MAY 17-MAY 23

LONDON

May Ray, Portrait of Dora Maar, 1935-1936. Courtesy of Robert Klein Gallery.

Photo London, Somerset House, London
May 19-22, 2016
Launched in 2015, Photo London has quickly emerged as the UK’s leading photography fair. Held at the Somerset House—a major arts and cultural center located in a stunning Neoclassical structure in the heart of London—this year’s fair will welcome over ninety exhibitors from the UK, the US, and beyond. Must-see dealers include Peter Fetterman Gallery, Catherine Edelman Gallery, Howard Greenberg Gallery, and Robert Klein Gallery, who will be exhibiting works by Berenice Abbott, Diane Arbus, Henri Cartier-Bresson, Cig Harvey, Horst P. Horst, Bill Jacobson, Man Ray, Dora Maar, Irving Penn, Paulette Tavormina, Edward Weston, and others. Photo London also features a robust program of lectures organized by William A. Ewing, a celebrated curator, writer, and former Director of the Musée de l’Elysée, Lausanne and former Director of Exhibitions at the International Center of Photography, New York. Click here to continue reading.

NEW YORK

Guy Pene du Bois, Country Wedding, 1929. Oil on canvas, 36 x 29 inches. Private collection; photo courtesy Jonathan Boos.

21st Annual American Art Conference: To See Anew—Experiencing American Art in the 21st Century, The Graduate Center of the City University of New York, New York, NY
May 20-21, 2016
Produced by the Initiatives in Arts and Culture—an organization dedicated to educating diverse audiences in the fine, decorative, and visual arts—this year’s American Art Conference will explore how evolving tastes have influenced the public’s response to art. Panelists will explore iconic works by long-celebrated masters as well as works by artists who have fallen into obscurity over time. Lecturers include Virginia Budny, author of the forthcoming catalogue raisonné of Gaston Lachaise’s oeuvre for The Lachaise Foundation, John La Farge scholar Julie Sloan, and dealer Meredith Ward, who will partake in a panel discussion focused on American art in the twenty-first century. Fellow panelists include collector Tommy LiPuma, Judith Hansen O’Toole, Director of the Westmoreland Museum of Art, and Nancy Rivard Shaw, Curator of American Art at the Detroit Institute of Arts. Click here to continue reading.

Thomas Cole (1801–1848), Catskill Mountain House. Oil on canvas, 15 x 23 inches. Initialed lower center: TC. From The Jack Warner Foundation, available at Questroyal Fine Art, LLC, New York, New York.

Paintings from The Jack Warner Foundation, Questroyal Fine Art, New York, NY
On view through June 4, 2016
Questroyal Fine Art in New York is currently offering twenty-one paintings from the celebrated Jack Warner Foundation collection. Over the past sixty years, Jack Warner, an ardent champion of American art, has assembled a sweeping collection that includes works by an array of American masters, including Albert Bierstadt, William Merritt Chase, Childe Hassam, Winslow Homer, James McNeill Whistler, and Andrew Newell Wyeth. In addition to his foundation, Warner has helped fund several museums, a historic house, educational programs, and a gallery in The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Proceeds from the show and sale at Questroyal Fine Art will help establish an endowment to fund the Jack Warner Award for Scholarship in pre-1945 American Art. Click here to continue reading.

Upper Level Gallery View: Embroidery © The Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Manus x Machina: Fashion in an Age of Technology, The Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Costume Institute, New York, NY
On view through August 14, 2016
Each spring, the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Costume Institute mounts a highly anticipated fashion exhibition that commences with the Met Gala—a fundraising event that attracts a panoply of celebrities, designers, and artists. This year’s exhibition, Manus x Machina, explores the intersection between the handmade and the machine-made in fashion. The show begins in the early-nineteenth century with the founding of haute couture and goes on to explore how the advent of the sewing machine and the proliferation of mass production affected the industry. The exhibition will also touch on contemporary innovations, such as 3D printing and laser cutting. Manus x Machina features over 170 ensembles dating from the early-twentieth century to the present. Click here to continue reading.

Impressionism: American Gardens on Canvas. Courtesy of the New York Botanical Garden.

Impressionism: American Gardens on Canvas, The New York Botanical Garden, New York, NY
On view through September 11, 2016
Ring in spring with this enchanting exhibition at the New York Botanical Garden (NYBG). The garden-wide show presents over twenty American Impressionist paintings and sculptures by the likes of William Merritt Chase, Childe Hassam, Matilda Browne, and John Singer Sargent. Guests can explore the Haupt Conservatory, which is bursting with hollyhocks, foxgloves, peonies, and poppies, and be transported to the lush gardens that inspired the art. Designed by Francisca Coelho, the NYBG's Vice President for Glasshouses and Exhibitions, the American Impressionist garden features a stunning mix of the blooms depicted in paintings of the gardens of Florence Griswold, Celia Thaxter, John Twachtman, and other celebrated gardeners of the era. Click here to continue reading.

Installation view of 'Atmosphere for Enjoyment: Harry Bertoia's Environment for Sound.' Photo by Butcher Walsh. Courtesy of the Museum of Arts and Design.

Atmosphere for Enjoyment: Harry Bertoia’s Environment for Sound, Museum of Art and Design, New York, NY
On view through September 25, 2016
This immersive exhibition explores Harry Bertoia’s celebrated sound sculptures. An accomplished furniture designer, jewelry maker, sculptor, and printmaker, Bertoia often worked with metal wire and rods. Captivated by the resonant sounds the materials made when they struck against each other, Bertoia began exploring tonal sculptures in the early 1960s—a fascination that would go on to dominate much of his career. A barn on Bertoia’s property in Pennsylvania, which became known as the Sonambient Barn, served as his sound sculpture headquarters and remains today, with ninety-one original sounding sculptures installed inside. The barn was the main inspiration for Atmosphere for Enjoyment, which has been designed around recreating the experience of hearing the sculptures played in situ. Click here to continue reading.

Artek and the Aaltos: Creating a Modern World, Bard Graduate Center Gallery, New York, NY
On view through September 25, 2016
This exhibition is the first in the United States to focus on Artek—a Finnish furniture company founded in 1935 by Alvar Aalto and his wife, Aino Aalto. The couple established the company to promote and manufacture Alvar Aalto’s furniture. An accomplished architect, Alvar’s furnishings feature his trademark sleek yet expressive aesthetic, often executed in wood and other natural materials. Through the 200 works on view, including architectural drawings, drawings and sketches for interiors and furniture, paintings, photography, furniture, glassware, lighting, and textiles, the exhibition explores the role that Artek played in bringing Modernism to the masses. Click here to continue reading.

NEW JERSEY

Women, Art & Social Change: The Newcomb Pottery Enterprise, Princeton University Art Museum, Princeton, NJ
On view through July 10, 2017
Early Newcomb Pottery from the Barbara & Henry Fuldner Collection, The Stickley Museum at Craftsman Farms, Parsippany, NJ
On view through November 6, 2016
Complementary exhibitions featuring the distinctive ceramics and handicrafts of Newcomb Pottery are currently on view in New Jersey, providing an opportunity to see a range of objects produced by this important southern pottery. More than 110 objects, ranging from ceramics, textiles, metal, jewelry, bookbinding, and graphic arts made in Newcomb College’s handicraft program between 1890 and 1940 will be on display at the Princeton Art Museum. Half of the objects will be ceramics and will cover periods ranging from Arts and Crafts, Art Deco, and modernism. The exhibition at the Stickley Museum will focus on thirty works from the private collection of Barbara Fuldner, a great-granddaughter of Gustav Stickley, and her late husband, Henry Fuldner. The collection will be displayed in the dining room of Stickley’s home, the Log House, providing a rare opportunity to view Newcomb pottery in an authentic period Arts and Crafts setting. Click here to continue reading about Women, Art & Social Change and here to continue reading about Early Newcomb Pottery.

LOUISIANA

An interior by Vicente Wolf.

Southern Style Now, Various Locations, New Orleans, LA
May 18-22, 2016
The inaugural Southern Style Now festival, a five-day celebration of all things design, features a jam-packed program of keynotes, panel discussions, parties, exhibitions, and a showhouse—all of which are open to the public as well as to design professionals. Among the event’s myriad keynote speakers are interior designers Suzanne Rheinstein, Bunny Williams, and Vicente Wolf. Notable design bloggers, including COCO of COCOCOZY and Paloma Contreras of La Dolce Vita, will also be on hand to discuss the south’s style legacy and the latest trends in the region. A number of designers will lead guided tours of some of New Orlean’s most distinguished antiques stores. The festival will kick off with a black-tie gala at the Southern Style Now Show House, located in a Victorian mansion in the city’s Black Pearl neighborhood. Click here to continue reading.