The historic Park Avenue Armory sets the stage for a rich art experience at TEFAF New York Spring, from May 3-7, 2019.  Featuring a stellar roster of 93 leading exhibitors, with 13 new participants, the Fair is the premier platform for some of the most influential experts in museum-quality modern and postwar art and design, antiquities, ethnographic art and jewelry. Celebrating its third edition, TEFAF New York Spring is renowned for  the thoughtful, high quality and beautifully curated exhibitions its dealers create especially for TEFAF’s sophisticated, art-literate audiences.  

Among the finely-curated exhibitions and exceptional pieces offered by dealers this year are works by some of the most important celebrated women artists and visionary designers of the 20th and 21st centuries. 

Hauser & Wirth’s (Booth 305) presentation at TEFAF New York focuses on three female titans of 20th-century: Louise Bourgeois, Maria Lassnig, and Alina Szapocznikow. Each of these late artists engaged issues of identity and the body in original ways, forging their own approach to representing the female experience – the physical, psychological, and spiritual – through a pioneering use of materials. The gallery brings together a group of Maria Lassnig’s expressive, figurative paintings – the largest group ever shown by the gallery in New York – informed by the deep body-psyche connection the artist termed ‘body awareness.’

Louise Bourgeois is represented by a group of sculptural works reflecting the artist’s exquisite sense of architecture, landscape, and the body as analogs. The selection celebrates Hauser & Wirth’s new role as sole representative of Louise Bourgeois in the United States. And, finally, a highlight of Alina Szapocznikow’s inclusion is Autoportrait (Self Portrait) (1971). This white resin cast of the artist’s face, a powerful and poignant masterpiece, was among the last works Szapocznikow created before her untimely death in 1973 at the age of 46.

Galerie Gisela Capitain (Booth 315) from Cologne, Germany will exhibit Untitled, by New York-based artist and photographer,  Zoe Leonard (b. 1961) one of the most critically acclaimed artists of her generation. The Whitney Museum of American Art presented a major survey of Leonard’s work in 2018,  she has also been featured in three Biennials and her work is widely-represented in the Museum’s collection. Over the past three decades, she has produced work in photography and sculpture celebrated for their poetic observations of daily life and rigorous challenges to politics and conditions of image making and display. 

Galerie Georges-Philippe and Nathalie Vallois, specialists in European Avant-Garde works from the 1960s (Booth 358) presents Tir Avion, a masterwork by Niki de Saint Phalle belonging to “Tirs” or “Shooting Paintings”, the series that allowed Niki de Saint Phalle to gain international recognition. In 1961, Niki was inspired to “make artwork bleed.” She began to work on assemblages made of objects and plastic bags full of fresh paint hidden under a thick coat of white plaster, developing the series “Tirs”. At first abstract, they soon mutated into large narrative compositions where Niki developed her talent as a storyteller. Tir Avion is a typical and beautiful example of this series. It is related to her most famous monumental “Tirs”, King Kong (Moderna Museet) and Pirodactyl over New York at The Guggenheim Museum, New York. 

Images of iconic women are also a strong thread throughout the Fair. For Luxembourg & Dayan’s (Booth 211) debut at TEFAF New York, they will exhibit Rudolf Schlichter's (1890-1955) striking 1929 Portrait of Karola Nehers,the famous German actress and singer who played the first Polly in Bertolt Brecht's "Threepenny Opera." Schlichter, who was closely connected to communist circles, was one of the most notable representatives of the New Objectivity movement. Schlichter’s portrait of Karola Nehers was thought to be lost until Luxembourg re-discovered it in 2007.

The Schlicter portrait is part of the gallery’s booth exhibition in one of the Armory’s historic rooms entitled Self & Portrait. Featuring works by artists Ludwig Meidner (1884-1966), Otto Dix (1891-1969), Pablo Picasso (1881-1973), Rudolf Stingel (b.1956), Urs Fischer (b.1973), Richard Prince (b.1949) and Piotr Uklański (b.1951), the presentation focuses on the power of portraiture as a vehicle for both self-expression and a statement on the pervading values of an era. 

Axel Vervoordt (Booth 206 Historic Room) features Work,1968, an iconic piece by Japanese Avant-Garde artist Yuko Nasaka, (b.1938) one of the first and only women to be invited to join the Gutai art group in 1963. Though she has exhibited widely in Japan since then, her work is rarely seen in exhibitions outside her home country. Through her work, Nasaka transcended the social expectations, challenges and barriers that women faced in Japan during that time. 

The highly-regarded and unmistakable style of Kate Malone (b. 1959) will once again grace the stand of UK exhibitor Adrian Sassoon (Booth 368). Kate Malone is one of the UK’s leading ceramic artists with an illustrious career spanning 30 years crafting unique, hand-made ceramic pots and intricately ornamented sculptures. Adrian Sassoon will exhibit a pair of striped magma vases, in crystalline-glazed stoneware from 2018, demonstrating Kate’s dramatic observations of nature which continue to be the overriding influence in her work. Kate is a pioneer of glazing techniques via experimentation and research in the chemistry of glazing.

 Antiquities, Ancient and Ethnographic Art are strong collecting categories at TEFAF New York and offer provocative juxtapositions to the Fair’s 20th century and Modernist works. This year is no exception with spectacular and important pieces exhibited by Charles Ede, Cahn, Galerie Bernard Dulon, and David Ghezelbash. Charles Ede (Stand 356) is one of the world's leading antiquity dealerships, for works of art from ancient Egypt, Greece and the Roman empire as well as European art prior to ca. 1000 AD. Ede will be showing an exceptional Large Egyptian Offering Table in Limestone, New Kingdom, 18th Dynasty, circa 1400 BC. Intended to be placed in front of the magical false doors and statues of ancient tombs, offering tables were fundamental items in the cult of the dead and the gods 

Jewelry is a category which continues to dazzle visitors to TEFAF New York with some of the world’s most prestigious and design-forward specialists taking part --  including FD Gallery, Hemmerle, REZA and Taffin. FD Gallery (Stand 352) will show an extraordinary Pre-Columbian figure brooch by Donald Claflin & Tiffany & Company  (Massachusetts, 1935 - New York, 1979) in Turquoise, diamond, coral, gold and Tourmaline, Signed 'Tiffany & Co.’ 1970s. Donald Claflin is renowned known for his highly-collectible, flamboyant and whimsical designs. These pieces were made during Claflin’s tenure at Tiffany’s in the late 60’s and early 70s, and are much-coveted by jewelry connoisseurs.

TEFAF’s rigorous and thought-provoking Cultural Programs, which include a full-roster of panel discussions, feature two highly-anticipated panel discussions exploring feminist themes in art and design. 

Among the outstanding panels offered at TEFAF New York Spring is Toward a Feminist Interior, on Saturday, May 4, 2019 - 4-5 PM. This panel discusses the relationship of feminism to interior design through the lens of history, theory, and practice, and explores the ways that design is being used to create powerful and inspiring environments for women by women. The Panel consists of Lora Appleton, Founder / Creative Director, kinder MODERN & Founder, Female Design Council, VirginiaBlack, Co-founder, feminist architecture collaborative, Shashi Caan, Founding Partner, THE COLLECTIVE & Globally We Design (GloW-DESIGN). Carly Cannell, President and Founder of Weetu, and Moderator: Cotter Christian, Director, BFA Interior Design, Assistant Professor, Interior Design, Parsons School of Design, The New School.

Maverick Modernism: Firebrand Women of the Early 20th Century, Saturday, May 4, 2019 - 11AM-12PM,  celebrates the rare group of iconic painters who defied the norms of their time and created major bodies of art at the turn of the 20th century, among a male dominated arena -- Frida Kahlo, Hilma af Klint, Amrita Shergil, Tseng Yu-ho and Georgia O' Keefe,  among them.The world was experiencing dramatic change as industrial, economic and cultural revolutions spread across the globe, setting the stage for new and dynamic artistic movements that would make permanent impressions on the structure of art making. The panel examines the work of these artists whose outlier status as women did not dissuade them nor does it alter the significance of their contribution to modernism. What were their challenges and what is their legacy and impact on subsequent generations of artists? The Panel features: Tracey Bashkoff, Director, Collections and Senior Curator, Guggenheim Museum, Carmen Melián, Former Director Latin American Art, Sotheby’s, David Norman, David Norman Fine Arts, Craig Yee, Directing Co-Founder, INK Studio, Beijing and ModeratorPriyanka Mathew, South Asian Specialist, Sunderlande Art Agency.