Month: November 2012

Timothy Callaghan—Life Slow Still

I recently paid my second visit to the William Busta Gallery.  Busta is one of those cafeteria-style spaces where several shows—about 6 in this case—run concurrently.  The artists shown represent, no doubt, an attempt to cast the widest possible net.  Don’t get me wrong, you won’t find a Corot, a Philip Pearlstein, or even a…

George Mauersberger at Bonfoey

I walked into the George Mauersberger exhibit at Bonfoey expecting to see a passel of prints.  Nope.  While a few prints are on display, drawings and watercolors make up the lion’s share of the show.  Even so, Mauersberger has a printmaker’s personality—a love of process and fondness for drawing. Most of the pieces on display are tromp…

Mary Cassatt and the Feminine Ideal in 19th-Century Paris

Claude Monet maintained (I’m paraphrasing) that caricature was the soul of art.  Not a surprising statement coming from a master caricaturist.  I agree with Monet wholeheartedly. The exhibition at the Cleveland Museum of Art—Mary Cassatt and the Feminine Ideal in 19th-Century Paris—provides a great opportunity to examine some drawing and prints by Cassatt and her…

Dayton Art Institute—Fail

The Dayton Art Institute is handsomely situated on a hill above the Great Miami River.  The museum’s beautiful Italianate main wing provides a remarkable view of the Dayton skyline.  Travelers along I-75 passing beneath the museum’s imposing facade can’t help but be intrigued by the marvelous piece of architecture. The museum’s collection, while not as large…

Robert Smith

Robert Smith was an American artist who died in 1985.  When I knew him, he already was an elderly man.  He lived with his teenage son in Kettering, Ohio in a French chateau-type building that seemed the height of romance to a high school kid, which was what I was when we met. Smith was…