As Jeff Koons prepares to open his major retrospective at the Whitney next month, the artist will also be installing Split-Rocker, his cartoonish, monumental flower sculpture at Rockefeller Center on June 25th, two days before the show opens. “We couldn’t do any topiary at the Whitney, because there wasn’t any space,” Koons told the New York Times. (more…)
An article in The Guardian traces the history of Van Gogh’s famous sunflower paintings, as two of the original versions of the still life are preparing to go on exhibit at London’s National Gallery. Originally received quite poorly by the art establishment, the works occasionally caused heavy contention among artists and critics exhibiting alongside “the laughable pot of sunflowers by Mr. Vincent.” The article also discusses the artist’s long relationship and correspondence with his brother Theo. “Always continue walking a lot and loving nature,” Van Gogh once said to his brother, “for that’s the real way to learn to understand art better and better. Painters understand nature and love it, and teach us to see.” (more…)
The upcoming show on the work of Vincent Van Gogh, held next year at London’s National Gallery, will reunite two of the surviving versions of the artist’s iconic Sunflowers. Painted in 1888, one of the canvases is on loan from the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam, while the other was purchased by the National Gallery in 1924. “It will deepen every visitor’s appreciation of the artist,” said Nicholas Penny, director of the National Gallery. (more…)
Image: Alex Katz, White Roses I, 2011, courtesy Timothy Taylor Gallery
Now in its final week at Timothy Taylor Gallery in London is a new series of portraits and still lifes by 84-year-old American artist Alex Katz. The exhibition is comprised of large-scale portraits of family and friends and still lifes of flowers that he bought from street vendors near his New York studio.
Image: Installation view, courtesy Timothy Taylor Gallery
