The Arkansas Arts Center has opened its much-anticipated exhibition of works by Mark Rothko, along with artists’ self-portraits from the collection of Jackye and Curtis Finch Jr. and contemporary portraiture from the National Gallery. Read more about the shows in my Art Notes column. The Rothko show features his work prior to, and including, his color field work and is also on loan from the National Gallery; Arts Center Director Todd Herman organized the exhibition prior to his coming to Arkansas. The Finches’ collection includes work by such stellar artists as Lawrence Finney, James Valerio, Ira Korman and Paul Cadmus, and Arkansas’s own bright light, Kevin Kresse. 

Any one of the exhibits would be a big deal; that all three are up together is quite a happy circumstance. 

University of Arkansas at Little Rock gallery director Brad Cushman was asked by the Finches to write the catalog for their collection exhibition. From the introduction: 

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Sitting alone in the studio, the artist is surrounded by a mirror, sketches, and/or photographs, preoccupied with composition. The images look familiar; they are the artist’s own likeness. Creating figurative imagery requires hours of observation and the technical study of accurate human proportions and facial expressions. Time spent perfecting a craft and mastering a variety of media gives an artist the tools necessary to capture a model’s likeness. Artists working figuratively frequently turn to the most available model present in the studio. Themselves. 

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