Innholdsfortegnelse for September/October 2019 i Fine Art Connoisseur

Years ago, while I was visiting Schiller & Bodo, a wonderful gallery of historical art on Manhattan’s Upper East Side, the proprietors (Lisa and Susan) told me, “Fine Art Connoisseur is the standard-bearer for realism in America today.” Of course, I was thrilled that they recognized our efforts. In fact, since the foundation of this magazine, we have worked to familiarize our readers with the new breed of realists, encouraging collectors to acquire their artworks and galleries to represent them. As I have written on this page many times, younger realist artists today, and those who trained them yesterday, will reap massive rewards when they are older because the world will have recognized the value not only of their technical skills, but also of their distinctive takes on contemporary life…

CARLOS SAGRERA (b. 1987) is a Spanish painter currently residing in Leipzig, Germany — the birthplace of an art movement that became an international phenomenon in the early 2000s. Having earned a B.F.A. from the European University of Madrid in 2011, Sagrera moved to Leipzig three years later, following his admiration of that famous group of German painters, “The New Leipzig School.” Known for figuration that incorporated abstract elements, its members shared a respect for technical skill (mostly derived from the painterly traditions of the centuries-old Leipzig Academy), stylistic experimentation, and exploration of topical subject matter. Sagrera now shares studio space in a converted cotton factory with a new generation of like-minded artists influenced by the New Leipzig School, each with his or her own style and subject matter. For…

The Pennsylvania painter John Willard Raught (1857–1931) is something of an enigma. His early years followed the trajectory of other aspiring American artists: study in New York City and then France, inclusion at the “right” exhibitions, and working to make a name for himself in the competitive art world of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. But somewhere along the way, Raught stopped. He returned to his hometown of Scranton, moved back into the family home with several of his sisters, and spent the rest of his life working to capture his immediate surroundings in oils on canvas. Now a new exhibition, Beauty Lies Close at Home, on view only at the University of Scranton’s Hope Horn Gallery from September 6 through November 8, is set to examine Raught’s…

ART TAKES CENTER STAGE IN JACKSON JACKSON HOLE, WYOMING jacksonholechamber.com wildlifeart.org/western-visionsjacksonholeartauction.com jacksonholefineartfair.com September It’s September, which means the famous resort area of Jackson Hole, Wyoming, is celebrating the arts again. Blessed with the stunning Grand Teton mountains all around and a lively cultural scene centered on bustling Town Square downtown, Jackson draws thousands of collectors every fall to meet their favorite artists, to see and buy art, and to enjoy the weather. At the heart of it all is the Jackson Hole Fall Arts Festival (September 4–15), now marking its 35th anniversary. Its organizers at the Jackson Hole Chamber of Commerce will get things rolling in earnest on Friday evening, September 6, when art lovers participate in the Palettes and Palates gallery stroll downtown. On offer throughout the festival are exhibitions, auctions, demonstrations,…

In August I visited Cooper Hewitt, the National Design Museum operated by the Smithsonian Institution in New York City. For four months in 1991, I volunteered there as an intern, and although I have returned regularly ever since, I was delighted to find it hopping with visitors on a sultry Tuesday afternoon. On view was the latest edition of the Cooper Hewitt Design Triennial, held — as its name suggests — every three years in order to show us what’s happening in every corner of the design world. On view until January 20, the current edition was co-organized with Cube, a design museum in the Netherlands, and its overall theme is nature. Nature is, of course, the greatest designer ever: our own bodies are nothing short of miraculous, and trees…

For the artist Gabriela Gonzalez Dellosso (b. 1968), a career-defining inspiration struck during a casual visit to New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art with her mother in 2008. There she came upon the 1785 Self-Portrait with Two Pupils painted by Adélaïde Labille-Guiard (1749–1803). Dellosso recalls, “The painting haunted me for months. I was so surprised I had never heard of Adélaïde or anything about her.” She began researching, and the more she learned, the more she felt a kinship with — and admiration for — the French artist. A student of Maurice Quentin de la Tour, Labille-Guiard was an outstanding portraitist admitted to Paris’s Académie Royale de Peinture et de Sculpture in 1783. (Now more famous, Élisabeth Louise Vigée Le Brun [1755–1842] was admitted at the same time.) While the…

The American sculptor Daniel Chester French (1850–1931) is renowned for his monumental works, including the seated Abraham Lincoln for the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C. His daughter, Margaret French Cresson (1889–1973), was also a talented sculptor, as well as a writer and preservationist. She grew up in New York City and at Chesterwood, the country home, studio, and gardens her father had established in Stockbridge, Massachusetts, as a respite from urban life. Margaret French Cresson was deeply rooted in this property in the Berkshire Hills that was, and continues to be, a hotbed of creativity. In 1969 Chesterwood became a site of the National Trust for Historic Preservation thanks to her generous donation of the studio and a portion of its acreage. Her pivotal role is being celebrated this year…

1 Lucia Hammond, “John Willard Raught Sees New Beauty and Glory as He Begins Painting City,” The Scranton Sun, undated clipping c. 1927. 2 Quoted in Frederick C. Moffatt, Arthur Wesley Dow (1857-1922), Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution, 1977, 27. 3 Raught, “Fourth of July in Brittany,” The Scranton Republican, 13 Feb 1930, 8. 4 L.S. Gilham, “John Willard Raught,” The Scranton Republican, 12 Aug 1931, 8. 5 Raught, “The Tragedy of Coal Mining,” The Scranton Republican, 6 Feb 1928, 8. 6 Corwin Knapp Linson, My Stephen Crane, Syracuse: Syracuse University, 1958, 67. 7 Unpublished letter from Raught to William Macbeth (Archives of American Art, 1 March [no year, but probably 1911 or 1912]. 8 Stephen Crane, “In the Depths of a Coal Mine,” McClure’s Magazine, Aug 1894, III: 3, 195.…

ARTISTS & GALLERIES Franklin, Tennessee haynesgalleries.com through September 28 Located just outside of Nashville, Haynes Galleries is presenting Seth Haverkamp’s Magical Portraits. In April, one of this exhibition’s paintings, Mars Rising, won the Portrait Society of America’s highest honor, the Draper Grand Prize. That award winner reveals a boy’s back by using a full-length mirror, and indeed many of these recent pictures show this Tennessee artist playing with such reflections. With much imagination and a bit of whimsy, Haverkamp is an expert at contrasting warm and cool light to create compelling images we want to study closely. Athlone, County Westmeath, Ireland luangallery.ie through October 13 The Luan Gallery is exhibiting new paintings by the Irish artist Conor Walton. He has titled this show Asymmetrical Warfare, a phrase that “sums up…

When children pose for their portraits, they often require distractions. When Jamie Bernstein and her siblings, Nina and Alexander, sat for a group portrait in the summer of 1967, the painter Jane Wilson (1924–2015) found ways to keep them patient as they posed on her apartment terrace in Italy. “She gave us a deck of cards that we could play with,” recalls Bernstein, the eldest daughter, then 14, of the conductor and composer Leonard Bernstein. “I remember, too, that some records were playing on the stereo, though I have to say it was rather boring to sit there and sit there.” What resulted, though, is something that the three siblings now cherish so much that they refer to the painting as, Jamie explains with affection, “the portrait of the three-headed…

Founded in 1999 by the New Jersey collectors Fred, Sherry, and Kara Lysandra Ross with several of their fellow scholars, the Art Renewal Center (ARC) is a nonprofit educational foundation that encourages the reemergence of traditional art and training techniques. The fruits of its labors are becoming ever more apparent as time goes by. ARC is probably best known to readers of Fine Art Connoisseur for its impressive website (artrenewal.org), which contains more than 80,000 high-resolution images by Old Master, 19th-century, and early-20th-century artists, along with artist biographies and related articles. The site has evolved into an invaluable reference for anyone interested in historical realism. ARC is equally committed to bringing this rich heritage up to date by highlighting the booming field of contemporary realism. In addition to its ever-growing…

The title of this article is derived from a reprint of an article written by Anne Hard, “Talented Daughter of Famous Father, Marble Portraits Win Name for Margaret French Cresson of Biographer in Stone,” Arkansas Gazette (clipping in file not dated). The original article by Hard was “A Biographer in Stone,” The New York Herald Tribune, January 26, 1930, 16–17. 1 The exhibition was held at the Stockbridge Library, Museum & Archives from March 1 through May 30, 2019. It contained sculptures, preparatory photographs, exhibition catalogues, and memorabilia. Another highlight of the 50th anniversary is the publication of Harold Holzer’s biography, Monument Man: The Life and Art of Daniel Chester French (Princeton Architectural Press). 2 Daniel Chester French (DCF) in a letter to his brother, William Merchant Richardson French, July…

1 Helen Choate Platt, “Naumkeag and Us,” 1973, Mabel Choate Papers, The Trustees. 2 J. A. Lloyd Hyde, “Miss Choate’s China,” Country Life, Feb 1934. 3 Robert D. Mussey, Jr., Overall Museum Collections Survey Report, 1995, The Trustees. 4 Mabel was the fourth of five children born to Joseph Choate and his wife, Caroline Dutcher Sterling Choate (1837–1929). Her siblings were Ruluff (1864–1884), George (1867–1937), Josephine (1869–1896), and Joseph Hodges, Jr. (1876–1968). 5 “Memoirs by Miss Mabel Choate,” Naumkeag, 1952 Papers, The Trustees. 6 I am indebted to Paul Miller, former curator of the Preservation Society of Newport County, who provided information regarding interiors by McKim, Mead & White in Newport. Plans and photographs of Naumkeag appear in Richard Guy Wilson, McKim, Mead & White, Architects (New York: Rizzoli, 1983),…