Andrew Wyeth: An American Icon

Andrew Wyeth (American, 1917- 2009)
Farm Horse, 1954
watercolor on paper, 21  x 28 1/2 in.

Andrew Wyeth was born in 1917, youngest son of the prominent illustrator and artist N.C. Wyeth. Andrew Wyeth began studying art in his teenage years under the guidance of his father, learning to master the mediums of watercolor—and, later, egg tempera—with meticulous technique. Some of Wyeth’s favorite subjects were the land and the people around him, both in his hometown of Chadds Ford, Pennsylvania, and at his summer home in Cushing, Maine. Farm Horse is a study for the tempera titled South Cushing, 1955 (private collection), and depicts a work horse on Frank Crute's farm in South Cushing, Maine. A longtime Maine farmer, Frank Crute represented one of the "salt of the earth" New Englanders to whom Wyeth was often drawn. When Mr. Crute noticed the artist sketching one of his retired horses grazing in an open field, he offered to put the mare in all her trappings for the occasion. The next morning, she posed in her well-worn work harness, with brass buckles polished and gleaming, befitting the pride with which farmers like Crute took in their horses. While Wyeth’s work is still celebrated today, he enjoyed a thriving artistic career in his lifetime with record-breaking attendance at museum shows around the world, and numerous unique awards received during his lifetime. In 1937, at the age of 20, Wyeth had his resoundingly-successful first one-man exhibition of paintings at the Macbeth Gallery in New York City. In 1963, President John F. Kennedy named Wyeth the first artist to receive the Presidential Freedom Award, the country's highest civilian award. In 1970, he was the first living artist to have an exhibition at the White House—in 2005, through the tireless efforts of First Lady Laura Bush, Wyeth was able to donate his painting, Jupiter, 1998, to the White House in a rare exception to a rule against acquiring works by living artists. President George W. Bush also awarded the National Medal of Arts in 2007. Wyeth was also the first living American artist to be given a major exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum of Art as well as the National Gallery of Art. In 1977, Wyeth made his first trip to Europe to be inducted into the prestigious French Académie des Beaux-Arts, becoming the first American artist since John Singer Sargent to be elected to the Academy. Three years later he came the first American ever elected to the preeminent British Royal Academy of Art as well as the first living American exhibited there. Wyeth was also the youngest person elected to the American Watercolor Society (1940), American Academy of Arts and Letters (1955), the National Institute of Arts and Letters (1955), and the National Academy of Arts and Sciences (1960). Today, Wyeth’s work is held in the collections of many major museums, including the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Museum of Modern Art, the National Gallery of Art, the Whitney Museum of American Art, the Smithsonian American Art Museum, the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, among others. In addition, Wyeth actively supported museums in the places he lived including the Brandywine River Museum in Chadds Ford, PA, and the Farnsworth Art Museum in Rockland, ME. Contact the gallery for additional information about this work: art@cavaliergalleries.com or 203.869.3664

Hans Hofmann: Pioneering the American Abstract Expressionist Movement

Hans Hofmann (1880-1966)
Suburbian, 1936
casein on panel, 20  x 24 in.

Hans Hofmann is widely known as one of the most important figures in post-war American Art.  Originally developing his artistic and teaching career in his native Germany, he moved to the United States in the early 1930’s.  In 1932, Hofmann settled in New York City and soon after established the Hans Hofmann School of Fine Arts, following a brief teaching position at the Art Students League. In 1935 Hofmann introduced the famed summer outpost of his school in Provincetown, MA. Hofmann’s influence extended well beyond his own personal artistic success, counting prominent artists including Helen Frankenthaler, Joan Mitchell, Wolf Kahn, Lee Krasner, Carl Holty,Louise Nevelson, Robert De Niro Sr., and Frank Stella among his many students.

Suburbian was painted in 1936, during the early years when Hofmann split his time between New York and Provincetown. Greatly inspired by the Cape Cod landscape, Hofmann used bold, expressive strokes of casein paint to represent lawns, buildings, and trees creating an opulent visual experience of the American landscape.

In 1944, Hofmann’s first major exhibition in New York was organized by Peggy Guggenheim and held at the Art of This Century Gallery. A decade later, Clement Greenberg organized a notable retrospective at Bennington College, and in 1957 the Whitney Museum hosted a major retrospective of Hofmann’s work. In 1960, Hofmann was one of four artists representing the United States at the Venice Biennale, and three years later a retrospective exhibition of his work at the Museum of Modern Art traveled throughout the United States and internationally.

With this great recognition, Hofmann took his place as a major and influential member of the thoroughly-American art movement of Abstract Expressionism. Today, Hofmann’s works can be found in the permanent collections of major American art museums such as the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, the Museum of Modern Art, the Tate Gallery, among many others.

 

Contact the gallery for additional information about this work:
art@cavaliergalleries.com or 203.869.3664

Spring Group Shows in Greenwich & New York

                                                Andrew Wyeth, Spring at Kuerners, 1998
                                                   watercolor on paper, 13 1/4 x 18 3/4 in.

Cavalier Galleries is pleased to present our Spring Group Exhibitions of paintings, sculpture & photography in both our Greenwich, CT and New York, NY galleries. The exhibitions showcase work by contemporary gallery artists including John Terelak, Frank Corso, Nina Maguire, Nicholas Berger, Maarten Platje, Joseph McGurl, Leonard Mizerek, Wolf Kahn, Maureen Chatfield, Louis Jaquet, John Joseph Hanright, Jim Rennert, Bjorn Skaarup, Leo Sewell, Steve McCurry, Harry Benson, Robert Farber, and Alex Cao. Also featured are important American artists such as Andrew Wyeth, Edward Emerson Simmons and Mary Cassatt. 

David Bareford, East River Idyll
oil on canvas, 36 1/4 x 48 1/4 in. 

John Terelak, Central Park Ride
oil on canvas, 30 x 40 in. 

Nicholas Berger, July 1956
oil on board, 17 x 40 in. 

Harry Benson, Jackie in Yellow Taxi, NYC
archival pigment print, 30 x 40 in. 

Alex Guofeng Cao, A Thousand Kisses Deep,
Lichtenstein vs. Warhol
mixed media on canvas, 46 x 46 in. 

Wolf Kahn, Evening on the Connecticut
pastel on paper, 20 7/8 x 27 7/8 in. 

Maureen Chatfield, Domus Arura
oil on canvas, 48 x 48 in. 

Leo Sewell, Elephant

mixed media sculpture, 13 x 14 x 7 in. 

Steve McCurry, Man in Monsoon
FujiFlex Crystal Archive print, 40 x 60 in. 

Maarten Platje, Wasp in Pursuit of Colonia, 2016
oil on canvas, 27 1/2 x 35 3/8 in. 

Frank Corso, Beach Trail, 2013

oil on board, 16 x 20 in. 

 

Mary Cassatt, Girl in a Hat with a Black Ribbon
pastel counterproof, 17 3/4 x 21 1/8 in. 

Contact the galleries for additional information about these works: 
art@cavaliergalleries.com or 203.869.3664 | 212.570.4696

Outlook - Jim Rennert's newest monumental sculpture

                    

                                                    Jim Rennert Outlook, 2016 

                                          Bronze, Edition of 3, 116 x 27 x 30 in.

Jim Rennert has had an active career as a sculptor for over 20 years. His sculptures are expressions of his experience in business; his notions of success and failure. According to the artist: "While not everyone wears a suit, I feel the themes transcend to the everyman and depict popular culture's ideas on achievement and success in an ironic and humorous fashion." 

Outlook is Rennert’s newest large scale piece, originally conceived in a 32 inch scale in 2008.  This piece stands nearly 10 feet tall, with Rennert’s signature suited figure standing atop a lifeguard chair.  The figure is show surveying his surroundings with pair of binoculars as he tries to foresee opportunities on the horizon.  Created in bronze and steel, this piece is suitable for indoor or outdoor installation.

Rennert began exhibiting in galleries in 1993, and has since gained significant recognition. He also continues to exhibit at the major art fairs throughout the US, and his work is in numerous private and public collections worldwide.  In 2014-2015 Rennert was honored with a public exhibition in New York City of his monumental sculpture, THINK BIG, which was displayed in Union Square in cooperation with the NYC Parks Department.

Contact the gallery for additional information about this work: 

art@cavaliergalleries.com or 212.570.4696

Harry Benson’s extraordinary encounter with Andy Warhol and Bianca Jagger.

Harry Benson Andy & Bianca, The Factory, New York, 1977  
archival pigment print, 40 x 86 in. 

Iconic photographs of the Beatles are perhaps the best known images by Harry Benson, but since he arrived with the band in the US in 1964, Benson has gone on to have a truly distinguished career. Over the last five decades, Benson has captured riveting images of world leaders, celebrities, artists and, crucial historical moments.  Benson’s images have been published in every major publication includingLife Magazine, People Magazine, Vanity Fair, The New Yorker, and Architectural Digest and he has had over forty one-man exhibitions of his photographs in galleries and museums around the world. 

 Harry Benson first met Andy Warhol when he came to New York with the Beatles, and photographed the legendary artist from the 1960s through the 1980’s. He was invited by Bianca Jagger—then wife of Mick Jagger—to have lunch at The Factory, Warhol’s studio, and they were then joined by fellow artists Jamie Wyeth and Larry Rivers. Warhol was snapping photographs that day as well, for his magazine,Interview, and as we see in this shot, Benson has captured Andy taking a photograph of Bianca and himself.  This unique composition includes two frames, one with Andy in focus and the second focused on Bianca. As in many of Benson's photographs, this piece has a harmonious balance of light and dark. As a photojournalist Benson not only endeavors to be in the right place at the right time, but he also has a natural talent for capturing the beauty of a spontaneous moment.  

 Harry Benson’s extraordinary scope of photographs features notable subjects including every American president from Eisenhower to Obama, Sir Winston Churchill, Queen Elizabeth II, Princess Diana, Mohammed Ali, Andrew Wyeth, The Rolling Stones, The Who, Greta Garbo, Frank Sinatra, ElizabethTaylor, and Jack Nicholson to name a few. Benson and his lens were also witness to the assassination of Senator Robert Kennedy, the rise and fall of the Berlin Wall, civil rights marches with Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., the Watts Riots in Los Angeles, the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans, and conflicts in Afghanistan, Bosnia, Pakistan, and Iraq.

                                        Contact the gallery for additional information about this work: 

 art@cavaliergalleries.com or 212.570.4696