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  Renoir    Pinhead    Starting Places   

 

The DCCA Members Show

Kathy Boortz - Barn Owls
welding caps, metal, clay, beads

The DCCA Members Show almost made me wish I still belonged to D–Art. Kathy was less enthusiastic. We went early, because we were close and didn't want to come back after The MAC opening the same night.

I  was mostly interested in quality. This show in past years hasn't had much of that valuable quidity. We were surprised to find lots, and only a little dreck. And we only saw work by one artist who'd bad-mouthed the new DCCA.

The show seemed edited. I mean, how could DCCA Director Joan Davidow run off all the worst artists? Were some members just not invited to show in the annual open show? Was the show really open? 

JR's not altogether sure it matters. If he'd re-upped, his piece probably would have been out front where Joan always puts the photographs. Kathy's landscape most likely would have been stuck on the back wall, although we didn't see any work facing out the back door like Kathy's got stuck at the last Critics Choice two years ago.
 

Melodee Martin Ramirez - Italian Study II
oil on canvas

See Melodee Martin Ramirez' DARts
Supporting member page for more of her art.
 

It was great to see something new by Chase Yarbrough, whose work I've missed for several years — and not at all surprising to see something this good from Kathy Boortz, whose work we've been watching for a while.

It was also good to see work by DARts Supporting Members Paul Rogers Harris, Robin Ann Walker and Melodee Martin Ramirez. If we missed somebody, let us know.

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Renoir and Dallas

We attended the DMA press opening for Renoir and Algieria. 60 journalists gathered for a free tuna surprise lunch that didn't quite match the Kimbell's Quest for Immortality chicken salad brunch, but it wasn't half bad, although Kathy thought the DMA's tuna had too many surprises.

According to the press release:

"In 1881, artist Pierre-Auguste Renoir fell under the spell of the brilliant light, colorful patterns and exotic life of North Africa. Fifteen little-known paintings by the impressionist master depicting subjects in Algeria and 16 albumen prints of Algeria taken in late 19th Century will be on view... at the Dallas Museum of Art from June 8 to August 31, 2003.

Moreover, the Dallas exhibition will expand the special focus on Renoir's Orientalist period to a wider survey of [his] career with an additional 38 paintings, drawings and sculptures from the Museum's collection, as well as loans from other public and private collections."

 

JR didn't care much what those people thought. He loved watching Renoir's brilliant brush stroke dance in the better pieces — especially the banana field — up close and personal, while the official press conference droned on in the next room.

There was to have been a tour of the show after introductory remarks by DMA Director John Lane and Dorothy Kosinski, who organized the expanded version of the show only seen at the DMA.

But Ms. Kosinski decided there were too many of us and took private questions instead, depriving journalists of many of the details of the show and better understandings of the paintings. Then, too, it might have gone on for hours.

We both wondered whether we'd jur into any shows some of the dreckier, more saccharine pieces shown — especially in the front room. We were sure they were expensive, but they were far from Papa Renoir's best work. And JR was dismayed at the whole back room filled with slick photographs of other work.

Photog JR deferred to painter Kathy's superior color memory to choose the better versions above. Odd that the image files for the press muted many of Renoir's colors.

See also our reviews of recent press openings at the
Kimbell and the Amon Carter museums in Fort Worth.