Category Archives: Abstract Expressionism

Reverberations

Artists’ Talk at Cerulean Arts Gallery

Andrea Krupp, Cerulean Arts Gallery

Saturday, March 16 at 1:00. Lisa Sylvester and Andrea Krupp will be chatting about the work on display in Reverberations. If you haven’t had a chance to stop by, a visit is recommended. There is a real feeling of reverberation between the works in the gallery. It’s a visually striking pairing, as many have commented, and I agree – Tina and Mike did an excellent job curating this exhibit. It closes on March 24. – Andrea Krupp

The quote above is from an essay Andrea Krupp wrote for Reverberations, a jumping off point for the Artists’ Talk on Saturday perhaps.

And a Bonus! Right next door, the Cerulean Arts Collective opens a new round of solo exhibitions on the same day, from 2:00 – 5:00pm.

Andrea Krupp’s artist’s book Transmission from Elsewhere (pictured below) was selected for the Wayne Art Center Regional Spring Open, juried this year by Stuart Shils. The opening is on Sunday, March 31, 3:00 – 5:00 pm and runs through May 4th.

Wayne Art Center, 413 Maplewood Ave., Wayne, PA 19087. 

Andrea Krupp, Wayne Art Center Regional Spring Open

Da Vinci Art Alliance, 704 Catharine Street, Philadelphia, 19147.
A Northland drawing by Andrea Krupp was selected for Works On Paper II at Da Vinci Art Alliance, juried by Rochelle Toner. The opening reception is Sunday, March 17th at 1pm, runs through April 7th.

Thank you to Andrea Krupp for the content of this post.

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Fair

Ian Rayer-Smith, Golgotha
Image Credit to the Artist and Steidel Contemporary

Philadelphia Fine Art Fair Announces Exhibitors for Inaugural Edition


(Philadelphia, PA) – Philadelphia Fine Art Fair (PFAF) announces the exhibitors for its inaugural, 2019 edition presenting works by significant modern and contemporary artists. Taking place on April 4th – 7th, 2019 at The 23rd Street City Troop Armory (22 S. 23rd St, Philadelphia), PFAF brings 34 international galleries, featuring 300 established artists, to the City of Brotherly Love.


“Galleries were carefully selected to showcase the best examples of each genre and kind of artist. Though international in scope, we do also provide an emphasis on local artists. Fairgoers will be able to view and acquire works by a refined selection of emerging, mid-career and blue chip contemporary artists,” says Fair Director RIck Friedman. “Best of all,
there are ‘must have’ treasures for every budget. Wearing my collector hat, I can’t wait to have a shot at these gems.”

Embracing the city’s history and passion for visual arts, the galleries presented at PFAF represent the longstanding cultural vibrancy of Philadelphia. The exhibitors hail from 19 cities, featuring renowned artists from around the world, including Cuba, Latin America, and Europe.

The PFAF exhibitors represent acclaimed talent from all around the world, while giving an international perspective in a local setting, PFAF is thrilled to be able to host the regional fair in a location that aligns with the city’s past. Held in the historic 23rd Street City Troop Armory, a centrally located fortress, the armory was originally built to house the men who helped keep the city safe for centuries, reflecting the fierce loyalty locals hold for their city. The building’s history will complement the work being featured by PFAF’s international roster of exhibitors and provide a unique environment for fair patrons to enjoy.

2019 Galleries

About PFAF

The Philadelphia Fine Art Fair (PFAF) is an international, contemporary art fair that seeks to engage the strong, local art scene Philadelphia has developed. For its inaugural year, PFAF is hosting a roster of exhibitors who are presenting significant works of modern and contemporary art. Under the leadership of Fair Director, Rick Friedman, PFAF is the newest addition to the luxury, regional fine art fairs Friedman is known for producing in cities including the Hamptons, Aspen, Houston, San Francisco, Palm Springs, and Silicon Valley. PFAF is dedicated to supporting, contributing and furthering the artistic goals of the cultural community of Philadelphia.

The Opening Night Preview

Thursday, April 4, 6:00pm – 10:00pm

Show Hours

Friday, April 5, 11:00am – 7:00pm

Saturday, April 6, 11:00am – 6:00pm

Sunday, April 7, 11:00am – 5:00pm.

General admission tickets are $25pp and can be purchased online

(https://www.philfineartfair.com/) or at the door.

Fair Contact

Donna Thiele, Director of Fair Development, 631-283-5505

Thank you to Madison Fishman for the content of this post.

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Dreamscapes

Tammy Kushnir, Dreamscapes, Twenty-Two GalleryDefiant, acrylic on canvas by Tammy Kushnir

Tammy Kushnir, Dreamscapes, Twenty-Two Gallery

Dreamscapes in an accumulation of imaginary landscapes from fractured emotions and passion for color. The combination leads the viewer to embrace something within themselves and connect with the pieces. My hope is that those who see my art will walk away feeling something that perhaps they didn’t realize was a part of them & acknowledge it.
I create to find joy within myself and hopefully extend that to others through colors and impressions of paint. I want to stimulate the viewer emotionally as well as through physical interaction through the texture in the art. When a piece resonates with a viewer, I know my job is done.” – Tammy Kushnir
Opening Reception: Friday, March 8, 6:00 – 9:00pm
Exhibition runs through April 7th
Twenty-Two Gallery, 236 S. 22nd St., Philadelphia, PA 19103
215-772-1911
Wednesday thru Sunday; Noon to 6:00 PM
About Twenty-Two Gallery
Since 2003, Twenty-Two Gallery has been showing local emerging and established artists’ work. The gallery represents 24 artists that work in many mediums including oil, pastel, watercolor, photography, sculpture, various printing processes as well as mixed media.  This bright space with great light, nestled in Philadelphia’s premier neighborhood Rittenhouse Square, has art openings monthly on the “Second Friday” of each month.  These openings include an artist’s reception from 6PM to 9 PM.

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Moment

Zelda Edelson: Color in the MomentZelda Edelson, Calif’s Palace, acrylic on canvas, 40” x 30”, 2018

Accomplished painter and editor from Philadelphia has first solo exhibition at

age eighty-nine in her hometown.

Zelda Edelson:  Color in the Moment

A solo exhibition by painter Zelda Edelson

 November 2 – 30, 2018

Curated by Amie Potsic

OPENING RECEPTION: First Friday, November 2, 5:00 – 9:00 PM Artist in attendance at 5:00 PM

LOCATION: Old City Jewish Art Center (OCJAC), 119 N. 3rd Street, Philadelphia, PA 19106

Contact:  Rabbi Zalman Wircberg, 215-627-2792  ocjac.org

HOURS: Thursdays and Fridays 11:00 AM – 4:00 PM, Sundays 12:00 PM – 4:00 PM and by appointment (Closed on Thanksgiving).

Admission is free.

Click the pics for large images.

Philadelphia, PA – Old City Jewish Art Center, located at 119 N. 3rd Street, Philadelphia, and Amie Potsic Art Advisory, LLC present Color in the Moment, a solo exhibition by painter and Philadelphia native, Zelda Edelson. At eighty-nine years old, Edelson presents her first solo show in the city, which highlights her new paintings.  Curated by Amie Potsic, CEO and Principal Curator of Amie Potsic Art Advisory, LLC, the show begins on November 2 and runs through November 30.  The opening reception will be on First Friday, November 2 from 5:00 – 9:00 PM with the artist in attendance at 5:00 PM to discuss her work with guests and patrons.  Gallery hours are Thursdays and Fridays from 11:00 AM – 4:00 PM, Sundays from 12:00 PM – 4:00 PM, and by appointment.  Admission is free and all are welcome.

Color in the Moment features Zelda Edelson, a prolific abstract painter who has created her own technique to enable her to paint from a walker used for balance.  Creating something positive from challenging circumstances, her paintings are colorful and evocative.  Edelson begins each painting with a gesture of the arm to create the first mark with her palette knife.  The paint begins to flow and Edelson becomes invigorated, losing herself in the process.  She paints on the areas of the canvas she can reach first.  Then turning the painting, she accesses the previously unreachable portions to complete it.  When each painting is finished, Edelson enjoys the process of bringing her diverse background to bear as she writes insightful titles for each work.  Sharing her love of painting through gesture, color, and form, Edelson’s work reveals a voice that is both seasoned and spontaneous.

Edelson explains, “My paintings are full of color, feeling, and movement.  They are lyrical like a song, strong like a knot, and intricate like a spider’s web.”  Her work is in the tradition of Abstract Expressionism as were her strongest influences:  artists Paul Klee, Jackson Pollock, and Willem de Kooning.

Zelda Edelson: Color in the MomentZelda Edelson, Interrupted, acrylic on canvas, 40” x 30”, 2018

Zelda Toll Edelson was born in Philadelphia on October 18, 1929. Edelson traces her interest in art and painting to an experimental art class she took while at Girls High taught by distinguished artist and teacher Jack Bookbinder.  This first introduction to modern art had a profound effect on her, which she would act on many years later.  As a young woman, Edelson was a bit of a radical, frequently going to far away parts of town to see a foreign movie or check out a bookstore. When she completed high school, she went to the University of Chicago, where she graduated with a major in English Literature.  After marrying Marshall Edelson, she eventually moved to Connecticut.  There she began her twenty-year career as Editor and Head of Publications for Yale University’s Peabody Museum of Natural History. In her role as editor, Edelson used her artistic sensibility to create skillfully produced photographs and illustrations to complement the natural history articles of the Yale faculty.

When she retired in 1995, Edelson decided to focus on painting.  She also moved back to Philadelphia, to her roots, where she still has many family members.  Zelda has exhibited her work at the Woodbridge Town Center and the Creative Arts Center in Connecticut as well as at Gallery Q2, The Jewel of India, Art for the Cash Poor, and Main Line Art Center in the Philadelphia area. She received an Honorable Mention award in the 70th Annual Members’ Exhibition at Main Line Art Center in October of 2007.  At eighty-nine years old, Edelson now lives in Haverford, PA, where she continues to be a prolific painter.

 Zelda Edelson: Color in the MomentZelda Edelson, Romance In A Winter Light, acrylic on canvas, 24” x 18”, 2012

Curator of the exhibition, Amie Potsic, MFA is the CEO & Principal Curator of Amie Potsic Art Advisory LLC, Chair of the Art In City Hall Artistic Advisory Board of the City of Philadelphia, as well as an established photographer and installation artist.  Potsic has extensive experience curating exhibitions for museums, galleries, art organizations, and public spaces and offers Legacy Planning for artists and collectors.  Legacy Planning involves the opportunity to shape an artist or collector’s legacy, during their lifetime, to create meaning and purpose through a life’s work.  By documenting, exhibiting, and publishing their artwork as well as placing works with institutions and collections, she helps strengthen their artistic impact while relieving their loved ones of the difficult task of organizing an archive, studio, or collection.  Potsic presents this legacy exhibition to honor Edelson and her work.

Potsic received her MFA in Photography from the San Francisco Art Institute and BA’s in Photojournalism and English Literature from Indiana University.  She has held faculty appointments at the University of California at Berkeley, Ohlone College, and the San Francisco Art Institute and been a guest lecturer at the International Center of Photography, the University of the Arts, Tyler School of Art, and the Delaware Contemporary. Professional appointments have included Director of Gallery 339, Curator and Director of the Career Development Program at the Center for Emerging Visual Artists (CFEVA), and most recently Executive Director and Chief Curator of Main Line Art Center.  Curatorial projects have included exhibitions for the Philadelphia International Festival of the Arts, the Office of Arts and Culture of the City of Philadelphia, Philagrafika, Moore College of Art & Design, Main Line Art Center, Maryland Art Place, Pittsburgh Center for the Arts, and the Philadelphia Museum of Art.

Founded in 2006, the Old City Jewish Art Center (OCJAC) was envisioned as a platform to build Jewish community through the arts.  Growing steadily since then, the OCJAC gallery has become an exhibition space for serious artists, holds monthly First Friday art receptions with a Jewish twist and provides social and Jewish holiday programs throughout the year. OCJAC is now a landmark gallery in the Philadelphia art scene and is the only gallery dedicated to Jewish artistic expression and cultural exchange in Philadelphia.  Using the arts as a springboard, the Old City Jewish Art Center advances and promotes the universal messages of Judaism and spiritually to the broadest possible audience.

Color in the Moment will be on view November 2 – 30, 2018.  The opening reception will be on First Friday, November 2 from 5:00 – 9:00 PM.  Gallery hours are Thursdays and Fridays from 11:00am – 4:00pm, Sundays from 12:00 PM – 4:00 PM, and by appointment.  Admission is free and all are welcome.

For more information, please contact Amie Potsic at amie@amiepotsicartadvisory.com or 610-731-6312.

Thank you to Amie Potsic for the content of this post.

Amie Potsic Art Advisory

Old City Jewish Art Center, 119 N 3rd Street, Philadelphia, PA 19106

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Modern Times

Modern Times, Charles Demuth, Lancaster (In the Province No. 2)Lancaster (In the Province No. 2), 1920, by Charles Demuth, American, 1883 – 1935. Oil on canvas, 30 x 16 inches. Philadelphia Museum of Art: The Louise and Walter Arensberg Collection, 1950-5-1.

World-class Modernism Exhibition at The Philadelphia Museum of Art

By Bob Moore

The works of art in the Philadelphia Museum of Art‘s Modern Times exhibition, covering a period of artistic upheaval from 1910 to 1950, are seldom unexpected or unfamiliar. The modernist trend which they embody is deeply etched into our cultural unconscious, the background or context to everything that has happened since in the art world. Marcel DuChamp‘s nude descending her staircase, Georgia O’Keefe‘s succulent flowers, Marsden Hartley‘s colorful World War I compositions: these were the visual soil that Americans like myself grew up in.

Modern Times, Alfred Stieglitz, The City of AmbitionThe City of Ambition, 1910 (negative); c. 1930 (print), by Alfred Stieglitz, American, 1871 – 1944. Gelatin silver print, image/sheet/mount: 4 1/4 x 3 3/8 inches. Philadelphia Museum of Art: The Alfred Stieglitz Collection, 1949-18-47.

Walking through the 160-some pieces in the exhibition is like paging through the Modern American Art section of an extensive History of Art, with few outright surprises.

What is surprising (at least to me) in this exhibition was how many of these works are owned outright by the Philadelphia Museum of Art‘ (PMA). Not on loan from some internationally-recognized museum, but property of the PMA. Ours, all ours. This highlights a side of the exhibit not about Art but about Acquisitions. PMA’s Chief Executive Officer, Timothy Rub, in a foreword to the associated book, notes that “It was during the 1940s that the PMA’s holding of modern European and American art were established through several important gifts…” including donations by Albert E. GallatinGeorgia O’Keefe and Alfred Steiglitz, and Walter and Louise Arensburg (not Annanberg, another Philadelphia philanthropist who bequeathed his collection instead to the rival Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York).

Modern Times, Marsden Hartley, Painting No 4 (Black Horse)Painting No. 4 (A Black Horse), 1915, by Marsden Hartley, American, 1877 -1943. Oil on canvas, 39 1/4 x 31 5/8 inches. Philadelphia Museum of Art: The Alfred Stieglitz Collection, 1949-18-8

There are a few works in the show not owned (yet) by the PMA: the book identifies one statue lent by a Museum Trustee and some fourteen paintings (including Charles Demuth‘s sizzling Jazz lent by another Trustee, with a note hinting at their eventual acquisition by the Museum.

The Modern Times exhibition curator was Jessica Todd Smith. In an essay in the associated book, she tells how the Philadelphia Academy of Fine Arts (PAFA) pioneered Modern Art in Philadelphia. But an ill-fated one-month PAFA exhibition of works from the collection of Albert C. Barnes in 1923 caused a ridiculous public outcry (the work was “trash,” and “the creations of a disintegrating mind,” said reviewers; think of peasants with torches and pitchforks).

Smith says the “critical reaction to the Barnes collection in 1923 scared PAFA’s board from presenting any further exhibitions of modern art until the 1950s…” The controversy also led to Barnes’ alienation from the Philadelphia art scene and all that followed. See Philadelphia Inquirer, Barnes at the Pennsylvania Academy: A scandal in 1923, May 4, 2012, by much-missed art critic Ed Sozanski.

The PMA then “picked up the modernist gauntlet,” Smith writes, under museum director Fiske Kimball. Smith says other figures in PMA’s acquisition of American Modern Art included R. Sturgis Ingersoll and Carl Zigrosser.

In a footnote 41 to her essay, Smith notes that some work was excluded from the exhibition, including “work that wholeheartedly embraces abstraction to the exclusion of any hints of figuration, leaving out most geometric abstraction and, on the more painterly end of the spectrum, Abstract Expressionism…” She also regretted that the museum had holes in its collections, including Social Realism, Regionalism, Native American, and Central and South American art.

In footnote 25, Smith lists the various art clubs that kept Modern Art alive in Philadelphia, including the Philadelphia Sketch Club and the Philadelphia Art Alliance — but most notably not including the Plastic Club, an artists’ club which has been around since 1897.

The drama of acquisition politics and finance aside, however, the work in the Modern Times  show is a world-class exhibition put on single-handedly by our local museum. Don’t miss it!

MODERN TIMES: American Art 1910 – 1950Philadelphia Museum of Art April 18-September 3, 2018

(Associated Book) AMERICAN MODERNISM: Highlights from the Philadelphia Museum of Art by Jessica Todd Smith

Thank you to Bob Moore for the content of this post.

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