Don’t Miss: Elizabeth Peyton and Mary Heilmann at The New Museum

Several museum shows are timed to close at the end of the holiday season; don’t let your chance to see Elizabeth Peyton’s and Mary Heilmann’s solo shows at the New Museum slip away.  To much publicity, Peyton added a portrait of Michele Obama to her exhibition after November 4th, but the artist’s best work comes when she indulges her obsession with wan and pretty men.  Plenty of female artists have depicted men in feminizing ways to in order to critique conventional portrayals of women, but Peyton doesn’t demean her subjects, instead giving them their own aura of exquisiteness.  Downstairs, forty years of painting, ceramics and furniture by Mary Heilmann refreshingly demonstrate this much admired artist’s ability to conjure a range of moods –  – electrifying, humorous, or serene – through her abstract canvases.  Highlights include ‘Lovejoy, Jr.,’ a day-glo grid inspired by the stained glass windows in the church on The Simpsons and a row of blue and white paintings in the lobby gallery, which riff on the meeting of land and sea.

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Merrily Kerr

Merrily Kerr is an art critic and writer based in New York. For more than 20 years, Merrily has published in international art magazines including Time Out New York, Art on Paper, Flash Art, Art Asia Pacific, Art Review, and Tema Celeste in addition to writing catalogue essays and guest lecturing. Merrily teaches art appreciation at Marymount Manhattan College and has taught for Cooper Union Continuing Education. For more than a decade Merrily has crafted personalized tours of cultural discovery in New York's galleries and museums for individuals and groups, including corporate tours, collectors, artists, advertising agencies, and student groups from Texas Woman's University, Parsons School of Design, Chicago's Moody Institute, Cooper Union Continuing Education, Hunter College Continuing Education and other institutions. Merrily's tours have been featured in The New York Times, Conde Nast Traveler, Sydney Morning Herald and Philadelphia Magazine. Merrily is licensed by New York City's Department of Consumer Affairs as a tour guide and is a member of the International Association of Art Critics (AICA USA)