Currier Museum of Art Presents Evolution of a Shared Vision

Started in the 1960s, the Park West Gallery masterworks collection is one of the world’s finest, showcasing artwork by Old Masters like Dürer and Rembrandt. For information on the Park West Gallery Rembrandt collection or to learn more about the artist and the art of etching, please visit the Park West Gallery – Rembrandt Collection Website >>
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MANCHESTER, NH — An extraordinary collection of prints and drawings, carefully assembled over a 50-year period by long-time New Hampshire residents David and Barbara Stahl, is on view for the first time at the Currier Museum of Art.

The earliest prints are by some of the most important old master print-makers including Dürer, Rembrandt, and Callot. The strength of the collection is in American twentieth-century prints and drawings by internationally-known artists such as Edward Hopper, John Sloan, and Reginald Marsh. Also notable is an exquisite group of impressions by German Expressionist artists George Grosz, Erich Heckel, Max Beckmann, and Emil Nolde.

As young collectors in the late 1950s and early 1960s, Barbara and David Stahl sought out the sage advice of Charles Buckley, director of the Currier from 1955 through 1964. The union of Mr. Buckley’s art historical knowledge and academic acumen and the Stahls’ passion for the arts and willingness to learn were the guiding forces from which this distinguished collection was formed.

David Stahl encourages young art appreciators to begin collecting. “When we started collecting, there were many surprising purchases made for modest sums. It’s not so easy for young collectors now, but there are younger artists working in various print media, and older artists as well, many of whose works are affordable for serious collectors of limited means,” said Stahl. “There are still opportunities out there, and the quest itself is rewarding.”

Evolution of a Shared Vision is now on view through Jan. 3, 2010.

For more information on this exhibit, please visit www.currier.org

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Related Links:

• Turner and the Masters at Tate Britain 
• The Brilliant Line: Following the Early Modern Engraver
• Park West Gallery Master Sites: Rembrandt van Rijn
• Park West Gallery Master Sites: Pablo Picasso
• Park West Gallery Master Sites: Salvador Dali

Britto Artwork Auctioned at Andre Agassi Grand Slam Fundraiser

Pop artist Romero Britto has lent his talent, energy and time to many philanthropic causes. Known for his bright colors, pop images and playful themes, Britto’s artwork reflects his unrestrained and optimistic point of view. Park West Gallery proudly offers exclusive graphic editions from world-renowned contemporary artist, Romero Britto. 
Browse the Park West Gallery - Britto collection >>
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NEW YORK, NY — In a prelude to the 14th annual Grand Slam for Children, the Andre Agassi Foundation unveiled this year’s signature piece of modern artwork designed by noted Brazilian artist Romero Britto on Friday, September 25 at the Andre Agassi College Preparatory Academy. The piece was auctioned off the following evening at the Grand Slam for Children, with all proceeds benefitting the Andre Agassi Foundation and Andre Agassi College Preparatory Academy, a K-12 public charter school in Las Vegas that strives to provide children with a first-class education.

Before the artwork was revealed, Marsha Irvin, chancellor of the Andre Agassi College Preparatory Academy, Agassi and Britto spoke about the school’s mission to transform public education as well as the significance of the artwork. Guests also had the opportunity to tour the school’s state-of-the-art campus.

Romero Britto, who is best known for his modern, expressionistic style that is infused with vibrant colors and eye-catching patterns, has dedicated himself to charitable artistic organizations throughout his career. The artist is partnering with the Andre Agassi Foundation for the second time; his work was auctioned off at the 2009 Grand Slam for Children benefit concert, headlined by Dane Cook, Daughtry, Tim McGraw, Brian McKnight and Lionel Richie at Wynn Las Vegas on Saturday, September 26.

[Source: ArtDaily.com]

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Related Links:

• Prestige Magazine Interviews Britto: Art is Too Important Not to Share
• Forbes Interviews Celebrity Artist Romero Britto
• Romero Britto Pop Art Will Adorn Miami Dolphins’ Stadium
• Romero Britto Transforms Bentley into POP Art
• Park West Gallery Artist Biographies: Romero Britto
• Park West Gallery Hosts a Benefit for Michigan’s Children

Lunar Art Has Landed in Houston

Albrecht Dürer is best known for exquisite, intricate woodcuts, engravings and etchings. The Park West Gallery masterworks collection is one of the world’s finest, showcasing rare art prints by artists including Albrecht Dürer. Browse the Park West collection >>

HOUSTON, TEXAS — To mark the 40th anniversary of man´s landing on the moon, this September the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston presents The Moon: “Houston, Tranquility Base Here. The Eagle Has Landed.” This exhibition chronicles man´s enduring fascination over five centuries with our nearest planetary neighbor. Ranging from moonlit landscapes by the Old Masters and the Impressionists, to Ansel Adams´ iconic Moonrise, Hernandez, New Mexico (1941) and shots famously taken on the moon by the members of Apollo 11, the exhibition provides a dazzling overview of five centuries of moon-gazing. In addition, early scientific instruments, books, moon globes, maps, Galileo Galilei´s 1610 treatise on the moon, and objects from NASA are on view.

The exhibition´s title is taken from the famous first words that Commander Neil Armstrong broadcast to Mission Control, at the Johnson Space Center in Houston, after Apollo 11 landed on the moon on Sunday, July 20, 1969, 3:18 pm CST: “Houston, Tranquility Base here. The Eagle has landed.” By changing the call signal to Tranquility Base, the landing site, Armstrong signaled to his colleagues back on Earth that the lander portion of their spacecraft (named the Eagle after the USA´s national bird) had set down on the moon.

On view will be works by Albrecht Dürer, Peter Paul Rubens, Aelbert Cuyp, Joseph Wright of Derby, Caspar David Friedrich, Honoré Daumier, Jean-François Millet, Charles-François Daubigny, Gustav Doré, Edouard Manet, Edvard Munch, Max Beckmann, Robert Wilson, and Sharon Harper. The oldest objects in the exhibition, such as The Virgin of the Crescent Moon (1511), a woodcut by the great German Renaissance artist Albrecht Dürer, show the moon in a religious context; the most recent artworks on view are No.5-7 from Sharon Harper´s series of photographs, Moon Studies and Star Scratches (2004).

Through approximately 130 artworks and a selection of early scientific instruments and maps, the exhibition details how mankind has approached the moon over time, both optically and artistically. Balancing artistic vision with scientific fact, major historical moments are represented, from the invention of the telescope, to the introduction of photography, to space exploration and man´s landing on the moon. Through the interaction of art and science, our perception of the planet has been shaped, and all the paintings, graphic artworks, models, sculptures, and photographs depict the same iconic subject in unique, intriguing ways.

The Moon is currently on view through January 4, 2010.

For more information on this exhibit, please visit www.mfah.org/moon

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Related Links:

• Peter Nixon’s Goddesses of the Moon
• Park West Gallery Artist Biographies: Albrecht Dürer
• Browse artwork from the Park West Gallery – Albrecht Dürer collection
• Park West Gallery Master Sites: Rembrandt van Rijn
• Park West Gallery Master Sites: Pablo Picasso
• Park West Gallery Master Sites: Salvador Dali

Park West Gallery Hosts Benefit for Michigan’s Children

The Park West Foundation supports numerous organizations committed to strengthening positive values and leadership in communities around the world. The Foundation also hosts events for many charitable organizations each year, generating significant proceeds for many worthy causes.

Exhibit honors artist who had talent — and a disease
NEAL RUBIN • THE DETROIT NEWS
September 24, 2009

I only knew Nolan Ross when he was strange. I missed the part where he was just slightly peculiar — and I had no idea how good he once was.

I feel bad about that. About flinching when he’d stop near my desk, mumble something and stare blankly at a spot on the wall above my head for an increasingly uncomfortable five minutes. About wondering why we’d hired this stiff who couldn’t even draw a caricature of a tiger, for heaven’s sake.

So maybe I’m making amends by telling everyone about the showing of his work October 3 at Park West Gallery in Southfield, a benefit for Michigan’s Children. Or maybe I’m just impressed by the persistence of his brother, Carter, who’s been trying for decades to hang Nolan’s drawings where everyone can see them.

Mostly, though, I’m astonished at the art.

Nolan Ross was an illustrator at the other paper in the ’70s and ’80s. Quiet by nature, he was largely overshadowed by some of the big names there and by people like the late cartoonist Draper Hill here at The Detroit News. In Ross’ obituary in 1997, a former editor described his work as “marvelously precise and truly daft,” which might also have described the artist.

“He was incredibly talented and odd,” says Jack Kresnak, a former reporter who’s now the president of Michigan’s Children. “It would take him a few moments to respond to your question or your statement, and it would come back to you in a slightly skewed way — not mean or unkind, because he was truly gentle and kind-hearted, but not quite on center.”

Getting his due
That was during the good times, when he was just another mild eccentric in a newsroom thick with them. By the mid-’80s, though no one knew it, he was beset with Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, a genetic brain disorder often taken for Alzheimer’s.

His dad died of it, too. Arthur Ross was a legendary GM designer whose kids graduated from Mumford High. Nolan, 54, and a resident of Livonia when he died, went on to what’s now the College for Creative Studies. Carter, 69, became a mechanical engineer in Chicago.

Carter always felt his younger brother was unappreciated. As for whether his sketches are well-enough remembered to draw a crowd, “I’m as curious as anybody else could be,” he says.

Ross has spent two full-tilt months at a computer, restoring Nolan’s originals to look more like art than like newspaper illustrations dotted with dates, coding and instructions. He’ll mount 60 of them at Park West and put 300 on slides to be projected against a wall: wine-quaffing dragons, superhero asparagus stalks, caricatures, cars, collages.

“We’re just trying to give a shout-out to a man who did great work and had a sad ending,” Kresnak says — someone whose work still speaks eloquently, long after he couldn’t.
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Michigan’s Children Art & Advocacy Benefit at Park West Gallery
Featuring the Cartoons of Nolan Ross
Details: Saturday, October 3, 7-10pm.
Tickets : $75/person. Beverages and hors d’ oeuvres will be served.
Reservations: Visit www.michiganschildren.org / Call 517-485-3500.

Download the event invitation
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Related Links:

• Get involved with the Park West Foundation
• Park West Gallery Receives Best of Southfield Award
• Park West Gallery Participates in Family Fun Day 
• Park West Gallery Supports Institutes of Higher Learning

Artist Birthdays September 28 – ALEXANDRE CABANEL

ALEXANDRE CABANEL (Sept. 28, 1823 – Jan. 23, 1889)

• Nationality: French
• Field: Painting
• Art Movement: Academicism
• ARTiFact: Together with William-Adolphe Bouguereau, his refusal to allow impressionist painter Édouard Manet and other painters to exhibit their work in the Salon of 1863 led to the establishment of the Salon des Refusés.
• Artist Quote: “I have painted the portraits of a great many Americans, the delicacy and grace and refined type of American beauty being peculiarly congenial to my pencil.”
• Notable Artwork (shown below): The Birth of Venus, 1863.

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Related Links:

• Learn more about the artist Alexandre Cabanel
• More art puzzles and trivia
• Discover more about your favorite Park West Gallery artists