Innehållsförteckning för May/June 2024 från Art & Antiques

sitting pretty SELF-TAUGHT FRENCH furniture designer Hubert Le Gall is known for his witty approach to creating functional, yet decorative, pieces. Working out of his Paris studio in Montmartre, Le Gall uses various materials, such as bronze, brass, exotic woods, gold leaf and velvet, to create his art, which also happens to double as furniture. Le Gall is interested in what he calls “total art,” a vision that means his furniture creations are also sculptures—an aesthetic similar to that of the Arts and Crafts movement in Britain. He has been known to describe his work as “in between objects,” meaning in between form and sculpture. Born in Lyon in 1961, Le Gall was always interested in art and thought about becoming an architect. However, his parents discouraged him from that…

PHILEMONA WILLIAMSON’S dreamy canvases mirror our experiences of the world through the lens of adolescence. By focusing on pubescence, she evinces moments uncertain and precocious, terrifying and wonder-filled. Described by the artist as “life theaters,” her scenes capture the emotional and experiential precipices we all face. On view through June 4, 2024, June Kelly Gallery presents Philemona Williamson: Recent Paintings. The work demonstrates Williamson’s supreme skill as a colorist, with each tableaux set in rich fields of enticing color. And, her scenes, as one critic notes, are not prescriptive prose but open-ended poetry. Williamson’s work is rich in metaphors for self-discovery and change. In Branching Eyes, a female protagonist, more richly described than her playmates, stands on twisting branches. An azure ground feels like waves ready to consume. The seemingly tropical…

IN THE 1940s when Abstract Expressionism was gaining recognition, the subconscious was argued to be the source of all art. Sally Michel and her husband Milton Avery disagreed. They felt the natural world offered a constant supply of ideas and focused on how to make representational painting modern. Through years of experimenting, the Averys found ways to paint figuration, landscapes, seascapes, and still lifes that abstraction. With thebridged representation and simplification of forms, new uses of color, and a modern feeling of flatness, Milton Avery and Sally Michel refreshed and moved realism forward. The couple met painting in Gloucester in 1924. Married in 1926, they worked in New York as a unit until Milton’s death in 1965. Sally supported them as a freelance illustrator, which allowed her to be at…

ON JUNE 15th, BLACK ART AUCTION, an auction house in St. Louis, Missouri, dedicated exclusively to the sale of art by African Americans, will present an auction of more than 100 paintings by Adger Cowans. The works were painted as early as the 1960s and as recently as the 2000s. Born in 1936 in Columbus, Ohio, Cowans received his B.F.A. in Photography from Ohio University. After a stint in the U.S. Navy, he moved to New York City to work as an assistant to Gordon Parks at Life magazine in 1960. Three years later, he and a group of New York photographers founded the Kamoinge Workshop. Cowans’s images were published in major magazines and are included in important public and private collections. Over the years, his photography has paralleled…

A NEW exhibition from Helicline Fine Art, “Modernism Adored: 20th Century Art,” online from April 26 through June 30, features paintings, work on paper, and sculptures from renowned and rediscovered WPA-era artists. From the bold strokes of Cubism to the elegant lines of Art Deco, from the raw energy of Abstraction to the intricate details of Outsider Art, the exhibition encapsulates the diversity and innovation of 20thcentury art movements in America and Europe. As a NYC-based gallery, Helicline was inspired by images of New York to include art that glorifies the great city. The exhibition exemplifies the enduring impact of Modernism—a break with the past and the concurrent search for new forms of expression. Modernism is, in fact, constant reinvention, and it’s significant because it fundamentally asks us to…

At age 10, in 1918, Norman Carton and his mother were in hiding during pogroms unleashed by the Russian revolution; six years later the same boy found himself safe and sound in Philadelphia, rescued from Eastern Europe by the intervention of his older brother, who had already relocated to the States. The pogroms in Ukraine during the Russian civil war resulted in the murder of up to 250,000 Jews. Carton had escaped with his family through Romania and immigrated to the U.S. in 1922. Carton began his art studies in Philadelphia in the late ‘20s, and it is hard to imagine the transformational power of art, and stability, on a young refugee who had experienced so much suffering. As a young art student, Carton was introduced to the works of the…

A+ American THE 17th ANNUAL American Art Fair will grace Manhattan’s Bohemian National Hall May 11-14, 2024. The late 19th century Renaissance Revival style social hall serves as an excellent complement to the over 400 masterworks on display from 17 premier galleries. Free and open to the public, the fair will continue the tradition of specialist lectures, including researchers and curators at the Amon Carter Museum of American Art, the Philadelphia Museum of Art, and the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. One of the event’s cofounders, Thomas Colville Fine Arts, presents work from American Cubist and advocate for abstraction, George L. K. Morris. Abstract Composition (1943) explores planar shape and line in a primary palette. Known as the “Park Avenue Cubist,” Morris used familial wealth to advocate for abstraction at…

NOW THE largest cultural event on the island, the Hamptons Fine Art Fair returns to the Southampton Fair Grounds July 11-14, 2024. Produced by local entity ShowHamptons, this year’s fair will feature over 100 galleries, including 14 international dealers, all showcasing modern and contemporary art from new and emerging talent as well as established favorites. The event will also highlight art by female Iranian artists and celebrate new entrants into the Hamptons Artists Hall of Fame. This year’s honorees, sculptors William (Bill) Tarr and William King and abstract painters Connie Fox and Herman Cherry, will receive posthumous recognition intended to bolster enthusiasm for their creative legacy. Projects 28 will feature stunning non-objective canvases by Hall of Fame inductee Herman Cherry (1909-1992). With a pedigree that included training under Stanton Macdonald-Wright…

CHARLOTTE’S Jared Melberg Gallery celebrates its 40th anniversary with an exhibition featuring work from all artists currently in its impressive roster. In a gallery dedicated to an art for art’s sake credo, new and returning visitors will delight in work on display and Melberg’s effusive enthusiasm for the best of the contemporary art world. At his namesake gallery, Melberg staunchly provides the best possible representation for his artists all while sharing his extensive knowledge with clients and visitors. Says the gallerist, “It’s wonderful to watch people deepen their understanding of art no matter what their background, and I’ve been privileged to help make that possible.” Melberg also takes pride in carefully selecting artists for representation, seeking out those who focus on transcendental, spiritual qualities, whether working in a realist mode…

IN SMOLDERING forest green, burgundy, and violet velvet and silk fabrics, Sonia Delaunay’s Robe simultanée—a sartorial sentinel on view at Bard Graduate Center Gallery—has an uncanny vitality for a garment that is the same age as New York City’s Grand Central Terminal. Originally worn by the artist as she attended the Salle Bullier, a Paris dance hall, Delaunay’s first Simultaneous Dress embodies not only the ambitious spirit of an artist for whom clothing was one aspect of strategic self-promotion, but also a visual compendium of the emerging crosscurrents in modern painting, performance, decorative arts and design in the 20th century. Simultanism, an artistic practice that Sonia and her husband Robert Delaunay (1885–1941) developed, centered around the optical effects of color—described by Soniaas“the skin of the world.” Influenced by the highly…

A NEW exhibition at the Yale University Art Gallery, Munch and Kirchner: Anxiety and Expression (on view through June 23, 2024), explores groundbreaking and avant-garde prints by Edvard Munch and Ernst Ludwig Kirchner and their shared focus on mental health. In an era marked by a new emphasis on psychology, both men used their art to relay modern ennui and personal crisis. Arranged around six thematic sections, the exhibition reads each artist’s prints in relation to contemporary ideas about the self while carefully avoiding the tendency to pathologize. In “Illness” organizers document each artist’s experience with psychiatric care. Kirchner’s Head of Dr. Frédéric Bauer (1933) shows a doctor at a Swiss sanitarium where he sought treatment. In “City” and “Landscape,” curators examine each artist’s psychological response to place. Kirchner’s Five…

From sumptuous silver to gorgeous paintings, exceptional offerings will hit the block at Heritage Auctions in two much-anticipated early summer sales. On May 16, 2024, the Fine Silver and Objects of Vertu Signature © Auction will include an important R & S Garrard & Co. Silver Wine Cistern from 1903 (est. $100,000-$150,000) that links Edwardian opulence with American sporting history. Named as the official Crown Jewelers in 1843, Garrard is well known for their sophisticated formats. The vessel features the royal coat of arms, a bacchanale scene, female figureheads, and a fluted base. Tales surrounding the cistern’s origins link it with the Duke of Kent’s baptism. Still, the vessel’s existence was largely unrecorded until it appeared in Detroit in 1957, awarded to D.H. Wells as a trophy after his horse,…

FOR ALICE Baber (1928-1982) color was the driving force in her work. According to the artist, we remember the world this way, and “[her] most interesting memories [were] in very brilliant color.” Alice Baber: Colors of the Rainbow opens May 7, 2024 at Jody Klotz Fine Art. The exhibition features oil paintings and works on paper from 1960-1981 and draws renewed attention to the artist. The accompanying gallery catalog, with an essay by art historian Gail Levin, precedes a forthcoming full-length biography, also by Levin. Raised in the Midwest, Baber trained at Indiana University, Bloomington before moving to New York in 1951, where she fell in with the Abstract Expressionists. Through the late 1960s, she spent part of each year in Paris, alongside a cadre of inventive expat painters, including…

Painter David Ligare has explored the classical past as a means to ruminate on our present condition in a career stretching over four decades. The self-described Post Modern Neo-Classicist, has long refused the typical conventions of the contemporary art world. Instead, he argues that his work takes hold of past symbolism as a means to reveal their continued echoes in and relevance to the here and now. David Ligare: Spheres of Influence (May 16-September 1, 2024) at the Monterey Museum of Art builds on a recent exhibition at the Bakersfield Museum of Art and has been staged in collaboration with the artist and Winfield Gallery. This career overview highlights the artist’s technical virtuosity and the foundations for his aesthetic philosophy. The impressive Magna Fide (The Great Belief) (2014) began…

Adelson Galleries Alexandre Gallery Avery Galleries Bernard Goldberg Fine Arts, LLC D. Wigmore Fine Art, Inc. David A. Schorsch-Eileen M. Smiles Debra Force Fine Art, Inc. Dolan/Maxwell Forum Gallery Graham Shay 1857 Hawthorne Fine Art LLC Hirschi & Adler Galleries, Inc. Kraushaar Galleries, Inc. Meredith Ward Fine Art Questroyal Fine Art, LLC Schwarz Gallery Thomas Colville Fine Art LECTURES Saturday, May 11 11am The Ever-Experimental Work of Emil Bisttram Claire Mosier Registrar American Museum ofWestern Art 2pm The World Outside: Louise Neve/son at Midcentury Shirley Reece-Hughes Curator of Painting, Sculpture, and Works on Paper Amon Carter Museum of American Art 4pm Fashioned by Sargent Erica E. Hirshler Croll Senior Curator of American Paintings Museum of Fine Arts, Boston Sunday, May 12 2pm Mary Cassatt at Work Kathleen A. Foster Robert…

JOHN STEUART Curry is routinely regarded as one of the “Big Three” in 1930s American Regionalism, along with Grant Wood and Thomas Hart Benton. Of the “Big Three,” Curry is less well known than the others for at least two reasons: One, he died at the age of 49, just a year after the end of World War II; and two, he was not much beloved in his home state of Kansas, though he considered himself a Kansan all his life and found most of his pictorial subjects in his upbringing and life there. Despite being seen later as insufficiently political (as were most of the WPA, American Scene, and American Regionalist painters in the post-war drive towards abstraction), Curry produced art—especially his proposed mural for the state capitol,…