With a half dozen works in the Wadsworth’s collection, it’s possible to construct an informal cultural timeline that touches on the Revolutionary War, the Gilded Age, Modernism, and twentieth-century issues of gender and race.
“Holbein: Capturing Character” is up at the Morgan Library, and notwithstanding the reductive title, the show is a testament to the age of European humanism, and specifically to Hans Holbein’s role in painting its most prominent personalities.
The necessity to impress patrons tinges everything Sargent painted; ever the master of prestidigitation, even in his relaxed moments he is a thoroughly public artist. No other major painter’s manual dexterity is so central to his identity.
Ephraim Rubenstein is participating in the Portrait & Figure Festival as are Art Students League instructors Costa Vavagiakis, Sharon Sprung, and Michael Grimaldi.
My New York City studio (below) is located on the tenth floor of the National Arts Club. The view is unobstructed and the quality of north light is rich and clinical. The space measures 20 x 30 feet with an eighteen-foot ceiling. The window starts about five feet off the floor. I have a set…