Saturday March 2: Americans I Paris, 1946-1962 at Grey Art Museum

Following World War II, hundreds of artists from the United States flocked to the City of Light, which for centuries had been heralded as an artistic mecca and international cultural capital. This exhibition at the new Grey Art Museum explores a vibrant community of expatriates who lived in France for a year or more during the period from 1946 to 1962. Many were ex-soldiers who took advantage of a newly enacted GI Bill, which covered tuition and living expenses; others, including women, financed their own sojourns. Above: Ed Clark, The City (1952). Courtesy Hauser and Wirth

Showcased here are some 130 paintings, sculptures, photographs, films, textiles, and works on paper by nearly 70 artists, providing a fresh perspective on a creative ferment too often overshadowed by the contemporaneous ascendency of the New York art scene. The show focuses on a diverse core of twenty-five artists—some who are established, even canonical, figures, and others who have yet to receive the recognition their work deserves. 

While the U.S. art scene was dominated by the rise of Abstract Expressionism, Americans working in Paris experimented with a range of formal strategies and various approaches to both abstraction and figuration. For some, including the esteemed writer James Baldwin—a longtime French resident, Paris promised a society less constrained by racism and the exclusionary power structures of the New York art world. Above: Shinkichi Tajiri, Lament for Lady (for Billie Holiday), 1953.

By 1962, however, many felt that the once-inspiring atmosphere had diminished. Many Americans opted to return to the U.S., which was experiencing a burgeoning civil rights movement, and in particular to New York, where there were more opportunities to exhibit, due in part to the rise of artist-run galleries. Others chose to remain abroad. Whether they returned or remained in Paris, the Americans’ encounters with French collections, artists, critics, and gallerists significantly impacted the development of postwar American art.

Grey Art Museum, new location: 18 Cooper Square, New York, NY Info

Thursday, February 29, 6 pm: Lowry Stokes Sims | Figuring it Out / The Black Body by Black Artists

During the decade of 2010-2020, the global art world experienced a literal explosion of Black artists from the United States, Africa and the African diaspora working with the Black figure as the focus of their creativity

In this lecture, curator Lowery Stokes Sims will examine how artists have continued the project of representing black bodies in the global exhibition and market scene, albeit in the context of persistence discourses on imperialism and colonialism, escalating forced migration, state surveillance and violence against black bodies—male, female, gay and transgender—revelations of sexual exploitation and—not incidentally—a global pandemic. Above: Ficre Ghebreyesus, Red Room, c. 2002-07, Acrylic on canvas, 84 × 72in. Courtesy of The Baltimore Museum of Art.

The lecture will demonstrate the dizzying variety of technical and stylistic approaches to figuration, which seem at the same time to reveal tentacles that connect these distinct approaches to the figure that speak of lineages that often cross boundaries and cultures. With this arsenal of modernist attitudes, styles and techniques at their disposal, the question is how each artist chooses to adapt them to depict images that can be personally charged, or culturally-responsive.

The Art Students League of New York, 215 West 57^th Street, New York, NY Info

Continuing: Klimt Landscapes at the Neue

Klimt Landscapes features the significant idyllic depictions by Gustav Klimt (1862–1918) from his summer holidays on the Attersee in the Salzkammergut region of Austria, known for its tranquil lakes. Created purely for his own pleasure during the last 20 years of his career, these bucolic scenes were highly coveted by collectors and most were made in a square format — a reflection of his fascination with photography. 

 Klimt’s landscapes are presented within the context of his larger oeuvre and trace his constantly evolving approach that included traditional works, symbolism, modernist art, and the decorative and ornate Golden Style reflected in his famous masterpiece, Portrait of Adele Bloch Bauer I (the "Woman in Gold"). Klimt’s landscapes will be seen alongside his rare print portfolio as well as photography, fashion, and the decorative arts of the Wiener Werkstätte (Vienna Workshops). 

The exhibition will also consider Klimt’s relationship with his sister-in-law, fashion designer Emilie Flöge, who was a lifelong friend and trusted confidante; his deep engagement with the Viennese avant-garde; and the techniques he employed to achieve mesmerizing, harmonious works that literally shimmer with color and light, fashion, and the decorative arts of the Wiener Werkstätte (Vienna Workshops). 

Through May 6, 2024) Neue Galerie New York, 1048 Fifth Avenue (at 86th Street), New York, NY Info

Continuing: Emily Eveleth | Everything but the Truth at Miles Mcenery

In this exhibition Emily Eveleth expands her long-standing exploration of doughnut as subject, part of her practice for over three decades. Her compositions in these paintings challenge the understanding of inanimate nature mortes, taking on an air of portraiture. Set within backdrops of velvety greens and jacquard pinks and contextualized with titles alluding to historical figures and canonical literature, the paintings’ saturated color becomes the primary vehicle of their meaning. Her lush forms are dusted with powdery sugars and lacquered with glimmering, liquid glazes, imbued with jellies. The paintings range in size from large scale, 92 x 76 inches, to intimate, 5 x 7 inches, accentuating the experience of looking. Above: Advice from the Boudoir, 2023

However, Eveleth’s doughnuts ditch the simple innocence of delicacies and hurl them into the realm of tempestuous desire. Situated in Rococo and the fleshy milieu of Jenny Saville, Eveleth’s donuts dive into the risqué—glut and pomp inundate the plump swaths of pastry. Evoking a sultry gaze on the viewer, the works connote Warhol’s Gold Marilyn, Fragonard’s The Swing, and Boucher’s Venus. The current series further pulls her subjects from still life, her muses working through bulbous fisheyes, vanity mirrors, and reflective surfaces. They become performers, characters enacting their own private fictions.

Writing in Hyperallergic, JohnYau says, “Working on a larger scale, as she does in this exhibition, and evoking different time periods through the often brightly colored and patterned background, Eveleth has opened up an imaginative space that is all her own. As straightforward and direct as the paintings are, there is nothing simple about them. If we are unsure whether Eveleth is being absurdly funny or bitingly satirical, she is likely doing both.”

Through March 23 at Miles McEnery Gallery, 515 West 22^nd Street, New York, NY Info

Closing, Saturday, March 2: John Houck | Perfect Temperature Lava at Candace Madey

Join the artist for a gallery tour at talk with Robert Slifkin. This exhibition the first full-scale presentation of Houck’s foray into painting by an artist well known as a photographer, albeit one who persistently moves beyond the pictorial and material parameters of a lens-based studio practice. In 2017, Houck presented new work that hinted at new directions in the studio—a series of photographs titled Playing and Reality—which investigated the subjective nature of memory though the artist’s signature use of recursive processes. Since then, Houck has pursued a regimen of formal training and dedicated studio time to master a new painting language. Above: John Houck, Leadville, 2023 (detail)

Large-scale canvases depict loosely painted volcanoes, avalanches, waterfalls, and seascapes, overlaid with hyper-realistic depictions of sentimental objects from the artist’s family. The disassociated picture planes are further confounded by erratic shadow patterns that only sometimes correspond to objects in the painting’s frame. The slippage between painting styles and approaches within a single canvas creates an ambiguous space that viewers will recognize from his photographs, with landscapes doubling as potential dream or mindscapes.

Candace Madey Gallery, 1 Freeman Alley, New York, NY Info

Closing Tuesday, March 5: British Vision, 1700-1900 at The Met

This rotation of selections from the museums Department of Prints and Drawings celebrates recent additions to the collection by British artists who worked across two centuries. Landscape is a focus here, with the genre becoming closely allied to the growing popularity of watercolor during this period. Above: Alfred William Hunt, Snowdon, after an April Hailstorm [or Shownon through Clearing Clouds]; watercolor 

Around 1760, artists like Paul and Thomas Sandby, Francis Towne, and Thomas Jones began to explore the medium’s expressive potential. In the: 19^th century, dedicated watercolor societies were established and held regular exhibitions to promote their members’ work. Increasingly developed and poetically resonant compositions sought to challenge the preeminence of oil painting. Above: JohnConstable, Cloud Sutdy,1830-35; watercolor over graphite. Below, right: Artist’s watercolor box by Ackermann & Co., 1837-1855 

In this display, watercolors made rapidly out of doors by John Constable and Peter De Wint may be compared to finished compositions by John Brett, Samuel Palmer, and Alfred William Hunt. Travel’s ability to spur creativity is demonstrated by works that respond to sites in Britain, France, Italy, Caucasia, and North Africa. Nature studies, conversely, affirm how foreign flora became increasingly available at home. Finally, the sustained importance of the figure is represented by early chalk and pastel renderings by Joseph Wright of Derby and Allan Ramsay, vibrantly colored later portraits by David Wilkie and John Frederick Lewis, and representations of Black models by Lewis, William Henry Hunt, and Simeon Solomon. In Gallery 690

The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1000 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY Info