Innholdsfortegnelse for July - August 2017/ No.34 i American Fine Art Magazine

We talk a lot about summer art locations in this magazine but we do so for a good reason, the number one reason being they are all beautiful places to visit and we feel fortunate to visit many of them and see our gallery and artist friends there while we do. People visit these places because they just inherently make one feel good. While most of the year is filled with long work days, school schedules, conference calls and the general buzz and chaos of daily life, it is only in the summer when we are truly alive and able to pursue the things we love the most, usually while accompanied by the ones we love the most. And that is where art comes into play. It is not just…

JULY 20 Eldred’s Marine Sale: East Dennis, MA JULY 21-22 Brunk Auctions’ Premier Auction: Asheville, NC JULY 22-23 New Orleans Auction Galleries' Estates Auction: New Orleans, LA JULY 27-28 Copley Fine Art Auctions’ Sporting Art Sale: Plymouth, MA JULY 29 Coeur d’Alene Art Auction: Reno, NV AUG. 1 Bonhams’ California and Western Paintings and Sculpture: Los Angeles, CA AUG. 2-4 Eldred’s Americana & Paintings Sale: East Dennis, MA AUG. 11-12 Altermann Galleries & Auctioneers’ Santa Fe Sale: Santa Fe, NM AUG. 16-18 James D. Julia’s Fine Art, Asian & Antique Auctions: Fairfield, ME AUG. 26-27 Thomaston Place Auction Galleries’ Summer Auction: Thomaston, ME…

Betsy Wyeth receives 2017 Maine in America award The Farnsworth Art Museum has announced Betsy Wyeth as the recipient of the 2017 Maine in America Award, intended to honor an individual or group who has made an outstanding contribution to Maine’s role in American art. The award presentation will occur during the museum’s Andrew Wyeth Centennial Celebration and Gala, which takes place on the grounds of the museum on July 21. Betsy married Andrew in 1939 and played an essential role in his career, and her generosity and vision has had a lasting impact on Maine’s midcoast. She created the Up East Foundation to preserve a 17-acre property once part of the Olsons’ saltwater farm, a place that inspired hundreds of Andrew’s works. Loans from the collection of Andrew and…

The Dallas Museum of Art has acquired Jackson Pollock’s Figure Kneeling Before Arch with Skulls, a major example of the artist’s early work. The oil on canvas, which was created circa 1934 to 1938, is the fifth Pollock to enter the DMA’s holdings. Also in the museum’s collection are Cathedral, 1947; Portrait and a Dream, 1953; and an untitled 1956 work that is one of only six of the artist’s sculptures. “Pollock’s early work has much to reveal about his lasting contributions to postwar and contemporary art and his artistic trajectory,” says Gavin Delahunty, Hoffman Family Senior Curator of Contemporary Art at DMA. “The addition of this superb painting to our collection will provide us with the opportunity to expand the history of one of the most influential artists of…

Through August 18 Hirschl & Adler Galleries The Crown Building 730 Fifth Avenue, 4th Floor New York, NY 10019 t: (212) 535-8810 www.hirschlandadler.com In 1886 William Michael Harnett was about to be arrested for counterfeiting and his Trompe l’Oeil paintings of money were seized. A judge, after examining a painting, declared moralistically, “the development and exercise of a talent so capable of mischief should not be encouraged.” Harnett (1848-1892) was born in Ireland and moved to Philadelphia with his family as a child. There he learned the trade of engraving and later studied painting at the National Academy of Art and the Cooper Union in New York. He eschewed the practice of recording the grandeur of the American landscape and painted still lifes of ordinary objects, preferably those with signs…

JAMES BALESTRIERI James Balestrieri is director of J. N. Bartfield Galleries in New York City. Jim has written plays, verse, prose and screenplays. He has degrees from Columbia and Marquette universities, attended the American Film Institute and has an MFA in playwriting from Carnegie Mellon. He has an excellent wife and three enthusiastic children. JAY E. CANTOR Jay E. Cantor started the American Art Department for Christie’s in the late ’70s, is on the board of the Winter Antiques Show, the Art Committee for The Century Association, the board of directors of The Century Archives Foundation, and recently retired as the chairman of the Collections Committee and a member of the Steering Committee for Friends of American Arts at Yale University. He also served as the founding president of the…

MORVEN MUSEUM & GARDEN www.morven.org Newark and the Culture of Art: 1900-1960, on view at Morven Museum through January 2018, explores the combination of art and industry that made Newark, New Jersey, so attractive to modern artists in the early 20th century. The exhibition celebrates John Cotton Dana, the visionary behind the organization of the Newark Library and Newark Museum, and the culture of creativity that flourished alongside him. With works from Max Weber, Stuart Davis, Bernard Gussow and John Grabach, the exhibition highlights the forward-thinking New Jersey city and the artists that empowered citizens to view and appreciate American art. CINCINNATI ART MUSEUM cincinnatiartmuseum.org Cincinnati Art Museum will present the largest display of American folk art in its history in A Shared Legacy: Folk Art in America. The exhibition…

“What do they know.” A curt but not unexpected reply to a question posed some years ago to a senior curator at a highly reputed American museum. The question was sincere and prompted by long experience of viewing exhibitions at museums around the country. I asked, “When you organize an exhibition, do you work with the museum educators?” In this curator’s view, the educators were all “idiots.” He was thoughtless at best but indicative of the prejudicial view that the curator knows best. Well, there is ample evidence that while curators may be scholarly authorities on an artist or subject, they can often be focused on their colleagues and other specialists and not how an exhibition can be structured so the general audience may learn from it. It can be…

Through July 7 Addison Rowe Gallery 229 E. Marcy Street Santa Fe, NM 87501 t: (505) 982-1533 www.addisonrowe.com Summer is a time for galleries to show their greatest hits, the breadth of their collections and interesting themes. Addison Rowe Gallery in Santa Fe, New Mexico, has been in the advance guard of reviving interest in American modernism, and will show works by modernists who lived and worked in the Southwest. The gallery notes, “Over the past few years the gallery has acquired several artists’ estates. Included among these are the estates of Raymond Jonson, Florence Miller Pierce and William Lumpkins, who were all members of the Transcendental Painting Group.” It will display works by these artists and others in the exhibition, Gallery Highlights 2017, through July 7. Pierce (1918-2007) was…

July 28-30 The Newport Antiques Show St. George’s School Ice Rink 375 Purgatory Road Middletown, RI 02842 t: (401) 846-2669 www.newportantiquesshow.com Just south of Boston, in the seaside hamlet of Newport, Rhode Island, The Newport Antiques Show presents sophisticated style to collectors of fine art. This year, the show takes place July 28 through 30 at the St. George’s School Ice Rink in Middletown, just outside of Newport proper. Diane Bittel co-founded the show with chairman Anne Hamilton 11 years ago, and it originally coincided with the Nantucket antique show. “Eventually, we changed our dates to tie in with the annual golf event in Newport which resulted in a much better gate for our show. It has become a very popular event and the preview party on Thursday night is…

August 2-4 Eldred’s Auctioneers & Appraisers 1483 Route 6A East Dennis, MA 02641 t: (508) 385-3116 www.eldreds.com Each summer, Eldred’s Auctioneers & Appraisers hosts a series of sales including its annual three-day Americana & Paintings auction that, for 2017, will feature approximately 1,200 lots. Included in the sale, beginning August 2 at noon and August 3 and 4 at 10 a.m., will be a selection of sporting art and decoys, furniture, American and European paintings, silver, jewelry, Oriental rugs, folk art and other decorative accessories. The company’s president and head of the fine art department, Joshua Eldred, is optimistic about the upcoming summertime auctions. He says, “It feels to be strongest summer season we’ve had in many years.” While this sale is varied, approximately a quarter of the sale will…

On May 24, Bonhams hosted its American Art auction in New York City, with works by major historic artists leading the pack. In the top 10 lots alone were names such as Marsden Hartley, Jamie and Andrew Wyeth, Thomas Moran, Eastman Johnson and Frederick Carl Frieseke. Many of the pieces sold to buyers on the phone, but there was also action with in-house bidders, shares Kayla Carlsen, head of the American art department at Bonhams. She also adds that a number of new buyers partook in the sale. “We were very pleased with the results,” says Carlsen. “There were really strong prices for select work that stole the show. We felt that overall there was certainly interest and money in the market for really good things.” The highest-selling piece was…

THROUGH JULY 2 Homer and Remington in Black and White AMON CARTER MUSEUM OF AMERICAN ART Fort Worth, TX www.cartermuseum.org THROUGH JULY 2 Mediterranea: American Art from the Graham D. Williford Collection BOCA RATON MUSEUM OF ART Boca Raton, FL www.bocamuseum.org JULY 3-JAN. 2, 2018 Frederic Remington at The Met THE MET FIFTH AVENUE New York, NY www.metmuseum.org JULY 6-9 Market Art + Design THE BRIDGEHAMPTON MUSEUM Bridgehampton, NY www.artmarkethamptons.com THROUGH JULY 7 Gallery Highlights ADDISON ROWE GALLERY Santa Fe, NM www.addisonrowe.com JULY 8-OCTOBER 29 Pollock and Motherwell: Legends of Abstract Expressionism NELSON ATKINS MUSEUM OF ART Kansas City, MO www.nelson-atkins.org JULY 8-NOVEMBER 19 Learning from the Masters: The Famous Artists School NORMAN ROCKWELL MUSEUM Stockbridge, MA www.nrm.org THROUGH JULY 9 Charles Sheeler: Fashion, Photography, and Sculptural Form JAMES A.…

The collection of Peggy and David Rockefeller, which is estimated to include over 2,000 individual items, will be sold at Christie’s to benefit dozens of charities in spring 2018. The youngest son of John D. Rockefeller Jr. and art patron Abby Aldrich Rockefeller, David Rockefeller passed away in 2017 and is remembered as a deeply engaged civic leader. His wife Peggy was known as a dedicated conservationist, and the two were married for more than 50 years. “We are delighted to be partnering with Christie’s to create a significant fundraising opportunity for the philanthropies that are so important to the Rockefeller family,” says Rockefeller’s son, David Rockefeller Jr. “We are proud to fulfill my father’s with to share with the world the art and objects he and my mother collected…

Over the last 18 months, the Delaware Art Museum has acquired 61 works of art by 37 artists. Among these works are five costume studies by Howard Pyle, a large-scale painting by Peter Williams, and two sculpture’s for the Copeland Sculpture Garden. “The museum is also focused on diversifying the collection by adding work by more women artists and artists of color and continuing support of local artists,” says Heather Campbell Coyle, the museum’s chief curator and curator of American art. “Since the start of 2016 the museum has acquired 21 works by 16 women.” Acquisitions of work by Helen Farr Sloan and Elizabeth Osborne came out of recent exhibitions featuring the artist. A sketchbook from Sloan was donated by the artist’s longtime friend Paul Preston Davis and included in…

On the occasion of the opening of the exhibition Irving Penn: Centennial at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York this past April, the museum, along with Yale University Press, has published an absolutely stunning nearly 400 page monograph that beautifully documents the 90-plus years of existence of one of the most famous photographers of the 20th century. According to Thomas P. Campbell, then-director of the Met, a majority of the photographs featured in the exhibition, as well as this publication, are “drawn from a recent promised gift to the museum from the Irving Penn Foundation of 187 of the artist’s finest works.” The museum’s relationship with Penn, however, goes all the way back to 1959 when they first acquired one of his photographs. The institution also acquired 66…

On view now Leila Heller Gallery 568 W. 25th Street New York, NY 10001 t: (212) 249-7695 www.leilahellergallery.com Before the European surrealists came to America their work was shown in a 1931 exhibition, Newer Super-Realism, at the Wadsworth Atheneum in Hartford, Connecticut, followed by exhibitions at Julien Levy Gallery and the Pierre Matisse Gallery in New York. Newer Super-Realism showed artists such as Salvador Dalí, Giorgio de Chirico, Max Ernst, André Masson, Joan Miró and Pablo Picasso. In 1936 the Museum of Modern Art staged Fantastic Art, Dada, Surrealism showing more than 600 objects. Responses ranged from embracing its strangeness and its rejection of conformity to a rejection of surrealism itself as expressed in a review of the MoMA exhibition, “Modern Museum a Psychopathic Ward as Surrealism Has Its Day.”…

July 29 Coeur d’Alene Art Auction Grand Sierra Resort 2500 E. Second Street Reno, NV 89595 t: (208) 772-9009 www.cdaartauction.com The Coeur d’Alene Art Auction once again brings top Western, sporting and wildlife art to bidders during the annual sale held this year on July 29 at the Grand Sierra Resort in Reno, Nevada. More than 300 lots will be available, including a large variety of 19th-century landscapes and 20th-century sporting scenes. Auction organizers are not only ecstatic with the artists they will be showing, but also the quality of the works by those artists. “You don’t just want any work from an artist. You want some of the best work from that artist,” says Mike Overby, auction partner for the Coeur d’Alene Art Auction. “And that’s what we always…

Humorous takes on air travel and blue-collar workers by Norman Rockwell performed strongly May 23 at Sotheby’s American art sale in New York City. The sale brought in more than $33.1 million, nearly half of which came from one single piece: Rockwell’s Two Plumbers. The illustrator’s top-selling painting depicts two workers in a customer’s home playing with a bottle of perfume. The plumbers, with their denim coveralls and dirty tools, stand in stark contrast to the pink and prim room, with its ornate vanity and eavesdropping dog. The work, which appeared on the cover of The Saturday Evening Post in June 1951, is pure Rockwell: funny, filled with little details, and it speaks to Americans of that era. The work was estimated at $5 million to $7 million, and ended…

The artwork of Norman Rockwell is among the most recognized in the world, with his illustrations featured on magazine covers and mass-produced on calendars and other household items. On May 3, an oil study on photographic paper laid on panel of his famed Triple Self Portrait crossed the block during Heritage Auctions’ American Art Signature Auction. The work, which was the preliminary for a 1960 Saturday Evening Post cover that Rockwell himself called a “masterpiece,” set a new world auction record for an oil study by the artist when it achieved $1,332,500. The sale price was more than eight times its low presale estimate of $150,000. “It’s one of Rockwell’s most iconic images, and even for people who are not familiar with Rockwell or fine art they are familiar with…

Iconic works from some of the top Western artists, including a trio of bronzes by Frederic Remington, helped push the Scottsdale Art Auction to more than $11 million in sales on April 6 and 8 in Scottsdale, Arizona. The sale included 476 lots over three sessions. The sell-through rate was at nearly 90 percent. “It was very close, probably as close as you can be without actually being 90 percent,” says auction partner Brad Richardson. “We’re very happy with the sales. With these works, we told ourselves that anything over $10 million and we would be pleased, and we did $1 million more than that, so we’re very pleased.” Top lots included works from living artists Glenna Goodacre and Howard Terpning—both had pieces that sold for $409,500— followed immediately by…