“Seattle photographer Joshel Namkung, now in his 90s, has an instinctive eye for the insistent shapes in nature: a sandbar’s ripples, a fir forest’s verticals, a grass field’s breeze-combed swilrs.”
A review of “Masters Behind the Lens: Works by Johsel Namkung and Ansel Adams at the Woodside Braseth Gallery.
A review of “Masters Behind the Lens: the Works of Ansel Adams and Johsel Namkung” at the Woodside Braseth Gallery
“As Woodside/Braseth Gallery marks 50 years, owner John Braseth says money isn’t key to success with art….”
The most basic disjunction in Nathan DiPietro’s new series of egg-tempera-on-panel paintings is right on the surface: The paintings are dry. (This is an effect of the tempera.) Their surfaces have zero shine, bury all memory of moisture. But they depict the rainy town of Seabrook, Washington: its edges of ocean, its curving creeks, its chubby clouds, its canopies of mist, its proximity to the rain forest of the Olympic National Park.
As Seattle’s Woodside/Braseth Gallery celebrates its 50th anniversary, John Braseth shares his perspective on the business of art.
At the opening night of two new exhibitions at his downtown art gallery last month, John Braseth, silver-haired and elegantly gray-suited, wandered from group to group, talking to artists and collectors in his charming, gregarious way.
It’s something he’s done for many years now, as director and owner of Woodside/Braseth Gallery, Seattle’s oldest major fine-art gallery, known for carrying high-caliber works by painters and sculptors working in the Northwest tradition.
When preparing for a 2008 exhibition of his paintings, William Cumming, a spirited and colorful icon of Northwest art, said, “This might be my last show, considering that I am 91 years of age. On the other hand, it might not, considering my arrogant refusal to act my age.”
It was, in fact, the last solo show for the artist, who died Nov. 22 of congestive heart failure at age 93, leaving behind vibrant works of art that blend astute social observation with stunning abstraction
At the Guggenheim Museum, NYC January 30th, 2009 – April 19th, 2009. Includes Works by Morris Graves, Mark Tobey, Kenneth Callahan, & Paul Horiuchi. Reviewed in the New York Times, “Gaze East and Dream.”
The painting — a big, dark cityscape of Seattle as seen from Capital Hill, with Lake Union shining like a whale in the foreground and the hump of Queen Anne Hill rising behind into the belly of a low black cloud — is so tactile and kinetic it makes you want to touch the paint. And that’s exactly what John E. Braseth, co-owner of the Gordon Woodside/John Braseth Gallery in Seattle, does.