Michael Lobel

@mlobelart.bsky.social

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Professor of Art History, Hunter College & CUNY Graduate Center. I look at things and then write about them.

Author of Van Gogh and the End of Nature, from Yale University Press: https://yalebooks.yale.edu/book/9780300274363/van-g

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Vincent van Gogh, Street Scene, Paris, July 1886

Terribly saddened to learn of passing of Dorothy Lichtenstein, widow of artist Roy Lichtenstein. As a former member of the Lichtenstein Foundation board, I came to know her as an incredibly thoughtful, generous, and caring person. She will be missed (Andy Warhol, Dorothy Lichtenstein, 1974)

Happy birthday to iconic modern painter Frida Kahlo, who was born on this day in 1907 (Frida Kahlo, My Nurse and I, 1932)

Coconut Lemon Cake, 1974, painted in acrylic on canvas by the incomparable Audrey Flack, who died late last week, age 93

RIP artist Audrey Flack, one of the titans of Photorealism. Such sad news- I'd been talking with her in recent months, and she was just so incredibly lovely and vibrant www.nytimes.com/2024/07/03/a...

David Hammons, Pray for America, 1969 www.moma.org/collection/w...

Philip Guston, San Clemente, 1975

Necessary vibe shift: Milton Avery, Dancing Trees, 1960

Walt Kuhn, Portrait of Clowns, 1939 www.artic.edu/artworks/118...

Jacob Lawrence, "The Libraries Are Appreciated," from Lawrence's 1943 Harlem series, an image that depicts the Harlem Branch of the NY Public Library

Hooray for the New York Public Library! It's going to be open 7 days a week, thanks to the budget passed by the City Council today—and all the organizers who pushed to make this happen

Reply to

Michael Jay McClure

You might be surprised (or tickled) to learn this has an art historical precedent: a letter Guillaume Apollinaire wrote from the front in WWI, describing the wartime activities of various avant-garde artists

Okay I get it, people are bummed today, but I feel like we could also use a little more David Wojnarowicz fight like hell energy

Since there's a lot going on today and a lot of people are feeling stressed & overwhelmed, maybe this is a good time to introduce all of you to early 20th-century artist Tade Styka and his distinctive painted dog portraits

I've been saying for the last few years that George Grosz is the historical artist whose work most captures the vibe of our own contemporary moment, and today I'm doubling down on that assessment (George Grosz, The Painter of the Hole I, 1948)

Goya, Two Old Men Eating Soup, c. 1819-23

Reply to

Peter Huestis

Thanks! In the book's introduction I focus on Van Gogh's "Flower Beds" painting at the NGA, which highlights the challenge of defining the category of nature with any precision. I'm low-key obsessed with the painting, which I know is not as sought after as his later work but I love all the same

Reply to

Glendon Mellow

For what it's worth, according to Patty just before the Floor Burger's first showing at the Green Gallery in NYC in 1962, she & then-husband Claes Oldenburg "inaugurated" the piece by making love between the patty and the bun

A very happy birthday to the remarkable Patty Mucha, who turns 89 today!🎉 The left photo is from when I visited her in Vermont a few months ago; the other shows her in the 1960s with then-husband Claes Oldenburg along with the Floor Burger, one of the many products of their artistic collaborations

Reply to

nina gregory

I was just there a few weeks ago, and damn she was just so, so good (this is her bust of French naturalist painter Leon Lhermitte)

Reply to

Christina Riggs

Thank you! I know that for some it will be a challenge to think of Van Gogh's artwork in relationship to industry, but when you consider the period and places he lived in the connection comes to be utterly unsurprising

I'm excited to share that today is the official publication date for my new book, Van Gogh and the End of Nature, from Yale University Press, which more firmly grounds Van Gogh within the industrial era in which he lived & worked (thread) yalebooks.yale.edu/book/9780300...

It is my hope that Van Gogh and the End of Nature will help shift our understanding of this iconic modern artist and highlight his work’s relevance to contemporary concerns about industrial pollution, environmental despoliation, and climate change

In the first chapter, “Air,” I examine Van Gogh’s connection to air pollution in the coal-fired cities and towns of 19th-century Europe, including in his many images of smokestacks and coal-fired trains

In chapter two, “Earth,” I treat the artist’s deep connection to mining and excavation, particularly in his early experience in the Belgium coal mining region of the Borinage, known as the Pays Noir (the Black Country) due to the heavy shroud of black soot & dust that covered the terrain

The book's third chapter, “Fire,” examines Van Gogh’s abiding interest in gaslight during his time in Arles, including in such iconic works as The Night Cafe and Starry Night over the Rhone

In chapter four, “Water,” I discuss Van Gogh’s proximity to despoiled waterways, from the period of his childhood—which historians tell us saw a marked increase in industrial water pollution in the Netherlands—to those nearby his famed Yellow House in Arles, in the south of France

While the final full chapter, “Color,” discusses how artificial pigments, including many made from the industrial byproduct coal tar, transformed the broader chromatic world - along with Van Gogh’s palette - in the 19th century

The book ends on a contemporary note with the work of Latoya Ruby Frazier, now featured in an exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art, who referenced Van Gogh in photographs she made while in residence in the very same Belgian coal mining region Van Gogh had visited more than a century earlier

Reply to

Joshua J. Friedman

And Joshua you know that in response I'm legally obligated to post this photo of Jones in her Paris studio that very same year with an incredibly adorable studio assistant scrutinizing her work

Emma Amos's portrait of celebrated dancer & choreographer Katherine Dunham, who was born on this day in 1909