Innholdsfortegnelse for March - April 2019/ No.44 i American Fine Art Magazine

FEBRUARY 28 - MARCH 3 The Park Avenue Armory New York, NY, www.artdealers.org March 1 Leading from the Front: Museums and Changing Social Dynamics Board of Officers Room, Park Avenue Armory, 6 p.m. March 2 Private Collecting for the Public Good Board of Officers Room, Park Avenue Armory, 11 a.m. March 2 Upper East Side Gallery Walk More than 25 member galleries from 64th to 82nd Street will be open to the public, 3-5 p.m. March 2 Film screening:“Rackstraw Downes: A Painter” Colonel’s Room, Park Avenue Armory, 5:30 p.m. Gala Preview, February 27, 5 p.m.; February 28-March 1, noon-8:00 p.m. March 2, noon-7:00 p.m.; March 3, noon-5:00 p.m. Tickets: $25 per day…

Idon’t think I made any enemies, but it was something of a wake-up call. I had been thinking about collecting for a long time, considering not only why an individual collects but the way museums make decisions as well. As an undergraduate, I worked at my college museum which was in its infancy. We celebrated the 10th anniversary with an exhibition called Desired Acquisitions. Loans from dealers around the country served as an introduction to significant gaps in the collection and, sadly, provided the opportunity for other museums around the country to shop for themselves. In graduate school at Winterthur Museum I became aware of the growing pains when a private collection becomes public while the founding donor still wielded a controlling influence. Afterwards, at the Metropolitan Museum I discovered…

Our collectors“love‘mixing things up’” in their Seattle area home—items from their travels, American, paintings from 1840 to 1940 and, in a nod to Seattle’s long history of glass making, contemporary studio glass. Much of their glass collection, however, is in their Southern California home“in the setting of bright sunshine,” the husband explains. Their glass collection centers on artists who have worked at Pilchuck Glass School, north of Seattle, and includes some from Murano, Italy. “In Southern California we can find signed work by Dale Chihuly in consignment stores,” the wife notes. There, the glass is complemented by Southern California landscapes. She explains,“Guiding us along the way in our 40 years of collecting is our longtime friend and art dealer, appraiser and expert on American art, Allan Kollar of A.J. Kollar…

The shaped canvas was explored by artists of the 1960s in styles as diverse as Hard-Edge, Color Field, Op, Pop and Minimalism. The shaped canvases moved painting beyond depicting illusionary space in the traditional rectangle that replicated one’s field of vision. Lawrence Alloway brought attention to this movement in his Guggenheim Museum exhibition The Shaped Canvas, from December 1964 to January 1965, which included Paul Feeley, Sven Lukin, Richard Smith, Frank Stella and Neil Williams. Another exhibition, Shape and Structure, at Tibor de Nagy Gallery in January of 1965, was organized by Frank Stella, Henry Geldzahler and Barbara Rose. It included shaped canvases by Stella and Williams, as well as Charles Hinman, Will Insley and Larry Bell alongside three-dimensional works by Donald Judd, Robert Morris, Carl Andre and Robert Murray.…

The Art Show returns on February 28, kicking off the New York art world’s own version of March Madness—a month jampacked with art fairs, gallery openings and the like. The annual event, organized by the Art Dealers Association of America (ADAA), is recognized as one of the longest running art fairs in the country. This year’s five-day affair promises “intimately scaled and thoughtfully curated presentations of the highest quality—fostering active conversations with gallerists, new relationships and close looking at works by artists from a variety of genres, practices, and national and international origins,” according to the ADAA. “We have put considerable thought into the strengths of the ADAA through its many members who are the leading art dealers in the United States,” says Andrew Schoelkopf, the organization’s president and partner…

During the 1920s and ’30s, a number of American artists began experimenting with watercolors and artistic styles, pushing beyond the confines of classical oil painting and academic ideals. These artists were influenced by European modernists as well as the changing American landscape brought on by industrialization. The Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art has been at the forefront of collecting paintings from this period of evolution, especially the works of Edward Hopper. Through March 17 the Hartford, Connecticut-based museum will mount American Moderns in Watercolor: Edward Hopper and His Contemporaries, an intimate exhibition of 16 watercolors from its permanent collection. There will be four pieces by Hopper on view, including the first watercolor the museum purchased by the artist in 1928, and works by John Marin, Charles E. Burchfield, Stuart Davis,…

Located in Monrovia, California, John Moran Auctioneers has a long tradition of offering paintings and sculpture from artists associated with the state. In its first California & American Fine Art sale of 2019, held April 9 at 6 p.m., the auction house brings to market a selection of pieces by Southern California artists. There also will be harbor and sea scenes depicting both coasts of the country. Around 200 lots are expected in the sale, including a harbor scene with figures and a tug boat by Southern California artist Phil Latimer Dike that highlights his best-known style and color palette.“You’re getting really geometric shapes, not only in the boats but in the figures and the foreground,” says Morgana Blackwelder, fine art director of John Moran Auctioneers, of the work, which…

PHILADELPHIA, PA FREEMAN’S DECEMBER 10 A Bucks County Life: The Collection of Bonnie O’Boyle On December 10, Freeman’s hosted its single-owner sale A Bucks County Life:The Collection of Bonnie O’Boyle, a collector who was a client of the auction house and who was supportive of artists connected to Philadelphia and Bucks County. The sale included more than 200 lots, with 130 historic and contemporary paintings being among the highlights. One of the top lots of the sale was May Day, by Rae Sloan Bredin, which was exhibited in a show on the artist at the Michener Art Museum in Doylestown, Pennsylvania. Estimated at $10,000 to $15,000, the piece soared above its presale estimate to a total of $46,250 to become the No. 2 lot of the auction. The highest earning…

BETTY KRULIK Owner Betty Krulik Fine Art, Ltd. My area of specialization is American art 1850 to approximately 1950, but as my clients have stretched into the post-war period, I have stretched into that area as well…In general, I would say that anything that is of very, very good quality is in high demand. There are pictures I’ve had that come in one week and are sold the next…It could be something like a 19th-century landscape with genre elements, which mostly people would say is a static market, but if the right picture appears it will sell quickly to the right client. I had a spectacular Southern scene by Wordsworth Thompson called Landing on the Rappahannock (Virginia)…The collectors that are the knowledgeable [buyers] know how rare that is and how…

David Voyles has been named deputy director of the Smithsonian American Art Museum. Voyles has spent the past 25 years working for the Smithsonian in various capacities, having served since 2011 as the director of the office of planning, management and budget. He takes over the role of deputy director from Rachel Allen, who retired after 45 years…The California Historical Society has appointed Susan D. Anderson as its new director of library, collections, exhibitions and programs. Anderson comes to CHS from the African American Museum & Library in Oakland, where she has served as Interim Chief Curator for the past year…DuPont has donated $1 million to the Delaware Art Museum. This gift underwrites the museum’s Free Sundays program…The National David Gallery of Art, Washington, announced late last year that its…

After moving to Walden Pond in the 1850s, Henry David Thoreau wrote that he made the migration so he could have “leisure and opportunity to see the spring come in.” On the lookout for the first signs of this splendid season, Thoreau paid close attention to the “chance note of some arriving bird, or the striped squirrel’s chirp,” and was eager to “see the woodchuck venture out of his winter quarters.” As a season, spring is representative of renewal, rebirth and resurrection of earth’s botanical beauty after winter hibernation comes to an end. This spring, Hawthorne Fine Art explores the beauty of the season and its different interpretations by American artists in Blossoms: A Botanical Exploration of Spring in American Art. Echoing the diversity of flora found in nature, the…

The 20th century saw a dramatic rise in industrial technology. From 1910 to 1960,America’s landscape was drastically altered—railroads and power lines were built across rural areas throughout the country, and cities welcomed streamlined machinery and more modern styles in art and architecture, amassing a great sense of pride in a strong and prosperous America. Less frequently discussed, however, are the harmful social and environmental effects it fostered. Progress is both a positive and a cautionary tale. An exhibition at the Philbrook Museum of Art running through May 26 explores the paradox of progress through the lens of American industry in the 20th century. With more than 60 paintings, photographs, prints and design objects on display, Making Modern America aims to highlight the works of artists portraying the societal and environmental…

Building on its past success, Swann Auction Galleries’next African-American Art Auction on April 4 will bring to market more than 160 lots with highlights from modern masters. Among the notable pieces are abstract paintings from the 1970s; works on paper by Norman Lewis from the 1950s and 1960s; and pieces by women artists. A highlight of the postwar abstract segment in the sale is the 1973-75 oil on canvas Block Island by Lewis that is expected to sell between $200,000 and $300,000.“The Lewis is a very strong example of his large and late series of colorful canvases—abstract scenes of coastal Block Island,” says Nigel Freeman, Swann’s director of African-American art.“This last, significant ’70s period is well represented by this handsome canvas of dashing silver and purple passages.” Other abstracted pieces…

Richard M. Scaife came from a family with a long history of patronizing the arts. His great-uncle Andrew Mellon donated the funds that established the National Gallery of Art, which he furnished with his own personal collection of Old Master paintings and sculptures, and Scaife’s mother, Sarah, gave many works to Pittsburgh’s Carnegie Museum of Art during her lifetime. Scaife himself was a longtime friend of George A. Weymouth, founder of the Brandywine River Museum of Art, and became a board member of the museum in 1978. After his diagnosis of terminal cancer in 2014, Scaife reflected on his life as an art patron, writing in the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review,“I’ve donated works to the National Gallery and to other museums. But Westmoreland Museum of American Art in Greensburg and Brandywine River…

Each year, the Philadelphia Antiques & Art Show elevates its game—for more than five decades, this prestigious show has welcomed some of the nation’s most distinguished exhibitors dealing in antiques and fine art, including furniture, jewelry, crafts, silver, textiles, porcelain, paintings and other media. Held at The NavyYard, featuring 1,200 gorgeous acres, the 2019 show runs from April 26 to 28. More than 60 dealers will be a part of the show this year, several of which include Arader Galleries, Avery Galleries, Gleason Fine Art, Diana H. Bittel Antiques, Betty Krulik Fine Art and many others. Diana Bittel, who is also one of the show’s co-organizers along with Karen and Ralph DiSaia, says they are excited to welcome 10 new dealers to the 2019 show: Driscoll Babcock, Fleisher/Ollman, Guarisco Gallery,…

The State Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg, Russia, continues its exploration of surrealism with the exhibition Roberto Matta and the Fourth Dimension April 4 through June 30. It will be the first exhibition of the Chilean artist’s work in Russia and the first major exhibition of his work since the Museum of Modern Art’s Matta in 1957. It reestablishes recognition of his role as an international artist and a catalytic force in the development of abstract expressionism as well as his influence on his fellow artists Jackson Pollock, Arshile Gorky, Mark Rothko and Robert Motherwell. More than 8 years in the making, it was conceived by Matta’s friend and dealer in the ‘80s, Thomas Monahan, and later, Nic Iljine, who was the European representative for the Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation.…

Western art takes center stage at the Scottsdale Art Auction April 6 in Scottsdale, Arizona. Now in its 14th year, the annual sale will bring top Western, wildlife and sporting art to bidders during two sessions, the first of which will offer all works at no reserve. “We’re aiming for about 340 lots in total, with 120 in the first session and about 220 in the second session. We had more last year, but I think we went a little long so we’re trying to keep this one smaller, but once again with great pieces available to bidders,” says auction partner Mike Frost, owner of J.N. Bartfield Galleries in NewYork.“And we really offer a wide range of artwork, for every price point. There are pieces with starting bids of $300…

Charles M. Russell lived in Great Falls, Montana, for a good portion of his life. It is where his home and studio are still today. It is where he would trade paintings for meals or bar tabs. It is where he painted the surrounding mountains and valleys of Montana. Though he died in 1926, Russell’s spirit is woven into the fabric of Great Falls. This is especially noticeable around his March 19 birthday every year when The Russell transforms Great Falls into Western ArtWeek, which many locals refer to simply as Russell Week.This year’s event kicks off March 21 with an impressive roster of events including an art preview and reception, a paint-out with contemporary Western artists, art booths for members of the Russell Skull Society, an educational symposium and…

On December 9, Freeman’s hosted its winter American Art & Pennsylvania Impressionists sale with nearly 160 lots crossing the block to a strong bidding pool in-house, online and on the telephone.“I was very pleasantly surprised; it was our best sale in three years,”says Alasdair Nichol, chairman of Freeman’s.“It had a good sell-through rate and good prices, and I felt a lot of enthusiasm and interest.” Leading up to the auction, which totaled $3.22 million and saw 81 percent of the lots sell, the auction house fielded a number of calls about available artwork.“It had me feeling very positive about the whole sale,” says Nichol.“In the end, clients were pleased, the market is looking pretty solid and everything was good.” One of the paintings that had collectors clamoring prior to the…