Missives from the Art World

Master Drawings New York continues

2012-01-22T16:11:00.001-05:00

The opening was Friday and we had a busy weekend but the show goes on through Saturday. Believe it or not, some drawings were not yet scooped up!!!

Last week I mentioned re-discoveries. Every year at the Salon du Dessin in Paris there is a room devoted to works on paper still looking for an artist’s name. These are often of the highest quality but have just escaped the individual who has the answer to the mystery. Personally , I love this room because you can learn so much and possibly buy something of an extraordinary nature.

Here are a few of our mystery guests. Please feel free to make your suggestions.

As you may have seen on our invitation we also have a selection of terracotta and plaster sculptures from France and Italy of the late 18th and 19th century. These are a perfect introduction to this wonderful affordable field.

The collector, now living in New York, bought these in Paris in his youth and he now wants to pass on the enjoyment that he had in finding them. Many came from the Marché au Puces, the flea market in Paris. In the old days major collectors would show up there at 5 or 6 in the morning, one of the most illustrious being the former director of the Louvre, Pierre Rosenberg. Our collector, however, also bought pieces from Paris dealers, one of whom later supplied many pieces to the J. Paul Getty sculpture collection.

Two of the most recognizable pieces are those by Albert-Ernest Carrier-Belleuse (1824-1887). Of the two the better known sculpture is that of the baccante.

The most famous sculptor of the 19^th century, Auguste Rodin (1840-1917), worked as an assistant in the studio of Carriere-Belleuse and owed a lot to the sculptor. The influence can clearly be seen in Rodin’s Baccante of 1874 now in the Metropolitan Museum. The Carrier-Belleuse Baccante is the most expensive piece in this collection at $12,000. The least expensive of the group is 10% of that!

More of a connoisseur’s piece is the Bozzetto for l’ Eléctricité, 1889 Louis-Erenest Barrias (1841–1905). It was the model for a seven meter high sculpture that graced the entry of the Palais des Machines at the Exposition Universelle of 1889 (the same fair for which the Eiffel Tower was built!) Unfortunately the bottom of the legs of the figure, upper left, have broken off. My father always said, “the older the pieces are, the better the condition the clients want to the piece to be in.” The plus side, however, means that the price of the work of art will be much lower and possibly affordable. In this case $5,000. That is why I called it more of a connoisseur’s piece. You have to understand it, love it and know how good and interesting it is.

Master Drawings New York 2012

2012-01-15T19:49:00.002-05:00

As we all know every year passes more quickly and here we are at the beginning of 2012 and its time again for Master Drawings New York (MDNY). Crispian Riley-Smith, a London drawings dealer, first organized Master Drawings in London and then branched out to

New York.

This year 23 dealers, ranging from Old Masters to Contemporary, will present their works on paper for just over a week (January 21-28; opening January 20, 4-8pm). They will either be showing in their own galleries or ones borrowed for the occasion conveniently all on the East side between 64th Street and 81st and between Fifth and Park Avenues. The dealers are mostly from New York but there are participants from out of town including colleagues from London, Paris and Madrid.

If you have not received a brochure you can click on this link or find a hard copy at any participating gallery as well as Christie's and Sotheby’s.

The timing of MDNY is no accident. It is at the time of the old master paintings and drawings sales at the aforementioned auction houses and others in New York. The Winter Antiques Show, which also has a few drawings dealers is on as well. The more the merrier, more “action” brings more visitors to the big apple.

If you have the slightest interest in works on paper Master Drawings New York is one of the few “musts” of the year to get a taste for what is available on the market today. Naturally, in New York you will have the accent on East Coast dealers, in Maastricht more central European dealers, and at the Salons du Dessin predominantly French.

In a brief introduction to the MDNY brochure Linda Wolk-Simon, head of the department of drawings and prints at the Morgan Library comments on the thoughts of the artist Sir Joshua Reynolds and his reflections on the collecting of drawings. As Reynolds notes drawings often “appear careless, and unfinished” sketches but they give us insight into the mind of the artist and “they give us the idea of the whole” with insight into the mind of the artist.

It is often possible to identify aspects of a drawing with a specific finished painting. The detective work is finding which one. A case in point is the sketch by Pierre Parrocel (1670-1739), our choice for illustrating in the MDNY brochure. It shows the head of a child and a study of hands.

In the art world there is often an expert on a certain artist. Someone all refer to for his/her expertise. That individual has usually spent years researching the artist and compiling his work and then, if you are lucky, publishing a Catagogue Raisoné, which in turn becomes the bible for that artist. The expert on Pierre Parrocel found that our drawing is a preparatory sketch for The Nativity painted for the Convent of Chartreuse of Moulins, today in the Cathédrale Notre-Dame de Moulins.

We often read of a “new” or “re-discovery”, what this means is that some one has associated the work of art with a specific artist and found enough evidence of this that the attribution sticks. Please come by and make your own discoveries.

John E. Buchanan (1953-2011)

2012-01-08T19:14:00.004-05:00

John Buchanan ran four institutions during his career: The Lakeview Museum of Arts and Sciences in Peoria, Illinois, The Dixon Gallery and Gardens in Memphis Tennessee, The Portland Art Museum in Oregon and The Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco. During his tenure at the Dixon and in Portland he affected our lives greatly and for the better.

At the end of the 1980’s my wife, Penelope Hunter-Stiebel was working at Rosenberg & Stiebel when she got a phone call from John, who was at the time Director of the Dixon. She had been recommended to John by a curator at her former institution, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, to curate an exhibition of Sèvres Porcelain. She did not believe that a small institution such as the Dixon with no track record for this kind of exhibition could get the type of loans that one would need to do a serious show of the French Royal Porcelain Factory, so she said, “Sorry, I can’t help you.”

John would not take “No” for an answer and said, “There must have been some exhibition you wanted to do when you were at the Met and couldn’t. That is the exhibition we are doing in Memphis. What exhibition are we doing?” Out of that encounter came “Louis XV & Madame de Pompadour: A Love Affair with Style” at the Dixon Gallery & Gardens and also at Rosenberg & Stiebel in New York. We got loans from major museums, such as The Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, The Cleveland Museum of Art and The J. Paul Getty Museum to name a few.

There were also a number of very illustrious private collectors who contributed. By the way, in the context of this scholarly exhibition, John got those important Sèvres objects that he wanted in the first place. When we got off the plane in Memphis to attend the opening there, on a hill just beyond the airport was a huge billboard announcing the exhibition. At the opening there were well prepared impersonators of Louis XV and Mme de Pompadour who went on to visit various locations in town. Thus, was the showmanship of John Buchanan.

John and Lucy Buchanan

John moved on to become Director of the Portland Art Museum where he woke up a moribund institution as well as the potential donors to the arts in the community, helping not just his institution but also many others in town. Aside from his ebullient personality, he brought important international exhibitions to Portland. His wife, Lucy Buchanan, was Development Director and a major force in raising funds to do these shows.

The next step was originating international projects. In 1997 he asked Penelope to curate an exhibition about the Stroganoff Family of Russia but she felt her responsibility, at that time, was to get our son into college. But when she called John a year of so later to say hello he was still looking for someone to do that show, Hunter had by then been accepted at college so she accepted the job.

The show opened in 2000 and there was national press, over 300,000 in attendance and the entire Portland community was engaged in Russian programming. Demonstrating John’s political savvy he had the Director of the Hermitage, both State Senators as well as the Governor of Oregon and the Mayor of Portland on the rostrum for the opening. So began Penelope’s 10-year stint as curator at the Portland Art Museum.

John, Penelope, Lucy and their designer, our friend from Penelope’s Metropolitan years, Clifford LaFontaine made up the team that did shows with Russia, France, The Netherlands, Germany and Italy in Portland. John was always enthusiastic and pushing for the best and most interesting show possible. Bolstered by Lucy, John was always optimistic and positive without any show of doubt. Though criticized by some for his too popular exhibitions that snobbish critics and art historians felt were not serious enough, he brought a new public into the Portland Art Museum that were hungry for his dishes.

I stayed at the Heathman Hotel on one occasion, just a stone’s throw from the museum, and the elevator man, who had no idea that I had any relationship to the museum said to me in praise of the director. “He allowed me to see a Van Gogh, I never thought I would be able to see one.” This was in response to a picture on loan to the Museum. For me that is what a museum’s job is to expose the public to what they do not know and hopefully make it interesting enough to bring the public in, and in the best of all possible worlds, come back.

Lucy, Baroness Helene de Ludinghausen, and John

John and Landgraff von Hessen

John leading a donor group in Berlin

John inaugurating an exhibition

John with Guy Cugeval, Director of the Musee d'Orsay

Our Updated Look

2012-01-01T18:39:00.000-05:00

It’s the time of New Year’s Resolutions and starting afresh and as you know we started that about 6 months ago when we moved into our new digs on 69th Street between Madison and Fifth Avenues.

Stiebel Gallery on 69th street

As part of this transition we changed much of our image as far as logo and our outside face is concerned. So naturally our website had to change as well. It now has a cleaner more contemporary look indicating that the old can adapt to the new, and more important that they can live well together.

On the new Stiebel.com is designed by our Gallery Director, Vince Hickman. On the Home Page you will see a few images of our new premises. You will also find the categories for our inventory as well as “Missives from the Art World” (Blog) button. When you choose an inventory category and click on an image it will be formatted perfectly for printing and if you click on “More Information” you will have a data sheet formatted for printing on our stationery so that you will have our contact information easily accessible. The images themselves, of course, can be enlarged as before with a simple click. We have also managed to make all the material clearly available on all computers, tablets and smart phones.

Over 20 years ago we celebrated Rosenberg & Stiebel’s (predecessor to Stiebel, Ltd.) 50 years in the United States and in commemoration of that event we did and exhibition and made a film (Affairs of Art) tracing the history of the family firm from it’s founding around 1870. I watched it a short while ago and realized that it is still pertinent today. Now, we have made the entire film available on our website. It is posted on YouTube as well as on our Home Page so you can watch Parts One and Two at your leisure. If you like instant gratification here they are as well.

"Affairs of Art" - Part 1

"Affairs of Art" - Part 2

The entire film is only 24 minutes and includes curators, directors and collectors. Unfortunately, a number of them are no longer with us, but the attitudes toward collecting and the relationships formed in the art world have not. The film is also available on disc if you contact us.

A couple of years ago Vince said to me, “People love your stories, you should tell them.” Thus started “Missives from the Art World”. They have continued because I hear encouraging words from many of you and I have learned what you like. Since images seem to be much appreciated we have put more in recently, though I do not feel that they are an absolute necessity unless they enhance the story. The images in the blog are quite small but with a simple click they too can also be enlarged. It is possible to scroll through past Missives or do a search in the upper left hand corner where you see the magnifying glass. On the right side of the screen you will see a list of dates when the blog was published in case you can remember that and not the title.

Please feel free to make comments, criticisms or suggestions by emailing me directly at: gerald@stiebel.com.

Illuminating the Word: The Saint John’s Bible

2011-12-25T15:29:00.000-05:00

I think that this time of year with all its Religious Holidays is a most appropriate time to do a Missive about the Bible. The one I have in mind is the subject of the exhibition “Illuminating the Word: The Saint John’s Bible”.

At the New Mexico History Museum, pages from two sections of the Old Testament are shown in Santa Fe while other selections are being presented in venues around the country. It did sound to me as a bit of a yawn but it got so much attention and positive reviews that I went to see for myself.

On first viewing, it hit me as important but I could not immediately comprehend why. Reduced to its essence it is an amazing visual work of art. When you go into the subject further you realize there are so many aspects to the creation of this bible that several books have already been devoted to the subject.

Here is a revival of the lost art of manuscript illumination that brings the texts to life with compositions using cross cultural, scientific, realistic and abstract imagery intermingled in broad passages of color.

Note in the page from Job not just the use of abstraction and color representing his decline on the right but also, best seen in the original the detailed items representing his earlier wealth at the left; or the bones, skulls, eyeglasses and even a junked car in the detail from “The Valley of the Dry Bones” (Ezekiel 37: 1-14 ); or the amazing integration of words and images of death in the beautiful pages from Ecclesiastes.

Courtesy Hill Museum and Manuscript Library, Collegeville, MN

The exhibition was conceived by Thomas Leech, curator of the Press at the Palace of the Governors (part of the History Museum). He became passionate about the idea after hearing a talk by Donald Jackson, scribe to Queen Elizabeth II. Jackson ,was born in 1938 in Lancashire, England, and had a dream since childhood of creating his own illuminated bible. In 1994 he was invited to a calligraphers’ retreat at Ghost Ranch (where Georgia O’Keeffe spent summers) and it was there that he did the first mock up for his illustrated bible with a sketch, Christ in the Desert. This was not to be an illustrated bible depicting the scenes referred to in the text, but rather a contemporary interpretation.

In 1996 Jackson presented his concept and sketch to the Benedictine Order of Monks at St. John’s University and Abbey in Collegeville, Minnesota. Having seen the great losses of treasures during World War II, the monks had embarked on a program to preserve manuscripts through the centuries. They travelled the world and recorded the originals on microfilm, or whatever media was available at the time, in order to have a place where the written word would never be totally lost.

This was the perfect fit for the first illuminated bible to be commissioned since the Saint James’ Bible which was published in 1611. After the monks agreed to get behind the project they raised the necessary funds from private sources. Originally, budgeted at one million dollars the costs eventually went way beyond that.

The project itself is mindboggling. Jackson had to assemble an international team of artists, scribes and theologians whose first task was to decide on which version of the bible to use. They decided on the “New Revised Standard Version” which was accepted by Protestant, Anglican, Roman Catholic, Eastern Orthodox Churches. The images had to be approved as appropriate by The Committee on Illustration and Text, which included artists, art historians, medieval historians, theologians and biblical scholars and then integrated with the text. Once the committee approved, the artists were given some leeway.

The scribes and illustrators worked in Jackson’s scriptorium in Monmouth, Wales. They used a unique script he created for the project that varied only slightly form scribe to scribe. Although they wrote with quills on vellum they needed to use computer technology to set up the pages of this colossal collaborative undertaking and decide where each would begin and end.

I cannot leave this exhibition without commenting on the superb installation. It is done in the round with an independent but relevant photo exhibition on the outside walls curated by Mary Anne Redding and depicting locations in New Mexico associated with religious faith.

Photo credit: Blair Clark Blair

The center of the show consists of a round room for contemplation with benches around and a circular rock fountain. On the outside of the walls of the meditation room is didactic material including many of the sketches and materials used to create the bible. The individual folio pages, which will be bound into seven volumes after all the exhibitions are done, are shown in free-standing cases. The labels give the names of the artist and the scribe (Donald Jackson sometimes acted as both), as well as a reference to the biblical passage and a discussion of the imagery chosen.

The installation created the perfect environment in which to appreciate Donald Jackson’s amazing creation, until it is bound and hidden for generations.

Time

2011-12-18T20:13:00.002-05:00

Time is a subject that has always fascinated and tortured me. Let’s get the latter over with first. I have the curse of always being early or on time. I am usually waiting for someone or am embarrassed by reaching someone’s house too early. I am obsessive about deadlines no matter what they are. I have always blamed this on my parents’ German background. I remember being seriously late once (45 minutes) and my hosts were getting ready to call the police! My father always said, if people are usually late, once in a while they should also be early, but it is never that way. I realize now that this is because they use every minute at their disposal to accomplish something while I am standing on one foot waiting!

The corollary is a lack of patience that I also suffer from. When our son was a child he was diagnosed with Attention Deficit Disorder (ADD) and I realized that I have always suffered from the same problem which makes me a good multi-tasker but horrible in the patience department. We also learned, that there are always some things that such an individual can concentrate on. In a child it maybe video games: for me it is art that I love.

For instance, some years ago we sold a drawing by Edouard Vuillard (1868-1940). Since none of the players are alive anymore, I think that I can mention the names. We acquired it from the Richard S. Davis Collection, a well-known collector and former director of the Minneapolis Museum of Art. We sold it to another renowned collector, John Gaines. When the latter decided to sell it in a public sale, the auction house told him that the expert who was writing the catalog raisonné did not recognize the drawing as by the artist. John Gaines came back to me and, of course, I bought the drawing back. Then I set to work. I researched the provenance and learned that Richard Davis had acquired the drawing from a most reputable dealer in works on paper, Lucien Goldschmidt.

The portrait was of Thadée Nathanson whom Vuillard and other artists of the Nabis school drew and painted. The best known images, however, are from around the time when Nathanson and his brother published the Revue Blanche (1891-1903), an arts journal of the time. I then took the drawing out of its frame and saw that the sheet had been torn out of a sketchpad. I sent all that I had found to the same expert that the auction house had been in touch with. In due course, I received his expertise authenticating the work as by Vuillard, and the subject as Nathanson. Because of the sitter’s obvious age in the drawing the date must be about 1930. The auction houses get so much to deal with that they cannot always do what is necessary, but I was determined and invested the time and effort to prove my conviction of the drawing’s authenticity.

It is kind of exciting being an art detective and that is what the collector must do as well. You want to know as much as possible about a work of art that you wish to acquire both before and after it’s acquisition. Not just is the price right, though this is important, the more passionate a collector, the lower down it will be on your priority list. After hitting the books and if possible, asking scholars for their opinion, you need to weigh the evidence and then you make the final decision. Usually by repeating the process over and over again our decisions become better and more informed, but still, in matters of art, I have found that an investment of time pays off.

Detroit

2011-12-11T20:45:00.003-05:00

Getting back to my mid-west three city tour, my last stop was Detroit to visit the Detroit Institute of Art (DIA). Founded in 1885 the DIA moved to the current location on Woodward Avenue in 1927 where there have been several expansion projects over the years.

Many in the Ford family were major donors to the museum but the ones who did the most were Edsel and Eleanor Ford. In 1932 Edsel Ford, son of Ford founder Henry Ford, and William Valetiner, the renowned museum director commissioned Mexican artist, Diego Rivera (1886-1957) to paint murals (27 fresco panels in all) for the garden court, just a gallery away from the main entrance to the museum. The only requirement was that the murals relate to Detroit and the development of industry. When they were completed there was much controversy. Rivera was a classic Marxist and he painted workers of all races toiling side by side.

Both Ford and Valentiner defended the artist’s work without equivocation. During the McCarthy era of the 1950’s a sign was placed in the garden court lambasting the artist’s politics but defending his artistic merit and what he had done for Detroit. Note the portraits at one end of a panel with the donor behind the Director who holds the written dedication of the murals.

I arrived at the DIA on a Saturday which was fortuitous because I could get to see their new exhibition, “Rembrandt and the Face of Jesus” on the member’s day before the show was open to the general public. Though it was crowded I could see around the people who were studying their audio guide handsets more than studying the pictures! There were a few wonderful paintings by the master both from the DIA collection and lent, but it was mostly a print and drawing exhibition. It afforded an opportunity to see Rembrandt as he developed his view of Jesus. As the artist lived in the Jewish quarter of Amsterdam he had the opportunity to draw a lot of the locals in order to come up with his vision.

The DIA has superb collections and though the works acquired from Rosenberg & Stiebel are not as numerous as in Cleveland and Toledo, the quality remains tops. In paintings there are names such as Fra Angelico, Cranach, Van Dyck, Rembrandt, Tiepolo and my favorite, the huge picture by Rubens of St. Yves.

Henry Ford II and his relatives of that generation bought a great deal from our firm, some of which was donated to the Museum. One of the rarest pieces and my favorite in the decorative arts section is a decorated ostrich egg on an ormolu mount of about 1780.

The only weekday I was in Detroit was a Monday on which the museum is officially closed but I still had the opportunity to meet with a number of curators. I spent the most time with Alan Darr, who I have known for well over 30 years. His current designation as Senior Curator of the European Paintings, Sculpture and Decorative Arts encapsulates all our fields! He took me to lunch and then gave me a special treat with a private tour of the collections.

You will not often find me giving recommendations of places to stay but The Inn at Ferry Street, which was recommended to me by Alan, is out of the ordinary. It is on a lovely tree-lined street in an area designated as a historic district. Four restored Victorian homes and two carriage houses provide forty rooms, all different. Breakfast was served in the main house buffet style and it was amazingly complete for an inn. The staff were all most pleasant and helpful also supplying a shuttle service within a five mile radius. It was an unexpected bonus to visiting the DIA and it is only two blocks away.

Thanksgiving in Philly

2011-12-04T16:32:00.000-05:00

Since it has been quite a while since we had spent Thanksgiving with the family, we were determined to do it this year. When your three children are distributed throughout the country in Philadelphia, Traverse City, Michigan and Los Angeles, all with families, it gets complicated.

Happily, my daughter, Cathy, in Philly, invited all, but our baby, Hunter (31), had commitments with his wife’s family to celebrate a special birthday. My older son, Danny came with his two children, making four grandchildren in all.

Penelope flew in from Santa Fe and I came from Detroit (more on that fair city next week). It was during the stormy days before Thanksgiving: in the middle of the country everything was delayed, but we were relatively lucky. Except for one of the roughest airplane rides I have had, I was only an hour late and Penelope one and a half. Lucky, because average delays at Philadelphia airport that night were 2 ½ hours.

The day before Thanksgiving we went to the Philadelphia Museum and saw their relatively new Perelman Wing. It is situated, across the street, just opposite the main building. It has an Art Deco façade and was originally opened in 1927 as the Headquarters for the Fidelity Mutual Life Insurance Company. It is now totally renovated into offices with an addition of beautiful exhibition galleries.

The galleries serve as the museum’s venue for contemporary exhibitions. When we were there, one was the work of Tristin Lowe, a Philadelphia artist who does somewhat surrealistic sculpture. A whole gallery was given over to his work “Lunacy”, which is a giant moon 12 ½ feet in diameter consisting of an inflatable sphere covered in 490 square feet of white felt. In a dark room with wonderful lighting, it certainly felt otherworldly.

Another exhibition was the work of Zaha Hadid, an Iraqi born British architect who has won the Pritzker Prize. The show was called “Form in Motion” and exhibited mainly her designs for the decorative arts such as benches, tables, cutlery and shoes, all in curvaceous forms. But in the entry to the Perelman building was her sculpture called Z-Car I.

Across the street is, of course, the original great art museum, a legacy of the Centennial Exhibition of 1876. Its treasures are vast and fine including Medieval, Renaissance, Old Masters, Impressionists, 18^th century and contemporary decorative arts to name some categories. We only had a chance to look at a few of these. We did, however, view a small exhibition titled “Dutch Treat”. It focused on feinschilder, Dutch artists of the Golden Age who painted, usually small, meticulously rendered images. The exhibition focused on paintings by Gerrit Dou from a private collection complemented by other artists with ceramics and glass of the period from Philadelphia’s holdings.

For the Thanksgiving feast more parents and step-parents arrived, plus more siblings and cousins, until we were 20. Dinner, buffet style, included not just turkey, stuffing, and sweet potatoes with marshmallows cooked on top and veggies, but a member of the family also brought brisket and another brought meatballs. For desert there was fruit, cookies, brownies and several pies. We did not starve!

The next day the children and grandchildren went out early to do some Black Friday shopping but bought little and in the afternoon we all went to The Franklin Institute, which is Philadelphia’s first class science museum. A staple there is the beating heart that you can walk through, the airplane pilot trainer you can ride in, and the sports area where you can learn things like what helps you to jump. We observed as the younger generations experienced all the above.

That night we had leftovers. With great concern that there would not be enough the grandchildren made a platter of sushi that was large and tasty.

On very full stomachs we headed back to Santa Fe the next day.

City 2 – Toledo

2011-11-27T19:03:00.000-05:00

Another museum to which we sold 100 works of art and WOW, what they were! I can say that because most were sold in the 50’s and 60’s before I joined the firm. They include, Rubens, “The Crowning of St. Catherine,” Fragonard’s “Blind Man’s Bluff” and the Morrison Triptych.

Edward Drummond Libbey (1854-1925), the founder of Libbey Glass, together with his Wife, Florence Scott Libbey (1863-1938) not only founded The Toledo Museum of Art (TMA) in 1901 but went on to fund the museum’s current palace which opened in 1912. When they died, having had no surviving children, they left their entire estate to the museum. This has given the Toledo Museum of Art an ongoing endowment for the past century.

I was treated most royally during my stay. On my first day I savored the collections, visited with several curators, and went on to the opening of an exhibition - more on that later. The second day, aside from more viewing, I was taken to lunch by the Curator of Paintings, Larry Nichols, who just acquired a great painting by Frans Hals for the Museum. We went to the stately Toledo Club, where the museum has a membership. I am sure that Edward Drummond Libbey would have been quite comfortable there, and he probably was.

I have known the Director, Brian Kennedy, for many years. When Penelope and I went to Dublin over 20 years ago we wanted to see the French collection at the National Gallery of Ireland but were told that those galleries were closed. We made a bit of a fuss, saying that we had come for an international conference - true - and explained our bona fides. Finally this young man came down to take us around. That was Brian and we hit it off. When he became director of the National Gallery of Australia in Canberra we visited him there and he visited us in New York. He then went on to the Hood Museum, at Dartmouth and now he is director in Toledo. All the while we have remained in touch.

After lunch, I had an extended meeting with Brian when he discussed the goals of the institution. He then gave me a tour of their Glass Pavilion, an award winning glass building by Kazuyo Sejima + Ryue Nishizawa / SANAA. Thanks to this building the architects won the Pritzker Prize. The Pavilion houses the museum’s renowned glass collection, which runs from Egypt through today. They also have glass studios which serve artists and student alike. The Studio Glass Movement with Harvey Littleton and Dominick Labino was born here in 1962.

Brian also took me to see their remarkable concert hall, the Peristyle Theater. When the crash came in 1929, Mrs. Libby decided to put Toledo to work and commissioned the concert hall that seats 1,750 people. It took from 1929 to 1933 to complete the project but what a magnificent hall it is. When we looked in there was a lone pianist practicing for the concert that evening and the sound was superb.

My visit happened to coincide with the opening for “Small Worlds,” where several contemporary artists showed works in different media, with the concept of life in miniature. I enjoyed it far more than I expected, especially the work of Lori Nix, who built extremely detailed mock-ups and then photographed them so that you thought you were looking at an actual scene.

Lori Nix "Library", 2007

In 1997 Jay Shafer, Tumbleweed Tiny House Co. built an 89 sq. ft. house to live in; for the exhibition the Museum took his plans for an extra small 65 sq. ft. house and constructed it in front of the TMA. It has a shower, toilet, queen size bed above and a seating-kitchen area. When I was there I climbed in with Brian and the docent. For three it was tight! two would be far more comfortable. The Museum plans to auction it on Ebay on March 8, 2012. They guess that it will bring between $35 and $40,000.

"Tiny House" photo by Andrew Weber / Tim Motz

The opening party for the show was called “Down The Rabbit Hole”. All were encouraged to come in costume representing the characters in Alice in Wonderland. Brian came as the King of Hearts.

The next evening I was invited to the dinner in honor of the artists which was a small sit down affair in the museum’s Cloister which is formed by parts of a real cloister and houses their medieval collection.

Brian did a tribute to each of the 32 guests and singled me out as coming from New York to see the museum and for my family’s contribution through acquisitions the TMA was able to make through our firm. I became an instant celebrity!

Three City Tour - Cleveland

2011-11-20T17:04:00.001-05:00

As I was landing in Cleveland the American Eagle pilot announced the prediction of rain for the next week. Rain everywhere I go, yuk! I have just finished my second and final day here and happily the weatherman proved wrong again.

Like many museums The Cleveland Museum of Art is in the middle of a building program. Theirs should be finished in 2013. The original building was built in 1916 and in 1970 another building was added designed by Marcel Breuer. On one of the landings are three portholes Before, with a historic image, Future, with a photo of the final model and Present where you actually see the construction going on. During construction one needs to navigate to the 1916 and Breuer buildings and to do that you go down to go around to go up again and sometimes more than once. I got my exercise within the buildings.

Being involved in so many media, I always need to see several curators and they are not always available just because I arrive. I was, however, lucky enough to meet with the curators of paintings, drawings, medieval art and decorative arts and had material to show to them. Of course, many departments are divided by period as well so for paintings you have curators before 1800, the 19th century and the 20th & 21st centuries. The “good old days” when the director of the Cleveland Museum accompanied by a couple of the pertinent curators, who were not so numerous as now, could make decisions on site in New York. These days, though curatorial visits still occur but they are more often at art fairs where they do not need to slog from gallery to gallery. As there is less art available there seem to be more dealers to handle it!

As any business person understands it helps to put in face-time and get to know the people who choose the art and can tell you in what direction they and their director are hoping to go. But curators must also be opportunistic if the “right” work of art comes up. So, I am trying to find the right work of art and pique the curator’s interest and possibly show them something that they had not thought of. In the old days I would send transparencies when I got back to New York. Today, I can send an email as soon as I get back to my computer, much more practical and expeditious.

I learned that neo-classicism was of interest in the painting and drawings departments, but not in the decorative arts. This made perfect sense in light of what had been collected in the past.

Below, are a pair of paintings by Rubens, Diana Before the Hunt and a portrait of Isabella Brandt, Rubens’ first wife, that we sold many many years ago to the Cleveland Museum. In all, the museum has acquired over 100 works of art through my family.

I have 2 more stops to make on my tour. Tomorrow I head for, Toledo, Ohio and then Detroit. Like Cleveland’s, their art museums have been major clients of our firm over the years.

Central Park

2011-11-13T13:01:00.001-05:00

Permit me an indulgence. In this Missive I am going to talk about a different kind of art. The art of city planning. In New York City, Central Park opened to the public on city owned land in 1857 and a year later Frederick Law Olmsted and Calvert Vaux won a design competition to improve and expand it. They are the ones credited with creating the park. The land had to be taken by the right of eminent domain and some renters and squatters did have to be evicted first. This displaced 1600 individuals, but if they had waited… today it would be millions. What foresight to have built a park so early on.

I grew up in New York and I know Manhattan quite well. I was lucky enough as a child to live on Central Park South and got to know the south end of Central Park though I was always jealous of all my friends who used to sleigh on the 79th Street hill and I was alone on one smaller and nearer to 59th Street.

Later in my life there were opportunities to live on the Upper East Side and then the Upper West Side. For the past decade we were in the most convenient neighborhood I have ever lived in for the amenities of life but not near my park.

A few months ago we came again within a very short distance of Central Park and I am hit by how much I missed it. It is truly an oasis in this mad city. When I was a kid I felt I had it to myself and there were all these places I could go and when I saw no others I was sure I had made discoveries. In the mid 1960’s, however, when Tom Hoving was Parks Commissioner he did for Central Park what he later did for the Metropolitan Museum… though some may say did it to Central Park and the Met. He opened them up so that they really belonged to all the people. It was as if the park had been newly discovered and it seemed to instantly become overrun with humanity.

A short while later in the 1970’s the park deteriorated and was not being kept up. It probably had not needed as much attention before the throngs arrived. The Central Park Conservancy, a private not for profit group went into partnership with the city to keep the park in good shape and replant when and where necessary. The Conservancy bears the lion’s share of these expenses and has been a great success. It has all been kept in tip top shape.

Happily no mayor or legislature has allowed developers of any sought to change the park with few exceptions. The Metropolitan Museum did make a mild incursion when they installed the Primitive Wing on the left and the Temple of Dendur on the right of their edifice.

When tourists come to town we, of course, talk about the museums but also Central Park. As a matter of fact, if you walk Museum mile you have the park on the other side of the street the whole way!

Aside from the playgrounds which you would expect in the ten block walk between the Frick and the Met. You will find the Bethesda Fountain, where so many congregate on the weekends but actually everyday. On a hot day some will climb into the fountain or you might find a harpist by the lake.

From there a few steps will take you to the rowboat rental for the lake which is a good size on which to spend an hour or two searching out the area. There is a restaurant on the lake where you can have a scenic meal or you can grab a snack at the fast food counter on the park side.

Across the road is the model boat pond where the younger folk bring their own remote control boats or rent one by the hour. There too, snacks and light lunches are available.

As you follow around the pond you will find the Alice in Wonderland Statue upon which the kids climb and invariably have their pictures taken.

A bit further on is the statue of Hans Christian Anderson by which in the warmer months you will often find a storyteller reading to the younger children.

This has been merely, what the real estate people call, “a peek at park” (ie if you crane you neck out a bedroom window there is a very small view of the park). There is so much more to do and see even in the short walk or bike ride that I have described. One could easily devote a weekly blog just to Central Park and the goings on there.

Those Were the Weeks that Were

2011-11-06T21:06:00.000-05:00

Penelope left Santa Fe to join me in New York for just over two weeks. You already know the main reason: our Grand Opening for the new gallery, but there was also the visit of family from England, and it is the season when the New York Art World is bustling.

There was the Fine Art and Antique Dealer’s fair at the Armory for which Penelope serves on the vetting committee; dealers had receptions for exhibitions in their galleries such as Otto Naumann hosting a sculpture exhibition by Tomasso Brothers Fine Art, based in London and Leeds. And the auction houses held sales of import such as Sotheby’s much-touted sale of works of art from the New York apartment of Edmond and Lily Safra which in spite of a number of buy-ins, the 1,225 lots yielded over 45 million dollars.

Of the many galas that occur every day in New York we pick out just a few that are very important to us and, of course, they need to work out with our travel schedule.

The Frick Autumn Dinner, which is the museum’s biggest social event of the year, was very special to us this year. The out going Director, Anne Poulet, and the incoming director, Ian Wardropper not only went to the Art Institute of New York University at the time Penelope was there, but we have been in touch with them professionally and personally ever since.

Director Emerita Anne L. Poulet, Frick Director Ian Wardropper, and

Chairman of the Board of Trustees Margot Bogert; photo: Christine A. Butler

A few days later the Frick held another more intimate event for the Fellows of the Frick to introduce the new director and we did stop by again just to show our support and then had to rush off to another event that evening.

This was for an old friend, Karl Katz, who likes to take credit for bringing Penelope and me together to work on the CINOA exhibition, The Grand Gallery, at the Metropolitan Museum of Art and subsequently get married more than 36 years ago. At the time he was in charge of special exhibitions; later on he ran the Met’s department for Film and Television. When he left the Museum he started MUSE Film and Television, a not-for-profit that produces films on the arts. I served for many years on its board of directors. This year the theme of the gala dinner was “Artists Rights = Human Rights”. The dinner commenced with an impassioned speech by Artist Shirin Neshat, an Iranian photographer and video-artist, who came to the U.S. 30 years ago. Her work addresses social, political and psychological dimensions of the woman’s experience in contemporary Islamic society. Then we saw clips from films produced by MUSE about Ai Weiwei among others.

Later in the week we went to the Neue Galerie to attend the opening of the exhibition of the private collection of its co-founder, Ronald S. Lauder. It is really an incredible collection of works of art. It goes back to the medieval period but the primary focus is Austrian and German from1900 through the 20^th century and onto the present day. This amazing exhibition represents just a part of the vast Lauder collection.

The next evening there was a gala in honor of Jo Carole and Ronald Lauder given by the World Monuments Fund for all their services to the preservation of art and architecture throughout the world. The keynote speaker was Mrs. Colin Powell. She and her husband have known the Lauders for 25 years and travelled with them often.

Jo Carole is chairman of FAPE, The Foundation for Art and Preservation in Embassies, whose mandate is to enhance the U.S. image abroad through art displayed in and created for our embassies. Ronald has restored many cultural and religious institutions in Vienna as well as Central and Eastern Europe. The Tempel Synagogue in Krakow, Poland is just one example.

The final event of our whirlwind tour was the Private Art Dealers Award dinner this year honoring the Museum of the City of New York. The director, Susan Henshaw Jones, accepted the award from PADA’s president Robert Simon and both gave the perfect length, i.e. short, humorous speeches. Proof of the success of the evening was that unlike many gala dinners most people stayed to chat and meet all those that they had not spoken to at cocktails!

What an exciting and exhausting fortnight!

Stieglitz and His Artists: Matisse to O’Keeffe

2011-10-30T17:58:00.002-04:00

How can I resist this one? During the last few months in Santa Fe I have been writing about photography and Georgia O’Keeffe. I come back to New York and at the Metropolitan Museum, “Stieglitz and His Artists: Matisse to O’Keeffe” opens!

Alfred Stieglitz at 291, 1915

Edward Steichen (1879–1973)

Alfred Stieglitz (1864-1946) was an amazing photographer, founder of the Photo-Secession movement, editor of Camera Work as well an important dealer in photographs and modernist paintings. In 1929 he gave the first group of photographs accepted as art by the Metropolitan Museum which kicked off their photo collection. He had a number of galleries, the first being “291” which was his address on Fifth Avenue and the last was “An American Place”. In 1933 he gave another group of photos and more were given after his death by his widow Georgia O’Keeffe along with including paintings, prints and drawings totaling about 400 works of art. 200 of these are shown in this two-part exhibition. First one finds a small gallery of photos from the initial donations which include works by Stieglitz as well as Pictorialist masters whom he showed in his gallery.

Part two of the show is far larger and includes, photographs, prints, drawings and paintings by the artists Stieglitz represented during his career. Artists such as Marsden Hartley, Charles Demuth, John Marin not to mention Brancusi and Kandinsky. Can you imagine the excitement that Lisa Messinger, exhibition curator and catalog editor as well as other curators who had worked with the Stieglitz collection over the years felt? Finally, they could see this treasure trove that had been dispersed among the museum’s departments for generations, brought together in a single show. No matter how many times you flip through the images there is no substitute for seeing the works together on exhibition.

Marsden Hartley’s “Portrait of a German Officer” (1914)

Charles Demuth’s "I Saw the Figure 5 in Gold" (1928)

Georgia O’Keeffe’s “Cow Skull Red, White and Blue” (1931)

Stieglitz like many dealers was his own best client: the treasures he had include amazing iconic images that are in the show such as Marsden Hartley’s “Portrait of a German Officer” (1914), Charles Demuth’s "I Saw the Figure 5 in Gold" (1928) and Georgia O’Keeffe’s “Cow Skull Red, White and Blue” (1931)

Having said all this, the other side of the coin is that rooms full of a single artist's work, just because they were part of a dealer’s stable and came from his collection, might seem a bit much… I always want to see a tight edit. As I have said before, however, there are many ways to view an exhibition and those who created it make their decisions.

One editorial decision that seems most apt is that Stieglitz's wife and muse, Georgia O’Keeffe comes as a climax in the last gallery. As I walked into that space there were several of O’Keeffe’s more erotic plants and a young man said in a stage whisper to his friend, “Look at that vagina!” Whatever turns you onto art is, in my opinion, a good thing, though the artist would have taken great exception to that comment. She always denied any sexual connotations in her work.

Stieglitz was able to put together an incredible collection and thanks to his eye for quality the collection itself becomes a work of art.

The Party’s Over. It’s time to call it a day…

2011-10-23T11:15:00.000-04:00

That is the way I felt by the time our guests left the evening of our Grand Opening.

It was wonderful just the kind of mix one likes to see. There were museum directors and curators; clients and scholars; young and old; former members of the team at Rosenberg & Stiebel from 20 and 30 years ago; school chums from my distant past… and all are friends. Years ago my mother asked me if I had any friends because I was always involved with people who related to the art world – hey, that is what I enjoy there is a great deal of cross fertilization be they scholars, museum people, clients friends they are all rolled up into one!

When you have a good mixed group come together people reconnect, for instance, former members of the staff at the Metropolitan Museum see each other for the first time in years and after a few minutes they are reminiscing about “the good/bad old days”.

I remember a couple who were major collectors of contemporary art and they came regularly to our exhibitions when we had Stiebel Modern. At one of these openings one of them said to me, “I don’t like what you show but I love the way you do it.” They liked my style, what greater compliment can you get!

Aside from a great party, the ambience of our gallery allows us to discuss our common interests in the arts, and acts as a wonderful reminder of what we deal in and the quality of works of art that Stiebel, ltd. is known for.

It was gratifying how many of our guests told me about pieces in the gallery that they had read about in my ‘Missives from the Art World’. We don’t do art fairs off of our premises and we don’t advertise but in our media crazed world we have a niche to tell our stories. Missives and parties are the ways we do it.

Of course, you are dying to know whether we sold anything. Guests asked for images, data sheets and prices. Much easier today with email and jpegs than having transparencies reproduced and sending them out. When you have enough irons in the fire some of them get hot enough to brand with!

Take a look maybe you will see someone you know…

The Grand Opening

2011-10-16T19:25:00.000-04:00

For some reason Openings are always "Grand". I guess that is because they are important to those with a vested interest and for those with an insatiable curiosity!

My family art business has just moved to its 4th New York venue. When my father arrived from Europe he established Rosenberg & Stiebel in his apartment on Central Park South. Within 5 years he moved the company with his partners to a 57th Street Gallery which though only 5 blocks away represented the center of the art world. It was a modest gallery to start out but grew over the following decades until after 45 years it grew to 2 full floors occupying about 8,000 square feet.

The next move at the millennium was to our town house all the way east on 68th Street. Now, this year we have made our first move without my father. Again by moving just a few blocks laterally we have moved from off center to the very pulse of the New York old master world. We are now on 69th Street between Madison and Fifth Avenues.

Another advantage to the new venue is that the gallery is on different levels making it easier to focus the visitor on a specific work of art; as well as allowing for a 16 foot high gallery which works perfectly with the works of art from Continental Europe of past centuries that we deal in.

One of the questions we had to ask ourselves was are we trying to show the objects as they might appear in the collector’s home or are we offering a bazar from which they should choose. I think both concepts have advantages marketing-wise. In the end, however, it is my name on the door and I want my treasures to look comfortable in their new home.

I am sure you have heard that the worst disease a dealer can suffer from is falling in love with his collection… I mean inventory. I am afraid that I do suffer from this malady. I subscribe to the maxim intoned by the famous art dealer, Klaus Perls, who said, “I never sell anything. Every once in a while I allow someone to buy something.”

As we have for the past decade, we will remain by appointment only, since we have a small staff. We don’t want anyone disappointed if they come by. But you can phone from the corner to see if somebody is here.

O'Keeffe Country

2011-10-09T18:36:00.001-04:00

For my birthday Penelope gave me 24 hours in O'Keeffe country which included a landscape tour at Ghost Ranch, a tour of her home and studio in Abiquiu with O'Keefe's secretary and an overnight at the Abiquiu Inn.

Georgia O'Keeffe (1887-1986) visited New Mexico for the first time in 1917 and then again in 1929 and 1930. She spent her first summer at Ghost Ranch in 1934 and was finally able to buy her own home there in 1940. Ghost Ranch seems to have been the most inspiring place for her and she probably did more paintings of the landscape there than any place else she lived.

The tour we took was based on the 2004 exhibition organized by the George O’Keeffe Museum, “Sense of Place”. The concept of the show was to compare the artist’s paintings with the actual landscape.

In order to understand an artist and what they are painting one needs to go to the places where they were working. For instance in Italian painting the light is strong and direct while in Dutch painting the skies are usually darker and more atmospheric.

In O'Keeffe country the bright direct light, the barrenness of the land and the rock formations, the spots of green and tufts of clouds are today as they were when she was working there. Even though she used varying degrees of abstraction, she managed to transmit the feeling of the land in her art. She referred to Ghost Ranch as “the far away, nearby”, a perfect description. Actually, I often feel that concept goes for much of the Southwest.

Her second New Mexico home was in Abiquiu, 14 miles south of Ghost Ranch. She had coveted a house she passed often on her way to Ghost Ranch and was finally able to buy it in 1945. After years of neglect the house needed a lot of work and there was the perfect opportunity when she had to return to New York to settle her husband, Alfred Stieglitz’s, estate in 1946. She left her companion Maria Chabot to manage the rebuilding.

The interior is rather stark in it’s minimalist style. Light came from bare bulbs in ceiling sockets or hanging down on wires. The only covered ceiling fixtures were Akari paper lamps, a gift from Isamu Noguchi who had been invited to dinner but did not show up! They were hung in the dining room. Her work and dining tables were made of plywood. Her rock collection covers most of the flat surfaces particularly on the window sills. The warmth comes from the gardens, the original adobe undulating walls 16 to 18 inches thick, and, most of all, from the beautiful scenery which seeps in from the many large windows.

Penelope had arranged for Agapita Judy Lopez, known at Pita, to give us the tour of the house. She had come to work there in 1976, first as companion and later as secretary to Ms. O’Keeffe. Her grandfather had been the gardener and her mother the cook, so Pita became part of the “O’Keeffe family”. I had taken a group tour of the Abiquiu house some years ago and the difference doing it with Pita was not the facts, which were obviously the same, but the personal stories. O’Keeffe by any measure was not the easiest of people to deal with, so when Pita started out and had questions she did not bother the artist, instead she would call her mother!

O’Keeffe managed her image but had difficulty relating to people on a personal basis. She was known as reclusive in Santa Fe circles, but she expressed the wish to have her home be open to the public when she was gone. When Senator Pete Domenici of New Mexico wanted to make it a Federal site open to the public, she was told that the doors would have to be widened under the Disabled Persons Act and other modifications would have to be made. As Pita told us “Miss O’Keeffe said “’That is not my home!’” and stopped Domenici from carrying through. The house is today part of the Georgia O’Keeffe Museum.

The world of Georgia O’Keeffe and her paintings have a mesmerizing effect and once you have seen O’Keeffe country it is impossible to separate the two.

The Granddaddy of Them All

2011-10-02T14:59:00.002-04:00

As Vince, our New York Gallery Director, and I looked at our new gallery, which is almost ready for prime time viewing, one work of art in particular caught our eye. It was not the 18th century decorative arts or the Old Master paintings and drawings for which we have been known for over a century, but it was an Art Nouveau Grandfather Clock.

Penelope and I acquired it 25 years ago and it spent over a decade gracing the living room of our Park Avenue apartment and later over a decade in our bedroom in our townhouse.

The story began on a visit to the Macklowe Gallery’s restoration studio where we were reviewing the work being done to a piece that we had purchased from the Lloyd Macklowe. As my eyes wandered around I spotted a bit of a bronze jardinière (planter) sticking out from under a work bench. It absolutely epitomized the Art Nouveau spirit and I loved it so much that, without even looking at my wife, I said to Lloyd, “I’ll take it”. Instead of saying, “sold” he said, “it’s a bit larger than you think”. Judging from the detail that I had seen I figured it was an object you set on a table. It looked like the work of one of the greatest artists of the period, François-Rupert Carabin (1862-1932). Well it wasn’t either. It was an eight foot plus grandfather’s clock with two such jardinières!

Only problem was that we lived in a 5th floor walk-up at the time with 8 ½ foot ceilings! I just couldn’t leave it behind, however, and asked my father if we could just leave it at our 57th Street gallery for a time. He agreed and that is where it rested until a couple of years after when we bought our apartment on Park Avenue.

Meanwhile, we had some time to do research on the piece and learned that it was not by Carabin though the greatest expert for this artist at the time exclaimed Carabin as soon as he saw it. You see, unfortunately, one of the bronzes is signed ‘Jouant’ for Jules Jouant (active 1885-1913) about whom we know precious little. Maurice Rheims (1910-2003) a major figure, as a collector and expert of the period suggested that the case be attributed to the architect Hector Guimard (1867-1942).

What we did learn later is that this clock is one of two known and that one of them was in the 1904 World’s Fair in St. Louis.

Look at some of the details, there are twelve female nudes representing the hours of the day; the ones at the top are surrounded by sunflowers symbolizing midday. The clock is wired for electricity with a light bulb at the center of each sunflower. The figure of night stands closed eyed on a crescent moon with poppies surrounding her. This combination of sculptural invention with electric light, that was just coming into usage at the beginning of the 20th century, would have made a state-of-the-art representation of French furniture for a World’s Fair.

Our new life style in New York and Santa Fe has led us to change our collecting goals. So it is time for someone else to get the same pleasure out of this piece as Penelope and I have.

"Paris: Life & Luxury" Redux

2011-09-25T22:30:00.002-04:00

We flew to Houston, Texas to see the exhibition, "Paris: Life & Luxury" in it's second venue. As you know from a previous Missive, Stiebel, Ltd. is a lender to the show.

Many of you have seen an exhibition in more than one venue and realize that they are really never the same show. I learned this some 25 years ago when we saw an exhibition on the art of the Second Empire in France. Since in those days many still looked down their noses at "old art" created after 1800, it was thought to all be reproductions of the golden age of France in the 18th century. The exhibition in the Philadelphia Art Museum was a real eye-opener which completely changed my way of thinking and I started to really enjoy the art of that period. Later in the year we were in Paris and were delighted to learn that the same exhibition was on in the Grand Palais. It should have looked sensational there, was I disappointed! Thank goodness we saw the Philadelphia version first; If we had seen "The Second Empire" show in Paris first we would never have gone to the second venue. It is too long ago for me to remember the differences in detail, but I know that in Philadelphia many of the objects were in their own vitrines or juxtaposed to appropriate objects and all was beautifully lit. In Paris the objects were just lined up in dim light.

Move ahead thirty years and we saw the "Paris: Life & Luxury" show installed differently with some of the objects switched out because some lenders would only agree to a single venue or the Houston curator in charge of the show, Helga Aurisch, had different view of the same material. The concept of the exhibition is based on four small paintings by Nicholas Lancret representing the four times of day and was certainly open to interpretation.

The co-author of the exhibition at the Getty, Charissa Bremer-David, came to Houston for the opening. She said that the show was like a deck of cards that could be shuffled and dealt in many different ways. This is, of course, true of any exhibition.

One of the big differences in the Houston show was dictated by the size of the galleries. The Getty version seemed more intense and intimate. It seemed to give more of the atmosphere of the period. On the other hand, the Houston exhibition was a more traditional museum presentation with the focus on the individual objects.

One of the physical changes in the objects was a bed in the first gallery. The Getty showed an extremely rare Louis XIV bed with a period embroidered cover, hangings and canopy, that was too delicate to travel to a second venue. It was replaced in Houston with a Louis XV Lit a la Turque (a three sided bed, 8 feet across) that is richly carved and gilded. This made for a less esoteric and more opulent opening to the exhibition.

There seemed to be relatively more light in the Houston version. Then, ironically, during the opening half the light tracks went out and we could see the show more the way it would have been seen by candlelight in the eighteenth century. When they came back up again we could see the objects far clearer in their museum setting.

When the lights went off we were standing next to 4 paintings in dark wooden frames. The pictures went dead. We happened to glance behind us and saw a painting in a gilded frame still glowing. It reminded us why there was so much gilding in French 18th century interiors: it reflected the candle light giving off more illumination. And the richer you were the more you had gilded.

If you see a movie more than once you may get more out of it, but that is only because you missed something the first time. In the second venue of an exhibition you will have a whole new experience.

St. Louis

2011-09-18T07:50:00.001-04:00

On the road again, we went to St. Louis to see an ailing aunt and my cousins but when you are in the art world there are museums and collectors in most places.

Our first art stop was the St. Louis Art Museum where even though the museum was officially closed on Mondays, the curator of European art before 1800, Judy Mann, gave us a tour. It was particularly interesting because a new wing for modern art is being built which means other departments gain more space and all the curators must rethink their collections. We actually saw the re-installation in process and could learn what was going to be done with these collections. Installation and the juxtaposition of works of art offer a new interpretation of a collection.

What was also of interest was that the original building was built for the 1904 World's Fair, and how the architect for the new wing, David Chipperfield, was going to integrate the buildings. It seems that he started by asking the curators which of the current galleries worked well for them and what they would like to see the new galleries to look like. He is said to build from the inside out. Obviously there have been many changes in the old building, designed by Cass Gilbert, during the past 100 years and Chipperfield recommended bringing the original building back to its original formation. All these things are an unusual approach for today's museum architects and they are music to a curator's ears. It remains to be seen if he can deliver all that he promises.

Our next stop was the Missouri History Museum where I was most intrigued by the story of native son Charles Lindbergh. In May of 1927 he made his solo flight to Paris in 33 1/2 hours. His plane, The Spirit of St. Louis, was a mono plane, custom built and had no windscreen (it had a periscope instead), no radio, and no brakes. In the center hall is a replica of the plane created for the 1953 movie, The Spirit of St. Louis, with Jimmy Stewart playing the role of Lindbergh who taught Stewart how to fly the plane.

That evening we were invited by two excellent and eclectic collectors. The other guests were a curator, a museum director and an art insider. Now, this was an exciting evening with all parties interested about the others' insight into their art world. We probably learned more about St. Louis art politics in a few hours than we could have in months of experience there.

The next morning, though the museum is closed both Mondays and Tuesdays, friends gave us an introduction so that we could get a tour by the Curator, Francesca Herndon-Consagra, at the Pulitzer Foundation for the Arts. It is in a building commissioned by Emily Rauh Pulitzer and designed by Tadao Ando. It is a minimalist cement building but very effective with a shallow pool running along the building for relief.What I found unusual was that there has been a tradition of designing exhibitions with the building in mind. Therefore, the curators have always had, though not out of necessity, about 25 works of art in each show. This is the opposite of the approach at the Art Museum where the architect wishes to accommodate the art. The Pulitzer is open to the general public but they do not have an education staff but rather two Social Workers and cater particularly to the homeless, disadvantaged and former convicts.

Later we also visited the Museum of Western Expansion based on the exploits of Lewis and Clark which we found under the famous St. Louis Arch, designed by Eero Saarinen, on the Mississippi River.

Then we were surprised to find the Basilica Cathedral with it's hundreds of Mosaics done by Italian immigrant laborers between 1912 and 1988.

We ended our brief and very full trip visiting a collector to see his print and sculpture collection. He gave us a fabulous tour explaining the provenance and scholarship issues of the pieces. All followed by a dinner under the full moon and stars.

Off to Houston.

Painting & Photography/ Photography & Painting

2011-09-11T21:04:00.003-04:00

When this Missive arrives in your mailbox the exhibition “Shared Intelligence: American Painting and the Photograph” will have closed at the Georgia O’Keeffe Museum in Santa Fe, but what a wonderful concept it is to mull. While I had issues with the exhibition, such as installation and choices of some of the works, the concept was excellent. How did and do painters use photography in their work.

Even though I knew that some painters, such as Degas took up the camera shortly after the invention of photography, I was not really aware what an integral part of their work it became so early on. It is, of course, perfectly logical. Artists used to carry around a sketchpad so with this latest advance in technology they started taking their camera, though originally it must have been a bit cumbersome!

Already in the 1880’s Thomas Eakins was taking photographs for his paintings. The exhibitions showed some precise copies of his photos, though always with some interpretation involved in the addition or deletion of details. Half a century later, Norman Rockwell, in his painting “Soda Jerk” from the Columbus Art Museum in Ohio, took it to the extreme by actually staging photographs, using lighting and crew to get the precise photos that he was looking for, which he then copied into his painting. Ben Shahn, however, used a photo taken in Natchez, Tennessee and one from Pleasant Valley, Pennsylvania in 1935 as the basis for his painting entitled “Among the Church Goers” done in 1939.

When I was in college I was given a photo assignment to create an abstract photo. My first reaction was, ‘Nonsense, Impossible, the camera takes exactly what it sees.’ So I started walking around Manhattan and ended up in the area known as Chelsea. There I came across this old truck and looked at it from the front and saw its rusted grill (they look different today) and there was my abstract image. The exhibition showed that Georgia O’Keeffe beat me to the observation by many decades. She saw the photographer Paul Strand as an abstract artist because he would sometimes pick details of scenes and still lives and focused on those. She did the same in her detail of an artichoke or a blue flower, some see these images as erotic today.

Paul Strand "Bowls" (1916) / Georgia O'Keeffe "Blue Flower" (1918)

Photorealism starts with an actual photo, but the photorealist uses the camera and then creates paintings that are super real and go beyond the photo. An excellent example in the exhibition was Robert Bechtle’s family.

Chuck Close takes the process one step further in his original photo portraits of the 70’s and 80’s but he keeps pushing the bounderies. Still, starting with the photo and a grid he will use a finger paint technique at times to create his over life size images. Accentuating all details of the skin and its blemishes to the point where the portrait has come full circle and is almost abstract. Our eye learns to scan quickly and not focus on the details, a reason that people can be most unreliable eye witnesses.

One of the most mind-bending paintings in the exhibit at the O’Keefe was by Audrey Flack called “World War II (Vanitas)”, from 1976-77. Her garishly painted luxuries of life are not contrasted with the Old Master’s traditional device of a skull, but rather with a with a depiction of a photograph taken by Margaret Bourke White of prisoners at the Buchwald Concentration Camp in 1945.

Audrey Flack "WWII" Ventas (1976-77)

The photograph has come a long way, no longer merely being used as a recording device but being used as an important element in creating the finished painting.

The Wheelwright Expansion

2011-09-04T19:39:00.001-04:00

A short while ago we were invited to an early Sunday brunch in a tent in front of The Wheelwright Museum in Santa Fe. The Wheelwright is a private institution that was founded in 1937 by Mary Cabot Wheelwright, who came from a wealthy Boston family, together with Hastiin Klah, a Navajo Medicine Man and artist who she had been introduced to on the Navajo Reservation. Both were interested in the preservation of the Navajo culture and religion and they became fast friends.

In 1990 the museum was officially listed on the National Register of Historic Places. As you might expect, the museum was originally devoted to the art of the Navajo and the building that was constructed was in the form of a traditional Navajo home, a round building known as a Hogan. The original exhibition space was 1,500 square feet which today has a few additional spaces. In the Hogan a myriad of different kinds of exhibitions have been done including Pueblo Indian Embroidery, the Native American Curio Trade, and Thunderbird Jewelry from the Santa Domingo Pueblo. For us the shows there are among the best anywhere because they are totally focused on a limited theme and masterfully installed in a way that the material is clear and easy to understand.

The brunch was a follow-up to a similar event five years ago where it was announced that a couple from North Carolina, after having researched museums across the county, had decided to donate their historic Navajo Jewelry Collection to the Wheelwright. Many are happy to donate collections to museums but, in this case, as importantly, they would contribute enough money to kick off a campaign to build an extension to house the museum’s jewelry collection. This fed perfectly into a concept that the director, Jonathan Batkin, who came to the museum in 1990 and his curator, Cheri Falkenstien-Doyle who arrived in 1998 had since the beginning of the millennium, to create an additional space in which to exhibit jewelry and study its derivation and history.

The $3,000,000 fund raising campaign, which was begun five years ago has been 75% realized. The proposed 7,000 square foot extension will have a 2,000 square foot gallery with a space for a semi-permanent exhibition of the history of Southwestern jewelry as well as a space for a regularly changing exhibition. It will be known as the Center for the Study of Southwestern Jewelry and named after Martha Hopkins Struever, a dealer in Santa Fe who is an expert on the Southwest and its Indian art. By the way, she has some of the best jewelry around. She hustled to help make this project a worthwhile realization. Her greatest contribution was to bring in the donations of several additional collections. Together with what the museum already has, the Center will have nearly 5,000 pieces. Most intelligently, they have not only collected jewelry, but also the papers of scholars of Southwest jewelry including Washington Matthews (1843-1905) who wrote one of the earliest books on the subject published by the Smithsonian in 1883, and John Adair the leading 20th century scholar of Navajo jewelry. All will be part of the center.

Hopi Tufa-cast silver bracelet with serpent design

in turquoise, jet, coral, and white shell by

Preston Monongye, circa 1975. Photo by Addison Doty

Until now the concentration has been on the Navajo, but this is where the collections that Martie Struever has brought in have played a major role. She has obtained a major collection of Zuni material and other tribes, but, alas, the overlay silver that the neighboring Hopi created after World War II is still lacking.

A former president of the Board pointed to a wonderful overlay silver bola that Penelope was wearing by a recently deceased Hopi silversmith and said, “That is the kind of object we have not yet been able to find…” One always hopes that what one collects is museum-worthy but the pieces give us such pleasure we cannot bring ourselves to part with them, yet.

Navajo Silver necklace by Ambrose Roanhorse,
probably 1950s. Photo by Addison Doty.

To learn more about Jonathan Batkin’s concept for the Study Center watch the director speak about a few of the pieces in the collection and their historical documentation.

Need to Shop Some More

2011-08-28T19:07:00.002-04:00

Back in Santa Fe the Indian and Ethnographic craziness continues.

We came back from Hopi in time for two different Ethnographic fairs and what we call Old Indian Market. The latter takes place a few days before the big Indian Market at the Santa Fe Community Convention Center. Dealers from all over come to the Whitehawk Fair to show historical material from many tribes. We, of course, go from booth to booth, as everyone does in a fair, chatting with friends and colleagues along the way.

Indian Market Shoppers

We, like you, are always looking for a great discovery, that wonderful object that we love and can afford. As you know that can often turn out to be a pipe dream. In any case, our quest is always a learning experience. Seeing things we have not seen before, asking about them, learning the new price structure and most importantly teaching

ourselves about quality.

Is this one better or less good than the similar object in the other booth or do we have one already that is more satisfactory? Does this object advance our collection or just add another similar piece to it?

A Young Booth Attendant

Needless to say, Penelope and I often disagree so we then discuss the reasons we feel the way we do. Inside secret: watch a dealer’s face when you say I need to speak to my significant other about it. No matter how hard the dealer tries to cover it up you will see a fleeting grimace on his face and can imagine his groaning inside!

As far as Penelope and I are concerned, we have pretty much split our collection into what each of us collects with overlapping fields as well. In the other’s area we rarely use our available veto, but, after all, the other has to live with the object as well. Much more often we agree or one of us has our eyes opened by what the other has said or the information that we learned from the dealer.

Last week-end was the main event on our collecting calendar, Indian Market, with nearly one thousand Native American artists on the Plaza and the streets surrounding it. The “Sneak Preview” takes place in the Convention Center the evening before Market begins. The works submitted for prizes are shown with their ribbons, if they have won, along side them.

A Native Northwest Coast Visitor

The reason I have no illustration is that as we were standing in line to get in, a security person walked up and down the line saying, “if you even take out a cell phone or camera inside you will be escorted out of the show.” Reason given, “copyright issues”. The next morning, however, at 7am the booths on the streets open for business and everyone is out with their cameras… go figure.

As I have probably said before the Indians often keep their best pieces for the market because they want to submit them for the prize ribbons. So often, but not always, there are stellar works that one sees at the preview that collectors covet. If the artist is well known or the work is extraordinary (and they often go together) there will be many who desire the piece. The rule is that the Indians cannot sell and the collectors cannot buy until exactly 7 am the morning after “Sneak Preview” and, to my knowledge, no one cheats. What the collectors do, however, is come early. In fact, in one case this year someone stayed on the plaza all night in the pouring rain to be the first in line at a specific booth. He wanted to buy the basket that had won the top prize known as “Best In Show”. It was by Jeremy Frey of the Passamaquoddy tribe in Maine.

And yes, we found a piece we couldn’t leave behind: a silver concho belt by Ed Kabotie, grand-son of Fred Kabotie, who was responsible for the post-WWII renaissance in Hopi art and son of Michael Kabotie, silversmith painter and sculptor.

Ed Kabotie Tewa Migration Concho Belt

If you have the bug, there is no stopping the passionate collector.

Up on the Rez

2011-08-21T20:37:00.003-04:00

After our detour to the Mission Church at Laguna, we spent the night in Gallup, New Mexico, on the border of the Navajo Reservation. The next morning we drove into Arizona through Navajo land and arrived at our destination at Second Mesa on the Hopi Reservation. Our 13-year-old friend, Joshua, had asked, “what are we going to do here”. Penelope’s response was, “Nothing” mine was, “Shop and Learn”!

Planned activity is useless where time is valued so differently. Even ceremonial dances are not scheduled to begin at a set hour. They simply start when the participants are ready. Time just does not have the same significance to the Native Americans. In fact I have a tee-shirt that I bought at the Santa Clara Pueblo that says…

After we had driven to the top of Second Mesa we arrived at Tsakurshovi, the trading post that belongs to our friends, Janice and Joseph Day, she is Hopi, he is Anglo. They live next to their shop at the edge of the Mesa. Their business is both with the Indians and the Anglos. The primary difference is that the Indians usually trade and the Anglos pay cash. Both are necessary to keep the trading post going.

We began our time at Hopi in search of Native treasures, otherwise known as shopping! We visited many of the artists and dealers who have places along the road between 2nd and 3rd Mesas and they were more than happy to discuss what they had and what they made. By talking about the subject matter of the Katsinas, which can have a different significance in each village and discussing techniques used to create the pottery and silver we learned a great deal about native customs as well as crafts. The tribe’s biggest enterprise is the creation of artifacts that are not just sold at Hopi but all over the Southwest and even as far away as Japan.

We also saw a dance at the Tewa Village of Hano and “discovered” a rodeo near another of the villages. In the end we found far more we wanted to do than we had time for.

The greatest treat, however, was when Joseph, who is quite the raconteur took us to a remote site which is not open to visitors. It is an incredible spot where Joseph said we could find 12 to 14,000 petroglyphs, not that he had counted. I have never seen so many and at many different levels from places we could reach on foot to parts so high up you would have to scale the rock face to get there. They range in date from several thousand years ago to more recent work known today as graffiti! World Monuments’ Fund out of New York was asked, not long ago, to come out to show the Hopi how to remove the graffiti and what might be done to prevent it in the future.

Joshua was the only one in our party, that Sunday evening, who could climb through a crevice and reach the top of a rock formation where he discovered a pair of short swords in opposite sides of a single sheath. When he came down and described what he had seen, Joseph said he believed they were an offering made by a veteran of Afghanistan or Iraq.

We learned about “sun daggers” a phenomenon re-discovered only 35 years ago. These are rock carvings positioned so as to interact with the rays of the sun at the March 20/21 and September 22/23 equinoxes. This was how the ancient Anasazi people kept the calendar essential to their agriculture.

We had been so engrossed in our tour of discovery that as nightfall overtook us Joseph took the wheel of our car in a race through the darkness along unmarked roads back to Tsakurshovi where Janice was waiting for us.

The Church at Laguna

2011-08-14T16:26:00.002-04:00

Our 13-year old houseguest, Joshua, from Portland, Oregon, wanted us to take him and his Dad to the Hopi Reservation, but even before we got there we had a very Native American experience. On the way Penelope requested that we go off the highway at the Laguna Pueblo so that we could visit the mission church there that we had never seen before.

When we arrived at the church we were lucky in that there were no tour buses or visitors about. The bad news was that the priest was not there, and the Custodian came out of her office at 11:15 AM announcing that she was off to lunch and if we wanted to wait around for an hour she would be happy to show us the church.

We thanked her and proceeded to walk around the beautiful undulating stone and white stucco church. In the graveyard behind the church we came across the grave of a World War II veteran freshly decorated with flags and on the church wall a shrine in honor of the Laguna Indians who had lost their lives in that war. It reminded us of the Indians’ patriotism even though they didn’t have the right to vote at that time.

From the terrace at the back of the church, we were staring out at the breath-taking landscape below when an Indian carrying a flute appeared and asked if we had seen the church. We told him that it was locked and so we would not be able to see it on this visit. He replied that he would take us in.

Clearly delighted at the opportunity to educate the tourists, he snuck into a back entrance and opened the main church doors for us. He then proceeded, for the next hour, to tell us not only the history of the church but also his life story.

In 1680 the Southwest Pueblos, in a rare gesture of solidarity, joined forces and threw out the Spanish. Twelve years later, however, the Spanish returned and reclaimed the territory. By the end of the century the Laguna pueblo had built a mission church and requested their own priest who clearly was there to convert all from their, supposedly, heathen ways.

We were in this very church dedicated to San Jose or St. Joseph, patron saint of the Spanish New World. Though original, it had gone through frequent renovation and re-decoration.

The Indian designs on the side walls were all of recent vintage but the altarpiece with St. Joseph was painted in 1808-1809 by the Laguna Master.

Our guide’s name was Alfred Pinot and his card said "Laguna Artist, ornaments, pottery, murals, eggs". He had been introduced to the church as an altar boy over 30 plus years ago. His mother had not been religious but he brought her to the church and over time she became devoted to Kateri Tekakwitha or Catherine Tekakwitha, a 17th Century Mohawk-Alogonquin Indian who converted early to Catholicism and has been beatified. Our guide’s mother believed her prayers before the figure of the Blessed Kateri, that stands beside the altar rail, made possible their move to a wonderful new home.

Like many Native Americans our guide had some problem thinking in a linear fashion and his story twisted and turned until he got to his goal of playing on his flute a song that he had written. To our relief the Native American composition was melodious and it sounded wonderful in the church.

We came away feeling that we had experienced a rare blend of cultures, and young Joshua received an introduction to the Southwest that he could not have found in a book.

*Disclaimer: We strictly adhered to the rules of the Pueblo and did not take photos. The ones shown here were found on Google Images and Wikimedia.

Spanish Market

2011-08-07T21:58:00.000-04:00

The last weekend of July we enjoyed the annual Spanish Market in Santa Fe. It is one of the few large fairs which occupy the entire center of town. The streets around the Plaza are all closed down for mostly exhibition booths but also a section of food kiosks.

Founded by the Spanish Colonial Art Society which was formed in 1925, the first fair was held in 1926. It has continued ever since, though between 1935 and 1965 it was mixed in with Indian Market which I will be writing about in a few weeks time. The weekend is kicked off by a special preview of works submitted for prizes with the winning entries tagged with ribbons. They are divided into various categories such as Straw Appliqué, Textiles, Furniture, Pottery and Bultos which are carvings and Retablos which are paintings on wood of religious subjects.

The Spanish Colonial Society has been very strict in insisting on an adherence to traditional values but for the first time this year a category for innovation within the traditions is being allowed for 30% of an artist’s booth, if, that is, he has been “juried in” (been approved) for that category. An artist has to have been in the Market for at least two years to qualify. Here is an example of an original interpretation of a St. Christopher by Gustavo Victor Goler which won this year’s blue ribbon for innovation.

Twenty-five years ago the artists who did non-traditional Hispanic art could not get into the traditional market so they rebelled and created their own show, called the Contemporary Hispanic Market in the court yard of the Palace of the Governors. These days, however, they occupy two long blocks perpendicular to the Plaza with booths as far as the eye can see. Frankly, we were rather disappointed in the Contemporary Market offerings this year, though in former years many excited us. What is nice about fairs are the surprises one can have, but there are never so many that you get bored with the treasure hunt.

There are several excellent furniture makers at Spanish Market but I believe the best this year is Andrew Garcia who won the blue ribbon for this trastero.

He also makes tables with uneven hand-gouged and smoothed tops sloping towards the edges. Not great for writing on but absolutely wonderful to both the eye and touch.

There is always a great deal of tin work on display and it is amazing how certain artists stand out in their work. Justin Gallegos Mayrant is one of those and here he is in his booth with a few of his pieces.

Using a raised or layered frame his work appears to be three-dimensional, distinguishing it from the work with more punched ornament on flat sheets which describes much of the other tin work in the show. Last Year Justin showed a Madonna in tin that bore eyelashes (now that was a first!).

The artists often have a book of illustrations in their booths so that the visitor can span the artist’s potential and possibly commission a work, be it a frame for a photo or a beautiful Madonna.

We met a contingent of visitors who came down from Denver for the Market. Among them were three curators, a conservator as well as docents and collectors who buy for their own collections and upon occasion for the Denver Art Museum. They come every year to look, study and keep up with what is happening in their field of interest. It is no coincidence that Denver has one of the foremost Spanish Colonial Collections in this country.

There is plenty for one and all at Spanish Market.

Appreciation of the Permanent Collection

2011-07-31T09:58:00.000-04:00

Why do people often swarm to a museum exhibition but ignore the permanent collection? Is it the fact that the permanent collection “will always be there” and the special exhibition has a limited engagement or is it a smart title such as “Behind the Red Velvet Curtain” which engages the imagination?

One way that museums have faced this challenge is by doing exhibitions around the permanent collection. The term Blockbuster was coined when Thomas P.F. Hoving was director of the Metropolitan Museum. One of his first blockbusters took place in 1970. Called “Masterpieces of Fifty Centuries” it was drawn exclusively from the Metropolitan’s collections.

Today, with finances tight the in-house exhibition has fiscal advantages as well. Some museums have put an additional twist on this formula by creating long term exhibitions that are intended to show works from the permanent collection but need not remain static.

The New Mexico Museum of Art did this with a show called, “How the West is One” which opened in April 2007. Read that title again so you are sure you got it. Not only an evocative title but one that has something to say. The curator of the show is Joseph Traugott, curator of 20th century art at the museum. He believes that the importance of New Mexico in the development of American art has been missed by many. So here he shows the development of the styles from the late 19th century to the present. This joining of the complexities of the various cultures of New Mexico is exemplified in the very first painting in the exhibition by Ray Martin Abeyta (1956-), ‘Indios’, showing an American Indian and an Eastern Indian, but separated and not in the same frame.

One of my favorite pictures in the show is by James Stovall Morris (1902-73). It represents a Hispanic funeral in New Mexico and certainly demonstrates the mores of a culture. It was commissioned by the U.S. General Services Administration (GSA) during the depression as part of the WPA program through which so much great art was sponsored by the government. The resulting works belong to the Federal Government and are placed in museums as long term loans.

Our son Hunter, the Hopi kachina doll collector, used to lament that there was no joy in seeing examples in museum collections because he could not hope to own them, or even similar pieces. They might be out of his price range or just not available. “How the West is One” offers more hope to collectors as it extends to the present with pieces by artists active today. Here, I cannot pick a favorite but I love the sneakers by a fabulous Native American Beader by the name of Terri Greeves (1970-). While one might not be able to afford a pair of her beaded sneakers her bracelets start at around $200.

Over the past four years Traugott has added or switched out works of art in order to include new acquisitions that are pertinent to the exhibition. As a result you are getting a dynamic and interesting exhibition which speaks to the tourist as well as the resident allowing them to enjoy the show and then revisit it without getting bored.

Should you be in Santa Fe between now and next March, when the exhibition is scheduled to end, I recommend that you see it for yourself.

Treasures of Heaven

2011-07-24T21:39:00.000-04:00

“Treasures of Heaven: saints, relics and devotion in medieval Europe”

As if I could come up with a better title than the one given by the joint venture of the Cleveland Museum of Art, the Walter’s Art Gallery in Baltimore and the British museum in their joint venture. Looking at material from 330 AD to 1450, the exhibition “explores the spiritual and artistic significance of Christian relics and reliquaries in medieval Europe.

Exhibitions are, in my opinion, first and foremost about the works of art that they show but the ambience they are set in is extremely important as well, and every exhibition looks different in a different venue (a Missive for another day). The installation conveys the curator and designer’s vision of the exhibition.

At the British Museum, as you enter the dark rooms of the exhibition you hear liturgical music throughout. The religious objects are all on blue grey material, until you get to the relics of Christ where everything is against a royal red background. Subtle changes like this that you might not even consciously realize, are most evocative in creating the atmosphere, and, as a result, one’s understanding of the material.

Among the earliest pieces in the show are sarcophagi. These were created to hold the body of an important personage and most often to be seen above ground and therefore often richly carved with ornament or scenes from the deceased’s life.

Relics could consist of a bone from a saint or a fragment of a garment, something to be venerated in a public ceremony or a private chapel.

Later in medieval times relics were enshrined in finely crafted containers, often created by a goldsmith. The shapes varied sometimes indicating what the relic in the reliquary was; for instance, the beautiful late 12th century German “Arm Reliquary of the Apostles” from the Cleveland Museum of Art which was part of the, so called, Guelph Treasure. The museum acquired it with several other pieces from a consortium that my family was part of in the early 1930’s.

Then there is the shrine (aka a châsse) of Saint Amandus from the early 13th century called “The Heavenly Jerusalem” from the Walter’s Art Gallery. It unfortunately has losses and additions but it does give one the spirit of this type of object shaped like a church to contain relics. I must, however, admit to missing the great châsses (many many times as large) from Aachen and Cologne but these, are considered so important that it is unlikely they would ever be lent.

In the addendum of the exhibition, having left the religious material and coming into the Protestant era there is this wonderful quote from John Calvin, “How do we know we are venerating the ring and comb of the Virgin Mary rather than the baubles of a harlot”

It is a bit like throwing a wet towel on your face after having been mesmerized by the religious fervor of what came before, and is probably very much what the protestants felt when Martin Luther came to the fore.

London

2011-07-17T18:22:00.000-04:00

What a crazy week! Christies is at one end and Bonham's auction house at the other with Sotheby's in between, a walk too short for a taxi ride but a long schlep of around a mile from one end to the other. This walk is not just done once a day but many times to view and to review. Of course, there are dozens of galleries in this neighborhood and as I said last week there are exhibitions in many of them.

There is more than one art world, but most of those interested in old works of European art come for this week. There are collectors, curators, foreign dealers and friends whom you run into continuously. We greet each other every year complaining that there is nothing interesting and, after a while, admitting that we did see something here or there that we are considering, but not always saying what it is.

Of course, what interests one doesn't always interest the other, so a lot of material changes hands, though never as much as one hoped. Usually the auction houses hand one third of the auction's works of art back to their original owners, while the dealers, who are not selling well, say there are lots of people interested in their wares.

Master Paintings Week joined Master Drawings London giving us a list of just under 50 galleries to visit. Mercifully, many of these galleries participate in both shows making it fewer actual locations to go to. One does not always wish to see all of them but there are enough to keep one on the go. I never want to miss the ones with the best titles such as “Senses and Sensibility: Intimate Depictions of French Society 1700 – 1900“ at Deborah Gage and “Finding Van Dyck – Newly discovered and rarely seen works by Van Dyck and his followers“ at Philip Mould.

The most important auctions are usually scheduled as evening sales and for some, one needs to book a ticket in advance. This year the offerings seemed slim. Usually an evening sale has just the best of the best but this was not the case, so slightly under a third of the material went unsold at these sales as well. Still there are always the exceptions that make the headlines like the large Francesco Guardi, Venice, A View from the Realto Bridge, which brought £26,697,250 including the buyer’s premium. Of course, with the wide estimate of £15-25,000 this means the picture only brought close to the high estimate.

There were some special auctions too. Sotheby’s came up with a clever title, “Treasures: Princely Taste”. This was a mixture of furniture, objects, bronzes and other pieces suitable for royalty, if you will. But huge estimates often dwarfed the quality of the pieces but again there were some prices that exceeded expectations such as a pair of Italian 18^th century settees made for a palazzo in Genoa. They were estimated at £3-500,000 and brought over £1,700,000. I did not attend, but Christies did something similar and called it “The Exceptional Sale” which, for variety’s sake, even included an eighteenth century Spanish pistol estimated at £50-70,000 brought £55,250. So not everything brought telephone numbers!

If it is variety and activity you are looking for it was a most exciting time in London.

As usual there were a number of excellent exhibitions on in the museums and next week I will tell you about the one I loved and could have seen earlier without a trans-Atlantic trip.