MAY 3-MAY 9

NEW YORK

 

Friedman Benda at Collective Design’s 2015 fair. Photo by Clemens Kois.

Collective Design Fair, Skylight Clarkson SQ, New York, NY

May 4-8, 2016

While the start of May ushers in a flurry of fairs, auctions, and exhibitions in New York City, there’s nothing quite like Collective Design. Launched three years ago, the fair is dedicated solely to collectible design, including furniture, jewelry, and decorative objects. But Collective Design aims to have visitors do more than buy—the goal is for the fair to serve as a conduit for education, exploration, and discovery. Held at Skylight Clarkson Square, a raw event space in Manhattan’s chic SoHo neighborhood, this year’s Collective Design fair will feature approximately thirty dealers offering works from the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, including Lost City Arts, Donzella LTD, and Friedman Benda. Click here to continue reading.

 

Spring Masters New York 2015, VIP Preview Party, Park Avenue Armory, New York, May 7, 2015. Photo Credit: Leandro J./BFANYC.com.

Spring Masters New York, Park Avenue Armory, New York, NY

May 6-9, 2016

Held May 6-9, this year’s iteration of Spring Masters will feature over sixty exhibitors from the United States, Europe, and Asia, including Lillian Nassau, LLC, Clinton Howell Antiques, Debra Force Fine Art, Heather James Fine Art, Hollis Taggart Galleries, Gerald Peters Gallery,  and Erik Thomsen. Dealers will organize carefully curated presentations that emphasize their unique areas of expertise. Launched at the Park Avenue Armory in 2014, Spring Masters presents art from every period, including contemporary art and design. The show will open with an invitation-only preview party on Thursday, May 5. The fair also features a unique layout designed by the award-winning architect Rafael Viñoly. Revealed during Spring Masters’ inaugural edition, the innovative format marked the most dramatic change in the Park Avenue Armory’s fair layout in three decades. Click here to continue reading.  

 

Raul Diaz (1952) ATARDECER (Late Afternoon) Raul Diaz, 2014. Mixed media on wood panel, 38 5/8 x 47 1/2 inches. Offered by Jerald Melberg Gallery.

Art New York and CONTEXT, Pier 94, New York, NY

May 3-8, 2016

Now in its second year, Art New York is produced by the esteemed ownership team of Art Miami. The fair, which caters to both seasoned and new collectors, includes fresh primary and secondary market works by top artists from the modern and post-war eras. The event will run concurrently to the inaugural CONTEXT fair. Also held at Pier 94, CONTEXT focuses on emerging and mid-career artists. Together, the shows will present works from more than 150 galleries, including Adelson Galleries, Hollis Taggart Galleries, Vallarino Fine Art, and Jerald Melberg Gallery. The fairs will kick off with an invitation-only VIP Preview on Tuesday, May 3, providing collectors, art advisors, curators, and members of the press with an exclusive look at the shows' offerings. Click here to continue reading.

 

Marian Goodman, Frieze New York 2015. Photograph by Marco Scozzaro. Courtesy of Marco Scozzaro/Frieze.

 

Frieze New York, Randall’s Island, New York, NY

May 5-8, 2016

Frieze New York, one of the world’s most anticipated contemporary art events, will take place in a distinct serpentine structure overlooking the East River. Located in Randall’s Island Park, the fair is a spin-off of Frieze London, which launched in 2003. Since its inception, Frieze New York has gone on to spawn a bevy of satellite fairs that complement New York’s historically monumental spring auctions. Now in its fifth year, Frieze New York will feature over 200 of the world’s leading contemporary art galleries. Frieze features a number of specialized sections, including Focus, a segment of the fair dedicated to galleries founded after 2003 that presents curated projects specifically conceived for Frieze New York, and Frame which highlights galleries established less than eight years ago. Click here to continue reading.

 

Portals of Transformation II: Sacred Architecture and Stone Figures of Ancient Guerrero, Throckmorton Fine Art, New York, NY

On view through June 11, 2016

Throckmorton Fine Art is currently exhibiting sixty stone figures and models of sacred architecture from Guerrero—an ancient region located in Southwestern Mexico. The objects, which date from the preclassic to the classic period (1800 BCE to 450 CE), were first discovered in the late-nineteenth century. Demand for artifacts from Guerrero soared during the mid-twentieth century due to their decidedly modern forms and enigmatic origins. Up until that period, scholarship surrounding the art and architecture of Guerrero remained scarce and the region was shrouded in mystery. Portals of Transformation II is accompanied by a fully illustrated catalogue. Click here to continue reading.

 

 

Harry Bertoia, necklace, circa 1943. Forged and fabricated gold. Chain: 9 in. (22.9 cm); Pendants: 1 3/4 × 1 1/8 × 1/16 in. (4.4 × 2.9 × 0.2 cm), each. Collection of Kim and Al Eiber. Photograph by Tim Thayer and R. H. Hensleigh.

 

Bent, Cast & Forged: The Jewelry of Harry Bertoia, Museum of Art & Design, New York, NY

May 3-September 25, 2016

The Museum of Art & Design will host a fascinating exhibition dedicated to the jewelry of Harry Bertoia. An accomplished sound sculptor and furniture designer, Bertoia began making jewelry while he was still a high school student in Detroit in the 1930s. He pursued this passion while studying at the Cranbrook Academy of Art in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan, turning to jewelry making as a means to explore different materials and forms on a workable scale. Bent, Cast & Forged, which includes jewelry works and monotype prints, provides a rare glimpse of the early, experimental works that paved the way for Bertoia’s iconic woven metal furniture and bronze and copper sculptures. The exhibition was organized by the Cranbrook Art Museum. Click here to continue reading.

 

LOS ANGELES

A window display by Kylee Shintaffer at Hollyhock.

 

La Cienega LEGENDS, La Cienega Design Quarter, Los Angeles, CA

May 3-6, 2016

For the past eight years, thousands of design professionals, editors, and enthusiasts have celebrated the La Cienega Design Quarter as well as Los Angeles’ vibrant design community as part of LEGENDS—a three-day event filled with keynotes, discussions, book signings, and glitzy, often celebrity-studded social gatherings. This year’s iteration, which kicks off with an opening night gala on Tuesday, May 3, and runs through Thursday, May 5, will include eight fascinating keynote panels helmed by the likes of Elle Decor’s Editor-in-Chief Michael Boodro; interior designer Madeline Stuart; and designer/television personality Nate Berkus. Interior designer Jay Jeffers and architects John Ike, Thomas A. Kligerman, and Joel Barkley of Ike Kligerman Barkley will partake in the event’s book signing program. Click here to continue reading.

 

 BOSTON

The Nathaniel Allen House.

 

Junior League of Boston Show House, Newton, MA

May 7-June 5, 2016

The 45th Junior League of Boston Show House, which opens to the public this week,  is located in the Nathaniel Allen House in West Newton. On the National Register of Historic Places since 1978, the 1854 Greek Revival home served as the earliest co-educational school in the country and was a stop on the Underground Railroad. Owned by the Newton Cultural Alliance (NCA) since 2012, the property has been renovated by some of the northeast’s top interior designers to support small and medium sized performances and cultural events. Among the participating designers are Steven Favreau, Theo & Isabella Design Group, Mally Skok Design, Cecilia Walker Design, Gerald Pomeroy Interiors, Vani Sayeed Studios, and Theodore & Company. Click here to continue reading.

 

DELAWARE

 

Embroidery: The Language of Art, Winterthur Museum, Garden & Library, Winterthur, DE

May 7-June 2, 2017

This exhibition explores how the idea of embroidered objects as an artistic medium changed throughout the seventeenth, eighteenth, and nineteenth centuries. During the eighteenth century, art was firmly divided into two categories—fine art, which encompassed sculpture, painting, and architecture, and applied art, which referred to more utilitarian mediums, such as embroidery. During the nineteenth century, champions of design argued that the work of craftspeople and artisans deserved to be included in the fine art canon—an argument that is still hotly debated to this day. This exhibition will be complemented by Winterthur’s needlework conference, held October 14–15, 2016. Click here to continue reading.

 

WASHINGTON, D.C.

Winslow Homer, Berry Pickers, 1873. Watercolor and gouache over graphite on wove paper, sheet: 24.45 34.93 cm (9 5/8 13 3/4 in.). National Gallery of Art, Washington, Collection of Mr. and Mrs. Paul Mellon.

 

In Celebration of Paul Mellon, National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.

May 8-September 18, 2016

Timed to coincide with the seventy-fifth anniversary of the National Gallery of Art, this exhibition presents approximately eighty of the finest pastels, watercolors, drawings, prints, and illustrated books given to the institution by Paul Mellon—one of the museum’s most important supporters, donors, and advocates. While many of the works left to the Gallery by Mellon and his wife, Bunny, are on permanent display in the museum’s galleries, a large portion of their gifts were works on paper, which, due to their sensitive nature, can only be displayed for brief periods. This exhibition, which includes works by Winslow Homer, Édouard Manet, Edgar Degas, George Bellows, Vincent van Gogh, Pablo Picasso and Georges Braque, offers a unique glimpse of these rarely seen masterpieces. Click here to continue reading.