John Elderfield’s Artist to Watch in 2014: Rackstraw Downes

We asked several of our friends and contributors for the artists they’ll be paying close attention to in the new year. When we put the question to John Elderfield, he had little trouble coming up with his answer:

Rackstraw Downes: “There are a lot of artists I am interested to watch in 2014, especially painters. Among them is Rackstraw Downes, whose work appears to change little, but actually grows and grows in authority. An anthology of his extraordinary critical writings will appear in the spring. I wrote the introduction for it, and reading the texts brought me closer to his visual art, as I hope they will for others. His amazing panoramic landscapes are among the great, still insufficiently appreciated achievements of recent painting.”

John Elderfield is Chief Curator Emeritus of Painting and Sculpture at The Museum of Modern Art, a consultant at Gagosian Gallery, and Senior Advisor at Artsy.

Explore the rest of our 2013 highlights and discover more artists to watch in 2014!