New York Notes

New York in November is a hotbed of art action, but in addition to the major shows and events – Picasso at MoMA, Stella at the Whitney, Egypt at the Met and the Print Fair at the Armory – there were the smaller, personal moments that were perhaps even more memorable. Five of them follow:

1. Two short blocks from our apartment a newly attributed sculpture of a Spiritello by Donatello was displayed in a room of its own on the second floor of the Moretti/Adam Williams gallery. Upon striking up a conversation with Adam Williams’s newly employed son, we were given the hardcover catalogue, which explained the attribution, provided the history of putti in Renaissance art and discussed Donatello’s reintroduction of motion to the art of sculpture. This last essay was enthralling on its own but magnified by being written by our friend from Minneapolis Eike Schmidt, newly enshrined at the Uffizi. I might not have focused on the Donatello had I come across it in a museum – not being partial to putti – but the chance to concentrate on and learn about a single artwork was a pleasure I too seldom make time for.

2. I stopped by the Adelson Gallery on 57th Street, not to see its Picasso etchings exhibition but because it was one of the few galleries open on Monday and I was curious to see their works by Jacob Collins, who had been honored at the Beaux-Arts Ball we attended the previous Friday night. After expressing an interest in Prendergast, Warren Adelson invited us into his office to see the purported first monotype by Prendergast, which he kept on his bookshelf. As we entered the room, I was amazed to see, filling one whole wall, Caravaggio’s famous Supper at Emmaus. Actually, the famous version is in the National Gallery in London; this, Adelson said, was a second version – apparently an exact copy – that Caravaggio painted for the Mattea family, although when it comes to attributions, he commented, the world of Caravaggio “experts” is the worst rat’s nest. Adelson had the painting out for inspection by a client who was due in New York in the near future. It shone in perfect condition, and the chance to stand next to it in this unsuspected and private location was an insider thrill.

3. The IFPDA Print Fair is, we were told, the largest gathering of top print dealers in the country (or the world?), and the quantity and variety can be overwhelming, as prints are generally small and a dealer will have many on display and more in the bin. Fortunately, I hooked up with Dennis Jon, print curator from Mia who was in town and was there on his fourth visit. It was fun for me to introduce him to the dealers I knew – from Scholten, Art of Japan, David Tunick – but most fun was seeing the two pieces he hoped to acquire for Mia and giving my opinion – highly favorable – before they went to the department head, the Director and the Accessions Committee. One was a drawing by William Kentridge of an overgrown mine on ledger paper, ripe for interpretation but handsome on its own. The other was a classic image of the Mexican leader Zapata by Diego Rivera (@$45,000), which had everything you’d want, at least from a docent point of view, in a Rivera.

4. Not having read the Friday Times Arts Section, I was slightly surprised when I ran into Met curator Monica Bincsik at Erik Thomsen’s gallery to learn that the Burke Collection had already gone on display at the Met; so I hustled over on Saturday, our last day in New York. Upon entering the gallery I was given a headphone and told that the tour would begin in ten minutes. It turned out that John Carpenter, the Met’s Japanese department head, was introducing the Burke items to the public, so I tagged along for an engaging hour. I knew enough that most of what I heard was familiar, but I appreciated the reinforcement, both about Japanese art and Mary Burke. I stuck around after the tour and had a nice conversation with him about the Burke gift and Santa Barbara. Most memorably, he crafted his opening remarks to reflect the tragedy in Paris the day before, comparing the destruction from religious zealotry to the 1180 war between clans in Japan that wiped out so much art but then led to the replacements by Kaikei and others that the Met now owned.

5. Dominique Levy on Madison at 73rd is one of several nearby galleries that seems to regularly put on museum-quality shows, in order to show off one or two high-priced works that are for sale. Mnuchin, on 78th, had a show of Carl Andre and contemporaries that I visited twice, and Acquavella and Skarstedt on 79th are others. We were alone, however, when visiting the Robert Motherwell exhibition at Levy, so I had no qualms about interrupting a man behind a back-room desk to ask how the gallery was able to get the Metropolitan, the Hirshhorn, the Philadelphia Museum and others to lend their large iconic Elegies to the Spanish Republic for this show. He then proceeded to give us a quick education on what this subject meant to Motherwell, and why he returned to it throughout his career (the works spanned the years 1954 to 1974, I think). Again, it allowed us to concentrate, not on a single work but on a single theme as it was reinterpreted over and over.

There were other nice moments: on my first visit to Michael Altman Fine Art, where an interesting Winslow Homer show was hanging, I found my law-school roommate Spencer Hays’s name above mine in the guest register. In Chelsea we visited the Curator Gallery, saw a nice show of romantic landscapes, and discussed owner Ann Moore with the gallery director. At Marlborough, another Monday visit, we chatted with the director and saw a survey of Jacques Lipschitz’s sculpture that was a nice counterpoint to the Picasso, with impressive Beverly Peppers on the patio outdoors. And nothing beats buying: there was nothing of interest, sadly, at the American auction viewings, but I found a bird print by Koson at the print fair to round out my holdings in that area, and Erik Thomsen had some lovely bamboo baskets by Tanabe Chikuunsai, which I will try for tomorrow, to cap a busy and productive trip.