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The Grand, Gregg, Trask and Marquis Galleries
The Humanist Spirit — The National Arts Club Permanent Collection
April 11 – May 8
Opening Reception: Thursday, April 11, 6:00 PM
The National Arts Club’s
public programs and exhibitions present the continuing development of
the fine and allied arts in America; as such our curatorial efforts aim
to safeguard the institution’s founding mission, “to stimulate and guide
toward practical and artistic expression the artistic sense of the
American people.” At the heart of this ever evolving cultural narrative
is the NAC permanent collection — a rich source of pride and artistic
inspiration for both our club membership and the greater arts community
that we serve.
We have long recognized that The National Arts Club’s
permanent collection is a national treasure in so far as it comprises a
significant body of work representative of the American Impressionist
period. Perhaps more importantly, the collection signals the onset of a
seismic shift in American patronage — a turning away from European art
and its influences, and a support for and appreciation of the increasing
sophistication seen in homegrown art. As such the permanent collection
symbolizes a bellwether of change — signaling both the ascendancy of
American art and an aesthetic awakening in the American people.
Given this view, our stewardship of this collection becomes
all the more important. It means that we must do more than catalog and
physically preserve a body of important art works — though indeed said
efforts are worthy. What we must do is honor the cultural memory
embodied in the collection and continue to disseminate its humanist
philosophy to future generations of artists and patrons.
In celebration of this legacy we will be featuring
highlights from the collection, including paintings, sculptures, and
works on paper, in the clubhouse galleries during the month of April. We
believe this exhibition is both timely and important as it ever reminds
us of our collective duty as NAC members — to forever act in good faith
as trusted stewards of the greater culture and point the way forward
for all. We hope you will join us this month as we celebrate the triumph
of the humanist spirit and the power of art to enrich our everyday
lives.
Above, detail: Louis Betts, Baby Whisperings, by 1908
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On View in the Trask Gallery of The National Arts Club
Bill Ragals: The Beauty of Place
Recent Photographs
March 26 – April 7
Opening Reception: Wednesday, March 27, 6:00 PM - 8:00 PM
“My vision is about the inherent beauty of place. My images reflect what engages me about them as seen through my 'eye-lens.' I would like them to engage you as well." |
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— Bill Ragals
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To mark the return of spring, the joyous
season of rebirth, The National Arts Club presents the bucolic landscape
photographs of Bill Ragals. Ragals has a keen eye for nature’s beauty
as this series of intoxicating verdant images clearly demonstrates. And
yet, gorgeous subject matter aside, it is how Ragals presents these
enchanted views of arcadia that gets our attention. With careful
cropping and dynamic pictorial compositions he gracefully guides the
viewer into deep recessional spaces where the eye and mind can linger
and meditate on the endless round of Mother Nature’s seasonal displays.
Above: “Promenade of Trees”
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Grand Gallery
114th Annual
Exhibiting Artist Members’ Exhibition
March 20 – April 7
Do not miss the 114th Annual EAM Show. This year's exhibit is one of our largest to date and features works from 88 of our artist members including Will Barnet, Everett Raymond Kinstler, and many other recognized and esteemed artists whose work merits the highest recognition. Many of the works are for sale, and several pieces have already been sold. Congratulations to the award winners and to all those who participated!
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Marquis Gallery
Two Steps Ahead: Sculpture and Drawings by Katherine Taylor
March 18 – 29
Opening Reception: Wednesday, March 20, 6:00 PM
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Marquis Gallery
Night and Day: An installation by The Milliners Guild
March 11 – 16
Opening Reception: Monday March 11, 6:00 PM
The Milliners Guild presents an exhibition focused
on the wearability of day hats and the glamorous theatricality of
evening headgear. Using imagination, inspiration, training, experience, skill
and personal style the guild has taken the theme and turned their ideas
into a millinery event loaded with unlimited possibilities. Each
milliner has created two hats, one for “Night” and one for “Day.”
The Milliners Guild, Inc is an organization of small
millinery business owners and milliners who specialize in the design,
production and promotion of handmade headwear. The group is committed to
increasing the public profile of millinery as well as the public’s
awareness and interest in millinery products.
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Grand Gallery
Body Politic
March 5 – 17
Opening Reception: Thursday March 7, 6:00 PM
Courtney Jordan and Kristin Kunc, lauded curators of
Brooklyn’s edgy Gowanus Ballroom, stage their inaugural curatorial debut
at the NAC’s Grand Gallery with Body Politic — a group show that
juxtaposes art world luminaries and lesser known fledgling
practitioners. Jordan and Kunc write, “The human body is one of the most
articulate yet confounding agents of expression that artists can
employ. In Body Politic, the human figure is subject to myriad
interpretations — as object adorned and left hauntingly bare; celebrated
in its physicality and peculiarities; objectified in its psychology;
and serving to challenge mores surrounding carnality, beauty, and power.
It is a landscape on which the human journey is lovingly, though
sometimes callously, writ. It is a battleground where the vestiges of
change and violence can be seen, and a burgeoning vessel that holds
literal as well as metaphorical potential within its bounds.
Not at all diminished by this multiplicity, the human body’s
meaningfulness is amplified exponentially by the projections aimed at
her form, inciting discomfiture, intimacy, as well as empathy. In Body Politic,
the mutuality of the exploration of the human body is furthered as
artist and viewer become co-conspirators, linked together through the
thrill of the flesh and ensnared by the shared desire to understand all
that the body is capable of revealing.”
Above: “Precious Moments in the Snow” by Melanie Vote (detail)
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Gregg Gallery
The 1100 Watercolor Society: 2013 Exhibition
March 4 – 16
Opening Reception: Monday, March 11, 6:00 PM
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Grand Gallery
James Prosek: Ocean Fishes, Birds and Curiosities
February 19 – March 2
Opening Reception: Tuesday February 26, 6:00 PM
See photos from the show!
James Prosek (born 1975) is an American artist, writer and
naturalist who has dedicated himself to studying—and celebrating—the
natural world through artistic, cinematic and literary pursuits. Born in
Stamford, Connecticut, he is a graduate of Yale University and
published his first book, Trout: An Illustrated History while still a
student. A year later, in 1997, he wrote his second book, Joe and Me: An
Education in Fishing and Friendship. His second trout book, published
in 2005, titled Trout of the World, featured a collection of one hundred
watercolors of native trout from Europe, Asia and North Africa. His
work has been featured in numerous exhibitions in New York City and
Connecticut, and his first solo museum exhibition, “Life & Death - A
Visual Taxonomy”, was held at the Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum in
Ridgefield, CT in 2008. His most recent venture, titled “James Prosek:
Un-Natural History,” was hosted at Fairfield University’s Bellarmine
Museum of Art. The artist exhibited watercolors and several taxidermy
specimens chosen to complement the work.
Prosek notes that “a deep and profound love of nature”
informs all his work. Bellarmine Museum Director Dr. Jill Deupi notes
that Prosek’s work proposes new and unusual ways for considering the
world around us. She adds that his renderings of specimens, both real
and imagined, invites the viewer to reflect on the ways many humans have
chosen to organize the natural world and to question what these systems
say about our culture, our priorities, and our values.
Above: “Blue Marlin”
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Gregg and Marquis Galleries
GNA Annual Art Exhibit
February 25 – March 1
Opening Reception: Tuesday February 26, 6:00 PM
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Trask Gallery
Herman Margulies: American Impressionist 1922 - 2004
Through February
Herman Margulies was born in Poland on December 7th, 1922. A
survivor of the Nazi Holocaust, he immigrated to the United States in
1951 and began his life as a full-time artist in 1985. Until his death
in 2004 Margulies painted and tutored art students from around the world
in the pastel medium. The current exhibition demonstrates Margulies’
facility with a wide range of landscape motifs—from dock side to country
lane. More importantly he depicts his subjects across the full spectrum
of nature’s seasonal cycles and advances the art of pastel in the grand
manner reminiscent of Chardin and Degas. |
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