Episode No. 716 of The Modern Art Notes Podcast features curator Eleanor Nairne and artist Francesca Fuchs.

With Wells Fray-Smith, Nairne is the co-curator of “Noah Davis,” an eponymous retrospective at the Hammer Museum, University of California, Los Angeles. Davis, who passed away from a rare cancer in 2015 at age 32, was a painter whose work addressed current affairs, every day life, family histories, and architecture. Davis often addressed the subjects that interested him by fusing his interest in art history to his interest in vernacular sources, such as flea market photographs or personal archives. The exhibition is on view through August 31. A catalogue is available from Prestel. Amazon and Bookshop offer it for $33-46.

The Menil Collection, Houston is presenting “The Space Between Looking and Loving: Francesca Fuchs and the de Menil House” through November 2. The exhibition starts, as it were, in 1970, when John de Menil wrote to German classical archeologist Dr. Werner Fuchs (1927–2016) seeking to identify the subject of a Roman male torso in his collection. Forty-nine years later, Francesca Fuchs’s discovery of the black-and-white photographs John de Menil sent to her father that depict the marble torso led Fuchs to find the original letter in the museum archives. “The Space Between” presents Fuchs’s response to the unanswered letter and familial collection through Fuchs’ own paintings, selections from the Menil’s collection and archives, and more. The exhibition was curated by Paul R. Davis.

• As mentioned on the program:
• See Francesca Fuchs’ letter to John de Menil (also below); and
• Fuchs’ 2013 exhibition at Texas Gallery.

Instagram: Francesca Fuchs, Tyler Green.

Air date: July 24, 2025.