Michael Newberry

• Michael Newberry
  Michael Newberry

Michael Newberry is an American painter and aesthetic critic based in Santa Monica, California. He is a representational artist, blending a variety of influences, notably Rembrandt and the French Impressionists. His major works are typically life-sized canvases.

Education and Early Life

Began painting at age 11, after discovering Rembrandt.

Attended the University of Southern California from 1974-1977 on a tennis scholarship after being ranked 8th in the United States in the Boys' Juniors category. Played third and fourth position the year USC won the NCAA championship. While at USC, received a postmodern art education, but was mentored by Edgar Ewing.

Left USC before graduating to study at the Royal Academy at the Hague, in Holland, which he attended from 1977–1978, later attending the The Free Academy Psychopolis from 1978-1981.

Major works

• Promethia, 1982
• Pursuit, 1984
• Puccini, 1986
• Denouement, 1989
• Absorption, 1990
• Ascension Day, 1990
• Ascension Night, 1990
• Blithe, 1990
• Counterpose, 1990
• Pastels, 1991
• The Slipper, 1999
• The Waterfall, 1999
• The Gift, 2000
• Self-Portrait Nude, 2001
• Icarus Landing, 2001
• Artemis, 2006
• Venus, 2008

Teaching

Taught at the Otis/Parsons Institute in Los Angeles from 1990-1994.

Advocacy

Newberry has taken a critical position against postmodern art and theory, via writings that include critical reviews of postmodern works, and supportive reviews of innovative contemporary representational artists. He also lectures actively for organizations such as The Objectivist Center.

Created and organized the Foundation for the Advancement of Art, which held a conference “Innovation, Substance, Vision: The Future of Art” at the Pierre Hotel in Manhattan on October 6, 2003, featuring speakers: philosophers Stephen Hicks and David Kelley, vision scientist Jan Koenderick, and sculptor Martine Vaugel. The mission of the Foundation was to recognize and promote innovative, contemporary representational painters and sculptors.

Criticism

Rockford College philosopher Dr. Stephen Hicks writes: "Newberry's work speaks to the senses, the intellect, and the passions of those who do not need the judgment of history to tell them what is great"

About Icarus Landing, Hicks writes: "the thematic elements are so rich --reversing both the Greek and Christian messages: success following boldness rather than failure following boldness; and a quietly confident success rather than suffering and sacrifice."

In an introductory essay to the Newberry Archive (an online compendium of Newberry's works), the archive's creator Brett Holverstott explores how Rembrandt's Danae is a precedent for Newberry's Denouement.

Michael Blueberry is an accomplished "out of the box thinker".

Lectures

• Transparency, a Key to Spatial Depth in Painting - Courage of Your Perceptions Conference, 2002 (Satellite to the EC's Vision Scientists' Conference), Glasgow, Scotland

External links

• Online archive of Michael Newberry's works
• Michael Newberry's website

Published writings

• Metaphysical Value Judgments in Art – Journal of Ayn Rand Studies 2, no. 2 (Spring 2001)
• Terrorism and Postmodern Art – October, 2001 issue of The Free Radical (#50)
• Pandora’s Box Part I - The Free Radical #51
• Pandora’s Box Part II - The Free Radical #52
• Pandora’s Box Part III - The Free Radical #54
• Blarney at the Guggenheim
• A Victim’s Vindication?
• Embarking with Timur Akhriev
• William Wray: Plotting Life’s Light
• Jacob Collins: The Sensuous Nature of Light
• Jeff Larson’s Radical Perceptions
• Schipperheyn’s Thus Spoke Zarathustra
• Review of Sue Coe's Porkopolis at the Santa Monica Museum of Art, the Southern California Herald American Newspaper, August 10, 1992.