From left, Parbs Anant, Michael Diaz-Griffith, Rowena Cameron-Mowat, Jason Busch, Jarrett McCusker and Peter Carlisle.
Photos courtesy Olde Hope
NEW YORK CITY — On January 13, Olde Hope hosted an evening reception to open, “Recent Arrivals featuring Highlights from an Important 30-year Pennsylvania Collection,” which will be on view at their New York gallery until April 1. The collection was begun more than 30 years ago by Susan Fetterolf and her husband, Jeff Gorrin, while living in New York City. Their early collecting interest was in the Arts and Crafts Movement for their New York apartment, but when they purchased a farm in the beautiful Oley Valley of Berks County, Penn., their interests turned to the early arts of Susan’s home state.
Susan and Jeff began with a focus on what was needed to furnish their Eighteenth Century stone farmhouse, while always seeking the best in form, surface and condition. Like most collectors, the contents grew far beyond the functional to include paintings, carvings, textiles, lighting and anything that caught their collective eye. And the couple did not restrict their acquisitions to pieces of Pennsylvania origin, though that was a focus, especially when objects had a provenance to the Oley Valley.
Some of the highlights include an important portrait by Joshua Johnson, the early Nineteenth Century free Black artist of Baltimore, Md. It depicts Elizabeth Wise Chandler, the wife of a Windsor chair maker, Thomas Chandler Sr, and the mother of the renowned potter Thomas Chandler who moved from Baltimore to Edgefield, S.C., and whose work is currently included in the exhibit on Edgefield pottery at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. A rare chest of drawers from the Mahantongo Valley of Pennsylvania is in an unusual color combination of light blue and green decorated with rosettes in red and yellow. An Eighteenth Century dower chest features an exceptional front panel adorned with two rampant unicorns. Works with noteworthy provenance are numerous, including a rare hanging spice cupboard from the collection of Walter Himmelreich of Lancaster, Penn., an early mortised bench with boldly scalloped sides and a glowing red painted surface from the Austin and Jill Fine collection, and a Chippendale chest of drawers with vibrant red and yellow graining from the Donald A. Shelley collection. Also included will be early lighting, iron, pottery, hooked rugs, numerous paintings and other rare furniture forms.
Objects in the exhibition are featured on the Olde Hope website (www.oldehope.com) and will include special selections of inventory acquired over the previous few months and not yet exhibited. Gallery hours will be expanded for the last two weeks of the month to coincide with The Winter Show at the Park Avenue Armory and the Americana sales at both Sotheby’s and Christie’s. As of February, gallery hours will once again be Wednesday through Saturday, 11 am to 5 pm, and by appointment.
Olde Hope’s New York Gallery is at 115 East 72nd Street. For more information, info@oldehope.com or 215-297-0200.
