Maine Antique Digest March 2015

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10-D Maine Antique Digest, March 2015
- SHOW -
The horses rode in for the 18th Boston International Fine
Art Show (BIFAS), held November 13-16, 2014, at
the Cyclorama. They welcomed guests to the preview
party that benefited the Friends of the Boston Park Rangers
Mounted Unit. There were two, Mystic and Winston, who
greeted visitors with the courtliness that befits their station.
The mounted unit patrols the nine parks of Boston’s Emerald
Necklace, and when budgetary constraints caused it to be cut
from the city’s budget, the Friends of the Boston Park Rang-
ers Mounted Unit was formed to support the horses Mystic,
Winston, Frederick, Jacob, Liberty, and Baron.
The art for sale was largely 19th and 20th century, with a
few outliers on both ends. Sales were across the board.
Emerge Fine Art came from Cary, North Carolina, with
work by Abstract Expressionist Piero Zuccaro (b. 1967),
who is exhibited internationally and manifests the influence
of his native seaside Catania. His paintings are layered and
dense. His 2013 oil on canvas Interno, a 60" x 48" oil on
canvas, from his series “Incerto e Oscillante,” was tagged
$18,500; two smaller works in oil on pastel from the same
series each measured 12" x 16" and were priced at $3400.
Emerge also showed work by regional artists Anne Mar-
chand and Bob Rankin.
Portland, Maine, gallery Roux & Cyr International
Fine Art showed Ingrid Christensen’s 30" x 30" Test
Bikini, tagged $1140. The seascape Curling, a 24" x 48"
oil on canvas by Minnesota-born Robert Hagberg, was
priced at $20,000; and House in Moshav, a 27" x 39"
oil on canvas by Moldova-born artist Peter Gluzberg
(b. 1952), was tagged $6200.
Bowersock Gallery, Provincetown, Massachusetts, and
Mount Dora, Florida, showed several of ceramicist Susan
Anderson’s porcelain “Triple Leaf” works that were sprin-
kled across the booth. Christopher W.A. Pothier’s oil on
panel The Innocence of Youth, 24" x 36", depicts a young
boy in a cowboy suit with a rifle and wearing an oversize
cowboy hat. Bowersock has brought other Pothier works to
BIFAS for several years, and they are well received.
Todd Bonita’s oil on panel portrait of cows (24" x 36") was
tagged $5200. Bowersock saw early sales of two works by
Marilene Sawaf, who creates peopled landscapes that reflect
life in her birthplace, Alexandria, Egypt, and in Italy and
Lebanon, in oil, casein, acrylic, ink, and gouache. Meghan
Howland (b. 1985) was represented by two oil on canvas flo-
ral images: Mega Flora, 60" x 48", and Sleeper, 36" x 48".
Even though her gallery is a few blocks away on Newbury
Street, Martha Richardson’s booth is generally filled with
old and new clients. She brought work by John Wilson (b.
1922), whose 14½" x 9¼" x 8¾" bronze Father and Child
Reading went out to a museum on approval after a curator
saw it at BIFAS. The signed, dated, and stamped “3/10”
work is a maquette for the large-scale sculpture at Roxbury
Community College in Boston.
Everett Shinn (1876-1953) was represented by his 1903
Actress and Parasol, a 16¾" x 20½" pastel on board that had
descended in the family. Shinn’s red chalk on artist board
Group of Women, Summer Leisure, 64½" x 19½", was signed
and dated 1913 and tagged $35,000.AnAiden Lassell Ripley
(1896-1969) watercolor on paper, Waiting Gondolas, Venice,
15½" x 19¼", was signed and dated and tagged $9800. Rich-
ardson also showed Sunset on the River, 12 1/8" x 15½", by
John Leslie Breck (1860-1899) and Provincetown Rooftops
by Henry Webster Rice (1853-1934).
Adelson Galleries, Boston, hung its booth with paintings
by Jamie Wyeth (b. 1946). The artist’s Strawberry Short-
cake, a 2004 work of combined media on paper (29¼" x
22"), featured seagulls swirling and calling over an improb-
able yellow plate of strawberry shortcake in the lower right
of the image. It was tagged $250,000. Wyeth’s 2010 Raven
Pair, Brandywine, 9½" x 17", made with combined media
on archival rag board, was $75,000, and New Hay, a 21 2/3"
x 28" combined media on three-ply white Strathmore paper
depicting a Maine coon cat at rest was $250,000.Wyeth’s
drypoint etching S.O.S., 15 5/8" x 19¾", depicting a rooster
roosting in an S.O.S. carton, sold during the show, and other
works attracted serious interest.
Susanna J. Fichera of Fichera Fine Art, Arlington, Massa-
chusetts, and Bowdoinham, Maine, placed Three Riders, a
40" x 30" acrylic on canvas by Nicholas Davis (1937-1983),
front and center in her booth. It was tagged $9500. Fichera
sold a Bridget Riley (b. 1931) serigraph from the 1971 com-
pilation “Conspiracy: The Artist as Witness” to a collector
who was also interested in Mother and Child, 24" x 18", by
Romare Bearden (1911-1988), from the same series.
One couldn’t help wondering what the museum visitor
was thinking as he gazed intently at the marble in the oil on
canvas MuseumEpiphany VI (50" x 33") byWarren Prosperi
(b. 1949). Hung on the walls of the Vose Galleries booth, it
did attract some speculation. Also in the booth was an Elliott
Offner (1931-2010) bronze, Spiraling Fish, 17½" x 8½" x
8¾", signed and dated 1996 and tagged $11,000.
Vose also showed the oil on canvas The Pink Kimono,
34½" x 25 7/8", by Isaac Henry Caliga (1857-1934), which
dates to 1915-20.There was also Edna, a 17 7/8" x 14 7/8"
oil on canvas by William McGregor Paxton (1869-1941)
and a pastel by Liz Haywood-Sullivan, Fireflies, a 24" x 24"
view of the New York skyline as seen from an Amtrak train
en route to Boston.
Center Street Studio, Milton Village, Massachusetts,
prints and publishes contemporary work by established and
emerging artists. Richard Ryan (b. 1950) is a stalwart of the
gallery, and his 2014 woodcut Bird in Tree, 56" x 36", was
available pre-publication for $5000. Examples from Ryan’s
“Poppy” series were also on view. The 2007 color wood-
cut Nine Blue Poppies (a 54" x 40" image), from an edi-
tion of 25, was tagged $6000 as was Nine Black Poppies,
2008, with the same dimensions and also an edition of 25. A
GeorgeWhitman (b. 1944) 2010 untitled etching (40" x 36")
with chine collé, depicting an elephant’s head with soulful
eyes, was also for sale.
Quantum Contemporary Art came from London with
work by artists such as Ronald Lawson (Scottish, b. 1960)
and Bulgaria-born StilianaAlexieva, whose Light over Aran
and Evening Approaches were 48" x 30" oil and mixed
media on aluminum panel scenes of layered clouds above
flat marshes. Alexieva represented several strong sales for
the gallery. Although their traditions differ, Lawson and
Alexieva both create evocative images set amid endless sky
and space. Vanessa Whitehouse was represented by several
of her trees painted on Perspex, and they, too, sold. In an
e-mail several days after the show closed, gallery principal
Tara Williams wrote, “Our first time exhibiting in Boston,
what a great city! The fair is in a wonderful venue and lovely
organizers. We were very happy with the response to our
work and the sales we made.”
Rhinebeck, New York, dealer Albert Shahinian showed
Ice on the Creek/Red Fox, a 24" x 36" oil on linen by Hud-
son Valley artist James Coe (b. 1957) that was tagged $8000.
Shahinian also represents Hudson Valley artist Polly M.
Law, whose bricolage series “Esopus Mystics” uses bits
of the natural landscape from the area where she lives and
works. A bricolage with feathers, Mombaccus Dreamer,
was tagged $4000, and One Twin Sees Only the Future, The
Other Sees Only the Past was priced at $2000. A bricolage
with bones, Spring Ritual, was tagged $4800.
Lawrence Fine Art came from East Hampton, New York,
with Moses Soyer’s oil on canvas Seated Ballerina (22" x
16"), which dated from about 1940. Tagged $8500, it sold
early in the show. Days later Howard Shapiro noted in an
e-mail that he could have sold the picture several times
over at the Boston show. A selection of Iowa-born artist
Jeffrey Neumann’s paintings of roadside America icons
included Red Rooster II, a 24" x 36" oil on canvas of a ham-
burger stand in Brewster, NewYork, and Hot Diggity Dogs ,
a 2011 28" x 40" oil on canvas view of a Chicago site that
was tagged $7500. The gallery also sold several abstractions
by Rolph Scarlett to new collectors and a photo-Pop-graffiti
piece by Henry Chalfant (b. 1940) of Fab 5 Freddy’s graffiti
train.
Boothbay Harbor, Maine, gallery Gleason Fine Art
showed The Fireside, a 22" x 26" oil on canvas by Charles
Roswell Bacon (1868-1913) that was tagged $12,000. Glea-
son also had Henry Isaacs’s Baxter III, a 40" x 48" oil on
canvas that was priced at $7600.
Garvey Rita Art &Antiques, West Hartford, Connecticut,
showed Improvisation I , a 2014 ink, acrylic, and collage
on canvas (40" x 40") by Elizabeth Gourlay (b. 1961) that
was tagged $7500. The gallery also showed landscapes by
Pennsylvania-born artist John DavidWissler and South West
Shore Wellfleet, a 20" x 20" oil on canvas by Cape Cod artist
Rick Fleury (b. 1960) that was $2200.
New Hampshire-born artist Robert Eric Moore (1927-
2006) was the subject of a summer exhibit at The Banks
Gallery in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, and his work was
front and center in the Banks booth. Three distinctive water-
colors were for sale: Wild Turkey, Maine (24¼" x 28") was
tagged $7500; Porcupine in Winter Woods (15" x 21¾") was
priced at $6500; and Chicory and Maine Woods (21 3/8" x
27 7/8") was $7500.
The Boston and Nantucket, Massachusetts, gallery Quid-
ley & Company offered works that evoke the pleasures of
summer. A still life of a jar of buttons by Greg Haynes (b.
1980), a 60" x 42" oil on board titled Rivers, from 2012, was
priced at $15,000. Scott Prior’s oil on canvas Nanny on the
Porch (34" x 42") was tagged $28,000.
WilliamVareika brought historic paintings from his New-
port, Rhode Island, gallery including a pair of Gilbert Stuart
portraits not seen publicly since the 1828 Stuart memorial
exhibit at the Boston Athenaeum. The 26" x 21¼" oil on
panel portraits pictured Mrs. Thomas Cordis (1790-1832),
The art for sale was largely
19th and 20th century, with
a few outliers on both ends.
Principle Gallery, Alexandria, Virginia, and Charleston,
South Carolina, showed work by Geoffrey Johnson (b.
1965), including Three Buildings in Gold (48" x 36"), a
2014 oil on panel that was priced at $19,500.
Back Bay, Boston, dealer Martha Richardson showed
Father and Child Reading, a 14½" x 9¼" x 8¾" bronze by
John Wilson (b. 1922). It went to a museum on approval
as a result of BIFAS. The signed, dated, and stamped
“3/10” work is a maquette for the large-scale sculpture at
Roxbury Community College in Boston.
The 30" x 24" oil on linen view Old State House (left) by
Kyle Bartlett (b. 1978) was tagged $5000. In the Green
Chair, a 17" x 17" oil on linen by Jeremy Durling (b. 1985),
was priced at $1750, and, bottom right, Durling’s Chasing
Christopher, a 20" x 25" oil on linen, was $2150. All were
from Sloane Merrill Gallery, Boston.
Boston International Fine Art Show, Boston, Massachusetts
The 2015 BIFAS
by Frances McQueeney-Jones Mascolo