as a sculptor but check out the great mark-making.

And on to Paris, l’Orangerie….

Used to think the Impressionists were girlie, but Monet’s huge-scale water lillies look more like an Abstract Expressionist painting: tough, strong, athletic brushwork. Changed my mind on the spot.

From The Paley Collection at The DeYoung Museum

This painting, done when Gaugin was hanging out with Van Gogh in Arles, is paint on burlap. Nice texture. Wonderful abstract forms. Love the cropped faces walking out of the frame. They break the rules but they work wonderfully.

Can’t wait to see more art in 2013.