All Art Friday

All Art Friday

All Art Friday Spotlights

✦ If you have not seen the work of mixed media quilt, collage, and fiber artist Joan Schulze, you're in for a treat. Be sure to view the slideshow of her Tea Bowl Quilts and read about her wonderful Haiku Series of collages, which Schulz describes as visual poems (they're terrific).

✦ In collaboration with more than 60 arts institutions across Southern California, The J. Paul Getty Museum has created a Website dedicated to Los Angeles art from 1945 to 1980: Pacific Standard Time. The online archive provides additional materials (related to several exhibitions at the Getty Center), including information about styles, materials, and venues, as well as a historic map with which to explore the neighborhoods where art was made during the post-World War II era. A large group of individual artists, including Richard Diebenkorn, Robert Graham, and Sam Francis, are profiled in the People section, and 11 informative oral histories, featuring artists Larry Bell, Melvin Edwards, John Mason, Ron Miyashiro, Billy Al Bengston, Ed Moses, Helen Pashgian, Betye Saar, Karl Benjamin, Vija Celmins, and Judy Chicago, offer first-hand accounts in the Videos section.  This is an outstanding online resource. 

Note: A downloadable app for Pacific Standard Time will be available this month. Check the site for details.

Here's the site's interview with Betye Saar:

Exhibitions Here and There

✭ Marvelous conceptual landscapes by Rebecca Rutstein remain on view through October 15 at Sylvia White Gallery in Ventura, California. Rutstein's "Zero Gravity" series of paintings, which are inspired by space satellite technology, are intriguing abstractions of real and imagined topographies in space. Rutstein's work also is on view through October in the central lobby of Pew Charitable Trusts here in Washington, D.C. (Rutstein was the recipient of a 2004 Pew Fellowship in the Arts. She has received significant public notice in such art publications as Art in America, Art Matters, and ArtInfo. See this interesting excerpt from an interview with the artist and more of her work at Bridgette Mayer Gallery in Philadelphia.)

Rebecca Rutstein, another state of mind, 2011

Acrylic on Canvas, 36" x 36"

© Rebecca Rutstein

Exhibition Images

From October 26 to November 26, the gallery will be presenting a solo exhibition of the work of  Squeak Carnwath, a widely exhibited and award-winning artist who lives in the San Francisco Bay Area. She is professor emeritus at the University of California/Berkeley. A reception, gallery talk, and book signing are planned for October 29. An exhibition preview is here.

Interview with the Artist at Design Faith Blog

✭ At The J. Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles, take time for "In the Beginning Was the Word: Medieval Gospel Illumination", on view through November 27. The exhibit (see the annotated and illustrated checklist here) presents the stunning imagery for the four Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John.

Brief History of Illuminated Manuscripts

See the videos Making Manuscripts and The Structure of a Medieval Manuscript.

Also of interest: "In Focus: The Sky", a photography exhibit (see checklist here of images by Andre Kertesz, Edward Weston, Walker Evans, Ansel Adams, Carleton Watkins, Joel Meyerowitz, and other well-known photographers), on view through December 4, that takes as its subject the sky.

Getty Museum on FaceBook, Twitter, YouTube, and Art Babble

Getty Blog The Iris

✭ At the Philadelphia Museum of Art, "Rembrandt and the Face of Jesus" continues through October 30. The first Rembrandt exhibit in Philadelphia since 1932, the show brings together seven paintings, completed between 1643 and 1655 by Rembrandt and his pupils, that used the same human face to depict Jesus. In addition, the exhibit includes more than 50 related paintings, prints, and rarely shown drawings that allow viewers to understand the religious, historic, and artistic significance of the seven portraits.

Rembrandt Harmensz. van Rijn, Head of Christ, c. 1648-56

Oil on Oak Panel, Laid into Larger Oak Panel

14-1/8" x 12-5/16"

John G. Johnson Collection, 1917

Philadelphia Museum of Art

For additional useful commentary, see these related sections of the site: Christ 'From Life' and Jesus as Icon. A publication of the same title accompanies the exhibition.

The excellent video Rembrandt and Printmaking (on this page scroll down to the section titled Behind the Scenes), created to help visitors to the exhibition understand printmaking in Rembrandt's time, explains the differences and similarities between etching and dry point and includes demonstrations of each technique. (The video also may be viewed in iTunes.)

Note: Paid or member tickets are required to see the Rembrandt exhibit.

Rijksmuseum Amsterdam

PMA on FaceBook and Twitter

✭ Jerald Mehlberg Gallery, Charlotte, North Carolina, is celebrating the 100th anniversary of Romare Bearden's birth with a major exhibition of unique collages, watercolors, and prints. The more than 40 artworks by one of my favorite artists highlight Bearden's memories of Charlotte and Mecklenburg County. The exhibit, "Romare Bearden: An Artists Remembers His Birthplace", is on view through November 12.

Romare Bearden Centennial Tribute Website and Blog (A project of the Romare Bearden Foundation, this Website is dedicated to a year-long centennial celebration of the life and work of this great artist, September 2011 through September 2012. In addition to a calendar of events to be added through Fall 2012, the site includes images of Bearden's collages and mixed media, oils and watercolors, public art, and serigraphy and drawings.)

Romare Bearden, Mrs. Blanton's October Table, 1983

Collage on Board

40" x 30"

Note: Jerald Mehlberg Gallery is compiling the Romare Bearden Print Catalogue Raisonne. A brief biography of the artist and additional images from the gallery are here.

Romare Bearden Foundation 

Romare Bearden Foundation on Facebook and Twitter

Also of interest: The Art of Romare Bearden (2003-04 Exhibition at National Gallery of Art)

A number of other Bearden-related videos also are available at YouTube.

✭ Approximately 20 beautiful early 1960s works by Cleve Gray (1918-2004) are on view through October 16 at Morrison Gallery, Kent, Connecticut. 

Cleve Gray Oils, Acrylics, Works on Paper at Morrison Gallery

Cleve Gray Website (See the Studio Time photo essay.)

Cleve Gray Papers, 1942-2004, at Archives of American Art