Les Yeux du Monde - LYDM

OPENING TOMORROW: FRIDAY, SEPT 13, 5-7PM
PICASSO, LYDIA & FRIENDS, VOL. V

As part of Picasso, Lydia & Friends, Vol V, Les Yeux du Monde is pleased to present six Picasso prints that beautifully and sensitively reveal the artist's preoccupations during particular moments of his life. 'Modèle, Tableau et Sculpture' of 1933 is from the Suite Vollard, a series of 100 prints made by Picasso in collaboration with the master printer Roger Lacourière. The simplicity of Picasso’s line in this work belies its conceptual sophistication: Picasso’s print is self-referential—an artwork whose subject is art as both painting and sculpture—and also about the artist and muse who make and inspire them. Commissioned by the art dealer Ambroise Vollard and very loosely based on Honoré de Balzac’s Le Chef-d’oeuvre inconnu (The Unknown Masterpiece) many of the works celebrate Picasso’s love for his young mistress Marie-Thérèse Walter whose features and physiognomy inspired the neoclassical style in which the prints are conceived. Picasso’s relationship with Marie-Thérèse coincides with one of the most profound and complicated periods in his long artistic career and she is generally considered the most important of his muses. It is this body of work that is the focus of Lydia Gasman’s brilliant and ground-breaking study, Magic, Mystery and Love in Picasso, 1925-1938.

Join us at the gallery tomorrow from 5-7pm to celebrate the opening of this special show. Email [email protected] if you are interested in previewing the show before it opens.
Pictured:
Modèle, Tableau et Sculpture (Model, Painting and Sculpture), 1933 (March 21)
Etching printed on Montval laid paper with Montgolfier watermark
From the Suite Vollard, edition of 50
Inscribed “u.l. 151 309 19495” in pencil, verso
Printed by Roger Lacourière, 1939
Published by Vollard, 1939
10 ½ x 7 5/8 inches

A peek into the studio of LYDM artist Russ Warren and his triptych, FACES, which will be part of our upcoming exhibition: Picasso, Lydia & Friends, Vol V. Do not miss the opening of this show this Friday, September 13th from 5-7pm!
Russ Warren, FACES, 2024. Acrylic on canvas, 60 x 120" (triptych)

Barbara Campbell Thomas and Isabelle Abbot's exhibition, 'Influence + Conversation,' has wrapped at LYDM! Thank you to these two extraordinary artists for sharing their work with us. To see more work by Thomas or Abbot, DM or reach out to [email protected].

Save the date for 'Picasso, Lydia & Friends, Vol. V,' opening at the gallery on Friday, September 13th from 5-7pm.

Les Yeux du Monde is pleased to announce “Picasso, Lydia & Friends, Vol. V,” opening at the gallery on Friday, September 13th from 5-7pm. This will be the fifth installment of an exhibition series orchestrated to honor the memory and scholarship of acclaimed Picasso scholar, beloved former professor of Modern Art at the University of Virginia, and sublime painter, Lydia Csato Gasman.

The exhibition features work by both Lydia Gasman and Pablo Picasso, the artist at the center of her scholarship, along with eight other contemporary artists whose work or thinking they inspired: William Bennett, Anne Chesnut, Dean Dass, Rosemarie Fiore, Sanda Iliescu, Megan Marlatt, David Summers, and Russ Warren. A portion of the proceeds from this show will benefit the Lydia Csato Gasman Archives for Picasso and Modernist Studies, the non-profit organization that LYDM Founder Lyn Bolen Warren and Art Historian Victoria Beck Newman co-founded to preserve and disseminate Gasman's scholarship.

Lydia Gasman's groundbreaking Ph.D. dissertation, Mystery, Magic, and Love in Picasso: Picasso and the Surrealist Poets, 1925-1938 revolutionized the thinking around Picasso’s art. It was reverentially reviewed in The New York Review of Books by Picasso biographer, John Richardson, who noted, “Dr. Gasman did more to unlock the secrets of the artist’s imagination than anyone else.”

In her obituary for Gasman in The New York Times, celebrated art critic Roberta Smith praised Gasman’s contributions to the field and remarked:

“Fluent in several languages and equipped with a formidable memory, Dr. Gasman redefined Picasso studies. Most scholars had either analyzed Picasso’s art purely in terms of formal innovations and aesthetic progress or offered one-dimensional readings of his work in relation to his life story. Dr. Gasman found a middle way.

One of her more sensational achievements was to track down Marie-Thérèse Walter, the great love of Picasso’s life, in the south of France in 1972 and, over a period of several days, to conduct the frankest, most detailed interview about their life together.

[Continued in comments]

Amazing conversation among small works by Isabelle Abbot and Barbara Campbell Thomas in our current exhibition, ‘Influence + Conversation’ at LYDM. Visit us through tomorrow, Sunday, 8/25, to see this show.
Pictured:
Isabelle Abbot, Note #2, 2024. Oil on canvas, 12 x 12”
Barbara Campbell Thomas, Small Talk, 2024. Acrylic paint and collage on pieced and machine stitched fabric, 12 x 12”
+Conversation

Details of Meg Hitchcock’s work, ‘Bodhisattva’ -- on view at The Loft at LYDM through this Sunday, August 25th.

LYDM artist Meg Hitchcock is known for intricate, text-based works that express her lifelong interest in language, religion and psychology. She is a 2024 Pollock-Krasner Foundation Grant recipient, a 2023 Gottlieb Foundation Grant recipient, and writes the art blog “IN THEIR STUDIOS: Conversations with Women Artists.”
Pictured: Meg Hitchcock,, Bodhisattva, 2019. Typed words, tea, paint, 30 x 23” unframed, 36 x 29” framed

Love this grouping of works currently on view in The Loft at LYDM. Last few days to see these up in the gallery! Visit us 1-5pm today through this Sunday, or DM/email us with inquiries.
Pictured:
Russ Warren, Study After Modigliani, 2013. Acrylic on canvas, 36 x 24”
Meg Hitchcock, Bodhisattva, 2019. Typed mantra, tea, paint, 30 x 22.75”, 36.25 x 29” framed
Kurt Steger, Environmental Structure No. 5, 2018. Wood, stone, and pigment, 24 x 9 x 6”

This is the final weekend to see Barbara Campbell Thomas & Isabelle Abbot's exhibition, ‘Influence + Conversation,’ at LYDM!

Pictured here is Barbara Campbell Thomas's work, 'Central Medallion,' along with a peek into the making of this extraordinary piece.

About this work, the artist writes: "Here's a painting that was made, taken apart and then remade. 🔷🔷🔷 Central Medallion's movement proceeds with staccato steps outward from a diamond shape. I made the painting as a material exploration of visual emanation while contemplating how do we emanate? And and what do we emanate from?"

Don't miss Barbara and Isabelle's remarkable work up at LYDM through this Sunday, August 25th.
Pictured: Barbara Campbell Thomas, Central Medallion, 2024. Acrylic paint and collage on pieced and machine-stitched fabric, 36 x 36”
&Conversation

FINAL WEEKEND to see Barbara Campbell Thomas & Isabelle Abbot: Influence + Conversation at LYDM! Catch this beautiful show before it ends on August 25th.

The gallery is open Thursday-Sunday 1-5pm or by private appointment outside these hours.
Pictured: Isabelle Abbot, A Moment #2, 2024. Oil on canvas, 22 x 20”
&Conversation

Thank you for the beautiful piece on our current exhibition, Barbara Campbell Thomas & Isabelle Abbot: ‘Influence + Conversation.’

Art critic Sarah Sargent writes:

“These plein air notes, a central facet of both artists’ practices, help build a visual language they can draw from. Thomas, whose work is abstract, uses what she gleans from her forays outdoors to develop what she refers to as contemplations of an interior landscape. Her paintings combine sewn fabric, collaged elements, and acrylic paint. “I don’t start with a solid piece of material; I basically build it piece by piece, using small sections of fabric, to form a ground that gets stretched. When I’m done with the sewing, I start adding the paint and collage. 

“When I learned the technique of piecing fabric together it was like a lightbulb went off. I felt like it was the knowledge I needed. I don’t want to start with a large expanse of unblemished canvas; I want to make that too. It’s not something that’s a given. Instead, I build the ground myself.” …

Abbot’s connection to the physical landscape is more obvious, although in many works she embraces an abstract direction, using landscape as the jumping-off point. She creates her preliminary sketches outdoors, then takes them back to the studio and tapes them to the wall. “I look at them and see what I would call my go-to marks, my go-to shapes that I put together in different ways.” Moving from one painting to another, you begin to see elements of that vocabulary: descending slopes, triangles, and similar amorphous forms that crop up repeatedly.” …

For Abbot, like Thomas, it’s not just being in nature, but moving through nature. “For a long time, I painted the landscape like I was looking out a window at it. I framed it and composed it and then painted it.” But now she tries a more immersive approach, capturing the landscape in a holistic way. “It’s something that’s not way over there … you’re in it.”

Read the full piece at the link in our stories, and don’t miss this special show at LYDM through August 25!

Visit us this weekend to see 'Influence + Conversation,' an exhibition of new work by Barbara Campbell Thomas and Isabelle Abbot, up at LYDM through August 25th.

Longtime LYDM artist Isabelle Abbot studied with celebrated artist Barbara Campbell Thomas in her MFA program at UNC Greensboro. ‘Influence + Conversation’ showcases Campbell Thomas’s influence on Abbot’s artistic practice and the compelling dialogue between the work of these two accomplished artists.

LYDM is open Thursday-Sunday 1-5pm, or by appointment outside these hours. DM / email [email protected] any time with inquiries.
Pictured, Left to Right:
Barbara Campbell Thomas, Small Talk, 2024. Acrylic paint and collage on pieced and machine-stitched fabric, 12 x 12”
Isabelle Abbot, Spring Unfolding, 2024. Oil on canvas, 44 x 40”
Barbara Campbell Thomas, Dear Star, 2024. Acrylic paint and collage on pieced and machine-stitched fabric, 36 x 36”
Isabelle Abbot, Ode to Greenwood, 2024. Oil on canvas, 52 x 46”

LYDM artist Russ Warren’s ‘Study After Modigliani’ — on view in The Loft at LYDM through August 25th.

Charlottesville-based artist Russ Warren has exhibited extensively throughout the US and abroad, most notably in the 1981 Whitney Biennial and the 1984 Venice Biennale. His work is held in major museum collections including that of the New Orleans Museum of Art, the Mint Museum, the Gibbes in Charleston, the Virginia Museum of Art and the North Carolina Museum of Art.
Pictured: Russ Warren, Study After Modigliani, 2013. Acrylic on Canvas, 36 x 24”

'Assembled Notes' by Isabelle Abbot, currently on view in her two-person exhibition with Barbara Campbell Thomas, ‘Influence + Conversation,’ at LYDM.

Longtime LYDM artist Isabelle Abbot studied with celebrated artist Barbara Campbell Thomas in her MFA program at UNC Greensboro. ‘Influence + Conversation’ showcases Campbell Thomas’s influence on Abbot’s artistic practice and the compelling dialogue between the work of these two accomplished artists.

Visit us this weekend to see this show, which will be up at the gallery through August 25th. LYDM is open Thursday-Sunday 1-5pm, or by private appointment outside these hours.
Pictured: Isabelle Abbot, Assembled Notes, 2024. Oil on canvas, 36 x 36”
+Conversation

Natural light + detail shots of works by gallery artists currently on view in The Loft at LYDM ✨

Visit us Thursday-Sunday 1-5pm to see these works in-person, or DM / email [email protected] with inquiries.

Pictured:
Dean Dass, Yellow Cloud with Red Spots, 2024. Gouache, acrylic, inks, pigments, on paper mounted on panel, 35 x 67.25”
Meg Hitchcock, Thorn, 2019. Typed mantra, tea, paint, 15 x 15”, 21.5 x 21.5” framed
Ana Rendich, Pink and Red, 2024. Oil and resin, 17.5 x 10.5 x 2”

Barbara Campbell Thomas's extraordinary work, 'Night Space,' in her current exhibition at LYDM, including detail shots and a glimpse into the making of this piece ✨

Barbara Campbell Thomas is known for a unique studio practice grounded in and influenced by the creative practices of her matrilineal ancestors. Combining painting, sewing, and collage techniques, the artist creates intricately assembled works with richly-textured surfaces that convey movement and depth through an articulate vocabulary of material and form.

Per the artist, "The paintings I made for this exhibition are bound collectively by movement. 'Night Space' engages a lateral back and forth, speaking to landscape paintings' tendency toward horizontal orientation, but also landscape submerged in the edge-diffusing colors of deepest night, just before dawn begins. I often paint during this time of the day and have come to love the endless depths of the deepest, darkest blue seen before the world wakes."

Visit us to see Barbara Campbell Thomas & Isabelle Abbot's two-person exhibition, 'Influence + Conversation,' at LYDM through August 25th!
Pictured: Barbara Campbell Thomas, Night Space, 2024. Acrylic paint and collage on pieced and machine-stitched fabric, 48 x 60”

Barbara Campbell Thomas & Isabelle Abbot: Influence + Conversation is up at LYDM!

Longtime LYDM artist Isabelle Abbot studied with celebrated artist Barbara Campbell Thomas in her MFA program at UNC Greensboro. This exhibition showcases Campbell Thomas’s influence on Abbot’s artistic practice and the compelling dialogue between the work of these two accomplished artists.

Visit us and see this beautiful show up at the gallery through August 25th. The gallery is open Thursday-Sunday 1-5pm or by appointment outside these hours.
+Conversation

✨ JOIN US FRIDAY, JULY 12 5-7PM ✨

Barbara Campbell Thomas & Isabelle Abbot: 'Influence + Conversation' opens Friday, July 12 at Les Yeux du Monde.

Longtime LYDM artist Isabelle Abbot studied with celebrated artist Barbara Campbell Thomas in her MFA program at UNC Greensboro. This exhibition showcases Campbell Thomas’s influence on Abbot’s artistic practice and the compelling dialogue between these two accomplished artists' work.

Join us for a fun Friday evening and chance to see the extraordinary new work of Barbara Campbell Thomas & Isabelle Abbot!
Pictured: Isabelle Abbot, Ode to Greenwood, 2024. Oil on canvas, 52 x 46"

Dean Dass: ‘Passenger Manifest’ has wrapped at LYDM! Infinite thanks to the artist for sharing his extraordinary work with us. DM or email us at [email protected] if you are interested in seeing more by Dean Dass.

Join us THIS FRIDAY, July 12th for the opening of Barbara Campbell Thomas & Isabelle Abbot: ‘Influence + Conversation’ at LYDM! A reception with the artists will take place from 5-7pm at the gallery and is not to be missed.
Thomas

Join us THIS FRIDAY, July 12th from 5-7pm for the opening of Barbara Campbell Thomas & Isabelle Abbot: Influence + Conversation! DM or email [email protected] for a private preview.

Longtime LYDM artist Isabelle Abbot studied with celebrated artist Barbara Campbell Thomas in her MFA program at UNC Greensboro. This exhibition showcases Campbell Thomas’s influence on Abbot’s artistic practice and the compelling dialogue between the work of these two accomplished artists.

Barbara Campbell Thomas is the Director of the School of Art at UNC Greensboro. She received her BFA from Pennsylvania State University, her MFA from the University of California at Berkeley, and has studied at the Yale Summer School of Art and Music. Her work has been featured in significant publications including Art Papers, Two Coats of Paint, and Burnaway, and she has attended prestigious residencies including the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture, the Elizabeth Murray Artist Residency in Granville, New York, and the Virginia Center for Creative Arts in Mount St. Angelo, Virginia. The artist’s work has been exhibited at noteworthy galleries and museums, including at the Weatherspoon Art Museum and the North Carolina Museum of Art.

Barbara Campbell Thomas is known for a unique studio practice grounded in and influenced by the creative practices of her matrilineal ancestors. Combining painting, sewing, and collage techniques, the artist creates intricately assembled works with richly-textured surfaces that convey movement and depth through an articulate vocabulary of material and form.
Pictured: Barbara Campbell Thomas, Dear Star, 2024. Acrylic paint and collage on pieced and machine stitched fabric, 36 x 36"
+Conversation

Join us THIS FRIDAY, July 12th from 5-7pm for the opening of Barbara Campbell Thomas & Isabelle Abbot: Influence + Conversation! DM or email [email protected] for a private preview.

Longtime LYDM artist Isabelle Abbot studied with celebrated artist Barbara Campbell Thomas in her MFA program at UNC Greensboro. This exhibition showcases Campbell Thomas’s influence on Abbot’s artistic practice and the compelling dialogue between the work of these two accomplished artists.

Isabelle Abbot received her BFA in Studio Art from the University of Virginia in 2005 and her MFA in Painting from the University of North Carolina, Greensboro in 2011. In 2011, Abbot returned to Virginia to teach as an adjunct faculty member at the University of Virginia through 2013, and has been a visiting lecturer at Bridgewater College. She has attended esteemed residencies in the US and internationally, including the Crawford College of Art and Design in Cork, Ireland and the Virginia Center for Creative Arts in Mount St. Angelo, Virginia. Abbot’s work can be found in important collections both public and private.

Isabelle Abbot's work, grounded in direct observation of her surroundings in central Virginia, distills the essence of her environment into compelling oil on canvas compositions. Her paintings communicate the textures, colors, and atmosphere of specific moments in the landscape, inviting viewers to experience her connection to a place.
Pictured: Isabelle Abbot, Field's Edge, 2024. Oil on canvas, 36 x 36"
+Conversation

Les Yeux du Monde is pleased to present Influence + Conversation, an exhibition of new work by Barbara Campbell Thomas and Isabelle Abbot, opening at the gallery on Friday July 12th from 5-7pm.

Longtime LYDM artist Isabelle Abbot studied with celebrated artist Barbara Campbell Thomas in her MFA program at UNC Greensboro. This exhibition showcases Campbell Thomas’s influence on Abbot’s artistic practice and the compelling dialogue between the work of these two accomplished artists.

Barbara Campbell Thomas is known for a unique studio practice grounded in and influenced by the creative practices of her matrilineal ancestors. Combining painting, sewing, and collage techniques, the artist creates intricately assembled works with richly-textured surfaces that convey movement and depth through an articulate vocabulary of material and form.

About this exhibition, the artist writes: “In thinking of my paintings conversing with Isabelle’s, and in planning the work I would make for the exhibition, I began contemplating my relationship to landscape. Like Isabelle, I live in the country, surrounded by fields, trees and the quiet of the natural world. Nearly every day, I walk the roads around my home, my steps traversing the open expanse of rural North Carolina. This countryside nurtures my being. As my body falls into the familiar rhythms of walking, I perceive my connection to a place where I am at home. Exterior spaciousness lays a pathway to interior spaciousness and I wonder, what spaces do I also traverse within? And how do I cultivate an interior landscape as resonant, generative and generous as the land comprising my home? The paintings in Influence + Conversation engage these questions.”

Isabelle Abbot's work, grounded in direct observation of her surroundings in central Virginia, distills the essence of her environment into compelling oil on canvas compositions. Her paintings communicate the textures, colors, and atmosphere of specific moments in the landscape, inviting viewers to experience her connection to a place.

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Today, Sunday June 30th, is the FINAL DAY to see Dean Dass: Passenger Manifest at the gallery!

Do not miss this extraordinary exhibition at LYDM. Visit us 1-5pm.
Pictured: Dean Dass, The Pilot and His Shadow, 2024. Pencils, inks, gouache, acrylic, marble dust, collage, 23 x 54”, 30.25 x 61.5” framed

Details of 'Passenger Manifest,' one of the powerful works on paper for which Dean Dass's current solo exhibition at LYDM is named.

Today, Sunday June 30th, is the final day to see this exhibition at the gallery! Visit us 1-5pm.
Dean Dass, Passenger Manifest, 2023. Pencils, inks, gouache, acrylic, marble dust, collage on handmade paper, 27.75 x 54.5", 32 x 60" framed

Dean Dass: Passenger Manifest is up one more weekend at LYDM! Do not miss this extraordinary exhibition at the gallery through this Sunday, June 30th.

The gallery is open 1-5pm this weekend or by private appointment outside these hours. DM or email [email protected] to make an appointment.

Last weekend to see Dean Dass: Passenger Manifest at LYDM! Visit us today - Sunday 1-5pm to see this extraordinary show.

Pictured: Fireflies over the Evening Lake, 2024. Oil on canvas, 48 x 83.5”

One week left to see Dean Dass: Passenger Manifest at LYDM! Make a plan to see this show at LYDM through June 30th.

The gallery is open Thursday-Sunday 1-5pm or by appointment outside these hours. To make an appointment, DM or email [email protected].

Pictured: Dean Dass works on handmade paper

Detail shots of:
Looking Up, 2024. Pencil, ink, walnut ink, gouache, acrylic, 12.5 x 9.5”, 18.5 x 14” framed
Four Tents, 2021. Inkjet on paper prepared with gouache and acrylic, 12.5 x 8.5”, 18.5 x 14” framed
Leaning Man, 2024. Pencil, inks, on paper prepared with gouache and acrylic, 12.5 x 8.5”, 18.5 x 14” framed
Blossom, 2021. Gouache, acrylic, gold leaf, collage, on inkjet on paper prepared with gouache and acrylic, 13.5 x 9”, 18.5 x 14” framed
Dark Cloud, 2024. Walnut ink, ink, lithograph on paper stained with gouache and acrylic, 12.75 x 7.5”, 18.5 x 14” framed
Man in a Helmet, 2023. Pencil, gold leaf, on water dissolved inkjet prepared with gouache and acrylic, 11 x 8.5”, 18.5 x 14” framed

'Myrdal, Sogan, Norway (View from The Train)' -- the extraordinary 6 x 8 foot painting in Dean Dass's current exhibition, Passenger Manifest, at LYDM. Do not miss this work on view at the gallery through June 30th.
Myrdal, Sogan, Norway (View from The Train), 2023. Pencil, Ink, Walnut Ink, Gouache, Acrylic, Oil on canvas, 72 x 96”

Dean Dass: Passenger Manifest is on view at LYDM through June 30th! Do not miss the final two weeks of this extraordinary show.

Visit us Thursday-Sunday 1-5pm, or by private appointment outside those hours. To make a private appointment, DM or email [email protected].