Installment by Will Kurtz
Watch videos of select works of the installation (from Opening Night)

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TheGreatNude.tv presented 6 of its writers/artists in an exhibition at our booth at the Contemporary Art Fair NYC at the Jacob Javits Center. We also presented a series of Life-drawing events that featured a live model and drawing supplies for the public. Artist Sherry Camhy, a popular teacher here in New York, and Publisher/Artist Jeffrey Wiener, both presented tutorial demonstrations during the busy weekend.

The imagery that first comes to mind when you hear the name Degas is familiar to everyone of course. Ballerinas, ballerinas and of course young ballerinas – most of whom are disturbingly pubescent. It's refreshing then that the Museum of Fine Arts Boston has launched this interesting and comprehensive take on the artist which focuses not one iota on ballerinas but on his study of the nude. A collaboration between the museum with the Musee d'Orsay in Paris who contributed about a third of the works on view.

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The number of times you'll hear an artist claim that his or her works are autobiographical can be numbing in their frequency. In the drawings of Zachari Logan, this aspect of "Self" is acutely manifest and integral not only to the images he presents to us, but in the telling of his personal history and his coming to grips with his identity as a gay male.

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For the Artist, working with the visual pun can be a risky venture. In the masterful hands of Cesar Santos, the appropriation of iconographic images from art history goes far beyond the initial pun and makes for a feast of color and composition. Santos has adopted the concept of syncretism into his mature body of work and takes us on a tongue and cheek ride through art history.

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With the passing of Lucian Freud on July 20th, 2011 at the age of 89, a chapter in the figurative arts was closed. To honor his achievements, The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City is hosting a small but spectacular exhibit of 17 paintings, along with a few by his friends Francis Bacon and Frank Auerbach, until December 31 2011. If you are in New York, you have no excuse to miss this.

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With a hurricane and floodwaters slashing the State of New Jersey, it's good to see a flood of a different and most enjoyable kind lining the gallery walls of Rowan University in Glassboro, New Jersey. Currently the university is hosting an extensive exhibition of works from the collection of late artist and collector Sylvia Sleigh (1916 – 2010). Presenting over sixty paintings, works on paper and mixed media in an overwhelming array of styles and sizes it is a dizzying outpouring of creativity.

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Recently, TheGreatNude visited the Eleanor Ettinger Gallery on 57th Street to see their exhibition British Figurative Art, a wonderful collection of British artists, several of whom focus on works featuring the nude. We were fortunate enough to have gallery owner Fran Bradford give us a personally guided tour.

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Rodin created some of the most memorable and iconic nudes of the 19th century. Recently, Jill Newhouse Gallery presented for sale a marvelous small collection of drawings and small sculptures from this French master.

Join us for an intimate tour of these Rodin masterpieces with Gallery owner Jill Newhouse.

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We've followed Bob's career as a sculptor for several years now. We brought a crew down to his latest exhibition of works here in New York City, and asked Bob to speak with us about his approach to figurative works in clay.

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For those who follow Madrid-based hyper realist artist Bernardo Torrens, there is a familiarity with his stable of regular models. In this show at Bernaducci Meisel Gallery, we are offered a new group of masterfully executed paintings focusing primarily on two new subjects: strong featured model Jesi, and the Spanish dancer Melinia Olicina.

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Review by Daniel Maidman

Barebrush.com is a user-content-driven website devoted to art depicting the nude. From February 10-13, the site hosted its first "brick and mortar" art show, My Nude Valentine, at Rogue Space in Chelsea, New York. Work included in the show was derived from juror selections of drawings, paintings, and photographs submitted by members of the website; 49 artists were represented. The show replicated the feel of many art social networking sites - it was packed to the gills, artwork varied wildly in style and approach, and the curatorial theory was driven almost entirely by a commonality of content. As such, only the broadest overall conclusions can be drawn, chiefly, "Well, there's still a lot of interest in depicting the nude."

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Left: Angelique Moselle Price, Reflective Willingness

Review by Scott Goodwillie

Fragonnard and Bronzino walk into a 60's style house party were pills are served along with beverages. Fragonnard grabs the Viagra and Bronzino takes the acid - and any offspring of an ensuing tryst would undoubtably have to be John Currin.

The current exhibition at Gagosian Gallery in New York City shows Currin at the top of his game and will please those of us who enjoy his provocations, and befuddle those who wish he would just go away.

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Gagosian Gallery Website

Review by Scott Goodwillie

Walking from piece to piece in his current exhibit, I couldn't help but smile - even at some of the more angst ridden works - with a sense of childhood familiarity of the shiny primary colored blocks. Working with approximately 1.5 million blocks from his New York studio and without a model, Sawaya somehow captures intangibles such as raw human emotion with a medium that is if anything unyielding.

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The Art of the Brick Museum Tour

Review by Scott Goodwillie

There is definitely something of the "Wow factor" when you walk through the gallery doors and encounter these large scale computer generated (CAD) works. Korean artist Kim Joon delivers striking imagery, beautifully detailed with patterns borrowed from tattoo culture to high culture porcelain china, such as Villeroy & Boch and Royal Copenhagen.

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Review by Scott Goodwillie

OK, so who hasn't she photographed yet? From pop stars to fashion models, and in 1995 a commissioned portrait of Jacques Chirac, this internationally known French photographer has established herself as one of Europe's most critically acclaimed artists. Her background as a model has infused her body of work with the style of fashion photography yet at the same time, the images on view here are very erotically charged profiles of the feminine physique.

Review and images from the exhibit>

The Third Annual Governor’s Island Art Fair, organized by 4Heads, is a carnival-like event held each weekend on Governor’s Island during the month of September. Over one hundred exhibitors are using the rooms inside the former barracks of this U.S. Coast Guard property, their home in the middle of New York harbor up until only several years ago, to showcase the works of artists of almost every stripe.

On our opening weekend, crowds were thick with locals and tourists from around the world, who seemed to descend on the island in one fell swoop. Then at the hieght of the afternoon, our model arrived, and we began our Sketch Session Demonstration. Exhibiting artists were joined by exhibit visitors who took advantage of the art supplies and extra chairs.

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Visit the Exhibition Website

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Review by Scott Goodwillie

Sometimes it's OK to bite the hand that feeds. Sometimes that hand has a masochist's soul and will reward you greatly if you just dig in! David La Chapelle is one such pit bull now making waves in the contemporary art world with his current body of large scale photographs.

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More details on Arcadia Blog

Accompanying interview with Arcadia Fine Arts owner Steven Diamant
By Scott Goodwillie

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The first show ever dedicated solely to Agnolo Bronzino, the Italian Mannerist, is now showing at the Metropolitan Museum of Art until April 18, 2010. With almost sixty drawings included, the exhibition helps to shed light on an artist whose name is familiar to many, but whose drawings of the figure may be a surprise.

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Throughout his career, Rembrandt took on a select group of students and taught them the techniques that he had spent his life perfecting. Because of the numerous works born from the academic environment that he created, many of the works thought to be Rembrandt's are disputed over - whether the works came from Rembrandt himself or from one of his many students, influenced by his style.

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February 3rd, was the opening night for the newly relocated DFN Gallery. After having previously been located in Soho, and in Chelsea, DFN now takes residence on the Upper East Side, where its contemporary works refresh the local art scene. Several of TheGreatNude staff were in attendance at this very crowded show.

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Since its creation in 1875, The Art Students League's faculty and students have been contributors to the New York art scene, and this wonderful exhibition we saw last October, comes from the school's permanent collection of student works. Curated by Pamela Koob, the show includes fifty life drawings by students of Kenyon Cox, H.S. Mowbray, Frank Vincent Dumond, George Bridgeman and others. Collected during the early 20th century, these amazing life drawings feel surprisingly contemporary, owing in part to the quality of the realism that these talented students were expected to achieve under the strict requirements of attendance at the school.

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Reuben Negrón's recent exhibit of watercolors at Like the Spice Gallery is a strong display of figurative work seen in a modern, fresh light. Negron's use of the medium is masterful, and he uses figures to creat intimate scenes filled with a warm humanity.

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New York, New York, June 3, 2009 - August 2, 2009, Review by Jeff Wiener

On a hot summer night, TheGreatNude heads downtown to attend the opening reception for the New York Academy of Art's 3rd Annual Summer Exhibition 2009. This exhibit features over a dozen "Great Nudes" amongst the 123 works produced by the teachers and students of one of the world's best art schools.

Kathleen Gilje has been toying with Western Art's use of the figure for most of her career. Gilje's recent body of work, which we saw recently here in New York at Francis M. Naumann Fine Art, is one of the most cohesive statements of her career.

Entitled "48 Portraits: Sargent's Women, Restored", this large collection of paintings created by Gilje features 48 women who were themselves the subjects of the American impressionist painter John Singer Sargent. Sargent had been commissioned to paint these women during his illustrious career as a portrait painter for the wealthy industrialists and upper class of 19th century America. Gilje has stripped the women bare - literally - in an effort to pull these women out of historical anonymity.

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