NEW YORK – The Guggenheim Museum’s comprehensive retrospective of the influential American artist Christopher Wool will remain on view through Jan. 22.
From his early use of bold text and patterns to his recent abstract works created through collage, erasure and digital manipulation, Wool’s largely monochrome paintings, photographs and works on paper conduct a dynamic investigation into what it means to make a picture today.
Since his emergence in the 1980s, Christopher Wool has forged an agile, highly focused practice that ranges across processes and mediums, paying special attention to the complexities of painting. Each new work is a site of restless experimentation in which Wool continually disrupts and renews the term of his artistic production.
The survey fills the rotunda and an adjacent gallery with a rich selection of largely monochrome paintings, works on paper and photographs.
Wool was born in 1955 and grew up in Chicago. By the early 1970s he had settled in New York City, where the anarchic, interdisciplinary energy of the punk and No Wave scenes were a defining influence on his creative development. In the subsequent decade, he set out to explore the possibilities of painting at a time when many considered the medium outmoded and irrelevant to avant-garde practice.
On Wednesday, Jan. 8, at 6:30 p.m. contemporary artist Alex Hubbard will lead a private gallery tour of Christopher Wool, followed by a reception. The fee is $20, $15 for members, $10 for students. For more information, visit guggenheim.org/calendar.
This rare circa 1902 Marklin Ferris wheel features six exquisitely carved and painted gondolas. Private Collection of Jeanne Bertoia.
ATLANTIC CITY, N.J. – Bertoia Auctions of Vineland, N.J., will be showcasing a world-class exhibit of museum-quality antique toys at the March 8-9 Atlantic City Antiques Show.
JMK Shows has announced the exhibit is being personally curated by owner and co-founder Jeanne Bertoia with many of the amazing pieces coming from her personal collection as well as other prominent private collections.
Among the important and historic examples in the exhibit titled “Antique Toys – A Retrospective,” will be a rare circa 1902 Marklin Ferris wheel. Coming from the private collection of Jeanne Bertoia, this toy features six exquisitely carved and painted gondolas and center box with musical movement.
Between the years of 1890 and 1930, this German toy manufacturer was considered the best in the world. Marklin employed the best designers, painters and even engineers to create toys that were purchased by the wealthy.
Also from Bertoia’s private collection will be a charming rare blue-robed Father Christmas, which was a store window display in a German shop in the 1890s. This work of art stands 29 inches and the tree limb is actually made of feathers, which have survived in exquisite condition.
From a private collection, a set of three Dent oversized fire toys offers a glimpse into the culture and history of America. In 1898 the Dent Hardware Co. began creating the finest cast-iron toys ever made. Known for their large size – measuring between 23 and 33 inches long – these three examples are the largest horse-drawn examples. Each toy is a replica of the horse-drawn fire equipment that was use at that time.
Rounding this exhibit will be several fine examples of pre-World War II American toys as well as a grouping of character toys from the 1920s through the 1940s. There will also be cast-iron mechanical banks, a particular specialty of Bertoia. These mechanical banks, while classified as toys, were actually educational for the children as a tool to learn about money and saving it.
Finishing the exhibit will be American tin toys from the turn of the century and toy trains from the early 20th century.
The March 2014 Atlantic City Antiques Show is going “Back to the Boardwalk,” being held at the Trump Taj Mahal. Not only is this a venue befitting the exceptional antiques, fine art and collectibles that will be offered by the exhibitors, it is also the perfect venue to showcase this museum-class exhibit of some of the rarest and finest antique toys in the world.
The Atlantic City Antiques Show is produced by JMK Events. The Trump Taj Mahal is located at 1000 Boardwalk in Atlantic City, NJ. Show hours are Saturday, March 8, 10 a.m to 6 p.m. (Early buying available Saturday, 9 a.m. to 10 a.m.) and Sunday, March 9, 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. For more information, contact Allison Kohler at JMK Shows and Events, 6 Pilgrim Drive, Succasunna, NJ 07876; phone 973-927-2794 or 973-224-2797; or visit www.jmkshows.com.
ADDITIONAL IMAGES OF NOTE
This rare circa 1902 Marklin Ferris wheel features six exquisitely carved and painted gondolas. Private Collection of Jeanne Bertoia.This German Father Christmas, which stands 29 inches high, was once a store display. From Private Collection of Jeanne Bertoia.These Dent fire toys are the largest horse-drawn examples of their kind. Each is a replica of the fire equipment used at the turn of the 20th century. Atlantic City Antiques Show image.Pictured from left: Joan Mooney, executive director, Trump Taj Mahal; Allison Kohler, president, JMK Shows; Dmitri Ilyinsky, antique toy exhibit designer; Jeanne Bertoia, exhibit curator and owner, Bertoia Auctions. Atlantic City Antiques Show image.
Page 1 of the manuscript penned by Robert R. Livingston, a Founding Father of the United States of America. Keno Auctions image.
NEW YORK – Keno Auctions will sell a long-missing manuscript related to America’s independence. Discovered in the archives of the Morris-Jumel Mansion, a New York City museum, the manuscript is an urgent plea for reconciliation by the Continental Congress directly to the people of Great Britain. The intention was for the manuscript to be printed and disseminated in Britain in the hopes of gaining popular support, thus persuading the king and his ministry to redress Colonial grievances.
When the final version was published in Philadelphia in the summer of 1775, James Madison sought to find the author, writing that for “true eloquence,” this letter “may vie with the most applauded oration of Tully himself.” The answer to Madison’s question was unknown to historians until now.
Leigh Keno, the president of Keno Auctions, says that seeing the manuscript for the first time “was one of the most exciting moments of my career.” Though he has handled some of the most historically important and valuable pieces of Americana in the world, “Nothing that I have ever had the privilege of working with equals this recently discovered manuscript in terms of historical importance to our nation.”
Keno Auctions was asked by the Morris-Jumel Mansion to help find the manuscript a new home. The manuscript will be auctioned at Keno Auctions’ New York headquarters on Sunday, Jan. 26, during New York’s Americana Week. Because of the singular importance of the manuscript, it will be auctioned in a single-object sale. The estimate is $100,000-$400,000.
The document, titled The Twelve United Colonies, by their Delegates in Congress, to the Inhabitants of Great Britain, was written by Robert R. Livingston, who on June 3. 1775, was appointed by Congress, along with Richard Henry Lee and Edmund Pendleton, to compose an 11th-hour petition directly to the people, not the government, of Great Britain. Because the manuscript’s changes and additions are intact, the dignified, proud, passionate and conflicting state of mind of the Colonists at the brink of the Revolutionary War is revealed.
Until two months ago, the document was known only from its final printed version, done in Philadelphia in the summer of 1775. Emilie Gruchow, archivist at the Morris-Jumel Mansion Museum, found the 12-page original manuscript this past summer, hidden away in a folder with various 18th-century doctor bills. She recognized its importance from its stirring opening lines, as well as the date, July, 1775, and told the museum’s director, Carol S. Ward, about her discovery. Museum records indicate the document had been buried in the archives for at least 100 years, and it was thanks to the museum’s recent plan to catalog and digitalize its collections that the manuscript has come to light.
Ward is thrilled about the discovery of a founding document at the Morris-Jumel Mansion, which was George Washington’s headquarters during the battle for New York in the fall of 1776, and a place he visited later as president, “This document is such a vital part of the shaping of the United States. Finding the original draft at the Morris-Jumel Mansion truly shows how this renowned home has been a witness to history.”
Prospective buyers can examine the document by appointment or during the preview several days prior to the sale at Leigh Keno’s turn-of-the-century Georgian-style townhouse showroom at 127 E. 69th St., just steps from Park Avenue.
Michael Hattem, a teaching fellow at Yale University who is an expert on the Continental Congress and Livingston, says, “The address was part of a last-gasp attempt at reconciliation through redress with Britain, as military conflict had already broken out in Massachusetts a few months earlier at Lexington and Concord.” According to Hattem, the discovery of this document “effectively solves a 230-year old mystery regarding the authorship of the document, which can now be conclusively attributed to Robert R. Livingston.” Richard Henry Lee’s handwritten notes and edits are also present on the manuscript.
Almost a year after the manuscript was composed, the Continental Congress appointed a committee of five men to draft the Declaration of Independence. Among them was Livingston. The discovery of this document and the verification of its authorship help explain why Livingston was chosen-along with Thomas Jefferson of Virginia, John Adams of Massachusetts, Benjamin Franklin of Pennsylvania and Roger Sherman of Connecticut – to help draft the Declaration a year later.
Dr. Karen N. Barzilay, former assistant editor of the Adams Papers at the Massachusetts Historical Society, notes that “Even a subtle change in the first paragraph is revealing-the authors changed the original wording ‘We entreat your serious attention to this our last attempt to prevent their dissolution’ to the less final ‘this our second attempt'” Edited drafts of congressional documents from this time, after the revolution had begun but still a year away from independence, lend fascinating insight into the minds of its authors.”
“We are truly humbled to offer this manuscript for sale,” said Keno. “It is extremely rare in the field of historical American Colonial documents for new discoveries of this importance to turn up. When reading the draft, with its many changes in place, one gets a sense of what was going through the minds of our Founding Fathers. It really is a national treasure.”
For additional information, phone 212-734-2381.
ADDITIONAL IMAGE OF NOTE
Page 1 of the manuscript penned by Robert R. Livingston, a Founding Father of the United States of America. Keno Auctions image.
Haplocanthosaurus skeletal mount at the Cleveland Museum of Natural History. Image by ScottRobertAnselmo. This file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license.
SNOWMASS VILLAGE, Colo. (AP) – A dinosaur fossil discovered in rural Old Snowmass turned out to be a very rare beast, according to the paleontologist leading the excavation.
The bones are from a Haplocanthosaurus, a plant-eater that roamed the Earth in the Late Jurassic period, more than 150 million years ago, according to John Foster, curator of paleontology at the Museum of Western Colorado in Grand Junction.
“It’s a pretty rare beast,” he said. There are only about 10 Haplocanthosaurus known total, Foster said, so it is one of the most rare dinosaurs in the lower Morrison Formation, a unit of rock that is prolific with dinosaur fossils.
The discovery of the 150-million-year-old Haplocanthosaurus has been overshadowed by the incredible haul of bones from woolly mammoths and other prehistoric animals at Ziegler Reservoir in Snowmass Village. Foster said there is no significance to the discoveries coming only 6 miles apart. The mammoths are from about 10,000 years ago while the Haplocanthosaurus roamed the earth 150 million years ago.
Among the identifiable specimens from the Morrison, about 27 percent are the famed Brontosaurus, the lumbering giant with the tree-trunk legs and ridiculously long neck that every kid learns about in grade school. In contrast, the Haplocanthosaurus accounts for only 2 percent of the dinosaurs identified from the Morrison, Foster said.
One of the first one was discovered near Canon City, Colo. in the late 1800s and the dinosaur was named in 1903, according to Foster’s research. They have only been discovered near Vernal, Utah; Colorado and Wyoming.
The bones were first discovered by Mike Gordon in 2005. Gordon, an Aspen High School graduate, was exploring the adjacent properties owned by his mother and stepfather, Jessica and Bennett Bramson, and his grandparents, when he discovered unusual bones. Gordon was a college student at Colorado State University at the time. He took bone samples to museum staff members and college educators and learned they were from a dinosaur.
The Bramsons contacted various museums about the bones in hopes of interesting them in a dig, but early suspicions were that the fossil was from a much more common dinosaur. They weren’t interested.
At first, Foster thought they were looking at a meat-eating dinosaur, which excited him because carnivores are slightly less common than plant eaters. In one of their first digs, they pulled an 800-pound slab of rock wrapped in plaster and burlap down the hillside, removed the rock and pieced together tiny fragments of bone. It took 18 months of work to process that batch, Foster said. He compared it to working on a 3D jigsaw puzzle.
The Haplocanthosaurus is similar to the Brontosaurus, though on a much smaller scale. The Brontosaurus was roughly 70 feet long and 15 feet high at the back, Foster said, while Haplocanthosaurus was 35 to 40 feet long and up to 8 feet at the top of the back. Both had the long necks with the small head. “Proportional-wise, it would have looked fairly similar,” Foster said.
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ADDITIONAL IMAGE OF NOTE
Haplocanthosaurus skeletal mount at the Cleveland Museum of Natural History. Image by ScottRobertAnselmo. This file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license.
