Krasner’s marriage to Jackson Pollock slowed her art because, it is suggested, she carried “two loads of self-doubt, his and hers”. But there were also benefits, coming from their critical engagement with each other’s work. At her first retrospective a critic noted some of Krasner’s work was “touched with real grandeur”. Decades later, that judgement seems affirmed. Images are here.
Bowling’s first retrospective has critics puzzled as to why he has been so long ignored. Is it race (he is from Guyana), his unfashionable abstractionism, or perhaps his avoidance of a signature style? Recognition from the London art establishment has been scant – New York has been more welcoming. Not that Bowling has been put off at all – “I still get a lot of juice out of abstraction.”
With manga, Japan elevated “the modern graphic art of storytelling”. Manga is now widely influential in Western culture. Pictures dominate text and “the range of pictorial invention on display … is staggering.” Not all the stories are about superheroes: “Manga has become ubiquitous in Japanese daily life precisely because daily life is so often its subject.” A beginners guide is here.
Hurtado is 98, an active artist, and having her first show at a public museum. Remarkable. Her art has traversed abstraction, surrealism and stylized figuration, frequently portraying her own body. And, for good measure, a detour through text paintings. “Fabulous … utterly compelling and persuasive” says the reviewer. A conversation between artist and curator is here.