13 Dec Master drawings

Source Credit:  Content and images from Wall Street International Magazine by .  Read the original article - https://www.meer.com/en/86100-master-drawings

With an incomparable mastery of
light, shadow, and form, Skip Steinworth (b. 1950)
demonstrates in his latest graphite drawings that
he is perhaps the finest draughtsman working as a
fine artist today. Evoking the storied tradition of
still life so richly explored before him by Dürer,
Leonardo, Rembrandt, and other Old Masters,
Steinworth transforms humble, everyday objects
and elevates them to breathtaking paragons of
elegance, grace, and finesse.

Through the deceptively simple medium of
graphite, Steinworth captures the subtle mystery
that envelops the seemingly mundane aspects of
life and impressively conveys breathtaking still
lives, this wondrous intimacy in gradations of
black, gray, and white. Steinworth’s subject matter
extends well beyond the historical trope of
memento mori, replete with symbolic meditations
on the passage of time, to include vitally
contemporary and nearly photographic depictions
of nature.

As in all of his work over the past forty years,
Steinworth does not seek pictorial illusion but instead to grasp what Ingres called “inner form”.

His unparalleled attention to detail, as he purposefully makes each mark, renders his artwork
itself a depiction of the suspension of time, where a viewer can enter into both the ephemeral
and the eternal. Steinworth’s exhibition Master drawings, goes on view at LewAllen Galleries,
December 27th and extends through February 8th, 2025.

The seemingly spare, yet graceful qualities of Steinworth’s imagery belie the fact that it often
takes several months to create these complexly executed drawings, which consist of thousands
upon thousands of carefully conceived and executed pencil strokes. His drawings are radiant
and voluptuous, yet quietly unassuming with their subtle and nuanced imagery. Depicting
contexts more often implied than defined, and objects that are frequently ephemeral, the
works convey a surprising and pervasive sense of timelessness.

Steinworth demonstrates his great facility with form,
light, shadow, and invention. There is a theatrical
quality to his images that seems to imply an enigmatic
story. The juxtaposition of the varied objects creates a
sense of tension with each of the objects becoming
like characters in a play.

Like the Dutch and French old masters before him,
Steinworth pays careful, almost obsessive attention to
arrangement, lighting, scale, and subject matter.
Reviewer Bill Lasarow, of Art scene magazine,
captured Steinworth’s artistic courage when he wrote,
“The simple purity of pencil work… is gutsy for its
rejection of bombast”. The works, while quiescent,
attain a remarkable energy in their masterful
composition, and evocation of light, space, and form.

Skip Steinworth’s work is in the permanent collections of the Art Institute of Chicago and the
Minneapolis Art Institute, among other museums. Most recently, Steinworth was honored with
a second solo exhibition at the Evansville Museum of Art: Stillness: drawings by Steinworth.

Source Credit:  Content and images from Wall Street International Magazine by .  Read the original article - https://www.meer.com/en/86100-master-drawings