The Ancient Greeks developed an innovative culture; a society of thoughtful individuals engaged in persuasive argument, the first to discern that the world was a rational order, that the unique faculty of man – that of reason – allowed him to come to know it. This catalyzed an enormous outpouring of advancement in philosophy, mathematics, science as well as the arts, including painting, sculpture, architecture, music, and theater.

On September 19th, 1993, CNN’s 60 Minutes aired a piece by Morely Safer, a newsman who had regularly introduced American households to great masters from the past. For the entertainment of millions of viewers, Safer mocked contemporary art as “worthless junk.” It was America’s first mainstream moment casting doubt on the validity of contemporary art.

When 2020, when pandemic hit, Seattle was ground zero in the United States. Art exhibitions—as well as everything else—were cancelled. The world would never be the same. I had always wanted an architecture studio in town, and in 2021, I set out to scavenge a commercial space in Pioneer Square that could be used as both a studio and, perhaps informally, double as an art gallery to give space to artists to show work on First Thursday Art Walks.

The Winner of the 2025 Bennett Prize for Women Figurative Realist Painters Announced at the Muskegon Museum of Art (Full Aesthetic Review)

This segment explores activism in New York by figurative artists beginning in the 1950’s with the Reality Group, followed by the Figurative Art Alliance and the protest at the Whitney Museum.

On May 15, Steven Bennett and Elaine Schmidt announced the 2025 Bennett Prize winner at the Muskegon Museum of Art (MMA) in Michigan. Awarded every two years since 2019, and now in its fourth iteration, the prize offers $50,000 to a woman emerging as a figurative realist painter.

Fine art is something people believe in, a source of comfort, an object of love, and an autonomous realm within society, to be experienced with “contemplative detachment.” This is how we view art today. In Larry Shiner’s book The Invention of Art, we obtain a historical overview of the conceptualization of art through history,

In January of 2002, Ivan Massow had an attack of conscience. The Chairman of London’s Institute for Contemporary Arts (ICA) published an editorial, without advance warning to the board, blasting the art scene in Britain as “pretentious, self-indulgent, craftless tat.”

Rhodes smelled of dry grass and the sea. A steady lull of air swept quietly over the island from the Aegean. In May of 2002, I landed at Rhodes, Greece on a puddle jumper from Athens. After completing my first year of college, I was traveling overseas for the first time to help create a cultural revolution in the arts. I was 18 years old.

A new book by artist Michael Newberry offers a platform for the figurative art movement to knock down the door of the art world.

How painter Michael Newberry rediscovered the role of color in creating the illusion of depth and space.

Jen Dale’s recent exhibition of figurative oil paintings at the Wolff Gallery in Portland, Oregon gives us a glimpse of the modern world with satire and soul.