Displaying items by tag: New York

On a recent visit to the Andy Warhol Foundation in New York, gallerist Daniel Blau was allowed a glimpse of rare, early drawings by Andy Warhol (1928-1987) that had remained out of public view for over 20 years. The 300 drawings, which were completed in the 1950s, will be published for the first time next week.

The drawings stand in sharp contrast to Warhol’s highly recognizable pop art works and reveal a lesser-known side of the artist as a talented draughtsman. The works will be published in a book edited by Blau and are currently being exhibited at the Louisiana Museum of Modern Art in Denmark (on view through February 21, 2013). After another exhibition in The Netherlands, the drawings will be put up for sale, surely a welcomed addition to the highly sought after Warhol works currently on the market.

Blau has a longstanding relationship with the Andy Warhol Foundation and organized his first show of the artist’s work in 1995. He has held a number of Warhol shows since then. From Silverpoint to Silver Screen, Warhol: The 1950s Drawings, which is being published by Hirmer, will be available on January 28, 2013.  

The Metro Show, The New Face of Art & Design, kicks off on January 24, 2013 at the Metropolitan Pavilion in Chelsea and runs through January 27. Produced by the Art Fair Company, which organizes the Sculpture Objects & Functional Art Fairs as well as the Antique Dealers League Spring Show NYC, the Metro Show brings together a striking mix of historic and contemporary art and design.

The second edition of the Metro Show boasts an impressive roster of exhibitors that includes Bernard Goldberg Fine Arts, Carl Hammer Gallery, Gary Sullivan Antiques, Just Folk, Ricco/Maresca Gallery, M. Finkel & Daughter, Hill Gallery, Samuel Herrup Antiques, Stephen Score, and many more. A broad range of objects will be on view including paintings, furniture, drawings, prints, photographs, sculpture, folk art, textiles, and decorative arts.

Caroline Kerrigan Lerch, Director of the Metro Show said, “Our vision is to illustrate the intellect, beauty, and vision in American arts and design, while placing it in a more modern and international context. We want to broaden its appeal and reach out to a new and younger audience while renewing the interest of the loyal attendees who flock each January to the Metropolitan Pavilion.”

The Metro Show will hold an invitation-only preview on January 23 from 6-7PM and a public preview from 7-9PM.

Following Simon de Pury’s departure from the auction house Phillips de Pury & Co. on December 21, 2012, the company is in the midst of a number of changes. Upon de Pury’s exit after 12 years with the company, the auction house has reverted to its original name, Phillips, and has plans to develop its New York and London locations.

Phillips, which specializes in contemporary art, design, photography, and limited edition prints, will expand their salesrooms in order to compete with bigger auction houses such as Sotheby’s and Christie’s. In February 2013, 11,500 square-feet of offices and 10,000 square-feet of gallery space will be added to the company’s headquarters on Park Avenue in Manhattan.

Last year, Phillips purchased a 52,000 square-foot building in London’s Berkeley Square. The auction house plans to turn the seven-story structure into their London headquarters, which will resemble the company’s Manhattan office. Rumors have circulated that Phillips also purchased space in London’s Mayfair district, but officials have declined to comment.

In 1932, Colonel Michael Friedsam, president of the New York City-based department store, B. Altman, bequeathed a huge portion of his estate to the Brooklyn Museum. It recently came to light that nearly a quarter of the 926 gifted works were fakes, misattributions or lacking in terms of quality. The Brooklyn Museum must now come up with a plan for the 229 pieces it no longer wants, which range from Dutch and Renaissance paintings to Chinese porcelains, jewelry, and furniture.

The museum is unable to sell the works for even the smallest profit because Colonel Friedsman’s will contains a clause stating that the museum must gain permission from the estate’s executor before deaccessioning works. Unfortunately, the last executor of Friedsman’s estate passed away in 1962. The Brooklyn Museum is currently working with the New York State attorney general’s office to maneuver around the clause. However, another clause in Friedsman’s will is proving problematic as it states that if the collection is broken up, the works should go to his brother-in-law and two friends. The museum has not yet started looking for the descendants of these three individuals as they are still working with the attorney general’s office to decide how to proceed.

The unwanted works are becoming more difficult to deal with, as the Brooklyn Museum is short on storage space. If the institution is unable to relieve itself of some of these works, they will be forced to rent additional storage spaces, which could cost the museum hundreds of thousands of dollars.  

A formal ground-breaking ceremony for the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s new David H. Koch Plaza was held on January 14, 2013 in New York. The $65 million project, which was announced in February 2012, has been underway since October but was postponed due to complications associated with Hurricane Sandy. The plaza is expected to reach completion in the fall of 2014.

Funded by Met trustee and philanthropist, David H. Koch, the project includes the installation of new fountains and the redesign of a four-block-long outdoor plaza that runs in front of the Met’s Fifth Avenue façade from 80^th to 84^th Streets. The sidewalks alongside the museum’s entrance, which see six million pedestrians a year, will also be repaired.

While the Met has made a number of indoor improvements over the years, the outdoor overhaul is much needed. Built in the 1970s along with the existing plaza, the museum’s original fountains, which are now deteriorated, will be replaced by contemporary granite fountains. The new structures will be positioned closer to the museum’s front steps, improving access to the street-level entrances. The redesign also includes tree-shaded allées, improved seating areas, and energy-efficient lighting. The Met’s iconic front steps will be left untouched.

Philadelphia-based landscape architecture and urban design firm, Olin, will be the lead design consultants for the project.

The New-York Historical Society holds one of the finest collections of early American silver in the nation. A trove of nearly three thousand objects, it is remarkable for being composed almost entirely of silver donated by descendants of the original owners, who preserved their inherited tankards and teapots as tangible links to New York’s past. Appreciated today for their workmanship, aesthetic qualities, or rarity, these pieces have additional layers of meaning conferred by the patina of successive generations of use. The richly documented objects open a window onto silver’s symbolic meanings, its role in sustaining kinship ties, and its ability to convey the ambitions and achievements of its owners.

The Museum of Modern Art is busy organizing the largest exhibition on the groundbreaking architect Le Corbusier ever to be held in New York. Le Corbusier: An Atlas of Modern Landscapes is set to open on June 9 and run through September 23, 2013.

Born Charles-Édouard Jeanneret, Le Corbusier defined modern architecture during his career, which spanned five decades. Le Corbusier was not just an architect, but also an urban planner, a painter, a writer, a designer, and a theorist. Le Corbusier’s best-known buildings include the Palace for the League of Nations in Geneva, Villa Savoye in Poissy, France, the Swiss Building in Paris, and the Secretariat at the United Nations Headquarters in New York.

An Atlas of Modern Landscapes will be curated by the modern architecture scholar, Jean-Louis Cohen, and will cover Le Corbusier’s long and varied career. The exhibition will explore Le Corbusier’s contributions to architecture, interior design, and city planning. Works on view will include writings, photographs, sketches, watercolors, and models of some of Le Corbusier’s most renowned works.

Christie’s announced that Americana Week 2013 will be held from January 24-25 and on the 28^th in New York. The week will include a series of public viewings and auctions focusing on American craftsmanship and artistry. An Important American Silver sale will be held on the 24^th, an Important American Furniture, Folk Art, and Prints auction will take place on January 25^th, and on the 28^th, Christie’s will hold English Pottery and Chinese Export Art sales. The Americana Week auctions will present over 400 lots, many of which are from the 18^th and 19^th centuries and have never been offered at auction until now.

Highlights from the American Silver auction include a drum-form teapot by Paul Revere (1734-1818), a Japanesesque mixed-metal and hardstone style tea service by Tiffany & Co., and a set of silver casters by Simeon Soumaine (circa 1685-circa 1750) from 1740.

Leading the American Furniture, Folk Art, and Prints sale is a Chippendale carved mahogany block-and-shell bureau table signed by John Townsend (1733-1809). The bureau table will be offered alongside a Queen Anne carved maple armchair attributed to John Gaines III (1704-1743), an Edward Hicks (1780-1849) painting depicting William Penn’s treaty with Delaware tribal chiefs, a number of early needlework samplers from The Stonington Collection, and much more.

The English Pottery auction presents over 50 lots including early salt glazed stoneware, redware and creamware formed by William Burton Goodwin, and a London delft polychrome dish, which is painted with the biblical story of Abraham and Isaac.

Highlighting the Chinese Export Art sale are a Chinese export ‘orange Fitzhugh’ armorial dinner service from the early 19^th century, a pair of Chinese export famille rose fishbowls, and a Chinese export ‘Lady Washington States China’ dish, which was presented to Martha Washington by Andreas van Braam (1739-1801), the director of the Dutch East India Company, in 1796. Van Braam designed the dish as an introductory gift for the First Lady.

On view through January 27, 2013 at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, Extravagant Inventions: The Princely Furniture of the Roentgen’s is the first comprehensive exhibition to focus on the Roentgen family’s cabinetmaking firm, which operated from 1742 into the early 1800s. Extravagant Inventions presents around sixty pieces of furniture, many of which have never been seen outside of Europe.

Abraham Roentgen (1711-1793) and his son David (1743-1807) were pioneering figures in 18^th century Continental furnituremaking. Based in Germany, the Roentgen firm’s style is characterized by opulence, inventiveness (they often incorporated hidden compartments and secret drawers into their works), and ornate, finely carved shapes. The Roentgens served clients around Europe including France’s Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette and Russia’s Catherine the Great.  

Extravagant Inventions brings together works from various international collections as well as six works from the Met’s own holdings. Highlights include a writing desk (circa 1758-1762) designed by Abraham Roentgen and considered one of the greatest creations from his workshop, a mechanical secretary cabinet (1779) made for King Friedrich Wilhelm II of Prussia, and a pair of marquetry portraits (1775-1780) depicting a man and a woman, which exemplifies the marquetry technique the Roentgens were renowned for.

Inventing Abstraction, 1910-1925 opened on December 23 at the Museum of Modern Art in New York and celebrates the bold art movement that swept across mediums and continents during the first half of the twentieth century. Severing ties with the realistic, practical images that dominated western art, abstraction infiltrated everything from sculpture and painting to poetry, music, and film.

Inventing Abstraction brings together over 350 works including paintings, stained glass, needlepoint, film, sculpture, and illustrated books. Organized by Leah Dickerman, a curator in MoMA’s painting and sculpture department, and Masha Chlenova, a curatorial assistant, the show includes many pieces that are on loan from outside museums.

Inventing Abstraction features works by Marsden Hartley (1877-1943), Marcel Duchamp (1887-1968), Piet Mondrian (1872-1944), Wassily Kandinsky (1866-1944), and many others. While extremely comprehensive, the exhibition draws connections between artists and illustrates the development of abstraction over time.