Art Research

Edward Lucie-Smith examines Hans Holbein's famous series of prints, The Dance of Death, together with associated works, such as various artistic variations on the theme of Death and the Maiden. In addition, Lucie-Smith looks at some famous images made on the theme of war, notably the prints of Jacques Callot and the bitter social studies of Goya y Lucientes.

Painter Claudia Carr describes her surreal landscapes, composed from reflections of found objects that suggest imaginative scenarios of play and dreams.

Daniel Graves is a man of many talents. He juggles his responsibilities of being a painter, a teacher, the director of The Florence Academy of Art, a husband, and a father remarkably well. He knew from the age of three or four who he wanted to be. His career launched when he was 11 years old. He studied with many artists including Richard Lack, Richard Serrin, and Signorina Simi, and received regular critiques from Pietro Annigoni.

In the past century, average life expectancies have nearly doubled, and today, for the first time in human history, many people have a realistic chance of living to 80 or beyond. As life expectancy increases, Americans need accurate, scientifically grounded information so that they can take full responsibility for their own latter years. In The Art and Science of Aging Well, Mark E. Williams, MD, discusses the remarkable advances that medical science has made in the field of aging and the steps that people may take to enhance their lives as they age.

Cv/VAR no.100 publishes an interview with the American artist Jim Dine, recorded by cell phone from Wales to the artists Paris studio on May 11th, 2010. In this, he discusses his beginnings as an artist, his work with Claes Oldenburg and the Happenings, the Pinocchio series, 52 Books at Pace Gallery, New York, and the relationship of drawing to his graphic work.

The 2013 monograph republished on the occasion of the 2020 Andy Warhol retrospective at Tate Modern London featuring: Campbell's Soup Cans, 1960s portraits; Suicides and Car Crashes; Sex Parts; Latinx Trans Portraits and the finnale Sicty Last Suppers 1986. Includes Andy Warhol at the NGMA Edinburgh, October 2007, A Celebration of Life...and Death. Magdalena Wasiura on Andy Warhol: Brigid Bardot portrait at Gagosian Gallery 2013.

Cv/VAR 47 documents an interview with the the celebrated sculptor Arman (1928-2005), exploring his early connections with Yves Klein, Rosicrucianism, and the development of auto-formed sculptures of collected objects.

Eco-art exhibitions are part of the trend of our times. Radical Nature, the show at the Barbican Art Gallery in London, demonstrated some of the possibilities and paradoxes of enterprises of this sort. Basically what the organizers had to do is to move the outside indoors. This set them both practical and, in their own terms at least, moral problems.

Seven days in Funchal on the Island of Madeira. Journal notes of the settings, locations, and personal stories in diary entries.

An essay by Edward Lucie-Smith considers the Andy Warhol exhibition re-opening at Tate Modern on July 27. He puts forward a provocative view of the relevance of the art in an time of turbulent disruption. When the Warhol show returns to Tate Modern on July 27, almost the first thing you’ll meet if you go to see it will be a large painting, on two paired canvases, entitled Marilyn Diptych. It features repeated images the film star Marilyn Monroe.

May my words, meditations, and articulations assist you to rise to your highest potential. I do my best to represent this intergenerational tradition of excellence in all areas of humanity. When I put these traditions into books coherently and inspiringly, I feel that I am doing my part for this generation to preserve all that is good. But, beyond creating a conserving narrative, I know these ideas will mean little or nothing if they remain confined to the smallest audiences. Therefore, I must hustle to get my most transformative concepts to the widest audiences possible. Our children and ...

This is a personal view of Picasso and Paper, a major exhibition held at the Royal Academy, and explores over 300 works covering drawing, collages, and prints.

Reviews events in the London Festival of the Cultural Olympiad. Writer Alexandra James visits a variety of exhibitions, music, and performances, staged through July 2012, witnessing a range of creative voices drawn from the international arena.

Cv/VAR 50 publishes an interview with the artist Helen Chadwick (1953-96), recorded at her Beck Road studio in 1989. It explores the body-action-photographic works distilled in installations such as Ego Geometria Sum and Of Mutability, and the cromalin prints of 1989: Viral Landscapes, prepared for exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art Oxford in 1990.

A recorded visit on January 28 to John Ruskin: The Power of Seeing, at Two Temple Place WC2. The review includes descriptions of exhibits by Ruskin and his associates and his contact with JMW Turner.

Frieze Masters, London, October 6, 2019. Into the broad arena of the covered awnings of this enormous tented gathering of leading art dealers and the first gallery space is Aquavella, with a variety of exhibits; and come face-to-face with an absolutely spiteful acid green and fluorescent pink abstract by Keith Haring (1958-1990). It’s on canvas dated 1982 and signed lower left. The green is painted in a random ventilated grid over the hyper-intense pink with a bold line of a green stripe on the top edge of the work, which is encased in a glass vitrine.

A collection of reviews made from January to June 2019 of exhibitions in museums and galleries in London and Oxford. The volume proceeds from Small Histories, published in 1996 then updated in 2011. Contents include: Mantegna/Bellini at the National Gallery, John Ruskin at Temple Place, Elizabethan Miniatures at the National Portrait Gallery, Pierre Bonnard at Tate Modern, Mary Quant at the V&A, Jeff Koons at the Ashmolean Oxford, and Anish Kapoor at the Lisson Gallery London.

Interview with painter Anthea Holmes, recorded in April 1988 at her Whitechapel Studio. She describes her training at Kingston University and at The Pratt Institute New York; with the development of an intricate play between figure, ground and light in an intimate process of accumulation and elision of elements.

Interview conducted with Christiane Baumgartner in 2010, by emailed questions and replies, in which she describes the process of her graphic and video work; incorporating ideas of stop-motion time frames applied to subjects of landscape, travelling, traffic, highways, and military installations.

Interview recorded with Rachel Howard at the artist's studio in July 2011. Explores her childhood and upbringing, awareness of "God", and experience of a Quaker schooling. Attendance at Goldsmiths and work for Damien Hirst on pharmacy cabinets and the Spot Paintings. Recent exhibition in Italy, the "Via Dolorosa"; discussion of her paintings and drawings; the desired effect of her work.