Gregory James – Holiday Show

Gregory James Gallery – Fine Art & the Art of Framing located at 93 Park Lane road (route 202), New Milford, Connecticut, is pleased to announce its annual Holiday Art Show. The exhibit opens Saturday, December 14, and runs through Saturday, January 26, 2013.

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The holiday show will feature Southbury, CT painter Thomas Adkins. Adkins recently painted a series of Lake Waramaug scenes. The gallery is also pleased to exhibit several of Washington, CT artist Vincent Giarrano’s genre paintings of contemporary life. Other gallery artists will included Scott Zuckerman of West Cornwall, CT, Christopher Magadini of Croton-on-Hudson, NY, Aviary sculptor Bill Rice of Warren, CT, and many others. Gregory James Gallery’s Holiday Art Show is a great opportunity to give someone the gift of an original work of art. The offerings are a perfect way to begin a new or enhance an established collection.

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For more information, please call Gregory James Mullen at 860-354-3436, or visit their website: www.gregoryjamesgallery.com. The gallery hours are Monday, Wednesday, Friday 10-6, Tuesday, Thursday, Saturday 10-5, and Sunday 11-4 or by appointment.

For area information www.litchfieldhills.com

Live Art Auction in Norwalk

The Center for Contemporary Printmaking has announced that Ron Pokrasso is the Honorary Chair of MONOTHON2013. Pokrasso is an originator of the printmaking event “Monothon” at the Printmaking Center of the College of Santa Fe in 1986 and brought it to Norwalk’s Center for Contemporary Printmaking in 1999, where it has been held annually.

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This year Monothon2013’s live auction and party will be held on November 16 from 6 p.m. – 9 p.m. at the Lillian August Flagship Store in Norwalk. The Silent Auction will be in the “Dream House”, a grouping of showrooms at Lillian August. There will be a feature wall (salon style gallery) designated for framed Live Auction artwork. The gala event provides a memorable way of viewing outstanding art while mingling with friends and fellow art lovers.

Live auction artwork includes offerings by: Ron Pokrasso as well as Roz Chast, Sandi Haber Fifield, Emily Mason, James Rosenquist, Ammanda Seelye Salzman, Donald Sultan, Deborah Weiss and other prominent artists. New this year is a drawing for three nights to Bordeaux, France for two couples.

Parking for this event is at 32 Knight Street, Norwalk. The Lillian August Flagship Store has the huge parking lot in front, a large lot to the right of the building, and overflow parking at St. Philip Church, across Route 1 on France Street. Tickets $50/person. Advance tickets: 203-899-7999. For more information visit http://contemprints.org.

To coincide with the show, the CCP members are opening an exhibit called New Works on Paper on November 7. This show will run though January 1. Works on Paper will be displayed at the Avenue Gallery on Main Street in Norwalk.

For area information www.visitfairfieldcountyct.com

Kent Historical Society presents art of George Laurence Nelson

Portrait of the Hirschberg/Nelson family by George Laurence Nelson
Portrait of the Hirschberg/Nelson family by George Laurence Nelson

The Seven Hearths, the Kent Historical Society Museum, will re-open this summer after being closed for two years with a series of new art exhibits focusing on the life and work of George Laurence Nelson. The Seven Hearths Museum is located on Rte. 7 north of Kent center on the corner of Studio Hill Road in Kent in the historic Flanders area that was once the original center of Kent.

George Laurence Nelson, trained at the Art Students League and the National Academy, and began teaching at the Art Students League in his early 20s. Nelson was among the founders of the Litchfield Hills Art Colony, and later one of the nine founders of the Kent Art Association.

The Litchfield Hills Art Colony played a meaningful role on a national scale in twentieth century American art. George Laurence Nelson’s studio in Seven Hearths is the only remnant of the colony that is open to the public today.

Set within Nelson’s beloved pre-Revolutionary Seven Hearths, which he donated to the Historical Society located on Rte. 7 in Kent Connecticut in the heart of the Litchfield Hills, the Historical Society is presenting three changing exhibits of Nelson’s work in August, September and October.

Nelson portrait of Arturo Toscanini Credit: Kent Historical Society
Nelson portrait of Arturo Toscanini Credit: Kent Historical Society

The August exhibit beginning on the 3rd and running through the 25th will feature large and interesting selection of Nelson portraits. He made his money by doing portraits, and the subjects range from well-known celebrities such as Arturo Toscanini, to NYC society dames, to familiar local faces such as Frank Goodsell as a child.

In September from the 1st to the 29th Nelson’s floral paintings will be on display. While he made money-painting portraits, his heart was devoted to stunning renditions of the lovely flowers that he and his wife Helen grew in their gardens at Seven Hearths. Some are exquisitely colored oil paintings and some are perfectly detailed pencil drawings. Some even are featured on the cover of matchboxes!

Floral painting by Nelson, Kent Historical Society
Floral painting by Nelson, Kent Historical Society

A show that will fill the Seven Hearths Museum with works by Nelson that are borrowed from private collections will be the final exhibit of the season and will take place from October 5 – 27.

The museum is open Saturdays and Sundays from10 a.m. to 4 p.m. throughout the month.

Call the Historical Society office, 860-927-4587 or visit the web site for more information www.kenthistoricalsociety.org.

For area information www.litchfieldhills.com

Summer Photography Exhibit at Greenwich Historical Society

Town Hall from Greenwich Avenue by Mary Waldron
Town Hall from Greenwich Avenue by Mary Waldron

“The Perspective of Time” is a collaboration between the Greenwich Historical Society and the Stamford Photography Club. The show of juried images is the result of an invitation by the Greenwich Historical Society to members of the Photography Club to submit photographs that portray aspects of Greenwich history through the eye of the lens. The images will be on display at the Historical Society’s Storehouse Gallery through September 1, 2013.

Table Shuffleboard at Bruce Park Grill by Mike Harris
Table Shuffleboard at Bruce Park Grill by Mike Harris

The varied and fascinating images represent a visual commentary on the ever-changing face of the community–its structures, landscape and institutions–and how aspects of the town as they are today may not survive the next generation. Since its invention, photography has been an invaluable medium for chronicling historical events. But photography can also raise the understanding of history to another level by evoking a sense of time and place on a more visceral level. This exhibition
exemplifies this.

Glenville Bridge by Jean-Marc Bara
Glenville Bridge by Jean-Marc Bara

The Greenwich Historical Society is open Wednesday through Sunday, noon to 4:00 pm. Admission is free to members and children under six. $10 for adults; $8 for seniors and students. Admission is free to all the first Wednesday of every month. For more information call 203-869-6899 or www.greenwichhistory.org. FOr area information www.visitfairfieldcountyct.com

Bruce Museum features Durer, Rembrandt and Whistler

Joachim and the Angel ca. 1504 Albrecht Dürer (German, 1471-1528) Joachim and the Angel, ca. 1504 Woodcut From The Life of the Virgin Collection of Dr. Dorrance T. Kelly
Joachim and the Angel ca. 1504
Albrecht Dürer (German, 1471-1528) Joachim and the Angel, ca. 1504 Woodcut From The Life of the Virgin Collection of Dr. Dorrance T. Kelly

Located in Fairfield County Connecticut, the Bruce Museum located on One Museum Dr. in Greenwich is featuring prints of old masters and works from the 19th century through August 18th. This is one of the most distinguished local collections of prints that have been painstakingly assembled by Dr. Dorrance T. Kelly. The works include prints of Durer, Rembrandt and Whistler among other notable artists.

While Dr. Kelly’s collection has been comprised primarily of American 20th-century prints and prints by John James Audubon, in recent years he has also collected Old Master and 19th-century works extensively.

The Triumph of Mordecai Rembrandt Harmensz. van Rijn (Dutch, 1606-1669) The Triumph of Mordecai, ca. 1641 Etching and drypoint Collection of Dr. Dorrance T. Kelly
The Triumph of Mordecai
Rembrandt Harmensz. van Rijn (Dutch, 1606-1669) The Triumph of Mordecai, ca. 1641 Etching and drypoint Collection of Dr. Dorrance T. Kelly

These encompass splendid sheets by the great German printmaker Albrecht Dürer, including a rare etching, woodcuts, and engravings of such iconic images as his Nemesis of 1502.

Dr. Kelly’s Dutch prints include several of the rare engravings after the influential Adam Elsheimer by Hendrik Goudt and no less than 28 images by the highly experimental printmaker Rembrandt van Rijn, ranging from early works of the 1630s to mature impressions from the 1650s.

Limehouse James Abbott McNeill Whistler (American, 1834-1903) Limehouse, 1859 Etching, printed in black on laid paper From “The Thames Set” Collection of Dr. Dorrance T. Kelly
Limehouse
James Abbott McNeill Whistler (American, 1834-1903) Limehouse, 1859 Etching, printed in black on laid paper From “The Thames Set” Collection of Dr. Dorrance T. Kelly

Dr. Kelly’s 18th-century holdings include sheets by the great Italian artists Canaletto and Giovanni Domenico Tiepolo and several fine sheets from Los Caprichos by the renowned Spanish artist Francisco de Goya y Lucientes.

Completing the collection is a group of etched cityscapes and figure studies by the American artist James Abbott McNeill Whistler.

Together the collection attests to the quality of some of the greatest printmakers in Western Art.

The exhibition – on view through August 18, 2013 and is accompanied by a scholarly catalog and a series of educational and public programs.

The Bruce Museum is grateful to Dr. Dorrance T. Kelly for sharing this extraordinary collection with the public.

About the Bruce Museum: Explore Art and Science at the Bruce Museum, located at One Museum Drive in Greenwich, Connecticut. The Museum is open Tuesday through Saturday from 10 am to 5 pm and Sunday from 1 pm to 5 pm; closed Mondays and major holidays. Admission is $7 for adults, $6 for students up to 22 years, $6 for seniors and free for members and children under 5 years. Individual admission is free on Tuesday. Free on-site parking is available and the Museum is accessible to individuals with disabilities. For additional information, call the Bruce Museum at (203) 869-0376 or visit the website at www.brucemuseum.org. For area information on Fairfield County www.visitfairfieldcountyct.com.

Birds Eye View at Westport Arts Center

 Alex MacLean, Tree Shadows in Snow, Middlebury, VT, 1990. Chromogenic print. Hall Collection. Courtesy the Artist and the Yancey Richardson Gallery.
Alex MacLean, Tree Shadows in Snow, Middlebury, VT, 1990. Chromogenic print. Hall Collection. Courtesy the Artist and the Yancey Richardson Gallery.

The Westport Arts Center (WAC) has launched its summer exhibition, “Bird’s-Eye View”. This show is curated by Director of Visual Arts, Helen Klisser During, and features major contemporary photographs, paintings, and drawings that depict intriguing aerial perspectives where people, roads, buildings, cities, and the countryside are deconstructed and abstracted. The exhibition will be on view through September 8.

Damian Loeb, Eminence Break, 2012. Oil on linen. Hall Collection. Courtesy the Artist and Acquavella Gallery.
Damian Loeb, Eminence Break, 2012. Oil on linen. Hall Collection. Courtesy the Artist and Acquavella Gallery.

The exhibition features works by Richard Artschwager, Olivo Barbieri, Edward Burtynsky, Christoph Draeger, Fred Herzog, Damian Loeb, Alex MacLean, David Maisel, Richard Misrach, Melanie Smith, Massimo Vitali, and Thomas Wrede.
A bird’s-eye view, or in other words, ‘the big picture’, explores the world seen from an aerial perspective.

Olivo Barbieri, Iquazu, Argentina/Brazil, 2007. Archival pigment print; edition 2/6. Hall Collection. Courtesy the Artist and the Yancey Richardson Gallery.
Olivo Barbieri, Iquazu, Argentina/Brazil, 2007. Archival pigment print; edition 2/6. Hall Collection. Courtesy the Artist and the Yancey Richardson Gallery.

This viewpoint has fascinated philosophers, writers, historians, and artists for centuries; however, it’s not until the invention of flight that humanity has had a bird’s-eye view. The Westport Arts Center is privileged to create an exhibition of 18 significant works from the internationally-renowned Hall Collection.

Massimo Vitali, Rosignano Donna Sola, 2004.  C-print with Diasec face; edition of 6. Hall Collection. Courtesy the Artist.
Massimo Vitali, Rosignano Donna Sola, 2004. C-print with Diasec face; edition of 6. Hall Collection. Courtesy the Artist.

Other programs being hosted by the Westport Arts Center includes the Wednesday Summer Cafe, an interactive series of talks takes place from 12:30 to 1:30 p.m. on June 26, July 10 & 24 and August 14. The Art Cafe takes place on Fridays from 10 a.m. – 11 a.m. and is free and open to the public. Hosted by Helen Klisser During, ArtCafé is a great way to meet other art enthusiasts and learn about exhibitions to visit in the greater community. Use The New York Times Friday Arts Section as a springboard to discuss the latest exhibitions.

On Thursdays, from 12 noon to 3 p.m. on July 11, 18 and 25 the WAC will host Plein Air seascape painting classes. Participants will join local artist, author, and teacher Judith Orseck Katz on an adventure of plein air watercolor painting of various seascapes throughout picturesque Westport. Students will discover how painting from life helps us to see and observe the affects of light and atmosphere and learn to develop clean, colorful, and dynamic compositions. This three-part workshop is designed to offer individualized attention and foster a creative space to gain self-confidence and expand your creative potential. All levels welcome, ages 15+. The cost is $65/class or $165 for series Non-Members; $50/class or $135 for series WAC Members.

For more information contact Westport Arts Center at (203) 222-7070, www.westportartscenter.org. The Westport Arts Center gallery is open seven days a week with summer hours: Monday-Thursday, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., Friday, 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. and Saturday and Sunday, 12 p.m. to 4 p.m., at 51 Riverside Avenue, Westport, CT. For area information www.visitfairfieldcountyct.com