To say that this exhibit is a must-see, is putting it mildly. The combined works are a command performance of an immense amount of work, inspiration, creativity and talent. Introduced by “The Jackleg Testament , Part I: Jack and Eve” an award-winning animated film featuring story, music and graphics, all by Jay Bolotin, and moving […]
Cincinnati Art Galleries has been around long enough to outlive a slue of quality galleries which have slipped away, simply because the business of art fluctuates so easily ..and often. Now, however, a new face is in charge. The gallery has been purchased by David Hausrath, formerly the general counsel for Ashland Oil for 32 […]
In a world of “Soft Kitty”, “Hello, Kitty”, and endless cute kitty videos, an ancient era which revered, feared and exalted cats is pretty hard to imagine. Yet, these quite ordinary, household pets are historically elevated at the Cincinnati Art Museum to “Divine Felines”. Loaned from the Brooklyn Museum’s vast collection, it reveals a dignified history […]
Good can always be better. That’s what happened to the touring “30 Americans” Exhibit now showing at the Cincinnati Art Museum. It’s grown to include “30 Americans… Plus” , a local extension of the great art made right here in the Cincinnati area. Stuart Golding suggested this worthy enterprise to the Director of DAAP galleries, […]
Don’t let the title frighten you. This is quite simply one of the best abstract shows I’ve seen in years. A wide variety of what passes for abstraction today may open up a world of techniques and formats. Abstraction has run the gamut of possible definitions in the past century, and seems far from running […]
Hunt Slonem at Miller Gallery 3715 Erie Ave., Cincinnati, Ohio 45208 513-871-4420 millergallery.com April 15 – May 21, 2016 The concept of repetition isn’t new, nor is the simplicity of subject matter. Artists have long been expanding on these inspirations. Think Warhol. Hunt Slonem’s chosen milieux of birds, bunnies, and butterflies […]
Etching is a process art. Definite steps produce it, change it, bring it into being. A warm copper or zinc plate is covered with an asphalt substance. The substance cools and hardens on the plate and can then be drawn into with a stylus. The plate will then be submerged in acid until etched in […]
“Sean Scully Etchingss for Federico Garcia Lorca” Cincinnati Art Museum Nov. 21, 2015 – Mar. 20, 2016 It’s hidden away so carefully behind the current exhibit “High Style” from the Brooklyn Museum Costume Collection, that I could only find it with the help of the Cincinnati Art Museum’s security staff. Ah, but it was truly worth […]
10/30 thru 11/2 2015, Mary Ran Gallery, 3668 Erie Avenue, Cincinnati, Ohio 45208 Collectors are a rare and wonderful breed. Through them art gains a purpose, functioning as a separate world wherein personal affairs of the heart are gathered together, for no other reason than that the gatherers cannot resist them. Often we hear of […]
‘Tis the season for tricks and treats, which leads to Clay Street Press presenting Frank Herrmann: Monotypes and Other Works. The tricks are the manipulations that Herrman and printer Mark Patsfall invented as they “played” with the monoprint medium. The treats are the results available to our wondering eyes. Patsfall suggested last summer that Herrmann […]
Rising to the top in the art world is not the norm for the average MFA holder even with that precious certificate that guarantees the student knows nearly everything about art that the institution he/she has attended can afford them. The late Jack Meanwell took every route around fine art, including commercial design, that an […]
VERGE: Printing from the Periphery April 19 – July 24 Opening reception: Final Friday June, 26, 2015 Venue222, 222 14th Street, Cincinnati, Ohio 45202 Labeling this exhibit “Verge” opened expectations to all possibilities. However, the distinct links to Tiger Lily Press, DIY Printing, Clay Street Press and Visionaries and Voicees would be enough to inspire more […]
Varieties of abstract art work are too wild and woolly to begin to try to categorize them, yet the one constant is its unmistakable opposition represental realism. The real world surrounds us with its beauty and ugliness. The abstract world takes reality apart and opens minds to other forms of imagery and a new ways […]
Handmade in China II: Stay Handsome Clay Street Gallery, 1312 Clay Street, Cincinnati, Ohio. Open 6-9 pm Final Friday, April 24 Exhibition continues till May 9, 2015 Surprisingly, there are solid connections between Jingdezhen, China and Cincinnati, Ohio. Taft Museum of Art, home of the Charles Phelps Taft family, now lists some 200 pieces of […]
The only truly important qualification in realism is the attempt to reach perfection. Traditional art includes rendering, color perspective and the classic application of oil paint. Oil Painters of America, Eastern Regional was recently exhibited at Eisele Gallery of Fine Art in Fairfax, showcasing fine traditional art. These kinds of paintings are handed down as […]
Far from warm fuzzy art, (no sunset fields here), Jack Arthur Wood, Jr. has hung a scary, shocking, and ferocious show called “This is the Worst” at Clay Street Gallery; the kind of scary that draws people to horror shows, and macabre stories. Add to this a whopping big dollop of fine art and you […]
“Cries in the Night” Cincinnati Art Museum June 21 – August 17, 2014 In spite of sailing scenes, landscapes, and portraits, it’s not possible to miss the sharp tang of cynicism in German Expressionism. Like all movements in art, it was initially founded on defeating the traditional bourgeois tastes of the majority. Both insider and […]
Cincinnati Art Museum June 14- Sept 7, 2014 It was a dark and mysterious gallery, relieved only by spotlighted display cases of historic silver. Shining back at visitors with the liquid reflections of fine silver, a story of a mighty city’s beginning unfolded via the items its leading citizens chose to ornament their tables and […]
by Fran Watson from May 5 – August 24, 2014 A Book of Verses underneath the Bough, A Jug of Wine, A Loaf of Bread—and Thou Beside me singing in the Wilderness— Oh, Wilderness were Paradise enow! Nothing could be more natural than the mix of art and books. Both benefit, and the public is […]
by Fran Watson Once in a great while, people appear who truly care about art and artists. At 506 Ash this rare miracle has morphed into a highly successful, bottom line-less, mutually advantageous, limited opportunity to allow collectors access to the finest of area art in a most unlikely space. The show-place is, in fact, […]
by Fran Watson The Carnegie, April 4 – May 17, 2014 The magnet piece in Recognized: Contemporary Portraiture at the Carnegie Arts Center was definitely “Biker Mice”. With the same fury seen in Jean-Michel Basquiat’s art, Marci Rosin splashed her signature subject based on the cartoon, “Biker Mice from Mars” with graffiti and speed. I […]
by Fran Watson Gatlinburg, Tennessee once was a quiet little town sporting one motel with rooms overlooking a rushing mountain stream and one restaurant. At least, it was on my first trip there. Several years later, I revisited it to find a commercial nightmare had descended upon it , its main street, and side two-lane […]
by Fran Watson From the Village to Vogue: The Modernist Jewelry of Art Smith February 14, 2014 – May 11, 2014 Cincinnati Art Museum “Bespoke” was hardly an often-used description of jewelry during the ’60’s when Art Smith created the highly original pieces seen in his current display at CAM, but it now seems to […]
by Fran Watson Patterson Center was packed to the brim with the most difficult people in the city: artists. Mostly lady artists. Each of whom knew in her heart of hearts that she was vastly underrated and pushing valiantly to right this obvious wrong. I was one of these, as determined and convinced of my […]
by Fran Watson “The Tree of Life”, Cincinnati Art Museum, November 29, 2013 – January 1, 2014 In a straight line from the main entrance of the Cincinnati Art Museum, past the sequestered “Icons” spotlighted in black caves, through the spacious hallway, footsteps echoing loudly, stood the very dead “Tree of Life”; its roots unlaced […]
PAIRINGS Taming the Elements: Contemporary Japanese Prints and Ceramics Cincinnati Art Museum, October 12, 2-13 – January 5, 2014 By Fran Watson This just may be the perfect meld of mediums. Cool , exciting ceramics perform clay- defying acrobatics in successful combinations with 20th century Japanese woodcuts whose labor intensive prints match for a tempo […]
Crystal Night and The Boris Schatz Collection at Hebrew Union College October 11- January 31, 2014 by Fran Watson Art lifts, inspires, predicts the future and captures the past. The very pictorial basis of art makes this past ever-accessible, and permanent for widest world audience, preserving history in a way that mere words cannot. Yet […]
PRESSING MATTERS by Fran Watson Tiger Lily Press at Fifth Street Gallery October 11 – November 2 Cincinnati Portfolio IV at Clay Street Press September 27 – November 16 Printmaking is an indoor sport, which may explain the appearance of two (count ‘em 2) fine Cincinnati Print exhibits as the weather cools. […]
Small Packages/Good Things by Fran Watson Motif, Mantra & Mystery Small works by Frank Herrmann, Kim Krause and Eric Standley Marta Hewett Gallery Jun 28 – August 24, 2013 Artists need to think their way up. Great huge works don’t simply happen. They follow many little ideas which one day culminate in a masterpiece…. […]
Fair and Warmer by Fran Watson Two Artists/One Path Barb Ahlbrand and Jackie Frey Cincinnati YWCA Women’s Art Gallery June 21 – September 12, 2013 Hot! Hot! Hot! with art to match the climate at the downtown YWCA gallery . Big, juicy masses of color fan the flames of energy in nearly every one of […]
The Eyes Have It “Kinetica [movement in art]” and “Fictive Portraits” at Manifest Gallery. By Fran Watson There is a little “back room” at Manifest Art Gallery where twice, now, I’ve discovered unexpected excellence. It portends even more visits working back to front in this unusual art venue. This latest surprise was a show of […]
Other Worlds by Fran Watson Hema Upadhyay and Atul Dodlya At the Contemporary Arts Center Both artists are are from India, both have been celebrated internationally, and both exhibit imagery which contains the multiple layers of their exotic homeland and a nearly unplumbable history. My own knowledge of Indian culture is casual, at best, […]
Letter from Phoenix Fran Watson I went for sunshine and got sleet, rain, and chill. Phoenix natives don gloves and earmuffs for their morning walks when the temps hit 60 degrees. The art made up for it all even though several art festivals were literally blown away by high winds. The entrance lobby and hallways […]
Immortal Close-Ups Taft Museum of Art through April 7 by Fran Watson It doesn’t take much to excite lovers of Chinese art, which makes the 14 pieces of Kangxi porcelain on exhibit in the Sinton Gallery of the Taft Museum a true holiday for such aficionados. It’s also a great opportunity to […]
SIDE BY SIDE BY OMID AEC Gallery, Covington, Kentucky, through February 16, 2013 by Fran Watson Very few art exhibits simply happen. They started someplace, out of great and not so great thoughts, from the hearts and minds of creative individuals, and in some cases, from a combination of several kinds of creativity. “domino02” at […]
“NINE” BY THE NUMBER by Fran Watson Carnegie Arts Center, 1028 Scott St., Covington, Ky. November 16 – December 21 If you believe you can never have too much of a good thing, you will be feasting on outside-the-box creativity at the Carnegie Arts Center this month. Terri Kernʼs small book-themed pieces are at their […]
LITHO AT ITS LIVELIEST: Toulouse-Lautrec and the Spectacles of Paris at the Cincinnati Art Museum October 13, 2012 -January 13, 2013 by Fran Watson My first visit to Montmartre was not the flamboyant, sin-drenched, total artistic emersion of which I had dreamed. It turned out to be a touristy square filled with prosaic artists producing […]
Tony De Varco at Marta Hewett Gallery, Sept. 21 – Nov. 24 by Fran Watson Those attuned to area art events cannot help but notice the current photo-mania, which is probably one of the best combined publicity efforts for the arts in recent local history. Most of the galleries and museums in the Cincinnati area […]
“Shape to Shape” Paintings and sculpture by Stuart Fink Brazee Street studios, 4426 Brazee Street in Oakley Reception: September 14, 6-9 p.m. Showing through September 21 I was a bit confused at first glimpse of Stuart Fink’s current show at Gallery One One at Brazee Street studios. His name is so well known in the […]
By: Fran Watson Photographs courtesy of Eric R Greiner This may be prejudice, but print shows are always elegant to me. It might be the stark, bravado of good line on fine paper, or the iteration of symbols, or even the sinuous curls and aggressive exclamations of straight lines reminiscent of the waning popularity of […]
Layered Abstractions at AEC April 13 thru May 11 Abstract they are; some more than others. Yet sculpture by Robert Pulley, palette knife paintings by Trish Weeks, and painted comments on humanity by Paige Williams, were pulled together by the common, if tenuous, thread of nature. Robert Pulley has spent decades in sculpture. With a true […]
Ah, the creative mind! It changes our vision, our perceptions, our world, using the vastness of the unnoticed, mundane material of our daily lives. Like thread, a single one of which is so ordinary, so small, so inconsequential, that it is seldom acknowledged in any but a practical way: sewing a button on, mending a […]
WATERCOLORS TO BOOKS Sinton Gallery, Taft Museum of Art February 10 to April 15 2012 Even compared with our contemporary view of art, J.M.W. Turner was an extraordinary talent. Accepted at the Royal Academy in London at age 14, often deliberately irascible, flaunting his cockney background at hopeful moneyed patrons, and justifiably confident of […]
Jim WillIams “Hybrid Structures” January 2012 – March 10, 2012 Featuring one of you college professors’ art in your own successful gallery long after graduation must be one of those daydreams of the undergrad, particularly when you have succeeded as an artist in your own right. Thus, the very happy combination of Jim Williams, U.C […]
The Marta Hewitt Gallery always looks fresh. There’s something about the bling effect of glass and the space implied and manipulated by that medium. But Hewitt is taking this a giant step forward, lately, pulling in less famous, but equally good artists in other mediums. Currently three multi-dimensional artists, dealing in work-intensive materials are well […]
Pablo Picasso would not be the only mercurial, misogynistic, egotistic, super- salesman who chose art (or art chose him) as a means of locomotion. The type abounds in this most rarified of all careers in this equally rarified era, most notably epitomized by Duchamp and Man Ray, masters of shock art, but he is the […]
George Inness, as currently featured at the Taft Museum of Art through January 8, 2012, was not yet the master of a united nature concept when these early paintings were completed. Often noted as the most influential artist in the development of American Impressionism, that title would have been angrily denied by him, had he […]
Carmel Buckley’s slice of the universe is filled with sheer unlimited creativity, topped, like the traditional cherry on a sundae, with surprises, as if the universe were not enough. With a twist of wire, a dollop of clay, and a few well-used found objects, her sculptures blossom with curious freshness and drawings and prints become […]
Once I thought of Bessie Wessel with some pity, a victim of her times, when women were permitted to study, but not to enjoy a full, satisfying career. Men, like Bessie’s husband, Herman, would pursue success in the world, while the ladies, God bless ‘em, tended the comforts that would enable the men to fight […]
Manifest Gallery’s “3rd Annual NUDE” international competition showing through September 9, offers more than the vast undulating landscape of skin to be considered. The subjects have been folded, stretched, posed and exposed in every manner from hypnotic fragility, as in Bain Butcher’s “Untitled” graphite rendering of a young woman, to the Diebenkorn-ish palette knife interiors […]
“The Art of Charlie and Edie Harper in Needlepoint Exhibit” is exactly that. Charming and humorous, exquisitely designed and perfectly executed, each of these renditions of the famous Harper pieces in the clockwork precision of needlepoint seems just what the two artists would have anticipated as a future for their works. The late Harpers’ prints […]
Books. From the tiniest , “Musical Boxes” by Mark Palkovic measuring a mere 1” X 1 1/2”, to the largest, also qualifying as the most outrageous,”Zulu: A Book Doll” by Pamela Howard, Bookwords 12 at the Main Library through August 29, 2011, is a plethora of invention and imagination. Pop-up book artists are now known […]
Initial Impression: Darkened rooms, interestingly arranged for multi-screened film projections. Walls and partitions simultaneously displaying black and white events. A slim man scatters a white powder over a grassy area. He is printing the universal signal for help, SOS, in large letters by drizzling a white powder on the grass. Written material nearby indicates that […]
In Cincinnati painting circles two names, from a recent past, keep their magic. The late Paul Chidlaw and the late Jack Meanwell, both of whom painted with a flashing style raised from the canvas in waves of impasto excitement. Both artists’ works are available at […]
