Pat Adams

Extended Alike

1969

Charmion von Wiegand Pillar of Zen #124, 1959 Gouache on paper painting Hand signed, titled and dated on the front Unique Provenance: Andre Zarre Gallery, with label verso (Estate of renowned gallerist Andre Zarre, ne Andre Sowulewski) Measurements: Framed 26.5 inches vertical by 25.5 horizontal by 2 inches Artwork: 21 inches vertical by 22 inches horizontal Mid century modern, geometric, spiritual abstraction, mystical The Estate of the celebrated artist Charmion Von Wiegand has been represented exclusively by Michael Rosenfeld Gallery since 1998. From March 3 to August 13, 2023, Charmion Von Wiegand was the subject of an acclaimed retrospective at the Kunstmuseum Basel, and she has received major attention in the price, including a June, 2023 ArtNews feature entitled, "Who Was Charmion von Wiegand and Why Is She Important?". Her work was also featured in a solo presentation by Rosenfeld Gallery at the New York Art Show held at the Park Avenue Armory, which also received critical acclaim. Artists Biography - courtesy of Michael Rosenfeld Gallery: Known for her vibrant, geometric paintings that originate a deeply personal language of spiritual enlightenment expressed through a constructivist mode of abstraction, Charmion von Wiegand (1896–1983) was born in Chicago but spent much of her childhood traveling. The daughter of a journalist for Hearst, von Wiegand eventually settled in New York in 1915 to attend Barnard College and Columbia University, where she took classes at the School of Journalism while nurturing a growing interest in art history. In 1925, von Wiegand realized that she wanted to be an artist and set up a studio in Greenwich Village, teaching herself how to paint while pursuing a career as a journalist. In 1929, she secured a position in Moscow as a foreign correspondent for Hearst, the only woman at the desk at the time. In 1932, von Wiegand returned to New York and married Russian émigré Joseph Freeman, who co-founded and edited the leftist journal New Masses. Von Wiegand began writing art criticism for New Masses as well as for other publications, including New Theatre, ARTnews, and Arts Magazine. When the Abstract American Artists (AAA) held their inaugural exhibition, von Wiegand reviewed it. An early champion of abstract art, von Wiegand became close friends with AAA founder Carl Holty. In 1941, Holty introduced von Wiegand to Piet Mondrian, who would have a profound impact on her art. Fascinated by Mondrian’s artistic philosophy, von Wiegand played a key role in the introduction of his work to American audiences, translating many of the Dutch artist’s writings into English and assisting in the composition of his influential article “Toward the True Vision of Reality” (1941). Through her friendship with Mondrian, von Wiegand re-kindled her interest in Theosophy (a religion established in the late 19th century that combines aspects of Hinduism, Buddhism, occultism, and esotericism) and embarked on an extended study of neoplasticism. In her artwork, she incorporated Mondrian’s iconic grid but rejected the constraints of pure neoplasticism and embraced a wide range of influences including surrealism and German expressionism. In 1942, von Wiegand became a member of the AAA, exhibiting regularly with the group and eventually serving as its president from 1951 to 1953. In the late 1940s, sculptor and fellow AAA member Ibram Lassaw gave her a translation of The Secret of the Golden Flower: A Chinese Book of Life, which inspired von Wiegand to immerse herself in a study of Buddhist art. She began incorporating Buddhist motifs such as stupas and mandalas into her paintings, and her spiritual practice steadily intensified throughout the 1950s. In 1953, her husband gifted her a copy of the Taoist I Ching Book of Changes, a guide for divining meaning from randomly derived numbers arranged in a hexagram—a form the artist readily incorporated into her painting. Von Wiegand’s study of Theosophy also intensified over these years, bolstered by her increased access to the religion’s primary sources composed by the religion’s founders and their successors at the New York Theosophical Society’s library. Von Wiegand’s search for the sacred and transcendent ultimately led her to Tibetan Buddhism and, in 1967, von Wiegand met Khyongla Rato Rinpoche, a Gelugpa monk who had recently arrived in New York, who would mentor her spiritual study in the tradition of Mahayana Buddhism until her death. Her travels in the 1960s and 1970s took her to Tibet and India, where she had an audience with the Dalai Lama, who was living in exile in Dharamsala. Many works from these decades incorporate symbols and schematics drawn from Theosophical prismatic color charts, Chinese astrology and tantric yoga. In 1978, she was the subject of a PBS documentary titled The Circle of Charmion von Wiegand, which was scored by Philip Glass. In 1980, von Wiegand was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Letters and in 1982, the Bass Museum of Art in Miami Beach (FL) organized her first retrospective exhibition. She died the following year in New York, bequeathing her estate to Khyongla Rato and the Tibet Center of New York. In 1998, Michael Rosenfeld Gallery became the sole representative of her estate and has presented her work in four solo and multiple group exhibitions. Recent notable exhibitions that have included her work are The Third Mind: American Artists Contemplate Asia (Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, NY, 2009) and Constructive Spirit: Abstract Art in South and North America (Newark Museum, NJ, 2010). In March 2023, the Kunstmuseum Basel (Switzerland) opened the first comprehensive museum retrospective of von Wiegand’s work in Europe. Von Wiegand’s work is represented in numerous museum collections including the Addison Gallery of American Art, Phillips Academy (Andover, MA); Albright-Knox Art Gallery (Buffalo, NY); Arithmeum, University of Bonn (Germany); Birmingham Museum of Art (Alabama); Blanton Museum of Art, The University of Texas at Austin; Brooklyn Museum (NY); Carnegie Museum of Art (Pittsburgh, PA); The Cleveland Museum of Art (OH); Indianapolis Museum of Art (IN); Fondazione Marguerite Arp (Locarno, Switzerland); Museum of Fine Arts, Boston (Massachusetts); The Metropolitan Museum of Art (New York, NY); The Museum of Modern Art (New York, NY); Newark Museum of Art (New Jersey); Seattle Art Museum (WA); Smithsonian American Art Museum (Washington, DC); Walker Art Center (Minneapolis, MN); Weatherspoon Art Museum, The University of North Carolina at Greensboro; Wellin Museum of Art at Hamilton College (Clinton, NY); Whitney Museum of American Art (New York, NY); and Yale University Art Gallery (New Haven, CT). More about gallerist Andre Zarre A tribute in the New Criterion: Dispatch August 11, 2020 Andre Zarre, 1942–2020 by Dana Gordon On the late New York gallery pioneer. Art should never be aggressively explained; art should be felt. —Andre Zarre, 1977 Often, in the starlit New York cultural mecca, a longtime important figure fades away through the penumbra and dies without notice. Such was the fate of Andre Zarre, the contemporary art dealer, who passed away a few weeks ago. Andy, as he wanted friends to call him, opened his eponymous gallery in 1974 just off Madison Avenue on Sixty-ninth Street. He soon moved it to the omphalos of the art world in that era, 41 East Fifty-seventh Street, the Fuller Building. Over the years he moved to SoHo and then to Chelsea, as fashion and real estate prices pushed the art souk hither and thither. To understand his importance, all you need do is take a look at a list of artists who had solo shows at the Andre Zarre Gallery. This includes such names, from an early generation, as Sonia Delaunay, Nassos Daphnis, Sari Dienes, and Perle Fine. Among a subsequent generation are Pat Lipsky, Jay Milder, Thornton Willis, and Kes Zapkus.1 And this list does not include the many knowns and unknowns who were in his lively group shows. Zarre had a real “eye” and was a champion of abstract art from the moment he founded his gallery—even among the gathering storms of conceptual and political art, which he eschewed. He showed a good deal of figurative art as well. His galleries were always spacious and unpretentious, oriented simply to show the art. In the words of Dee Shapiro, who showed with the Zarre gallery many times, “He had a photographic memory and knew a lot about art and was always interested in the artist’s life.” Reliable biographical information on Zarre is scarce, but he said of his background that he was born in Poland in 1942 and that his parents were a diplomat and a socialite. He left home for the United States at the age of fifteen. During his decades as an art dealer in New York, Zarre did not appear to accumulate wealth, though he acquired a collection and lived on Park Avenue. “He was not personally aggressive in that way. People had to come to him,” Dee Shapiro said. He was honest in his financial dealings with artists, which not all art dealers are. For a long time while running the gallery he had a second job as a supervisor in an airline office and he kept little to no additional staff in the gallery. He supported a brother who remained in Poland. Among artists, Zarre was known to be quite ornery. After my show at his gallery in 1997, I refused to enter it for seventeen years. Then I ran into him in Chelsea and he offered me another show, an opportunity I gladly accepted, but he remained just as disagreeable. He showed the work of many women, probably more than any other gallery, save those devoted to showing only women. Collectors, curators, and writers found him mostly friendly. As Peter Reginato put it, Zarre was a “strange guy but I liked him. I think he was a dealer who was more interested in the art than in making money, but somehow he lasted forty-plus years.” Zarre is not known to have kept extensive or extant records of his gallery’s long history, though these may emerge in time. Scouring the Internet, one may compile a partial list of more than eighty artists who had solo shows at the Andre Zarre Gallery:Nancy Azara, Ellen Banks, Mary Barnes, Tony Bechara, Juan Bernal, Stephanie Bernheim, Randy Bloom, Elena Borstein, Michael Boyd, Fritz Bultman, Ed Buonagurio, Yoan Capote, Sonia Delaunay, Nassos Daphnis, Cathy Diamond, Sari Dienes, Joseph Dolinsky, Beata Drozd, Ronnie Elliot, William Fares, Perle Fine, Lynne Frehm, Ben Georgia, Mikel Glass, Dana Gordon, Juanita Guccione, Fred Gutzeit, Don Hazlitt, Amy Hill, Clinton Hill, Monroe Hodder, Budd Hopkins, Arlan Huang, Richard Hunt, Rhia Hurt, Buffie Johnson, Alexander Kaletski, Robert Kaupelis...

Charmion von Wiegand Intersecting Magic Square, ca. 1963 Gouache on paperboard Signed and titled on the back of the artwork. The signature shown on the frame back is a photo of the actual signature on the artwork itself. Frame Included: elegantly floated and framed in hand made white wood museum frame with UV plexiglass This work is signed and titled on the back of the artwork itself. The signature shown on the back of the frame is a photo of the actual signature, since the actual pencil signature and title is on the artwork itself, which can't be seen within the frame Measurements: Frame: 21 x 17 x 1.5 inches Artwork: 18 x 14.25 inches The Estate of the celebrated artist Charmion Von Wiegand has been represented exclusively by Michael Rosenfeld...

Steven Sorman In Real Time, 2003 Acrylic, gouache, gel medium, oil and beeswax collage painting on paper 48 × 34 inches Signed and dated 2003; The frame also bears the original label...

Jack Wolfe Untitled, 1965 Acrylic and collage on board Hand signed on the front Frame included: held in original vintage frame with original gallery label Unique Provenance: Parker Street 470 Gallery, Boston, Mass (with label verso) Excellent abstract expressionist mixed media work. Measurements: Image: 17" x 24" Framed: 24" x 28" x 1" From Wiki: Jack Wolfe (14 January 1924 – 18 November 2007) was a 20th-century American painter most known for his abstract art, portraiture, and political paintings. Jack Wolfe was born in Omaha, Nebraska on January 14, 1924, to Blanche and Everett L. Wolfe. Soon after his birth, his family moved to Brockton, MA. At 18, Wolfe had an interest in commercial illustration, which he pursued at the Rhode Island School of Design (RISD). However, upon matriculating at RISD in 1942, he developed an interest in fine art and painting inspired by an exhibition of modern French art. He described this change of direction, explaining that, "One day, for the first time, I saw an exhibition of modern French art. It was like being struck by lightning." He became particularly interested in the work of a number of European modernists, including Rouault, Cézanne, Braque, Modigliani, and Picasso.[1] Following his time at RISD, he pursued a Master’s in Fine Arts degree at the Museum of Fine Arts School in Boston, MA. At the Museum School, Wolfe studied under the renowned Expressionist Karl Zerbe, a German-born artist who was the Museum School's most influential and vital teacher until 1953.[2] After graduating from the Museum School, Wolfe was represented by the Margaret Brown Gallery in Boston, which also represented many other cutting edge Moderns that defied the more conservative tastes of New England collectors at the time, including György Kepes, Congur Metcalf, and Alexander Calder.[3] Career and Museum Representation Jack Wolfe's painting "Robin's Rock" 1962, 72" x 72" Jack Wolfe's artwork received early recognition from a number of organizations and was consistently featured in influential exhibitions, including the 1955 Carnegie International at the Carnegie Institute in Pittsburgh, PA, the American Federation of Art's traveling exhibition New Talent in the USA in 1956-57, the Whitney Museum’s Young America exhibition in 1957,[4] the Boston Institute of Contemporary Art's Selection exhibition in 1957,[5] and both the Whitney Museum’s 1958 Annual exhibition and its Forty Artists Under Forty show in 1962-63.[6] In 1959, his widely acclaimed Portrait of Abraham Lincoln toured Europe in a show circulated by the Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston. In addition, his painting Crucifixion was chosen by the United States Information Agency to be exhibited across Europe, including being shown at the Salzburg Biennial in Austria in 1958.[7] Crucifixion was also exhibited at the Whitney Museum and subsequently displayed in the National Cathedral in Washington, DC, in 1958.[8] In 1966-67, his work was selected for Art for Embassies by the U.S. State Department.[9] He received the first annual Margaret Brown Memorial Award for high achievement by a New England Artist from the Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston, in 1958.[10] With his future as one of the great artists of his time laid out neatly before him, Wolfe moved to New York in the early 1950s, which was then the postwar epicenter of the art world and in the midst of experiencing the first real revolution in American Art, now known as Abstract Expressionism.[11] However, almost immediately upon his arrival, he became disenfranchised with the overtly commercial nature of the art scene there, spurning fame and security in an unwillingness to bend his creative vision to the expectations of others.[12] After four short months, he left New York, returned to Massachusetts where he bought property in Stoughton, cleared the land, and built both his home and studio with his own two hands. He would go on to live and paint there, extensively exhibiting and garnering constant critical acclaim.[13] Wolfe became one of the earliest artists championed by the deCordova Museum in Lincoln, MA and the Institute of Contemporary Art in Boston. He was awarded a traveling scholarship in 1958,[6] which allowed him to set up studio in San Miguel de Allende, Mexico and then in San Francisco, California.[14] Upon his return in 1959, the deCordova museum hosted Wolfe’s third solo exhibition, featuring work made during his time in California...

These new small-scale paintings were created using gouache on handmade paper. Alexandra Rutsch Brock then “drew” with a sewing machine using various colored threads. Using the thread as a painted line, playing with the marks and motifs the machine allows that creates contrast in both surface and color. They are sewn directly with no preliminary sketches, just instinctive gesture, sometimes in a similar color to enhance a texture, other times contrasting as a new element. The entangled threads that dangle down emphasize the materiality. Working so closely to the surface, she is aware of the senses of seeing, breathing, touching and feeling……………escaping into these new surfaces. Alexandra Rutsch Brock has exhibited in solo and group shows most recently at The Keck School at USC, CA, The Painting Center, NY, Village West Gallery, NJ and Misericordia University, PA. Her work has been featured in Studio Visit Magazine SV Vol44. Her recent co-curations include “HyperAccumulators” with Elizabeth Saperstein at Pelham Art Center, NY and “Among Friends” project with artists Patricia Fabricant and Beth Dary...

These new small-scale paintings were created using gouache on handmade paper. Alexandra Rutsch Brock then “drew” with a sewing machine using various colored threads. Using the thread as a painted line, playing with the marks and motifs the machine allows that creates contrast in both surface and color. They are sewn directly with no preliminary sketches, just instinctive gesture, sometimes in a similar color to enhance a texture, other times contrasting as a new element. The entangled threads that dangle down emphasize the materiality. Working so closely to the surface, she is aware of the senses of seeing, breathing, touching and feeling……………escaping into these new surfaces. Alexandra Rutsch Brock has exhibited in solo and group shows most recently at The Keck School at USC, CA, The Painting Center, NY, Village West Gallery, NJ and Misericordia University, PA. Her work has been featured in Studio Visit Magazine SV Vol44. Her recent co-curations include “HyperAccumulators” with Elizabeth Saperstein at Pelham Art Center, NY and “Among Friends” project with artists Patricia Fabricant and Beth Dary...

These new small-scale paintings were created using gouache on handmade paper. Alexandra Rutsch Brock then “drew” with a sewing machine using various colored threads. Using the thread as a painted line, playing with the marks and motifs the machine allows that creates contrast in both surface and color. They are sewn directly with no preliminary sketches, just instinctive gesture, sometimes in a similar color to enhance a texture, other times contrasting as a new element. The entangled threads that dangle down emphasize the materiality. Working so closely to the surface, she is aware of the senses of seeing, breathing, touching and feeling……………escaping into these new surfaces. Alexandra Rutsch Brock has exhibited in solo and group shows most recently at The Keck School at USC, CA, The Painting Center, NY, Village West Gallery, NJ and Misericordia University, PA. Her work has been featured in Studio Visit Magazine SV Vol44. Her recent co-curations include “HyperAccumulators” with Elizabeth Saperstein at Pelham Art Center, NY and “Among Friends” project with artists Patricia Fabricant and Beth Dary...

These new small-scale paintings were created using gouache on handmade paper. Alexandra Rutsch Brock then “drew” with a sewing machine using various colored threads. Using the thread as a painted line, playing with the marks and motifs the machine allows that creates contrast in both surface and color. They are sewn directly with no preliminary sketches, just instinctive gesture, sometimes in a similar color to enhance a texture, other times contrasting as a new element. The entangled threads that dangle down emphasize the materiality. Working so closely to the surface, she is aware of the senses of seeing, breathing, touching and feeling……………escaping into these new surfaces. Alexandra Rutsch Brock has exhibited in solo and group shows most recently at The Keck School at USC, CA, The Painting Center, NY, Village West Gallery, NJ and Misericordia University, PA. Her work has been featured in Studio Visit Magazine SV Vol44. Her recent co-curations include “HyperAccumulators” with Elizabeth Saperstein at Pelham Art Center, NY and “Among Friends” project with artists Patricia Fabricant and Beth Dary...