FOR ART LOVERS, COLLECTORS, DESIGNERS OR ANYONE ENCHANTED BY BEAUTIFUL THINGS—THE METRO SHOW RETURNS

NEW YORK – Back after a successful inaugural year, the second edition of the METRO Show, opening for its five-day run on January 23, 2013, at New York’s Metropolitan Pavilion in Chelsea, promises a vibrantly diverse range of offerings for art-lovers and collectors of every taste, inclination, and budget. Here is a selection of highlights that will be showcased by an international roster of 34 top-tier specialists.

CONTEMPORARY ART GALORE—
WITH ROOM FOR OTHER PERIODS AS WELL

Helen Frankenthaler Snow Pines Pace Prints

Frank Stella Hark! (From the Wave Series) Zane Bennett Contemporary Art

When a show has the word METRO in its name, that explicitly communicates it’s going to be cosmopolitan and urbane—and those qualities are richly reflected in the contemporary art on offer. New York’s Pace Prints features Snow Pines, a quintessential Helen Frankenthaler work, which combines transparency, luminosity, and energy in an ingratiating combination of colors.  Technically, it is an extraordinary demonstration of Ukiyo-e style woodblock printing created by the master Japanese printer, Yasu Shibata, using 20 woodblocks and 34- water based colors and is one of several Ukiyo-e style woodcut prints by Helen Frankenthaler that Pace printed by Yasu Shibata and was published by the gallery.

Philip Pearlstein Model With Rooster and Deer Hill Gallery

Enrico Riley Man Talking With Self: Lebanon, New Haven, Montreal Fred Giampietro Gallery

From the Hill Gallery in Birmingham, Michigan, comes Philip Pearlstein’s Model with Rooster and Deer, a 1993 oil on canvas. The celebrated modern artist has long touched on classical realism but filtered it through a clinical contemporary lens. This painting is a prime example of why his talent has won world-wide acclaim.

Another giant of the art world, Frank Stella, makes appearance at the METRO Show via The Waves, a remarkable series of 13 serigraphs (inspired by Melville’s Moby-Dick) that are being presented by Zane Bennett Contemporary Art of Santa Fe, New Mexico.

The New Haven-based dealer Fred Giampietro Gallery presents Man Talking With Self: Lebanon, New Haven, Montreal, by Enrico Riley, whose provocative and idiosyncratic work places him in the forefront of contemporary painting. From another art house in Santa Fe, David Richard Gallery, arrive tapestries by June Wayne that are based of her lithographs of contemporary images. Luise Ross Gallery of New York presents Opium, a 2010 oil on canvas by Marzie Nejad, an Iranian-born artist who also happens to be an M.D. and who draws on her heritage, dreams and early-morning reveries as inspiration for her meticulously painted works. Another foreign-born artist, Anna Zemánková, who hails from Moravia, has work represented by Cavin-Morris Gallery of New York—work that lately reflects her interest in using a restricted palette for the assured and sweeping lines in her compositions. 

Vanessa German Faultless! Luise Ross Gallery

Kang Hyo Lee My House 3 Mindy Solomon Gallery

Equally compelling is the multimedia artwork that Vanessa German is showing, courtesy of the Pavel Zoubok Gallery of New York. Faultless! is another example from the artist’s oeuvre that evokes the ritual power of African fetish figures and the often painful historical illustration of race—and is in itself another example of how contemporary art keeps the METRO Show on-trend.

Steven Ford Untitled Dolan/Maxwell

Raphael Sadeler the Elder An Allegory of Lust, Greed, and Ignorance Jan Johnson Old Master & Modern Prints

On view at Dolan/Maxwell, from New York, is Unitled, a relief print and collage by Steven Ford, whose unique and innovative works are made using traditional techniques in complex ways, making printed images which cannot be repeated.  Armstrong Fine Art of Chicago reached back to the origins of Modernism with Henri Guérard’s Moon Effect on Duquesne Basin, a circa-1885 etching that betokens both early Impressionism in printmaking and early use of color in Western fine-art printmaking.

Mindy Solomon Gallery of St. Petersburg, Florida, is showing an iconic traditional Korean contemporary ceramic, entitled My House 3, beautifully reinterpreted by the master Kang Hyo Lee. But not all METRO Show art is modern or contemporary—after all, we promised something for every taste. Rounding out the rich trove is Raphael Sadeler the Elder’s An Allegory of Lust, Greed, and Ignorance, a 1588 engraving being brought to the METRO Show and the United States by Jan Johnson Old Master & Modern Prints of Montreal. This scene captivates with its rich rendering of an opulent late-16th-century interior decorated with finely-wrought silver ewers, a small bird-cage, a lute and a King Midas figure. 

OUTSIDER ART, SELF-TAUGHT AND ART BRUT

Frederick Kahler Worlds George Jacobs Self-Taught Art

Charles Dellschau Plate #4790 (Aero) Bomba Stephen Romano

Drossos Skyllas View of Athens Carl Hammer Gallery

Also keeping the METRO Show up-to-the-minute with a prevailing taste of the day is a distinguished delegation of Outsider artists. George Jacobs Self-Taught Art of Newport, Rhode Island, is showcasing a 1977 Frederick Kahler work called Worlds. Inspired by the iconography and mythology of the ancient worlds, the artist took more than a year of daily drawing to complete this ink and watercolor creation. Charles A.A. Dellschau, the American Outsider artist of Prussian birth who worked as a butcher, appears at METRO Show compliments of Stephen Romano, New York. Plate #4790 (Aero) Bomba, a watercolor, pencil and collage on paper, testifies to the exactitude and draftsmanship for which the artist is justly revered, and was drawn—amazingly—completely freehand.

A.G. Rizzoli Mrs. George Powleson Symbolically Portrayed: The Tower of Jewels The Ames Gallery

Bill Traylor Owl Just Folk

The Ames Gallery of Oakland, California, is spotlighting Outsider artist A.G. Rizzoli’s Mrs. George Powleson Symbolically Portrayed: The Tower of Jewels. Rizzoli left behind an extremely small body of work—a mere 50 colored ink drawings—of which this work is one of the most grabbing. Carl Hammer Gallery of Chicago is proud to bring to exposure a large painting titled View of Athens by Drossos Skyllas, one of the most sought-after Outsider artists, who was born on the island of Kalymnos in Greece in 1912 and trained as an accountant. Winter Works on Paper, a gallery in Brooklyn, brings forth the work of Richard Polsky, an 80-year-old former schoolteacher and self-taught artist who for the past 40 years has been producing work exclusively on handmade paper.  Just Folk of Los Angeles presents Owl, a seminal work by Bill Traylor, who was born a slave. This important piece, circa 1939, has all the attributes of Traylor’s most significant works: the use of discarded cardboard that is “seasoned” (this one appears to be from a pudding mix), the use of muted blue and red accents, and the simplicity of the subject matter itself. 

FOLK ART AND AMERICANA

Countertop Cigar Store Figure Samuel Herrup Antiques

Original Hand-Painted Sign Painter's Samples Ricco/Maresca, New York

Kiziah Sharp New Jersey Sampler M. Finkel & Daughter

All expressions of and variations on folk art continue to go hand-in-hand with the popularity of contemporary and Outsider art—as well as the ever-burgeoning interest in American history. Samuel Herrup Antiques of Sheffield, Massachusetts, has a prime example of what appeals to the history buff as well as the art-appreciator: A carved mid-19th-century countertop cigar store figure that exemplifies the importance of the tobacco trade between England and the American South during that period. Ricco/Maresca, New York is showcasing the sign-painter’s art in a tour-de-force collection of period typography and paper samples the likes of which has never seen equal. Loosely bound into five books, this piece, painted in the same hand, includes various random pencil notations “Paris 1930”.

James W. Washington Jr. Hawaiian Ai-Laiki = Ricebird Steven S. Powers Works of Art & Americana

31-Star Flag Jeff R. Bridgman American Antiques

Multi Colored Quilt with Circle Motif Stephen Score Inc

Steven S. Powers Works of Art & Americana of Brooklyn has an arresting treat at the METRO Show: five stone works sculpted by African American folk artist James Washington, Jr. Eleven years before he died, in 2000, the Mississippi-born sculptor was honored with a major retrospective at the Bellevue Art Museum outside Seattle. M. Finkel & Daughter of Philadelphia is highlighting a sampler. Made by in 1825 by Kiziah Sharp, the Burlington County sampler has all the hallmarks that have long won the highest regard from scholars, curators and collectors: highly developed, folky scenes that emphasize grand houses, numerous figures and animal life and that evidence Quaker influences.

Flag specialist Jeff R. Bridgman American Antiques of Dillsburg, Pennsylvania, has another meritorious example from his collection: A rare flag with a whimsical 31-star configuration made for the 1860 campaign of Abraham Lincoln and Hannibal Hamlin. Among printed parade flags, those made for the political campaign of President Lincoln are the most desired, and this is a particularly fine example due to its whimsical star design, attractive text and bold colors. Speaking of bold colors, Stephen Score Inc., from Boston, brings a spectacular multi-colored hand-embroidered and wool-appliquéd quilt, with a charming circle motif, initialled and dated (1897) from Pennsylvania. New York-based Gemini Antiques, Ltd. offers a rare Clown, Harlequin and Columbine Bank, circa 1905, one of 6 originals known to exist, manufactured by J & E Stevens, Cromwell, Connecticut. 

DECORATIVE ARTS

Tiffany Studios Cockatoo Mosaic Lillian Nassau, LLC

Marcel (Bloch) Dassault Wind Tunnel Model of an MB 175 Bernard Goldberg Fine Arts

Lillian Nassau LLC of New York has on view a standout example of American decorative art by Tiffany Studios, circa 1908. The work depicts a pair of crested-cockatoos in glass. This piece probably served as the prototype for a similar mosaic now in the permanent collection of the Haworth Art Gallery in Lancashire, England, home of the largest public aggregation of Tiffany glass outside the United States. Gary R. Sullivan Antiques of Sharon, Massachusetts, is featuring a circa-1815 Federal mahogany tall case clock by William Crane of Canton, Massachusetts. The piece boasts a vibrant polychrome decoration in the lunette of an exotic bird in a landscape, and the dial is framed with four corner spandrels decorated with bright gilt crosshatching and crimson details.

Weber Costello Co. Tellurium Il Segno del Tempo

Carved and Polychromed Wood Doll Garthoeffner Galler

On the other end of the time spectrum, Il Segno del Tempo from Milan, Italy features an Art Deco Tellurium which estimates the days, the months, the seasons and the phases of the moon. This very rare object was made by Weber Costello Company in Chicago Heights, Ilinois in 1930. From Bernard Goldberg Fine Arts in New York lands an unusual example of from the realm of decorative arts: A circa-1939 wooden and tin airplane model by Marcel (Bloch) Dassault.  France’s pre-eminent aeronautical engineer. Made under the duress of wartime but during a period of enormous technological advancement, this model displays a level of craft and painstaking technique more allied to fine art than industry. From the Garthoeffner Gallery from Lititz, Pennsylvania, comes a whimsical and charming carved wood figure, circa 1820, with articulated arms, original polychrome paint and detailed carved features and clothing. 

NATIVE AMERICAN, TRIBAL AND ETHNOGRAPHIC

Combat Scene from the Macnider Ledger Book H. Malcolm Grimmer Antique American Indian Art

Painted Checker Textile William Siegal Gallery

Edward S. Curtis The North American Indian David Cook Gallerie

H. Malcolm Grimmer of Santa Fe, New Mexico puts “The Macnider Ledger” center-stage. This newly-discovered Sioux ledger book, circa 1880, is an historic testament to Plain culture. Important warriors kept ledger books to record their lives and accomplishments and to detail community life and war exploits. Also appearing from Santa Fe, by virtue of the William Siegal Gallery, is a painted checker textile from the Huari Culture in Peru, dating from 500 to 850 A.D. This astonishing mantle of naturally dyed cotton is unique because of its design, which anticipates contemporary motifs by more than a millennium. David Cook Galleries of Denver has for enthusiasts of Native American culture a complete set of The North American Indian, published from 1907 to 1930. This stellar collection of 20 books and 20 portfolios is the realization of photographer Edward S. Curtis’s goal to document in text and photographs every Indian tribe west of the Mississippi. The majority of complete sets reside in institutional collections.