Sunday, February 8, 2015

How to Close Down a City and Lose a Fortune!

I was in New York for Master Drawings Week and the Old Master sales and “the worst winter storm the city has ever seen” was the promise from Mayor de Blasio.   Governor Cuomo announced that Mass Transit would be totally shut down and there would be a curfew for all non- emergency vehicles.  I don’t remember this ever happening, before hardly any snow had fallen.  The promise was that by 11pm the storm would be in full force.  The warnings were so severe that I decided not to go to a benefit dinner and a couple of openings that night being concerned about not getting transportation back to the Princeton/Columbia Club where I was staying.

Jon Stewart on “The Daily Show” joked on his pre-recorded broadcast that if you were watching at the time he went on air, New York City probably no longer existed!  When I woke up briefly at 3AM I looked out the window and figured the storm hadn’t really started yet.  That was true, and at least for the city proper, it never really did.  The worst report I heard was one foot of snow and that was at LaGuardia airport.

Can you imagine?  All the theaters, and even opening nights, that were cancelled, the museums and businesses that were closed the following day because of the dire warnings.  The financial losses must have been colossal!  It was unheard of.  Of course, some years ago, everyone blamed then Mayor Bloomberg for flying to Bermuda on his own plane just before a bad storm hit New York leaving the city unprepared.

More the fool was I because most of my colleagues ignored the warnings and they were right.  We had a snowfall like we do every year at this time.  My Club, managed to stay open, clean the rooms and serve 3 meals.  Many local restaurants also remained open.  Some of the large shops opened, if a bit late.  The roads were plowed and while there was snow piled around and slush, I have seen so much worse!

What did yours truly do?  Admittedly, it was not a day to rush out first thing in the morning but I did call old friends who were in town and we had a lovely leisurely lunch at their Club, the Yale, that is in the same neighborhood. Then I headed uptown and managed to visit half a dozen dealers who were exhibiting in the annual Master Drawings New York event where individual galleries have exhibitions in their own premises or one of their colleagues.  Also, others took advantage of the opportunity and did exhibitions as well.  I was in New York for Master Drawings Week and the Old Master sales and “the worst winter storm the city has ever seen” was the promise from Mayor de Blasio.   Governor Cuomo announced that Mass Transit would be totally shut down and there would be a curfew for all non- emergency vehicles.  I don’t remember this ever happening, before hardly any snow had fallen.  The promise was that by 11pm the storm would be in full force.  The warnings were so severe that I decided not to go to a benefit dinner and a couple of openings that night being concerned about not getting transportation back to the Princeton/Columbia Club where I was staying.

Jon Stewart on “The Daily Show” joked on his pre-recorded broadcast that if you were watching at the time he went on air, New York City probably no longer existed!  When I woke up briefly at 3AM I looked out the window and figured the storm hadn’t really started yet.  That was true, and at least for the city proper, it never really did.  The worst report I heard was one foot of snow and that was at LaGuardia airport.

Can you imagine?  All the theaters, and even opening nights, that were cancelled, the museums and businesses that were closed the following day because of the dire warnings.  The financial losses must have been colossal!  It was unheard of.  Of course, some years ago, everyone blamed then Mayor Bloomberg for flying to Bermuda on his own plane just before a bad storm hit New York leaving the city unprepared.

More the fool was I because most of my colleagues ignored the warnings and they were right.  We had a snowfall like we do every year at this time.  My Club, managed to stay open, clean the rooms and serve 3 meals.  Many local restaurants also remained open.  Some of the large shops opened, if a bit late.  The roads were plowed and while there was snow piled around and slush, I have seen so much worse!

What did yours truly do?  Admittedly, it was not a day to rush out first thing in the morning but I did call old friends who were in town and we had a lovely leisurely lunch at their Club, the Yale, that is in the same neighborhood. Then I headed uptown and managed to visit half a dozen dealers who were exhibiting in the annual Master Drawings New York event where individual galleries have exhibitions in their own premises or one of their colleagues.  Also, others took advantage of the opportunity and did exhibitions as well.  Over the time I was in New York, I visited about 22 of the 34 exhibitors plus others.  It was a busy week.

The Pandora Gallery, with offices in Milan and New York had one of the most intriguing and in some ways funny, images.  In 1939 there were discussions between the German Foreign Minister Adolf Hitler and the Soviet Foreign Minister, Vyacheslav Mikhailovich Molotov to bring Russia into the Axis powers.  In this watercolor caricature, the recto and verso show the before and after of this meeting.  The latter after Germany invaded the Soviet Union.  The artist who created the caricature is Giovanni Costetti (1874-1949).

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Who knows why an image intrigues but this profile head by Pietro Fancelli (1764-1850) took my notice.  The sitter is anonymous but is thought to be a cleric.  The artist is known to have collaborated with local artists on the decoration of a number of palaces.  It was being exhibited by Richard Berman.  He lives and works uptown near Columbia University and a mid-town dealer, Kraushaar Galleries, is always kind enough to give over it’s space for this annual event.



At Jill Newhouse Gallery I found a set of drawings, which were being sold as one, by Charles-François Daubigny (1817–1878), a member of the Barbizon School, much admired by Van Gogh.  I am afraid that though he is considered a great landscape painter I could never warm up to his paintings.  These small sketches, however, I found wonderful.  The purpose of the drawings was to transfer them to etching plates and create prints.  Prints could be used to spread the artist’s work far and wide and they were also less expensive for the collector to acquire.



At the drawing dealers Nissman, Abromson, also showing at the Newhouse Gallery, I found a drawing that I am quite crazy about.  I loved it immediately and was surprised to learn it was by the Czech photographer, František Drtikol (1883–1961).  He is one of my favorite photographers that I could not afford when I was collecting in the field.  The artist did portraits to keep body and soul together but was known for his lyrical nudes with chiaroscuro shadows that gave an exciting and mysterious air to his photos.  There is always something new to learn and that someone I knew as a photographer was also a fine draughtsman was one of many take aways for the week.



This was my first visit to New York for old masters week without my own gallery.  I wanted to see old friends for fun and business and to keep in touch with my earlier fields of interest.  It was exciting to be in The Big Apple again and I have more tales to tell, but I was very happy to fly home out of the snow in New York and into the snow in Santa Fe!