Editor's Letter – May 2009

The Changing Meaning of Value

Steven Biller

Seldom do I dread producing an issue of Palm Springs Life, but this month — our annual real estate issue — came with a challenge: We, like the army of reputable experts whom we interviewed, were hard-pressed to wrap our arms around a market so unsteady in the aftershock of the economic quake.

The Calm in the Storm

Samuel T. Adams reveals the poetic humor of our chaotic times

Steven Biller

Adams painted the two newest works in the exhibition on linen, taking himself closer to the raw surface: no ink or acetate, only acrylic paint.

Galleries – March 2009

Four artists, four galleries, four distinct styles

Steven Biller

Matthew Carone took up painting in the 1940s after Hans Hoffman asked him to model in a class in which Carone’s brother Nicolas was a student. He has never stopped painting since that seminal experience in Abstract Expressionism. His newest work reveals many of his influences, especially Roberto Matta and Franz Klein. It departs from the musicians and mythological figures that populate some of his earlier paintings and uses a dynamic gestural vocabulary that’s confident, rich in color and texture, and charged with emotion.

Galleries — Have It Your Way

Wayne Thiebaud serves up 70 years of abundance at the Palm Springs Art Museum.

Steven Biller

Known for applying thick layers of paint like so much icing on the cakes and desserts that made his still-life paintings famous, Wayne Thiebaud (born 1920) occupies a populist place in American art history.

Editor’s Letter

When Love Comes Knocking

Steven Biller Real Estate

This month — our annual Modernism Issue — we celebrate three masters of modernism: Krisel, Charles Hollis Jones, and Karl Benjamin. Each has had a foundational impact on modern design, and each has earned a soft spot in the hearts of enthusiasts of the hard-edge, minimalist Modern aesthetic.

Masters of Modernism — The Accidental Modernist

How Karl Benjamin helped pioneer an art movement that, 50 years later, continues to inspire brave explorations in abstract geometry

Steven Biller

From his favored chair in the living room of his midcentury modern house in Claremont, Karl Benjamin can see through the backyard atrium into his studio. Behind a wall of glass, the bright colors of three of his paintings — one of his classic stripe canvases, one with interlocking forms, and one geometrically abstracted landscape — exude a vitality that could be bittersweet for the 83-year-old artist.

Hot, Hot, Hot!

Carlos Betancourt leads a group show of Miami-based artists with photo-based art festooned by his own experiences.

Steven Biller

Carlos Betancourt leads a group show of Miami-based artists with photo-based art festooned by his own experiences.

A Glass Act

A couple’s passion for studio glass inspires a collection whose best pieces earn a place in their namesake gallery at Palm Springs Art Museum

Steven Biller Arts & Entertainment

A couple’s passion for studio glass inspires a collection whose best pieces earn a place in their namesake gallery at Palm Springs Art Museum