WHISTLER in DC & HUDSON. Kiki Smith & Co in Hudson. The FRICK in NYC. GSA, Will Maw & Ashley Cook in Glasgow. 

I did my dissertation on Whistler many years ago. A first love. I have not seen the current major show: An American in London: Whistler & the Thames, in DC, but as my good friend Margaret MacDonald of Glasgow Uni, had a hand in it, it's bound to be good. 

Whistler was 25 when he settled in Victorian London in 1859, depicting the docks, bridges, workers, sailers, clippers, of the greatest port in Europe in all its detailed bustling activity. He lived within sight of the river & over time, captured its many moods. In the 1870s his style became atmospheric, almost abstract. These famous impressionistic "Nocturnes" are among the 80 paintings, etchings, lithos & drypoints which make up this lovely show which focuses solely on the Thames. 

For those not in the US, Glasgow's Hunterian Museum has arguably the world's 2nd best Whistler collection - which also has great portraits. 

It's these portraits, with their subtle, sombre tones & arrangements in grey & black, that have influenced Aline Smithson's striking photo portraits of her 85 year old mother in profile, titled Arrangement in Green & Black. 

"The idea sparked when I came across a small print of Arrangement in Gray & Black: Portrait of the Painter's Mother by Whistler at a garage sale. The composition made me ponder the possibilities of using it in a photographic series. Within an hour, at two other yard sales, I happened upon a leopard coat & hat, a cat painting & a chair similar to the one in Whistler's painting. A sign to proceed."

Taken with a Hasselblad, the photographs incorporate traditional photography techniques on hand painted silver gelatin prints. "My patient mother posed for 20 shots before she died. This series allowed us to be together. My mother brought her formal side to the portraits -she was very proper, but at home had a wicked sense of humour & fun. These portraits reflect her dignified self, but also show she was game. The series encapsulated everything I love - searching for props in flea markets, setting up the backgrounds & styling. The whole series was a total joy."

Like Whistler, Smithson is  influenced by the Japanese concept of celebrating a singular object."I tend to isolate subject matter & look for complexity in simple images." 

See these great pix on the poignancy of ageing at Davis Orton Gallery Hudson, NY.  

Hudson has a big advantage for such a small place. It's only 2 hrs from NYC and lots of artists live here abouts. 

Locals, the famous Kiki Smith, & Valerie Hammond, plus Kiki's sister Seton Smith have a superb 3 person show at Historic Hudson's 1812 Plumb- Bronson House. Beautifully installed by the artists themselves, the work both benefits from the amazing architectural spaces & derelict walls, and enlivens the house itself. 

Valerie Hammond

Kiki's large scale drawings of girls - often in pairs - are strangely arresting, and perfectly at home here. Seton's semi-abstract photos of architectural motifs could have been made specially for the house, (they are not!) while Valerie's miniature dresses and spooky hands echo the Victorian setting. 

Kiki Smith installation

Kiki

Quite the most successful installation I have seen in years. 

The elegant Federal-style Bronson House, a National Historic Landmark in need of huge restoration & fundamental repairs, was built in 1812 for a wealthy Hudson merchant who established a tow-boat business on the Hudson River. The house was extended in 1839 & 49, including a spectacular 3-storey elliptical staircase. "The House captures a seminal decade in the development of the Hudson Valley Picturesque, which, during the 1840s & 50s, became the dominant national style.   Abandoned & neglected, it was almost demolished. Now $100,000 matching money is needed to leverage $300,000 in grants.

These 3 artists have contributed a great deal by their show. My only objection is the title - "3 Women Artists". For heavens sake!  I look forward to the next show:  "Three Men Artists"   Hope they make as good a job.

IN NYC the famous FRICK is making waves with a proposal to expand via a new 6 story wing. Expansion is all the rage in the US but maybe not a great idea here. The Frick is a joy because of its relatively small, intimate, town house mansion original setting & garden. True, it's exhibition spaces are not ideal, but SIX stories seems excessive. The recent Vermeer Girl with a Pearl Earring did of course cause queues along 5th Ave & 70th St, but that's a one-off.

The current enigmatic beauty, Parmigianino's Turkish Slave, (on loan from Parma) is not such a draw. Yet this small show in which she is surrounded by handsome Renaissance men, 2 painted by Titian, another by Bronzino, emphasizes what show-stoppers are in the Frick's own collection. 

Little is known about the lady, except that she is not Turkish & not a slave! Curator Aimee Ng, herself a beauty, hopes the exhibition will throw some light. "I think she's a poet!" There are no Parmigianino portraits in American museums so this is a rare chance.  www.frick.org

 Titian

Back in Glasgow, GSA students affected by the horrendous fire, show a single piece of digital work in the McLellan Galleries. 

Single handed, artist ASHLEY COOK does a great job curating, organising & promoting Scottish printmakers.  She curates Glasgow's The Brunswick Brutti Ma Buoni plus Gandolfi. www.cafegandolfi.com/bar-gandolfi/     in  Glasgow. 

Recent prints there by Will MAW, titled "Half Life"  refer to nuclear physics plus our ever changing global situation. 

 Radio Brazil by Will Maw RWA

A Royal College graduate, with long term connections to Glasgow, Maw has been busy completing two high-profile commissions: a suite of ten prints for Standard Life Investment’s London offices at The Gherkin was completed in April 2013 and a two-year project comprising of a suite of 21 prints and a portfolio edition for Coutts Bank was completed in July of the same year.  The large-scale ‘Departures’ works were made and exhibited at the Royal West of England Academy (RWA) in Bristol prior to Maw’s appointment as an Academician in 2013. www.cafegandolfi.com/bar-gandolfi/

 by Ashley Cook 

Ashley's own always enticing, colourful prints are at The Brunswick Brutti Ma Buoni. She is also exhibiting in Barcelona at Sala Ramona Carrer Amistad. Busy girl!

VERMEER  

She is young, beautiful, vulnerable. Silhouetted against a plain black background, she looks you in the eye. With the exception of one large, lustrous earring, she lacks decoration, and yet you are captured, mesmerized. The image is so simple, but it has been captivating viewers for 350 years.

                                                     
We do not even know her name, but such is her fame, (and long before the recent film) that Vermeer's Girl with a Pearl Earring 1665 has been given a room all to herself at NY's Frick.  There are only 36 Vermeer pictures in the world, 3 of them belong to the Frick and 12 are in the USA. In 1880 Girl with a Pearl was bought for 1 dollar and gifted to Holland's Royal Picture Gallery Mauritshuis in The Hague, but is in NY on loan till January 19th. 

Eight of Vermeer's oils have pearls - ironically there has never ever been a pearl this size!  Exaggeration is nothing new. Frick bought his 3 Vermeers between 1901 and 1919. Mistress & Maid 1666 also has a pearl but here worn by a lady in sumptuous silks, satin and fur. Frick had to pay rather more than a dollar. 

Girl with a Pearl is 1 of 15 pix on loan from the Mauritshuis. All are from the Dutch golden age & include 4 Rembrandts, 2 Hals portraits and a sweeping landscape by Ruisdael. But you don't want to hear about these I know - just the Girl! And if she inveigles u into the Frick she has done u a favour, because the Frick, the 5th Ave mansion home of its founder, industrialist billionaire Henry Clay Frick, is one of Manhattan's jewels, awash with masterpieces by Titian, Goya, Constable, El Greco, Holbein et al. 

I wrote about Vermeer for the Ft in 2001 when 15 of this self-taught artist's spectacular oils were at the Met. "Worth crawling over hot coals to see," I wrote then. 

I also posted my blog about this show on Halloween. So with all those spirits, goblins & witches about, no surprise that the whole thing disappeared into thin air.  So here it is again, in a new version. Moral? Always have a hard copy & a back up. Or like one friend, a backup of a backup! 

To add spice the Frick also presents its first ever digital artwork, by Brits Rob & Nick Carter, currently also showing at London's Fine Art Society. A Dutch Vase with Flowers from 1618 comes alive via 24 hrs compressed into a 3 hour animated film. Roses open, a tulip droops, flies buzz, a snail crawls, night descends. The aim Rob says, "is to encourage people to look slower, harder, longer." 

In London they had Van Gogh's Sunflowers cast in bronze via 3D printing, a decomposing frog and Giorgione's Sleeping nude Venus. Amazing.

                                                     Henry Clay Frick