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Above: Art appraisers, David Weiss, foreground and Alasdair Nichol, of Freeman’s Auctioneers work the Paintings & Drawings table for Washinton, D.C.’s Antiques Roadshow. All photos, unless otherwise noted, by Katherine Arcano fine arts magazine artwork  

A maze of temporary, cordoned isles traced a zigzag gauntlet across a city-block-sized section of the convention hall to a row of registration tables. By late morning, an estimated 5,000 people, of the 23,000 who called hoping for a pair of tickets, will shuffle through the slow-moving, meandering path for a pass to enter the inner circle for a shot at the remote likelihood of riches and a few minutes of fame. A team of experienced Roadshow staff and a phalanx of 120 volunteers from the local network affiliate act as guides, carefully moving individuals from one step to the next. Potential chaos is averted because of the careful training the staff receives in advance of each appraisal event, and the years of experience of the Road Show personnel. In a period of ten hours, these 5000 people, with their approximately 10,000 objects, will be individually seen by a team of 70-80 expert appraisers in 18 different categories. This cadre of appraisers will collectively see 700 people and 1400 objects per hour. The entire one-hour episode will be taped on the spot over the course of the day and will ultimately feature just 15-18 objects of value that make the final ‘cut’.  

Nearby, in another section of the hall and glowing under racks of bright lights, like a modern-day Stonehenge, is the appraisal and video-taping area. Screened by tall, temporary barriers arranged in a circle no larger than twin tennis courts, the heart of the Roadshow is already beating wildly at 9 a.m. on a Saturday. Tables ring the perimeter of the enclosure, while the center of the circle becomes a, ‘no-trespass zone’, defined by a 40-foot square line of green tape that separates camera crews, presentation stations and taping activity from the din that constantly surrounds them. Volunteers stand like centaurs on the green line, assuring that those who enter the production area have good reason to be there. The whirlwind of activity and generalized buzz in the appraisal area, noticeable to any fan of the show, is deliberate and conceived to lend a sense of excitement and discovery to the events that are unfolding. With acres of space around them, the producers could easily expand the boundaries of the appraisal area, but would lose the feeling of tension and intimacy that is one of the hallmarks of the show’s success.  

Host, Mark Walberg tapes the opening sequence of the show

 Punctuating the Inner Circle are regular breaks in the screens, allowing people to line up again under signage that matches the ticket they have been issued that describes the object(s) they want to have appraised. Trailing off from each doorway in gentle arcs, like pinwheel blades off a central axis, those waiting to enter have made the first cut (no religious artifacts, family bibles, contemporary ephemera, coins, stamps, vehicles and, not surprisingly, explosives!) and are now within sight of their objective. Objects that people bring to the event range from massive chests of drawers being pushed on hand carts, to stacks of paintings, drawing and posters, to rugs and wall hangings slung over shoulders, to tiny boxes containing a single piece of jewelry—an heirloom passed down from generations past. Each and every object comes with a story attached; some fanciful; some sentimental; some steeped in history; some smacking more of fiction than fact. Royalty, great men and women of history and lore, movie stars, Indian princesses and Russian Tsars seem to have possessed more than their average share of ephemera making their way from attic to showroom floor, but each and every story is carefully considered and each piece carefully examined and its potential provenance explored.  

Appraiser, Alasdair Nichol takes a closer look

 Standing behind the appraisers’ tables in the ‘Paintings’ section (by far the busiest, with seven appraisers and more art than any other single type of item coming in the door) offers an insightful perspective on the process. Again, volunteers carefully manage the growing crowds, as early morning turns to mid-day and anticipation rises. The taping of some lucky treasure holders has already begun close by, only serving to build excitement in the crowd of people who have been ushered into the appraisal and sound stage area. They are now only steps away from appraisers whose long years of service to the show, familiar faces and colorful styles have made them art and antique superstars. With the raising of a hand, the next entrant is called forward to the appraisal table.  

For the most part, the tools of the appraisers’ trade remain the same as they have always have been—a keen eye, years of experience in auction and appraisal settings, a strong light and a good magnifying glass. In addition, each station is equipped with a computer and the on-line data bases of art values, artists’ auction histories and biographies are constantly being called up. The work of art is examined, both front and back, the owners are invited to tell the story of how they came to possess the piece and questions about treatment, storage and restoration attempts are asked. This exchange represents a fascinating and impressive moment in the Antiques Roadshow process. For every work of art that is brought to the table, no matter how mundane, inauthentic or precariously-conditioned a piece might be, each attendee gets the earnest and undivided attention of the appraiser for the few minutes they have in his or her company. One appraiser told me that, “In spite of the fact that I might know immediately that what I am looking at is worthless, I want to show that person the respect they have earned, by travelling great distances in some cases and waiting in line for hours for my opinion. I want their trip to be worthwhile. Even if the work of art has no value, I want the owner to leave here feeling like we took a careful look and offered an opinion they can feel confident about.”  

Appraiser, Elaine Banks Stainton, of Doyle New York examines details of painting selected for possible inclusion in show , as owner watches

 Everyone who approaches the appraiser’s table hopes to hear that they have stumbled upon a lost treasure, a missing link in the story of America or a priceless piece of history. What they are usually told, in fact, is that the work has little or no value, it is a print or reproduction, that the story that has been told in the family about royal or celebrity connections to the piece are apocryphal or that steps to restore or improve the piece have lessened its value. In the time that I spent at the art appraisal table, dozens of works were presented and most fell into these categories. Some, however, were beautiful and expertly rendered. But, in the absence of an auction history or sales record, or an obscure and ambiguous artist’s history, these compelling pieces were determined not to be ‘ready for prime time TV.’ Lesson for attendees: Just as there is ‘no crying in baseball’, there is no room for sentimentality in the art and antiques appraisal business.  

Roadshow executive producer, Marsha Bemko, interviews owner of painting regarding inclusion in the taping line-up. Her work was selected for airing.

 Then, finally…pay dirt! A woman approached with an expertly rendered painting of a uniformed soldier, mounted on a horse and riding through a winter landscape. With detail and touches resembling Winslow Homer, upon closer examination, it was determined to be of an Eastern European military figure, rendered by an obscure, but not unknown, Polish artist, Michael Gorstkin-Wywiorski (Polish, 1861-1926). A cursory investigation by the appraiser showed an impressive sales history, good condition, original frame, signature of the artist and desirable subject matter, expertly portrayed. Once selected as a possible on-camera appraisal event, the owner is immediately sequestered away from the work. It is explained to her, “I believe this may be an important work, but from this moment on, I cannot talk to you about it anymore.” The owner of the piece is then accompanied out of the area to sit in a holding area while the appraiser completes her research and builds her case for why this painting deserves to go on-air.  

Once the work is thoroughly researched and other appraisers are consulted for their view, the ‘pitch’ is made. The busy executive producer, in jeans and sneakers, with coffee in hand and cell phone at the ready, pays a short, stand-up visit, along with the appraiser, with the owner of the painting. My impression is that the story of the painting has to be compelling, as do the photogenic qualities and personality of the owner. All factors pass muster and the painting is slated to be filmed at a camera station in just a short while.  

It is hard to tell who is more excited at the moment the go-ahead is given—the owner or the appraiser. With thousands of people working one side of the table and dozens of appraisers working long hours on the other side, live camera time for the expert is a career booster, and for the owner of the work, the event offers a brush with fame, if not a modest payday. This rare, win-win outcome is at the synergistic center piece of the long-running show and a key to its success.  

The owner is then taken to the ‘Green Room’ for make-up while the appraiser pulls together her facts and pricing estimates for presentation to a, hitherto, uninformed owner of the painting. Once on camera, spontaneity and authentic interaction is the key to the success of Antiques Roadshow, even if the object is shown to have little or no value.  

In Tucson, Arizon, amazement at learning a Navajo blanket he kept over back of chair is ‘national treasure’, worth $350-500,000. Photo by Jeffrey Dunn, WGBH, Boston, MA

 But, over 15 years, true value has emerged on occasion on the show. In 2002, a plain-looking, wide-striped, black-and-white Navajo blanket, hand woven and dyed and worn by a Ute chief was declared a national treasure and valued at $350,000 to $500,000; in 1998, a rare Federal-style card table made by John and Thomas Seymour of Boston in the late 1700s, purchased thirty years earlier at a garage sale was estimated to be worth $200,000 to $300,000; in 2009, a 1937 painting by noted American Abstract Expressionist, Clyfford Still, received as a housewarming gift was conservatively estimated to be worth $500,000. For the 2010 series, a set of four Quianlong Period (1736-1795) carved jade objects were valued at $710,000 to $1,070,000, making it the highest-value appraisal in Roadshow history!  

But, as one appraiser told me, “After doing the show for so long, I came to realize it was as much about the people as the objects. It’s not really about the value of the items, it’s about the stories.”  

by Richard Friswell, Executive Editor  

Watch for the airing of the Washington, D.C. Antiques Roadshow in the 2011 Season and learn how much the Michael Wywiorski painting was appraised for!  

Full episodes of Antiques Roadshow are streamed at www.pbs.org/video  

Charles LeDray, MENS SUITS (2006-2010), mixed media

In the 1970s, when late modernist monuments dominated sculpture, Joel Shapiro caused a hullabaloo when he presented his eccentric miniature work on the floor of Paula Cooper’s Gallery. Spectators came upon a selection of three-inch-high bronze or cast-iron objects—a chair, a dollhouse, a bird and even a coffin. New York’s P.S. 1 Contemporary Art Center director and curator, Tom Finkelpearl stated, “Shapiro is the patron saint of the small… He is the anti-Oldenburg, taking big things and making them little.”[1]  Again the power of the tiny is eminent in Seattle-born and New York-based artist, Charles LeDray ’s retrospective exhibition, CHARLES LEDRAY: workworkworkworkwork. One must be willing to slow down to appreciate this artist’s presentation of intriguing miniature everyday objects. Organized by Associate Curator Randi Hopkins, at Boston’s Institute of Contemporary Art, this show surveys 25 years of the artist’s work. The world LeDray presents is one of the small, the quaint, the curious—a far cry from today’s realm of the immediate, splash, bam and boom! Throughout his work he presents open-ended mini narratives inspired from childhood memories, folk traditions and tacky Americana. Fine Arts Magazine

Institute for Contemorary Art, Boston, MA. photo, Iwan Baan

In our Post-Art Production age, the majority of artists do not equate art making with the making of objects. Instead they value concept over matter such as the production of artists’ video, artists-books, performance, site works, and art made for distribution on CD-ROM and the World Wide Web. In such an artistic culture, Charles LeDray’s art is an unexpected anomaly!

The exhibition consists of approximately 30 sculptures and installations, including significant early pieces fabricated by LeDray since 1989, including such initial works as, Untitled/Broken Bear (1993), and a clothing based sculpture, Come Together (1995-1996). As a young artist in 1991, LeDray displayed his objects in tactful arrangements along the sidewalk at New York’s Cooper Square. He joined the group of alternative local community, open-air sales people, enlivening the streets of New York with his unique fabrications. At the ICA, his artwork is again, placed meticulous arrangements. However, here the purposeful, persnickety placement of the objects is interrupted arbitrarily by the appearance of each ingenious item.

C. LeDray, Throwing Shadows (detail), (2008-2010), mixed media

For example, in the ambitious installation titled, MENS SUITS (2006-2010), he employs his earlier method of setting work out at floor level, perhaps in defiance of the iconographic message of authority that a man’s suit would ordinarily project. In another recent work, premiered at this exhibit, Throwing Shadows (2008-2010) is an unusual ceramic installation comprised of more than 3,000 tiny black porcelain pots, standing like silent sentinels and casting shadows on a flat, characterless surface. The delicateness of each vessel evokes both a sense of vulnerability and authority, challenging a viewer’s perception of the power of simple forms in space.

LeDray is a rare artist, obsessed with handmade artistry. The intricate detail of his painstakingly fabricated smaller-than-life objects often takes years to complete. Clothing is a dominant theme throughout his oeuvre, serving as a substitute for human, predominantly male, identity. His sculptural clothing is not inspired by high fashion and its ability to communicate power, wealth or beauty. Instead artistic motivation is drawn from the milieu of labor and everyday occupations. He expands the definition of sculpture through his scrupulously fashioned formal suits, stitched patches, assorted ties, shirts, overcoats, denim jackets and bizarre hats, as well as undersized chests of drawers, doors and thousands of unique, minuscule vessels. By miniaturizing the familiar, this artist draws a viewer into a comfortable, toy-like world where clothing symbolizes persons and tasks. Entering this magical exhibition, a viewer may feel as though they’d fallen down Alice’s rabbit hole or stepped into Jonathan’s Swift kingdom of Gulliver’s Travels and the world of the Lilliputians.

The first installation, Village People (2003-2006), at the gallery entrance, sets the stage for this production. In it, identifiable individuals are only alluded to with an assortment of miniature caps, symbolizing the diversity of personalities co-existing within social culture. Spanning an upper wall, a collection of funky hats hang in a horizontal row, further representing different walks of life, professions and interests. One must crane upward to inspect the range of headgear, including a hotdog, cowboy, jester, wizard, cheese-head and ‘Seniors Rule’ cap. The amount of idiosyncratic detail in each undersized hat will amaze!

Charles (1995), perhaps a self-portrait, depicts a child-like outfit of a mechanic’s clothing on a hanger with small items of men patterned shirts and woman’s lingerie sagging out from its ends—this gender mixture of clothing translates into an oddly androgynous, enigmatic piece.

C. LeDray, Charles (1995), mixed media

In the wall installation Dispatch (#1) (1992), numerous miniature handmade books are pinned to the white surface, with their pages facedown to expose the front and back binding. The joie de vivre presentation of this piece makes for a beautiful, somewhat tongue-in-cheek work, while the continuous theme of miniaturization gives it an absolute peculiarity.

Gorgeous and intriguing are LeDray ’s painstakingly carved minuscule sculptures that evince a startling visual presence. These pieces call to mind Charles Simonds’s architectural tableaux of invented civilizations –another master of the miniature. Untitled (1999-2000), an intricately stacked vertical assemblage of little furniture, suggests the fragility of a house of cards. These faultless groupings of a step-ladder, a chair, a door and another of a minute model of the solar system compel one to step nearer to examine their details and incredibly smooth white surface. Conversely, when one realizes that these constructions are made of hand-carved human bone, an eerie, macabre alertness pervades, cancelling out their outwardly-cute dollhouse innocence.

Perhaps the most compelling piece in this show (and one of the smallest), is Ring Finger (2004). Despite its petite size, LeDray’s minimal ivory carving of a tiny skeletal human finger threaded through a gold ring, looms large as a haunting reminder of time passing, mortality and the absurdity of materialism.

Oasis (1996-2003), is an early mini-pottery collection. It is displayed in a large, steel-shelving unit containing six glass shelves, filled with two-thousand or more tiny, glazed individually crafted ceramic vessels. Collectively, the varying shapes and carefully-decorated colorful surfaces read as a compressed international history of art pottery, representing such cultures as China, Greece, Korea, Japan and countries throughout Western Europe. The placement of this cabinet in the center of the gallery affords an onlooker the opportunity to walk around the module, indulging in closer scrutiny of the assorted pieces. This earlier collection of ceramics differs from LeDray’s monochromatic black, Throwing Shadows, which asks the viewer to examine the pieces more carefully for the essential differences.

C. LeDray, Overcoat (1994), mixed media

Revisiting the pinnacle of this exhibition and its most noteworthy work, the multifaceted installation, MENS SUITS. Here, one sees three small-scale, complex simulations of second-hand clothing store departments, presented on the floor of a large, dimly-lit gallery space that extends 40 feet. Floating industrial metal resembling a store ceiling hangs suspended over each unique thrift shop tableaux, containing impeccably-rendered garments and paraphernalia, taking on the atmosphere of a second-hand shop. The ceiling’s compact fluorescent lights spotlight each particular pageant inside its distinct platform. While none are present, we can easily imagine cost-conscious customers sifting through these discarded treasures.

This work demonstrates a new expansion of LeDray’s thinking about objects both in size and complexity. Although he continues to pair small things, overflowing with incredible details, in a representational context, we are no longer focusing on a specific object. The viewer must now walk to each separate site inside this three-part narrative if they hope to piece together this puzzling story. No longer is the miniature the dominant element—it is only part of a larger mysterious whole. The observer towers over knee-high sets, filled with racks of men’s shirts, ties, laundry bins, garbage bags and stacked plastic hangers. There is a sense of time past, evident not only by the tattered appearance of the clothing, but also is accented by the intended presence of accumulated dust throughout the stage-sets. Collectively the elements arouse an undercurrent of abandonment, loss and a sense of absence.

Leaving the exhibition invoked a memory of Christian Boltanski’s mammoth installation Personnes, created at the Grand Palais, Paris, last winter. He also used clothes as his primary motif and his discreetly laid out field of clothing became a landscape of worn coats, bright cardigans, children’s sweaters, shabby jumpers and dejected skirts. He delved into the shadowy world of death, evoking a sense of tragedy, humor and absurdity with his chosen materials and their placements.

Without a doubt, Charles LeDray’s work is poetic and he is a master craftsman. However, his ideas are becoming tiresome and threatening to become monotonous, resulting in visual clichés. One hopes that the piece, MENS SUITS, signals a new track for LeDray and that this well-worn motif has run its course. Hopefully, in the future, he will be willing to push his creative energy and explore other challenging territories of human emotion.

by Elaine King, Contributing Writer

The exhibition, Charles LeDray, workworkworkworkwork, will be at the Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston, MA, until October 17, 2010. www.icaboston.org

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[1] Thomas Finkerpearl, “Why Small is Big,” ARTnews, December 2005

Alfred Gwynne Vanderbilt (circ.1910)

This is a tale of two historic homes in a beautiful seaside, New England town, and of how visionary zeal and coincidence braided history, friendship and a passion for things beautiful together in a most unusual way…

On May 1, 1915 Alfred Vanderbilt boarded the Lusitania bound for Liverpool as a first class passenger. It was a business trip, and he traveled with only his valet, leaving his family at home in New York. On May 7th, off the coast of County Cork, Ireland, the German submarine, U-20, torpedoed the ship, triggering a secondary explosion, sinking the giant ocean liner within eighteen minutes. Vanderbilt and his valet, Ronald Denyer, helped others into lifeboats, and then Vanderbilt gave his own lifejacket to save a female passenger, even tying it onto her himself, since she was holding an infant child in her arms. His selfless actions cost him, and those of 1197 other passengers, their lives. Fine Arts Magazine

WW I recruiting poster, following the 1915 sinking of the Lusitania, which killed Vanderbilt

Vanderbilt’s fate was ironic, as three years earlier he had made a last minute decision not to return to the United States…on the Titanic.

Thus, ended the life and colorful saga of one of America’s wealthiest men. He was of a generation of Americans who rose attained power and prestige, born of family legacy. The privileged class at the end of the 19th century had made their money in industry: steel, oil, railroads and manufacturing. And many of these families fled the crush of New York City for the fresh ocean breezes and genteel lifestyle of in Newport, Rhode Island. There, they planned and constructed great stone, seaside fin-de-siècle ‘cottages’; elaborate and massive homes in the classical European style, still standing today, emblematic of an era in American history, sometimes called the Gilded Age.

Vanderbilt Hall, Newport, RI, built be Vanderbilt for his mistress in 1909

In 1909, when Alfred Vanderbilt was still very much part of the Newport scene, with his family’s homes, The Breakers and Marble House, on prominent bluffs overlooking the Atlantic, fate dramatically altered the course of his life. A chance encounter in Central Park with a beautiful woman would provide Newport with an architectural treasure, standing today in a restored setting—the vision of yet another wealthy businessman—this time in 21st century style. Vanderbilt Hall, in the heart of Newport, was originally erected by Alfred for Agnes O’Brien Ruiz, wife of the Cuban attaché, who became his mistress after one day managing to bring her unruly horse under control in the city’s park. This fervent affair drew the wrath and indignation of the Vanderbilt family and it soon came to an end. Tragically, Ruiz was disowned by her husband and committed suicide a few years later.

Over the decades, Vanderbilt Hall has found many uses, principally as a hotel. But time and neglect took their toll on the building and much of its inherent charm was lost to expedience. Then, in 2007, the property was purchased by Peter de Savary, an English businessman with global property holdings and a vision for what Vanderbilt Hall might once again become.

Vernon Court, Newport, RI, home of the National Museum of American Illustration

Just as the Alfred Vanderbilt saga played out, another wealthy individual had taken up residence at nearby, Vernon Court, on prestigious Bellevue Avenue. Constructed in 1898 by architects, Carrère and Hastings (NY Public Library, U.S. House and Senate Office Building, Flagler Museum, Frick Museum), in the style of an 18th century French country chateau, Vernon Court served as a summer cottage for the young widow of wealthy businessman, Richard A. Gambrill. Surrounded by beautiful gardens, inspired by those of Henry VIII for his ill-fated queen, Anne Boleyn, and adjacent to Stoneacre, a park conceived by Frederick Law Olmstead (New York’s Central Park, Boston’s ‘Emerald Necklace’), it was a showpiece in many ways. It remained occupied by descendants of the family until 1956 and filled many uses over the decades since, until purchased in 1998 by Laurence and Judy Cutler, founders of the National Museum of American Illustration (NMAI).

It is here that the story of two historic properties and the divergent objectives of their two owners intersect.

Englishman, Peter de Savary is known internationally as a businessman, luxury hospitality property developer and a 1983 America’s Cup competitor for Britain. He is also an avid art collector. Various homes throughout the world house hundreds of his period works from Old Masters to the Romantic Era. It was not until he decided to undertake the renovation of the then-closed Vanderbilt Hall property in 2008 that he contacted New York City art dealer and 20th century American illustration art expert, Judy Cutler. They had met before, in 1998, when the Cutler’s purchased the property that was to become their museum from its current owner, Peter de Savary, befriending one another in the course of the transaction. Her art gallery was, as they had discovered, directly across the street from de Savary’s New York City apartment!

Vanderbilt Hall, now a luxury masion hotel and spa, owned by Peter de Savary

De Savary’s vision for Vanderbilt Hall, which he was then converting into an exclusive, membership-based resort hotel, was to capture a certain feel—of optimism and good times, of hope and a sense of home. With just 33 suites, it would make a glittering statement about a time long-past, when Newport thrived as a destination for the rich and very rich, and America enjoyed a period of prosperity. The ‘Roaring ‘20s’ were called the Jazz Age, the Age of Intolerance, and the Age of Wonderful Nonsense. But, under any moniker, the era embodied the beginning of modern America. Numerous Americans felt buoyed up following World War I (1914-18). The period of a deadly worldwide influenza epidemic (1918) had also abated. The new decade would be a time of change for everyone —only to be brought to an abrupt end by the stock market crash of 1929 and the Great depression that followed.

But, the spirit of the Roaring Twenties was marked by a general feeling of optimism associated with modernity—and a break with tradition. Everything seemed possible through modern technology. New inventions, especially automobiles, moving pictures and radio, proliferated, bringing ‘modern times’ to a many Americans. Formal decorative frills were shed in favor of practicality in daily life and architecture. At the same time, jazz and dancing rose in popularity, in reaction to the mood that gripped the country during the ‘war to end all wars’. F. Scott Fitzgerald, in The Great Gatsby, captured the tenor of the times best when he wrote:

“Gatsby believed in the green light, the orgiastic future that year by year recedes before us. It eluded us then, but that’s no matter–tomorrow we will run faster, stretch out our arms farther…. And one fine morning– So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.” - The Great Gatsby, Ch. 9

Howard Chandler Christy, Stephen Foster Composing, ‘Jeanie with the Light Brown Hair’, originally painted as a 3-part panel.

Peter de Savary wanted to capture Fitzgerald’s mood of unbridled optimism when it came time to install art at Vanderbilt Hall. For this, he contacted Judy Cutler to learn more about how early 20th century illustration art might help set that very mood. Collabortating as a team, each room, from the 24-karat gold leaf dining room, to the area surrounding the many restored, working fireplaces, to the most intimate corner of the property, was hung with authentic, rare and strikingly dramatic examples of illustration art for a period-appropriate touch of elegance.

John Lagatta, The Bather (circ. 1935)

The artistic centerpiece near the lobby is a three-panel screen, by Howard Chandler Christy (1873-1952), now hung like a painting. It is densely embellished, in a modern variation of Rococo styling, titled, Stephen Foster Composing, ‘Jeanie with the Light Brown Hair’. In it, the alluring young woman of the song’s title languishes on a sofa, gazing directly at the viewer, while among the many naked figures, Christy’s mistress dances on the far left. It is spicy and suggestive—much less saccharine than hasty perusal would suggest. Vanderbilt Hall is filled to overflowing with brilliantly-colored, familiar works like this and those by other noted illustration artists, including Pruett Carter, William Soare, Earl Steffa Moran, Julian De Miskey, Earl Bergey and Elbert McGran Jackson. If these artists’ names are unfamiliar to aficionados, it should be noted that they worked largely for the booming magazine and advertising trades in the 1920s and’30s. Their images graced the covers of such cultural icons as Vogue, Colliers, The New Yorker, The Saturday Evening Post, American Weekly Magazine and the New York Herald Tribune Sunday Supplement. Deliberately evocative and sexually suggestive in ways that would never do today, these skillfully-executed works conjure a time that we would like to believe was simpler and social issues were more easily navigated.

Rico Tomaso, Center of Attention (1934)

By far, my favorite pieces in the Vanderbilt Hall Collection include one hung in the breakfast café by John Lagatta entitled, Bather (circ. 1935). For anyone who has not viewed illustration art ‘up close and personal’, the lessons that this painting teach are important. First, the technical merits of the work, including pronounced and skillful brushwork, image composition and color layering that would be the envy of any artist; the sentimental theme, while contrived, conveys a specific, unstated tension between the two figures and a charming period-specific flavor that gains in aesthetic appeal over time; and lastly, the use of light to dramatize the interaction and heighten the illusion of depth and surface planes with merely a few well-chosen brush strokes are just short of masterful.

Another favorite hangs in the dining room and it just might be everyone’s favorite work. It is a sultry portrait of a 20’s socialite, by Rico Tomaso, titled, Center of Attention. She sits on a bar stool, surrounded by men, draped in silk and gazing over her shoulder at something or someone of interest in the distance. Seductive, childlike, sophisticated, bored, calculating, manipulative, naive, unnaturally beautiful are all terms that come to mind, simultaneously, when considering this painting. A 20’s version of Paris Hilton, this mystery woman is clearly in command of the scene. Tomaso’s subtle portrayal of this inscrutable, physically-appealing individual, who sits idly by, as the men surround her competing for attention, is all captured in this small, but elegant painting.

The works were, of course, all purchased by Peter de Savary from Judy Cutler’s, American Illustrators Gallery, in New York City . For anyone interested in an expanded, dramatically-more comprehensive tour of illustration art, the Cutler’s, National Museum of American Illustration, is a short distance away at Vernon Court.

Charles Dana Gibson, The Market Basket (circ. 1900)

A suitably elegant setting, the mansion currently houses the museum’s extensive collection of American illustration; the Gilded Age in architecture is contemporaneous with the “Golden Age of American Illustration”, and is a theme on which the collection focuses. Over a period of more than forty years, the Cutler’s collection has grown to become remarkably comprehensive. Anchoring the collection are some of the iconic drawings of Charles Dana Gibson (the Gibson Girls), paintings by Howard Pyle, the father of illustration art, his students, Maxfield Parrish, N.C. Wyeth and J.C. Leyendecker , who in turn influenced many others, like Norman Rockwell. The NMAI has the second largest collection of Norman Rockwell paintings, next to the Rockwell Museum, itself, in Stockbridge, MA.

The museum also includes the work of J.M. Flagg, Elizabeth Shippen Green and Frederick Remington, to name a few. Hung in abundance throughout elegantly-appointed rooms in the house, the exhibition presents more like a salon than museum. Personal touches and period furnishings add to the visual appeal of the works, contextualizing them for the viewer.

Panels from Maxwell Parrish's, A Florentine Fete (1911), hung in the Rose Garden Loggia at National Museum of American Illustration

For any that would argue illustration art is not ‘serious’, consider first the technical merits of the work and the fact that many artist, adopting this genre did so because of a lucrative publishing market, that sought out competent image-makers to support their editorial content and offer visual appeal at the newsstand. Director, Judy Cutler points out that, “At that time, if you were paid in advance to complete a work of art on a specific theme, then you were not considered a serious artist.” Consider that many illustrators trained with well-known artists of the early 20th century and that some, like Rockwell and Flagg, during their long careers and on their own initiative, tackled profoundly important patriotic and politically-charged issues as subject matter for their paintings (Artist, James Montgomery Flagg, himself, was the model for Uncle Sam in the iconic, ‘I want YOU! poster).

Maxfield Parrish, A Florentine Fete (1911), detail

Commenting on her own extensive collection of illustration art, celebrity, Whoopi Goldberg, describes the strong emotion and magic associated with finding well-crafted illustration plates of her childhood books. She points out that Michelangelo’s Sistine Chapel was, in its day, illustration art! It should also be noted that early 19th century painter, John Trumbull, was intent on documenting key events in the American Revolution, before they were lost to collective memory. His brush was his camera of the day. Winslow Homer began his career as an illustrator for Harper’s Weekly. George Lucas, director and master story-teller on film, defines illustration art as, “Cultural artifacts infused with a sensibility of time.” For Lawrence Cutler, this means that, “illustration art carries with it a sense of history; either defining who we are through mass-produced images, or reflecting our identity as discovered through the artist’s eye.”

Norman Rockwell, Miss Liberty, Saturday Evening Post cover, July 1, 1943

A breathtaking series of large panels by Maxfield Parrish, hung in the Rose Garden Loggia and the stairwell leading up to the second floor, is an astounding representation of the early Art Deco style, epitomized by Parrish. Once adorning the 175’-long cafeteria walls at Curtis Publishing Company in Philadelphia (publisher of Ladies Home Journal), this commissioned series, entitled, A Florentine Fete (1911) was acquired by Judy Cutler when the business closed several years ago. Theatrical and romantic in their conception, each panel radiates with individual motifs and implied dramatic ‘moment’. Yet each is infused with the rich glowing color and subtle inflection of gesture or intent. One less obvious theme linking the works is the repeated appearance of Parrish’s companion, Susan Lewin. These panels, once part of a work-a-day office building setting, are well served in the naturally-lit loggia, garden views outside every window.

Norman Rockwell’s, Miss Liberty is another favorite, not to be missed. The central figure, preoccupied with her heavy burden, seems poised to bustle directly off the canvas. She represents America herself, carrying symbols of many of careers that women in the 1940’s were prohibited from. Rockwell captured a seminal historical moment as doors were being opened to women in the competitive market place, previously denied them. With humor, dynamic action and rich symbolism, he thus educates the viewer on an important issue in our collective history, without uttering a syllable.

Vanderbilt Hall and Vernon Court are symbols of a common history that define what Newport, Rhode Island once was. Both homes embodied the hopes and dreams of a people and era, long-past. Henry James once bitterly remarked that the Newport ‘cottages’ should stand there always, reminders “of the peculiarly awkward vengeances of affronted proportion and discretion.” But James could not imagine the dreams of a new generation and the re-purposing of these splendid spaces as havens of enlightenment and rejuvenation.

Thanks to people like Peter de Savary, and Judy and Lawrence Cutler and their exceptional efforts, Newport Lives!

by Richard Friswell, Executive Editor

Please post your secure comments in the section below. We welcome your feedback.

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Visit Vanderbilt Hall at www.vanderbilthall.com

See the collection of illustration art and scenes of Vernon Court at www.americanillustration.org

Levi van Veluw, Landscape I, from Landscape Series (2008). Courtesy, Gallery Ronmandos, Amsterdam/Rotterdam

 In less sure hands, New York City’s Museum of Arts and Design’s Dead or Alive, an exhibit of thirty-seven international artists’ work composed of feathers, bones, egg shells, insects, fur, antlers, dried and rotting plants– with a few stuffed birds and animals thrown in– would be a creepy, crawly experience, conceivably sending people packing for the exits. Not so with this exhibition, though. Dead or Alive, conceived by chief curator David Revere McFadden and senior curator Lowery Stokes Sims, assisted by curator Elizabeth Edwards Kirrane, examines beauty in the extreme: living proof, so to speak, that a sow’s ear can, indeed, be made into a silk purse. It is also, despite outward appearances, an intellectual adventure encouraging serious thought on ecology, beauty, violence to humans and animals, and most notably, one’s own mortality. Fine Arts Magazine  

Marc Swanson, Untitled (Antler Pile) (2007). Copyright Marc Swanson, courtesy Richard Gray Gallery

  Through use of idiosyncratic materials, the attention paid to the oddities of natural history, Dead or Alive, reminds one of a sixteenth century Cabinet of Wonders, for each highly distinctive work of art becomes a microcosm of the world. From videos, to sculptures, to highly crafted installations, it is a virtual sideshow of organic matter made art, some functional, some not. An obsession with numbers seems sometimes to be the artist’s métier. In Eight Thousand Miles of Home (2010) Thailand artist Angus Hutcheson weaves roughly 12,000 silk worm cocoons into a beautiful, overhead cloud-like light fixture and Moon (2006), Tracey Heneberger’s sculptural wall hanging, comprises over a thousand shellacked sardines arranged intricately in a circle. Marc Swanson contributes a glittering pyramid of deer antlers, Untitled (Antler Pile) (2007), covered in thousands of hand-glued crystals, while Flock (2010), Susie MacMurray’s ominous site-specific wall, hidden in a corner of the museum, features tens of thousands of dyed black rooster feathers.  

Tess Farmer, Little Savages, detail (2007). Courtesy, the artist & Spencer Brownstone Gallery, NY

Claire Morgan, On Top of the World (2009). Courtesy, the artist & Galerie Karsten Greve, Paris

 London-based artist Tessa Farmer’s theatrical diorama, Little Savages (2007) is a taxidermied fox – signifying humans – and appears under seige by flying and crawling insects. Dried slugs, silk moth cocoons, and plant roots are attached to its fur, a wasp’s nest hangs from its tail, and a bird eating an insect is perched on its back. We are here faced, “fast forwarding,” as curator Sims notes in the exhibition’s catalog, with “the cycle of nature in terms of death, disposal, and decay.” In On Top of the World (2009) Claire Morgan, also London-based, threads transparent nylon through hundreds of dead Bluebottle flies, to fashion an eerie army of flying creatures in a suspended, geometrically- layered cube. Atop the cube, invisible to all but the uppermost flies, the artist has added a red spider, suggesting the moment when disaster is poised, threatening her orderly state of perfection.  

Jorge Mayet, Obatala (2010). Courtesy Galeria Horrach Moya, Palma de Mallorca, SP

 Dutch artist Levi van Veluw is a performance artist as well as sculptor and photographer. At age twenty-five, this youngest artist of the exhibition uses his own head and shoulders as a canvas on which to build natural landscapes (see above). Seaweed and other organic materials become van Veluw’s flora and fauna, as well as stones, tiny plastic animals, trucks, lampposts, and telephone poles – all affixed to his painted face. He creates an entire world, simultaneously becoming part of it. Before “removing his latest face,” the artist, represented here by 3 photographs and a remarkable video featuring a toy train circling his landscaped head, documents each new creation. Cuban-born, Mallorca-based artist Jorge Mayet also uses synthetic materials to recreate nature. In Cayendo Suave (Falling Softly) (2009), the artist chooses simple electrical wires, papier mậché, and feathers, to form a super-realistic tree. An angel suspended in midair, with a clutch of feathers attached at its roots. It is astonishingly beautiful.  

Keith W. Bentley, Cauda Equina (Horse Tail) (1995-2007). Courtesy, the artist

Keith W. Bentley’s Cauda Equina (Horse Tail) (1995-2007) took twelve years to complete and is a labor of love and a eulogy to the thousands of horses slaughtered annually in this country for their meat. Bentley stitched and knotted nearly a million and a half individual hairs from 250 horses into a fabric that was attached to the full-sized taxidermy form of a horse, conjuring up a mourning veil, not unlike those worn by widows during the Victorian era. On the lighter side – but just slightly – is Billie Grace Lynn’s, Mad Cow Motorcycle (2008), in which she has mounted the skeleton of an entire cow over a working motorcycle. At the foot of this “kinetic sculpture” a video shows the artist careening through the streets of Miami while passersby—if not aghast– look on in amusement. Speaking of cows slaughtered to meet human needs, curator McFadden wryly notes in his catalog essay, that “even in death this cow is not allowed to rest in peace.” 

Billie Grace Lynn, Mad Cow Motorcycle (2008). Photo credit, the artist

 Definitely falling on the lighter side, despite the gravity of its subject, is Apothecarium Moderne, a collaborative work of artists Tim Tate, co- founder and director of the Washington Glass School and Studio outside of Washington, DC, and Connecticut- based artist Marc Petrovic. Nine hand-blown glass apothecary jars line a wall, each filled to the brim with talismans offering cures for various maladies, including loss of faith, over-population, ennui, identity theft, and intelligent design. Etched on each jar is a cure- related story. Apothecary #1 Cure for Erectile Dysfunction, one of the more humorous works, features a photo of Betty Page, the iconic 50’s pinup model surrounded by oyster shells, and Enzyte, a natural male enhancement pill. The tale engraved on this jar is the story of little David, who arrives in Manhattan by bus and meets a freakishly tall woman with an Adam’s apple, who takes him to her flat in Spanish Harlem, gets him addicted to Absinthe, and makes him into a man.  

Tim Tate, Marc Petrovic, Cure for Erictile Dysfunction (2010), from Apothecarium Moderne Series. Courtesy, the artists

 One of the most unusual works on view is Alastair Mackie’s Untitled (+/-)  (2009).  Here we are faced with a two-part installation, each piece placed dramatically, for effect, on its own concrete plinth. Resting on the first is a pile of thousands of mouse skeletons – all eaten, digested, and regurgitated by barn owls – collected by the artist over the course of a year. Occupying plinth two is a loom with a piece of fabric woven from mouse fur which the artist separated from these bones. Like much of the work in this exhibition, Mackie’s mouse-centric installation speaks to the relationship of things and events in the endless cycle of life and death. A strong point of this exhibition is the simply- written labels about the artists as well as each work on view. Once we digest the ideas behind each piece, and the process each artist has used to create it—often taken to the nth degree–everything falls into place, naturally, or so it seems.  

*As curator Lowery Sims notes in museum’s beautifully appointed catalog, “the work in Dead or Alive might challenge usual and habitual notions of beauty, but artists can extrude beauty from the most base and defiled materials…This maneuvering of a transcendent experience from trash was given a specifically psychological and emotional role in art making by the Surrealists, who linked it with concepts such as “the marvelous” or “convulsive beauty”— both of which were based on the experience of the “uncanny.”1 Of particular interest is what Hal Foster called understanding the “marvelous” as “signal(ing) a rupture in the natural order…challeng(ing)…rational causality…(and) its fascination with magic and alchemy. 2  

by Edward Rubin, Contributing Writer  

Dead or Alive: Nature becomes Art. At the Museum of Art and Design, through October 24, 2010

1. See Hal Foster, Compulsive Beauty (Cambridge, MA), and London, UK: MIY Press, 1993), 19-56  

2. Ibid., 19.  

Edward Rubin is a writer-photographer whose writings on theater and art appear regularly in various magazines such as Sculpture, ArtUS, Canadian Art, d’art International, Hispanic Outlook, and NY Arts Magazines, as well as for NY Theatre Wire, and Hi! Drama, a Time Warner cable TV show, based in New York City.

Interior of Maurice Agis's, Dreamscape (2006) Disaster would soon strike. See video, below

 Seeking – Director for Museum, open 4-10 days a year with hundreds of curators involved, and tens of thousands of visitors. Must be able to cope with logistical nightmares and able to please everybody all the time.  

How many museums are there in the world? Have a guess. I have no idea so email me if you know. My point is there are thousands upon thousands of museums, more than it would be possible to count with any great ease. Museums are, for the most part, continuously in operation. Their time horizon, as a business, is long range. They are afforded the luxury of time to organize, correct, and improve. But, in the case of an art fair or expo, how do you cram all of these operational considerations into a just a few days of intense activity, and accomplish it without serious incident?Fine Arts Magazine  

The Armory Show (2010): one of NYC's biggest art fairs, with dozens held in the city each year.

 That is the task that art fair managers aim to achieve. It has long been said, usually when journalists are within ear shot, that art fairs are temporary museums; the only difference is the art is for sale. But the often elegant façade betrays a huge undertaking. Logistically, this is a monumentally complex machine to assemble—sometimes years in the planning and just a week or two in the execution. Events like this would not be realistically achievable without the liberal application of insurance to grease the cogs. And this strategy stretches far beyond insuring the art on the walls at the show.  

“The most important thing in both personal and business life is peace of mind – insurance is part of achieving that.” That’s from Paul Morris, president and co-founder of the Armory Show. He definitely recognizes the importance of insurance to art fairs. In order to achieve that ‘peace of mind’ a fair needs to protect itself and its exhibitors from potential financial losses. According to Morris, Pier 94 in New York City (the expanded home of the historically-significant, annual Armory Show event) is undergoing a significant renovation, courtesy of MMPI (the fair’s parent company).  

As a rule of thumb, here are just three important considerations for art fair organizers:  

Venice Biennale (2009), Elmgreen & Dragset, curators/artists. 'Body' floats in a pool outside a house being 'sold.' Photo: Todd Hesler, The New York Times

 1. Workers Compensation Insurance: Required of staff for maintenance and building of all the booths at a fair venue. Add to this any and all employees working for the fair organizers, the exhibitors, and fine art shippers. This may represent hundreds of policies that each party involved must have to employ personnel. Without this coverage, the booths would never be built, the fair organizers and galleries would have no staff and the art would never ship. All of which adds a level of expense and difficulty to holding even a modest event. The insurance is there to protect both the employer and the employee–creating a protected environment for business to be conducted.  

2. Commercial Liability Insurance: For the fair venue, itself, its organizers, gallery participants and shippers, in the event an accident occurs. Without this insurance, exposure to financial losses due to accident or injury can quickly become extreme, in the face of an unexpected event. And the unexpected can occur, sometimes with fatal results.  

Maurice Agis, artist, 77, following his arrest on manslaughter charges on 2006

 Though not installed as an art fair, per se, the British artist Maurice Agis, created a public art event in 2006, when he erected a temporary, onsite immersive art work, Dreamspace, in a park outside a small town in North England. The acre-sized inflatable sculpture was designed as a series of huge intersecting, colored bubbles, inviting the public to walk through as they experienced the multi-sensory world of lights and colors of the artist’s creation. On one particular day, with a few people inside the structure, the wind outside picked up, breaking the moorings, and lifting the structure into the air. As it came crashing back down, coming to rest against a large pole, two women were killed and several were injured. Agis had no insurance. He was taken to court on manslaughter charges (a verdict on which the jury could not agree) and was fined $15,000. This fine was later reduced to $4,000 to better reflect his minimal income of $180 per week, from a state pension. He died in October 2009, at the age of 77, with the debt still standing. If this had occurred in the US, at a major art fair, the damages sought would have been exponentially higher. (left) Sequence of events as Dreamscape takes to the air.  

3. Event Insurance: Designed to protect the operators if the whole event is canceled, due to weather or some unforeseen circumstances. Seem unlikely? In 2008, the Summer Arts Fair in Omaha was completely flattened by very high winds. While not a major fair, it underscores the need to protect against unforeseen or even far-reaching natural occurrences. The organizing company, as well as a number of other parties, stood to be significantly out-of-pocket if they were not adequately covered. Event Insurance goes a long way in protecting the financial investment involved. Having to cancel an art fair or expo in the late stages can be more than enough to sink a great company. It can be doubly-hard when the event has brand recognition that may have taken years to build.  

Taking on the task of organizing and mounting a large art fair is multi-faceted and involves assuming responsibility for scores of people who may be involved. All of this before we even start to think about the juggling act needed to make exhibitors happy or the steps needed to protect the art itself!  

Claude Monet, Fishing Boats at Sea (1868). Alfred A. Pope Collection, Hill-Stead Museum, Farmington, CT

 In this complex mix of people, business interests and product, the art represents, far and away, the single largest financial exposure. Christiane Fischer, President and CEO of AXA Art Insurance in North America, says that at any major international art fair, “AXA Art insures anywhere between $100 million and $1 billion+ in art”. That is a pretty incredible number for a single, large event. Combine that with the exhibitors insured with other companies and you start to see a sweat-inducing number. The whole of The European Fine Arts Fair (TEFAF), widely recognized as the largest fair in the world, has approximately $4 billion in art on display each year.  

The Windsor Hotel fire, NYC (1899). Note the Monet painting, pictured above, being rescued from Mr. Pope's hotel room window by fire depart. Photo: Archives, Hill-Stead Museum, Farmington, CT

 In addition to the art work that will be on display, there is another key component for any event: shipping and handling. This is a massive undertaking. Transporting multiple billions in art at any one time is enough to cause a cardiac event. In order for the shippers to be able to conduct business, they need significant insurance policies in place to protect themselves from potential losses and lawsuits. Even the most cautious shippers, unfortunately, suffer losses at some point. In fact, shipping is the most common cause of art insurance claims. This is such a huge topic and I don’t want to digress so I will be dedicating an entire article to it in the near future.  

There you have it; everybody and every company involved needs the proper insurance in place for a market to trade. Often I get the impression some would rather do without all of this insurance. I have heard it said, “Insurance gets in the way of doing business. Why can’t we all just forge ahead without it? It costs money. It delays progress. It’s… simply put…annoying.”  

Those of you who have been reading these articles know that this notion is counter-intuitive. As my last article explained, insurance allows us to conduct business while transferring the large majority of risk to a third party. Indeed it allows us to take on larger financial risks than we would otherwise be able to assume. Rather than getting in the way of business, insurance facilitates it. It provides a safe environment in which to conduct serious business.  

What is serious business?… $4 billion art fairs are serious business.  

by Thomas Galbraith, Contributing Writer  

  

Contact Thomas at tgalbraith@gendelman.com  if you have any questions you would like me to address in the coming articles.  

Thomas Galbraith is Director of Fine Art for Bruce Gendelman Insurance Services. Galbraith has years of expertise in the art insurance marketplace. He previously worked as an art historian at the Art Loss Register, assisting in the recovery of stolen art, and as a collections specialist at Chartis Private Client Group. He most recently served as fine art expert for AXA Art Insurance in the U.S. and as part of the team that spearheaded the company’s Canadian operations.

Jesse Aron Green, Artzliche Zimmeregymnastic (Medicalized Indoor Gymnastics) (2008)

 If ever there were a middle-of-the-road exhibition, this year’s Whitney Biennial is it. In the spirit of an Obama promise for ‘Change’ and to ostensibly try to please everyone—traditional nattering nabob art critics included—guest curator Francesco Bonami and Whitney senior curatorial assistant Gary Carrion-Murayari transformed, with a few standout exceptions, what is usually a messy and colorful cacophony of coloratura voices all fighting to be heard, into a relatively tame and well-ordered blue-haired lady. This latest effort by the Whitney appears to lack pizzazz, speaking mostly in low, hushed tones and preferring dressed-down matinees to paparazzi-fueled, red carpet openings.Fine Arts Magazine  

Whitney Museum Of American Art, New York City

 Outwardly, the change in tailoring is obvious. There are fewer artists on view than usual. Most of the film and videos are on one floor, and art that one could call entertaining, compelling, brave, gay, cutting edge, obscene, or breaking new ground (if appearing at all!) has been kept to a minimum. The change du jour is on the 5th floor. Here, celebrating the seventy-fifth Whitney Biennial are fifty works–many textbook famous–culled from past Annual and Biennial exhibitions. It is interesting to note that the first Biennial in 1932 boasted the work of 358, predominantly male, artists. This year’s, PC-to-a-fault, seems to have bent over backward to equally balance gender, generation, and various artistic practices, among a mere 55 exhibiting artists.  

 While the curators claimed to have scoured the country for artists who truly represent the year 2010, “We thought that geographic boundaries and limitations would help to build a more defined exhibition. We stopped at the Pacific Ocean, the Mexican border, the Atlantic coast, and the Canadian border,” as the catalogue describes. The majority of those selected for the Biennial live in the nationally-recognized art centers of New York (31), Los Angeles (11) and Chicago (4). Most of the works on view are from the artists’ collections. Some 60% are listed as ‘courtesy of’ their galleries. Underscoring the mind-set of the Biennial curators, they write, “We looked to Hawaii, but without success; we did not feel too bad, though, since Hawaii is celebrated by leaving the coolest artist of all in the White House.”  

Josephine Meckler’s wordless video (on DVD), Mall of America (2009)

 In an exhibition with so few works, and so much space in which to contemplate the installations, it is initially easy to separate the ‘diamonds’ from the ‘costume jewelry.’  As with the last two Biennials, the strongest works fall into the video category.  Perhaps this is because both eyes and ears are forced to focus, thereby absorbing more content. Josephine Meckler’s wordless video (on DVD), Mall of America (2009) is an interpretation of American retail culture today.  It is an other-worldly examination of conspicuous consumption in saturated hues of red, blue and yellow. Slowly panning a large mall, nearly void of people, the camera moves from store displays, to escalators, to amusement rides, the visual tour heightened with eerie background music. One could imagine being in a wax museum, rather than a shopping center that hosts nearly forty-million people a year.      

At the other end of the spectrum—loud and brassy—is Marianne Vitale’s in-your-face video Patron (2009). Staring directly into the camera, this filmmaker and performance artist, obviously having a grand old time, spends eight minutes screaming a litany of commands to the viewer. Ironically welcoming us to “The Future of Neutralism,” she orders us to stand up, open our mouths, recite tongue twisters and spit at the ceiling.  

 On the more contemplative side, quoting a Joseph Beuy’s 1972 performance piece, is Bruce High Quality Foundation’s ambulance-cum-hearse installation, We Like America and America Likes Us (2010). YouTube video clips, Hollywood movies and new media flash across the windshield while a poetically-scripted female voiceover, referring to America variously as lover, family member and friend, exposes the strengths and weaknesses of our country; which in no small way reflect our very own, as well.  

 Lorraine O’Grady’s, The First and the Last of the Modernists (2010) occupies the same gallery as the hearse. In a series of three side by side diptychs taken at different times during their short lives, O’Grady compares the meteoric rise and fall of Michael Jackson to that of Baudelaire. Sharing similar traits: they were both perfectionists, flamboyant in their dress, sexually ambiguous, addicted to drugs, died young, and were skewered by the media for openly expressing lifestyles and beliefs. As social commentary, the artist examines the roles of art and popular culture, as well as how modern figures are presented, flattened, and distributed through the news media. Though simply presented—as is O’Grady’s style—her ideas are both subtle and in-your-face, complex but not complicated.  

Stephanie Sinclair, Self-Immolation in Afghanistan: A Cry for Help (2005)

 Not unlike like Spike Lee’s Hurricane Katrina film, When The Levies Broke, seen at the 2008 Whitney Biennial, the socially-relevant, viscerally-brutal work of two photojournalists is included in the mix: Stephanie Sinclair’s series, Self-Immolation in Afghanistan: A Cry for Help (2005) documenting women who, in acts of desperation, set themselves on fire; while Nina Berman’s series Marine Wedding (2006/2008) – commissioned by People magazine – follows the heart-wrenching life of Ty, whose face was blown off by a suicide bomber attack. The experience of looking at both is painful.  

 Drawing additional attention to the human body – perhaps the subtheme of the Biennial – are the videos of Jesse Aron Green, Rashaad Newsome, and Kelly Nipper. In, Artzliche Zimmeregymnastic (Medicalized Indoor Gymnastics (2008), Green choreographs sixteen male performers to execute forty-five exercises from an 1858, “health and vigor of body and mind” manual, used well into the 1920s as a guide to moral behavior. Newsome’s, Untitled (New Way), 2009, features dancers known for their voguing abilities. The dance had its origins in New York City’s gay ballroom culture during the 1960s and ‘70s and his video highlights these various dancing styles. Through imaginative editing that removes the performances from their historical context, the artist creates a new dance composed entirely of abstract movements. In Nipper’s similar video, Weather Center (2009), dancer Taisha Paggett emulates the stylized gestures and movements of early modern dance pioneer, Mary Wigman.  

Curtis Mann, After the Dust, Second View (Beirut), 2009

 Curtis Mann’s, After the Dust, Second View (Beirut), 2009, a large, gridded assemblage of 120 altered photographic images, documents the thirty-three day war between Israel and Hezbollah in the summer of 2006. Using common household bleach, Mann erases most of the original image. All the viewer is left with—primarily at the edge of each photograph—are a few random details of objects and people in a city devastated by war. His transformation of photojournalistic record-keeping, gathered on the Internet, from places he himself has not visited, moves personal grief and hardship into the realm of abstraction, much like our own experience of tragedy being reported from places far removed from our comfortable, daily lives.  

Jessica Jackson Hutchens, Couch For a Long Time (2000).

 One of the most inexplicably satisfying works of art on view–arguably more arts and craft tha,n art–is Jessica Jackson Hutchens’ obsessively-collaged installation, Couch For a Long Time (2000). Returning to the Obama reference, I can appreciate the curatorial point that his image may be practically unavoidable in today’s world. Hutchens has plastered her childhood living room sofa with hundreds of his photos, taken from newspapers. Several ceramic sculptures rest on the couch: two are vessels and two resemble severed limbs. As one critic wrote about Hutchins’ work in an earlier exhibition, it is, “steeped in a California funk attitude. Her papier-mâché sculptures and collages share a crass aesthetic and a preoccupation, with the thin line between disaster and success that disguise a genuine attempt to convey ideas about communion, fear and loneliness.”  

 The same indeed, can be said for much of the work in this current Whitney Biennial.  

 by Edward Rubin, Contributing Writer  

 Edward Rubin is a writer-photographer whose writings appear regularly in various magazines such as Sculpture, ArtUS, Canadian Art, d’art International, Hispanic Outlook, and NY Arts Magazines. Mr. Rubin is a member of the International Association of Art Critics (AICA), Outer Critics Circle (an organization of writers on the New York theatre for out-of-town newspapers, national publications, and other media), the Drama Desk and the International Association of Theatre Critics (IATC). When he is not art-viewing, he is reviewing theatre for NY Theatre Wire, and Hi! Drama, a Time Warner cable TV show, based in New York City.  

John Ogilby; Arnoldus Montanus, New Netherland (New York), New England and Part of Virginia (1671). Courtesy Fordham Univ. Library, Map Coll. #13

By the mid-17th century, English claims in the New World were well-established for those colonies along the New England coastline. The hard-scrabble existence and high mortality which had so characterized the early years of settlement had given way to communal permanence and relative prosperity. Still, the relationship of these growing settlements, with the surrounding forest and inhabitants, remained uneasy. Intent on establishing a wilderness Zion, where tight controls over religious practices could be consistently managed and overseen, these English settlers often described their surroundings as “cursed” land, “the environment of evil,” a “kind of hell” on earth. The earliest Puritans of New England, steeped in an Old Testament, Biblical worldview, believed they found themselves in such a “wilderness condition” of continental proportions. It was their God-ordained destiny to transform the dismal American wilderness into an earthly paradise, governed accordingly by the Word of God. Fine Arts Magazine

From Peter Schenk's Hecatompolis, New Amsterdam on the Island of Manhattan (1702) as it appeared in 1673. Courtesy Fordham Univ. Map Coll. #20

The Dutch, on the other hand, came during the same period to explore the little-known region between the English and French-occupied northern realms and the Spanish territories to the south. On a tip from Captain John Smith, founder of the failed settlement in Jamestown, Virginia that an area of open water might lay to his north, the English explorer, Henry Hudson, set sail across the Atlantic on behalf of the Dutch. He navigated his ship, Half Moon, into Chesapeake Bay and ultimately, northward to a great river estuary, with an island bearing the Indian name, Mannahatta, nearby, believing its wide mouth might promise a passageway to the Orient.

Hudson sailed on behalf of a group of businessmen, comprising the Dutch West Indies Company and his objective was to establish trade routes as he went. While he did not passage to the Pacific, he charted the lands adjoining the river and created trading posts along the way (New Amsterdam [New York], Fort Orange [Albany] and Fort Nassau [Gloucester, NJ]) with thriving, receptive Indian communities. Many Dutch families with mercantile interests under land grants from the Dutch West India Company, soon followed. By the 1660s, several thousand settlers inhabited a loose-knit network of communities in New Netherlands—stretching from central Long island and the Connecticut River Valley, west to New Amsterdam and up the Hudson River in towns whose names are familiar today—Breukelen, Staten Island, Haarlem, Yonkers, Peekskill, Sleepy Hollow, Fishkill, Rensselaerswyck, Staatsburg, Kaatskill, Reinbeck, Cortlandt, New Palz and Kinderhook, among others.

Joost Thooft & Labouchere, Picture of a Painting by Frans Hals (c. 1900), Dutch glazed tiles, wood frame. Coll. Hudson River Museum

While these communities prospered at a local level, under legal contracts resembling merchant-family monopolies to exclusively produce and sell certain goods and products, the larger business experiment in fur trade with the natives, initially undertaken by the Dutch West India Company, never prospered. The small agrarian communities tucked into the hills and vales of the Hudson Valley remained relatively isolated and ungovernable by a variety of kings’ court-appointed, colonial overseers, including Peter Stuyvesant. In 1664, having declared war on the Dutch, Charles II of England sailed into New Amsterdam harbor, demanding the surrender of Dutch territories to the English. Unable to excite the local population to resist, Stuyvesant gave up without a shot fired.

After a mere 40-year reign (with a brief return to Dutch rule in 1673-74), the vast reaches of the Delaware Bay, stretching from the Virginia border to the south, north along the coast and extending up the Hudson toward French-controlled Canada were now under English control.

But, the story does not end there.

Howard Pyle, Along the Canal in Old manhattan (1893) portrays life in colonial New Amsterdam. Coll. Brandywine River Museum, PA

What is important for us to understand today is the role that Dutch settlement and its cultural heritage exerted on our American identity. This influence was due, in large part, to how the English subsequently managed these new territories under their control after 1664. While the legacy of Dutch presence in the New World was brief, in formal terms, their values and traditions endured. The reasoning is that the benign governance practiced by the British in the years following their vesting of authority, did much to insure the preservation of selected Dutch cultural traits and traditions. In retrospect, we easily recognize many of these traditions as the fundamental building blocks of our Constitutional guarantees as Americans.

Fortunately for us today, the stern Puritan orthodoxy of earlier New England settlements did not extend its influence to English rule elsewhere in the region. English imperial rule would prove difficult to enforce over great distances and, apart from taxation for selected goods, the new government proved no more effective than the displaced Dutch authorities in their ability to unify and assimilate the firmly-ensconced Dutch communities into the new English hegemony.

Apart from different names (New Amsterdam became New York, New Netherlands became the colony of New York, Fort Orange [then Beverwijck] became Albany), little changed for the Dutch living under English rule. Euro-Dutch national traditions, which had been imported as ‘whole cloth’ to the New World in 1629, persisted: freedom of conscience, religious tolerance and theological pluralism; the rights of women to inherit and own property; free trade and rights to property transfer; a long-standing tolerance for multi-national immigration resulting in cultural melting-pot communities; presumption of innocence in a court of law; open political debate between parties holding differing views of governance; the right to a local, standing militia and no taxation without representation were key components of Dutch daily life that would persist in this region until another, more overarching form of government was established. It would take another 150 years for these principles to be codified in the years immediately following the American Revolution.

Author’s Note: Historical scholars, James R. Tanis and Stephen E. Lucas, in separate articles, contend that a Dutch document, the 1581, Act of Abjuration, issued in the wake of the Dutch revolt against Spain, together with the Union of Utrect, 1579 (both reprinted in the colonies in English in the 1750s), became the models for Thomas Jefferson’s Declaration of Independence and later, the U.S. Articles of Confederation and the U.S. Constitution.

Husdon River Museum, Yonkers, NY

In essence, during their brief rule in colonial America , the Dutch profoundly influenced our national identity, both politically and socially. As the 19th century dawned, the legacy and romance of the Hudson River Valley and its quaint, isolated farm communities still extant, would now fuel a very different fire. The legends and folklore, the traditions and traits of the Dutch and their English neighbors, would become the building blocks for a new literary tradition to be added to a growing catalogue of symbols that would form the heart and soul of an emerging nation.

Thompkins H. Matteson, Santa's Workshop (1856). For the Dutch, known as Sinter Claas. Coll. Arader Gallery

*The Dutch Legacy Captured in the American Lexicon:

The Dutch infused the English language with many words and social institutions that are now part of our everyday lives: courant (newspaper);Columbia University; cranky; stoop; hook (of land); scow; bush (for back country); bushwhacker; cruller; coleslaw; cookie; pancake; anchor; easel; landscape; stove; wagon; yacht; whole grains with milk for breakfast; pretzel; pit (as in peach); waffle; boss; the game of golf; ice skating; Santa Claus (from Sinter Klass); Sint Maartin’s Eve, or Beggar’s Day, when masked children went with lanterns from door-to-door, asking for sweets and fruit…combined with the Irish-Celtic celebration of All Saints Eve on October 31st, to become Halloween.

*Thanks again to David Voorhees for this concise list, in his article, The Dutch Legacy in America, appearing in the volume, Dutch New York: The Roots of Hudson Valley Culture, edited by Roger Panetta, Hudson River Museum/Fordham University Press, 2009.

Part III: The influence of the rich literary history of the Hudson River Valley in shaping American identity

W

“I don’t believe in control”, the artist said, in a parallel reference to baseball pitching, observing that you learn and train, and then make your best pitch; or, you generate ideas for a work and release them. If the pitcher actually aims, the batter knows where the ball is going and may hit it out of the park. Suspense and the unknown play a part in both a killer pitch and a successful art work for Kahn, who disdains the comfort zone. Smudges that occur once a pastel work is put back into a sketchpad become the markings of an ambiguous maker – chance.

Wolf Kahn was born in Stuttgart, Germany; his family fled Nazi persecution when he was ten. Even now, he said he loves to paint the insides of forests, those of time spent in the German woods as a child. When queried as to why he chose barns as subjects, Kahn replied that architecturally they are simple and yet have grandeur. Those elements resonate for him and have only tangential reference to the barn as a symbol, as he puts it – like the Greek temple in classical times – of America’s golden age. And yet the barn also contains a sense of arrival and shelter, of safety and harboring, and it contains volumes of comings and goings, open space and undifferentiated light.

Master printmakers, Wolf Kahn and Anthony Kirk at the Kahn/Emily Mason exhibition, Center for Contemporary Printmaking, Norwalk, CT

Defined as one of the 20th century’s foremost colorists, Kahn reflected on the good color sense that he feels is innate and emanates easily from him. That which is too difficult, should probably not be pursued, he says. As for his extraordinary juxtapositions of hue, Kahn employs color as if a language that may at first sound foreign but to which one then acclimates. It is an eloquent lexicon he alone created which speaks to inner emotional pitches and constitutes them in us.

The artist spoke of the “inner anxieties” that must come out, that necessitate and energize art and propel an artist to make it. As individualized as this process may be, Kahn affirms interconnectedness – never being afraid to be influenced by someone else. Perhaps this includes the visual dialogue with the artist’s wife, Emily Mason, whose stunning aquatint monotypes conjoin his in the survey below.

“The art world is not a pleasant place right now”, he mused in response to advice he would give to an aspiring artist. In his closing repost, CCP executive director Anthony Kirk said, “But tonight, this was made a pleasant place by you, Wolf.” The exhibition continues until May 9, 2010 and includes an all-day Monotype Masters Class, May 8, 10:00 am – 4:00 pm, a full day workshop led by Wolf Kahn, with Lisa Mackie and Anthony Kirk.

© by Diane Dewey, Contributing Writer

David Taylor, Landscape, o/c, 45"x 36"

The Erector Square Building in New Haven, Connecticut has long stood as a landmark of American ingenuity. For decades, it served as the manufacturing headquarters for a number of well-known children’s toys, including the long-forgotten, Erector Set. Now the building’s maze of hallways, linked by well-worn and patched, honey-yellow oak floors, bear the scars of its industrious history; its imposing, sliding metal doors, at certain junctions, tell of a time when sections of the factory may have been closed off for production purposes. Their quilt-like pattern of shiny steel plates and neatly arrayed nail heads, together with a Rube Goldberg-like system of handles, pulleys and counter-weights have me imagining that these doors may have once seen service on a 19th century, Jules Verne apparatus, leagues beneath the ocean waves.   

David Taylor, A Tender Field, o/c, 47"x 35"

  But, today, because the building offers high ceilings and ample light through its large windows, the rooms of the Erector Square Building are covered with paint, inks, pigments and sawdust, serving as studio space for dozens of artists and design companies. Here, I find David Taylor standing before a large wall, which is pinned with works on paper in various stages of completion. The wall, much like David, tells a story of industry and devotion to his craft that spans many years. The studio walls are arrayed with innumerable random patterns of multi-color marks and right-angled lines—the trace remains of works that were once created on this heavily-used surface. The wall and its many scars becomes a metaphor for the work of this artist, as he leans into the sheet of paper mounted there, oil or graphite stick in hand, exacting a shape or a line with the intensity of a composer marking a score, the music only now unfolding in his mind, like a bagatelle soon to be performed for an, as yet, unknown audience. As he draws, Taylor explains, “I work in an additive-subtractive way. I put down images and lines and then prune them away, so that the final image may be hidden in a maze of layers. I think of this process as having an eye for intervals—positive and negative spaces in the drawing that balance each other out. In spite of the sense of chaos, I work in a very ‘Western’ sort of way with a balanced finished product in the end.”   

David Taylor, Hand Puppet, graphite on paper, 53"x 78"

 Taylor’s work is deeply personal, with stacks of completed drawings and painting standing like chapters in an on-going diary that few have been allowed to read, or at least understand in their fullest significance. Taylor is a story-teller and each piece he undertakes is a narrative about his own life, the irony he sees in the world around him, the humor and the foibles of our daily existence. He tells me that, “I think in terms of large shapes which anchor the work. I find that when I was younger, I wanted to paint in a representational style—to prove my competency—but now I am more comfortable in an abstract realm. I am exploring the central mystery of drawing: how a flat surface can take on the look and feel of constructed space, form and light. In a way, I am most influenced by the Baroque style, where I introduce volume and scale in my work; where a sense of movement, energy and tension are important to me. Strong contrast in light and shadow to create dramatic effects were also key elements to Baroque artists and they are for me, too. If it can be said that the Baroque artist overturned every emotion for the sake of art, I guess that would apply to me to.”   

Every work on paper is a thicket of line and shadow, as marks are rendered, erased and marked over. The frenzy of line builds into a dense pattern that draws the eye of the viewer into dense clusters of light and darkness–a trip to an intriguing but unfamiliar destination. We find ourselves searching for familiar landmarks to help guide the journey, but Taylor’s work takes us instead, like Alice in Wonderland, deeper into the paradox of his form and color maze. Taylor says, “Each piece is an exploration of the central duality in life—humor and pain; good memories and bad; our ultimate mortality and the beauty in life. I bring the viewer to a point where I want to tantalize them, taunt them with the possible explanations in a piece and then leave off, so that they discern what it might mean to them.”  In the final analysis, though, he explains, “I want this to be a good experience for you, so there is enough embodied meaning to engage the viewer.”   

Hand Puppet, detail

 In, Hand Puppet, the tangle of lines invites the eye on a texturally-rich expedition across the surface of the page in search of a ‘landing point’. The dizzying and intense journey to the center of the piece and, repeatedly, back to the edges symbolically portrays the path of our own pressured and overly-committed lives and, perhaps, suggests that there are few places left to go where we can recoup our strength and courage. Erasures and shadows of former mark-making in this work, characteristic of Taylor’s approach to each project, become the tangled threads of memories and emotions that, likewise, seem to bind us all together as people.   

David Taylor, Dropping, o/c, 60"x 48"

 Apart from his drawings, Taylor’s paintings, too, offer a dense, symbolic path to understanding. In the complex, though less-finely parsed, color-layering style of either Expressionist Milton Resnick or Contemporary painter, Larry Pooms, Taylor’s work achieves a richly autobiographical aim. His canvases are a place where objects and emotions are deconstructed into a frenzy of line, color and form. As in, Dropping, Taylor focuses his creative effort through a prism, only then to train that same beam of energy into the topsy-turvy lens of a kaleidoscope, re-inventing the conceptual version of dropping or falling as a tumult of patterns, engaging the eye in its search for a narrative resting point as it tumbles through the air.   

Taylor will often allow the original vision for starting a painting to drift or shift as he explores the surface and the spontaneous forms that begin to emerge. He explains, “I can start at one point and end up somewhere else. It is an organic process for me. What stays in the piece is the part that still works for me the next day. The final work has to have ‘rhythm.’”  Taylor remains open to unconscious connections as they reveal themselves in the course of completing a piece; a process that, in some cases, might span several years. He takes previous works from the rack in his studio and speaks in deeply personal terms about their individual meaning to himself—symbolic reference points and details of color and form known only to him–but serving as markers in a deeply personal autobiography that is represented by the body of his work.   

David Taylor, Naught Bunny, oil on paper, 40"x 25" (photo through glass)

 Like all of us, Taylor is no stranger to loss and sadness. His labors in the studio become a working-through process and he finds joy and humor in the effort. In the same way that life interrupts our plans along a carefully planned path to some destination; his work occasionally presents us with an unanticipated surprise. In Naughty Bunny, a languishing and slightly mischievous-looking rabbit lays sprawled across the center of an oil-stick-on-paper work, the figure surrounded by a jumble of vaguely-defined forms. The scene may be interpreted either as the unwelcomed party guest, passed out amidst the morning-after remnants of a raucous gathering; or an exhausted but very capable lover, one arm (paw!) hung over the edge of the bed, languishing in the memory of his most recent conquest.   

David Taylor, The Inventor (self-portrait), graphite on paper, 30"x 22"

 For Taylor, the role of story-teller and humorist occasionally finds its way into certain works in obvious, yet enigmatic ways. “I occasionally include cartoon figures in my work. For me, these comic book characters represent life’s games of struggle, chasing the unattainable and a reliance on imagined solutions in what may be the fiction of our everyday lives.”   

But behind the persona of a man with a perpetual twinkle in his eye as he speaks to me, is a deeply thoughtful artist who creates in an intensely personal way. He tells me, “My personal life is an important part of my work. But, I am willing to show myself in that way because I want my work to be seen. That is meaningful to me and helps me to decide where to look next for the stimulus behind my next painting or drawing. Reflecting back is one way for me to find content for my work; but I also believe that life has to be renewed constantly—through music, poetry and careful observation of people, in order to maintain a fresh perspective. Beauty is always at the end of its fifteen-minutes.”   

One senses in Taylor a degree of introspection and a desire to create that is both expository and self-curative. He is telling us his story through his work; a story that achieves more clarity and resonance for both the artist and the viewer, the more often it is recounted. As I left, David recited a poem from memory that he had written many years ago.  I believe, it speaks eloquently to his creative process, his life and to the richly-symbolic content of his work:   

ars poetica   

for Eleanor Orr and Mercedes Matter

Poetry is an observation   

Of rhythm in speech   

Its clarification and release.   

*   

Held to form   

As in drawing to surface,   

Pushed closed by artifice,   

Its depth is natural speech.   

*   

Form given life is a living voice   

A pulse felt through loss   

A transformation which is continual,   

Never complete.   

*   

We move through our lives   

Toward a disappearance   

We ourselves cannot meet.   

-David Taylor   

by Richard Friswell, Editor-in-Chief

Henri Matisse, Océanie, 'le ciel' (1948) for sale at C|&|Co, NYC

Oceanie is a masterful, two-part work by Henri Matisse, comprising ‘le ciel’ and ‘la mer’; both pieces realizing the artist’s self-described “dream of….an art of balance, purity and serenity…”    

The pair of decorative, mural-sized compositions draws explicitly from ‘reveries’ of his 1930 experience in Tahiti, the exotic iconography of which would become the mainstay of his late-era paper cut-out, collage series. (‘Oceanie’, or the English, Oceana, is a term ascribed to a broad archipelago of  South Pacific Ocean and its islands.)    

Matisse at work cutting paper forms while bed-bound in later life

‘Le ciel’ was recently on display with Chowaiki & Co. Gallery, at New York’s Armory Show—it is a static vision of placid white, aerie forms, suspended in silhouette on golden linen, suggesting otherworldly figures against a sunlit Tahitian sky–visually channeling Matisse’s sensory-steeped memory. ‘Le ciel’ and its counterpart ‘la mer’, are seminal in the artist’s oeuvre, in that the screen-printed linen wall-hangings represent his earliest use of paper-cut maquette, Matisse’s most important means of visual expression through his final years’ work.    

According to John Klein, “In the mid-1940’s, Matisse’s recollection of the exotic nature of Tahiti and his technique of cutting paper to create works of art—two activities apparently unrelated to one another—came together in a broad flow of creativity (‘Zeitschrift’).”  The eventual production of Oceanie was the brain-child of London-based textile printer, Zika Ascher, who proposed that Matisse, by then in declining health, design a fabric wall-hanging.    

The artist’s creative vision demanded precisely the right material—linen specially-dyed to replicate the golden light of the Pacific. Adding to that his ‘new medium’ of ‘painting with scissors’, the resulting Oceanie set was a magnificent dreamscape, replete with a fanciful array of birds, fish, sponges, coral and seaweed. Thirty examples of both compositions were printed at the Belfast Silk and Rayon Company in 1948, each panel inspected, approved and signed by the artist.    

Matisse was delighted with the final silkscreens, which he described in one of his notebooks as his “very successful white and beige wall-hanging.”  He chose to keep half of the edition for himself and urged Jean Cassou, curator at the Musée National d’Art Moderne, to include the panels in an exhibition that he was organizing for the following year.    

At long last, Matisse’s creations had brought to life his memory of an exotic, shimmering Oceanie, very real in its vibrance, but articulated in a surrealistic manner. ‘Le ciel’ and ‘la mer’ were indeed a visual fulfillment of his most intimate reveries of that Tahitian paradise, now come true!    

by KathyArcano, Contributing Editor    

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Oceanie, le ceil can be viewed at the C|&|Co, 500 Park Avenue, New York, NY www.chowaikiandco.com  or by calling 212.319.7333. Price: $ 2,500,000.