Fine Art

Last 2011Telluride First Thursday Art Walk, 10/06/11

Painting by Bruce Gomez

Sponsored by the Telluride Council for the Arts and Humanities, the First Thursday Art Walk is a once-a-month opportunity for galleries, studios, and retail stores to strut their considerable stuff. The meet-and-greet takes place all day until 8 p.m. October 6 marks the final Art Walk of the 2011 season.

New for the summer/fall season 2011 select venues continue to welcome children and their families for a special Kids Walk. A treasure map provides a self-guided tour and simple activities that teach basic principles of art through observation. Key venues offer hands-on activities.

Among the venues not to miss:

Telluride Inside… and Out: Philadelphia and environs

Yesterday, Telluride Inside… and Out was on the move again, this time to visit old friends and former Telluride locals Sidney and Monique Lazard in Philadelphia. Our rendezvous was set for the Philadelphia Art Museum.

In the 17th century century, the period known as the Golden Age of the Netherlands, the Dutch Republic reached unprecedented economic, political and cultural heights and saw a flowering of artistic talent to rival the tulip crop. The Holy Trinity of that period was Frans Hals, whom we talked about in a recent post about a show of his work at New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art, Johannes Vermeer, and Rembrandt van Rijn (1606 – 1669). Ever ready to embrace synchronicity, turned out Philadelphia was featuring Rembrandt.

Telluride Inside… and Out: Hals and Grooms in New York

These are the faces not just a mother can love and an ethos also easy to relate to. Still, in the case of painter Frans Hals. On Firday, Telluride Inside… and Out visited the Big Apple once again. Our two key stops yesterday: the Frans Hals show at The Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Red Grooms show at the Marlborough Gallery, 40 West 57th Street.

Though divided by centuries, the two artists have more in common than meets the eye. Hals and Grooms convince with clear-eyed depictions of the human condition. Both became well known for affectionate yet truthful portrayals of the urban cultures of  17th-century Haarlem, the Netherlands, Hal's adopted home, and 20th/21st century New York in the case of Grooms.

Telluride Inside… and Out: An afternoon date in downtown Seattle

Painter Z.Z. Wei sees his little corner of the Big Blue Marble like nobody else sees it. And once you see it, ahem, his "way," you can't help but view the Northwestern landscapes of the Puget Sound or the Palouse of Eastern, Washington without seeing his work in those vistas. Just ask Clint Viebrock, who was born in Eastern Washington. That's why every Fall without fail Telluride Inside... and Out makes a pilgrimage to Patricia Rovzar's gallery at 1225 Second Avenue in downtown Seattle to check out her annual blockbuster show of the artist's work. It's Clint's way of going home again –  with the added perk of not having to pay for gas for the three-hour trip across the mountains.

Telluride Inside… and Out in New York: A visit to the Jewish Museum

Matisse, "Large Reclining Nude"

Picture Telluride without Levi's and denim. There would be lots of locals running around half-naked. And naked walls instead of walls filled with art in the apartments of the Cone sisters of Baltimore. Their massive collection – about 3,000 pieces including some 500 Matisses – was in large part built on the back of denim. The family business, The Cone Mills Corporation, produced cloth for work clothes and, during WW1, for military uniforms. But the company was also the largest supplier of denim to Levi Strauss. Their brothers' support of their two spinster sisters enabled (Dr.) Claribel and Etta (likely a former lover of Gertrude Stein, a major mentor) to devote their lives to collecting masterpieces of modern art.

"Collecting Matisse and Modern Masters: The Cone Sisters of Baltimore" is the featured show (through September 25) at The Jewish Museum in Manhattan on the corner of 92nd Street and Fifth Avenue, once the Warburg mansion. The exhibition, meant to reinforce the idea the two sisters were very important collectors of cutting-edge art, not mere "shoppers"  as dismissed by their detractors, showcases about 50 of their finest gems.

Your Ah Haa Moment: "The Art of Mushrooms" with John Sir Jesse

[click "Play" to hear Lauren Metzger's interview with John Sir Jesse]   The fun and exciting 31st annual Telluride Shroomfest just ended, but when the subject is mycelium and their fabulous fruit, mushrooms, if you, like me, are one of the...