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Thursday, 05 May 2011 04:45

Henri Matisse fondly called Dr. Claribel and Miss Etta Cone “my two Baltimore ladies.” The two Cone sisters began buying art directly out of the Parisian studios of avant-garde artists in 1905. Although the sisters' taste for modern art was little understood—critics disparaged Matisse at the time and Pablo Picasso was virtually unknown—the Cones followed their passions and amassed one of the world’s greatest art collections including artworks by Matisse, Picasso, Paul Gauguin, Vincent van Gogh, Paul Cézanne, and other modern masters.

The Cone Sisters Bought Paintings by Matisse, Picasso and Others

As daughters of prosperous German-Jewish immigrants, the Cone sisters were well-educated and widely traveled. In Paris, Claribel and Etta spent time with the doyenne of the Parisian avant-garde, Gertrude Stein, and her brother Leo, who influenced their collecting. The Steins introduced them to Picasso and Matisse and the sisters became friends and patrons of both artists. In travels across Europe and expeditions to Africa and Asia, they also acquired textiles and decorative arts.

Living with Art

The Cone sisters amassed an exceptional collection of approximately 3,000 objects, which were displayed in their Baltimore apartments. Their nephew Edward T. Cone described the ambience in their adjoining residences in Baltimore’s Marlborough Apartments as

“really a collection of collections, and in the Marlborough one could see them all—if one had weeks to spend. There were pictures, to be sure: oils, water colors, drawings, prints. There were sculptures: marble, bronze, wood. There were rugs and furniture. There were laces, shawls, textiles and fabrics of all kinds. There were antique jewelry and objets d’art. And all these were used, they were enjoyed, they were lived with.”

Claribel and Etta Cone bequeathed their extensive collection of art and objects to The Baltimore Museum of Art upon Etta’s death in 1949.

The Exhibition

Collecting Matisse and Modern Masters: The Cone Sisters of Baltimore features over 50 of these works of art—including paintings, sculptures and works on paper by Matisse, Picasso, Gauguin, Renoir, van Gogh, Pissarro, Courbet and more—on loan from The Baltimore Museum of Art. In addition to modern masterpieces, the exhibition includes textiles and decorative arts from Europe, Asia and Africa that the Cones collected, as well as photographs and archival materials to highlight the remarkable lives of these Jewish sisters. Also featured in the museum galleries will be an interactive virtual tour of their adjoining Baltimore apartments, showing their remarkable collection as it was displayed in their home.

Thursday, 05 May 2011 04:41

The works of Grandma Moses are the Bennington Museum’s greatest draw. From June through October, the museum will present its largest Moses exhibition in a decade, with an added context spanning the genre she helped make popular.

"While all of our shows draw interest, Grandma Moses is what people come here to see," curator of collections Jamie Franklin said. "We know who she was -- a little farm lady who became world-famous in the 1940s with her charming, naively executed paintings of rural American farm life. What we want to answer is: How did that happen?"

Franklin said the question will be addressed in commemoration of the 150th year of the birth of Anna Mary Robertson Moses (1860-1961). The exhibition, "Grandma Moses and the Primitive Tradition," will be installed in three of the museum’s 11 galleries. The show will be in addition to the museum’s permanent Grandma Moses exhibit house.

As the best-known primitive artist of the 20th century, Grandma Moses and her work are considered exceptional, outside the mainstream of American art history. This exhibition provides a framework in which to better understand Moses’ work and its reception, by examining the history of primitive painting in America.

"What we’ll do is give the public a chance to see Moses’ work next to that of the self-taught and amateur painters of the 19th century, as well as the modern primitives who came to fame around the same time she did," Franklin said.

As such, "Grandma Moses and the Primitive Tradition" will feature 55 works, 20 by Moses and 35 by other artists who worked in the primitive tradition. They will be drawn from the museum’s permanent Grandma Moses collection, and will be augmented by strategic loans from other institutions, such as the Fenimore Museum in Cooperstown, N.Y., the Galerie St. Etienne in New York City and several private collections.

Thursday, 05 May 2011 04:38

I find auctions, sales records and the commercial side of art entirely baffling. I am not saying this as an aesthete pose. I really am genuinely uninterested in the news about who is selling for what. However, a sale last week in New York is intriguing because perhaps it speaks to the real problem with the way such things are reported and the gap between myth and reality in the art trade.

A print by the 1920s Australian artist Ethel Spowers sold at Christie's for more than £50,000. It was expected to fetch maybe £3,000 to £5,000. So a surprise sale has catapulted the comparatively obscure Spowers into a higher price range.

The work in question, Wet Afternoon, is pretty and relaxing to look at. A Japanese influence seems unmistakable in the vista of umbrellas, the slashes of rain, and the use of colour to give solidity as well as interest to the picture. But it is impossible to tie any bigger meaning to the high price paid for this work at this moment. And that is what is so interesting about it.

The reporting of art sales – and beyond that, the figures themselves – create totally false narratives of the supposed value of art. Prices are given historic significance. Does it mean anything that Picasso is now so expensive? Did it mean anything when Klimt set a record? Does it tell us anything profound about our society if rich people buy contemporary art in preference to Old Masters, or vice versa?

Thursday, 05 May 2011 04:35

There may be two painters on this year's Turner prize shortlist, but traditionalists should pause before sighing with relief.

One of them paints landscapes in the kind of enamel paint used for decorating model trains and aeroplanes; the other counts lipstick, bath bombs and bronzing powder among her unorthodox materials.

The painters, George Shaw and Karla Black, are joined on the 2011 prize shortlist by sculptor Martin Boyce and video artist Hilary Lloyd.

Prize juror Katrina Brown, director of the Common Guild in Glasgow, said the list was not representative of "one school, or cluster, or movement – there is every medium in the mix and it has a diversity and maturity about it".

In contrast to the Young British Artist-dominated shortlists of the 1990s, when the centre of UK artistic life appeared to be the few square miles around Shoreditch, this list is determinedly non-metropolitan, with only one of the artists – the Newcastle Polytechnic-trained Lloyd – based in London.

"It is a sign of the maturity of the art scene in Britain that it is not all concentrated in the capital," said Brown.

Indeed, the whole prize will turn its back on London this year: the annual Turner prize exhibition, which opens on 21 October, will be hosted by the Baltic gallery in Gateshead.

It is the first time in the show's 27-year history it has been held outside a Tate gallery and only the second time it has been held outside London.

Shaw, who studied in Sheffield, lives and works in Devon while Black and Boyce are based in Glasgow – where the last two winners of the prize, sculptor Susan Philipsz and painter Richard Wright, were brought up.

Penelope Curtis, director of Tate Britain and chair of the jury, said that the Glaswegian focus was testament to the strength of the training available at Glasgow School of Art in the 1990s.

Curtis said of the two painters: "One may be seen as innovative but is actually quite traditional, while the other seems quite traditional but is actually quite innovative."

The work of 38-year-old Black involves cosmetic products – including nail varnish, eyeshadow and moisturiser – deployed on a grand scale in large installations that look more sculptural than painterly.

But juror Godfrey Worsdale, director of Baltic, said her work could be compared to that of the abstract expressionists, the artist hurling cosmetic products across a surface just as Jackson Pollock cast paint over canvas.

Thursday, 05 May 2011 04:32

Sotheby’s presents the first of its 2011 London Sales of Fine Chinese Ceramics and Works of Art. The auction will feature 343 lots and will take place in London on Wednesday, May 11th, 2011. Every item in the sale has been meticulously selected as an iconic example of its genre and in total the auction is expected to realise in excess of £11 million.

The highlight of the auction is an important and rare 12th century ‘Ice Crackle Guan’ vase of the Southern Song Dynasty. The vase, which was originally created for the Imperial Chinese court, formed part of the collection of Mr and Mrs Alfred Clark, who rank among the greatest English collectors of Chinese ceramics of the early 20th century. This is the first example of the archetypal ‘Guan’ style, from the official kilns of Hangzhou to appear at auction and it is estimated at £2,500,000-£3,000,000. The Song dynasty (960-1279) was the classic period which defined Chinese style and informed concepts of ceramic excellence the world over. ‘Guan’, the official ware of the Southern Song court, is perhaps the most admired and desirable of all Chinese ceramics. The vase combines the exceedingly rare combination of an archaic bronze shape, with a glaze displaying the fabled ‘ice crackle’. Its luminescent surface evokes light shining through superimposed shards of ice – the most rarified of the ‘Guan’ effects.

Sotheby’s will also offer for sale a spectacular and extremely rare five-piece doucai Qianlong period altar garniture. Only one other comparable example appears to be recorded.** Consisting of a tripod incense holder, two candleholders and a pair of gu-form vases, the garniture is decorated with the distinctive doucai technique, developed in the Ming dynasty. Each item is finely painted in bright enamels with beribboned Eight Buddhist Emblems, entwining lotus scrolls, plaintain leaves, lotus lappets and ruyi-headed borders. All are inscribed with six-character Qianlong seal marks. The garniture was commissioned by the Qing Court for use in one of the Imperial family’s ancestral halls and is estimated at £800,000-£1,200,000.

Aside from its Imperial history, the garniture has a remarkable provenance, having been acquired by Lord Herbert Kitchener, an avid collector of Chinese antiques, in the early 20th Century.

Kitchener presented the objects to Sir Thomas Hohler, the highly decorated Field Marshall and proconsul who won fame for his imperial campaigns and central role in the First World War.

A further highlight of the sale is a Rare magnificent Qianlong seal mark and period moonflask (est. £300,000 to £500,000). The vessel is distinguished by a rare copper-red underglaze and bears the striking motif of a magpie perched on a gnarled prunus branch – a device more often associated with blue and white ceramics. The flask’s flattened globular body rises from a short oval foot to a waisted neck flanked by a pair of ruyi handles. The vase is closely related to a vessel from the Palace Museum in Beijing. Another is held in the Chinese Ceramics collection of the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam. Both in shape and design this flask closely follows an early Ming blue and white original. The flat, moonflask form is highly prized - an adaptation of much earlier foreign pilgrim bottles made from leather. During the Tang dynasty these became the inspiration for ceramic replicas and it is believed they were designed to contain wine.

* Estimates do not include buyer’s premium

Thursday, 05 May 2011 04:28

Two important paintings by Pierre-Auguste Renoir and Jan Lievens exhibited at this year’s TEFAF Maastricht have been sold to private collectors who visited the world’s most influential art and antiques fair. The 2011 edition of The European Fine Art Fair was held in the city of Maastricht in the southern Netherlands from 18-27 March. A total of 260 of the world’s best art and antiques dealers exhibited at the Fair, which attracted more than 73,000 visitors from 55 countries.

Femme cueillant des Fleurs (Woman picking flowers), a major work by Renoir from the pioneering early days of Impressionism has been bought by a European collector who viewed it at the Fair. It was exhibited at TEFAF by the London-based international dealer Dickinson with an asking price of US$15 million. The Renoir was offered for sale through Dickinson by the Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute in Williamstown, Massachusetts in order to strengthen other areas of its collection.

James Roundell from Dickinson says: “TEFAF Maastricht is the Fair where you can bring the best and hope to find a buyer. It is not uncommon that the actual deal is done after the Fair.”

Femme cueillant des Fleurs depicts Camille Monet, the first wife of Renoir’s fellow Impressionist Claude Monet, who died aged only 32 in 1879. Important early Impressionist paintings are increasingly rare on the market and this work, dating from c1874, is from a pivotal period. It had not been on the market since 1933 when it was bought by Sterling and Francine Clark. The Institute that bears their name has 32 other works by Renoir and proceeds from this sale will be used solely for new acquisitions.

A magnificent portrait by the 17th century Dutch artist Jan Lievens, which had an asking price of €3.9 million, has been sold to another European collector who came to TEFAF Maastricht by Haboldt & Co of Paris. Tronie of an Old Man, dating from c1629, is one of the finest of a number of pictures that Lievens painted of this man whose name is unknown because he was the model for anonymous genre portraits. Together with his friend Rembrandt van Rijn, Lievens developed tronies (studies of heads) into an independent type of portrait painting that became the major product of his early career in the Dutch city of Leiden.

Tronie of an Old Man, which has been in a number of distinguished private collections during the past two centuries, demonstrates Lievens’s skill in rendering textures by contrasting wrinkled skin, heavy embroidered cloth and soft velvet. The man with a large, full beard, weary face and heavy eyelids conveys a depth of wisdom and experience.

Next year the European Fine Art Fair will celebrate its 25th anniversary from 16-25 March 2012.

Wednesday, 04 May 2011 04:23

The executive director of the American Folk Art Museum, which is in default on interest payments due for $31.9 million of bonds, is leaving the museum in July.

Maria Ann Conelli said today on the museum’s website that after six years at the museum, she’s returning to academia. She didn’t return a call or e-mail for comment. Susan Flamm, a spokeswoman, declined to comment.

The museum, a few feet west of the Museum of Modern Art on Manhattan’s W. 53rd Street, missed $3.7 million in payments to a debt service fund connected to bonds issued to construct a new building, it said in a January filing. It didn’t expect to make payments into the fund “for the foreseeable future,” the museum said.

Exhibitions of paintings, drawings and quilts -- many of them acclaimed -- failed to attract attendance and revenue projected a decade ago when the bonds were issued. The museum has been searching for a patron to rescue it, possibly in exchange for prominently displaying his or her name.

Wednesday, 04 May 2011 04:17

Sotheby's kicked off a two-week series of major art auctions in New York on Tuesday by selling Pablo Picasso's rainbow-hued double portrait, "Women Reading," for $21.3 million.

In this 1934 painting, Picasso's mistress, Marie-Thérèse Walter, and her sister, Genevieve, hover over an open book, their faces painted in cheery shades of sky blue and mint green. Sotheby's expected the painting to sell for between $25 million and $35 million, but only two bidders joined in the competition and the dogfight was short.

The winner was a Chinese man who wore blue jeans and cradled a cell phone to his ear as he bid from his seat in the house's Manhattan salesroom. Afterward, he declined to give his name.

Sotheby's tried to leverage Picasso's global appeal by packing its $170.4 million sale with pieces spanning the artist's seven-decade career, from early Picasso portraits of rosy-cheeked children to late-era nudes. The strategy largely worked: Eight of the sale's 10 Picassos found buyers, including a 1970 portrait, "Couple with a Guitar," that came from the estate of San Francisco collector Dodie Rosekrans and sold to a Russian telephone bidder for $9.6 million, just below its $10 million low estimate. Picasso's 1930 view of his first wife, Olga, "Woman," also sold to a telephone bidder for $7.9 million, over its $5 million high estimate.

But the mood in the packed salesroom felt fickle off and on, with 15 of the sale's 59 works going unsold—a sign that seasoned buyers crave masterpieces and are willing to bypass anything deemed ho-hum.

Paul Gauguin's "Young Tahitian," a nine-inch-tall wooden bust sculpted during the artist's first trip to Tahiti around 1893, sold following a single bid for $11.2 million, over its $10 million low estimate. Gauguin, who rarely made sculptures, adorned this tamanu-wood carving of a child with several red-coral and shell necklaces. In an endearing twist, he also gave the work to the daughter of his friend and art critic Jean Dolent.

Expressionist Alexej von Jawlensky's vivid portrait his wife from 1912, "Woman with a Green Fan," sold for $11.2 million, within its $8 million to $12 million estimate. Paul Delvaux's surrealist view of two lounging women from 1946, "Caryatids," sold for $9 million, well over its $5 million high estimate.

Wednesday, 04 May 2011 04:14

For the first and only time in the United States, The San Diego Museum of Art presents the exhibition "From El Greco to Dalí: The Great Spanish Masters from the Pérez Simón Collection." Displaying 64 Spanish oil paintings, sculptures, and drawings from more than 25 master painters, the exhibition, on view from July 8 to November 6, 2011, presents a remarkable overview and visual representation of the progression and history of art in Spain over the last 500 years.

Bringing together five centuries of Spanish works of art from various artistic movements offers a fascinating aesthetic and artistic journey that displays both the continuities and breaks with tradition that have marked the evolution of Spanish art. With the works of El Greco, José de Ribera and Bartolomé Esteban Murillo, the visitor is taken to the heart of the different faces of Catholic Reformation art in the 16th-18th centuries. Goya and Sanchez Coello counter this religious art with beautiful, and sensitive, court portraits of Spanish Monarchs, balancing the portrayal of power with realistic representations.

10 works by Joaquin Sorolla, the undisputed master of scenes portraying simple pleasures and known for vivid, bright, strong canvasses, highlight the strong feeling of national identity that characterizes Spanish art of the 19th century. The exhibition finishes with a dialogue between Cubism and Surrealism by the Spanish masters who revolutionized western art: Pablo Picasso, Joan Miro, and Salvador Dali.

"It is with great pride that we are able to share this collection with the public," says Roxana Velasquez, Executive Director at The San Diego Museum of Art. "Given the historical connection among California, Mexico, and Spain, this exhibition of the highest-quality works of art highlight the relationship between the Spanish roots of the Museum's collection and the history of this institution and Balboa Park."

Juan Antonio Pérez Simón, an important Spanish-Mexican businessman and celebrated art collector, began to build his collection in the 1970s. Over a period of about ten years, his passion for art and taste for culture has led him to acquire a magnificent collection of paintings, sculptures, drawings, etchings, decorative objets d'art and manuscripts together with a library of more than 15,000 books. This is one of the most important private collections in the world, known for both for its well-known artists and comprehensive character.

Juan Antonio Pérez Simón talks about his artistic choices as an extension of his personality: "I have built up a personal world that reflects what defines me and excites me. Anyone who, like me, does not have that wonderful gift of creating beauty through art, can console themselves by admiring works of art and enjoying the process of falling in love with them." A lover of all the European schools, the paintings presented at The San Diego Museum of Art represent the Hispanic part of his collection, least familiar to the general public.

Wednesday, 04 May 2011 04:11

From July 1 through September 18, the Florence Griswold Museum in Old Lyme hosts an exhibition of over 40 American landscape paintings from the Parrish Art Museum in Southampton, New York. American Landscapes: Treasures from the Parrish Art Museum traces the evolution of American art from its roots in an emerging national landscape tradition to the liberating influences of European modernism. Some of the artists represented include William Merritt Chase, William Stanley Haseltine, Theodore Robinson, John Henry Twachtman, John Marin, John Sloan, Ernest Lawson, Fairfield Porter, and Alex Katz.

Of special interest is Lyme Art Colony painter Childe Hassam, whose view of the Church at Old Lyme (1906) will be featured. “We are delighted at the opportunity to present one of Hassam’s legendary paintings of the Congregational church, which put Old Lyme on the map artistically when he exhibited them here and in New York during the early years of the colony,” said Curator Amy Kurtz Lansing. “Partnering with the Parrish has allowed us to exhibit one of the treasures of American Impressionism.”

At the beginning of the nineteenth-century, artists of the Hudson River School were among the first to record the “New Eden” that was the North American continent. Their framing of the view into the distance, often with a solitary figure in the foreground, literally invented a new way of seeing. By the middle of the century, the border of the wilderness had been pushed farther west and industrialization had begun to transform the topography of the eastern United States. A painting like Samuel Colman’s Farmyard, East Hampton (ca. 1880) evokes a nostalgia for the vanishing rural scene.

Wednesday, 04 May 2011 04:04

Ai Weiwei’s first major public art exhibition will be unveiled today, despite the fact that the Chinese artist is still missing.

New York's Central Park is the first stop in a worldwide tour of ‘Circle of Animals/Zodiac Heads’. The artwork consists of twelve bronze heads, each depicting an animal from the Chinese zodiac, all weighing over 800lbs (362 kg), and will be positioned at the Pulitzer fountain at the entrance to the park.

The internationally acclaimed artist and outspoken critic of China disappeared at the beginning of April. Reports suggested that the artist was arrested by Chinese authorities as he tried to board a plane to Hong Kong. He has not been heard from since, although newspapers in Hong Kong reported Weiwei was arrested for ‘tax evasion and destroying evidence’.

The exhibition, which will also be at London’s Somerset House from the May 12, was inspired by the fountain clock created for the Qianlong Emperor in the Eighteenth century. Placed in the gardens of the Old Summer Palace outside Beijing, the clock consisted of 12 bronze heads which spouted water to tell the time.

In 1860 the Palace was ransacked by French and British troops and the heads were taken. So far only seven heads have been located. Weiwei has reinterpreted and re-created the clock by increasing their size. Each of the heads with the base measures ten feet in height.

The artworks highlight questions of looting and repatriation while extending the artist’s ongoing exploration of the 'fake' and the copy in relation to the original.

“My work is always dealing with real or fake, authenticity and value and how value relates to current political and social understandings and misunderstandings,” the artist said in a statement about the heads before his arrest.

Wednesday, 04 May 2011 04:01

"Joan Mitchell, Lady Painter: A Life" (Alfred A. Knopf), by Patricia Albers: At age 12, Joan Mitchell decided to be a painter. She had shown a flair for writing and for painting, but her father made her choose between the two, warning against being a dilettante.

He needn't have worried — Joan turned out to be as driven as he was. When Mitchell died in 1992 at age 67, her paintings sold for millions and belonged to major art museums. But her fame came at a terrible price.

A lifelong alcoholic, Mitchell was a nasty drunk, brawling with lovers until she was black and blue. Reckless, promiscuous and self-destructive, she wanted children yet had several abortions because she believed motherhood was incompatible with a career.

Art historian Patricia Albers, who spent eight years on this densely packed, excellent biography, offers a largely sympathetic portrait of Mitchell, uncovering ample evidence of her warmth and generosity and tracing her outrageous behavior to a variety of unresolved psychological issues.

Born in Chicago, Mitchell grew up in a wealthy family. A championship figure skater as a teen, she went on to study at Smith College and the Art Institute of Chicago, where she was a star pupil.

In 1949, she moved to New York with her former husband, Barney Rosset Jr., who later founded the legendary Grove Press, at Joan's suggestion. They arrived just when a group of downtown artists, later called the New York School, was about to set the world on fire. Mitchell fell under the spell of Willem de Kooning and Franz Kline, whose bold, large-scale abstractions liberated her from her academic training.

Sometimes called a second-generation abstract expressionist, Mitchell defies such labeling. Although she borrowed their gestures and techniques, her paintings capture remembered landscapes and emotions, not the artist's inner world. Nor did she emulate the random effects of an artist like Jackson Pollock; every brushstroke was intentional.

Although Mitchell never created a movement, she stands out for her striking use of color. Like one of her idols, Wassily Kandinsky, she was a synesthete, perceiving color in other sensory perceptions. People, weather, landscapes, memories — all throbbed with the intensity of the palette of another hero, Vincent van Gogh.

Fiercely competitive from an early age, Mitchell waged a lifelong battle against sexism. Even her father — who badly wanted a John, not a Joan — told her she'd never amount to much because of her gender. Thus her ironic references to herself as "lady painter," a sly put-down she used knowing full well that her art deserved to hang alongside that of her more celebrated male contemporaries.

Wednesday, 04 May 2011 03:55

Natalia Guicciardini Strozzi, a member of one of Florence's oldest noble families, said that searching for and exhuming the remains of Lisa Gherardini was "a sacrilegious act".

Gherardini was the wife of a rich Florentine silk merchant and is believed by many art historians to have been the model for Leonardo da Vinci's best known painting, which today hangs in the Louvre Museum in Paris.

A team of Italian researchers began the hunt for her skeleton beneath a convent in Florence, using ground-penetrating radar to search for evidence of old tombs.

They hope to find Gherardini's remains and to gather enough skull fragments to be able to reconstruct her face.

That would enable a comparison to be made with the Mona Lisa to determine once and for all whether Gherardini was the inspiration for the portrait – an objective that some scholars have said is far-fetched.

"My ancestor's remains should be left to rest in peace," said the princess, who is also an actress, winemaker and former ballerina.

"What difference would finding her remains make to the allure of Leonardo's painting? The attempt to find her bones seems to me an inappropriate and sacrilegious act."

The princess's family own an estate near San Gimignano, the Tuscan village known as the "medieval Manhattan" for the 72 stone towers built by competing families during the Middle Ages, of which 13 remain.

She is a descendant of two noble lines, the Strozzis and the Giucciardinis, and Niccolo Machiavelli worked as a secretary to one of her ancestors.

Tuesday, 03 May 2011 00:29

NEW YORK CITY – It was years in the planning and months in the execution. The carefully crafted Spring Show NYC closed at New York’s Park Avenue Armory on May 2, having demonstrated all the benefits of experience plus some of the vexing limitations of today’s market for traditional art and antiques.
 
Spring Show NYC is owned and organized by the 85-year-old Art and Antique Dealers League of America, which counts many second and third-generation dealers among its 110 member firms. A decade ago, the League launched the Connoisseur’s Antiques Fair, which struggled to find its footing in a downtown setting in the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks. The show closed after its fourth year in 2005.
 
This time, the League got the details right. It secured New York’s premier venue and booked good dates: not too cold, not too hot, and immediately prior to the big Impressionist and Modern art auctions. Mayor Bloomberg declared an “Art and Antiques Week,” a proclamation organizers hope to build on next year to attract more buyers.
 
Avoiding the missteps of many dealer-run fairs, the League chose the Art Fair Company to manage Spring Show NYC. Headed by Michael Franks and Mark Lyman - two former DMG World Media execs who mount the SOFA and Intuit fairs in New York, Chicago and Santa Fe – the Art Fair Company produces visually arresting, top-drawer events with that desperately needed ingredient, youth appeal.
 
“We believe that there is room in New York for a third event that complements the Winter and International shows,” said League president Clinton Howell, the English furniture specialist who has staked his reputation and much of his time on Spring Show NYC.
 
League members gave serious thought to the look of their fair. Large, high-walled booths painted in vivid colors opened to the soaring Armory ceiling, lit to dramatic effect on opening night.
 
“We wanted to keep the show fresh, bright and cheerful,” Franks explained.  Lars Bolander, best known for his airy, Swedish interiors, contributed to the overall design, which presented mostly traditional fare in clean, contemporary settings. For this venture, Bolander channeled pared-down, 20th century classicism, a timeless look well-suited to urban living. With a nod to the trend-conscious, many of the show’s 65 exhibitors projected a timely mix of antique and modern in their own presentations.
 
The get-out-the-gate effort - sponsored by Antiques & Fine Art Magazine - included Arts’ Night Out on Friday, April 29, which drew members of young patrons’ groups from 19 participating institutions.  Two nights earlier, Wednesday’s sold-out preview party benefitting ASPCA was also well attended, attracting 1,500 visitors.
 
Looking to lose its rarified image, the decidedly high-end Spring Show NYC tempted buyers with affordably priced pieces. Westport, Ct., dealer George Subkoff brought miniature furniture, marked from $2,800 to $28,000. Questroyal’s offerings ranged from a $4,000 flower painting by Hayley Lever to a $475,000 oil on canvas seascape by Alfred Thomas Bricher. Exhibitors say that lower booth rents allow them to pass savings on to their customers. Including paint, lights and carpet, a 20-by-12 foot booth at Spring Show NYC costs $16,500.
 
One of the most striking stands belonged to Carlton Hobbs, who split his dimly lit interior into separate displays, one devoted to an 18th century Spanish tile mural, $220,000,  attributed to Vincente Navarro; the other to four early 18th century marquetry pictures, $485,000, done after engravings of the gardens at Nymphenburg Palace.
 
Silver specialists Spencer Marks scored one of the night’s biggest successes.
 
“They are as spectacular as anything that came out of his shop and they have never been on the market,” Spencer Gordon said of two silver and gold altar vases made by Arthur J. Stone and Herbert Taylor for the Pomfret School in Connecticut in 1915. The pair of vases was taken for consideration by a major museum.
 
Other sales included a signed and dated patriotic crib quilt at Jeff R. Bridgman and a Boston Classical work table at Charles & Rebekah Clark. Bridgman and the Clarks were among the handful of Americana dealers in the show.
 
“We are encouraged,” said New York dealer Paul Vandekar, who sold a set of 18 framed engravings of birds by Seligmann after Catesby, sailors’ woolworks and Flight & Barr Worcester porcelain.
 
Two well-represented categories, English furniture and American art, dominated sales. Michael Pashby sold a late 17th century coaching table.  Kentshire Galleries wrote up a pair of George III armchairs. Philip Colleck, Ltd., placed a pair of satinwood cabinets with rosewood banding and G. Sergeant Antiques found a new home for a partner’s desk.
 
At Questroyal, a couple purchased “New York City Women” by Reginald Marsh. Avery Galleries sold "Summer by the Ocean" by Lillian Westcott Hale. Schiller & Bodo marked up Edmond Charles Kayser’s “Interior with Cacti and Two Cats” and Thomas Colville parted with John LaFarge watercolors and a Joseph Stella drawing.
 
Was it all enough?
 
It will have to be for now. If attendance and sales fell short of the spectacular, the League would do well to remember that the current crop of leading fairs, from East Side to Maastricht, took decades to build.  That said, Spring Show NYC is off to a very good start.
 
Write to Laura Beach at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..

Saturday, 30 April 2011 02:54

Like many of the canvases in the Annenberg collection, Seated Peasant, an image Cézanne returned to time and again over four years in the 1890s to rework as he entered his most important phase, illustrates the collectors’ uncanny eye at acquiring the established works of an era, as well as the formative ones that shed light on artists’ processes and psyches more than major titles.

This particular acumen drew four major museums together for one year in 1990 in a game of one-upmanship, with the prize being 19th century Impressionist and 20th century post-Impressionist masterpieces. Twenty years ago last March, one of the art world’s most frenzied competitions came to a climactic end when Walter Annenberg announced he was bequeathing his more than $1 billion collection to the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York.

Walter Annenberg began collecting in the late 1930s, but made some of his most ambitious acquisitions in the 1980s around the time he sold his publishing empire. At one point, he and his wife, Leonore, considered keeping the paintings at Sunnylands (their Rancho Mirage estate) or, briefly, auctioning them, but ultimately decided a larger institution would better suit the public.

The Met; Philadelphia Museum of Art; National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C.; and Los Angeles County Museum of Art vied for the prize with intensity, although everyone remained coolly aloof on the surface. There was never a formal acknowledgement the paintings were available, but everybody knew the game was on.

What was at stake — it was unofficially dubbed the “Annenberg Stakes” — was arguably 52 of the most important European artworks and the single largest gift in a half-century to any museum. The Renoirs, Degases, Monets, and van Goghs that had hung at Sunnylands since the mid-1970s formed the foundation of the Annenbergs’ vast collection. Today, digital reproductions of all the paintings adorn the same places the Annenbergs hung the originals.

“There are certainly larger private collections,” says Richard Rand, senior curator at the Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute in Williamstown, Mass., a museum founded on another great American collection of Impressionism. “But the Annenbergs have a certain number of signature pieces and other offbeat works that explain an artist really well. [The collection’s] mix is its strength.”

The collection did receive a little criticism. Some said, “It was too soft, not tough enough,” Rand recalls. By “soft,” critics meant the collection didn’t have enough of an edge and was missing some of the seminal images transitioning from Impressionism to post-Impressionism, establishing the ever-important bridge between the 19th century and modernism. But by the time the gift was made, the Annenbergs by chance had rectified such matters — at a price — with the purchase of two paintings.

In 1987, the Annenbergs spent $40.7 million at a Sotheby’s auction for Picasso’s 1905 At the Lapin Agile (Harlequin With a Glass) — a racy, jaundiced view of Parisian nightlife with his early Cubist leanings. At about the same time, they splurged on Braque’s pioneering 1939 The Studio. “Those really made a great collection monumental,” Rand says.

Their additions bolstered such paintings as Monet’s Camille Monet on a Garden Bench, a rousing plein-air rendering showcasing the artist’s early affinity with light and gardens; Wheat Field with Cypresses by van Gogh, the close relative of his famous The Starry Night; and Renoir’s sensuous Reclining Nude, an obsession during his peripatetic existence in the early 1880s. And there are still-life paintings from the obscure Henri Fantin-Latour, whom many Impressionists credited as an early inspiration.

Saturday, 30 April 2011 02:51

Picasso was very, very good for the Seattle Art Museum and King County.

The museum says a study it commissioned has concluded the Picasso show, which ran from Oct. 8, 2010, to Jan. 17, had an economic impact of $66 million, including $58 million in King County.

The show, Picasso: Masterpieces from the Musée National Picasso, Paris, was the most successful in the history of the museum. It drew 405,000 visitors and pushed SAM membership to a record of more than 48,000 households.

The show came at a critical time for the museum, whose finances were in fragile shape and hoped that Picasso would change that.

The study, by William Beyers, a geography professor at the University of Washington, estimated that people who saw the Picasso show spent $22.7 million in King County on lodging, food, transportation and other items.

Friday, 29 April 2011 05:02

The Art and Antique Dealers League of America (AADLA) has announced that the Spring Show NYC Arts' Night Out, celebrating New York's Art and Antiques Week for Young Patrons is slated for Friday, April 29, from 5 to 9 pm, at the Park Avenue Armory. Arts' Night Out is sponsored by Doyle New York, Antiques & Fine Art Magazine (AFA), and ABSOLUT Vodka.

Adding to the excitement of the Spring Show NYC Young Patrons Arts' Night Out, co-chaired by Emily Collins, Margaret Moore and Abigail Starliper, is the inclusion of The New Traditionals, the next generation of designers selected by editors of "Trad Home/Lonny," the new digital edition of "Traditional Home Magazine." Among the award-winning New Traditionals who will be on-hand for one-on-one design consultations are Robert Passal, Lisa Sternfeld, from Studio LSID, Ron Marvin and Tom Delavan. Visitors are encouraged to bring along paint chips and fabric swatches to layout a room with the help of a design pro. In addition, visitors will have the opportunity to place their silent bids for a one-hour design consultation by Patrick Lonn Design, Sara Gilbane Interiors, Bonestreet Trout Hall, Tinton-Fenwick, and Megan Rice Yager Interior Design, all of whom have donated their services to benefit the ASPCA.

"The Art and Antique Dealers League of America is thrilled to celebrate Art and Antiques Week in New York with the young patrons from many of New York's prominent cultural institutions," said Clinton Howell, president of AADLA. "We welcome the opportunity to introduce an enthusiastic new audience to the world of fine and decorative arts, and encourage them to bring their shopping lists and floor plans!" According to Howell, over thirty of the city's top young patrons groups are expected to attend.

The $30 ticket, available at the door, includes that day's admission to the AADLA Spring Show NYC plus beer, wine and ABSOLUT cocktails beginning at 5 to 9 pm. For additional information, visit www.springshownyc.com or phone 800.563.7632.

Friday, 29 April 2011 04:55

Most of us are familiar with the term 'Pre-Gaming' (when one drinks heavily before a function begins - typically relating to underage kids drinking before they go out for the evening. Why you may ask: because it is a lot cheaper to 'take' the liquor from their home and nobody proofs them).  Well, I am using the term to note the warm-up sales that took place in April --- before the big games that will take place in May.
 
At the very end of March Sotheby's put forth a sale in Paris of Orientalist works and while the sale included everything from paintings to jewelry, I will focus only on the works of art - 62 pieces in all.
 
Taking top honors was Jacques Majorelle's Souk el Khenis à Marrakech which made €150,750 ($207K)  - on a €120-€160K estimate.  Coming in second was Majorelle's Les Borjs Verts, Anemiter at €120,750  ($165K) - est. €90-€120K; and taking the third spot was ... hummm ... you guessed it, Majorelle's Souk à Marrakech at €79,950 ($110K) - est. €40-€60K.  As you may be able to tell, this was not a humdinger of a sale since the top three lots were by an artist that most of our readers probably never heard of.
 
When this sale ended, of the 62 works of art, 12 were unsold for a sell-through rate of about 81% and the total take was €1.14M ($1.56M) - the expected range was €884K - €1.24M ($1.22M - $1.71M) - so hitting the middle of the range with the buyer's premium added in.
 
From there we moved to NYC where Sotheby's offered their 'less expensive' American Paintings on the 8th -- the overall results were ok.  In the top position there was a two way tie: Harry M Walcott's The Cotillion (est. $40-$60K) and Fairfield Porter's Farmhouse, Southampton ($35-$45K) each brought $110,500; and bringing up the top three was William de la Montagne Cary's Warring Tribes at $80,500 (est. $30-$50K).
 
In general these sales contain a lot of 'stuff', but one can usually find hidden gems if they know where to look (sorry, I am not giving away that secret).  When the session was over, of the 180 works offered, 138 found new owners for a sell-through rate of 76.6% and a total take of $2.6M (with the buyer's commission); the low end of the estimate range was $2.09M.
 
By the middle of the month the action moved to London where both Christie's and Sotheby's offered minor sales of Old Master, 19th Century and British works of art; to be honest, it is a good to see these types of sales since just a short time ago, some of the works included would have been used as filler for the major sales.
 
The first Christie's sale took place on the 13th (Old Master & 19th Century Art - it was nice that each period had its own section). The morning session was devoted to the Old Masters while the afternoon was all 19th century ... so I will limit my comments to that part.
 
Taking the top slot from the 19th century was a still life by Franz Petter's at £37,250 ($61K) - est. £10-£15K; and in second place were works by Bouvard and Cortès at £25,000 ($41K).  I will add that among all the stuff, there were a couple of interesting works (at least from the photos).  Frank Boggs' On the Seine at the Pont St. Michel brought £22,500 ($36K) - est. £12-£18K and Ludovico Marchetti's Refreshments made 13,750 ($22K) - est. £5-£7K; both looked like nice paintings.
 
In the end, of the 219 works offered in the afternoon session, 138 sold and 81 were returned to their owners for a sell-through rate of 63% and a total take of £625,050 ($1.01M) - not a great sale; but hey, there was activity in the lower levels ... and this is what the market needs in order to see a broad based recovery.
 
On the 14th, both Sotheby's and Christie's had sales featuring Old Master and British Paintings ... and if they could both have sales on the same day (one in the morning and one in the afternoon) it shows how lean they were.  Now I have stated in the past that they needed leaner sales, but I also stressed the need for mean, and there was very little mean here.
 
Each sale was heavily weighted towards the Old Master works, with some early British Paintings included; since they had very little that interested me I will only give the highlights.
 
At Sotheby's the top lots were: a Venice scene by Guardi at £145,250 ($235K) - est. £80-£120K - and from the photo it looked like it had some serious condition issues; Portrait of Lady Jane Seymour by Manner of Hans Holbein the Younger at £99,650 ($161K) - est. £6-£8K; and a still life cataloged as Strasbourg School, mid 17th Century at £97,250 ($157K) - est. £10-£15K.  The last two blew away their estimates.
 
When the morning ended, of the 267 works offered 157 sold (sell-through rate of 58.8%) for a total take of £2.74M ($4.44M) - 267 works in a morning session - wow!
 
The Christie's sale's top lot was A Capriccio of Roman Ruins... by Panini that made £253,250 ($410K) - est. £120 - £180K; followed by The Piazza San Marco... from the Circle of Canaletto at £241,250 ($391K) - est. £40-£60K; and a still life by Hulsdonck at £211,250 ($342K) - est. £70-£100K.  When the session ended, of the 97 works offered, 64 sold (a sell-through rate of 66%) and a total take of £2.52M ($4.08M).
 
From the numbers it is obvious that Christie's had the stronger sale with a £39K ($63K) average price per lot compared to Sotheby's £17.5K ($28K).
 
What everyone needs to keep in mind is that the market does need outlets for 'stuff', but on the flip side, the estimated values need to be in line with the item being offered.  In addition, until the market is back in full swing, some of the 'stuff' should be held aside for better days.
 
I need to add that there were other sales that took place during April ... the above are only a select group.

 

The Upcoming Sales


As I mentioned, April was the pre-game - trust you are all feeling the effects!   May is when the serious competition gets underway (at least in the public forum).  The catalogs (some of which are very heavy) have started to pour in and several of the sales look interesting while others have made me wonder ... why did they even bother?

A number of the departments have been careful to focus in on high quality works and created much smaller sales.  Others are going for the bulk and still others are having small sales without much meat (at least from the catalogs a couple of the London sales do not look very promising).

The 19th century sale in NY is a rather small one and they focused in on higher estimated works; it will be interesting to see what the works actually look like.  Included is a rather unimpressive (in my humble opinion) Alma-Tadema that is estimated at $3-$5M (same estimate as The Finding of Moses which made $36M) ... it will be interesting to see if they can pull another rabbit out of their hat - if they do, I want to know where they buy their hats!  However, one always needs to remember that in the auction forum all it takes is a high reserve and one potential buyer to make a sale.
 
Anyway, May should be a very interesting month for the art market.

Friday, 29 April 2011 04:27
Antique Garden Furniture Show and Sale
Returns to New York for 19th Year 
April 29-May 1, 2011

 
Benefit Preview Party and Collectors’ Plant Sale, Thursday, April 28, from 6 to 8 p.m.
 
From Friday, April 29 to Sunday, May 1, 2011, The New York Botanical Garden will host its 19th annual Antique Garden Furniture Show and Sale. Show hours are from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. As the country’s original, largest, and most important venue for authentic garden antiques, the show is a must for leading collectors and designers as well as buyers seeking expert advice.
 
The show opens with a Benefit Preview Party and Collectors’ Plant Sale on Thursday, April 28, from 6 to 8 p.m. Garden antique specialists will offer tours and booth talks daily as well as assist buyers looking for the perfect piece to complement a garden, landscape, or interior. Complimentary tea and wine tastings will be held in the entrance tent, and the show will have special activities for very young collectors throughout the weekend.  
 
This year’s 35 exhibitors will feature antique cast iron and marble fountains, antique wicker furniture, cast iron and stone garden seating, statues, urns and vases, birdcages and birdbaths, gates, trellises, aquariums, antique lanterns and other outdoor lighting, and architectural ornament. Objects in the show date from lat 17th century botanical prints to mid 20th century American, French, and English garden furniture; many pieces are signed and retain original paint or finishes. America’s leading experts in garden ornament (including show co-chairs Barbara Israel Garden Antiques and Bunny William’s Treillage, Ltd.) are joined this year by French Country Living Antiques from Mougins, France; Blithewold Home of Mount Kisco, New York, and Suzanne Golden Antiques based in New York City.
 
Some of this year’s highlights at the Antique Garden Furniture Show and Sale are: 
 
Goddesses at the Garden include a life-size zinc figure of the goddess of the hunt known as Diana de Gabies at Kate A. Alex and Co. of Warner, New Hampshire. The original, a Roman copy of the Greek statue by Praxiteles, was excavated by Gavin Hamilton in 1792 on Prince Camillo Borghese’s property at Gabii outside of Rome. In 1807, Napoleon Bonaparte purchased the statute from the Prince (his brother- in-law); it has resided at the Louvre since 1820. This version was found on an estate in San Francisco. This popular figure was reproduced in many sizes and mediums; a plaster cast of this same Diana will be offered by R T Facts Antiques of Kent, Connecticut. This c. 1900 cast is stamped  “CAPRONI CAST, P.P. CAPRONI & BRO MAKERS BOSTON U.S.A.” Fleur of Mt. Kisco, New York, specializing in garden antiques fro France will exhibit an early to mid-20th c. composite stone statue of the goddess Venus Genetrix. A goddess-like carved marble set of statues of the Four Seasons will be shown at Aileen Minor Antiques of Centreville, Maryland.

Lions, tigers…and dogs at the Garden include a carved marble tiger at Barbara Israel Garden Antiques of Katonah, New York. Captured mid-stride and on the hunt, with stylized articulated musculature, the tiger sculpture was made in England c. 1890 (21’’ high x 55 “ long x 15” wide). French Country Living Antiques, Ltd. of Mougins, France will present a stone lion sculpture with a regal crown from Burgundy, France, c. 1695 (29.1” high x 36.6” wide x 12.2” deep). Michael Trapp of West Cornwall, Connecticut will feature 19th c. Italian terracotta jars with lion’s paw feet. Treillage, Ltd. of New York, New York, has a pair of early 20th c. cast stone dogs. A pair of life-sized, weathered cast stone Chows will join the menagerie at the booth of The Sugarplum of Wilmot, New Hampshire. Tending the animals is a diminutive 19th c. stone shepherd at Aileen Minor Antiques, made after John Cheere (1709-1787).
 
And for the horses:
 
Red Horse Antiques of Bridgewater, Vermont, will bring a 7’ long limestone horse trough with original tether ring from France.
 
Garden and veranda seating includes an unusual pair of hand woven wicker rocking chairs at Antique American Wicker of Nashua, New Hampshire. Made c. 1880 by the Wakefield Rattan Company of Wakefield, Massachusetts, the rockers are decorated in an interlocking wedding ring design, with hand-caned backs depicting a banjo and guitar with press caned seats. Dawn Hill Antiques of New Preston, Connecticut will show a pair of ornate cast iron, c. 1900 American garden settees in the "Renaissance scroll” pattern. Barbara Israel Garden Antiques will feature a c. 1880 cast iron Gothic Revival seat made in Glasgow, Scotland and marked “Eagle Foundry/No. 2./Glasgow” (36” high, 40” wide, 22” overall depth, 17” seat depth). Treillage, Ltd. will show a c. 1880 stamped French set of four wrought iron folding chairs, a 19th c. English hewn stone bench, and a mid 20th c. English cast stone faux bois table.
 
Architectural pieces include a colorful cold painted wrought bronze conservatory gate from Great Neck, New York to be shown by Village Braider Antiques of Plymouth, Massachusetts.  Ani Ancient Stone of New York, New York, will feature a pair of early 20th century barn doors from Eastern Europe. Joseph Stannard Antiques & Design of Norfolk, Connecticut will display a pair of large early 19th c. zinc finials from France (28” wide, 51” high). Barbara Israel Garden Antiques has a c. 1870 carved Cotswold stone finial on pedestal (78” high, pedestal 24” square at top, 22” square at bottom). Seasoned exhibitor Brennan and Mouilleseaux of Northfield, Connecticut, will feature a  10-foot-wide 1950s bamboo and wicker pagoda with an authentic, weathered surface.
 
Fountains can be found throughout the show Balsamo Antiques of New York City and Pine Plains, New York will display a c. 1950 composite stone fountain and surround from Belgium; the surround is 10' diameter x 9" deep; the fountain is 57" high. Fountains are featured at the booths of Francis J. Purcell, Inc. of Philadelphia Pennsylvania and Joan Bogart Antiques
 
Containers for flowers and plants include a pair of cast iron urns signed “Hecla NY,” at Joan Bogart Antiques of Oceanside, New York and a c. French cast iron urn one at Eleanor and David Billet Antiques LLC of New York, New York. Schorr & Dobinsky of Bridgehampton, New York will exhibit a pair of early 20th c. large-scale cast stone planters from England.

Flowers that bloom year round include the botanical prints offered by antique print specialist Danielle Ann Millican of Florham Park, New Jersey who will feature Pierre Joseph Redoute’s (1759- 1840) hand finished stipple engravings Choix des Plus Belles Fleurs, 1827-33, Panckoucke, Paris, printed by Langlois (144 plates, 9.5” x 13” unframed). Trifles of Arrowsic, Maine will exhibit 18th c. floral Chinese painting, oil on paper, mounted to original canvas.
 
The Antique Garden Furniture Show and Sale takes place in a tent surrounded by flowering trees, plants, and shrubs outside the landmark Enid A. Haupt Conservatory. The fee of $20 for adults, $18 for seniors, and $7 for children for an All-Garden Pass includes access to the show, Botanical Garden grounds, Enid A. Haupt Conservatory, Rock Garden, Native Plant Garden, Tram Tour, and Everett Children’s Adventure Garden. Advance tickets are available online at www.nybg.org 
 
Preview Party ticket prices start at $200 per person and offer enthusiasts and collectors the opportunity to view the antiques and plants, make early purchases, and enjoy cocktails and hors d’oeuvres. For Preview Party tickets and information, please call 718.817.8885. 
 
The Antique Garden Furniture Show and Sale is the ideal venue for learning about garden antiques and building personal collections. On site shippers are available to assist with tri-state deliveries throughout the show and other shipping needs.
 
The New York Botanical Garden is a museum of plants located at Bronx River Parkway (Exit 7W) and Fordham Road. It is easy to reach by Metro-North Railroad or subway. The Garden is open year-round, Tuesday through Sunday and Monday federal holidays, from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. The best way to enjoy the Garden is with the All-Garden Pass, which includes admission to the grounds as well as to seasonal gardens, exhibitions, and attractions such as the Enid A. Haupt Conservatory, Everett Children’s Adventure Garden, Rock Garden, and Tram Tour: $20 for adults, $18 for seniors and students with ID, $8 for children ages 2–12, free for children under 2. A Grounds-Only Pass is also available: $6 for adults, $5 for adult Bronx Residents; $3 for seniors and students with ID, $1 for children ages 2–12, free for children under 2. Grounds-only admission is free all day on Wednesdays and from 10 a.m. to noon on Saturdays. For more information, please call 718.817.8700 or visit nybg.org.

Friday, 29 April 2011 04:24

On May 24 the Whitney Museum of American Art will break ground at the site of its future home in the meatpacking district. And in anticipation of its move there in 2015, the museum has cooked up a series of six back-to-back permanent-collection shows at its present location. The first of them, “Breaking Ground: The Whitney’s Founding Collection,” is up and running, and what a curious thing it is.

The exhibitions are conceived as a selective stock-taking of the institution’s holdings, and as a way to think out loud about how they will be presented in the new, larger Renzo Piano building. A decade or so ago the Museum of Modern Art designed a similar set of experiments as a prelude to its change of quarters.

The MoMA shows were more sweeping and complicated than the Whitney’s promise to be. But then the two museums, which opened just a few years apart some 80 ago, are fundamentally different. And as “Breaking Ground” makes clear, one big contrast lies in how they envision modernism.

For many of the American artists who, between 1900 and 1935, produced the 100 or so paintings and sculptures in the Whitney show, Matisse and Duchamp never existed, the 1913 Armory Show never happened, and North America was a nativist monoculture sealed off from the rest of the globe.

Apartness was built into the Whitney’s creation.

In the first decade of the 20th century Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney, a New York heiress and sculptor, noted that her sophisticated friends made a fuss over new art from Europe but ignored new American art. As an American artist she had a problem with that and decided to try to alter the balance of attention.

Events