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EXHIBITIONS
We are primarily a secondary market gallery and exhibit themed selections from our extensive inventory throughout the year. That said, we also hold focused exhibits of contemporary art or work from estates a few times a year.
Current | Crust: Thaddeus Radell & Alex Edwards
CRUST exhibits the paintings of Thaddeus Radell and Alex Edwards. Radell’s figurative works evolve with successive layers of paint in his New York studio, while Edwards pushes paint en plein air in the English countryside. Radell’s studio work has an inescapable existentialism—an interiority—skin, blood, and bones. At the same time, Edwards’ on-site landscapes are an exteriority—crust, mantle, and core.
Radell’s recent “shroud” paintings are infused with history and mystery. Painted on loose strips of burlap, one first thinks of the “Shroud of Turin,” with its vague body impression; however, Radell’s works are bold and built, yet nothing is overtly defined. Radell’s heavily impastoed works result in figures that merge body and soul. In his head studies details are buried and excavated, lost and then found as facial features emerge from chunks of wax and oil paint.
The immediacy in Edwards’ work is laid upon the canvas. His shorthand for the lay of the land, the grade of the hills, and the colors of grasses and other flora in a shifting sky are effectively painted in thick oil paint applied with brushes, cards, and knives. Clouds roll in and out, hues shift with the light, and shadows come and go—his paintings are a time-lapse rendered into a single moment.
Radell lives and paints in upstate New York and is a professor of art at The Borough of Manhattan Community College (BMCC). Edwards lives and paints in Dorset in the southwest of England. His working life has seen him living and working for 30 years in the safari business in East Africa.
Radell’s recent “shroud” paintings are infused with history and mystery. Painted on loose strips of burlap, one first thinks of the “Shroud of Turin,” with its vague body impression; however, Radell’s works are bold and built, yet nothing is overtly defined. Radell’s heavily impastoed works result in figures that merge body and soul. In his head studies details are buried and excavated, lost and then found as facial features emerge from chunks of wax and oil paint.
The immediacy in Edwards’ work is laid upon the canvas. His shorthand for the lay of the land, the grade of the hills, and the colors of grasses and other flora in a shifting sky are effectively painted in thick oil paint applied with brushes, cards, and knives. Clouds roll in and out, hues shift with the light, and shadows come and go—his paintings are a time-lapse rendered into a single moment.
Radell lives and paints in upstate New York and is a professor of art at The Borough of Manhattan Community College (BMCC). Edwards lives and paints in Dorset in the southwest of England. His working life has seen him living and working for 30 years in the safari business in East Africa.
Past: Dog Days on Stanton Street
Summer is heating up, and our mascot is feeling the heat of the concrete jungle. Our summer exhibit features an exciting mix of recent acquisitions and discoveries, including mid-century paintings by “A. Dill” (Delaware River - Bowman’s Hill Tower), several works by the African American preacher/painter Reverend Joel Hewlett (1921-1994), striking portraits by the Italian farmer Pietro Ghizzardi (1904-1986), powerful African American and Native American textiles, an Atomic-Age Adventist Polemic, works by Vincent Smith (1929-2003), Nat Werner (1908-1991), Sal Salandra (1946-), and exceptional examples of Black Folk Art with additional surprises.
Past: North American Burl Treen: Colonial & Native American
As Sir Paul sang, “It was 20 years ago today.” Well, not to the day, but in the spring of 2005, my book, North American Burl Treen: Colonial and Native American, was published. It was and still is the only substantial study of this cross-cultural art and craft. In recognition, we are having a small exhibit of burl treen and other treen at the gallery.
The exhibit focuses mainly on Woodlands burl and effigy ladles (many of which are featured in the book), a few Woodlands bowls, a masterpiece Delaware speaker’s staff, and a remarkable Colonial American ash burl basin (which is my favorite turned piece in the book).
I have always said that if I were not a dealer, I would collect Woodlands effigy ladles. They go well beyond utility and serve as platforms for sublime, soulful, and small-scale sculptures.
The Woodlands people’s diet was typically stew-based, and they used personalized eating ladles that held a totemistic or special meaning for the owner, which were usually made in consultation with a medicine man or elder.
Ash burl ladles without effigies were primarily food preparation utensils and thus developed complex surfaces from daily use.
The exhibit focuses mainly on Woodlands burl and effigy ladles (many of which are featured in the book), a few Woodlands bowls, a masterpiece Delaware speaker’s staff, and a remarkable Colonial American ash burl basin (which is my favorite turned piece in the book).
I have always said that if I were not a dealer, I would collect Woodlands effigy ladles. They go well beyond utility and serve as platforms for sublime, soulful, and small-scale sculptures.
The Woodlands people’s diet was typically stew-based, and they used personalized eating ladles that held a totemistic or special meaning for the owner, which were usually made in consultation with a medicine man or elder.
Ash burl ladles without effigies were primarily food preparation utensils and thus developed complex surfaces from daily use.
Past: Mark Landersman (1896 - 1985) W/Selections From Our Inventory
As part of our new exhibit, we are pleased to introduce the discovery of paintings by Mark Landersman (Brooklyn, NY, 1896-1985), a career garment worker and self-taught artist. Recent finds include a remarkable self-portrait of an unknown African American artist dating from the 1960s and “The Wilton Madonna,” a concrete sculpture formerly of the Peter Brams Collection. The exhibit will be up from December 5 to January 12, 2025.
Mark Landersman was born into a Jewish immigrant family in Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn. His mother was related to Boris Thomashevsky (star of Yiddish theatre), and his father trained as an architect. However, despite his father’s formal education, he and his family worked in the garment industry like many Jewish immigrants when they arrived in America.
Mark married Pearl Antonier, worked in the garment industry, and became a buyer, merchandiser, and creator of design concepts.
In 1954, Mark began painting with gouache while recuperating from an operation. Over the next 30 years, Landersman experimented with abstract and representational paintings while continuing to work in the garment industry until his retirement at the age of 80. He continued to paint until his death at 89.
The works herein are his most original and abstract. He combines complex patterning and structures with inventive architecture—they appear to be informed by the lights, energy, and pace of the commute between Brooklyn and Manhattan. One cannot help but relate these to his father’s lost profession.
For Landersman, these were a private pursuit, and he never sought to show or sell them. To this end, these works have never been seen outside the family until now.
Mark Landersman was born into a Jewish immigrant family in Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn. His mother was related to Boris Thomashevsky (star of Yiddish theatre), and his father trained as an architect. However, despite his father’s formal education, he and his family worked in the garment industry like many Jewish immigrants when they arrived in America.
Mark married Pearl Antonier, worked in the garment industry, and became a buyer, merchandiser, and creator of design concepts.
In 1954, Mark began painting with gouache while recuperating from an operation. Over the next 30 years, Landersman experimented with abstract and representational paintings while continuing to work in the garment industry until his retirement at the age of 80. He continued to paint until his death at 89.
The works herein are his most original and abstract. He combines complex patterning and structures with inventive architecture—they appear to be informed by the lights, energy, and pace of the commute between Brooklyn and Manhattan. One cannot help but relate these to his father’s lost profession.
For Landersman, these were a private pursuit, and he never sought to show or sell them. To this end, these works have never been seen outside the family until now.
Past: Fat Over Lean: Joel Longenecker | Chuck Webster
"Fat over lean" is a centuries-old painter's proverb referring to best practices within oil painting. Joel Longenecker and Chuck Webster are enamored with the malleable qualities of oil paint. Within their work, they incidentally record the hours, days, months, and sometimes years they put into a single work—Joel more with the addition of paint and Chuck with subtraction. Figuratively speaking, Joel's are "fat," and Chuck's are "lean." Joel's accumulate paint, like sedimentary layers of the earth, while Chuck's show erosion with erasure and cover-up. They both create a complex depth within their work—like they could be part of a larger universe or things we find under intense scrutiny.
Joel Longenecker’s work looks like shovel-ripped sod containing layers of earth. Longenecker states that “they are constructed much like the earth’s strata, from the deepest layer (the bedrock) up to the surface (the soft topsoil). Each layer consumes and buries the preceding one”. The art critic Lilly Wei wrote that Longenecker “scrapes down [semi-dried paint] so the soft inside, like wet clay, remains. This scumbled field provides resistance for his next layers as he traverses his field, repeating the process, sparring with the grit and goo, the hard and the soft”.
Longenecker lives and works in New York and has been exhibiting for over thirty years and has been reviewed and written about extensively.
Chuck Webster is also deeply engaged with the creative process through layering, glazing, sanding, adding, and subtracting paint while blurring the lines between painting and drawing. Yet, this earnest approach is loosened by his sense of humor, nostalgia, mood, mystery, and pop culture awareness. This survey of paintings spanning over twenty-five years shows abstract compositions hinting at some other world. Through his meticulous approach to detail, we see something familiar that we think we know yet can’t quite put our finger on.
Art critic Roberta Smith of the New York Times described Webster’s work as “little big paintings,” stating that “they have a strange, irrepressible scale, a largeness that exceeds their size and creates a distinctive, slightly comedic sense of intimacy.”
Webster lives and works in Brooklyn, NY. His work is in numerous public and private collections, including the the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Whitney Museum of American Art, the Baltimore Museum of Art, and the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston. Webster has been reviewed in the New York Times, Hyperallergic, The Brooklyn Rail, and Art in America.
Joel Longenecker’s work looks like shovel-ripped sod containing layers of earth. Longenecker states that “they are constructed much like the earth’s strata, from the deepest layer (the bedrock) up to the surface (the soft topsoil). Each layer consumes and buries the preceding one”. The art critic Lilly Wei wrote that Longenecker “scrapes down [semi-dried paint] so the soft inside, like wet clay, remains. This scumbled field provides resistance for his next layers as he traverses his field, repeating the process, sparring with the grit and goo, the hard and the soft”.
Longenecker lives and works in New York and has been exhibiting for over thirty years and has been reviewed and written about extensively.
Chuck Webster is also deeply engaged with the creative process through layering, glazing, sanding, adding, and subtracting paint while blurring the lines between painting and drawing. Yet, this earnest approach is loosened by his sense of humor, nostalgia, mood, mystery, and pop culture awareness. This survey of paintings spanning over twenty-five years shows abstract compositions hinting at some other world. Through his meticulous approach to detail, we see something familiar that we think we know yet can’t quite put our finger on.
Art critic Roberta Smith of the New York Times described Webster’s work as “little big paintings,” stating that “they have a strange, irrepressible scale, a largeness that exceeds their size and creates a distinctive, slightly comedic sense of intimacy.”
Webster lives and works in Brooklyn, NY. His work is in numerous public and private collections, including the the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Whitney Museum of American Art, the Baltimore Museum of Art, and the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston. Webster has been reviewed in the New York Times, Hyperallergic, The Brooklyn Rail, and Art in America.
Past: Dealer's Choice: Full House
Our fall exhibit, Dealer's Choice: Full House, features new acquisitions and personal favorites from our collections, like an early 20th-century Bee Keeper's Mask/Hood or a New York Post embroidered pillow by Andy Warhol's bestie Brigid Berlin.
Personal favorites include an important African American appliquéd textile, an incised carved and painted house portrait by the "Checkerboard Artist," an exceptional 19th-century African American doll, a substantial work by North Carolinian Outsider Artist Leroy Person, and a tout made from painted tires and carved wood.
Other works in the exhibit are an early work by Coenties Slip artist Jack Youngerman (1926-2020), an asylum period painting by Ralph Albert Blakelock (1847-1919), a mysterious midnight painting by early San Franciscan artist Eva Withrow (1858-1928), a beautiful Minnie Evans (1892-1987), a stunning Edwin Lawson (1911-1980), a masterwork by Henry Dousa (1820-1903?), two male nude wood constructions by Charles Jarm (1932-2021), an extremely early Philadelphia asylum watercolor, ("painted by a maniac") by Richard Nisbett (1753-1823), two egg hatching stone carvings by James W. Washington, Jr. (1909-2000), an early ceramic creature by Japanese nonverbal artist Shinichi Sawada (b.1982), ceramic vessels by The Mad Potter of Biloxi, George Ohr (1857-1918) and mind-blowing works by sand artist John A. Adams (1891-1967).
Additionally, for the first time at the gallery, an important and historically unique miniature portrait of Benjamin Franklin, done by Joseph-Aignan Sigaud de Lafond (1730-1810) created by an "electric spark," is on display.
And since one of our favorite artists is "anonymous," there are several stellar works by unknown artists.
Personal favorites include an important African American appliquéd textile, an incised carved and painted house portrait by the "Checkerboard Artist," an exceptional 19th-century African American doll, a substantial work by North Carolinian Outsider Artist Leroy Person, and a tout made from painted tires and carved wood.
Other works in the exhibit are an early work by Coenties Slip artist Jack Youngerman (1926-2020), an asylum period painting by Ralph Albert Blakelock (1847-1919), a mysterious midnight painting by early San Franciscan artist Eva Withrow (1858-1928), a beautiful Minnie Evans (1892-1987), a stunning Edwin Lawson (1911-1980), a masterwork by Henry Dousa (1820-1903?), two male nude wood constructions by Charles Jarm (1932-2021), an extremely early Philadelphia asylum watercolor, ("painted by a maniac") by Richard Nisbett (1753-1823), two egg hatching stone carvings by James W. Washington, Jr. (1909-2000), an early ceramic creature by Japanese nonverbal artist Shinichi Sawada (b.1982), ceramic vessels by The Mad Potter of Biloxi, George Ohr (1857-1918) and mind-blowing works by sand artist John A. Adams (1891-1967).
Additionally, for the first time at the gallery, an important and historically unique miniature portrait of Benjamin Franklin, done by Joseph-Aignan Sigaud de Lafond (1730-1810) created by an "electric spark," is on display.
And since one of our favorite artists is "anonymous," there are several stellar works by unknown artists.
Past: Badge of Courage Marcia Goldenstein & The Vernacular ID Badge
This exhibition explores labor through the physical act of creating an exhaustive series of embroideries by our artist Marcia Goldenstein, her subjects' dedications to their visions and advocacy, and an extensive collection of vintage employee identification badges.
Over the last 15 years, Goldenstein has wrought two bodies of work venerating female artists and activists. Combining her professional experience as a painter with embroidery, Marcia builds up an image, much as she would a painting—stitching colored cotton threads to create complex tonal gradients and deep textures like paint and impasto.
Like Anni Albers and Lenore Tawney, Goldenstein has taken what was once considered "women's work" and elevated it beyond craft. With the "Artist Series," Marcia represents the past by working in black and white, embroidering deceased female artists often left out of art history. The "Activist Series" uses color for women of the near past and present who use their voice, art, poetry, and politics to help make a positive and progressive change in the world.
Goldenstein has exhibited these works at multiple museums; however, this is their first gallery exhibit.
The post-it-sized embroidered portraits play well off the vernacular photography of the vintage metal and enameled badges that house portraits of the Everyman/woman workers from when a third of the country held union jobs. These unions were inextricably linked to the growth of the middle class and instrumental in advancing civil rights and policies that addressed gender-based discrimination.
The badges are surprisingly satisfying in hand—they have good weight, and one cannot help but wonder about the individuals pictured. Most of them are assuredly dead; however, several may still be alive—where are they now? What happened to the young sailor on the Pearl Harbor badge? We recognize some companies, such as Campbell Soup, Goodyear Tires, Frigidaire, and Heywood-Wakefield, but what happened to the Blood Brothers Machine Company or Frankoweave Incorporated?
These enameled badges that bear a swath of humanity serve as an ad hoc timeline of labor through The Roaring Twenties, The Great Depression, WWI - WWII, and the dawn of the Civil Rights Era.
Over the last 15 years, Goldenstein has wrought two bodies of work venerating female artists and activists. Combining her professional experience as a painter with embroidery, Marcia builds up an image, much as she would a painting—stitching colored cotton threads to create complex tonal gradients and deep textures like paint and impasto.
Like Anni Albers and Lenore Tawney, Goldenstein has taken what was once considered "women's work" and elevated it beyond craft. With the "Artist Series," Marcia represents the past by working in black and white, embroidering deceased female artists often left out of art history. The "Activist Series" uses color for women of the near past and present who use their voice, art, poetry, and politics to help make a positive and progressive change in the world.
Goldenstein has exhibited these works at multiple museums; however, this is their first gallery exhibit.
The post-it-sized embroidered portraits play well off the vernacular photography of the vintage metal and enameled badges that house portraits of the Everyman/woman workers from when a third of the country held union jobs. These unions were inextricably linked to the growth of the middle class and instrumental in advancing civil rights and policies that addressed gender-based discrimination.
The badges are surprisingly satisfying in hand—they have good weight, and one cannot help but wonder about the individuals pictured. Most of them are assuredly dead; however, several may still be alive—where are they now? What happened to the young sailor on the Pearl Harbor badge? We recognize some companies, such as Campbell Soup, Goodyear Tires, Frigidaire, and Heywood-Wakefield, but what happened to the Blood Brothers Machine Company or Frankoweave Incorporated?
These enameled badges that bear a swath of humanity serve as an ad hoc timeline of labor through The Roaring Twenties, The Great Depression, WWI - WWII, and the dawn of the Civil Rights Era.
Past: PICNIC: Lett-Haines | George Ohr & More
The nucleus of the exhibit centers around a rare collection of sculptural works by British artist Arthur Lett-Haines (1894-1978) and a select grouping of pottery by American master George E. Ohr (1857-1918). Picnic will have an opening reception on July 13 from 6:00-800pm and run through the summer until September 17.
Lett-Haines was an English painter and sculptor who, along with his lifelong partner, Cedric Morris, co-founded the East Anglian School of Painting and Drawing (also known as Benton End), whose students included Lucian Freud, David Carr, and Maggi Hambling. Lett-Haines was known as the "father and facilitator" of the school, and along with numerous tasks between critiquing student works and administrating, he prepared two meals a day. In the early 1960s, he started creating small personal sculptures ("humbles"), which he assembled from food waste like animal bones, fruit skins, and plant matter. Then he combined these with other found materials like tobacco tins and aluminum flashing to create odd, quirky, fantastic creatures and objet.
As we have Lett-Hanes for the picnic "meal," George E. Ohr sets the "table." Ohr, widely known as the "Mad Potter of Biloxi," was a remarkable artist whose innovative pottery approach challenged his time's conventions. His journey as an artist eventually led him to become the most influential figure in American ceramics. Ohr's artistic legacy extends far beyond his pottery—his daring and unorthodox approach to art continues to inspire contemporary artists. Among George Ohr's works are a couple of his desirable snake mugs, a bisque-fired pot with reference to the New Orleans newspaper, The Times-Democrat, and a rare and unusual match holder featuring the figure of a Brownie.
In addition to the core of the exhibition centered around Lett-Haines and Ohr, the theme of 'picnic' is complemented with additional works by Jack Youngerman, Nellie Mae Rowe, Ralph Albert Blakelock, Sanford Wurmfeld, R. E. Treubel, and a large selection of related paintings and sculpture by artists known and unknown.
Lett-Haines was an English painter and sculptor who, along with his lifelong partner, Cedric Morris, co-founded the East Anglian School of Painting and Drawing (also known as Benton End), whose students included Lucian Freud, David Carr, and Maggi Hambling. Lett-Haines was known as the "father and facilitator" of the school, and along with numerous tasks between critiquing student works and administrating, he prepared two meals a day. In the early 1960s, he started creating small personal sculptures ("humbles"), which he assembled from food waste like animal bones, fruit skins, and plant matter. Then he combined these with other found materials like tobacco tins and aluminum flashing to create odd, quirky, fantastic creatures and objet.
As we have Lett-Hanes for the picnic "meal," George E. Ohr sets the "table." Ohr, widely known as the "Mad Potter of Biloxi," was a remarkable artist whose innovative pottery approach challenged his time's conventions. His journey as an artist eventually led him to become the most influential figure in American ceramics. Ohr's artistic legacy extends far beyond his pottery—his daring and unorthodox approach to art continues to inspire contemporary artists. Among George Ohr's works are a couple of his desirable snake mugs, a bisque-fired pot with reference to the New Orleans newspaper, The Times-Democrat, and a rare and unusual match holder featuring the figure of a Brownie.
In addition to the core of the exhibition centered around Lett-Haines and Ohr, the theme of 'picnic' is complemented with additional works by Jack Youngerman, Nellie Mae Rowe, Ralph Albert Blakelock, Sanford Wurmfeld, R. E. Treubel, and a large selection of related paintings and sculpture by artists known and unknown.
Past: Herald Nix & Roger Brouard: Gilded Splinters
Herald Nix & Roger Brouard: Gilded Splinters. Nix and Brouard embrace the process—the journey as much as the destination. Finding and creating routes, acknowledging missteps along the way, and evidencing them as part of the finished work. They are interested in finding something new within something familiar, as we can often find more within boundaries than without.
Nix (b. 1951) makes daily trips to nearby Shuswap Lake, British Columbia, and uses the familiar landscape as a template for much of his work. Having the broad subject already set allows for the improvisation of oil paint onto his birch panel—an extemporaneous creation within a framework. Brushing, scraping, pushing impasto, and paint thinned out so that it seeps into the wood grain of the panel. Because Nix focuses on what develops on the board in front of him, he takes peripheral inspiration from the lake's air, light, and weather rather than faithfully recording the landscape. It is why his works always look fresh and remarkably never redundant.
On long flights to China, Brouard (b. 1946) would ink ideas for sculpture yet realized. The drawings are quietly mesmerizing—heavy, black sketchy lines, often with wite-out corrections and a keen sense of balance. Brouard is a master carpenter, but for his sculpture, he uses a saw as he uses a pen—his black-painted, cut plywood forms often have splintered edges and putty at the joints, similar to his inked jagged lines and wite-out drawings. His line has a hesitant fluidity—it is not effortlessly smooth—it allows us to see the process.
Nix and Brouard both had professional lives outside of their artistic pursuits. It's not that art came later in life; it was always with them and helped with their professional objectives, Nix as a celebrated musician and Brouard as a carpenter and entrepreneur. It is only now that life has come to their art and has afforded them this time of more sustained focus.
We are honored to pair these artists in their inaugural New York exhibits.
Nix (b. 1951) makes daily trips to nearby Shuswap Lake, British Columbia, and uses the familiar landscape as a template for much of his work. Having the broad subject already set allows for the improvisation of oil paint onto his birch panel—an extemporaneous creation within a framework. Brushing, scraping, pushing impasto, and paint thinned out so that it seeps into the wood grain of the panel. Because Nix focuses on what develops on the board in front of him, he takes peripheral inspiration from the lake's air, light, and weather rather than faithfully recording the landscape. It is why his works always look fresh and remarkably never redundant.
On long flights to China, Brouard (b. 1946) would ink ideas for sculpture yet realized. The drawings are quietly mesmerizing—heavy, black sketchy lines, often with wite-out corrections and a keen sense of balance. Brouard is a master carpenter, but for his sculpture, he uses a saw as he uses a pen—his black-painted, cut plywood forms often have splintered edges and putty at the joints, similar to his inked jagged lines and wite-out drawings. His line has a hesitant fluidity—it is not effortlessly smooth—it allows us to see the process.
Nix and Brouard both had professional lives outside of their artistic pursuits. It's not that art came later in life; it was always with them and helped with their professional objectives, Nix as a celebrated musician and Brouard as a carpenter and entrepreneur. It is only now that life has come to their art and has afforded them this time of more sustained focus.
We are honored to pair these artists in their inaugural New York exhibits.
Past: Ryder Henry: Housing Works
Ryder Henry's work explores an urban future through a lens of the past—views of a future that seemingly has already happened. Vintage cars and bikes line crushed-stone streets, a rocket shell has been converted into apartments, and turbines generate power. Nostalgia is everpresent. A sense of the "salad days." The skies are blue, the grass is lush, and the air is clean and warm. There is a calm that belies the intensity of the environment.
Henry works out these concepts first through sculpture. With an assortment of found cardboard, plastic, and various materials, he creates wonderous housing models based on an obsessive scale of 1: 213.333 and places many of these models in a city he has built in his home (which has nearly outgrown the room). Views of the city inspire the paintings.
In his paintings, he adds life absent from the model city. People here unload trucks, tend to gardens, ride bikes, bar-b-que, and socialize on rooftop decks and patios in an urban architecture that mixes the old with the new (which is also now old).
They offer a glass-half-full view of the future—not your typical Orwellian take. The works show an urban environment that is neither ideal nor oppressive—one that shows an evolution and a future that we can recognize as something not too different from our past and present.
A group of paintings entitled "The Fairgrounds" shows urban-agrarian housing works not dissimilar to Stuyvesant Town but with aquifers. The utopian community concepts are rooted in Le Corbusier's unrealized Radiant City.
Henry grew up in Austin, Texas, but has lived all over the world and his inventive architecture reflects his travels from Texas, Michigan, California, Rhode Island, to France, Lebanon and Cyprus, to where he resides now in Pittsburgh.
Henry works out these concepts first through sculpture. With an assortment of found cardboard, plastic, and various materials, he creates wonderous housing models based on an obsessive scale of 1: 213.333 and places many of these models in a city he has built in his home (which has nearly outgrown the room). Views of the city inspire the paintings.
In his paintings, he adds life absent from the model city. People here unload trucks, tend to gardens, ride bikes, bar-b-que, and socialize on rooftop decks and patios in an urban architecture that mixes the old with the new (which is also now old).
They offer a glass-half-full view of the future—not your typical Orwellian take. The works show an urban environment that is neither ideal nor oppressive—one that shows an evolution and a future that we can recognize as something not too different from our past and present.
A group of paintings entitled "The Fairgrounds" shows urban-agrarian housing works not dissimilar to Stuyvesant Town but with aquifers. The utopian community concepts are rooted in Le Corbusier's unrealized Radiant City.
Henry grew up in Austin, Texas, but has lived all over the world and his inventive architecture reflects his travels from Texas, Michigan, California, Rhode Island, to France, Lebanon and Cyprus, to where he resides now in Pittsburgh.
Past: Manhattan Beach: An Urban Summer
Steven S. Powers and Joshua Lowenfels have curated an exhibition relating to summer in and around New York City. Also dubbed "Sand, Skin, Sun & Sin," the collection is shown in a salon-style installation with works by James A. Adams, Nek Chand, Henry Ray Clark, Sanford Darling, Frederick Hastings, Charles Jarm, George Morgan, Royal Robertson, John Roeder, LC Spooner, Miroslav Tichy, James W. Washington, Jr., Nat Werner, and a selection of related anonymous works.
The impetus for the exhibition centers around an important collection of "sand paintings" by John A. Adams (1891-1967). Adams, born in Iowa, discovered the work of fellow Iowan Andrew Clemons (1857 - 1894) and was inspired and determined to figure out how Clemons created his art. Adams created detailed works from 1933 that are similar to the style of Clemons, with complex scenes of the Marquette bridge, an American eagle and flag, and a train around a mountain bend with flags from The League of Nations. Adams also "painted" a portrait of Franklin Delano Roosevelt from this period. Then it appears Adams moved to Roseville, California, and worked as a switchman for the Southern Pacific Railroad Company. He had a family and stopped the practice until he retired and resumed creating work in 1965. In his later "sand paintings," Adams worked in a more personal voice with pieces that illustrate two young boys, a large work with portraits of the astronauts Chaffee, White, and Grissom who perished in the Apollo 1 disaster in 1967. The most significant and unexpected work is Adams' magnum opus, which shows a young woman feeding three pigs. The exhibit displays Adams's paper sign that he would bring to state fairs, "SAND PAINTING. The Pictures are made of natural colored sands, and there is NO glue used at all."
In addition, the exhibition features a significant work by Sanford Darling (1894-1973) with swaying palm trees and paintings by additional artists that show waterways, islands, and landscapes. One painting shows an expansive view of Prospect Park, Brooklyn, done by an eccentric artist, Lawrence Rothbort (1920-1963), who worked en plein air and painted with pointed sticks. Works by Miroslav Tichy, The Maine Hermit, Royal Roberson, and anonymous show paintings and sculptures of scantily clad or nude bodies.
The impetus for the exhibition centers around an important collection of "sand paintings" by John A. Adams (1891-1967). Adams, born in Iowa, discovered the work of fellow Iowan Andrew Clemons (1857 - 1894) and was inspired and determined to figure out how Clemons created his art. Adams created detailed works from 1933 that are similar to the style of Clemons, with complex scenes of the Marquette bridge, an American eagle and flag, and a train around a mountain bend with flags from The League of Nations. Adams also "painted" a portrait of Franklin Delano Roosevelt from this period. Then it appears Adams moved to Roseville, California, and worked as a switchman for the Southern Pacific Railroad Company. He had a family and stopped the practice until he retired and resumed creating work in 1965. In his later "sand paintings," Adams worked in a more personal voice with pieces that illustrate two young boys, a large work with portraits of the astronauts Chaffee, White, and Grissom who perished in the Apollo 1 disaster in 1967. The most significant and unexpected work is Adams' magnum opus, which shows a young woman feeding three pigs. The exhibit displays Adams's paper sign that he would bring to state fairs, "SAND PAINTING. The Pictures are made of natural colored sands, and there is NO glue used at all."
In addition, the exhibition features a significant work by Sanford Darling (1894-1973) with swaying palm trees and paintings by additional artists that show waterways, islands, and landscapes. One painting shows an expansive view of Prospect Park, Brooklyn, done by an eccentric artist, Lawrence Rothbort (1920-1963), who worked en plein air and painted with pointed sticks. Works by Miroslav Tichy, The Maine Hermit, Royal Roberson, and anonymous show paintings and sculptures of scantily clad or nude bodies.
Past: Charles Jarm: Bodies of Work
In the early 1970s, Charles Jarm (1932 - 2021), a gay Chinese-American, lived in New York City on Mulberry Street, where Little Italy and Chinatown overlap. He was nearly forty years old; inspired, he began carving large wooden figures in his living room. The half-sized and full-sized men and women that he carved and constructed were inventive and ambitious. Photographs from the period document Jarm working naked, chiseling the nude wooden subjects flat on the floor of his apartment. Then this remarkable body of work was shelved and, in a sense, put into a time capsule only to be revealed now.
Unfortunately, we know little of Jarm’s life. He was born eleventh of fifteen children to Chinese immigrant parents who moved from Ohio to New York City’s Chinatown to open a laundromat. It is unknown if he had any art instruction. Each figure’s atypical and inconsistent construction makes us believe that Jarm was self-taught in this creative endeavor.
The figures are imposing, confident, and unlike any other figurative works that come to mind. Constructed of lumber-store bought thick pine boards, Jarm carved the figures in shallow relief and sandwiched boards to fill them out and aid in creating hidden joints where limbs are attached. The bodies are further defined with graphite to strengthen and add volume to flat details. Each figure is distinct and likely portraits of friends.
Jarm’s body of work is singular and hard to put into a “school,” though the documentation of him working naked was very much part of the Fluxus movement around him. The act and performance of creating the work appear integral to the physical work itself. Though we do not know the extent to which Jarm was involved in Fluxus, his name appears in The Gilbert and Lila Silverman Fluxus Collection Archives at MOMA and lived at a Wooster Street Fluxhouse operated by George Maciunas.
Not only did Jarm reside where Chinatown and Little Italy overlap, but his love life also mirrored it. His lifelong partner was an Italian-American named Rocco Sacramone, a music executive with CGC Records. It appears that after these years of mid-life creativity, he had a career in the daycare business and then retired to Palm Springs with his partner, where he stored the work for the last fifty years.
Jarm must have been certain that he created something solid with his inspired “Bodies of Work,” however, due to unknown circumstances, the works were never shown, time and life moved on, and the moment was lost. Timing can be a fickle mistress. Maybe the work was too against the grain, as it were for the time. It was objectively good and unlike any other sculpture around him in the Downtown art scene, which was more abstract and conceptual. In a sense, it was more like the portraits being painted by Chuck Close, but on a more personal scale.
We are honored to mount this “Bodies of Work” exhibition of Charles Jarm’s work and give him a posthumous spotlight.
Unfortunately, we know little of Jarm’s life. He was born eleventh of fifteen children to Chinese immigrant parents who moved from Ohio to New York City’s Chinatown to open a laundromat. It is unknown if he had any art instruction. Each figure’s atypical and inconsistent construction makes us believe that Jarm was self-taught in this creative endeavor.
The figures are imposing, confident, and unlike any other figurative works that come to mind. Constructed of lumber-store bought thick pine boards, Jarm carved the figures in shallow relief and sandwiched boards to fill them out and aid in creating hidden joints where limbs are attached. The bodies are further defined with graphite to strengthen and add volume to flat details. Each figure is distinct and likely portraits of friends.
Jarm’s body of work is singular and hard to put into a “school,” though the documentation of him working naked was very much part of the Fluxus movement around him. The act and performance of creating the work appear integral to the physical work itself. Though we do not know the extent to which Jarm was involved in Fluxus, his name appears in The Gilbert and Lila Silverman Fluxus Collection Archives at MOMA and lived at a Wooster Street Fluxhouse operated by George Maciunas.
Not only did Jarm reside where Chinatown and Little Italy overlap, but his love life also mirrored it. His lifelong partner was an Italian-American named Rocco Sacramone, a music executive with CGC Records. It appears that after these years of mid-life creativity, he had a career in the daycare business and then retired to Palm Springs with his partner, where he stored the work for the last fifty years.
Jarm must have been certain that he created something solid with his inspired “Bodies of Work,” however, due to unknown circumstances, the works were never shown, time and life moved on, and the moment was lost. Timing can be a fickle mistress. Maybe the work was too against the grain, as it were for the time. It was objectively good and unlike any other sculpture around him in the Downtown art scene, which was more abstract and conceptual. In a sense, it was more like the portraits being painted by Chuck Close, but on a more personal scale.
We are honored to mount this “Bodies of Work” exhibition of Charles Jarm’s work and give him a posthumous spotlight.
Past: Selections From The Peter Brams Collection oF American Folk & Outsider Art
Peter Brams has been a collector all his life. A voracious collector! In the 1980s, while still in his thirties, he was ahead of the curve collecting works by Jean-Michel Basquiat, Gilbert & George, Carl Andre, and Philip Taaffe. By the late 80s, Brams engaged in the works of William Edmondson, William Hawkins, and Sam Doyle.
In the early 90s, Brams had the courage and gumption to dive fully into American Folk Art and seek anonymous works. He felt great art needn't have a name attached to it—just the eye of a confident collector.
During this decade, he vacuumed up left-of-center 19th-century folk art and created a legendary collection (later sold at auction in 2001). Its scope was broad in one sense and highly targeted in another. Brams' openness and knowledge of art history enabled him to see beyond the conventional and appreciate objects often challenging and sometimes overlooked by more mainstream collectors. Everything he acquired had a particular quality of vision, execution, and historic surface.
What Brams learned through antique art was that time could impart its stamp on a maker's work and often improve it. With patination from use, age, and often exposure to the elements, time could enhance the integrity of the surface—make it complex and richer beyond its original state. This obsession with surface and an economy of line led Brams to form an important collection of Woodlands Indian Art.
Since selling his Woodlands collection ten years ago, Brams has revisited his love of American folk sculpture and painting.
The selections chosen for the Powers & Lowenfels exhibition reflect this return focusing on the human form encompassing works in stone, wood, concrete, and mixed media and will be integrated with choice examples from our inventory.
In the early 90s, Brams had the courage and gumption to dive fully into American Folk Art and seek anonymous works. He felt great art needn't have a name attached to it—just the eye of a confident collector.
During this decade, he vacuumed up left-of-center 19th-century folk art and created a legendary collection (later sold at auction in 2001). Its scope was broad in one sense and highly targeted in another. Brams' openness and knowledge of art history enabled him to see beyond the conventional and appreciate objects often challenging and sometimes overlooked by more mainstream collectors. Everything he acquired had a particular quality of vision, execution, and historic surface.
What Brams learned through antique art was that time could impart its stamp on a maker's work and often improve it. With patination from use, age, and often exposure to the elements, time could enhance the integrity of the surface—make it complex and richer beyond its original state. This obsession with surface and an economy of line led Brams to form an important collection of Woodlands Indian Art.
Since selling his Woodlands collection ten years ago, Brams has revisited his love of American folk sculpture and painting.
The selections chosen for the Powers & Lowenfels exhibition reflect this return focusing on the human form encompassing works in stone, wood, concrete, and mixed media and will be integrated with choice examples from our inventory.
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