Goodbye summer, hello hurricanes

pic of the month

Women captivated Henri Matisse. Near the end of his career, he decorated the Chapelle du Rosaire de Vence, a chapel for Dominican nuns on the French Riviera. The project was undertaken to honor a close friend of his who had decided to enter the religious order. Mère et enfant debout is a study for one of the monumental murals adorning this holy space.

Numbered from the edition of 60, this rare hand-signed color lithograph depicts the Virgin holding Christ up for the world to see. Rather than clutching the child to her, she offers him. Matisse's interpretation of one of the oldest and most fraught maternal relationships complements the beginning of school.

My father cried the day he dropped me off at college, surrounded by outsize suitcases and rolled posters. The desire to keep one's children close can't prevent time passing. Summers pass, students grow older, pulled towards independenc by age. Matisse's Mary begins to let go of her son, though it goes against every instinct.

The emotional complexity of the story behind this simple image makes it one of the artist's most potent graphic works.

art in the news

The elderly Cecilia Gimenez claims she had her priest's blessing to fix a degrading 19th century portrait of Christ by Elías García Martínez in her local Spanish church. The well-meaning parishioner probably didn't anticipate her remarkably simian results. Either way, images of the furry Savior have gone viral, resulting in a large following of ironic art lovers, not the least of which may be Banksy himself.

The amount of Google searches run on an artist affects the prices her art fetches at auction, says a new study from Washington State University. An increase of one percentage point in search popularity jumps prices up 38 percent. Correlating Google hits to personal fame, the study confirms an accepted truth: the best-known artists fetch the best prices.

Speaking of auctions, it will be the word of Lee Krasner against Ruth Kligman at Phillips de Pury later this month. The late wife and mistress of Jackson Pollock never did agree on the authenticity of Red, Black & Silver. Backing up Krasner and contesting the origins of this small painting are the Pollock-Krasner Authentication Board. Kligman claims to have watched the artist create the work before his untimely death in a car crash.

We'll see how the feud affects the final hammer price.

education of an artist

"Every child is an artist. The problem is how to remain an artist once he grows up."

Pablo Picasso defines the relationship between art and the childlike imagination. Unrestricted by education, the child creates with a lack of restraint or fear. Lessons in what not to do bury the gutsiness that makes an artist great.

True artists create art as boldly as a child, until the end. Like children, they are often reprimanded.

James Abbott McNeill Whistler got into a libel suit with John Ruskin over a review of his art. You'd be upset too if your work was described like a pot of paint flung" in the public's face." The splatter painting in question now hangs in the National Gallery of Art, Washington.

Marc Chagall went his own way from the beginning. Though he studied with several teachers, he never stayed for long. From a young age he had a clear sense that his art was like no other, and founded his own academy in 1919.

After a brief stint fighting in WWII, Henry Moore started school at the age of 21. He appreciated the late start: "I was very lucky not have gone to art school until I knew better than to believe what the teachers said."

exhibition-(l)ist

Jasper Johns: Variations on a Theme at the Phillips Collection, Washington, D.C.; through Sept. 9
Take your last chance to experience this American artist's innovative and prolific printmaking; tracing his graphic works from the 1960s to 2011, this exhibition is not to be missed.

Rembrandt in America at the Minneapolis Institute of Arts; through Sept. 16
This blockbuster exhibition contains the largest number of paintings by the Master to ever be displayed in an American museum.

Monet's Garden at the New York Botanical Garden; through Oct. 21
If you can't take the trip to Giverny to visit Monet's famed gardens, you might go to the Bronx and walk this living canvas; spring and summer flowers have been replaced by asters, sunflowers and goldenrods.

Impressionnisme et la mode at Musée d'Orsay, Paris; Sept. 25 - Jan. 20, 2013
Organized with the Metropolitan Museum, New York; and the Art Institute, Chicago, this exhibition traces the Impressionist expression of modern life in depictions of contemporary fashions and attitudes.

Mary Cassatt à Paris at the Mona Bismarck American Center for Art & Culture, Paris; Sept. 26 -Jan. 20, 2013
The Center will exhibit 70 works on paper by the renowned American Impressionist, including preparatory drawings, aquatints and drypoints. Drawn from art dealer Ambroise Vollard's own collection, these works have never been shown in the artist's adoptive country.