Innholdsfortegnelse for May - June 2019/ No.45 i American Fine Art Magazine

There are so many things to be excited about for the upcoming summer season that we truly don’t know where to start. First off, let me say that we love the summer months regardless. We love hearing about what’s happening in all the summer art destinations up and down the coast, from Maine down to the Carolinas. Auctions, museum exhibitions, art fairs, gallery shows. Our summer agenda is already filling up so quickly! Of course, what we are most excited about is all the N.C. Wyeth events happening this summer beginning with the much-awaited retrospective at the Brandywine River Museum of Art in May. We’ve seen many of the images for the show and we have to say something like this does not come along very often. In October, the…

APRIL 25-28 Art Market San Francisco FORT MASON CENTER San Francisco, CA www.artmarketsf.com APRIL 26-28 Philadelphia Antiques & Art Show THE NAVY YARD Philadelphia, PA www.philadelphiaantiquesandartshow.com THROUGH APRIL 27 The Painted Environment: Landscapes and Still Lifes by Harold Weston GERALD PETERS GALLERY New York, NY www.gpgallery.com APRIL 28-JULY 14 William McGregor Paxton and Elizabeth Okie Paxton: An Artistic Partnership DIXON GALLERY & GARDENS Memphis, TN www.dixon.org MAY 2-5 Art New York PIER 94 New York, NY www.artnyfair.com MAY 3-7 TEFAF New York Spring PARK AVENUE ARMORY New York, NY www.tefaf.com THROUGH MAY 5 Hans Hofmann: The California Exhibitions, 1931 HUNTER COLLEGE ART GALLERIES New York, NY www.huntercollegeartgalleries.org THROUGH MAY 5 Solitary: Alienation in Modern Life NELSON-ATKINS MUSEUM OF ART Kansas City, MO www.nelson-atkins.org MAY 5-OCTOBER 27 Alexander Girard: A Designer’s…

While impressive auction results of historic American paintings and sculpture or an occasional celebrity collector may garner a newspaper headline now and then, there is no magazine, until now, that has offered complete and comprehensive coverage of the upcoming shows and events of this always-fascinating market that is so deeply tied to American history, society and culture. Previews of Upcoming Shows and Auctions The historic fine art of America’s greatest artists is in big demand and if you are serious about acquiring it, you need to know about it sooner so you can plan your collecting strategies. When you subscribe to American Fine Art Magazine you’ll know in advance what major works are coming to market because, every other month, you’ll have access to this valuable information when we email…

The Palmer Museum of Art at Penn State University has recently acquired two important works: John Marin’s Sailboat and Sea, Maine (1938) and Walt Kuhn’s Rider with Blue Sash (1946). The paintings were gifted by longtime supporter and friend of the Palmer Museum, Alvin Snowiss, coming from a formidable collection of American art that Snowiss and his late wife, Jean, had accumulated over a number of decades. Marin’s Sailboat and Sea, Maine represents some of the most expressive work in his career, depicting a sailboat wading through turbulent waters. “Sailboat and Sea, Maine by John Marin is the first oil by the artist to enter the permanent collection and greatly enhances our holdings of early American modernism. Though small in scale, it reveals the expressive and energized quality of his…

At the Oscars in 1992, Tom Hanks presented a special award to one of the giants of special effects, stop-motion animation master Ray Harryhausen. In his speech, Hanks said, “Some people say Casablanca or Citizen Kane. I say Jason and the Argonauts is the greatest film ever made.” The audience went wild. So did I, sitting at home. Why? The skeleton warrior scene. If you haven’t seen it, YouTube it right now on your phone. I’ll wait. …Right? As a kid, that scene and film meant weeks of nightmare induced asthma attacks. But there was an image that had an identical effect. A painting, one that illustrated an incident in a book. The book was Treasure Island and the painting was N.C. Wyeth’s interpretation of Blind Pew in front of…

In the middle of several hundred acres of Connecticut farm land sits a house that is an eminently livable museum of early-19th-century furniture and mid-to late-19th-century paintings assembled over time with knowledge, passion and love. Both collectors “were seriously preconditioned to be collectors,” the wife admits. She was brought up in New England “with a love of all things ‘Colonial’ engendered by history loving parents whose idea of a wonderful Sunday was church, followed by Sunday lunch at one of the historic coaching inns that proliferated then or a visit to some small museum, historic site or antiques dealer. We were encouraged to form little collections of our own—a way of keeping us entertained—but insidiously enough, instilling an interest in and an understanding of material culture, i.e. what is an…

Propelled by the momentum of last year’s Peggy and David Rockefeller Collection—which realized $832 million in sales, $107 million for American art alone—Christie’s has returned with the Michael Scharf Family Collection, another important collection that emphasizes American modernism. “This is one of the best modernist collections in private hands,” says Paige Kestenman, Christie’s associate vice president and specialist in the American art department. “We have the finest examples from the Stieglitz Circle, Georgia O’Keeffe, Arthur Dove, Marsden Hartley…all top-quality American modernism. It’s a category that transcends the typical American art collector. And by offering key collections, like the Rockefeller or Scharf collection, we are expanding the core base of collectors because we’re offering important works from the icons.” Kestenman says that Christie’s has a growing investment in American modernism, adding…

Illustration and Western art have always been among the hallmarks of Heritage Auctions’ biannual American Art sales in Dallas. This year’s May 3 auction is no different, with it featuring some of its most robust offerings to date across more than 220 lots. In the illustration segment names such as N.C. Wyeth, Norman Rockwell, J.C. Leyendecker and Maxfield Parrish are standouts, while the Western segment brings out a significant sculpture by Frederic Remington, a lifetime cast of The Broncho Buster #73 (est. $250/350,000). Also crossing the block will be impressionism, Hudson River School and modernism pieces, allowing for a well-rounded sale. “I’m considering this catalog to be a syllabus on Golden Age Illustration,” says Aviva Lehmann, vice president and director of American art at Heritage. Along with standouts by the…

CHARLESTON, SC COPLEY FINE ART AUCTIONS FEBRUARY 16 Winter Sale $2.4 million More than $2.4 million in sales was achieved during Copley Fine Art Auctions’ February 16 sale in Charleston, South Carolina. The Winter Sale featured 389 lots and saw 95 percent of them find new buyers, including a selection of decoys that they have become known for selling. Sporting paintings were also standouts of the day, with works featuring hunting dogs, fish and birds being among the most popular. The top painting was Percival Leonard Rosseau’s hunting dog work Perfection: Ned and Bob, which saw active bidding via phone and internet to push the piece above its high estimate of $50,000 to sell for $54,000. Back-to-back lots by Edmund H. Osthaus, also depicting hunting dogs, performed well, with A…

Hardcover 2-volume set with slipcase1056 pages637 color illustrations$300.00 Best known for his interiors and landscapes featuring beautiful women in artful poses and subtly related color harmonies, Thomas Wilmer Dewing (1851–1938) lived and worked at the forefront of developments in modern American art. His paintings, which navigate a course between the bravura of John Singer Sargent and the attenuated aestheticism of James McNeill Whistler, convey a sensuous beauty that remains uniquely his and that represents an exceptional phase in American painting. Featuring a comprehensive biography and engaging, narrative commentaries, this elegant, 2-volume catalogue raisonné is an essential and much-needed reference. Included here are more than 550 works of art as well as previously unpublished photographs from the artist’s own albums; each work is accompanied by a full provenance, exhibition histories, and…

A dynamic 1928 work by the celebrated “Mother of American modernism” has been added to the collection at the Georgia O’Keeffe Museum in Santa Fe, New Mexico. Ritz Tower is a striking oil that O’Keeffe painted during her rise to fame within the art world, capturing the iconic skyscraper in nocturnal form, a long, slender piece that seems to tower above the viewer. O’Keeffe—who resided in New York throughout the 1920s with husband, photographer and art promoter, Alfred Stieglitz—lived directly in the midst of the city’s burgeoning cultural scene. Initially discouraged from creating urban scenes by some of her peers, Ritz Tower is a direct response to that dissuasion. “This is a painting as dazzling as the modern city itself,” says Ariel Plotek, curator of fine art for the Georgia…

In the 1970s, Carolyn and Peter Lynch purchased a historic home in Marblehead, on Massachusetts’ North Shore. The couple had a burgeoning art collection, and their new home galvanized their interests in local works. Because of their particular interest in regional art and furniture, the Lynches had long had a relationship with Peabody Essex Museum in Salem, Massachusetts—Carolyn had served on the museum’s Board of Overseers and the Board of Trustees, and the couple endowed the curator of American decorative art position in 2000—but it wasn’t until after Carolyn passed away in 2015 that an exhibition of their collection began to take shape. Carolyn died less than two weeks after being diagnosed with an aggressive form of leukemia. A Passion for American Art: Selections from the Carolyn and Peter Lynch…

1. JONATHAN BOOS 18 E. 64th Street, 4th Floor New York, NY 10065 2. GRAHAM SHAY 1857 34 E. 67th Street, Floor 3 New York, NY 10065 3. TAYLOR | GRAHAM 32 E. 67th Street New York, NY 10065 4. DAVID TUNICK, INC. 13 E. 69th Street New York, NY 10021 5. DEBRA FORCE FINE ART 13 E. 69th Street, Suite 4F New York, NY 10021 6. LOIS WAGNER FINE ARTS 15 E. 71st Street, Suite 2A New York, NY 10021 7. KRAUSHAAR GALLERIES 15 E. 71st Street, Suite 2B New York, NY 10021 8. AVERY GALLERIES 50 E. 72nd Street, Apt. 10D New York, NY 10021 9. BETTY KRULIK FINE ART 50 E. 72nd Street, Suite 2A New York, NY, 10021 10. JAMES REINISH & ASSOCIATES 25 E. 73rd…

From 1930 to 1960, Josef Albers and his wife Anni traveled south to Mexico more than a dozen times. It was on these trips where the two fell in love with the pre-Columbian art and architecture that would influence Josef for the remainder of his career. This is even more important considering that Albers was the head of the painting program at the legendary Black Mountain College in Ashville, North Carolina, during this same period and taught American artists such as Ruth Asawa, Ray Johnson, Robert Rauschenberg, Cy Twombly and Susan Weil. “Through his close attention to ancient architecture, Josef Albers developed new modes of seeing the modern world,” says Lauren Hickson, Associate Curator of Collections at the Guggenheim Museum in New York. “This exhibition of his celebrated paintings, along…

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…

Steven Stern Fine Arts Opens New Location A new gallery space for Steven Stern Fine Arts opened this March in Santa Monica, California, with an emphasis on 100 years of American art, focusing on the early California Impressionists (1910-1930), modernists (1930-1945) and Bay Area figurative painters (1955-1970). The venue itself is located in a landmark art deco building called the “Galleria DeMaio” in the heart of Santa Monica. Gallery owner Steven Stern comes from a long history of fine art dealers, including his father, George Stern, a renowned art dealer of early California Impressionism. Works can be viewed and purchased online at www.stevensternfineart.com. Rothko Chapel Restoration Rothko Chapel is conducting a year-long construction project to the chapel itself along with various campus enhancements such as new park and garden areas…

MAY/JUNE 2019 DENVER ART MUSEUM www.denverartmuseum.org Norman Rockwell: Imagining Freedom, an exhibition at the Denver Art Museum, focuses on the artist’s 1940s depictions of Franklin D. Roosevelt’s Four Freedoms speech—Freedom of Worship, Freedom of Speech, Freedom from Want and Freedom from Fear. This will be the most comprehensive traveling exhibition featuring these iconic works, several of which include The Golden Rule, Freedom of Speech and The Problem We All Live With. The exhibition will be on view May 3 through August 23 in the Anschutz Gallery and Martin & McCormick special exhibition galleries. PALMER MUSEUM OF ART www.palmermuseum.psu.edu Under the Mexican Sky: A Revolution in Modern Photography at Palmer Museum of Art explores the medium of photography from artists hailing from all over the world in the aftermath of the…

The family of artist and educator Nelbert Chouinard (1879-1969) recently gifted five works by the California-based landscape painter to the Pasadena Museum of History, as well as several textiles, photographs and ephemera. The rediscovered works, which include three paintings and two preparatory sketches, will become part of the museum’s permanent collection due to the generosity of the Chouinard family and the efforts of art historians and curators Maurine St. Gaudens and Joseph Morsman. Recently, they were a part of the exhibition Something Revealed: California Women Artists Emerge, 1860-1960, which ran through the end of March. Chouinard played an important role in the arts community and the development of arts education in Los Angeles, her artwork lesser known than her educational efforts, which included teaching positions at California’s Polytechnic Institute (now…

Creating artwork light years ahead of their time is a common thread between Georgia O’Keeffe, Hilma af Klint and Agnes Pelton. However, unlike O’Keeffe, who is well-known as the “Mother of American modernism,” and Swedish artist af Klint, whose work just left New York’s Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in April, a survey of Pelton’s work has not been conducted in more than 23 years. That is, until this past March, when Phoenix Art Museum became the first stop on a U.S. tour of the artist’s ethereal paintings. Agnes Pelton: Desert Transcendentalist will be on view at the museum, located in Phoenix, Arizona, until September. After Phoenix Art Museum, the exhibition will travel to the New Mexico Museum of Art in Santa Fe. Later, it will head to the Whitney Museum…

Bonhams’ upcoming American Art auction on May 22 offers a multitude of works representing various genres in American art through the 19th and 20th centuries. The sale also features a wide range of price points, with some lots starting at less than $3,000, opening up opportunities to those new at collecting, while simultaneously offering lots that will undoubtedly appeal to experienced collectors. One of the top lots available is Charles Prendergast’s Fantasy, estimated at $200,000 to $300,000. “This one is a highly detailed, complex composition of animals [and human figures], and has the unique attention to detail found in Prendergast’s largescale decorative screens,” says Jennifer Jacobsen, director of American art at Bonhams. Within the piece, Prendergast utilizes tempera and gold leaf to create different levels of opaqueness, rubbing out the…

More than 1,000 lots of glass, jewelry, lamps, fine art, pottery, silver and furniture will arrive at auction during Morphy Auctions’ Fine Art & Decorative Arts sale June 18 and 19. The sale, beginning at 9 a.m. each day, will include lamps by Tiffany Studios, as well as a selection of paintings and sculpture from noteworthy American and European artists. Arriving to market from a private collection is a fall painting by Jasper Francis Cropsey titled Autumn in the Adirondacks. The painting, estimated to sell between $20,000 and $25,000, depicts an inlet of water within the Adirondacks where an angler rows his boat. The fisherman is surrounded by lush foliage in reds and browns—the colors of the season. Cropsey was a recognized painter of the Hudson River School tradition creating…