One of my favourite courses in college many years ago was a course on the History of Modern Painting. The professor was Joseph Ablow. Each week the class gathered in a dark room and Mr. Ablow showed slides, tracing the history of Western Art from 1500 well into the 20th century. This was such a good course, well taught, relaxed, and very enjoyable. It wasn’t about pressure to get a good grade – the purpose was to develop some understanding and appreciation of works of art.
Early last week I wrote about the art programme featuring Andy Warhol and his work. This week the programme shown in the new BBC series on Master Painters featured Henri Matisse, his life and work.
Henri Matisse, 1933 from Wikipedia
Open window Collioure, 1905 from the internet – a book by Robert Hughes, The Shock of the New
The Wikipedia entry for Matisse makes for fascinating reading and viewing of a selection of his paintings. Possibly the most interesting to me is that according to the Wikipedia entry, Matisse and Picasso first met in the salon of Gertrude Stein and of course her friend Alice B. Toklas.
Woman With a Hat, 1905
The Plum Blossoms, 1948
The Dessert Harmony in Red, 1908
Les Toits de Collioure, 1905
As a p.s. to this post, I googled for Joseph Ablow and found that he is now Professor Emeritus, Boston University. He is American, was born in 1928, and at Middlebury he was an instructor, just beginning his academic career. I can picture him to this day. Here is one of his own works, dated 1993.
Duo, 1993
Janet's thread 
Interesting post, Janet! I will read the Wikipedia entry when done with the first stage of dinner preparation. Just now I am in the recovery from the first half of the first stage and am having a fruit smoothie. Your postcard came and was beautiful. I finally sent mine. J
I am trying to get up on blog visiting and reading. I agree, interesting post. To be honest, modern art hasn’t been my cup of tea, except for two artists: Kandinsky and Mondrian. I think Kandinsky attracts me because of the way he uses color. Mondrian, because whenever I look at his work my mind starts trying to figure out how to translate it into weaving!
Joe Ablow was far and away the most stimulating and instructive faculty member to this Middlebury art major. His enthusiasm was infectious and, indirectly, he was largely responsible for my enrolling at the Art Center College of Design in Los Angeles in 1959, and enjoying 23 challenging and productive years as an industrial designer with late international architect-designer Eliot Noyes.