Over 80 paintings offered below cost or substantially discounted Each summer, Questroyal Fine Art prepares for new acquisitions for the upcoming fall season. Unlike most galleries, they own nearly all the paintings they sell, and this unique situation allows them to give collectors a momentary opportunity to benefit. In Questroyal’s seventh annual summer special sale, running now through September 2, over eighty paintings by highly regarded American artists are being offered below cost or substantially discounted. Highlights of this year’s event include a watercolor by Milton Avery, a seascape by William Trost Richards, and a snow scene by Walter Launt Palmer. As an added advantage, and proof that Questroyal believes in the paintings they sell, the gallery promises to buy back any painting included in this event within one year of the purchase date. To browse the entire sale visit www.questroyalfineart.com/special.

 

Now through September 2, 2016

For more information on the Small Gems event, please go here: www.sternfinearts.com/smallgems.html

Rosenbaum Contemporary is presenting “Greg Lotus: Summer Day,” an exhibition of summer-themed works by photographer Greg Lotus at its Boca Raton gallery (150 Yamato Road) in Florida, from June 2 through Sept. 3. Gallery hours are Tuesday through Saturday, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Lotus’ work can be found regularly in the pages of “Italian Vogue,” “Vanity Fair,” “GQ,” “L’Uomo Vogue” and “W” magazines. He is also known for his extensive portfolio of celebrity portraits. Lotus reinterprets in his own evocative way the use of light and shadow, playing with angles and composition to enhance the graphic quality of his images. Much of his work has a retro feeling with desaturated colors. Rosenbaum Contemporary, founded in 1979, is based in Boca Raton with a second gallery inside the St. Regis Bal Harbour Hotel in Miami. The gallery caters to international collectors interested in investment-quality works by Postwar, Modern and Contemporary masters and presents nationally recognized museum-level exhibitions throughout the year. The gallery also offers a wide range of free services to collectors worldwide including acquisition advice, art consulting, sourcing of artists, art collection building and management and resale of select works of art.

Leslie Sacks Gallery is pleased to announce an exhibition of internationally renowned artist, Minjung Kim. Minjung Kim’s iconic works on handmade Mulberry Hanji will be on view. Translucent red, watercolor mountain-scapes, variegated paper collages and delicate mixed media ink compositions comprise an expressive and energetic presentation by the Korean born artist. Minjung Kim’s aesthetic is expressive minimalism with traces of 17th and 18th century Japanese ink paintings, yet these images are unquestionably contemporary[1]. The handmade Mulberry Hanji that Kim employs comes from the inner bark of the Paper Mulberry tree, which is native to Korea and flourishes well on its rocky mountainsides. Hanji, Korean for paper, is known for its durability. The oldest existing Mulberry Hanji in Korea is 800 years old. Kim’s ability to create soft, delicate imagery stands in marked contrast to the resilience of the paper. This is elegantly evidenced in Red Mountain, 2014 (above) a seemingly humble composition of an evolving spectrum of red watercolor from which a mountainous landscape emerges. The craggy strata materialize and then nearly disappear in misty, spectral peaks with dramatic density that ebbs and flows like the tide across the picture plane. Included in the exhibition are new interpretations of Minjung Kim’s distinctive paper collage compositions, as in The Street, 2015 (below). Water-colored Mulberry Hanji is burned, assembled in copious layers and collaged resulting in a dynamic interplay of light, depth and a mist of perception. Energy is channeled through the extraordinary control of Kim’s hand, her pyrotechnic treatment of the paper and the masterful synthesis of color and collage culminating into enclaves of elliptical constellations. Kim explains, “The movement, the colors, they are so calm and peaceful. They are my state of mind.” Similar to Lucio Fontana, Kim feels a need to break through and go beyond the surface, which in her medium of choice is handmade paper.[2] The work expressly conveys her philosophy that all of humanity is interconnected; paths cross at unforeseen moments, journeys collectively predestined and inexorably intertwined. Minjung Kim is Korean by birth, but has long since adopted Europe as home where she lives and works with studios in Milan and the South of France. The confluence of Asian and European influences is apparent in her aesthetic internationalist approach, which represents a highly individualized synthesis of East and West. Strains of Daoist, Buddhist and Korean thought have influenced her, as well as her experience in Western art. Minjung Kim has exhibited in distinguished museums worldwide, among them, OCI Museum of Art, Seoul, Korea, Fondazione Palazzo Bricherasio, Torino, Italy; Museo Comunale, Ascona, Switzerland; Museum Sbygningen, Copenhagen, Henry Moore Institutes, Leeds, England; Guanshan Yue Art Museum, Shenzhen, China; Museo d’Arte Contemporanea, Rome, Italy. Her work is held in the permanent collections of numerous important institutions and private collections. Leslie Sacks Gallery is located in the Bergamot Station Arts Center in Santa Monica. Gallery hours are Tues-Fri 10-6, Sat 11-6. The gallery is online at lesliesacks.com. Email [email protected] or call 310 264 0640. Hi resolution jpeg’s available upon request. – See more at: http://www.fada.org/events.html#sthash.3geoDhdD.dpuf

Fine Art Dealers Association (FADA) is pleased to announce a collaboration with Independent Curators International (ICI) in their 2016 booth at the LA Art Show. The booth will present a preview of Salon de Fleurus, a contemporary art installation based on Gertrude Stein’s Parisian salon at 27 rue de Fleurus that existed from 1904-34.

This unique and interactive booth investigates where, why and how certain narratives of modern art have emerged. It is an installation that displays and references a story of modern art’s beginnings through one of the first gathering places for burgeoning young artists such as Henri Matisse, Pablo Picasso, and Stein herself.

It was in Stein’s salon where these artists were seen exhibited together for the first time both by peers and transatlantic art experts who spread the word back home, eventually creating the American narrative of European modern art familiar today. Copies of the special LA edition of the Salon de Fleurus newspaper will be available for free and guests are invited to take a selfie in Stein’s salon and share it on social media. Cantonese and Mandarin speakers will also be on site at the booth to help answer questions for guests.

Salon de Fleurus is a traveling exhibition organized by Salon de Fleurus and Independent Curators International (ICI), New York. The exhibition and tour are made possible by Fine Art Dealers Association (FADA), and with the generous support from ICI’s International Forum and the ICI Board of Trustees.

Jerald Melberg Gallery is pleased to present Brian Rutenberg: Camellia, featuring eighteen abstract landscape paintings depicting the Lowcountry of South Carolina. While Rutenberg has explored this location many times before, this new body of work is notable because Rutenberg has simplified his compositions and in doing so has pushed them back toward the recognizable. This simplicity yields a clearer depiction: compositions suggest oaks clustered at the edge of a marsh, or toothpick-like pine trees pushing through thick underbrush. They are natural, unmarred places that could be sourced from anyone’s memory. Most of the compositions follow a basic outline: abstract, spindly tree trunks spread over horizon lines that creep from dark to light like a sea transitioning to sky on a hazy day. Colors deepen at the left, right and bottom edges of his canvases, supporting a u-shaped source of light. Depth is created in this vanishing point with velvety, paint-blended cold wax medium which is framed by paint so thick that it physically reaches out, beckoning with dimensional texture. A South Carolina native, Rutenberg received a BFA from the College of Charleston and an MFA from the School of Visual Arts in New York City. Among his numerous awards and achievements, he is a Fulbright Scholar, a New York Foundation for the Arts Fellow and an Irish Museum of Modern Art Work Programme Recipient. Since 1985 Rutenberg has been honored with over 100 gallery and museum exhibitions across the United States. – See more at: http://www.fada.org/events.html#sthash.cNsuarzp.dpuf

Leslie Sacks Gallery is pleased to present Still Water, an exhibition of exquisite works on paper by renowned California artist, Marc Katano. Born in Tokyo, Japan, Marc Katano’s paintings demonstrate a sensibility of Japanese mark making with a distinctly evident influence in calligraphy. These stunning gestural works on paper are awash in acrylic and ink. His works are emotional and expressive, without requiring superfluous meaning with an emphasis on the act of inscription. The compositions are organic, though they are not intended to emulate nature. They are inspired by the human condition and the necessity of physical expression. The practice of Japanese calligraphy underscores simple, but precise flicks of the wrist and arm to create the gesture. However, Katano defines for himself, “Each line represents nothing more than its own creation, and each piece finds meaning in the harmony of its own structure.” The organic nature of these gestural paintings is further accentuated by Katano’s deliberate paper choices. Some of the works are on heavyweight, handmade Nepalese paper. The presence of soft rag is relegated to the outermost edges exposing the paper pulp, but the predominate surface area is dense and textured. As realized in Meeting, 2015, it is weighty and impenetrable. And though purely an abstract configuration, the handmade paper delivers a coarse and mountainous landscape where the ink and paint pool and seep in wide crevasses. Conversely, others works are painted on soft, supple Onkawara paper. It is perceptibly smooth and delicate, but the sheet is fibrous and strong. The marks stain the sheet with a kind of spontaneity and chance. There exists a successful accord in Katano’s well-conceived marriage of media and material. The paper density and his application of paint and ink are not predictably fragile and careful as is often expected in works on paper. Marc Katano’s paintings and works on paper are held in numerous prominent public and private collections and institutions, including the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, CA, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, CA, Legion of Honor, Achenback ?Collection, San Francisco, CA, Crocker Art Museum, Sacramento, CA, Contemporary Museum, Honolulu, HI. Katano’s work has been exhibited at the Skirball Museum, Los Angeles, CA, San Diego Museum of Contemporary Art, La Jolla, CA, San Jose Museum of Modern Art. – See more at: http://www.fada.org/events.html#sthash.nPN7YUww.dpuf

Rosenbaum Contemporary has brought together two contemporary masters: artist/sculptor Manolo Valdés and fine art photographer Simon Procter for the exhibition “Timeless Beauty” on view now through January 2 in its Boca Raton, Fla. gallery (150 Yamato Road). Gallery hours are Tuesday through Saturday, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. “Timeless Beauty” combines the sculptures and mixed media works of Spanish artist Manolo Valdés with the lush fine art photography of Simon Procter. Valdés, inspired by such artists as Velázquez, Matisse, Picasso and Lichtenstein, uses a range of mediums including paper, burlap, aluminum, bronze and iron to create female busts and portraits, many absent of facial features, that convey an aura of timelessness. His work has been exhibited in galleries and museums around the world including the Guggenheim Bilbao in Spain. He is also the recipient of numerous awards and honors including the National Medal for Painting, Fine Arts, Spain. Procter studied fine art for many years, originally focusing on both painting and sculpture and has developed a unique style that synthesizes fashion photography with the aesthetics of classical painting. His work has been featured in V Magazine, Vogue Nippon, Harper?s Bazaar and The New York Times and is held in gallery and museum collections worldwide. Rosenbaum Contemporary, founded in 1979, is based in Boca Raton with a second gallery inside the St. Regis Bal Harbour Hotel in Miami. The gallery caters to international collectors interested in investment-quality works by Postwar, Modern and Contemporary masters and presents nationally recognized museum-level exhibitions throughout the year. The gallery also offers a wide range of free services to collectors worldwide including acquisition advice, art consulting, sourcing of artists, art collection building and management and resale of select works of art.

FADA supports Laguna Art Museum’s Rex Brandt: In Praise of Sunshine. Laguna Art Museum presents a retrospective exhibition of the paintings of California landscape artist Rex Brandt (1914–2000), curated by Curator of Historical Art Janet Blake.  Rex Brandt gained national renown for his watercolor paintings during the period from the mid 1930s to the 1990s. As a dedicated teacher of the watercolor medium, he conducted painting workshops both at his home in Corona del Mar, his summer home in the San Juan Islands off the coast of Washington, and at several international locations.

Brandt published more than ten books on watercolor painting, including The Winning Ways of Watercolor. Although he painted with other media (including oil, to which he developed an allergy), he preferred watercolor, which he considered to be the most expressive and the perfect vehicle to paint “light and air.”

The exhibition will consist of approximately fifty paintings, and will be accompanied by a fully illustrated scholarly catalogue. The title of the exhibition is his own, from a 1991 privately-published pamphlet he wrote that was illustrated with nine paintings. In it he acknowledged sunshine as the essential theme of his long career. He wrote: “Whether we are conscious of it or not, everything in the perceived world is in motion. Sunshine is the mediator, a pervasive quality in which things are lost and found, emerge and recede…”

Rexford Elson Brandt was born in San Diego in 1914. He grew up in Riverside and attended Riverside Junior College and the University of California, Berkeley, receiving his degree in 1936. The art department at Berkeley was decidedly modernist, in part a legacy of the German abstract artist and teacher Hans Hofmann, who taught there in the summers of 1930 and 1931. Brandt’s teachers at Berkeley included John Haley and Margaret Peterson, both of whom had studied with Hofmann. Brandt also studied Byzantine and Chinese art, both of which influenced his painting style and his teaching. After returning to Southern California, Brandt joined the California Water Color Society and became an active participant with artists of the American scene including Millard Sheets and Phil Dike. He was a champion of the so-called California school and organized one of the first group exhibitions of their work, in 1937. In the post-War era, Brandt eschewed literal representation except in his teaching and instead focused on complex, semi-abstract studio works in which he explored the effects of sunlight.

 

Exhibition support for Rex Brandt: In Praise of Sunshine is generously provided by Diane and E. Gene Crain; Martha and James Newkirk; Janet and Mark Hilbert; Ruth Westphal; Ken and Jan Kaplan; John Moran Auctioneers, Inc.; Fine Art Dealers Association; and Jeff and Bernadette Olsen.

 

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Shining light on legacy of Brandt-Los Angeles Times