Gallery Visit: Sharon Core at Yancy Richardson

Is this a painting? Is it a photograph? If you guessed it is a photograph, you are right. It is a photograph by artist Sharon Core. Ms. Core arranges real flowers to recreate old master paintings. Then she photographs them. The photograph looks exactly like the old master painting. So both answers are right: it is a photograph, and it is a painting too. 

These recreations of 19th Century paintings by the Dutch masters Bosschaert and Breughel, and modern French painters Fantin LaTour and Redon, are part of Ms. Core's amazing exhibition at the Yancy Richardson Gallery.

You will be amazed by Sharon Core's photographs. They are very beautiful. But that isn't all that is amazing. Ms. Core assembles these compositions with flowers she has grown herself, in a greenhouse on her property in the Hudson Valley.

Her series "Early American" just before this show, was based on the still-life paintings of American painter Raphaelle Peale (17714-1825). 

Ms. Core grew heirloom fruit from seeds that would have been around in the 19th Century. She bought the antique porcelain bowls at auctions.

Ms. Core includes the idea of "flowering, ripening and rotting" in her photographs.

This photograph of fish was one the New York Times commissioned for its Food section.

For an earlier series that was shown at the Bellwether Gallery, Sharon Core recreated the imaginary cakes of Wayne Theibaud, the pop-era painter. This is Theibaud's painting:

This is Sharon Core's photograph of the cakes she baked to replicate Wayne Theibaud's painting. (Ms. Core was trained as a pastry baker in Europe.)

Projects inspired by an artist's ideas and materials will help you discover new ways of working and thinking.

Project 1

This project is inspired by Sharon Core's photographs based on the flower paintings of Dutch still-life master Bosschaert. Choose a painting by Bosschaert. Arrange some flowers in an antique vase. Take a photograph.

Here is a link to the paintings of Bosschaert:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ambrosius_Bosschaert

Project 2

This project is inspired by Sharon Core's photographs based on the fruit still-life paintings of American painter Raphaelle Peale. Choose a painting by Peale. Arrange some fruit in an antique vase. Take a photograph.

Here is a link to the paintings of Peale:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raphaelle_Peale

Project 3

This project is inspired by Sharon Core's photographs based on the paintings of the pop-era painter  Wayne Theibaud. Choose a painting by Theibaud. Arrange some cakes on plates.  Take a photograph.

Here is a link to the paintings of Wayne Theibaud:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wayne_Thiebaud