Christine and Bill Aylward were among the more 3,500 guests at Thursday night's VIP Preview benefitting the Palm Beach Zoo & Conservation Society at the inaugural Palm Beach Modern & Contemporary Art Fair held in West Palm Beach.
When I noticed the Palm Beach Modern + Contemporary Art Fair’s VIP Preview was supporting the Palm Beach Zoo and that the Art Miami-based fair was also presenting an exhibition with the nearby Ann Norton Sculpture Gardens, I was reminded of decades ago when the Palm Beach season began to crowd with a jillion charitable committees. Thus, social commanders Mary Sanford, Sue Whitmore and others organized the Unity Ball — one night/one gala with the proceeds split between several endeavors. How much more copacetic, perusing large sculptural works at the Ann Norton’s several acre palm tableaux beneath a full moon rather than the glare and crush of a floodlit convention hall. At the PB Modern + Contemporary Art Fair’s air-conditioned pavilion, besides the trays of hor d’oeuvres and ample pours, a herd of Palm Beach art collectors and connoisseurs rubbed elbows as they scrutinized the more than 1,000 art works exhibited by 50 national and international dealers.
January 12, 2017
Palm Beach Zoo & Conservation Society Benefit
Palm Beach Modern + Contemporary Art Fair VIP Preview
Pam Gottfried.Wahei Aoyama, owner of Yufuku Gallery, Tokyo. Founded in 1993, Yufuku is among the most striking galleries, dealing in contemporary Japanese fine art, ceramics, glass, lacquer, and painting. Several years ago at TEFAF-Maastricht, where presentation is uncompromised, I was captivated by Yufuku’s objet d’arts enhanced by brilliant theatrical lighting.Nicole and Michael Calkin.Ashley Ramos and Lynn Headley.Cavalier Gallery, New York. George McNeil. Thoughtful, 1980. Oil on canvas board. $35,000.Nadine Kalachnikoff and Lars Bolander.Cynthia Reeves Gallery. Jaehyo Lee & Jongrye Cha. Table, surface detail composed of stainless steel bolts and nails. $54,000.Hollis Taggert Galleries, New York. Alexander Calder. Acrobats, 1944. Bronze. Edition 5 of 6.Nicole Henry Gallery, West Palm Beach. Brendan Murphy. Process of Desire. 2016. Acrylic oil & Gouache on canvas. $10,000.C. Grimaldis Gallery, Baltimore. Grace Hartigan. Greta, 1981. Oil on linen.Joe Namath, right, with his daughter Olivia, son-in-law/artist Edwin Baker III, and his grandchild. Proceeds from the sale of paintings at Baker’s exhibition, curated by Bruce Helander in conjunction with Arcature Gallery, benefit the Perry J. Cohen Foundation that honors the late son of fair principal Pamela Cohen. The foundation’s mission is the advancement of the arts, teenage entrepreneurship, boating safety education, and environmental, marine and wildlife education.Standing between Scott Moses and Jeanne Chisholm is sculptor Lynn Chadwick’s bronze Winged Figures Version II, 1973 (Edition of 6) offered by Osborne Samuel, London.An exhibition of Francis Picabia’s paintings from the Collection of Jeff & Mei Sze Greene curated by Jeffrey Deitch.Judy Schrafft and Bob Lowe.Yufuku Gallery, Tokyo.Waterhouse & Dodd, New York & London. Ray Waterhouse, gallerist, with Auguste Herbin’s Nature morte aux pots de fleur, 1918. Oil on canvas.Sculptor Sophie Ryder and Jonathan Dodd. Waterhouse & Dodd represents Ryder’s work.Figures on horseback are one of sculptor Sophie Ryder’s familiar motifs. Ryder’s large scale sculptures are also showcased at the nearby Ann Norton Sculpture Gardens, part of a joint three-year agreement where the Ann Norton venue will act as a satellite platform of the fair.The night before their Palm Beach Modern + Contemporary Art Fair, Pamela Cohen, director of marketing and VIP relations, and Nick Korniloff, the fair’s director-partner, joined several hundred guests at the Ann Norton Sculpture Gardens’ opening reception of Sophie Ryder’s exhibition, made possible by the Wilmington Trust and Waterhouse & Dodd.
January 11, 2017
One Night: Two Exhibitions
Ann Norton Sculpture Gardens
Rising: The Mystical World of Sophie Ryder / January 11, 2017 – April 30,2017
Todd McGrain’s The Lost Bird Project / January 11, 2017 – June 28, 2017
Frances Fisher, president of the board, and Sally R. Soter, chair of the art committee, in association with Waterhouse & Dodd, Pamela Cohen and Nicholas Korniloff (Palm Beach Modern + Contemporary), Conner Rosenkranz, and the Wilmington Trust presented One Night: Two Exhibitions. Art committee members included Christine Aylward, Karyn Lamb, Jodi Luntz, David Miller, Linda Silpe, and Bryan Walsh.
With Sophie Ryder’s formidable works scattered throughout the gardens and her smaller pieces set as table centerpieces, Todd McGrain’s memorials to extinct birds were installed on the great lawn and in the gallery.Sophie Ryder. Born in London Ryder studied painting at the Royal Academy Schools before focusing on sculpture, inspired by Henry Moore, Picasso and Goya.
Paintpots is one of Ryder’s poetic works of “mystical creatures and hybrid beings.” Ryder works in a variety of materials — bronzes, wire works and those made from “sawdust, wet plaster, old machine parts and toys, weld joins and angle grinders, wire pancakes, torn scraps of paper, charcoal sticks, and acid baths.”Frances Fisher, president of the Ann Norton Sculpture Gardens board of trustees, and artist Stephania Conrad.Kay Lyons and Sally Soter, chair of the art committee.
The Ann Norton gallery featured smaller models of McGrain’s work and prints.Anthony Underwood and Donna Kim-Brand.Maureen Conte, Peter Rains, and Carol AndersonJohn and Regan Rupp.Debra and Dan Miller.Author Barry Day is a trustee of the Noel Coward Foundation.Lynne Day.Richard Keats, Jeanne Kanders, and Linda Wartow.A Sophie Ryder centerpiece.Standing beneath Ryder’s 19-foot tall The Kiss are Deborah O’Kain and Irene Goodkind.Hugging. Sophie Ryder.Ryder’s evocative lyrical aesthetic makes for spatial and dimensional contrasts with Ann Norton’s angular brick works.An uncommon work (Rising, 2016) by Sophie Ryder.Rising, 2013. Galvanized wire. Sophie Ryder.Rising, 2013. Galvanized wire. Sophie Ryder.The magic of Sophie Ryder. From far, the garden’s variety of palms appear to animate the tableau.Cara Gallo and Jack Varsalona, president of Wilmington University.Ray Wakefield and David Miller.The Ann Norton’s gallery offers an array of fine prints. Above, Pinneated Grouse or Heath Hen. John James Audubon. Havel Plate 186. Archival ink and German etching paper.Cedric DuPont and Richard Holton.Rebecca Miller, Jeannie Maurer, and Todd McGrain.Todd McGrain’s cast bronze Passenger Pigeon was perched in the front of the Ann Norton house as guests arrived for the reception.
