Though the twenty-something Collin Parson — son of prominent Colorado sculptor Chuck Parson — has the official title of Gallery Exhibition Designer at the Arvada Center for the Arts and Humanities, he’s really the de facto director of the fine-art program. He’s filled a vacuum at Arvada because the position…
Clyfford Still. For the opening of the Clyfford Still Museum, founding director Dean Sobel has installed a career survey of the great artist. Clyfford Still: Inaugural Exhibition starts with the artist’s realist self-portrait and features his remarkable post-impressionist works from the 1920s. Next are Still’s works from the ’30s, with…
One of the most important curatorial departments at the Denver Art Museum (100 West 14th Avenue Parkway, 720-865-5000, www.denverartmuseum.org) is Modern and Contemporary, headed by Gwen Chanzit; a major portion of the Hamilton Building’s third and fourth levels are given over to it. Though paintings and sculptures are the stock…
The RiNo neighborhood’s Ice Cube Gallery has emerged as a leader in presenting installation art — in part, I’m sure, because of the incredible soaring spaces in the converted dry-ice factory, something that encourages artists to think big. The facilities at Ice Cube are more like a museum than a…
Clyfford Still. For the opening of the Clyfford Still Museum, founding director Dean Sobel has installed a career survey of the great artist. Clyfford Still: Inaugural Exhibition starts with the artist’s realist self-portrait and features his remarkable post-impressionist works from the 1920s. Next are Still’s works from the ’30s, with…
Denver artist Monique Crine is known as much for her photos as she is for her remarkably accomplished photo-realist paintings. She doesn’t feel, as might be assumed, that her work is based solely in photography, however. It also comes out of the moving-picture tradition, she says, especially classic films. This…
Nothing has come on stronger in the late 20th and early 21st centuries than Chinese artwork, and, amazingly, Denver has been a center for its new appreciation. Ron Otsuka, Asian art curator for the Denver Art Museum, is one of many reasons why. Though his stock and trade is historical…
Between 1908 and 1952, Kansas painter Birger Sandzén spent nearly every summer here and thus became one of the most important artists to have ever worked in Colorado. In the 1920s, Sandzén taught at the Broadmoor Academy, the predecessor to the Colorado Springs Fine Arts Center. Appropriately, the CSFAC is…
Though not part of an ambitious series of events like Pacific Standard Time, our own MCA Denver is participating in the same zeitgeist anyway, with West of Center: Art and the Counterculture Experiment in America, 1965-1977. The show, organized by director Adam Lerner and his wife and co-curator, Elissa Auther,…
Birger Sandzén. Though Birger Sandzén was born in Sweden, studied painting there and in Paris and later made his permanent home in Kansas, we in Colorado can claim him as one of our own. Sandzén found his muse here — in our stunning scenery — and after his first extended…
Birger Sandzén. Though Birger Sandzén was born in Sweden, studied painting there and in Paris and later made his permanent home in Kansas, we in Colorado can claim him as one of our own. Sandzén found his muse here — in our stunning scenery — and after his first extended…
The art of the West’s introduction to the world came in the 1970s, when paintings and photos from the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries suddenly became highly sought after in the marketplace. By now, this kind of emblematic Western work — stunning landscapes, charming scenes of cowboys and Indians…
Robert Adams was teaching English at Colorado College in the early 1960s when he met Myron Wood, who taught him the basics of photography. But instead of taking the traditional approach of focusing on scenic beauty, Adams began capturing the ugliness of suburban sprawl — and it made him famous…
Birger Sandzén. Though Birger Sandzén was born in Sweden, studied painting there and in Paris and later made his permanent home in Kansas, we in Colorado can claim him as one of our own. Sandzén found his muse here — in our stunning scenery — and after his first extended…
Though the Robischon Gallery (1740 Wazee Street, 303-298-7788, www.robischongallery.com) is a commercial enterprise, it’s indistinguishable from a tidy downtown museum in appearance and atmosphere. This has to do both with the relentless high quality of the offerings there and the venue’s enormous size. As you can imagine, that means there’s…
Birger Sandzén. Though Birger Sandzén was born in Sweden, studied painting there and in Paris and later made his permanent home in Kansas, we in Colorado can claim him as one of our own. Sandzén found his muse here — in our stunning scenery — and after his first extended…
The opening of the Clyfford Still Museum last month has prompted a resurgence of interest in early abstraction in Colorado, from the 1940s to the 1970s. In the beginning, Still was way ahead of even the most advanced artists here — as well as those in New York. Some Colorado…
Internationally famous portrait artist Chuck Close is perhaps best known for his photo-realist paintings. But as Chuck Close: A Couple of Ways of Doing Something shows, he’s also an accomplished photographer. Organized by the Aperture Foundation, this show, at the Loveland Museum and Gallery, brings together a group of the…
Birger Sandzén. Though Birger Sandzén was born in Sweden, studied painting there and in Paris and later made his permanent home in Kansas, we in Colorado can claim him as one of our own. Sandzén found his muse here — in our stunning scenery — and after his first extended…
Mark Lunning founded Open Press, a fine-art printmaker, in 1988, and since then, he’s been the facility’s master printer. But he’s also an artist in his own right, creating prints, paintings and sculptures. All three types of work are on display in Mark Lunning: New Paintings, Prints and Sculptures at…
Chuck Close. In the last few years, the Loveland Museum and Gallery has stepped up its game by presenting the work of famous artists. And the beat goes on with Chuck Close: A Couple of Ways of Doing Something. Close first came to the fore in the 1970s with hyper-realist…
In the history of art in the region, artist Birger Sandzén stands out, and not just because his work routinely fetches hundreds of thousands of dollars — though that doesn’t hurt. Rather, it has to do with the high quality of his pieces and the way in which his style…
