Closing August 2025: Jack Whitten, Sargent, Amy Sherald, Queen Esther, Chinoiserie

Jack Whitten, 9.11.01, 2006

Installation view of Jack Whitten: The Messenger, 

The Museum of Modern Art, New York,

 from March 23 through August 2, 2025. 

Photo: Jonathan Dorado.

Dear Friends,

Only half the summer has passed and yet many exhibitions will end in early August.

Please try to see all these shows before they close soon.

Jack Whitten: The Messenger, the best show this spring and summer, closing August 2nd for the general public, August 3rd for MoMA members.

John Singer Sargent, Dr. Pozzi at Home, 1881

Sargent and Paris, Metropolitan Museum of Art, through August 3rd.

Here is a recording of my lecture on "John Singer Sargent and the Gilded Age," hosted by the Alliance Française USA, July 17, 2025.

Amy Sherald, Michelle Obama, 2018

Amy Sherald: America Sublime, Whitney Museum, through August 10th.

Rembrandt, Esther Preparing for Ahasuras, c. 1633, 

National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa

The Book of Esther in the Age of Rembrandt, The Jewish Museum, through August 10th.

Chinese, Anonymous, Woman with a Pipe, c. 1760-80

Monstrous Beauty: A Feminist Revision of Chinoiserie, Metropolitan Museum of Art, through August 17th.

Best wishes for the rest of your summer,

Beth and the New York Arts Exchange

 

Last Call: Van Gogh's Cypresses, MAD's Paper Dresses and Funky Art, MCNY "Home" - closing August 27

 

Vincent van Gogh, Cypresses, late June 1889

Metropolitan Museum of Art

Dear Friends,

Summer is coming to an end  - at least our sense of "summer" when schools are closed and the days are long. Although Labor Day is over a week away, many museums will close their spectacular Summer Season exhibitions this Sunday, August 27th.

Here are 5 shows you don't want to miss:

Vincent Van Gogh, The Starry Night,  June 1889

Museum of Modern Art

    Vincent van Gogh, The Little Stream, October 1889

Star Insurance Companies

Van Gogh's Cypresses at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, closing Sunday. Hours on Friday and Saturday from 10-9; Sunday 10-5. You must sign up for the virtual wait line when you arrive. So, don't forget to scan the QR code on the sign next to the Admission Desk. You will use your cell phone. Then you fill in the form online and check your texts for notification. If all this sounds confusing and complication, don't worry.  Ask the Admissions cashier or a MMA guard for help. Also, please brush up on your VVG using Smarthistory and read this wonderful article "The Dark Side of van Gogh's Cypress Trees," on the meaning of cypresses, which Daniel Larkin noted was missing on the text panels - great catch, Mr. Larkin.

(Photos taken by BGN.)

Generation Paper: A Fashion Phenom of the 1960s, Museum of Art and Design, Columbus Circle, NYC. closing on Sunday. A welcome trip down Memory Lane of the 1960s, when clothes designer Mary Quant, hair stylist Vidal Sassoon, and models Jean Shrimpton and Twiggy were all the rage in the fashion world. An absolutely fab exhibition that should have received more publicity. You'll escape into your recollection of Beatles songs, while Swifties groove on Taylor Swift music playing throughout an exhibition of her clothes on the second floor (closing March 24, 2024). Learn about the history of the paper dress and its demise with this video.

Gallery Installations of Funk You Too!  (Photos taken by BGN)

Also at MAD - Funk You Too!  Humor and Irreverence in Ceramic Sculpture, closing on Sunday. Not as exciting as Generation Paper or Craft Front and Center, but worth a giggle or two when you walk through the show. Let me know what you think of it, if you decide to visit.

Gallery Installation of Craft Front and Center  (Photo courtesy of MAD)

Craft Front and Center: Exploring the Permanent Collection, continues through January 14, 2024, and I am so glad it does. I can't wait to return for a longer, more intensely focused visit with these extraordinary artworks. You will find enormous imagination here. I could not select my favorite - I loved each and every piece. A must!

New York Now: Home, The Photography Triennial at the Museum of the City of New York, Fifth Avenue between 103rd and 104th Streets, NYC.  Great photos of our great city that celebrate our diversity and particular aesthetics.

Best wishes for the Labor Day Weekend Holiday,

Beth

Beth S. Gersh-Nesic, PhD

Director and owner, New York Arts Exchange, LLC

Happy New Year! Best wishes for 2023

 

Ancient Greek, Girl with Dove, Marble Stele, c. 450-50 BC

Metropolitan Museum of Art

Wishing you peace and joy in 2023!

With love,

Beth and the New York Arts Exchange

June 2021 Happenings - Studio visits and a request to respond to the Met Museum's Documentary

 

Lord Frederic Leighton, Flaming June, 1895

Museo de Arte de Ponce, Ponce, Puerto Rico

Dear Friends,

June 2021 - how can that be?  Time seems to be speeding up since New York started to relax its Covid-19 restrictions and now, it's full speed ahead into summer. Yes, the weather hasn't been quite so summery this past week, but just wait: "flaming June" is on the way this weekend.

How will you stay cool?  Why not spend time with art?  Studio visits with social distancing and a Zoom lecture are listed below.  Plus - write to me about your memories of the Met.

Studio Visits:

Here are two opportunities coming up this Saturday and next Saturday:

Saturday, June 5, from 10 am - 3 pm:

Clay Art Center Spring Fest!

Clay Art Center, 40 Beech Street,  Port Chester, NY.

(914)937-2047

Pottery for sale, outdoors.  

Raindate: June 12

100% of the revenues will support the Clay Art Center.  

Also on view: raku firings and pottery wheel demonstrations.

Saturday, June 12, 1 - 5 PM

Wilhelmina Obatola Grant-Cooper

Sistaah Open Studio 

part of the Northern Manhattan Arts Alliance Annual Uptown Arts Stroll

Masks and reservations required for social distancing.

Click on this link here to reserve your time slot

Award-winning artist and director of SISTAAH Wilhelmina Obatola Grant-Cooper invites you to her studio for a rare opportunity to see her artworks and meet the artist at the same time. (New York Arts Exchange members may remember Wilhelmina's work in the exhibitions Art Above the Sofa and Bosom Bodies)

Reservations are free and open to the public.

* * *

Zoom Lecture on Art:

Gerard Sekoto, The Proud Father, Manakedi Naky on Bernard Sekoto’s Knee, 1947

Thursday, June 17, 7 PM

"Fathers in Art," a slide lecture on Zoom

hosted by Byram Shubert Library, Greenwich, CT

Please register here

Beth Gersh-Nesic, Ph.D., lectures on the images of fathers in art history from Ancient Egypt to contemporary times.  One hour.  Free and open to the public, anywhere.

Memories of the Met:

Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1889, seen from

the Weston Wing

Metropolitan Museum of Art today

A bird's-eye view of the sculpture galleries

If you had been interviewed for this Met documentary, what would you say? 

PBS produced a three-part series "Inside the Met," which aired on May 21 and May 28. You can watch the documentary at this website address: Inside the Met

I would love to know what you thought of this series. 

Please share your reviews and your favorite memories of the Met through my email address: nyarts.exchange@verizon.net

Or post comments on our Facebook page (look for this blog post)

https://www.facebook.com/NYArts.Exchange/

Or respond directly to this email newsletter.

Thank you so much for any thoughts and memories you would like to share.

I'll be back soon with more info about artists and art, near and far.

Happy June!

Hugs,

Beth

Beth Gersh-Nesic, Ph.D.

Director and owner

New York Arts Exchange

Happy Mothering Day - Celebrating the Nurturing Spirit in Us All

Ebo People, Queen Mother Mask Pendant: Iyoba, 16th century, Benin

Metropolitan Museum of Art (to honor the mother of King/Oba Esigie, Idia)

Ancient Egyptian, Queen Hatshepsut, 1479-1459 BC, New Kingdom, 18th Dynasty

Metropolitan Museum of Art  (First female pharaoh, stepmother of Thutmose III) 

Happy Mothering Day - 

Honoring our mothers, aunts, cousins, and friends;

the nurturing spirit within ourselves;

and our Mother Earth

Celebrate royally!

Love and hugs,

Beth and the New York Arts Exchange

February Zooms: Art Salons Hosted by Greenwich Arts Council and "Queen Esther in Art" Hosted by Learning in Retirement Stamford

 

Paul Signac, Portrait of Félix Fénéon, 1890

aka Opus 217. Against the Enamel of a Background Rhythmic with Beats and Angles, Tones, and Tints

Museum of Modern Art, NYC

In about a month from now, we'll mark the first anniversary of the Covid-19 lockdown and, perhaps, look back on all we accomplished during this challenging "pause."  Did you see all the 2,500 museums available online?  Did you take all the virtual art tours?  I sure haven't.  

Oh - I have visited a few virtual exhibitions, as well as several in person since art museums and galleries opened this past summer.  The in-person experience can't be beat. However, there are several virtual exhibitions that merit praise.

What do YOU think of virtual exhibitions on museum websites?  I would genuinely like to know.

So with that curiosity in mind, and a sincere desire to talk to you about art, as we did when we toured the museum and galleries shows, I have dreamed up a series of 4 meetings, which I call "art salons" that offer an opportunity to talk about art and not sit passively listening to the presenter.

Our series of 4 salons is called: Critiquing the Virtual Museum Experience

It is hosted by Greenwich Arts Council.  You can learn more about the series and register here.

• 
  
• Time: Wednesdays, February 17 and February 24; March 3 and March 10
• 7:00 PM  8:30 PM
• Cost: $15 each
• Topics:  

1. Félix Fénéon at MoMA
2. Jacob Lawrence at the Met
3. Women artists at the Hudson River Museum
4. Crowd-sourced photos of life during the Covid-19 Pandemic at the Phillips Collection.

• 
  
• Each session features conversations about the curator's theme, content, and website presentation. We will meet in small "rooms" to facilitate lively and spontaneous exchanges. Preparation for these salons is recommended in order to fully engage in the three conversational segments listed above (theme, content, and success/failure as a virtual art experience).  However, it's not necessary.

I hope you will join us for these 1 1/2 hour opportunities to really weigh in on the art scene today.

For more details, please visit the Greenwich Arts Council website.

Antoine Coypel, Esther Swoons Before King Ahasuerus, c. 1704

Musée du Louvre

Art History Lecture on Zoom, Hosted by Learning in Retirement:

"Images of Queen Esther in Art"

Wednesday, February 24 at 10 am.

Browse and register here and here

Fee: $5.00

I'll lecture on the image of Queen Esther in art, just in time to celebrate Purim on February 25-26.

Please join me for this sprint through hundreds of years of artworks about The Book of Esther in the Bible, each created for a different audience: Catholic, Protestant and Jewish.  

I hope you will sign up for one or more of these art history events.

And I hope I see you again soon!

Warm wishes for Valentine's Day,

Beth

Beth S. Gersh-Nesic, Ph.D.

Director and owner

New York Arts Exchange

www.nyarts-exchange.com

Last Call: Jacob Lawrence's "American Struggle" series at the Met Museum through November 1, 2020

Jacob Lawrence: The American Struggle closes on Sunday, November 1st.  The exhibition, installed while the Metropolitan Museum of Art reestablished its visiting protocols during the long "pandemic  pause" (nearly 6 months), opened on August 29th.  It's a fitting theme for this moment in American history.  We are struggling.  There is no doubt, regardless of where on the political spectrum you believe you belong, we are all struggling in this most miraculous of earthly creations, the United States of America.  

Jacob Lawrence, Victory and Defeat, 1955

 panel 13 in American Struggle series,

1954-56, egg tempera on hard board, 12 x 16 inches

Collection of Harvey and Harvey-Ann Ross. 

© 2020 The Jacob and Gwendolyn Knight Lawrence Foundation, Seattle/

Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York. Photography by Bob Packert / PEM)

Here, for example, the Metropolitan Museum's text panel summarizes the surrender of the British in Yorktown, Virginia, interpreted by Lawrence in his Victory and Defeat, a powerful synthesis of Cubism, abstraction, and social realism. For Hamilton fans, this moment may seem familiar:

"[Jacob] Lawrence depicts an impenetrable wall of twenty-two black cannonballs to symbolize the successful twenty-two-day siege at Yorktown, Virginia, in which American troops forced the British occupying the town to surrender. This battle, celebrated for the heroic leadership of Alexander Hamilton and the Marquis de Lafayette, effectively ended the American Revolution. Lawrence’s wall also serves as a backdrop for the sword exchange that took place between two appointed delegates on behalf of American General George Washington and British General Charles Cornwallis, on October 19, 1781. The artist focused on this imminent transfer of power and peaceful resolution by creating a space between the redcoat gripping his sword and the open hand of an unseen patriot, framed against a cloud-filled sky symbolizing a hopeful future."

Jacob Lawrence, “. . . for freedom we want and will have, for we have served this cruel land long enuff . . ." —a Georgia slave, 1810, Panel 27, 1956, from Struggle: From the History of the American People, 1954–56. Egg tempera on hardboard. Private collection.

 © 2020 The Jacob and Gwendolyn Knight Lawrence Foundation, Seattle/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York.

I urge you to visit Lawrence's masterpiece series: Struggle: From the History of the American People, painted from 1954-1956, before it closes on Sunday, November 1st, or if this is impossible, please study his works on the museum's website.  The title itself deserves a sustained reflection: "the history of the American People" - all American people?  Well, not our neighbors Canada, Mexico, Central and South America. Rather, all who have lived and continue to live in the politically connected 50 states within the Americas, the United States. In these united states, we have much to be thankful for and much to strive for in order to form "a more perfect union."  

Jacob Lawrence, "If we fail, let us fail like men, and expire together in one common struggle . . .,"—Henry Clay, 1813, Panel 23, 1956, from Struggle: From the History of the American People, 1954–56. Egg tempera on hardboard. Collection of Harvey and Harvey-Ann Ross. 

© 2020 The Jacob and Gwendolyn Knight Lawrence Foundation, Seattle/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York. Photo by Bob Packert/PEM.

For more information about this particular series by our American treasure, New York artist Jacob Lawrence, please watch this short video produced for PBS, with a tour of the exhibition guided by artist Derrick Adams, whose exhibition Buoyant at the Hudson River Museum recently closed.  

For more information about Jacob Lawrence and his numerous series, please visit the Museum of Modern Art's Artist Page dedicated to Lawrence's work in the MoMA collection and previous temporary exhibitions and D.C. Moore Gallery. (Members of the New York Arts Exchange art tours may recall our visit to D.C. Moore in 2008 to see Jacob Lawrence: Moving Forward, at the gallery's previous address on Fifth Avenue.)

Best wishes for Halloween,

Beth

Beth S. Gersh-Nesic, Ph.D.

Director and owner

New York Arts Exchange

www.nyarts-exchange.com 

Labor Day Weekend - Last Call for September/October Closings

Milton Avery (American, 1885-1965). Swimmers and Sunbathers, 1945. 

Oil on canvas, 28 x 48 1/4 in.

 The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Gift of Mr. and Mrs. Roy R. Neuberger, 1951 (51.97). 

© 2019 The Milton Avery Trust / Artists Rights Society (ARS), 

New York. Image copyright © The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Image source: Art Resource, NY.

Labor Day is nigh and the end of summer is here!  I sincerely hope you all had wonderful summers with friends and family, whether here in New York or far, far away.  

Now is the time to catch the last days of the New York Summer Season's best exhibitions, each closing very soon. Here is the list:

James McNeill Whistler, Fumette, 1858.

 Etching and drypoint, black ink on cream French laid paper, 6 3/8 × 4 1/4 inches. 

Gertrude Kosovsky Collection; © The Frick Collection

Labor Day Weekend:

Whistler as Printmaker: Highlights from the Gertrude Kosovsky Collection, Frick Museum, through Sunday, September 1.

Summer with the Averys: Milton, Sally and March, and Sharks! Bruce Museum, Greenwich, CT, September 1.  (This one venue is perfect for the family as both exhibitions are suitable for children of all ages.)

Ragnar Kjartansson:  Death is Elsewhere, Metropolitan Museum of Art, through September 2.

Blue Man Group: Ready . . . Go!, Museum of the City of New York, through September 2

Anne Samat, Che Yah (The Greatest Love),2019

Next weekend:

Camp: Notes on Fashion, Metropolitan Museum of Art, through September 8.

Leonard Cohen: A Crack in Everything, The Jewish Museum, through September 8.

Anne Samat: Greatest Love, Hudson Valley Museum of Modern Art, Peekskill, NY, through September 8

Two weeks from now:

Summer Revolution, New York Historical Society, through September 15.

Walt Whitman, Bard of Democracy, Morgan Library and Museum, September 15.

Three weeks from now:

Whitney Biennial, Whitney Museum, through September 22.

Hogarth: Cruel and Humor, Morgan Library and Museum, through September 22.

Mrinalini Mukherjee, Aranyani, 1996

Last weekend in September/October 1:

Phenomenal Nature: Mrinalini Mukherjee, Met Breuer, through September 29.

Free Lecture on Thursday, September 5th, 6:30 and Gallery Talk on Tuesday, September 10th, 12:30.

From Manet to Picasso: The Thannhauser Colllection, Guggenheim Museum, through September 29.

Best wishes for the Labor Day Weekend and the Fall Season ahead - 

Beth

Beth S. Gersh-Nesic, Ph.D.

Director and owner

New York Arts Exchange

www.nyarts-exchange.com