A new production called Red is set to debut on Broadway on April 1st, the play is about none other than the Abstract Expressionist Painter – Mark Rothko.

Red was written by screenwriter John Logan, maker of Gladiator, The Aviator and the Sweeney Todd movie, among others. The play focuses mainly about the discussions regarding abstract expressionist aesthetics that Rothko had with his studio assistant while the famous painter was working on some of the most revolutionary canvases of his generation.

Red is set in 1958 as New York artist Mark Rothko (Alfred Molina) receives the art world’s largest commission to create a series of murals for The Four Seasons restaurant in the new Seagram building on Park Avenue. Under the watchful gaze of his young assistant, Ken and the threatening presence of a new generation of artists, Rothko faces his greatest challenge yet: to create a definitive work for an extraordinary setting. Red is a moving and compelling account of one of the greatest artists of the 20th century, whose struggle to accept his growing riches and praise became his ultimate undoing.

Rothko is played by Alfred Molina – a rare actor who conveys intelligence with visceral intensity. He makes you believe that what Rothko says, no matter how abstract it is, is of mortal importance to the painter. Molina has developed a specialty depicting 20th century artists as he already played another formidable painter, Diego Rivera, in the movie “Frida” along side Salma Hayek.

The actors in the play get their hands dirty throwing paint around on stage, the moment you step into the theater you are struck by the smell of oil paint in the air. The smell of the oil and the rage of the painter makes Red an extremely powerful theatrical experience.

So, if you are in New York in the following weeks, stop by the Golden Theater on 45th Street and enjoy a glimpse into the mysterious world of the 1950’s Abstract Expressionism.

In honor of National Women’s History Month, the popular online gallery, overstockArt.com, is hosting the “Women in Art” Twitter® sweepstakes. The sweepstakes commences on International Women’s Day on Monday, March 8, 2010.

To participate in our FREE Oil Painting Giveaway. All you need to do is include the #overstockart tag in any tweet on twitter. Three winners will be selected at the end of the sweepstakes period. You can be creative with your tweet or re-tweet of our message, don't forget to follow @overstockart to find out if you've won.

You can tweet #overstockart as often as you like. Each of these tweets will be eligible and a winner will be chosen at random using an algorithm. No bots or automated scripts please, this is meant to be a bit of fun!

Three (3) winners can choose from any of our 20"x24" inch oil paintings featured in our Women's Gallery. After the oil painting is selected, we'll deliver it to your door!

Don't forget to follow @overstockart to find out if you've won.

Checkout our official sweepstakes page for the complete set of rules and to see if you are one of three lucky winners!

The month of March is Youth Art Month – an annual observance to emphasize the value of art education for all children and to encourage support for quality school art programs. one might ask, what is so important about art that we need an annual event to observe it?

If we sit and observe whenever little kids draw, finger paint or play, it’s intriguing how they seem without self-doubt, judgment or fear of doing it wrong. A preconceived expectation of the end product doesn’t seem to play a role in what they are engaged in and in that moment they simply get lost in the doing of it. It’s as if they approach their art, free of inhibitions and with an openness to take risks, experiment and most importantly have fun. It’s as if being fully present in the moment and entering that space of spontaneity, comes so easily.

I recently spoke to someone who runs a local community art school. She shared with me that they had noticed a decreased attendance in their children’s art classes. When I asked why, she speculated that it was the result of kids being less and less encouraged to do art for the sake of the experience and for play. Instead, in order for parents to feel they were getting their money’s worth they were expecting their kids to produce a nice finished product at the end of each class. If the art piece resembled something out of preschool, their child must not be learning something valuable.

Is it possible that in this day and age of video games and computers, where shapes are colored within the clean lines of digital images, we’ve suppressed the urge to color outside of the margins? Are our children losing touch of their innate nature to create something in the mud, draw in the sand and venture down the road of their own imaginations? Is the art of trial and error no longer valued?

As we “grow up” the courage to create slowly moves into the background of our lives and we measure what we produce with labels of “Success” or “Fail” with nothing in between. We develop an apprehensiveness towards taking risks and the fear of doing it wrong keeps us from looking foolish in the process. Is learning to suppress free expression, suppressing our own imaginative instincts that we were naturally born with when we first entered this world?

“All children are born artists, the problem is to remain an artist as we grow up.” – Pablo Picasso

I once heard a grade school teacher encourage parents to, “Praise the effort rather then the outcome.” We often have the bad habit of discounting the process in it self. Undermining the steps in the middle that hold moments of exploration while focusing too much on the end product. If we approach our careers or our art giving value to the effort perhaps we will resurrect the courage to create; remembering what it was like to drenched our fingers in paint and draw out of the lines.

Sir Ken Robinson said it best, the ecology of our education will need to change and adapt. Art and creativity will need to take an active and central role for this world to develop and the only way we can do it is by seeing our children for the hope that they are.

A New Vincent Van Gogh masterpiece has been found! The painting is called “Le Blute-Fin Mill”, and dipicts a 19th century Paris mill. The painting was declared an original Van Gogh 25 years after the death of the man who originally bought it – Dirk Hannema. The painting was put on display in the Museum de Fundatie in Amsterdam.

The painting’s owner Dirk Hannema, who was born in Batavia, Dutch East Indies in 1895, bought the piece in 1975 in Paris from an antique and art dealer for 5,000 Dutch guilders ($2,700), and then immediately insured it for 16 times more than what he paid. Hannema claimed that he was “absolutely certain” that the work of art was an original, but, because of an earlier claim of having bought a Vermeer in 1937 that was later proven to be a forgery, the buyer’s declarations were discredited and went disregarded. Nevertheless Hannema, who was born to a wealthy art-collecting family, and was named art director of the respected Boijmans Museum in Rotterdam in 1921 when he was only 26, never gave up hope that one day his claims would be verified.

Since his youth, the brilliant art curator collected high quality pieces by lesser known artists and had a preference for looking for works of masters that were yet to be attributed to them, though not usually with great success as he was mistaken nearly all of the time. His claims included that he owned seven Vermeers and more than one Van Gogh, as well as a few Rembrant’s. Now 25 years after is death he seems to embody the famous quote of Marcel Proust…

“If a little dreaming is dangerous, the cure for it is not to dream less but to dream more, to dream all the time.”

The painting, whose genre is considered unusual for the impressionist, depicts large human figures in a landscape climbing both up and down wooden steps in front of an enormous wooden windmill in Monmartre, Paris.

Contrasting Van Gogh’s iconic starry sky pieces in rich blues and yellows that he is so well-known for, this painting’s sky is not only starless but also cloudless and it is so pale a blue that it seems almost an ivory white, suggesting perhaps that the weather is cold, which could be further established by looking at the barren trees with sparse leaves in tones of ochre, olive green, sienna, and suede grey.

The clothing of the ladies, are a rainbow of brusque, yet defined, brush strokes ranging from a rich cranberry, red, and dusty rose, to pale yellows, sea-foam greens and a striking brownish-grey ensemble adorned with a bright red sash and big bow, and the windmill’s wooden propeller, depicted from a view of its side, almost evokes thoughts of Don Quijote de la Mancha because of the shape of its wooden propellers.

The piece, that shares Van Gogh’s style through it’s bright colors that are lavishly slathered onto the canvas, was painted in 1886 when the artist was living in Paris and bears the stamp of an art store that he was known to buy materials and pigments from, said Louis van Tilborgh, curator of research at the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam to the Associated Press during an interview.

Vincent Van Gogh painted almost 900 works during his short lifetime before he committed suicide at the age of 37.

Spring Decorating Trends Abloom with Floral Prints and Vivid Hues

To spruce up for spring, design expert Dawn Kail of overstockArt.com, has come up with a top five list of decorating trends that will help liven up the look of your home.

“The fashion industry has traditionally been an inspiration and influence over the color and trends of home furnishings and décor,” said Kail. “It doesn’t take transforming the entire room to freshen up your look, just add an accent piece or two to liven up your décor for spring.”

Kail shares new home decorating trends and offers the following tips on how to let in the fresh air with the changing of the season:

1. Lighten Up – Get rid of the winter darks and bring in some lighter colors and fabrics to freshen up your décor. Replace the velvet accent pillows with light cotton or linen pillows. If you have decorative artworks and oil paintings in your living room, great room, den and so forth and they’re darker with a winter look, brighten them up with a lighter-colored frame or replace the colored art and oil paintings with spring themes. If you have dark window treatments replace them with lighter neutral colors such as ivory, white or khaki.
2. Incorporate Color –There were plenty of neutrals seen on the runway for spring 2010, khaki, brown, taupe and grey, but there was also a color surge with vivid hues like bright turquoise, orange, hot pink and softened colors like coral and lighter shades of turquoise. Add pillows, artwork, an ottoman or a lampshade in these vibrant colors to liven up your look for spring.
3. Introduce Painterly Prints – The spring 2010 runway was awash in watercolor-like prints. The runway was full of gorgeous abstract and floral prints reminiscent of Monet’s masterpieces – why not add a reproduced Monet oil painting to your home to incorporate this trend? You can also introduce these painterly prints into your home with pillows, lampshades, ottomans and other accent items.
4. Find Comfort – People are seeking comfort and peace in their lives. Comfort clothing such as slouchy cardigans, boyfriend blazers and tattered and torn jeans infiltrated the spring 2010 fashion collections; this same casual look carries over into home décor. The warm and cozy country home style is back in as seen in many retailers’ spring collections. Add handmade accessories such as hand painted oil paintings or embroidered accent pillows to bring this style back into your home.
5. Invest in the Best – The economic crisis isn’t over and decorating trends reflect that. Invest in the best and buy less. People are investing in high-quality, durable décor items rather than short-lived trends. All of the oil paintings at overstockArt.com are handmade art reproductions of great masters such as Van Gogh, Monet and Picasso – art by the masters never goes out of style.

“The key to home decoration is to keep your furniture neutral so you can easily add a piece of artwork or another accent to give the room a whole new look,” said Kail. “The best thing about purchasing reproduced oil paintings at overstockArt.com is that for the same price of purchasing a print image you get a hand painted piece of art which will add the look of luxury to your home – with the low cost you can easily purchase several oil paintings to display seasonally.”

overstockArt.com, is offering a selection of handmade oil painting reproductions that are perfect for spring in their Seasonal Spring Paintings gallery, http://www.overstockart.com/seasonalspring.html. Prices start as low as $39. In 2009, overstockArt.com sold more than 45,000 oil paintings. They are one of the Web’s most successful distributors of wall décor items with over 10,000 daily visitors and 100,000 loyal customers.

The fashion community, Polyvore, which is a site that lets you mix and match products from any online store to create outfits or any kind of collage, created a great collage that focuses around the works of Vassily Kandinsky paintings:

I love the way this collage was mixed and matched with fashion items and all to emphasize the color scheme that the oil paintings can go oh so well with…