Milton Avery

ANDOVER - Really good artists synthesize all they know about art into something original and new. But history is always looking over their shoulders. Take Carroll Dunham as an example. The painter has, over the years, integrated elements of Abstract Expressionism, Surrealism, and cartoon imagery. Dunham has curated "Open Windows: Keltie Ferris, Jackie Saccoccio, Billy Sullivan, and Alexi Worth," at the Addison Gallery of American Art at Phillips Academy, setting four contemporary artists in the context of American modernism.

NEW YORK - Hilton Kramer, whose clear, incisive style and combative temperament made him one of the most influential critics of his era, both at The New York Times, where he was the chief art critic for almost a decade, and at the New Criterion, which he edited from its founding in 1982, died early Tuesday in Harpswell, Maine. He was 84. His wife, Esta, said the cause was heart failure. He had developed a rare blood disease and had moved to an assisted living facility in Harpswell, she said.

GLOUCESTER -- We gladly would have spent the entire afternoon in the Fitz Hugh Lane Gallery at the Cape Ann Historical Museum, marveling at the artist's command of light and observing how seascapes softened in the luminist's later years. But then we would have missed the silver by Paul Revere, the pristine War of 1812 redcoat that historians from all over the country come to examine, and the decorated oars representing every vessel that participated in Gloucester's annual St. Peter's Fiesta in the 1950s.

HARTFORD - Milton Avery was one of America's finest mid-century artists, and the one who learned most from Henri Matisse. From that scissor-wielding sage of sensuality, he learned that when it comes to color, size does matter. Or, as Matisse put it: "One square centimeter of blue is not as blue as a square meter of the same blue. " Avery quickly saw the ramifications of this for drawing, which thus became as much about shaping color as defining form. And for modeling in space, which, by modulating color, tends to compromise its intensity.

HARTFORD - Milton Avery was one of America's finest mid-century artists, and the one who learned most from Henri Matisse. From that scissor-wielding sage of sensuality, he learned that when it comes to color, size does matter. Or, as Matisse put it: "One square centimeter of blue is not as blue as a square meter of the same blue. " Avery quickly saw the ramifications of this for drawing, which thus became as much about shaping color as defining form. And for modeling in space, which, by modulating color, tends to compromise its intensity.

ANDOVER - Really good artists synthesize all they know about art into something original and new. But history is always looking over their shoulders. Take Carroll Dunham as an example. The painter has, over the years, integrated elements of Abstract Expressionism, Surrealism, and cartoon imagery. Dunham has curated "Open Windows: Keltie Ferris, Jackie Saccoccio, Billy Sullivan, and Alexi Worth," at the Addison Gallery of American Art at Phillips Academy, setting four contemporary artists in the context of American modernism.

THE TIDES OF PROVINCETOWN: Pivotal Years in America's Oldest Continuous Art Colony (1899-2011) At: New Britain Museum of American Art, 56 Lexington St., New Britain, Conn., through Oct. 16. 860-229-0257, www.nbmaa.org PERSPECTIVES ON THE PROVINCETOWN ART COLONY At: Cape Cod Museum of Art, 60 Hope Lane, Dennis, through Aug. 7. 508-385-4477, www.ccmoa.org NEW BRITAIN, Conn. - For decades, artists have visited Provincetown to take advantage of the magnificent light and extraordinary community there.

NEW YORK - Hilton Kramer, whose clear, incisive style and combative temperament made him one of the most influential critics of his era, both at The New York Times, where he was the chief art critic for almost a decade, and at the New Criterion, which he edited from its founding in 1982, died early Tuesday in Harpswell, Maine. He was 84. His wife, Esta, said the cause was heart failure. He had developed a rare blood disease and had moved to an assisted living facility in Harpswell, she said.

LOOK, Mom, Im a work of abstract art, my 9-year-old daughter, Tamzen, said, slapping the Neuberger Museum of Arts admission sticker on her nose. We had just made our way past Unprepared Piano, a temporary entry-gallery installation consisting of dissonant music, a grand piano, a piano bench lying on its side and a computer monitor. The piano had so intrigued Tamzen and my 11-year-old, Saskia, that both girls had forgotten to make a beeline for the gift shop. Instead, we sallied forth into the inner recesses of the museum, where more adventures in the contemporary awaited.

WALTHAM - For almost a year, the news out of Brandeis University about its Rose Art Museum has been dismaying. First came Brandeis’s extraordinary announcement in January that it intended to shut down the Rose and sell its collection of 7,000-odd works to help solve a university budget crisis. Then, in the face of widespread public condemnation, Brandeis announced an oddly incomplete about-face: The museum would stay open, but director Michael Rush would go, staffing would be cut, and some works might still be sold.

ANDOVER - Really good artists synthesize all they know about art into something original and new. But history is always looking over their shoulders. Take Carroll Dunham as an example. The painter has, over the years, integrated elements of Abstract Expressionism, Surrealism, and cartoon imagery. Dunham has curated "Open Windows: Keltie Ferris, Jackie Saccoccio, Billy Sullivan, and Alexi Worth," at the Addison Gallery of American Art at Phillips Academy, setting four contemporary artists in the context of American modernism.

ANDOVER - Really good artists synthesize all they know about art into something original and new. But history is always looking over their shoulders. Take Carroll Dunham as an example. The painter has, over the years, integrated elements of Abstract Expressionism, Surrealism, and cartoon imagery. Dunham has curated "Open Windows: Keltie Ferris, Jackie Saccoccio, Billy Sullivan, and Alexi Worth," at the Addison Gallery of American Art at Phillips Academy, setting four contemporary artists in the context of American modernism.

THE TIDES OF PROVINCETOWN: Pivotal Years in America's Oldest Continuous Art Colony (1899-2011) At: New Britain Museum of American Art, 56 Lexington St., New Britain, Conn., through Oct. 16. 860-229-0257, www.nbmaa.org PERSPECTIVES ON THE PROVINCETOWN ART COLONY At: Cape Cod Museum of Art, 60 Hope Lane, Dennis, through Aug. 7. 508-385-4477, www.ccmoa.org NEW BRITAIN, Conn. - For decades, artists have visited Provincetown to take advantage of the magnificent light and extraordinary community there.

WALTHAM - For almost a year, the news out of Brandeis University about its Rose Art Museum has been dismaying. First came Brandeis’s extraordinary announcement in January that it intended to shut down the Rose and sell its collection of 7,000-odd works to help solve a university budget crisis. Then, in the face of widespread public condemnation, Brandeis announced an oddly incomplete about-face: The museum would stay open, but director Michael Rush would go, staffing would be cut, and some works might still be sold.

LOOK, Mom, Im a work of abstract art, my 9-year-old daughter, Tamzen, said, slapping the Neuberger Museum of Arts admission sticker on her nose. We had just made our way past Unprepared Piano, a temporary entry-gallery installation consisting of dissonant music, a grand piano, a piano bench lying on its side and a computer monitor. The piano had so intrigued Tamzen and my 11-year-old, Saskia, that both girls had forgotten to make a beeline for the gift shop. Instead, we sallied forth into the inner recesses of the museum, where more adventures in the contemporary awaited.

GLOUCESTER -- We gladly would have spent the entire afternoon in the Fitz Hugh Lane Gallery at the Cape Ann Historical Museum, marveling at the artist's command of light and observing how seascapes softened in the luminist's later years. But then we would have missed the silver by Paul Revere, the pristine War of 1812 redcoat that historians from all over the country come to examine, and the decorated oars representing every vessel that participated in Gloucester's annual St. Peter's Fiesta in the 1950s.

The word was heard round the world that Edvard Munch's "The Scream" sold at Sotheby's this month for $119.9 million, the highest price ever paid for a work of art at auction, but word of who purchased the world's most recognized painting is yet to be heard. The purchaser was described by the auction house as "anonymous," but it could likely be the royal family of Qatar, the tiny oil-rich Persian Gulf state, which was rumored before the May 2 auction to have shown strong interest in the pastel on board expected to bring in excess of $80 million.

GLOUCESTER - Jay McLauchlan started woodworking at a tender age. His parents lived on a 1926 Alden cutter sailboat, and the wood had a tendency to rot. Young Jay learned boatyard joinery at Concordia Boatyard in Padanaram, a village in South Dartmouth. But he has lived most of his life on the North Shore, where you may have seen his work if you have taken note of the Ionic columns outside Gloucester's American Legion Building, which he worked on with two other artists. He also supervised the reconstruction of the Maritime Gloucester's marine railways.