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Prepared for the September 13, 2000 edition of U.S. 1 Newspaper.
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Preview: Painting & Sculpture
A new art season is one thing. A new art season in
a new gallery in a new town — that’s quite another thing. The
questions, the challenges, the hopes — not to mention the
"to-do"
lists — all mount up. Just ask Ruth Morpeth, of the Morpeth
Gallery,
Hopewell.
After four years in business on Pennington’s main street, Morpeth
made a big move, to a much bigger space, with all that implies, when
she relocated to Hopewell this summer. Now, having survived a major
renovation of the site, a taxing, premiere group show, and a water
leak from the second floor of her building, she, her business plan,
and a range of art can be found in their spacious new digs at 43 West
Broad Street (also Route 518), connecting Princeton, Lambertville,
and points between.
To describe a gallery as "a great space" is something of a
cliche, but Morpeth Gallery really does give new meaning to the
phrase.
In this case, it’s true. Across the street from a cemetery, with a
very low skyline, the gallery’s two huge front windows seem even
bigger,
more dramatic. Outside, tall, unfussy grasses flank the centered door
— decidedly not a frou-frou type herself, Morpeth didn’t want
multi-colored flowers cluttering things up. That approach carries
over inside, where high ceilings, wood floors, and warmly white walls
suggest room for big works, for many focal points, for both art and
conversation groupings. In an old building, Morpeth has wrought a
contemporary gallery.
She calls her current exhibition "a handsome show with a very
modern look." On view through September 24, it pairs Kate
Hammett’s
horizontal and vertical painted wood panels that were inspired by
the underground fires of Centralia, Pennsylvania, with sculptural
works by Donna McCullough. In metal, wood, and stone, she makes both
animal figures and winged phoenixes, and has a corset series as well.
Featured September 30 to October 22, representational landscapes and
still lifes by David Shevlino, a graduate of the Philadelphia Academy
of Fine Arts, will display his range of painting styles. Bronze
sculptures
by Natalie Ferracci, of the Johnson Atelier, and Cranbury artist
George
Stave’s still lifes and landscapes will be on view at the same time.
From October 28 to November 19, Morpeth Gallery will feature a new
body of work by Bob Beck, who lives in Lumberville, Pennsylvania,
has a new studio in Lambertville, New Jersey, and seems to paint
everywhere
and everything. This time, it will be new pictures produced in Bucks
and Hunterdon counties, both "Night and Day." Finally, the
gallery’s emphasis will be on crafts — clay, glass, wood, and
metal — during the winter holidays.
609-333-9393.
Gallery hours are Wednesday to Sunday, 11 a.m. to 5 p.m.
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Other Galleries
In other venues between Philadelphia and Lambertville,
with a possible side trip to Highland Park, highlights of this
autumn’s
art season include "visual variations" from sources as diverse
as "the Japanese da Vinci," Marge Chavooshian, John Lennon
and Yoko Ono, and the Princeton Artists Alliance. The Art Museum,
Princeton University, is under new leadership — director Susan
Taylor took over in August, and New Brunswick’s Jane Voorhees Zimmerli
Museum will re-open in November, following two half-year closings
for extensive renovations and expansion. The Lawrenceville School
will tap classically-inspired art treasures from the collections of
school parents and the artistic talents of its faculty.
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In Philadelphia
Leonardo da Vinci as "the Western Hon’Ami
Koetsu"?
From a Japanese perspective, that is. In actuality, the major show
this fall at the Philadelphia Museum of Art is "The Arts of
Hon’Ami
Koetsu, Japanese Renaissance Master." Koetsu, an early 17th
century
figure, was master of many mediums — painting, calligraphy,
pottery,
and lacquer — and his artistic and cultural authority influenced
the very nature of the tea ceremony.
The exhibition opened July 29, and on September 18, about half the
installation will change, to allow rotation and replacement of
light-sensitive
scrolls and books. On Sunday, September 24, museum visitors can
witness
a traditional Japanese tea ceremony.
at 26th Street, Philadelphia, 215-763-8100. Website:
Museum admission is $8 adults; $5 for children, students, and seniors.
Free on Sunday, 10 a.m. to 1 p.m.
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Montgomery
From members of the Princeton Artists Alliance, those
wonderful folks who brought you the now-storied "Odyssey"
exhibition at Bristol-Myers Squibb under the old regime, look for
at least 20 new "Visual Variations" in at the Montgomery
Cultural
Center in Skillman. From September 15 to October 20, the professional
artists’ group will exhibit and demonstrate at the 1860 House,
Montgomery
Cultural Center. A reception is scheduled Sunday, September 17, 1
to 4 p.m., and during "Artists in Action" at the same time
on October 15, members will demonstrate ceramics, papermaking, and
other mediums.
Road, 609-921-3272. Gallery hours are Tuesday to Friday, 10 a.m. to
3 p.m.; Sunday, 1 to 4 p.m.
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Rider
Rider University’s art gallery will provide a look at
how a well-known area artist works in its show of paintings, drawings,
and color studies by Marge Chavooshian. An early facet of the
year-long
"Eyes on Trenton" festival, the exhibition opens September
21 and runs through October 22, with a gallery talk on Thursday,
October
5, at 7 p.m. Harry Naar, gallery director and fine arts professor,
expresses pleasure at the variety of work to be shown.
609-896-5168. Located on the Second Floor of the Student Center,
gallery
hours are Monday to Thursday, 2 to 8 p.m.; Friday to Sunday, 2 to
5 p.m.
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Phillips Mill
The 71st annual juried Phillips Mill art exhibition, including
paintings,
sculpture, and graphics, runs September 23 to October 29, in New Hope.
Depending on jurors and other vagaries, this show has been known to
surprise both its visitors and the artists who submit work for
acceptance.
No sooner does someone say, "It’s usually this," then it
suddenly
becomes that. Even so, bet on Bucks County landscapes.
Admission
$3 adults; $2 seniors; $1 students. Gallery hours are Sunday to
Friday,
1 to 5 p.m.; and Saturday, 1 to 8 p.m.
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State Museum
Moving on from its Russian extravaganza last year, the New Jersey
State Museum has mounted three exhibitions, all opening this month.
Essentially amateur photographs with professional effects, "Click:
The Marvelous in American Vernacular Photography," will showcase
75 images dating from the mid-19th through the mid-20th centuries
in the traditional genres of still life, portraiture, and documentary.
In "Recreating Flowers: the Glass Wonders of Paul J.
Stankard,"
the museum acknowledges the Wenonah resident who is probably the
state’s
premiere glass artist. His paperweights, encapsulating seemingly real
flowers, are collector’s items. And the museum draws on its
collections
for "Woven by Tradition and Design: American Indian Weavings,
Textiles, and Baskets." All three shows will be ready in time
for the museum’s open house on Sunday, October 1, and they will run
until or into the new year.
609-292-6464. Tuesday through Saturday, 9 a.m. to 4:45 p.m.; Sunday
noon to 5 p.m.
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Lawrenceville School
Pieces of Roman glass and a Greek krater, true classical antiquities,
and a contemporary photograph of a statue of Dionysus — these
examples suggest the range of "Classical Inspiration:
Lawrenceville
Parents Collect." Works from the classical period or somehow
inspired
by it will be on view in the Hutchins Rotunda Gallery of the
Lawrenceville
School from October 13 to December 6. This exhibition runs
concurrently
with a faculty show in the adjacent Marguerite and James Hutchins
Gallery, both in the school’s Gruss Center of Visual Arts. A reception
on Friday, October 20, 6-8 p.m., is open to all.
Lawrenceville,
609-620-6026. Monday to Friday, 9 a.m. to 4:30 p.m.; except Wednesday
and Saturday, to noon.
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In Highland Park
Offering a possible change of venue for readers, B. Beamesderfer
Gallery,
at 6 North Second Avenue, Highland Park, will show Marge Levine’s
"Pastel Journal" from September 17 to November 4. Levine,
also a printmaker and book illustrator whose meticulous line can
encompass
both whimsy and telling detail, also records soft pastel impressions
of her travels. An artist’s reception is Sunday, September 17, 1 to
4 p.m.
Highland
Park, 732-249-6971.
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Grounds for Sculpture
At Grounds for Sculpture, Hamilton, the fall-winter exhibition that
opens to the public on October 10 runs through Sunday, April 8, 2001.
In the museum, "Elements" is a three-person show by artists
who structure their works from repetitions of the component materials
— Del Geist, Brower Hatcher, and Tim Prentice. The ground floor
of the Domestic Arts building will house recent abstract works by
James Dinerstein, a New York artist who works with pigmented cement
or cast bronze. On the mezzanine, works by 22 winners of the
International
Sculpture Center’s annual award, given to outstanding undergraduate
and graduate students. Outdoors, pieces by Robert Cooke, Daniel Goode,
Robert Ressler, and Isaac Witkin will be added to the sculpture park.
609-586-0616. The park and galleries are open Tuesday through Sunday,
from 10 a.m. to 9 p.m., year round; the Museum building is open from
10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Public tours are offered Saturday mornings at 11
a.m.
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Williams Gallery
Ten days before John Lennon was killed in 1980, Allan Tannenbaum,
then covering the entertainment beat for the Soho Weekly News, made
a series of photographic studies of Lennon and Yoko Ono. Now, 20 years
later, a new series of digitally enhanced, color images that he has
created, together with several of the earlier black and white
portfolio
series, will be on view at the Williams Gallery, Princeton, November
11 to December 9.
Echoing "Double Fantasy," the Lennon-Ono album prompting the
1980 publicity that included Tannenbaum’s fine-art photographs, the
exhibition is called "John Lennon and Yoko Ono — a Double
Fantasy: New Work by Allan Tannenbaum." Mary Lou Bock, of the
Williams Gallery, describes the images as "a contemporary profile
of these colorful and renowned musical figures."
hours are Tuesday to Saturday, 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. www.wmgallery.com
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Princeton University
At the Art Museum, Princeton University, a show and a symposium
promise
food for thought in October. Sharing the title "Surviving the
Photograph," she show that opens October 17 (and continuing to
November 19), and the two-day symposium, October 20 and 21, examine
the photograph and the modern art world. The interdisciplinary
conference,
organized by graduate students and faculty, promises to look closely
at all aspects of photography. It features keynote addresses by Allan
Sekula and Molly Nesbit, and papers by such prominent critics such
as Benjamin Buchloh, Nancy Armstrong, Geoffrey Batchen, Kobena Mercer,
Hal Foster, Carol Armstrong, Eduardo Cadava, Laura Kurgan, Peter
Bunnell,
Michael Jennings, Mark Hansen, and Bill Gaskins. The conference
website
is at www.princeton.edu/~survival/photodescr.html
are every Saturday at 2 p.m.
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Marsha Child
Featured at Marsha Child Contemporary this fall is a solo exhibition
of new paintings by visiting European artist Andrei Zadorine. The
show will be accompanied by a retrospective color catalog. Born in
Belarus in 1960, and trained in the Soviet art academy, Zadorine now
lives in the Netherlands with his wife and two children. Childs says
the artist draws inspiration from childhood memories. Opening
reception
is October 20.
609-497-7330.
Gallery hours are Tuesday to Saturday, 10:30 a.m. to 5:30 p.m.
— Pat Summers
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