In February of this year, Hirschl & Adler moved from a landmark townhouse on East 70th Street, where it had been housed for 33 years, to expanded quarters in The Crown Building, at the world-renowned crossroads of Fifth Avenue and 57th Street. Now happily ensconced in its modern and spacious new home, Hirschl & Adler is thrilled to unveil its inaugural exhibition, Masterworks: The Best of Hirschl & Adler, a celebration of its past, present, and future. Masterworks opened Thursday, May 5, and runs through Friday, July 1.

Highlighting the gallery’s broad range of interests with examples of the highest caliber, Masterworks will include more than 100 works from the 18th to the 21st centuries, American and European, fine arts and decorative arts. On exhibit will be rare works by such American masters as John Singleton Copley, John James Audubon, Thomas Sully, George Caleb Bingham, Hiram Powers, Childe Hassam, Mary Cassatt, George Bellows, and Joseph Stella; a selection of paintings by European artists, both Academic and Impressionist; and recent works by each of its contemporary artists, including Elizabeth Turk and John Moore. Rounding out the exhibition are outstanding examples of American furniture and other decorative arts from the Neo-Classical, Aesthetic, and Arts & Crafts periods.

A handful of works in the exhibition that are owned by Hirschl & Adler have never before been exhibited or offered for sale, and are being debuted at this celebratory moment. Included is a fulllength Thomas Sully portrait of wealthy Providence, Rhode Island, merchant Cyrus Butler, painted in 1847, which prior to coming to Hirschl & Adler, had a single owner since the artist completed the work. Other superlative examples of their kind include one of the last major works by George Caleb Bingham remaining in private hands, Wood-Boatmen on a River, 1854; a full-length pastel portrait of Chilean socialite Eugenia Huici Arguedas de Errázuriz, by Jacques-Emile Blanche from 1890; a rare watercolor by John James Audubon of a Long-haired Squirrel (about 1841-45) from North American Quadrupeds; and an exotic figure painting by Joseph Stella, Veiled Lady, that has descended in the family of Stella’s dealer, Bernard Rabin, since the early 1930s.

One work by each of Hirschl & Adler Modern’s represented of contemporary artists will accompany the masterworks of the past. New pieces by John Moore, 2010 MacArthur Grant recipient Elizabeth Turk, Marc Trujillo, Diana Horowitz, Amy Weiskopf, Barbara Kassel, Jeffrey Ripple, Peter Poskas, III, David Ligare, F. Scott Hess, Randall Exon, Richard Maury, Harold Reddicliffe, Paul Rahilly, Frederick Brosen, Alexander Creswell, and Susan Van Campen illustrate Hirschl & Adler Modern’s commitment to contemporary realist art at its highest level.

American furniture and decorative arts have become an important part of Hirschl & Adler’s offerings since the gallery started handling such material in 1984. A large Center Table labeled by Charles-Honoré Lannuier, which is one of only two known by the maker, a choice collection of Greene & Greene furniture from the Pratt and Blacker Houses, and an extremely rare Chinese Export porcelain Covered “Toddy” Jug with a Portrait of George Washington, are just a few of the
three-dimensional highlights which will accompany the riches of American and European fine arts in the exhibition.

Hirschl & Adler is open to the public Tuesday through Friday, 9:30am to 5:15pm and Saturday, 9:30am to 4:45pm, through Friday, May 27th. Beginning Monday, June 6, its summer hours are Monday through Friday, 9:30am to 4:45pm.