On this episode of Previously Unknown, we present a conversation between James Barron, founder of James Barron Art, and Sandra Zalman, Associate Professor of Art History at the University of Houston and author of Janet Sobel: Primitive Modern and the Origins of Abstract Expressionism. They discuss the life and work of Janet Sobel, an artist overlooked in her lifetime but whose legacy is now being rediscovered both in the art market and the art historical canon.
Sandra Zalman is the author of Consuming Surrealism in American Culture: Dissident Modernism, which argues that Surrealism worked as a powerful agitator to disrupt dominant ideas of modern art in the United States across half a century. It won the 2016 SECAC Award for Excellence in Research and Publication and was supported by fellowships from the American Council of Learned Societies and the American Association of University Women. Her work on Janet Sobel has been published in Women’s Art Journal and Panorama: The Journal of Historians of American Art. Zalman is co-editor of the anthology Modern in the Making: MoMA and the Modern Experiment and has a forthcoming article “What did MoMA Mean for Women: Gender and Belonging at the Museum of Modern Art,” in the Journal of Curatorial Studies. She is Associate Professor of Art History and Associate Dean for Research in the Kathrine G. McGovern College of the Arts at the University of Houston.
James Barron founded his art business in 1987 as a private art dealer and consultant, and established James Barron Art in 2010. He specializes in modern and contemporary American and European art, as well as the work of self-trained artists. Trained as an art historian (Phi Beta Kappa, magna cum laude) at Brown University, Barron is known for his refined vision and ability to juxtapose works in unexpected combinations. He exhibits regularly at art fairs including the Independent, the ADAA Art Show, the Dallas Art Fair, the Outsider Art Fair, and the Aspen Art Fair. James Barron divides his time between Rome, Italy, and Kent, CT.