Palm Beach Modern 2020

The Palm Beach Modern and Contemporary Art Show was large and excellent.

On the left in blue is "Oblique Angles" by Rafael Barrios from Venezuela.  The

bronze sculptures in center and right are by the Colombian artist Fernando Botero.

The Barrios sculpture is a flat piece of aluminum painted to look 3 dimensional.

Venezuela is the great center for Op Art / Optical Art.

Fernando Botero.  "Woman on Horseback."  Bronze.  Colombia.

"Yellow Tulips" is a very large print by Alex Katz of the U.S., who has been painting

large flowers for many years.  It is printed on paper using a variety of techniques: lithography, woodcut, and silkscreen.  The picture below shows you the size.  It was being sold for $125 K.

"Yellow Tulips" by Alex Katz, and three of the bears, often holding balloons, by Cévé,
a French woman sculptor born in 1951.  They are made of bronze.

"Star and Moon Tapestry" by Alexander Calder.  Calder was an American painter,

printmaker, and sculptor, who worked part of each year in France and part in the U.S.

His colorful prints were sometimes used as patterns for fine Aubusson tapestries.

Carole Feuermann, "Seated Figure."  U.S. Hyper-realism.  Life Size.  Resin.

Feuermann is one of three major hyper-realist sculptors in the U.S.

One of my favorite galleries is the Frederic Got, with the main gallery in Paris, and others

in Montreal and New York.  The squarish bronze scultures are by Jacques Lebescond.

The painting of butterflies on the right is by Hunt Slonem of the U.S.  The three works on

the back wall are paintings/sculpture by Stallman, a name used by two men who work

together.  They are made of strips of canvas 4 inches wide, which are painted on both sides,

and then stood on end and glued to a back board.  They move and change color as you walk by.

Peter Aponovich.  "Tulips and Mountains."  U.S.

Peter works in a studio devoid of any props or photos, he works

totally from his mind and creates highly realistic, yet

surrealistic still lifes and scenery.

There were several galleries from China, Korea, and Japan; this one is Chinese.

"Waterfall" by Hiroshi Senju.  The orange work on the wall is a piece made up of small

boxes made of handmade mulberry paper by Chun Kwan Young, entitled

"Aggregation 274."  The stainless steel sculpture in the center is by Chinese artist

Zheng Lu and entitled "Water in Dripping - You."  It is made up of thousands of small

pieces of stainless steel Chinese characters, which spell out a famous Chinese poem

about dripping water.  He welds all the tiny pieces togather.

Welded stainless steel Chinese characters.  Zheng Lu.

Chun Kwan Young.  Little hand made boxes of mulberry paper in "Aggregation."

Cecil Touchon.  "PDP 598."    Texas, USA.

Touchon's paintings are abstractions based upn typography.  Using the

techniques of collage, he reassembles portions of letter fonts from billboards

and printed materials into pure abstractions that transform verbal language into

a form of visual architecture.

Damien Hirst.  "Mandala."  British.  Print.

Hirst made the original with actual butterflies glued to a background;

he buys the butterflies from special breeders.  The silkscreen print then was produced

 by his studio assistants.  It is 6 feet in diameter.

DEAN Project Gallery.  On left is "Rabbits" by Hunt Slonem.  In the center is the

Damien Hirst "Mandala", and on the right is from Holland,  Karl Hendricks "Portrait."  It is
 based on a 15th century painting, but is a photograph of his teenage daughter in a turban.

T. M. Glass.  "Tulips and Azaleas."  Composed photo.  2017
Ms Glass lives in Toronto.  The vase in each photo is an historically significant
work usually photographed at the Toronto museum.   All of the flowers are from
her own garden.  Each flower and the vase are digitally photographed separately.
Glass arranges the many images into a coherent single image and then prints it.

Donald Sultan.  "Blue Poppies."  U.S.  Aluminum  36 in high

Duane Hanson.  "Museum Guard." Polyurethane.  Jim Dine.  "Heart."

Helen Frankenthaler.  "Untitled."  U.S.  Abstract Expressionism.

Frankenthaler used a "soak and stain" technique, in which she diluted pigments in a jar,

then poured them slowly across a tilted canvas.  The images are thus sponteous.

Lastly she might make a few brush strokes on the surface.

Ichiro Tsuruta.  "Make-Up."  Japanese.  2017  Acrylic on Canvas

Ichiro wants to continue ancient Japanese traditions, but also make adaptations of modern

Western techniques.  Here he combines the subject and general treatment of a "beautiful

woman" 18th century in woodblock ukiyo-e style with Western Pop Art and large

flat areas of color.  This painting is 6 feet wide.

Tom Marosz.  "Blue Shards."  Glass.  Czech.

There were several very fine Czech glass artists.

Andy Warhol.  "Beethoven."  Silkscreen print.

There were many works by  Warhol for sale.  I like this one, where Andy started

with a Polaroid copy of an 18th century painting of Beethoven.  He then treated

colors arbitrarily and superimposed the score of the "Moonlight Sonata."  Perhaps he

was referring to the deafness which overtook Beethoven, so that he could not actually

hear the compositions he wrote, except in his mind.

Janet Rickus.  "Autumnal Abundance."  2019  U.S.  Realism

Jennifer McCurdy.  "Flame."  U.S.  Porcelain with gold leaf inside.

Jennifer throws the pot of white kaolin clay on a wheel, and then, while it is still in its

damp green stage, she carves the clay.  It is then fired at a very high temperature into

porcelain.  After it cools, she covers the inside with gold leaf.

The Steidel Gallery had  cast glass pieces by Carol Milne (A Canadian/American
glass artist working in Seattle), a Jennifer McCurdy porcelain piece on top center,
and two porcelain pieces with cast glass stoppers by Deborah Steidel.

Jonas Wood.  "Matisse Pot #1."  29 color silkscreen print.  21x21 in.

Wood is a California, Los Angeles, artist, who takes the form of a pot, often one made

by his wife, a potter.  He then decorates the form in perfectly flat images taken from

various Matisse paintings.  Space and depth and 3 dimension are suppressed.
It took 29 different stencils to make the print; it is very complex.

There are three prints in this series, and the group was being sold for $110,000.

This spring, he created a series of six oil paintings, using this shape and Matisse

images, but 6 feet square, and sold them the first day in New York for $2 million apiece.

Deborah Butterfield.  "Rusty."  Bronze.  2018.  U.S.

Butterfield first constructs the horse of branches and twigs from her property.  She then

takes each piece, marking its location precisely, and casts it in bronze.  When all the

pieces have been cast, she welds them into a bronze sculpture which can stand outside.

Lastly she treats the surface to look like weathered branches.

Roy Lichtenstein.  "Harbor Scene."  U.S.  Silkscreen print.  1974.  Pop Art.

Lichtenstein was interested in how comic books were printed, very differently and more

cheaply than fine arts books.  He then applied the principles to his own images - large

areas of flat color, strong outlines, hatched lines or dots for shading, suppression of depth

and space.  The result is vibrant, all on the surface, and immediately understood.

Roy Lichtenstein.  "Monet"s Water Lily Pond."  Silkscreen on Mirror.

This is one of my favorite pieces by Lichtenstein, based on Monet's famous

water lily pond.  Except that here the colors are flat and broad, not modulated, outlines 

are very strong, and traditional depth and space are suppressed.

On the wall are prints by Tom Wesselmann, "Reclining Nude" and "Still Life."

In front are three stainless steel sculptures of "Lilies," "Tulips," and "Roses"

 by Gary Santoro.

Lino Tagliapietro.  "Dinosaur."  Blown Glass.  Italy/U.S.

Tagliapietro is one of the two greatest glass artists in the world.  He works half

the year on Murano Island in Venice and half the year in Seattle, near Dale Chihuly.

This is part of a series and it is about 4 feet high.

The booth and some of the pieces of glass art by Lino Tagliapietro.

Right across the aisle was this piece of  cast glass and granite by

Matthew Wise.  Wise casts the glass in a sand mold, then fuses it with the stone,
 and finally cuts openings in both.  The occlusions in the glass are infinitely interesting.

RETNA is a Calfornia/Los Angeles graffiti artist.  He has developed a style

using calligraphy he invents from mixing Hebrew, Arabic, and Greek alphabets.

His works decorate the walls of 10 story buildings and also work on 6 foot paintings,

like this one.

Shun Sudo.  "Voice."  Japan.  2018

Shun wishes to preserve the ancient Japanese painting technique of sumi-e, flung black ink,

which is a spontaneous, Zen inspired style.  But he wishes to combine this with the Pop Art

of the Western World, which he also admires.  This is a very large painting, 6 feet high and

nearly 20 feet long.  The above is only half of it, made of two panels.  One can paint

flowers in many ways.

Shun  Sudo.  "Voice."  Japanese.

The painting combines Japanese sumi-e with Western Pop Art in a successful new style.

Tom Wesselman.   "Still Life with Leger."  U.S.  Pop Art.
Like Lichtenstein, he uses the techniques of comic book printing to treat a very
old and traditional subject - still life with flowers and a painting.

The Rosenbaum Gallery had "Portrait of Maria" and "Head with Butterflies" in silver by the
Spanish artist, Manolo Valdes.  The "Dot Painting" is by the British artist Damien Hirst.
The "Standing Figures" of marble and wood are by the Italian artist Oriano Galloni.




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