Lennart Anderson, "St. Mark's Place:, 1971-76 I was in Charlottesville over the 4th of July weekend so I visited the Fralin Museum of Art on the University of Virginia's campus.
I checked out the collection prior and the museum seemed to have a good contemporary collection including a Lennart Anderson and an Eric Fischl. I don't get to see Anderson paintings often so I was excited. Anderson is not a household name in contemporary representational painting like Fischl or Chuck Close, but his devotees are impassioned: he is a painter's painter. Anderson is a profound compositionalist like Balthus, Magritte, and Poussin: his paintings are very still and classical.
About a year ago, I found a conversation on youtube with Anderson and a couple of his former students. I was very excited to "hear the master speak" and had designs to share Anderson's illuminations with my advanced painting class. But 10 minutes into the conversation it was evident that, alas, it was too late: the conversation should have occurred 10 years earlier.
Unfortunately, the Fralin is not much bigger than my house so very little of their permanent collection was on display. The permanent collection consisted of a Frank Stella construction, a large Willard Midgett multi-figure composition, and two large abstract paintings by regional artists of little interest. So, of course, no Anderson or Fischl. That is one of my regular frustrations - museums' choices of what not to show when I visit, like the National Gallery's decision to put Walt Kuhn's "The White Clown" in storage for awhile.
I checked out the collection prior and the museum seemed to have a good contemporary collection including a Lennart Anderson and an Eric Fischl. I don't get to see Anderson paintings often so I was excited. Anderson is not a household name in contemporary representational painting like Fischl or Chuck Close, but his devotees are impassioned: he is a painter's painter. Anderson is a profound compositionalist like Balthus, Magritte, and Poussin: his paintings are very still and classical.
About a year ago, I found a conversation on youtube with Anderson and a couple of his former students. I was very excited to "hear the master speak" and had designs to share Anderson's illuminations with my advanced painting class. But 10 minutes into the conversation it was evident that, alas, it was too late: the conversation should have occurred 10 years earlier.
Unfortunately, the Fralin is not much bigger than my house so very little of their permanent collection was on display. The permanent collection consisted of a Frank Stella construction, a large Willard Midgett multi-figure composition, and two large abstract paintings by regional artists of little interest. So, of course, no Anderson or Fischl. That is one of my regular frustrations - museums' choices of what not to show when I visit, like the National Gallery's decision to put Walt Kuhn's "The White Clown" in storage for awhile.
Walt Kuhn, "The White Clown" Of course, on the bright side, visiting the Fralin got me to revisit Lennart Anderson and look closely at a great painting that I haven't considered for a long time, even if only digitally. But that is a second frustration because Anderson is also a profound colorist which can't be experienced in reproduction. I can only imagine the reverberating juxtapositions of color in the original.
To their credit, the museum was exhibiting a very nice post-war British Printmaking show with great pieces by David Hockney and Malcolm Morley.
To their credit, the museum was exhibiting a very nice post-war British Printmaking show with great pieces by David Hockney and Malcolm Morley.