As usual, our publisher, Steven Zevitas, took our Must-See Paintings post for November and refined it to only 12 shows for the Huffington Post. After the jump you can read the short-list, and you can find the entire article (with pictures) here on the Huffington Post Arts section.

Mark Bradford. Courtesy of Sikkema Jenkins & Co.

More than forty New American Paintings' alumni are on view this month throughout the country. They range from mid-career painter, Trenton Doyle Hancock, to 2010 Hunter MFA grad Michael Hilsman, who is having his first solo exhibition this month at Louis B. James in New York City. The San Francisco area alone has six NAP artists on view including, Jim Gaylord at Gregory Lind and Conrad Ruiz at Jessica Silverman. If you love painting and live in the Bay Area then you are fortunate, as there are a number of first rate shows on view this month.

Joshua Neustein. Courtesy of Untitled.

All of us at New American Paintings want to send our best wishes out to New York's art world, which was hit hard by Hurricane Sandy. We know a number of gallerists and artists who have been adversely affected by the storm. It is encouraging to see some of our friends, such as ZieherSmith, reopen so quickly after such devastation.

Norman Zammitt. Courtesy of Carter & Citizen.

The show must go on, as they say, and even as a number of galleries are busy with repairs, many more are open for business. As always, there are dozens of painting shows to choose from in New York. Some of my top picks this month include: Wayne Thiebaud at Acquavella; Ed Ruscha at Gagosian; Jules De Balincourt at Salon 94; Mark Bradford at Sikkema Jenkins; and Tal R at Cheim & Read. If you are in the Lower East Side, be sure to catch Joshua Neustein's exhibition at Untitled, which is his first solo in New York in two decades.