He was always fighting with what he called the “unwilling medium” of oil painting. At his best, his awkwardness embodies the emotional discomfort that powers his work. But not infrequently he’s simply ham-handed. His people often look like waxworks. He seems bored by foliage, scrubbing it in like a bad impression of Impressionism. His dramas can seem forced and campy. His technique went totally to shit somewhere around the end of World War II, when he was in his early 60s. The exhibit’s last room has late paintings that feel like “Hopper Paintings,” almost self-parodies.
But when he’s on, he gets us to put ourselves in his dramas, to identify with the isolation of his characters, the existential distance that buzzes between any two persons. It’s a wonderfully dark trap, with the hope for human connection forever frustrated because paintings never change.
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Going deep, Radical dude, Gods and monsters — and David Hasselhoff, More 
- Going deep
A gaggle of big solo shows share the art waves with that powerful influx of computer-reliant art known as the Boston Cyberarts Festival this season.
- Radical dude
Cameron Jamie grew up in the ’burbs.
- Gods and monsters — and David Hasselhoff
The Museum of Fine Arts did big things with Napoleon and Edward Hopper, pictures of prostitutes graced the walls of Boston’s two biggest art museums, and all hell broke loose when the Mooninites invaded.
- Touchy feely
Art-world sophisticates are schooled not to hunt for hidden pictures in abstract paintings, but that’s just what Cecily Brown encourages.
- Make a run for the border
In August 1923, photographer Edward Weston left his wife and three of his four sons in Los Angeles and headed to Mexico City.
- Portrait of the artist
This is a charming, crowd-pleasing blockbuster show. Sourpuss hipsters may enjoy it anyway.
- Touch the sky
The term “polyptych” usually refers to the multi-panel paintings designed as altarpieces for churches and cathedrals in Gothic and Renaissance Europe.
- Squares in Paris
Thomas Eakins was one of thousands of ambitious young American artists who flocked to Paris after the Civil War. Paintings from The Museum of Fine Arts's "Americans in Paris" exhibit
- Meat takes heat
Regarding your recent editorial, “Global Warming," I want to add another reason for hope.
- David Hilliard at Carroll and Sons
It's not every day that a guy like me gets to enjoy a photographic investigation of daddy-boy relationships. . . . well, outside of a naughty format.
- A case of identity
In 2002, the year after his mother died, as Alex Matter tells it, he found a brown paper package in his father’s storage locker on Long Island.
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Museum And Gallery
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