Innholdsfortegnelse for September-October 2020/ No. 53 i American Fine Art Magazine

I’ve talked about this before but I think it is so important that I wanted to touch on it again. As the editor of four magazines focused on getting the best art in front of the best collectors in the country each month, I’m continually in awe of the commitment and drive these collectors have for art. Every day I think that even now, during probably the worst economic situation we will face in our lifetime, we still have dedicated people searching daily for new art to acquire. And not just searching for it but buying it! Collecting. In the purest form. Out of love. Out of passion. Out of commitment. Every single day. I’ve been talking to galleries, artists and auction houses around the country for the last six…

Scenes of New York City A major gift of 113 works of art from some of the most prominent names in American art has recently come into the possession of the New York Historical Society. The gift comes from collectors Elie and Sarah Hirschfeld’s, Scenes of New York City collection, which contains 130 works dating from the mid-19th through the 21st-centuries. Artists represented include such esteemed names as Marc Chagall, David Hockney, Edward Hopper, Yvonne Jacquette, Jacob Lawrence, Louise Nevelson, Georgia O’Keeffe, Norman Rockwell and Andy Warhol. The Met reopens The Metropolitan Museum of Art reopens to the public on Saturday, August 29 after having been closed since March 13. Previously, it had been over a century since The Met had been closed for more than three consecutive days. “Perhaps…

www.cartermuseum.org Opening in December is a major exhibition at the Amon Carter Museum of American Art in Fort Worth, Texas. The work of famed seascape painter Winslow Homer, is paired alongside legendary cowboy artist Frederic Remington in Mythmakers: The Art of Winslow Homer and Frederic Remington. This is the first exhibition of its kind to examine the similarities between the two artists’ work, including themes, artistic sensibilities and technical processes. While widely recognized as artists who reinforced an American identity rooted in action, independence and a connection to the outdoors, the correlations between Homer’s and Remington’s works have rarely been considered because of their differences in subject matter.…

www.noguchi.org The Noguchi Museum in Long Island City recently announced its line-up of online programs and exhibitions, which includes Noguchi’s Personal Collection happening on Thursday, September 10. Assistant curator Kate Wiener will lead a presentation of selected objects from celebrated Japanese-American artist Isamu Noguchi’s collectibles, including his personal collection of objects ranging from musical instruments to ancient artifacts from around the world. Noguchi’s collectibles are part of The Study Collection, now digitized in The Isamu Noguchi Archive.…

It isn’t a barn, it’s a shed. Long and narrow, this and similar wooden buildings with cladding boards that could be propped open to allow for air circulation exemplified the kind of utilitarian structure that would be praised for pure geometry and no-nonsense beauty. Beginning in the 18th century, these sheds appeared with some frequency along the extent of the Connecticut River, stretching from Vermont and Massachusetts through central Connecticut. The navigable river allowed for easy transport to coastal shipping and urban markets. The sheds were built to shelter a crop not usually associated with the Northeast: tobacco. Inland prosperity was supported in part by this cash crop, which may have been one of reasons that Patrick Garvan and his wife, Mary, set up housekeeping in Connecticut after emigrating from…

September 21-30 Sotheby’s Online t: (212) 606-7000 www.sothebys.com Beginning September 21, Sotheby’s will be offering stunning works of American art during its mid-season sale. Highlights from the sale include George Inness’ moody oil work St. Andrews, New Brunswick, a 32-by-42-inch work estimated at $100,000 to $150,000. “It certainly feels moody and dark, very much like much of his work, but it also has a cheery subject and is very thoughtful,” says Elizabeth Goodridge, American art specialist at Sotheby’s. “It’s also impressive in scale—it’s quite large—and a really accomplished work by the artist.” Another large work in the sale is by the late Wolf Kahn, High Barn, estimated at $30,000 to $50,000. Kahn, who was famous for his landscapes done in a Color Field style, passed away at the age of…

The Coeur d’Alene Art Auction brought a number of important works to bidders on July 25, including works from a variety of categories such as wildlife, landscapes, scenes with cowboys and Native Americans, works from Taos Society of Artists members and contemporary Western works. The sale realized $10.4 million. “We were extremely pleased with the results for the sale. In the face of the uncertainty with COVID we were quite happy with total sales of over $10.4 million,” says auction partner Mike Overby. “We made a decision this spring to offer less lots but of high quality, capping the auction at 260 lots instead of the 320+ we typically take in. This strategy paid off with strong bidding across the board. Online bidders were up over 50 percent from last…

AUGUST 20-23 Art Market Hamptons BRIDGEHAMPTON HISTORICAL SOCIETY Bridgehampton, NY www.artmarkethamptons.com THROUGH AUGUST 21 Summer Road Trip! RICHARD NORTON GALLERY Chicago, IL www.richardnortongallery.com AUGUST 28-30 August Auction THOMASTON PLACE AUCTION GALLERIES Thomaston, ME www.thomastonauction.com THROUGH AUGUST 30 Expanding Abstraction: Pushing the Boundaries of Painting in the Americas, 1958-1983 BLANTON MUSEUM OF ART Austin, TX www.blantonmuseum.org THROUGH AUGUST 30 George Washington and His World THE GEORGE WASHINGTON UNIVERSITY MUSEUM Washington, DC www.museum.gwu.edu THROUGH AUGUST 30 The Art and Artists of Monhegan Island NEW BRITAIN MUSEUM OF AMERICAN ART New Britain, CT www.nbmaa.org THROUGH AUGUST 31 Images of Summer by American Women Artists HAWTHORNE FINE ART New York, NY www.hawthornefineart.com THROUGH SEPTEMBER 5 Modern Mix: Selections from the Cape Cod Museum of Art & the Cahoon Museum of American Art CAHOON MUSEUM…

www.wichitaartmuseum.org Frances H. Gearhart: Color Block Prints in Wichita showcases the work of Frances H. Gearhart, one of the foremost color woodcut artists of the early 20th century, known for her dramatic landscapes of the California mountains, deserts and shoreline. The Californian artist’s desaturated color palettes paired with bold compositions lead the way for modern art and design. The exhibition, organized by the Wichita Art Museum in Wichita, Kansas and guest curated by Roger Genser, is on view through February 14, 2021.…

The point of Fresh Fields is to expose the politics in the picturesque, to peel back the beauty—the daubs and strokes of oil paint, the emphasis on light, the sheer, gossamer airiness of American impressionism in order to examine the layers of history beneath those gorgeous surfaces. Curator Amy Kurtz Lansing has enlisted ecologists, local historians, specialists in the history of slavery and race, and Native Americans from the region to shed new light on works we may have taken for granted, demanding a revision, a “re-seeing,” a “seeing again.” George Brainerd Burr’s oil on panel sketch, President Wilson’s Daughters, almost certainly done on the spot, epitomizes the exhibition’s ambitious aim in miniature. At first glance, the daughters, clad in long white dresses seem liberated from the strictures of their…

Through September 15 Spencer Helfen Fine Arts 9190 W. Olympic Boulevard, Suite 424 Beverly Hills, CA 90212 t: (310) 273-8838 www.helfenfinearts.com “It was intended to replace in the eyes of the world the image of a destroyed San Francisco.” Art dealer Spencer Helfen has spent his career collecting art and ephemera celebrating the 1915 Panama-Pacific International Exposition of 1915. And, despite all his efforts, there was one thing that continually eluded him: an original poster of the event in good condition. Now, however, he can check that off the list as one has emerged. The poster, with an image of Hercules ripping open the Culebra Cut to forge the Panama Canal, was created by Perham Wilhelm Nahl in 1913. “It’s a truly wonderful image of the Greek God spreading apart…

Through September 5, 2020 Cahoon Museum of American Art 4676 Falmouth Road Cotuit, MA 02635 t: (508) 428-7581 www.cahoonmuseum.org Two unique museums on Cape Cod have collaborated to celebrate their founding collectors and the artists of American modernism, many of whom had an association with the Cape. Modern Mix, at the Cahoon Museum of American Art in Cotuit, Massachusetts, draws from the Cahoon’s collection and that of the Cape Cod Museum of Art in Dennis. The exhibition runs through September 5. The Cape Cod Museum of Art emphasizes the art and artists of the Cape and Islands, and the Cahoon Museum of American Art focuses on a broader spectrum of American art and the art of New England. The founding collection of the Cahoon Museum was assembled by Rosemary and…

Swann Auction Galleries held an online sale of African American fine art on June 4 with fantastic results—the summer sale topped its high estimate with a total of $3.5 million in sales. In addition, the auction had an 88 percent sell-through rate by lot as well as numerous auction records. Leading the sale was Richmond Barthé’s Feral Benga, a bronze with dark brown patina of a man in a dynamic pose, wielding a blade. The bronze, modeled in 1935 and cast in 1986, sold for more than ten times its high estimate when it hammered at a stellar $629,000. “We had a number of interested parties who together, swiftly bid the lot up to around $100,000, but the bidding quickly became a battle between two very determined collectors,” says Nigel…

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 Georgia O’Keeffe Museum in Santa Fe, New Mexico. JOHN O’HERN John O’Hern retired to Santa Fe, New Mexico, after 30 years in the museum business, specifically as the Executive Director and Curator of the Arnot Art Museum, in Elmira, New York. John was chair of the Artists Panel of the New York State Council…

MUSEUM OF THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION www.amrevmuseum.org The Museum of the American Revolution in Philadelphia reopens to the public on September 3, with special access for museum members beginning August 20. New health and safety measures have been implemented for visitors, including reduced capacity, advance online ticket purchasing and enhanced sanitizing and cleaning protocols. From September 3 and onward, the museum will operate during the hours of 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. from Thursday through Sunday, until further notice. There will also be a range of online programs available for those who would like to stay at home. In addition, the museum’s exhibition When Women Lost the Vote: A Revolutionary Story, 1776-1807, originally set to open in August, will now begin October 2. The exhibition explores the history of the nation’s…

www.morsemuseum.org The Morse Museum of American Art’s newly acquired Tiffany cast-iron fireplace hood, circa 1883, will become part of the museum’s Laurelton Hall galleries, which contain the largest repository of art and architectural objects from Tiffany’s legendary estate. The fireplace hood comes from Laurelton Hall, Louis Comfort Tiffany’s famous Long Island home, and was once thought to be lost to the fire that consumed much of the estate in 1957. The Morse Museum’s installation of the massive fireplace hood, measuring more than 66 inches tall and 55 inches wide, opens October 20.…

When Gina Puzzuoli was growing up in Cleveland, her mother was crippled and her father, a student at Western Reserve University, would take her to the Cleveland Museum of Art on weekends because it was free. Curious, even at that early age, she was fascinated by the labels for the works of art. Many of them noted that the works were gifts to the museum. She wondered, “Why, if you owned that would you give it away?” Her father replied, “If they hadn’t, we wouldn’t have got to see it!” Although she valued old things, her family was poor. “Art was valued,” she comments, “but we didn’t have anything. My father always stressed to me that you need to make a difference in life…that life is a gift and you’d…

The market for Pennsylvania Impressionism continued to show its strength during Freeman’s June 14 American Art & Pennsylvania Impressionists sale, as all artwork available in the category found new buyers. The section also accounted for nearly 80 percent of the sale total, achieving $2.2 million in just 36 lots. The sale as a whole had 74 pieces available with a 95 percent sell-through rate and a grand total of more than $2.8 million. The highlight of the auction was the 11 painting collection of Heidi Bingham Stott, which kicked off the Pennsylvania Impressionist portion of the sale. “There was one lot that was the last lot of the American section, a piece by Stephen Scott Young, and then Pennsylvania Impressionism started off with lots 39 through 49—all 11 pieces from…

ADDISON ROWE GALLERY 229 E. Marcy Street, Santa Fe, NM 87501 (505) 982-1533, www.addisonrowe.com Represents work by the early American and Southwest modernists, including the Stieglitz Circle, the Taos Society of Artists and the Santa Fe Art Colony. ADELSON GALLERIES 595 Madison Avenue, 4th Floor, New York, NY 10022 (212) 439-6800, www.adelsongalleries.com A family-owned gallery pecializing in 19th- and 20th -century American art. A.J. KOLLAR FINE PAINTINGS, LLC 1421 E. Aloha Street, Seattle, WA 98112 (206) 323-2156, www.ajkollar.com Specializing in American paintings from 1840 to 1940, Hudson River School, still life, Western art, American impressionism, post-impressionism and modernism. AVERY GALLERIES 100 Chetwynd Drive, Bryn Mawr, PA 19010 (610) 896-0680, www.averygalleries.com Specializing in American paintings, watercolors and drawings from the 19th and 20th centuries. Avery is committed to the preservation and…