Today I attended a tour at the Sidney Mishkin Gallery located at 135 and 22nd st. The workshop was supposed to be from 1 to 2 pm but since there was so many people, they split us up into groups and did many short tours. The tour was about paintings that Mercedes Matter created. They were interesting paintings because they were very colorful with many shapes and lines. Most of her paintings had tables and fruits and that shows that, that is her favorite style of painting. We saw a painting she did when she was a young girl and then a painting she did when she was a late teenager. She began to progress in painting at a young time in her life. She loved painting in the form of still life and her paintings show that as well. Rather than making her work 3D, she made it two dimensional or flat.
I personally liked her paintings because of the creativity they had. The paintings that showed regular day activities like going to the beach, were not detailed but still seemed “alive” and made you feel like a part of the painting. She did not focus her art on details when she painted daily activities. She contributed a lot to modern art since she painted with her own sense of style and in still life. The paintings at the gallery were borrowed from people who bought them or from other art galleries. Some were borrowed from her son. Mercedes Matter lived from 1913 to 2001. We received a summary of Mercedes Matter’s life to get a sense of who she was and why she painted. The tour guide we had seemed very informed and knew what she was talking about. She told us as much as she could in the time period she had and also expressed her opinion on how she felt about the paintings. She appreciates them. I would like to attend another tour because I like seeing paintings and I like thinking about what the painter saw and felt when he/she was painting. Colors and designs grab my attention and are very pleasing to look at.