Recognized as of the greatest artists of the mid-twentieth century, David Milne (1882-1953) was the first to develop the multiple-plate colour drypoint. Decades later, John Hartman (b. 1950) was inspired to take up the technique and has produced a remarkable body of prints that shares much in common with Milne’s oeuvre, in aesthetic, geographic, and spiritual terms.
Evolving from a series of road trips along the Mississippi River, Alec Soth’s Sleeping by the Mississippi captures America’s iconic yet oft-neglected “third coast.” Soth’s richly descriptive, large-format color photographs present an eclectic mix of individuals, landscapes, and interiors. Sensuous in detail and raw in subject, Sleeping by the Mississippi elicits a consistent mood of loneliness, longing, and reverie.
JOHN ALEXANDER grew up in Beaumont, in east Texas, birthplace of Big Oil. So his retrospective now on exhibit at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, featuring nearly 100 works from the past 30 years, represents something of a homecoming for the 62-year-old artist. Although he left Texas for New York City in 1979, Alexander’s work has always been informed by the years he spent exploring the swamps, bayous and industrial ghettos in and around Beaumont.