Modern Abstractions
Selected articles on modern artists.
Colors in Conversation (NYRB, 2021)
Joan Mitchell was a Romantic whose paintings join nature and feelings with an operatic lyricism.
Joan Mitchell (catalog)
Landscapes of the Imagination (NYRB, 2021)
Jesse Murry’s abstract seascapes enabled him to explore the inner world of the mind while infusing his art with his life as a gay Black man.
Carolee Schneemann (LRB, 2022)
Carolee Schneemann was a pioneering artist whose work explored the representation of women's experiences, exploring topics such as feminine creativity, taboos, and the male gaze. Her work often elicited intense identification from viewers ranging from passionate devotion and sexual fantasy to fury, and her reclaiming of overlooked experiences of women is gaining more attention since her death.
Hopscotch on a Mondrian (LRB, 2022)
Florine Stettheimer was a wealthy New York artist whose works blended femininity with satire and wit. She was present for some of the formative events of modern art, and was also close friends with Marcel Duchamp. In 2019, MoMA opened a gallery dedicated to Stettheimer.
Helen Frankenthaler:
Helen Frankenthaler was an American abstract expressionist painter whose work is characterized by its vivid, large-scale ‘soak-stain’ paintings, big, bold gestures, and recognisable forms that emerge and disappear again.
Helen Frankenthaler (LRB, 2021)
Picasso is your daddy (TLS, 2021)
A portrait of the artist, but only as a young woman
