The recent work of Montreal artist Freda Guttman

April 29, 2019 My Blog
The recent work of Montreal artist Freda Guttman is called Cassandra: An Opera in Four Acts and unlike her earlier work that had a more didactic approach to her activist concerns, this installation is notably more lyrical and introspective — a staged setting for Guttman to rummage through the layers…

Robert Therrien

April 27, 2019 My Blog
Born in 1947, Robert Therrien belongs to a generation of artists whose imaginations were galvanized by Minimalism and its sources in the work of Brancusi, Duchamp and Mondrian but also by Pop Art and its irreverence. In the mid/late 1960s this emerging generation of artists began seeking ways to mediate…

Marcia Tucker, A Labor of Love, New York

April 24, 2019 My Blog
The companion volume to a recent exhibition at The New Museum in New York City, A Labor of Love chronicles the debates surrounding the production of arts and crafts over the last century. Discussing hierarchical categorizations of high and low, fine and folk, art and craft, insider and outsider, art…

June Redfern

October 15, 2015 My Blog
When June Redfern was at art school she was nicknamed ‘the slasher’ for her forceful application of paint on ‘man-sized’ canvases. She liked the larger scale for the freedom it gave her to move around in the picture, repeating marks, attempting an evenness of surface. Always daring to experiment, her…

The decorative and the poetic in Rimpa art

June 9, 2015 Uncategorized
This paper examines the treatment of flowers and other natural elements in the paintings of the Rimpa style against the background history of style’s description as “decorative”. Since this style was one of the first to be admired, collected and studied during the period of Japonism from the late-nineteenth century,…

Gwen John

December 24, 2014 Uncategorized
THIS IS surely the definitive work on Gwen John and is essential for anyone interested in women artists or art of the 20th century. Gwen John (1876-1939), ten years ago virtually unknown, today is considered worthy of a place in art history. The book with its magnificent representations of all…

An Accent on the Antique

September 30, 2014 Uncategorized
The increasing demand for the higher quality products has caused the interest in antique Oriental carpets to surge. Designers and their clients who want something very special–a work of art for the floor–are finding these indigenous expressions of distant and colorful cultures highly suitable. With the settling of most nomadic…

Slipping through the eye of a needle

September 29, 2014 Uncategorized
Sewing is sweatshop labour. Rows of machinists with hair tucked in. Blindness from Ayrshire white-work, back rooms and back pain. Low wages and exploitation. Sewing is tapestry kits, cheval sets, crinoline ladies with laisy-daisy gardens, pull-string shoe bags made at school, two left sleeves cut out of material that cost…

Focus lighting

September 23, 2014 Uncategorized
Objects d’art, plants and display cases are the jewels of the office complex where lighting is concerned. They provide the designer witht he ultimate opportunity to add glitter and focus to the environment and make it come alive. Without key (or accent) lighting a space can appear overcast, foggy. Add…

Prominent Designers–On the Carpet

September 23, 2014 Uncategorized
The architecture of today’s exemplary interiors displays a plethora of pattern, color and texture. In this supplement we have selected numerous interiors that illustrate innovative treatments of rooms with hand made carpets. The floor plane has, once again, become an opportunity for innovative design and has emerged as another canvas…