Innholdsfortegnelse for November - December 2018/ No.42 i American Fine Art Magazine

CAMERON M. SHAY President Graham Shay 1857 The American market is certainly improving. Good quality is always desirable, and that’s what clients are seeking out, along with unique pieces. Fresh materials that have perhaps been off the market for a long time and works of wonderful subject, quality and condition are always in demand. We’ve seen a real interest in people like Edward Hopper and N.C. Wyeth; their market is really incredibly strong and building. Another part of the market that seems to be always strong is Western American art. The strength in the economy, especially in the oil and gas market, supports that a great deal. My specialty is sculpture, and while paintings sometimes have more competition, many of our clients are discovering sculpture, and adding that to paintings…

The Huntington Library, Art Collections, and Botanical Gardens has announced Christina Nielsen as the Hannah and Russell Kully Director of the Art Collections. Nielsen comes from the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston, Massachusetts, and has also served in roles at the Art Institute of Chicago, the J. Paul Getty Museum and the Metropolitan Museum of Art…The Norton Museum of Art has named art historian and curator Elliot Bostwick Davis the director and CEO, succeeding Hope Alswang. Davis comes from the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, and will assume the directorship on March 2, 2019…Sir David Adjaye of Adjaye Associates has been selected as the design architect for the new Princeton University Art Museum. The new building will present a dramatically enlarged space for the exhibition and study of the…

For our first solo exhibition for Francis Celentano, we have selected two bodies of work, the Alpha series (1968-1971) and the Electra series (1990-1992) to demonstrate the artist’s use of color and structure, often through patterning, to create a unique viewing experience. In the two series, we see Celentano’s methodical development for each series, his embrace of technology available at the time, and his ceaseless exploring of the endless possibilities of color. Celentano came to national attention with his painting Lavender Creed (1964) in MoMA’s 1965 exhibition The Responsive Eye, which announced the new international style Op art. His style at the time, like Screen (1965), was more Hard Edge than Op with repeating bold forms in subdued colors of navy blue, purple, and black. Celentano wrote that in these…

In the 19th century, formal artistic training was mainly reserved for men. Some tenacious women, however, pushed their way into the sphere of academic art. These women are the focus of a new exhibition and sale at Hawthorne Fine Art, Breaking All Bounds: American Women Artists (1819-1945). “I have a longstanding interest in bringing these women forward,” says Jennifer C. Krieger, managing partner at Hawthorne Fine Art. “Last year, we focused on earlier work, and this year’s exhibition is mainly artists working in the later 19th century and early 20th century. Recently we were fortunate to acquire a group of paintings by all women artists.” In total, the exhibition will feature between 60 and 65 works from women artists of various renown. Krieger says, “Most people know Jane Peterson. We…

On November 20, Christie’s will host its fall American art sale. Preceding it, on November 13 and 14, is the auction of the collection of Barney Ebsworth, one of the pre-eminent collections of 20th century American art, to which the works in the later sale provide a perfect complement. The sale’s cover lot, coming from a private collection, is Georgia O’Keeffe’s The Red Maple at Lake George, which has an estimate of $7 million to $10 million. It dates from 1926, during the time she spent at the Stieglitz family estate in Lake George, New York. Paige Kestenman, associate vice president of American art at Christies, describes, “She would wander and collect leaves. She became fascinated by one maple tree on the Stieglitz property. Even after they moved to another…

Three paintings by founding member of the Taos Society of Artists Joseph Henry Sharp have been donated to the New Mexico Museum of Art. The donation comes from Lore Thorpe, daughter-in-law of Kathryn V. Thorpe, who owned and managed Santa Fe’s Bishop’s Lodge from the late 1920s through the mid 1950s. Kathryn Thorpe bought the paintings directly from Sharp and helped Sharp sell his other paintings at the lodge. One of the earliest European American artists to visit Taos, Sharp was best known for his portrayal of Native Americans, though he has a significant body of still life works. The three paintings donated by Thorpe include two floral works, Dry Flowers and Marigold-Calendula, and a landscape titled Taos Cañon. Museum director Mary Kershaw says, “The Museum of Art currently holds…

It was a joke. It was prompted by a series of unanticipated professional moves. I became involved with a catalog raisonné of Mary Cassatt while I was at Christie’s during the mid-1980s. The project was begun by Frances Weitzenhoffer, whose 1985 book about the late-19th- and early-20th-century collectors Horace and Louisine Havemeyer had introduced her to the literature on Mrs. Havemeyer’s artist friend and advisor Mary Cassatt. Fran recognized the limitations of the existing catalog by Adelyn Breeskin and hoped to expand and revise that volume with the aid of her good friend, impressionist scholar John Rewald, and the encouragement of Breeskin’s heirs. The project was initially supported by Christie’s where she was affiliated with the impressionist department. That brought me into the picture as a Christie’s colleague and American…

In the fall of 2008, something dazzling was in the works. A fair that brought together the top brick-and-mortar galleries in New York in a showcase of highly curated 19th- and 20th-century art, The American Art Fair came to fruition amid the adversity of the economic downturn—and only continues to grow in reverence as the years go on, now celebrating its 11th iteration. Ushering in the fall season in New York is American Art Week, one of the pinnacles of the art collecting world, rounding out the end of the year in a culmination of art walks, shows and sales from New York’s premier galleries and auction houses. And at the start of it all is The American Art Fair, running from November 10 to 13. The only fair that…

Ralph Albert Blakelock (1847-1919) traveled among the Native American tribes of the West at a time when their lifestyle and rituals were still relatively untainted by the westward expansion of America. Blakelock admired their mystical and natural connection to nature. As his career progressed, Blakelock turned inward and relied more on memory to paint scenes of nature. His influence on the development of American modern art, if forgotten today, was extraordinary in his lifetime. Marsden Hartley said his paintings were a “plausible basis for a genuine American art.” In the early years of the 20th century his paintings sold better than those of the French impressionists. But during the height of his notoriety he was confined to a mental institution with schizophrenia—separated from Nature and his own. His painting Landscape…

In the eyes of Avery Galleries, buying art shouldn’t feel like a shopping expedition. Instead, it should be looked at as an educational journey. Still, they acknowledge, “buying art can be intimidating. There are many variables, and sources of information run the gamut from comprehensive to incomprehensible.” In order to combat that intimidation, for the third year the gallery will host an exhibition aimed at guiding new collectors through the process. The vast majority of the show’s works are priced under $50,000 while still meeting the gallery’s stringent quality standards. Quality, they emphasize, is key. While it might be appealing to nab a Winslow Homer or a John Singer Sargent at a low price, the gallery says, “If the work doesn’t truly represent the artist, however, and is only affordable…

As the New York City auction houses host their fall American art sales, some of the nation’s top private dealers prepare for a unique event of their own. The Just Off Madison art walk invites the public into the galleries for three hours to view high-caliber art, purchase new pieces and interact with experts in the American art field. With each space located along Madison Avenue, it’s easy to access the 13 locations that are open for this year’s November event. This fall’s participants are Jonathan Boos, GRAHAM SHAY 1857, Taylor|Graham, David Tunick Inc., Debra Force Fine Art, Lois Wagner Fine Arts, Kraushaar Galleries, Avery Galleries, Betty Krulik Fine Art, Conner • Rosenkranz, James Reinish & Associates, Meredith Ward Fine Art and Menconi + Schoelkopf. Each will have an exhibition…

Gems from many categories—Hudson River School landscapes, regionalist masterpieces, illustration, art from the American West and others—will cross the auction block November 16 at Sotheby’s American Art sale in New York City. Two key lots in the fall sale are by artists whose works are rare to the market: Emanuel Leutze and Grant Wood, two artists with very different backgrounds yet who both spoke to the American experience in their paintings. The Leutze offering is his 1863 oil Indians Attacking a Wagon Train, a 68-inch-wide painting of pioneers in covered wagons preparing for an attack by an unseen Native American war party stirring dust on the horizon. Leutze, whose most famous work is the 1851 masterpiece Washington Crossing the Delaware, painted a series of small vignettes within the painting, which…

Washington, D.C., collectors Barbara and Aaron Levine have gifted more than 50 major historical artworks to the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden. The gift includes more than 35 seminal works by Marcel Duchamp, as well as related photographs and works on paper by Duchamp’s contemporaries, including Man Ray, Henri Cartier-Bresson, Diane Arbus and Irving Penn. The Levines say, “We have been collecting conceptual art for a good part of our lives and have been involved with the Hirshhorn for nearly 20 years. This donation of art gives the public access to our collection of Duchamp works that we have lived with and loved. A free museum with nearly 1 million visitors a year is the perfect home for these artworks.” Coinciding with the 50th anniversary of the Duchamp’s death, the…

The top lot at Eldred’s August 3 Americana & Paintings Auction was Ralph E. Cahoon Jr.’s On the shore for repairs, which sold for $156,000 well over its high estimate of $40,000. Another Cahoon, The Lobster Pound, also surpassed its high estimate of $45,000 when it sold for $90,000. Works by Charles Caryl Coleman and John Joseph Enneking also performed well…William Wendt’s Patriarchs of the Grove came in as the top lot at Bonhams’ California and Western Paintings and Sculpture sale on August 7 when it sold for $300,000, squarely within its $250,000 to $350,000 estimate. Laguna Beach (est. $150/250,000) by Guy Rose achieved $145,000, while an Armin Carl Hansen work titled Cowboy Sport (Bulldogging) (est. $70/100,000) brought in $125,000. Lots by Walter L. Greene, Sydney Laurence and Charles Reiffel…

Phil Feldsine grew up in the Hudson River Valley of New York State and was used to “houses with historical character.” When he and Jill Hofstrand were looking for a house in Seattle, they found a period Tudor revival on the shores of Lake Washington designed by Arthur Loveless with gardens by the Olmsted Brothers, sons of the Central Park designer Frederick Law Olmsted. Both house and gardens were in disrepair but the couple were up to the challenge. A scientist used to looking at things in detail and wanting the project to be true to the integrity of its original character, Feldsine set about restoring house and gardens. He advised his landscape designers, Richard Hartledge and Jason Morse of the Seattle firm AHBL, that no new plants that weren’t…

This November, A. J. Kollar Fine Paintings highlights works of American impressionist landscapes. From Italian water scenes to snowscapes to spring mornings, the show encompasses the genre from the late-19th to early-20th centuries. Works by John Singer Sargent, John La Farge, Edward Willis Redfield, Robert Vonnoh, Henry Hobart Nichols and Theodore Robinson, among others, will be on view. Though he is primarily known for his portraits, Sargent used the “spontaneous” medium of watercolor to capture his environment. “It is known that Sargent painted the majority of watercolors on location for his own personal pleasure,” says gallery owner Allan J. Kollar. “They were a record of his ever-changing environment; an artist’s view, to say the least, and often a view few artists dared to attempt. Sargent was constantly challenging himself with…

History is mostly just time. And with time comes a deeper layering of narratives. In Santa Fe, New Mexico, a city that has roots that reach back 1,100 years, those layers include Pueblo Indians, Spanish conquerors, European traders, cowboys, mountain men, railroad tycoons, immigrant settlers and plenty of artists—and that’s just scratching the surface. All this history, in painted form, will make its way to the Santa Fe Art Auction on November 10, when more than 200 lots featuring every facet of the American West, particularly New Mexico and its famous Southwestern destinations, will be available to bidders. This year’s sale also marks a milestone as the auction celebrates its 25th annual sale. “I’m always excited to see which treasures present themselves in the course of these sales,” says auction co-director…

With solid response from consignors, Freeman’s December 9 American Art & Pennsylvania Impressionists sale is looking to be one of its best in some time, says Alasdair Nichol, chairman and director of fine art at the auction house. Crossing the block will be pieces by some of the biggest names in both segments, with everything from Martin Lewis prints, to etchings from the 1920s and ’30s, to winter scenes by Edward Willis Redfield, Fern Isabel Coppedge and Guy Carleton Wiggins all in time for the season. The top lot of the auction is an illustration by N.C. Wyeth that was done in 1914 for a short story in Collier’s Magazine. The work, titled Back and Forth Across it Went, Twisting, Straining, Holding Our Strength, Each Striving to Break the Grip…