Alexander Gallery and Thomas Colville Fine Art, co-founders of The American Art Fair, are pleased to announce a joint exhibition, New Old New York: In and Out of Town. Drawing from their extensive collections, the show will feature works dating from the early 1700s through the 20th century. The Alexander Gallery’s focus will begin with the earliest historic works, exhibiting portraits of the figures who shaped the city and developed the land, followed by idyllic mid-19th century views of New York City, the Hudson River and upstate New York. Thomas Colville Fine Art will also focus on the Hudson River School but will bring the exhibition into the late 19th and early 20th centuries with Impressionist and early Modernist city views.

The Alexander Gallery will feature an 18th century Revolutionary War period map of Manhattan by the British soldier Richard Williams as well as 18th and 19th century portraits of prominent New Yorkers including a self-portrait by Robert Fulton with the submarine he designed—the painting has never been exhibited. The turbulent years of the 1850s and 1860s are depicted in a poignant group of drawings portraying strife in the Five Points. Also included are paintings and drawings illustrating scenes by the highly influential author Washington Irving. There will be early views of Manhattan, including an 1825 watercolor of Bowling Green by William J. Bennett and watercolors of Central Park when it opened in 1860. Also exhibited will be artists’ perspectives and vantage points of the Hudson River Highlands by Louis Remy Mignot, Thomas Rossiter and John Ludlow Morton among many others. Along with Thomas Cole’s painting of his home, Cedar Grove, and his studio in Leeds, New York, the Alexander Gallery will show for the first time Cole’s actual studio door adorned with a painting by the artist.

Thomas Colville Fine Art will exhibit works that show the bustling society and architecture of New York City at the height of the prosperous 19th century as well as the pristine views of New York’s bountiful lands that inspired poets and enticed entrepreneurs. Included will be two street scenes by Italian immigrant Alessandro Guaccimanni (1864-1927), who worked in the Madison Square area from the 1890s until the First World War and exhibited at the National Academy of Design. One shows an 1893 view looking north from Park Avenue and 23rd Street; the other, an 1894 view looking south on Fifth Avenue from 26th Street. An impressive street scene of lower Manhattan by National Academician Henry Augustus Ferguson, dated 1887, as well as a John Marin watercolor of the Times Tower from 1908, and a Colin Campbell Cooper of Washington Square Park will be offered. These New York City scenes will be showcased alongside Hudson River landscapes by Jasper Francis Cropsey, Jervis McEntee, Frederick Kensett, George Inness, Johann Carmiencke, Irving Wiles and M.F.H. de Haas. 

New Old New York: In and Out of Town will host a special preview reception benefiting The Olana Partnership on May 18th from 6-9 p.m. The preview includes a silent auction of donated 19th century artworks and a passed dinner catered by Daniel Boulud’s Feasts & Fêtes featuring produce from Hudson Valley farms and artisans, with wine and Champagne from The Bubble Room (suggested donation, $100). For preview reception reservations, contact Laurel Acevedo, laurel@alexandergallery.com. The Olana Partnership supports Hudson River School artist Frederic Edwin Church’s home, a New York State Historic Site and National Historic Landmark (visit www.olana.org).

The following evening, the 2010 exhibitors in The American Art Fair (TAAF) will open their galleries with exhibitions on Wednesday May 19th, from 2 until 8 pm for a Springtime Gallery Walk (visit www.theamericanartfair.com for details).   

For more information regarding the exhibition New Old New York: In and Out of Town and The American Art Fair Gallery Walk, please contact:  

 Laurel Acevedo (laurel@alexandergallery.com)

Allison Schaefer (afs@thomascolville.com)