A picture may be worth a thousand words, but we’ll keep it brief: the inaugural Art and Antique Dealers League of America (AADLA) Spring Show NYC, which welcomes art and antiques collectors to the Park Avenue Armory from April 28 – May 2, 2011, will offer a host of fine artworks that are sure to entice the eye, April showers notwithstanding.

Spring comes early with La Maison de Marie-Louise au Printemps, by French Impressionist Henri Martin, from Schiller & Bodo. The painting’s fresh colors and textural surface artfully replicate the shimmering light of Southwest France. French Fauvist Louis Valtat’s Le Jardin Fleuri a Choisel from Schillay Fine Art offers another sun-soaked breath of fresh air.

Questroyal Fine Art showcases the American Southwest instead with Thomas Moran’s Red Rock, Arizona (Coconino Pines and Cliff, Arizona) (1902), an exquisite example of the artist’s Western oeuvre.  From Vojtech Blau comes a modernist Aubusson tapestry, IXE (1971), designed by Alexander Calder in bold primary colors. Meanwhile, a blithe composition by American Modernist Milton Avery, Ping Pong Players (1944), catches two figures at play, their yellow and blue forms juxtaposed against a lilac-hued game table. Look for it at the booth of Thomas Colville Fine Art. Jack Kilgore, presents Fritz Von Uhde’s Les Chiens Savants (The Performing Dogs), and Brock & Co. offers an ode to New York’s Lower East Side, with Rainy Day, Canal Street, New York City (c. 1890s) by Alexander Theobold Van Laer (1857-1920). At Kendall Collection, Hillside (c. 1910) an oil on canvas by Ernest Lawson (1873-1939) is featured.

Alluding to T.S. Eliot’s quote in “The Wasteland” that April is the cruelest month, several works capture the moodiness of the season. Daphne Alazraki Fine Art has an extraordinary canvas by Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot, Prairies au bord de l’eau (1870). The brooding landscape, with figures in the foreground hunched beneath scraggly trees and a cloud-streaked sky, is one of the best examples of the Barbizon School of Art on the market today. From the same period is Eugène Louis Boudin’s Bordeaux, bâteaux sur la Garonne (1874-76), the ship’s clustered masts jutting up from the river’s steely waters. For something more climactic, Robert Simon Fine Art serves up a striking, large-scale work by Italian Baroque master Gregorio Lazzarini, Judith and Holofernes (c. 18th century) The painting’s dark subject matter – the beheading of the general Holofernes by femme fatale and heroine Judith – is rendered here with operatic intensity. The Hill- Stone Gallery has another piece with a story to tell, Mucius Scaevola (c. 1795) by Italian artist Luigi Ademollo. The drawing depicts the bravery of a young Roman who stands up to an invading tyrant.

Other fine art specialists include: Abby M. Taylor Fine Art, Avery Galleries, Engs-Dimitri Works of Art, Holster Fine Art and Rehs Galleries.

The Spring Show NYC opens with a benefit preview for the ASPCA, at the Park Avenue Armory, Park Avenue and 67th Street, on Wednesday, April 27, from 5:00 to 7:00 PM by VIP invitation or $250 at the door. After 7 PM admission is $75 and the preview continues to 9:00 PM. All proceeds from preview tickets go to the ASPCA. The Honorary Co-chairs of the Connoisseurs Committee are Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump. The Committee Co-chairs include: Michael Bruno, Mario Buatta, David Patrick Columbia, Celerie Kemble, Brian McCarthy, Miles Redd, Ellen and Chuck Scarborough, Michael Smith, Bunny Williams, and Vicente Wolf.

The show opens to the public on Thursday, April 28. Hours are Thursday, April 28: 11:00 AM to 7:30 PM; Friday, April 29: 11:00 AM to 9:00 PM; Saturday, April 30: 11:00 AM to 7:30 PM; Sunday, May 1: 11:00 AM to 7:30 PM; and Monday, May 2: 11:00 AM to 5:00 PM. General admission is $20 per person; a five-day pass is $40 per person.

Arts’ Night Out, celebrating New York’s Art and Antiques Week with young new collectors, is slated for Friday, April 29, from 5 – 9 pm. The $30 ticket available at the door includes that day’s admission to the AADLA Spring Show NYC plus beer, wine and ABSOLUT cocktails beginning at 5 pm. Arts’ Night Out is sponsored by Doyle New York, Antiques and Fine Arts Magazine, and ABSOLUT Vodka. For additional information, visit springshownyc.com