MARSDEN HARTLEY

Dear Sophie -

After MARSDEN HARTLEY travelled throughout Europe, soaking up the influences of the cubists in France among Gertrude Steins circle, and the likes of Kandinsky in Berlin, he returned home to Maine, seeking spirituality through his work.

With love,

Mom

ARSHILE GORKY

Dear Sophie -

Despite his short life, ARSHILE GORKY was a pivotal artist in the development of ABSTRACT EXPRESSIONISM.

Born in Armernia, he and his family escaped the sweeping genocide inflicted upon their people by the Turkish/Ottoman Empire, and came to America.  Accountability and reconciliation for the massacre still remains unresolved today.

With love,

Mom

LASZLO MOHOLY-NAGY

Dear Sophie -

Feast your eyes...

LASZLO MOHOLY-NAGY was a painter and photographer of Hungarian descent and a professor at the Bauhas.  

Born Laszlo Weisz, yet another artist of Jewish descent who changed his name.  Trostsky, Bob Dylan, Frank Gehry... This isn't just a choice of artistry but an act of assimilation and prudence.  

With love,

Mom

PIET MONDRIAN

Dear Sophie -

PIET MONDRIAN was instrumental in the formation of the DE STIJL movement in the Netherlands, founded by Theo van Doesburg. 

MONDRIAN started his career looking at impressionism, fauvism, and cubism, and kept reducing his forms to their purest expression of line and primary colors.  

What makes his work so enduring is not the doctrine, but his underlying spirituality.

I construct lines and color combinations on a flat surface, in order to express general beauty with the utmost awareness. Nature (or, that which I see) inspires me, puts me, as with any painter, in an emotional state so that an urge comes about to make something, but I want to come as close as possible to the truth and abstract everything from that, until I reach the foundation (still just an external foundation!) of things… I believe it is possible that, through horizontal and vertical lines constructed with awareness, but not with calculation, led by high intuition, and brought to harmony and rhythm, these basic forms of beauty, supplemented if necessary by other direct lines or curves, can become a work of art, as strong as it is true.

What an enduring legacy.

With love,

Mom

KANDINSKY

Dear Sophie -

The Russian abstract painter WASSILY KANDINSKY didn't begin his artistic career until he was 30 years old, after having studied law and economics. 

His spiritual view of art was rejected by the more politically motivated artists at the time and he moved to Germany to teach at the Bauhaus upon invitation by Walter Gropius. 

He ultimately settled in France where he lived the rest of his life.

With love,

Mom

MORANDI

Dear Sophie -

GIORGIO MORANDI rarely strayed from painting these thoughtful compositions throughout his career. 

Anne and I saw his retrospective at the Met a few years ago and were deeply moved. A lifetime dedicated to examining the subtlties of color and form. (I had a kinda teary Doiglike moment.)

 He lived in a modest family apartment in Bologna with his three sisters. 

With love,

Mom

PICASSO

Dear Sophie -

The great Spanish painter of the 20th Century is PABLO PICASSO. (1881- 1973) He was prolific in every way.   

His ego was the size of his enormous talent.  He produced as much as he consumed, filling houses with paintings while leading different lives with different wives.

His subjects and process evolved from the blue period and cubism to lovers and the horrors of the Spanish Civil War in the painting titled "Guernica".  GERTRUDE STEIN was an important early patron.

He studied all of the masters,  His series of paintings of bathers reference Cezanne.  And an entire series of Meninas honor the Spanish painter Velazquez.

Among his great loves was his Dachshund named "Lump" 

Con amor,

Mom

JEAN MICHEL BASQUIAT

Dear Sophie -

JEAN MICHEL BASQUIAT started as a graffiti artist (his tag was "SAMO"), and was selling his paintings by the time he was 20 years old.  He was so talented and fluid that painting came to him as naturally as most of us breathe.  

Tragically he started to do heroin and died of an overdose at age 27.  He was charismatic, beautiful, gifted. He had it all damnit.  

The filmmaker/painterJULIAN SCHNABEL made his first film about Basquiat which is a thoughtful homage, but Tamra Davis's "THE RADIANT CHILD" captures his intellectual poignancy and depth of feeling.

Basquiat sought validation. He suffered from outside criticism, his fathers detachment and lost his belief in himself. That's when one's really gotta box and your internal candle must glow brightest.

With love,

Mom

PETER DOIG

Dear Sophie -

Once in a while art is so powerful that it physically takes your breath away.  That is what PETER DOIG does for me.

Doig grew up in Canada, studied at the St. Martins School in London, and now lives in Trinidad. He references photographs for his imagery and layers paint evoking an amazing calm. The paintings are large scale and all enveloping.  We saw them in Paris at the Musee d'Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris when we also saw the Serra's and your all time favorite, Butoh!

With love,

Mom

GERHARD RICHTER

Dear Sophie -

RICHTER published a book titled "Atlas" which is a compilation of the various newspaper clippings, photos and sketches which are source materials for his work. His content ranges from the political to the personal.  His paintings defy classification as they are at times abstract, photographic, and often blend photography with paint.   

You saw a beautiful Richter at The Cleveland Museum of Art yesterday. (that warranted a better installation than the hallway!). 

With love,

Mom

AGNES MARTIN

Dear Sophie -

Agnes Martin has been making these ethereally beautiful geometries for decades.  Although they are grids, they are never rigid.  With the lightest touch, they are transcendent.  After living in the Pacific Northwest and New York for a time, she made Taos, New Mexico her home.  

With love to my lovely.

Mom