I grew up in a small sleepy town outside of Philadelphia and became a lawyer because people told me I couldn’t make a living as an artist. But I was always looking for a way to express my passion. I traveled the world and visited over 250 museums looking for inspiration to help me develop a unique artistic idea.

Meanwhile I had acquired major carpentry skills renovating an 1860’s house in the Adirondack Mountains of New York with my wife in a kind of homesteading experiment. I tried my hand at script writing and novels but I found my personal passion when I discovered the works of Piet Mondrian, minimalist paintings featuring bright primary colors, and Ellsworth Kelly, whose paintings broke out of the rectangular mold and also often used bold bright colors.

So I began creating complex wood structures in 3 dimensions, representing important and widely recognized cultural symbols, like hearts, peace signs, Adam and Eve, stiletto heels, sports cars, and more. These wood frameworks often take many hours to conceptualize and even longer to construct, employing as many as 67 specially cut pieces of wood, 140 saw cuts including 53 curves and angles other than right angles, 236 pilot holes for 236 screws, and 12 bolts and nuts and 24 washers to assemble the various parts into the completed shape. I use a variety of tools to create this framework so it is not only strong, but lightweight. Then I evolved techniques to stretch artist’s canvas over these unusually shaped internal frameworks. Then I choose carefully the right colors, shades, and textures to enhance the meaning of the symbol and engage and excite the viewer.

The work can be tedious and frustrating, but the end result gives me the creative satisfaction I have craved all my life.

To see some of my work, please visit my website at www.jayrolfe.com/.

Picasso, "Chrysanthemums" 1901

Another painting the 19 or 20 year old Pablo Picasso painted in 1901 is a still life titled Chrysanthemums. The flowers, vase, and table are pretty straightforward, while the background is somewhat impressionistic and unusual in his choice of colors. This painting, like the one in my previous post is on display at the Philadelphia Museum of Art.

You can view some of my 3-D paintings at http://www.jayrolfe.com/.

Picasso, "Head of a Woman" 1901

Pablo Picasso made his first visit to Paris in 1900, arriving just before his 19th birthday on October 25, 1900. After about 2 months he went back to Spain, arriving in his home town of Malaga on January 1, 1901. Picasso returned to Paris for his second visit in May 1901.

Today's painting is one of two at the Philadelphia Museum of Art that Picasso painted in 1901, when he was 19 or 20 years old. Head of a Woman is a slightly grotesque portrait, similar to other portraits of Parisian ladies of the night but perhaps less grotesque.

You can view some of my 3-D paintings on my website at www.jayrolfe.com/.

Motherwell's "Elegy to the Spanish Republic" at Phila Museum of Art

If you go to art museums, you surely know this is one of Robert Motherwell's over 200 versions of Elegy to the Spanish Republic. This one was painted in 1958-60 and is on display at the Philadelphia Museum of Art. I saw this one again recently, and I have seen many similar versions in many other museums.

You can view some of my 3-D paintings on my website at www.jayrolfe.com/.

"Black Fire I" by Barnett Newman at the Philadelphia Museum of Art

All right, this blog is called "Contemporary Art Revealed," and I have posted about Impressionist, post-Impressionist, and Modern paintings over the past 10 days. So here's something from 1961, Black Fire I by Barnett Newman. Newman was known for his vertical stripes he called "zips" and for his large vertical blocks of color (often black). This painting is usually on view at the Philadelphia Museum of Art where I saw it again a week ago.

You can view some of my 3-D paintings on my website at www.jayrolfe.com/.

The wall label at PMA describes the painting as follows: "Black Fire I conveys a dark grandeur through simple means: the tensions between edge and field, opacity and transparency, order and spontaneity, black pigment and raw textured canvas." Wow. Sometimes a picture IS worth a thousand words.

Mary Cassat at Philadelphia Museum of Art

On my visit a week ago to the Philadelphia Museum of Art, I again saw one of my favorite Impressionist paintings owned by the Museum. It has been off display for a while, and now it is back. The painting is Mary Cassatt's portrait of her sister Lydia at the Paris Opera House in front of a mirror which reflects the interior of the Opera House. It was painted in 1879 and is titled Woman With A Pearl Necklace in a Loge. It is bright, lively, and when you see it in person it's like you are there enjoying the opera scene with her.

Mary Cassatt was born in the Philadelphia area, and moved to Paris after art school at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts in order to further her art career.

You can see some of my 3-D paintings on my website at www.jayrolfe.com/.

Matisse "The Moorish Screen"

Henri Matisse painted The Moorish Screen in 1921. It shows his daughter Marguerite and his then-favorite model Henriette Darricarre in an interior of incredibly rich carpets and wall coverings and the titular Moorish screen. Although I have seen this on display at the Philadelphia Museum of Art, it is now on display in the Museum's Perelman Building as part of the exhibit "Henri Matisse and Modern Art on the French Riviera."

You can view some of my 3-D paintings on my website at www.jayrolfe.com/.

Matisse "Still Life on a Table" at Perelman Bldg of Phila Museum of Art

The second of the two Henri Matisse still life paintings I referred to yesterday is Still Life on a Table painted in 1925, the year after the painting featured yesterday. This painting, not usually on view at the Philadelphia Museum of Art, is currently on view at the Perelman Building of the Philadelphia Museum of Art as part of the exhibit "Henri Matisse and Modern Art on the French Riviera." You can see many similarities between this painting and the one featured yesterday.

You can view some of my 3-D paintings on my website at www.jayrolfe.com/.

Matisse "Still Life" at Perelman Bldg Phila Museum of Art

Two Henri Matisse still life paintings that are not usually on display are now on display at the Perelman Building of the Philadelphia Museum of Art. This one was painted in 1924 and is titled Still Life. You can see Matisse really loved his textiles.

You can see some of my 3-D paintings on my website at www.jayrolfe.com/.

Matisse "Head of a Woman"

Matisse used models extensively and frequently painted figures. This Henri Matisse painting from 1917, Head of a Woman, is somewhat unusual in that it includes only the head. This is one of the Matisse paintings owned by but not usually not on view at the Philadelphia Museum of Art and now on view in the Perelman Building exhibit "Henri Matisse and Modern Art on the French Riviera."

You can view some of my 3-D paintings at www.jayrolfe.com/.

More Matisse on the Riviera

On Friday I was at the Perelman Building of the Philadelphia Museum of Art to see the exhibit "Henri Matisse and Modern Art on the French Riviera." Although almost all the works on display are from the Museum's collection, there are many I haven't seen before even though I visit the Museum frequently. As you can imagine, museums own many more items than they can display at any one time.

Henri Matisse often painted interiors, especially liking ones that had a view out a window. This painting in the exhibit, done in 1917-18, titled My Room at the Beau Rivage (Interior at Nice), is perhaps typical in that it has a room full of colorful textiles and an ocean view out the window.

You can view some of my 3-D paintings at www.jayrolfe.com/.

Matisse "Two Models Resting" at Perelman Bldg Phila Museum of Art

Yesterday I went to the Philadelphia Museum of Art and, for the first time, across the street to the Museum's exhibition space in the Perelman Building (separate admission). One of the exhibits at the Perelman Building was "Henri Matisse and Modern Art on the French Riviera," which is on display from December 13, 2008 to November 1, 2009. Almost all the works on display are from the Museum's collection, but many I haven't seen before in the period rooms in the main building. As you can imagine, museums own many more items than they can display at any one time. So it was very worthwhile for me to visit.

I generally like Matisse's work, and I've seen a lot of it. I've seen the many works exhibited at the Baltimore Museum of Art which are part of their 500+ work collection of Matisse several times, and I've seen the 59 Matisse works at the Barnes Foundation many times. I've seen Matisse at the Phillips, LACMA, MoMA, the Met, Art Institute of Chicago, etc., etc. And it was nice to see some new-to-me paintings.

By the way, you can see some of my paintings on my website at www.jayrolfe.com/. You can also access this blog through the website.

Today I'm featuring Henri Matisse's colorful Two Models Resting from 1928. I'm sorry it's slightly out of focus. That's even more reason for you to get over there yourself and see the original.

Cezanne at the Kimbell Art Museum

The Kimbell Art Museum in Fort Worth TX is a relatively small museum with a relatively small collection. Yet it has great quality examples from Old Masters through Modern art painting. I remember that I posted one of each, a Fra Angelico 1429-1430 small painting The Apostle Saint James the Greater Freeing the Magician Hermogenes, and a late Henri Matisse from 1946, titled Asia. Both were featured in my post of December 31, 2008.

Today I'm going with one of two Paul Cezanne paintings I particularly enjoyed at the Kimbell. This Cezanne painting from 1895, Maison Maria With A View of the Chateau Noir, seems much like many of his others, yet the colors were brighter and the brushwork more impressionistic than his prototypical landscapes with their squarish blocks of color. See how you like it. https://www.kimbellart.org/Collections/Collections-Detail.aspx?prov=false&cons=false&cid=8645

You can see some of my 3-D paintings on my website at www.jayrolfe.com/.

Kimbell Art Museum

In reviewing some of the paintings I saw on my around the USA trip last summer, I was struck this morning by the similarity of Gerhard Richter's seascape which I posted yesterday, Sea Piece-Wave, on display at the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth, with Jacob Van Ruisdael's Rough Sea At A Jetty painted in the 1650's which I saw at the Kimbell Art Museum across the street and also in Fort Worth. Van Ruisdael is known chiefly for his landscapes. This painting shows his skill with a seascape. Here is the link to the Kimbell's website, https://www.kimbellart.org/Collections/SearchCollections.aspx?P=1&Focus=0#, and the image they display, and below is the photo I took. In real life, the painting doesn't look as yellow as my photo, and doesn't look as dark as their image, it's somewhere in between. I'm sure you get the idea.

Last summer was my first trip to Fort Worth TX. I had long wanted to see the collection at the Kimbell Art Museum, and it was all I had hoped for and more. The Kimbell was also showing a visiting exhibit called "The Impressionists: Master Paintings from the Art Institute of Chicago." Even though I had seen all of them at the Art Institute of Chicago several times, I was glad to see them again.

You can view images of some of my paintings at www.jayrolfe.com/.

Gerhard Richter "Sea Piece-Wave" at MAM Fort Worth

A dramatic painting I liked at the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth which I visited this past summer, is the large, about 6 1/2 feet square, Gerhard Richter painting Sea Piece-Wave painted in 1969. You can see a small image of it on the museum's website. http://www.themodern.org/f_html/richter2.html#top

You can view some of my paintings at www.jayrolfe.com/.

Warhol's "Self-Portrait" with the look of death

The permanent collection at the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth was, in my opinion, wide-ranging and of strong quality in painting. One of the well-known contemporary artists of whom it owned several canvases is Andy Warhol. I was struck by this Self-Portrait created in 1986, a year before his untimely death. The reason I was struck by it is it has the look of death, a ghostly look.

The painting is rather large, 9 feet square. Here's the link to the museum's website. http://www.themodern.org/f_html/warhol3.html#top

You can view some of my paintings on my website at www.jayrolfe.com/.

Richard Serra at the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth

When I took an around the country driving trip with my wife Randy Rolfe last summer, we planned to visit about a dozen art museums. We ended up visiting even more art museums on our 25 day, 9000 mile trip through 22 states, plus 6 other museums, a zoo, 11 national parks, several national monuments, and many other sights.

The first art museum we visited was not one I planned to visit because I'd never even heard of it. We were heading for the Kimbell Art Museum in Fort Worth TX on the afternoon of July 18, 2008 and had just parked the car in the Kimbell parking lot when I saw an enormous sculpture across the street. We went to investigate and found Richard Serra's 67 feet 10 inch high cor-ten steel sculpture titled Vortex and made in 2002. The base is a little over 20 feet wide, and one can walk inside. It was sitting in front of the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth which I didn't know about. Here are 3 photos I took of it, two of them from inside. And here's a link to the Vortex page on museum's website. http://www.themodern.org/f_html/serra2.html#top

Then we went inside the museum and found a great collection of contemporary art nicely displayed in a stunning building. The Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth certainly deserves more press then it gets.

You can view images of some of my 3-D paintings on my website at www.jayrolfe.com/.

Painter Louis Comfort Tiffany

I first encountered the paintings of Louis Comfort Tiffany, who is renown for his stain glass work, at the Charles Hosmer Morse Museum of American Art in Winter Park FL. The museum's website is http://www.morsemuseum.org/, They have a whole gallery devoted to Tiffany's paintings and about 15-20 are on display. Most of them were done before he became famous for his stain glass work. By the way, Tiffany's father founded Tiffany Jewelers.

When I visited the Smithsonian American Art Museum in Washington DC 10 days ago I saw a very nice painting by Louis Comfort Tiffany painted in 1873 and titled Market Day Outside the Walls of Tangiers, Morocco. I'll show you my photo of it since the colors are much truer than the image on SAAM's website at http://americanart.si.edu/collections/search/artwork/?id=24107.

You can view some of my 3-D paintings at www.jayrolfe.com/.

Raphael's "The Alba Madonna" at the National Gallery

My favorite types of painting are Impressionist, Post-impressionist, Modern, and Contemporary. That's what I usually focus on when I visit museums.

However, this time I visited the National Gallery of Art in Washington DC a week ago Sunday, I started with looking at the older art. One of the many knockout pieces was Raphael's 1510 painting called The Alba Madonna. Not only is it beautiful and colorful, it is round! Here's the image from the website of the National Gallery which shows it without its frame, and also the photo I took which shows it in a very beautiful gold round frame. By the way, the colors did look bright as in my photo.

You can view some of my 3-D paintings on my website at www.jayrolfe.com/.

Childe Hassam at the National Gallery

I visited the National Gallery of Art in Washington DC on Sunday a week ago. During that visit, I came to appreciate Childe Hassam, and American Impressionist, as an Impressionist artist. I had not been particularly impressed with his paintings that I had seen before. At the National Gallery I saw a number of his paintings I liked.

Today's image is Childe Hassam's The South Ledges, Appledore, painted in 1913 and on view at the National Gallery of Art.

You can view some of my 3-D paintings at www.jayrolfe.com/.

Cezanne Still Life

There are a number of fine Cezanne still life paintings at the Barnes Foundation where I visited last Friday. Here's one called Compotier, Pitcher and Fruit painted in 1872-1874. I particularly like this one for its profusion of fruit. Of course, the color and composition are typically Cezanne.

You can view some of my 3-D paintings on my website at www.jayrolfe.com/.

Cezanne "Bathers at Rest" at Barnes

Each time I go to the Barnes Foundation, as I did yesterday, I am almost overwhelmed by the Cezanne paintings (also by the Renoirs, the Matisses, the Picassos, the Rousseaus, the Van Goghs, the El Grecos, even the Glackens', etc.). There are so many Cezannes, and they span his career so there are different styles, that I come away awestruck again. Deja vu as they say.

Cezanne painted many subjects, landscapes, still life, portraits, and nudes (often bathers). Each type of subject has its own charms and contribution to his style. Today I am featuring a fairly well-known painting from 1875-1876 called Bathers at Rest. The male bathers lounging around a pond with Mont Sainte-Victoire, a frequent subject of Cezanne's landscapes, in the background, was groundbreaking in composition, color, and paint-handling when it was shown at the Third Impressionist Exhibition in 1877. It's one to be seen in person.

You can see some of my 3-D mixed media paintings on my website at www.jayrolfe.com/.

Barnes Foundation - Picasso, Renoir, Matisse, and Cezanne

Today I'm at the Barnes Foundation in Merion PA. It's a great way to celebrate my birthday! I love being at the Barnes. I feel so good, and inspired too. In case you don't know, the collection included the largest number of Matisse paintings in any collection in the world, 59. I believe it also has the largest number of Cezanne paintings in any collection in the world at 69. The Barnes also has by far the largest number of Renoir paintings in any collection in the world at an astounding 181.

Almost missed in the excitement over Renoir, Cezanne, and Matisse is the large number of significant Picasso paintings, 46. That's a huge number by any standard. There are also paintings by El Greco, Titian, Rubens, Degas, Van Gogh, Rousseau, Seurat, Soutine, Modigliani, Manet, Monet, and American Horace Pippin of West Chester PA. Here is the Barnes Foundation website: http://www.barnesfoundation.org/

I've featured one of my favorites, Matisse's Le Bonheur de Vivre (The Joy of Life) several times in the past, so today I'll show Modigliani's Reclining Nude From The Back, painted in 1917.

You can view some of my 3-D paintings on my website at www.jayrolfe.com/.

Who's Who in Renoir's The Luncheon of the Boating Party

First, here's a link to Renoir's The Luncheon of the Boating Party on the website of the Phillips Collection which I featured in my post on Tuesday. http://www.phillipscollection.org/collection/boating/index.aspx

Second, on Tuesday I mentioned that art history people know the identity of all the people pictured in Renoir's The Luncheon of the Boating Party. Here's a link to the info. http://www.phillipscollection.org/collection/boating/whoswho.aspx Also, I'm including the diagram here, and the text below.

"The Luncheon of the Boating Party includes youthful, idealized portraits of Renoir's friends and colleagues as they relax at the Maison Fournaise restaurant. Wearing a top hat, the amateur art historian, collector, and editor Charles Ephrussi (8) speaks with a younger man in a more casual brown coat and cap. He may be Ephrussi's personal secretary, Jules Laforgue (5), a poet and critic.

At center, the actress Ellen Andrée (6) drinks from a glass. Across from her in a brown bowler hat is Baron Raoul Barbier (4), a bon vivant and former mayor of colonial Saigon. He is turned toward the smiling woman at the railing, thought to be Alphonsine Fournaise (3), the proprietor's daughter. She and her brother, Alphonse Fournaise, Jr. (2), who handled the boat rentals, wear straw boaters'. They are placed within, but at the edge of, the party. At the upper right, the artist Paul Lhote (12) and the bureaucrat Eugène Pierre Lestringuez (11) seem to be flirting with actress Jeanne Samary (13).

In the foreground, Renoir included a youthful portrait of his fellow artist, close friend, and wealthy patron, Gustave Caillebotte (9), who sits backwards in his chair and is grouped with the actress Angèle (7) and the Italian journalist Maggiolo (10). Caillebotte, an avid boatman and sailor, wears a white boater's shirt and flat-topped boater's. He gazes at a young woman cooing at her dog. She is Aline Charigot (1), a seamstress Renoir had recently met and would later marry. "

You can view some of my shaped 3-D paintings on my website at www.jayrolfe.com/.

El Greco and Goya at the Phillips

The Phillips Collection, which I visited on Saturday in Washington DC, calls itself "a museum of both modern art and its sources." Some of its sources are old masters including El Greco and Goya who painted the same dramatic subject, "The Repentant St. Peter," about 200 years apart.

The top painting is by Doménikos Theotokópoulos, known as El Greco, painted in 1600-1605. The lower painting is by Francisco Jose de Goya painted in 1820-1824. They are displayed in the same huge gallery with a number of other older paintings by famous artists, but at different ends of the gallery. Both are very powerful paintings when seen in person. I hope you take the opportunity to see them at the Phillips Collection.

You can view some of my 3-D mixed media paintings on my website at www.jayrolfe.com/.

Phillips Collection, Renoir

On Saturday I visited the Phillips Collection in Washington DC. I was struck again by what is perhaps their most famous painting, Luncheon of the Boating Party by Pierre-Auguste Renoir. It is large, animated, brilliantly colored, and depicts a fun scene with recognizable people (if you've studied impressionist art history) painted in 1880-1881. Every time I visit the Phillips Collection I am wowed by this painting. It's beautiful!

Of course, there are many other great paintings in the collection, ones you will recognize from art books you may have seen.

You can see some of my 3-D paintings on my website at www.jayrolfe.com/.

National Portrait Gallery

I spent the weekend in Washington DC visiting art museums, one of my favorite pastimes. My photo of the day is one I had another visitor take of me at the National Portrait Gallery. You probably read in the newspaper that this iconic portrait of Barack Obama was recently donated to the National Portrait Gallery. It's a mixed media stenciled collage by Los Angeles artist Shepard Fairey.

You can view some of my 3-D paintings at www.jayrolfe.com/.