Happy Thanksgiving!

Thank you so much for sharing your love of art with us!

Best wishes for a joyous holiday -

New York Arts Exchange 

Diane Green and Beth Gersh-Nesic: Q and A at Madelyn Jordon Fine Art, Sunday, Nov 20 at noon

Diane Green, The Space Between Madelyn Jordon Fine Arts, through December 20th 37 Popham Road, Scarsdale, New York Please join me on   Sunday, Nov. 22nd from 12-2 pm for  a Champagne Brunch Q & A with Diane Green on her work in the exhibition  The Space Between.   To RSVP, please reply to info@madelynjordonfineart.com Diane Green, 4 PM, 2013 View the exhibition here   Diane Green, Green, 2015 Looking forward to seeing you there! Beth Beth New York, aka Beth Gersh-Nesic Director New York Arts Exchange www.nyart-exchange.com

Paris in Tears

Arlene Rubenstein posted on FB a photo of herself and her beautiful family in front of the Paris Opera House with the statement "There are no words."   Yes, there are no words to describe the violence and violation to hundreds of carefree people out for a pleasant evening in Paris, hurting no one, simply out on the town to be with friends and family in a sports stadium, a concert hall, a restaurant and a shopping mall.   

There are no words to describe our outrage, pain and resolve to fight this element determined to wreck havoc through out the entire world.  Today, we weep not only for Paris, but for all the victims of terrorism - from Kenya to Boston to Beirut. 

Paris Coat of Arms

Fluctuat nec Mergitur

(toss at sea, but sunken)

(wounded but not defeated)

Here is a comment that responded to the news article printed in the NYT following the attacks in Paris on Friday: 

Blackpoodles

 Santa Barbara November 13, 2015

"France embodies everything religious zealots everywhere hate: enjoyment of life here on earth in a myriad little ways: a fragrant cup of coffee and buttery croissant in the morning, beautiful women in short dresses smiling freely on the street, the smell of warm bread, a bottle of wine shared with friends, a dab of perfume, children paying in the Luxembourg Gardens, the right not to believe in any god, not to worry about calories, to flirt and smoke and enjoy sex outside of marriage, to take vacations, to read any book you want, to go to school for free, to play, to laugh, to argue, to make fun of prelates and politicians alike, to leave worrying about the afterlife to the dead.
No country does life on earth better than the French.
Paris, we love you. We cry for you. You are mourning tonight, and we with you. We know you will laugh again, and sing again, and make love, and heal, because loving life is your essence. The forces of darkness will ebb. They will lose. They always do."

Let us wish Paris godspeed as she resists intimidation and resolves to move forward, back to normalcy -  to a genuine joie de vivre.

Nous sommes Paris.

 Vive la France!

New York Arts Exchange

Women Rule! Three Events Dedicated to Women in the Arts, Thursday, November 12th

Diane Radycki on Paula Modersohn-Becker

Galerie St. Etienne, 24 West 57th St.

Thursday, November 12th at 6 pm, free

Professor of art history and director of the Payne Gallery at Moravian College, Diane Radycki offers New Yorkers a rare opportunity to hear her speak about the first modern woman artist, Paula Modersohn Becker. Director of GSE, Jane Kallir wrote in her beautiful essay: "Paula Modersohn-Becker (1876-1907) was almost completely unknown when she died following childbirth at the age of thirty-one, but within fifteen years she had become a near mythic figure in her native Germany. Posthumous exhibitions were staged at museums and prestigious galleries throughout the country. The artist’s letters and journals, limited excerpts from which were first published in 1913, became a bestseller when an expanded edition appeared in 1919-20. And she was famously eulogized by Rainer Maria Rilke, whose early career had been intimately intertwined with hers. Although these literary elements did not exactly overshadow Modersohn-Becker’s art, they gave her story a tragic cast that belies the unsentimental rigor of her achievement.."

Here is the PMB exhibition online. Paula Modersohn-Becker: Art and LIfe, at Galerie St. Etienne, November 3, 2015-March 12, 2016

Margaret Oppenheimer on "Madame Jumel Collects"

Mid-Manhattan Library, 455 Fifth Avenue, 

Thursday, November 12th at 6:30 p.m., free

Eliza Jumel has been featured on this blog before as a "ghost" invented by the incomparable artist Yinka Shonebare, during his exhibition at the Morris-Jumel Mansion in Washington Heights. Margaret wrote to me: "The amazing Eliza Jumel—raised in a brothel, indentured as a servant, and confined to a workhouse while her mother was in jail—rose to become one of New York's richest women. Along the way she turned herself into an art connoisseur, acquiring more than 240 paintings in Paris between 1815 and 1817." Art historian Margaret Oppenheimer will bring Jumel’s pioneering collection back to life through a slide lecture of the paintings, their owner, and the early 19th-century art scene in New York and Paris at the New York Public Library - Mid-Manhattan.

Oppenheimer holds a PhD from New York University's Institute of Fine Arts and is the author of a newly released biography, The Remarkable Rise of Eliza Jumel: A Story of Marriage and Money in the Early Republic, as well as The French Portrait: Revolution to Restoration (2005), the collaborating writer of the first edition of Art: A Brief History (2000), and a contributor to A Personal Gathering; Paintings and Sculpture from the Collection of William I. Koch (1996). Her articles have appeared in Apollo, the Gazette des Beaux-Arts, the Metropolitan Museum Journal, and other publications. 

Margaret volunteers as a docent at the Morris-Jumel Mansion in New York City, Eliza Jumel’s former home. (Please join me for a tour with Margaret on Saturday, December 5th.)

Kathleen Gilje, Linda Nochlin at the Bar of the Folies Bergère , 2005

 

Kathleen Gilje, Self-Portrait in Bougereau's Assault, 2012 (detail)

Jovana Stokic, Professor of Curatorial Studies, School of Visual Arts, NYC

Maura Reilly, Chief Curator, National Academy of Art, NYC

"Linda Nochlin: The Art Historian as Seen By Artists"  - A Panel with Linda Nochlin

Maison Francaise, NYU - Washington Mews

Thursday, November 12th, 7 pm, free

A rare opportunity to hear celebrated art historian Linda Nochlin discuss portraits of herself with one of the artists, Kathleen Gilje, and two curators (former Nochlin students at IFA) Jovana Stokic and Maura Reilly.  Maura edited Women Artists: The Linda Nochlin Reader (Thames and Hudson, 2015). 

Which one will I attend - alas: none.  I teach "Picasso: The Artist, His Work and His Critics" on Thursday evenings at Purchase College.

Please join us for Margaret's tour on December 5th!   nyarts-exchange@verizon.net.  

Best wishes to my dear colleagues and friends as you celebrate this tribute to women in the arts!

Beth New York

aka Beth S. Gersh-Nesic, Ph.D.

Director

New York Arts Exchange