Fine Art Connoisseur September-October 2016

Why can you fall in love with an artwork at first sight? And why might you instantly find others repulsive? The answers lie within each viewer. What one person responds to, another rejects. Some of us are drawn to blondes or brunettes, others to redheads or people with no hair at all. Many preferences are rooted in our DNA; some scientists even believe they can predict the appearance of the mate you will choose based on your own body type and the geographical origin of your ancestors. Artists and dealers regularly steer viewers toward admiring and buying particular artworks. Over the years I have read many volumes showing painters how to lead the viewer’s eye, how to romanticize the subject matter, or how the coloring of glazes can trigger impulses…

Although galleries remain crucial in the selling of fine art, the art fairs now staged worldwide have surged in both number and importance. Fairs offer an increasingly buzzy vibe — complemented with lectures, tours, and loan exhibitions — and a handy way for busy consumers to see many different art forms under one roof. This consequent opening of new vistas is terrific, but, like many people, I am concerned that fairs offer only a superficial glimpse of what gallery exhibitors do best: conveying their profound understanding of the artists and artworks they represent, and developing trusted relationships with clients over the long term. Like visits to a shopping mall, fair-going can sometimes result in “one of these, one of those” collecting, usually skewed in favor of exhibitors with the flashiest…

Some stories can be told over and over and remain original. We may know the plot and the ending, yet we still want to know every detail. Such is that of Christ taken down from the cross and cradled in the arms of his mother, Mary. “You don’t see Japanese artists dealing with this subject and story, the pietà, very often,” says Mark Del Vecchio, curator of modern ceramics for Cowan’s Auctions, “but Akio Takamori [b. 1950] has always dealt with subject matter that vessel-oriented artwork doesn’t usually address. Akio’s works represent a postmodern merging of cultures.” This is not the first time Del Vecchio has encountered Takamori’s stoneware Pietà, which will be featured in a sale of modern ceramics at Cowan’s in October. Del Vecchio and his business/life partner,…

Although today’s professional man no longer adorns his high heels with pom-poms or cloaks his shirt collar in pearl-studded lace, those serving in the courts of England’s Queen Elizabeth I and her successor, King James I, were particular about such details. “I am passionate about portraits, and the wildly costumed gentlemen courtiers of the Tudor and Jacobean courts were dressed to the highest standards of fashion of the day,” says Martyn Lawrence Bullard, who, as the interior designer to celebrities and a TV celebrity himself, is known for his own sartorial splendor, complete with watch fobs and knotted ascots. “Six years ago, I first encountered this wonderful painting of Richard Sack-ville, the third Earl of Dorset, painted by William Larkin, and have been drawn to visit it again several times.…

DUSTIN PAYNE (b. 1981) was brought up on a ranch in southern Colorado. On his mother’s side, he is descended from the sister of the Texas Cattle King, Charlie Goodnight (1836–1929); in fact, Payne once made a bronze of Goodnight’s lead steer, “Old Blue.” As a child, he relished the drawings and books of the cowboy chronicler Will James (1892–1942), but it was surely genetics that spurred him at age 12 to start bringing the American West to three-dimensional life: he is the son of the well-known sculptor Vic Payne (b. 1960) and the grandson of the sculptor Ken Payne (1938–2012). For many years, Dustin shared a studio with his father, who showed him how to develop an idea from a quick sketch in clay to a patinated bronze.…

Mara Sfara creates worlds of whimsy that extend from the bottom of the ocean floor to the top of Mount Olympus. She is part of a long tradition in which artists have used the tools of traditional realism to create realities entirely their own. From Hieronymus Bosch to Salvador Dalí, artists have dreamed their own worlds, from the nightmarish to the enchanted. Sfara draws upon a wide array of technical skills to present a world that is innocent and full of wonder, and playful, too, one that reminds us more of Red Grooms than of René Magritte. Sfara’s technical skills come from years of training at some of the best art departments in the country, from the University of Rochester to the University of Pennsylvania, from Rutgers University to NYU,…