Michael Lobel

Portrait of an upper class woman, in white dress, with adorable dog in her lap. The dog is well behaved and is being a very good boy

Detail of an adorable lap dog from a painted portrait

The utterly adorable lap dog in Goya's 1806 portrait of Doña Francisca Vicenta Chollet y Caballero at the Norton Simon Museum in Pasadena www.nortonsimon.org/art/detail/M...

I know there's a lot wrong with the world, but I'm enormously frustrated with Bluesky's moderation algorithm, which consistently censors the work of women artists who deal with the human body & sexuality in frank and open ways

Painting and collage of NYC skyline with figures of women and one ejaculating penis (the latter at upper left, just to be specific about the verbal description).

In the same show at the Whitney, Anita Steckel's early 1970s feminist reimagining of the NYC skyline

Painting of two firefighters kissing in front of dilapidated brick tenement buildings

Martin Wong, Big Heat, 1986, in "Shifting Landscapes" show now up at Whitney Museum of American Art in NYC

Painted portrait of a bearded man in a postal uniform sitting in a chair

"I have two figures on the go now, a head, & a bust with hands, of an old postman in dark blue uniform. He has a Socratic head that’s interesting to paint. I always feel confidence when doing portraits...as it enables me to cultivate what’s best & most serious in me." -Vincent van Gogh, Aug. 3, 1888

luv ur outfit😍💗👏💯🔥

Since @peterhuestis.bsky.social has informed us that today is National Watermelon Day, here's "Viva la Vida" ("Live Life"), reportedly the last picture Frida Kahlo painted before her untimely death in 1954 at age 47

View of Madison Ave, NYC, looking downtown, with no apparent cars visible

View of east side of Park Ave., NYC, with no apparent cars visible

Madison and Park Avenues nearly deserted on an early summer Sunday morning - one of best times to be out and about in NYC (with apologies to @rachelholliday.bsky.social)

FOME (fear of missing earthquake)

I live in NYC but somehow didn't notice the earthquake last night & now feeling like I totally missed out😪

Photo of Nina Simone & James Baldwin. They have their heads together, looking out at us and smiling and laughing broadly, as if having the times of their lives. An image of pure JOY

Also to mark James Baldwin's birthday, this photo of Baldwin & Nina Simone from recent National Portrait Gallery exhibition on Baldwin & voices of queer resistance. Hard to think of an image that conveys pure JOY more than this one. More info on the show here: npg.si.edu/exhibition/j...

Photo of James Baldwin and painter Beauford Delaney walking side by side on a street in Paris

James Baldwin and Beauford Delaney together in Paris, c. 1960

Head and shoulders portrait of James Baldwin

A pastel portrait of James Baldwin by Beauford Delaney from 1944

Colorful painting of a seated figure in a landscape

Perhaps Delaney's earliest portrait of Baldwin, a painting entitled "Dark Rapture" painted in 1941

Colorful painted portrait of James Baldwin, seated

To mark James Baldwin's birthday - he was born on this day in 1924 - a stunning portrait of the writer by Beauford Delaney. The two men were close, & Delaney painted many portraits of Baldwin

B&W photo of a building facace

Relief sculpture of a lithe figure in a dancing-like pose

I'm just a lowly art historian, but in moments like these I always think back to one early sign of Trump's wanton, pointless destructiveness: his demolition of the priceless & irreplaceable Art Deco relief sculptures on facade of the Bonwit Teller building, which he tore down to build Trump Tower

Image of NYC skyline with Big Bird-like figure (in Blue) on a crescent moon shape holding a ladder

😢

Alex Da Corte, As Long as the Sun Lasts, 2021 (detail)

this is a disgrace and a national shame

Interior of an exhibition space featuring calendar art

The Museo del Calendario (calendar museum) in Querétaro, Mexico

bsky.app/profile/mlob...

Gustave Caillebotte: Painting His World | The Art Institute of Chicago More than 120 paintings, works on paper, photographs, and other ephemera come together in this major exhibition exploring the very personal interests and relationships that shaped Impressionist artist...

If you're interested in looking more at Caillebotte & will be in the Chicago area in the coming months, a version of the Caillebotte show is now up at the Art Institute of Chicago through early October www.artic.edu/exhibitions/...

Painted scene of rainy day in wide Parisian boulevard, with lots of figures holding umbrellas

I saw the study—which is in a private collection—for first time in recent Caillebotte show at the Getty, & I've got to say I prefer it to the celebrated final version of the scene (at the Art Institute of Chicago) for both its sketchy rendering & the expanse of empty cobblestones in the foreground

Painting of a rainy cobblestone street with a few walking figures under umbrellas

Gustave Caillebotte, study for Paris Street, Rainy Day, c. 1877

A painting of a street scene, with drops of rain falling in dash-like diagonals. Various figures populate the scene, most of them on the sidewalk. A building with rows of windows appears at right

Jacob Lawrence, Rain, 1938

Demuth's painting was inspired by this poem by William Carlos Williams:

"Among the rain
and lights
I saw the figure 5
in gold
on a red
firetruck
moving
tense
unheeded
to gong clangs
siren howls
and wheels rumbling
through the dark city."

-William Carlos Williams, "The Great Figure," 1921

B&W photo of man walking on rocks, his reflection in water below him

And a reminder that William Carlos Williams, who was not only a poet but also a doctor, was pediatrician to influential postwar sculptor Robert Smithson, creator of the Spiral Jetty www.poetryfoundation.org/poetry-news/...

Demuth's painting was inspired by this poem by William Carlos Williams:

"Among the rain
and lights
I saw the figure 5
in gold
on a red
firetruck
moving
tense
unheeded
to gong clangs
siren howls
and wheels rumbling
through the dark city."

-William Carlos Williams, "The Great Figure," 1921

Yep- at the Archives of American Art. Gotta keep busy..!

Photo of woman kneeling with wooden stick in bucket, with paintings behind her, and quote about her work as an artist

Gestural painting of man looking like he's shouting or screaming

Stupendous show of work of painter Vivian Browne on view now at Phillips Collection in DC. I particularly loved seeing her 1960s "Little Men" series, which skewers pretensions of masculine authority. Go see it if you're in DC—it's up through late September www.phillipscollection.org/event/2025-0...