Iraqi Phoenix
Qasim Sabti is the founder of a group of Iraqi artists called “The Iraqi Phoenix,” owing not only to their own survival during their country’s war and upheaval but to their creative vision that persisted. Among the most important of Sabti’s artworks are...
This survivor of the Armenian genocide wound up in a Cairo orphanage in 1927. He rose to fame as one of Egypt’s great modernists, but after moving to Long Island late in life he withdrew into anonymity. Now his compelling story is being told.
This Italian-American is a master among contemporary expressionists. His bravura brushwork comes from an authentic passion and reveals the very rare skill and vision to control color and light.
Simatos’ work is a time capsule of celebrities, royalty, and the haute bourgeoisie of an era spanning from the 1920s to the 1970s. But the big surprise is that he was also an itinerant trans-Caribbean painter who met many of his sitters on a luxury cruise ship line as staff artist. That makes...
“The easiest thing to say about Raymond Smith is that he follows in the tradition of Walker Evans and Robert Frank. Evans was his photography teacher at Yale in the early 1970s and Frank’s book The Americans (1958) is a source Smith acknowledges for his own book. But neither of these...
Jimmy Buffet wrote lyrics with him in mind. Basquiat painted his portrait. He built a 70-foot schooner and left the touch of solid earth for a record 1,152 days without touching shore, without resupply of food or water, and without fuel. This shaman created a large body of extraordinary abstract...
