Highlights Revealed for Master Drawings New York in January

(ARTFIXdaily.com)

The Tenth Annual MASTER DRAWINGS NEW YORK week (www.masterdrawingsinnewyork.com) will take place January 23 through January 30 at 30 leading art galleries on the Upper East Side’s “Gold Coast’ in New York.

Timed to coincide with New York’s major January art-buying events, including the Old Master auctions and The Winter Antiques Show, over the past decade MASTER DRAWINGS NEW YORK has given top dealers from the US as well as the UK, France, Germany, Spain and Italy an opportunity to show their newest acquisitions to the largest assembly of drawings scholars and patrons to gather in New York each year.

Originally conceived as an annual walk-through, MASTER DRAWINGS NEW YORK has grown into a ‘must see’ event, receiving strong support as its range and influence has grown each year. Each exhibition is hosted by an expert specialist and many works on offer are newly discovered or have not been seen on the market in decades, if at all.

Critics applaud the fact that the most respected drawings dealers show important pencil, pen and ink and chalk, pastel and charcoal drawings, as well as oil on paper sketches and watercolours from the 16th through the 21st centuries.

New exhibitors in 2016 include Allan Stone Projects, a New York gallery founded in 1960 that has enjoyed sustained success mixing established artists with emerging and mid-career artists. Its exhibition is titled “Process and Presence: Mastery in Drawing” and includes figurative, landscape, still life and abstract works by prominent artists such as Arshile Gorky, Willem de Kooning, Wayne Thiebaud, Franz Kline, and Gaston Lachaise.

The 130-year old Kraushaar Galleries, a highly recognized fine art source for important American art of the first half of the 20th century, as well as selected contemporary works, will be a new exhibitor at MASTER DRAWINGS week this year. Katherine Degn says Kraushaar will be featuring works by Marsden Hartley as well as Dorothy Dehner, among several important American artists. Kraushaar Galleries has a long history of exhibiting works on paper. Early shows included prints by European artists, which then expanded to include drawings and watercolors by Seurat, Picasso, Manet and Redon, among others. By the second decade of the 20th century the gallery was becoming increasingly American with watercolor and drawing exhibitions by the contemporaries Maurice Prendergast, John Sloan, William Glackens, Gifford Beal Charles Demuth, William and Marguerite Zorach and Guy Pène du Bois. Its commitment to works on paper continues with recent shows by younger artists such as Catherine Drabkin and Lee Walton while continuing its commitment to historical material. Other recent exhibitions include The Creative Process, 1930 – 1950; and Figuratively Considered - Works on Paper by Selected Artists Who Participated in the 1913 "International Exhibition of Modern Art.”

Degn says, “Dorothy Dehner drawings from the later 1940s and early 1950s are a rarely seen. They explore the personal and experimental yet vital and bold nature of her early years as an artist. Dehner's visual vocabulary has diverse influences ranging from her experience as a serious dancer to the freedom and personal autonomy of the emerging abstract movement. This was further reinforced by her exposure to the European avant-garde during a 1925 trip to Paris, her study with Jan Matulka, and her friendship with John Graham. These sources combined to produce works that fuse aspects of cubism, surrealist abstraction and gestural elements. This drawing, made during the last years of her marriage to David Smith, documents both the love and the marital struggles in symbolic and at times surreal iconography.”

A third new exhibitor is Découvert Fine Art gallery of Rockport, MA. Steven Law says the galleries exhibition during MASTER DRAWINGS week will be titled “The Feminine Observed, 16th to 20th century, and New Acquisitions.” It begins with the Coronation of the Virgin, a Counter-Reformation study for an altar, probably Antwerp, 1620. Other drawings exploring the feminine within the Biblical narrative include The Virgin, Child, and St. John after a print by Laurent de La Hyre (Paris 1606-1656), a 17th century Genoese rendering of The Meeting of David and Abigail, and a small 16th century Northern School scene from the story of Holofernes. These are followed by Amorous Peasants in a Bower by William De Heer (1638-1681). Drawings of the feminine in mythology include a Study of a Centauresse, Satyre, and Horseman after the architect Charles Normand and attributed to Theodore Gericault (Rouen 1791 – Paris 1824), Pluto Abducting Venus attributed to Nicola Maria Rossi (Naples 1690-1758), and Venus or Galatea after Luca Cambiaso. Drawings by Vuilliard and Jean-Baptiste Carpeaux portray women in interiors. Modern ideas about the feminine are explored through works by Andre Derain (Chatou 1880 – Garches 1954), Leopold Survage (Moscow 1879 – Paris 1968, and an artist of the Secession Style, Franz von Bayros (1866 Zagreb – 1924 Vienna), whose work The Logic of Divorce was printed in a 1913 edition of Lustige Blätter. New acquisitions include works by, attributed to, or after Francesco Cozza, Veronese (and/or his workshop), Pellegrino Tibaldi, Vittorio Maria Bigari, Negretti, and Jan Lievens.

W & K Wienerroither and Kohlbacher of Vienna is joining MASTER DRAWINGS week this year. Specialists in Austrian fine art, the gallery now shows modern artists from Austria as well as international artists. It supports an ambitious publishing and exhibition schedule and has galleries both in Vienna and New York.

Mary-Anne Martin Fine Art returns to Master Drawings week with a special exhibition titled, “Drawings by the Muralists.” This group includes watercolors and sketches by Diego Rivera, José Clemente Orozco, Rufino Tamayo, Leonora Carrington, Jean Charlot, and Elena Climent. A highlight of the show is Orozco’s “Five Heads (Beggars)” a gouache from 1940 that came from the Estate of the American playwright, Elmer Rice, and has been in a private collection for almost 50 years.

At MASTER DRAWINGS NEW YORK the artworks on view cut across the full range of styles, centuries, mediums and genres and provide pricing options that are attractive both to seasoned and new collectors.

Highlights of the 2016 Tenth edition of MASTER DRAWINGS NEW YORK include a special show at Leonard Hutton galleries: “Drawings and Watercolors: To Observe and Imagine.” It showcases a selection of important 20th century European and American works on paper, including an outstanding 1916 Sonia Delaunay gouache featured in the Sonia Delaunay Retrospective exhibitions at Musée d’Art moderne de la Ville de Paris and Tate Modern, London. Sonia and Robert Delaunay were in Portugal from 1915-1917 where they formed an association called Corporation Nouvelle to stimulate “artistic action” to publish collaborative albums of poetry and art accompanied by interpretations executed in pochoir, a stencil process for making colored prints or adding color to a printed key illustration, by various artists including Cendrars, Apollinaire, Rossine and a group of Portuguese architects and critics. They intended to circulate exhibitions of the art of simultaneity throughout Europe. Sonia Delaunay executed numerous studies in gouache for the cover of Album No. 1, which unfortunately never appeared because of the difficulty a number of the artists experienced employing the pochoir technique. Also on view is an important 1955 Sam Francis Untitled watercolor, a 1965 Lucio Fontana Concetto Spaziale work on paper, a Louis Marcoussis Couple Assis tempera on paper executed in 1922 and artworks by Gontcharova, Gottlieb, Jenkins, Kandinsky, Klee, Krasner, Kupka, Léger, Magnelli, Miró, Motherwell, Matisse, Nicholson, Picasso, Popova, Suetin, Survage, Tworkov and others.

Lowell Libson Ltd., leading dealers in British art, will be showing a series of masterpieces including important works by Thomas Gainsborough, John Constable, Samuel Palmer and John Robert Cozens. British Art: Recent Acquisitions will feature John Russell’s 1792 pastel portrait of Thomas Wignell, founder of the Chestnut Street Theater in Philadelphia, and John Constable’s “Sunset: a stormy evening” dating to the 1820s.

Martyn Gregory will be exhibiting a selection of about 40 watercolours and drawings by 18th, 19th and early 20th century British artists including artworks from two distinguished English private collections that have not been seen on the market for over 30 years. Among these are works by some of the best exponents of early English watercolour including Thomas Girtin, John Varley, and Francis Nicholson. Also featured are works by Thomas Gainsborough, Thomas Rowlandson, David Cox, James Ward, Sir David Wilkie and others. One highlight is a watercolour by Luke Clennell, a rare and beautiful example of work by an artist whose career was curtailed at a young age. Following its well-received 20th century show earlier this year, Martyn Gregory will be also feature a group of modern British watercolours including a drawing by Edward Bawden whose diverse output embraced, painting, design, illustration and printmaking.

The works on paper exhibited at Mireille Mosler Ltd, span more than five centuries, are by a diverse group of artists from The Netherlands, and exemplify several stylistic periods. The earliest drawing exhibited in the gallery’s show, “Made in Holland – Master Drawings from the 17th through the 21st century” is a Study of the Gery Tulip by Jacob Marrel (1614-1681) from 1638. Tulip mania started around 1634, culminating in 1637 when more than 10,000 guilders was offered for one Semper Augustus and single bulbs represented a vast capital investment. Another emphasis is on a group of Dutch artists active around the turn of the nineteenth century when international movements developed different styles. The double portraits in pastel of Fritz Meyer (1847-1917) and his wife Nina by Jan Toorop (1858-1928) from 1909 are a testimony to this prominent Swiss art collector’s patronage of contemporary artists. It is the first time the portraits will be exhibited in America. Wealth accumulated through the tobacco trade allowed Meyer to develop a prominent art collection in the 1880s. Well-known paintings of theirs are now in institutions in the United States and abroad, such as Vincent Van Gogh’s Madame Augustine Roulin with Baby, now in the Philadelphia Museum of Art, Cypresses in The Metropolitan Museum of Art and The White House at Night in the Hermitage. The collection included paintings by Cézanne, Gauguin and Mondrian’s Boom A from 1913, now in the Tate in London. In 1916, Meyer’s substantial financial support to Theo van Doesburg allowed him to publish De Stijl, the influential journal of the movement’s theories.

Van Doren Waxter gallery is showcasing “Richard Diebenkorn Early Color Abstractions 1949-1955” including several untitled gouache and graphite works by the artist from the early 1950s.

Jill Newhouse Gallery is offering a select number of drawings including Edouard Vuillard’s c1927 pastel on paper “Portrait of Thierry Block,” and Jean Baptiste Camille Corot’s 1873 charcoal on paper “Vieillard passant dans un vallon bois.”

Marianne Elrick-Manley Fine Art will stage an exhibition of drawings titled A Trans-Atlantic-Modernist Joaquin Torres-Garcia and His Contemporaries 1897-1949 which includes 45 works on paper by Torres-Garcia as well as Pablo Picasso, Marcel Duchamp, Julio Gonzalez, Alexander Calder, Pablo Gargallo, Georges Vantongerloo, and, among others, Jacques Lipchitz. A retrospective of the work of Torres-Garcia is on view through Feb 15 at New York’s Museum of Modern Art. Marianne Elrick-Manley’s show includes several drawings from Torres-Garcia’s early period in Barcelona such as “Dama” and an artist book of watercolors that he created during his time in Ville Franche France in 1926. The artist’s two year residence in New York in 1920-22 will be illustrated by a group of important and rare drawings including a page from one of his watercolor New York books. Later works from Paris and Uruguay are also featured.

London dealer Stephen Ongpin says, “I have taken part in every edition of MASTER DRAWINGS NEW YORK, and each year seems to be better than the previous one. I mean this not only in terms of the increasing number of private collectors, museum curators, scholars and lovers of drawings who visit my New York exhibitions each year during the week of MASTER DRAWINGS NEW YORK, but also in the number of sales I have made during that period. There is something special about having the opportunity each year to exhibit and discuss a wide variety of drawings with like-minded people who are equally passionate about the special allure of these often intimate insights into an artist’s creative process. Together with London and Paris, New York has long been one of the centers of the drawings market, and an event like MASTER DRAWINGS NEW YORK - despite the cold weather and often record snowfalls that seem to accompany the week! - only adds to that reputation.”

For the January, 2016 event, Stephen Ongpin plans a show of Italian drawings, “Renaissance to Futurism: Italian Drawings c.1500-1920” comprising about thirty drawings by artists working in Italy, ranging in date from the first years of the 16th century to the beginning of the 20th century, and will showcase drawings by a mixture of well-known artists and minor masters. He says, “Many of the drawings come from private collections, and have not been seen on the market for many years.” Among the earliest Italian drawings in the exhibition is a small but moving pen drawing of the Virgin and Child by Ridolfo Ghirlandaio of c.1500 and an important drawing by Perino del Vaga depicting a scene from the life of Julius Caesar, datable to the 1520’s. 17th century Italian drawings include examples by Ludovico Carracci, Cristofano Allori, Guercino, Salvator Rosa and a double-sided sheet by Carlo Maratta as well as two sheets by Stefano Della Bella. 18th century drawings include two fine sheets by Giandomenico Tiepolo and works by Ubaldo and Gaetano Gandolfi, Pietro Antonio Novelli and Marco Ricci. From the 19th century come drawings by Vincenzo Gemito and Carlo Bossoli, and the final work in the exhibition is an abstract gouache by the Futurist artist Giacomo Balla. The exhibition is accompanied by a scholarly catalogue. The London dealer will also show works by Mary Cassatt, Pablo Picasso, and Julio Gonzalez.

Returning dealer Mia Weiner of Old Master Drawings in Connecticut says, “The tenth anniversary of MASTER DRAWINGS NEW YORK is a tremendous achievement. Dealers work hard to bring the best drawings they can muster and present them in an atmosphere conducive to their particular exhibition styles. That each show is unique in material as well as gallery design has been a delight for countless collectors and museum curators/directors.”

Weiner is bringing a group of stunning watercolors from the late 19th century including one of its greatest proponents, Giacinto Gigante, with two differing examples of his prowess; as well as two extraordinarily detailed watercolors by Luigi Bazzani, of Pompei.

Didier Aaron has titled its MASTER DRAWINGS week show “Master Drawings 1600-1875.” Among featured artworks is Francois Hippolyte Lalaisse (1810-1884) pen and ink “Two Male Ėcorché Figures.”

Christopher Bishop is featuring a Giuseppe Bernardino Bison (1762-1844) pen and ink titled “The holy Family.”

Dealer Monroe Warshaw is staging a show titled Drawn to Mythology with a collection that goes beyond the best known Greek and Roman examples, and dates from the 16th to 20th centuries. Warshaw has also chosen to feature artworks by Jost Amman, George Barbier, Domenico Campagnola, Master of the Egmont Albums, John Flaxman, Ubaldo Gandolfi, Jean Jacques Lagrenée, and Nicolas Poussin.

Guy Peppiatt Fine Art of London will be exhibiting twelve Italian views by Edward Lear (1812-1888) at Master Drawings New York in January 2016 with eleven of them dating from his time in Rome in the 1830s and 1840s. Lear arrived in Rome on his first major overseas tour in December 1837 and he remained there for the next ten years apart from two brief visits to England. The earliest of the group is a view looking over Capri from Massa Lubrense near Naples dated August 1838. Nine of the group originate from the collection of the biographer John Scandrett Harford (1787-1866) and remained in his family until 2015. They are on-the-spot sketches dating from 1843 and 1844 some of which were preliminary sketches for Lear’s Illustrated Excursions in Italy published in 1846. Lear’s style evolved considerably while he was in Italy from his early black and white chalk drawings influenced by James Duffield Harding to the confident watercolours for which he is best known. The only later watercolour in the exhibition is a view taken at Varenna on Lake Como dating from 1878 when he lived in San Remo near the Italian border with France. He moved to San Remo in 1871 and remained there for the rest of his life.

Pia Gallo offers fine old master and modern prints and drawings from her new gallery at 12 East 86th Street. For MDNY she is showing “American Masters: Pastels and Watercolors” including impressive works by Maurice Prendergast, such as “St. Mark’s Lion, Venice” and Frank Benson’s “Ellie Benson at age 3.”

Mary-Anne Martin Fine Art will feature “Drawings by the Muralists” a group of watercolors and sketches by Diego Rivera, José Clemente Orozco, Rufino Tamayo, Leonora Carrington, Jean Charlot and Elena Climent. A highlight of this show is Orozco’s “Five Heads (Beggars)” a gouache from 1940 that came from the Estate of the American playwright, Elmer Rice, and has been in a private collection for almost 50 years.

Mark Murray Fine Paintings is showing a selection of fine works on paper in its new location at 159 East 63rd Street. Works on view include a select group of earlier works including an unusual pencil study of a Clothesline by Jean-Baptiste Camille Corot and Fano on the Adriatic, an early J.M.W. Turner watercolor after Robert Cozens. A major highlight is a group of works on paper and select oils by American painter Walter Gay, and a strikingly beautiful portrait in colored chalk by Walter Gay’s good friend Paul César Helleu of Winaretta Singer, daughter of Singer sewing machine magnate Isaac Singer and wife of Prince Edmond de Polignac. Other European artists on view include Antoine-Louis Barye, Fritz Gärtner, Henri Joseph Harpignies, Sir Alfred Munnings, Sir Edward Poynter, and David Roberts. Works on paper by American artists Lockwood DeForest, Edwin Lord Weeks, John Whorf, and Reginald Marsh will also be featured in the exhibition.

Laura Pecheur show is titled "European masters from 16th century to 1900, Toulouse Lautrec circle and symbolism" These include European artists working in Paris during the same time as Toulouse Lautrec such as Steinlein with a pastel showing a woman in a theater with an illuminated face. Featured works include Herman Saftleven “The Weerdpoort, Utecht,” and Louis Legrand “Elegant with a fan.”

For its third year exhibiting at MASTER DRAWINGS week Italian dealers Antik Simone Romano e Figli will show a Selection of Master Drawings, mostly by Italian artists, from the 16th to the 20th century. Among highlights are drawings by Carlo Alberto Baratta, Giuseppe Bernardino Bison, Simone Cantarini, Pier Dandini, Francesco Fontebasso, Carlo Maratta, Pseudo Pacchia, Francesco Vanni and Luigi Vanvitelli. Two French drawings by Jean Lepautre and Paul Delvaux are also being shown.

Richard Berman is showing a selection of mostly 16th to 17th century Italian drawings including works by Antonio Campi, Giulio Campi, Andrea Boscoli, Camillo Procaccini, Cherubino Alberti, and Carlo Maratta. New research on the Maratta has connected the drawing as a study for a major commission, circa 1685-1690 by Marchese Niccolò Maria Pallavicini, an important Roman patron. A highlight is a rare late 15th century Lombard School drawing.

London dealer Crispian Riley-Smith has assembled two drawings exhibitions for MASTER DRAWINGS Week. One is titled ‘Beasts and Birds’ and the second focuses on ‘Italian Figures and Landscapes from 16th and 17th centuries.”

New York Old Masters specialist Margot Gordon collaborated with Riley-Smith to organize the first the New York event a decade ago and both are delighted to see how well it has matured, with top tier dealers offering an incredibly diverse array of artworks from both legendary and less celebrated artists. A number of participating dealers also exhibit each July at a sister event, the annual LONDON ART WEEK, where Old Master auctions and museum exhibitions also vie for the attention of visiting museum officials and art patrons.

Margot Gordon says, “Drawings hold special appeal to art collectors. There are many different forms -- from rapid sketches the Italians call “schizzi,” or first thoughts called “primo pensiero,” to studies and finished works in their own right. You are invited to enter the artist’s mind and share his passion on a very personal level. It’s a strong motivator to those who love art. What’s more, with such a wide range of offerings, and appealing prices, drawings are often the most accessible option to collectors seeking access to an artist’s process.”

Crispian Riley-Smith adds that "The backbone to the success of MASTER DRAWINGS NEW YORK is the continued support of our fantastic exhibitors who each year manage to find amazing drawings and make incredible discoveries, as well as curating interesting and stimulating shows. The interest from the public grows in this sector with new clients discovering this exciting field, and we are fortunate to enjoy the continued support of loyal clients.

“MASTER DRAWINGS NEW YORK has become popular with both private and institutional clients because it makes it convenient to see a number of exhibitions from the very top tier of world dealers in a single area of the city, and close by other venues they need to visit. For those interested in learning more about the quality and range of drawings on offer, there’s simply no better way to expose yourself to the very finest examples.”

Margot Gordon admits that, “Some visitors to our shows are surprised to see that not all our drawings date to the early centuries. We have several dealers who specialize in 20th and even 21st century works. In fact, our members display everything from medieval illuminations to preparatory studies by Raphael, to minimalist art and signed Picasso sketches. We particularly love the fact that curators, museum patrons, private collectors and the press all get to see the newest market offerings of each form at one time. It’s a model that works similarly well with our sister event in London.”

Riley-Smith says “With our format, dealers get to put their individual stamp on their own exhibitions and can entertain their private and museum clients as they like.” With such a wide range of options on offer, Gordon and Riley-Smith point out that drawings and watercolours represent a wonderful collecting opportunity, especially to those forming a new collection. Price points range from several thousand dollars to several million. The www.masterdrawingsinnewyork.com web site offers details on participating dealers and their specialties, and suggestions on how to work with a dealer to build a collection.

In previous years, noted experts on the subject have contributed to the brochure, including John Marciari, the head of the Department of Drawings and Prints at The Morgan Library & Museum in New York, artist Eric Fischl, William Griswold, former Director of The Morgan Library & Museum, New York; and Cara Dufour Denison, Curator Emerita Drawings and Prints at The Morgan. Cara Denison says, “Master Drawings New York is an indispensable event for lovers of drawings.”

The Introduction to the 2016 MASTER DRAWINGS NEW YORK brochure has been written by Colin Bailey, (FULL COPY OF HIS INTRODUCTION BELOW) the recently appointed Director of The Morgan Library & Museum. Bailey is the former director of the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, and previously spent 13 years at New York’s Frick Collection. Colin Bailey is a highly regarded specialist in 18th century French art and a recognized authority on the work of Pierre-August Renoir. He earned his Doctor of Philosophy in Art History from the University of Oxford.

Margot Gordon says, “We are thrilled to have Colin Bailey write the Introduction to our Tenth Anniversary MASTER DRAWINGS NEW YORK brochure. His reputation as both a scholar and someone who has staged important and impressive exhibitions, gives him a unique perspective on the appeal of drawings. We truly welcome his insights and know that people attending our exhibitions will learn a great deal reading what he has to say.”

MASTER DRAWINGS NEW YORK dealers …..

Didier Aaron www.didieraaron.com

Christopher Bishop Fine Art www.oldmasterdrawingsandprints.com

Découvert Galleries www.decouvertfineart.com

Marianne Elrick-Manley Marianne@elrickmanley.com

Pia Gallo www.piagallo.com

Margot Gordon Fine Arts mgordonfinearts@aol.com

Martyn Gregory www.martyngregory.com

Leonard Hutton Galleries www.leonardhuttongalleries.com

Kraushaar Galleries www.kraushaargalleries.com

Lowell Libson Ltd. www.lowell-libson.com

James MacKinnon www.james-mackinnon.com