Fine Art Connoisseur November/December 2023

“Art in America has always belonged to the people and has never been the property of an academy or a class… ” — President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, speaking about the Works Progress Administration (WPA) in 1939, the same year Federal Art Project artist Elizabeth Olds made this print…

“Call me when you've been in business for 20 years,” said one prominent art dealer. “I won't even consider advertising until you've proved you can survive that long.” “I've watched magazines come and go,” said another gallery owner. “Your chances of making it through the first year are slim. You're better off investing in something else.” I'm not easily discouraged. I guess I'm determined, stubborn, or foolish to have ignored the naysayers who predicted the quick demise of this magazine. With this issue, we are wrapping up our 20th year of publishing, in spite of a series of recessions, an ever-weakening magazine industry, and an overall shift away from print media. (Fortunately, market research shows that print will remain strongest in the arena of arts and shelter magazines.) The ability…

Though Fine Art Connoisseur always likes to grapple with big ideas, this issue of the magazine has gone more meta than expected. Inside you will find two pieces about artists' relationships with other artists. The first is a portfolio richly illustrated with contemporary works in which the artist depicts another artist, and the second (authored by Rose Fredrick) is an article highlighting nine artists who collect works by other living artists. It is only natural that many artists note what their colleagues are doing — even what they look like — and so these sections re-remind us that the works we admire do not fall from the sky fully formed. Rather, they are made by people of real flesh and blood. Equally meta was my recent visit to New Haven,…

A rchitect Peter Pennoyer is reluctant to cut and paste a document or fire up the CAD drawing software typical in his industry. Instead, he and his staff architects prefer to do much of their designing by hand, actually drawing the moldings and staircases, fireplace surrounds, and coffered ceilings that figure into his residential projects. “Hand drawing connects you to the human scale,” says Pennoyer from his New York office, where for decades he has been designing scores of America's most notable, traditionally styled residences. The latest are featured in his book Peter Pennoyer Architects: City/Country (Rizzoli). “You realize quickly that drawing teaches you humility, and you realize that people, architects in particular, who drew regularly in their day did it better than we can today. Some things should be…

Although the editorial team at Fine Art Connoisseur loves all kinds of art — from landscape to still life, from the Old Masters to the still-wet — we hold a special place in our hearts for figurative works and portraiture. People are at the center of what we do, and so images in which artists depict other people — be they models, strangers, or commissioning clients — carry a special fascination. Capturing a face or human body is incredibly challenging. We all have them, so we can see immediately when something is “not right” in a painting or sculpture. We may not be able to articulate what's wrong, but we sure do spot it. This makes figurative and portrait artists all the more extraordinary in my estimation; even if they…

BARBARA COLEMAN (b. 1956) learned from a young age to see beauty even in the midst of painful circumstances. When she was 17 and lost her father unexpectedly, the simple act of studying how light shimmers on rose petals chased away the somber grays of her grief, and in that moment she understood the true meaning of the word beauty. “Everything appeared beautiful, teeming with life and serenity — a Beauty with a capital ‘B,'” the artist shares. “The anguish I carried was transformed by this enchanting Beauty. My grief seemed to have expanded my capacity to perceive it. I observed the rose with a deep attention and awareness. I was connected to everything, with no sense of separation. If I can see Beauty, I know everything will be all right.”…