Get out your Prozac -
Monday, May 25, 2009
Saturday, May 23, 2009
Changing the Art on the White House Walls
Barack Obama is taking on health care, financial regulation, torture and environmental policy. He’s also revamping the White House art collection.
www.lyonswiergallery.com
The Obamas are sending ripples through the art world as they put the call out to museums, galleries and private collectors that they’d like to borrow modern art by African-American, Asian, Hispanic and female artists for the White House. In a sharp departure from the 19th-century still lifes, pastorals and portraits that dominate the White House’s public rooms, they are choosing bold, abstract art works.
The overhaul is an important event for the art market. The Obamas’ art choices could affect the market values of the works and artists they decide to display. Museums and collectors have been moving quickly to offer up works for inclusion in the iconic space.
Their choices also, inevitably, have political implications, and could serve as a savvy tool to drive the ongoing message of a more inclusive administration. The Clintons received political praise after they selected Simmie Knox, an African-American artist from Alabama, to paint their official portraits. The Bush administration garnered approval for acquiring “The Builders,” a painting by African-American artist Jacob Lawrence, but also some criticism for the picture, which depicts black men doing menial labor.
Last week the first family installed seven works on loan from the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden in Washington in the White House’s private residence, including “Sky Light” and “Watusi (Hard Edge),” a pair of blue and yellow abstracts by lesser-known African-American abstract artist Alma Thomas, acclaimed for her post-war paintings of geometric shapes in cheery colors.
www.lyonswiergallery.com
The Obamas are looking to update the storied White House art collection to include modern art and work by minorities and women. Washington reporters Amy Chozick and art reporter Kelly Crow explain.
The National Gallery of Art has loaned the family at least five works this year, including “Numerals, 0 through 9,” a lead relief sculpture by Jasper Johns, “Berkeley No. 52,” a splashy large-scale painting by Richard Diebenkorn, and a blood-red Edward Ruscha canvas featuring the words, “I think maybe I’ll…,” fitting for a president known for lengthy bouts of contemplation. The Jasper Johns sculpture was installed in the residence on Inauguration Day, along with modern works by Robert Rauschenberg and Louise Nevelson, also on loan from the National Gallery.
Collectors say the art picks by the Obamas will likely affect the artists’ market values—or at least raise their profiles. After George W. Bush displayed El Paso, Texas-born artist Tom Lea’s “Rio Grande,” a photorealistic view of a cactus set against gray clouds, in the Oval Office, the price of the artist’s paintings shot up roughly 300%, says Adair Margo, owner of an El Paso gallery that sells Mr. Lea’s work. (Mr. Lea passed away in 2001, which also boosted the value of his work.)
The Obamas’ interest in modern art began before they moved to Washington. The couple’s Hyde Park home featured modern art and black-and-white photographs, according to several Chicago friends. On one of their first dates, Mr. Obama took Michelle Robinson to the Art Institute of Chicago.
A White House spokeswoman says the Obamas enjoy all types of art but want to “round out the permanent collection” and “give new voices” to modern American artists of all races and backgrounds.The changes in White House art come as the Obama administration seeks to boost arts funding. Mr. Obama included $50 million in his economic stimulus package for the National Endowment for the Arts and on Monday Mrs. Obama delivered remarks at the reopening of the American wing of the Metropolitan Museum of Art. The Obamas have borrowed Ed Ruscha’s ‘I Think I’ll...’ (1983) from the National Gallery.
The Obamas began their art hunt shortly after the November election, says White House curator William Allman. Michael Smith, a Los Angeles-based decorator hired by the Obamas to redo their private quarters, worked with Mr. Allman, White House social secretary Desirée Rogers and others on the Obama transition team to determine which works would make the Obamas feel at home in Washington.
Mr. Smith and Mrs. Obama made a wish list of about 40 artists and asked for potential loans in a letter to the Hirshhorn, according to Kerry Brougher, the museum’s deputy director and chief curator. Mr. Brougher says Mr. Smith insisted any loans be plucked from the museum’s storage collection and not pulled off gallery walls.
“The White House’s permanent collection is a wonderful record of America’s 18th- and 19th-century classical artistic strengths,” Mr. Smith says. “The pieces of art selected for loan act as a bridge between this historic legacy and the diverse voices of artists from the 20th and 21st century.”
Last week the Obamas decided to borrow “Nice,” a 1954 abstract by Russian-born painter Nicolas de Staël containing red, black and moss-green rectangles; a couple of boxy paintings from German-born Josef Albers’s famed “Homage to the Square” series in shades of gold, red and lavender; and “Dancer Putting on Stocking” and “The Bow,” two table-top bronzes by Edgar Degas. The museum also sent over New York artist Glenn Ligon’s “Black Like Me,” a stenciled work about the segregated South, among others that the Obamas are still considering, according to a White House spokeswoman.
Existing works in the Oval Office include Thomas Moran’s 1895 landscape, ‘The Three Tetons,’ and ‘The Bronco Buster’ (1903) by Frederic Remington.
The president can hang whatever he wants in the residence and offices, including the Oval Office, but art placed in public rooms, such as the Green Room, must first be approved by the White House curator and the Committee for the Preservation of the White House, an advisory board on which the first lady serves as honorary chair.
Any works intended for the White House permanent collection go through strict and often lengthy vetting before the White House either accepts them as gifts or, on occasion, purchases them using private donations, says Mr. Allman, who has served as chief curator, a permanent White House position, since 2002 and worked in the curator’s office since 1976.
Potential additions to the permanent collection must be at least 25 years old, and the White House does not typically accept pieces by living artists for its collection, because inclusion could impact an artist’s market value. As a result, there aren’t many modern art choices in the collection, Mr. Allman says.
“We’re not a gallery,” Mr. Allman says. “We’re not a museum. People come to the White House once in their lifetime and have a certain perception of what they’re going to see.”
Currently, the roughly 450-piece permanent collection includes five works by black artists: the Clinton portraits by Mr. Knox; “The Builders” by Lawrence ; “Sand Dunes at Sunset, Atlantic City” by Henry Ossawa Tanner, which hangs in the Green Room and was purchased at Hillary Clinton’s urging in 1995; and “The Farm Landing,” a tranquil landscape painted in 1892 by Rhode Island artist Edward Bannister, purchased with donations in 2006.
The White House may also temporarily cull works from museums, galleries and collectors to display in either the private residence or public rooms. Presidents must return loans at the end of their final term.
Many of the same deep-pocketed collectors who helped Mr. Obama fund his presidential campaign are now offering works. E.T. Williams, a New York collector of African-American art who has sat on museum boards including the Museum of Modern Art in New York, is among the would-be donors.
Earlier this month, Mr. Williams, a retired banker and real estate investor, strolled through his Manhattan apartment and stopped in front of the jewel of his collection, a smoky-hued portrait of a man in a fedora by Lois Mailou Jones. The painting is appraised at $150,000 but he says he would happily donate it to the White House permanent collection. He also says the Obamas can “borrow anything they like” from his collection, which includes works by Romare Bearden and Hale Woodruff.
Mr. Williams says that although a loan or donation to the White House could boost his collection’s profile, his offer is motivated by a desire to support the president. A White House spokeswoman says that any potential donations to the permanent collection must go through the curator’s office.
African-American collectors, in particular, snapped to attention when word spread that Mr. Obama might want to borrow art, says Bridgette McCullough Alexander, a Chicago art advisor who went to high school with the first lady. She says some of her collector clients have expressed interest in loaning works to the White House.
“For collectors, it was as if a call went out that the Obamas needed to fill their fridge. The grocery list of artists just rolled out,” she says.
The White House has long been a revolving door of artistic preferences. Dolley Madison famously saved Gilbert Stuart’s portrait of George Washington during the War of 1812. Jacqueline Kennedy was credited with elevating the profile of White House art when she pulled out of storage eight Cézanne paintings from the permanent collection.
Subsequent administrations have tried to fill gaps in the permanent collection of American art. Hillary Clinton successfully urged the Committee for the Preservation of the White House to accept Georgia O’Keeffe’s 1930 abstract, “Mountain at Bear Lake, Taos.” Critics said it didn’t fit the 19th-century elegance of the Green Room.
Laura Bush convinced the preservation committee to accept an Andrew Wyeth painting donated by the artist , in a rare exception to the prohibition on works by living artists. “Thank God they did accept it because then he died and they’d never be able to afford it,” says art historian William Kloss, who has served on the preservation committee since 1990.The Obamas have borrowed Richard Diebenkorn’s abstract ‘Berkeley No. 52.’ In 2007, the White House Acquisition Trust, a nonprofit which funds art acquisitions approved by the preservation committee, paid $2.5 million for Jacob Lawrence’s rust-colored collage of workers at a building site, four times its high estimate and far surpassing the artist’s $968,000 auction record at the time, says Eric Widing, head of Christie’s American paintings department. The purchase may have given the Lawrence market a boost. The next spring, a collector paid Christie’s $881,000 for a different Lawrence, the third highest price ever paid for one of his works.
The 1995 acquisition of Henry Ossawa Tanner’s Atlantic City beach scene had the reverse effect. The White House purchased the work from the artist’s grandniece for $100,000, significantly below the $1 million asking price of similar Tanners. The modest price of the highly publicized purchase sent the price of Tanners plummeting, several gallery owners say.
Mrs. Bush hung a modern work by Helen Frankenthaler in the private residence and pushed for the acquisition of the Lawrence, while Mr. Bush lined his office with at least six Texas landscapes. “He [Mr. Bush] liked things that reminded him of Texas and said he wanted the Oval Office to look like an optimistic person works there,” says Anita McBride, Mrs. Bush’s former chief of staff. She says the paintings the Bushes borrowed have been returned.
Weeks into his presidency, Mr. Obama caused a stir when he removed a bronze bust of Winston Churchill, loaned by the British Embassy, from the Oval Office and replaced it with a bust of Martin Luther King Jr. by African-American sculptor Charles Alston, on loan from the Smithsonian Institution’s National Portrait Gallery.
Next month, the Obamas will consider borrowing four works by African-American artist William H. Johnson including his “Booker T. Washington Legend,” a colorful oil on plywood depiction of the former slave educating a group of black students, from the Smithsonian American Art Museum. The Art Institute of Chicago plans to send as many as 10 works for the first family’s consideration, including pieces by African-American modernist Beauford Delaney and abstract expressionist Franz Kline.
Steve Stuart, an amateur historian who has been studying the White House for three decades, thinks the Obamas needn’t be overly bound by tradition. “You shouldn’t have to look at Mrs. Hoover’s face over your bed for four years if you don’t want to,” he says.
Write to Amy Chozick at amy.chozick@wsj.com and Kelly Crow at kelly.crow@wsj.com
www.lyonswiergallery.comThe Obamas are sending ripples through the art world as they put the call out to museums, galleries and private collectors that they’d like to borrow modern art by African-American, Asian, Hispanic and female artists for the White House. In a sharp departure from the 19th-century still lifes, pastorals and portraits that dominate the White House’s public rooms, they are choosing bold, abstract art works.
The overhaul is an important event for the art market. The Obamas’ art choices could affect the market values of the works and artists they decide to display. Museums and collectors have been moving quickly to offer up works for inclusion in the iconic space.
Their choices also, inevitably, have political implications, and could serve as a savvy tool to drive the ongoing message of a more inclusive administration. The Clintons received political praise after they selected Simmie Knox, an African-American artist from Alabama, to paint their official portraits. The Bush administration garnered approval for acquiring “The Builders,” a painting by African-American artist Jacob Lawrence, but also some criticism for the picture, which depicts black men doing menial labor.
Last week the first family installed seven works on loan from the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden in Washington in the White House’s private residence, including “Sky Light” and “Watusi (Hard Edge),” a pair of blue and yellow abstracts by lesser-known African-American abstract artist Alma Thomas, acclaimed for her post-war paintings of geometric shapes in cheery colors.
www.lyonswiergallery.comThe Obamas are looking to update the storied White House art collection to include modern art and work by minorities and women. Washington reporters Amy Chozick and art reporter Kelly Crow explain.
The National Gallery of Art has loaned the family at least five works this year, including “Numerals, 0 through 9,” a lead relief sculpture by Jasper Johns, “Berkeley No. 52,” a splashy large-scale painting by Richard Diebenkorn, and a blood-red Edward Ruscha canvas featuring the words, “I think maybe I’ll…,” fitting for a president known for lengthy bouts of contemplation. The Jasper Johns sculpture was installed in the residence on Inauguration Day, along with modern works by Robert Rauschenberg and Louise Nevelson, also on loan from the National Gallery.
Collectors say the art picks by the Obamas will likely affect the artists’ market values—or at least raise their profiles. After George W. Bush displayed El Paso, Texas-born artist Tom Lea’s “Rio Grande,” a photorealistic view of a cactus set against gray clouds, in the Oval Office, the price of the artist’s paintings shot up roughly 300%, says Adair Margo, owner of an El Paso gallery that sells Mr. Lea’s work. (Mr. Lea passed away in 2001, which also boosted the value of his work.)
The Obamas’ interest in modern art began before they moved to Washington. The couple’s Hyde Park home featured modern art and black-and-white photographs, according to several Chicago friends. On one of their first dates, Mr. Obama took Michelle Robinson to the Art Institute of Chicago.
A White House spokeswoman says the Obamas enjoy all types of art but want to “round out the permanent collection” and “give new voices” to modern American artists of all races and backgrounds.The changes in White House art come as the Obama administration seeks to boost arts funding. Mr. Obama included $50 million in his economic stimulus package for the National Endowment for the Arts and on Monday Mrs. Obama delivered remarks at the reopening of the American wing of the Metropolitan Museum of Art. The Obamas have borrowed Ed Ruscha’s ‘I Think I’ll...’ (1983) from the National Gallery.
The Obamas began their art hunt shortly after the November election, says White House curator William Allman. Michael Smith, a Los Angeles-based decorator hired by the Obamas to redo their private quarters, worked with Mr. Allman, White House social secretary Desirée Rogers and others on the Obama transition team to determine which works would make the Obamas feel at home in Washington.
Mr. Smith and Mrs. Obama made a wish list of about 40 artists and asked for potential loans in a letter to the Hirshhorn, according to Kerry Brougher, the museum’s deputy director and chief curator. Mr. Brougher says Mr. Smith insisted any loans be plucked from the museum’s storage collection and not pulled off gallery walls.
“The White House’s permanent collection is a wonderful record of America’s 18th- and 19th-century classical artistic strengths,” Mr. Smith says. “The pieces of art selected for loan act as a bridge between this historic legacy and the diverse voices of artists from the 20th and 21st century.”
Last week the Obamas decided to borrow “Nice,” a 1954 abstract by Russian-born painter Nicolas de Staël containing red, black and moss-green rectangles; a couple of boxy paintings from German-born Josef Albers’s famed “Homage to the Square” series in shades of gold, red and lavender; and “Dancer Putting on Stocking” and “The Bow,” two table-top bronzes by Edgar Degas. The museum also sent over New York artist Glenn Ligon’s “Black Like Me,” a stenciled work about the segregated South, among others that the Obamas are still considering, according to a White House spokeswoman.
Existing works in the Oval Office include Thomas Moran’s 1895 landscape, ‘The Three Tetons,’ and ‘The Bronco Buster’ (1903) by Frederic Remington.
The president can hang whatever he wants in the residence and offices, including the Oval Office, but art placed in public rooms, such as the Green Room, must first be approved by the White House curator and the Committee for the Preservation of the White House, an advisory board on which the first lady serves as honorary chair.
Any works intended for the White House permanent collection go through strict and often lengthy vetting before the White House either accepts them as gifts or, on occasion, purchases them using private donations, says Mr. Allman, who has served as chief curator, a permanent White House position, since 2002 and worked in the curator’s office since 1976.
Potential additions to the permanent collection must be at least 25 years old, and the White House does not typically accept pieces by living artists for its collection, because inclusion could impact an artist’s market value. As a result, there aren’t many modern art choices in the collection, Mr. Allman says.
“We’re not a gallery,” Mr. Allman says. “We’re not a museum. People come to the White House once in their lifetime and have a certain perception of what they’re going to see.”
Currently, the roughly 450-piece permanent collection includes five works by black artists: the Clinton portraits by Mr. Knox; “The Builders” by Lawrence ; “Sand Dunes at Sunset, Atlantic City” by Henry Ossawa Tanner, which hangs in the Green Room and was purchased at Hillary Clinton’s urging in 1995; and “The Farm Landing,” a tranquil landscape painted in 1892 by Rhode Island artist Edward Bannister, purchased with donations in 2006.
The White House may also temporarily cull works from museums, galleries and collectors to display in either the private residence or public rooms. Presidents must return loans at the end of their final term.
Many of the same deep-pocketed collectors who helped Mr. Obama fund his presidential campaign are now offering works. E.T. Williams, a New York collector of African-American art who has sat on museum boards including the Museum of Modern Art in New York, is among the would-be donors.
Earlier this month, Mr. Williams, a retired banker and real estate investor, strolled through his Manhattan apartment and stopped in front of the jewel of his collection, a smoky-hued portrait of a man in a fedora by Lois Mailou Jones. The painting is appraised at $150,000 but he says he would happily donate it to the White House permanent collection. He also says the Obamas can “borrow anything they like” from his collection, which includes works by Romare Bearden and Hale Woodruff.
Mr. Williams says that although a loan or donation to the White House could boost his collection’s profile, his offer is motivated by a desire to support the president. A White House spokeswoman says that any potential donations to the permanent collection must go through the curator’s office.
African-American collectors, in particular, snapped to attention when word spread that Mr. Obama might want to borrow art, says Bridgette McCullough Alexander, a Chicago art advisor who went to high school with the first lady. She says some of her collector clients have expressed interest in loaning works to the White House.
“For collectors, it was as if a call went out that the Obamas needed to fill their fridge. The grocery list of artists just rolled out,” she says.
The White House has long been a revolving door of artistic preferences. Dolley Madison famously saved Gilbert Stuart’s portrait of George Washington during the War of 1812. Jacqueline Kennedy was credited with elevating the profile of White House art when she pulled out of storage eight Cézanne paintings from the permanent collection.
Subsequent administrations have tried to fill gaps in the permanent collection of American art. Hillary Clinton successfully urged the Committee for the Preservation of the White House to accept Georgia O’Keeffe’s 1930 abstract, “Mountain at Bear Lake, Taos.” Critics said it didn’t fit the 19th-century elegance of the Green Room.
Laura Bush convinced the preservation committee to accept an Andrew Wyeth painting donated by the artist , in a rare exception to the prohibition on works by living artists. “Thank God they did accept it because then he died and they’d never be able to afford it,” says art historian William Kloss, who has served on the preservation committee since 1990.The Obamas have borrowed Richard Diebenkorn’s abstract ‘Berkeley No. 52.’ In 2007, the White House Acquisition Trust, a nonprofit which funds art acquisitions approved by the preservation committee, paid $2.5 million for Jacob Lawrence’s rust-colored collage of workers at a building site, four times its high estimate and far surpassing the artist’s $968,000 auction record at the time, says Eric Widing, head of Christie’s American paintings department. The purchase may have given the Lawrence market a boost. The next spring, a collector paid Christie’s $881,000 for a different Lawrence, the third highest price ever paid for one of his works.
The 1995 acquisition of Henry Ossawa Tanner’s Atlantic City beach scene had the reverse effect. The White House purchased the work from the artist’s grandniece for $100,000, significantly below the $1 million asking price of similar Tanners. The modest price of the highly publicized purchase sent the price of Tanners plummeting, several gallery owners say.
Mrs. Bush hung a modern work by Helen Frankenthaler in the private residence and pushed for the acquisition of the Lawrence, while Mr. Bush lined his office with at least six Texas landscapes. “He [Mr. Bush] liked things that reminded him of Texas and said he wanted the Oval Office to look like an optimistic person works there,” says Anita McBride, Mrs. Bush’s former chief of staff. She says the paintings the Bushes borrowed have been returned.
Weeks into his presidency, Mr. Obama caused a stir when he removed a bronze bust of Winston Churchill, loaned by the British Embassy, from the Oval Office and replaced it with a bust of Martin Luther King Jr. by African-American sculptor Charles Alston, on loan from the Smithsonian Institution’s National Portrait Gallery.
Next month, the Obamas will consider borrowing four works by African-American artist William H. Johnson including his “Booker T. Washington Legend,” a colorful oil on plywood depiction of the former slave educating a group of black students, from the Smithsonian American Art Museum. The Art Institute of Chicago plans to send as many as 10 works for the first family’s consideration, including pieces by African-American modernist Beauford Delaney and abstract expressionist Franz Kline.
Steve Stuart, an amateur historian who has been studying the White House for three decades, thinks the Obamas needn’t be overly bound by tradition. “You shouldn’t have to look at Mrs. Hoover’s face over your bed for four years if you don’t want to,” he says.
Write to Amy Chozick at amy.chozick@wsj.com and Kelly Crow at kelly.crow@wsj.com
Displaying a Taste for the Moderns in Greenwich, CT
There is an undeniable passion in Peter M. Brant that sets him apart from other art collectors. He is, at the most basic level, a fan, having bought his first artwork when he was 19. Today, at 62, he is still on the lookout for works to add to his 1,000-piece-plus collection of modern and contemporary art, which includes artists like Jeff Koons, Jean-Michel Basquiat, Francesco Clemente, Donald Baechler and John Currin. He also owns and oversees, among other publications, Art in America, the art magazine.His latest venture is somewhat more community-minded — a 9,800-square-foot gallery and nonprofit study center in a converted stone barn on the edge of a field in Greenwich, Conn. The barn was built in 1902 to store fruit from local orchards. The gallery that occupies it now is an inviting space, with an expansive skylight filtering natural light over the wooden trusses and into three showroom galleries. There is also a video viewing room and library, filled with furniture by 20th-century designers.
I met Mr. Brant in the library on a recent visit. In a brief conversation, he said he intended to present long-term annual exhibitions organized primarily from the collection, as well as promote appreciation of contemporary art and design by making his works available to institutions and individuals for scholarly study and examination.
The center is by no means a museum. There is no admission charge, and it is open to the public only by appointment. Mr. Brant said he hoped the center would play an educational role in the wider community. School and university groups are welcome, as is anyone interested in seeing the collection for purposes of study.Although the center is underwritten by Mr. Brant, a newsprint magnate with investments in real estate and other areas, it is a collaborative effort involving several of his nine children. His daughter Allison is the director of the Brant Foundation Art Study Center, and other children serve on the board of the Brant Foundation, established in 1996, which oversees the center’s day-to-day operations. The Brant Foundation owns some of the artworks in the collection, while others remain family property.
The inaugural show comprises 94 works by more than 25 artists from the collection. It is a tribute to an influential exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in 1969 organized by Henry Geldzahler. Mr. Brant acknowledged that the Geldzahler show had been formative in shaping his own thinking about contemporary art. A past exhibition is not a promising theme for a group show, but individually the works are interesting. It also gives you a sense of Mr. Brant’s overall taste as a collector, which tends to run from Cindy Sherman and David Salle to Julian Schnabel, Richard Prince, Mike Kelley and Keith Haring.
Those artists share an inspiration in pop art, which is another way of saying that their art is not weighed down with social and political messages. Mr. Brant has pretty much continued to collect art in this vein, notably paintings by Mr. Currin and Elizabeth Peyton, a pair of young, modish contemporary portraitists who combine perversity with old masterish figuration. Mr. Currin in particular is known for his oil paintings of women with enormous breasts.
Themes of sex and violence (in photographs by Larry Clark and Mr. Prince, sculptures by Paul McCarthy and paintings by Mr. Salle) run throughout the show, but they are balanced by a wonderful sense of humor. Visitors entering the center are confronted with the sculptor Maurizio Cattelan’s “Andreas y Mattia” (1996), a life-size, huddled figure resembling a drunken vagrant collapsed on the floor — an effective visual trick that sets the tone for what follows.
Two artists, Mr. Koons and Andy Warhol, united thematically by a love of kitsch, dominate the large downstairs gallery. The pairing celebrates variety and individuality yet also marks the importance of the threads that link the two artists. This is my favorite room, for here you get to see organizational intelligence at work. Without that, a show is just a group of pictures on a wall.
Beyond the quality and variety of individual works, which are impressive, the collection is also remarkable for the depth in which many of the artists are represented. There are close to a dozen works by Mr. Koons, ranging from the earliest years of his career to the present. Several of them are now classics of contemporary art, like “New Hoover Celebrity” (1981-1986).
Upstairs is a mezzanine gallery devoted to signature works by 1980s painters, and beyond that is the library with a display of paintings by Karen Kilimnik, another market-friendly youngster. Beyond the library is a new stone and mahogany terrace that wraps the building and integrates it nicely into the grassy landscape. Serious outdoor sculptures have also been installed around the site, including Mr. Koons’s “Balloon Dog” (1994-2000), Mr. McCarthy’s “Santa” (2002) and Richard Serra’s “Ali-Frazier” (2001).
The artist Urs Fischer and others assisted Mr. Brant with the hanging and placement of the works, which was done with deft professionalism and a good sense of staging. Most important, the inaugural display does what all good shows do: it leaves us wanting more.
“Remembering Henry’s Show: Selected Works 1978-2008,” through February 2010 at the Brant Foundation Art Study Center, 941 North Street, Greenwich, Conn. Open Tuesday through Saturday by appointment, which can be scheduled by e-mailing thebrantfoundation@gmail.com.
By BENJAMIN GENOCCHIO NYTIMES MAY2009
Keith Haring Wooden Skateboard Brings In Over $16,000
There is no doubt that any piece of art by legendary pop artist Keith Haring would go for thousands of dollars. But in my mind, I think that would equate to a larger than life wall sized canvas. However, given that I know little about the cost/value of art, I can see how I could be completely mistaken. And don't get me wrong - being a huge Keith Haring fan, I have purchased whatever I could afford that had his artwork all over it. Last week at the Phillips de Pury's Auction, Keith Haring's 22 year old wooden skateboard that he drew on with magic marker sold for $16,250. Man, how I wish I had a spare 16 grand to spend.
Posted May 23rd 2009 2:01PM by Marsha Reid of luxist.com
Martin Schluter
“the mind is like a parachute, it works best when open”. The idea was to create a mess of post-it notes that contained doubt, or a half-finished idea, bundled to represent the concept that if the mind is cluttered then nothing can be fully realised; a clear mind is necessary for a good idea.
Martin Schluter is a designer who has not even graduated from design school which makes our find and his ideas even more exciting. For someone so young his work is astoundingly sophisticated yet balanced by humour, sharp wit and a strong sensitivity to both his physical and emotional environment. His ideas are much more meaningful when you understand his perspective so take in his words with as much value as you would his illustrations. His influences are varied, from music to fine art. He says he'd always admired Quentin Blake as an illustrator. His style is messy yet every one of his creations oozes personality and charm. The Roald Dahl stories would never have been as interesting if they were not paired with those incredible, simple sketches. Martin tries to emulate his idea behind creative expression. "I try my darndest to be as simple as possible but to also allow the work to evoke personality and charm."
These designs were created during a point in my life when I was experiencing depression. A kind of before, during, and after representation. Thank you to Canvas Magazine for this interview.
Pouran Jinchi
Pouran Jinchi
Forough #3 2008
Acrylic and ink on canvas
60 x 48 in / 152 x 122 cm
© Pouran Jinchi
SOLD by Metropolitan Art Advisors, LLC
Pouran Jinchi
Forough #4 2008
Acrylic and ink on canvas
60 x 48 in 152x122cm
© Pouran Jinchi
SOLD by Metropolitan Art Advisors, LLC
Pouran Jinchi
Iran/United States, 1959
Alef Series (16 pieces), Elmer's glue, ink, varnish on canvas
Courtesy of Artist and Art Projects International (API), New York
Turkish video artist Gülsün Karamustafa
Gülsün Karamustafa, Turkey, 1946,
Video Still from “The City and Secret Panther Fashion”,
2007, DVD, Projection, 13 minutes
Courtesy of the Artist
Farhad Moshiri
Farhad Moshiri
“Chocline”, 2007,
Installation of 130 acrylic pastries, 7ft x 4.5 ft,
Courtesy of Josh Fink
www.arteast.org
Ayad Alkadhi
Ayad Alkadhi
Iraq/United States, 1972,
"If Words Could Kill"
From Al Ghareeb Series, 2006
Photo collage, Acrylic, ink and pencil on canvas,
72 “ x 24” (182.9 x 60.7cm)
Courtesy of the Artist.
Photography by Scott Gurst
Mohammed Abdul Latif Kanoo- Co-owner of Ghaf Art Gallery in Abu Dhabi
I had the great pleasure of meeting with a wonderful man named Mohamed Abdul Latif Kanoo at the Plaza Hotel last week to discuss the idea of showing his work in New York. His work is fantastic and it would be a very interesting, powerful, enlightening perspective for Americans. We are looking for the right Museum now and meeting with appropriate curators to make a plan to introduce him here.
Mohamed Abdul Latif Kanoo was born in Bahrain, in 1963, in a family which has had a great interest in the arts for generations. The Beit Al Quran museum in Bahrain, which specializes in Islamic and Quranic manuscripts and art was founded by his father. Mr Kanoo studied Economics and Political Science at the University of Texas at Austin (US) and Monetary Economics at the American University in Washington D.C. He now lives in Abu Dhabi, where he is a senior executive in the Kanoo Group, his family business. Furthermore Mr Kanoo is a passionate artist working in a style inspired by pop-art and is co-founder of the Ghaf Art Gallery, the first official art gallery in Abu Dhabi. As creative director of the Abu Dhabi Music and Art Foundation, which was founded in 1996 by H.E. Mrs Hoda Kanoo, Mr Kanoo initiates cultural programmes for local Universities and Schools, and organizes international performances in the field of music, dance and theatre and art shows.
Gary Lichtenstein, Wham!
Gary Lichtenstein, Wham!
Artist Gary Lichtenstein
Title Wham!
Medium Color Offset Lithograph
Size 24.8 x 58 in. / 63 x 147.3 cm.
Year 1967
Edition ed.3000
Found./Pub.The Tate Gallery, pub.; Lautrec Photolito, prntr
Misc. Signed
Sale Of Swann Galleries: Thursday, March 7, 2002
19th & 20th Century Prints & Drawings
Studio visit with Toby Rosser
For more information about Toby and his available work or sculptures for sale, please contact Metropolitan Art Advisors, LLC (917)940.3353
Susan Weil
My cousin Susan Weil with her former husband and close friend, Robert Rauschenberg.
Susan Weil (born in New York, 1930) is an American artist best known for her experimental three-dimensional paintings, which combine figurative illustration with explorations of movement and space. Susan met Robert Rauschenberg while attending the Académie Julian in Paris, and in 1948 both decided to attend Black Mountain College in North Carolina to study under Josef Albers. At the Art Students League of New York Susan Weil studied with Vaclav Vytlacil and Morris Kantor [1]. Robert Rauschenberg and Susan Weil were married in the summer of 1950. Their son, Christopher was born on July 16, 1951. The two separated in June 1952 and divorced in 1953, and remained close friends.
In addition to creating painting and mixed media work, Weil has experimented with bookmaking and has produced artist's books with Vincent Fitzgerald and Company since 1985. During a period of eleven years Weil experimented with etchings and handmade paper while also keeping a daily notebook of drawings inspired by the writings of James Joyce. Her exhibition, Ear's Eye for James Joyce, was presented at Sundaram Tagore gallery in New York in 2003.
Weil has been the recipient of the prestigious Guggenheim Fellowship and awards from the National Endowment for the Arts. Her work has been shown in major solo exhibitions in the United States and Europe, notably at Black Mountain Museum in Asheville, North Carolina, and the Museo Reina Sofia in Madrid, though museums in her home state of New York have yet to organize a comprehensive retrospective of her work. Her work is in many major museum collections, including the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Museum of Modern Art, the Victoria and Albert Museum, and the J. Paul Getty Museum. She continues to live and work in New York City.
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