Image of the Day, July 24, 2012

“The Conversation” by Barbara Pence received the “People’s Choice” award and the jurors’ award of merit at the recent 2012 Spring Salon and the Springville Museum of Art in Utah.

In the painting “The Conversation” it is fascinating to observe how Barbara Pence combines still life painting, commonly depicting inanimate objects, with elements of portraiture—hands and arms.  Each place setting tells a story depicting a range of emotions from passivity to aggressive gestures as one dinner guest points a knife at another. One person is half way through desert while another barely touched the meal.  The birds-eye view heightens the inherent sense of voyeurism as the viewer is privileged  to take in the entire scene at once.

“The Conversation,” by Barbara Pence. Credit: Barbarapence.com

Image of the Day, March 23, 2012

“Though a living cannot be made at art, art makes life worth living. It makes living, living. It makes starving, living. It makes worry, it makes trouble, it makes a life that would be barren of everything — living. It brings life to life.” — John Sloan

John Sloan is well known as a member of “The Eight” and for his paintings of gritty urban scenes -- often narratives of city life in New York City during the early part of the 20^th century. Like many artists, he travelled west to Santa Fe in 1919. He bought a home and studio and returned every summer for four months until 1950, one year prior to his death.

John Sloan (1871-1951), Still Life, Hat on Chair, 1932, oil on cardboard, 21 x 18 in. Credit: Sothebys.comHis painting Still Life, Hat on Chair, 1932 will be sold at Sotheby’s American Paintings, Drawings and Sculpture Auction, New York, 05 April, 2012 at 10:00.

The low estimate is $15,000., and the high estimate is $20,000.

Painting of the Day, December 5, 2011

By Donna Poulton

"It is not a country of light on things. It is a country of things in light." – Marsden Hartley

Modernist artist Marsden Hartley painted this still life of the New Mexico landscape glimpsed through his window in 1919. Reference to the land and its people can be seen centered in the composition. The blooming cactus, growing in a Santa Clara pot, sits atop an American Indian blanket on the table. This painting, estimated to sell at between  $7-$900,000, sold for a staggering $3,218,500 at a recent Sotheby’s Auction.

Credit ArtFixDaily.com

Marsden Hartley, Untitled (Still Life), 1919, oil on board, 32 x 28 in.