Intrigued by the play of patterns and light in the area, John MacDonald transforms local scenes into colorful woodblock designs of dappled light and hue at the Harrison Gallery. This first exhibition to explore the paintings and pastels created by Marsden Hartley in New Mexico - currently on view at Alexandre Gallery through April 19 - represents the artist's only trip to the American West. The show will be the first to explorethe movement as a global phenomenon affecting cities as far apart as Paris, New York, Bombay and Shanghai. The museum's major expansion and renovation design, by architect Rafael Vinoly, features a soaring glass canopy that unifies the museum's campus with light-filled spaces. "Heart Week" in Nashville is the unofficial convention, twice each year, February and October, for dealers of Americana. The name comes from the premier show of the week, Libby and Richard Kramer's Heart of County Antique Show and Sale, but the fun spills over into two other shows nearby. The dealer base for this long-running event is undoubtedly part of the reason for its success and longevity. Exhibitors come from Connecticut, Vermont, New Hampshire, Rhode Island and Massachusetts, and they are the among the best in American country. 333 Auctions was recently formed by a partnership between David Rago, Nicholas Dawes, Suzanne Perrault, John Sollo, and Miriam Tucker. The five collaborated to form an estates auction venture new to the firm that is better known under the banner of Rago. The second portion of the highly anticipated Bob Mebane absentee auction closed with strong prices posted across the board. Mebane, who began collecting during the mid-1960s, was referred to as one of the "second generation" collectors that followed in the footsteps of glass collecting pioneers. Putting to use the wisdom provided in his book "
Good, Better, Best," author/dealer/advisor and Northeast Auction American furniture expert Albert Sack sat in the front row of the sale with a private client and assisted in bidding. The company intends to utilize the process to reconstruct its balance sheet, while continuing to provide service to members and users. Degas lovers can enjoy a double treat over the course of the next couple of months with two separate shows exploring his work and times at the Philadelphia Museum of Art and Yale University Art Gallery. YONKERS, N.Y. "One must never forget," the incomparable Gertrude Stein observed years ago, "that the earth seen from an airplane is more splendid than the earth seen from an automobile." Recognizing that reality, for the past 30 years Yvonne Jacquette has utilized the vantage point of commercial jets and private planes, as well as high-rise buildings, to create both daytime and nighttime views of cities and towns, factories and farmlands, rivers and harbors, and woodlands, pastures and power plants from coast to coast and border to border, as well as in the Far East. Contemporary Approaches to Blacksmithing NEW YORK CITY Salander-O'Reilly Galleries is presenting its sixth annual exhibition of paintings by Paul Georges (1923-2002) titled, "Last Paintings," the final body of work that Georges completed before his death in May of 2002 in Normandy, France. The gallery is also presenting works by the American figurative painter Gregory Gillespie (1936-2000). Both exhibits run through March 29. CAMBRIDGE, MASS. Harvard University presents "George Bellows: The Tragedies of War," on view through May 11 at the Fogg Art Museum. The exhibition features 32 objects, including drawings, etchings, lithographs and one painting. NEW YORK CITY Susan Weber Soros, founder and director of the Bard Graduate Center for Studies in the Decorative Arts, Design and Culture, has announced the recipients of the seventh annual Iris Foundation Awards for Outstanding Contributions to the Decorative Arts. NASHVILLE, TENN. -- The Heart of Country Antiques Show, February 13--16, brought together more than 200 exhibitors from Florida to Montana and from Maine to Arizona. NEW YORK CITY Stella Show Mgmt. Co., amid an "Orange Alert" level in the national terrorism threat rating system, put on a brave Valentine's Day of a show at Gramercy Park February 14-16 at the 69th Regiment Armory. BOCA RATON, FLA. Theriault's, the Annapolis, Md.-based antique doll auction house, traveled to Florida on February 22-23 where more than 100 attended the firm's auction of The French Lieutenant and His Bride. LONG BEACH, CALIF. Heritage, auctioneer of the February-March Long Beach Coin Expo, realized $6.7 million with its Signature Sale and an additional $446,648 with its Bullet Auction for total prices realized in excess of $7.1 million. SOUTH KENSINGTON, ENGLAND Christie's first vintage film poster sale of 2003 realized $422,368, selling 93 percent by lot, with more than 280 lots embracing all the collectible film genres such as westerns, horror, science fiction, Ealing, Hitchcock and Bond. NEW YORK CITY Hirschl & Adler Galleries will exhibit "Observation & Creation: 200 Years of the Still Life," an exhibition of approximately 65 paintings, drawings, prints and decorative arts objects illustrating still life subjects from 1810 to the present. Depictions of fruits, flowers and trompe l'oeil subjects by both European and American fine and decorative artists will comprise this exhibition. The exhibition continues through April 26. NEW YORK CITY Noted philanthropist Robert W. Wilson has issued a $50 million challenge to the New York City-based World Monuments Fund (WMF), a private nonprofit organization dedicated to the preservation of historic monuments worldwide. VILLANOVA, PENN. -- Philadelphians have been involved in the China Trade since 1784, when local financier Robert Morris backed the first American merchant ship to dock in Canton, the Empress of China. Forty other prominent Philadelphia families soon joined Morris in commercial exchange with the East. Today it seems fair that another name be added to their ranks, that of the modern day China trader Elinor Gordon. LONG VALLEY, N.J. Despite the aftermath of an East Coast blizzard, the threat of severe flooding, and fog that would rival the streets of London, when the doors opened at 10 am on Saturday, February 22, for the 17th annual Antiques in Long Valley Show, dealers were ready with the wrapping paper and receipt books. PRINCETON, N.J.- Revolutionary Princeton was more like a snowy Valley Forge during the Lawrenceville/Princeton Antiques Show. The show, scheduled for Saturday, February 15 and Sunday, February 16, was snowed out on Sunday. ASHVILLE, N.C. - A Shaker cherry garment hanger from the Tim Bookout Collection once exhibited at the Whitney Museum in New York soared to a record $17,000 as the hammer fell at Brunk Auctions February sale. Aside from the original surface the hanger was stamped on both sides "M.E.T. 1864" for carver Mary E. Todd who lived from 1852 to 1881. NEW YORK CITY - A collection of manuscripts concerning the printing of the Talmud in Italy, and the subsequent public burning of these tomes by order of the Pope in 1555, was the top lot of Kestenbaum & Company's sale of Fine Judaica on March 11. Estimated at $50/70,000, the collection commanded fierce bidding in the room and the phones and ultimately achieved $149,500. DOWNINGTOWN, PENN. The first catalog sale of 2003 by Pook & Pook, Inc. was conducted February 22 at their newly renovated facility, a state-of-the-art setting that is both patron and consignor friendly. They were friends and rivals, giants in their art, by turns contemptuous of and bedazzled by one another's work. Each prompted the other to achieve new heights, and in so doing, nourished a competition and exchange that sparked a revolution in art itself. Christopher Hartop negotiated the sale of the important silver tureen, supplied to Sir Robert Walpole (1676-1745), England's first prime minister. It had been in a private American collection since the early 1960s. Developed over more than 40 years, the Abrams Collection includes Dutch and Flemish drawings and is the foremost group of Seventeenth Century Dutch drawings in private hands. The exhibit will allow visitors to examine many important works that have seldom been on public display. This exhibition, slated for Dallas and Cleveland, features South Indian bronzes, most notably those produced under the reign of the Chola Dynasty between the Ninth and Thirteenth Centuries, which are famed for their subtlety of modeling and fluent outline of form. "Plans include the redesign of 'Art & Auction' and an expansion of its editorial focus," said LTB Art Limited's chairman Louise T. Blouin MacBain, whose short tenure as CEO of Phillips, de Pury & Luxembourg was the subject of much speculation in the trade. According to fair promoters, approximately 23,700 visitors descended on the piers, Manhattan's Hudson River waterfront, for the fair. Artists who attended included James Rosenquist, Haim Steinbach, Marina Abramovic, Alex Katz, Brice Marden, Chuck Close, Robert Wilson and Andres Serrano. The Bagdades' enormous enthusiasm for antiques regularly took them to shows and auctions all over the United States. They worked as a team: Dr Bagdade photographed objects of interest, while Mrs. Bagdade interviewed subjects and took notes. Advertised as "Quality fine art at realistic prices," the show serves our economic times and the beginning collector very well. Here one can find hundreds, if not thousands, of original works of art that are within most people's reach. Some works at the show were priced under $100. The recent estates auction conducted by Neal attracted exuberant bidding on furniture and decorative arts and set artist records for two paintings of historical significance. Skinner had its largest grossing jewelry sale ever on March 18, one that totaled $1,739,435 with an eight percent buy-in. The casepiece - which came with a detachable pierced crest, according to some a vernacular attempt at a stylish Chapin-style bonnet - sold in the room to Woodbury, Conn. dealer Harold Cole. Under the terms of the agreement, Sotheby's and Christie's will each pay $20 million to the class of plaintiffs. Sotheby's in its 2002 full year and fourth quarter results stated that it had recorded this amount in special charges during the fourth quarter of 2002. |
