Pennsylvania Art Shows- “Dreamworld: Surrealism at 100” at the Philadelphia Museum of Art

 Animation, Art, Art Shows by Location, Artists, Ceramic Art, Collage, Conceptual Art, Design, Drawing, Glasswork, Installation Art, Mixed Media, Painting / Painters, Pennsylvania Art Shows, Philadelphia, Photographers / Photography, Printmaking, Sculptors / Sculpture, Video and Film
Feb 062026
 

Giorgio de Chirico, “Portrait of Guillaume Apollinaire”,1914, Oil and charcoal on canvas

René Magritte, “The Secret Double”, 1927, Oil on Canvas

Dreamworld: Surrealism at 100 at the Philadelphia Museum of Art presents a large collection of works, in a variety of mediums, from the artistic movement. The show takes you through Surrealism’s history and is filled with many inventive and imaginative pieces- including several from lesser-known artists.

From the museum about the exhibition-

Surrealism burst onto the scene in Paris in 1924. French writer André Breton announced the aims of this revolutionary literary and artistic movement in his Manifesto of Surrealism. It started with a question: How, ideally, should we live? Breton observed that, at about twenty years of age, we make the error of trading our childlike imaginations for adult good sense and logic. Yet it’s the imagination that allows access to the innate state of freedom that we all possess. And maintaining freedom, Breton proposed, should always be the highest human aspiration.

Surrealism’s ambitions were broad and bold: its adherents wanted nothing less than a revolution in consciousness. To that end, they explored a method of experimental poetry called automatic writing, comparable to spoken free association, done spontaneously and, as far as possible, without conscious intent. Sigmund Freud’s theories about the role of the unconscious and the interpretation of dreams were an important inspiration. The Surrealists looked to access the unconscious mind to break free from the constraining rationality of the modern world.

Visual artists were part of the Surrealist movement from the start. They took up surprising and often challenging subject matter, imagery, and techniques across many mediums: painting, sculpture, drawing, printmaking, photography, book illustration and design, and film. In Dreamworld: Surrealism at 100, we explore how, from the movement’s 1920s beginnings through the 1950s, these trailblazing artists made good on Surrealism’s revolution in consciousness.

The exhibition is split into six categories- Waking Dream which features Surrealism’s beginnings in the 1920s, Natural History, focused on the influence of nature, Desire, Premonition of War, Exiles, and Magic Art, which focuses on the new type of esotericism that emerged within Surrealism in the aftermath of World War II.

Lee Miller’s photographs of natural rock formations

Salvador Dalí, “Aphrodisiac Telephone” 1938, Plastic, metal

From the museum about Aphrodisiac Telephone, one of the artworks in the Desire section–

Salvador Dalí likened the Surrealist object, which uses found items, as a symbolic creation with improbable juxtapositions, comparable to poetry and sexual perversion. He applied this idea in Aphrodisiac Telephone. Its basis is the substitution of a lobster— a real lobster in the sculpture’s first iteration for display in 1938, a factitious lobster in white plastic for the editioned version —for a similarly shaped telephone handset. The title alludes to the lobster’s reputation as an aphrodisiac when eaten.

Max Ernst, “The Fireside Angel (The Triumph of Surrealism)”, 1937, Oil on canvas

From the museum about the Max Ernst painting above, from the Premonition of War section-

Ernst painted The Fireside Angel (The Triumph of Surrealism) to protest the atrocities of the Spanish Civil War as well as the defeat of the Republican side. But this depiction of a rampaging bird-headed beast also served as an allegorical reflection on the nature of evil. Ernst exhibited this painting as The Triumph of Surrealism — a despairingly ironic title given the situation in Europe — at the 1938 International Surrealist Exhibition in Paris.

During World War II many European artists escaped to New York City and Mexico. The Exiles section features works by these artists, as well as Mexican (like Roberto Montenegro pictured below) and American artists whose work could also be seen as part of the Surrealist movement.

Roberto Montenegro, “The Double”, 1938, Oil on panel

The last section of the exhibition Magic Art, focuses on the increase in post-war interest in supernatural themes. There was also a room devoted to the work of artist friends Leonora Carrington and Remedios Varo, who had moved to Mexico during the war.

Leonora Carrington, “And Then We Saw the Daughter of the Minotaur”, 1953, Oil on canvas

Remedios Varo, “Creation of the Birds”, 1957, Oil on Masonite

This exhibition is on view until 2/16/25.

Pennsylvania Public Art- Roxy Paine in Philadelphia

 Art, Art Shows by Location, Artists, Installation Art, Pennsylvania Art Shows, Philadelphia, Public Art, Sculptors / Sculpture
Feb 052026
 

Symbiosis (2011) by artist Roxy Paine has been on display in Iroquois Park on the Benjamin Franklin Parkway in Philadelphia since June 2014.

About this work from the Association for Public Art (aPA), which organized the installation and acquisition-

Hand-fabricated from thousands of pieces of stainless steel pipe, plate, and rods, Symbiosis suggests both ecological and anatomical branching systems.

Rising 34 feet high, the more than 3.5 ton sculpture was created from standard industrial piping that was welded, formed, and polished in the artist’s studio to create two shimmering, interrelated organic forms that both buttress and weigh on one another, referencing the darker aspects of nature and the fierceness of its laws. Symbiosis represents the collision of two dendroids that result in stasis, a questionable relationship that teeters between support and detriment.

Roxy Paine’s work consistently blurs the lines between the natural and artificial. He is known for work that explores the collision of industry and nature, and his series of stainless steel “Dendroid” sculptures are exemplary manifestations of this practice. The “Dendroids,” a term combining “dendron” (Greek for “tree”) and -oid (a suffix meaning “form”), are monumental structures that convey a fusion of industrial and organic forms. They evoke arboreal structures, vascular systems, synaptic networks, and industrial pipelines, interpreting the natural world through a man-made lens. The structures represent search, growth, and the branching of systems that suggest dormant energy and potential, a theme Paine has explored in his work for the last 15 years.

Nearby you can also find Mark di Suvero‘s painted steel sculpture Iroquois (seen in the second image posted).

Films to Watch- “Secret Mall Apartment”

 Architecture, Art, Artists, Conceptual Art, Films, Installation Art, Public Art, Sculptors / Sculpture, Video and Film
Jan 312026
 

Secret Mall Apartment Trailer

The story in the 2024 documentary Secret Mall Apartment, feels relatively straightforward at first. In 2003, a group of eight artists built an apartment in a small, unused space in the Providence Place shopping mall in Providence, Rhode Island. They continued to use it until they were discovered a few years later. But the film takes you on a journey beyond the creation of the apartment. It’s also about gentrification, urban development, and artist housing; mall culture and consumerism; the artists’ work outside the apartment; and, by the end, even the question of what makes something art.

Artist Michael Townsend was no stranger to art installations. He had previously created one inside a drainage tunnel, allowing only a select few with keys to see it. When local artist venue and living space Fort Thunder was torn down, the idea of living in the nearby new mall began. He remembered noticing an odd extra space while the mall was still being constructed. After searching and finding it with his then-wife Adriana Valdez Young, friends and fellow artists Colin Bliss, Andrew Oesch, Greta Scheing, James Mercer, Emily Ustach, and Jay Zehngebot joined them to build the apartment. Luckily for viewers, the process was also documented with a Pentax Optio (even if the footage is low-res). Furniture was added, along with a video game system, and eventually a wall.

While their new home provided a break from the outside world, it also became a place for the artists to plan their tape-art installations. These included a five-year portrait series in NYC for 9/11; a mural on the site of the Oklahoma City bombing; and creating work with kids on the walls of Hasbro Children’s Hospital in Rhode Island. Townsend continues to make tape-art projects today.

The documentary is fun to watch and at times, even inspirational. It’s currently available to watch on Netflix and other online platforms.

Flashback- Los Angeles Street Art- EL MAC, Augustine Kofie, and Joseph ‘Nuke’ Montalvo: “La Abuelita / Má’sání”

 Art, Artists, California Street Art, Fiber Arts, Los Angeles Street Art, Painting / Painters, Sculptors / Sculpture, Street Art
Jan 302026
 

Going all the way back to 2015 today for this mural by El MAC, Augustine Kofie, and Joseph ‘Nuke’ Montalvo. La Abuelita/Má’sání, a portrait of Diné (Navajo) weaver Martha Gorman Schultz, is located on the outside of The American Hotel in Los Angeles.

From El MAC (Miles MacGregor)’s website about the mural-

“The portrait is painted entirely with aerosol and fatcaps, and is based on photos I shot a few years ago of an artist named Martha Gorman Schultz. She is a Navajo blanket weaver from northern Arizona, and part of a respected family of weavers including her granddaughter, Melissa Cody.

I felt this painting of Martha could be an empowering representation of beauty not often depicted in public art or media. Beauty that is feminine, elderly, indigenous, loving and powerful.

The building this mural was painted on was constructed in 1901, and you can imagine how much Los Angeles history it’s seen over the last hundred years or so.

This was an especially collaborative effort- Along with the work of Kofie and Nuke surrounding the figure, SKILL UTI painted the wall to the left, integrating an already existing piece by DASH 2000(Rest In Peace). SWAN provided ground support, along with CHEE, AISE, BLK, OFIER, SELEK, CALVYRUS and some other younger members of UTI crew, which has been painting these walls for the last few decades.”

Sadly, Martha Gorman Schultz passed away in February of last year at the age of 93. For more information on her life and work, check out Hyperallergic’s tribute.

Pennsylvania Art Shows- “Jerrell Gibbs: No Solace in the Shade” at Brandywine Museum of Art

 Art, Art Shows by Location, Artists, Painting / Painters, Pennsylvania Art Shows
Jan 292026
 

“Boys Planting”, 2021, Oil on canvas

“The Last Night”, 2020, Oil and acrylic on canvas

“Quiero Amor”, 2019, Oil on canvas

“Nous Visited The Seine, But Did Not Swim”, 2022, Oil on canvas

“The Senses”, 2021, Oil and oil stick on canvas

The paintings in Jerrell Gibbs‘s solo exhibition at Brandywine Museum of Art, No Solace in the Shade, are alive with colors and movement, capturing moments in time both real and imagined.

From the museum about the show-

“Jerrell Gibbs: No Solace in the Shade” surveys the first decade of contemporary Baltimore artist Jerrell Gibbs’s (b. 1988) career and marks his first one-person Museum exhibition. A painter with astonishing creativity, Gibbs’s dynamic, large-scale figurative paintings explore facets of Black life, including family, friends, and community. His highly personal approach creates a narrative that centers everyday moments in Black life, representations of which have been excluded from art history until recent decades. Throughout his body of work, Gibbs transforms scenes of ordinary life into monumental moments while exploring themes of identity, reflection, and belonging.

Across his career, Gibbs has challenged the near invisibility of Black life in American art. He does so by celebrating identity and culture with profound compassion and insight, often weaving in elements of his own upbringing. Several works featured in the exhibition represent people from his own life. Old family photographs are also an inspiration in his creative process, prompting Gibbs to explore questions of identity and the passage of time. Gibbs conveys the joy, liveliness, and contemplation of Black life in positive representations. Shifting away from menacing racial stereotypes present in previous depictions of Black life in art (particularly images of Black men), Gibbs’ paintings show Black people living, not just surviving.

This exhibition closes 3/1/26.

Brandywine Museum of Art- Dale Nichols

 Art, Artists, Painting / Painters
Jan 292026
 

Chopping Ice from the Water Trough, 1935, an oil painting by artist Dale Nichols, is part of Brandywine Museum of Art‘s permanent collection.

From the museum about the work-

Rising to popularity during the Great Depression, a style known as American Regionalism brought modern stylization to images of rural life. In his landscape painting Chopping Ice from the Water Trough, Dale Nichols engages Regionalism by bringing a clean, minimal approach to his representation of daily farm chores by highlighting the smooth contours of the snowy slopes and the sharp-edged geometry of the barn. Nichols, a native of Nebraska, trained and taught for many years at the Art Institute of Chicago but returned throughout his career to the farm subjects most familiar to him from his childhood. His work was so attuned to farm life that International Harvester Company commissioned him to depict a series of works marking the development and use of the famous McCormick Reaper in agriculture.

Brooklyn Museum of Art- George Wesley Bellows

 Art, Artists, Painting / Painters
Jan 272026
 

A Morning Snow– Hudson River, the 1910 oil painting by George Wesley Bellows, is part of Brooklyn Museum‘s permanent collection (but not currently on view).

From the museum’s website about the work-

Assured, slashing strokes of a heavily loaded brush capture the effects of morning light reflected from freshly fallen snow. This view shows the Hudson River and New Jersey from Manhattan’s Upper West Side. George Wesley Bellows conveyed the sense of the city awakening through his depiction of the man shoveling snow, people going to work, boats plying the river, and smoke and steam interrupting the still, crisp atmosphere.

Elements of this composition move toward abstraction. The elevated vantage point reduces the illusion of depth, while horizontal and vertical components, seen particularly in the fence and tall trees, provide a subtle gridlike structure.

Cleveland Museum of Art- Grant Wood- “January”

 Art, Art Shows by Location, Artists, Cleveland, Ohio Art Shows, Painting / Painters
Jan 252026
 

“January”, 1940-41, Oil on masonite panel

Grant Wood‘s painting January is on view at Cleveland Museum of Art as part of their permanent collection. It feels like a good time to post it with both a big snowstorm happening in many parts of the U.S., and it being January.

From the museum about the work-

One of the last paintings Wood created before his untimely death from liver cancer, January has a decidedly nostalgic cast. According to the artist, the painting was “deeply rooted in the memories of my early childhood on an Iowa farm. . . . it is a land of plenty here which seems to rest, rather than suffer, under the cold.” One sign of activity, in the form of rabbit tracks, infiltrates the otherwise dormant scene. Wood’s composition teems with abstract design, most notably through the rhythmically geometric array of snow-laden corn shocks that seem to recede infinitely into the distance.

Artists Birthdays- Édouard Manet

 Art, Art Shows by Location, Artists, California Art Shows, Cleveland, Ohio Art Shows, Painting / Painters, San Francisco
Jan 232026
 

“Berthe Morisot with a Muff”, c. 1871–72, Oil on canvas

Last week was Berthe Morisot‘s birthday and today it is her friend, brother-in-law, and fellow Impressionist, Édouard Manet‘s birthday. He was born on January 23rd, in 1832, and painted the portrait of her pictured above. It is part of the Cleveland Museum of Art‘s permanent collection.

From the museum about this work–

This painting depicts Impressionist painter Berthe Morisot, who met Édouard Manet at the Musée du Louvre in Paris in 1868. This portrait vibrates with vitality. Morisot wears a coat and stylish hat from which wisps of her dark hair escape. Manet’s wide brushstrokes and cross-hatchings evoke the sketchy quality of Morisot’s own paintings, likely Manet’s nod to his subject’s identity as an artist.

He made nine portraits of her in oil, watercolor, lithography, and etching during 1868–74. Initially artistic colleagues and friends, they became family in December 1874 when Morisot married Manet’s younger brother, Eugène.

The painting is currently on loan to San Francisco’s de Young museum for their current exhibition Manet & Morisot, on view until 3/1. Organized by Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco in collaboration with the Cleveland Museum of Art, the show will move to Cleveland on 3/29/26, and will run until July 5th.

About Manet & Morisot from the Cleveland Museum of Art–

Manet & Morisot is the first ever major exhibition dedicated to the artistic exchange between Édouard Manet, often referred to as the father of modern painting, and Berthe Morisot, the only woman among the founding members of the Impressionist movement. Unfolding over a period of roughly 15 years, between 1868 and 1883, theirs was perhaps the closest relationship between any two members of the Impressionist circle. As friends and colleagues—by turns collaborative and competitive—they collected one another’s work. Morisot posed for some of Manet’s most compelling portraits, several of which will be on view in the first gallery of the exhibition. When she married Manet’s younger brother, their professional connection deepened into a familial bond.

Thirty-six paintings and six drawings and prints borrowed from museums and private collections in the United States and Europe reveal the evolution of a singular friendship between two groundbreaking artists. Visitors will see beach and garden scenes made en plein air (out-of-doors) that demonstrate how Manet borrowed individual motifs and compositional ideas directly from Morisot. Portraits of fashionable Parisian women of the 1880s by the two artists show their different perspectives; Manet’s paintings were inspired by admiration and erotic interest while Morisot’s were informed by lived experience. The exhibition closes with a self-portrait by Morisot painted when she was in her mid-40s, revealing her perception of herself as a professional artist.

Throwback- UK Art Shows- Narbi Price at Vane Gallery in Newcastle

 Art, Art Shows by Location, Artists, British Art Shows, History, Newcastle Art Shows, Painting / Painters, Sound Art, Sunderland Art Shows
Jan 222026
 

“Untitled Club Painting”, 2015, Acrylic on canvas

“Untitled Gutter Painting”, 2014, Acrylic on canvas

“Untitled Black Door Painting (304) “, 2013, Acrylic on canvas

“Untitled Yard Painting (Albert)”, 2015, Acrylic on canvas

These contemplative paintings are from This Must Be the Place, Newcastle-based artist Narbi Price’s 2017 exhibition at Vane Gallery.

From Vane’s website about the exhibition:

Narbi Price’s work involves journeys to specific places that have witnessed a range of events – variously historical, famous, personal or forgotten.

He researches the precise location of a chosen event, ranging from significant moments in music, film and TV, whimsical acts through to places of violence and death amongst others. Working from photographs taken at the site, he makes paintings in the studio focusing on the abstract, formal and painterly qualities of the resultant images.

This process removes the conscious choice of subject matter; he must work with whatever is present at the spot. Whilst clearly photographically derived, the paintings use the language of abstraction to simultaneously acknowledge and disrupt the representational image. The paint is transparent, opaque, glossy, matt, dilute and impasted, often within the same work. As viewers, we are not immediately made aware of the specific histories of the sites and are given space to wonder about the multiplicities of events that might have taken place, an effect heightened by the painting method. Our experience of the work shifts as we become aware of the provenance of the depicted sites.

Below are the stories behind the locations for the paintings in this post (in bold type). All of the paintings in the exhibition can be found on Vane’s website.

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