Jerald Melberg Gallery (Charlotte) showed work by Wolf Kahn and Raul Diaz at Expo Chicago 2014.

The gallery represents both artists. Kahn's work is sometimes minimal but in that creating complex images. His calming landscapes are unique and unmistakable, two adjectives that are the hightest compliment that can be paid to an artist.

This Diaz piece is carved cypress. The Argentine artist is a architect by training and most of his work is painting. Obviously he is a fine sculptor as well.

International Sculpture Center showed works by James Surls, Boaz Vaadia, Donald Lipski and Therman Statom at Expo Chicago 2014.

International Sculpture Center is located in Hamilton, New Jersey, aims to help advance understanding of sculpture. To that end they publish the journal, Sculpture, ten times a year. You can find out more at www.sculpture.org.

Galeria Alvaro Alcazar (Madrid) showed work by Antonio Murado and Simon Edmondson. at Expo Chicago 2014.

Murado and Edmonson were also shown by the gallery last year at Expo Chicago and Murado had an exhibit with Von Lintel Gallery in 2013 as well.

Murado's pieces are simple, beautiful and, even without the title are reminiscent of the garden. It could be a leaf or a landscape but it is something of the earth. These pieces are oil on canvas.

Edmondson's pieces are oil on paper. He is from London and has been the subject of solo exhibits since 1982. This piece has objects and human forms mingled together--truly a convergence.

Gallery Wendy Norris (San Francisco) showed pieces by Leonora Carrington, Helen Rebekah Garber and Dorothea Tanning at Expo Chicago 2014

Carrington  born in Lancashire, England in 1917 used myth, folktales, the occult and religious ritual in her work. She studied in London and was at the 1936 Surrealism Exhibition in London. She met Max Ernst at that exhibit and moved to Paris with him where she became part of Andre Breton's Surrealist circle.

The surrealist bent of her pieces is easy to see, they have an ethereal, dreamlike quality. And dreams always fascinated the Surrealists (watch any Bunuel movie if you don't believe me).

Her work is held in numerous prestigious museums around the world. Indeed her first piece, The Inn of the Dawn Horse (Self-Portrait) is held in the collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Garber's intricate, abstract pieces take bits and pieces from various mystical traditions. Look at the photo on the left to see the depth and brushwork in her work (this is oil on canvas). The first thing you might think, seeing this work, is "mandala" but look closer (and note the lack of color!)

Garber  is from New York and currently lives in Los Angeles. She is a graduate of the California Institute of the Arts in 2007. Her work has been exhibited widely in Europe and the USA and has been featured in numerous publications including the NY Times, Spin and more. She has not run off to Paris with Max Ernst (in part because he is dead).

Tanning was born in Illinois in 1910, her ethereal, colorful work is held in the collections of over 50 museums including: The Museum of Modern Art (NYC) the Philadelphia Museum of Art, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Tate Modern and Centre Georges Pompidou. She passed away at the age of 101 in 2012.

Richard Norton Gallery (Chicago) showed a series of works by Hananiah Harari at Expo Chicago 2014.

Harari (born Richard Falk Goldman in Rochester, NY) used elements of both Cubism and Surrealism in his work. He studied at Syracuse and in Paris with the likes of Fernand Léger, Marcel Gromaire and André Lhote. He was a founding member of the American Abstract Artists Group.

His work is held in numerous collections and museums. Look at the detail on the close up of his piece, Urban Frills, specifically the detail of the wood grain. His work is meticulous while still being abstract.

Paul Thiebaud Gallery (San Francisco/New York) showed work by Tom Birkner, Catherine Maize, Ed Musante and David Fertig at Expo Chicago 2014.

Several pieces by Musante, Maize and Fertig were shown together. Musante's birds, Maize's still life and Fertig's expressive historical paintings are small, wonderful works.

Find out more by clicking on the link to the gallery site above.

Hollis Taggart Gallery (New York) showed this untitled piece by Edward Dugmore at Expo Chicago 2014.

The gallery deals in a veritable "who's who" of modern artists from the previous two centuries.

I made a vow that I would not take photos and try to write about widely know artists at any fairs this year. That is a tough vow to keep for a variety of reasons. First is that what constitutes "widely known" and second this site is supposed to be for people who don't know the ins and outs of art.

Many will know Dugmore but does everyone who might click on this page?

He was an American abstract expressionist born in Connecticut. Dugmore was also a U.S. Marine (so much for the sissy artist notion).  One of the best short descriptions of the artist can be found HERE.

Cernuda Arte (Coral Gables, FL) had pieces by Víctor Manuel García, Manuel Mendive and Dayron Gonzalez at Expo Chicago 2014. The Cernuda booth at Expo (or at Art Miami) is always a time consuming one to visit. They inevitably include masterpieces by the likes of Wilfedo Lam and Rene Portocarerro.  You can spend a great deal of time looking.

And the most amazing part is that they have painters like Lam and also young painters like Gonzalez and thy fit together somehow even though the styles, palettes etc. are dissimilar. Is it a cultural connection? Perhaps but this is something best left to art historians. Another great thing about Cernuda? They often have just such people speaking on Cuban art at their gallery. Get on their mailing list.

Another thing?  Gonzalez is a creative genius on the level of the other painters, the widely acknowledged ones, shown by Cernuda. His work is distinct,personal and at the same time universal. You can see some of his earlier work (and hear him talk about it) HERE.  His new work shares similar theme but takes closes distance.

McCormick Gallery (Chicago) showed pieces by Darrell Roberts and John Santoro at Expo Chicago 2014.

Roberts, a Chicago-based artist, received his degree from the University of Chicago. This painting is 12x12 inches.  Roberts was a teacher at the redoubtavle Hyde Park Art Center and his work genuinely leaps out at you with big strokes, extravagent colors, lots and lots of paint. His paintings imply motion (at least whenI look at them). If this artist was a teacher at Hyde Park Art Center it makes you want to take classes there.

Santoro, also of Chicago and also formerly of the University of Chicago, takes the world we live in and recreates it in his own expressive vision.  His work includes landscapes like this one and also images of smaller scale, every day objects. You can see the abstract expressionist roots that the treee of Santoro's work springs from--reality is present in the work yet he isn't trying to duplicate this reality.

Expressionism is an art movement that values individual expression and emotion (as the name implies).  Trying to avoid jargon talking about "Expressionism" is a tough road, in part because when you look at different artists, from different nations, referred to as "Expressionist," you wind up looking at wildly different pieces. But Santoro's work, however you label it, has motion, depth and a massive feel even when it is small in scale. Lovely work whatever you call it.

Hales Gallery (London) showed work by Frank Bowling and Trevor Doyle Hancock at Expo Chicago 2014.

Bowling, born in Guyana, had his first solo exhibit shortly after graduating from the Royal College of Art in 1962. His most recent solo exhibit was with Hales Gallery in 2013.  The piece here is acrylic on canvas.

Hancock has a  different background. He is from Oklahoma City, went to school at Temple and resides in Houston. His exuberant work was part of the of the Whitney Biennial exhibitiosn in 2000 and 2002. He has also been subject of a solo exhibit at the University of South Florida Contemporary Art Museum.

These pieces are hard for me to write about