Sherrie McGraw paints subtle, refined still life paintings that combine the feeling of traditional Dutch masters with the more modern sensibilities of contemporary paint handling; in which crisply defined objects shine out of their deep chiaroscuro relationships with their backgrounds.

She also paints forceful portraits and figures, in which the same relationships are heightened by even bolder brushwork.

As a young woman, McGraw studied at the Art Students League in New York with renowned American artist David Leffel. She also studied artistic anatomy with Robert Beverly Hale and Jon Zahourek at the New York Academy.

The influence of Leffel can be seen, I think, in her richly textured, painterly approach to traditional realism. At least, that’s what I would call her approach. McGraw has an interesting philosophical essay on her site about “Abstract Realism“.

McGraw travels and teaches workshops at highly regarded art institutions around the U.S., including the Portrait Society of America, the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, Studio Incamminati, the Art Student’s League, Academy of Art University and the Los Angeles Academy of Figurative Art.

She is the author of The Language of Drawing (available from the publisher, Bright Light Publishing). She also edited and wrote the foreword for Galina Tulzakova’s The Drawings of Nicolai Fechin, and is at work on a new book on painting. (See her website section for Books.)

In addition to galleries of her paintings and drawings, her website also features a section on her choice of materials that includes links to suppliers and her own instructions for priming raw linen.

In July of last year the Getty Museum in Los Angeles acquired one of Joseph Mallord William Turner’s great masterpieces, Modern Rome – Campo Vaccino (and a pretty price they paid for it, too.)

Though not part of a special exhibition as far as I can tell, the museum is highlighting the fact that this magnificent work is on display.

The Getty Iris, the museum’s blog, has an interesting post called Labeling Turner, about the often overlooked process of creating a museum label for the piece, in this case a slightly more elaborate one than usual. The post includes photos of the painting in its place in the gallery.

The painting, a prime example of Turner at the height of his abilities, is a sweeping vista of “modern” Rome, i.e. in Turner’s time, 1839. The term “Campo Vaccino” means “cattle field” or cow pasture, the open area of the Roman Forum before it was excavated.

There is a larger image of the painting here as part of the VisualBites article. Wikipedia has a bit of history on the painting.

For more Turner resources, see my post on J.M.W. Turner.

Janet Fish is an American painter whose still life paintings seem to radiate color. Using a high chroma palette, in combinations that in lesser hands might fall into the garish, Fish produces harmonious compositions that vibrate with energy and light.

She often chooses as her subjects objects that are translucent, transparent or reflective, in particular colored glass. She surrounds these with flowers, bright cloth patterns and other objects in brilliant hues, balanced with strategically placed rich darks, and somehow manages to tame those wild arrays of color into images that seem at once preternaturally intense and perfectly naturalistic.

Fish is widely recognized and her work is in the collections of major museums, including the Metropolitan Museum of Art, The Whitney Museum of American Art, The Art Institute of Chicago and the Museum of Fine Arts Boston.

There are a few catalogs and collections of her work; Janet Fish: Paintings by Vincent Katz is in print and readily available.

Fish is represented by the DC Moore Gallery in NY, which also showcases a nice selection of her work online. I’ve listed other galleries and additional resources below.

I’ve had the pleasure of seeing some of her works in person. They are often fairly large in scale and striking.

In rooms in which there are works by several artists, hers inevitably stand out and command your attention. Unlike many contemporary works about which that can be said, Fish’s paintings also reward extended viewing; small areas can be looked at in detail as wonderfully arranged shapes of color and tone. Her command of the arrangement of elements of color can be seen even more clearly in her graphic work.