Judith Dobrzynski

5 days ago | wsj.com | Judith Dobrzynski

San Francisco’s Legion of Honor museum devotes a show to the American artist, who took ideas from Picasso, Van Gogh and countless others and playfully transformed them into his own compelling canvases. When you look at a painting of parfaits and sundaes by Wayne Thiebaud, do you think of the bottles and vessels lined up in the still lifes of Giorgio Morandi? Or view a row of his cupcakes and see Monet’s grain stacks?

1 week ago | theartnewspaper.com | James Imam |Louis Jebb |Judith Dobrzynski

Caravaggio was born Michelangelo Merisi in 1571 in the small town of Caravaggio, near Milan. He arrived in Rome around 1592, a young artist hungry for success, and spent the next 14 years of his life there. The city's chaos fuelled both his genius and his troubles. His criminal records tell of brawls, arrests and the murder that forced him into exile. Yet his years in Rome also sparked an artistic revolution.

3 weeks ago | wsj.com | Judith Dobrzynski

When they first were revealed, the frescoes in the San Brizio Chapel of the majestic cathedral in Orvieto, Italy, both awed visitors and shocked them. The realistic scenes (1499-1504), portraying the end of the world and inspired by the Book of Revelation, were terrifying enough on their own.

Dec 10, 2024 | wsj.com | Judith Dobrzynski

BostonÉdouard Manet: We thought we knew him. An upper-class bon vivant, a fervent modernist who flouted artistic traditions but remained a realist even as he blazed a path for the Impressionists (whom he befriended, especially Berthe Morisot), Manet (1832-1883)—whose masterpieces include “Olympia” (1863) and “A Bar at the Folies-Bergère” (1882)—died young, of syphilis.

Oct 28, 2024 | wsj.com | Judith Dobrzynski

San FranciscoAmerican museums have largely ignored the work of Tamara de Lempicka (1894-1980). Her glossy, glamorous, instantly recognizable portraits, which conjure the fashionable 1920s, have been shown at European institutions. Celebrities like Madonna and Jack Nicholson collect them, and her “Portrait de Marjorie Ferry” (1932) fetched $21.1 million at Christie’s in 2020.