Wednesday, January 28, 6-8 pm: To the Studios at JJ Murphy Gallery

See paintings by Elisa Jensen, John Lees, and Liam Murphy-Torres, three generations of artists associated with the New York Studio School, an alternative art school founded in 1963 by Mercedes Matter. The title of the exhibition was suggested by Elisa Jensen [above] and refers to a series of paintings by the German-born British artist Frank Auerbach (1931–2024), whose work is often invoked by NYSS faculty, which has historically been London-centric. The initial curriculum consisted of marathon drawing and painting sessions, which continue to be bedrock practice. That’s certainly true in the case of Jensen’s paintings, which reflect the world around her, whether it is her daughter sitting on a couch in front of a window, her husband writing on a bed, or the view of tree branches out a window

In a review of an earlier show, John Yau, writing in Hyperallergic, suggests that John Lees’s intention is to arrest time: “By repeatedly returning to the same motif, and by building up as well as sanding down the painting’s surface, Lees attempts the impossible, which is to freeze a particular object, individual, or moment in time.” Yet there is something very filmic about Lees's emphasis on the materiality of a painting. The layers of crusted paint that accrue on the surface over time add a level of abstraction to some of these images, making a viewer wonder what the paintings were like initially or how they have changed in the process of their making.

The paintings of Liam Murphy-Torres also take a considerable amount of time, often many months.  He sometimes willresort to digital manipulation to experiment with possible changes, notably color, which has infinite possibilities. Murphy-Torres says it often takes a long time before he feels that he’s managed to get a painting just right. In terms of influences—the artist would no doubt cite Matisse—yet one might think of Bay Area painters such as David Park, Elmer Bishoff, or Richard Diebenkorn. 

JJ Murphy Gallery, 53 Stanton Street, New York, NY Info 

Thursday, January 29, 6-8pm: Leanne Shapton | In Cars: On Diana

Dashwood Projects presents In Cars: On Diana, an exhibition of paintings on paper by artist and writer Leanne Shapton. The work is based on photographs of Princess Diana getting out of cars. In Shapton’s hands, Diana is abstracted and turned into shades of grey reducing her to form and motion, exploring themes of celebrity, identity and facsimile.

Dashwood Books published In Cars: On Diana in Nov. 2025. Named one of the best art books of 2025 by the Brooklyn Rail, Karen Gu writes “Shapton’s images have a blurred and expressive, almost pixelated quality that prioritizes Diana’s gestures and physicality instead of lingering on the fine details… Even abstracted, the paintings, especially seen one after another, feel undeniably and essentially Diana.”In her extended poem in the Dashwood publication, Shapton writes 

my favorite pictures are / the ones of her getting out of cars. / The reproduction of a royal is the point. / Lineage, bloodlines, primogeniture, / their bodies, their images on objects, are objects.

Dashwood Projects, 63 East 4^th Street, New York, NY Info

Friday, January 30, 3-8pm: British Landscapes | Early Photography at Hans P. Kraus

Hans P. Kraus will welcome visitors with hot cider to celebrate this view of early works shown in conjunction with Master Drawings New York 2026. Above: Captain Horatio Ross (Scottish, 1801-1886). Sea coast near Netherley, 1850s. Waxed paper negative

Hans P. Kraus, Jr. Fine Photographs, founded in New York in 1984, has become a destination for those interested in the origins and evolution of photography as a fine art. Specializing in works from the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, the gallery is particularly renowned for its unparalleled representation of William Henry Fox Talbot, who in 1839 announced his invention of photography and forever altered the way humanity documents and interprets the world. Through carefully curated exhibitions and scholarly publications, the gallery has illuminated Talbot’s contributions while also presenting the achievements of other early pioneers such as Gustave Le Gray, Roger Fenton, Julia Margaret Cameron, and John Beasley Greene, to name a few.Read the recent interview with Mary Pelletier here.

Hans P. Kraus Gallery, 962 Park Avenue, New York, NY Info

Friday, January 30, 3-8pm: Stephanie de Virieu Drawings at Jill Newhouse Gallery

In conjunction with Master Drawings NYC 2006, the gallery presents An Incessant Ardor: Drawings by Stephanie de Virieu. The artist was born July 14, 1785 into an aristocratic family from the Dauphine region in southeast France. She lived to be 88 years old. Her oeuvre consists of some 3,000 drawings. Above: Three Women Around a Fireplace, c. 1825-1830

During the French Revolution the family home Chateau de Pupetieres was destroyed by revolutionaries, and in 1793, Stephanie’s father was killed during a Royalist uprising called the Siege of Lyon. De Virieu, her mother, and two siblings were forced into exile in Switzerland, at times disguising themselves as peasants in order to escape persecution. Throughout the tumultuous years of her childhood, however, Stephanie’s mother remained committed to her daughter’s education which included instruction in drawing. 

At age 13, De Virieu began taking lessons from two former students of Jacques-Louis David, and she later shared a studio in Paris with a friend. Drawing meanwhile remained a central activity in de Virieu’s life. Later, as her eyesight began to fail, she turned to sculpting figures in clay.

Jill Newhouse Gallery, 4 East 81^st Street, NewYork, NY Info 

Monday, February 2, 6-8 pm: Student Salon at Art Students League

I’m thrilled to have this watercolor [above] in week four of the annual Student Salons as part of Elizabeth Allison’s Expressive Watercolor class. Even more so as next week’s rotation also includes work by my colleagues in Frank Webster’s Watercolor Techniques class, which I’ve been part of for three years. Above: Peggy Roalf, Savannah, 2026

For any painter, illustrator, comics artist, sculptor or printmaker who wants to deepen their practice or learn something new, this is the place. The League offers not only the baseline of technique and practice, but also, a kind of zeitgeist that comes from its 150-year-long existence as “the birthplace of American art.”

Through Saturday, February 7 at The Art Students League, Phyllis Harriman Mason Gallery, 215 West 57^thStreet, FL2, New York, NY Info

News from the Home Office

American Photography 42 Call for Entries now open

With the title AMERICAN Photography, you might wonder, on a global scale, who’s eligible to enter? The quick answer: Everyone, with open arms. As humanly possible

That means, everyone, regardless of citizenship, living for any reason in any of the Americas – North, South, Central and the Caribbean – is eligible to enter.

 That also means, everyone, regardless of citizenship, living outside the Americas 

who has had work published, exhibited or represented in any of the Americas, 
in print or online, is eligible to enter any work created or published in 2025.

 So, are you eligible to enter? Yes, most likely, you are. Deadline: February 6, 2026  Enter Here.

The American Photography 41 hardcover book launched in November. Orders will ship soon! Reserve your discount copy for just $35 here. Above: Photographs featured in the promo are winners in American Photography 41 See all current and past winning images with contact and credits online in The ARCHIVE collection here.

To subscribe to DART: Design Arts Daily, please go here