Story Archives of 'Painting'

The iconic red, white and blue posters of Barack Obama with the words HOPE, CHANGE, or PROGRESS emblazoned underneath were designed by artist Shepard Fairey, perhaps best known for his OBEY posters featuring Andre the Giant. In the Obama posters, one can’t help but think of Andy Warhol.

Warhol’s work not only blurred the lines between commercial and fine art, but the boundaries between creativity and popular culture. His political portraits, from Kennedy to Nixon to Mao, changed the august portraiture of political leaders. In the 1970s, political hopefuls sought him out for commissioned portraits, to position themselves as contemporary, progressive, and famous.

Sharon Matt Atkins is the curator of the new exhibit Andy Warhol: Pop Politics, now showing at the Currier Gallery of Art in Manchester. She joins Word of Mouth in the studio to discuss Warhol's political portraits.

There's a clear distinction between creativity and talent that any writer or painter can expound on. People who write well, and paint well, are a relatively rare breed. We're going to talk with Donald Friedman, the author of The Writer's Brush about some of the remarkable people who were, or are primarily writers but who developed bodies of work as painters as well. They include Winston Churchill, Joseph Conrad, E.E. Cummings, Kurt Vonnegut and hundreds of others.

Old paint isn't always the subject of bad news and controversy.

Sometimes it can bring surprises.

Just yesterday, architectural conservators working at restoring the ceiling of the Portsmouth Music Hall made a startling discovery.

There's something underneath that whitewash.

Bryon Roesselet made the discovery.

He's with Evergreen Painting Studio in New York.

Museums around the world put their best pieces on display, but that's only a fraction of what they own. We're going to snoop the stacks and attics of some of our state's most treasured institutions to see what's going on behind the public art scene. And we'll get the skinny on the Currier’s latest acquisition. It’s a still life by William Harnett that was part of a contemporary art exhibit at Boston's MFA -- in 1883. Our guests include Susan Stricker, Director of the Currier Museum of Art; Tom Hardiman, Keeper at the Portsmouth Athenaeum; and Brian Kennedy, Director of Dartmouth's Hood Museum of Art .

A Royal Dessert, 1881, by William Michael Harnett

Economist Russ Thibeault makes a living analyzing economic trends but has spent most of his free time this past year studying and painting the environment around tiny Perley Pond in Laconia. The state's 400-year-old oak tree lives there, along with countless other bits of wildlife. His show of watercolors and digital photographs documents the place, and opens at the Belknap Mill in Laconia on Friday September 23.