Arms Wide Open
During American Art Week, New York City private art galleries will open their doors to the public
The biannual event Just Off Madison is back to offer fine art collectors and enthusiasts the chance to view exceptional American artwork. Set during Newyork’s spring American Art Week, 14 dealers and galleries along the Upper East Side of Manhattan will open their doors to the public for three hours on Tuesday, May 22. Participating galleries and dealers this spring include Michael Altman
Fine Art & Advisory, Betty Krulik Fine Art, Jonathan Boos, Kraushaar Galleries, Menconi + Schoelkopf, a very Galleries, Conner • Rosenkranz, Hollis Taggart Galleries and more.
“This year we’re excited to welcome Michael Altman Fine Art and Advisory, showing with Just Off Madison for the first time,” says Betty Krulik, who organizes the event. this year she explains that most galleries are presenting modern 20th-century American art, but there will be a number of fine historical pieces as well.
“It is like an art fair,” says Hollis Taggart, owner of Hollistaggart Galleries. “one can see all the new things on the market at one time without spending days and days, or making appointments and traveling all around the area. It… also has a great social aspect to it because everyone shares camaraderie at this event.” Hollis Taggart Galleries will be showing abstract expressionist works, emphasizing women artists and covering
the 1940s through the 1970s. “there is a resurgence of interest and focus on women abstract expressionists, who, in their own time were so often marginalized or overlooked,” Taggart says. Placing works of African-american sculptors and painters in full view, Conner
• Rosenkranz will feature the artwork of Beauford Delaney, Elizabeth Catlett and more.two massive stained-glass windows created by Robert Winthrop Chanler and commissioned in 1918 by Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney will be on display as well, says Mark Ostrander of Conner
• Rosenkranz. “We always look forward to the quality and diversity of visitors to Just Off Madison, from scholars and museum professionals, to serious collectors, beginning collectors and people who simply enjoy looking at art,” says Katherine Degn, director of Kraushaar Galleries. In a “goodbye to winter and salutation to summer,” the 71st Street gallery will show works with brightly colored landscapes and a minor focus on pieces involving fruit. Displaying a range of exceptional works from early American modernism— including an early modernist collage by Joseph Stella—menconi + Schoelkopf hopes to guide collectors through the buying experience, whether they are making their first purchase or continuing to craft an established collection. Says gallery director
Jonathan Spies,“just Off Madison is always a great moment for our clients to quickly see a number of dealers and spaces that they might otherwise not think to try.”