Jacob Collins at Adelson Galleries

I met Jacob Collins a year ago at his studio.  He was working on a portrait, and the model (a black man) was posing just as I got there.  How excited I was to find that same painting, now finished, in Jacob Collin's latest show at the Adelson Galleries! 

The gallery is located near the Metropolitan Museum of Art in Uptown Manhattan.  This is an elegant area and so is the gallery.  In addition, Jacob Collins's art made the place even more beautiful!

 On display I saw about 30 pieces, mostly paintings, but also a few drawings.  In general the paintings were medium size, with the exception of two large female nudes in oil.  Those were the most expensive pieces also (in the vicinity of one hundred thousand dollars), but in my opinion it was due to the size, because as far as the artistry I preferred other pieces more. 

As I am now painting still lifes, I was immediately drawn to his.  I loved the elegant compositions, the transparency of shadows and of backgrounds, and how he's captured so well the texture of the objects (glass, bread, cheese, and an amazing tablecloth).

 His portraits were also incredibly beautiful, in technique as well as expression.  The models in his paintings seem alive!  Again, he integrates really transparent shadows (the toned canvas many times shows through) with opaque lights.  He balances many contrasts in very subtle ways, like soft and hard edges, warm and cool colors, highly finished and barely sketched areas.

 Finally, a few landscape paintings were on display, and some really surprised me.  A number of sunsets were borderline abstract paintings.  I did not expect this from such a traditionalist as Jacob Collins, but I enjoyed the paintings, and I realized that all artists experiment with new ideas and techniques.  Here are a couple more pictures from the show.