The National Review magazine (July 4th issue) has printed a compelling review of Jacob Collins’s current show, Jacob Collins: New Works, on view at Adelson Galleries in New York City. The reviewer, Roger Kimball, publisher of Encounter Books, and co-publisher and co-editor of The New Criterion, writes of the 37 works in the exhibition,

“Here is work in which technical achievement and consummate taste unite in art that transcends the taxonomic labels of art-speak . . . one of my favorite works is a breathtaking still life called Glasses (2011). At first glance it looks like a grisaille study. But look again. Those eyeglasses glint and wink with gold. And that spot of light on the tablecloth to the right is a veritable rainbow of refracted light. This is the real thing.“

“Consider Anna Nina, an oil for 2011. There are plenty of artist’s touches to savor—the visual rhyming of those climbing tree branches with the wrinkles on the woman’s cheek, for example. But what grabs hold of you instantly is the quiet if sorrowful dignity of this remarkable face.”

“There are probably more artists—that is, more people calling themselves artist—per square inch in Manhattan today than there have been anywhere at any time in history. But as this remarkable work by Jacob Collins reminds us, there are artists and then there are artists.”

The show is on view until July 28 at Adelson Galleries, 19 East 82nd Street. And if you’re so-inspired, enroll in a class at the GCA and try your hand!