Art Talk: Artists Highlighted in 2022

This year my theme for my monthly posts for Art Talk was Artists.

Here are the 9 artists I highlight during 2022.

Vasily Kandinsky

A pioneer of abstract art. He was born in Russia in 1886 and lived in both Germany and France till he died at in 1944 at the age of 58. Here are some of his shape and sound paintings from my visit to the Guggenheim in NYC.


Red Oval	Blue Circle	Three Sounds

Etel Adnan

I first heard about her when I was at the Guggenheim. Etel was born in 1925 in Beirut, Lebanon. She was very educated an accomplished. She was a writer, poet and artist.

Etel did both painting and fiber art, including this tapestry from the Guggenheim. She died on November 14, 2021 one month after I went to the Guggenheim and saw her work.

Etel Adnan
Morning Mist, 2019
Guggenheim Museum, New York City

Dale Chihuly

For those that have been following my blog you know how much I like Dale Chihuly. This year there was a a Chihuly exhibit at the Desert Botanical Garden and I went a lot. For this artist highlight I choose to focus on his painting, which are less well know compared to his glass. Chihuly was born in 1941 in Washington and is still very much tied to the state with his Chihuly Garden and Glass in Seattle, Washington.

Heloise Crista

She is from a very different time and place. She was born in Japan in 1926 and lived and worked most of her life in Arizona at Taliesin West. She creates amazing movement in bronze. Heloise died in 2018 at her home at Taliesin West.

Heloise Crista
Mirage, 2004
Taliesin West, Phoenix, AZ

Yoyoi Kusama

She is also from Japan. She was born there in 1929 and moved to New York City in 1958 at the age of 28. She stayed there and experimented and became a part of the art scene until 1973 when she returned to Japan. She uses art as a way to cope with her mental health. At the time of this writing she is still alive. She really likes polka dots, as seen in the selection below from my visit to the Hirshorn Museum in DC.


Pumpkin, 2016	Phallis Field 1965/2017	My Heart is Dancing into the Universe, 2018

Frank Lloyd Wright

I went to see the Chihuly exhibit at both the Desert Botanical Garden and Taliesin West. Wright designed Taliesin West and the Guggenheim. He also designed the Gamage auditorium at ASU (where I work) and so I knew I had to highlight this prolific and influential teacher and architect!

Wright was born in 1867 in Wisconsin and died at the age of 92 in Arizona where he had built Taliesin West, his home and architecture school.

My first experience with Frank Lloyd Wright is Fallingwater. He is a master at incorporating structures into the space around them.

Frank Lloyd Wright
Fallingwater, 1939
Mill Run, Pennsylvania

Barbara Hepworth

I did a artist highlight of Barbara in August Art Talk: Barbara Hepworth and then again in October after seeing an exhibition at the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam Art Talk: Barbara Hepworth at the Rijksmuseum.

Barbara was born in Wakefield, England and died in an accidental fire in 1975 in her studio in Cornwall, England. She is a abstract sculpturer.

I was most fascinated by her series called The Family of Man. Two of them are below.


Parent I		Ancestor I and Ancestor II

The last two artist are both Dutch and I was so happy to see their work in person while in Amsterdam!

Rembrandt van Rijn

Wow, seeing Rembrandt's work in person at the Rijksmuseum was amazing. The painting that was the most incredible to me is the Old Woman Reading, Probably the Prophetess Anna

It was painted in 1631 when Rembrandt was 25 years old and is incredible. The life like quality is stunning especially the fur coat and year aged hands. Rembrandt himself lived to be 63 years.

Vincent van Gogh

Vincent van Gogh is such an interesting person. I really enjoyed listening to Lust for Life by Irving Stone. I learned so much about him and his paintings. It was wonderful to go to the Van Gogh museum and take a tour too. His quest to capture nature with his thick paint draw me to him and his paintings!

One of the paintings I liked most is Wheatfield with Crows which was painted in 1890 at the end of his life. Vincent was born in 1853 in the Netherlands and died in 1890 in France at the age of 37.