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person Matthew Holman

newspaper The Art Newspaper article 3 articles

David Hockney, an artist of brio and versatility, with global recognition beyond the art world, has died, aged 88

David Hockney, the celebrated British artist known for his vibrant paintings, prints, and set designs, has died at home at the age of 88. Born in Bradford in 1937, he rose to fame as a key figure in British Pop Art after studying at the Royal College of Art, and his career spanned over six decades, encompassing works that ranged from intimate portraits to large-scale landscapes, often incorporating innovative techniques like iPad drawing.

Remembering Pat Steir, one of the 20th century’s late-blooming great artists

Pat Steir, the acclaimed American painter known for her Waterfall series, died in Manhattan on 25 March at age 87. The article traces her career from early struggles as a freelance illustrator and art director, through her transformative encounter with Sol LeWitt in the early 1970s, to her eventual emergence as a major figure in contemporary painting. It highlights her teaching at CalArts and Parsons, her involvement with feminist and artist-run institutions like Heresies and Printed Matter, and the pivotal moment in the early 1980s when she cut up a reproduction of a Jan Brueghel the Elder flower painting into 64 panels, repainting each in a different historical style.

Georg Baselitz, German artist who turned figurative painting on its head, has died, aged 88

Georg Baselitz, the influential German painter and sculptor, died on 30 April at age 88. Born Hans-Georg Kern in 1938 in Deutschbaselitz, he grew up amid the ruins of Nazi Germany and later adopted his surname from his birthplace. Expelled from the East Berlin Academy for "sociopolitical immaturity," he moved to West Berlin, where he rejected both gestural abstraction and Expressionism. His first solo exhibition in 1963 was shut down for obscenity. In 1969 he pioneered his signature inverted paintings, turning subjects upside down to sever image from representation. He also created large carved sculptures using axes and chainsaws. His later series, from 2014 onward, are considered his most astonishing work, culminating in a sustained focus on his wife, artist Elke Kretzschmar.

Book uncovers the life of Barnett Newman, an artist who ran for New York mayor

A new biography titled "Barnett Newman: Here" by Amy Newman (no relation) explores the life of Abstract Expressionist painter Barnett Newman, revealing his little-known 1933 run for mayor of New York City at age 28 under a platform of cultural and environmental reforms. The book details his upbringing as the son of Jewish immigrants in the Bronx, his philosophical studies, and his eventual reinvention as a painter who pioneered the 'zip' painting style with works like Onement I, while also chronicling his combative personality and lifelong battles against political machines and critics.